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44471	----	[Illustration] LIFE ABOARD A BRITISH PRIVATEER. [Illustration] [Illustration: _Running past Minehead with a fine gale at S.E._] LIFE ABOARD A BRITISH PRIVATEER IN THE TIME OF QUEEN ANNE. BEING THE JOURNAL OF CAPTAIN WOODES ROGERS, MASTER MARINER. WITH NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY ROBERT C. LESLIE. [Illustration] LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, LIMITED, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 1889. CHISWICK PRESS:--C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. [Illustration] CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER I. FROM KING ROAD, BRISTOL, TO CORK IN IRELAND 5 CHAPTER II. AMONGST THE CANARY ISLANDS 21 CHAPTER III. FROM GRANDE TOWARDS JUAN FERNANDEZ 41 CHAPTER IV. FROM LOBOS TOWARDS GUIAQUIL IN PERU 67 CHAPTER V. AMONG THE GALLAPAGOS ISLANDS AND AT GORGONA ROAD IN PERU 90 CHAPTER VI. SAILING TOWARD THE ISLANDS OF GUAM AND BOUTON, THENCE TO BATAVIA, AND ROUND THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, HOME 110 APPENDIX 131 [Illustration] LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Running past Mine Head _Frontispiece_ Section of Eighteenth Century Frigate 9 Captain Rogers' Carriage Stops the Way 15 Crossing the Tropick 24 Figure of the Quadrant and Manner of Observation 26 Figure of the Cross-staff and Manner of Observation 27 The Figure of the Nocturnal 28 Captain Rogers gives the "Duke" a Great List 36 The Bird "Alcatros" 41 The "Dutchess" in Difficulties 47 Juan Fernandez 50 Mr. Selkirk joins the "Duke" Frigate 52 Captains Rogers and Dover under the Piemento Trees 61 Pinnaces under Sail 63 A Council of War 76 The "Duke" takes the Manila Ship 102 Batavia Roads 119 The Old Ship's Belfry 130 A Map of the World, with the Ships "Duke" and "Dutchess" tract round it from 1708 to 1711 130 The Old Sea Clock 143 [Illustration] LIFE ABOARD A BRITISH PRIVATEER. THE INTRODUCTION. [Sidenote: 1708] Most people know their "Robinson Crusoe," and have heard of the author Defoe. But how many of us have heard even the name of Woodes Rogers, Master Mariner? or have read his quaint Journal of a cruising voyage round the world in the ships "Duke" and "Dutchess" of Bristol, "printed in 1712 for A. Bell and B. Lintot at the Crosse Keys and Bible between the two Temple Gates Fleet Street."? Yet it was this Woodes Rogers who not only discovered the original Crusoe, Alexander Selkirk, but after making a "note of him when found" upon the island of Juan Fernandez,[1] at once proceeded to make very practical use of him by giving him command of the "Increase," one of many small prizes taken in the South Seas from the Spaniards by the "Duke" and "Dutchess." That Rogers was more than a master mariner, of much resource and pluck, is shown in his Journal, and the wonderful way in which he handled the very mixed group of men which formed the small floating commonwealth under him. It was more than thirty years later that Lord Anson sailed a similar voyage round the world with the advantage of the experience of Rogers and others, while Anson's squadron was fitted, manned, and armed by Government: yet, considering the loss of life and material which marked that cruise, it seems to me that, judged by results, Rogers' voyage was a far more wonderful performance, and that it attracted some attention at the time is shown by a notice of it in Captain Berkley's "Naval History," (published, 1756), where, under the heading of "Conduct of the Bristol Privateers," he says, "we have read in very pompous language the names of those who, with great ships and great preparations, encompassed the Globe. But at this time came in two privateers, of Bristol, who with no more than the common strength of such vessels, undertook the voyage, and at the end of two years and three months returned," &c. In his own Preface, Captain Rogers says, "I was not fond to appear in print; but my friends who had read my journal prevail'd with me at last to publish it," adding, "I know 'tis generally expected, that when far distant voyages are printed, they should contain new and wonderful discoveries, with surprising accounts of people and animals; but this voyage being only design'd for cruising on the enemy, it is not reasonable to expect such accounts here as are to be met with in travels relating to history, geography, &c., while, as for stile, I have not had time, were it my talent, to polish it; nor do I think it necessary for a mariner's journal. 'Tis also," he says, "a particular misfortune, which attends voyages to the South Sea, that the buccaneers, to set off their own knight-errantry, and to make themselves pass for prodigies of courage and conduct, have given such romantic accounts of their adventures, and told such strange stories, as make the voyages of those who come after (and cannot allow themselves the same liberty), to look flat and insipid to unthinking people. Therefore I request my readers, that they be favourable in their censures when they peruse this journal which is not calculated to amuse, but barely to relate the truth, and which is all written in the language of the sea, that being more genuine and natural for a mariner than the method us'd by authors that write ashoar." I have, therefore, in the following extracts, quoted Rogers' Journal as closely as possible, adding only a short connecting note here and there, where required. ROBERT C. LESLIE. [Illustration] FOOTNOTES: [1] Though this island in the Pacific is the one usually associated with Robinson Crusoe, Defoe conceals its identity by wrecking Crusoe's ship upon an island to the north of Brasil, near the "Great River Oroonoque." [Illustration] CHAPTER I. FROM KING ROAD, BRISTOL, TO CORK IN IRELAND. [Sidenote: 1708] [Sidenote: _Setting out from King Road._] Many a modern pleasure yacht would exceed the tonnage of the frigates "Duke" and "Dutchess," the "Duke" being 320 tons, with 30 guns and 117 men, and the "Dutchess" only 260 tons, with 26 guns, and 108 men. "Both ships," says Rogers, "well furnished with all necessaries on board for a distant undertaking weigh'd from King Road Bristol August 2nd 1708 in company with the 'Scipio,' 'Peterborough Frigate,' 'Prince Eugene,' 'Bristol Galley,' 'Berkley Galley,' 'Bucher Galley,' 'Sherstone Galley,' and 'Diamond Sloop,' bound to Cork in Ireland." These "galleys" must not be confounded with the lateen rigged vessels of that name in the south of Europe; being simply small, low, straight ships of light draught easily moved by oars or sweeps in calms. In Rogers' time a ship was said to be "Frigate built" when she had a poop and forecastle rising a few steps above the waist, and "galley built," when there was no break in the line of her deck and topsides. But the use of oars was not confined to these Bristol[2] galley built ships, for Rogers speaks of using them on several occasions in the "Duke" and "Dutchess." While in old draughts of small vessels of this class, of even a later date, row-ports are often shown. Between the Holmes and Minehead the little fleet came to "an Anchor from 10 to 12 at night, when all came to sail again, running past Minehead with a fine gale at S.E. at six in the morning." No time was lost before an attempt was made to add to the number of the fleet, for the same day, at 5 p.m., the "Dutchess," like a young hound, breaks away from the pack in chase of what seemed a large ship, which they lost sight of again at 8 o'clock. But "having been informed at Bristol that the 'Jersey,' a French man-of-war, was cruising betwixt England and Ireland, the ships sailed all night with hammocks stowed and cleared for a fight. Though it was well for us," says Rogers, "that this proved a false alarm, since had it been real we should have made but an indifferent fight, for want of being better manned." [Sidenote: _An incompetent Pilot._] [Sidenote: _Arrival at Cork._] After parting company with three galleys and the "Prince Eugene," the fleet, on the 5th of August, "finding they have overshot their port, come to an anchor at noon off two rocks, called the Sovereigne's Bollacks, near Kinsale; at 8 p.m. they weighed again with a small gale at east, which increased and veered to northward." At this time Rogers had a Kinsale pilot on board who, he says, "was like to have endanger'd our ships by turning us into the next bay to the west of Cork, the weather being dark and foggy." "Which," says Rogers, "provoked me to chastise him for undertaking to act as pilot without understanding his business better." On the 7th the "Duke" and "Dutchess" anchored in the Cove of Cork, and remained there, more or less weather bound, until the 28th, the entries in Rogers' log varying little beyond telling us that on the 11th, "it blow'd fresh and dirty weather:" while on the 12th, "it blew fresh and dirty weather, on which day there clear'd and run near forty of our fresh water sailors." In whose place "came off a boat load of men from Cork, that appear'd to be brisk fellows but of several nations; so I sent to stop the rest till we were ready, our ships being pester'd." On the 28th the weather was fine enough to "Careen clean and tallow the ships five streaks below the water line." Nothing marked the smart privateersman and seaman of those days more than his constant care in keeping the bottom of his ship perfectly clean. Indeed, Captain Rogers never seemed happier than when he had one or other of the little frigates held over for scraping and cleaning, in some quiet bay, so nearly upon her beam ends, as to bring her keel almost out of water. [Illustration: _Section of Eighteenth Century Frigate, showing space occupied by hemp cables and other stores._] When shipping the rest of his crew before sailing from Cork, we get a taste of Rogers' foresight and policy. For he tells us, "we have now above double the number of officers usual in privateers, besides a large complement of men;" adding, "we took this method of doubling our officers to prevent mutinies, which often happen in long voyages, and that we might have a large provision for a succession of officers in each ship in case of mortality." It must, however, have been a sore trial to a tarpaulin seaman, like Rogers, to have to note at the same time, "that in order to make room for our men and provisions, we sent the sheet cable and some other store cordage on shore, having on board three cables besides, and being willing rather to spare that than anything else we had aboard." In a small frigate quite a fourth part of the hold was, before the introduction of chain cables, occupied by the cable tier or room; and when one considers, not only the space they filled, but the difficulty of handling them, and the care required to keep them from chafing when in use, and from damp and rot when stowed away, it is astonishing that ships returning from long cruises ever had an anchor or cable left which they could trust. Among the troubles attending the use of hemp cables, that of firing in the hawse holes and at the bits, or timbers they passed over in running out, was one; and each time the anchor was let go men were stationed with buckets of water to prevent this. [Sidenote: _The crew at Cork._] [Sidenote: _Many weddings among them._] It was while victualling and shipping men at this time that a side-note appears of the "Strange behaviour of our men at Cork;" alluding to the fact, "that they were continually marrying whilst we staid there, though they expected to sail immediately." Among others, a Dane was coupled by an Irish priest to an Irish woman, without understanding a word of each other's language, so that they were forc'd to use an interpreter. "Yet," says Rogers, "I perceived this pair seem'd more afflict'd at separation than any of the rest; the fellow continu'd melancholy for several days after we were at sea." Whether the Irish bride shared her Danish husband's depression is, of course, not related by Rogers, who goes on to say that "the rest, understanding each other, drank their cans of flipp[3] till the last minute, concluding with a health to our good voyage, and their happy meeting, and then parted unconcern'd." [Sidenote: _Names of the officers._] Though the chief command of the expedition fell to Woodes Rogers, master mariner, yet, as was the case in most of these private ventures to the South Seas, several of his officers were men with no claim to the name of sailor, who had either money invested in the ships, or interest with the owners. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that "the second Captain of the 'Duke,' and captain of the Marines, was one Thomas Dover, a doctor of phisick," or that this Captain Dover's first lieutenant was "his kinsman, Mr. Hopkins, an apothecary." On the other hand, Rogers had cleverly secured as his master the celebrated William Dampier, also rated "Pilot of the South Seas," "he having," as Rogers says, "already been there three times and twice round the world." This was no doubt poor Dampier's last venture at sea, for though Rogers mentions his name once or twice in consultation during the cruise, he is altogether lost sight of toward the end of it. Among the other officers, "the third mate, John Ballet, was also designated surgeon, having," says Rogers, "been Captain Dampier's doctor in his last unfortunate voyage;" while two young lawyers have their names upon the ship's books, "designed to act as midshipmen." [Sidenote: _How the crew was made up._] Including boatswains, gunners, carpenters, &c., there were on board the "Duke" thirty-six officers, and of the rest of the crew, we are told that "a third were foreigners, while of Her Majestie's subjects many were taylors, tinkers, pedlars, fiddlers, and hay-makers, with ten boys and one negro; with which mix'd gang we hope to be well manned as soon as they have learnt the use of arms, and got their sea legs;" which, says Rogers, "we doubt not soon to teach 'em and bring 'em to discipline." It was the 1st of September before the "Duke" and "Dutchess" left the Cove of Cork with twenty merchant vessels, under convoy of Her Majesty's ship "Hastings," "both of us," says Rogers, "very crowded and pester'd ships, their holds full of provisions, and between decks encumbered with cables, much bread, and altogether in a very unfit state to engage an enemy, without throwing many stores overboard." Nevertheless, on the 2nd, the two little frigates stand out from the fleet to chase a sail to windward; and Rogers is glad to find that they sailed as well as any in the fleet, not even excepting the man-of-war, so that, he says, "we begin to hope we shall find our heels, since we go so well tho deep and pester'd." The chase, however, proved an inoffensive "French built Snow,[4] of Bristol, joining our fleet from Baltimoor" (Ireland). [Sidenote: _Captain Paul's civility._] The weather being fine on the 4th of September, Rogers and Captain Courtenay of the "Dutchess," in answer to a signal from Captain Paul, of the Sherstone galley, make a morning call upon that gentleman, in which they are joined by the commander of the "Scipio," and after being "handsomely treated by Captain Paul," he proposes joining them in a few days, privateering off that well-stocked preserve, Cape Finisterre. A marginal note occurs here in Rogers' journal of "Captain Paul's civility," referring to a present, or tip, "of some scrubbers and iron scrapers for our ships' bottoms, together with a speaking trumpet and other things we wanted, for which Captain Paul would accept nothing in return." [Sidenote: _The crew acquainted with our design._] [Sidenote: _Leave Captain Paul._] The time had now come for parting company with the man-of-war, "and it became necessary," says Rogers, "to acquaint the ships companies with our designes in order that while in company with one of Her Majesties ships any malcontents might be exchanged into her. But with the exception of one fellow who expected to have been made tything man in his parish that year, and said his wife would have to pay forty shillings in his abscence, all hands were satisfied," while even the discontented tything man became reconciled to his lot, when asked to join all hands at the grog-tub in drinking to a good voyage. Parting company, however, with the man-of-war also entailed giving up the proposed cruise off Finisterre with the Sherstone Galley, or as Rogers puts it "we had to break measures with Captain Paul. But I excused it to him and saluted him, which he answered and wished us a prosperous undertaking. Wind N. by W. and clear weather." As the crowded little frigates roll across the Bay of Biscay together before this fair wind, we have the first entry in Captain Rogers' log of one of the many snug little dinners given on board his ship to the officers of the "Dutchess," and which is returned by them in due form the next day. [Illustration: _Captain Rogers' carriage stops the way._] This constant interchange of civilities among the officers of ships sailing in company is a very marked feature in the manners and customs of the mariners of that date. Among men-of-war anchored in roadsteads or in port such events are even now, of course, not uncommon. But in those days, judging from entries in Rogers' log, few days passed at sea without actual communication by boat between the ships, the crews of which must have had constant practical experience, both in lowering and hoisting in boats. While, though this must often have been done with a high sea running, there is no record of a mishap to a boat or crew during the entire cruise--a fact speaking volumes for the fine boatmanship of the sailors of this period.[5] [Sidenote: _A committee._] Though practically under the able leadership of Rogers, the two privateers formed together a small floating commonwealth, no important measures being decided upon until they had passed a committee of the officers of both ships. The first of these marine parliaments sat on board the "Duke," just after an entry in Rogers' log says, "that now we begin to consider the length of our voyage, and the many different climates we must pass, and the excessive cold which we cannot avoid going about Cape Horn; at the same time we have but a slender stock of liquor, and our men but meanly clad, yet good liquor to sailors is preferable to clothing. Upon this we held our first committee to debate whether t'was necessary for us to stop at Madera?" Here follows a minute of the resolutions as passed, which are formally signed by each member of the Committee, thus: "THOS: DOVER, _President_. STEPHEN COURTENAY. WOODES ROGERS. EDWARD COOKE. WILLIAM DAMPIER. CARLETON VANBRUGH. THO: GLENDALL. JOHN BRIDGE. JOHN BALLET. ROBERT FRYE." At six the next morning both frigates go in chase of a sail, "the 'Dutchess' having a mile start given her in order to spread the more;" Rogers adding "that it blew fresh with a great sea, and the chase being to windward, we crowd'd extravagantly." Nine hours later they came up with the chase, "who bore right down upon us, showing Swedish colours. We fired twice at her before she brought to, when we board'd her, Captain Courtney's boat being just before ours. We examined the master, and found he came round Scotland and Ireland." This was a very usual track in the old war times, in order to avoid capture in the British Channel. But it made Rogers suspect the Swede of having something in the shape of warlike stores on board, so that, naturally anxious to prove her a prize, after such a long chase to windward, and believing some men "he found drunk, who told us they had gunpowder and cables aboard, he resolved to strictly examine her, placing twelve men on board, and taking the master and twelve of her men on board the 'Duke.'" Nothing, however, was found to prove her a prize, and Rogers "let her go," as he says, "without the least embezelment. Her master giving him two hams and some ruff't dried beef," in return for which Rogers gave him "a dozen bottles of red-streak cider." [Sidenote: _A mutiny quell'd._] [Sidenote: _Mutineers pardon'd._] The character both of Rogers and his crew come out strongly on this occasion, for he tells us "that while I was on board the Swede yesterday our men mutiny'd. The ringleaders being our boatswain and three inferior officers. But this morning the chief officers having kept with me in the after part of the ship we confined the authors of this disorder, in which there was not one foreigner concerned, putting ten mutineers in irons, a sailor being first soundly whip'd for exciting the rest to join him. Others less guilty were punished and discharg'd, but I kept the chief officers all arm'd, fearing what might happen; the ship's company seeming inclin'd to favour the mutineers, some beg'd pardon and others I was forc'd to wink at." The only reason for this rising was discontent of the crew at not being allowed to plunder the Swede. "Two days later," says Rogers, "the men in irons discover'd others who were ringleaders in the mutiny." These are, of course, placed in irons with the rest, Captain Rogers judiciously creating a new boatswain, "in the room of Giles Cash, who, being a most dangerous fellow," I agreed with the master of the "Crown Galley," then in company, to carry for me in irons to Madera, "which extreme measure" was taken because "on September the 14th a sailor follow'd by near half the ship's company came aft to the steerage door, and demanded the boatswain out of irons; on which," says Rogers, "I desired him to speak with me on the quarter deck, which he did, where, the officers assisting, I seiz'd him (_i.e._, tied him up) and made one of his chief comrades whip him, which method I thought best for breaking any unlawful friendship amongst themselves, which, with different correction to other offenders, allay'd this tumult, so that now they began to submit quietly and those in irons to beg pardon and promise amendment. This mutiny would not have been easily lay'd were it not for the number of our officers, which we begin to find very necessary to bring our crew to discipline, always difficult in privateers, but without which 'tis impossible to carry on any distant undertaking like ours. Fine pleasant weather, moderate gales." Two days later, "on their humble submission, and strict promise of good behaviour for the time to come," the mutineers are set free; "they having," says Rogers, "while they continued in irons had sentries over 'em, and were fed with bread and water." [Sidenote: _A Spanish prize taken._] On September the 18th they sight "Pico Teneriff, and at 5 next morning spy'd a sail under their lee bow, which proved a prize, a Spanish bark about 25 tuns belonging to Oratava in Teneriff, and bound to Forteventura with about 45 passengers; who rejoiced when they found us English, because they feared we were Turks. Amongst the prisoners were four Fryars, one of them the Padre Guardian for the Island of Forteventura, a good honest fellow whom we made heartily merry drinking King Charles the _Thirds_ health, but the rest were of the _wrong sort_." FOOTNOTES: [2] Writing of Bristol in 1808, Pinkerton says that "in the late wars with France they built here a sort of galleys, called runners, which being well armed and manned, and furnished with letters of marque, overtook and mastered several prizes of that nation. Many of these _ships_ were then also carriers for the London merchants, who ordered their goods to be landed here, and sent to Gloucester by water, thence by land to Lechlade, and thence _down_ the Thames to London; the carriage being so reasonable that it was more than paid for by the difference of the insurance and risque between this port and London." [3] "Flipp, a liquor much used in ships, made by mixing beer with spirits and sugar."--JOHNSON, 1760. [4] "Snow." A vessel which would now be called a brig. The largest two masted craft of that time, and then distinguished from a brig by having a square mainsail below her maintopsail; a fore and aft sail being also carried upon a small spar fitted to, and just abaft the mainmast. In the original brigs this fore and aft sail was set upon the mainmast itself, and was the mainsail, in the Snow it became the spanker. [5] Forty or fifty years ago the crews of South Sea whalers were very smart sea-boatmen, and their captains thought nothing of lowering a boat in a double reefed topsail breeze, to take a cup of tea or glass of grog with the captain of a ship in company. Great simplicity was the main feature of boat lowering gear on board these ships; but constant practice made communication between them so easy, that it took place often under difficulties which now would be sufficient to entitle the officer in charge of the boat to a gold watch and chain. [Illustration] CHAPTER II. AMONGST THE CANARY ISLES. [Sidenote: 1708 _Sept._] Considering that Captain Rogers' main object in cruising among the Grand Canaries was to lay in a store of liquor for his voyage "about Cape Horn," this small Spanish bark, with a cargo of two butts of wine, and a hogshead of brandy, was a lucky windfall. [Sidenote: _A letter from Port Oratava._] A trifling hitch occurred, however, about her ransom, owing to the headstrong conduct of Mr. Carlton Vanbrugh, the "Duke's" agent, "who, against his Captain's judgement," went ashore with the master of the prize to settle this matter, and was there detained; the authorities refusing to let him go unless the bark was restored to them free of charge; they claiming protection from capture for all vessels trading between these Islands; which view of the case was supported, not only by the British Consul at Oratava, but by certain English merchants there, and from whom Rogers received a long letter actually advising him to give up his prize; which he answered in full, with his reasons for not doing this; the chief of which was, that possession is nine-tenths of the law. [Sidenote: _Our Answer._] [Sidenote: _Capt. Rogers' generosity._] The answer of the Spanish authorities, however, "being," as Rogers tells us, "of a dilatory character," he at once wrote the following dispatch; informing them "that had it not been out of respect for his officer ashoar, he would not have staid one minute, and that now he should stay only till morning for their answer, taking meanwhile a cruise among the Islands in order to make reprisals, and tho' he could not land his men, that he would visit the town with his guns by eight next morning; when he hoped to meet the Governor's Frigate, and repay his civility in his own way." "Which letter," says Rogers, "had its effect, for as we stood in close to the town at eight o'clock next morning, we spy'd a boat coming off, in which proved to be one Mr. Crosse, an English merchant, and our agent Mr. Vanbrugh, with wine, grapes, hogs, and other necessaries for the ransom of the bark. And so, upon his coming up, we immediately went to work, discharged the bark, and parted her cargo between our ships. We treated Mr. Crosse as well as we could, and at his desire, gave the prisoners back as much as we could find of what belonged to their persons, particularly to the fryars their books, Crucifixes, and Reliques. We presented the old Padre with a cheese, and such as were strip'd with other clothes, so that we parted well satisfied on all sides." After which very comfortable arrangement, Captain Rogers, carefully concealing his destination from the Spaniards by stating that he was "bound to the English West Indies," sailed on his way rejoicing, "that now we are indifferently well stocked with liquors, and shall be better able to endure cold when we get the length of Cape Horn." On the afternoon of the 22nd another sail was spy'd and chased to the westward, until "a stiff gale coming on, put us," says Rogers, "out of hopes of seeing her again to advantage." The next day, the weather being fine, with fresh gales, the officers of both ships again dine together on board the "Duke," when a committee is held, and a vote of censure passed upon Mr. Carlton Vanbrugh for landing against the wish of his Captain. No doubt also the quality of the Canary was discussed, and perhaps helped to smooth the course of this debate. [Sidenote: _Pass the Tropick._] It would seem, from the next entry in the log, that the penalties usually exacted by Neptune of those crossing the _Line_ for the first time, then became his due somewhat earlier in the voyage; or upon first entering what sailors call the "Horse latitudes." For Rogers says that September the 25th "we passed the tropick, and according to custom duck'd those that had not done so before. The manner of doing it was by a rope thro' a block from the main yard to hoist 'em above halfway up to the yard and let 'em fall at once into the water, having a stick cross thro their legs, and well fastened to the rope, that they might not be surprised and let go their hold. [Illustration: _Crossing the Tropick._] "This prov'd of great use to our freshwater sailors to recover the colour of their skins, which were grown very black and nasty. Those that we duck'd after this manner three times, were about sixty, and others that would not undergo it chose to pay half a crown fine; the money to be levy'd and spent at a public meeting of all the ships companies when we return to England. The Dutchmen and some Englishmen desir'd to be duck'd, some six, others eight, ten, and twelve times, to have the better title for being treated when they come home." The "Duke" and "Dutchess" made the Island of Sal, one of the Cape de Verds, on the morning of September 29th, and "after being satisfied," says Rogers, "it was Sal, we stood from it W. and W. by N. for St. Vincent, going under easy sail all night because we had none aboard either ship that was acquainted with these islands; but on the 30th when day broke we saw 'em all in a range much as is laid down in the draughts, and at ten o'clock anchored in the bay of St. Vincent in five fathom water." When one considers the means by which these early master mariners determined their position at sea, and that for want of good timekeepers they were almost quite dependent upon dead reckoning for their longitude, the accuracy and boldness with which Rogers made his landfalls is truly surprising. The accompanying figures, from a standard work upon navigation of the period,[6] are interesting as showing the curious form of nautical instruments used by old shipmen, like Woodes Rogers, for taking altitudes of the sun, moon, pole, stars, &c., before the invention of Hadley's quadrant. [Illustration: The Figure of the Quadrant and Manner of Observation. (Davis's Quadrant.)] [Illustration: The Figure of the Cross-Staff and the Manner of Observation.] "Davis's Quadrant," invented by the celebrated navigator of that name in Queen Elizabeth's time, was the best of these. This instrument was known also as "the back-staff" from the position of the observer with his back to the sun when using it. The cross-staff or fore-staff was, however, still used, as it was in the time of Columbus; this was simply a four-sided straight staff of hard wood, about three feet long, having four cross-pieces of different lengths made to slide upon it as the cross-piece does upon a shoemaker's rule. These cross-pieces were called respectively the ten, thirty, sixty, and ninety cross, and were placed singly upon the staff according to the altitude of the sun or star at time of observation; the angle measured being shown by a scale of degrees and minutes intersected by the cross-piece on that side the staff to which it (the cross) belonged. Besides the cross-staff, a form of small quadrant, called an "Almacantas staff," was used just after sunrise, and before sunset, for finding the sun's azimuth, and the variation of the compass, while in latitudes north of the line, the "Nocturnal" gave the hour of the night, by observing with it the hands of the great star-clocks, Ursa Major and Minor, as they turned about the Pole Star. [Illustration: The Figure of the Nocturnal.] [Sidenote: _Letter to the Governor of St. Antonio._] "The day after anchoring at St. Vincent," Rogers says, "we clear'd our ships, but it blow'd too hard to row our boatloads of empty butts ashoar; and we could do little to wooding and watering, till this morning, we were forc'd to get a rope from the ship to the watering-place, which is a good half mile from our anchorage, and so haul'd our empty casks ashoar by boatloads, in order to have 'em burnt and cleaned in the inside, being oil-casks, and for want of cleaning our water stunk insufferably. But borrowing a cooper from the 'Dutchess,' and having five of my own, we made quick dispatch." "We also sent a boat to St. Antonio, with one Joseph Alexander a good linguist, and a respectful letter to the Govenour, who accounts himself a great man here, tho' very poor, to get in truck for our prize goods what we wanted; they having plenty of cattel, goats, hogs, fowls, melons, potatoes, limes, ordinary brandy, tobacco, &c." And while here Rogers adds, "that tho' our people were meanly stock'd with clothes, and the 'Dutchess's' crew much worse, yet we are both forc'd to watch 'em very narrowly, and punish'd some of 'em, to prevent their selling what they have to the negroes that come over with little things from St. Antonio's." In his letter to the Govenour, Rogers tells him that "as our stay cannot exceed two days, despatch is necessary, and that the bearer can inform his Honour of the public occurrences of Europe, and the great successes of the Confederate arms against the French and Spaniards, which no doubt must soon be follow'd with a lasting peace, which God grant." [Sidenote: _Desertion of a Linguist._] From an entry in the journal a few days later to the effect "that our boat return'd yesterday with two good black cattel, one for each ship, but no news of our linguist;" it appears that worse luck befell him than that which attended Mr. Carlton Vanbrugh, or it may be that he took less real interest in the cruise than that gentleman. Whether this was so or not, the officers of both frigates at once agreed, on the return of the boat "with the two good black cattel," that they "had better leave him behind than to wait with two ships for one man that had not follow'd his orders;" or as Captain Rogers puts it in a marginal note, "our linguist deserts." That there was honour as well as method among the leaders in these "undertakings to the South Seas," is clear from the minutes of a debate now held on board the "Duke," "to prevent those mutinies and disorders amongst the men who were not yet reconcil'd since the taking of the small Canary prize." [Sidenote: _Regulations about plunder._] [Sidenote: _The reasons that forc'd us to allow plunder._] Among these regulations it was agreed "that what is plunder be adjudg'd by the superior officers and agents in each ship; and that if any person do conceal any plunder exceeding in value one piece of eight, twenty-four hours after capture of a prize, he shall be severely punished and lose his share of the plunder. The same penalty to be inflict'd for being drunk in time of action or disobeying his officer's commands, or deserting his post in sea or land service. That public books of plunder are to be kept in each ship, the plunder to be appraised and divided as soon as possible after capture. Every person to be sworn and searched so soon as they shall come aboard, any person refusing, to forfeit his share of the plunder; and that whereas Captain Rogers and Captain Courtney to make both ships companies easy, have given the whole cabin plunder (which in all probability is the major part), to be divided among the crew, it is agreed that the said Captains Woodes Rogers and Steph: Courtney, shall have 5 per cent. each of 'em over and above their respective shares, &c. That a reward of twenty pieces of eight be given to him that first sees a prize of good value exceeding 50 tuns." Rogers adds that this arrangement was "agreed on in order to make the men easy, without which we must unavoidably have run into such continual scenes of mischief and disorder, which have not only tended to the great hindrance, but generally to the total disappointment of all voyages of this nature, that have been attempted so far abroad in the memory of man." Hearing nothing more of "their good linguist," the "Duke" and "Dutchess" "came to sail at seven in the evening," of Oct. 8th, from St. Vincent. After having "put the deputy Govenour of S. Antonio (a negro), ashoar, where he must lie in a hole of the rocks there being no house on that part of the island." In his description of these islands Rogers mentions "that they have here very large spiders, which weave their webs so strong that 'tis difficult to get thro' 'em, and that the heats are excessive to us who came newly from Europe, so that several of our men began to be sick and were blooded;" while "some of the officers that went ashore a hunting could meet no game but a wild ass, which, after a long chase they got within shot and wounded; yet he afterwards held out so as to tire them, and they return'd weary and empty-handed." The piety of the expedition appears to have increased steadily as it got further from home, for as they draw near the Equator "in close cloudy weather with squalls of rain," we read how first "having put up the smith's forge, and he began to work on such things as we wanted," that a day or two after "We began to read prayers in both ships, mornings and evenings, as opportunity would permit, according to the Church of England; designing to continue it the term of the voyage." [Sidenote: _A Second Mate punish'd for Mutiny._] The number of junior officers on board the frigates was not always unattended with troubles, in all which cases the first remedy tried by Captain Rogers was that of shuffling, or exchanging them from ship to ship. But it is a significant fact that it was the day after a dinner party on board the "Dutchess," that her captain came on board the "Duke" with his second mate, Mr. Page, desiring to exchange him into the "Duke" in the room of Mr. Ballet. Page, however, who seems to have held views of his own upon this subject, having declined to get into the "Dutchess's" boat, and thereby "caused his superior officer to strike him, whereupon Page struck again and several blows past," was on his arrival on board the "Duke" at once "ordered on the forecastle into the bilboes;[7] where, it being calm, he slipped through the ship's corporal's hands overboard, thinking to swim back to the 'Dutchess.' A boat, however, being alongside, he was soon overtaken, brought on board, and lash'd to the main gears,[8] where for this, and his abusive language exciting the men to mutiny, he was drub'd and afterwards confined in irons on board the 'Duke.'" A week later Rogers mentions incidentally in his log, "that this morning I let Mr. Page out of irons on his humble submission, and promises of amendment; fair pleasant weather with fresh gales." [Sidenote: _Concealers of plunder punish'd._] On board the "Duke," however, the bilboes must have been kept in fair working order, with little time to get rusty, for two days after Mr. Page got clear of them, "two persons being accus'd of concealing a peruke, two shirts, and a pair of stockings from the plunder of the Canary bark, are found guilty and order'd into them." [Sidenote: _Extraordinary lightning._] [Sidenote: _Fluttering weather._] Beyond noting what Rogers calls a "turnado" with lightning, "which fell as if it had been liquid," and that "while the storm held, which was not above an hour, the ships even with all sail furl'd lay along very much," nothing remarkable is recorded after leaving the Cape de Verds until November 16th, when "with a brave breeze at E. they stood in with the land, and suppos'd it to be the island of Cape Frio on the coast of Brazil." But "the brave breeze" failing them near land, they were two days "towing and rowing the ships," in foggy, rainy weather, before anchoring in the cove off the Isle of Grande, where they designed to wood, water, and careen their frigates. [Sidenote: _Frenchmen's graves._] Terror of past depredations, committed by the French Corsairs, had made the Brazilians very suspicious of strangers, and Rogers says "his boat was fir'd on several times when trying to land with a present to the Govenour of Angre de Reys; but on finding them to be English the fryars begged pardon and invited them to their Convent." Besides wooding, watering, and careening his frigates, while at the Isle of Grande, Rogers appears to have unrigged the "Duke's" main and fore masts, for he speaks of "seeking for wood to repair our main and fore trustle trees" (supports of the round tops) "which were broke," and that while so engaged "they found abundance of Frenchmen's graves, which the Portuguese told them were those of near half the crews of two great French ships that water'd in this place nine months before. But," adds Rogers, "God be thank'd ours are very healthy." [Illustration: _Captain Rogers gives the "Duke" a great list._] [Sidenote: _A monstrous animal eaten here by the inhabitants._] The weather is now described "as violent hot," spite of which Rogers speaks of "cleaning one side of the 'Dutchess,' on the afternoon of the 24th, and the other side the next morning; giving the ships great lists; and that having men enough, he let the pinnace, with Captain Dover, Mr. Vanbrugh, and others, go whilst the 'Duke' was cleaning, to take their pleasure, but to return by twelve o'clock, when we should want our boat. And when they did so, they brought with 'em a monstrous creature, which they had kill'd, having prickles like a hedgehog, with fur between them, and a head and tail like a monkey's. It stunk," says Rogers, "intolerably, which the Portuguese told us was only the skin, that the meat of it is very delicious and that they often kill'd them for the table. But our men, being not yet at very short allowance, none of 'em had stomach good enough to try the experiment, so that we were forc'd to throw it overboard to make a sweet ship." That some of those forming the crews of the "Duke" and "Dutchess," should not enjoy their cruising voyage as well as Rogers and his officers did, is not surprising, and this was evidently the case with "Michael Jones and another, two Irish land-men who," says Rogers, "while we lay at the Isle of Grande run into the woods thinking to get away;" in spite of the experiences "of two such sparks that run away the day before from the 'Dutchess,' and in the night were so frighted with tygers as they thought, but really by monkeys and baboons, that they ran into the water hollowing to the ship till they were fetch'd aboard again." [Sidenote: _A Portuguese canoe attack'd by mistake, and one of their men kill'd._] Captain Rogers evidently regarded desertion from his ship as an act of foolish ingratitude, and that men incapable of appreciating the advantages of prosecuting to the bitter end a voyage with him to the South Seas, deserved the severest form of punishment; for upon recovering these two ungrateful "Irish land-men," a few days later, they were at once "order'd to be severely whip'd and put in irons." It was while engaged in intercepting a canoe, suspected of helping these men to escape, that the "Duke's" agent, Mr. Vanbrugh, again got into trouble, through unluckily shooting an "indian, the property of a certain fryar who own'd and steer'd that canoe." While, as the friar alleged that "in the confusion," he not only "lost his slave, but gold amounting to £200, and threatened to seek justice in Portugal or England," Rogers was not able, "though he made the 'fryar' as welcome as he could, to reconcile him." A committee of inquiry was therefore wisely called upon Mr. Vanbrugh's conduct in firing, without orders, upon the canoe. [Sidenote: _Mr. Vanbrugh remov'd from on board the "Duke."_] The result of which inquiry was, that after first entering a protest in the ship's books against Mr. Vanbrugh, he was shifted into the "Dutchess," her agent, Mr. Bathe, taking his place on board the "Duke." [Sidenote: _A Procession at Angre de Reys: our comical assistance at it and entertainment._] [Sidenote: _The Govenour and fathers entertain'd on board._] Having completed their refit in rather less than a week, which as it included the lifting of the rigging of the "Duke's" main and fore mast, besides the wooding, watering, and careening of both frigates under a tropical sun, was not bad work; they wound up their stay at the Isle de Grande, by "assisting with both ship's musick," at an important religious function, or as Rogers calls it, "entertainment," at Angre de Reys; "where," he says, "we waited on the Govenour, Signior Raphael de Silva Lagos, in a body, being ten of us, with two trumpets and a hautboy, which he desir'd might play us to church, where our musick did the office of an organ, but separate from the singing, which was by the fathers well perform'd. Our musick played 'Hey boys up go we!' and all manner of noisy paltry tunes. And after service, our musicians, who were by that time more than half drunk, march'd at the head of the company; next to them an old father and two fryars carrying lamps of incense, then an image dressed with flowers and wax candles, then about forty priests, fryars, &c., followed by the Govenour of the town, myself, and Capt. Courtney, with each of us a long wax candle lighted. The ceremony held about two hours; after which we were splendidly entertained by the fathers of the Convent, and then by the Govenour. They unanimously told us they expected nothing from us but our Company, and they had no more but our musick." The day after, however, before sailing, Rogers in return, entertained the Governor and fathers on board the "Duke," "When," he says, "they were very merry, and in their cups propos'd the Pope's health to us. But we were quits with 'em by toasting the Archbishop of Canterbury; and to keep up the humour, we also proposed William Pen's health, and they liked the liquor so well, that they refused neither;" while as "in the evening it came on blowing with thick showers," the Governor, the fathers and friars, made a night of it on board the frigates, not being landed till next morning, "when we saluted 'em with a huzza from each ship, because," as Rogers says, "we were not overstock'd with powder, and made them a handsome present of butter and cheese from both ships in consideration of the small presents and yesterday's favours from 'em, and as a farther obligation on 'em to be careful of our letters which we took this opportunity to deliver into their own hands." [Illustration: _The Bird "Alcatros."_] FOOTNOTES: [6] J. Seller's "Practical Navigation," 1694. [7] Bilboes, long bars of iron with shackles sliding on them, and a lock at the end, used to confine the feet of prisoners as the hands are by handcuffs. [8] Main-geers; an assemblage of tackles coming down to the deck at the main mast, by which the mainyard was hoisted or lowered in ships of that time. [Illustration] CHAPTER III. FROM GRANDE TOWARDS JUAN FERNANDEZ. [Sidenote: 1708] A voyage of near 6,000 miles now awaited the little frigates before reaching Juan Fernandez, the first place they expected to refresh at after leaving the Isle de Grande. A good stock of necessaries was, therefore, laid in here, and a letter, giving an account of their proceedings so far, left with the Governor of Angre de Reys, to be sent to England by the first opportunity. [Sidenote: _The bird Alcatros._] They did not clear the Brazilian coast until December 3rd, and little is recorded in Rogers' journal until the 6th, when, in close, cloudy weather, "At length did cross an albatross, Thorough the fog it came." Rogers[9] spells it "Alcatros, a large bird," he says, "who spread their wings from eight to ten feet wide." The whole of this part of the voyage might, indeed, be described in quotations from the "Ancient Mariner," for we read that, December the 13th, "in the afternoon the little 'Duke's' mainsail was reef'd, which was the first time since we left England." For "Now the storm blast came, and he Was tyrannous and strong; He struck with his o'ertaking wings, And chased us south along." Again, "And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold." Or, as Rogers says, "We find it much colder in this latitude than in the like degree North, though the sun is in its furthest extent to the southward, which may be ascribed to our coming newly out of warmer climates, or 'tis probable the winds blow over larger tracts of ice than in the same degree of N. latitude." Then we read of thick fog, in which they lose sight of their consort for many hours, "though we made all the noise agreed on between us." And so the monotonous sea-life wears on, varied only by the smallest events, as when, December 10th, the commanders agree to chop boatswain's mates, the "Dutchess'" "being mutinous, and they willing to be rid of him." Or how, on the 18th, "in cold hazy rainy weather, one of the men on board the 'Dutchess' fell out of the mizen top, and broke his skull," and Captain Rogers boards her "with two surgeons; where they examine the wound, but found the man irrecoverable, so he died, and was buried next day; brisk gales from W.N.W.," &c. [Sidenote: _Falkland's Islands_] On the 23rd high distant land is sighted, "which appear'd first in three, afterwards in several more islands. This," says Rogers, "is Falkland's Land, describ'd in few draughts, and none lay it down right, tho the Latitude agrees pretty well." On Christmas Day, blowing a strong gale S.W., at six in the evening they lost sight of the land, but spying a sail under their lee bow, distant four leagues, "immediately," says Rogers, "let our reefs out, chas'd, and got ground of her apace, till ten at night, when we lost sight of her. We spoke our consort, and agreed to bear away to the northward till dawning, as we were both of opinion, that if homeward bound, the chase, after loosing sight of us, would steer north. But when it was full light we saw nothing, being thick hazy weather, till 7 a.m. When it cleared we saw the chase again, and falling calm, we both got out our _oars_, row'd, and tow'd with boats ahead, and gained on the chase, till six in the evening, perceiving we approach'd her, I went in my boat to speak with Captain Courtney, and agree how to engage her if a great ship, as she appear'd to be, and adjusted signals, if either of us should find it proper to board her in the night. On returning on board a breeze sprang, and we made all possible sail, keeping the chase in view 'til ten o'clock, when it came on thick again, but being short nights, we thought it impossible to lose one another, and kept her open on our larboard, and the 'Dutchess' on our starboard bow. At one in the morning I was persuaded to shorten sail for fear of losing our consort if we kept on. At daylight it was a thick fog, so that we could see neither our consort nor chase for an hour, when it clear'd, and we saw our consort on our larboard bow, and fir'd a gun for her to bear down, but we immediately saw the chase ahead of the 'Dutchess' a few miles, which gave us new life. We forthwith hal'd up for them, but the wind heading us, we had a great disadvantage in the chase. The water was smooth however. And we ran at a great rate, until it coming on to blow more and more, the chase out-bore our consort, so she gave off, and being to windward, came down very melancholy to us, supposing the chase to have been a French homeward bound ship from the South Seas.[10] Thus this ship escap'd, which considering that we always outwent her before, is as strange as our first seeing of her in this place, because all ships that we have heard of, bound either out or home, keep within Falkland's Island." Woodes Rogers was no doubt a very hardheaded mariner, still few sailors are without a trace of superstition, and his closing remark, in describing this long and unsuccessful chase, points to a feeling with him that the vessel which all at once "out-bore his consort," was one, the speed and presence of which in that sea was to him a mystery. His own ships were clean, and sailing their best; but very few English vessels of that time were able to "out-go" the ships then built by the French for trade, or piracy, in the South Seas. [Illustration: _The "Dutchess" in difficulties._] [Sidenote: 1709] The usual foul weather, at any rate, came upon them at once, when, "With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea Off shot the spectre-bark," in the shape of "strong gales with heavy squalls from south to west," during which the "Dutchess" (to ease and stiffen her) "put the guns into the hold again that she took up in the chase." Christmas Day, and those following it, must have been days of "toil and trouble" on board the "Duke" and "Dutchess" to both men and officers; but Rogers made up for it all when, "in fresh gales of wind from W.N.W. with fogs, being New Year's Day, every officer was wished a 'Merry New Year' by our own musick, and I had a large tub of punch hot upon the quarter-deck, where every man in the ship had above a pint to his share, and drank our owners and friends' healths in Great Britain, to a happy new-year, a good voyage, and a safe return. After which we bore down to our consort, and gave them three huzzas, wishing them the same." Though, like most good seamen, Woodes Rogers appears to have been lucky in his weather, and during the three years' cruise to have sustained little damage from storm or tempest, the "Duke" and "Dutchess" did not escape a few hours dusting in the passage "about Cape Horn," for in latitude 60.58 S., on the 5th of January, just past noon, "it came on to blow strong," when Rogers says, "we got down our foreyard and reef'd our foresail and mainsail; but there came on a violent gale of wind and a great sea. A little before 6 p.m. we saw the 'Dutchess' lowering her mainyard. The tack flew up, and the lift unreev'd, so that the sail to leeward was in the water and all aback, their ship taking in a great deal of water to leeward. Immediately they loosed their spritsail, and wore her before the wind. I wore after her, expecting when they had gotten their mainsail stow'd, they would take another reef in, and bring to under a two reef'd mainsail and reef'd and ballanc'd mizen. But to my surprise they kept scudding to southward. "I dreaded running amongst ice, because it was excessive cold; so I fir'd a gun as a signal for them to bring to, and brought to ourselves again under the same reef'd mainsail. They kept on, and our men reported an ensign in their maintopmast rigging as a signal of distress, which made me doubt they had sprung their mainmast. "So I wore again, our ship working exceeding well in this great sea. Just before night I was up with them again, and set our foresail twice reef'd to keep 'em company, which I did all night. About three the next morning it grew more moderate; we soon after made a signal to speak with them, and at five they brought to. When I came within hail I enquir'd how they all did aboard? "They answered they had shipp'd a great deal of water in lying by, and were forced to put before the wind, and the sea had broke in the cabin windows, and over their stern, filling their steerage and waste, and had like to have spoil'd several men. But God be thank'd, all was otherwise indifferent well with 'em, only they were intolerably cold and everything wet." [Sidenote: _Round Cape Horn._] [Sidenote: _Juan Fernandez Island._] The next day the weather was raw cold and rainy with a great sea from N.W., which did not, however, deter Rogers and Captain Dampier from "going in the yall on board the 'Dutchess' to visit 'em after the storm, where," he says, "we found 'em in a very orderly pickle; with all their clothes drying, the ship and rigging cover'd with them from the deck to the maintop while six more guns are got into the hold to make the ship more lively." That so far the "Duke" and "Dutchess," in spite of their small size and number of men (333), were healthy ships, is shown by an entry here in the log of the death of "John Veal a land-man, being the first death from sickness out of both ships since our leaving England." After running as far south as Lat. 61.53, "which," says Rogers, "for ought we know is the furthest that any one has yet been to the southward, and where we have no night;" they, on the 15 of Jan., in longitude 79.58 from London, "accounted themselves in the South Sea being got round Cape Horn." Ten days later, the "Dutchess" speaks the "Duke" to the effect that her men are greatly in want of a harbour to refresh them, many being ill through want of clothes, and being often wet in the cold weather. Matters were not much better on board the "Duke;" "several of ours," says Rogers, "being very indifferent. So that as we are very uncertain of the latitude of 'Juan Fernandez,' the books laying 'em down so differently that not one chart agrees with another, and being but a small island, and in some doubts of striking it we designe to hale in for the mainland to direct us." At seven in the morning, however, of January 31st, 1709, all their doubts were set at rest, and the foundation laid, upon which the "Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" are built, when Captain Rogers made Juan Fernandez, bearing W.S.W., distant about seven leagues. The next day at 2 p.m., Rogers says, "we hoisted our pinnace out, and Captain Dover with the boats crew went in her to go ashoar, tho we could not be less than 4 leagues off. [Illustration: _Juan Fernandez._] [Sidenote: _Alexander Selkirk, a Scotchman found on the Isle of Juan Fernandez, where he had liv'd four years and four months alone._] "As soon as it was dark we saw a light ashore; and our boat being then about a league from the island bore away for the ships when she saw the light, and we put out lights for the boat, tho' some were of opinion the light we saw was our boat's. But as night came on it appeared too large for that. So we fir'd one quarter deck gun, and several muskets, showing lights in our shrouds, that our boat might find us, whilst we ply'd in the lee of the Island. About two in the morning our boat came on board, having been in tow of the 'Dutchess;' and we were glad they got well off, because it began to blow. We were all convinc'd this light was on shore, and designed to make our ships ready to engage, believing them to be French ships at anchor, which we must either fight, or want water," &c. The next morning "we tacked, to lay the land close aboard, and about ten open'd the south end of the island; here the flaws came heavy off shore, and we were forc'd to reef our topsails. When we open'd the middle bay, where we expected to find our enemy, we saw all clear, and no ships in that, nor the next bay. Though we guess'd there had been ships there, but that they were gone on sight of us. About noon we sent our yall ashore with Capt. Dover, Mr. Frye, and six men, all arm'd; meanwhile we and the 'Dutchess' kept turning to get in, and such heavy flaws came off the island that we were forc'd to let fly our topsail sheets, keeping all hands to stand by our sails for fear of the winds carrying 'em away: though when the flaws were gone we had little or no wind. Our boat not returning we sent our pinnace, also arm'd, to see what was the occasion of the yall's stay; for we were afraid that the Spaniards had a garison there and might have seized 'em. We put out a signal, and the 'Dutchess' show'd a French ensign. Immediately our pinnace return'd from the shore, and brought abundance of craw-fish with a man cloth'd in goatskins, who look'd wilder than the first owners of them. He had been on the island four years and four months, being left there by Captain Stradling in the ship 'Cinque-Ports.' His name was Alexander Selkirk, a Scotchman, who had been master of the 'Cinque-Ports,' a ship that came here last with Capt. Dampier, who told me this was the best man in her; so I immediately agreed with him to be mate on board our ship. [Illustration: _Mr. Selkirk joins the "Duke" Frigate._] "'Twas he made the fire last night when he saw our ships, which he judg'd to be English. During his stay here he had seen several ships pass, but only two came to anchor, which as he went to view he found to be Spanish and retired from 'em, upon which they shot at him. Had they been French, he would have submitted, but chose to risque dying alone" (note, not living alone) "in the Island, rather than fall into the hands of the Spaniards in these parts, lest they murder, or make a slave of him in the mines; for he fear'd they would spare no stranger that might be capable of discovering the South Sea. The Spaniards he said had landed before he knew what they were, and came so near him that he had much ado to escape: for they not only shot at him, but pursue'd him into the woods, where he climb'd a tree at the foot of which they stop'd and kill'd several goats just by, but went off again without discovering him. He told us he was born at Largo in the county of Fife, Scotland, and was bred a sailor from his youth. The reason of his being left here was a difference betwixt him and his captain. When left, he had with him his clothes and bedding, with a firelock, some powder, bullets, and tobacco, a hatchet, a knife, a kettle, a Bible, some practical pieces, and his mathematical instruments and books. "He diverted and provided for himself as well as he could; but for the first eight months had much ado to bear up against melancholy, and the terror of being alone in such a desolate place. He built two huts with piemento trees, cover'd them with long grass, and lin'd them with the skins of goats which he killed with his gun as he wanted, so long as his powder lasted, which was but a pound, and that being near spent, he got fire by rubbing two sticks of piemento wood together on his knees. In the lesser hut, at some distance from the other, he dressed his victuals, and in the larger he slept, and employed himself in reading, singing Psalms, and praying, so that he said he was a better Christian while in this solitude, than ever he was before, or than he was afraid he should ever be again. At first he never eat anything till hunger constrain'd him, partly for grief, and partly for want of bread and salt; nor did he go to bed till he could watch no longer. The piemento[11] wood, which burnt very clear, serv'd him both for fire and candle, and refresh'd him with its pleasant smell. He might have had fish enough, but could not eat 'em, as for want of salt, they made him ill, except Craw-fish, which are there as large as lobsters and very good. These he sometimes boiled, and at others broiled as he did his goats flesh, of which he made very good broth, for they are not so rank as ours; he kept an account of 500 that he kill'd while there, and caught as many more, which he marked on the ear and let go.[12] When his powder fail'd he took them by speed of foot; for his way of living, and continued exercise of walking and running, clear'd him of all gross humours, so that he run with wonderful swiftness thro the woods, and up the rocks and hills, as we perceiv'd when we employ'd him to catch goats for us. We had a bull dog which we sent with several of our nimblest runners to help him catch goats; but he distanc'd and tir'd both the dog and men, catch'd the goats and brought 'em to us on his back. He told us that his agility in pursuing a goat had once like to have cost him his life; he pursue'd it with so much eagerness that he catch'd hold of it on the brink of a precipice hidden by some bushes, so that he fell with the goat down the said precipice a great height, and was so stun'd and bruised with the fall that he narrowly escap'd with his life, and when he came to his senses found the goat dead under him. He lay there about 24 hours and was scarce able to crawl to his hut a mile distant, or to stir abroad again in ten days. After a while he came to relish his meat well enough without salt and bread, and in the season had plenty of good turnips which had been sow'd there by Captain Dampier's men, and have overspread some acres of ground. He had enough of good cabbage from the cabbage trees and season'd his meat with the fruit of the piemento tree, which is the same as the Jamaica pepper and smells deliciously. He soon wore out all his shoes and clothing by running thro the woods; and at last, being forced to shift without them, his feet became so hard that he run every where without annoyance, and it was some time before he could wear shoes after we found him. For not being used to any so long, his feet swelled when he first came to wear 'em. After he conquer'd his melancholy he diverted himself sometimes by cutting his name on the trees, and the time of his being left and continuance there. He was at first much pester'd with cats and rats, that bred in great numbers from some of each species which had got ashore from ships that put in there to wood and water. The rats knaw'd his feet and clothes while asleep, which obliged him to cherish the cats with goats flesh; by which many of them became so tame that they would lie about him in hundreds, and soon deliver'd him from the rats. "He likewise tam'd some kids, and to divert himself would now and then sing and dance with them and his cats; so that by the care of Providence, and vigour of his youth, being now about 30 years old, he came at last to conquer all the inconveniences of his solitude and to be very easy. When his clothes wore out he made himself a coat and cap of goatskins, which he stitch'd together with little thongs of the same that he cut with his knife. He had no other needle but a nail, and when his knife was wore to the back, he made others as well as he could of iron hoops that were left ashore, which he beat thin and ground upon stones. Having some linen cloth by him, he sow'd himself shirts with a nail and stitch'd 'em with the worsted of his old stockings, which he pull'd out on purpose. He had his last shirt on when we found him. "At his first coming on board us," says Rogers, "he had so much forgot his language for want of use, that we could scarce understand him, for he seemed to speak his words by halves. We offer'd him a dram, but he would not touch it, having drank nothing but water since his being there, and t'was some time before he could relish our victuals. He could give us an account of no other product of the Island except some small black plums, which are very good, but hard to come at, the trees which bear 'em growing on high mountains and rocks. The climate is so good that the trees and grass are verdant all the year. He saw no venomous or savage creature, nor any sort of beast but goats on the Island. The first of these having been put ashore here on purpose for a breed, by Juan Fernandez, a Spaniard, who settled there with some families till the continent of Chili began to submit to the Spaniards, which tempted them to quit this island, tho capable of maintaining a number of people, and of being made so strong that they could not easily be dislodg'd. Ring-rose, in his account of Capt. Sharp's voyage and other buccaneers, mentions one who had escap'd ashore here out of a ship, which was cast away with her company, and says he liv'd five years alone before he had an opportunity of another ship to carry him off. While Capt. Dampier talks of a Moskito Indian that belong'd to Capt. Watlin, who being a hunting in the woods when the Captain left the island, liv'd here three years alone, and shifted much as Mr. Selkirk did, till Capt. Dampier came hither in 1684 and carry'd him off; the first that went ashore was one of his countrymen and they saluted one another, first by prostrating themselves by turns on the ground, and then embracing. [Sidenote: _Capt. Woodes Rogers indulges in some moral reflections._] [Sidenote: _But soon curbs himself._] "But whatever there is in these stories this of Mr. Selkirk I know to be true, and his behaviour afterwards gives me reason to believe the account he gave me how he spent his time, and bore up under such an affliction, in which nothing but the Divine Providence could have supported any man. And by this we may see, that solitude and retirement from the world, is not such an unsufferable state of life as most men imagine, especially when people are fairly call'd, or thrown into it unavoidably, as this man was, who in all probability must otherwise have perished in the seas, the ship which he left being cast away not long after, when few of the company escaped. We may perceive also by his story," adds Rogers, "the truth of the maxim 'that necessity is the mother of invention,' since he found means to supply his wants in a very natural manner, so as to maintain life, tho not so conveniently, yet as effectually as we are able to do with the help of all our arts and society. It may likewise instruct us how much a plain and temperate way of living conduces to the health of the body and the vigour of the mind, both which we are apt to destroy by excess and plenty, especially of strong liquor. For this man, when he came to our ordinary method of diet and life, tho he was sober enough, lost much of his strength and agility. But I must quit these reflections, which are more proper for a philosopher and divine than a mariner, and return to my own subject." Which he does, and at once goes on to tell how "this morning we clear'd ship, unbent our sails, and got them ashoar to mend and make tents for our men, while the Govenour, for so we call'd Mr. Selkirk, (tho we might as well have nam'd him _absolute Monarch_ of the island,) caught us two goats, which make excellent broth mixed with turnip tops and other greens for our sick, they being twenty in all, but not above two that we account dangerous." Selkirk kept up this supply, of two goats a day, during the time the ships remained at Juan Fernandez; and no doubt the poor half-wild sailor man rather enjoyed these last goat-hunts before he became absorbed into the busy monotony of sea life on board Rogers' little frigate. We seldom catch Captain Rogers giving himself time for repose during his cruise, but the natural charms of this island appear to have had some effect even upon his practical matter of fact temperament, for he says, while here, "'twas very pleasant ashoar among the green piemento trees, which cast a refreshing smell. Our house being made by putting a sail round four of 'em, and covering it a top with another; so that Capt. Dover and I both thought it a very agreable seat, the weather being neither too hot nor too cold." [Illustration: _Captains Rogers and Dover under the Piemento Trees._] Rogers, however, did not come about the Horn into the South Seas to sit under the shade of sweet-smelling trees, especially after having "been inform'd at the Canaries, that five stout French ships were coming together to these seas"; therefore, having completed the wooding and watering of his ships, and the boiling down of about eighty gallons of sea-lions' oil, which, he says, "we refin'd and strain'd to save our candles, or for the sailors to fry their meat in for want of butter," he is, just eleven days after making the island, ready for sea again, with its "_absolute Monarch_" aboard. Before sailing, however, certain signals, to be made by the arrangement of their sails, were agreed upon between the commanders as to the chasing of ships, &c., while in case of the frigates being separated before reaching their next place of refreshment, the island of Lobos de la Mer, it was settled that "two crosses were to be set up there at the landing place near the farther end of the starboard great island: and a glass bottle to be buried direct north of each cross, with news of what had happen'd since parting, and their further designes." Nothing indeed now appears to have been left undone which could add to the safety and efficiency of the small force under Rogers' command. [Illustration: _Pinnaces under sail._] [Sidenote: _Come to short allowance of water._] "For a fortnight after leaving Juan Fernandez," he says, "we put both pinnaces in the water to try them under sail, having fixed them each with a gun after the manner of a paterero, and all things necessary for small privateers, hoping they'll be serviceable to us in little winds to take vessels": and a few days later in a calm, both frigates are again heeled and tallowed, though the nearest land was sixty miles distant; while the crews are put upon an allowance of water of three pints a man per day, "that," says Rogers, "we may keep at sea some time without being discover'd by watering ashore. Because an enemy once discovered, there was nothing of any value put to sea from one end of the coast to the other." It was now the 9th of March, and in fair weather, before a moderate gale at S.E., the ships are kept under easy sail, with all boats in tow, about twenty-one miles off the coast of Peru, "in hopes of seeing rich ships either going or coming out of Lima; the men beginning to repine, that tho come so far, we have met with no prizes in these seas," which may have accounted for the frigates being brought to for a day at this time, while the men are "sent in the boats under the shoar to examine two white rocks which at a distance look'd like ships." [Sidenote: _A small prize taken._] On the 16th, however, a small prize of sixteen tons, manned by two Spaniards and some Indians, falls into their hands, and Rogers learns from these Spaniards that no enemy has been in those parts since Captain Dampier was there four years ago; also that Stradling's ship, the "Cinque Ports," "who was Dampier's consort, founder'd on the coast of Barbacour, only Captain Stradling and six or seven men being saved, who lived four years prisoners at Lima much worse than our Govenour Selkirk whom they left on Juan Fernandez." [Sidenote: _Arrive at the Isle of Lobos._] [Sidenote: _Fit up the small bark for a Privateer._] The following day, piloted by the crew of their prize, they anchored in the "Thorow-fair between the islands of Lobos de la Mer," and Rogers, finding his new prize well built for sailing, at once resolved to fit her out as a privateer. She was, therefore, taken "into a small round cove in the southernmost island, haul'd up dry, and after having her bottom well cleaned, relaunched, and called the 'Beginning,' Capt. Cook being appointed to command her." In the meantime, while Rogers stayed to overlook this, and the building of a "larger boat for landing men, should an attempt be made upon the mainland," the "Dutchess," having landed her sick men, and been heeled and cleaned outside, is sent upon a cruise round the island, with instructions to meet the "Beginning," when ready, off the southernmost end of it. Like a true seaman, Captain Rogers appears to have thoroughly enjoyed this work of fitting out his "small bark," and describes how he got a spare topmast out of the "Duke," "which made her a new main mast, a mizen topsail being alter'd to make her a mainsail." And though the work included "fixing a new deck with four swivel guns," she was "victualed and manned by 20 men from the 'Duke,' and 12 from the 'Dutchess,' all well arm'd, and ready for sea," in three days from the time of being taken in hand. "As I saw her out of harbour," says Rogers, proudly, "with our pinnace she looks very pretty and I believe will sail well in smooth water, having all masts sails rigging and materials like one of the half galleys fitt'd out for Her Majestie's service in England."[13] [Sidenote: _A Prize._] Two days after joining the "Dutchess," this pretty little "Beginning" captured another small prize, the "Santa Josepha," "of 50 tuns, full of timber, cocoa, and coconuts and some tobacco which we distributed among our men." And after being cleaned and re-christened the "Increase," the "Santa Josepha" became the hospital ship of the fleet, "all the sick men and a doctor from each ship being put on board with _Mr. Selkirk_ as master." [Illustration] FOOTNOTES: [9] The name of this bird has been said to have been derived from "Alb," a priest's white vestment; but I incline to think that Rogers is right in his spelling of it, and that it was spelt Alcatros, from the Spanish "Alca, a razor-bill," the two birds being much alike in the shape of the bills. [10] Curiously enough, on his return home, Rogers learnt that this French ship, which so mysteriously "outwent them," was the very vessel in which Captain Stradling, of the "Cinque Ports" (Selkirk's ship), returned to England after being kept four years' prisoner by the Spaniards. [11] The Allspice tree of the West Indies. This tree usually grows from seed eaten and carried by birds, which easily accounts for its being found upon this island. [12] Thirty years later Commodore Anson found some of Selkirk's ear-marked goats when he touched at Juan Fernandez. [13] The "half galley" of the Mediterranean was a vessel of about 120 feet long by 18 wide, and 9 or 10 deep, fitted with two large lateen sails, and masts that could be lowered on deck at pleasure. She carried five cannon, and was rowed with twenty oars on a side. [Illustration] CHAPTER IV. FROM LOBOS TOWARD GUIAQUIL IN PERU. [Sidenote: 1709] [Sidenote: _Livers of old seals unwholesome._] [Sidenote: _Information of rich ships._] [Sidenote: _A large prize taken._] Having given his ship the usual "good heel," and "tallowing her low down," Rogers came to sail March 30th, at ten o'clock, with his new launch in tow from Lobos. On more than one occasion Rogers shows a decided want of sympathy with the sportsmen of the expedition, and relates here "how there were in this island abundance of vultures, alias carrion crows, which looked so like turkeys that one of our officers at landing bless'd himself at the sight, hoping to fare deliciously. He was so eager he would not stay till the boat could put him ashore, but leap'd into the water with his gun, and getting near to a parcel let fly at 'em. But when he came to take up his game, it stunk insufferably and made us merry at his mistake." These birds were no doubt a flock of Gallenazo, described by Darwin as frequenting the wooded isles on the west coast of South America, and as "feeding exclusively upon what the sea throws up, and the carcases of dead seals," which, from the following entry in the journal must have been very plentiful in this island, "where," says Rogers, "owing to the presence of certain unwholesome old seals, whose livers disagreed with those of our crew that eat them; the air, with the wind off shore, is loaded with an ugly noisome smell, which gave me a violent headach, and was complain'd of by all," as quite unlike the spice-laden breezes of Juan Fernandez. Rogers' headache and these unwholesome old seals were no doubt quickly forgotten at sea, when listening to the stories of their Spanish prisoners about "a certain rich widow of the late Vice Roy of Peru, who was expected to embark with her family and wealth; shortly for Acapulco. Also of a stout ship with dry goods for Lima, and another richly laden from Panama, with a Bishop aboard." Acting on which advice, "it was agreed to spend as much time as possible cruising off Payta without discovering themselves." They had not long to wait, for two days after leaving Lobos "a sail was spy'd to windward about daybreak, and the pinnace being hoisted out and mann'd under the command of Mr. Frye, first lieutenant of the 'Duke,' by 8 o'clock took the 'Ascension' of 500 tons, built gallion fashion, very high with galleries." This was "the stout ship from Lima," and from her "they learnt that the ship with the Bishop would stop at Payta to recruit," and, being near that place, Rogers "resolved to watch narrowly, in order to catch his Lordship." With the exception of a "small vessel of 35 tuns laden with timber from Guiaquil," and captured by the "Beginning," nothing hove in sight for several days, one of which seems to have been passed by Rogers, first in chasing his consort for some hours, mistaking her for the Bishop's ship, and then keeping up the joke until she cleared for action, "which I did," he says, "to surprise them." This was a favourite form of practical joke with Rogers, affording no doubt great amusement both to him and his lieutenant, Mr. Frye, when dining together next day "on board the new prize upon a good quarter of mutton and cabbage--a great rarity," adds Rogers, "here." [Sidenote: _Mr. Vanbrugh's miscarriages._] A week of inaction, however, followed, while the increasing number of the fleet and prisoners, and consequent greater number of mouths to provide for, began to tell rapidly upon their stores, especially of water, "which beginning to grow short, we cannot," says Rogers, "keep the sea much longer." Wherefore, "at a meeting held on board the 'Duke' April 12th, we came to a full resolution to land and attempt Guiaquil." At this meeting it was also decided that the name of that somewhat impetuous sportsman, Mr. Carlton Vanbrugh, should no longer remain on the committee. "He having not only threaten'd to shoot one of the 'Duke's' men at Lobos for refusing to carry some carrion-crows that he shot, but abus'd Capt. Dover." So long as the ships were at sea, and the work of a purely naval kind, the seamen of the expedition had matters pretty much their own way, and things went on smoothly enough. But the moment a land expedition was agreed on, disputes quickly arose between Captain Rogers and those of his officers not actually seamen. While speaking of his men, he says, "We know that misfortunes attend sailors out of their element, and hear that they begin to murmur about the encouragement they are to expect for landing; which they allege is a risque more than they shipp'd for." [Sidenote: _Regulations about plunder, and encouragement for the men to land._] It was therefore found necessary to come to a definite arrangement as to the disposal of the plunder of Guiaquil before "the mixed gang of most European nations" of which the crews were composed could be induced to enter heartily into an attempt upon it. Rules were, therefore, after much discussion, drawn up for the conduct of all taking part in this little invasion, and "what was to be deem'd the men's share" in the booty settled, which included "all manner of bedding and clothes, short of stripping" (whatever that might mean), "gold rings, buckles, buttons, liquors and provisions; with all arms and ammunitions, except great guns for ships; "in a word, everything portable was to be carried off, and be divided equally among the men, the one very honourable exception being "woman's earrings." It was also settled "that prisoners of note shall be carefully kept as pledges for any of our men that be missing. But that it was desirable no man should trust to this, or be a moment absent from his officers or post." The whole winding up with the hope "that the foregoing rules being strictly follow'd, they will exceed all other attempts of this nature before us in these parts; and not only enrich and oblige ourselves and friends, but even gain reputation from our enemies." The plunder of Guiaquil had scarcely been thus comfortably arranged, and two of the small prizes armed and manned for it, when at daybreak of April the 15th another sail was "sighted between them and the land," and, being calm, both ships' pinnaces were sent in pursuit of her. [Sidenote: _A Spanish ship attack'd._] [Sidenote: _Lieut. Rogers, my brother, killed._] Unfortunately, in the hurry of starting for the chase, and expecting little resistance, they neglected to take their swivel guns, or "patereroes," with them. The result of which was, that after repeated attempts "to get into a position for boarding, the boats were obliged to retire much damaged, under a heavy fire of partridge shot and small arms, with the loss of two kill'd and three wounded: among the former was," says Rogers, "my unfortunate brother, Mr. Thomas Rogers, shot through the head, and instantly died, to my unspeakable sorrow." Philosophically adding, "but as I began this voyage with a resolution to go thro it, and the greatest misfortune shall not deter me, I'll as much as possible avoid being thoughtful and afflicting myself for what can't be recall'd, but indefatigably pursue the concerns of the voyage, which has hitherto allow'd little respite." [Sidenote: _The ship taken._] The Spanish ship was accordingly followed up and taken that afternoon at 2 p.m., and proved to be the ship from Panama; "but we missed the Bishop," says Rogers, "who ten days before landed at Point St. Helena with his attendants, plate, &c." After adding another small prize, loaded with cassia soap and leather to the fleet, "on the following day," Rogers says, "about twelve we read the prayers for the dead, and threw my dear brother overboard with one of our sailors; hoisting our colours half mast; and we beginning, the rest of the fleet follow'd, firing each some volleys of small arms. Our officers expressing great concern for his loss, he being a very hopeful, active young man, a little above twenty years of age." Even if inclined to do so, Woodes Rogers had now no time for "thoughtful affliction," his squadron having increased under him from two to eight vessels, with over three hundred prisoners to feed and guard. All which, until his return from the attack upon Guiaquil, were placed on board the frigates and three of the prizes; with orders "to remain at sea forty-eight hours undiscover'd, then to sail for Point Arena and anchor there. Irons being put on board every ship because, having many more prisoners than men to guard 'em, we must have 'em well secur'd." Two hot days and nights were now passed in the boats of the expedition, rowing and towing their small barks among the islands and mangrove swamps, piloted by Dampier, and one of the Spanish prize captains, up the creeks toward Guiaquil. Great caution being taken to avoid being seen, as "they learnt on landing upon the island of Puna," that a report had been spread among the Spaniards a month before, that they might expect to be "attacked by some English Lords, in 7 vessels from London, under the conduct of an Englishman named Dampier." Captain Rogers rarely complained of hardships and was not easily frightened, but when lying in his boat under the mangrove bushes, he remarks, "that the muskitoes pester'd and stung him grievously; while when at anchor across the tide on a dark night with a small rolling sea, the boat being deep laden and cramm'd with men," he says, "that though engaged about a charming undertaking he would rather be in a storm at sea than there." One can hardly help pausing a moment here, to consider the hazardous position of this little body of adventurers, and admire the self-reliance of Rogers and his officers, in venturing upon the sack of Guiaquil, while the small force under them was divided among a fleet of six prizes with 300 prisoners on board to guard and feed. Want of water, as he says, no doubt made some attempt upon the mainland now almost a necessity. Still even this might have been obtained elsewhere; while Rogers' expression, "tho engaged upon a charming undertaking," and the building of the launch at Lobos, both point to a preconceived plan having been arranged for this attack, but so timed by him as to appear to the men a mere question of fighting the Spaniards ashore, or perishing at sea for want of water. [Sidenote: _The town alarm'd. Our officers differ in their opinion about attacking it._] [Sidenote: _Fall down again from the Town to meet our barks and land with the morning flood._] [Sidenote: _Treat with the Corregidore._] It was on the 22nd of April, that after leaving the small barks about half way between the island of Puna and the town of Guiaquil, Rogers got with his boats "about 12 at night in sight of the town with 110 men," but on finding "when abreast of it and ready to land, from abundance of lights, with a confused noise of their bells, a volley of small arms, and two great guns, that the town was alarm'd, Captain Dover, the doctor of physick and he fell into a debate of above an hour, as to whether to attack the place then in the dark during this first alarm, or not?" Rogers was of course for pushing on, but Captain Dover and the majority were against him, while Dampier, when asked how the buccaneers would have acted in such a case, said simply enough, "that they never attacked a place after it was once alarm'd." And so, the tide being favourable, the boats dropped down the river again out of sight of the town to the two barks; where a further consultation was held among the officers, lying in a boat astern of one of the barks, in order that what was debating might not be overheard by the rest of the company. Which debate ended in Rogers yielding to the majority, and sending two Spanish prisoners to treat with the Corregidore of the town for its ransom, valued by Rogers, with the goods and negroes in his prizes, and "certain new ships then on the stocks near the town," at 40,000 pieces of eight.[14] [Illustration: _A Council of War._] [Sidenote: _The treaty broke off._] [Sidenote: _We land and attack the Town._] As Rogers had foreseen, the Spaniards wisely made use of this time to carry off inland every thing of value; and after two days spent in negotiations, made "an offer of 32000 pieces of eight and no more," upon which, his two barks and boats now lying close to the town, he "ordered their interpreter to tell 'em, we had done treating, and after advising all that wished to save their lives to retire out of shot, at once hal'd down our flag of truce and let fly our English and field colours." And two ship's guns of about six hundred-weight each, mounted on field carriages, being placed in the great launch, Rogers, Captain Dover, and Captain Courtney landed with seventy men from their boats, a lieutenant with others being left on board one of the barks to ply her guns over their heads into the town. "The enemy," says Rogers, "drew up their horse at the end of the street, fronting our men and barks, and lin'd the houses with men at half musket shot of the bank where we landed, making a formidable show in respect to our little number. We landed and fired every man on his knee at the brink of the bank, then loaded, and as we advanc'd call'd to our bark to forbear firing, for fear of hurting our men. We who landed kept loading and firing very fast; but the enemy made only one discharge, and retir'd back to their guns, where their horse drew up a second time. We got to the first houses, and as we open'd the street, saw four guns pointing at us before a spacious church, but as our men came in sight firing, the horse scower'd off. This encouraged me to call to our men to run and seize the guns, and I hasten'd towards 'em with eight or ten men till within pistol shot, when we all fir'd, some at the gunners, and others at the men in arms in front of the church, where they were very numerous; but by the time we had loaded and more of our men came in sight, they began to run, and quitted the guns, after firing them with round and partridge, one of the last was discharged at us very near, but, thanks to God, did us no hurt; and they had not time to relade them. By this time the rest of our men were come up with Capt. Courtney and Captain Dover, and they leaving me with a few men to guard the church, marched to the other end of the town, and so," as Rogers says in his marginal note, "we beat 'em out of the town." [Sidenote: _We post guards._] Guards were now posted in all directions round the town, and the Spaniards' guns turned, and left in charge of Captain Dampier to defend the great place in front of the church. While Captain Dover fired some houses that commanded another church in which he had taken up a position, "there being a hill and thick woods near this post, from which the enemy were almost continually popping at him all night." The portable plunder of the town, with the exception "of jars of wine and brandy in great plenty, proved of little value;" while "the sultry, hot, wet unhealthful weather made the carrying of these to the water side a work of great fatigue." Only half-an-hour elapsed from the time of landing until the Spaniards vacated the place, and their loss was but fifteen killed and wounded; while out of Rogers' small force only two were hurt, one of these being "mortally wounded by the bursting of a cohorn shell fir'd out of one their own mortars on board the bark." The following day Rogers says, "we kept our colours flying on the great church, and sent the Lieutenant of Puna with proposals to ransom the town." [Sidenote: _We plunder the Town._] [Sidenote: _The seamen's civility to the Spanish ladies._] [Sidenote: _The value of the chains, &c., they found on the ladies._] Meanwhile Rogers and his men were busy searching every hole and corner in it for concealed valuables, he having great difficulty while so engaged in preventing his men tearing up "the floor of the great church to look amongst the dead for treasure; but which he would not suffer because of a contagious distemper that had swept off a number of people there not long before, so that this church floor was full of graves." He was himself, however, lucky enough to pick up in this same church "the Corregidore's gold-headed cane," and another with a silver head; "none among the Spaniards," he remarks, "carrying a cane but chief officers, and among them none under a captain wearing a silver or gold-headed one, so that those gentlemen must have been much in haste to leave these badges of office behind them." Besides carrying off "these badges of office," Capt. Rogers says, "we unhung a small church bell[15] and sent it aboard for our ships use." A boat was also sent higher up the river in quest of treasure, and landing, found most of the houses full of women, particularly at one place, where "there were above a dozen handsome genteel young women, well dress'd and their hair tied with ribbons very neatly, from whom the men got several gold chains, &c., but were otherwise so civil to them that the ladies offer'd to dress 'em victuals and brought 'em a cask of good liquor. This," says Rogers, "I mention as a proof of our sailors modesty, and out of respect to Mr. Connely, and Mr. Selkirk, the late Govenour of Juan Fernandez, who commanded this party: for being young men, I was willing to do 'em this justice, hoping the Fair Sex will make 'em a grateful return when we arrive in Great-Britain on account of their civil behaviour to these charming prisoners." Besides this pleasing account of their treatment of, and by, the Spanish ladies, these modest young officers "brought back with them gold chains, plate, &c., to the value of over £1000, and reported, that in places above the town they saw several parties of more than 300 arm'd Horse and foot, so that we apprehend," says Rogers, "the enemy designe to gain time by pretending to pay ransom, till, with vast odds, they may attack us and reckon themselves sure of victory." [Sidenote: _Our agreement with the Town for ransom._] [Sidenote: _We march off to our barks._] [Sidenote: _Our farewell to the Town._] [Sidenote: _Our great loss in not taking it by surprise._] After many alarms by night and much skirmishing by day, in which Rogers lost two more men, the prisoners on the 26th of April returned with an offer of 30,000 pieces of eight for the town, ships, and barks, to be paid in twelve days. "Which time Rogers did not approve of," and sent his final answer to the effect that "they would see the town all on fire by three that afternoon, unless they agreed to give sufficient hostages for the money to be paid within six days." Upon which, about 2 p.m., the prisoners came back with two men on horseback, the required hostages, and said their terms were accepted; and the Spanish agreement arrived the following morning "sign'd by 'em," an English one being sent in return as follows to them: "Whereas the City of Guiaquil, lately in _subjection_ to Philip V. King of Spain, is now taken by storm, and in the possession of Captains Thomas Dover, Woodes Rogers, and Stephen Courtney, Commanding a body of Her Majesty of Great Britain's subjects: We the underwritten are content to become hostages for the said city, and to continue in the custody of the said Captains till 30,000 pieces of eight shall be paid to them for the ransom of the said city, two new ships, and six barks; the said sum to be paid at Puna in six days from the date hereof; During which time no hostility is to be committed on either side between this and Puna; After payment the hostages to be discharged, and all prisoners to be deliver'd up; otherwise the said hostages do agree to remain prisoners till the said sum is discharg'd in any other part of the World. In witness whereof we have voluntarily set our hands, this 27th day of April Old Stile and the 7th of May N.S. in the year of our Lord 1709." Which remarkable document was signed by the two hostages, "who, with all the things we have got together were shipped off," says Rogers, "by 11 o'clock the same morning; after which, with our colours flying, we march'd through the town to our barks; when I, marching in the rear with a few men, picked up several pistols, cutlashes, and poleaxes; which shew'd that our men were grown very careless weak and weary of being soldiers, and that 'twas time to be gone from hence." On the whole Rogers seems to have thought that the Spaniards got the better of him in this bargain. "For though upon weighing anchor at 8 next morning from Guiaquil," he says, "we made what shew and noise we could with our drums, trumpets, and guns, and thus took leave of the Spaniards very cheerfully;" he ends with the remark, "though not half so well pleased as we should have been had we taken 'em by surprise. For I was well assur'd from all hands that at least we should then have got above 200,000 pieces of eight in money, and a greater plenty of such necessaries as we now found." Among which "was about 250 bags of flower, beans, peas, and rice, 15 jars of oil, about 160 jars of other liquors, some cordage ironware and small nails, with four jars of powder, a tun of pitch and tar, a parcel of clothing and necessaries, and as I guess," says Rogers, "about £1200 in plate earrings et cetera, and 150 bales of dry goods, 4 guns, and 200 Spanish ordinary useless arms and musket barrels, a few packs of indigo, cocoa, and anotto, with about a tun of loaf sugar. Besides these which we took, we left abundance of goods in the town, with liquors of most sorts, sea stores several warehouses full of cocoa, divers ships on the stocks, and two new ships unrigged upwards of 400 tuns which cost 80000 crowns and lay at anchor before the town. And by which it appears the Spaniards had a good bargain; but a ransom for these things was far better for us than to burn what we could not carry off.--Among the casualties that occurred to the men during the occupation of Guiaquil," Rogers says, "a French man belonging to my company, sent with others to strengthen Capt. Courteney's quarters, being put centinel, shot Hugh Tidcomb one of our men, so that he died. This accident happening by a too severe order to shoot any in the night that did not answer, neither this man nor the centinel understanding how to ask or answer the watchword. By which neglect a man was unaccountably lost." While of those wounded in the confusion of a night attack "was a man shot against the middle of his pole axe,[16] that hung at his side, which shot made an impression on the iron and bruised the part under it so that it proved a piece of armour well placed." Captain Courteney's chief lieutenant was also wounded upon the outside of the thickest part of his leg by one of his pistols hanging at his side, which unluckily discharged itself, leaving a bullet in the flesh, but with little danger to his life. Which incidents kept all on the alert at night, "the centinels calling to each other every quarter of an hour to prevent 'em sleeping." No doubt the men that took an active part in this attempt upon Guiaquil were the pick of the frigates' crews. But it speaks well for their state of discipline that only one, "a Dutchman, so much as transgressed orders by drinking beyond his bearing," and he, after being missed for a day or two, came aboard before they sailed, having been roused "out of his brandy-wine-fit, and his arms restored to him by the honest man of the house where he lay." [Sidenote: _The King of Spain's ten sorts of Americans in this country._] In his description of the "Province of Guiaquil, for the information of such as have not been in those parts," Rogers gives a table of "10 sorts of men besides Spaniards there;" viz., "the Mustees, Fino Mustees, Terceroons de Indies, Quateroons de Indies, Mullattoes, Quateroons de Negroes, Terceroons de Negroes, Indians, Negroes, and Sambos;" but adds, "that tho these be the common sorts, they have rung the changes so often upon these peals of generation that there is no end of their destinctions, so that the King of Spain is here able to match the skins of his _Americans_ to any colour, with more variety and exactness than a draper can match his cloth and trimming." The accounts given of Guiaquil by the "French Buccaneers alias pirates are," he says, "very false, tho they left their infamous mark, of having been there about 22 years ago, when in their attack on the place they lost a great many men, and afterwards committed a great deal of brutishness and Muther." Though Woodes Rogers himself would now rank little above a pious sort of pirate, it is curious to note from what he says here, and again after visiting the Gallapagos Islands, one of the chief haunts of the buccaneers, that he looked upon them as much below him socially, while after his own experience in these seas, he evidently mistrusted the accounts of their exploits there as exaggerated or romantic tales of little value to future navigators. [Sidenote: _The men very sickly._] It was on their way "towards these Gallapagos islands," piloted no doubt by Dampier, that on the 11th of May seventy men in the "Duke" and "Dutchess" fell ill of a malignant fever, which, from its attacking only those engaged in the late operations at Guiaquil, was most likely contracted there by them. [Sidenote: _Several men die._] Among those taken ill was "Capt. Courtney, Capt. Dover going on board the 'Dutchess' to prescribe for him." While on the 15th Mr. Hopkins, Dr. Dover's kinsman and assistant, died on board the "Duke," "being," says Rogers, "a very good-temper'd sober man well belov'd by the whole ships company, having read prayers for us once a day ever since we passed the Equinox." A day seldom passed now without a record by Rogers of the death of one or two of the best of his crew, there being sixty sick men on board the "Duke" and eighty in the "Dutchess" at one time; and though there was no want of doctors in either ship, the store of medicines began to run very short. So that, thinking prevention better than cure, "and finding punch preserve my own health, I did at this time," says Rogers, "prescribe it freely among such of our company as were well to preserve theirs." The Gallapagos, when found, were searched one after the other in vain for fresh water, until, after getting a few turtle and some fish there, the number of sick, and want of water, compelled them to steer for the island of Gorgona, near the mainland. [Illustration] FOOTNOTES: [14] A piece of eight was the name then given to the old Spanish dollar, value about four shillings and sixpence. [15] In ships of that date the belfry was quite an important, and very ornamental little structure just abaft the forecastle and forard of a space called "no man's land," where, between it and the boat on the booms amidships was stowed all the ropes, blocks, and tackles, likely to be wanted upon the forecastle. [16] Pole axe, a hatchet like a battle axe, with a short handle, and furnished with a sharp point at the back of its head. Used chiefly to cut away the rigging of an enemy attempting to board. It is also employed in boarding an enemy whose hull is more lofty than the boarder's, by driving the points of several axes into the enemy's ship's side, thereby forming a sort of scaling-ladder; hence it is often called a boarding-axe. [Illustration] CHAPTER V. AMONG THE GALLAPAGOS ISLANDS AND AT GORGONA ROAD IN PERU. [Sidenote: 1709] [Sidenote: _Mr. Hatley and our bark missing._] [Sidenote: _Abundance of Pope's bulls found in the "Marquiss."_] While engaged cruising among the Gallapagos, two more small prizes were however added to the fleet, but, at the same time, great anxiety was felt as to the safety of one of the recent prizes, a small bark under the command of a Mr. Hatley, which was lost sight of here, with only two days' water on board. And after several days of unsuccessful search she was "bewail'd as lost," it being supposed that Hatley and his prize crew of three men had been surprised and overpowered while asleep by the two Spaniards and three negro prisoners on board her.[17] Besides careening the frigates and landing their sick men while in Gorgona Road, arrangements were made with certain Spaniards of note among the prisoners for the purchase, or rather what Rogers called the ransom, of the large gallion-built ship, with the other small prizes and their cargoes; but the stout French-built ship, the "Havre de Grace," in attempting the capture of which Rogers' brother was killed, was not sold, but after being re-christened the "Marquiss," was re-fitted, and armed with nine guns, as an additional cruiser. It was in discharging cargo, before careening her, that "500 bales of Pope's bulls were found, which, taking up abundance of room in the ship, we throw'd overboard," says Rogers, "to make room for better goods, except what we us'd to burn the pitch off our ship's bottoms when we careen'd 'em." These bulls or indulgences, he says, "tho they cannot be read, the print looking worse than any of our old ballads, are sold here by the clergy for 3 Ryals to 50 pieces of eight each." [Sidenote: _The blind superstition of the Spaniards towards an image of the Virgin cast overboard._] [Sidenote: _A fancied miracle._] [Sidenote: _A mutiny design'd but prevented._] [Sidenote: _The civil behaviour of our men to Spanish ladies we had taken prisoners._] Though Rogers rarely lets a chance pass of having a shot at the Pope, he was far from having bigoted or puritanical ideas about the Catholic religion, for in speaking of his treatment of some of his prisoners of the better class, he says, "We allow'd liberty of conscience on board our floating commonwealth, and there being a priest in each ship, they had the great cabin for their Mass, whilst we us'd the Church of England service over them on the quarter deck; so that the papists here were the Low Church men." Other reasons, not connected with his prisoners' liberty of conscience, may have had something to do with this arrangement. It happened, however, curiously enough, that about this time Rogers and his crew, quite unintentionally, assisted in the making of what afterwards became, no doubt, a very valuable relique to the Romanists here. For while discharging the cargo of the Spanish gallion-built ship, he says, "A large wooden effigy of the Virgin Mary was either dropt or thrown overboard, which drove ashoar near the north point of the island, from whence some Indians there a fishing, brought her in their canoe to the shoar over against our ship, where we gave our prisoners liberty to walk that day. Who, as soon as they saw her, cross'd and bless'd themselves, and fancied this must be the Virgin come by water from Lima to help them, and set the image up on shoar and wiped it dry with cotton, and when they come aboard told us, that tho' they had wiped her again and again, she continued to sweat very much; while all those around were devoutly amazed, praying and telling their beads. They shew'd this cotton to the ransomers and the interpreter wet by the excessive sweat of the Holy Virgin, which they kept as a choice relick." "Before this," says Rogers, "when I heard the like stories, I took 'em to have been invented meerly to ridicule the Romanists; but when I found such silly stories believed by eight grave men of a handsome appearance and good reputation amongst the Spaniards, I was convinced of the ignorance and credulity of the Papists." Just after the valuation and sale of the plunder of Guiaquil and the prizes was settled, a mutiny was discovered among the crew of the "Duke," sixty of whom signed a paper, expressing discontent at the large share of plunder assigned to "the gentlemen that were officers, tho not sailors amongst us." But a little firmness, combined with a judicious use of the bilboes on Rogers' part, with an abatement on three of these gentlemen's shares, soon brought his men to reason; "while though," says Rogers, "sailors usually exceed all measures when left to themselves on these occasions, I must own ours have been more obedient than any ship's crew engaged in a like undertaking I ever heard of;" adding, "but if any sea officer thinks himself endowed with patience and industry, let him command a privateer and discharge his office well in a distant voyage, and I'll engage he shall not want opportunities to improve, if not to exhaust all his stock." It must be remembered that Captain Rogers wrote this little growl, and found his stock of patience running short, on the equator, in a small ship, half full of sick men, and soon after what he calls "those general misunderstandings, and several unhappy differences among us, arrising out of, and before our attack on Guiaquil." That Rogers had at this time even more difficult questions and people to deal with, is shown by an entry in his log, that, "amongst the prisoners taken on board the last prize from Panama, was a gentlewoman and her family, her eldest daughter, a pretty young woman of about 18 newly married, and her husband with her, to whom we assigned the great cabin of the prize, none being suffer'd to intrude amongst them. Yet I was told the husband shew'd evident marks of jealousy, the Spaniard's epidemick, but I hope he had not the least reason for it amongst us, my third lieutenant, Glendall, alone having charge of the ship, who being above 50 years of age appeared to us the most secure guardian to females that had the least charm;" which is followed by the description of "an ugly creature call'd by the Spaniards a sloth, caught in Gorgona, and which," says Rogers, "being let go at the lower part of the mizen shrouds was two hours getting to the masthead, keeping all the time an equal and slow pace as if he walk'd by art and all his movements had been directed by clockwork within him." "Many monkeys were shot in Gorgona Island, fricassees and broth being made of them for the sick men." But though "Capt. Dampier, who had been accustomed to such food, said he never eat any thing in London that seemed so delicious as a monkey or baboon of these parts, none of the Duke's officers would touch them, provisions being not yet scarce enough." Rogers also describes the "land turtles alias tortoises caught in the Gallapagos islands as the ugliest creatures in nature, with a shell black as jet not unlike the top of an old hackney coach; the neck long about the bigness of a mans wrist, with club feet as big as ones fist shaped like those of an elephant, the head little and visage small like a snake looking very old and black." He adds: "they lay eggs on our deck about the size of gooses, white with a large thick shell exactly round." [Sidenote: _Negroes muster'd and encourag'd to fight if there should be occasion._] [Sidenote: _The men exercised by a sham fight with the "Dutchess."_] After leaving Gorgona, the "Duke," "Dutchess," and "Marquiss," on the 25th of August, bore away for Tecames Road, in order to trade with the natives and Spaniards there for fresh provisions, &c. The Indians here, however, were at first disposed to fight rather than trade, so that while careening the ships half the men had to be kept under arms; until Rogers happily thought of conciliating them with "a present of three large wooden Spanish saints he had on board, and which, with a feather'd cap for the chief's wife," were sent on shore. Besides these "wooden saints," a portion of the prize goods on board the "Duke" consisted of about thirty-five negroes, and these not being readily turned into money at this time, were, "being lusty fellows," mustered by Rogers, and, "after taking the names of those that had any, and giving names to those that wanted them, were placed with arms and powder in charge of Michael Kendall, a free negro of Jamaica who deserted from the Spaniards at Gorgona, with orders to drill them continually to act as marines in case we meet an enemy." While, in order to encourage, and make this black contingent as presentable as possible, "they were given bays" (baize) "for clothing, and with a dram all round to confirm the contract, were told that now they must look upon themselves as Englishmen, and no more as negro slaves to the Spaniards." With which rough and ready form of emancipation and British baptism, "they," says Rogers, "express'd themselves highly pleas'd; while I promise myself good assistance from them, bearing in mind the proverb, that those who know nothing of danger, fear none;" while in order to further perfect these negroes and the men in the use of the great guns and small arms, the "Dutchess," at ten one morning, hoisted Spanish colours, and a sham fight was arranged, "during which everyone acted the part he ought have done if in earnest, firing with ball excepted. Our prisoners were secur'd in the hold with the surgeons, and to imitate the business for them, I order'd," says Rogers, "red lead mixed with water to be thrown upon two of our fellows and sent 'em down to the surgeons, who were much surpris'd, and thinking they had been really wounded, went about to dress them, but finding their mistake, it was a very agreable diversion." On the afternoon of Nov. 4th, "the 'Dutchess' being near," Rogers sent his yawl aboard with Lieut. Glendall "to agree exactly on some remarkable land, that each of us knowing the same landmark, might the better keep our stations. We agreed also that the 'Marquiss' should now be in the middle with the 'Dutchess' next the shore." Two days later it was arranged between the captains of the "Duke" and "Dutchess" that the outer berth should be exchanged for the inner one every two days, in order, says Rogers, "that we may have equal chances for seeing the Manila ship, because I now think the inner birth the likeliest; Sir Thomas Cavendish in Queen Elizabeth's time having took the Spanish Galleon in this place on the 4th of November." An old salt, in the days when yachting was almost unknown, used to say, "that a man who went to sea for pleasure, would be likely to go to hell for pastime." Englishmen and Americans, however, do now go to sea not only for amusement, but spend large sums in doing so, many of these being men who, in Rogers' time, would no doubt have gone to sea for gain, and the pleasure and excitement of Spanish gallion-hunting. But three weary months, like those now spent in the "Duke" and "Dutchess," cruising under a tropical sun off Cape St. Lucas, waiting and watching for the "Manila ship," were enough to try the patience of the most ardent of gallion-hunters. It is not surprising, therefore, that a sea parliament had at this time to assemble on board the "Duke" to pass measures for the prevention and punishment of gambling, which had so increased of late among the officers and crews of the ships, that some of the men had lost the greater part of their share in the plunder recently divided among them. It was probably one of these reckless gamblers that was ordered into irons about this time "for wishing himself a pirate, or that an enemy was alongside who could overpower us"--a wish which must have appeared even more atrocious to Captain Rogers than did that of Mr. Squeers' pupil, "the juniorest Palmer," who after first "wishing he was in heaven," went on to "wish he was a donkey, because then he wouldn't have a father as didn't love him!" Among the measures passed "against wagering and gaming" on board the frigates, the most useful was one repudiating "all debts contracted from man to man, unless attested by the commanders and entered on the ship's books;" which strange old-motherly resolution was "agreed to and signed by the officers and men in each ship in sight of California, Nov. 11th, 1709." [Sidenote: _A negro woman brought to bed on board the "Duke."_] The tedium of this long cruise was broken once by touching at the islands of Tres Marias for wood and water, and again by a second visit to the Galapagos in hopes of falling in with "poor Hatley and his bark;" but nothing was found there beyond some traces of the buccaneers in the shape of wreckage and broken wine jars. Rogers also mentions at this time, as an event of some importance, the birth on board the "Duke" of "a tawny coloured negro girl," the mother being a negress from Guiaquil, kept among other prize goods of the same class to act as laundresses[18] and seamtresses on board the ships. Both mother and child were well cared for, a close cabin being provided for her, together with a "bottle of thick strong Peru wine." This interesting event was evidently not looked upon by Captain Rogers as an unmixed blessing, for he says that "he gave our other she-negro nymph (called Daphné) strict orders to be careful not to transgress in this way." [Sidenote: _'Tis agreed to sail to Guam or some other place to recruit._] [Sidenote: _Discover the Manila ship._] Provisions of all sorts, especially bread, were, "after a strict rummage of the ships," now found to be running short, while their new consort, the "Marquiss," was discovered to be defective and leaking, and had to be taken to the "port of Segura," for repairs. "So that," Rogers says, "we all looked very melancholy, necessity compelling us to no longer continue cruising for the Manila ship, but sail at once across the Pacific for the island of Guam in order to revictual before starting for China and the Indies, and thence round the Cape of Good Hope, for England." This was, however, scarcely decided upon, when, on December 21st, at nine a.m., a man "at the mast head cry'd out he saw another sail as well as the 'Dutchess,'" which, though at first thought to be the "Marquiss" rejoining them, proved "after several wagers" to be the long expected "Acapulco ship." The weather continued calm that day, which "kept them all in a very uncertain languishing condition," and the chase had to be tended during the night by "two pinnaces showing false fires, that we might know whereabouts they and the chase was." [Illustration: _The "Duke" takes the Manila Ship._] [Sidenote: _Pursue her._] [Sidenote: _Engage her._] [Sidenote: _Take her._] [Sidenote: _Capt. Rogers wounded._] But a little after daybreak on the 23rd, still having no wind, Rogers says, "we _got_ out _eight_ of our _ship's oars_, and rowed above an hour, when there sprung up a small breeze, upon which I order'd a large kettle of chocolate to be made for our ship's company, (having no spiritous liquor to give them) and then went to prayers, but before we had concluded, were disturb'd by the enemy firing at us. She had barrels hanging at each yard arm, which looked like powder barrels to deter us from boarding. The 'Dutchess' being to leeward, with little wind, did not come up. And the enemy firing her stern chase several times, we returned it with our forechase, till getting close aboard, we gave her several broadsides plying our small arms briskly, which they return'd as thick for awhile, but did not ply their guns so fast as we. After a little while shooting ahead of them we lay athawt their hawse close aboard, and ply'd them so warmly, that she soon struck her colours two-thirds down; and the 'Dutchess' coming up, fired five guns and a volley of small shot, to which she made no reply, having submitted. This Galleon was," says Rogers, "called by the long name of 'Nostra Seniora de la Incarnacion Desengàno,' Sir John Pichberty, Commander, she had twenty guns, with twenty patereroes and 193 men, whereof nine were killed, ten wounded, and several blown up and burnt with powder. We engaged them about three glasses" (an hour and a half), "in which time we had only myself and another wounded. I being shot through the left cheek, the bullet striking away great part of my upper jaw, and several teeth which dropt down on the deck where I fell. The other was an Irish land-man slightly wounded. A shot disabled our mizenmast, and I was forced to write what I would say to prevent the loss of blood, and because of the pain I suffered by speaking." On examining the officers on board the prize, they learnt that "she left Manila in company with a much larger vessel; but having lost sight of her about three months ago, they thought she must be got to Acapulco before now." The latter part of this information was evidently not relied on, for measures were at once taken to secure and leave the present prize and prisoners at Port Segura, and start the "Dutchess" with the "Marquiss," which they found in "sailing posture there," on an eight days' cruise for the other gallion, the "Nostra Seniora del Incarnation Desengàno," now re-christened the "Batchelor," to remain in port with as many men as could be spared to guard and refit her. Her sails being removed, and the prisoners, of whom there were 170, secured for the time on board a small bark, anchored a mile distant from her without rudder, sails, or boat, with a few men to give them victuals and drink. Rogers' wound must have been serious, for on the 24th he says, "In the night I felt something clog my throat, which I swallow'd with much pain, and suppose it was a part of my jaw bone or the shot, which we can't yet give account of;" adding, "but I soon recover'd myself, only my throat and head being greatly swell'd, I have much ado to swallow any sorts of liquid for sustenance," which made him very weak; and, what was worse, "that he spoke in great pain, and not loud enough to be heard at any distance." [Sidenote: _They see the other Manila ship and pursue her._] [Sidenote: _Captain Rogers again badly wounded._] But though the surgeons and chief officers wished him to stay in port on board the prize, he was unable to resist the temptation, when, on the afternoon of the 26th, "two sentries who had been placed upon a hill above the port signalled by three waffs that a third sail was in sight, as well as the 'Dutchess' and 'Marquiss,'" of joining his consorts as soon as possible, in command of his own ship, Captain Dover remaining on board the prize. It was 7 p.m., and soon quite dark, before the "Duke" was under weigh; but at daybreak next morning all three vessels were sighted to windward, distant about four leagues; the wind remained scant, however, all day, so that Rogers and his crew had the mortification of seeing first the "Marquiss" and then the "Dutchess" briskly engage the gallion without being able to join them; in fact it was midnight before they did so, and then only to find that the "Marquiss" had fired away nearly all her powder and shot with little or no effect, her guns being too small, and that the "Dutchess" had been forced to stretch away, with several men wounded, from the Spaniard, to repair her foremast and other defects, among which was a shot in her powder-room. "Curiously enough," Rogers says, "the Spaniard had been making signals to the 'Duke,' and edging toward her all day, mistaking her for her lost consort, until just before dusk, otherwise, having little wind, and that against us, we should not have been up with her at all." The following day, however, the "Duke" was near enough to join in the fight, but only to find, as the "Dutchess" and "Marquiss" had done before her, that their largest round shot (six-pounders) did very little hurt to the gallion, a brave new ship, the "Bignonia," of 900 tons and 60 guns, and well provided with close-quarters,[19] and her waist protected by strong boarding-netting.[20] The "Dutchess" had now twenty men killed and wounded, while a fire-ball from the enemy's roundtop, lighting on the "Duke's" quarter-deck, blew up an ammunition chest, by which Mr. Vanbrugh and a Dutchman were much burnt; while Rogers says, "Just before we blew up on the quarter deck I was unfortunately wounded by a splinter in the left foot, part of my heel bone being struck out and ankle cut above half through, which bled very much before it could be dressed, and weaken'd me so that I could not stand, but lay on my back in great misery." From first to last they had been engaged six or seven hours, and placed not less than 500 shot in the gallion; yet there she lay "driving," the Spanish flag obstinately flying from her maintopmast head, "all our battering signing little beyond killing two men in her tops, and shattering her rigging." [Sidenote: _After a long engagement are forced to let the large Manila ship go._] As all this fighting was simply of a commercial character, a council was now assembled on board the "Duke," and though the Spaniard still "lay with his mainyard aback, expecting another brush," it was at once decided, "that after keeping the galleon company till night, they should then lose her, and return to the harbour to look after the prize already taken." This measure was the more urgent as ammunition of all sorts was running short, and the "Duke's" mainmast shot through miserably in two places, so that it settled to it, threatening every moment to fall by the board, and bring other spars down with it; which, as they had a long voyage before them, and masts not easily got there without great delay, might even endanger the safety of the whole expedition. It was indeed lucky for them that they did not attempt to board this great ship, for they learnt afterwards that her complement of men amounted to 450, besides passengers; while in all three ships they had now less than 120 men left fit for boarding. Soon after this the "Spaniard filled her sails and made away W.N.W.," glad enough, no doubt, to lose sight of them, though in size and force she was quite equal to the great gallion that, to Lord Anson's surprise, bore down upon the "Centurion," of 60 guns, instead of trying to avoid her. Weight of metal, however, enabled him to make as short work of that gallion as Rogers did of the smaller one. Rogers himself was of opinion that had the "Duke" and "Dutchess" attacked this ship together in the first instance, they would have taken her, and was most anxious for that reason that the "Dutchess" and "Marquiss" should not go out of port until his ship was ready to sail. The majority, however, decided then that he should remain in port until the arrangements for the security of the smaller gallion and her prisoners were completed. Upon arriving at Port Segura the prisoners, with Captain Pichberty, his officers, and a padre, were supplied with water and provisions, and after acknowledging in writing "that they had been very civilly treated," were despatched in the small bark to Acapulco. FOOTNOTES: [17] On returning to England, Rogers learnt that Mr. Hatley's bark was not lost; but that, after pluckily keeping the sea for a fortnight without water, he was forced to make for the mainland; where he and his companions fell into the hands of some Spanish Indians, and were by them tied up to a tree, whipped, and otherwise illtreated, their lives being only saved by a padre, who interfered and cut them down; after which Hatley remained a prisoner at Lima for some time. [18] Even in Nelson's time, and later, it was not unusual to find women, the wives of petty officers, on board a man-of-war in commission, who acted as washerwomen, and helped the surgeons and their mates in the sick-bay, or on the orlop deck among the wounded in time of action; and the author can remember one of these old ladies, about forty years ago, living in the island of Jersey with her husband, a retired gunner, who had been in the actions of the Nile and Trafalgar. [19] "Close-quarters." Strong barriers of wood across a ship in certain places, used as a retreat when boarded, fitted with loop-holes for small arms, and often with powder-chests on the deck over them, which can be fired from the close-quarters upon a boarding party. [20] Boarding-nettings extended fore and aft above the gunwale to a proper height up the rigging, to prevent an enemy jumping aboard. Anson says that, in addition to these, the gallion taken by him "was provided against boarding both by 'close quarters,' and a strong net of two inch rope laced over her waist, defended by half pikes." [Illustration] CHAPTER VI. SAILING TOWARDS THE ISLANDS OF GUAM AND BOUTON, THENCE TO BATAVIA, AND ROUND THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, HOME. [Sidenote: 1710] Before sailing for Guam, it was necessary to appoint a commander for their new consort, the "Batchelor" frigate, and Captain Dover having, it seems, a large money-stake in the ships, was, much against Rogers' wish, selected by the majority for this post. But under protest from Rogers, who as he lay, no doubt in great misery, on his back, recounts "how it was now after taking this rich prize our great misfortune to have a paper war amongst ourselves." Rogers' chief objection to Captain Dover was "that owing to his violent temper, capable men could not well act under him, while as a Dr of physick he was incapable as a seaman himself." A peace was, however, patched up, by appointing Mr. Robert Frye, Rogers' first lieutenant, and Mr. William Stretton to take sole charge of the ship as to navigation, with Mr. Selkirk and another as chief mates; Captain Dover to have command in other matters. And being a large ship, "thirty good men were sent on board her from the 'Duke,' with twenty-five from the 'Dutchess,' and thirteen from the 'Marquiss,' which, with thirty-six Manila Indians, called Lascarrs, and other prisoners will," says Rogers, "bring up her complement to 110 men." Before sailing, "ten of the 'Duke's' guns were struck down into the hold, to ease the ship, being altogether useless betwixt here and the East Indies." [Sidenote: _Sight the Island of Guam._] [Sidenote: _Send to the Spanish Governor for provisions._] The voyage from Cape St. Lucas in California to Guam, one of the Ladrone islands, occupied fifty-eight days, the best day's run being 168 miles, and the worst 41. The distance sailed by reckoning was 6,300 miles, which gives an average of 108 miles a day, about equal to a speed of four and a half miles an hour, which may seem slow to us,[21] but it must be remembered that the speed of the dullest sailer was that of all the others in company; and that besides the loss of speed due to the rapid fouling of uncoppered ships in the tropics, it was the custom then to shorten sail after dark. Beyond the death of many wounded men, and the burial of "a negro named Depford, who being very much addicted to stealing of provisions, his room was more acceptable at this time than his company," nothing of importance is recorded after leaving Port Segura on the 11th of January until the 14th of February, when, "in commemoration of the ancient custom, of chusing valentines," Rogers "drew up a list of the fair ladies in Bristol, that were in any ways related to, or concerned in the ships, and sent for his officers into the cabin, where every one drew and drank a ladies health in a cup of punch, and to a happy sight of 'em all, which I did," he says, "to put 'em in mind of home." The "Duke" had been leaky for some time, and after many attempts to stop the leak with bonnet-pieces, &c., one pump had to be constantly kept going, two men of each watch taking an hour's spell at the pump at a time; "which labour, together with being on short allowance," Rogers says, "makes our people look miserably." So that there was much rejoicing among all hands at sighting Guam on March the 11th; but though "several flying prows came off to look at the ships, and run by them very swift," none could be tempted to venture aboard until Rogers hoisted Spanish colours, when "on turning into the harbour one came under his stern with two Spaniards in her, who being told in Spanish, in answer to their questions, that they were friends from New Spain, willingly came on board, and enquired whether they had any letters for the Govenour? We had one ready," says Rogers, "and detaining one Spaniard on board, sent the other ashore with our letter which was thus. We being servants of Her Majesty of Great Britain, stopping at these islands on our way to the East Indies, will not molest the settlement provided you deal friendly with us, being willing to pay for whatever provisions you can spare, &c. But, if after this civil request, you do not act like a man of honour, and deny us our request, you may immediately expect such military treatment as we are with ease able to give you. Signed, Woodes Rogers, S. Courtney, and E. Cooke." [Sidenote: _His civil answer._] This letter appears to have acted like a charm upon the Governor of Guam and his officers, for he at once answered "with a present of four bullocks, one for each ship, with limes oranges and coconuts. And being now arrived," says Rogers, "at a place of peace and plenty, we all became indifferent well reconciled among ourselves after the misunderstandings at California which had been so much increased of late by our shortness of water and provisions." [Sidenote: _A sickly old Spanish gentleman left at Guam._] And in return for the Governor's civility, an entertainment was "provided for him and four Spanish gentlemen on board the 'Bachelor,' where we all met, and made 'em," says Rogers, "as welcome as time and place would afford, with musick and our sailors dancing, when I, not being able to move myself, was hoisted in a chair out of my ship and the boat into the 'Batchelor.'" Considering that he was in an enemy's port, Captain Rogers appears to have rapidly established diplomatic relations with the Governor of Guam of a most friendly and agreeable kind. For this entertainment was followed by one of the same sort on board the "Duke," "Dutchess," and "Marquiss," which were returned by the Governor and his suite on shore; when Rogers and his brother officers, after partaking of "sixty dishes of various sorts," presented the Governor, in return for his four bullocks and civility, with "two negro boys dress'd in liveries together with scarlet clothe serge and six pieces of cambric." And after purchasing "14 small lean cattel, two cows and calves, 60 hogs, 100 fowls, with indian corn, rice, yams and cocoa nuts" in proportion, Rogers ended his week's stay at the island by leaving there an old Spaniard "called Antonio Gomes Figuero, whom they took in the first prize in the South seas, designing to carry him to Great Britain," as a witness upon any question which might arise there respecting other prizes taken in the South Seas. "But he, being in all appearance not likely to live, we dismissed him here; he first giving a certificate that he saw us take certain barks and prisoners subjects to Philip V. King of Spain." Rogers was so pleased as a seaman with the speed and handiness of the flying proahs of Guam (or, as he spells it, "prows")--which, he says, "by what I saw, I believe may run twenty miles an hour for they passed our ships like a bird flying"--that he carried one of them with him to London, thinking it might be worth fitting up there as a curiosity on the canal in St. James's Park. This was more than thirty years before the account of these "flying proahs" appeared in Anson's voyage. The "Duke" continued so leaky at this time, that before leaving Guam Rogers decided upon handing over to Captain Courtney a chest of plate and money to be put on board the "Dutchess." While Rogers himself "being still very weak and not able to stand," it was agreed that Captain Courtney, in the "Dutchess," should lead the squadron by night through the almost unknown straits of Molucca, and among the various reefs, shoals, and islands they must pass in the passage to the island of Bouton or Boutong, where they designed to wood and water on their way to Batavia. The order of sailing was therefore "for the 'Dutchess' to keep ahead with a light, her pinnace when possible to be ahead of her, all signals for tacking or altering course to be given by the 'Dutchess.'" So little was this part of the world then known to the English, that even Dampier, their pilot, who had been there twice, and was the discoverer of some of these islands in 1699, seems to have lost his way; so that they were glad to get hold of the Malay skipper of a small native bark, and persuade him by bribes, in spite of his fear of the Dutch, to act as pilot between Bouton and Batavia. Rogers says, however, that "this way into India would not be difficult if better known." After leaving Guam the weather was for some days dark, squally, and unsettled, with thunder and lightning, and mention is made of more than one ugly gale of wind, while three tropical April showers, in the form of water-spouts, were met with on the 15th of that month, one of which had like to have broke on the "Marquiss" had not the "Dutchess" broke it before it reached her, by firing two shots.[22] [Sidenote: _A Bishop's cap presented to the King of Bouton._] On the 29th of May, however, the four ships were safely anchored at the island of Bouton; but stayed there only long enough to water and get a supply of fresh fruit and vegetables; Rogers finding the king of the island both "dilatory and designing in his dealings with them," notwithstanding which, before sailing, they made him "a present of a Bishop's cap, a thing of little use to us, but what he highly esteem'd and gratefully accepted of." It was on the 17th of June, 1710, near the north coast of Java, that the "Duke" and "Dutchess" met the first vessel bound east from Europe since they sailed from Bristol in August, 1708. She was a Dutch ship of 600 tons and 50 guns, from whom they learnt "that Queen Anne's Consort, Prince George of Denmark, was dead. That the wars continued in Europe, where we had good success in Flanders, but little elsewhere." And what was of more importance to them at that time than any European news, they "borrowed" from this ship, "a large draft of those parts." [Illustration: _Batavia Roads._] In addition to the troubles of a leaky ship, with the clang of her pump constantly ringing in his ear, and the dangers of an intricate navigation among coral reefs, &c., Rogers tells us that here "their voyage was like to have been ruined by the mutinous conduct of an officer on board his ship, with other officers and men on board the 'Dutchess,' which knot was only broken by putting the _leaders_ in irons," &c. On anchoring in Batavia Road, however, matters smoothed down rapidly, at least so far as the men were concerned, for Rogers says, "Till now I find that I was a stranger to the humours of our ship's company, some of whom are hugging each other, while others bless themselves that they were come to such a glorious place for punch, where arrack is eightpence per gallon, and sugar one penny a pound, whereas a few weeks past a bowl of punch to them was worth half the voyage." While personally Captain Rogers is made happy, and congratulates himself, first, "on the discovery of a large musket shot, which the doctor now cut out of his mouth, it having been there six months, so that the upper and lower jaw being broken and almost closed, he had much ado to come at it;" and next, "that several pieces of his foot and heel bone having been removed, he believes himself, thank God, in a fair way to have the use of his foot and recover his health." Though Rogers makes light of these trifling operations and discomforts, and they are not pleasant subjects to dwell on, they could not be passed without notice, as pointing out distinctly the sort of man physically fit to have charge of "a charming undertaking" of this kind, while considering the ways of life on ship-board in those days, and the climate he was in at this time, the marvel is not that "he now thought himself in a fair way to recover his health," but that he lived to reach home and write his travels.[23] They anchored in Batavia Roads on the 20th of June, where they found "betwixt thirty and forty sail great and small," and having, "as customary," says Rogers, "lost almost a day in running so far west round the Globe, we here altered our account of time." A complete overhaul, both of ships and prize goods, was now made; and all bale goods carefully repacked in "waxcloth, and tarpaulins." While the "Marquiss," being found much honeycombed by the worm, was condemned as unfit for the voyage home "about the Cape of Good Hope," and after discharging her cargo into the other ships, her hull, "being very leaky, was sold for 575 Dutch dollars to Captain John Opie, of the 'Oley' frigate, lately arrived from London." The Dutch were naturally not at all anxious to assist English ships in this part of the world; and it was the 8th of July, "after a long correspondence and many dilatory answers," before Rogers got leave from "the General" at Batavia to refit and careen at Horn Island, about three leagues to the northward of their present anchorage. He by no means suffering them to "careen at Umrest where all the Dutch ships are cleaned." This was a great grievance to Captain Rogers, especially as at Batavia he was not in a position to strengthen the Saxon of his despatches by any allusion to his six-pounders. That he did what he could in a leaky ship to keep his powder dry at this time is, however, shown by an entry in the "Duke's" log, "that in rummaging one day in the powder room we found a leak three or four foot under water which we did our best to stop." While before arriving at Batavia the ten guns, which had been "struck down into the hold," at sea, were got up and mounted. This hoisting in and out of a frigate's hold of ten cannon as wanted, reads oddly in these days of heavy guns. The forty sail Rogers found lying in Batavia Road were nearly all Dutch, and during his stay there of four months only five other English ships touched at the port. Owing to "some unwholesome water drunk by his crew while careening at Horn Island," Rogers lost several men here by fever, &c., and to replace them and others, who tempted maybe by the price of arrack,[24] ran from the ships at this time, thirty-four Dutch sailors were shipped before sailing. Rogers must have known something of sailors and their ways, but even he expresses surprise at men deserting so late in the voyage, and losing their hard-earned share of prize-money, or, as he calls it, "plunder;" perhaps, however, in the case of the "Duke's" men, the prospect of constant work at the pumps had something to do with their leaving her. The "Duke," "Dutchess," and "Batchelor," did not actually take their "departure from Java Head" until October 4th, and it was the 27th of December before they "came up with Cape Falso and by noon were abreast of the Cape of Good Hope and saw the Table Land." During this three months' voyage, Rogers says, "nothing remarkable happen'd, except that on the 31st of October the 'Duke' having three feet of water in her, and her pumps choaked, we fir'd guns for our consorts to come to our relief, but had just sucked her" (_i.e._, pumped her dry) "as the 'Dutchess' came up." "During the whole of this voyage," Rogers says, "he remained very thin and weak, as his ship did leaky," and the day after anchoring in Table Bay, "they buried Mr. Ware, chief surgeon, with naval honours as usual; being a very honest useful man, and good surgeon, bred up at Leyden in the study of phisick as well as surgery." They lost also while at the Cape another important officer, in the person of Mr. Vanbrugh; who in the early part of the cruise, as the "Duke's" agent, more than once gave Rogers trouble in his negotiations about plunder, &c. [Sidenote: _My proposals to the other Capts. not comply'd with._] The expenses of ships in commission could not have been great in Rogers' time, or they would have entirely swallowed any profits, even of a privateering cruise, due to the owners, owing to the length of time the vessels lay idle at anchorages such as Batavia Roads and Table Bay. For though the "Duke" and her consorts arrived at the Cape on the 27th of December, 1710, it was April, 1711, before they sailed for England in company with sixteen Dutch East Indiamen and six English ships. Rogers was anxious himself not to have waited for the convoy of these ships. "Thinking we should loose too much time by staying for them, and the benefit of their convoy to Holland; which would not only be out of the way, but very tedious and chargeable, while having large quantities of decaying goods on board, the time lost in waiting for the Dutch at the Cape might be better spent in Brazil, where we could lie in little danger from an enemy and vend our goods at great rates; sailing thence to Bristol through the North channel with the summer before us. Keeping in the latitude of 55 or 56 degrees for two or three hundred leagues before getting the length" (_i.e._ longitude) "of the north of Ireland, and by that means avoiding the track of an enemy." But though Rogers earnestly press'd that if they would not agree to this, one of the privateers might take this run alone, and the other keep with the 'Batchelor' and Dutch fleet, the majority was against the thing, and thought it safer to go home altogether under convoy of the Dutch than run any risk of losing their rich prize by meeting an enemy between the Cape and home. Much of the officers' time during their long stay at the Cape was spent ashore holding sales of prize goods to the Dutch settlers; and among other things so disposed of, mention is particularly made of twelve negroes. Rogers also wrote to his owners from here telling them "of his safe arrival with the Acapulco ship, now called the 'Batchelor' frigate mounted with 20 great guns, and 200 brass patereroes, with 116 men; a firm ship; and that the 'Duke' and 'Dutchess,' being fitted with everything necessary, only waited for the fleet which was expected to sail about the end of March." Including the "Duke," "Dutchess," and "Batchelor," a fleet of twenty-five armed ships was now ready to sail under the command of a Dutch flag, vice- and rear-admiral. For though really only armed merchantmen, the commanders of these Dutch Indiamen, most of which were a thousand tons, took the rank and state of officers in the Dutch navy. And it must have been a picturesque scene in Table Bay, when at daybreak on the 5th of April "the Flag hoisted a blue ensign, loos'd his foretopsail, and fir'd a gun as the signal to unmoor." In doing which on board the "Duke," Rogers says, "our cable rubb'd against the oakum, which for a time had partially stopped the leak, and occasioned his ship to be as leaky as ever, after having been indifferent tight for some time." As soon as the fleet was under weigh, the captains of the English vessels were signalled to go on board the flag-ship, to receive their order of sailing, &c., "which were very particular and obligatory to be punctually observ'd." A voyage from the Cape to the Texel, even by the direct route up the British Channel, was a long one in those days for a fleet of this size, touching nowhere, and with over 5,000 men to feed; but the course they steered, away across the Atlantic to the westward of the Azores, and then north-eastward as far as the Shetlands, almost doubled the length of it. The squadron crossed the line on the 14th of May, "being the eighth time we have done so," says Rogers, "in our course round the world." This was thirty-eight days after leaving the Cape, giving a mean speed of rather more than three miles an hour. The Spanish ship, the "Batchelor," seems to have been the dullest sailer among them, for Rogers speaks of often taking her in tow, and of the Dutch admiral's "civility in allowing her to keep ahead of the fleet at night, which he would not permit any other ship to do." No collisions or disasters of any sort are recorded during the whole of this long voyage, the monotony of which was varied on the 15th of June by an entertainment on board the flag-ship to the skippers of the English, and some of the Dutch ships, "when the good humour of the Admiral soon made all the company understand each other without a linguist." While on reaching latitude 51 north, thick foggy weather prevailed for many days, "during which the Flag-ship fir'd two guns every half hour, each ship answering with one, which consum'd a great deal of powder, but by the noise of the guns it was easy to keep company, though often so thick that we could not see three ship's lengths" (equal to about one now). Greatly to Rogers' admiration, the Dutchmen, being good ship's husbands, spent most of this time in scraping and cleaning their ships, bending new sails, &c., "so that they look as if newly come out of Holland;" and as they drew nearer home, and the chance of meeting an enemy increased, "the three admirals hal'd down their flags, and to appear more like men of war hoist'd pennants at their maintop mastheads." Evidently men like these three Dutch admirals were as much at home, if not as happy, afloat as ashore, if indeed a change from floating securely a few feet above the sea level to land many feet below it, could be called being ashore. How many of those who to-day rattle about Holland by rail, and admire the stately well-to-do look of old Dutch cities and towns, give a thought to these sedate fleets of sailing Indiamen, in which the wealth that built and kept the sea from swallowing them every higher tide than usual was slowly but surely carried two hundred years ago; or know that shipping, moving then some five miles an hour under sail, actually paid its owners better than now, though driven by the feverish beat of steam round the world at fifteen knots. Soon after making Fair Island, near the Shetlands, on the 16th of July, Rogers says, "We fell in with the Dutch _men of war_, with the exception of one or two that remained cruising with the fishing doggers off the north-east of Shetland, where having little wind we lay by, the boats from the land coming to and fro all night and supplied us with what they had, being poor people who live by fishing." [Sidenote: _Arrive at the Texel in Holland._] The whole squadron, now in convoy of the men-of-war, with a small breeze, turned south again down the North Sea, and after seven days "crossed the bar, and anchored at 5 p.m. of the 23rd of July at the Texel in Holland, the Dutchmen," says Rogers, "firing all their guns for joy at their arrival in their own country, which they very affectionately call Fatherland." The cruise of the "Duke" and "Dutchess" was virtually ended when they anchored in the Texel Roads, where they were met by some of the owners from England. But many delays occurred before they were ready to sail again, with some East India ships for London, in convoy of the "Essex," "Canterbury," "Meday," and "Dunwich" men-of-war; so that it was October 14th before the last entry in Woodes Rogers' log was made, "that this day, at 11 of the clock, we and our Consort and prize got up to Eriff, where we came to an anchor, which ends our long and fatiguing voyage." [Illustration: The Old Ship's Belfry.] [Illustration: _A MAP of the WORLD, with the Ships "Duke" & "Dutchess" Tract round it._ FROM 1708 TO 1711.] FOOTNOTES: [21] The speed of Rogers' little squadron across the Pacific, under sail, was barely half that of the British Fleet which in July, 1888, was able to make the passage under steam from Portsmouth to Bantry Bay, Ireland, at a mean speed of eight knots! [22] "The horrid apparition still draws nigh, And white with foam the whirling billows fly. The guns were primed; the vessel northward veers, Till her black battery on the column bears: The nitre fired: and, while the dreadful sound Convulsive shook the slumbering air around, The watery volume, trembling to the sky, Burst down a dreadful deluge from on high!" FALCONER. [23] Captain Woodes Rogers not only lived to write his travels, but afterwards had charge of a naval squadron, sent to extirpate the pirates who infested the West Indies. He died in 1732, just a year after the death of Defoe. [24] Rogers speaks of shipping while at Batavia "half a leaguer of Spelman's _neep_, or the best sort of arrack." Is the modern term "nip of spirit" derived from this word neep? [Illustration] APPENDIX. CONTAINING A RECEIPT FOR A SEA FIGHT, SOME DIRECTIONS FOR FINDING THE LONGITUDE, AND A SHORT COMPARISON BETWEEN SEA-STORMS ANCIENT AND MODERN. A RECEIPT FOR A SEA FIGHT. The art of naval warfare has so greatly changed since the following prescription for chasing, fighting, and taking a 60-gun ship was written in Rogers' time, that it is really doubtful whether any definite rules for a sea fight could be given to-day. But in his time such matters appear to have been as well understood as the making of a bowl of good punch was. So, at any rate, we are taught by the author of "a collection of sundry pleasant and critical questions in navigation and the fighting of ships, for the improvement and diversion of the learner in his spare hours." The writer of which tells us "he has had twenty years' experience at sea as mate, master, and sworn teacher of the mathematics to the gentlemen volunteers in her Majestie's Royal Navy." He begins his instructions with the right methods of handling a ship in various kinds of weather, from the first change for the worse, "when the wind becometh fresh and frisking," until "it bloweth a storm with a very hollow grown sea." But the storm being past, the author says cheerfully, "Let us turn to windward," which soon brings his ship "into a good latitude and her proper station;" where the young officer is advised "to hand his topsails, farthel (or furl) the foresail and mainsail, trail up the mizen, and lie his ship a hull" (under bare poles) "until fortune appear upon the horizon;" a man being sent at the same time "to the maintop masthead" to look out for her in the shape of "any ships that have been nipt with the last northerly winds." Like the big salmon of the literary fisherman, a sail is soon sighted, "A brave lusty ship of sixty guns. So much the better," says the writer, "for though we have but fifty, the enemy hath more goods in his hold, and it blows a brave chasing gale. Therefore let us set spritsails, spritsail-topsails, flying jib, and topgallants; and as we raise her apace we shall be up with her in three glasses" (half-hour glasses). It sounds strange in these days of monster ironclads to read that during a chase in a fifty-gun ship the crew were "ordered aft to remain quiet there, as the ship will steer better being too much by the head." The enemy soon goes about, and is immediately followed by the young beginner. The chase "being a foul ship" (_i.e._ covered with weeds, barnacles, &c.), he gets to windward of her, and is advised to keep there, with "his enemy under his lee." The gunner is now ordered "to see his guns all clear, and that nothing pester the decks." The hammocks being stowed round the bulwarks fore and aft in the nettings, the order is given to "down with all bulkheads" (cabin partitions, &c.) "that may hinder us or hurt with splinters;" and the gunner is asked, "whether there be good store of cartridges ready filled, and shot in the garlands" (racks for ball on deck) "between the guns and round the masts and hatches." He is also to see that "rammers, sponges, ladles, priming-irons, horns, linstocks, wads, swabs, and tubs of water, are all in place;" and that when engaged, "the guns be well loaded with crossbar and langrel" (old nails and bolts tied in bundles to cut an enemy's rigging), "and that the blunderbusses, musketoons, pistols, cutlashes, poleaxes, half-pikes, &c., are in readiness, and that the patereroes" (swivel guns) "and stock-fowlers in the round tops, have their chambers full of good powder, with bags of small shot" (bullets) "to load them, in order to clear the deck in case of the enemy boarding." The men are then called to quarters; and escape being impossible, the chase shortens sail, and "puts abroad the white French ensign," which is saluted with a cheer, and a remark, "that though a larger ship and full of men, we shall match her, for our colours are St. George's." Then comes a neat little oration, headed "The Captain's Speech." "Gentlemen, We are maintained by her Majesty Queen Anne, and our country, to do our endeavours to keep the sea from her Majestie's enemies, piracy, and robbers; and 'tis our fortune to meet this ship. Therefore I desire you, in her Majestie's name, and for your own countrie's honour, that every man behave himself like an Englishman, and courageous to observe the word of command and do his best endeavour. So, committing ourselves and cause into God's hand, every man to his quarter, and God be with us and grant us victory!" This speech is at once followed by an order to the ship's musicians of "Up noise of trumpets, and hail our prize," which the French ship "answereth again with her trumpets." Which preliminaries of the old naval duel being over, the gunner is warned "to hold fast and not fire till fairly alongside of him, and within musket-shot." The time arrived, the guns are run out with the command, "Give him a broadside, a volley of small arms, and a huzza." After which the men are encouraged with, "Well done, my hearts! The enemy returns the compliment. What cheer, is all well betwixt decks? Yea, yea, only he hath rak'd us through and through. No fear, 'tis our turn next. Edge toward him, and give not fire till we are within pistol-shot. Port your helm, he plies his small shot.--Come, boys, load and fire our small arms briskly.--Hold fast, gunner; right your helm, and run up alongside. Starboard a little.--Now a broadside, gunner.--That was well done; this one hath thinned their decks of men, but his small-arms did gall us. Clap some case and partridge into the guns now loading. Brace-to the foretopsail that we shoot not ahead of him. He lies broad-off to bring his other broadside to bear. Starboard hard! Trim your topsails. He fires his starboard broadside, and pours in small shot.--Give no fire till he falls off, that he may receive our full broadside. Steady!--Port a little.--Fire!--Huzza! Cheerly, my mates, his foremast is by the board; that broadside did execution. He bears away to stop leaks; the day will be ours! Keep her thus.--Port, port hard! Bear up and give him our starboard broadside. Load with double-head round and case-shot. Yea, yea; port, make ready to board; have lashers and grapplings ready, with able men to tend 'em. Well steered; edge toward him, and when you fire bring your guns to bear right among his men with the case-shot. Fire!--Starboard, well done my hearts! they lie heads and points aboard the prize. Board him bravely. Enter, enter. Are you fast lashed? Yea, yea. Cut up his decks, ply your hand-grenades. They cry quarter!--Good: quarter is granted provided you lay down arms; open your hatches, haul down all sails and furl them. Loose the lashings, and we will sheer off and hoist out our boats; but if you offer to fire or make sail again, expect no quarter for your lives." Boats are then lowered, and the captain, officers, and part of the crew of the prize taken on board the young beginner's ship. So much for the attack and capture of a vessel at sea in those days. In case, however, "the reader be curious to learn" something of the measures taken by merchantmen in Rogers' time to beat off an enemy, he is referred to "Defensive Sea Fighting" in Park's "Art of Fighting in Merchant Ships." From the "Table of Gunnery" given below it would seem that our ancestors' guns were stronger or their powder weaker than ours, the weight of a charge of powder given in it in some cases exceeding half the weight of the shot:-- A TABLE OF GUNNERY. -------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+---------- | Weight | Weight | Weight | Range | Range | of Gun. | of Shot. | of | Point | Extreme. | | | Powder. | blank. | -------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+---------- | lbs. | lbs. oz. | lbs. oz. | yards. | yards. Cannon Royal | 8,000 | 58 0 | 23 0 | 300 | 3,000 Demi-cannon | 5,200 | 32 0 | 15 0 | 300 | 3,000 24 Pounder | 4,800 | 24 0 | 11 0 | 300 | 3,000 12 Pounder | 3,000 | 12 0 | 8 0 | 295 | 2,900 Saker | 1,500 | 5 4 | 4 0 | 250 | 2,500 Faucon | 750 | 2 8 | 1 8 | 200 | 2,000 -------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+---------- SOME OBSERVATIONS ON FINDING THE LONGITUDE AT SEA. For want of correct timekeepers, a ship's longitude was, in the time of Queen Anne and for some time afterwards, an unsolved problem. But in the "Compleat Modern Navigator's Tutor, or The whole art of Navigation," published by one Joshua Kelly, of "Broad Street Wapping near Wapping New-stairs," in 1720, we are taught "five of the most rational ways of finding it." The learner is advised, however, "not to confide too much in them, or to omit any of the methods of a sea journal or other precautions to preserve a ship when she nears land." Among these methods eclipses of the moon and Jupiter's satellites of course come first. But of the first of these methods we are told that "it would be accurate and useful if we could have an eclipse of the moon every night," and of the second, that "the impractibility of managing a telescope twelve or fourteen feet long in the tossing rolling motion of a ship at sea, surrounds it with difficulties scarce to be remedy'd." The craving of these old navigators for some form of good sea timekeeper is shown by Kelly's suggestion for finding the longitude by what he calls "automatas, or unerring clocks or watches," or even by "hour-glasses," directions being given for "preparing and using a very perfect and true-running sand glass, which may precisely run twenty-four hours without error, to be set exactly at noon on leaving the land; which glass upon being run out, is to be turned instantly every day, not losing any time in the turning of it; and so having very warily kept the said glass 'til you think good to make an observation at noon, and having in readiness an half hour, minute, and half minute glass, you may thereby know exactly how much the twenty-four hour glass is before or after the ship's time; the difference being your longitude, east or west, according as the time by the sun is afore or after the time by the glass." Navigation by account, or dead reckoning, has changed little since Kelly's time. Indeed, the use of the chronometer and the perfection of the modern sextant has almost superseded it except in the case of small coasters, &c. But in Kelly and Woodes Rogers' days the log chip, reel, line, and half minute glass were the mariner's sole means of finding his longitude, or distance, sailed east or west. Steam and patent logs have much simplified such calculations, which required many corrections not only for leeway but for errors in the log line and glass; "Shortness of the knots in a line," says Kelly, "being on the safer side, that a ship be not ahead of her reckoning; it being better to look for land before we come at it than to _be ashoar before we expect it._" SEA STORMS, ANCIENT AND MODERN. Are the storms at sea of this century heavier than those of the time of Queen Anne? is a question one can hardly help asking after studying the logs of the "Duke" and "Dutchess" during their three years' cruise. Judging from Rogers' account, the whole of this period must have been one of remarkably fine weather at sea, even in the latitude of Cape Horn, as compared with the tempests torn to tatters which we constantly fall in with in the sea stories of to-day. Or perhaps Capt. Woodes Rogers was of that old type of happy sea-dog for whom the song was written in which Jack "pities them poor folk ashore," when a storm comes on? Or perhaps "life on the ocean wave" in his time was really not so terrible for sailormen as it is now? These questions are not easily answered, for even among comparatively recent sea-writers, such as Marryat and Dana, life afloat, though not described as all smooth sailing, is never described as all hurricane and hurlyburly. Like a true seaman Marryat delights to draw pictures of men at home on the sea, and well able to contend with wind and wave, rather than write of ships with sails torn to shreds, and crews taking to drink as soon as they are caught in a close-reefed topsail breeze off Cape Horn. Steam, no doubt, has much to answer for in having increased, rather than diminished the apparent terrors of bad weather at sea; causing writers who draw their experiences of storms from the decks of long narrow ships driven six or seven knots in the teeth of a gale, to form exaggerated ideas of tempests, and the behaviour of well handled sailing craft in the same weathers. A steamer plunges into a head-sea in a blundering sort of way, wallowing from side to side as she does so, and shipping water to port or starboard in the most uncertain manner. The power that drives the great hull against the rolling masses of water seems to have no sympathy with either the ship or the waves; and drenched from stem to stern, the vessel reels and staggers on her way, kept only to her work by careful use of helm. Now, the sailing vessel meets a head-sea, when lying-to under easy canvas, as though she knew just what to do with it. She is at one, so to speak, with the whole matter. Her long tapering spars act pendulum-like, checking all sudden or jerky rolling; and as long as a stitch of canvas can be set she meets the waves in a give-and-take way reminding one of the "soft answer that turneth away wrath." Again, modern describers of sea-storms seem to forget, that on board well found ships, things are not merely fitted for use in fair weather, but to bear the strain of bad weathers; and that loss of canvas and spars at sea was, and is looked upon as a matter of negligence; so much so that in the navy most of these losses had to be made good by the officer in command. And one seldom heard in old sea stories of cordage left to rattle and shriek, or sails to bang about and explode like cannon in the hands of real seamen. In fact, after once the canvas was reduced to its lowest, a head gale in a sailing vessel was less noisy than the same wind on shore among trees or houses; while down below the noise of the weather was not to be compared with the rattle and rumble of a gale inside a house. In the case of a sudden squall striking a ship after a spell of fine weather, or just after leaving port, no doubt a few loose things might fetch away, and give young sailors or passengers the notion that every thing was going topsy-turvy; but after a short spell of really hard weather, things soon get into place at sea, and, so far as officers and crew are concerned, the routine of sea life goes on as monotonously as in more moderate weather. Even in that nobly simple story of disaster at sea, told of St. Paul, the approach of the catastrophe is unattended by noise; there is none of the confusion and shrieking of cordage that mark the stagey shipwreck of modern fiction. Nor did those old shipmen yield the loss of their ship without a good fight; but after sounding twice they cast four anchors out of the stern and quietly watched for the day. After which, the ship's head being already shoreward, the rudderbands were loosed, and a final effort was made to save their vessel by running for a creek; until falling into a place where two seas met, the ship struck, and some on planks, and some on broken pieces of the wreck, all got safe to shore. [Illustration: _The Old Seaclock_] Chiswick Press PRINTED BY CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON, E.C. Transcriber's Notes: Punctuation normalized. Anachronistic, non-standard, and inconsistent spellings retained as printed. Italics markup is enclosed in _underscores_. 
47290	----	+-------------------------------------------------+ |Transcriber's note: | | | |Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. | | | +-------------------------------------------------+ BEADLE'S HALF DIME Library Entered as Second Class Matter at the New York, N. Y., Post Office. Copyrighted 1897, by BEADLE AND ADAMS. February 9, 1897. No. 1020. $2.50 a Year. PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY BEADLE AND ADAMS. Price, 5 cents. Vol. XL. No. 92 WILLIAM STREET, NEW YORK. BARNEY BLAKE, THE BOY PRIVATEER; Or, The Cruise of the Queer Fish. BY HERRICK JOHNSTONE [Illustration: WITH A LUSTY CHEER THEY BID GOOD-BY TO THE SHIP.] Barney Blake, the Boy Privateer; OR, THE CRUISE of the QUEER FISH. BY HERRICK JOHNSTONE. CHAPTER I. THE SHIP AND HER CREW. It was upon a bright morning of the month of May, 1813, as I, a sailor just paid off from my last ship, was wandering along the wharves of Boston, that I was hailed by an old messmate, named Tony Trybrace. "Ship ahoy!" cried Tony. "The Barney Blake," I responded. "Out of employment, with compass gone, and nothing to steer by." "What!" cried Tony, giving me his flipper. "Do you want a ship? A strange wish to go unsatisfied in these times." "Yes," I hesitatingly rejoined, "but, you see, I've never been in the navy--always sailed in a merchantman--and--" "Nonsense!" cried Tony. "That kind of blarney won't do for these times. I shipped the other day on as cracky a craft as ever kicked the spray behind her. Come and join us." "What! on a man-o'-war?" "Better than that. On a bold privateer! Look out there to windward," said Tony, directing my attention with his pointing hand, "and tell me what you think of her. That's her, the brigantine, with her r'yals half furled." The vessel indicated to me by my friend did not go back on his off-hand description of her. "She's a splendid ship!" I exclaimed. "What name does she go by?" "The Queer Fish," was the reply. "She has six guns--eighteen-pounders--three on each side--with the prettiest thirty-pound brass swivel at her starn, this side of Davy Jones. She starts to-morrow for a year's cruise. Will you go?" "Yes." "Spoken like a Yankee tar. Come." A boat of the privateer was in waiting, and in a few moments we were in it. Scarcely had we pulled half way before a funny looking old fellow, squint-eyed, red-whiskered, and enormously wide-mouthed, whom they called Old Nick--a Norwegian by birth, was detected by the second mate attempting to take a pull at a green bottle, which he slyly whisked from the inside breast pocket of his pea-jacket. He was rowing at the time, and it required much sleight of hand to disengage one of his hands for the purpose in view. Nevertheless, he succeeded, took a long pull at the bottle, thinking no one saw him, corked it up again, and was about to return it to his pocket, when, at a wink from the second mate, Tony Trybrace, accidentally on purpose, skipped the plunge of his oar and brought it up against the old fellow with such a jostle that overboard flew the bottle, where it bobbed about. Every one who saw the trick burst into fits of laughter. For a moment Old Nick seemed undetermined what course to pursue. Then nature vindicated her sway. He dropped his oar, rose in his seat, and plunged overboard after the green bottle and its precious contents! He made straight for the bottle, recovered it, took a long pull at it while he trod water, returned it to his bosom, and made a back track to the yawl. "You'll git up early in de morgen to rob ein Deitcher of his schnapps," he growled, as he clambered over the gunwale. So, with many a laugh and jeer at the old fellow's expense, we pulled the balance of the way without further incident, and were soon upon the deck of the Queer Fish Privateer. I was pleased with her more than ever upon a closer acquaintance. Everything was trim and tidy. Her decks were almost spotless, and nothing could exceed the beauty of her long bright swivel. She was polished up like a looking-glass, and I longed to hear her speak, with an iron pill in her throat. Tony Trybrace had told nothing but the truth, when he had said that the people of the privateer were the jolliest afloat. They were a comical set from Captain Joker down to Peter Pun, the cabin-boy. Tony was the boatswain, and, as soon as we were aboard, he escorted me down to the cabin, to see the captain and sign the ship's papers. I shall never forget the impression created upon me by my first introduction to the captain. I thought him the funniest-looking little man I had ever seen. He was a dried-up, weazen-faced, bald-headed little fellow, of fifty or thereabouts, with a red, gin-loving nose, twinkling gray eyes, so small that they were usually almost out of sight, and the expression of his mouth was so intensely humorous, that his lips always seemed to be fighting back a burst of laughter. To add to this, he was every inch a seaman, with the freshness of the ocean breathing from every pore of his wiry frame, and every seam of his weather-beaten face giving evidence of stormy service in sun and clime. By a great effort, Captain Joker put on a severe expression of countenance as I entered, eyed me with those quick professional eyes of his, and emptied, at a draught, the tumbler of old Santa Cruz which stood at his side on the cabin-table. Upon Tony's saying that I wished to ship on the Queer Fish, the captain, by a still greater effort, put on a still severer expression, and began to catechize me, while a wink from Tony told me which way the land lay. "Where do you hail from?" demanded the captain pompously. "From Salem, sir." CAPTAIN. (_With a sly twinkle in his eyes, in spite of himself._) What are the chief staples of Salem? I. Shoemakers, old maids and sharks' teeth. CAPTAIN. What is your name? I. Barney Blake, sir. CAPTAIN. Who was your mother? I. Never had any. CAPTAIN. (_With his eyes twinkling more than ever._) Who are you the son of? I. I'm the son of a sea-cook, was weaned on salt water, reared on sea-biscuit, and am thirsty for prize-money. "You'll do!" cried the captain, shaking with merriment like a bowl of bonnyclabber, and striking the table with his fat fist. "Boatswain, enter him on the books as Barney Blake, son of a sea-cook; give him a cutlass and two pistols, and make him stand around. Avast, you vagabonds, and look sharp, or I'll be down on you with a cat and spread-eagle!" The laughter of the captain, as we left him, was anything but in accordance with this monstrous threat. "Good for you!" whispered Tony, encouragingly, as we ascended the companion-ladder. He then brought me forward and introduced me to the entire forecastle. His words, upon this occasion, were somewhat characteristic, and here they are: "Look yer', messmates, this 'ere cove is a perticklar chum o' mine. I've know'd him fer ten year--ran away from school with him, fell in love with the same gal, and cruised with him on the Constitution for three year. All I got ter say is, treat him well, or some o' yer'll git a eye so black yer own mother won't know yer, unless she's a black woman with a sore head: for he's as lively on his pins as a four-year-old cater-mountain, plucky as a Mexican gamecock, and the sweep of his fist is like the flounder of a ground-shark's fluke. Messmates, this 'ere is Barney Blake, Son of a Sea-Cook." Although I could not consistently indorse this opinion of my abilities, the gusto with which it was received by my future messmates rendered it poor policy to deny it, so I went forward, and a general handshake was the result. How shall I describe the crew of the Queer Fish? They numbered one hundred and twenty-five men, all told, and were as motley a set as were ever grouped together under hatches. The majority were American-born, but there were four Hollanders, two Englishmen, six Frenchmen, two Malays, one Norwegian (Old Nick) and half a score of Irishmen. Each one was a character, but to describe each separately, and do him justice, would alone require a thousand pages; so I must be content with sketching the few who most prominently figured in the scenes I am about to narrate. I have already mentioned Tony Trybrace and Old Nick, as well as the second mate, whose name was Pat Pickle, at least, so-called--a capital fellow as ever spoke through a trumpet, and brave as steel. Next in importance to these worthies was, perhaps, Dicky Drake, the butt of the whole crew. He was a green chap from somewhere down in Pennsylvania--had never been to sea before, except as a cod-fisher--and was the subject of a great number of practical jokes some of which will be duly recorded. Probably the next worthy to be considered was our cook, a gigantic negro from the Virginia swamps, who went by the name of Snollygoster. I verily believe he was seven feet high, if an inch, and was possessed of the most prodigious strength. I never saw the celebrated Milo of old. He must have been considerable in his way; but all I have got to say is that I would pit Snollygoster against him any day in the week and have no fear of my money. I have seen him raise a barrel of Santa Cruz and drink from the bunghole as easy as a common mortal would lift a box of cheese, and he was said to have felled an ox by a single blow of his fist. He was as good-humored a fellow as ever lived, and stood any amount of practical joking. The queerest inconsistency in his character was his peaceable disposition. Although no one could accuse him of downright cowardice, he was as timid as a hare and would go a long way out of his way to avoid a fight. But, if this was shown in his intercourse with men, it did not appear, it seems, in any other description of danger. He was the merriest man on board the ship in a tempest, and one of the Malays who had shipped with him in the Indian Ocean, swore that he had no more fear of sharks than of so many flying fish. There was another queer fellow by the name of Roderick Prinn, who hailed from Southampton. There was nothing very funny about him, either. He had a sad, puritanical aspect, never drank, smoked or even chewed, and had very little to say. The most singular thing was his extraordinary attachment to another of the crew. This was a boy, and a very pretty little fellow to boot, named Willie Warner. They had both shipped at Philadelphia, and there was a thread of mystery between them, which was quite incomprehensible. They would associate together almost entirely, and would frequently converse together in the low tones of a language which no one else could understand. Nevertheless, they did their work well, and, although they were considerably reserved with the rest of the crew, they were generally so kindly and agreeable in what they _had_ to say, that no one could find fault. Then there was an old salt, just such another as Old Nick, who was full of an innumerable quantity of stories. I don't know what his real name was, but we called him Bluefish, and he liked the name. The amount of _yarn_ that was wound round somewhere inside that old fellow's jaw was somewhat marvelous. He was a regular old spool, and had only to open his mouth to let out the longest and wildest lies on record, this or the other side of the Equator. Many a night, I can tell you, did we sit, gaping, round that old man of the sea, when the gale was blowing through the rigging a boreal tune, and all was snug below, to listen to his wild, weird, and, sometimes, humorous tales. Perhaps the reader will have one or two of them before we get through--who knows? Well, I must let up on these descriptions, or our story will go a-begging. I must say a few words about our first mate, and then I shall be all ready for the story, with royals spread, rigging taut, and everything trim to scud before the wind. There wasn't anything funny about our first mate. He was, on the whole, an ugly, ill-natured dog, and thoroughly hated by every one on the ship, except the captain, who generally stuck to him through thick and thin. He was a Scotchman--one of your low-browed, lantern-jawed, gaunt-boned, mean-livered Scotchmen--a regular Sawney all over, from the top of his red head to the sole of his bunioned feet. He had a voice like a cracked bugle and a heart as hard as the hardest flint on Ben Inverness, with never anything pleasant to say or do. We detested him, and only waited our chance to play a joke upon him. That will suffice for the men. As for the ship, she was as stanch and pretty a craft as ever plowed the blue waters, was built at Portland, masted at Bangor, and rigged at Boston, with an armament the best that money could procure. She was also a very swift sailer, and we calculated to play hob with John Bull's East Indiamen and whalers before we got through with the cruise. CHAPTER II. OUTWARD BOUND. "Then come, My friends, and, sitting well in order, strike The sounding furrows, for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars until I die." --TENNYSON. A brighter morning never flung its golden beams upon the dancing dominion of old Neptune than that bright May morning when the windlass of the Queer Fish creaked with the rising anchor, and the mainsails, topsails and top-gallants fluttered slowly out from her graceful spars. All Boston knew we were going, and a large number of people were out upon the piers to see us start. So we ran up the Stars and Stripes to our peak, and gave a rousing salute with our guns, as we moved majestically down the harbor. We were soon out of it, and "the world was all before us," our path to choose. Taking the line of the southeast, we got all of the gale into our bellying sails, and bowled along gleefully, with a good lookout at the mast-head, to spy a prize, or sing out, if a cruiser hove in sight. How could the Queer Fish even _start_ to sea without something funny happening? There was one incident which I must not omit mentioning. We had been overwhelmed with peddlers, bumboat women and fruit-sellers, for some time before our departure. Although they had all been warned to leave the ship in time, one of them, a Polish Jew, allowed his avarice to get the better of him, and remained parleying and auctioneering his trinkets till the anchor was up and we were fairly under way. He then coolly went to the captain, and requested to have a boat to be put ashore, when he was greeted by a sound rating, and an assurance that he couldn't leave the ship short of the Bay of Bengal. The astonishment of the unfortunate Hebrew can better be imagined than described. At first, he was simply crushed, and, like Shylock, kept a quiet despair. Then, as the land grew beautifully less behind us, terror and rage began to take possession of his soul. "Mine Gott! mine Gott!" he exclaimed, tearing up and down the deck, and wringing his hands. "V'at vill de vife of mine poosom zay v'en I comes not vonce more to mine house? Oh, Repecca, Repecca, mine peloved vife, varevell, varevell!" We all enjoyed his misery to our hearts' content, for he was an arrant skinflint, who had swindled three or four of the crew out of their very boots. The captain also enjoyed the sight until we brought up alongside a pilot-boat, on board of which we put the pork-despiser in a summary way, and left him to find his way back to Boston as best he might. A number of British cruisers were hovering along the coast, and we expected to have some trouble before getting fairly to sea. Nor were we disappointed. We were hardly four hours out before a sail was descried on our starboard quarter and another on our larboard bow. We hoisted the British jack and drove right between them, hoping to escape molestation, as we had little doubt that the sails in view belonged to British men-o'-war. We were correct in this. And, although we escaped the bigger customer to the northward, the other stranger came so close that we were right under her guns. She was a heavily-armed brig, and could have sunk us at a single broadside, but contented herself with questioning us. "What ship is that?" was bellowed from her quarter deck. "The brigantine Spitfire," sung our little captain through his trumpet. "What luck have you had?" "Have destroyed sixteen smacks off Gloucester and are now in the wake of an Indiaman that got out last night." "All right." And the unsuspicious brig drove by us with all sails set. "We pulled the wool over _her_ eyes, at any rate," mused our little captain, with twinkling eyes, as we continued on our course. We next fell in with an American vessel, homeward bound, and gave her directions how to escape the blockaders. "Sail ho!" sung out the lookout, an hour later. We were immediately in a stew of excitement, thinking that this, at least, must be a prize. But this also proved to be an American, and we were compelled to chew the cud of disappointment. "Why in blazes ain't you a Britisher?" muttered Tony Trybrace, yawning indignantly, as the true character of the stranger was discovered. We kept our course, without incident, until the sun went down behind us, and the stars, one by one, began to stud the darkening vault. Behind us flowed our wake of fire; Tony Trybrace played several tunes on his scrapy violin; and then, as it bade fair to be a peaceful night, we gathered round old Bluefish for a promised yarn. CHAPTER III. THE YARN OF THE YELLOW MAST--CUTTING HAMMOCKS. "Yer see," said old Bluefish, lighting his pipe, "it all happened on board the Big Thunder. She was a splendid East Indiaman, and I was captain onto her." "Captain? YOU captain?" exclaimed Snollygoster. "Come now, Massa Bluefish, dat won't do, you know. Dat am de--" "Hold yer tongue, yer red-mouthed savage, and let me spin my yarn without a break in the thread! Yer see," continued Bluefish, "it all happened on board the Big Thunder. I went to bed feelin' fu'st-rate. It was kinder calm, with a prospect of being more so 'an ever. When I wakes up in the mornin' I was somewhat taken aback at seein' that a new post had sprung up in the cabin durin' the night. It ran straight up through the center of the cabin and was as yaller as a chaw of cavendish, when it's pretty well chawed. "Well, while I lay there, wondering at the cussed affair, the first lieutenant, he comes roarin' down the companionway, thumpin' at my door like mad: "'Come in!' I sings out. "He dropped in, accordin' to orders, lookin' like the very Old Scratch, and inspectin' the new post of the cabin with curious eyes. "'What's up?' says I. "'Captain, does yer see this 'ere yaller post?" says he solemnly. "'I does,' I replies. "'Captain,' says he, 'this 'ere yaller post takes its root somewhere at the keel and grows up higher than the peak of the mainmast. An' what's more,' says he, 'it all growed up in one night.' "'Ye'r' talkin' like a ravin', incomprehensible, idiotic fool,' says I. "'It may seem so,' says the lieutenant, 'but come an' see for yourself.' "This wasn't no more'n fair. So I gits into my duds, and goes on deck. Thar, sure as yer live, this 'ere yaller post run straight up between the mizzenmast and the tiller, reachin' about forty feet higher than the tallest mast on board. All the crew were standin' round, gaping, and nudging each other, and lookin' kinder skeered, when I begins to take observations from a philosophic point of view." "From a _what_?" interrupted Tony Trybrace. "Takin' observations, from a phil--phil--philly--_what_?" "Avast, you lubber, and let me spin my yarn! If yer ain't got no edication, is it _my_ fault? If you was brought up outside o' college, am I to blame? Avast, I tell yer. "Well, as I was a-sayin'. I begins to look at the thing kinder sharp. So I takes a cutlass down from the mast, and begins to cut little chips off the yaller mast. What do yer think came out o' that 'ere yaller mast?" "Pitch," suggested one. "Turpentine," said another. "Old Jamaica," suggested Old Nick. "Not a bit of it," resumed the narrator. "Nothin' longer, nor shorter, nor hotter, nor reddern'n BLOOD. That 'ere's what came out o' that 'ere yaller mast. Blood, and nothin' else! "Well, all of 'em were sort o' dumb-foundered when they see'd the blood flowin', and some on 'em was more skeery 'n ever. But I turns to 'em, an' says I: "'Does yer notice how slow the ship is goin'?' "And they says: "'Yes, we does. She isn't makin' much o' any headway, though the breeze are a fair capful.' "'Well,' says I, 'and doesn't yer know the reason why?' "'Not a bit on it,' says they. "'_It's because ye'r' towin' a sword-fish under yer keelson_,' says I. 'He's pierced the craft in the night, an' this 'ere yaller mast ain't nothin' short of his cussed nose.' "Well, they were all taken aback at this, yer see, an' now began to crowd up an' examine the thing. It was perfectly round, about two feet through, an' the eend of it was as taperin' an' sharp as a needle. Sure as yer live, it was all true. Well, it was a question what to do with the thing. Most on 'em was in favor of goin' down inter the hold, and cuttin' off the snout, in order to let the thing float; for, as it was, if we should come anywhar whar the water was less'n fifteen fathoms, we should be stranded by the cussed critter afoul of us. "'Not at all,' says I. 'We don't git a good tough mast for nothin' every day in the week, and I'm in favor of cuttin' clear of the fish on the outside.' "They were all kinder astonished at this 'ere, but I didn't give 'em breathin'-time, but says again: "'Now which one on yer'll volunteer to dive under the keel with a handsaw and cut loose from the varmint on the outside?' "Would yer believe it, not one on 'em wanted to go. So I says: "'If ye'r' all so pesky skeered, why, _I'll_ go myself. Carpenter, bring me yer handsaw, an' jist sharpen her up while I'm disrobin' my graceful form.' "So the carpenter brings his handsaw, with a piece of bacon-fat to grease her with, and, when I gits ondressed, overboard I goes with the saw between my teeth. I dove right under the keel in a jiffy, and thar, sure enough, lays the sword-fish, with his nose hard up ag'in' the timbers, and his body danglin' down through the brine about seventy-five feet. "'What are you goin' ter do?' says he. "Says _who_?" broke in Tony. "Yas, Massa Bluefish, who was it says dat?" demanded Snollygoster, with an incredulous look on his ebony face. "Why, the sword-fish, yer ignorant lubbers! Doesn't yer know that they talk like lawyers when they git inter a scrape? I knowed a feller what heerd one of 'em sing the Star Spangled Banner fit to kill. "Well, as I was a-sayin', says he ter me, 'What air you goin' ter do?' "'Ter saw yer loose from the ship,' I corresponded. "'All right,' says he," only I'm afeard it'll hurt some.' "'I shouldn't wonder if it do,' says I; and with that I grabs his nozzle an' begins to saw like sixty. "The way that poor devil hollered and snorted and flopped was a caution to seafarin' men. The men above water swore it sounded like ninety-three earthquakes piled on to a bu'stin' big volcano, an' I reckon it did. But I kept on sawin' and sawin', till at last the varmint dropped off, while the sea for 'bout ten miles round the ship became perfectly crimson with his blood. He made a big bite at me, but I ducked about like a porpoise, and succeeded in reachin' the deck without a scratch. "The varmint was bent on vengeance, and made his appearance with his mouth wide open--big enough to have swallered a seventy-four, without so much as a toothache. But we fired a broadside of shrapnel and red-hot shot down his throat, an' he went off, waggin' his tail as if he didn't like it. "Well, yer see, the blood all ran out of the yaller mast, and left it hard and dry. So I jist had a set of spars and sails rigged on to the thing, an' we arrove into Southampton with four masts." Bluefish knocked the ashes out of his pipe, from which we judged that his yarn was brought to a close. "Am dat all true, Massa Bluefish?" asked the innocent giant of a snollygoster. "Every word on it," was the solemn rejoinder. "It was a thing as occurred in my actual experience." Singular to relate, some of us had our doubts on this subject. It was now bedtime for those who were not on duty, and we prepared to turn in. I was up to seamen's tricks, and examined the stays of my hammock carefully before getting into it. I found them firm, and was about to turn in for a long snooze, when a crash in another corner of the forecastle told me that _some_ one had had the trick played on him, at least. The dim light of the lantern revealed the state of the case. Dicky Drake's hammock-strings had been all but severed, and he, upon turning in, had come down on the floor with a hard head-bump. "Who did that? Where is he? Show him to me!" exclaimed the verdant youth, in a rage, plucking out his jack-knife and running through the laughing crew like a wild man. "It was a mighty mean thing!" Tony Trybrace opined, roaring with laughter. "Dat's so. I wonder who did it?" Snollygoster asked. Every one else had some suggestion to make, but the doer of the deed was not found; and Dicky Drake swallowed his fury, reslung his hammock and turned in. We were all tired and sleepy. I, at least, was soon in the arms of Morpheus, dreaming of the land I had left, and of the bright eyes that would look so long in vain for my return. CHAPTER IV. A PRIZE AND A JOHN BULL. BUTLER. Footman, why art so happy? Art going to be married? FOOTMAN. No, meester. B. Then thou art married already, and art going to be divorced? F. No, meester. B. What then? F. I've drawn a _prize_. --OLD PLAY. I was awakened about daylight by a tramping on deck, and presently Tony Trybrace's shrill boatswain's whistle pealed out, followed almost immediately by his merry voice with: "Tumble up! tumble up, you lubbers, if you care for prize-money!" Every one heard what he said, and every one was on deck in a twinkling. The morning was just dawning, and, far off, set against the just brightening sky, a sail was visible. I was rather provoked at having been summoned up from my nap, because the vessel was a good five miles off, and, if it was to be a stern chase, a long time would elapse before we could bring her to. Nevertheless, as I was on deck, and as my watch would be on hand in an hour, I thought I might as well stay up and see the thing out. The men were all stationed, as if for battle, as was the custom of the captain on the slightest provocation. This was certainly the safest and wisest plan, but sailors seldom lose a chance for grumbling. Our little captain himself, however, if he brought the men up to the mark, never failed to toe it himself. There he was now, pacing the poop in his merriest mood. He was always familiar with us, and now he had a smart word for everybody. "Take a peep through my telescope and tell me what you think of her, Barney." This was addressed to me, and as there was quite a compliment in the request, I was not slow to comply. I sighted the strange craft well and examined every inch of her as well as the imperfect light would permit. "Well, well, well," said the captain, impatiently. "What do you make of her?" "She's a British brig," I replied. "She was built in London. Her name is the Boomerang. Her captain's name is George Willis, and she's very probably loaded with rum and sugar from Jamaica." The captain was astounded. "Are you crazy?" he ejaculated. "I sincerely hope not, captain," was my smiling reply. "How do you know what you say to be true?" "Because I made a six months' cruise in that brig, captain, and I know every spar and ratlin of her from the mizzen-peak to the for'ard spankers." "Well, if that is so, you certainly are the Son of a Sea-Cook all over and a sailor worth promoting," said Captain Joker, laughing as he spoke. "Clap on more sail!" he bawled. "Let out the r'yals to the full! Loosen the jib-sheets! I'll catch the stranger if I have to scrape the sky in doing it." We sprung into the shrouds, and his orders were promptly executed. The gale, which had been stiff before, also blew stronger, and we bounded from crest to crest like a sea-bird under the influence of the fresh canvas. But when the sun arose we were still three miles from the stranger, who evidently had a suspicion of our character and was cracking on all sail for escape. But we now let out our skysails and came down on her rapidly. Our masts fairly groaned under the added impulse. We actually seemed lifted from billow to billow, rather than to plow through them. At eight bells we were a mile and a half from the flying ship and fired a shot from our swivel to bring her to. We saw the shot dance off and kick up the spray right under her bows, but she ran up the Union Jack of England and kept on her way. Another shot from our bow-gun had no better effect. We, however, kept on our way, until within a mile, when we let fly again with the swivel, this time striking the vessel in the stern, and sending up a shower of splinters. We thought this would bring her to. But, she was plucky, and seemed determined to show fight. Scarcely had the boom of our Long Tom died away before a column of smoke shot out from the stern of the merchantman, and, before we could fairly make up our minds as to what was going to happen, the end of our bowsprit was knocked off like a pipe-stem, as well as a big splinter gouged out of our mainmast by a thirty-two pound shot. "She's determined not to be taken alive," said Tony Trybrace. "We'll see about that!" exclaimed our little captain; "just let _me_ have a shy at her with that bow gun!" With that he jumped down from his station on the poop, sighted the bow-gun carefully, and, just as we rose majestically on the summit of a huge wave, let her off. The ball danced over the crests with a charming ricochet, and we saw it strike the stranger fair and broad in the mizzenmast, which instantly went by the board, trailing a tangled maze of rigging and canvas into the sea. "I thought she'd think better of it, after a little while," exclaimed the captain, triumphantly, as we saw the ensign of the stranger lowered in token of surrender, and, at the same time, she hove to. We came on with a rush, and hauled to close under her bows. "What ship is that?" bawled Captain Joker through his trumpet. "The brig, Boomerang, of London," was the reply. "What are you loaded with?" "Rum and sugar." "Just stand where you are, and consider yourself a prize. You were right, you Son-of-a-Sea-Cook," added the captain, turning to me. "I'll promote you as soon as I get a chance." A boat was immediately lowered, placed in command of Pat Pickle, the second mate, and in her a dozen sailors, I among them, pulled for the prize. We boarded her, and she came up to our largest expectations. I here had the satisfaction of renewing my acquaintance with my old skipper, Captain Willis, as well as with some of the crew. They all expressed their regret at seeing me in the character of a privateersman, at which I was not at all put out, but recommended them to merciful treatment, and succeeded in enlisting three of the crew, who were Canadians, for a cruise on the Queer Fish. There was an Englishman on board the Boomerang, who was a passenger, but as he admitted that he was a consul to the South-American port of Rio de Janeiro, we made a prisoner of him in short order. This worthy will bear a brief description. He was one of the most genuine examples of the John Bull cockney genus it had ever been my fortune to fall in with. Rather short--about five feet and a half, I should judge--he weighed fully two hundred pounds, was dressed in the genuine London plaid trowsers, gaiter shoes and bell-crown hat of the time. His features were red and coarse, and his hair as red as fire. His name was Mr. Adolphus de Courcy. His indignation at learning that he was a prisoner was extreme, but, as the second mate didn't look as if he could bear much bullying, the dignitary reserved his spleen for the captain's ears. Well, after we had supplied the Queer Fish with all the rum she would be likely to consume in the next six months, we put a prize crew on board the Boomerang, and started her for home, leaving her captain and crew on board. We brought off Mr. Adolphus de Courcy, determining to keep him until we should fall in with some American cruiser to whose safe-keeping we could transfer him. It took several hours to complete all these arrangements, but they were completed at last, and we rowed back to the Queer Fish, leaving the prize crew behind us, and, shortly afterward, the two vessels parted company. As soon as we were on our own deck once more, Mr. Adolphus de Courcy strode up to our little captain with a majestic air. "'Ave I the honor to haddress the captain of this piratical craft?" he asked in a most grandiloquent way. "My name is Captain Joker, and this ship, which I have the honor and good fortune to command, is the Queer Fish, a regular letter-of-marque, commissioned by the United States Government." "Wery vell, all I 'ave to say is, as 'ow I consider this transaction a wery houtrageous haffair; and I demand hinstant release from your villainous ship." By this time the Boomerang was a mile or two away, and I saw a merry gleam in the little eyes of Captain Joker, which was premonitory of some fun. "How can I release you now, sir?" said he, with an air of some concern. "No matter 'ow, sir, I demand hinstant release from this willainous wessel," exclaimed the cockney, thinking that he had succeeded in browbeating the captain, and that he should now have it all his own way. "I understand you to mean what you say?" asked the captain. "Hexactly!" was the lofty reply. "I demand a hinstantaneous deliverance from this wile captivity! I demand it as a peaceable citizen of hold Hingland, whose broad hægis is powerful alike hon the land hand hon the briny deep." "All right, sir, you shall have your wish: only be careful that you do not change your mind, as it will be of no use. Trybrace!" added Captain Joker, singing out to the boatswain: "have that ar little gig provisioned for two days, put in this little man's luggage, then put _him_ in, and cut him loose. He wants to leave the Queer Fish." "Ay, ay, sir," sung out Tony, cheery as a cricket; and he immediately set about giving the necessary directions. "I wish you a good-morning, sir," and, with this Captain Joker bowed courteously to the cockney, and retired to the precincts. Mr. Adolphus de Courcy appeared at first unable to comprehend what was to be done with him; but, when the truth dawned that he really was to be turned adrift, he seemed perfectly stunned. "Vill you 'ave the kindness to hexplain this 'ere little harrangement?" he said, going up to Tony, who was busily superintending the outfit of the little boat. "Ain't got no time, sir. The captain's orders were positive, and he ain't in the habit of repeating them. Clew up that gearing at the bows, you lubbers. And caulk up that 'ere seam in the labbard side. Do you suppose the gentleman wants ter go to Davy Jones's Locker afore he gits well started on his way? Put in the water and the sea-biscuit. Now for the gentleman's luggage. All right! Lower her!" The arrangements were all completed, and the little craft was lowered from the davits over the stern. She was so small, and her cargo was so great, that she settled down almost to the gunwales, and it was questionable how long she would float after the bulky form of the cockney should have occupied the small amount of room left vacant for him at the stern. We all preserved a solemn silence. The wretched Englander kept flattering himself that it was a good joke until the final preparations left no room for a doubt. "All ready, sir," said Tony, touching his hat respectfully. "Will yer Honor be pleased to step inter yer Honor's craft?" "Ha! ha! a wery good joke hindeed!" exclaimed the cockney, with a forced laugh. "A wery good joke! 'Ave you got out a patent for it? I should like to 'ave it, to hintroduce into hold Hingland." "It's no joke at all, yer Honor," said Tony, as sober as a judge. "Will yer Honor condescend to make haste? We cain't stand in the middle of the ocean in this way, while there's so much prize-money lyin' about loose." "My wery good friend," said De Courcy, taking the boatswain affectionately by the hand, "'ave you the serious intention of perwiding a fellow 'uman being with such han houtfit, and consigning him to the mercy of the wast and 'eaving hocean?" "Them's the orders, sir." "I then demand to see the captain of this willainous craft hinstantaneously." "All right, sir. Dicky Drake, jist tell the skipper as how the gentleman wants to bid him good-by." The message was sent, and Captain Joker made his appearance almost immediately. His face was beaming with cordial farewells as he advanced with outstretched hand toward the dumfounded De Courcy. "Good-by! good-by, my dear fellow, and a prosperous voyage!" he exclaimed, shaking him warmly by the hand. "Captain, I vant to know as 'ow--" "No thanks! no thanks! my dear sir: I make you a present of the boat. There, there, good-by!" and the captain, in the zeal of his farewell, almost thrust the poor fellow over the bulwarks. "But," persisted the latter, "I vant to know as 'ow--" "I tell you I will not hear any thanks at all! There, there, farewell!" The crew now crowded forward, with similar well-wishes, and the unfortunate cockney was fairly hustled over the ship's side into the frail gig, which was almost swamped by his weight. "There are the oars, sir," sung out the captain. "I hope you will find them easy to your hands. Farewell! _Bon voyage!_ Cut her loose, lads!" The order was executed at once, and the boat, with its occupant, drifted off. At the same moment we let out our main sheet and continued on our course. We looked back over the stern, and saw the little boat going up and down, in and out of the troughs of the great swells, with its occupant sitting in the stern, looking the very picture of despair. You needn't suppose that Captain Joker was cruel enough to leave the cockney in this predicament. He merely wanted to learn him a lesson in good manners. And, just as the gig and its occupant were almost cut of sight, we rounded to and bore down for her, tacking against the strong breeze. To show you the captain's kindness of heart, just as we were preparing to round to, a sail was signaled on our starboard bow. Ten chances to one it was another prize, and the temptations to keep on our course were exceedingly strong in us all, especially in the skipper, who was as fond of prize-money as any man I ever saw. Nevertheless, he ordered us to round to and bear up for the gig. The mean old dog of a first mate undertook to argue him into leaving the Englishman to his fate, when he was met with a stern rebuke. "Mr. Saunders," (that was the name of the first mate) said he, "if you have nothing but such heartless cruelty to urge, I will beg you to defer your suggestions to a more fitting occasion. I am compelled to say, sir, that your heartlessness-not to say avarice--is astonishing, sir, astonishing!" But the merry captain could not remain long in a bad humor, even with such a flinty-minded old Sawney as Saunders. When we had got pretty close to the gig, the forlorn, disconsolate aspect of Adolphus de Courcy was too much for a mirth loving nature to endure with solemnity, and Joker burst into laughter, as did the entire ship's company, who were all congregated forward, looking over the bows. At a look from the captain, Tony Trybrace sung out: "Would your Honor like to come aboard?" A motion of the Britisher's head signified his assent to the proposition, and, with great difficulty, owing to the roughness of the running sea, we grappled the boat, and hoisted the entire compoodle, bag and baggage, to the deck of the Queer Fish. The cockney had long ago resigned himself to despair, and when he found himself safe and dry at last, the revulsion was too great, and he burst into tears. Captain Joker went up and took him by the hand, kindly. "My dear fellow," said he, "I had no intention of cutting you adrift more than temporarily. It seemed to me that the tone which you assumed to me, on board my ship, was so very extraordinary for a prisoner to address his captor with, that a little lesson of this kind would not be bestowed in vain. Trust me, my dear sir, if I have caused you any pain, you compelled me to do so, and I'm sorry for it. As long as you remain upon my ship, pray consider my cabin your own. I would treat you as a guest rather than as a prisoner. Pray dine with me to-day. And dinner is almost on the table." This magnanimity almost crushed the poor prisoner. He dried his tears, and said in a much manlier voice than heretofore, as he grasped the hand of his generous foe: "Captain, you 'ave the goodness to treat me like ha gentleman. This 'ere is returning good for evil vith a wengeance, hand I beg to hacknowledge that I ham halmost crushed by your noble hand belated sentiments." With that, they went down into the cabin together, and, from the way we heard the corks popping, they must have had a jolly time. The lesson was not lost upon the cockney. His tone to everybody was thereafter greatly improved. He remained for some time with us, and, though we were frequently amused at his vanity and his antipathy to the letter H, we found him, in the main, a pretty good fellow. CHAPTER V. ANOTHER PRIZE--FISHING FOR SHARKS. It was on the third morning following the event narrated in our last chapter that we fell in with another--our second prize. She was a noble East Indiaman, a ship that could almost have picked up our saucy little privateer, and carried her at her stern like a yawl, had it not been for the difference of the cannon we carried. But, of course, that made all the difference in the world. She was loaded with silks, spices and preserved fruits, and was immensely valuable. We had a brisk chase after her, but brought her to in an hour by a shot from our irresistible amidships gun. A large number of passengers were on board, which made a disposal of her somewhat uncomfortable. We had to deplete our ship's company again by putting a prize-crew on board. But we, here again, had some consolation in this, inasmuch as we received several recruits from the crew of the prize. We had struck a bee-line southward some days before, and were now approaching the equator--the days not growing much cooler in consequence. One day, when we had got becalmed, the whole ship's company (almost) went in bathing, and a thrilling incident was the result. The captain, always glad to make the men happy, had caused the mainsail to be slung over the side, with either end upheld by the overhanging yards, the belly of the canvas making a long dip in the brine, thus making a delightful shallow for the more timid swimmers to exercise their talents in, while bolder spirits might strike out to any distance they pleased. A great peril was involved in this operation of mid-sea tropical bathing, on account of the sharks, which are always more or less numerous in the wake of a ship. Well, we all had an excellent time in the water, and were not in a hurry to come out. The captain had got tired of laughing at us, and had gone below for a siesta. Old Snollygoster, after having got through with his ablutions, was lazily watching us from the rail of the ship. He was probably as able a swimmer as ever lived. He now amused us with sundry suggestions and cautions with regard to sharks, warning us not to go too far from the ship, and solemnly averring that _his_ assistance need not be counted on, in event we were attacked. Several of us had swum to a considerable distance from the vessel, when suddenly some one sung out: "Sharks! sharks!" I thought it was a joke at first, but upon turning and casting a look seaward, I, sure enough, discovered several of the ominous black fins cutting water toward us. I gave the alarm and struck out for the ship, with the strength of forlorn hope, followed by all the rest. To experience the horrible sensations of such a situation is an event which no after events, however stirring, can ever obliterate. It is horrible! horrible! That is all I can say. Every instant you expect to hear the snap of the ravenous jaws in your rear, and the next to feel them on your limbs. I think I never in my life swam so swiftly as upon that occasion. The ship was not distant--only a few rods, but it seemed a league to our excited imaginations. At length, however, with a wild cry of relief, I felt the canvas of the outstretched sail under me, and, clambering quickly up the side, was safe on the bulwarks. My comrades followed right at my heels, and the next moment I had the satisfaction of seeing them safe at my side. _All_ of them? No, not all. A feeble cry behind apprised us that one was less fortunate than the rest. It was Dicky Drake. He had succeeded in almost reaching the sail, and was now all but surrounded by the infernal, swiftly-moving black fins of the monsters, who were actually pushing him about with their muzzles. They evidently thought that they had a sure thing, and might as well have a little sport with their morsel before devouring it. The poor fellow floated on the waves, paralyzed with horror and fright, unable to move hand or foot for his own salvation. It is very probable that this circumstance helped to save his life. We were all so horrified at the spectacle that we were powerless to render any assistance, even if it were possible. "Avast there, you lubbers!" said a clear, rough voice behind us. Upon looking back we saw that it was the giant negro, Snollygoster, who spoke. Unbeknown to us, he had stripped himself, and now stood naked, with a long clasp-knife, open, and between his teeth. With one bound he was in the shallow of the sail below, and, with another, he grasped poor Dicky Drake by the hair of the head and drew him in, and we let down a rope and had the satisfaction of drawing the poor devil, more dead than alive, to the deck. But the matter did not end here. Right in the midst of the sharks sprung the heroic Snollygoster. He dove out of sight. In an instant the water became suffused with blood. "By Jove! they've nabbed him!" exclaimed old Bluefish, excitedly. But they hadn't done anything of the kind. The next instant the woolly head of the negro made its appearance above the surface. It was shark's blood that was dyeing the water. Again the darky disappeared, and the water grew redder and redder, as another of the monsters floated, belly up, with a terrific gash in his paunch. The negro seemed to be as much at home in the sea as the fish themselves. It was a terrific combat, but one of intense interest. In vain would the monsters roll over on their backs and snap at their inexorable foe, or attempt to cut him in two with a sweep of their tremendous flukes. He was away again as quick as he came, attacking them from under the surface. In this he now had an advantage, as the water was so bloody that the fish could not see the blows by which they were being momentarily stricken to death, by the terrible right arm of heroic negro. At length, five of them were floating, dead or dying, on the surface, and the rest of them, with one exception, beat a retreat and did not venture within several rods. But the grand combat was yet to come. The one shark that lingered was by far the biggest of the group. I think he was, without doubt, the largest of the species I have ever seen, and I have seen plenty to choose from. He was thirty-five feet in length, if an inch, and when he opened his jaws the cavity Within was a terrible affair, with its double rows of tusks. He seemed determined to take upon himself the championship of the whole family and advanced warily upon the negro, who did not flinch for a single instant. At length and as quick as lightning the monster leaped entirely clear of the sea and brought around his tail like the sweep of a scythe. The darky was out of reach just in time. As it was, the ragged edge of the animal's fluke just grazed his temple, drawing the blood. But before the unwieldy monster could recover himself for a renewal of the attack the knife of the negro was buried in his side. The wound was not mortal, but it must have been a painful one, to judge by the way the brute lashed the sea in his fury. It, however, served to render him more wary than before. He now began to swim round and round his foe in the hope of wearying him. But the negro stood bolt upright in the water, treading it with perfect ease, and ever keeping his face to the shark. At length the latter, losing patience, charged, hoping to tear down Snolly with his snout. But quick as a wink, just as the animal was upon him, the negro disappeared, and the great effusion of blood that instantly followed made us aware that he had received his death-blow from beneath. I shall never forget the shout with which we greeted the invincible Snollygoster as his woolly head appeared above the blood-dyed waters, while the conquered monster drifted off from the side of the ship, lashing the sea feebly with his tail, but fast expiring. Snolly slowly came out of the water and up the ship's side. The captain, who had witnessed the last combat, shook him warmly by the hand when he reached the deck, while we all gathered around him with rousing cheers. Little Dicky Drake caught him by the hand and fairly sobbed. I must say that I had a strong impulse to catch the great negro in my arms and hug him for very joy. But Snolly rapidly replaced his clothes, with the simple remark: "Dis nigga nebber see'd de fish he was afeard of." You may think that this is quite sufficient for one fish story, but it isn't. We weren't done with the sharks yet. As the blood faded out of the water the school of sharks again clustered about the ship, and the captain determined to afford the men greater sport by catching one, if possible. "'Ow will you do it?" exclaimed our prisoner. "'Ow will you 'ook one when you 'aven't any _worms_ to bait with?" "Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the captain. "It's true we haven't any fishing worms, nor grasshoppers, for that matter. But you have been complaining of the mosquitoes all day, my dear sir, and why not use them? However, we might as well try 'em first with a little bacon. So Pickle, just order some one to fetch up the carcass of that pig that died last night." The bait was duly brought up on deck, much to the astonishment of the Britisher. In the mean time Tony Trybrace proceeded to rig up the necessary tackle. Upon the end of a rope about an inch and a half in thickness he fastened a large boat-hook. We then slung the rope through a block and made the latter fast to the jibboom. We thus had a first-rate purchase wherewith to fetch up anything short of a few tons' weight. Having made all ready, we hooked on the bait, and with a dozen stout seamen holding on to the other end, to be ready for any emergency, we lowered her slowly down. The stench of the putrid meat had already set the sharks wild for first bite, but as we wanted to take our choice and capture one of fair size, whenever a little fellow would jump at the bait we would quickly haul up and let his jaws gnash together with nothing between them. At last, however, one rousing big fellow, who had evidently scented the battle from afar, came rushing up at railroad speed, pushing his voracious way through his smaller fellows. The bait was suspended fully six feet from the surface of the sea, but with a flying leap he took the whole hog at a swallow, and was hooked, of course. His weight drew the line down into the sea with a tremendous splash, almost jerking one or two of us overboard. But the next instant we were ready for him, and began to haul in with a will and a "yo-heave-ho!" The old fellow didn't like it, but come he must, and, in spite of himself, he began to rise clear of the water. He then endeavored to bite off the rope, but Tony had been too sharp for him there, by twining the line, for three or four feet above the hook, with stout wire, so that the teeth of the monster gritted but harmlessly against the tough rope by which he was held. Slowly but surely we drew him up until we got him taut up against the tackle-block, when another squad of sailors threw out some grapnels to haul him on deck, tail-foremost. The other men stood by, armed with cutlasses, hatchets and boarding-pikes. "Now, be ready to pull him in when I give the word," sung out the captain, who was dancing about, the merriest man on the ship. "And be sure you keep out of reach of his flukes, or your mothers will forget you before they see you." "'Eave 'im hin! 'eave 'im hin!" cried Adolphus de Courcy, who was impatient to try the efficacy of a sword-cane, which he held in his hand. "Now, lads, haul away!" ordered the captain. Slowly we brought him in, lowering him by the head as the other squad dragged in the tail. At last the monster was fairly on deck, when, at a signal from the captain, the men at the tail released the grip of their grapnels, while we simultaneously cut the line at his head. You had better believe we sprung out of reach lively, as soon as we had done this. And with reason; for the shark began to flounder at a most terrific rate, and if any one had happened within the reach of his flukes, he would have been a goner. One laughable incident occurred. The cockney was either not spry enough in getting out of the way, or he was too intent to get in a shy with his sword-cane; at any rate he caught a side wipe from the flat of one of the flukes, which sent him head over heels into the bow-scuppers. "W'y, 'ow did that 'appen?" exclaimed the poor fellow, picking himself up, amid a storm of applause. "You see, I just vanted to get von vipe at the willain vith my walliant blade, when down I goes vithout knowing v'ere I vas hit." It is astonishing how high a shark can leap from the water, but to see one of them bounce up when he has got solid oak beneath him as a purchase, is worth a long voyage. This shark would leap up perpendicularly fully thirty feet in the air, and come down with a crash that would make the vessel tremble to her keel. The blood poured from his mouth from the severe contusions he had received, but he seemed to lose nothing of vitality; until, at length, when we had enjoyed his gymnastics sufficiently, the captain made a sign to commence the assault. The sailor regards the shark as his natural enemy, and never misses a chance to slay or maim him. So, as soon as the signal was received, we all began to dance about our victim, to get in a blow, which was anything but an easy matter, and, at the same time, avoid the sweep of his flukes, or the snap of his awful jaws. "First blood!" yelled the cockney, with enthusiasm, as he succeeded in inflicting a slight scratch from which a few drops of blood oozed out. "Do yer call _that_ blood?" exclaimed old Bluefish contemptuously, as he danced in and fetched the shark a deep gash with his tomahawk, and this time the fountain of life began to flow in earnest. Then the captain got in a blow, with his cutlass, between the eyes, and almost at the same time I ran my sharp pike clear through the black fin on the shark's back. The struggles grew sensibly more feeble as the wounds told upon him, until at length the shark lay almost motionless. You may be sure that all hands, even down to Dicky Drake, were as brave as lions when injuries could be inflicted without danger to themselves. Everybody now rushed, and a general thrusting, slashing and hacking took place until there was nothing left of the shark but a bloody and shapeless mass. Every one then fell off exhausted, except Adolphus de Courcy, who enjoyed the fun so much that he couldn't be prevailed upon to stop. "Just let me 'ave von more vipe at the willain!" he exclaimed, stabbing the lifeless mass again and again, until forced at last to desist by the laughter which his ferocity called forth. Well, the fun was all over, and the next thing to do was to heave the carcass overboard, and to wash the decks, the last of which was performed in a vein somewhat less merry than before. But the captain made quite a holiday of it, gave us plenty of grog, and there was as little grumbling on board the Queer Fish that day as you would be likely to fall in with in a year's voyage. CHAPTER VI. CROSSING THE LINE. The greatest holiday at sea is that of crossing the Equator. It is rare fun to the initiated, but to those who have the process in prospect it is a cause of sleepless nights and considerable mental anguish. The time drew rapidly on for the celebration of this holiday on board the Queer Fish. We were busy making preparations for it, a long time beforehand. Almost every one was in excellent humor. Our cruise had, thus far, been eminently successful. We had captured upward of twelve vessels since our departure from Boston--a period of not more than two months. The prospect was that, if we should bring the cruise to a successful conclusion, we would each and all have something snug laid up at home, with ease and comfort the balance of our lives. So we were in a most excellent frame of mind for the merry-making that drew nigh. Stop! There were a few exceptions. If any of you had been on the Queer Fish for a day or two prior to the passage of the equinox, you would have noticed, I think, a certain fidgetyness in the manner of both Dicky Drake and Mr. Adolphus de Courcy, in strange contrast to the general cheerfulness of every one else. The latter of these individuals, it is true, would pretend to be exceedingly careless and free-and-easy. He would be heard to hum the scraps of a great many little melodies and to whistle scraps of a great many more, but you would notice, upon close observation, that it was all put on, and that he was in reality faint at heart. Poor Dicky Drake hadn't the duplicity necessary for any such make-believe as this. He began to look miserable from the very moment that it became known that the equinox was to be passed, and continued to grow worse from day to day, until the despondency of the poor lad was positively pitiful, and I secretly promised myself to exert my influence to render _his_ share of the initiation as light as possible. There had existed some controversy as to whether Roddy Prinn and his little chum, Willie Warner, were not also "liable." But they had succeeded in proving to the satisfaction of Captain Joker, that they had made the passage from Rio to the Bermudas, and it had eventually been decided that they were exempt. There were several others of the crew, who were prospective victims. But they were genuine sailors, who really took the thing philosophically. One of them, a little Irishman, by the name of Teddy Tight, swore that he longed for the day to arrive, and that he didn't sleep "aisy" for thinking of the fun in store for him. The preparations we had been and were making, were somewhat extensive. Everything was prepared beforehand, and we had several rehearsals. Old Nick was to represent Neptune, and, from the description I have given of him, you may judge that he suited the character to a T. Bluefish was chosen for Amphitrite, the wife of the Ruler of the Waves, and, though he had an unladylike habit of hitching up his skirts whenever he wanted to use his jack-knife, it was thought that he would go off very creditably. I was one of the Tritons, whose principal duty, on the occasion, was to assist at the initiation of neophytes, while Tony Trybrace, Roddy Prinn and Willie Warner were among the Nereids, who sung the mystic songs of the ceremony. I can't vouch for the poetic merit of these musical attempts. One of them was: "We come from the depths of the ocean Where Neptune is the king. And the waves, with their commotion, Keep time with what we sing. "Huzza for the flag of the Union, The Stars and the Stripes of the free Our flag is the flag of the ocean, Huzza for the flag of the free!" I cannot say who was the author of these stanzas, but am compelled to admit that I should keep exceedingly dark on the subject, if _I_ were the author. Another fragment (even worse than that already quoted) ran: "Father Neptune, he is jolly, Drink, lads, drink away! Father Nep. hates melancholy, Joy reigns at the bottom of the _say_. "Drink, lads, drink, for Union, The old flag must have sway, Father Nep. hates communion, Down at the bottom of the say." I reckon the author of these must have been an Irishman; at any rate, no one can question him as a poet. Well, the day at length arrived. According to rules, the novices were kept in strict confinement, till the performance was ready to commence. The little captain stood looking on, impatiently waiting for the opening ceremonies. At eight bells, all was ready. Neptune was in his throne, with a beard as blue as the sea, and with a great crown of shells and sea-weed strung round his brows. He had a conch-shell for a breast-pin, and each of his shoes, or, rather, slippers, were surmounted with a large, brilliant-hued bivalve. Amphitrite sat by his side, with her flowing locks--constructed of oakum--spangled with many varieties of weeds and shells and her long beard (think of a sea queen with a beard!) daintily braided and plaited into grotesque ringlets, while her long, blue paper-muslin robe was intended to have a resemblance to the sea she ruled. The Nereids were grouped around, looking excessively feminine and bewitching (to a sailor), with their long hair, and sea-green garments; while we merry Tritons were rigged in a little more convenient costume, as our work was to be heavy; but, rely on it, we looked hideous enough. As the ship's bells struck eight, three of us, at a signal from the Ruler of the Waves, dove down below, and appeared, a moment afterward, with Dicky Drake, our first victim. The poor fellow was almost scared to death. He eyed the various contrivances, which had been prepared for his benefit, and shuddered from his cap to his boots. "Bring forth the culprit!" roared Father Neptune, in a voice of thunder; and we led the trembling victim before the throne. "What is his crime?" was the lofty question of the ocean king. "I ain't done nothin', yer Honor," began Dicky, thinking he might get off by an eloquent appeal. "Yer see, I was brought up in Salem, I was--a place as has furnished a great many sailors for yer Majesty's dominions. It's true I never crossed the line, yer know, but yer see, I almost did it onc't. It all as happened in this 'ere way. Ole Si Jinkins and I, we started out on a mackerel fishin' an' got driv' away down south, almost onto the equator, when a sou'east storm springs up, and sends us back a joe-kiting. Well, as I was about ter say--" "Peace!" roared Neptune in a voice of thunder. "Yes, your Majesty, but yer see--" "Peace!" "Oh, yes! Wery good! but, as I was about ter say, the--" "Peace, or I'll kick yer inter Davy Jones's locker!" was the dignified interruption, and Dicky stopped short. "Lead the prisoner to the plank!" was the final order of Neptune. Visions of "walking the plank" immediately rose up before the wretched youth, and he began to appeal in heartrending accents. "But I didn't go an' do nothin', yer know. I was allers exceedingly respectful and perlite. Onc't on a time, I see'd a feller spit inter the sea, an' I remonstrated with indignation, because I thought yer Honor might be averse to tobacco. Yer see--" "Silence! Lead him to the plank and shave him!" roared the implacable sea-god, and we led him away. A great tank of water was situated right in front of the throne, and between the fore and mainmasts of the ship. Over this was drawn a light plank of pine. And the tank, we might as well mention now as any time, was filled with salt water. Upon this plank we seated our victim, and began to lather him with soft-soap, without paying any regard to his sight. He gave a wild shriek as the suds went into his eyes (but he had had fair warning from me to keep them shut). Then, as my comrade held him fast, I proceeded to scrape his face with the piece of an iron hoop, which I had picked up and somewhat sharpened for the purpose. I laid it on as lightly as I could, but, nevertheless, the performance was so ridiculously painful that the poor fellow yelled again with agony. For the sharp but gritty edge of the saw-like razor would grab the few hairs he had on the chin, and would pull outrageously. At length the barbering performance was over, and poor Dicky thought that he had got through the whole passage of the equinox. But, no sooner was he shaved than the plank was suddenly jerked from under him, and down he went into the cold sea-water, where he floundered about fully a dozen seconds before he could scramble out. He was next submitted to the tumbling apparatus. This was nothing more nor less than the mizzen-royal in the hands of a dozen men or so, two or three grabbing each corner, while the victim was tossed into the middle, where he was flung up and down, now and then letting him down far enough to give him a good bump against the deck. We finished him up with a keel-haul. There are two ways of doing this. The old way consisted in making the victim fast by either ankle, and then flinging him overboard at the bow, dragging him under the keel, with a rope on either side of the ship. But this was never resorted to as pastime; in fact, it was considered the worst of nautical punishments. Victims frequently died under its infliction. If anything of that kind had been tried under the Queer Fish, the sufferer would most certainly have had a hard time of it. For our bottom was completely covered with that small variety of the carbuncle shell-fish, known to seamen as ship-lice, and any one being dragged against them, would have been terribly lacerated. But, of course, nothing of _that_ kind was to be attempted upon such a merry and good-humored craft as the Queer Fish. _Our_ keel-hauling simply consisted in making the victim fast by the ankles, and shooting him out far behind in the wake of the vessel (always making sure that there were no sharks in the neighborhood), and whisking him back again before he could well know how wet he was. Poor Dicky Drake had stood everything else like a man, but his soul instinctively revolted from keel-hauling--though, to tell the truth, it was by far the easiest punishment inflicted in our category. We made fast to his ankles, and swung him over the side, in spite of his entreaties. The ship was going at a spanking pace--a good eight knots an hour--as Dicky touched the water at her foaming wake. We let out lively on the lines, and away he sped, a good fifteen fathoms, from the ship. He squealed like a stuck pig as he hit the water, but we brought him back so quick that his head swam. We then led him up to the throne of Father Neptune, who stretched his withered hands over his head, blessed him, and proclaimed him a true son of the sea--made so by his last baptism therein. The victim was then permitted to dress himself, was given a rousing glass of grog, and in a few moments felt as merry as a king, quite anxious to laugh at the next victim. They followed, one after another, amid roars of laughter. Most of them were old tars, who took the thing as an excellent joke, and we therefore made little out of them. At last there were only two victims left. These were Teddy Tight and Mr. Adolphus de Courcy. The latter was reserved as the last, because we expected to have the most fun out of him; end the former was kept as next to last, because we half suspected that his eager anticipation of the fun that was in store for him was all gammon, and merely put on to cloak his terror. In fact it was the testimony of each of his predecessors in the "ceremonies" that, as his turn came nearer and nearer, Teddy's courage began to sink until, at last, it was at zero. When we led the doughty little Irishman on deck, he was as pale as a ghost, and shook like a leaf. On being led before the august presence of Father Neptune, however, his native blarney began to overflow, and excuse after excuse began to be poured out in a profusion which would have been limitless, if we had not cut him short. "Och, yer Honor!" he cried, "w'at has yer Honor got ag'in' sich a poor little spalpeen as meself? Sure, an' hav'n't I sarved yer Honor well, by land and by say? Let me off this time, and I'll sarve ye better than iver. Och, yer Honor, ye must surely remimber me father. He was owld Barney Tight of Killarney. The way he would lick any one who would dare to say onything ag'in' yer Honor's character was a caution to the woorld. An' there was me uncle. Och, an' he was an ixcellent mon, yer Honor. I see'd him onc't knock the top-lights out of a murtherin' spalpeen who was afther injurin' yer Honor's reputation. An' there was my sister--God rest her sowl!--you should 'a' see'd her when she--" "Silence!" was the gruff reply of the ruler of the waves; and Teddy, though he kicked and squirmed like an ugly worm on a bodkin, was put through the necessary course of sprouts in short order, but with a will. Then Mr. Adolphus de Courcy was led up amid peals of laughter. He had had the philosophy to strip himself, with the exception of a pair of old pantaloons, and now appeared on deck with an air of offended dignity, which made him ridiculous in his present attire. "What is yer crime?" was the gruff question of Neptune. Adolphus eyed the venerable figure of the ruler of the waves with a lofty air of scorn, and did not, at first, deign to reply. "Yer crime?" bawled the king, seizing his scepter with a menacing gesture. "May hit please your hill-favored 'Ighness, has I hain't got hanything of that kind habout my person, I hain't hable to produce hany." "You'r' accused of striving to usurp our throne," exclaimed old Neptune, wrathfully. "_W'ot!_" exclaimed the astonished cockney, with his breath almost taken away by the novelty of the charge. "I--I husurp your throne! My dear hold fellow, I vouldn't 'ave it for ha gift." "Ha! do yer insult us? Executioners, do your duty!" roared the indignant monarch. "Now, 'old hon, hexecutioners," argued the cockney, remonstrating, "let me warn you not to go han' do hanything so wery rash. Do you 'appen to know 'oo I ham?" "Yes, you're the grandson of--the Lord Knows Who," said Father Nep. "Bless me, now, and 'ow did you know that my grandfather was a lord? That's wery astonishing, I declare. Wery well, you see I'm considerably different from halmost all of you fellows, hinhasmuch has I was brought hup a gentleman, hand was born hin dear hold Hingland, the Hempress of the Hocean. Now, certainly, your Hexcellency won't be so unfortunately rash has to hoffend the Hempress of the Hocean by hany hundue hinterference with one of her favorite sons, while hin the pursuit of 'is peaceful havocation." The Britisher argued this in his most solemn and impressive style, and looked, when he was through, as if he thought the argument to be conclusive. But he roused a new enemy in an unexpected quarter. Scarcely had he finished his harangue, before Amphitrite (_née_ Bluefish) sprung from her throne, with a wild yell, and caught him by the hair. "Who dares to style any other than me the hempress of the briny deep?" she shrieked in his ear. "Ha! villain, thou art convicted out of thine own mouth. Usurper, thy time's come! Tritons, do your work!" "But I protest! I demand ha hinstantaneous release has a Hinglishman on the 'igh seas! Captain, I happeal to you! This houtrage to Hinglishmen will be hawfully havenged! I protest--I--" But he was now on the plank, undergoing the operation of shaving, and his open mouth received the great brush of lather full between his teeth, almost choking him, and completely gagging him for some time to come. Then the plank was whipped from under him, and down he went with an awful splash into the tub, protesting, amid the shouts of laughter, something about his being "a chosen son of hold Hingland." We tossed him in the sail with the jolliest vehemence, but, when the ropes were being adjusted for the final part of the programme, that of keel-hauling, he begged off piteously. "Captain, I shall drown, I know I shall," he pleaded, turning with an imploring gesture, to Captain Joker, who was enjoying the thing amazingly. "Captain, I 'ave a natural hantipathy to hanything but 'ot water. A bath hin my present state of perspiration will be the certain death of me, I know hit will. Now, please, captain, for the sake of hour hold and hardent friendship--for the sake--" But the captain was implacable, and the cockney, though struggling violently, was swung over the taffrail. He was truly in a melting mood. The day was hot enough, as you may judge by the latitude we were in, and the course of sprouts through which we had been rushing our English victim, had made the sweat come from every pore of his skin. The revulsion, therefore, as his body hit the coolness of the rushing ocean stream, must have been very great. As it was, he gave an awful scream, and floundered like a stranded shark. Away he went, far out from the stern in the swift wake of the gliding ship. When we drew him in and landed him safe and sound, once more on deck, he was so overjoyed at his rescue, that he pretended to have liked his bath. "Do you know, I henjoyed hit himmensely," he exclaimed. And when he was dressed, with a good, stiff glass of grog in his hold, he really was one of the merriest men on the ship. Well, that ended the ceremonies, but the holiday was not over by any means. We had an extraordinary dinner, and, after the sun had set and the bright tropic moon had risen, Snollygoster brought out his violin, and we had a glorious dance. Grog was freely distributed, and I am afraid there were a good many heads that felt abnormally large next morning. CHAPTER VII. FUN ON SHORE. In the latter part of the month of July, we succeeded in making a safe entrance into the neutral port of Rio de Janeiro, after having captured several more valuable prizes, and bringing two or three along with us. There was a British man-o'-war, the Atalanta, in this port, when we entered. She could have blown us out of water by one broadside of her great guns, but, nevertheless, she respected the neutrality of the port, and did not dare to molest us. It may seem strange, from the manner in which Adolphus de Courcy had been treated on board the Queer Fish, that he should regret leaving us. But it is, nevertheless, a fact. When his freedom was given him, he assembled the entire crew around him, thanked them for the jolly time they had afforded him, and shook the captain warmly by the hand. He was really an excellent-hearted fellow, and we gave him three hearty cheers as he went over the ship's side to the boat which was to convey him and his luggage to the British ship before-mentioned. And his sincerity was not of a transient kind; for we afterward learned that he spoke well of us to the officers of the Atalanta. Going on shore, after a long voyage, is the sailor's paradise. I reckon some of those old streets of Rio were glad enough when we disappeared; for a noisier, wilder, more devil-may-care set of tars never raised a rumpus in a seaport town than did we in Rio. We were allowed to go on shore in squads alternately; and as many of the British sailors were also, more or less, in the town, we had several collisions of a very serious character, though the disturbances were usually speedily quelled by the authorities. The first disturbance of this kind that I was in happened a few days after we entered the port. A large squad of us--perhaps twenty--had gone on shore, but Tony Trybrace and I had somehow got separated from our companions. We were both of us somewhat in liquor, and had a hankering--a usual one under the circumstances--to have something more to drink. So we entered a queer sort of Spanish gin-shop, and, not understanding the lingo very fluently, proceeded to help ourselves--of course with the intention of paying our way. In the course of this proceeding, Tony was rudely thrust back from the counter by the proprietor of the place, a wiry Brazilian, and, at the same time, admonished by a torrent of invectives in the unknown lingo. It is poor policy to treat a drunken man rudely, unless you are a policeman. A sailor, especially, will bear but little handling. Tony staggered back a moment, but, the next, the Brazilian was lying on the floor from a terrific blow between the eyes. Just at this moment, several English sailors entered the room, and, seeing that we were Americans, of course took the landlord's part. The latter was but little hurt and soon got up, muttering a great string of oaths, the usual consolation of the Spaniard, but, this time, in a much lower voice, and taking care to be out of the reach of Tony's powerful fist. "Hit's ha hawful mean shame for to see ha poor cuss treated hin that 'ere way," mused one of the Englishmen to his comrades, in a tone so loud that it was evidently meant for our special benefit. "That's so! Shiver my timbers eff I would stand it eff I was the Spanish cuss," was the elegant rejoinder. "Whoever don't like it, can take it up whenever he wants," bluntly interposed Tony. "His that 'ere remark hintended for me?" asked the first speaker. "Well, it is," said Tony, "and so is this 'ere." And before I could guess his intention, or move an inch to hinder it, down went the cockney before the same stanch fist of the Yankee sailor. The rest of the Britishers immediately sprung forward to avenge their comrade's fall; and, as I couldn't stand by and see little Tony overpowered, I also went in. There were ten of them, at least, and we were soon on the verge of destruction, when our cries for help reached the ears of friends outside, and in dashed Old Nick and Bluefish, at the head of a dozen or more of our lads, when the way that the Britishers and that entire gin-shop was cleaned out was a caution. Three policemen now dropped in, but we _dropped_ them in as summary a way as the rest of them, and made our escape up the street. This may be a rude picture, but it is one of truth, and I merely give it as a sample of sailors' life ashore in foreign parts. But there were other scenes in our Brazilian experience that were much more novel and satisfactory than the foregoing. The town itself--or, rather, city; for it is a large place--is full of interest to the foreigner. The men are mostly very homely, the women very pretty. The higher classes make a great display in a worldly way. I have seen as elegant "turn-outs" here, as in other parts of the globe. The ladies--some of them--are attired with unparalleled magnificence. You know it is a country of diamonds. The ladies sport a good many of them, but they have another kind of ornament which, perhaps, will be new to most of you. This is a peculiar kind of _firefly_ which the ladies wear in their hair. I have seen them fastened among the black locks of a Brazilian belle at night-time, when the effect was striking in the extreme. Gambling is very prevalent among the people. Even the lowest classes are infatuated with their favorite game of _monte_. They play the clothes off their backs, and would play the hair off their heads, if they wore wigs. They are great lovers of spicy food, like all the rest of the South Americans, as well as the Mexicans. The amount of red peppers which a genuine Spanish-American will consume at one sitting would make a Yankee sneeze for the balance of his lifetime. They stew it and fry it and broil it, and eat it as we do tomatoes. When I was in Mexico, the body of a Mexican, who had died of exposure, remained all night exposed on the mountains, where the wolves are as thick as grasshoppers, and we found the body next morning untouched. I verily believe that he was so excessively peppery that the wolves couldn't find palate or stomach for him. Another favorite article of food is the inevitable _tortillo_. This is almost identical with what our hunters and soldiers call slapjacks. It is a sort of pancake in a modified form, and goes very well on a hungry stomach. There are also many lamentable things to witness in Brazil. The condition of the slaves is wretched in the extreme. Never--except, perhaps, it was in the Isle of France--did I witness the yoke of slavery fit the neck of the poor negro so gallingly as at Rio; and I was told that the condition of the slaves further up the country--especially in the diamond districts--was even more deplorable. But my intention is to devote myself mainly to the fun we had, so we will quit this distressing subject for a livelier theme. One of the greatest attractions which Rio afforded us was the inevitable bull-fight. Great preparations had been making for one of these performances before we arrived. Of course, as soon as we got wind of it on board the Queer Fish, every man was wild to see the show. The dear little captain wished to oblige us all; but, as all could not go, it was decided who should, by lots. It was my fortune to be one of the lucky ones. So, on an exceedingly bright morning in the month of July, we--about twenty of us--landed at Rio to see the bull-fight. The affair was to take place at a distance of several miles from the city, and we had taken the precaution, several days beforehand, of securing conveyances. These were nothing to boast of. They consisted of one barouche, an old-fashioned transportation wagon, and a light, rickety affair, with shafts about fifteen feet long, which is of very frequent use in Spanish countries (_vide_ Havana). We made some wry faces at seeing these turn-outs, but the horses attached to them looked spry, and we were resolved to make the best of the bargain. We were soon seated, or, rather, _heaped_ upon the sorry vehicles, the drivers cracked their long whips, and away we went through the narrow streets of Rio, singing songs, yelling discordantly, and getting outside of a large amount of bad alcohol. At length we reached the plains back of the city--the pampas--the broad, glorious, rolling pampas; and we could see the inclosure where the bull-fight was to take place, together with the flag-decorated, red-roofed buildings surrounding it. A vast concourse had preceded us there, but we had secured seats beforehand, and had no difficulty in reaching our places. Those Brazilians in our immediate vicinity must have remembered for a long time the crowd of Yankee privateersmen. These Spanish people have ways and manners very singular to a foreigner. While we were waiting for the bulls, all the ladies amused themselves with smoking their universal cigarettos and fanning themselves. They never stop smoking, save, perhaps, to make and light a new cigar, and it has often been a matter of reflection to me, how they could keep up that everlasting fanning of their pretty faces. They never stop. The fan keeps moving incessantly. They must be very powerful in the right arm. I am sure it would make me, or any other strong man, very tired to swing one of those fans for half an hour, yet these pretty ladies keep it up continually and never seem fatigued. While waiting for the bulls, the men either talk to the ladies or play _monte_ among themselves. They frequently quarrel during their games, talk very boisterously, lay their hands on their knives, and look very savage. But gaming quarrels among them very seldom go any further. We had plenty of time to observe all these things, as we were fully half an hour before the time, as was almost everybody else. We spent a portion of our time in eating Brazil-nuts, oranges, bananas and other fruit, with now and then a cheer or two for the Queer Fish and the flag that flew at her peak. The native policemen would bob up and down about us, endeavoring to maintain better order, but not liking to arrest any individual one of us, while they did not dare to attempt a whole arrest. All this weary interval of waiting an American caterer would have filled up with strains of music; but not until almost at the moment of the commencement of the performance, did the Brazilian musicians (wretched ones) discourse their strains. At last, however, the band pealed out, and the performers came running into the ring. The fighters of the bull, on this occasion, were of two classes. One class consisted of men, dressed in tights and spangles, after the manner of our circus actors. These men bore red scarfs or flags, wherewith to blind the beast, while each of them carried a number of little darts at his belt. The darts were a sort of fireworks, one of the various modes adopted for the torture and goading of the bulls. The other class consisted of the _matadores_, whose duties are of a more sanguinary nature than their brothers of the arena. Most of them on this occasion were mounted, and armed with spears, but the most famous were on foot, armed simply with a long, sheathless rapier. These latter are in a bull-fighting country about the same as first-class theatrical performers are in America and England. They become very famous when successful, and star it through the country in the same way as our actors. The main office of the star _matadore_ is to give the finishing blow to the bull--the hight of the accomplishment being in the art of killing at a single, graceful thrust of the sword. When the performers had taken their positions, a signal from the major domo caused the opening of a suspicious-looking door at the upper end of the arena, and out bounded an enormous black bull, with a bellowing noise, and lashing his sides furiously with his tail. The game now commenced in earnest. The ball was opened by one of the horsemen couching his spear and rushing in to the attack. But, quick as a wink, and as lively as a cat, the bull leaped on one side, avoided the thrust, and ripped up the _matadore's_ steed, killing him instantly. The poor bull-fighter was hurled high in the air, and fell to the ground. I looked to see him destroyed instantly. But now the flag-bearers rushed in, flinging their red scarfs over the animal's horns, and engaging his attention until their discomfited comrade recovered, and was enabled to limp out of the ring. The other horsemen, three in number, now spurred forward, and succeeded in inflicting several painful wounds. Infuriated with agony, the bull rushed at them blindly, this way and that; but they glided away from him, and inflicted new wounds. At last the flagmen (I forget what the Spanish name for them is) rushed in and flung their little darts into the animal's side. The torch was applied immediately afterward, and the bull was transformed into an enormous fiery porcupine, and a very frightful-looking figure he cut. Although considerably enfeebled by loss of blood, the ungovernable fury of the bull sustained him for another assault, when he gored another horse and tossed the rider almost to the top of the pavilion. But now the master of ceremonies gave the signal, and one of the pedestrian _matadores_ stepped out, sword in hand. There were three of these men. They had remained standing motionless in a very nonchalant way, waiting for the signal of the _coup de grace_. The one who now stepped out to the task, was a lithe, handsome fellow. With a light bound, he sprung at the side of the bull, avoided the side-sweep of his angry horn, and plunged his weapon in the animal's neck. A storm of hisses burst from the audience, for the blow was not the death-blow; and the _matadore_ recovered his sword and returned to his former position; for one of the rules of the bull-fight is that the blow which is intended to be final must not be repeated, if it be unsuccessful. And now, at another signal from the major domo, an old _matadore_, who had stood gravely in front of us throughout the entire performance, now advanced easily toward the bull, who made a staggering charge upon him. But he easily evaded the charge, gained the animal's side, and drove in his thin sword to the hilt, right behind the shoulder-blade. This time it was the _coup de grace_. The bull stumbled forward, and then fell to the ground dead, while a thundering cheer greeted the successful _matadore_, who bowed carelessly, as if he was used to it, wiped his sword, and quietly resumed his former position. Now the supernumeraries entered the ring, with a wagon, to remove the dead bull and horses and other _débris_. Several other bulls, more or less formidable, were disposed of in rapid succession. But the greatest bull was reserved for the _finale_. A hum went through the audience as he sprung into the arena. I think I never saw a nobler animal than this bull. He was of a bright bay, and as glossy as the costliest satin. His eyes were brilliant and large. The strength as displayed in the splendid limbs and glorious neck was prodigious. All "our crowd" sent up a rousing cheer as soon as this animal made its appearance. Well, the usual performance was gone through with at first. The horsemen charged; one of the horses was killed; the flag-bearers charged, and one of them was killed. The fireworks had become exhausted: so _that_ part of the show--a very disgusting part to me, I must say--had to be skipped. The master of ceremonies seemed loth to give the signal for the death of this noble beast. And while he was deliberating, the bull made a sudden and most effective charge upon all the horsemen and flagmen, who were very injudiciously, all grouped together. The result was that the horses were immediately overthrown and disabled, one of the flagmen was immediately killed, and another one badly hurt, while one of the three _matadores_,[1] who had been in the group, was tossed high into the air and, by the rules of the arena, was out of the fight, on account of his having left his proper position at the edge of the ring. There were now, literally, as the only remaining fighters, two _matadores_ or swordsmen. One of these, at the sign from the master of ceremonies--which was now very hastily given--rushed in to the attack. But his blow was a bad one. The old _matadore_--the one who had finished up the the first bull so nicely, was now the only one left, and he, without losing a particle of his composure, went in with a confident air. But he made a mistake, just as he reached the animal's side, and had his arm paralyzed by hitting a horn with his crazy-bone, and away flew his sword out of his hand. The next instant, he was tossed sky-high and Mr. Bull had it all his own way. A murmur of horror ran through the audience, for it seemed that now, as every one of the fighters was either prostrate or weaponless, there would be a great carnage. Even the hitherto imperturbable major domo lost his presence of mind and turned as pale as death. At this momentous juncture, old Bluefish, to our unmitigated astonishment, started up with a wild whoop. "I'll spike him! I'll spike him! Smash my top-lights, if I don't spike him!" he shouted. And, before we could guess his intention, he had leaped the railing, and was in the ring. Snatching up the sword of one of the fallen _matadores_, he made at the bull. The latter charged him, with a roar that shook the pavilion to its center. But the sturdy old sailor leaped on one side, got in his blow, and drove it in behind the shoulder, the weapon rapping up against the skin, close to the hilt. The magnificent beast tottered forward an instant, and then dropped to the earth, stone dead. Cheer after cheer greeted the brave deed of the Yankee tar. "Bravo! bravo! Americano! Americano!" echoed from the crowd of Brazilians. "I told yer I'd spike him!" was the simple and only self-comment of Bluefish, as he returned to our midst. We were proud enough of him, you may be sure. But we were prouder still, when, as we were going out with the throng, the band struck up "Hail Columbia." The master of ceremonies had ordered it as a compliment to us. CHAPTER VIII. ROUND THE HORN--THE PATAGONIANS. A week after our experience at the bull-fight, we were ready for sea. It was an easier matter, however, to be ready for sea, than to be able to get to sea. For several of John Bull's cruisers were watching for us just outside the harbor, determined, if possible, to put a stop to further depredations on British commerce as far as we were concerned. But, on a stormy night in the early part of August, Captain Joker determined to make an attempt to run the blockade. All the men were quietly posted at quarters, and we started, cautiously hugging the land on the south side of the bay. We got along capitally till we reached the mouth of the harbor. Here we almost ran into a man-o'-war. The night was so dark that you couldn't see your hand before your face. We just saw her lantern in time to bring our helm hard-a-port. As it was, we grazed her stern with our bowsprit. "What ship is that?" was immediately bawled from the man-o'-war. "British sloop-of-war Achilles," sung out Captain Joker. "What ship is that?" "The Hercules." "All right!" We passed on, holding our breaths, and were soon out of reach. But we were scarcely two miles out to sea, when the signal lantern of another of our blockaders appeared, and a shot was fired across our bows. But we kept straight on our way without paying the least attention to it. Another shot followed us as harmlessly as its predecessor, but a third struck the taffrail of our stern, sending up a shower of splinters. "Blast 'em! blaze away with the Long Tom!" cried our little captain, getting in considerable of a tantrum for such a good natured fellow. Bang! went the long brass swivel, and a flash from the enemy's guns, immediately afterward, let us see our ball strike her fair and broad in the starboard bow. We gave her one more compliment of a similar character, and then kept on our way, without further molestation, for we could easily outsail anything the enemy could bring against us. It was the beginning of a tempest which raged with but little intermission, for several days; and we were kept hard at work, as a consequence. It let up, however, when we had reached a latitude far down the coast. We here had the satisfaction of capturing two richly-laden brigs from Valparaiso, which more than compensated us for our privations. It had been decided, at first, to double the Horn, but as the weather bade fair to be more than commonly bad, we entered the Straits of Magellan, intending to gain the Pacific by this avenue. There was more danger attended by this route than by the Horn, as it was quite probable that we should meet some armed vessel of the enemy. In view of this probability, Captain Joker decided to make no captures while in the straits, however tempting an opportunity might offer, in order to disarm suspicion, if we should happen to fall in with a man-o'-war. The Straits of Magellan--that broad avenue between the southern portion of the South American Continent and Terra del Fuego--links the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by a fine channel, deep enough for the largest ship that floats. It is a wild and dreary scene. On both sides of the straits the character of the shore is eminently precipitous and inhospitable. The great cliffs of black granite rise from the water's edge, in most places, to a great hight, sparsely grown with stunted trees and a description of rank grass. The climate is almost always cold and dismal, with something falling all the time--snow or rain. The impression produced upon the mind of the rover, when, for the first time, he views these remote and cheerless scenes, is one that can never be effaced. One of the first queries which one makes to himself is, "How can anything--man or beast--live in the region of desolation and gloom?" Yet inhabitants there are, of both species. It was snowing furiously as we entered the straits, and we had not proceeded far, with the Patagonian coast in view, before we saw an immense flock of ostriches on the high table-land, looking down at us in a very curious way. Something, however, occurred to frighten them, and away they went, vanishing inland. These South American ostriches are not quite so large as their brothers of tropical Africa; but they seem to be stronger. Their legs are much thicker, and their wings are so small as hardly to appear at all, being concealed under the heavy feathers of the side. They run with great speed, outstripping the swiftest racer. They seem to resemble the cassowaries of Southeastern Asia more than the ostriches of the Sahara, and are not nearly so valuable as the latter for their plumage. We also saw some wolves before the day was over. We lay up for the night, under the shelter of the high cliffs of the Terra del Fuego side of the straits. It blew strong during the night, and was so cold that we suffered considerably. The next morning a boat expedition was started, to obtain some wood. I was along, and Tony Trybrace was in command. We rowed up an inlet which deeply indented the coast, in order to find, if possible, a landing-place, where wood could be obtained. The scenery of Terra del Fuego is, if possible, more desolate and cheerless than the opposite side of the straits. It was the very incarnation of gloomy solitude, as we pulled up the narrow inlet, with the high, rocky cliffs on either side; and I felt a sensation of loneliness and awe creep over me as the ship was shut from our view. The very waters through which we glided appeared black and somber--there was nothing of the glad coast greenness, or of the true sea-blue about it. Now and then a lone eagle would rise from some jagged crag, and soar over us with a hungry scream, which only served to render the solitude more impressive and solemn. It was up this inlet that we saw human inhabitants for the first time since entering the straits. The Indians of Terra del Fuego are nothing like so formidable in size as their brethren of Patagonia. In fact, they are rather below than above the medium size of humanity. They are extremely filthy in their habits. "As for their customs," as the midshipman said, "they are incomprehensible; and as for their manners, they haven't got any." They live in wretched habitations, which are semi-subterraneous, and are partially dressed in the skins of wild beasts--mostly of wolves and foxes. As we rowed up the estuary, quite a number of these savages appeared upon the rocks to our left, and greeted us with friendly gestures. As we, soon after, descried a favorable landing-place, we made for the shore, and, as soon as we were on it, were surrounded by upward of fifty Indians. We took good care to keep together, with an eye always on our arms, for we did not know what treachery might be preparing for us. But we wronged these savages in our suspicions. They were of an exceedingly mild disposition, and manifested no other feeling for us than friendship, though the curiosity with which they examined our clothes and arms was rather annoying. They had evidently seen but few white men, as the Straits of Magellan were not frequently visited by vessels in those days. One of the young lady Terra del Fuegans, who appeared to be quite a "belle" among her companions, took quite a fancy to me. She examined my hands with wonder, but, upon pushing up my sleeve and viewing the whiteness of my arm, she was much struck at my appearance, and greeted me with a torrent of questions in her native lingo, which must surpass the Chinese in incomprehensibility, I think. These people are not devoid of a certain frankness of expression, which commends them to the notice of the stranger. They have a mild, placid look, but, when angry, give tokens of the most furious tempers. They are armed with bows and arrows and rude spears, and live to a large extent upon fish and shell-fish. The latter are procurable in large numbers, and the former are generally captured by means of the spear, after the manner of the Northern tribes of North American Indians. The males and females dress precisely alike--the garment generally consisting of a loose robe of skins, reaching from the neck to the feet--and this, together with a very slight dissimilarity of facial characteristics, renders it difficult to distinguish the two sexes apart. One very praiseworthy quality in these Indians--in strong contradistinction to the savages of North America--is displayed in their almost universal contempt for trinkets. They do not seem to care a button for any ornament--unless it comes in the shape of a piece of useful clothing--while any gift which they can put to immediate use is received with exuberant tokens of delight and satisfaction. One of our men offered to one of the chiefs a large, bright naval button, when it was discarded with contempt, with the single comment of "_waywoo nexel_," which, by a free translation, may be rendered into "What is it good for?" "It is pretty, but worthless." Whereas, a large nail which was offered by another of the men, was delightedly accepted, with a profusion of thanks. There was some utility in _this_. It might be fashioned into a spear or arrow-head, or crooked for a hook to hang dried fish on. And it was, therefore, far more valuable to the simple natives than the brightest ornament of gold or precious stones. We gathered our boat full of wood--such as it was--which we cut and collected from the dwarf forests in the vicinity, and in a few hours were ready to take our departure. I do not know whether they had ever seen a ship, but, by some intuitive faculty, they seemed to conjecture that we hadn't come all the way from the other side of the world in the long boat--that there must be a vessel of larger proportions somewhere in our vicinity, and they all wanted to accompany us on board the ship. Strange to say, these natives are very poor boatmen. They are almost devoid of any water conveyance. We could not accommodate all of them, so they deputed one of their number--quite a lad--to accompany us. He got in at the bow, we followed, and pushed off, with our load of fuel, having a much better opinion of the natives than before. It was worth a long journey to witness the wonder and awe of our little passenger upon first beholding the Queer Fish, as she lay at anchor in the straits. At first the solemnity of the thing kept him silent. His feelings of awe, however, gradually wore off, and he began to clap his hands and utter wild exclamations at everything he saw. When on board of the ship, he danced about in perfect ecstasy. We had a great deal of fun with him, and the captain offered him a glass of grog, "just to see," to use the skipper's own language, "how civilized the youngster was." Upon the latter's rejecting the liquor in unutterable disgust, Joker unhesitatingly declared him to be in the lowest depths of primitive barbarism. The next day, after putting our guest ashore--much to his dissatisfaction--we proceeded westward through the straits. In two days we arrived at the western extremity, without encountering a solitary ship. It was here that I met with quite an adventure. I was again a member of a boat expedition to procure wood, and as we had seen a good many animals on the rocks, I, together with several others, provided myself with a musket and ammunition, in hopes of procuring something edible in the way of game. So, after we had loaded our boat, those who had guns--myself among them--started off in different directions through the rocks and woods. For my part, I struck a bee-line inland, through the scrub trees, and had not proceeded more than a mile or so when I sighted a small grayish fox, and brought him to a standstill with a bullet through his skull. It occurred in a singularly gloomy and dreary sort of dingle or ravine, surrounded by frowning rocks and ragged trees. I hastened forward to secure my prey, but, just as I was bending down to pick it up, a deep growl startled me, and upon looking up I perceived a monstrous gray wolf, who was approaching me with a hungry and ferocious aspect. Almost immediately I perceived several more of the same ugly customers approaching from the summit of the ridge. I had neglected to reload my gun, and was somewhat taken aback by this strange apparition. But I have seldom been at a loss for expedients in times of peril. I now snatched up the carcass of the little fox, and tossed it at the wolf to attract his attention, at the same time springing to a scrub-oak, which I succeeded in climbing, bringing my gun with me. No sooner was I safely ensconced in the crotch of the tree, than I saw myself surrounded by a pack of at least fifty of the gaunt, ferocious beasts, who had gobbled up the little fox in the twinkling of an eye--more or less--and now seemed especially thirsty for my blood. To my further dismay, I now saw a large reinforcement of wolves coming at a brisk trot over the opposite ridge. You see, I was considerably uneasy in my mind, on account of the lowness of the tree. I straddled the crotch, and my feet swung, at most, only six feet from _terra firma_, and there wasn't much chance of standing on my feet without dropping my gun. I was debating the grave question in my mind as to whether the wolves were spry enough to leap as high as my feet, when the biggest "varmint" among them dissolved all dubiousness on the subject by taking a short run and a flying leap at my feet. He missed them by about six inches, and his teeth gnashed together with a most villainous snap. He made several more trials, as did some others of the pack, but as they could not succeed in coming any nearer, I felt easier in my mind on this score. The entire pack then surrounded me, gazing up at me wistfully, as at a dainty piece of meat hung beyond their reach, and set up a prolonged, dismal howl. I forgot all about my gun at first. The strangeness of my situation, as well as its peril, lay upon my spirit like a spell. Can you imagine anything more ridiculously lonesome and desolate than a Yankee tar treed in the middle of Terra del Fuego by a pack of unreasonable, gigantic and hungry wolves? I can't. I believe I would as lief climb the North Pole and take a lonely roost on its summit. Presently, however, I remembered that I had a musket and a large quantity of ammunition; and the idea occurred to me that, as the wolves were hungry, I had better feed them on each other, as the most charitable course I could pursue. So, having found a niche in the trunk of the tree, just below my right foot, where I could securely rest my gun, I rapidly reloaded. Having done so, I took a steady aim, and knocked over the biggest, ugliest rascal I could see. No sooner did the other wolves see and scent the running blood of their comrade than they rushed upon him with joyful yells and rapidly tore him to pieces--for many mouths make light work, as well as many hands. As soon as this was disposed of I shot another, which was also instantly devoured. So I went on, knocking them down as fast as I could reload, and rarely missing my aim. But the voracity of the infernal brutes seemed to have no end, and fresh squads kept coming in from every side, until I began to think that it was incumbent upon me to fill the stomachs of the entire wolf population. I destroyed fifty of them, if I did one, and yet they yelped for more, as if they hadn't had a meal in six weeks. Only having about ten charges left, I now ceased firing for a while, sincerely hoping that the wolves would leave me in peace. But they had not the remotest idea of doing anything of the kind. I remained six mortal hours a prisoner in the crotch of that miserable tree. At length, however, as it began to grow dark, I began to be alarmed, and recommenced my firing, in the hope that it would bring my comrades to the rescue. By the blessing of Providence, they did at last hear me, and I was saved. I shall never forget the thrill of deep joy with which I heard their encouraging cheer, as they advanced to the rescue, over the summit of the eastern ridge. They numbered a dozen stout fellows, each armed with a musket, led on in solid column by little Tony Trybrace. A loud shout of laughter burst from their lips upon perceiving the ridiculous position in which I was placed. But their merriment was something that I was little disposed to join in. Nevertheless they advanced resolutely forward, pouring destructive volleys into the bewildered wolves, who now began to scatter in every direction. And, in a few moments not a live one was to be seen. I slid down from the tree as lively as possible, and told the story of my adventures; but they had to support me to the boat, as I was so weak from the cramped position I had so long maintained, that I could hardly use my legs at all. That was the last of my experience in Terra del Fuego. The next morning we sailed northward, skirting the western coast of Patagonia. The water which we had taken on board at Rio having proved of very inferior quality, the captain decided to make a stop somewhere on the Patagonian coast--where the water is very delicious--in order to refill the casks. In several days we arrived at Wellington Island. This is a long, narrow, almost herbless island on the western coast, about midway between the Island of Chiloe and the western extremity of the Straits of Magellan. There is quite an archipelago here, there being a continuous line of islands stretching along almost the entire coast. Keeping the southern extremity of Wellington Island on our left, we steered in toward the coast, and soon made an excellent natural harbor on the mainland. The country here is not nearly so bleak as down at the straits. There is quite a spontaneous growth of grass, forests of oak, beech and cedar; and I was told that there were extensive grassy plains inland. Indeed, there must be something of the kind to feed the large numbers of horses and guanacos (a wool-growing beast, a sort of Patagonian llama) that roam the wastes, many of which we saw, even on the coast, which is rocky and bold. You can't say much for the climate, even in antithesis to Terra del Fuego. It is simply, universally, equably wretched. It rains all the time, with no cessation at all. At least, it did while we were there, and the natives assured us that it always rained. They did not know what a dry day was, and laughed heartily when told of countries where the sun frequently deigned to smile for an entire day at a stretch. We remained at our anchorage off the mainland for nearly a week, and as there were plenty of natives in the vicinity, we had an excellent opportunity of observing them, which we were glad to improve. The coast of this remote region was not visited in those days, except at rare intervals. Some few adventurous navigators had explored the seas and inlets to some extent; but to most of the natives whom we met, we were as strange a race as though we had dropped from the sky. Many erroneous ideas were then, and are to the present day, entertained with regard to the inhabitants of Patagonia. They were represented as of gigantic proportions, herculean strength and ferocious and cannibalistic propensities. Nothing of the kind. It is true, they are a very tall race. I have seen them as high as seven feet. But six feet four inches is not considered dwarfish, even in Patagonia. I am told that the natives of the west coast are the shortest of the different races of Patagonia, and that those of the most easterly and central regions are of an average hight of seven feet, frequently attaining a still loftier growth. This is doubtless true, as it comes from sources that should be authentic. But those of the west coast are as I have indicated. They are also very bulky of body, but their limbs are quite disproportionate, and I do not think them equal to the Caucasian race in point of physique. As in the case of the Terra del Fuegans, the men and women dress alike, are of almost equal hight, and are with difficulty distinguished from each other. They dress in long, loose robes, reaching nearly to the feet. They are excellent horsemen, and skillful hunters with their spears. They are also expert with the bow and arrow. The principal game consists of horses (large herds of which range the country), ostriches and guanacos, which we have already described as being a species of llama. Besides these, there is a species of hare, several kinds of edible birds, and shellfish are most abundant on all parts of the coast. The latter is one of the principal articles of food, and the manner of obtaining the oysters, clams and mussels is excessively primitive. The women dive for them. As the climate is very cold, the privations which these poor creatures undergo to supply the appetites of their selfish lords with the luscious bivalves are very great. The water is always of icy temperature. I have seen these poor women kept in the sea for an hour diving for mussels, and, when they were permitted to come out, they were so benumbed as to be hardly able to stand. As soon as they come out of the sea, they are carried in front of blazing fires, where they are gradually thawed into their normal state. I think this must be a main cause for the paucity of the inhabitants of this coast. If they increase in population at all, it must be very tardily. The women, on account of these cruel privations they undergo, are seldom so long lived as the men. Some of them are not devoid of beauty, but, as with our own savages, an excessive prominence of features is the ruling facial characteristic. Another article of food which is much prized, is a species of wild celery which grows in great quantities along the coast. It makes an excellent salad, and is the only vegetable I saw in use among the natives. The people are very similar in disposition to their brethren of the Cape. Their voices are sometimes of surprising sweetness, although the language they use is harsh and unmusical. They are usually of a mild and serene temperament, but, when thoroughly aroused, exhibit passions of an ungovernable fury, which I have never seen equaled outside of Africa. Unlike the Terra del Fuegans, they are a nomadic race. They wander from place to place, engaged in hunting and fishing, and in the course of a year probably traverse a distance of many hundred miles. Their lodges consist of skins, sticks and earth, and are, owing to their temporary occupation, less substantial than those of the Fuegans, but, from what I saw, I should judge that the Patagonians are a much cleaner people. We were on very friendly terms with them, and made them several presents of a useful character, for which they were duly grateful. In return, they brought us large quantities of shell-fish and the delicious wild celery. CHAPTER IX. HUNTING THE OSTRICH. Before we set out from the coasts of Patagonia, Captain Joker, together with several of his crew--myself among the number--who had ingratiated themselves in the good graces of the natives, received an invitation from the chief to go with him upon an ostrich-hunt in the interior. We gladly accepted the offer. The chief, whose name was Walgilka--I spell it to produce the pronunciation as I remember it--signified the day upon which we were to start, and promised to have the requisite number of horses in readiness. The party who were to accompany him consisted of the captain, the second mate (Pat Pickle), Tony Trybrace, Bluefish, Dicky Drake and myself. Dicky had specially ingratiated himself with the chieftain by presenting that individual with an old, dog-eared testament, which was looked upon by the natives as containing something of mystical import. On the appointed morning, we duly landed, each provided with a musket, and were escorted by several natives to Walgilka's lodge, which was located inland, about a mile from the coast. When we came in sight of it, we saw that about twenty horses were in waiting, saddled and bridled after the primitive manner of the Patagonians. The horses are not large, but are strong and wiry; usually of an iron gray or sorrel hue. The "saddle" is merely a wolf or guanaco skin bound over the back in several folds; and the "bridle" consists of a stout thong of hide made fast, from shifting, at the throat, but connected with a piece of hide of greater thickness, which goes through the mouth after the manner of a bit. As I gazed upon these uncouth, stirrupless steeds, I must confess that my heart sunk within me, and, in imagination, I felt sore already, as I thought of the ten or fifteen mile gallop that was probably in store for us. But I put as cheerful a face on the matter as was possible. The chieftain came out from his lodge, attended by numerous huntsmen, armed with their spears and bows, in readiness for the chase. He greeted us cordially, and in a short time we were mounted and moving at a brisk pace for the prairies of the interior, where the ostriches most do congregate. It would be impossible to chase the ostrich successfully if he started as fresh as his pursuer, as they are not only far fleeter than the swiftest steed, but have also far greater powers of endurance. But they have a way of managing it in Patagonia, by which the birds are taken at a disadvantage. It is one of the peculiarities of the ostrich of South America to always run before the wind, if possible, when pursued. The strong gales that are prevalent, and, indeed, almost incessant in this region, blowing against their plumes from behind, thus serve to give them a considerable acceleration of speed. Therefore, when a Patagonian chief decides to have a day of ostrich-hunting, he usually, the night beforehand, sends some of his people twenty or thirty miles down the coast (that is, if a _south_ wind is blowing, for instance.) These outriders then proceed inland, and slowly drive what birds they may meet with northward. The men do not approach near enough to cause any excessive alarm, but maintain a sufficient distance in the rear to keep the timid creatures on a moderate trot before the wind, giving them no time to halt for any considerable length of time. In this way, they keep them almost perpetually on a trot for the entire distance of twenty or thirty miles, whatever it may be. Then the sagacious chieftain, with his train of fresh horsemen, do not have much difficulty in running down the poor ostriches, already fatigued from their long thirty-mile trot. In this way the endurance of the ostrich is tested by the combined endurance of two stout horses, and, of course, is found wanting. Dicky Drake, when he heard of this _modus operandi_, swore that it was a mean, unfair thing on the ostrich, and vowed, if it wasn't for the sake of seeing the thing through, he would drop the enterprise. Well, _our_ outriders had been dispatched down the coast on the preceding night, and Walgilka assured us we should meet with excellent sport. The inevitable, incessant rain of Patagonia was falling, but not heavily, and we had come to look upon a mere drizzle almost as a sunshiny day. At length we broke from the rough country, upon a bare hill, whence, far below and beyond us, rolled the glorious land of the pampas--portions of it almost as level as a floor, but the greater part rolling like the billows of the sea. A large troop of ostriches were feeding below us, and we could see several herds of horses and guanacos in the distance. Walgilka immediately gave the signal to charge, and, with a ringing shout, we dashed down the hill upon the astonished ostriches, who immediately started off at a tremendous pace. "They run well for having just finished a twenty-mile trot!" said Tony Trybrace, who was riding at my side. I thought the same thing. But we had not got very far before we heard a cry in our rear. Walgilka turned and then gave the signal for a halt. When we looked back we perceived one of the natives pursuing us at a great rate, and, upon coming up, we were informed that we were pursuing the wrong flock of birds. Those which had been specially fatigued for our benefit were feeding some miles further inland. So, with many a joke at our own mistake, we left the pursuit of the fresh flock--and it would probably have been a long stern-chase, if we had kept it up--and proceeded eastward, over the pampas, to find the tired game. We came upon them in about half an hour. And this time it was no mistake. Although the birds ran very swiftly at first, several of them limped painfully, and soon, one by one, they began to drop behind each other. We could see them flap their little wings painfully, as they panted on before our fresh and momentarily nearing steeds. At length, one of the poor creatures stopped and laid down, at the same time extending its head despairingly along the ground, and tacitly receiving the deadly arrow of the nearest horseman. We rapidly gained on the whole flock and were soon in the midst of them, knocking them down in every direction. I got a shot at a very fine bird and laid him low, while, almost simultaneously, Tony and the captain each brought one down. Bluefish also did well, but little Dicky Drake, as usual, made a laughing-stock of himself. His tender heart got the better of his desire for carnage just as we got in the midst of the flock, and he conceived the brilliant conception of taking one of the birds alive. Springing from his horse, he made at a very large ostrich with outstretched arms, when he received a most unmerciful kick from the powerful leg of the bird, which doubled him up and laid him sprawling. Nevertheless, he was plucky and immediately got up to try it again. This time, evading the legs of the bird, he made a spring and alighted upon her back, when the bird, no doubt extremely terrified at this maneuver, summoned up her remaining energies and started on a brisk run. Dicky clung to her, probably as much frightened as she, and bellowing like a good 'un amid the noisy laughter of all the huntsmen. "Stick to her! Good-by, Dicky!" shouted old Bluefish. But the bird ran only a few rods before she dropped and expired, and the amateur hunter returned to his horse looking rather sheepish. We killed about thirty birds altogether and took up our homeward way with our horses heavily laden, after having enjoyed the novel sport hugely. We saw vast herds of guanacos, as well as a great many horses on our way back, but we were in no condition to take up another chase, although the opportunity was very tempting. I here also had the opportunity of seeing, for the first time in my life, that enormous bird, the Condor of the Andes. He had been feeding upon some carrion a few rods in front of us, and, startled at our approach, rose slowly up with a guttural cry and flew toward his mountain home. I let off my gun at him at rather short range, I thought, but without effect. The reports of the size of this bird have been greatly exaggerated, but I am sure this one was twice as large as the largest eagle I ever saw. The condor flies higher than any other bird and is only found in the Andes of South America--usually frequenting the most elevated and inaccessible parts. Its strength is prodigious. Walgilka informed me that it was not an unfrequent thing to see them seize upon and carry off the guanaco; and this animal is of about equal weight I think with the merino sheep. CHAPTER X. VALPARAISO. In a few days after our ostrich-hunt, our preparations for leaving Wellington Sound and our kind Patagonian friends were complete. Walgilka was very pressing in his desire for us to defer our departure, promising us all the hunting we could desire, but duty was duty, so we bade farewell to him and his people, and hoisted sail. The American Government had agents in the Chilian port of Valparaiso, whom it was important for Captain Joker to see, and it was therefore decided to make sail in that direction. Another inducement for entering Valparaiso was our scarcity of hands, owing to the depletion our crew had suffered through the many detachments we had been compelled to make in the way of prize-crews. We hoped to obtain some recruits among the merchantmen of Valparaiso. But there was even more difficulty in entering this port than we had experienced at Rio, because the former was then one of the principal rendezvous of the British Pacific squadron, and we expected little mercy if we should be so unfortunate as to run afoul of one of them. Nevertheless, we had been so successful thus far that we were not by any means specially apprehensive. We had not lost a single man since we started. But now, on our way to Valparaiso, there was a little event happened on board the Queer Fish, which, though it at first appeared trifling, was afterward viewed in the light of importance. Little Willie Warner, our pretty cabin-boy, received a severe contusion of the head by a fall down the companionway, and had to go under medical treatment in consequence. He had always been exceedingly quiet and reticent, but was beloved by the whole crew on account of his gentleness and beauty. Every kindness was now evinced for him from every quarter. The captain especially was very considerate. He allowed Roddy Prinn to be nearly altogether excused from duty, in order that he might wait upon his little chum--a favor for which Roddy was exceedingly grateful. The doctor--I have forgotten to mention him; he was a good old body by the name of Benedict--the doctor was very attentive to Willie Warner, and always had something encouraging to say about his charge. But, one day, we noticed Doctor Benedict come hastily up from below, looking very queer in the face. He went up to Captain Joker, and spoke apart with him in low tones, when they both looked pretty serious, and there was an expression on the captain's smiling lips--they always smiled more or less--which I had never noticed them wear before. Well, we didn't know what to make of this mystery; and it was not cleared up for a long time afterward. Willie got well and returned to his duties, but the captain and doctor were, somehow, kinder and more gentle with him than they had ever been before, and his duties were made as light as possible. Before Willie's convalescence was thoroughly over, we arrived off Valparaiso, but did not dare to enter openly, for fear of being stopped at the entrance by a British man-o'-war. We expected a signal from our agents, and hung off the coast a long time, watching for it. But none appeared, and Captain Joker resolved to attempt an entrance at his own hazard. Luckily, he was perfectly familiar with the harbor, and, choosing a dark and stormy night, we succeeded in running in, without meeting any molestation. The tempest went off during the night, and the bright sunlight of the ensuing morning saw us riding safely at anchor, not forty fathoms from the city's wharves. Valparaiso was a city of much less importance then than now, but it was, nevertheless, a smart seaport for that remote portion of the globe. It is built right at the water's edge, with the grand mountain-wall of the Andes running so stiffly, loftily and impenetrably up behind, that you wonder how the rays of the rising sun ever reach the little city nestled at their rocky feet. At least you think they must have daylight on the level pampas beyond many moments before it surmounts those mountains to reach the narrow strip of plain between them and the sea. There is a fine cathedral in the city now, but when I was there, the largest establishment of this kind appeared to be a wooden structure. It was surmounted by a great red, wooden cross, and every morning and evening, we heard the sweet music of the Catholic service come floating to us over the waters of the bay. We only remained in this port a few days, but, while at anchor there, I was a party in a kind of sport seldom, probably never, met with in any other portion of the globe. This was nothing more nor less than a hunt for electric eels. Tony Trybrace and I became acquainted, while at Valparaiso, with a Chilian gentleman named Jose Gonzales. He possessed a large landed estate in the interior, and, when Tony had told him of our ostrich hunt in Patagonia, invited us to visit him at his country place, and he would promise us sport of, at least, a more novel character. Dicky Drake begged us to have the invitation extended to him also, which was readily complied with by Don Jose. And, one morning, having obtained a three-days' "leave" of Captain Joker, we mounted some fine mules, and set forth with our pleasant host. A portion of our journey lay through mountain land--the outskirts of the Andes, and we had a good opportunity of observing the inhabitants of the country. Chili is, at present, considered, and with justice, the first of South American countries in point of everything pertaining to population; and evidences of her future were not lacking in the year 1812. The Spanish population of the mountain region were a simple and hardy race; whose hospitality alone causes the heart of the stranger to warm toward them with a kindly thrill. We saw a great many of the llamas of the country, more condors, as well as monkeys, and many other strange and interesting individuals of brute creation. A ride of about six hours from Valparaiso brought us to the ranch of our host. It was most beautifully situated on the fertile table-land, and made me in love with South American rural life. As we approached the mansion, we passed several black-looking pools, or lagoons, and were much surprised when told, by our host, that they were to be our hunting-grounds. As we rode by the largest of these lagoons, which was scarcely a furlong from the ranch, Don Jose drew a biscuit from his saddle-bags and tossed it into the middle of the still, black waters. Instantly, and before it touched the surface, the lifeless-looking lagoon was filled with a strange and horrible existence. Myriads of snakes (as they appeared) rose suddenly to the surface, and engaged in a furious combat for the floating biscuit. Presently we saw the little fins on either side of their necks, and we then knew them to be eels. Some of them were very large--from six to seven feet in length, I should judge--but they averaged a much briefer length. Presently one of the larger snapped the biscuit under the water, which caused a sudden disappearance of all of them. One little fellow, however, swam around the edge of the tarn, in hopes of more food, projecting his shining head out of the water, and even climbed up the slimy bank, eying us with a peculiarly villainous gaze from his dull, leaden-colored eyes. Here was a chance for Dicky Drake, for, of course, there was no liability of a scrape that he did not seize with avidity. "I allers wanted a specimen of that cuss for my old uncle's cabinet at hum', and here's my chance!" he exclaimed, springing from his mule, and advancing, with hands innocently outstretched; while, from the peculiar expression of Don Jose's features, Tony and I suspected that there was something in the wind. "I've got yer, yer varmint!" exclaimed Dicky, stooping joyfully over the reptile. But no sooner did he clutch it than over he went, head over heels, with a bellow of pain, at the same time dropping the "critter" as if it was a candent thunderbolt. "Don't give it up, Dicky! At him again!" roared Tony through his laughter. "Bravo! Buena!" exclaimed the señor. Smarting at the merriment which his mishap occasioned, Dicky picked himself up in a rage and again grabbed the reptile, which was making tracks for the water. But again he was knocked over by the electric shock, and the eel made its escape to the water. The discomfited eel-catcher regained his feet, and slowly returned to his mule. "Where's your specimen?" I asked. Everybody else had something similar to say. "Blast ther critter!" said Dicky, sulkily. "I never heer'd of a snake as was stuffed with red-hot needles afore." With no other incident worthy of recording, our party soon arrived at the comfortable ranch of Don Jose. The next day, at an early hour, we were summoned from our beds by the servants, and, descending, found our host already on muleback, with an eel-prong in his hand. Our mules and weapons of the same kind were awaiting us. We mounted and were soon on our way to the lagoon. It was a glorious morning. The sun had not yet appeared, but the golden spears of his coming shot high above the sublime peaks of the Andes, gilding their ancient summits with a thousand hues, and flashing down, with a glittering swoop, upon the luxuriant plains. Everything was bright and blooming. Monkeys were leaping amid the branches of the tropical trees, and gaudy-plumed paroquets were flitting here and there; while the bright-green lizards glided across our path, rejoicing silently in the morning beams. We reached the lagoon, which looked as lifeless and stagnant as ever. I was surprised at not seeing any boats; for I thought that, of course, they were necessary for the pursuit of our game. But they have a better, though more cruel, way of catching the festive eel in Chili. We were accompanied by a large number of Don Jose's peons, who proceeded on foot, with legs bare as far up as the thigh, and each armed with an eel-prong, which is a four-pronged "trident," so to speak, sharply pointed, and provided with a wooden handle, or stalk, about four feet in length. They were a merry set, and kept up an incessant conversation and song in their mongrel Spanish, which the devil's interpreter couldn't understand. We reached the margin of the lagoon, and waited there a short time, when we were aroused by a great trampling of the ground, and perceived a herd of some hundreds of wild horses and mules coming over the prairie toward the tarn at a thundering gait. Don Jose now condescended to explain. These animals had been purposely kept without water for two days, and now, so soon as released, were rushing to the nearest lagoon to satisfy their fiery thirst. The character of the inhabitants of the pool was well known to them, and, under ordinary circumstances, not a horse or mule could be induced to put nose or foot into the electric waters. But now, maddened by thirst, and forgetful of everything but the frantic desire to satisfy it, they were making for the nearest water that glittered on the plain. On came the thundering troop of steeds from the opposite side neighing and snorting, with their tongues lolling out. They burst through the chaparral and thick-growing cacti of the border, and in a moment were in the center of the pool--which was but a few rods in diameter. Then commenced a scene which completely beggars description. A most furious contest commenced between the animals and the electric-eels--who, thus suddenly aroused and trampled upon, were striking their strong enemies with all their power. Now and then an eel or two would flash up through the surface, but they were mostly invisible. The horses plunged frantically, uttering cries of agony almost human-like. They bit at the water, shrieked, and endeavored to reach the bank, but in vain. Stricken down by their unseen foes, many of them lost their legs, and went down, with difficulty keeping their heads above the water; and those that fell blocked the path of escape to those less fortunate. The appearance of the horses was most agonizing. Their manes fairly bristled with horror and pain, while it made me sick to hear their cries. The mules also suffered terribly, but not quite so acutely, it seemed to me, as the horses. Don Jose and his people enjoyed the scene immensely, shouting and crying out in the exuberance of their joy. The singular contest lasted fully ten minutes, when it became evident that the fury of the attack of the eels was sensibly abating. In about five minutes more, the fear and pain of the horses and mules totally ceased. Those which had fallen regained their feet, and the whole herd, after quietly drinking their fill, left the pool, and galloped off over the pampas. The reason of this was that the electric power of these eels becomes completely exhausted or expended after it has been exercised malignantly for a certain time, and it requires several hours of rest to recuperate their electric power. And during this time they are powerless of harm. And now the peons advanced into the lagoon, brandishing their spears, while the Don, Tony, Dicky and myself dismounted and stood on the margin, watching our chance. The peons drove their prongs along the bottom, spiking the enfeebled reptiles, which they threw on the shore in great numbers, and then, retracing their steps, drove them toward our position on the bank, where we soon had our fill of the sport. The eels came up, first singly, then in knotted masses, and we darted our spears into them at our pleasure. Dicky Drake enjoyed the sport hugely, but, as usual, met with some mishap. He had taken off his shoes, and was toddling barefoot in the slime, when he accidentally trod on an eel which had been prudent enough to hold off from the attack on the horses. The poor fellow leaped back, with a loud scream, and went limping up the bank. "Did you ever tread on a paper of red-hot pins?" he asked of me at the conclusion of the sport. "Never did," I replied. "If you'd like to know how it feels, just sot yer hoof on that air innocent-lookin' varmint," said he, pointing ruefully to the reptile by which he had suffered; but I had no anxiety to make the attempt. At length we grew weary of the sport, left the peons to carry home the captured eels--which are much esteemed as an article of food--and proceeded on our return. Many thousands of eels were captured on that day. We returned to the ranch and enjoyed ourselves in other, and less novel, ways than eel-hunting. Before we left, our hospitable host showed us some curious relics of the ancient Indian inhabitants. These, from appearances, seem to have been mound-builders. We saw one of the mounds which had been excavated, and Don Jose, afterward, shewed us some specimens of earthenware and instruments of war--the latter fashioned of stone--which he had procured in the neighborhood. We also made a short expedition with our host, to the crater of an extinct volcano, and looked with wonder, upon the vast basin, which had once--long, long ago, perhaps--vomited fire and lava upon the plains below. Thanking our host for the pleasure he had afforded us, we, at the close of the second day, set out upon our return to Valparaiso, at which place we shortly arrived. Captain Joker having transacted his business to his satisfaction, and the coast being clear of British cruisers, we, shortly afterward, weighed anchor, set all sail to catch the trade-winds, and danced out seaward and westward, intending to create an excitement among the British whalers of the South Pacific. CHAPTER XI. AMONG THE WHALERS. One interesting point which we visited on our way westward was the Island of Juan Fernandez, which has been made so famous by the fabulous adventures of Robinson Crusoe. The island is quite small and girt with a thin line of reefs through whose intricacies it is almost impossible for a vessel larger than a long-boat to make a channel. The island itself is surpassingly beautiful. It is one of these little heavens of the summer sea which forcibly recalls the beautiful description of Tennyson:-- "Oh to burst all links of habit, and to wander far away, On from island unto island, at the gateways of the day. Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, Breadths of tropic shade, and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise. Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag. Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from the crag; Droops the heavy-blossomed bower, hangs the heavy fruited tree-- Summer isles of Eden lying in the dark-purple spheres of sea. There, methinks, would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind. In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind. There the passions, cramped no longer, shall have scope and breathing space: I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race. Iron-jointed, supple-sinewed, they shall dive and they shall run. Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun; Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks. Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books." We left this delightful isle astern and drove to the westward, capturing many whalers by the way. We had succeeded in filling up our ship's company to more than repletion at Valparaiso, and now had prize-crews in abundance. When we had been short of men Captain Joker, in as many as three cases, had allowed valuable vessels of the enemy to go on their course on account of not having sufficient men to put prize-crews aboard. It had been frequently urged by the first mate to destroy such vessels (after the manner of Captain Semmes) but Captain Joker invariably refused to do anything of the kind, swearing, in his rough, manly fashion, that he would sooner let the vessels go free than give them to the flames. There was not much adventure in the capture of these vessels. It was merely a firing of a few shots across the bows of the blunt-bowed, heavily-laden craft, which seldom failed to bring her to, and then a peaceable taking possession of her. There was one instance in which there was a difference. We one day (in the latter part of October, I think,) brought a vessel to somewhere within two degrees southward of the Sandwich Islands. She was a whaler from Hull, England, and as we came up to capture her was engaged in the capture of a whale. All her boats were out in pursuit. When we boarded her (her name was the Jenny Hollins) and the captain learned our true character, he immediately signaled his boats to return--or was about to do so, when Captain Joker stopped him with: "Let them alone, my dear captain, they're very creditably engaged." "But, sir," exclaimed the English skipper, "I have surrendered to you. I do not care to have my men employed to enrich your Government." "My dear captain, pray let them alone. Boatswain," (turning to Tony Trybrace) "just take the long-boat with a complement of men, follow the boats of the Jenny Hollins and see that they do their work well, and then order them to the ship. We cannot afford to lose a good whale in these times." So, in spite of the mortified pride of the skipper of the Jenny Hollins, Tony set out in the long-boat, wherein myself and most of my chums were rowers. The whale-boats were busily engaged in tackling a huge whale, probably thinking our craft to be nothing more than a brother whaler, stopped to take pot-luck. They had harpooned their prey several times, and he had come up to breathe for the last time, and to die, when we rowed up. Now, a sperm whale in his death-flurry, as it is called, is not to be approached incautiously, without danger. But we were by no means experienced whalers, and rowed in, regardless of expense or peril, when, suddenly, we caught his tail squarely under our keel, and were lifted up skyward about forty feet, the boat capsizing in the air and tumbling everybody and everything out in the shake of a sheep's tail. Well, we all came down with a rush, as you may be sure. I am sorry to state that I, instead of coming down in the water, alit, head-first, on the back of the Leviathan, stunning me, and leaving me floating around in the water like a dead man. But, fortunately, our boat had fallen bottom downward, old Bluefish had regained her, and we were all picked up, one after another, more dripping than hurt. I remember coming to slowly, and hearing old Bluefish murmuring in my ears, with as much of tenderness as could inform his rude voice: "Wake up! wake up! There's a dear fellow! I know'd as how a son of a sea-cook was never born to be drownded in salt water!" Well, the whale breathed his last soon after our mishap, and we helped the men tow her to the ship; though they were, of course, somewhat crestfallen to learn that they had been in the employ of Uncle Sam for the last hour or two. Nevertheless, we had a gay time in trying out and cutting up the monster. There was a singular mishap occurred at about the close of this operation. It is the custom to have the carcass of the whale lashed to the side of the ship while the work of cutting up is going on. I may as well mention, by way of parenthesis, that this operation of cutting up allures a great number of sharks to the side of the ship, for the sake of the worthless blubber and other _débris_. And, at this time, any man may venture among the black-fins with perfect impunity--so much more is whale-meat esteemed above human flesh by epicurean sharks. As soon as the flesh that is triable is taken from the whale, the carcass becomes a dead weight in the water, descending through the waves with a rush as soon as the stays are cut. It happened that, in the case of our whale, when all but the last lashing were cut, one of the crew of the whaler, who was standing on the carcass, got his feet entangled in some of the cordage remaining on it. Just as the last stay was severed, he was discovered, and was rapidly being drawn to the bottom of the sea, when Old Nick threw a rope about his shoulders, and this served to hold him up. But, in the interim, the entire weight of the enormous skeleton was sustained by the body of the unfortunate seaman, who thereupon began to shriek out in mortal agony. The poor fellow would very probably have been dismembered, had not our heroic and shark-defying Snollygoster jumped overboard, with a knife, and severed the lashings by which he was held to the carcass. The latter immediately disappeared, followed by a great whirlpool of brine. Had the man not been caught, he would have been dragged down many fathoms below the sea; had his feet not been released from the weight of the carcass in time, he would very probably have been disjointed and slain with horrible agonies. As it was, he was more scared than hurt, and Snollygoster added another plume to his cap. Before I quit our whaling experience, I must recur to another striking event of a more truly tragic character than the one just described. We had captured a whaler from Southampton under very similar circumstances with the foregoing. Her boats were out--all but one--and I got permission from the captain to accompany this one, as I was anxious to see a whale capture through, from its inception to its close. There were six boats in all, and ours the hindmost, but the whale--a very large one--dove and came up nearest us, so that we got in the first harpoon. Our harpooner, an athletic Yorkshireman, stood up in the bow of the boat, and struck home in the broad back of the whale as it rose above the water. The whale went down like lightning at the first prick of the harpoon. The lines connected with the harpoon are carefully coiled around in the middle of large tubs, with grooves at the bow for them to slip over. When a whale dives, these lines run out with indescribable swiftness. The groove fairly smokes, and several buckets of water are always dashed upon it to prevent the boat from taking fire. At the same time, a leg or an arm, caught in one of the coils, would be almost certain death to the owner. On the occasion of which I speak, one of the oarsmen, with his back to the bow of the boat, had carelessly stepped into one of these tubs when the whale was struck. Down went the whale with a flash and a whirlpool. The man saw his danger, but too late, and just had time to sing out, "Clear away the line!" when he was whipped overboard and was never seen again. We played havoc among the whalers for a long time, capturing as many as thirty valuable vessels, and sending them home. We met with a terrible squall when a few leagues north of Otaheite, and weathered it with much difficulty. As it was, we sustained such damages that it was imperative to make for some port for repairs. It wouldn't do to enter Otaheite (Tahiti, it is sometimes called--probably the most beautiful spot in the world in all respects) on account of British influence prevailing there, so we set sail for the Sandwich Islands--intending, if unable to procure the necessary repairs there, to proceed to some port on the coast of California. CHAPTER XII. THE WATER-SPOUT--THE ONLY TRAGEDY ON BOARD THE QUEER FISH. When we were about half-way to Honolulu--the chief island of the Sandwich group--we had the monotony of our voyage broken by an adventure with those dangerous phenomena of the ocean water-spouts. Early in the morning, Dicky Drake, who was at the mast-head, descried a vessel to the northeastward, and we immediately steered for her. We had come within a mile or so, and easily made her out to be a brigantine--of what nation we could not determine when the lookout again sung out: "Water spouts on the larboard bow!" We could see nothing of the kind at first, but the captain brought his glasses to bear, and reported that the lookout was correct. Presently every one could see them from the deck. They appeared far away, like vast water-trees, growing from the sea to the sky, and expanding there in funnel shape; but as they appeared to be going away from us, we kept on our course, in order to overtake the brigantine. The best definition of a water-spout represents it as a remarkable natural phenomenon, usually observed over the sea, but sometimes over the land. "It usually consists of a dense, black cloud, depending from the sky in a conical form toward the earth. Sometimes it unites with a corresponding portion, ascending from below, thus forming a continuous column from the surface of the earth (or sea) to the cloud." The genuine--destructive--water-spout, that of the sea, consists of cloud thus partially depended from the sky, while the column which ascends to meet it is of the ocean brine. An immense quantity of water--probably many millions or billions of tons--is thus elevated to an enormous hight above the surface--following the course of the cloud, as it is driven by the wind, and falling, when deprived of the cloud-suction above, with a force sufficient to crush to splinters the combined navies of the world. We had about lessened the interval between us and the stranger craft to one-half, when we saw her suddenly 'bout ship and tack toward us with all possible speed. This singular-conduct upon her part was soon explained by our perceiving that the wind had changed, and that the water spouts--of which there appeared to lie about a dozen--were bearing down upon us, with a rapidity which was terrible. We 'bout ship with all possible speed, and tacked away from the danger with every stitch of canvas that we could cram. But our speed was as a snail's pace compared to the awful swiftness of the scudding water-spouts. In less than five minutes after we tacked, we were completely surrounded by the terrible columns of smooth, up-lifted brine, and we came almost to a standstill. It was a very terrible thing, for, as the water-spouts reached our position, the gale died away, and we, together with the strange brigantine, were left immediately in their midst, until it appeared that we were about to be forever entombed in a magnificent temple of pillared brine. For it was next to impossible to steer clear of them, without bringing one of them upon our heads, by the wind of our motion. They leaned to the eastward--still feeling the influence of the gale that had just died away. If we had been either altogether to the larboard or starboard of them, we might have let them all down to their proper level by a few cannon-shots, but, surrounded as we were, our predicament was most distressing. The water-spouts kept wheeling about us, slowly and silently. They were vast, smooth, glassy columns of brine, reaching to the heavens, some of them four or five feet in diameter in the most slender part. At length, however, a broad opening was created to the southward and we, throwing out our sweeps, made for it with the good will of men whose lives are suspended upon the muscles of the arm. We reached it and were soon out of danger of the _forest_ (so to speak) of water-spouts; but several more were to be seen far to the southward, and we swung around our swivel to send a shot in the midst of the multitude from which we had just escaped. Now here was a predicament, for the brigantine was unprovided with sweeps, and, as there was not a breath of wind--a dead calm--was compelled to remain where she was. In vain we signaled her to put out her boats and attempt to tow out; she paid no attention to us whatever. Through the telescope we could see her crew kneeling and praying upon the deck. Her officers had evidently lost their presence of mind, and piped all hands to prayers when work with a will might have saved her. And now, to our anguish, a slight breath of air came from the northward. It would freshen to a gale in ten minutes. We would again have the watery labyrinth around us, with little hope of escape. What were we to do? If we fired our guns we would envelope the unfortunate brigantine in certain destruction; if we neglected to fire them we would, just as certainly, involve the destruction of our own ship. It was one of those hard questions of fatality where self-preservation is the only solution. So, with a heavy heart, doubtless, the captain gave the order and our Long Tom sent a shower of grape-shot and six-pounders among the labyrinth of water-columns. The effect was grand and terrible. Simultaneously with the report of the swivel the tops of the water-spouts were seen to tremble, then to sway to and fro, and then, down they came with the most terrific noise I ever heard in my life. "Try up the main-to'gallants! All hands aloft! Steady, there, at the helm! Port! hard a-port!" bawled our captain through his trumpet, and his orders were just obeyed in time to allow us to breast the enormous billows occasioned by the falling water-spouts, while we were all drenched to the skin by the spray of their splash, although the one which had stood nearest to us was fully half a mile away. As for the stranger--the brigantine--she was never seen again. We never saw a floating splinter of that ill-fated ship, whereby to tell the port whence she came or whither she was bound. * * * * * I come now to the most painful episode that was connected with the cruise of our almost uniformly merry privateer, the Queer Fish. I have had little of the painful--much of the glad and rollicking--to treat of thus far, and would gladly spin my yarn to its termination as merrily as I began. But truth directs me to a different course. Besides, as this event which I am about to describe is about the only one of a sorrowful character directly connected with the Queer Fish, it may serve to throw the other features of my yarn into a more distinctly cheerful light. Nevertheless, be that as it may, the truth must, like murder, out at last, and here it is. Little Willie Warner, our pet, the cabin-boy, had never totally recovered from the effects of the accident we have narrated as having befallen him. The climate was exceedingly bad as we approached the latitude of the Sandwich Islands--much rain, followed by days of the most intense tropic heat--and little Willie, probably from the cerebral contusion he had formerly received, contracted a brain fever, which soon brought him very low. Roddy Prinn, as in the former instance, was permitted to devote all his time to the duties of a nurse, and all of us did what we could. But, on the morning of the fourth day of the fever, good Doctor Benedict sorrowfully informed the captain that the days and hours of little Willie Warner were numbered, and that the number was brief indeed. We had noticed, from the commencement of this illness, that same appearance of mysterious information, between the captain and the doctor, which had before been indicated to us. And now, at this solemn moment of the announcement of the approaching end of the sufferer, this mystery was still more apparent. The prognostication of the doctor proved only too true. Willie Warner breathed his last before the set of sun. Deeply grieved as was every one on the ship at this deplorable event, there was one whose grief dwarfed all others in the magnitude of its agony. This was Roddy Prinn. The poor fellow went almost insane. Above all, he besought the captain to preserve the body of his little chum, until our approach to the islands would enable us to accord a Christian burial on land to the remains. But, as we were yet within a hundred and fifty miles of our destination, compliance with this request was rendered impossible. Poor Roddy then waxed violent, but was only confined in the gun-room. For, in keeping with the gentle treatment which Willie Warner had always received from the captain, he (Roddy) was treated with an unaccountable leniency. The poor fellow's mind was, undoubtedly, somewhat deranged through his grief. The day after the death of Willie Warner, the body of the little cabin-boy was consigned to the deep. It was a sad and impressive ceremony. All the crew stood around, with their heads uncovered, preserving a deep silence, while the funeral Service was read in measured tones by Doctor Benedict. Then, with a heavy plunge, the shotted sack struck the blue waters, and the form of him we had loved so much was lost to us forever. On the same day, an excitement was created on shipboard by intelligence that Roddy Prinn had attempted suicide, while in his confinement, he had opened a vein in his arms, and was discovered by Doctor Benedict just in time to be saved. As it was, he was almost exhausted through loss of blood, and was not able to be about for some days afterward. He next threw himself into the sea, out of the ports of the gun-room, but was rescued by Snollygoster. Roddy then seemed to give up self-destruction as a bad job, acted very reasonably, and was allowed to return to his duty. A few nights after this last attempt, it was my watch upon deck, and, observing that Roddy was more melancholy than usual, I resolved to keep a sharp eye upon him. The night was one of surpassing beauty. I think I never saw so many stars as studded the glorious vault upon that night; and, presently, the moon, the broad, lucid, tropic moon rose above the ocean's edge, with a luster by which you could have read small print with no difficulty. In spite of myself, my attention was directed to the beauty of the heavens, and was only called thence by the noise of a loud splash in the water, over the starboard bow. Instantly divining that Roddy had made another attempt at suicide, I sung out, "Man overboard!" and ran to the bow. We were completely becalmed, and, as the water was devoid of even a ripple, I could see far down into the sea. And, looking down, I was not long in discovering the figure of the unfortunate young man. Just then the captain, first mate and Doctor Benedict came to the bows, and looked over. Snollygoster had also heard the splash, had also rightly conjectured the cause, and was tearing off his coat and shoes, preparatory for a plunge to the rescue. One remarkable thing in the appearance of the figure below the water was that it neither sunk any deeper, nor rose up, but appeared silently suspended, face downward, at a distance of several fathoms below the surface. We were at a loss to account for this singular phenomenon. Suddenly Snollygoster went overboard with a sharp dive. The water was shaken so much by the plunge that we, for a moment, lost sight of everything below the surface. But the disturbance quickly faded out of the glassy brine, and we could see both the silent form of the drowner and the active figure of the would-be rescuer. We saw Snolly keep under the water by great effort and skill, and frequently touch the body to draw it to the surface, but it as often resisted his efforts, floated about uneasily when disturbed, and then settled down into quiescence, as before--with the head down, silently suspended in the blue crystal of the sea. After repeated efforts, all of which were unavailing, the heroic negro was compelled to come up to the surface for breath. "Try it once more--that is, if possible!" cried Doctor Benedict and down again went the indefatigable rescuer. We, this time, saw him tug with all his force at the suspended form of Roddy Prinn. This time he was more successful; for suddenly, as if relieved of some heavy weight, the body became wonderfully buoyant, and swiftly rose to the surface of its own accord, whence, with the assistance of Snollygoster and a line from the Queer Fish, it was brought on deck. But all restoratives were of no avail. The suicide was a _fait accompli_ at last, and Roddy Prinn was no more. "What caused the body to come up so suddenly, Snolly?" asked Doctor Benedict. "Bekase, Massa Ben'dick, I shook out de t'irty-pound shot which it held in de hands," was the reply. It was true. In order to be successful in drowning himself, the suicide, before leaping over the taffrail into the sea, had firmly clutched in his two hands a thirty-pound cannon-ball. This had kept him silently suspended below the surface, until at last, the cannon-ball being shaken from its hold by the rude grasp of the negro, the body had risen to the surface. Whatever may be said of this singular suicide, it must be acknowledged that Roddy displayed considerable resolution in carrying out his intention. Next day the body of this unfortunate young man was also consigned to the deep. And then the mystery, which we had noticed to exist between the captain and the doctor, leaked out, and became the property of all. It became known that Willie Warner was not a man, but a woman, and that Roddy Prinn was her husband. They had shipped on board the Queer Fish at the Boston docks, and it was only upon the occasion of the first sickness of the pseudo-cabin-boy that her sex was revealed to the physician, and, through him, to the captain. The reasons which induced the lady to assume the disguise of a sailor may have been known to the captain or doctor, but they never transpired among the crew. In consequence of this we had many preposterous rumors afloat--strange stories wherein cruel parents, inexorable step-mothers, crimes committed on land, and other wild theories as to the history of the lovers, whose lives were so mysterious, and whose deaths were so melancholy and strange. But, however wild the stories may have been, and however far from the real history of the lovers, we held their memory dear and sacred. And while we remembered with gentle kindness the gentle disposition of Roddy Prinn, our recollections of our pretty little cabin-boy, Willie Warner, were mixed up with purity and sweetness. CHAPTER XIII. THE VOLCANO. We must have been still fifty miles from our destination, when the bright and continued light to the northward made it evident that the volcanic mountain of the Sandwich Islands was in active operation. No one was especially apprehensive of this, for chances to witness volcanoes are not to be met with every day in the year. As night came on, the light to the northward became more and more vivid, and as we neared the islands, we could hear the roar of the volcano, resembling the rumble of distant thunder. We drew within ten knots of the scene, and then came to anchor on a coral foundation--in water about twelve fathoms deep. The scene of a great volcano, in process of eruption, is an event to be remembered throughout one's immortality. Words can but faintly express its grandeur, its terrible splendor. The painter's brush is powerless here, even if wielded by the hand of genius. The noise of the eruption was terrible as we cast anchor, and the waves were running high, although there was but little wind. From this circumstance we judged that the eruption was accompanied by an earthquake of no ordinary character. Imagine to yourselves a lofty mountain-peak, surrounded by many others of lesser hight and magnitude, piled around, with their clothing of dark and somber trees. Then fancy this central peak to become an instrument for flooding the world with the original fire, and you may have some faint conception of the grandeur of the scene we witnessed. The stars, except at the horizon's edge, were completely dimmed by the mighty effulgence of the blazing peak, or blotted out by the dense volumes of smoke which drifted in the light breeze between the sea and the heavens like a pall for the world. The whole of that side of the peak presented to our view was a liquid mass of red-hot lava. It rolled down the smooth slopes, or plunged from the cliffs in cataracts of living flame. We could see the ocean boiling along the horses as the hot rivers found their way to the water; and millions of dead fishes floated by the ship on the surface of the sea. The sides and rigging of the Queer Fish were thronged with the crew, who gazed long upon the terrible but fascinating scene. The smoke which poured in black volumes from the crater of the mountain was usually intermingled with sheets of flame in about equal quantity; but sometimes the smoke would preponderate so much as almost to shut out the fire, while at others the crater would vomit flame alone, when the glare would be so distressingly vivid that we were compelled to shield our eyes with our hands. The gray ashes emitted by the eruption must also have been very great, for the deck of the ship was covered with a thin coating of it as it drifted aboard like snow, being so fine and dense as to render the air difficult to breathe. The eruption continued all night, and as there appeared no evidence that it would be likely soon to abate we hoisted anchor and sailed for California on the following morning. CHAPTER XIV. CALIFORNIA IN EARLY TIMES. We had succeeded much better than we had anticipated in making our own repairs, so that our object in making for the port of Santa Barbara was more to obtain fresh water and provisions than anything else. Our passage to this little port was attended by some rough weather, but on the whole we had not much to complain of throughout our entire Pacific Ocean experience. We made two prizes on the way. One of them was a British brig from the Columbia River of tolerable value; the other was a rich whaler from Acapulco, on her way to the northern whale-fields, but already half-full of excellent sperm; and we also captured a schooner, but as she had nothing in her hold but ballast we permitted her to pursue the even tenor of her way--not thinking her of sufficient value to warrant our depleting our company by another prize-crew. We arrived at Santa Barbara in the early part of January--just at the close of the rainy season, and came to anchor close under the town, for the harbor is deep. California in the time of which I treat was far different from now. With the exception of a few Mexican settlements along and near the coast, it was nothing but wilderness. There was probably not a house where the present fine and populous city of San Francisco stands, and very few settlements in that neighborhood of the coast--the northern part of which was but little known. Santa Barbara was nothing but a collection of fifty or sixty adobe houses, with a larger structure called (I could never understand why) the Fort, in which the Mexican commandant of the place made his residence. The coast range of the Rocky Mountains comes down close to the water here and, back of the town, we could see lofty peaks uplift themselves grandly (though not so lofty as in the case of Valparaiso), some of them covered with perpetual snow. But their lower slopes are fertile and sunny, and the natives had done a good deal in the raising of vineyards upon them--terracing the steeps to prevent the soil from washing down by the rains or the melting of the snows above. Ships very seldom made a port of entry of Santa Barbara in those days, and the arrival of the Queer Fish was quite an event among the inhabitants, who treated us with uniform kindness. As with the other inhabitants of Spanish America, hospitality is a ruling and virtuous feature of the poor, ignorant Mexicans. Long after the time I speak of, I traveled much among them, and was ever received with the open arms of hospitable friendliness by even the most ignorant and indigent among them. We got excellent water at this place, as well as plenty of grapes and other fruit. As we remained here several weeks, we had many adventures on shore. One of the most interesting of these occurred shortly after our coming to an anchorage. Old Bluefish and myself had obtained permission for a day on shore to enjoy ourselves hunting, and having each of us procured an excellent mustang, set off at a brisk pace in the early morning. We were not long in getting through the mountains--wherein we saw several grizzlies which were too far off to be attacked--and soon emerged from the defiles upon the level plains that lie to the westward. We halted for refreshments at a little town called San Fernandino, if I remember rightly, and then proceeded on our way, through a colony of marmots or prairie-dogs, intending or hoping to kill some antelope farther on. We had a first-rate day's sport, considering that we were sailors. We killed three antelope and about a dozen of the large hares, which have since won the name of jackass-rabbits. The name is not altogether inappropriate--so far as it applies to the animal's ears, which are of extraordinary length and size. The animals themselves are of the hare species. They do not jump as a rabbit, but run as a fox, and with surprising swiftness withal. They are very large, much larger than the English hare, and are excellent eating. It was growing late in the afternoon when we concluded to relinquish our hunt, and return homeward. So we slung our game across the necks of our steeds, and proceeded westward, over the faintly-distinguished trail whereby we had come. We had not traveled many miles before we witnessed a singular and novel sight. Old Bluefish called my attention to a great dust in our advance, which we soon perceived to be caused by four Mexican hunters in pursuit of a grizzly bear. We took our stand on a little eminence, and waited to see the sport. The bear could run almost as fast as the horses of his pursuers, and on they all came at a terrific pace, the Mexicans shouting at the top of their lungs and brandishing their lassoes at a great rate. We now saw that their intention was to take his bearship alive. Just as the grizzly came opposite our point of observation, one of the Californians let his lariat fly, and, catching Bruin by the hind paw tripped him up, while the rest of the horsemen began to circle round the beast on their wild steeds, swinging their lariats, and watching for a chance to noose the monster. The latter rose up on his hind feet, clutched the line which held him, and began to draw his entrapper toward him--horse and all. I never saw a more striking instance of the great muscular strength of the grizzly than this. He seemed to draw the horse and rider toward him with the most perfect ease. We expected to see the Californian draw his knife and cut the line immediately, thus releasing himself from his unpleasant predicament. But he did nothing of the kind. He retained his seat with the most perfect coolness--exhibiting his exquisite horsemanship in so doing; for, although the horse which he bestrode gave tokens of the utmost fright, the horseman kept him in perfect subjection to his will, and calmly allowed the bear to pull him forward inch by inch. I was almost ready to yell out with excitement when I saw the fearless horseman dragged up to within a few feet of the ferocious beast. But, at this instant, whiz went another lariat through the air, and Bruin was caught around the gullet and choked so taut that he could hardly breathe. This caused him to release his hold on the line of his first captor and make at the new assailant. But another noose quickly followed the second, catching him by one of his forepaws, while his remaining hind-foot was quickly caught up by the remaining hunter. Poor Bruin was fairly in the toils, for his prodigious strength could now avail him nothing. The horsemen commenced circling around him on their swift and well-trained steeds, in such a manner as to wind their long, stout lariats of hide repeatedly round the body and limbs of their prey. When he was no longer capable of effective exertion, the horsemen dismounted, and completed their work by a few ingenious knots, so that the bear was completely powerless. A light wagon or cart, which had been waiting in the distance, then came up, and, after a great deal of pulling and hauling and leverage, the monster was safely loaded. We now made our appearance, and made friends with the hunters, as well as imperfect knowledge of their language would admit of. We were surprised and gratified to learn that the bear had been entrapped for a show--a bear and bull fight--which was to take place at Santa Barbara in a few days. So, as we all had one destination, we started homeward together, and arrived at the town shortly after dark. CHAPTER XV. BULL VERSUS BEAR. Two days after this, a great festival came off, and almost all the people of the Queer Fish were on shore to see the fun. Mexican holy days are a singular institution, if the one about to be cited may be considered a fair sample of them all. Church-going forms a small portion of the ceremonies. It is true, the priests went through the town in the morning, jingling their little bells, and asking for alms, while the people of the place almost prostrated themselves before them, and the miserable old bell in the belfry of the adobe cathedral kept up a dismal clang all the time, as if tolling the burial service of all mankind. But then, a few hours later, and the population were amusing themselves with firing off cannon at imaginary demons in the air--the priests directing the guns to the proper spots. I could not believe this at first, and it was only upon diligent inquiry that I found it to be true. But I never before heard of this duty being numbered among the sacerdotal functions of any country--even those of Catholic persuasion. Horse-racing was the next celebration in order, and we experienced considerable pleasure in seeing the Californians compete with each other on their swift steeds. After the horse-racing came the bull and bear fight, in which old Bluefish and myself evinced an especial interest. A broad tract of sward was inclosed in palings and ropes, just outside the town, on the ocean-shore. Long before the animals appeared, the merry people of Santa Barbara crowded round this inclosure, smoking their cigarettoes and having a good time generally, while the distinguished visitors from the Queer Fish were allotted a good place of observation underneath a little pavilion, which was reared at the command, and for the benefit, of the commandant and his family. We waited a good while, but it was almost sunset, and the heat was not oppressive. At last, amid the cheers of the populace, the cart appeared bearing the grizzly. He was driven, still bound, within the inclosure, and there dumped unceremoniously upon the ground. Then the bull, a very fine and ferocious one, was driven into the inclosure. While he was prancing and bellowing about, taking his "bearings," the strong gates of the palisades were closed, and one of the Californians, who officiated, proceeded to cut the thongs which fettered the bear, by means of a knife made fast to the end of a long pole, thus enabling him to perform the operation and stand outside the stockade at the same time. Released from his long confinement, Bruin staggered to his feet and stretched himself. He was pretty soon himself again, and now began to eye the bull with suspicious glances, keeping on the opposite side of the ring, and not seeming especially anxious for a nearer acquaintance. The bull appeared somewhat more belligerent, but likewise averse to commence the fight. He would advance this way and that, pawing the ground and lashing his flanks with his angry tail, while the great bear--which probably outweighed his antagonist by several hundred pounds, although he was not quite so bulky--shifted as the bull did, keeping his nose close to the ground, but apparently ready for any emergency. The ceremony of making each other's acquaintance becoming rather tedious to the impatient spectators, the latter began to yell and shriek in a hideous manner, in the apparent hope of inducing a commencement of the scrimmage. But both bull and bear still being wary and cautious, the man who had cut the thongs of the former commenced to goad, now the bull and then the bear with his pole-knife. This had the desired effect, for presently the bull lowered his horns, and rushed upon the bear with a fierce bellow. Bruin took it coolly, stood on his hind legs, avoided the coming horns, and fetched his antagonist such a wipe with one of his terrible forepaws that the bull staggered back to his side of the arena, with one side of his neck raw and bloody. But Bruin, elated with his success, no doubt, forgot his caution, and followed up his antagonist, fetching him another wipe between the hips, but receiving, in his turn, one of the formidable horns under his left shoulder, which seemed to paralyze one of his paws. He then retreated in his turn, walking on three feet, and watching the bull with a distrustful wariness. The spectators were very much excited at this exhibition, and began to make wagers as to the result of the combat. But I took notice that almost all of them preferred to bet on the bull. At length the bull lowered his head again and made another rush, but only to be repulsed a second time by his powerful antagonist. But this time the "round" was much more protracted than before, and both of the beasts were much injured. The bear moved about with evident pain, but his injuries were more of the character of bruises than otherwise, while those of the bull occasioned much loss of blood, the effects of which were already beginning to tell painfully upon him. His courage was sublime. He did all the attacking, charging repeatedly, in spite of the terrible slashing he received from the forepaw of the grizzly, until at last both of his sides were streaming with gore, and his eyes were almost blinded with his blood. But now the bull, evidently feeling that his strength would soon be exhausted, gathered himself up for a prodigious effort, and sprung upon his adversary with the momentum of a locomotive. In vain did Bruin lash out with those long sharp talons of his; the bull would not be denied, and goring him to the ground, fairly pinned him to the earth. One of his horns held the bear by the neck and the other pierced deeply into his breast. The bear bellowed with pain and fought with all his paws, but his struggles grew gradually feebler, and the bull held him down bravely, until at last the movements of Bruin ceased altogether, a token that he breathed no more. Then, and only then, did the bull extract his horns from the fallen body and lift his bloody head. The plaudits of the spectators rung loud, but the brave animal only staggered a few paces, when he fell in the center of the arena and expired. His victory had cost him his life. CHAPTER XVI. ACAPULCO--ANOTHER YARN FROM BLUEFISH. After a delay of a week or more with our friends at Santa Barbara we weighed anchor one bright morning in the middle of January and started southward for Acapulco, intending to pick up what prizes might chance to cross our path on the way thither. But our passage southward was scarcely broken by a single event so important as the capture of a British trader. We had splendid weather all the way down. When off Cape St. Lucas I for the first time witnessed that phenomenon of the desert and of the ocean which is denominated a mirage. It happened just about an hour before sunset. The day had been characterized by a peculiar kind of haze ever since noon. This silvery haze or vapor completely banked the western horizon, and was smitten by the beams of the descending sun into many beautiful hues, when--about the time before mentioned--the lookout suddenly sung out: "A sail on the larboard bow!" then again in a few seconds: "A sail on the starboard bow!" At last he sung out in a tone of amazement: "Sails all around the ships!" This was true enough, but they were visionary sails, not on the ocean, but high up in the misty air, and probably belonging to those vessels which came to the poet in his visions, when he "Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue." Some of these visionary vessels were very distinctly seen, with men on their decks and flags flying, but, as the apparitions were colorless, of course, the character of the airy flags could not be determined. We were almost becalmed while we were the witnesses of this strange phenomenon, and we had an hour or so to observe it in. But, as the night began to fall, an easterly gale sprung up, and, in a few moments, our "airy navies" vanished away. We arrived at Acapulco, after a prosperous voyage of only a few days' duration, and remained there two days. Acapulco was much then as it is now. It is a very solidly-built place, resembling Panama in this, and is possessed of more than one handsome ecclesiastical building. The bay of Acapulco is one of the finest in the world--by far _the_ finest in America. It is well sheltered, is capacious, deep and excellent in every respect. The region around Acapulco equals any in Mexico in point of fertility. Almost every tropical fruit flourishes profusely, and most of us were down somewhat with dysentery, through indulging too freely. Our ship was surrounded most of the time while in port by natives, most of them children, who almost live in the water. Probably no people in the world--except, perhaps, the natives of the South Sea Islands--are so much at home in the water as these Mexicans of the Southwest Coast. They would swim and dance in the water around us by the hour, begging to have some one toss a shilling to them. I have repeatedly tossed a small silver coin overboard into the sea, when one of these children of the waters would dive like a fish, catch the coveted coin before it reached a depth of many fathoms, return to the surface, display it triumphantly, and then put it in his mouth for safe-keeping and clamor for some one to try him again with a similar bribe. The people are very ignorant, contented and happy. They have few or no cares to distract their attention. Their wherewithal of subsistance grows on the trees above their heads; and for clothing--they wear so little that it can hardly be taken into account as an item of expense. We intended to sail from Acapulco on a certain day in the latter part of January, but a severe storm sprung up in the afternoon which made it much more prudent to lie for a while longer under the shelter of the excellent harborage in which we were. Nevertheless all hands were got aboard ship and everything put in readiness for a start on the morrow, wind and weather permitting. It was on this evening, when a number of us were merrily gathered round our table in the forecastle discussing our grog and pipes, that old Bluefish, upon earnest solicitation, spun us one of his exceedingly improbable yarns. Clearing his throat with a long pull at his glass of rum, and lighting a fresh pipe, he commenced his yarn of THE PHANTOM SHIP. "P'r'aps most on yer," said he, "has hearn tell on the Phantom Ship, but I'll bet my old boots ag'in' a new tarpaulin and westcut that none on yer ever was aboard o' that craft, as my mother's son was, in the person of myself. Howsomedever that is neither this way nor that, for I must pick up the eend of my yarn at a shorter beginning. "It happened all along o' the schooner Jolly Admiral. I was a cabin-boy on her. We had been to Hong Kong for a load o' tea and was somewhar atwixt Bombay and the Cape of Good Hope on a bright moonlight night in the month of June when we first see'd the Phantom Ship. We didn't know her true character until we came within a quarter of a mile of her and saw her flimsy, threadbare canvas and the devil's blue-lights burning on her bowsprit and after-jib. We could see the captain and the crew going about on her in a ghostly sort of way. They all looked very melancholy and didn't pay any attention to us whatsoever. "We could hear their voices, too, and jist let me tell yer, if you had heard them 'ere voices you wouldn't want to do it ag'in in a hurry. Well, all of a sudden, although there warn't no breeze to speak of, the sails of the Phantom Ship bellied out, and away she scudded to the southward like a streak of blue thunder stuffed with lightning, leaving us jist nowhars at all. "We was somewhat taken aback, but not so much surprised nuther, for, yer see, we had been made acquainted with the fact that them 'ere seas was particularly haunted by the devil's craft, and we was, therefore, sort of prepared for meeting her. But somehow, as soon as the critters faded away from our sight I jist whispers to myself, 'If ever I gits the chance I'm going to board that 'ere craft, or I ain't a Bluefish, but only a blarsted mackerel.' "It warn't long afore I had the chance. Only two nights arter the one aforesaid, the sea was swept by one of them 'ere orful hurricanes or simooms as is nat'ral to them parts. Although we was pretty well prepared to meet it, the darned thing struck us so suddenly that we was almost throwed on our beam-eends. The night grew as black as pitch. You couldn't 'a'see'd your hand afore your face if you was as white as a snowdrift. I never see'd, afore or since, sich orful waves. You'd go down inter the hollers of 'em and think you'd never come up ag'in. And the wind--well, it's no use tryin' to describe one o' them 'ere simooms. Suffice ter say that it lifted us clean out of the sea more than once, and sometimes carried us, like a Mother Carey's chicken, for a mile or two over the waves, without our keel touchin' a single crest." "Is this story true?" I here interposed, with a solemn voice, quite aghast at the imagination of the old salt. "In course it is, yer lubberly son of a sea-cook! Does yer suppose a cove as old as I be would tell yer anything as wasn't right-down genuine? "As I was a-sayin', the force of the wind was orful. Howsomdever, we had as jolly a little craft as ever cut blue water, and we weathered it bravely. Sometimes, when the wind would sort of sink away a little, we would drive right through the big waves, until even our main-tops were all under water; but, as our hatches were clewed down and our deck was pretty tight, we allers came out of our bath as fresh as ever. Then the gale would start up again, and away we would go over the tops of the waves. "It was on one of these occasions that our lookout sung out, 'Lights on the starboard bow!' In course, we was all curious enough at first; but, jist as we rose up on a big crest, what should we see but the Phantom Ship, holdin' right across our course, and we jist ready to run inter her larboard bulwarks with the next pitch we made. She had all her blue lights burnin', and there was a sort of yaller haze all around her. Notwithstandin' we was under bare poles, and found it hard work to keep from bein' blown skywards at that, the stranger had every stitch of canvas spread, and didn't seem to suffer anywise nuther. We hadn't time to make many observations, howsomdever, before we struck the cussed thing right in her side, and began to shoot through her, jist as if she was made of smoke. I was standin' in the bows of the Jolly Admiral at the time. 'Now or never!' I sings out to myself; and, simultaneous, I made a jump and caught the ratlin's of the stranger, while the Jolly Admiral passed on her way and left me swingin' like a pendulum in the air. "I fell down on the deck of the stranger, but immejiately resumed my legs and took a survey of things in gineral. All the crew moped about the deck, attendin' to their duties, while the captain bellered out his orders through a trumpet made of condensed wind, lined with p'izen and streaks of lightning. "At first none on 'em paid any attention to me. But at last the first mate--an orful-lookin' cuss--came right up to me, grabbed me by the gullet, and dragged me to the quarter-deck, and stood me up afore the skipper of the Phantom Ship. "'Here, Cap,' says he, 'is a little cuss of a cabin-boy, as was left behind by that infernal craft as jist ran through us.' "(I forgot to mention as how the hole, which the Jolly Admiral made in passin' through the stranger, healed itself up ag'in in the most supernatural way in the world.) "Well, the phantom skipper looked at me a moment without sayin' a word, even so much as a civil 'How d'ye do?' He was the orfulest-lookin' cuss it was ever my fortin' to stumble across. His flippers were those of a skeleton, and his head was a reg'lar death's head, with eyes as burned like two coals of fire, while a pair o' cross bones was suspended across his bosom. I suppose they was some sort o' medals given the cuss on account o' meritorious conduct. At length the critter spoke to me, an' his voice was orful strange. You could hear it very distinctly, but it sort o' seemed to come from a long ways off, jist like the voice of a speerit. "'What's the name o' that 'ere ship what jist ran through us?' says he, in a melancholy way. "'Please yer Honor,' says I, respectfully touchin' my cap, 'it warn't a ship, but a schooner--the Jolly Admiral of New Bedford.' "'Ha, boy,' says he, 'dostest thou dare to banter me with thy jokes. Howsomdever, what's your name?' "'Bluefish,' says I. "'The son of old Sol Bluefish of Nantucket, the man as was hanged?' says he. "'The same,' says I. "'Ha! is it indeed so?' he ejaculated, leanin' his chin on his breast, in a meditatin' mood. 'He was a nice man,' he added; 'he was also a particular friend o' mine.' "'Allow me to take your flipper,' says I, puttin' on a free-and-easy air. 'It allers gives me a vast amount of pleasure to meet any one as was on good terms with the old man.' "With that, I grabbed him by the bony hand, but immediately let the thing drop like a piece of a thunderbolt, for it burned like a coal of fire. He contemplated me with an affectionate smile. "'Yes,' said he, 'I knowed the old man well. And how's your mother? Do you know,' says he, 'I came mighty near marryin' that gal once myself?' "'God forbid!' says I, with a unconscious shudder. "When I said these 'ere words, the skipper's knees trembled, and he almost fainted away. "'Young man,' says he, slowly recoverin' himself, 'be very careful how you utters the name o' that individual on this 'ere ship, or we'll all be knocked into the middle of kingdom come. Tell me,' says he, 'what was your object in boardin' this 'ere craft?' "'I was jist sort o' curious ter see about the state of yer health,' says I. 'And now, if its all the same to you, suppose you put me ashore.' "'Thou hastest thy wish, my son,' says he, in a kindly voice. And with that he taps me gently over the head with that 'ere trumpet of his, and I immediately sunk inter a deep state of non-sensibility. "When I woke, I found myself sleeping quietly in my hammock on board the Jolly Admiral, and when I tells my story, all on 'em laughs at me, and even denies that there was any Phantom Ship at all. "But, in course, that didn't make no difference to me, since it was all true." "It was a dream," suggested Tony Trybrace. "Certainly," said I. "Avast, yer lubbers! Doesn't I know as what I knows?" And with this conclusive argument, Bluefish "turned in." CHAPTER XVII. HOMEWARD BOUND. The next day, the tempest having abated, and everything being snug on board the Queer Fish, we weighed anchor, took the northeasterly trades on our top-gallants, and started on our return round the Cape. Every one was exceedingly jolly, as is usually the case on board a vessel homeward bound, after a long and prosperous voyage. Very little occurred worth recording. We didn't meet with a single prize on our way to the Cape, but had another merry time with our Patagonian friends. On the voyage up, on the Atlantic side, however, we captured four more prizes, one of them a very large and valuable ship, loaded down almost to the gunwales with coffee and spices. When off the Bahama Banks, we were chased by a fast-sailing British war-vessel, and had our mizzen-top knocked off by her bow-chasers. But we successfully returned the compliment with our swivel, and, as nothing could overhaul the Queer Fish before a stiff breeze, succeeded in making our escape. We arrived at Boston in the early part of March, after one of the most memorably successful voyages on record. Our prizes numbered thirty-six in all, and, of these, all but one safely reached American seaports. So, with our pockets stuffed with prize-money, you may guess that we had a jolly time. My yarn is over, and you will hear no more at present from The Boy Privateer. THE END. FOOTNOTE: [1] _Matadore_ is a name applied generally to the men who attack the bull, either on horse or on foot; but the distinctive and legitimate meaning of the term applies to those footmen who carry swords and whose office is especially that of the _coup de grace_. Beadle's Half-Dime Library. BY T. J. FLANAGAN. +909 Midshipman Dare, the Pirate Catcher.+ +925 The Young Cowboy Captain.+ +933 The Two Midshipmen+; or, The Corsair-Chaser's First Cruise. +949 The Three Lieutenants.+ +959 The Mascot Middy+; or, The Four Commanders. +966 Fighting Jack Shubrick.+ +972 Fighting Jack's Middies+; or, Dandy Dick's Dash. +999 Jack Lung+, the Privateer Rover. NEW ISSUES. +1016 The Boy Bugler in Cuba+; or, The Cowboy Clan On Deck. By Col. P. Ingraham. +1017 Detective Matt's Man-Hunt+; or, Downing the Desperate Dozen. By Ned St. Meyer. +1018 Deadwood Dick, Jr.'s, Big Four.+ By E. L. Wheeler. +1019 Burd Bayard's Close Call.+ By Capt. Hawthorne. +1020 Barney Blake+, the Boy Privateer. By H. Johnstone. +1021 Doctor Paul, Detective.+ By Leon Lewis. +1022 Dean Dangerfields's Desperate Game.+ By Maj. Dangerfield Burr. JUST ISSUED. +1010 Kit Bandy's Big Six+; or, The Rustlers of Jackson Basin. By Oll Coomes. +1011 Deadwood Dick, Jr.'s, Dutch Pard+; or, Rooting Out the Rascals of Skeleton Gorge. By E. L. Wheeler. +1012 The Cripple's Dead-Sure Clinch+; or, Trapping the Old Fraud. By Charles Morris. +1013 Buffalo Bill's Texas Team.+ By Col. P. Ingraham. +1014 Middy Ned+, the Runaway; or, Hairbreadth Escapes Afloat and Ashore. By T. J. Flanagan. +1015 The Reporter-Detective's Big Pull.+ By Wm. P. Brown. A New Issue Every Tuesday. +The Half-Dime Library+ is for sale by all newsdealers, five cents per copy, or sent by mail on receipt of six cents each. BEADLE AND ADAMS, Publishers, 92 William Street, New York. 
50814	----	TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE Underlined text is denoted by _underscores_. There is no 'bold' or 'italic' text. Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources. More detail can be found at the end of the book. PRIZE MONEY BY PHILIP QUINCY WRIGHT A. B. Lombard College, 1912 THESIS Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN POLITICAL SCIENCE IN THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 1913 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS THE GRADUATE SCHOOL JUNE 5, 1913 I HEREBY RECOMMEND THAT THE THESIS PREPARED UNDER MY SUPERVISION BY QUINCY WRIGHT ENTITLED PRIZE MONEY BE ACCEPTED AS FULFILLING THIS PART OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS _James W. Garner._ In Charge of Major Work _James W. Garner._ Head of Department Recommendation concurred in: }Committee } }on } }Final Examination _TABLE OF CONTENTS._ _Introduction._ _Chapter I. Among the Ancients._ Page Part 1. Greece 2 a. Land War--Principles, Causes, Effects. b. Maritime War--Prize Courts, Piracy, Rhodian Laws. Part 2. Rome 10 a. Land War--Method of Division. b. Maritime War--A Land People, Piracy, Principles, Causes, Effects, Ferocity of War. _Chapter II. During the Middle Ages._ Part 1. Maritime Codes 16 Early Codes, Consolato del Mare, Character of its Rules, Effects, No Recognition of States. Part 2. The New International Law 21 Machiavelli, Brunus, Victoria, Ayala, More, Bodin, Gentilis, Grotius, Zouche, Puffendorf, Summary. _Chapter III. Great Britain, Historical Resumé._ Part 1. Earliest Times to 1340 30 a. Laws--Common Law Rule, Liberality to Captors, Grant by Letters Patent, Cinque Ports. b. Administration--Common Law Courts, Slight Control. Part 2. 1340 to 1485 34 a. Laws--Distribution by Ordinance, Privateers, Letters of Marque, Adjudication of Prizes, Black Book of Admiralty. b. Administration--Establishment of Admiralty, First Prize Court, Conservator of Ports. c. Significance--Cause, Effect. Part 3. 1485 to 1603 43 a. Laws--Letters Patent, Admirals Tenth, Prize Proclamations, Letters of Marque from France. b. Administration--Aggressive Policy, Crowns Control, Adjudication not the Rule, Restraint of Privateers, Summary. c. Significance--Effect, Encouragement of Privateers, Cheap War. Part 4. 1603 to 1688 50 a. Laws--Proclamations, Puritan Ordinances, Prize Bounty, Piracy, Navigation Acts, Spoil on Decks, Jure Coronae, Droits, of Admiralty. b. Administration--Adjudication Required, Admirals Jurisdiction, Cinque Ports, Civil War, Puritanism, Restoration, Trading Companies, Significance. _Chapter IV. Great Britain, Recent Laws._ Part 1. 1688 to 1864 56 Grants by statute, Queen Anne's Statute, Lord Loughborough's Opinion, Later Acts, Acts of 1793, of 1812, of 1815, Ransom Forbidden, Slave Trade, Crimean War. Part 2. 1864 to 1913 64 Permanent Statutes, Naval Agency and Distribution Act, Naval Prize Act of 1864, Naval Instructions, Duties of captors, Sharers of Prize, Recapture. _Chapter V. Great Britain, Recent Administration._ Part 1. Prize Courts 70 Lord High Admiral, Admiralty Courts, Admiralty in Commission, Struggle with Common Law, Jenkins, Mansfield, Stowell, Vice Admiralty Courts, Commissioning Prize Courts, High Court of Justice, Appellate Authorities, Lord High Admiral, Chancellor, Delegates of Appeal, Judicial Committee, of Privy Council, International Prize Court for Appeals. Part 2. Theory of Distribution 78 a. Relation of State and Individual in War--War by State Authority, Rousseau's Theory, Grotian Theory, English Practice. b. Reprisal--Private, Public, General reprisal, Declaration of Paris. c. State Title to Prize--Original Title in State, Phillimore, Holland, Brougham, State can return prize without cause, Stowell, The Elsebe. d. Adjudication of prizes--Jay Letter, Competent Court. e. Method of Distribution--Benefits received; bounty, salvage, prize money. Part 3. Prize Bounty 91 Headmoney, Conditions of Giving. Part 4. Prize Salvage 92 Pirates, Neutral vessels, Subjects Vessels, Change of Title, Allies, Summary. Part 5. Prize Money 98 Division among Men, Among Allies, Vessels Entitled to Share, Joint Captors, Privateers, Associated Vessels, Tenders, Boats, Transports, Joint Land and Naval Captures, Non-commissioned Captors, Forfeiture of Prize Money. _Chapter VI. Great Britain, Significance of Present Law._ Part 1. Causes of Law 106 Imperial Power, Naval Supremacy, Commercial Dependence, Governmental Control, to encourage sea men. Part 2. Effects of Prize Money 109 a. On the Navy--When privateering legal, since Declaration of Paris, does not increase efficiency, commercial war. b. On International Law--Neutral rights, destruction of prizes, right to capture private property at sea, attitude of naval personnel, of publicists, at Second Hague Conference. c. Conclusion--Little Effect for good or evil, why it remains law, attitude of England at the Second Hague Conference, it should be abolished. _Bibliography_ General 120 Ancient 127 Medieval 128 Great Britain 130 INTRODUCTION. The rules for disposing of the proceeds of prizes captured in war is a question of municipal law. After a prize has been legally condemned, international law has no direct concern with the ultimate disposition which the captor state may choose to make of the proceeds. Indirectly, however, the prize money laws of different states may be of great interest to other states, for the character of the internal regulations in this matter may determine the amount of energy displayed by cruisers in making captures; the impartiality of national prize tribunals, the number of prizes and the number of condemnations made in a particular war; questions of vital interest to both belligerent and neutral merchantmen plying their trade on the high seas in time of war. It is the purpose of this paper to investigate the character of prize money laws in force in various countries at different periods of their history, the conditions which have given rise to such rules, and the effect particular rules have had upon maritime captures in time of war. _CHAPTER I. AMONG THE ANCIENTS._ PART 1. GREECE. a. Land War. The Greeks are possibly the earliest people who attained a sufficient degree of civilization to have any definite laws of war, consequently we shall first look to them for laws of prize distribution. In his chapter on "the right of acquiring things captured in war",[1] Grotius treats at length the condition of private property in war among the ancients. His remarks are intended to refer to both land and naval warfare though in fact all his instances are drawn from land warfare. It is probable that the same theories applied in both cases though on the high seas from the nature of the case, the state would have much greater difficulty in enforcing any restrictions upon the right of making captures and appropriating the profits therefrom than on land. In regard to the Greek treatment of prize, Grotius says:[2] "After the battle of Plataea there was a severe edict that no one should privately take any part of the booty.[3] Afterwards when Athens was conquered the booty was made public property by Lysander[4] and the Spartan officers who had to deal with the measure were called prize sellers.[5] If we go to Asia the Trojans were accustomed as Virgil teaches to draw prize lots as is done in dividing common property.[6] In other cases the decision of the matter was with the general and by this right Hector promises Dolon the horses of Achilles when he stipulates for them,[7] by which you may see that the right of prize treasure was not in the captor alone. So when Cyrus was victor, the booty was taken to him,[8] and when Alexander, to him."[9] In his work on International law among the ancients,[10] Phillipson has presented similar instances of the distribution of booty. He adds to the statement made by Grotius in regard to the battle of Plataea that after making proclamation that no one should take the booty "Pausanias ordered the helots to collect the treasure of which one tithe was allotted to the Gods at Delphi, another to the Olympian God, and a third to the God at the Isthmus, and the rest was divided according to title and merit. An additional reward was also given to those who particularly distinguished themselves, and a special portion reserved for Pausanias."[11] and again, "In 426 B.C. when Ambracia was reduced by the Acaranians with the help of the Athenians under Demosthenes, a third part of the spoils was assigned to Athens, three hundred panoplies to Demosthenes and the remainder divided by the Acaranians among their cities."[12] Similar practices have been noted by Prof. Amos S. Hershey in a recent article. He says "It was customary to divide the booty amongst the victorious soldiery, i.e. after devoting one tenth of the spoil to the Gods and a portion to the leaders and warriors who had particularly distinguished themselves."[13] The Greeks also appear to have recognized the right of reprisal. Thus in the Iliad, Nestor speaks of making reprisals on the Epeian nation, in satisfaction for a prize won by his father Neleus at the Elian games and for debts due to many private subjects of the Pylian kingdom. The booty was equitably divided among the many creditors.[14] This testimony is based on the writings of Herodotus, Plutarch, Xenophon, Homer, Virgil, Pliny and other classical writers. It has little bearing on our present subject except in so far as it indicates the recognition even at so early an age of the principle that the title to captured property does not rest in the immediate captor but that proceeds of prize shall be equitably divided by the general or other officer. In the case of the battle of Plataea there seems to be also a recognition of the principle that prizes of right belong to the whole public, in other words to the state. These two principles, that prizes do not belong to the original captor but should be divided, and that the state may appropriate prizes seem to constitute the Greek theory on the subject. It is unlikely that they were the subject of definite laws but recognition was given to them if at all by command of the general on the occasion of a particular war, as is indicated in the cases cited. The basis for this theory, apparently far ahead of its time may be found in the well developed feeling of political obligation among the Greeks. They appear to have recognized public war as a state affair, consequently individual soldiers acted only in the capacity of agents of the state in regular military operations.[15] Their captures accrued not to themselves but to the state for whom they acted. Of the actual effect of such a prize law among the Greeks it is difficult to make a statement. It might be supposed that the incentive toward the capture of booty would be decreased by such a rule yet so far as we can learn of Greek warfare there was no limit to the atrocities committed either on persons or property.[16] The Greek soldier felt justified in going to any extreme in acting for his state.[17] b. Maritime War. Grotius has nothing to say of prize laws in maritime warfare. Phillipson believes that the Greeks made prize of enemy vessels and also of neutral vessels for breach of blockade. He gives evidence which indicates that theoretically, confiscable goods went to the state, and that rudimentary prize courts were held. Thus he says: "In most Greek states there was something of the nature of a prize court, to which appeals could be made by those who held they had been contrary to the law of nations deprived of their property. In Athens, the assembly of the people frequently took cognizance of such claims. Thus two trierarchs were accused of appropriating the proceeds of a cargo from Naucrates on the ground that if confiscable it ought to have gone to the State. An assembly was therefore held and the people voted for a hearing on the question."[18] But in general, law at sea was very poorly enforced and neutral rights seldom respected. In fact it seems likely that maritime war fell little short of piracy so far as the capture of private property was concerned.[19] Thus Polycrates of Samos wishing to establish his supremacy on the Aegean built up a navy which swept the sea, robbing friend and foe alike,[20] and so "at the commencement of the Peloponnesian war the Lacedaemonians captured not only the trading vessels of their enemy the Athenians, and also of their allies, but even those of neutral states and all who were taken on board were treated as enemies and indiscriminately slaughtered."[21] The Aegean sea was a nest of pirates and the profession was looked upon not only as a legitimate means of emolument but was even considered glorious.[22] They were frequently engaged in war as mercenaries. Thus Psammilicha was reinforced by Carian and Ionian pirates,[23] Euripidas and Aelotian employed pirates as mercenaries in 218 B.C.[24] and Polyxenidas the commander of the fleet of Antiocha entered into an alliance with Nicander, a pirate chief who contributed five decked ships in 190 B.C.[25] In such cases of course the state surrendered all right in controlling the distribution of prize money or of itself sharing in the proceeds. The Rhodian sea laws[26] are said to have been effective in the third century B.C. in temporarily freeing the sea of Pirates[27] and giving opportunity for considerable commercial advancement. Unfortunately these laws have been almost entirely lost so we do not know what measures were taken for disposing of the captured pirate vessels or other enemy goods that might be considered prize. It seems that the theory of the states control over prize applied in naval as in land war but that in practice government authority at no period of ancient Greek history extended very effectively over the seas for any considerable length of time and that private property was for the most part at the tender mercies of the pirates. _NOTES._ Chapter I, Part 1. [1] Grotius, Hugo. De Jure Belli et Pacis. 3 Vols. Original and English translation from the Latin by William Whewell. Cambridge, England, lib. iii, c vi, p. 104. [2] Op. cit. iii, 123. [3] Heroditus, ix, 79, quoted in Grotius, op. cit. iii, 123. [4] Plutarch, Lysander, 442 a, quoted ibid. [5] Xenophon, de Lacedemonia Republica, c 13, n 11, quoted ibid. [6] Virgil, Aeneid, ix, 268, quoted ibid. [7] Homer, Iliad, v, 331, quoted ibid. [8] Euripides, Rhes. v, 182, quoted ibid. [9] Pliny, xxxiii, 3, quoted ibid. [10] Coleman Phillipson. The International Law and Custom of Ancient Greece and Rome. 2 Vols. London, 1911. [11] Heroditus, ix, 80, 81, quoted in Phillipson, op. cit. ii, 237. [12] Thucidides, iii, 114; Heroditus, viii, 11, 123; Plutarch, Alcibiades, 7; Plato, Synp. 220; quoted in Plato op. cit. ii, 237. [13] Hershey, Amos S. The History of International Relations During Antiquity and the Middle Ages. American Journal of International Law, 1911, v. 915. [14] Homer, Iliad, lib ii, quoted in Blackstone, Commentaries, i, 259. [15] Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City, English Translation from French by Willard Small, 10th Edition, Boston, 1901, p. 293. [16] Wheaton, History of the Law of Nations, New York, 1845, p. 5. Walker, History of the Law of Nations, Cambridge, Eng., 1899, p. 41. [17] "To a king or commander nothing is unjust which is useful." Thucydides, History, lib vi, quoted in Wheaton, History, p. 5; see also Hershey, op. cit. American Journal of International Law, v. 915. [18] Phillipson, op. cit. ii, 381. [19] Walker, History, p. 41. Walker, Science of International Law, Cambridge, England, 1893, p. 60. [20] G. W. Botsford, A History of Greece, New York, 1912, p. 75. [21] Thucydides, ii, 67, quoted in Phillipson, op. cit. ii, 382. [22] Homer, Iliad, i, 367; vi, 58; ix, 588, xxii. 64; Odyssey, xv, 385; 426; xvii, 425; quoted in Phillipson, op. cit. 370. [23] Heroditus, ii, 152, quoted in Phillipson, op. cit. ii, 371. [24] Polybius, iv, 68, quoted ibid. [25] Livy, xxxvii, 11, quoted ibid. [26] The so-called Rhodian laws of the middle ages, the earliest manuscript of which apparently dates from 1478, have no connection with the ancient sea laws of Rhodes. Of the latter only the law of Jettison survives, see Robert D. Benedict, The Historical Position of the Rhodian Law, Yale Law Journal, 1908-09, xviii, 223; Hershey, op. cit. Amer. Jour. of International Law, 1911, v. 917; Walter Ashburner, the Rhodian Sea Law, Oxford, 1909. [27] Hershey, op. cit. American Journal of International Law, 1911, v. 915; Phillipson, op. cit. ii, 373. PART 2. ROME. a. Land War. From the Greek theories the Roman legal mind developed elaborate rules for the apportionment of booty captured in land war. The Romans clearly recognized that the prizes taken in public war belong to the state. "Whatever is captured from the enemy, the law directs to be public property: so that not only private persons are not the owners of it, but even the general is not. The Questor takes it, sells it and carries the money to the public account." says Dionysius of Halicarnassus.[1] This might seem to imply that no individual could enjoy a share of the proceeds but such does not seem to have been the case. It simply means that the title to all captures vested in the state which could if it saw fit transfer a share of the booty to the captors or others. Grotius[2] gives definite rules employed by the Romans in dividing the produce of such booty. His statements are based on the writings of Livy and other Latin writers. In dividing booty money account was taken of the pay of the soldiers and of special bravery.[3] Special reward was usually made to the general.[4] Sometimes a portion was given to others who had contributed to the expenses of the war.[5] Often a portion was dedicated to the Gods[6] although this practice was much less common among them than among the Greeks. It was considered a particularly worthy act on the part of a general if he refused to accept any share of the booty as was sometimes done by those seeking state honors.[7] The whole system was closely circumscribed by law. A penalty attached to the crime of peculation, the private secreting of booty without submitting it to the public.[8] Roman orators dilated at length on the infamy of peculation.[9] These rules applied only to soldiers of the regular army engaged in regular war. In irregular warfare soldiers were often given the privilege of committing indiscriminate pillage in which case the booty belonged to the captor.[10] This practice however was greatly deplored by many writers.[11] Captures made by allies not under the immediate commands of Roman generals or by subjects carrying on war without pay at their own risk accrued to the sole benefit of the captors.[12] b. Maritime War. As to captures at sea, the Jurisconsult Valneius Maecianus said, "I am master of the earth, but the law is mistress of the sea."[13] Grotius has nothing to say directly of maritime captures among the Romans, though he implies that the same laws applied to them as to land captures. A case of naval prize arose during the Punic war in the capture of the Carthaginian woman, Saphonoba, from a vessel at sea. The Roman general considered that all prize of war belonged to the Roman people and was to be divided by the senate, so ordered that she be sent to Rome. The lady settled the matter by taking poison.[14] The Romans were a land people. They very much disliked naval warfare,[15] consequently they never supported much of a fleet.[16] True, on meeting a naval power like Carthage they created a very effective navy on short notice[17] but whenever they could they avoided naval warfare. Piracy was extremely prevalent on the Mediterranean during Roman times. Often Roman generals made use of pirate vessels both for transport and to harass the enemy.[18] In these cases of course the state put up no claim to control prizes. Later, pirates became so powerful that Rome saw the necessity of crushing them. Servilius actively engaged in suppressing piracy and he felt bound to render full account to Rome of all captures.[19] Pompey finally crushed the pirates in the battle of Coracesum B.C. 67 and completely drove them out of the Mediterranean.[20] The Romans recognized the right of reprisal and according to Chancellor Kent they required the carriage of a commission by vessels engaged in that business.[21] Roman law, then, recognized that captures were the property of the state, that apportionment should be governed by law, that in special cases the state could waive all right in favor of the immediate captors. Rome's policy was directed toward the securing of order through law. Discipline and authority were the fundamental principles on which her greatness was founded. Her military policy was to subordinate individuals to the general good, to make each soldier a cog in the wheel working in harmony with the whole. Individual freedom of action was curtailed not in the interests of humanity but in the interests of the efficiency of the general army. Her rules of prize distribution are completely in harmony with these principles. No private right of aggrandizement in war existed, all was controlled by the state. The state was the combatant in war, the state bore the losses and to the state accrued the gains. State authority overshadowed every act of the individual.[22] In practical effects the Roman laws of prize money probably accomplished the purpose for which they were intended, that is, they lessened the chance for insubordination among the soldiers. Under them soldiers remained at their post of duty instead of going on journeys of pillage. It made war regular and public instead of guerrilla and private. Humanitarian effects were slight or none at all. Though not impelled by the hope of personal gain the Roman soldiers seem to have captured, devastated and destroyed without compunction. Wheaton says of Roman warfare, "Victory made even the sacred things of the enemy profane, confiscated all his property, moveable and immoveable, public and private, doomed him and his posterity to perpetual slavery and dragged his kings and generals at the chariot wheels of the conqueror thus depressing an enemy in his spirit and pride of mind, the only consolation he has left when his strength and power are annihilated."[23] Though Roman warfare was cruel, it was regulated by law. Roman civilization recognized the supremacy of the state, the public character of regular war, and of immediate interest to the present subject, the exclusive control by the state of all military captures. _NOTES._ Chapter I, Part 2. [1] Antiquita Roma, vii, 63, quoted in Grotius, op. cit. iii, 124. [2] Grotius, op. cit. iii, 127. [3] Livy, xiv, 34, 40, 43, quoted in Grotius, op. cit. iii, 129. [4] Heroditus, ix, 80, quoted in Grotius, op. cit. iii, 130. [5] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, v, 47, quoted, in Grotius, op. cit. iii, 134. [6] Livy, v, 23, quoted in Grotius, op. cit. iii, 135; Phillipson, op. cit. ii, 238. [7] Apud Dionysius of Halicarnassus Excerpt, p. 714, quoted in Grotius, op. cit. iii, 131. [8] Polybius, History, x, 16, quoted in Grotius, op. cit. iii, 138. [9] Cato, xi, 18; Cicero, Verres, iv, 41, quoted in Grotius, op. cit. iii, 137, 138. [10] Livy, xliv, 45; xlv, 34, quoted in Grotius, op. cit. iii, 133. [11] Livy, v, 20, quoted in Grotius, op. cit. iii, 134. [12] Cald. Cons. 85, quoted in Grotius, op. cit. iii, 140. [13] Digest, xiv, 3, quoted in Charles Calvo, Le Droit International Theorique et Pratique, 5th Edition, 6 Vols., Paris, 1896, i, 15. [14] Livy, xxx, 14; 11 Appian Pun. 28, quoted in W. E. Heitland, The Roman Republic, 3 Vols., Cambridge, England, 1909, sec. 385. [15] Heitland, op. cit. secs. 246, 436; Phillipson, op. cit. ii, 369. [16] Heitland, op. cit. sec. 161. [17] Heitland, op. cit. sec. 245. [18] Heitland, op. cit. secs. 949, 960. [19] Cicero, Verres, i, 56, 57, quoted in Heitland, op. cit. sec. 965. [20] Heitland, op. cit. sec. 993. [21] Kent, Commentaries, Holmes, Editor, 12th Edition, 4 Vols., Boston, 1893, i, 95. [22] de Coulanges, op. cit. 293. [23] Wheaton, History of the Law of Nations, p. 25. _CHAPTER II. DURING THE MIDDLE AGES._ PART 1. MARITIME CODES. "In the dark ages, between 476 and 800 A.D. International law reached its nadir in the West".[1] Private war, on land and piracy at sea were unrestrained. There were of course no laws providing for the division of prize money. By the eleventh and twelfth centuries many cities of the Mediterranean and North seas had become powerful commercially and issued laws for determining maritime affairs. Such were the Amalfitan Tables, the Judgments or Roles of Oleron, the Laws of Wisby, and the Consolato del Mare originating in Barcelona.[2] As these laws simply stated the universal customs of the sea it came about that all maritime towns would adopt one of these codes.[3] Thus by the fifteenth century the Consolato del Mare was recognized maritime law in most of the commercial cities of the Mediterranean[4] while the Judgments of Oleron were in a similar way recognized by the towns of the North Sea.[5] These laws were intended primarily to regulate the private relations of mariners, owners and merchants, but on account of the necessity of protection from pirates many of them also included laws of maritime war and prize. State organization had not developed sufficiently to afford protection to merchants on the sea, consequently the merchants themselves formed protective organizations, furnished armed cruisers for making prizes and established consulates for judging maritime cases and for enforcing the definite codes of maritime law.[6] The Consolato Del Mare may be taken as an example of the maritime codes. It probably originated in the thirteenth century. The earliest known manuscripts are in the Catalonian language and apparently were engrossed in the middle of the fourteenth century. The earliest printed copy is dated 1494 and is also in the Catalonian language.[7] The chapters on prize law, state the principles on which enemy property may be captured. In general the principle is established that enemy vessels and neutral goods are exempt. Originally the armed merchantmen were in no way bound to any state so no commission delegating state authority to make captures is mentioned. Apparently the prizes had to be adjudicated at the consulates established by the merchant leagues.[8] There are chapters dealing with "cruizers" which give the municipal usages concerning the distribution of prize between the owners, officers and crew of vessels.[9] "Thus among the Italians a third part of a captured ship goes to the captain of the victorious ship, a third part to the merchants to whom the cargo belonged, and a third part to the sailors".[10] It thus appears that the Consolato distinctly recognized the reign of law in prize matters. It respected neutral rights, it required adjudication on prizes, it gave rules for the division of prize money, respecting the claims of merchants, captain and crew to share in the distribution. The rules of the Consolato appeal to one decidedly as rules intended to govern commercial enterprises. The policy of the merchants was of defensive rather than offensive war so no stringent belligerent rights were affirmed. Primarily intended for commerce, it is not surprising that such a large amount of respect was paid to neutral rights and such a large share of the prizes given to merchants. The minute rules, seemingly forecasting every possible contingency also speak of a strong desire to establish order, and firm law, both conditions essential to commerce. The Consolato was probably effective for its purpose. We know that the merchant guilds and the maritime towns flourished, piracy decreased, commerce prospered. The merchant sailors would not be likely to be lured into making prizes for private gain when their very object was the destruction of piracy. Also habits of commerce and obedience to law would induce them to exhibit moderation in war matters. The maritime laws and the supremacy of the commercial towns was a great step toward legalizing maritime warfare and especially toward ameliorating the condition of private property on the sea. One of the peculiarities of the Consolato from a modern standpoint is that it does not recognize the exclusive right of states to make war. This is explained by the fact that territorial states had not become sufficiently centralized to organize a definite maritime jurisdiction. However, in the early part of the sixteenth century the movement toward the individualizing of territorial states was rapidly nearing completion and it is interesting to note that when the movement was sufficiently advanced nearly all the states adopted one of the old maritime codes into their laws, of course adding to it the principle of state authorization for all reprisals or wars and state jurisdiction over prize cases.[11] _NOTES._ Chapter II, Part 1. [1] Walker, History of the Law of Nations, p. 64. [2] For brief discussion of many of the Maritime Codes see E. C. Benedict, The American Admiralty, 4th Edition, Albany, 1910. The so-called Rhodian Sea Laws are thought by Ashburner to date from the seventh or eighth century A. D. Other writers place them later. The earliest manuscript apparently dates from the fifteenth century. It is well established that they have no connection with the ancient sea laws of Rhodes but possibly they were authorized by the Byzantine Caesars and undoubtedly they consist of laws recognized in the Eastern Mediterranean in the middle ages. These laws relate only to civil matters at sea and have no provisions dealing with prize but in their general provisions they may have furnished a basis for the maritime codes of a few centuries later, see Ashburner, The Rhodian Sea Law, Oxford, 1909. [3] Twiss, Introduction to the "Black Book of the Admiralty", Rolls Series, No. 55, iii, 80. [4] For discussion of the influence of the Consolato, see Twiss, Consulate of the Sea, Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition, vii, 23. Ashburner takes a less favorable view of the Consolato. He considers it a literary production giving the authors theory of sea law rather than a correct statement of the law as it was. In his opinion more confidence should be placed in the maritime statutes of the towns such as the laws of Amalaric, St. Cuzala, Genoa, St. Ancon, Baracchi, St. Caltaro, etc. than in the Consolato.--Ashburner, op. cit. p. 120. [5] For discussion of the Laws of Oleron, see Twiss, Sea Laws, Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition, xxiii, 535; Sir John Comyn, A Digest of the Laws of England, 5 Vols., Dublin, 1785, i, 271; also note post p. 42. [6] Wheaton, History of the Law of Nations, p. 62. [7] For discussion of origin and early manuscripts see Twiss, Introduction to "The Black Book of the Admiralty", iii, 26 et seq. [8] For text of prize chapters of the Consolato, see English translation by Dr. Robinson in his Collectanea Maritima, No. v; quoted in Wheaton, History of the Law of Nations, p. 63; Original and translation by Twiss, Black Book of the Admiralty, Rolls Series No. 55, iii, 539; French translation by Pardessus, in his Collection des Lois Maritimes Anterieures aux XVIII Siecle, ii, c 12, noted in Wheaton, op. cit. p. 61, Walker, History of the Law of Nations, p. 116; See also note by Grotius, op. cit. iii, 9. [9] Twiss, Introduction to Black Book of the Admiralty, iii, 76. [10] Consolato Del Mare, c 285, quoted in Grotius op. cit. iii, 145. [11] Wheaton, History of the Law of Nations, p. 66. PART 2. THE NEW INTERNATIONAL LAW. During the sixteenth century the idea of the individuality of territorial states reached material realization. A school of international law writers arose who endeavored to determine the relations which ought to exist between these states. A new recognition was given to the state's exclusive authority over matters of war and prize. The old Roman laws of JusGentium and JusNaturale were combined with the observed practices of nations to build up rules conformable to the new situation. Machiavelli writing in 1513[1] distinctly recognized the independence of the territorial state.[2] He conceived of the Prince as being under obligations to no superior, either human or divine.[3] He recognized the state as the sole agency which could authorize war and the capture of prize but recommended liberality in distributing the produce of prize and booty as a policy calculated to encourage loyalty and perseverance in the soldiers,[4] a theory well in harmony with his idea of human nature, which considered man as actuated solely by the hope of personal gain.[5] Conrad Brunus in 1548 also voiced the theory of state supremacy in war. "The war making power resides in the supreme authority of the state to whom it exclusively belongs to authorize hostilities against other nations by a solemn declaration."[6] Francis de Victoria held that captured moveables become by the law of nations property of the captors but pillage should be only permitted when necessary for reducing the enemy.[7] Balthazar Ayala took an even more advanced stand. He pointed out that according to the laws of Spain, lands, houses and ships of war taken from the enemy become the property of the crown and as to other articles the right of the captors to appropriate them as booty is restrained by that of the state to regulate the division reserving to itself a certain share and distributing the rest according to the respective rank of the captors. In regard to naval captures he says: "But if it chance that in naval war the king supplies the ships and their armament and also provides supplies and wages for the soldiers and sailors the same contributions place the whole booty at the disposal not of the general or admiral but of the king, nor will the soldiers or sailors get any part thereof except such as is granted to them by the king's liberality. In every other event however, after the king's share has been set aside, the admiral can divide the residue between the soldiers and sailors a seventh part of the residue being due to himself".[8] Ayala had previously remarked that by the Spanish law the king's share ranged from one fifth to one half of the prize. In his theory goods must be brought within the territory of the capturing state (intra praesidia) to give a good title. If recaptured before this, by postliminium, they revert to the original owner. Reprisals must be authorized by the sovereign.[9] Thomas More conceived of a liberal policy of disposing of prize, in his Utopia. In speaking of the capture of cities he says, "If they knowe that annye cytezeins counselled to yealde and rendre vp the citie, to them they gyue parts of the condemned mens goods. They resydewe they distribute and giue frelye amonge them, whose helpe they had in the same warre. For none of themselfes taketh any portion of the praye."[10] Bodin clearly enunciated the sovereigns exclusive right over sea captures. "Mais les droits de la mer n'appartienment qu'au Prince Souverain."[11] Gentilis the forerunner of Grotius expressed the limitations on the power of the state. There was danger that in the rise of states to independence the Machiavellian policy would be adopted, that states would consider themselves bound by no law. Gentilis showed the limitations that natural law impose upon states even in war. In his view, property can not be wantonly destroyed, neutral property can never be captured and neutral territory is always inviolable.[12] In his epoch making work which appeared in 1625, Grotius correlates the principles of those preceding him and in authoritative style sets forth the new international law.[13] His chapters on prize distribution may be briefly summarized as follows: The right of reprisal is recognized but it is only allowable under authority of the state. In the case of reprisals the property in goods taken immediately accrues to the captor to the extent of the debt or damages due and expenses, but any balance over this ought to be restored. The prize should be adjudged in a court of the state before distribution.[14] Goods captured at sea require firm possession to give a title. In Roman law this is established when the vessel is brought to port (intra praesidia), but modern practice establishes the twenty four hour rule. Recaptures, before possession is established, revert to the original owner by postliminium.[15] Neutral property is never subject to capture not even in enemy ships. Enemy property is good prize. If taken otherwise than in regular public service, i.e. in private reprisals, or under special grant of pillage, it becomes the property of the immediate captor though the municipal law of the captors state may alter this condition. Goods taken in public service accrue to the state which may distribute the proceeds at will.[16] Instances are given of the distribution laws in contemporary states. "Among the Italians a third part of a captured ship goes to the captain of the victorious ship, a third part to the merchants to whom the cargo belonged and a third part to the sailors."[17] "With the Spaniards, if ships are sent out at private expense, part of the prize goes to the king, part to the high admiral,[18] and ships of war go altogether to the king."[19] By the custom of France, the Admiral has a tenth,[20] and so with the Hollanders but here a fifth part of the booty is taken by the state.[21] Zouche of Oxford University, England, in 1650 made a valuable contribution to international law literature in his "Juris et Judicii Fecialis sive Juris Inter gentes Explicatia", a book famed as being the first to describe the science as jus inter gentes, international law, rather than the former misleading name, jus gentium, law of nations. He maintains that war can only be declared by the supreme authority of the state. However if acts of aggression are committed by individuals during war without authorization, international law has no jurisdiction over the matter, though municipal law may decree punishment.[22] As coming from England this theory is interesting as it seems to forecast the later doctrine of that country that unauthorized captures at sea are permissible so far as the enemy is concerned though municipal law decrees the whole product of such captures to the crown.[23] Zouche admits the right of reprisal. By reprisal is understood the right assumed by a subject to collect a foreign debt or to collect damages for injuries received in a foreign country through the seizure of goods on the high seas belonging to any subject of that state. Though the practice seems hard to reconcile with justice, Zouche in common with most of the international law writers holds that all the members of a state are liable for the debts of one member so by strict international law, reprisal is allowable but only under commission from the sovereign.[24] Puffendorf writing in 1672 practically quotes the views of Grotius in prize matters.[25] He maintains that individuals can not make war, which is only a state affair, "Il est certain, que c'est au souverain seul qu'appartient le droit de faire la guerre."[26] In regard to captures he holds that the title to booty vests originally in the sovereign but it is equitable for the sovereign to divide the proceeds among those who have borne the heaviest burdens of war. Recaptures revert to the original owner. The right of reprisals is admitted but exception is taken to the view of Grotius that in case of reprisals and all captures made by private undertaking the proceeds belong immediately to the captor. Puffendorf asserts "Tout le droit que les particuliers ant ici depend toujours originairement de la volonte du souverain,"[27] thus emphasizing more strongly the absolute title of the state to all captures. A careful reading of Grotius seems to reveal that his idea was the same. He says that by the practice of nations captures not made in regular war usually accrue to the captor but this rule may be changed by municipal law and "so a rule may be introduced by law that all things which are taken from the enemy shall be public property,"[28] thus virtually asserting Puffendorf's statement that the original title always vests in the sovereign. In brief the laws of prize distribution enunciated by the great founders of international law of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries appear to be as follows: 1. The state is the only power which can prosecute war and make prize. 2. The right of private reprisal can only be exercised under specific commission from the state. 3. The title to all prizes vests originally in the state. 4. Distribution should be decreed only after adjudication of the prize by a regular tribunal of the state. 5. The method of distributing prize money is determined by municipal law. Undoubtedly the practice of nations did not, in a great many cases equal the lofty ideals of the publicists but at the same time their principles were for the most part given theoretic recognition by the sovereign authorities of states belonging to the family of nations and as centralized authority gained in strength they became more and more realized in practice. _NOTES._ Chapter II, Part 2. [1] "The Prince" was written in 1513, first published 1532, posthumously. [2] "Princes ought avoid as much as they are able to stand in anothers discretion." Machiavelli, The Prince, English Translation from Italian by Dacres, Tudor Translations, vol. 39, London, 1905, c 21. [3] "And therefore it suffices to conceive this, that a Prince, and especially a new Prince can not observe all those things for which men are held good, he being often forced for the maintenance of his state to do contrary to his faith, charity, humanity, and religion."--The Prince, c 18, p. 323. "And therefore, a wise Prince can not, nor ought not keep his faith given, when the observance thereof turns to disadvantage and the occasions that made him promise are past." The Prince, c 18, p. 322. [4] "The Prince" c 16, p. 315. [5] For Machiavelli's political theory see W. A. Dunning, A History of Political Theories, 2 Vols, New York, 1902, i, 285 et seq. [6] De Legationibus, 1548, iii, 8, quoted in Wheaton, History of the Law of Nations, p. 50. [7] Reflectiones Theologicae, 1557, vi, 52, quoted in Wheaton, op. cit. p. 41; Walker, History of the Law of Nations, p. 229. [8] De Jure et Officiis Bellicis et Disciplina Militari, 1582, Original and English translation from Latin by J. P. Bate, J. Westlake, Editor, 2 Vols, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1912, ii, 38; taken from Spanish Ordinance, Book 14, tit. 26, par. 2. [9] Op. cit. Lib. i, c 4, 5, also see Wheaton, op. cit. p. 45 Walker, op. cit. p. 248. [10] Utopia, 1516, English translation from Latin by Robynson, Arber, Editor, English Reprint Series, vol. 2, London, 1869, p. 142, also quoted in Walker, op. cit. p. 242. [11] De La Republique, 1577, Liv. i, c 10, p. 246, quoted in Walker, op. cit. p. 262. [12] De Jure Belli, 1589, Holland Editor, Oxford, 1877, p. 250, see also Walker, op. cit. p. 265. [13] De Jure Belli et Pacis, 1625, Edition Cited, see also summary by Walker, op. cit. 313 et seq. [14] Op. cit. iii, 48. [15] Op. cit. iii. 111. [16] Op. cit. iii, 105. [17] Op. cit. iii, 145, taken from Consolato Del Mare, c 285. [18] Op. cit. iii, 145, taken from Leg. Hisp. xix, tit. xxvi, p. 2, 1. [19] Op. cit. iii, 144, taken from Leg. Hisp. iv, tit. xxvi, p. 2. [20] Op. cit. iii, 145, taken from Const. Gall. liv. xx, tit. 14, art. 1. [21] Op. cit. iii, 145. [22] Juris et Judicii Fecialis sive Juris Inter Gentes Explicatio, 1650 original and English translation from Latin by J. L. Brierly, T. E. Holland, Editor, 2 Vols., Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1911, ii. 112. [23] Post 81, 103. [24] Op. cit. ii, 115. [25] Le Droit de la Nature et des Gens, French translation by Barbeyrac, 2 Vols., Leide, 1759, ii, liv. viii, c 6, s 8, p. 558 et seq. [26] Op. cit. ii, 569. [27] Op. cit. ii, 570. [28] De Jure Belli et Pacis, Edition cited, ii, 122. _CHAPTER III. GREAT BRITAIN, HISTORICAL RESUME._ PART 1. EARLIEST TIMES TO 1340. a. Laws. The practice of Great Britain in prize distribution has always been remarkable for its extreme liberality to the captors of prize. Chancellor Kent has a note to the effect that by common law "goods taken from an enemy belong to the captor."[1] His authority is a case decided in King's Bench in 1697 which says, "And it was resolved by whole court that though, if goods be taken from an enemy it vests the property in the party taking them, by our (common) law, yet by admiralty law, the property of a ship taken without letters of mart vests in the king upon the taking, and this on the high seas."[2] The same view is expressed by a modern writer, who says, "The root of the prize system is found in the ancient doctrine that any person might seize to his own use, goods belonging to an alien enemy and this right extended to captures at sea."[3] A case in the reign of Edward III, 1343, bears out these opinions. The king of Aragon complained of a case of piracy by Englishmen and asked redress. Edward called his Chancellor and council and the decision was given that the alleged piracy was a case of lawful prize and that by the law maritime the goods belonged to the captor.[4] However, England very early recognized the contrary principle that prize of war of right belongs to the state and private individuals only acquire their title by grant of the crown or parliament. Thus by a patent of 1242, Henry III granted half of all prizes taken by them to masters and crews of king's ships and the same to the men of Oleron and Bayonne in their own ships.[5] In 1295 a letter patent provided that the whole of prizes taken by Bayonne ships should be shared equally between the owners and men[6] and in the Scotch expedition of 1319 Edward II also granted the whole of prizes to the captors.[7] A close Roll of 1325 states that men of the Cinque Ports had granted one fourth of all prizes to the king.[8] The Portsmen by a grant of William the Conqueror[9] enjoyed special privileges in prize matters and claimed to enjoy prizes of their own right. In early times their forces comprised the greater part of England's naval strength so this privilege was quite important. However, the kings seem to have wished to regain some of the jurisdiction which they had granted away and in the case mentioned Edward II tried to gain jurisdiction over the whole of the prize. In 1326 the king's primal right seemed to be recognized as superior to that of the Portsmen for a grant of that date is made by the king, of all prizes to the portsmen.[10] b. Administration. During this period no machinery for adjudication was established. The only means through which the king could collect a share of prize was through the common law courts and they proved in most cases inadequate. The jealously guarded jurisdictions of the Cinque ports also largely interfered with the king's perquisites in prize. Their peculiar customs were held above the king's right. Thus in 1293 when Edward I claimed a share of prizes captured by Portsmen they stated that on the occasion in question they had hoisted a flag called the "Baucon". This action meant a fight to the death in which case by the universally recognized law of the sea all prizes captured by the survivors belonged to them. Furthermore if the king endeavored to interfere with them they would leave the country.[11] Such assertions of independence probably prevented much state interference with prize distribution at this period. _NOTES._ Chapter III, Part 1. [1] Kent, Commentaries on International law, Abdy edition, Cambridge, 1866, p. 271. [2] King vs. Broom, 12 Mod. 135; 88 English Reports 1217. [3] H. E. Smith, Studies in Juridical Law, Chicago, 1902, p. 139. [4] R. G. Marsdon, introduction to select pleas of the Admiralty, Seldon Series, vi. [5] Rymer, Foedera, 20 Vols., London, 1704-1735, i, 408. [6] Calendar of Patent Rolls, Ed. I, 1292-1301, m 16, p. 130. [7] R. G. Marsdon, Early Prize Jurisdiction in England, English Historical Review, xxiv, 675. [8] Calendar of Close Rolls, Ed. II, 1323-1327, m 26, p. 412. [9] D. J. Medley, A Student's Manual of English Constitutional History, Oxford, 1907, p. 485. [10] Rymer, op. cit. iv, 226. [11] Marsdon, English Historical Review, xxiv, 677. PART 2. 1340-1485. a. Laws. After the battle of Sluys in 1340 when Edward III became in fact master of the seas, a title which kings of England had assumed since the time of John, the king issued certain ordinances for the distribution of prize.[1] A distinction was made between prizes taken by ships in the king's pay and privateers. At that time there was no navy owned by the state. In the former case the king is to receive one fourth of the proceeds of all prizes, the owner of the vessel one fourth and the remainder "shall belong to those who took them which halfe ought to be shared equally between them". Out of the portion going to the captors the admiral has two shares or as much as two mariners from each ship, if he is present when the capture is made, if absent he only receives one share. It is also provided that "ships out of sight shall receive no share unless sailing toward and in sight so as to help the takers if need be." The apparent purport of this anomalous language being that joint captors must be of actual constructive assistance to share. In the case of privateers the king has no share of prizes. The whole amount goes to the captors except the admirals perquisite which is the same as in the former case. It is further provided that "whoever takes a ship ought to bring it before the admiral, there to take and receive what the law and custom of the sea requires", no plunder of the prize being permitted before adjudication except on the decks.[2] By a patent of 1386 the king gives all his share to the admiral[3] and in the following year the whole of prizes is granted to privateers.[4] In 1406 a grant of Henry IV provides that ship owners shall have prizes taken from the enemy but they must deliver up to the king any prisoners they may take for whom a reasonable reward will be given.[5] In the same year a letter from the admiral calls on all mariners to enter the king's service and says that "whatever profits and gains such persons shall make from the king's enemies on said voyages they shall have and enjoy freely without impediment or disturbance."[6] By statute of 1416[7] it was provided that letters of Marque might be issued by the privy council to any one having grievances against a foreign power. In such issues of letters of Marque the profit of goods taken went to the captor to the extent of the damages received. All goods in excess of that amount were supposed to be returned but few cases of such return are on record.[8] It was under authority of this act that letters of Marque were issued in England until the final abolition of the practice in the treaty of Paris of 1856. A treaty with Flanders of 1426 contains the provision that "no prizes shall be divided at sea or in a foreign harbour but shall be brought entire to a port of England and there it will be adjudged by the king and council, the chancellor or the admiral whether the prize belonged to friends or enemies and it will be disposed of in good and brief manner."[9] Here we seem to have a distinct enunciation of the most modern principles of prize law that no title to prize is legally conferred until after adjudication by a competent organ of the state making the capture. In 1442 an ordinance of Henry VI "for the safeguarding of the sea" emphasizes these same principles. It declares that neutrals must not be harmed in war and that award of prize must be made by a competent tribunal before distribution of proceeds. The scheme to be used in distributing the proceeds in case the vessel is found good prize is as follows: One half goes to the master, quarter master, sailors and soldiers. The remainder is to be divided into three parts, of which two go to the owners and one to the chief and under captains. The ordinance also contains rules for the conduct of privateers.[10] In the same year a statute[11] permitted any one making capture of an enemy vessel "to take the goods and merchandises and enjoy them without any restitution thereof to be made in any wise, even though the goods belonged to neutrals and they had no safe conduct from the king of England." Shortly before this, the collection of sea laws known as the Black book of the Admiralty was compiled for the use of the Lord High Admiral. The book contains that ancient body of sea law, the Roles of Oleron,[12] besides several later ordinances and inquests. The principle portion dealing with prize distribution is part "A" which consists of the ordinance of Edward III made after the battle of Sluys, already mentioned.[13] It also contains "An inquisition made at Queensborough in 1375" which is a statement by a jury of the existing law at that time. It restates the earlier ordinance of Edward III except that the king's share of prizes is not mentioned.[14] The inquest also permits merchant ships to make captures from the king's enemies, apparently without a special commission and divide the proceeds two thirds to the owner and one third to the mariners.[15] Captures by merchant vessels without commission seem to have been quite common and were openly approved by the king.[16] The fact that these ancient ordinances were collected for authoritative use seems to indicate that they were recognized law in the fifteenth century. b. Administration. The period of the hundred years war, thus brought about definite progress in prize money laws. Prize distribution became the subject of definite ordinances. In Edward Third's ordinance most of the principles of prize distribution mentioned by international law writers of three centuries later were enunciated.[17] The issuance of such an ordinance implied a recognition of the principle, "bello parta cedunt reipublicae"[18] the original title to prize vests in the state. Definite rules for distribution were declared and most important of all, adjudication of prizes by a competent court was demanded before distribution. The office of admiral was created by Edward I in the year 1300 when Gervase Alvard was appointed Admiral of the Cinque Ports. At first several admirals were appointed with jurisdiction over different portions of the sea. In 1340 owing to difficulties which he got into with neutral powers, who complained of the depredations of English privateers, the court of admiralty was created with prize jurisdiction in such cases. The first mention of prize courts is in 1357.[19] Attempts were made by the common law courts to retain their jurisdiction but it soon became recognized that sea matters were properly under the control of the admiralty. In 1360 one admiral was appointed for all the fleets in the person of Sir John Beauchamp. The duties of the office were greatly extended, in fact it claimed so wide a jurisdiction that in the reign of Richard II two statutes[20] were passed greatly limiting the Admiral's power. The office of admiral was of a two-fold character. He was not only commander-in-chief of the navy and as such entitled to share in prizes, but also he exercised the king's power of jurisdiction over the sea and in this capacity presided over the courts of admiralty and the prize courts. In the latter capacity the connection of the admiral with the privy council was very close. He was himself a member of the privy council and that body always exercised final jurisdiction in prize cases if it saw fit. It should be understood that no normal adjudication of all prizes was at this time required. In the Black Book of the Admiralty the admiral was given vigorous means of collecting his perquisites, "inquiry is to be made of all ships, who have not paid the admiral his share, the names of the captors, masters, owners and value of goods taken is to be presented."[21] Thus it was only in special cases where the admiral had heard of a capture and had not received a share or where some party made a complaint, that a case was adjudicated. The great majority of cases never came before the court and the captor had undisturbed possession. The apparent insufficiency of the admiralty in prize cases brought forth a new set of officers in 1414, the Conservators of the Ports.[22] These officers had criminal and prize jurisdiction in maritime cases but the plan seems to have been attended with small success and soon fell into desuetude. Through this period the Cinque Ports maintained to some extent their ancient privileges. The Warden of the Ports exercised the function of admiral over mariners sailing from them. Nominally he was under the authority of the Lord High Admiral but as a matter of fact he exercised an almost independent jurisdiction until 1628. As noted the issue of letters of Marque by the privy council was authorized by statute but the carriage of such letters by privateers does not seem to have been universally required, especially in war. Efforts were made to restrain privateering by law for the benefit of neutrals. c. Significance. What accounts for England's very early adoption in theory at least of these advanced principles of maritime law? England's insular position turned her people to the sea and commerce. The French wars necessitated a continuous military and naval policy. It also brought about internal unity and nationalism much earlier than in other countries. Thus the state definitely organized and regulated the navy. The great naval victories and the assumption by the king of the title "master of the seas" increased the spirit of nationalism and naval pride. There was however, a conflict between "the rights of the king as sovereign lord of the sea entitled to demand for offence and defence the service of all his subjects; the privileged corporations of the sea port towns with their peculiar customs and great local independence; and the private adventure of independent merchants and mariners whose proceedings seem to be scarcely one degree removed from piracy."[23] But as we have noted the king emerged from the conflict victorious. The office of Lord High Admiral of all the seas was created, the navy came to be considered a definite branch of the royal administration. A royal navy was built up under Henry IV and Henry V. The king affirmed his right to prize and his right of jurisdiction over privateers and their captures. But along with England's aggressive naval policy was her dependence upon commerce. Successful commerce necessitated strict recognition of neutral rights and a rule of order at sea, embracing the destruction of piracy and illegal privateering. Thus the king established the admiralty as a prize court, made treaties binding himself to the protection of neutral rights, demanded adjudication of all prizes, and sought by ordinance to restrain illegal privateering. After the reign of Henry V the commercial interests of England won the upper hand, the royal navy was sold, the naval protection was placed in the hands of commissioned merchant privateers and more strict enforcement of neutral rights was sought. Thus the conflict between an aggressive naval policy and the protection and encouragement of commerce brought about a very early recognition in England of advanced principles of prize capture and distribution. Through the latter half of the fifteenth century, England was too distraught by internal struggles to pay much attention to naval matters and no progress was made in prize money laws. It is impossible to tell specifically the effects of the prize money laws in England at this early date. However, in so far as they formed an important element in the general maritime laws, they undoubtedly tended to create order at sea, to protect commerce and to increase the king's jurisdiction over the sea forces. This coordination of authority over sea war would tend to increase naval efficiency and was an important element in making England a great sea power. _NOTES._ Chapter III, Part 2. [1] Black Book of the Admiralty, Rolls Series, No. 55, i, 21. [2] Ibid. i, 31. [3] Cal. Pat. Ric. II, 1385-1389, pp. 216, 253. [4] Cal. Pat. Ric. II, 1385-1389, pp. 339, 342. [5] Rotuli Parliamentorum, 7 Vols., London, 1767-1777, iii, 570, art. 22. [6] Royal Commission of Historical Manuscripts, Reports, v, 501. [7] 4 Hen. V, c 7, 1416. [8] In a case of Reprisals against France, Cromwell returned the excess over damages to the French ambassador, see Carnazza-Amari, Traité de Droit International Public en Temps de Paix, French translation from Italian by Montanari-Revest, 2 Vols., Paris, 1880, ii, 599. Also in Phillimore, Commentaries on International Law, 3rd Edition, 4 Vols., London, 1885, iii, 33. [9] Rymer, op. cit. x, 368. [10] Rot. Par. v, 59, art. 30; see also Acts of the Privy Council, Sir Harris Nicolas, Editor, v, 128. [11] 20 Hen VI, c 1, 1442. [12] "The Laws of Oleron are the ancient usages, generally received from Richard I, on his return from the Holy Land to Oleron, revised and approved for matters marine and which all the people of the west afterwards received for their affairs." Sir Leoline Jenkins, Life of, by Wynne, i, 87, quoted in Comyn's Digest, i, 272; Marsdon doubts whether Richard had anything to do with the origin of the Laws of Oleron, Introduction to select pleas of the admiralty, Seldon Series, vi; See also discussion by Twiss, Sea Laws, Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition, xxiii, 535. [13] See ante p 34. [14] Black Book of the Admiralty, Rolls Series, No. 55, i, 145. [15] Ibid. i, 135. [16] Nicolas, Introduction to Acts of the Privy Council, v, 136. [17] See ante p 26. [18] Bynkershoek, Questiones Juris Publica, quoted in Phillimore, op. cit. iii, 209. [19] Rymer, op. cit. vi, 15. [20] 13 Ric. II, c 5, 1390; 15 Ric. II, c 3, 1392. [21] Black Book of the Admiralty, i, 151. [22] 2 Hen V, St. 1, c 6, 1414. [23] William Stubbs, The Constitutional History of England, 5th Edition, 3 Vols., Oxford, 1903, ii, 289. PART 3. 1485-1603. a. Laws. After the wars of the roses prize distribution was still occasionally decreed by special letters patent. In his famous voyage of 1496 John Cabot was by letter patent required to give one fifth of all prizes to the king.[1] In 1512 the admiral guaranteed to turn over to the king one half of "all manner of gaynes and wynnyngs of werre".[2] This rule was repeated in 1521.[3] Frequently the charters of vessels authorized them to take prizes. The charter party of the ship "Cheritie" dated 1531 says: "and yff the sayd shyppe take any pryse, purchase any flotson or lagen, hit shalbe devyded into III equal parties, that ys to the sayd capmerchaunte the one parte and to the owner the second parte and to the master and his companye the therde parte."[4] Similarly the charter party of the "George", 1535, provided that: "If any prize, purches, flotezon, or lagason or any other casueltie happe to be taken by the saide ships in this her present viage the saide merchaunt shall have his juste parte thereof accordyng to the lawe of Oleron."[5] In the rule of 1544 mariners carrying letters of marque were granted the whole of their prizes without accounting to the admiral or warden of the ports for any.[6] A similar proclamation was issued by Mary in her French wars of 1557.[7] With few exceptions however the admiral had a right to one tenth of all prizes. Elizabeth increased this share to one third in the case of captures made by the queen's ships but it remained one tenth in the case of privateers. In 1585[8] Elizabeth issued a proclamation authorizing the Lord High Admiral to issue letters of reprisal to all who showed that they had suffered losses from Spain. Rules for distribution of proceeds and for the conduct of privateers were included. Similar proclamations have been issued by the sovereign of England at the beginning of every subsequent war in which privateering was allowed. The proclamation provided for the division of the proceeds, one third to the owners, one third to the victualer, and one third to the officers and crew. The captain also was entitled to the best piece of ordnance and the master the best anchor and cable. Officers and crew were especially granted the right of pillage on the decks.[9] In 1589 Elizabeth was in alliance with Henry IV of France. A remarkable proclamation of this time authorized English subjects to take letters of marque from the French king and provided that he should be entitled to one fifth of the proceeds of all prizes.[10] b. Administration. Thus during the Tudor period new developments of prize money law were found. During the period and especially the latter part of it, England's policy was one of extreme naval aggressiveness. But instead of being restrained by the commercial necessities of the previous epoch it was increased by the renaissance spirit of adventure. England's national unity was established, the enthusiasm of discovery, the experience of immemorial acquaintance with the sea impelled her people into an unparalleled career of sea conquest. Thus during the Elizabethan period it is not surprising to find a retrogression in prize law. Belligerent rights were enforced at the expense of neutrals. Naval warfare was almost exclusively in the hands of privateers. The admiral still retained his right to a tenth of prizes, the queen received a varying share, but the greater part went to the privateers and at no time was there a definite rule of distribution. While she publicly disavowed illegal depredations by her privateers Elizabeth secretly encouraged them. The actual control of the crown over prize matters does not seem to have been lost. Illegal depredation of privateers was not due to inability of the administration to control them but to the definite policy of the crown. The high court of admiralty was revived in 1524 after a period of dormancy during the civil wars and its definite records date from that time. It exercised a constant prize jurisdiction. In 1558 the case of Gonner vs. Pattyson[11] came before it. Gonner obtained a decree granting him a vessel on the plea that "he by right of war captured as lawful prize the said ship--belonging to Scotchmen, foes and enemies of this famous realm of England--and that the captors were and are by reason of the premises true owners and proprietors thereof." In Matthews vs. Goyte,[12] 1565, the sentence decreed division between joint captors. In 1577 a definite effort was made to suppress piracy. A commission was appointed to judge and summarily punish pirates with rather effective results. Regular adjudication of prize cases was not yet the rule. Cases were only tried on complaint of one of the parties but in 1589 an order in council directed that all prizes be brought in for adjudication by the admiralty.[13] The privy council itself however exercised jurisdiction in many cases. Thus in 1589 John Gilbert and Walter Raleigh were given a commission to capture prizes on a certain voyage and divide them among the crew. Apparently they appropriated the prizes themselves. A complaint was made to the queen. The matter was considered in the privy council with the result that Raleigh and Gilbert were commanded to appear and tell how the money had been disposed of and especially to answer for the part due the queen.[14] And again: On the return of the fleet with prizes after the destruction of the Spanish armada, in 1589, the privy council gave orders directing the handling of the prizes. Instructions were given to Sir Anthony Ashley to investigate the prizes and determine the country of the ship, the amount and value of the cargo, etc. In the same year on hearing that certain prizes had been sold and distributed by the captain the queen was very angry and "tooke yt in very ill parte that anie persons would adventure to receive or buy anie of those goodes before aucthorytie or direction was given for the sake of the same."[15] In the latter part of Elizabeth's reign vigorous efforts were made to restrain privateers. In 1601 a new commission was appointed to hear and arbitrate neutral claims. In 1602 by proclamation judges of the admiralty were directed to institute proceedings against any privateer sailing without commission or selling prizes before adjudication.[16] In this year the ship "Fortune" was confiscated to the admiralty for failing to bring in a prize for adjudication.[17] This stand is most advanced and shows that progress was being made toward a definite requirement of legal process before prizes could be distributed. A case of similar nature had occurred in 1598. The vessel "Grace of Padstow" without a letter of reprisal captured a Danish prize. The prize was returned by the court on the grounds that the captor had no commission.[18] This extreme enforcement of the obligation of privateers to carry specific commissions has been advocated by some international law writers.[19] However in cases of actual war, prizes have never been returned but as in this instance in cases of private reprisal the return of captures was occasionally enforced. Thus while in the greater part of the Tudor period the laws of prize distribution were not so clearly defined as formerly and great freedom was allowed adventurers and privateers, at the same time the actual control of distribution by the administration seems to have been more strict than ever before. Especially was this true of the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth. c. Significance. The effect of the generous laws of distribution of this period undoubtedly was to encourage adventure and privateering. The voyages of the great sea captains of Elizabeth were fitted out primarily for the sake of private gain from prizes. Preying on Spanish Galleons not only satisfied the love of adventure of such men as Hawkins, Drake and Raleigh but it also gave them wealth. So long as their acts harmonized with the queen's policy she did not care to inquire too closely into the strict legality of all their seizures. This policy by which the queen not only made the navy support itself but actually received income from it through her share of prizes enabled Elizabeth to carry on her wars without any national expense. Her reign is renowned for its economy and lack of taxation. This doubtless added to its popularity and increased the sense of nationalism in the English nation. During this period generous giving of prize money was a valuable means of increasing the efficiency of the navy and the national unity of England. The strict acts of the latter part of Elizabeth's reign and their consistent enforcement indicated genuine progress in the protection of neutral rights at sea through governmental control. _NOTES._ Chapter III, Part 3. [1] Political History of England, William Hunt and Reginald Poole, Editors, 12 Vols., London, 1910, v, 106. [2] Rymer, Op. cit. xiii, 1326. [3] Henry VIII, Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Master of the Rolls, Great Britain, Director, 1524-1526, p. 33. [4] Select Pleas of the Admiralty, Seldon Series, vi, 37. [5] Ibid, vi, 82. [6] Marsdon, English Historical Review, xxiv, 684. [7] Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, Mary, 1547-1580, p. 93. [8] G. W. Prothero, Select Statutes and Other Documents, 3rd Edition, Oxford, 1906, p. 464. [9] Marsdon, English Historical Review, xxiv, 689, 697, also Prothero, op. cit. p. 465. [10] Marsdon, English Historical Review, xxiv, 689, 697. [11] Select Pleas of the Admiralty, Seldon Series, xi, 107. [12] Ibid. xi, 130. [13] Ibid. xi, 17. [14] Acts of the Privy Council, 1588-1589, New Series, xvii, 283, 413. [15] Ibid. xvii, 357. [16] Marsdon, English Historical Review, xxiv, 696. [17] Select Pleas of the Admiralty, Seldon Series, xi, 204. [18] Marsdon, English Historical Review, xxiv, 696. [19] Vattel, The Law of Nations, English translation from French by Joseph Chitty, Philadelphia, 1883, p. 285. PART 4, 1603-1688. a. Laws. Instructions to privateers similar to Elizabeth's proclamation of 1585 were issued in 1625.[1] In instructions of 1628[2] the king's tenth of prizes is referred to. During the civil war the two contending parties each issued proclamations authorizing letters of marque. In 1643 an ordinance of parliament provided that captures made by privateers after adjudication in the admiralty court and payment of tenths and customs should belong to the captors.[3] Similar acts were passed in 1644 and 1645.[4] More extensive provisions were made in an act of 1648.[5] Prize bounty of ten pounds per gun for every enemy vessel destroyed was for the first time granted in an act of this same year.[6] An elaborate parliamentary enactment of 1649 provided for division of prize between the captors, the state, the sick, wounded and the relatives of the slain. A man of war captured by a state ship was divided, one half to the officers and crew, and one half to the sick and wounded. If the enemy vessel was destroyed a gun money or bounty of ten to twenty pounds for each gun on the destroyed ship was distributed in the same manner. If the vessel captured was a merchant ship, one third went to the captors, one third to the state and one third to the sick and wounded. In the case of a privateer making the capture, one third went to the officers and crew, one third to the sick and wounded, one sixth to the owner and one sixth to the state. Recaptures were to be returned to the original owner on the payment of one eighth salvage. The customary Admiral's one-tenth was to be paid into the state treasury and used for the purchase of medals.[7] Piracy was extremely prevalent at that time. Adherents of Prince Rupert plundered British vessels without scruple. A successful effort to stop such depredations was made in 1650. The authorizing act provided for division of the captured pirate vessels at the rate of one half to the state, one third to the owner and one sixth to the officers and crew.[8] In a declaration of 1652 the admiralty forbade the old custom of pillage on deck, demanding that the prize be brought in to port intact,[9] but the order seems to have proved impossible of execution and after the Restoration the old custom was revived. An ordinance of 1660 authorized the capture as prize of vessels breaking the provisions of the navigation act and provided for the division of such prizes, one half to the captors and one half to the state.[10] The navigation act of 1663[11] provided for the adjudication of such prizes in the vice admiralty courts of the colonies. The division of the proceeds was to be one-third to the colonial governor, one-third to the king and one-third to the captors. Shortly after the restoration of Charles II in 1661 an act was passed by parliament for the regulation of the navy.[12] Among other things it forbids spoil of prizes before adjudication but especially permits pillage on the decks. In 1749 this act was amended and the ancient practice of giving up the decks to plunder was finally forbidden.[13] In ordinances issued before the Dutch war of 1664[14] and the French war of 1666[15] all prizes were granted to the captors with the sole reservation of the admiral's tenth. Prizes were also liable to payment of customs duties. An order in council of the latter date defined the rights of the king and admiral in prizes "bona inimicorum"[16]. To the king by Jure Coronae belonged all prizes driven into harbor by the king's ships, seized in port before war broke out coming into port voluntarily or deserting from the enemy. To the Lord High Admiral by Droits of admiralty belonged ships captured at sea by non-commissioned captors, salvage due for ships recaptured from the enemy, and ships forsaken by the crew unless in the presence of the king's ships. In other cases the rule of the ordinance held good, the admiral received only his tenth and the king his customs duties the remainder going to the captors. b. Administration. From this brief resumé of the legislation of the seventeenth century it is evident that the laws, reached, during this period, a certain definiteness and stability which they had before lacked. In 1628 the office of Lord High Admiral was temporarily put in commission and given a more systematic organization. From this time the prize cases of the court are recorded on separate records and condemnation before distribution of prizes was the rule. Sir Leoline Jenkins says "And the Admiral may inquire if any defraud the king of his prizes, or the admiral of his one tenth part or buy or receive prize goods or break bulk before they are condemned as prize or there be a decree for an appraisement or sale."[17] The prestige of the admiralty was increased through the fact that the Warden of the Cinque Ports, Zouche, sold out his right to Lord High Admiral Buckingham in 1624.[18] From this time the Courts of admiralty were virtually supreme in maritime jurisdiction. Thus Jenkins said, "The Admiralty has jurisdiction over offences, super altum mare, punishable by laws of Oleron, laws of admiralty, or laws or statutes of the realm."[19] The Cinque ports still retained jurisdiction over certain matters. During the latter part of the seventeenth century through the adverse pressure of the crown on the side of its prize jurisdiction and of the common law courts on the side of its instance jurisdiction the authority and prestige of the admiralty court greatly declined. The civil wars of the middle Stuart period precluded a possibility of prize-law development, rather it encouraged piracy and maintained disorder. Parliamentarians and royalists authorized unrestrained privateering against the opposition. During the Stuart exile, Prince Rupert was at the head of an organized system of piracy. The Puritan regime and the restoration period however witnessed a marked advance in the legalizing of maritime methods. The Puritans stood for law and popular control. They did much to crush piracy, required the carriage of letters of marque by privateers and the first act of parliament touching prize distribution appeared at this time. It is to be noted however that while the government claimed prior rights in prizes and demanded legal adjudication; in behalf of a forward naval policy it displayed exceptional generosity to the captors, in its rule of division of proceeds. Not only did all the prize go to the captors but in addition bounty was granted in case of the destruction or capture of armed vessels and medals were awarded for specially meritorious acts. The extreme effort of the Puritans to enforce legality at sea is evidenced by the effort to abolish the old custom of pillage on deck and the great number of prize cases settled in the court of admiralty at this period. During this time Zouche of Oxford published his great work on international law and did much to crystallize legal views on prize matters.[20] The restoration period carried out the same principles in general except that with the restoration of the office of Lord High Admiral the old Droits d'Admiralty were revived. In these periods the humane policy of apportioning a share of the prizes to the sick, wounded and heirs of the slain was instituted, a policy continued in the later practice of maintaining a naval hospital at Greenwich with the proceeds of forfeited shares of prize money.[21] In 1690 the whole privy council was constituted a court of appeal in prize cases.[22] Vice Admiralty courts with prize jurisdiction had been established in the colonies.[23] The colonial governor was usually the Vice Admiral of the colony. The great trading companies were usually granted large rights of reprisal but adjudication was required in the court of admiralty. In 1690 the king received the admiral's share of one tenth in a case involving a prize of 100,000 pounds captured by the East India Company from the great Mogul.[24] The legislation of the seventeenth century gave complete recognition to the Grotian principles of prize distribution and in practice these laws seem to have been applied regularly and consistently by well established legal institutions. _NOTES._ Chapter III, Part 4. [1] Cal. St. Pap. Dom. Jac. I, 1623-1625, p. 476. [2] Cal. St. Pap. Dom. Car. I, 1625-1626, p. 142. [3] Marsdon, English Historical Review, xxv, 253. [4] Henry Scobell, A Collection of Acts and Ordinances, London, 1658, 1649, c 21, p. 9. [5] Ibid. c 21, p. 9. [6] Ibid. 1648, c 12, p. 4. [7] Ibid. 1648, c 15, p. 7. [8] Ibid. 1649, c 21, p. 9. [9] Marsdon, English Historical Review, xxvi, 40. [10] Ibid. xxvi, 41. [11] Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial, i, 302. [12] 15 Car. II, c 7, s 6, 1663; Provision was first made for establishing Vice Admiralty courts in the patent to James, Duke of York, Lord High Admiral, in 1662. Governor Windsor established a court at Jamaica in this year, Cal. St. Pap. Col. America and West Indies, 1661-1668, p. 112, s 379; Marsdon, English Historical Review, xxvi, 53. [13] 13 Car. II, c 9, s 7, 1661. [14] Marsdon, English Historical Review, xxvi, 44. [15] Ibid. xxvi, 45. [16] Ibid. xxvi, 47, see also Phillimore, op. cit. iii, 600. [17] Sir Leoline Jenkins, Life of, by Wynne, i, 88, quoted in Comyn's Digest, i, 271. [18] Cal. St. Pap. Dom. Jac. I, 1623-1625, p. 304. [19] Sir Leoline Jenkins, Life of, by Wynne, i, 87, quoted in Comyn's Digest, i, 272. [20] See Ante p. 24. [21] 54 Geo. III, c 93, s 72, 1814. [22] Marsdon, English Historical Review, xxvi, 53; Cal. St. Pap. Dom. 1690-1691, p. 92. [23] Ibid. xxvi, 53. [24] Ibid. xxvi, 55. _CHAPTER IV. GREAT BRITAIN, RECENT LAWS._ PART 1. 1688-1864. After the revolution of 1688 English methods of legislation became in many cases crystallized into their present form. This was true of prize money law. In 1692[1] the first statute granting prize money to the captors was passed, for the purpose as the bill stated of encouraging privateers in the pending war with France. In connection with instructions for privateers issued in 1693[2] provision was made that prize ships taken by privateers should go to the captors but the king was entitled to one-fifth of the goods on board, the other four-fifths going to the captors. Prizes taken by king's or hired ships went, one-third to the widows and children of the slain, the sick and the wounded; one-third to the officers and crew; and one-third to the king. Gun money of five pounds a gun was granted for capturing or destroying a man of war in addition to the prize money. Recaptured ships were to be returned after payment of salvage of one-third to one-eighth according to the time the vessel had been in the enemy's possession. With the outbreak of the war of the Spanish succession the statutory method of providing for prize distribution was established. By a statute of 1707[3] the sole property in all prizes was granted to the officers and seamen of queen's ships and the officers, seamen and owners of privateers, the capture being first adjudged good prize in a court of admiralty. The act also provided for the payment of head money or bounty to the amount of five pounds per man on board every war ship or privateer of the enemy, sunk or destroyed. The act was to continue only for that war. Orders in council issued on authority of the act provided details for the conduct of prize courts and the division of prize money and bounty among the captors. In reference to this act and the previous history of prize money in England, Lord Loughborough said in 1789,[4] "Before the sixth year of the reign of Queen Anne there were no laws made on the subject. Previous to that time all prizes taken in war were of right vested in the crown and questions concerning the property of such prizes were not the subject of discussion in courts of law. But in order to do justice to claimants from the first year after the restoration of Charles II, special commissions were issued to enable courts of Admiralty to condemn such captures as appeared to be lawful prizes,[5] to give relief where there was no color for the taking and generally to make satisfaction to parties injured. But in the sixth year of Queen Anne it was thought proper for the encouragement of seamen to vest in them the prizes they should take and for that purpose the statutes of 6 Anne c 13 and c 37 were passed." From the foregoing discussion it appears that the learned judge failed to note the statute 4-5 Wm. and Mary c 25 passed in 1692 not to mention the commonwealth statutes of 1648 and 1649. It also seems clear that admiralty courts exercised jurisdiction over prize matters long before the restoration of Charles II. Queen Anne's act of 1707 is typical of those which have been passed at the beginning of every subsequent war in English history until the passage of the permanent prize act of 1864.[6] Since that time the principle of giving the total proceeds of prize to the captors has been adhered to although the principle that the initial title to all captures vests in the crown has been maintained with equal consistency. Another act of 1707[7] extended the act previously mentioned to captures made in America and provided for prize jurisdiction in colonial courts of vice admiralty. The outbreak of the war of the Austrian succession brought forth the prize act of 1740.[8] This added to Queen Anne's act the provision that vessels recaptured should be restored to the original owners on the payment of one eighth salvage. A new act was passed in 1744[9] which repeated the former acts adding provisions in regard to privateers. It was provided that captures by privateers should belong to the ship exclusively and division between the owners and crew should be regulated by special contract between them. The admiralty was authorized to issue letters of Marque on receiving of satisfactory bond of good behaviour from the owners. The act of 1756[10] repeated the provisions of the preceding act with reference to the Seven Years war, as did the act of 1776[11] with reference to the American Revolution and the acts of 1779,[12] 1780,[13] and 1781[14] passed on the outbreak of hostilities with France, Spain and Holland, respectively. In the act passed in 1793[15] to regulate prize matters in the French war a few new provisions were added. Captures on land were put under the jurisdiction of the admiralty and similar principles of division authorized. Joint captures by land and naval forces were to be divided by special orders in council. Recaptures were to be returned on paying a salvage of one-eighth in case the capture was made by a public vessel, and one-sixth if made by a privateer. The duration of this act was extended by an act of 1797.[16] At the outbreak of war with America a prize proclamation was issued, Oct. 26, 1812.[17] It provided "That the net produce of all prizes taken, the right whereof is inherent in His Majesty and his crown be given to the takers". Rules were then given for the division among the officers and crew. An act of 1813[18] authorized this proclamation and an act of the following year[19] gave complete rules for prize distribution. Aside from the matters covered in previous acts it provided that all prize money shares not claimed or forfeited should go to the support of the Greenwich naval hospital. An elaborate scheme for the division of shares was included. By this scheme the proceeds of prizes taken before 1808 were to be divided into five shares, besides the flag shares, which were to be divided among five grades of seamen. Those taken after 1808 were to be divided into eight shares and in the same manner distributed among eight grades of seamen. The sizes of vessels were evidently increasing rapidly, to necessitate this change in the number of grades of mariners. In 1815 a very elaborate act[20] was called forth by the return of Napoleon from Elba, entitled "an act for the encouragement of seamen and the more effectual manning of his majesty's navy during the present war." It provided that the flag officers, commanders and crew should have sole right in all prizes taken by public armed vessels declared lawful prize before courts of admiralty or vice admiralty to be divided in proportions from time to time decreed by orders in council. Hired armed vessels were subject to the same rules. Captures made with aid of allies were to be divided equally with the ally. Land captures made by the navy were also the sole property of the captors after proper adjudication, but joint captures by land and naval forces were to be subject to special order in council. Desertion, forfeited shared of prize money. Recaptures were to be returned to the original owner on the payment of one-eighth salvage if the captor was a public vessel and one-sixth if a private vessel, except that if the recaptured vessel had been fitted out by the enemy as a war ship it should not be returned to the original owner but should be declared good prize for the benefit of the captors. Head money or bounty of five pounds per man on board every enemy ship at the beginning of an engagement was to be paid all vessels capturing, sinking or destroying a war ship or privateer of the enemy. Ransom of captured vessels was forbidden except in case of necessity. All money given as bounty or salvage was to be subject to the same rules of division as prize money. Letters of Marque were to be granted on proper security for good behavior and the privateers were to be sole proprietors of all captures after proper adjudication. The force of this act only extended to the pending war. During the middle of the nineteenth century England was engaged in an active campaign to suppress the slave trade. As a result proclamations were constantly issued decreeing the division of the proceeds of vessels captured in this trade. The same rules were followed as in the case of prizes of war, the whole of the captures being given to the captor after adjudication. Such proclamations were issued in 1834,[21] 1846,[22] 1849[23] and were authorized by a statute passed in 1839[24] and amended in 1842.[25] In the Crimean war of 1854 England followed her old policy in prize distribution.[26] The act of 1815 was practically reenacted. In addition it was provided that for any breach of her majesty's instructions or the law of nations the shares of prize money would be forfeited to the crown. In this war Great Britain was in alliance with France and an interesting treaty was entered into by the two countries providing for the division of prizes between them.[27] Prizes were to be adjudicated by the courts of the country of the officer in superior command in the engagement. Joint captors in sight were to share but adjudication was always to be by the country of the ship making the actual capture. If vessels of one of the allies were captured for illicit trade it was to be tried by the country of the captured vessel. In case of vessels of the two countries acting in conjunction or of vessels of the two countries giving constructive assistance the net proceeds were to be divided to the several vessels according to the number of men on board irrespective of rank. Distribution was to be regulated by the municipal laws of each country. The treaty also contained instruction for bringing in prizes. A similar treaty was entered into by France and Great Britain in their joint expedition against China in 1860.[28] _NOTES._ Chapter IV, Part 1. [1] 4 and 5 William and Mary, c 25, 1692. [2] Marsdon, English Historical Review, xxvi, 51. [3] 6 Anne, c 13, 1707. [4] Brymer vs Atkins, 1 H. Blacks, 189; 126 Eng. Rep. 97; see also Phillimer, op. cit. iii, 576. [5] 13 Car. II, c 9, 1661. [6] 27 and 28 Vict. c 25, 1864. [7] 6 Anne, c 37, 1707. [8] 13 Geo. II, c 4, 1740. [9] 17 Geo. II, c 34, 1744. [10] 29 Geo. II, c 34, 1756; 32 Geo. II, c 25, 1759. [11] 16 Geo. III, c 5, 1776. [12] 19 Geo. III, c 67, 1779. [13] 20 Geo. III, c 23, 1780. [14] 21 Geo. III, c 15, 1781. [15] 33 Geo. III, c 66, 1793. [16] 37 Geo. III, c 109, 1797. [17] State Papers, Foreign and Domestic, i, 1348. [18] 53 Geo. III, c 63, 1813. [19] 54 Geo. III, c 93, 1814. [20] 55 Geo. III, c 160, 1815. [21] State Papers, xx, 1214. [22] Ibid. xxxiv, 438. [23] Ibid. xxxix, 1252. [24] 2 and 3 Vict., c 73, 1839. [25] 5 and 6 Vict., c 91, 1842. [26] 17 Vict., c 18, 1854. [27] De Martens, Nouveau Recueil General de Traités, xv, 580. [28] Ibid. xx, 460. PART 2. 1864-1913. Prize distribution in Great Britain at present is authorized by two permanent acts passed in 1864. The first of these acts known as the "Naval agency and distribution act of 1864"[1] provides that all salvage, bounty and prize money be distributed according to proclamation or order in council and that the shares in which such distribution shall occur be determined in the same manner. Pursuant to this act a proclamation was issued August 3, 1886[2] providing that the whole of prizes legally adjudicated be for the benefit of officers and seamen making the capture and that the flag officers receive one-thirtieth of the proceeds and the captain one-tenth. The remainder is to be divided equally among eleven grades of officers and seamen. This rule has been superseded by an Order in Council of September 17, 1900[3] shortly after the outbreak of the South African war. It provides that only ships within sight so as to cause intimidation of the enemy are to share in prize money as joint captors. All bounty, salvage and prize money received for any action are to be in general divided in the same manner. The flag officer is to receive one-thirtieth of the prize but no share of bounty, unless actually present at the capture. The captain in actual command receives one-tenth. The remainder is divided among eleven grades of officers and men as before. The other act now in force regulating prize matter is the "Naval Prize Act of 1864".[4] It provides for prize courts and prescribes their procedure, these matters however have been amended by "the prize courts act of 1894".[5] In joint captures by land and naval forces prize courts have jurisdiction. In cases of the infraction of municipal or international law all proceeds of the prize go to the government, notwithstanding any grant that may have been made to the captors. Ships taken as prize by any ship other than a regular ship of war enure solely to the government. This provision effectually abolishes privateering. Recaptured ships are to be returned to the original owner if an English subject on payment of from one-eighth to one-fourth salvage unless they have been fitted out by the enemy as ships of war when they will be considered good prize. If prize bounty is granted in any war by proclamation the officers and crew actually present at the taking or destroying of any armed ship of the enemy are entitled to bounty calculated at the rate of five pounds for each person on board the enemy's ship at the beginning of the engagement. The saving clause of the act states that "nothing in this act shall give to the officers and crew of any of her majesty's ships of war any right or claim in or to any ship or goods taken as prize or the proceeds thereof, it being the intent of this act that such officers and crews shall consent to take only such interest (if any) in the proceeds of prizes as may be from time to time granted to them by the crown." The principle that original title to all prize vests in the crown is thus distinctly asserted. Perhaps the best exposition of the present rules for the conduct of prizes and the distribution of the proceeds from them is contained in the instructions to naval officers which have been authoritatively issued in England, based on the statutes and orders mentioned. Such a code was prepared by Mr. Godfrey Lushington in 1866[6] and revised by Prof. T. E. Holland in 1888.[7] It contains the following provisions[8] bearing on bounty, prize salvage and prize money. "247--When any ship or vessel shall be captured or detained her hatches are to be securely fastened and sealed and her lading and furniture and in general everything on board are to be carefully secured from embezzlement. The officers placed in charge of her shall prevent anything from being taken out of her until she has been tried and sentence shall have been passed on her in a court of prize. "250--If any ship or vessel shall be taken acting as a ship of war or privateer without having a commission duly authorizing her to do so, a full report of all particulars is at once to be made to the admiralty. "252--The ship to which a prize strikes her flag is the actual captor. Other ships may be held by the prize court to share as joint captors on the ground either of association or cooperation with the actual captor. "253--If ships are associated or cooperating together a capture made by one enures to the benefit of all. "255--Ships being in sight of the prize as also of the captor under circumstances to cause intimidation to the prize and encouragement to the captor are held to be cooperating with the actual captor. "259--In the case of captures made jointly by British and allied ships of war the duties of the respective commanders are usually regulated by treaty. "263--Upon adjudication the prize court will order the vessel and cargo to be restored to their respective owners upon payment by them of prize salvage. "266--The prize salvage which will be awarded to the recaptors for the recapture of any British vessel before she has been carried into an enemy's port is one-eighth part of the value of the prize or in case the recapture has been made under circumstances of special difficulty or danger a sum not exceeding one-fourth part of the value. "267--If however the vessel has before her recapture been set forth or used by the enemy as a ship of war, then upon recapture the original owner is not entitled to restitution, but both vessel and cargo will be condemned as lawful prize to the recaptor. "269--It may happen that an enemy vessel which has been captured by a British cruiser is afterwards lost to an enemy's cruiser and finally recaptured by another British cruiser. The commander effecting such a recapture should send in the vessel for adjudication and the original captors are not entitled to restitution, but both vessel and cargo would be condemned as lawful prize to the recaptors. "270--If a commander recapture from the enemy a neutral vessel which would not have been liable to condemnation in the prize court of the enemy he is not entitled to salvage and should without delay and without taking ransom, set her free to prosecute her voyage. "271--If a commander recapture from the enemy an allied vessel his duty is generally regulated by treaty. In default of treaty regulations he will send her into a British port for adjudication and the prize court will award salvage or not according as the prize court of the ally would or would not have awarded salvage to an allied ship for recapturing a British vessel." _NOTES._ Chapter IV, Part 2. [1] 27 and 28 Vict., c 24, Chitty's Statutes, Lely, Editor, London, 1895, tit. Navy, viii, 1, Phillimore, op. cit. iii, 902. [2] State Papers, lxxvii, 1189. [3] Statutory Rules and Orders, Revised, London, 1904, tit. Navy, ix, 109. [4] 27 and 28 Vict., c 25, printed in L. Oppenheim, International Law, London, 1906, ii, 541; Wheaton, International Law, Boyd, Editor, 3rd English Edition, London, 1889, p. 750; Phillimore, op. cit. iii, 908. [5] 57 and 58 Vict., c 59, 1894; Chitty's Statutes, tit. Admiralty, i, 43. [6] Manual of Naval Prize Law, London, 1866. [7] Manual of Naval Prize Law, London, 1888. [8] Quoted in Atherley-Jones, Commerce in War, London, 1907, pp. 575-645. _CHAPTER V. GREAT BRITAIN, RECENT ADMINISTRATION._ PART 1. PRIZE COURTS. In regard to the actual administration of these laws of prize distribution the decisions of prize courts in cases where the questions of distribution have arisen furnish the most satisfactory clue to the practice. It may be well to devote a short space to a consideration of the organization of courts exercising prize jurisdiction.[1] As previously noted, in early times the admiralty jurisdiction, both administrative and judicial was placed in the charge of one man, the Lord High Admiral of England. There were it is true certain favored localities which claimed exemption from his jurisdiction. Such were the Cinque Ports which exercised coordinate jurisdiction through their Warden of the Cinque Ports. To this day the Cinque Ports retain this privilege[2] in some matters, especially questions of civil salvage but in prize matters, the Warden early lost his authority. As time went on the Office of Lord High Admiral began to lose its character of a personal prerogative especially in the judicial field. The admiralty courts came under the authority of the king. They exercised instance and prize jurisdiction without distinction but in the middle of the seventeenth century the court began to have separate sittings for the two jurisdictions possibly because of the conflict between the Droits of the Duke of York as Lord High Admiral and of King Charles II.[3] The administrative duties of the office of Lord High Admiral were also absorbed by the crown. Throughout the seventeenth century the office of Admiral was frequently put in commission. That is, the Lord High Admiral's jurisdiction was retaken by the king and commissioners were appointed by him to exercise the duties of the office. By act of 1690[4] express provision was made for thus disposing of the office of admiralty and for the most part it has been in commission since.[5] From this time, therefore, the organization of the department of admiralty and of admiralty courts has been directly under the control of the crown in parliament and acts providing for the institution of prize courts and the distribution of prize money have been passed by them generally before each war as previously indicated.[6] The history of the admiralty courts of England has been the history of a struggle between them and the common law courts, each seeking to increase its jurisdiction at the expense of the other. Acts were passed in the reign of Richard II[7] limiting the power of the admiralty courts. Through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries their power underwent a constant decline, a fact greatly deplored by Sir Leoline Jenkins one of the judges of the seventeenth century. The common law courts even attempted to usurp their jurisdiction in prize matters. In 1781 however the exclusive jurisdiction of the admiralty in prize matters was recognized.[8] It was at this time that Lord Mansfield as Lord Chief Justice of England was beginning to correlate prize law by his famous decisions in appealed cases. But it was to Sir William Scott, afterwards Lord Stowell, Judge of the admiralty and prize court of England during the Napoleonic wars that the fame of the English Prize Court is largely due. The English Prize Court was at this time regarded almost as an international authority, as is witnessed by the fact that the United States through Ambassador Jay in 1794 requested of England an exposition of prize court procedure for the use of the United States. The reply of Sir William Scott and Sir J. Nicholl embodies nearly all the rules adopted by the United States.[9] Of Lord Stowell's work it has been said, "But his work as a judge of the Prize Court remains to this day distinct and conspicuous and no changes of international law can ever diminish his fame as the creator of a great body of English prize law the only complete and judicially made code in existence among European nations."[10] Through the nineteenth century the English High Court of admiralty under such judges as Dr. Stephen Lushington, Sir Robert Phillimore, and Sir Travers Twiss occupied a position of increasing importance. Its jurisdiction was greatly increased by a statute of 1840.[11] Among other things it was there given power to adjudicate booty of war in the same manner as prize. Its jurisdiction was further enlarged by acts of 1846,[12] 1854,[13] 1861,[14] and 1867.[15] By the Judicature acts of 1873[16] and 1875[17] the High Court of Admiralty was incorporated into the High Court of Justice as part of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty division of that court. The Supreme court of judicature act of 1891[18] defined the prize jurisdiction of the High Court. Beginning with the establishment of a court in Jamaica in 1662[19] Vice Admiralty courts have been established in most of the colonies with jurisdiction similar to that of the courts of admiralty of England. By act of 1832[20] governors of colonies were made ex-officio vice admirals and the chief justices of the colonial courts, judges of the courts of vice admiralty. This act was amended in 1863[21] and in 1867.[22] By the Colonial courts of Admiralty act of 1890[23] all courts of law in British possessions having unlimited civil jurisdiction were created courts of admiralty with jurisdiction equal to that of the Admiralty division of the High court of Justice. The custom has been to constitute admiralty and vice admiralty courts into prize courts by special commission on the outbreak of war. It has been questioned whether a special commission granting authority to adjudicate prize matters to the admiralty courts is necessary. Blackstone seems to consider the authority inherent. He says: "In case of prizes also in time of war, between our own nation and another or between two other nations, which are taken at sea and brought into our ports, the courts of admiralty have an undisturbed and exclusive jurisdiction to determine the same according to the laws of nations."[24] Phillimore expresses a similar view.[25] However the general opinion seems to be that the prize and instance jurisdiction of the admiralty courts are separated and the former is granted only by commission from the crown in time of war.[26] Thus the naval prize act of 1864[27] provides that all admiralty and vice admiralty courts may be commissioned to act as prize courts during war under the jurisdiction of the high court of admiralty with appeal in all cases to the queen in council. The Supreme Court of Judicature act of 1891[28] declared the high court to be a prize court within the meaning of the prize court act of 1864.[29] It therefore is a perpetual prize court and requires no special commission.[30] Other admiralty and vice admiralty courts exercise prize jurisdiction under provisions of the prize courts act of 1894[31] which declares that commissions for the establishment of prize courts may be issued at any time even during peace by the office of admiralty to become effective on the issuance of a proclamation declaring war. Laws of procedure may likewise be issued at any time by order in council in accordance with the provisions of the naval prize act of 1864.[32] In earliest times the Lord High Admiral of England and the Warden of the Cinque Ports were the highest appellate authorities in prize cases in their respective jurisdictions. Later, appeal apparently lay to the king in chancery but by 1534[33] the custom was established of appointing a special commission of appeals. This commission was appointed by the crown and consisted generally of members of the privy council. This condition prevailed until 1833[34] when the "delegates of appeals" was abolished and it was provided that all admiralty appeals whether instance or prize, should lie to the judicial committee of the privy council. By act of 1832[35] it had been provided that appeals from all vice admiralty courts lie to the same body. The naval prize act of 1864[36] likewise provided for appeal to the queen in council. After the incorporation of the high court of admiralty with the High Court of Justice in 1873 it was provided in the appellate jurisdiction act of 1876[37] that in its instance jurisdiction appeal lie, as in the other courts, to the High Court of Appeal and then to the House of Lords. Appeal in prize cases however was allowed to remain to the privy council as prescribed by the act of 1864.[38] At present, therefore, appeal from all prize courts of Great Britain lie ultimately to the judicial committee of the privy council. In the Hague Conference of 1907 a convention[39] providing for an international prize court composed of fifteen judges selected from the leading countries to act as a court of final appeal in prize cases for all nations was adopted. In 1909 the declaration of London[40] signed by the leading maritime nations provided definite rules for many unsettled points of maritime law. Shortly after the meeting of this conference, autumn of 1910, a bill was proposed in the House of Commons to reorganize the English prize procedure so as to allow for appeal to the international court. The bill was defeated.[41] The international prize court has not as yet been organized. At present there is no provision in English law which would permit of appeal to it in case it came into being. Although her delegates signed the Convention at the Hague, England has never officially ratified it and it is difficult to say whether in case of a war Great Britain would feel bound by this convention. _NOTES._ Chapter V, Part 1. [1] For history and discussion of admiralty and prize courts see Marsdon, Introduction to select pleas of the Admiralty; Roscoe, Growth of English Law; Carter, History of English Legal Institutions; Ridges, Constitutional Laws of England; Benedict, The American Admiralty; Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition, titles, Admiral, Lord High; Admiralty, Jurisdiction. [2] The local jurisdiction of all sea port corporations but the Cinque Ports was abolished in 1835, 5 and 6 William IV, c 76. [3] W. G. F. Phillimore, Admiralty, High Court of, Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition, i, 206. [4] 2 William and Mary, St. 2, c 2, 1690. [5] The Lord High Admirals since 1690 have been, Prince George of Denmark, husband of Queen Anne, 1702-1708; The Earl of Pembroke, 1708-1710; The Duke of Clarence, afterwards, William IV, 1827-1828. [6] See ante p. 56 et seq. [7] 13 Ric. II, c 5, 1390; 15 Ric. II, c 3, 1392. [8] Le Caux vs Eden, 2 Doug. 595; 99 Eng. Rep. 375; Lindo vs Rodney, 2 Doug. 613; 99 Eng. Rep. 385. See also Phillimore, op. cit. iii, 213. [9] See post p. 84. [10] E. S. Roscoe, The Growth of English Law, London, 1911, p. 139. [11] 3 and 4 Vict., c 65, s 22, 1840. [12] 9 and 10 Vict., c 99, 1846. [13] 17 and 18 Vict., c 104, 1854. [14] 24 and 25 Vict., c 10, 1861. [15] 31 and 32 Vict., c 71, 1868. [16] 36 and 37 Vict., c 66, 1873. [17] 38 and 39 Vict., c 66, 1873. [18] 54 and 55 Vict., c 53, s 4, 1891. [19] Cal. St. Pap. Col. America and West Indies, 1661-1668, p. 112, s 379; Marsdon, English, Historical Review, xxvi, 53. [20] 2 and 3 William IV, c 51, 1832. [21] 26 and 27 Vict., c 24, 1863. [22] 30 and 31 Vict., c 45, 1867. [23] 53 and 54 Vict., c 27, 1890. [24] Blackstone, Commentaries, iii, 108. [25] Phillimore, op. cit. iii, 655; see also post p. 86. [26] Roscoe, op. cit. p. 125; Hannis Taylor, The Origin and Growth of the English Constitution, 3rd Edition, 2 Vols., Boston, 1895, i, 550. [27] 27 and 28 Vict., c 25, ss 3, 4, 5, 6. [28] 54 and 55 Vict., c 53, s 4, 1891. [29] 27 and 28 Vict., c 25, 1864. [30] "This Jurisdiction is permanent and unlike that of the prize courts in British possessions requires no commission from his majesty, proclamation of war, or other executive act to bring it into operation." The Earl of Halsbury, The Laws of England, London, 1907-1912, xxiii, 276. [31] 57 and 58 Vict., c 39, 1894. [32] 27 and 28 Vict., c 25, 1864. [33] 25 Hen. VIII, c 19, s 3, 4, 1534. [34] 2 and 3 William IV, c 92, 1833. [35] 2 and 3 William IV, c 52, 1833. [36] 27 and 28 Vict., c 25, 1864. [37] 39 and 40 Vict., c 59, 1876. [38] 27 and 28 Vict., c 25, 1864. [39] Convention Relative to the Creation of an International Prize Court, Final Acts of the Second International Peace Conference, 1907, No. 12, for text see A. Pearce Higgins, The Hague Peace Conferences; Bentwich, The Declaration of London. [40] For discussion and text see Norman Bentwich, The Declaration of London; A. Pearce Higgins, The Hague Peace Conferences. [41] Bentwich, The Declaration of London, p. 35; for text of proposed bill, see ibid. p. 171. PART 2. THEORY OF DISTRIBUTION. a. Relation of state and individual. In considering the present theory of prize money distribution in England and Judicial opinion on the subject, the classification[1] adopted in summarizing the conclusion of the Grotian school of international law writers may be used. 1. The state is the only power that can prosecute war and take prize. "War must be waged by public authority of the state and carried on through the agency of those who have been duly commissioned for that purpose by that authority" says Phillimore.[2] However this theory appears to be subject to a good deal of modification in practice as for instance in the British treatment of captures made by non-commissioned vessels. England has never given recognition to the theory introduced by Rousseau and prominent in French political theory that war is a conflict between the armed forces of the state only and not between private individuals.[3] This theory maintains that the only participants in war should be the armed representatives of the state, thus non-belligerent nationals of the enemy country and their private property should be exempt from military attack. It seeks to place non-belligerents in practically the same position as neutrals. Carried to its logical conclusion it would lead to the complete abolition of the right of capturing enemy private property at sea, and if not carried to this extreme it is at any rate incompatible with the grant of prize money to individuals for if war is solely a state affair aggrandizement of the individual should not be one of its objects. This theory of war should be distinguished from the view of Grotius and his contemporaries. The latter holds that war is a state affair and can only be entered into by the state as such but the individual is so closely bound to the state that if the state is enemy so also is the individual that belongs to that state. In other words it recognizes no clear distinction between enemy belligerents and enemy non-belligerents. "Bellum omnum, contra omnes". Grotius however, did recognize state non-belligerency or neutrality. This theory though somewhat modified in practice has been the one adhered to by Great Britain. She has recognized the complete international responsibility of the state in war but when she has recognized non-belligerent rights of enemy subjects it has only been as a concession in behalf of humanity and contrary to her well established rights. Thus until very recently she refused to allow subjects of enemy states any status in her courts. She is today the firmest opponent of the movement to abolish the practice of capturing enemy private property at sea and though she asserts that prize of war belongs to the state, in practice she still gives it all to the captors thus letting the individual have a very real personal interest in the war. England now, of course, recognizes the rights of enemy non-belligerents required by various international agreements. b. Reprisal. 2. The right of private reprisal can only be exercised under specific commission from the state. "And indeed, says Blackstone, this custom of reprisals seems dictated by nature herself for which reason we find in the most ancient times very notable instances of it. But here the necessity is obvious of calling in the sovereign power to determine when reprisals may be made; else every private sufferer would be a judge in his own cause."[4] In his work on international law Phillimore gives rules for reprisal in time of peace,[5] saying that the sovereign alone can grant the right of reprisal and only goods sufficient to satisfy the debt can be taken, the rest must be returned. Matters of private reprisal can not be adjudicated in prize courts, which are only called into existence by regular war, but come under the jurisdiction of the regular courts of admiralty.[6] The matter is now purely theoretic in England since by the declaration of Paris of 1856 privateering and consequently the right of private reprisal was abolished. No commission for this purpose could now be issued and any one engaged in it would be considered a pirate. Public reprisal is still used as a method of coercion short of war and may be employed for the collection of private debts or for obtaining satisfaction for torts of the individual, though only vessels of the regular navy can take part, according to the declaration of Paris. The right of reprisal for private redress in time of peace or special reprisal should be distinguished from the right of reprisal during war or general reprisal, sometimes distinguished as the right of Marque. Formerly vessels were commissioned by letters of Marque and reprisal to prey on the general commerce of the enemy to any extent and wherever found during war. This right was only legal under special commission of the sovereign though England seems to have taken a very lenient attitude in dealing with non-commissioned captors even granting them a share of their prizes. Her attitude seems to have been that subjects by making captures without commission offended against municipal law but not against international law. Thus she was at liberty to deal with them as she chose but the injured alien had no recourse under international law. As a matter of fact if the non-commissioned captors had observed due care in the conduct of the prize they were usually rewarded with prize money on its condemnation.[7] The declaration of Paris which abolished this practice was severely criticized by many English writers on the ground that it robbed England of important belligerent rights and some even doubted whether England was legally bound by it on account of some diplomatic irregularities in signing it.[8] But now there can be little doubt but that privateering is illegal in England though volunteer fleets and subsidized steamship lines which are used by all naval powers, come dangerously near to amounting to the same thing.[9] c. State Title to Prize. The title to all prize vests originally in the state. Phillimore says, "The maxim 'Bello Parta Cedunt Reipublicae,' is recognized by all civilized states. In England all acquisitions of war belong to the sovereign who represents the commonwealth. The Sovereign is the fountain of booty and prize."[10] Holland makes a similar statement: "Most systems of law hold that property taken from an enemy vests primarily in the nation, 'Bello Parta Cedunt Reipublicae'. A rule which is the foundation of the law of booty and prize."[11] The same view has been expressed by the court as follows: "That prize is clearly and distinctly the property of the crown and the sovereign in this country, the executive government in all countries in whom is vested the power of levying the forces of the state and of making war and peace, is alone possessed of all property in prize, is a principle not to be disputed.---- It is equally clear that the title of a party claiming prize must needs in all cases be the act of the crown, by which the royal pleasure to grant the prize shall have been signified to the subject."[12] But this principle is carried further and even after an express grant of prize money has been made the crown still has exclusive control over prize. In other words the grant of prize money creates no legal right which the captor can maintain against the pleasure or whim of the crown. In the case of "The Elsebe"[13] Sir William Scott said: "It is admitted on the part of the captors that their claim rests wholly on the order of council, the proclamation and the prize act. It is not denied that independent of these instruments the whole subject matter is in the hands of the crown as well in point of interest as in point of authority. Prize is altogether a creature of the crown. No man has or can have any interest, but what he takes as the mere gift of the crown. Beyond the extent of that gift he has nothing.---- This is the principle of law on the subject and founded on the wisest reasons. The right of making war and peace is exclusively in the crown. The acquisitions of war belong to the crown and the disposal of these acquisitions may be of utmost importance for the purposes both of war and peace. This is no peculiar doctrine of our constitution, it is universally received as a necessary principle of public jurisprudence by all writers on the subject.---- Bello parta cedunt reipublicae---- It is not to be supposed that the wise attribute of sovereignty is conferred without reason; it is given for the purpose assigned that the power to whom it belongs to decided peace or war may use it in the most beneficial manner for the purposes of both. A general presumption arising from these considerations is that the government does not mean to divest itself of this universal attribute of sovereignty conferred for such purposes unless it is so clearly and unequivocally expressed.----For these reasons the crown has declared that till after adjudication the captor has no interest which the court can properly notice for any legal effect whatsoever." From considerations of public policy the judge considers that the sacrifice of this inalienable right of the crown would be apt to lead to constant international differences or even war and concludes "I am of opinion that all principles of law, all considerations of public policy, concur to support the right of release prior to adjudication which I must pronounce to be still inherent in the crown." As based on policy and international law this decision was no doubt correct and necessary, but it seems more doubtful whether from the standpoint of English law either a court or the royal prerogative can divest a property right which has been unequivocally granted by act of parliament, as appears to have been done in the case of the act here in question.[14] However under the present prize act the crowns rights are expressly reserved so there could now be no question. It therefore appears that at present England recognizes the absolute title of the crown to all prizes, until after decree of distribution. d. Adjudication of Prizes. Distribution should be decreed only after adjudication of the prize by a competent tribunal of the state. Benedict has said "Before property captured can be properly disposed of it must be condemned as prize in a regular judicial proceeding in which all parties interested may be heard."[15] The letter[16] of Sir J. Nicholl and Sir William Scott to United States Ambassador Jay authoritatively states British opinion. The portion given was quoted by the authors from a report made by a commission to the king in 1753. "Before the ship or goods can be disposed of by the captors there must be a regular judicial proceeding, wherein both parties may be heard, and condemnation thereupon as prize in a court of admiralty, judging by the law of nations and treaties. "The proper and regular court for these condemnations is the court of that state to whom the captor belongs. "If the sentence of the court of admiralty is thought to be erroneous, there is in every country a superior court of review consisting of the most considerable persons to which the parties who think themselves aggrieved may appeal, and the superior court judges by the same rule which governs the court of admiralty, viz. the law of nations, and the treaties subsisting with that neutral power whose subject is a party before them. "If no appeal is offered it is an acknowledgement of the justice of the sentence by the parties themselves and conclusive. "In this method all captures at sea were tried during the last war by Great Britain, France, and Spain and submitted to by the neutral powers. In this method by courts of admiralty acting according to the law of nations and particular treaties all captures at sea have immemorially been judged of in every country in Europe. Any other method of trial would be manifestly unjust, absurd and impracticable." In regard to the competency of courts this subject is now dealt with by statute. It has been judicially stated that no British subject can maintain an action in a municipal court against the captors for prize. The court of admiralty is the proper tribunal and it exercises prize jurisdiction only under special commission from the crown.[17] In 1801 a case arose in which a vessel was condemned as prize and the proceeds distributed by decree of the vice admiralty court of Santa Domingo.[18] It appeared that the court had no commission to act as a prize court. On retrial the British prize court said: "But the court having no authority those proceedings are nill and of no legal effect whatsoever." In spite of this decision Phillimore expresses the opinion that in the absence of a special commission the regular courts of admiralty could legally exercise prize jurisdiction according to ancient custom.[19] Under the present law there can be no question as to what courts are commissioned. It therefore appears to be established that English jurisprudence demands a judicial adjudication by a duly commissioned court before distribution of prize money. e. Method of Distribution. The method of distributing prize money is determined by municipal law. The statutory regulations and orders in council decreeing the method of distribution in England together with the instructions to naval commanders have already been noted.[20] A brief consideration of their judicial interpretation may throw some additional light on the actual method of determining the shares of prize received by the captors. Benefit may be received by the captors or destroyers of vessels in three ways. 1. As prize bounty. A special reward is often given for destroying or capturing enemy vessels. Usually it is given only for destroying armed vessels of the enemy though in some cases, bounty has also been given for the destruction of merchantmen. It is a sum of money given from the treasury of the government irrespective of the value of the prize captured. In distributing it an effort is made to determine the strength of the opposing vessel, thus it is given either as gun money, a fixed amount for each gun on the enemy vessel or as head money, a fixed amount for each man on the enemy vessel at the beginning of the engagement. 2. As military salvage. A reward is usually given for the recapture and return of vessels belonging to citizens of their own or allied countries. This reward is of a similar nature to the salvage which is ordinarily paid for the recovery of shipwrecked vessels in time of peace. The amount paid is usually a certain proportion of the total value of the recaptured prize. 3. As prize money. This is the portion of the actual proceeds of the prize captured given to the captors. The amount of benefit in this case would of course depend on the value of the prize captured, and if the prize is destroyed there obviously is no prize money. Formerly money might also be received as ransom, that is a prize would be released by the captors on the giving of a ransom bill which obligated the master of the prize to continue to a certain port, to refrain from future voyages during the war, and to pay a fixed sum of money as ransom. Thus ransom would partake of the nature of prize money and be divided in the same way. The practice was abolished in England in 1782 by statute[21] but seems to have been allowed later in special cases[22] though each succeeding prize statute repeated the prohibition. It is now illegal unless specially authorized by Order in Council under the naval prize act of 1864.[23] _NOTES._ Chapter V, Part 2. [1] See ante, p. 26. [2] Op. cit. iii, 77; see also Blackstone, op. cit. i, 257. [3] On the relation of the individual to the state see Westlake, Principles of International Law, Cambridge, England, 1894, p. 258; Rousseau, The Social Contract, English translation from French, by Tozer, London, 1909, p. 106. The theory associated with the name of Rousseau appears to have been first enunciated by Giustino Gentili in 1690, see C. M. Ferrante, Private Property in Maritime War, Political Science Quarterly, 1895, xx, 708. [4] Blackstone, op. cit. i, 259. [5] Phillimore, op. cit. iii. [6] By the terms of the Giudon de la Mer; the ordinance of Louis XIV, 1681; the treaty of Utrecht, 1713; the treaty of Versailles, 1786; the right of reprisal was to be granted only to those who could prove damages done and when the offending state had refused legal redress. Prizes judged were to be judged in the same way as prize of war and any surplus in excess of the amount claimed was to be returned, Carnazza-Amari, op. cit. ii, 596, compare with English statute of 1416, ante p. 35, and note. [7] Phillimore, op. cit. iii, 601. [8] On English opposition to the declaration of Paris see Phillimore, op. cit. iii, 360; T. G. Bowles, Maritime Warfare, London 1878; Robert Ward, Treatise of the Relative Rights and Duties of Belligerent and Neutral Powers in Maritime Affairs, 1801, reprinted with notes on the Declaration of Paris by Lord Stanley of Alderley, London, 1875. [9] Sir Thomas Barclay, Privateers, Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition, xxii, 370. [10] Phillimore, op. cit. iii, 209. [11] T. E. Holland, Jurisprudence, 11th Edition, London, 1910, p. 212. [12] Lord Chancellor Brougham in Alexander vs Duke of Wellington, 2 Russel and Mylne 54, 1831; quoted in Phillimore, op. cit. iii, 209; Walker, The Science of International Law, p. 320; Wheaton, International Law, p. 490. [13] 5 C. Rob. 173, 1804, quoted in Atherley-Jones, op. cit. p. 524, Wheaton, International Law, p. 490. [14] 37 Geo. III, c 109, 1797. [15] E. C. Benedict, The American Admiralty, 4th Edition, Albany, 1910. p. 420. [16] For full text of letter see, Phillimore, op. cit. iii, 666; Wharton, Digest of the International Law of the United States, 2nd Edition, Washington, 1887, iii, sec. 330; Moore, International Law Digest, Washington, 1906, vii, 603. [17] Le Caux vs Eden, 2 Doug. 595, 99 Eng. Rep. 375; see also Phillimore, op. cit. iii, 213. As to necessity of a commission to establish a prize court see ante p. [18] Huldah, 3 C. Rob. 235, quoted in Atherley-Jones, op. cit. p. 521. [19] Phillimore, op. cit. iii, 655. [20] See ante p. 73. [21] 22 Geo. iii, c 25, s 1, 2, 1782. [22] The Ships taken at Genoa, 4 C. Rob. 403; The Hoop, 1 C. Rob. 169, quoted in Phillimore, iii, 644. [23] 27 and 28 Vict., c 25, s 45, 1864; also Holland, Manual of Naval Prize Law, sec. 273. PART 3. PRIZE BOUNTY. As previously noted the distribution of bounty is now regulated by statute and proclamation. If awarded in any war it is given as head money of five pounds per man on every enemy armed vessel sunk or destroyed.[1] The sharers of bounty are much more limited than those of prize money. Thus joint or constructive captors do not share and the flag officer if not present has no claim.[2] Only those who actually take part in the conflict share in bounty. Bounty is apportioned among the officers and crew of those vessels sharing, in the same way as prize money, with the exceptions noted above. _NOTES._ Chapter V, Part 3. [1] 27 and 28 Vict., c 25, s 42. [2] Order in Council, Sept. 17, 1900, see Statutory rules and Orders, Revised 1903, Vol. ix, tit. Navy, p. 112. PART 4. PRIZE SALVAGE. Whether or not military salvage is paid depends upon (1) the character of the original captor, whether recognized belligerent or pirate, (2) the character of the original owner of the vessel whether neutral, subject, or ally, (3) the character of the title the original captor has in the vessel. In regard to the first point it may be said that recaptures from pirates or unrecognized belligerents should always be returned to the original owner on the payment of salvage. Pirates can never acquire any title in a capture, so the title of the original owner remains good. We need therefore consider only recapture from recognized belligerents. In the case of recapture of neutral vessels the original captor had no title and could get none. A prize court of his own country would have decreed restitution of the vessel to the original owner so the recaptor has conferred no benefit by recapturing the vessel. He therefore is entitled to no salvage. In cases, however where no legal prize court exists in the country of the original captor the recaptor does the original owner benefit so should be rewarded by salvage. This situation was held to have existed in France in 1799 and in a case[1] which came up at that time Sir William Scott speaking for the British prize court said: "I know perfectly well that it is not the modern practice of the law of nations to grant salvage on recapture of neutral vessels; and upon this plain principle that the liberation of a clear neutral from the hand of the enemy is no essential service rendered to him, inasmuch as that same enemy would be compelled by the tribunals of his own country, after he had carried the neutral into port to release him with costs and damages for the injurious seizure and detention." However in the case before the court the French courts were held to be incompetent so salvage was awarded the captor. In recapture of vessels originally belonging to subjects, most countries make distinctions in reference to the character of the original captors title. However Great Britain has provided by statute that recaptures shall always revert to the original owner when a subject on payment of salvage with the one exception that in case the vessel has been fitted out by the enemy as a ship of war it shall not be returned but shall be declared good prize.[2] The final case remains of recaptures of vessels of an ally. Here the question of the original captor's title enters in, for if the original captor had good title, the vessel is enemy property and should be condemned as good prize to the benefit of the recaptor; but if the title of the original captor is incomplete the original owner still has a certain title which must be respected. The question therefore arises, when is the original captor's title complete? There have been many rules on the subject. Thus Sir William Scott has said: "It can not be forgotten that by the ancient law of Europe the perductio infra praesidia, infra locum tutum was a sufficient conversion of the property, that by a later law a possession of twenty-four hours was sufficient to divest the former owner. This is laid down in the 287th article of the Consolato Del Mare in terms not very intelligible in themselves but which are satisfactorily explained by Grotius and by his commentator Barbeyrac in his notes upon that article."[3] Sir Leoline Jenkins, in 1672 said: "In England we have not the letter of any law for our direction only I could never find that the court of admiralty either before the late troubles or since has in these cases adjudged the ships of one subject good prize to another." He then refers to the Commonwealth laws of 1649 and says, "Whether the usurpers intended this as a new law or an affirmance of the ancient custom of England I will not take upon me to determine, only I will say, condemnation upon the enemies possession for twenty-four hours is a modern usage."[4] Later legal adjudication and condemnation was clearly required before the title of the captor state was complete. Thus Lord Mansfield said: "I have talked with Sir George Lee who has examined the books of the court of admiralty and he informs me that they hold the property not changed, so as to bar the owner in favor of a vendee or recaptor till there had been a sentence of condemnation, and that in the reign of Charles II, Sir Richard Floyd gave a solemn judgment upon the property and decided restitution of a ship retaken by a privateer after she had been fourteen weeks in the enemies possession because she had not been condemned."[5] And again "That no property vest in any goods taken at sea or on land by a ship or her crew, till a sentence of condemnation as good and lawful prize."[6] These cases referred to vessels owned by subjects rather than allies as they occurred before the law granting especial restitution to citizens had been passed but they serve to make it clear that English law regards the title of the enemy captor complete and the title of the original owner destroyed after legal condemnation in the enemy prize court and not before. Vessels originally belonging to allies after such condemnation will be considered good prize and the ally has no claim. There is no question of salvage, instead the captor receives his share of prize money. Recaptures before the enemy title is complete revert to the ally on payment of salvage but if instances can be given of British property retaken by them and condemned as prize, the court of admiralty will determine the case according to their own rule.[7] Thus the recaptor may receive no reward at all, may be entitled to salvage or may be entitled to prize money. The first case occurs when a neutral vessel is recaptured from a recognized belligerent. The second occurs when the recapture is made from a pirate, when the original owner is a British subject, or when the original owner is an ally and the vessel has not been condemned by the enemy's prize court. The third case occurs when the vessel originally belonged to an ally but has been legally condemned by the enemy prize court and in any case of an ally's vessel where that country refuses to return British vessels. To be entitled to salvage the recaptor must make an actual military recapture. Constructive recaptures such as occupation of a vessel abandoned by the enemy do not entitle to military salvage.[8] As already stated where salvage is allowed it consists of one-eighth of the value of the vessel and cargo recaptured or in cases of exceptional difficulty one-fourth to be governed by the discretion of the court.[9] Salvage is apportioned among the officers and crew in the same manner as prize money. _NOTES._ Chapter V, Part 4. [1] The War Onsken, 2 C. Rob. 299, quoted in Atherley-Jones, op. cit. p. 601. [2] 27 and 28 Vict., c 25, s 40, L'Actif, Edw. Adm. Rep. 184, quoted in Atherley-Jones, op. cit. p. 608. [3] The Ceylon, 1 Dod. Adm. Rep. 105, quoted in Atherley-Jones, op. cit. p. 607. [4] Sir Leoline Jenkins, Life of, by Wynne, ii, 770; quoted in Atherley-Jones, op. cit. p. 619. [5] Lucas 79, quoted in Atherley-Jones, op. cit. p. 619. [6] Lindo vs. Rodney, 2 Doug. 612; 99 Eng. Rep. 385; see also Atherley-Jones, op. cit. p. 619. [7] The Santa Cruz, 1 C. Rob. 497, quoted in Atherley-Jones, op. cit. p. 622. [8] Phillimore, op. cit. iii, 638. [9] 27 and 28 Vict., c 25, s 40, 1864. PART 5. PRIZE MONEY. Whenever a vessel or cargo is adjudged good prize by the court it is publicly sold and the proceeds are decreed to the captors as prize money, unless they are non-commissioned or forfeit it by failure to observe the regulations imposed upon them for the conduct and safe keeping of the prize.[1] In England the proceeds of all vessels and cargoes, whether of a purely mercantile or of a military character are divided as prize money, though the government reserves the right of preemption on naval and victualling stores.[2] The rules which govern the prize court in adjudging a captured vessel good prize or not are beyond the scope of this paper. In general all enemy vessels are condemned, and neutral vessels are condemned for breach of blockade, carriage of contraband or unneutral service. These matters are at present largely covered by the Hague conventions of 1907 and the Declaration of London of 1909.[3] However as previously noted the crown reserves the right to free any vessel even though its capture was perfectly legal and it was of a class that would ordinarily be adjudged good prize.[4] In the distribution of prize money there must be decided, first, what vessels are to share in the prize; second, what proportion each vessel is to get, and third, what proportion of the vessels share each officer and man on board is to receive. The second and third points are settled by the prize proclamation which decrees division among the officers and men of all the vessels sharing according to the grade they occupy. There is no division among the vessels but all men entitled to share are grouped together in eleven grades, each one of which receives a fixed proportion of the prize money. This portion is then divided equally among all the men of that grade, no matter on what vessel they served. Thus a sailor on a vessel constructively assisting receives exactly the same share as a sailor of the same grade on the vessel making the actual capture.[5] Where some of the vessels are allies the division is usually regulated by treaty. The provisions of Great Britain's treaties with France of 1854 and 1860 have already been noted.[6] In these cases division was to be made between the vessels of the allies according to the number of men on board irrespective of rank. Of course, for the share decreed to her own vessels, England employed her own rules of division. Where there is no treaty or some of the vessels are privateers the division among the vessels is decreed by the court, an effort being made to apportion it according to the relative strength of the vessels. To determine this the number of men, guns or both on the various vessels are considered. Thus Mansfield said, "The law of nations does not determine but if one might guess at it, it must be in the ratio of the strength of the respective captors, to know which the number of guns, weight of metal, number of men and strength of each fleet must be stated."[7] The court must decide the first question proposed, namely what vessels were either actual or joint captors and as such entitled to share. In defining these terms the court has said: "All prize belongs absolutely to the crown which for the last 150 years has been in the habit of granting it to the takers who are of two classes, actual captors and joint or constructive captors. Joint captors are those who have assisted or are taken to have assisted the actual captors by conveying encouragement to them or intimidation to the enemy."[8] It is in general considered that this encouragement or intimidation is given by all vessels in sight but this is not always true. Thus: "For it is perfectly clear that being in sight of all cases is not sufficient. What is the real and true criteria?---- There must be some actual, constructive endeavor as well as a general intention."[9] But in the case of king's ships all in sight generally share. "They are under a constant obligation to attack the enemy whenever seen. A neglect of duty is not to be presumed and therefore from the mere circumstance of being in sight a presumption is sufficiently raised that they are there animo capiendi."[10] This rule holds irrespective of the character of the vessel making the actual capture. With privateers the case is different: "For they are not under obligation to fight. It must be shown in their case that they were constructively assisting. The being in sight is not sufficient with respect to them to raise a presumption of cooperation in capture.--There must be the animus capiendi demonstrated by some overt act, by some variation of conduct which would not have taken place but with reference to that particular object and if the intention of acting against the enemy had not been effectually entertained."[11] As privateering has been abolished this rule is now purely theoretical. These rules are subject to exceptions however as for instance in the case of captures made in the night or after a joint chase. In such cases ships of the navy definitely associated share though not in sight. Thus: "A fleet so associated is considered as one body unless detached by orders or entirely separated by accident and what is done by one continuing to compose in fact a part of the fleet, enures to the benefit of all."[12] A vessel shares in the captures of its tenders. "I apprehend that the tender becomes as has been contended in law a part of the ship to which she has been attached and that any capture made by her enures to the benefit of the ship to which the tender is an adjunct."[13] Tenders are usually non-commissioned vessels but as they are considered agents of a commissioned vessel their captures are good. The same is true of captures made by ships boats but no constructive captures are allowed by boats of other vessels in sight. Transport vessels do not participate as joint captors. A case involving transports arose in 1799. The court said: "It has not been shown that these ships set out in an originally military character, or that any military character has been subsequently impressed upon them by the nature and course of their employment and therefore, however meritorious their services may have been and however entitled they may be to the gratitude of their country it will not entitle them to share in this valuable capture."[14] The division of captures made by joint naval and military expedition are under the jurisdiction of prize courts. So far as possible the same principles of division are employed in dividing proceeds among soldiers of the army as in dividing prize money in the navy. In regard to the conditions that permit a joint land expedition to share the court said in 1799: "Much more is necessary than a mere being to sight to entitle an army to share jointly with the navy in the capture of an enemy's fleet". A common interest is presumed with naval vessels in sight, not so with the army. "The services must be such as were directly or materially influencing the capture so that the capture could not have been made without such assistance or at least not certainly and without great hazard."[15] The prize act of 1864 now governs the division in joint military and naval captures.[16] Captures made by non-commissioned ships which now includes all vessels not part of the royal navy go to the government.[17] Such captures were originally one of the Droits of Admiralty[18] but since the office of admiral has been in commission they enure to the crown. Peculiarly enough, though all such forfeitures now go to the crown the technical distinction of condemnation to the king, jure coronae and condemnation to the king in his office of admiralty. Droits of Admiralty is still maintained in the decrees of prize courts. By statute[19] all such Droits of Admiralty and Jure Coronae are now put into the consolidated fund of Great Britain. In practice it has usually happened that the greater part of the proceeds of captures made by non-commissioned captors is given to the captor as a special reward.[20] For this it appears that England does not recognize an international obligation to prevent captures by non-commissioned vessels in time of war. It is hard to reconcile this attitude with her adoption of the Declaration of Paris in 1856. She does not of course issue letters of Marque or officially permit capture by any vessels other than those of the royal navy. England has not been engaged in any important naval war since the treaty of Paris so it is impossible to say exactly what her practice in this regard would be. Legally all rights in captures by non-commissioned captors enure to the crown so if such vessels infringed on neutral rights England would undoubtedly refuse to give them any reward, which would soon have the effect of stopping such captures. Definite rules are prescribed for the conduct of prizes, as for instance, the cargoes must not be tampered with, the holds must be closed, all necessary papers must be presented with the prize, the prize must be brought in without delay and proceedings must be commenced in the prize court without unreasonable delay.[21] "It is to be observed that the captors have no right to convert property till it has been brought to legal adjudication. They are not even to break bulk."[22] "The captor holds but an imperfect right; the property may turn out to belong to others, and if the captor put it in an improper place or keeps it with too little attention he must be liable to the consequences if the goods are not kept with the same caution with which a prudent person would keep his own property."[23] Negligence on the part of the captors in caring for the prize or infringement of national or international laws on the subject will result in the forfeiture of all share of the prize[24] and indeed as already observed[25] without any fault on the part of the captor the crown may refuse the captors any share by returning the vessel as a matter of policy. This almost always occurs at the close of a war when it is usually provided by treaty that unadjudicated prizes should be returned. The captor's rights in prize are purely at the mercy of the crown. What he receives he receives by the crown's grace and not by legal right. _NOTES._ Chapter V, Part 5. [1] See post p. 102 to 104. [2] 27 and 28 Vict., c 25, s 38, 1864. [3] See Higgins, The Hague Peace Conferences, for all international conventions bearing on these points. [4] See ante p. 82 et. seq. [5] Statutory Rules and Orders, revised, 1903, tit. Navy, ix. 109. [6] See ante p. 61 and 62. [7] Duckworth vs. Tucker, 1809, 2 Taunt. 7, quoted in Atherley-Jones, op. cit. p. 560. [8] Banda and Kirwee Booty, 1866, 1 Law Rep. Adm. and Ecc. 109, see also Phillimore, op. cit. iii, 222. [9] The Vryheid, 2 C. Rob. 16, quoted in Atherley-Jones, op. cit. p. 544. [10] La Flore, 5 C. Rob. 268, quoted, ibid. p. 546. [11] Amitie, 6 C. Rob. 261, quoted, ibid. p. 546. [12] Forsigheid, 3 C. Rob. 311, quoted, ibid. p. 546. [13] The Carl, 2 Spinks 261, quoted, ibid. p. 550. [14] The Cape of Good Hope, 2 C. Rob. 284, quoted, ibid. p. 556. [15] The Dordrecht, 2 C. Rob. 55, quoted, ibid. p. 558. [16] 27 and 28 Vict., c 25, s 34, 1864. [17] "Any ship or goods taken as Prize by any of the officers and crew of a ship other than a ship of war of Her Majesty shall, on condemnation, belong to Her Majesty in Her office of Admiralty." 27 and 28 Vict., c 25, s 39, 1864. [18] See ante p. 52. [19] 27 and 28 Vict., c 24, s 17; 1 and 2 Vict., c 2, s 2; 1 Edw. VII, c 4, s 1; 10 Edw. VII and 1 Geo. V, c 28, s 1. [20] The Haase, 1 C. Rob. 286, quoted in Phillimore, op. cit. iii, 601. [21] For statutory obligations see 27 and 28 Vict., c 25, s 37, for rules of Hollands, Manual of Naval Prize Law, see ante, p. 66. [22] L'Ecole, 6 C. Rob. 220, quoted in Atherley-Jones, op. cit. p. 524. [23] Maria and Vrow Johanna, 4 C. Rob. 348, quoted ibid. p. 524. [24] 27 and 28 Vict., c 25, s 37, 1864. [25] See ante p. 82 et seq. _CHAPTER VI. GREAT BRITAIN, SIGNIFICANCE OF PRESENT LAW._ PART 1. CAUSES OF LAW. As has been indicated since the beginning of the eighteenth century the principles of prize distribution in England have undergone but little alteration. With the statutes of Anne parliamentary control of prize matters became established and the method at that time adopted of decreeing distribution by order in council authorized by act of parliament has since been followed. The policy of giving all the proceeds of prizes to the captors after legal adjudication before a competent prize court has likewise been adhered to from that time. By the reign of Anne, England was definitely established as an imperial colonial power. Her Indian empire was founded, her American colonies were flourishing, Marlborough's successful wars gave her great European prestige. This necessitated the establishment of a policy of naval supremacy, a policy which she has since maintained. At the same time she realised her increasing dependence on commerce. Numerous efforts were made to increase British trade at this time through legislation. She understood that law must reign on the sea if commerce was to prosper.[1] While she depended on her navy to protect her trade routes, she recognized that she could not protect them from the cruisers of all the world and so sought to respect neutral rights. This necessity was realized slowly. During the eighteenth century in pursuing her aggressive naval policy England several times offended neutral powers as for instance by the rule of 1756 but in the main neutral rights were respected and prizes were not taken or distributed except with the strict sanction of law. Thus as in former periods England's military policy has been influenced by the two factors, commercial dependence and naval aggressiveness. The interests of the former have compelled her to respect neutral rights and maintain strict legality in all her war-like measures. As reflected in her prize law it has brought about powerful legal control of prize matters through prize courts of great authority and unfailing justice. It has forced the crown to assert its primal right to all prizes that it may restore them if policy demands. It has put all prize law under the control of parliamentary statutes, directing the policy of the law but has left the government wide discretion in arranging the details to suit the exigencies of a particular conflict. The interests of the latter have impelled her to assert belligerent rights to the utmost. England has always been the most reluctant of all nations to abandon an established belligerent right at sea.[2] Thus she still gives the whole of the proceeds of legally captured prizes to the captors for the purpose of encouraging seamen, and increasing the efficiency of the navy. _NOTES._ Chapter VI, Part 1. [1] For English regard for commerce see Blackstone, I, 260; "Indeed the law of England as a commercial country pays very particular regard to foreign merchants in innumerable instances." He also quotes Montesquieu, Esprit des Lois, XX, 13; "That the English have made the protection of foreign merchants one of the articles of their national liberty." See also navigation Acts of 1650, Scobell, 152, of 1651, Scobell, 176, of 1660, 12 Car. II c 18. [2] See discussion of the rule of 1756, and England's opposition to the armed neutralities of 1780 and 1800 in Wheaton, History of the Law of Nations. On her opposition to the immunity of enemy property on neutral vessels, see Ward, Treatise on the Rights and Duties of Neutrals, and Bowles, Maritime War. England is today the strongest opponent of the movement to abolish the right to capture enemy private property at sea, see Report of meeting of Institut of International Law, Revue de Droit International, 1875, vii, 275, 329; also official report of the Second Hague Conference. PART 2. EFFECTS OF LAW. a. The Navy To discuss the effects of England's prize money law is a very difficult task. However a few remarks may be made considering the question with reference to its effect, first, on the English navy and second, on international law. It might be thought that the encouragement of mariners by the hope of private gain would tend to increase the efficiency of the navy and this is the avowed purpose of distribution in all the statutes authorizing it. England has undoubtedly always had a very efficient navy but she has almost always found it necessary to use the press gang[1] to man her vessels in her important naval wars. The hope of prize money has not been sufficient to furnish enough volunteers to fill the navy. In connection with privateering there can be no doubt but that the generous giving of prizes has enabled England to make effective war with little national expense. Elizabeth's wars cost her nothing, rather they were a source of income. The same was true of the wars of the eighteenth century. The hope of gain seemed always sufficient to enlist private enterprise in privateering war. However privateering is now abolished. Modern naval strategy demands a few men-of-war rather than many cruisers. Captain Mahan[2] considers commercial war as of comparatively small importance. An effective blow can only be struck by conflict with the enemy's armed vessels. Any amount of commerce destroying can not conclude the war in his opinion, though he by no means takes the stand that commerce destroying should be abolished. It would seem that the small share of prize which might possibly be received by a sailor in a modern ship would be a negligible factor in increasing naval efficiency. Rather it would be a deterrent as it would attract vessels into commercial war instead of into the more effective conflicts with the enemy's armed vessels. With the abolition of privateering it would seem that the value of prize money as a means of increasing the efficiency of the navy departed. b. International Law. England's prize money laws can not be said to have imperiled neutral rights. England has always insisted on the most extreme belligerent rights but it can not be said that her courts often denied a neutral right that was really established by international law. The prize courts of Mansfield and Stowell have been considered models of fairness throughout the world. Though the utmost privileges were given to privateers and the sailors of the royal navy the even handed justice of the prize courts fully protected neutral rights by restoring illegal captures made with the hope of private gain. With a people of less law abiding disposition and less used to submission to law than the English this might not be true. It might be supposed that the generosity toward the captors of prize would be calculated to decrease the destruction of prizes at sea. If the prize were destroyed of course the captor would obtain no prize money. English publicists are inclined to admit the right of destruction at sea. Thus Scott, Lushington and Holland say that it should not be resorted to except in cases of extreme urgency but on occasion it may be justifiable or even praiseworthy.[3] Continental writers on the contrary are inclined to disallow entirely the legality of the destruction of prizes. Bluntschli and Heffter greatly deprecate the practice.[4] In spite of the apparent authority for such action given by English publicists English cruisers have very seldom destroyed prizes. This may be due partly to her prize money law but probably to a greater extent to her widely scattered territories which make it almost always possible to get a prize to an English port. At present the destruction of neutral prizes is closely circumscribed by the provisions of the Declaration of London[5] on that point so it is not likely that the abolition of prize money would bring about an increase in this practice. The movement toward the abolition of the right to capture enemy private property at sea, historically advocated by the United States, is coming into increasing favor in England, though England as a nation always has been and still is the leading opponent of the innovation.[6] As pointed out above, modern naval strategy deprecates commercial war as also does humanitarianism. A considerable number of English publicists are now advocating the abolition of this right not only on behalf of humanity but also as a matter of wise military policy for Great Britain. The increasing importance of unrestrained commerce to the island has influenced many to believe that England would gain more than she would lose by the abandonment of this belligerent right.[7] It may be useful to consider how much effect the institution of prize money has upon England's attitude on this question. There is no doubt but that sailors and officers of the navy like to get prize money. There is the gambler's zest to money received in this way and undoubtedly the personnel of the navy would offer all the resistance in their power to the abolishment of prize money. A section in the proposed prize act of 1910 illustrates this. The act was offered in order to permit of the appeal of prize cases to the international prize court provided for by the Hague conference of 1907. The section in question[8] authorized the admiralty to give prize money on estimated value even when the prize was liberated by the court. The object of this section was evidently to insure reward to the captors in case of a possible undue liberality on the part of the international prize court, and would seem to imply a certain lack of confidence in that court. This bill was lost with little discussion. However, the provision indicates that the element favoring prize money is ready to push its interests in legislation. If the war right of capturing private enemy property at sea were abandoned the chance of getting prize money would automatically disappear except in the comparatively rare cases of contraband and breach of blockade. Is the naval sentiment in favor of prize money strong enough to keep England from falling in with other nations in this movement toward abolishing the right of capture at sea? It does not seem likely. The selfish, personal desires of a small portion of the population can not be sufficient to sway the policy of a great nation like England if broader considerations demand a change. England's resistance to the movement for abolishing the right to capture private property at sea can be traced to other causes. John Stuart Mill once called the right to attack commerce "our chief defensive weapon."[9] Phillimore, Twiss, Westlake, and Lorimer all favored the retention of the right. It is idle to suppose that these men had no stronger reason for their stand than that it permitted seamen to get prize money. From the standpoint of military science there has been in the past justification for the retention of this right by England, and many sincerely believe that even now England must retain it as a military defense. In the vote on the American proposition for abolishing this right of capture taken at the Second Hague conference[10] the prize money laws of the different countries apparently had no effect on their vote. Italy and Sweden who give prize money as well as the United States and Germany who do not favored the resolution. On the other hand, Japan who has never given prize money voted against the proposal as also did Great Britain, France and Russia who have always given it. It should be remembered that the United States advocated the abolition of the right to capture private property at sea for a century before she abolished prize money. Italy also has consistently advocated that policy since 1870 though she still gives prize money.[11] It does not seem that the local law of prize money has any great effect on the countries attitude on the question of the right to capture private property at sea. As stated there is a growing movement in England in favor of abandoning the right of capturing private property at sea. The discussion has been entirely based on considerations of broad national policy. The existence of prize money has not entered into the matter. It does not seem likely that England's laws of prize money have had or do now have any appreciable influence on her attitude in this question. c. Conclusion. It seems that under present conditions the giving of prize money in England has little effect either for good or evil. Since the abolition of privateering it appears to have had little value in increasing the efficiency of the navy or in decreasing the expense of war. Neutral rights have not been imperiled by it for in England it has not given rise to biased judgment on illegal captures. While it may have decreased the destruction of prizes before adjudication it does not appear likely that its abandonment would now have any effect on this matter. Neither does it seem probable that it has had much influence in determining England's stand on the question of the right to capture private enemy property at sea. In view of this inoffensive character of prize money in England it is not surprising that it remains law. Sailors and naval officers want to keep it. The institution is long established in custom by which the English are proverbially bound. Unless a definite charge can be brought against it, it does not seem likely that the present practice will be abolished. England's stand at the Hague conference of 1907 seemed to indicate this attitude. On that occasion a proposition was introduced by the French delegation to abolish prize money.[12] It was offered as a substitute to the American plan of abolishing the right to capture private property at sea. Great Britain opposed the scheme. Sir Ernest Satow, the British delegate, said that England could not agree to the proposition as the English parliament had reasons for believing in their present custom of distribution. The reasons, he did not give. He added that he considered the matter as being one solely for internal settlement and not one of international law.[13] We may therefore expect prize money to remain as an institution of British policy, though its influence on international law seems to be very slight. On theoretical grounds the practice seems to have little basis for existing. It is not in harmony with the modern view of war which seeks so far as possible to eliminate the element of personal gain and to limit the operations of war to strictly state agencies. It encourages war on commerce. Its use savors of privateering. It offers a constant temptation for infringing neutral rights by making illegal captures. With the abolition of privateering and the present views of naval strategy its usefulness as an encouragement for seamen and a means of increasing the efficiency of the navy have departed. It accentuates the gambler's chance which is contrary to all modern ethics. Sailors, the same as soldiers, should receive fixed pay for their services, and not be compelled to rely for their salaries, in part at least, upon the uncertain chance of prize money. Bentwich says of prize money: "The present custom of dividing among the captors the proceeds of sale after adjudication of a prize court preserves in maritime war that taint of belligerent greed and of interested attack upon private property which is against the spirit of modern warfare and which has been declared illegal in land operations."[14] Though prize money as given in England was an institution of great international importance in the balmy days of privateering especially during the reign of Elizabeth when it was largely responsible for the romantic careers of England's empire builders, for the wholesale capture of Spanish galleons and for England's naval supremacy, it does not seem to have been of any particular importance to any one outside of the naval service of Great Britain since the abolition of privateering. Practically it is valueless. Theoretically it is bad. It should be abolished. _NOTES._ Chapter VI, Part 2. [1] Common Law fully admits the legality of pressing sailors into service, see Blackstone, I, 419. [2] Influence of Sea Power upon History, pp. 132-138; Lord Palmerstone also deprecated the value of commercial war, Political Science Quarterly, 1905, xx, 711. [3] Atherley-Jones, op. cit. 529, 534. [4] Atherley-Jones, op. cit. 530. [5] The Declaration of London, Chap. iv. The Declaration of London however is not officially ratified by Great Britain, see Bentwich, The Declaration of London. [6] England's delegates, Messrs. Twiss, Westlake, Lorimer, and Bernard gave the only dissenting votes to the proposition favoring the abolition of the right to capture private property at sea, Institute of International Law at its meeting at the Hague in 1875, see Revue de Droit International, 1875, vii, 288. England also opposed the proposition at the Second Hague Conference, in 1907, see Second Hague Conference, Acts and Documents, iii, 832. [7] Among English Publicists favoring the abolition of the right to capture private property at sea may be mentioned Lawrence, Hall and Maine. The question came before the house of commons by motion of Sir John Lubbock, March 22, 1878, but was negatived without division. (See Phillimore, op. cit. iii, 361.) Lord Palmerstone once said, "Question Statesmen, none will tell you that the depredations of privateers have ever decided the success or final result of a war." (See Political Science Quarterly, 1905, xx, 711) and in a speech of 1856 he hoped for the abolition of the right to capture private property at sea. (See Speech by Rufus Choate, Second Hague Conference, Acts and Documents, iii, 770.) Among English publicists on the opposite side are Phillimore, Westlake, T.C. Bowles, Twiss, Lorimer, Sir Shurston Baker, and Norman Bentwich. John Stuart Mill in a letter to the Times, March 11, 1871 spoke of abandonment of the right to capture private property, as "the abandonment of our chief defensive weapon--the right to attack an enemy in his commerce." (See Phillimore, op. cit. 361.) However, in a speech in 1867 he had apparently countenanced the reform, (See Speech of Rufus Choate, Second Hague Conference Acts and Documents, iii, 770.) [8] Section 21 of the proposed act. For text of this act see Bentwich, The Declaration of London, 174. [9] Political Science Quarterly, 1905, xx, 711, see also note 7 above. [10] The full result of the vote was as follows: Aye--Germany, United States, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Cuba, Denmark, Equador, Greece, Hayti, Italy, Norway, Netherlands, Persia, Roumania, Siam, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey,--21; Nay--Columbia, Spain, France, Great Britain, Japan, Mexico, Montenegro, Panama, Portugal, Russia, Salvador--11; Not Voting, Chile. [11] For attitude of United States and other countries on this question see speech by Andrew D. White, at the first Hague Conference, (Holls, The Peace Conference at the Hague) and speech by Rufus Choate at the Second Hague Conference, (Second Hague Conference, Acts and Documents, iii, 770.) [12] The French proposition was as follows: "Considering that, as the law of nations still positively admits the legality of the right of capture, applied to private enemy property at sea, it is eminently desirable that, until a binding agreement is established between states on the subject of suppression, the exercise of it be subordinated to certain modifications. "Considering, that it is necessary to the above point that, conforming to the modern conception of war that it ought to be directed against states and not against individuals, the right of capturing private property apply only as a means of coercion practiced by a state against a state; "That in view of these ideas all the individual benefit to the profit of agents of the state which exercises the right of capture ought to be excluded and that the loss suffered by individuals from the taking of prize ought to be finally borne by the state to which they belong; "The French delegation has the honor of proposing to the fourth commission that it express the wish that states which exercise the right of capture appropriate the portion of prizes given to the crews of the capturing vessels and promulgate the necessary measures, so that the loss, caused by the exercise of the right of capture, will not rest entirely upon the individuals from whom the wealth may have been captured."--This "Voeu" known as annexe 16 of the fourth commission appears in French text in Second Hague Conference Acts and Documents, iii, 1148; English translation in Westlake, International Law, ii, 313. For discussion of the measure see Second Hague Conference, Acts and Documents, iii, 792, 809, 842, 845, 906, 909. Before a vote was taken the two portions of the motion were separated. The final result as given on page 909 of the volume cited was as follows: On Abolition of prize money; Aye--Germany, Austria-Hungary, Chile, China, France, Greece, Italy, Japan, Montenegro, Norway, Holland, Persia, Russia, Servia, Sweden, Turkey, 16. Nay--United States, Argentina, Cuba, Mexico, 4. Not Voting--Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Equador, Spain, Great Britain, Hayti, Panama, Paraguay, Portugal, Salvador, Siam, Switzerland, 14. On State insurance against private loss; Aye--Austria-Hungary, France, Great Britain, Montenegro, Holland, Russia, Servia, 7. Nay--Germany, United States, Argentina, Chile, China, Cuba, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Persia, Sweden, Turkey, 13. 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Statutory Rules and Orders, revised, 1903, 13 Vols. London, 1904. Continuation to 1911. Statutes at Large. 1215-1869. 108 Vols. London, 1762-1869. Stephens, Serjeant. New Commentaries on the laws of England. 15th Edition. 4 Vols. London, 1908. Stubbs, Bishop William. The Constitutional History of England. 5th Edition. 3 Vols. Oxford, 1903. Taylor, Hannis. The Origin and Growth of the English Constitution. 3rd Edition. 2 Vols. Boston, 1895. Twiss, Sir Travers. Introduction to the Black Book of the Admiralty. 4 Vols. Rolls Series, No. 55, London, 1871-1876. Sea Laws. Encyclopedia Britannica. 11th Edition, xxiii, 535. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE Underlined text is denoted by _underscores_. There is no 'bold' or 'italic' text. Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources. For consistency, instances of 'op. cit,' and 'op. cit.,' have been replaced by 'op. cit.' and instances of 'ibid,' and 'ibid.,' have been replaced by 'ibid.' The original text is a typed manuscript for a graduate thesis paper, using one side of the paper. There is a second 'Page 53' which has been renumbered in the html version of the etext as '53a', and a second 'Page 73' renumbered as '73a'. There is no 'Page 125'. Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained. For example: Hayti; Equador; one-tenth, one tenth; unneutral. All instances of 'Brittanica' have been replaced by 'Britannica'. Table of Contents, 'Crimmean' replaced by 'Crimean'. Table of Contents, 'personel' replaced by 'personnel'. Pg 2, 'land war fare' replaced by 'land warfare'. Pg 2, 'Platea' replaced by 'Plataea'. Pg 4, 'Herodutus' replaced by 'Herodotus'. Pg 8, Footnote [11], 'Philipson' replaced by 'Phillipson'. Pg 8, Footnote [12], missing name added and assumed to be 'Plato' in 'quoted in Plato'. Pg 12, 'harrass' replaced by 'harass'. Pg 13, 'combattant' replaced by 'combatant'. Pg 13, 'guerilla' replaced by 'guerrilla'. Pg 13, 'devestated' replaced by 'devastated'. Pg 15, Footnote [8], 'Polyibius' replaced by 'Polybius'. Pg 20, 'Ceasars' replaced by 'Caesars'. Pg 23, 'ennunciated' replaced by 'enunciated'. Pg 23, 'Machivellian' replaced by 'Machiavellian'. Pg 25, 'permissable' replaced by 'permissible'. Pg 25, 'soverign' replaced by 'sovereign'. Pg 28, Footnote [8], 'Ordinnance' replaced by 'Ordinance'. Pg 36, 'ennunciation' replaced by 'enunciation'. Pg 40, 'immerged' replaced by 'emerged'. Pg 46, 'cargoe' replaced by 'cargo'. Pg 46, 'and "and tooke' replaced by 'and "tooke'. Pg 53, 'Parlementarians' replaced by 'Parliamentarians'. Pg 61, 'propriators' replaced by 'proprietors'. Pg 61, 'Breat Britain' replaced by 'Great Britain'. Pg 65, 'proceedure' replaced by 'procedure'. Pg 67, 'comdemned' replaced by 'condemned'. Pg 70, 'CHAPTER V. ADMINISTRATION.' replaced by 'CHAPTER V. GREAT BRITAIN, RECENT ADMINISTRATION.' to match the Table of Contents. Pg 70, 'clew' replaced by 'clue'. Pg 72, 'United Stated' replaced by 'United States'. Pg 73, 'in 1867.[22]' replaced by 'in 1863[21] and in 1867.[22]'. Pg 73, 'undistrubed' replaced by 'undisturbed'. Pg 73a, 'appelate' replaced by 'appellate'. Pg 75, 'signing' replaced by 'signed'. Pg 76, Footnote [17], '38 and 38' replaced by '38 and 39'. Pg 83, 'unequivically' replaced by 'unequivocally'. Pg 84, 'unequivically' replaced by 'unequivocally'. Pg 86, 'duely' replaced by 'duly'. Pg 86, 'statuatory' replaced by 'statutory'. Pg 89, Footnote [3], 'ennunciated' replaced by 'enunciated'. Pg 96, 'cargoe' replaced by 'cargo'. Pg 105, Footnote [13], 'bidi.,' replaced by 'ibid.'. Pg 108, 'Esprit de Lois' replaced by 'Esprit des Lois'. Pg 110, 'deterent' replaced by 'deterrent'. Pg 110, 'imperriled' replaced by 'imperiled'. Pg 111, 'legallity' replaced by 'legality'. Pg 112, 'personel' replaced by 'personnel'. Pg 112, 'liberalty' replaced by 'liberality'. Pg 130, 'Rools' replaced by 'Rolls'. Pg 132, 'Black Book' replaced by 'the Black Book'. 
36475	----	PRIVATEERS AND PRIVATEERING [Illustration: THE "INVENTION," FRENCH PRIVATEER] PRIVATEERS AND PRIVATEERING By COMMANDER E.P. STATHAM, R.N. AUTHOR OF "THE STORY OF THE 'BRITANNIA,'" AND JOINT AUTHOR OF "THE HOUSE OF HOWARD" WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS London: HUTCHINSON & CO. Paternoster Row 1910 PREFACE A few words of explanation are necessary as to the pretension and scope of this volume. It does not pretend to be a history of privateering; the subject is an immense one, teeming with technicalities, legal and nautical; interesting, indeed, to the student of history, and never comprehensively treated hitherto, as far as the present author is aware, in any single work. The present object is not, however, to provide a work of reference, but rather a collection of true stories of privateering incidents, and heroes of what the French term "la course"; and as such it is hoped that it will find favour with a large number of readers. While the author has thus aimed at the simple and graphic narration of such adventures, every effort has been made to ensure that the stories shall be truly told, without embroidery, and from authentic sources; and it has been found necessary, in some instances, to point out inaccuracies in accounts already published; necessary, in view of the fact that these accounts are accessible to any one, and probably familiar to not a few possible readers of this volume, and it appears to be only fair and just that any animadversions upon these discrepancies should be here anticipated and dealt with. It has not been considered necessary, save in rare instances, to give references for statements or narratives; the book is designed to amuse and entertain, and copious references in footnotes are not entertaining. It will be noticed that the vast majority of the lives of privateers and incidents are taken from the eighteenth century; for the simple reason that full and interesting accounts during this period are available, while earlier ones are brief and bald, and often of very doubtful accuracy. Some excuse must be craved for incongruities in chronological order, which are unavoidable under the circumstances. They do not affect the stories. There remains to enumerate the titles and authors of modern works to which the writer is indebted, and of which a list will be found on the adjoining page. LIST OF MODERN AUTHORITIES "History of the American Privateers and Letters of Marque in the War of 1812," etc. By George Coggleshall. 1856. "Mann and Manners at the Court of Florence." By Dr. Doran. 1876. "The Naval War of 1812." By T. Roosevelt. 1882. "Studies in Naval History." By Sir John K. Laughton. 1887. "The Corsairs of France." By C.B. Norman. 1887. "Life Aboard a British Privateer in the Reign of Queen Ann." By R.C. Leslie. 1889. "Robert Surcouf, un Corsaire Malouin." Par Robert Surcouf, ancien Sous-préfet. 1889. "The British Fleet." By Commander C.N. Robinson, R.N. 1894. "The Royal Navy." By Sir W. Laird Clowes, etc. 1894. "Old Naval Ballads," etc. The Navy Records Society. 1894. "A History of the Administration of the Royal Navy," etc. By M. Oppenheim. 1896. "History of the Liverpool Privateers," etc. By G. Williams. 1897. "Naval Yarns, Letters, and Anecdotes," etc. By W.H. Long. 1899. "A History of American Privateers." By E.S. Maclay. 1900. "Sea Songs and Ballads." By C. Stone. 1906. "Les Corsaires." Par Henri Malo. 1908. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE INTRODUCTORY 1 TWO EARLY INCIDENTS CHAPTER II ANDREW BARTON 19 THE "AMITY" AND THE SPANIARDS 28 PRIVATEERING IN THE SOUTH SEAS CHAPTER III WILLIAM DAMPIER 35 CHAPTER IV WOODES ROGERS 41 CHAPTER V WOODES ROGERS--_continued_ 60 CHAPTER VI GEORGE SHELVOCKE AND JOHN CLIPPERTON 75 SOME ODD YARNS CHAPTER VII CAPTAIN PHILLIPS, OF THE "ALEXANDER" 95 THE CASE OF THE "ANTIGALLICAN" 96 CHAPTER VIII CAPTAIN DEATH, OF THE "TERRIBLE" 106 MR. PETER BAKER AND THE "MENTOR" 111 CAPTAIN EDWARD MOOR, OF THE "FAME" 115 CAPTAIN JAMES BORROWDALE, OF THE "ELLEN" 117 TWO GREAT ENGLISHMEN CHAPTER IX FORTUNATUS WRIGHT 123 CHAPTER X FORTUNATUS WRIGHT--_continued_ 135 CHAPTER XI GEORGE WALKER 149 CHAPTER XII GEORGE WALKER--_continued_ 171 SOME FRENCHMEN CHAPTER XIII JEAN BART 191 CHAPTER XIV DU GUAY TROUIN 208 CHAPTER XV JACQUES CASSARD 229 CHAPTER XVI ROBERT SURCOUF 240 CONCERNING THE FRONTISPIECE 263 SOME AMERICANS CHAPTER XVII CAPTAIN SILAS TALBOT 269 CHAPTER XVIII CAPTAIN JOSHUA BARNEY 282 CHAPTER XIX CAPTAINS BARNEY AND HARADEN 299 CHAPTER XX CAPTAIN THOMAS BOYLE 307 CHAPTER XXI THE "GENERAL ARMSTRONG" 317 SOME MORE ODD YARNS CHAPTER XXII THE "PRINCESS ROYAL" PACKET 329 TWO COLONIAL PRIVATEERS 333 CHAPTER XXIII THE AFFAIR OF THE "BONAPARTE" 341 CHAPTER XXIV THE "WINDSOR CASTLE" PACKET 354 THE "CATHERINE" 357 THE "FORTUNE" 360 THE "THREE SISTERS" 362 CONCLUSION 364 INDEX 367 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS THE "INVENTION," FRENCH PRIVATEER _Frontispiece_ From a drawing by Commander E.P. Statham, R.N. FACING PAGE WILLIAM DAMPIER, THE FAMOUS CIRCUMNAVIGATOR 36 From a photograph by Emery Walker after the painting by Thomas Murray in the National Portrait Gallery. CAPTURE OF THE FRENCH EAST INDIAMEN "CARNATIC" BY THE "MENTOR" PRIVATEER 114 By permission of the Library Committee of the Corporation of Liverpool. CAPTURE OF THE FRENCH ARMED SHIPS "MARQUIS D'ANTIN" AND "LOUIS ERASMÉ" BY THE "DUKE" AND "PRINCE FREDERICK" PRIVATEERS 150 From an engraving by Ravenet after a painting by Brooking. ACTION BETWEEN THE SPANISH 74-GUN SHIP "GLORIOSO" AND THE "KING GEORGE" AND "PRINCE FREDERICK" OF THE "ROYAL FAMILY" PRIVATEERS 182 From an engraving by Ravenet after a painting by Brooking. JEAN BART, A FAMOUS FRENCH PRIVATEER CAPTAIN 202 From an engraving by J. Chapman. RENÉ DUGUAY-TROUIN, A FAMOUS FRENCH PRIVATEER CAPTAIN 226 CAPTURE OF THE FRENCH PRIVATEER "JEUNE RICHARD" BY THE "WINDSOR CASTLE" PACKET 356 From an engraving by William Ward after the painting by S. Drummond, A.R.A. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY The privateersman, scouring the seas in his swift, rakish craft, plundering the merchant vessels of the enemy, and occasionally engaging in a desperate encounter with an opponent of his own class, or even with a well-equipped man-of-war, has always presented a romantic and fascinating personality. Many thrilling tales, half truth, half fiction, have been written about him; and if he has not infrequently been confounded with his first cousin the pirate, it must be admitted that for such confusion there is considerable justification. The privateer is a licensed, the pirate an unlicensed, plunderer; but plunder, not patriotism, being, as a rule, the motive of the former, it is not perhaps surprising that, failing legitimate prey, he has sometimes adopted, to a great extent, the tactics of the latter. Before proceeding to give an account of some of these licensed rovers and their adventures, let us consider for a moment or two the origin and development of privateering; this will assist us in forming an appreciation of the advantages and drawbacks of the system, and also of the difficulties which presented themselves to an honest and conscientious privateer captain--for such there have been, as we shall see, though there are not too many who merit such terms. It is not very easy to say when privateering was first inaugurated, though it is pretty certain that the term "privateer" did not come into use until well on in the seventeenth century; licensed rovers, or private men-of-war, were known previous to this period by some other title, such as "Capers"--from a Dutch word, "Kaper"--or "letters of marque," the latter a very incorrect term, adopted through a loose manner of speech, for a "letter of marque" is, strictly speaking, a very different affair from a privateer; indeed, the application of such a term to a ship is obviously absurd: to convert a piece of paper or parchment with writing on it into a seaworthy vessel would be a considerably more marvellous piece of conjuring than turning a pumpkin into a carriage, as the good fairy did for the accommodation of Cinderella. There is no doubt that the employment of private vessels for the purposes of war, and the granting of letters of marque, went on side by side for a great number of years. From the earliest times, before the Norman Conquest, there were hordes of sea-rovers who, entirely on their own account, and solely for the purpose of plunder, infested the seas, robbing without scruple or distinction every defenceless vessel they encountered, and in many instances wantonly slaughtering the crews; they would also, on occasion, make a descent upon the coast either of their own or some adjacent country--they were quite impartial in this respect--and sack the farms and dwellings within easy reach, retiring to their vessels before any force could be assembled to deal with them. The Danes, as we know, were particularly handy at this kind of thing, and gave us no little trouble. Nobody appears to have made any great effort to put down this piracy; but sometimes it was convenient to enlist the services of some of these hardy and adventurous ruffians against the enemies of the sovereign. In the year 1049, for instance, that excellent monarch, Edward the Confessor, finding the Danes very troublesome on the south coast, sent a force, under Godwin, to deal with them; and we are told that it was composed of "two king's ships, and forty-two of the people's ships"; these latter being, no doubt, a collection of--let us hope--the less villainous of these sea-rovers, hardy and skilful seamen, and desperate fighters when it came to the point. Nearly two hundred years later, in 1243, King Henry III. issued regular patents, or commissions, to certain persons, seamen by profession, "to annoy the king's enemies by sea or land wheresoever they are able," and enjoined all his faithful subjects to refrain from injuring or hindering them in this business; the condition being that half the plunder was to be given to the king, "in his wardrobe"--that is, his private purse--and it is quite probable that both the king and the recipients of his commission made a nice little profit out of it. This is a genuine instance of what was known later as privateering; and it will be noticed that the "king's enemies" are specified as the only persons against whom the commission holds good; in other words, such a commission can have no significance, nor indeed can it be issued, in time of peace or against any friendly Power. This is an essential characteristic of privateering: it can only be carried on when a state of war exists, and the fitting out of a privateer to attack the subjects of any sovereign would in itself be an act of war. Now let us see what is meant by a letter of marque; there is a good instance on record at the end of the thirteenth century, in the reign of Edward I. One Bernard D'Ongressill, a merchant of Bayonne--at that time a portion of the realm of the King of England--in the year 1295, was making a peaceful, and, as he hoped, a profitable voyage from Barbary to England, in his ship the _St. Mary_, with a cargo of almonds, raisins, and figs; unfortunately he encountered heavy weather, and was compelled to run into Lagos--a small sea-port at the south-west corner of Portugal which affords secure shelter from westerly gales--and, while he was waiting for the weather to moderate, there came from Lisbon some armed men, who robbed D'Ongressill of the ship, cargo, and the private property of himself and his crew, and took the whole of their spoil to Lisbon. The King of Portugal very unscrupulously appropriated one-tenth of the plunder, the remainder being divided among the robbers. The unhappy victim at once applied for redress to the king's representative, Sir John of Brittany, Lieutenant of Gascony, representing that he had lost some £700, and requesting that he might be granted letters of marque against the Portuguese, to take whatever he could from them, until he had made up his loss. This was conceded, and authority bestowed to "seize by right of marque,[1] retain, and appropriate the people of Portugal, and especially those of Lisbon and their goods, wheresoever they might be found," for five years, or until he had obtained restitution. This was dated in June: but the king's ratification was necessary, and this caused some delay, as Edward was at that time shut up in a Welsh castle; however, he was able in October to confirm the licence; but he added the proviso that if D'Ongressill took more than £700 worth from the Portuguese, he would be held answerable for the balance. This is an excellent example of the form and import of a letter of marque; and it will be noticed that England was not at war with Portugal, nor did the issue of this letter of marque constitute an act of war; it was, in fact, a licence to a private individual to recover by force from the subjects of another sovereign the goods of which he had been despoiled; the practice dates back, certainly, to the early part of the twelfth century, and probably further; and it was in use in England until the time of Charles II., or later. The one condition, not mentioned in the case of D'Ongressill, was that letters of marque should not be granted until every effort had been made to obtain a peaceful settlement; representations may, however, have been made to the King of Portugal; but if, as stated by D'Ongressill, he had pocketed a tithe of the spoil, one can imagine that there might be some difficulty in the matter; the possession of one-tenth would naturally appear, in the eyes of his Majesty of Portugal, to constitute nine points of the law! The application of the term letter of marque to vessels which were in reality privateers has caused a good deal of confusion; some naval historians of great repute have fallen into error over it, one of them, for instance, alluding to the commissions granted by Henry III., in 1243, as the "first recorded instance of the issue of letters of marque"; rather an inexcusable mistake, from which the present reader is happily exempt. While guarding, in this explanation, against such confusion of terms, we must, notwithstanding, accept the ultimate adoption of it; and so we shall find included among our privateers and their commanders some who were quite improperly described as letters of marque, and one, at least, who may correctly be thus designated, but who, as an interesting example of a sort of privateering at an early period, appears to deserve mention. The bearer of a letter of marque--or "mart," as it was constantly termed by writers and others of that class of persons who never will take the trouble to pronounce an unusual word properly--came to be adopted as the type of a sort of swashbuckler--a reckless, bullying individual, armed with doubtful credentials in the pursuit of some more or less discreditable object: allusion of this nature is made more than once by Beaumont and Fletcher in their plays, as well as by other writers. The immense value of a fleet of privateers, more especially to a country opposed to another possessing a large mercantile marine, is obvious, and their use developed very rapidly. By the middle of the sixteenth century the fitting out of vessels by corporations and individuals, for their own protection and the "annoying of the king's enemies" with the further advantage of substantial gains by plunder, was clearly recognised, for we find King Henry VIII., in the year 1544, remonstrating with the Mayor and burgesses of Newcastle, Scarborough, and Hull for their remissness in this respect. He points out what has been done elsewhere, especially in the west parts, "where there are twelve or sixteen ships of war abroad, who have gotten among them not so little as £10,000"; and adds: "It were over-burdensome that the king should set ships to defend all parts of the realm, and keep the narrow seas withal." In the American and French wars of the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth centuries there were literally thousands of privateers engaged. It would appear as though almost every skipper and shipowner incontinently applied, upon declaration of war, for a commission, or warrant, or letter of marque--no matter what it was called; the main thing was to get afloat, and have a share in what was going. Valuable as have been the services of privateers, at various periods, as auxiliaries to the Navy, there is an obvious danger in letting loose upon the seas a vast number of men who have never had any disciplinary training, and whose principal motive is the acquisition of wealth--is, in fact, officially recognised as such; and although there existed pretty stringent regulations, amended at various times as occasion demanded, covering the mode of procedure to be adopted before the prize-money could be paid, these laws were constantly evaded in the most flagrant manner. Even the most honourable and well-disposed privateer captain was liable at any moment to find himself confronted by the alternatives of yielding to the demands of his rapacious crew for immediate and unlawful division of the spoil, or yet more lawless capture of an ineligible vessel, and personal violence, perhaps death, to himself; and the ease with which an unarmed vessel, overhauled within the silent circle of the horizon, unbroken by the sails of a solitary witness, could be compelled, whatever her nationality, upon some flimsy excuse to pay toll, frequently proved too strong a temptation to be resisted. There is abundant evidence of the notoriety of such unlawful doings; Sir Leoline Jenkins, Judge of the High Court of Admiralty in the reign of Charles II., says, in a letter to Secretary Williamson: "I see that your embarrass hath been much greater about our Scotch privateers. The truth is, I am much scandalised at them in a time of war; they are, in my poor judgment, great instruments to irritate the king's friends, to undo his subjects, and none at all to profit upon the enemy; but it will not be remedied. The privateers in our wars are like the _mathematici_ in old Rome: a sort of people that will always be found fault with, but still made use of." Von Martens, a great authority upon maritime law, is equally plain-spoken: "Pirates have always been considered the enemies of mankind, and proscribed and punished accordingly. On the contrary, privateers are encouraged to this day (1801), notwithstanding all the complaints of neutral Powers, of which they are the scourge; and notwithstanding all their excesses, which it has been in vain attempted to suppress by ill-observed laws." Admiral Vernon, in 1745, while acknowledging the services of privateers in distressing the enemy's trade and bringing an addition of wealth into the country, deprecates their employment on the ground of the general tendency to debauch the morals of our seamen, by substituting greed of gain for patriotism[2]; and Lord Nelson, in 1804, says: "The conduct of all privateers is, as far as I have seen, so near piracy that I only wonder any civilised nation can allow them." This is a sorry story of the privateer, and tends to discount sadly the romantic element so commonly associated with him. This is not a romance, however, and, having thus cleared the ground, we must be content to take the privateer, like Kipling's "Absent-minded Beggar," as we find him; and, by way of consolation and reward for our ingenuousness, we shall come across privateersmen whose skill, gallantry, and absolute integrity of conduct would do credit to many a hero of the Royal Navy. The almost universal practice which prevailed in former times, of arming merchant vessels, particularly in certain trades, as a protection against pirates and privateers, has led to a considerable amount of misunderstanding. There are many instances upon record of spirited and successful defence, even against a very superior force, on the part of these armed traders, which have frequently been cited as privateer actions. These vessels, however, carried no warlike commission, and must not therefore be included in this category. Captain Hugh Crow, of Liverpool, who was engaged for many years in the West African slave trade, is a case in point. He fought some severe actions, upon one occasion with two British sloops-of-war, which he mistook in the dark for French privateers; the error being reciprocal, they pounded away at each other in the darkness, and it was not until Crow, after a desperate and most creditable resistance, was compelled at length to surrender, that victors and vanquished discovered their error: a very remarkable incident. Captain Crow was a shining light, in those unhappy slaving times, by reason of his humanity and integrity, and was beloved by the negroes from Bonny to Jamaica, where he landed so many cargoes. Some celebrities of the sea have also been erroneously styled privateers; among others, the notorious Paul Jones, and Captain Semmes, of _Alabama_ fame. Jones was a renegade, being a Scotsman by birth, and his proper name John Paul; but he fought under a regular commission from the United States, and was subsequently accorded the rank of Rear-Admiral in the Russian service. It must be admitted, however, that his conduct afforded some grounds for the appellation of "Paul Jones the Pirate," by which he was sometimes known; but he was a consummate seaman, and a man of infinite courage and resource. Semmes was also employed as a commissioned naval officer by the Confederate States, in the Civil War of 1860; and though he was classed at first as a "rebel" by the Northerners, and threatened with a pirate's fate if captured, the recognition of the Confederates as a belligerent State by foreign Powers had already rendered such views untenable. It appears desirable to allude to these instances, in order to anticipate a possible question as to the exclusion of such famous seamen from these pages. There is also considerable confusion among authors as to the distinction between a pirate and a privateer, some of them being apparently under the impression that the terms are synonymous, while others, through imperfect knowledge of the details and ignorance of international law, have classed as pirates men who did not merit that opprobrious title, and, on the other hand, have placed the "buccaneers"--who were sheer pirates--in the same category as legitimate privateers. For instance, Captain Woodes Rogers, of whom we shall have a good deal to say later on, is alluded to by one writer as "little more than a pious pirate," and by another simply as a pirate, bent upon "undisguised robbery"; whereas he was, in fact, more than once in serious conflict with his crew, upon the occasion of their demanding the capture and plunder of a ship which he was not entitled to seize--and, moreover, he had his own way. There have been, no doubt, and with equal certainty there will be, incidents in warfare which afford very unpleasant reading, and in which the aggressors appear to have been unduly harsh and exacting, not to say cruel, towards defenceless or vanquished people; but that does not prove that they were not within their rights, and to impugn the conduct of an individual from a hastily and perhaps ignorantly adopted moral standpoint, at the expense of the legal aspect of the matter, must obviously involve the risk of gross injustice. War is a very terrible thing, and is full of terrible incidents which are quite inevitable, and the rough must be taken with the smooth--if you can find any smooth! It is an axiom of international law that, when two nations are at war, every subject of each is at war with every subject of the other; and, in view of this fact, it appears extremely doubtful whether any merchant vessel is not at liberty to capture one of the other side, if she be strong enough. It is, in fact, laid down by Sir Travers Twiss, a high authority, that if a merchant vessel, attacked by one of the enemy's men-of-war, should be strong enough to turn the tables, she would be entitled to make a prize of her: an unlikely incident, of course. It is unnecessary, however, to enter upon further discussion of this subject, which would involve us in very knotty problems, upon some of which the most accomplished authorities are still at variance, and which would afford very indifferent entertainment for the reader, who will now turn over the page and follow the fortunes of our privateers--which will be found by no means devoid of interest, in spite of strict adherence to the plain unvarnished truth. [Footnote 1: Sir Harris Nicolas, in his "History of the Royal Navy," interprets the Latin word _marcare_ (or _marchare_) "to mark," and, in referring to this incident, says that Bernard was accorded the right of "_marking_ the men and subjects of the King of Portugal," etc. It is curious that so diligent and accomplished a chronicler should have fallen into this error. The verb _marcare_, as he would have discovered by reference to the "Glossarium" of Du Cange, the learned French archæologist, was in fact a bit of "law Latin," coined for a purpose; that is, to express in one word the rights conceded by a letter of marque; it will not be found in any ordinary Latin dictionary. The grant of a licence to "mark" the subjects of some monarch, and their goods, is, indeed somewhat of an absurdity--clearly, the "marker" would first have to catch the men and their possessions!] [Footnote 2: In an original letter formerly in the possession of the late Sir William Laird Clowes, quoted by him in "The Royal Navy."] TWO EARLY INCIDENTS CHAPTER II ANDREW BARTON There was living at the commencement of the sixteenth century a Scotsman, named Andrew Barton, who acquired considerable notoriety by reason of his exploits at sea; and indeed, he was instrumental in bringing to a definite issue the condition of high tension existing between England and Scotland at that time, which culminated in the battle of Flodden Field. It appears, from certain State Papers, that one John Barton, the father of Andrew, somewhere about the year 1476, in the reign of James III. of Scotland, got into trouble with the Portuguese, who captured his vessel and goods and otherwise ill-treated him; upon representation of which injuries he obtained letters of marque against the Portuguese, in the usual terms. Apparently, however, John did not succeed in obtaining substantial restitution by this means, for we learn, in a letter from James IV. to Maximilian, Emperor of Germany, dated December 8th, 1508, that the letters of marque had been repeatedly suspended, in the hope of obtaining redress; but had been renewed during the previous year, in favour of the late John Barton's three sons, one of whom--Robert--was the occasion of the writing of this letter; the Portuguese having taken him prisoner, and proposing to hang him as a pirate, which, says King James, he is not, having authority to act against the Portuguese, by virtue of my letters of marque. All this argues a considerable amount of favour towards the Bartons on the Scottish monarch's part; for it must be admitted that the renewal of letters of marque, after they had run intermittently for thirty years in respect of one incident, was a straining of the elasticity of conventions. The Bartons had, in fact, been high in favour both with James III. and his successor, and were constantly employed by them in maritime affairs, being frequently entrusted, as we learn from the accounts of the Lord Treasurer of Scotland, with the handling of large sums of money. They were formidable fellows, these Bartons; hardy and daring, skilled in all the strategy of the sea, and, when occasion arose, perfect gluttons at fighting. Andrew appears to have been the most formidable, and added to his other attributes that of being a born leader of men. We are told by Bishop John Leslie, in his "History of Scotland," that in the year 1506 King James caused a great ship to be built, in the design and rigging of which Andrew Barton played a prominent part, and was afterwards placed in command of her to harry the Flemish pirates then infesting the narrow seas: a task which he set about with characteristic energy and ferocity, with the result that he captured some and completely scattered and demoralised the remainder. By way of demonstrating his success in graphic and convincing fashion, he presently despatched to his august master sundry pipes, or casks, containing Flemish heads! He little guessed, however, that his own head was destined--according to some authorities--to make, before many years had elapsed, a similar journey, unaccompanied by his body. Having disposed of the Flemish pirates, Andrew Barton resumed his operations, under letters of marque, against the Portuguese, and captured, during following years, a good many vessels under that flag; nor were his brothers idle. One cannot help wondering whether the Barton family had not by this time exacted more than adequate restitution of their losses of five-and-thirty years previously; and, as we know, it was of the essence of such authorised reprisals that they should cease when this end was attained. Very probably some contemporary persons, more or less interested in their doings, began asking this same question; at any rate, there prevailed in the year 1511 a very strong feeling in England against Andrew Barton; he was constantly alluded to as the "Scottish pirate," and accused of many outrages against vessels other than Portuguese; and, as there existed just then very strained relations with Scotland, these stories met with ready credence. The general dislike of Andrew Barton and his doings was embodied in a representation by Portuguese ambassadors to King Henry VIII., who does not appear to have complained to the Scots King, or taken any steps in the matter. The public feeling was voiced, however, by Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey--afterwards victor of Flodden, and second Duke of Norfolk--who exclaimed that "The King of England should not be imprisoned in his kingdom, while either he had an estate to set up a ship, or a son to command it." This somewhat theatrical attitude is indicative of the exaggerated stories in circulation as to Andrew Barton's terrorism of the narrow seas; the immediate sequel, however, was the fitting out of two vessels, commanded respectively by Surrey's sons, Lord Thomas and Lord Edward Howard, with the express object of capturing Barton. It is said by some writers that the Howards provided these ships at their own cost, and, in view of Surrey's enthusiastic outbreak, it appears not improbable that this was the case. However this may be, the two brothers put forth from the Thames one day in June 1511 in quest of Andrew, who was then returning from Flanders, by way of the Downs, in his ship, the _Lion_, accompanied by a smaller vessel, or pinnace, the _Jenny Pirwin_. The Howards had to wait for more than a month, however, and then, being separated by bad weather, Lord Thomas sighted the _Lion_, which had also parted from her consort. Barton appears to have endeavoured, in the first instance, to escape; according to Leslie, he made friendly advances to Howard, insisting that the English and Scotch were not at war; this would have been a sound and logical attitude for Barton to assume, and it may be that he acted so; but in the end Howard chased him, and, finding himself outsailed, the Scot faced the foe with his usual boldness, and a desperate encounter ensued. Howard's force was probably superior to that of his antagonist, but Andrew Barton and his ship's company were not to be intimidated by odds against them, when once they entered upon an engagement, and Lord Thomas soon realised that the task he had undertaken was no child's play. Reeling alongside each other, at the closest quarters, the two vessels exchanged shots from their cannon as rapidly as they could be loaded and fired, while the crossbowmen and arquebusiers discharged a perfect hail of arrows, "quarrells," and bolts; Howard placed his ship again and again alongside, in the attempt to board, only to be beaten off by the valiant Scots, the decks of both vessels plentifully strewn with the wounded and dying. At length Howard, as courageous and persistent a fighter as Barton, gained a footing on the _Lion's_ deck, with a few of his men; others speedily followed, and a hand-to-hand fight ensued. Barton was by this time mortally wounded; his leg was shattered by a cannon-shot, and his body pierced in several places; but he sat up against the bulwarks, blowing his whistle and beating a drum to rally his men, as long as the breath remained in him; and it was not until they saw the fighting flame quenched in the eye of their intrepid and yet unconquered leader, and his chin drop upon his breast, that the sturdy Scots were fain at length to yield to Howard and his men. Lord Edward Howard, meanwhile, had captured the _Jenny Pirwin_, not without some stubborn opposition, in spite of the odds in his favour, the smaller vessel having suffered heavily in killed and wounded before capitulating. Both vessels were immediately added to the English Navy, the nucleus of which was then in process of formation; the prisoners were conveyed to London, and confined in the palace of the Bishop of York, awaiting the king's pleasure. As might be expected, the Scottish historians, Leslie and Buchanan, give a somewhat different account from that of Edward Hall, in whose chronicle the most nearly contemporary narrative is to be found. Leslie's allegation as to the friendly overtures of Barton finds no corroboration in Hall's Chronicle; and indeed, it is difficult to believe that Andrew Barton did not thoroughly comprehend the situation from the first. King Henry VIII. appears to have been willing to give the prisoners every chance, for he sent some members of his Council, with the Bishop of Winchester, to parley with them. The bishop, according to Hall, "rehearsed to them, whereas peace was yet between England and Scotland, that they, contrary to that, as thieves and pirates, had robbed the king's subjects within his streams, therefore they had deserved to die by the law, and to be hanged at the low-water mark. Then said the Scots, we knowledge our offence, and ask mercy, and not the law. Then a priest which was also a prisoner, said, My lords, we appeal from the king's justice to his mercy. Then the bishop asked him, if he was authorised by them to say so, and they cried all, Yea, yea; then said he, You shall find the king's mercy above his justice; for where you were dead by law, yet by his mercy he will revive you; wherefore you shall depart out of this realm within twenty days, upon pain of death, if you be found after the twenty days; and pray for the king; and so they passed into their country." Thus far Edward Hall; Buchanan says: "They who were not killed in the fight were thrown into prison at London; from whence they were brought to the king, and, humbly begging their lives of him, as they were instructed to do by the English, he, in a proud ostentation of his great clemency, dismissed, and sent the poor innocent souls away." When James remonstrated, demanding redress for the death of Andrew Barton and his comrades, and the capture of their ships, Henry replied that the doing of justice upon a pirate was no occasion for a breach of friendly relations between two princes. "This answer," says Buchanan, "showed the spite of one that was willing to excuse a plain murder, and seemed as if he had sought an occasion of war." This incident was celebrated in verse, not immediately afterwards, but in the reign of Elizabeth. The "Ballad of Sir Andrew Barton" gives a most circumstantial account of the fight, introducing many details which are probably fictitious, and confusing the identity of the Howards who took part in it. According to the writer, Lord _Charles_ Howard was the hero of the occasion; but there does not happen to have been any such person to the fore at that time, the conqueror of the Spanish Armada--Charles Howard, Lord Effingham, afterwards created Earl of Nottingham--not having been born until five-and-twenty years later. Probably the ballad was written after 1588--the Armada year--by way of glorifying the Howards, who were very high in royal and popular favour at that time; such anachronisms were very common in popular ballads of this and later times. The writer represents that Barton's smaller vessel was sunk; and he it is who tells us about that alleged journey of Andrew's head: My Lord Howard tooke a sword in his hand, And smote of Sir Andrew's head; The Scotts stood by did weepe and mourne, But never a word durst speake or say. He caused his body to be taken downe, And over the hatch-bord cast into the sea, And about his middle three hundred crownes: "Whersoever thou lands, itt will bury thee." With his head they sayled into England againe, With right good will, and fforce and main, And the day before new Yeereseven Into Thames mouth they came againe. Then King Henerye shiffted his roome; In came the Queene and ladyes bright; Other arrand they had none But to see Sir Andrew Bartton, Knight. But when they see his deadly face, His eyes were hollow in his head; "I wold give a hundred pound," sais King Henerye, "The man were alive as hee is dead." A gruesome sight, indeed, for the Queen--the courageous but gentle Katharine of Aragon--and her ladies! There is a disposition in some quarters to regard the whole incident as fictitious, but this does not appear to be at all justifiable. Edward Hall, the Chronicler, was a lad of thirteen or fourteen at the time, and so may be regarded as, practically, a contemporary writer; while Bishop Leslie (1527-96) and George Buchanan (1506-82) must certainly have known many persons who remembered the fight. Moreover, it appears to be certain that the _Lion_ and _Jenny Pirwin_ were at that time added to the infant Navy, while the official correspondence of the King of Scotland tells of the grant and renewal of the letters of marque. Barton was not entitled to the "handle" which the Elizabethan rhymester prefixes to his name: he was not a knight, though he might very possibly have become one, had he lived. Whether or not he was, strictly speaking, a pirate is very doubtful; he was probably no worse in this respect than many, both in prior and later times, who have escaped the odium and the consequences of piracy. He was certainly empowered by his sovereign to overhaul and plunder Portuguese ships and appropriate the goods of Portuguese subjects; and if he permitted himself some latitude in the matter of Portuguese cargoes carried in English or other bottoms--well, there are some naval commanders of the twentieth century who would scarcely find themselves in a position to cast the first stone at him; there were some curious doings in the Russo-Japanese War, some of which still await the final decision of the courts. Andrew Barton, as has already been hinted, was not, strictly speaking, a privateer; but he occupies an exceptional position, by reason of his intimate association with the two Scottish kings, which places him somewhat outside of the sphere of the ordinary letter of marque; while as an intrepid sea-fighter, in command of a private ship, he is second to none. THE "AMITY" AND THE SPANIARDS In the year 1592 the privateer _Amity_, of London, commanded by Thomas Whyte, captured two armed Spanish vessels, the _St. Francisco_ and _St. Peter_, respectively of 130 and 150 tons. The crew of the _Amity_ numbered forty-three, but we are not told her armament. The _St. Francisco_ carried three iron guns, two copper pieces of twenty quintals each, and one of fourteen quintals--that is, two pretty nearly one ton in weight, and one about two-thirds of a ton; but it is not quite clear what weight of shot they fired. She had also twenty muskets on board, and carried a crew of twenty-eight men and two boys; she was licensed to carry twenty passengers. The force of the _St. Peter_ is not given, but was probably slightly in excess of that of the _St. Francisco_. They were bound for the West Indies, with cargoes in which were included 112 tons of quicksilver--a pretty valuable freight--28 tons of papal Bulls,[3] and some wine. The description of the action, by someone on board the _Amity_, is given in the Lansdowne MSS., and transcribed by Mr. M. Oppenheim, in his "History of the Administration of the Royal Navy," as below, except that the spelling is here modernised, to render the account more readily intelligible to the reader: "The order and manner of the taking of the two ships laden with quicksilver and the Pope's Bulls, bound for the West Indies, by the _Amity_ of London, Master Thomas Whyte. "The 26th of July, 1592, being in 36 degrees, or thereabouts [somewhere off the Strait of Gibraltar], we had sight of the said ships, being distant from us about three or four leagues; by 7 of the clock we fetched them up and were within gunshot, whose boldness (having the King's arms displayed) did make us conceive them rather to be ships of war than laden with merchandise. And, as it doth appear by some of their own speeches, they made full account to have taken us, and was question among them whether they should carry us to St. Lucar [just north of Cadiz] or Lisbon. We waved each other amain [_i.e._ called upon each other to strike or lower the sails], they having placed themselves in warlike order, the one a cable's length before the other; we begun the fight, in the which we continued so fast as we were able to charge and discharge the space of five hours, being never a cable's length distant either of us the one from the other, in which time we received divers shots both in the hull of our ship, masts, and sails, to the number of 32 great shot which we told after the fight, besides five hundred musket-shot and harquebus à croc [a large musket, fired from a stand] at the least. And for that we perceived they were stout, we thought good to board the Biscayan [_i.e._ the _St. Francisco_], which was ahead the other, where lying aboard about an hour plying our ordnance and small shot, with the which we stowed all his men [_i.e._ drove them from the deck]; now they in the fly-boat[4]--the _St. Peter_--making account that we had entered our men, bare room with us [_i.e._ ran down upon us], meaning to have laid us aboard, and so to have entrapped us between them both, which we perceiving, made ready ordnance and fitted us so as we quitted ourselves of him, and he boarded his fellow, by which means they both fell from us [a very neat manoeuvre]. Then presently we kept our luff [hauled to the wind], hoisted our topsails, and weathered them, and came hard aboard the fly-boat with our ordnance prepared, and gave her our whole broadside, with the which we slew divers of their men, so as we might perceive the blood to run out at the scuppers; after that we cast about, and now charged all our ordnance, and came upon them again, and willed them amain, or else we would sink them, whereupon the one would have yielded, which was shot between wind and water, but the other called him traitor; unto whom we made answer that if he would not yield presently also we would sink him first. And thereupon he, understanding our determination, presently put out a white flag and yielded; howbeit they refused to strike their own sails, for that they were sworn never to strike to any Englishman. We then commanded the captains and masters to come aboard of us, which they did, and after examination and stowing them, we sent aboard them, struck their sails and manned their ships, finding in them both one hundred and twenty and six souls living, and eight dead, besides those which they themselves had cast overboard; so it pleased God to give us the victory, being but 42 men and a boy, of the which there were two killed and three wounded, for which good success we give the only praise to Almighty God." The number found on board the two vessels--one hundred and thirty-four, including the dead--and the implication that some corpses had been thrown overboard, making up the total to, say, one hundred and forty, points to the conclusion that there must have been a large number of passengers. The _St. Francisco_ was only entitled to have fifty souls on board, all told, and her consort probably not above sixty at the outside; so there is a surplus of thirty or so between the two to be accounted for. No doubt the skippers, in the absence of any strict inquisition, carried more passengers than they were licensed for. The captains of ferry-boats and coasting steamers do so to this day, in spite of the very stringent regulations of the Board of Trade--and they do not very often get found out, except by the supervention of some dire catastrophe, due to overloading and panic. The futile Spanish bravado, in refusing to lower their sails to any Englishman, after having displayed the white flag in token of surrender, is decidedly amusing; one cannot help wondering whether any one of them really persuaded himself that he had "saved his face" by such a piece of tomfoolery. [Footnote 3: This traffic in "Bulls" from the Pope was, of course, a gross abuse of papal prerogative, which was probably engineered by some of his underlings for their own enriching. A packet of nearly one million and a half of such documents obviously could not have been signed by the Pope himself.] [Footnote 4: The fly-boat was a flat-bottomed Dutch vessel, with a high stern; probably the term is used loosely here, to distinguish between the two vessels; the _St. Peter_ more nearly resembling a fly-boat.] PRIVATEERING IN THE SOUTH SEAS [Illustration: WILLIAM DAMPIER, THE FAMOUS CIRCUMNAVIGATOR] CHAPTER III WILLIAM DAMPIER The title of this section requires, perhaps, some explanation; and first as to the phrase "South Seas." In the sixteenth and two following centuries this term was applied to that portion of the Pacific Ocean which borders the west coast of South America, from Cape Horn to the Gulf of Panama. It had been first exploited by the Spaniards, and became a great treasure-hunting ground for them, until France and England stepped in to obtain a share in the spoils, and the Spanish treasure-ships were tracked and waylaid by English privateers and men-of-war; which also attacked Spanish ports and towns. To this end there were several privateering expeditions sent out, at the end of the seventeenth and during the eighteenth century: and it is of some of these that it is proposed to treat in this chapter. In this connection, it is impossible to omit the name of William Dampier; for he was, for a time, a privateer captain, duly supplied with a commission to fight against the enemies of his sovereign. He had served, in his youth, in the Royal Navy, but had subsequently been in very bad company, sailing with the famous buccaneers, who were practically pirates, in the South Seas. This did not prevent him, however, from eventually obtaining, after many vicissitudes, the command of a man-of-war, the _Roebuck_: he lost his ship, and was tried by court-martial for cruelty to Lieutenant Fisher; and this was the end of his connection with the Navy, for the court found the charge proved against him, sentenced him to forfeit his pay, and pronounced him to be an unfit person to command a king's ship. Dampier was not, indeed, fit for any post of command, though he was a very distinguished man, by reason of his skill as a navigator, and the immense pains he took in noting and recording the characteristics, natural history, winds, currents, and every imaginable detail of those portions of the world which he visited. The results of his observations were treated with the greatest deference for generations afterwards, and in many respects hold good to the present day. His praises have been sung in all the languages of Europe, and one at least of his admirers alludes to him as "a man of exquisite refinement of mind." The word "refinement" must be taken as signifying, in this instance, the faculty of recognising and distinguishing between cause and effect in what came under his notice, a kind of natural intuition with regard to matters of scientific interest, a love of science for its own sake; for of refinement, in the commonly accepted sense of the word, Dampier certainly displayed a grievous lack, at least in his capacity as captain of a ship, even in those rough days. However, after his trouble in the _Roebuck_, he was placed in command of a privateer, the _St. George_, of twenty-six guns, for a voyage to the South Seas, having for a consort a smaller vessel, the _Cinque Ports_, commanded by one Pickering, and they sailed from Kinsale--a favourite port of call and place of departure in those days--on September 11th, 1703. The voyage was almost entirely a failure; the crews were more or less insubordinate from the first, neither Dampier nor Pickering knowing how to manage them. Pickering died when on the coast of Brazil, and Stradling, his mate, succeeded him. When they had got round Cape Horn, and made the island of Juan Fernandez, the crews mutinied openly; some of them went on shore, and declared their intention of deserting altogether. When this was patched up, there still remained an utter lack of confidence between Dampier and his subordinates. The two ships engaged a French cruiser, against Dampier's wish, and the action was futile and ill-fought, so that the Frenchman got away. Nothing prospered with them. Dampier was for ever making plans which held out the prospect of wealth, but had not the courage to follow them up. Alarmed at the sight of two French ships as they returned to Juan Fernandez, he sheered off, leaving a quantity of stores, and six men who had secreted themselves on the island. When at length they were in great straits for food, they captured a large Spanish ship laden with provisions; over this capture there was a final rupture between Dampier and Stradling, and they parted for good. They took two or three small vessels also, of no value, which only facilitated the defection of Dampier's followers. One of them Stradling had appropriated; in the other two, first John Clipperton, Dampier's mate, and then William Funnell, his steward, decamped, each with a party of men. The _St. George_ was too rotten to venture in any longer, and eventually, after plundering a small Spanish town, Dampier seized a brigantine, and sailed for the East Indies, only to be taken and imprisoned in a Dutch factory for some months. At last he arrived in England, towards the end of 1707, to find that William Funnell--who represented himself as Dampier's mate--had published an account of the cruise, in which Dampier was belittled and held up to ridicule. Dampier immediately set to work and wrote a vindication of his conduct during the cruise--an angry and incoherent tirade, which probably convinced no one, and was answered shortly afterwards by one George Welbe, one of his former officers, in a pamphlet which was also a wordy and violent assault; but the impression finally left upon the mind of the reader is that Dampier was a very fine navigator and amateur scientist, but a very bad commander. We shall hear of him again very shortly, in a more subordinate capacity. In connection with this luckless cruise, there is one incident of considerable interest, which should not be overlooked. The _Cinque Ports_ carried as sailing master one Alexander Selkirk, of Scotch extraction. Obviously, he must have been a seaman of considerable experience and capacity, to have been selected for this post; and presumably he would have knowledge of the navigation of the South Seas. He had, in fact, quitted his home in Scotland at the age of eighteen, and been absent for six years, during part of which time he is believed to have been with the buccaneers. When Captain Pickering died Selkirk viewed with great dissatisfaction the prospect of sailing under his successor, Stradling, whom he hated; and on the return of the _Cinque Ports_ to Juan Fernandez, after parting from Dampier, he took occasion of a violent quarrel with Stradling to carry out a mad project which he had formed some time previously--to desert the vessel and fend for himself on this or some other island. Stradling took him at his word, and, when on the point of sailing, conveyed Selkirk, with all his traps, on shore and "dumped" him on the beach. The Scotchman shook hands with his shipmates very cheerfully, wishing them luck, while Stradling, apprehensive of more desertions, kept calling to them to return to the boat, which they did. As the boat pulled away, and Selkirk realised that he was to be left there, absolutely severed from all intercourse with mankind, probably for years, possibly until death, a sudden terrible revulsion of feeling rushed upon him, and he ran down the beach, wading into the sea, with outstretched hands imploring them to return and take him on board. Stradling only mocked him; told him his conduct in asking to be landed was rank mutiny, and that his present situation was a very suitable one for such a fellow, as he would at least not be able to affect others by his bad example; and so rowed away and left him: and it was nearly four and a half years later that he was rescued, by the crew of another English privateer, as we shall see. The special interest attached to this incident lies, of course, in the fact that, had Stradling not hardened his heart and rowed away, that wonderful book "Robinson Crusoe," the delight of our early years, would in all probability never have been written--or at least the principal portion, dealing with his life on the island, would not have been written; for it was undoubtedly the story of Alexander Selkirk's long, solitary sojourn on Juan Fernandez which gave Daniel Defoe the idea, though there is no reason to suppose that he obtained any details from Selkirk himself; indeed, the story of Robinson Crusoe and his adventures is, without doubt, pure romance. So there we may leave Alexander Selkirk for the present: a miserable man enough at first, we may well imagine. CHAPTER IV WOODES ROGERS Captain Woodes Rogers was a very different stamp of man from Dampier, and far better adapted by nature for the command of a privateering expedition. His father was a Bristol man, a sea-captain, and subsequently resided at Poole; Woodes Rogers the younger was probably born at Bristol, about the year 1678. Of his early life we know nothing in detail, but he was evidently brought up as a seaman and attained a good position, for in the year 1708 he proposed to some merchants of Bristol that they should fit out a couple of privateers for a voyage to the South Seas. Whether he put any money in the venture we do not know, but he held strong views as to the folly of permitting the French and Spaniards to have it all their own way in that part of the world, and put his case to such good purpose that the necessary funds were speedily forthcoming. We are told, in Seyer's "Memoirs of Bristol," that among the gentlemen who financed the business, and to the survivors of whom, sixteen in number, Rogers dedicates his account of the cruise, there were several Quakers: a remarkable statement which, if true, would appear to indicate that the privateering fever, with huge gains in prospect, was too much for the principles even of the Society of Friends. Like many another sailor who has sat down to write an account of his doings, Rogers commences by disclaiming any pretensions to literary skill: "I had not time, were it my talent, to polish the stile; nor do I think it necessary for a mariner's journal." Nevertheless, the account is written in pleasing fashion, occasionally very quaint in phraseology, and has the merit also--which is decidedly lacking in some writings whereof great parade is made of "polishing the stile"--of being very lucid. The two vessels, named the _Duke_, of 320 tons, 30 guns, and 117 men, and the _Duchess_, of 260 tons, 26 guns, and 108 men, sailed from King Road, near Bristol, on August 2nd, 1708, for Cork, where Rogers hoped to complete his crews, or exchange some of the very mixed company for more efficient seamen, having not more than twenty such on board, while the _Duchess_ was very little better off; so they were fortunate in not meeting with an enemy of any force on the way to Ireland; indeed, they appear to have sailed from Bristol in the greatest disorder--the rigging slack, ships out of trim, decks lumbered up, stores badly stowed, and so on, which must have gone greatly against the grain with a good seaman like Rogers. It is not difficult to imagine, however, the causes which led to such hurried departure: merchants who had been putting their hands in their pockets pretty freely for some months would be anxious to see the two ships at sea, commencing to rake in the spoil. Even the Quakers, perhaps, were impatient over the matter; and Rogers was probably told that it was time he was off. However, he made good use of the time at Cork, and reconstituted his crews, if not entirely to his liking, at least with considerable improvement. The owners, with, as we may conclude, the assistance of Rogers, had drawn up the constitution of a council, by which the progress of the voyage was to be determined, and all questions and disputes were to be settled. This is a very sensible document, providing for all probable contingencies; and, in the event of an equality of votes upon any matter, the casting vote was to be given by Thomas Dover, Rogers's second in command, who was appointed president of the council; this brings us to the subject of the officers of the two ships, and we find some very improbable persons included among them. In the first place, Thomas Dover, second captain, president of the council, and captain of the Marines, appears to have been neither a sailor nor soldier, but a doctor.[5] There were three lieutenants and three mates, but John Ballet, third mate, was "designed surgeon if occasion arose; he had been Captain Dampier's doctor, in his last unfortunate voyage round the world." Samuel Hopkins, a kinsman of Dover's, and an apothecary, was to act as Dover's lieutenant in case of landing a party. Then there was John Vigor, a "Reformado," to act as Dover's ensign if landed; while George Underwood and John Parker, _two young lawyers_, were designed to act as midshipmen. The whole arrangement has a savour of Gilbert and Sullivan, or Lewis Carroll, about it; one is irresistibly reminded of the "Hunting of the Snark," where the captain was a bellman, and had for his crew a butcher, a billiard-marker, and a beaver! However, Rogers and his merry men were not for hunting any such shadowy affair as a "Snark"; they meant business, and the list of sub-officers includes further two midshipmen, coxswain of the pinnace, surgeon, surgeon's mate, and assistant--they were well off in the medical branch--gunner, carpenter, with mate and three assistants; boatswain and mate; cooper, four quarter-masters, ship's steward, sailmaker, armourer, ship's corporal (who was also cook to the officers), and ship's cook. Also, as sailing-master and pilot for the South Seas, William Dampier sailed under Rogers in the _Duke_, probably the best man who could have been found for the post; he was a member of the council, and was no doubt a very valuable addition to the staff. The _Duchess_, commanded by Captain Stephen Courtney, was similarly officered, the second lieutenant being John Rogers, a brother of Woodes Rogers, some ten years his junior. "Most of us," says Rogers, "the chief officers, embraced this trip of privateering round the world, to retrieve the losses we had sustained by the enemy. Our complement of sailors in both ships was 333, of which alone one-third were foreigners from most nations; several of her Majesty's subjects on board were tinkers, tailors, haymakers, pedlars, fiddlers, etc., one negro, and about ten boys. With this mixed gang we hoped to be well manned, as soon as they had learnt the use of arms, and got their sea-legs, which we doubted not soon to teach them, and bring them to discipline." Very hopeful! One curious characteristic common to this mixed crew was that, as Rogers puts it, they "were continually marrying whilst we staid at Cork, though they expected to sail immediately. Among others there was a Dane coupled by a Romish priest to an Irish woman, without understanding a word of each other's language, so that they were forced to use an interpreter; yet I perceived this pair seemed more afflicted at separation than any of the rest. The fellow continued melancholy for several days after we were at sea. The rest, understanding each other, drank their cans of flip till the last minute, concluded with a health to our good voyage and their happy meeting, and then parted unconcerned." This "continual marrying" constitutes, in truth, a tribute to the character of Irish women; had it been at Wapping there would have been, it is to be feared, but little question of marrying. Even when they had restowed their holds and set up the rigging, Rogers is somewhat disheartened over the condition of the two ships: "Our holds are full of provisions; our cables, a great deal of bread, and water-casks between decks: and 183 men aboard the _Duke_, with 151 aboard the _Duchess_: so that we are very much crowded and pestered ships, not fit to engage an enemy without throwing provision and store overboard." However, they sailed on September 1st, in company with the _Hastings_ man-of-war and some other vessels, from whom they parted on the 6th, bound for Madeira; and a few days later there was trouble with the undisciplined crew, who had as yet found neither their sea-legs nor their manners. Rogers had overhauled a vessel, sailing under Swedish colours; some of her crew, who were more or less drunk, had declared that she carried gunpowder and cables, so she was detained, in spite of the captain's remonstrances. However, no sign of any contraband goods could be discovered, so Rogers very properly let her go; upon which his men, who had no notion of going a-privateering without the joys of plunder, assumed a mutinous attitude, the boatswain at their head--all the mutineers were Englishmen. One man was flogged, ten were put in irons, and with the remainder Rogers reasoned, admitting, however, that he was forced to wink at the conduct of some. Next day a seaman came aft, "with near half the ship's company of sailors following him, and demanded the boatswain out of irons. I desired him to speak with me by himself on the quarter-deck, which he did, where the officers assisted me, seized him [_i.e._ tied him up], and made one of his chief comrades whip him. This method I thought best for breaking any unlawful friendship among themselves; which, with different correction to other offenders, allayed the tumult, so that now they begin to submit quietly, and those in irons beg pardon and promise amendment." An excellent method of "breaking friendship," unlawful or otherwise! On September 18th, in sight of Teneriffe, a small Spanish vessel was captured, belonging to Orotava, a port of Teneriffe. "Amongst the prisoners were four friars, and one of them the Padre Guardian for the island Forteventura, a good, honest old fellow. We made him heartily merry, drinking King Charles III.'s health; but the rest were of the wrong sort." The quarrels and intrigues of other nations brought a good deal of profit to privateersmen; the War of the Spanish Succession was then still in progress, the Grand Alliance striving to place the Archduke Charles of Austria on the Spanish throne, while others--"the wrong sort" from Rogers's point of view--upheld the cause of Philip, grandson of Louis XIV. of France; later on, as we shall see, the Austrian Succession was the occasion of some more profitable privateering. Rogers and his colleagues now found themselves involved, to their surprise, in a dispute with their own countrymen over their capture, the Vice-Consul and three merchants sending off a letter to say that it had been agreed between Queen Anne and the Kings of Spain and France, that vessels trading to the Canaries were to be exempt from interference, and that unless the prize were released, Mr. Vanbrugh, owners' agent on board the _Duke_, who had gone on shore, would be detained. Rogers was not to be so easily hoodwinked; he immediately detected the self-interest which prompted a disingenuous representation, and insisted that the prize should be ransomed; the cargo of wine and brandy he designed for his own ships; and he finished his letter as follows: "We are apprehensive you are obliged to give us this advice to gratify the Spaniards": which hit the nail very fairly on the head. Still pressed by the Spaniards, the Consul and his friends persisted; upon which Rogers told them that, had it not been for their agent being on shore, they would not have remained a moment to discuss the matter; but that now they would remain longer among the islands, in order to make reprisals, and that the Consul and his English and Spanish friends might expect a visit from their guns at eight o'clock the next morning. Accordingly, at that hour the two English privateers stood close in shore; but the guns were not needed, for a boat put off immediately with one of the merchants and Mr. Vanbrugh, bringing the ransom "in kind"--wine, grapes, hogs, and other accessories. And so they proceeded on their voyage; and a few days later they crossed the tropic of Cancer, which appears to have been made the occasion, in this instance, of some fun with those who had not come so far south before. Usually it is the crossing of the Equator which is selected as the occasion of these delights. Rogers's tinkers, tailors, pedlars, fiddlers, etc., had a lively time of it. "The manner of doing it was by a rope through a block from the mainyard, to hoist 'em above half-way up to the yard, and let 'em fall at once into the water; having a stick across through their legs, and well fastened to the rope, that they might not be surprised and let go their hold. This proved of great use to our fresh-water sailors, to recover the colour of their skins, which were grown very black and nasty." Exemption could be purchased at the cost of half-a-crown, the whole amount to be expended on an entertainment for all hands on their return to England. Some of the crew--especially the Dutchmen--begged that they might be ducked ten or twelve times--on the principle that, if immunity could be paid for, an excess of dipping should logically entitle them to a larger share of the pool! Sailors are queer creatures. After the capture of the small Spanish craft, Rogers found it advisable to lay down some rules, admitting the principle of plunder; he foresaw incessant trouble and probable mutiny in the future, if the right of the crew to the immediate distribution of a certain amount of spoil was not recognised. It was quite irregular, and had not been contemplated by the owners. However, the decision as to what should constitute plunder was, with the consent of the men, left to the senior officers and agents, so there was a certain safeguard against abuse. The next place of call was the Cape Verde Islands, where they anchored in the harbour of St. Vincent; here they watered with some difficulty, on account of the sea; and they lost one of their crew, one Joseph Alexander, who, by reason of his being a good linguist, was sent in a boat to the Governor at St. Antonio, with a letter, and was left behind to negotiate for supplies. However, he appears to have found the prospect of life in the Cape Verde Islands more promising than privateering. On October 5th "our boat went to St. Antonio to see for our linguist, according to appointment"; on the 6th "our boat returned with nothing but limes and tobacco, and no news of our linguist"; again on the 7th the boat was sent in quest of "our linguist"--and by this time they must have been getting pretty tired of his antics; on the 8th "no news of our linguist"; so, as the Trade-wind blew fresh, they concluded to leave him to practise his linguistic and other accomplishments on shore, and made sail for the coast of Brazil, Captain Rogers summing up the situation in a marginal note: "Our linguist deserts." The captains frequently exchanged visits, and even had little dinner-parties on board each other's ships, in mid-ocean, when it was held to be necessary to call a council; Rogers was very scrupulous about having everything done in order, and properly recorded. It may appear strange that there should be such frequent communication, especially when a council or dinner-party is recorded together with the remark, "fresh breeze, with heavy sea," and so on; but such boating exploits were the fashion in those days, and very much later. When Nelson was bound for the Baltic, as second in command under Sir Hyde Parker, with whom he was never upon cordial terms, he set his men fishing for turbot on the Doggerbank, and, having caught one, despatched it in a boat to his chief, in spite of a heavy sea and approaching darkness, with a polite note; the mission was accomplished without mishap, and the turbot is said to have brought about a better understanding between the Admirals. Such measures of policy were not, however, very much in Nelson's line. The point is that the seamen of those times must have been very masterly boatmen, for the lowering and hoisting of a boat in a heavy sea is a very ticklish process, in which a small blunder may mean disaster; yet it was constantly done, just for a friendly visit, and we hear of no fatalities arising therefrom. On October 22nd we hear of more trouble from insubordination. Mr. Page, second mate of the _Duchess_, refusing to accompany Cook, who was Courtney's second in command, on board the _Duke_, "occasioned Captain Cook, being the superior officer on board, to strike him, whereupon Page struck him again, and several blows passed; but at last Page was forced into the boat, and brought on board of us. And Captain Cook and others telling us what mutiny had passed, we ordered Page on the forecastle into the bilboes" (leg-irons sliding upon a long iron bar). Page, however, evaded his captors by a ruse and jumped overboard to swim back to his own ship--a dangerous business, somewhere near the Equator, for there is always the chance of a shark. But this foolish attempt availed him little: he was brought back, flogged, and put in irons; and he found a week of this kind of thing sufficient, submitting himself humbly and promising amendment. Captain Rogers was already beginning to realise that the lot of a privateer commander, unless he is willing, as so many were, to degenerate into a mere filibuster, is not a happy one. Possibly it was this conviction--or maybe that he found the Southern Hemisphere a more devotional environment than the Northern--which occasioned the following entry: "At five last night we were on the Equinoctial [the Equator].... This day we began to read prayers in both ships mornings or evenings, as opportunity would permit, according to the Church of England, designing to continue it the term of the voyage." Passing by the small island of Trinidad, on the night of November 13th, the two ships lay to, Rogers believing they were near land: and sure enough, at daybreak they sighted the coast of Brazil, and a few days later anchored at Isle Grande, just to the southward of Rio Janeiro. Here they were very busy--heeling both vessels to clean the bottoms, and executing sundry repairs aloft--all of which was done under a broiling sun, besides getting in a plentiful supply of wood and water, in so short a space of time that we must conclude that Captain Rogers and Captain Courtney had under them both well-disciplined and willing crews; no man-of-war's men could have done better. Here also Mr. Carleton Vanbrugh, owner's agent on board the _Duke_, got into trouble for assuming executive command. A boat being manned to overhaul a passing canoe, he shoved off, without any orders, pursued and fired into the canoe, killing an Indian. This officiousness and presumption obtained for him a wigging from Captain Rogers, who also brought the matter before the council: "I thought it a fit time now to resent ignorant and wilful actions publicly, and to show the vanity and mischief of 'em, rather than to delay or excuse such proceedings; which would have made the distemper too prevalent, and brought all to remediless confusion, had we indulged conceited persons with a liberty of hazarding the fairest opportunities of success." Mr. Vanbrugh was accordingly "logged" as being censured by the council, and was subsequently transferred to the _Duchess_, his opposite number there, William Bath, taking his place. On December 3rd they sailed from Isle Grande and made their way down the coast of South America towards Cape Horn, chasing but losing a large French ship on the 26th. On New Year's Day there was a large tub of hot punch on the quarter-deck, of which every man had over a pint to drink the health of the owners and absent friends, a happy New Year, a good voyage, and a safe return. The _Duke_ bore down close to her consort, and there, rolling and lurching at close quarters in the big seas, they exchanged cheers and good wishes. On January 5th it came on to blow hard, with a heavy sea, and while the mainyard was being lowered on board the _Duchess_ the sail got aback, and a great portion of it bagged in the water on the lee side, the "lift" on that side having given way. This was rather a serious business, in so heavy a sea; they were obliged to put the ship before the wind for a time, and the sea "broke in the cabin windows, and over their stern, filling their steerage and waist, and had like to have spoiled several men; but, God be thanked, all was otherwise indifferent well with 'em, only they were intolerably cold, and everything wet." Next day Rogers found them "in a very orderly pickle, with all their clothes drying, the ship and rigging covered with them from the deck to the maintop." Though it was high summer in these southern latitudes, they experienced no genial warmth, only gales of wind, with an immense sea; they attained the latitude of 61.53 South, which, as Rogers remarks, was probably the furthest south reached at that time; and so they fought round the Horn, and before the end of January we find the entry: "This is an excellent climate." This was in latitude 36.36 South, and they were looking forward anxiously to sighting the island of Juan Fernandez. Many of the men had suffered greatly from cold and exposure, some were down with scurvy, and a rest in port, with fresh vegetables and sweet water, was very necessary. Juan Fernandez was not in those days accurately placed on the chart, and all eyes no doubt were turned to William Dampier to bring them there; which he did on January 31st, though they appear to have had a narrow escape of missing it, for when they sighted land it bore W.S.W., so that they had already somewhat overshot it. When we consider the very inadequate means which these men possessed for navigating thousands of leagues of trackless ocean, and making land which was very inefficiently charted, we can only marvel at their success. The quadrant of those days was a very rough affair, the compass was not perfect in construction, neither were its vagaries understood as they are at the present day--for the compass, emblem of faithfulness and constancy, is, alas! a most capricious and inconstant friend; only we understand it nowadays, and realise that it never--or hardly ever--points due north. Then chronometers, sufficiently reliable to give correct longitude, were not constructed until some sixty years later, when the earliest maker contrived to turn out, to his credit, a marvellously good one. This was John Harrison, and very scurvily he was treated by the authorities, only receiving the full reward which was offered upon the intervention of King George III. on his behalf. Well, here was Juan Fernandez, and very welcome was the sight of the high land, some five-and-twenty miles distant; but they were becalmed, and got but little nearer for twenty-four hours. Next day, in the afternoon, Rogers consented, rather against his better judgment, to Dover taking a boat in, the land being then at least twelve miles distant. At dark, a bright light was observed on shore, and the boat returned at 2 a.m., Dover having been afraid to land, not knowing what the light could mean. The general idea was that there were French ships at anchor, and all was prepared for action: "We must either fight 'em or want water, etc." These desperate measures were not, however, necessary; sailing along the land the following day, the two bays, which afford good anchorage, were found to be empty. The yawl was sent in at noon, and after some hours the pinnace was despatched to see what had become of her; for it was feared that the Spaniards might be in possession. Presently, however, the pinnace arrived, and, as she approached, it was seen that she carried a passenger--a most fantastic and picturesque person, attired in obviously home-made garments of goatskin. This, of course, was Alexander Selkirk. On the afternoon of January 31st, sweeping the horizon, as he did so constantly, from his look-out, he had seen the two sails in the offing. As they gradually rose, his experienced eye told him that they were English; dusk was settling down, and they were still a long way off--would they pass by? Reasonably contented as he had latterly been in his solitude--broken in upon twice by Spaniards, who upon one occasion saw and chased him, forcing him to take refuge in a tree--the sight of these two English ships filled him with a frantic longing to grasp the hand of a countryman, to hear and speak once more his native language. Mad with apprehension lest this joy should be torn, as it were, from his very grasp, he hastily collected materials, and, as darkness set in, lit a huge bonfire. He spent a couple of sleepless nights, keeping up his fire, and preparing some goat's-meat for guests who, he fondly hoped, would appear on the following day. He saw the boat approaching, and, taking a stick with a rude flag attached, ran down to the beach--they saw him--they shouted to him to point out a good landing place. In a transport of joy at the sound of their voices, he ran round with incredible swiftness, waving them with his flag to follow him. When they landed he could only embrace them; his emotion was too deep, his speech too rusty--no words could he find; while they, on their part, were mute with surprise at his wild and uncouth appearance. Recovering themselves at length, Selkirk entertained them as best he could with some of the goat's-flesh which he had prepared, and while they ate he gave them some account of his sojourn and adventures on the island. There is but little in common with De Foe's description of Robinson Crusoe's doings, excepting, of course, the expedients adopted for obtaining food, which could scarcely have been different. There was no "man Friday," no mysterious footprint in the sand, no encounter with savages. There was, however, a narrow escape, already alluded to, of capture by Spanish sailors; a fate to which Selkirk decided that he preferred his solitary existence, for the Spaniards would either have ruthlessly murdered him or sold him as a slave to work in their mines. So when he found that he had incautiously exposed himself while reconnoitring, he ran for the woods, the Spaniards in chase; but he had acquired such fleetness of foot in catching the goats that they had no chance, and, sitting aloft in a large tree, he saw them below, completely at fault. They helped themselves to some of the goats, and retired. In describing his adventures and emotions, Selkirk attributed his eventual contentment in his solitude to his religious training. He appears to have possessed in full measure the deep, emotional religious temperament of the Scots, and this in all probability saved his reason, and certainly deterred him from suicide, which at one time presented itself as the only possible release from acute mental suffering. He used to recite his prayers and sing familiar hymns aloud, and it is easy to understand what an immense solace such exercises were to him. Learning from Dover and his companions that William Dampier was with the expedition, Selkirk demurred at once to going on board. Not that he had any personal quarrel with Dampier, but he had a most vivid recollection of the hopeless mismanagement of that cruise under his command; of the futile delays, half-fought actions, hastily abandoned plans which promised some measure of success; and he declined to enlist again under such an incompetent chief. This extreme reluctance on Selkirk's part to sail again under the famous navigator constitutes a very strong indictment against Dampier as commander of a privateer; nothing, indeed, could well be stronger. When a man says practically, "I prefer to remain alone on an island to sailing under him," there appears to be little more to be said. Understanding, however, that Dampier occupied a subordinate position as pilot, he was ready enough to accompany his rescuers; and so presented himself to the "admiring" gaze--using the term as it was frequently used in those days--of the crew of the _Duke_. Whatever Selkirk may have thought of Dampier, the latter, recognising him as the former sailing-master of the _Cinque Ports_, gave him the highest character, declaring that he was the best man on board Stradling's ship; upon which Rogers at once engaged him as a mate on the _Duke_, in which capacity he was, we are told, greatly respected, "as well on account of his singular adventure as of his skill and good conduct; for, having had his books with him, he had improved himself much in navigation during his solitude." Such application appears, under the circumstances, almost heroic; there are probably few men so situated who would have had recourse to it. It was long before Selkirk began to throw off the reserve which was the natural outcome of his solitude, and it is said that the expression of his face was fixed and sedate even after his return to England; nothing, indeed, could ever efface the recollection of those years of absolute loneliness, the grim lessons of self-restraint, endurance, and resignation, so hardly learned. [Footnote 5: The reader may be interested to learn that this Thomas Dover was the inventor of the well-known preparation, "Dover's Powder." After his adventures with Woodes Rogers he settled down as a regular practitioner, and in the year 1733 he published a book entitled, "The Ancient Physician's Legacy to his Country," in which the recipe for Dover's Powder appeared; it was afterwards altered, but retained the name. Dover died in 1742.] CHAPTER V WOODES ROGERS--_continued_ Rogers and his companions made no long stay at Juan Fernandez. Having now arrived upon their cruising ground, all were eager to be at work, and on February 14th they were once more under way, the banished Vanbrugh being received on board the _Duke_ again. "I hope for the best," says Captain Rogers doubtfully. On the 17th a committee-meeting was held at sea, in order to appoint responsible persons for the custody of "plunder." There was evidently considerable anxiety among the superior officers on this head. Rogers and Courtney, and probably most of the officers, were perfectly straight and aboveboard; but no certainty could be felt about any one else, so the following plan was adopted: Four persons were selected by the officers and men of the _Duke_, two of whom were to act on board the _Duchess_; similarly, four were selected on board the latter, two of whom were to go on board the _Duke_; thus the interests of each ship's company were equally safeguarded; and to these "plunder guardians" the council addressed a letter containing detailed instructions for their guidance. Every probable contingency was provided for, and the letter concluded: "You are by no means to be rude in your office, but to do everything as quiet and easy as possible; and to demean yourselves so towards those employed by Captain Courtney (or Captain Rogers) that we may have no manner of disturbance or complaint; still observing that you be not over-awed, nor deceived of what is your due, in the behalf of the officers and men." A difficult and thankless office, one would say; nor did this device avail to prevent discord later on. They were now bound for the small island of Lobos, off the coast of Peru, which was to be their starting-point for the conquest of Guayaquil; and on March 16th they captured a small Spanish vessel, which they took with them into Lobos on the following day. From the crew of this vessel they heard some news about Captain Stradling, who, it appears, lost the _Cinque Ports_ on the Peruvian coast, and with half a dozen men, the only survivors, had been for upwards of four years in prison at Lima, "where they lived much worse than our Governor Selkirk, whom they left on the island Juan Fernandez." This little bark Rogers resolved to convert into a privateer, as she seemed to be a fast sailer; and the business was accomplished with remarkable celerity. On March 18th she was hauled up dry, cleaned, launched, and named the _Beginning_, Captain Edward Cooke being appointed to command her. A spare topmast of the _Duke_ was fitted as a mast, and a spare mizzen-topsail altered as a sail for her. By the evening of the 19th she was rigged, had four swivel-guns mounted, and a deck nearly completed; on the 20th she was manned and victualled, and sailed out of the harbour, exchanging cheers with the _Duke_, to join the _Duchess_ cruising outside: a very smart piece of work. Another small prize was renamed the _Increase_, and converted into a hospital-ship, all the sick, with a doctor from each ship, being sent on board her; Alexander Selkirk in command. Rogers makes merry over the exploit of one of his officers who, mistaking turkey buzzards--the "John Crow" bird of the West Indies--for turkeys, landed in great haste with his gun, jumping into the water before the boat touched ground in his eagerness, and let drive, "browning" a group of them; but he was grievously disappointed when he came to pick up his "bag"--the "John Crow" is not a sweet-smelling bird. This impetuous sportsman was, perhaps, that difficult person Mr. Carleton Vanbrugh: for we learn later that, having threatened to shoot one of the men for refusing to carry some carrion crows he had shot, and having abused Captain Dover, his name was struck off the committee. The Spanish prisoners had some attractive stories to tell of possible prizes--it appears somewhat unsportsmanlike on their part, and one is disposed to wonder whether Rogers or his men put any pressure on them--particularly of a stout ship from Lima, and a French-built ship from Panama, richly laden, with a bishop on board. These two vessels were captured, also a smaller one; but the Panama ship was not taken without some misadventure, for the two ships' pinnaces attacking her insufficiently armed--despising the foe, a common British failing, for which we have often paid dearly--were repulsed with loss; and John Rogers, a fine young fellow of one-and-twenty, was killed. He had no business there, as a matter of fact; but, happening to be on board his brother's ship to assist in preparations for the land expedition, he jumped into the boat--and so perished.[6] However, the ship was taken next day, without resistance; but the bishop had been put ashore: a disappointment, no doubt, as he would probably represent a round sum for his ransom--the only use a privateer could find for a prelate! And now for Guayaquil, from the capture and ransom of which great gains were expected; but further disappointment was in store for Captain Rogers and his companions. In the first place, upon landing at Puna, a small town upon an island at the entrance of the Gulf of Guayaquil, an Indian contrived to elude them and give the alarm, so that the surprise was not complete. They captured the Lieutenant-Governor, however, who cunningly assured them that, having caught him, there would be nobody who could give the alarm at Guayaquil: surely an obviously futile deduction. They destroyed all the canoes, etc., which they could find; but, by the time they had made their prisoners, we may be sure that one or two had already made good their escape to the mainland; and later developments proved that this must have occurred. Moreover, they discovered among the papers of the Lieutenant-Governor a disquieting document: no less than a warning against a squadron which was said to be coming, under the pilotage of Captain Dampier--who, it will be recollected, had plundered Puna some years previously. The force of the squadron was greatly exaggerated; but there was the warning, a copy of which had been sent from Lima to all the ports. However, it was impossible to relinquish the attack, and accordingly, after some delays, the boats, with 110 men, arrived off the town of Guayaquil about midnight on April 22nd. As they approached they saw a bonfire on an adjoining eminence, and lights in the town, and, rowing up abreast of it, there was a sudden eruption of lights, and every indication that the townspeople, instead of being quietly a-bed, were very wide awake. The Indian pilot negatived the notion that this was some saint's-day celebration, and thought that "it must be an alarm"; very possibly the wily pilot had something to do with it! While they lay off they heard a Spaniard shouting that Puna was taken, and the enemy was coming up the river. Then the bells commenced clanging, muskets and guns were fired off, and it became obvious that, if they were to attack, it must be in the face of the fullest resistance. What was to be done? Rogers, not easily daunted, gave it as his opinion that the alarm was only just given, and preparations would not be complete. He was all for going on, but the others were not; and Captain Dampier being asked what the buccaneers would do under such circumstances, replied at once that "they never attacked any large place after it was alarmed." The buccaneers were not such fire-eaters as their own accounts and boys' books of adventure would have us believe: there was a strong spice of prudence in their temperament. Cautious counsels prevailing, the boats dropped down-stream again, about three miles below the town, where the two small barks, prizes attached to the _Duke_ and _Duchess_, arrived during the day, having apparently been safely piloted up by Indians--with pistols at their heads possibly. When the flood-tide made in the afternoon, Captain Rogers once more ordered an advance on the town, but Dover again dissuaded him, and they held a council of war in a boat made fast astern of one of the barks, so as to avoid eavesdroppers. Dover advised sending a trumpeter with a flag of truce, and certain proposals as to trading, to be enforced by hostages. These half-hearted measures found no favour with the majority, but Rogers gave way and eventually they sent two of their prisoners--the lieutenant from Puna, and the captain of the French-built ship--who presently came back, and were followed by the Corregidor, to treat for the ransom of the town. However, all the talk came to nothing. The Spaniards evidently imagined that the English were a little bit shy about attacking, and so kept shilly-shallying about the terms, perhaps hoping for reinforcements; until at length Rogers lost patience, landed his men and guns, and drove the enemy from the near houses, the barks firing over their heads. It was a very spirited attack, and deserved success. Opening up the streets, they found four guns facing them in front of the church; but the supporting cavalry fled at sight of the English sailors, and Rogers, calling upon his men, immediately took the guns, and turned them on the retreating foe. In little more than half an hour the town was their own; and, had it not been for the cautious advice of Dover and others, they would have achieved the same result on the first night, before the treasure was carried away. As it was, though they broke open every church and store-house, etc., they found but little of any value; jars of wine and brandy were, however, very plentiful. Two of the officers, Mr. Connely, and Mr. Selkirk, "the late Governor of Juan Fernandez," with a party of men, paid a profitable visit to some houses up the river, where they found "above a dozen handsome, genteel young women, well dressed, where our men got several gold chains and earrings, but were otherwise so civil to them that the ladies offered to dress them victuals, and brought them a cask of good liquor." The seamen, however, quickly suspected that the ladies had chains and other trinkets disposed under their clothing, "and by their linguist modestly desired the gentlewomen to take 'em off and surrender 'em. This I mention as a proof of our sailors' modesty." Well, well; their "modesty" was rewarded by plunder to the tune of about £1,000; but no doubt their method of commandeering it was more polite than the frightened Spanish ladies anticipated. In the church Rogers himself picked up the Corregidor's gold-headed cane, and also a captain's with a silver head; from which he concludes that these gentlemen quitted the church in a hurry. It would have been well if Rogers and his men had seen a little less of the church, for buried under it, and immediately outside, were the putrefying corpses of hundreds of the victims of a recent malignant epidemic. An agreement was drawn up by which the town was to be ransomed by the payment of 30,000 pieces of eight within six days--equivalent to £6,750, reckoning the piece of eight at four shillings and sixpence[7]--Rogers holding two hostages meanwhile; but the Spaniards' _mañana_ proved too much for them, and the amount paid fell far short of this. On April 27th they marched down to the boats with colours flying. Captain Rogers, bringing up the rear with a few men, "picked up pistols, cutlasses, and pole-axes, which showed that our men were grown very careless, weak, and weary of being soldiers, and that it was time to be gone from hence." John Gabriel, a Dutchman, was missing, but he returned on the following day; it transpired that he had lain asleep, drunk, in a house, and the "honest man," who was probably his involuntary host, called in some neighbours, who removed the Dutchman's weapons before cautiously arousing him; and, when he was sufficiently wide awake to comprehend the situation, restored his arms and advised him to go on board his ship: really, a very honest man, this Spanish American. Rogers declares that this was the only case of drunkenness among his men after they took possession: a fact which speaks volumes for the discipline. And so, on the 28th, they weighed anchor and dropped down to Puna; "and at parting made what noise we could with our drums, trumpets, and guns, and thus took our leave of the Spaniards very cheerfully, but not half so well pleased as we should have been had we taken 'em by surprise; for I was well assured, from all hands, that at least we should then have got above 200,000 pieces of eight in money (£45,000), wrought and unwrought gold and silver, besides jewels, etc." And now they were to experience some hard times. Sailing for the Galapagos Islands, off the coast of Peru, they had not been many days out when deadly sickness broke out among the men who had been on shore at Guayaquil. On the two ships, near one hundred and fifty were down at one time; there were a good many deaths, and the medicine-chests were not adequate to this unexpected demand. Worse than all, when they reached the Galapagos Islands they could find no water there. Again and again they sent their boats in, for it was said that upon one island, at least, there was abundance of excellent water--upon the authority of one Davis, a buccaneer, who frequented it twenty years previously: which induces Captain Rogers to discourse upon the unreliability of such adventurers' reports; but that did not help the thirsty, fever-stricken men. Then one of the barks, in command of Mr. Hatley, was missing, which was another source of anxiety. They were compelled at length to give him up as lost, and sailed over to the island of Gorgona, where there was abundance of water. Here they refitted the _Havre de Grace_--the French-built prize, which should have contained a bishop--and renamed her the _Marquis_; and here also they careened and cleaned the ships, and sent away their prisoners, landing them on the coast of Peru. The crew were getting impatient about the plunder obtained at Guayaquil, and on July 29th it was resolved to overhaul and value it for distribution, sending all that was adjudged to be eligible on board the prize galleon. And there was, of course, trouble over this business: a plot was discovered, a number of the men having signed a paper to the effect that they would not accept any booty, nor move from the upper deck, until they obtained justice. Their notions of "justice" not tallying with those of their superiors, pistols and handcuffs came again to the front, and the ringleaders were seized; but Rogers found himself compelled to compromise, for there were too many men involved, and he did not know what the crews of the other ships might do; so he made a conciliatory speech, and conceded a demand that the civilians, who were not seamen, should have their shares cut down--by which Mr. Carleton Vanbrugh and two others suffered. "So that we hoped," says Captain Rogers, "this difficult work would, with less danger than we dreaded, be brought to a good conclusion.... Sailors usually exceed all measures when left to themselves, and account it a privilege in privateers to do themselves justice on these occasions, though in everything else I must own they have been more obedient than any ships' crews engaged in the like undertaking that ever I heard of. Yet we have not wanted sufficient trial of our patience and industry in other things; so that, if any sea-officer thinks himself endowed with these two virtues, let him command in a privateer, and discharge his office well in a distant voyage, and I'll engage he shall not want opportunities to improve, if not to exhaust all his stock." Two or three small prizes had been taken during these few weeks; but after waiting about a long while for a rich Manila ship, it was at length decided that they must give her up, and sail for Guam, in the Ladrone Islands, and thence for the East Indies. The day after this decision was recorded the Manila ship hove in sight; two boats kept in touch with her all night, and at daybreak, it being still calm, they "got out eight of our ship's oars, and rowed above an hour; then there sprung up a small breeze. I ordered a large kettle of chocolate to be made for our ship's company (having no spirituous liquor to give them); then we went to prayers, and before we had concluded, were disturbed by the enemy's firing at us." They got up off their knees, and fought to some purpose by the space of an hour and a half, when, the _Duchess_ coming up, the Spaniard hauled down his colours. This was a splendid haul: and they speedily learned that there was a second ship, of even greater value, in the vicinity. In due course they encountered her, but she proved too strong for them, being a brand-new vessel, very well built, with 40 guns and 450 men. Captain Rogers, who had hitherto come off unscathed from all their adventures, was very roughly handled in these two engagements, getting a ball through his jaw in the first and a splinter in his left foot in the second, both very serious wounds. While he was laid on his back, unable to speak or walk, he had to suffer a further trial of patience in a dispute which arose about the command of their valuable prize on the voyage to the East Indies and homeward, a majority of the council electing Dover to the post. Now Dover, as we have seen, was a doctor, not a seaman, and was absolutely incapable of commanding and navigating a ship upon such a voyage; but, having a large stake in the original venture, he claimed and obtained more consideration than was his due. Probably it was on this account that the gentlemen in Bristol had made him president of the council. Poor Captain Rogers, chafing on his sick-bed, could only protest vigorously in writing against this proposed arrangement, which was obviously fraught with peril, and his officers supported him; the thing was, in fact, a job, the majority truckling to Dover as a part-owner. The utmost concession Rogers could gain was that two capable officers--Stretton and Frye--should be appointed to act under Dover as navigators and practical seamen, and that he should not interfere with them in their duties as such; and under these conditions the prize--her name conveniently abbreviated from _Nostra Seniora de la Incarnacion Disenganio_, to _Batchelor_--was safely conveyed to the East Indies, and thence to England, the cruise terminating on October 14th, 1711. Captain Rogers recovered from his wounds, and made a good thing out of his cruise. He was subsequently Governor of the Bahamas, where he displayed great moral courage and resource under difficult circumstances; and there he died, on July 16th, 1732. In a volume entitled "Life aboard a British Privateer in the Reign of Queen Ann"--a sort of running commentary upon Woodes Rogers's account of his cruise--the author, Mr. R.C. Leslie, remarks, after the capture of Guayaquil: "Though Woodes Rogers himself would now rank little above a pious sort of pirate, it is curious to note from what he says here [about the buccaneers] and again after visiting the Galapagos Islands, one of the chief haunts of buccaneers, that he looked upon them as much below him socially." This is not fair to Rogers; he was entirely within his rights in sacking and ransoming Guayaquil, as a subject of a Power at war with Spain, and armed with a commission from his sovereign. It may not appear to be a very high-class sort of business, but it was conducted in this instance with great humanity, though not probably without some of the "regrettable incidents" which are inseparable from warfare--to adapt the saying of the French general at Balaclava, "Ce n'est pas magnifique, mais c'est la guerre." Rogers does not deserve to be dubbed "pirate," or classed with a gang of cut-throat ruffians like the buccaneers. William Dampier apparently had no more sea-adventures; he died in London in March 1715. Alexander Selkirk, returning to Scotland early in 1712, was received by his people with affectionate enthusiasm; but, after a time, he took to living entirely alone, and sometimes broke out in a passion of regret over his island home: "Oh, my beloved island! I wish I had never left thee! I never was before the man I was on thee! I have not been such since I left thee! and, I fear, never can be again!" One day, in his solitary wanderings, he came across a young girl, seated alone, tending a single cow; their meetings became frequent, and eventually he persuaded her--Sophia Bruce was her name--to elope with him to London. In 1718 he made a will in her favour, under her maiden name, and it is said that, after his death, Sophia Selcraig (for this was the original form of Selkirk's name), represented herself as his widow, but could produce no evidence of marriage; so it is to be feared that she remained Sophia Bruce to the end, while Selkirk married a widow named Candis, to whom he left everything by another will. He died, a mate on board the _Weymouth_ man-of-war, in 1721. A monument was erected to his memory on Juan Fernandez, in 1868, by Commodore Powell and the officers of the _Topaze_. Thus, by a pure accident, he becomes a well-known character and a sort of hero; certainly, he displayed some heroic attributes during his sojourn on Juan Fernandez. [Footnote 6: Why this young man is alluded to in the "Dictionary of National Biography" and elsewhere as Thomas Rogers, I am at a loss to understand. Woodes Rogers alludes to him as "my brother John," and a manuscript note in one edition of Rogers's cruise tells us that "John, son of Woodes Rogers and Frances his wife, was baptized Nov. 28th, 1688; _vide_ Register of Poole, Coun. Dorset."] [Footnote 7: The piece of eight was of equal value to a dollar, and was probably worth more than this; forty years later it was valued at 6_s._ Rogers, however, in distributing plunder, placed it at 4_s._ 6_d._, so the ransom money was probably reckoned upon that basis.] CHAPTER VI GEORGE SHELVOCKE AND JOHN CLIPPERTON About seven years after Captain Woodes Rogers returned from his cruise another privateering expedition to the South Seas was started by some London merchants; but, as England was not then at war with Spain, it was to sail under commission from the Emperor Charles VI.--which was quite a legitimate proceeding. The owners selected, as commanders of the two ships--named _Success_ and _Speedwell_--George Shelvocke, who had formerly served in the Navy as purser, and also probably as a lieutenant, and John Clipperton, who, it will be remembered, was with William Dampier on his disastrous voyage, and left his chief, with a number of men, to pursue his own fortunes. It was deemed politic and complimentary to give the vessels other names, and accordingly they were re-christened respectively _Prince Eugene_ and _Staremberg_. Shelvocke, who was to command the expedition, went over to Ostend in the _Staremberg_ to receive the commission; but scarcely had it been drawn up and signed, when war was declared by England against Spain, and the owners then resolved to send the ships out under a commission from their own sovereign; and, being greatly dissatisfied with Shelvocke's dilatory and extravagant conduct while he was in Ostend, they gave Clipperton the chief command, with Shelvocke under him, in the other ship, the vessels now reverting to their English names. Shelvocke, a jealous, passionate, and somewhat unscrupulous man, was from the first at loggerheads with Clipperton and with several of his own officers, who all appear to have hated him; he was not, in fact, fitted for command, and all went wrong from the first. As his second captain, Shelvocke had Simon Hatley, who was with Rogers, and had some rough experiences, being captured and kept in prison at Lima for a considerable time; and as Captain of the Marines one William Betagh, of whom more anon. After sailing from Plymouth on February 13th, 1719, the two ships got into bad weather; all the liquor for both ships had, by some stupid arrangement, been put on board Shelvocke's vessel, the _Speedwell_, and Shelvocke says that when they were two days out he hailed Clipperton, desiring him to send for his share, in order that the _Speedwell_ might be better trimmed; however, nothing was done in the matter, and on the night of the 19th they encountered a terrific storm, during which they separated; but this should have made no difference, as they had agreed to meet at the Canary Islands. Shelvocke had, however, apparently determined from the first that he would not sail under Clipperton--at least, that is the only conclusion that can be arrived at, from the different accounts--and he took advantage of this storm to carry out his design. In his account of the voyage, he tries to make out that Clipperton deserted him; but, seeing that he himself records the fact that he steered next morning to the north-west, which certainly was not the course for the Canary Islands, while Clipperton steered south by east, which was, approximately, there would appear to be no question about the matter; in fact, Shelvocke deliberately wasted time, while Clipperton, waiting for him in vain at various rendezvous, proceeded on his voyage alone, and was in the South Seas before Shelvocke had got anywhere near Cape Horn. The owners had stipulated that the expedition should proceed upon the lines of Rogers, and had provided each captain with a copy of his journal; but there was no attempt made to carry out these instructions. We find no regular journal kept, no council meetings, no proper command over the crew; and, so far from emulating Rogers's scrupulous observation of the law, which brought him into conflict with his crew, Shelvocke did not refrain from acts of piracy when it suited him. His first exploit was overhauling a Portuguese vessel off Cape Frio, in Brazil; and there is a very marked difference between his account and that of William Betagh, who published his own experiences some two years after Shelvocke's book came out. Shelvocke says: "On Friday, June 5th, in the afternoon, we saw a ship stemming with us, whom we spake with. I ordered the five-oared boat to be hoisted out and sent Captain Hatley in her to inquire what news on the coast, and gave him money to buy some tobacco; for the _Success_ had got our stock on board of that (as well as other things), which created a West-country famine amongst us. When Hatley returned he told me she was a Portuguese from Rio Janeiro, and bound to Pernambuco, that he could get no tobacco, and had therefore laid out my money in unnecessary trifles, viz. _china cups and plates_, _a little hand-nest of drawers, four or five pieces of china silk_, _sweetmeats_, _bananas_, _plantains_, _and pumpkins_, etc. I gave him to understand that I was not at all pleased with him for squandering away my money in so silly a manner. He answered that he thought what he did was for the best, that he had laid out his own money as well as mine, and in his opinion to a good advantage, and that, to his knowledge, the things he bought would sell for double the money they cost at the next port we were going to. However, I assured him I did not like his proceedings by any means." Betagh's version of the incident is somewhat otherwise: "On June 5th, 1719, we met a Portuguese merchantman near Cape Frio. Our captain ordered the Emperor's colours to be hoisted, which, without any reflection, look the most thief-like of any worn by honest men; those of his Imperial Majesty are a black spread-eagle in a yellow field, and those of the pirates a yellow field and black human skeleton; which at a small distance are not easily distinguished, especially in light gales of wind. So he brings her to, by firing a musket thwart her forefoot, sends aboard her the best busker (as he himself called Hatley), with a boat's crew; each man armed with a cutlass and a case of pistols. The Portuguese not only imagines his ship made prize, but thinks also how he shall undergo that piece of discipline used by the merry blades in the West Indies, called blooding and sweating.... So Don Pedro, to save his bacon, took care to be very officious or yare-handed (as we say), with his present. For no sooner was Hatley on his quarter-deck but the Portuguese seamen began to hand into the boat the fruits and refreshments they had on board, as plantains, bananas, lemons, oranges, pomegranates, etc., three or four dozen boxes of marmalade and other sweetmeats, some Dutch cheeses, and a large quantity of sugars. If they had stopped here it was well enough, and might pass as a present; but after this there came above a dozen pieces of silk, several of which were flowered with gold and silver, worth at least three pounds a yard, by retail; several dozen of china plates and basins, a small Japan cabinet, not to mention what the men took.... Among other things, Hatley brought the last and handsomest present of all, a purse of 300 moidores. This convinced Shelvocke he was not deceived in calling Hatley the best busker; that is, an impudent sharp fellow, who, perhaps to reingratiate himself, did the devil's work, by whose laudable example our boat's crew robbed the man of more than I can pretend to say; but I remember the boat was pretty well laden with one trade or another, and none of the officers dared so much as peep into her till all was out. While these things were handing into the ship a sham kind of quarrel ensues between our chieftains." Betagh's view is corroborated by the fact that, when Shelvocke returned to England, he was arraigned on a charge of piracy for this very incident. Dawdling down the coast, they spent nearly two months at St. Catherine's Island, Brazil, where there was a great deal of trouble with the crew, who drew up new articles for the regulation of the distribution of spoil, which Shelvocke found himself eventually compelled to sign, having previously, according to his own account, quelled a mutiny with the assistance of M. de la Jonquière, the captain of a French-manned ship which had been employed under Spanish colours--the whole of which is a most improbable, nay, incredible story, and is ridiculed by Betagh. On rounding Cape Horn, Shelvocke got very nearly as far south as Rogers had done, and here there is mention of an incident which has a certain interest. Says Shelvocke: "We all observed that we had not had the sight of one fish of any kind, since we were come to the southward of the Straits of Le Mair, nor one sea-bird, except a disconsolate black albatross, who accompanied us for several days, hovering about us as if he had lost himself; till Hatley, observing, in one of his melancholy fits, that this bird was always hovering near us, imagined, from his colour, that it might be some ill omen. That which, I suppose, induced him the more to encourage his superstition, was the continued series of contrary tempestuous winds which had oppressed us ever since we had got into this sea. But be that as it would, he, after some fruitless attempts, at length shot the albatross, not doubting, perhaps, that we should have a fair wind after it." Many years afterwards, in 1797, one English poet--Wordsworth--mentioned to another--Coleridge--that he had been reading Shelvocke's account of his voyage and related the albatross incident, which Coleridge introduced into "The Ancient Mariner" in the following year. It does not appear, however, that the crew of the _Speedwell_ expressed any indignation at Hatley's act, or proceeded to any such extreme measure as hanging the dead albatross--which was probably not recovered--round his neck; and, whatever may have been the superstitious significance attached to the continual hovering of the solitary bird about the ship--not at all an unusual incident in that latitude--no change resulted from its death, the boisterous winds and huge mile-long seas continuing to buffet the ship without reprieve; and it was six weeks before they got fairly round the Horn and sighted the coast of Chili. Shelvocke, still bent, apparently, upon killing time, put into Chiloe and Concepcion on trivial pretexts, and at the latter place captured one or two prizes of trifling value; but, a party being sent in a small prize which they had renamed _Mercury_ to capture a vessel laden with wine, etc., in a bay about six miles distant, were cleverly ambushed by the natives. They found the vessel, but she was hauled up on shore, and empty; seeing a small house near by, they imagined her cargo was stored there, and, running up to it, helter-skelter, out came the enemy, mounted, each man lying along his horse and driving before them a double rank of unbacked horses, linked together. The Englishmen were quite powerless to resist, so they fled for their ship, which had grounded, the horsemen pursuing with guns and lassos. James Daniel, one of Shelvocke's foremast men, was lassoed just as he was wading out, and was dragged on shore, as he described it, "at the rate of ten knots." However, he appears to have escaped after all; but five of the party were overtaken and captured, three being killed and the others severely wounded. Another ship named _St. Fermin_, which they captured, Shelvocke eventually burned, after the Spaniards had repeatedly failed to send the money which had been agreed upon for her ransom. And so they sailed for Juan Fernandez, "to see," as Shelvocke says, "if we could find by any marks that the _Success_ was arrived in these seas," and arrived off the island on January 12th, 1720. Shelvocke, however, would not go in and anchor at first; he appears to have been unwilling to seek any evidence of Clipperton's visit, and kept standing off and on, fishing and filling the water-casks; until one day, "some of my men accidentally saw the word 'Magee,' which was the name of Clipperton's surgeon, and 'Captain John,' cut out under it upon a tree, but no directions left, as was agreed on by him in his instructions to me." Betagh says that Brook, the first lieutenant, "being the first officer that landed, immediately saw 'Captain John----' and 'W. Magee' cut in the tree-bark; upon the news of which everybody seemed to rejoice but our worthy captain, who would have it an invention of Brook's, for which he used him scurvily before all the company, telling him 'twas a lie.... Brook had hitherto been a great favourite with Shelvocke, but for this unwelcome discovery he is now put upon the black list." It appears, however, from two different accounts, that the Viceroy at Lima had obtained from some of Clipperton's men, who became prisoners through the recapture of a prize, an account of the bottle hidden under the tree at Juan Fernandez, and of two men who had deserted there, and had despatched a vessel to bring both the men and the bottle; and Shelvocke, though he was not aware of this at the time, must have known it very well when he wrote his book; so his abuse of Clipperton is very disingenuous. Even then, he went where he knew that Clipperton was not likely to be, sailing across to Arica, where he took a couple of small prizes, one of them "laden with cormorant's dung, which the Spaniards call _guano_, and is brought from the island of Iquique to cultivate the agi, or cod-pepper, in the Vale of Arica." It was not until more than one hundred years later that we began regularly to ship guano to England as manure; Richard Dana describes a voyage for that purpose, in "Two Years before the Mast," published in 1840; this was probably one of the earliest ventures, though the existence of these huge deposits had been known for many years previously. Then followed a plan for capturing the town of Payta--a matter which, Shelvocke says, had been considered in the scheme of the voyage as one of great importance. He landed there with forty-six men, to find the town almost deserted; but presently saw great bodies of men on the surrounding hills, who however, retreated before his forty-six. He demanded 10,000 pieces of eight as ransom for the town, and a small prize he had taken; the Spaniards temporised, because they could see from their look-outs that a Spanish Admiral's ship, carrying fifty guns, was just round the high bluff, and thought they had a nice rod in pickle for the English. Shelvocke threatened, failing immediate ransom, to burn the town; the Spaniards replied that he might do what he liked, as long as he spared the churches--an absurd stipulation, for fire, once started, is not discriminating as to sacred edifices--and eventually the town was set on fire in three places. No sooner, however, was Payta fairly in a blaze, than Shelvocke became aware that urgent signals for his return were being made from the _Speedwell_, whose guns were blazing away towards the harbour mouth. Ordering his crew on board, the captain preceded them in a canoe with three men, and, as he opened the point, became speedily aware of the significance of these doings; for there was a large ship, with the Spanish flag flying--a very much larger ship than the _Speedwell_. "At this prospect," he says, "two of my three people were ready to sink, and had it not been for my boatswain, I should not have been able to fetch the ship. When I looked back on the town, I could not forbear wishing that I had not been so hasty." The Spaniard did not, however, avail himself of his opportunities, being deterred by the bold tactics of Mr. Coldsea, master of the _Speedwell_, who, with only a dozen men on board, opened a hot fire. It is an extraordinary story. The _Speedwell's_ men, delayed by embarking a gun which had been landed, did not get on board until the Spanish ship was within less than pistol-shot; then Shelvocke cut his cable, and, the ship not falling off the right way, "I had but just room enough to clear him." The men were so dismayed at the appearance of the enemy's ship that some of them had proposed to jump overboard on the way off, and swim ashore--one actually did so. The Spaniard at length attacked in earnest, and, according to Shelvocke's account, handled his ship cleverly, keeping the _Speedwell_ in a disadvantageous position, and battering her with his broadsides, Shelvocke making what return he could. Suddenly the Spaniards crowded on deck, shouting, and it was realised that the _Speedwell's_ colours had been shot away, giving the appearance of a surrender. Shelvocke immediately displayed his colours afresh; upon which, "designing to do our business at once, they clapped their helm well a-starboard, to bring the whole broadside to point at us; but their fire had little or no effect, all stood fast with us, and they muzzled themselves [_i.e._ got the ship stuck head to wind, or "in irons"], by which I had time to get ahead and to windward of him before he could fill again." And so the _Speedwell_ got off, their assailant being the _Peregrine_, of 56 guns and 450 men; and Shelvocke tells us that he had not a single man killed or wounded! The _Speedwell_ was hulled repeatedly, and severely damaged aloft--but no casualties! There are, it must be admitted, too many tales of immunity in privateer accounts, in spite of the "tremendous fire," or "shattering broadsides" of the enemy; and, as a skipper cannot well manufacture casualties while all his crew are alive and well, one can only suppose that the terrible fire of the enemy is exaggerated. Mr. Betagh--who had been detached with Hatley in a small prize, the _Mercury_, which was captured by the _Brilliant_, the _Peregrine's_ consort--gives another version of this fight, from details obtained from the Spaniards. The ship, he says, mounted only 40 guns, and out of her crew of 350 men there were not above a dozen Europeans, the remainder being negroes, Indians, and half-castes, with no training, who were so terrified by the first discharge from the _Speedwell_ that they ran below: "The commander and his officers did what they could to bring them to their duty: they beat them, swore at them, and pricked them in the buttocks; but all would not do, for the poor devils were resolved to be frighted. Most of them ran quite down into the hold, while others were upon their knees praying the saints for deliverance. The _Speedwell_ did not fire above eight or nine guns, and, as they were found sufficient, Shelvocke had no reason to waste his powder. However, this panic of theirs gave Shelvocke a fair opportunity to get his men aboard, cut his cable, and go away right afore the wind. This is the plain truth of the matter, which everybody was agreed in, for I heard it at several places; though Shelvocke has cooked up a formal story of a desperate engagement to deceive those who knew him not into a wondrous opinion of his conduct." The reader can take his choice between these two versions; probably the truth lies somewhere midway, for, while Shelvocke was undoubtedly addicted at times to "drawing a long bow," Betagh was certainly a very bitter enemy of his, and all his statements are more or less coloured, no doubt, by animosity. The _Speedwell's_ days were numbered; on May 11th, 1720, she arrived once more at Juan Fernandez, Shelvocke designing to remain there for a time and refit, giving the Spaniards to believe that he had quitted the cruising-ground. He had only been there a fortnight, however, when in a hard onshore gale with a heavy sea, the cable--a new one--parted, and the vessel drove on shore; the masts went by the board, and though only one life was lost, the _Speedwell_ was done for--a hopeless wreck. Clipperton, meanwhile, having given up all hope of rejoining Shelvocke, had crossed the Atlantic and made his way, with much labour, through the Straits of Magellan, to the South Seas--it took them two months and a half to get through, and in September 1719 they visited Juan Fernandez, Clipperton being resolved to carry out his part of the bargain, and this being one of their appointed meeting-places. There the name of Magee, the doctor, was cut on the tree, and the instructions for Shelvocke buried in a bottle. Clipperton's name, we are told, was not cut in full, because he was well known out there, had been a prisoner for some time, and did not wish to advertise his return; but the precaution was futile, as we have seen. Clipperton had great trouble with his crew, who declared that there would be no chance of much booty with a single ship, which might easily have the odds against her; and they cursed Shelvocke freely for running away with their liquor. After leaving Juan Fernandez they took several prizes, one of them being the _Trinity_, of 400 tons, which had been taken by Woodes Rogers at Guayaquil, ten years before, and ransomed; one of the captains, however, being a sharp and intrepid fellow, got the better of Clipperton. His ship, the _Rosario_, being taken, he saw at once that, from the number of prizes the English privateer had in company, her crew must be already very much reduced, so he kept his eye open for an opportunity. He had about a dozen passengers, whom he took into his confidence, hiding them in the hold. Clipperton sent a lieutenant and eight men to take possession, and all the crew they could find were confined in the cabin, with a sentry at the door. The ship was presently got under sail by the Englishmen, to join the _Success_, and the prize crew went down to see what plunder they could discover in the hold; upon which the concealed passengers fell upon them and secured them, while those in the cabin, taking the sounds of the scuffle below as their signal, knocked the sentry on the head and broke out, the boatswain meanwhile flooring the lieutenant by a blow from behind. The captain then ran the vessel on shore, and, in spite of a heavy surf, both crews landed safely, the Englishmen being sent to Lima as prisoners; and it was one of these who was unsportsmanlike enough to let out about the bottle buried on Juan Fernandez. The Viceroy of Peru, we are told, immediately ordered a new ship to be built for the plucky and resourceful captain of the _Rosario_, and imposed a tax on all the traders to pay for her. While watering at the island of Lobos de la Mar, a plot was discovered among the crew to seize the ship, but was suppressed; later on another misfortune befell them, for, capturing a good prize, laden with tobacco, sugar, and cloth off Coquimbo, they discovered, on entering that port, three Spanish men-of-war, which were on the station for the express purpose of looking after the English privateers. These, of course, immediately cut their cables and made sail in chase, the _Success_ and her prize hauling their wind to escape; the latter, however, was soon recaptured, with a lieutenant and twelve men of the _Success_, which contrived to escape. This was a great blow to the already discontented and half mutinous crew. To make matters worse, Clipperton began to solace himself with liquor, and was frequently more or less drunk. Provisions began to run short, so that they were glad to land all their Spanish prisoners. At the island of Cocoas--one of the Galapagos Islands--they built a place for their sick and rested a little; when they prepared to sail, on January 21st, 1721, eleven of the crew--three whites and eight negroes--hid themselves and deserted, preferring to live as they could on a fertile island to braving the privations and disappointments of the sea again. On January 25th, having arrived at the island of Quibo, off the coast of Mexico, a great surprise was in store. The pinnace being sent in chase of a sail, came up with her about eleven o'clock at night, and found her to be a Spanish vessel, the _Jesu Maria_; but not in Spanish hands, for she was manned by Shelvocke and what remained of the _Speedwell's_ crew. They had contrived to build some crazy sort of craft out of the wreck of their ship at Juan Fernandez, and had eventually taken this vessel, a very good and sound one, of two hundred tons. Thus they met, after two years; and it was not a pleasant nor cordial meeting. Clipperton called Shelvocke to account for the plunder which he had taken, and the portion set aside for the owners; but no account was forthcoming, of course, for Shelvocke and his crew were by that time on a sort of piratical footing, with no attempt at discipline or regularity of proceedings. They met several times, and Clipperton supplied the other with some articles; eventually, Clipperton sent a sort of ultimatum to Shelvocke, that if he and his crew would refund all the money shared among themselves, contrary to the original articles with the owners, and put it into a common stock, the past should be forgiven, and they would cruise together for the rich ship from Acapulco. This proposal was not, of course, entertained by Shelvocke and his men; and so they parted. Clipperton eventually sailed for China, and, after many difficulties, came home to Ireland in a Dutch East Indiaman. He did not long survive his return; his ill-success, and probably his intemperate habits, broke down his health, and he died a few weeks later. Shelvocke, meanwhile, had captured, at Sansonate, a vessel named the _Santa Familia_; and, finding her a better ship than the _Jesu Maria_, he exchanged. When he was on the point of sailing, however, he received a letter from the Governor notifying the conclusion of peace between Spain and England, and demanding the return of the ship. He demanded a copy of the articles of peace, which the Governor promised to obtain for him; but there was evidently a strong conviction on shore that Shelvocke was not ingenuous in the matter. A lieutenant and five men whom he sent on shore were seized, and eventually he sailed with his capture, leaving behind a protest, signed by all the crew. They were, however, getting very sick of the cruise, and contemplated surrendering themselves at Panama; but meanwhile they took another vessel, the _Conception_--the doubt which existed as to the establishment of peace not troubling them very much--and eventually, abandoning the idea of surrender, they sailed for China. Shelvocke had some queer and suspicious dealings with the Chinese authorities at Whampoa, disposing of his ship for £700, after having, as he alleges, paid more than £2,000 for port dues. Betagh says he cleared some £7,000 out of the cruise, and he gives figures which go far towards proving his assertion; the owners did not make much out of the venture, though Clipperton endeavoured to act honestly towards them; and when Shelvocke, returning in an East Indiaman, presented himself before them, he was immediately arrested--Betagh says on the strength of a letter which he had written while a prisoner at Lima--and put in prison. He was charged with two acts of piracy--to wit, the affair off Cape Frio, and the capture of the _Santa Familia_; but there was not adequate legal proof against him. On the further charge of defrauding his owners he was detained, but contrived to escape, and left England. This was in 1722. Four years later he published his book, "A Voyage Round the World," which was followed in two years by that of his late officer, William Betagh. Making every allowance for Betagh's animosity, it is impossible to believe that Shelvocke was a favourable specimen of a privateer commander; his own admissions are in several instances against him, and there can be little doubt that he and his crew degenerated into unscrupulous pirates. Clipperton, though very rough and eventually a drunkard, was a better type of man; and, had Shelvocke been loyal, and stuck to him from the first, the story of the cruise might have been a very different one. SOME ODD YARNS CHAPTER VII CAPTAIN PHILLIPS OF THE "ALEXANDER" In the year 1744 a British 20-gun ship, the _Solebay_, was captured, together with two others, by a French squadron under Admiral de Rochambeau. Less than two years later the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty called before them a certain Captain Phillips, master mariner, commanding the _Alexander_ privateer; and the following is the "minute" of the interview, officially recorded: "29 April, 1746. Captain Phillips, of the _Alexander_ privateer, attending, was called in, and told the Lords that he chased the _Solebay_ and a small ship, laden with naval stores, that she had under her convoy, into St. Martin's Road[8] on the 10th instant; that he came up with the _Solebay_ just at the entrance of the Road, where he believed there were 100 sail of ships at anchor, and boarded her athwart the bowsprit, sword in hand, and cut her out about three o'clock p.m. Said the wind was at S.S.W., which was fair for his running in and coming out. The Lords asked him how many men she had on board. He answered she had 230, and he had but 140; that they kept a very bad look-out, but as soon as he boarded her they were forced to fly from their quarters; that they killed 15 of her men, and he had lost but three; that she is still called the _Solebay_, and that the French have made no other alteration in her than lengthening her quarter-deck. The Lords asked him what he thought the two Martinico ships he had taken were worth; he answered about £8,000 or £9,000. He told the Lords that at the Isle of Rhé there were two ships of 64 guns each, and four East India ships outward bound; said he was to be heard of at Lloyd's Coffee House, and then withdrew." Thus an English man-of-war was restored to the Royal Navy by the boldness and enterprise of this privateer captain, who was another specimen of a good man lost to the Service. He would willingly have entered the Navy, but, like George Walker, he was deterred by the stringent regulations, which compelled him at first to take a subordinate post as lieutenant. He was presented, however, with five hundred guineas and a gold medal, in recognition of his excellent services; and his name will not be overlooked in the roll of honour by naval historians. THE CASE OF THE "ANTIGALLICAN" In the year 1755 there appears to have existed a certain body which had adopted the title of "The Society of Antigallicans," having for its object the promotion of British manufactures, the extension of the commerce of England, the discouragement of French _modes_, and of the importation of French commodities. War being regarded as inevitable, and the king having already issued a proclamation licensing the granting of commissions to privateers, the Antigallicans, always busy "concerting some good for the sake of the public," discussed the propriety of fitting out a vessel of this nature--an undertaking which, if successful, might obviously bring them a rich reward for their public spirit. The scheme, proposed by one William Smith, Esq., was relished by the whole company, and the motion carried by acclamation. When the applause had subsided there rose Mr. Torrington, who informed the company present that he happened to possess at that moment a ship most admirably adapted for the purpose: being the _Flamborough_, formerly a man-of-war, but then in the Jamaica trade, and known as the _Flying Flamborough_ on account of her great speed; Mr. Torrington, in his naturally enthusiastic eulogy of the ship he wished to sell, declaring that, with a fair wind and crowded canvas, she had frequently run fourteen knots--which was certainly very unusual with the short, bluff-bowed vessels of that period. It was immediately agreed to purchase her, and she was appropriately renamed the _Antigallican_. She was a formidable vessel, of 440 tons, mounting 28 guns and 16 swivels, with a crew of 208 men, commanded by William Foster--a man apparently of humble birth, for he is said to have been a "cockswain" on board H.M.S. _Defiance_, and to have attracted notice by his brave conduct during the action between Anson and De la Jonquière on May 3rd, 1747.[9] On July 17th, 1756, the _Antigallican_ was ready for sea, and the owners brought down their wives and daughters and numerous friends, who were handsomely entertained on board; she had on board, we are told, "six months' provision, all of the product of Middlesex and Kent, generally supplied from the estates of the proprietors. There was not the least thing in or about her but what was entirely English"--which, of course, was only right and consistent with the principles of the Society. Sailing on September 17th, she fell in, about a month later, with an armed French vessel, about 300 miles west of Lisbon. This ship fell an easy prey, surrendering after delivering one broadside and receiving a raking fire from the Englishman. She had on board, we are told, four English prisoners, "part of the crew taken on board the _Warwick_ man-of-war." This ship had been captured by a French squadron on March 11th preceding. Why these four men were on board this armed merchantman does not appear, but the French captain, who was a cheerful soul, not readily cast down by adversity, had always treated them well, and, when the _Antigallican_ hove in sight, served out a complete outfit of clothes to them. They remained on deck at work until the first shot was fired, when they were put under hatches, and the captain himself was the first to inform them of their release. Smiling upon them through the open hatchway, he said: "Come out, gentlemen; _it be vel wit you, but ill wit me!_" This vessel was the _Maria Theresa_, 14 guns and 30 men. She was valued, with her cargo, at £23,000: so the _Antigallican_ made a promising commencement of her cruise. The prize was sent to Portsmouth. Another, valued at £15,000, was taken into Madeira, in company with the privateer. This was all very pleasant, and the Antigallican Society could congratulate itself upon the success of its scheme for the good of the public--and, incidentally, for the pockets of its members; and one day in December 1756 a Dutch vessel gave news of a very rich prize, the _Duc de Penthièvre_, a French Indiaman. "The news was communicated to the crew, who heard it joyfully and behaved with a true Antigallican spirit." The privateer was off Corunna on the morning of December 26th, and at 6 a.m. a sail was observed standing inshore. It being almost calm, the sweeps were got out, and by noon the _Antigallican_ was within gunshot, under Spanish colours. Upon receiving a shot she ran up English colours, and the French ship then delivered a broadside; the English captain, however, reserved his fire until he was close aboard. They fought for nearly three hours; then the Frenchman struck, and the vessel proved to be the one they were in search of, her value being placed at something like £300,000! Here was a fine haul. They made haste to get into port with her, aiming at Lisbon; but they had some characteristically rough winter weather on that coast, and, after bucketing about for over a fortnight, they ran for Cadiz, where they arrived on January 23rd, 1757. That gale proved very disastrous for the Antigallicans, for the Spaniards, green with envy over such gains, immediately set to work to show that the _Duc de Penthièvre_ was captured in Spanish waters, _i.e._ within three miles of the coast. The French officers, in the first instance, deposed quite ingenuously, before the consular authorities, upon their oath, that their ship was captured two or three leagues--six or eight miles--off the coast; that they did not see any fort, nor hear any guns fired; in fact, they accepted the position that they were fairly made prisoners, and their vessel, with all her rich cargo, was now English property. The depositions of the English and French officers were sent to the Admiralty Court at Gibraltar, and the ship was condemned as "good prize" without hesitation. Meanwhile, the Spanish naval authorities had politely given permission for the English privateer to be taken over to the Government yard for refitting, and all her movable gear, of every description, was landed and placed in the warehouse, in order that the ship might be "careened," or "hove down," to examine and clean her bottom. On February 19th came the first attack from the Spaniards. The Governor of Cadiz sent for the English Consul, Mr. Goldsworthy, and told him that he was obliged to send troops on board the prize, having received orders to detain her. In spite of the Consul's vigorous protest, the threat was confirmed with every warlike accompaniment--guns manned in the fort, artillerymen standing by with lighted matches, and so on. Both vessels were seized, but before dark the Governor, having apparently some misgivings as to the legality of the business, ordered the troops to be withdrawn, "after having broken open several chests, and carried away everything they could find of the officers and crew, and the very beef that was dressing for dinner." On February 26th the Governor informed the Consul that he had orders to deliver the prize to the French Consul. Captain Foster offered to place the ship in the Governor's hands until the case should be decided, which was a very proper and businesslike proposal; but it was refused, and the captain declaring that the English colours flying on the prize should never come down with his consent, matters came to a climax, and, in spite of the unwillingness of the Spanish Admiral, who probably realised the injustice of the proceedings, the Governor insisted that two men-of-war should be sent to enforce his orders; a 60-gun ship and a 36-gun frigate took up their positions quite close to the prize, and upon Foster refusing to lower his colours, they opened fire, killing six men and wounding two. The flag halyards were shot away almost immediately; but, in spite of the colours coming down, they would not desist. The prize made no attempt at resistance, and on the following day--March 3rd--the captain and crew were imprisoned. On the 5th came an order from Madrid to stop all proceedings against the prize and consult with the English captain alone; to allow the prize to remain in our possession, but not to leave the port until further orders. The Spanish Governor, however, having evidently some very amenable perjurers up his sleeve, disregarded the injunction, refusing to return the ship to the English Consul; and on the following day there arrived from Gibraltar the formal decision of the Admiralty Court, condemning the _Duc de Penthièvre_ as "good prize," on the evidence of the French officers, delivered two days before she was forcibly seized. However, the French Ambassador at Madrid, inspired and instructed by the Consul at Cadiz, was very urgent in the matter, and the Spaniards succeeded in finding some unscrupulous persons who swore that the action took place within gunshot, while other independent witnesses were very certain that it did not; and the King of Spain, being somewhat uneasy in his mind, intimated to our Ambassador at Madrid that the prize was only to be detained until strict inquiry could be made into the merits of the case. This appears to have been hailed, by the Antigallican Society, as equivalent to victory; the narrator of the story expresses his great joy over the restitution of the prize, and gives a copy of a letter from his Society to Pitt, whose good offices with the Spanish Government had been enlisted, thanking him enthusiastically for his successful intervention. They were counting their chickens before they were hatched; the Spanish half-concession was merely an elaboration of their favourite word, _mañana_--and this "to-morrow," upon which the English were to have the ship which they had fairly captured, never dawned! There was an immense amount of correspondence on the subject, but in 1758, two years later, the matter was not settled--or rather, it was settled against the English; and they never got their £300,000, or their ship. It appears almost incredible, but this appears to be the truth about the _Antigallican_ and her rich prize. We have no more reports of any privateering business by the Antigallican Society; so we must conclude that the members had had enough of such ventures. The following is a translation of the deposition of the first lieutenant of the _Duc de Penthièvre_, made before the British Consul at Cadiz: "M. François de Querangal, first lieutenant of the ship _Duc de Penthièvre_, belonging to the French East India Company, commanded by M. Ettoupan de Villeneuve, since dead of his wounds after the engagement, deposes that the said ship sailed from the Island of St. Mary, on the coast of Madagascar, on the 12th of September, 1756, bound for the port of L'Orient, in France; that the said ship was compelled, by contrary winds and other stress, to run for the harbour of Corunna, on the coast of Spain; that on the 26th December last, being about one league from land, the _Antigallican_, displaying Spanish colours and coming within gunshot, they fired a gun across her bows. The vessel immediately hoisted English colours, and we commenced the action. "The Iron Tower was then about two and a half or three leagues distant. Asked whether he had seen any flags or batteries on shore, he declares that he had seen neither. "That the said ship, _Duc de Penthièvre_, was armed with 20 guns at the time of the action, and carried a crew of 150 men; that he had no knowledge of the papers contained in the boxes thrown overboard before the colours were hauled down. "The said gentleman declares before me, having taken his oath according to the French custom, that the above statement is true." This is signed by the deponent and duly attested by the Consul, the depositions of the other French officers being in precisely similar terms. It was on these depositions, together with those of Captain Foster and his assistants, that the Admiralty Court at Gibraltar condemned the ship as "good prize," and with perfect justice; had any ground existed for protest, it should then have been put forward; so the flagrant injustice and iniquity of the Spanish authorities is very apparent. There had been other complaints previously, and the British Ambassador at Madrid had very strongly protested against the favour shown by the Spaniards to French privateers, and had also induced Pitt, the Prime Minister, to support him in a strong letter. But it was all of no avail: there were wheels within wheels, and, rather than make it an occasion of war, the just claims of the Antigallicans were suffered to go by the board. [Footnote 8: Inside Isle de Rhé, off the coast of France, close to La Rochelle.] [Footnote 9: Perhaps Mr. William Foster is responsible for the story here told by the Antigallican narrator, that Anson "had no hand in the matter. That morning he desired a council of war, but Sir Peter Warren told him, 'There are French colours flying! which is a sufficient council of war'; and so bore down upon them, while his lordship lay at a distance." Anson, however, received his peerage for this very action--he was not "his lordship" when he fought it; Warren was knighted at the same time.] CHAPTER VIII CAPTAIN DEATH, OF THE "TERRIBLE" One of the bloodiest privateer actions on record was that between the _Terrible_, owned in London, and the _Vengeance_, of St. Malo. The _Terrible_ carried 26 guns, with a crew of 200 men, and was commanded by Captain Death. She was cruising off the mouth of the Channel at the end of the year 1756, and had had some success, capturing an armed French cargo ship, the _Alexandre le Grand_, (the narrator very simply translates this "Grand Alexander"!), which she was escorting into Plymouth, with a prize crew of an officer--the first lieutenant--and fifteen men, when on December 27th, at daylight, two sails were sighted to the southward, about twelve miles distant. Some communication was observed to take place between the two vessels, and then the larger one steered for the _Terrible_ and her prize, which was far astern, so that the _Terrible_ was obliged to back her mizzen-topsail and wait for her. Meanwhile, every preparation was made for action; but, from the absence of the prize crew and other causes, no more than 116 men out of 200 were able to stand to the guns; indeed, the narrator, who was third lieutenant of the _Terrible_, tells rather a sad story of her crew--"the rest being either dead or sick below with a distemper called the spotted fever, that raged among the ship's company." This may have been malignant typhus, or the plague, terribly infectious; and there would be great reluctance to handle the dead bodies--hence some of these were left below. The enemy approached, as was usually the practice, under English colours until within close range, when she shortened sail and hoisted French colours. The _Terrible_ was ready for her, with her starboard guns manned, and the prize had by this time come up; but she was a clumsy sailer, deep-laden, and fell off from the wind; so the Frenchman got in between them, gave the prize a broadside, and then, ranging close up on the _Terrible's_ port quarter, delivered a most destructive fire, diagonally across her deck, killing and wounding a great number. So close were the two ships, that the yardarms almost touched, and the _Terrible's_ people, in spite of the awful battering they had just received, returned a broadside of round and grape, which was equally destructive. For five or six minutes they surged along side by side, while each disposed his dead and wounded, and a touch of the helm would have run either vessel aboard her opponent. The Frenchmen, more numerous in spite of their losses, might have boarded, and the "Terribles" were in momentary expectation of it--but they held off, and the English did not find themselves strong enough to attempt it. Separating again, they exchanged a murderous fire at close range, the casualties being very heavy on both sides. The French ship had, however, one great advantage at such close quarters; in each "top" she had eight or ten small-arm men, who were able to fire down upon the _Terrible's_ deck, and pick off whom they would--the latter was too short-handed to spare any men for this purpose. This slaughter, to which they were unable to reply, really decided the action. Every man in sight was either killed or miserably wounded--the captain and the third lieutenant escaped for some time, but the latter was grazed on his cheek, and the captain, he states, was shot through the body after he had struck his flag. This is a very common accusation, and no doubt it has often been true, though probably only through a misapprehension; men who are blazing away and being shot at in a hot action do not always know or realise at the moment that the enemy has struck, and so some poor fellow loses his life unnecessarily. It was too hot to last. The enemy was a ship of considerably superior force, and probably had three times the number of the _Terrible's_ available crew at the commencement of the action. On board the English vessel nearly one hundred men were dead or wounded, the decks were cumbered with their bodies, and only one officer was left untouched; they had not a score of men left to fight the ship, and the enemy continued to pour in a pitiless fire, which at length brought the mainmast by the board. Captain Death, a brave man, could then see no course but to surrender, having put up a very gallant fight; and so he ordered down the colours, and was then, as is said, fatally wounded by a musket-ball. Then follows a dismal story of the treatment of the English prisoners, which we may hope, for the sake of French humanity and generosity, is somewhat exaggerated--as we know that such things can be, under the smart of defeat and surrender: "They turned our first lieutenant and all our people down in a close, confined place forward the first night that we came on board, where twenty-seven men of them were stifled before morning; and several were hauled out for dead, but the air brought them to life again; and a great many of them died of their wounds on board the _Terrible_ for want of care being taken of them, which was out of our doctor's power to do, the enemy having taken his instruments and medicine from him. Several that were wounded they heaved overboard alive." If this is a true account one shudders to think what may have been the fate of those unhappy, plague-stricken men below--probably brought up and hove overboard in a ferocious panic! The French ship was named the _Vengeance_, of 36 guns and about 400 men; so there was no discredit to Captain Death in yielding, after such a plucky resistance. The merchants of London opened a subscription at Lloyd's Coffee House for his widow and the widows of the crew, and for the survivors, who had suffered the loss of all their possessions. This desperate fight was much talked about at the time, and inspired some rhymester, whose name has not come down to us, to compose the following: CAPTAIN DEATH The muse and the hero together are fir'd, The same noble views has their bosom inspir'd; As freedom they love, and for glory contend, The muse o'er the hero still mourns as a friend; So here let the muse her poor tribute bequeath, To one British hero--'tis brave Captain Death. The ship was the _Terrible_--dreadful to see! His crew was as brave and as valiant as he. Two hundred or more was their full complement, And sure braver fellows to sea never went. Each man was determined to spend his last breath In fighting for Britain and brave Captain Death. A prize they had taken diminish'd their force, And soon the brave ship was lost in her course. The French privateer and the _Terrible_ met, The battle began with all horror beset. No heart was dismayed, each bold as Macbeth; The sailors rejoiced, so did brave Captain Death. Fire, thunder, balls, bullets were soon heard and felt, A sight that the heart of Bellona would melt. The shrouds were all torn and the decks fill'd with blood. And scores of dead bodies were thrown in the flood. The flood, from the time of old Noah and Seth, Ne'er saw such a man as our brave Captain Death. At last the dread bullet came wing'd with his fate; Our brave captain dropped, and soon after his mate. Each officer fell, and a carnage was seen, That soon dy'd the waves to a crimson from green; Then Neptune rose up, and he took off his wreath, And gave it a triton to crown Captain Death. Thus fell the strong _Terrible_, bravely and bold, But sixteen survivors the tale can unfold. The French were the victors, tho' much to their cost, For many brave French were with Englishmen lost. For thus says old Time, "Since Queen Elizabeth, I ne'er saw the fellow of brave Captain Death." There is another poetic effusion on the subject, under the title "The Terrible Privateer"; but it is such halting doggrel that the reader shall be spared the transcription; with the exception of the last verse, which breathes such a blunt British spirit that it would be a pity to omit it: Here's a health unto our British fleet. Grant they with these privateers may meet, And have better luck than the _Terrible_, And sink those Mounsiers all to hell. The _Vengeance_ was, in fact, captured about twelve months later by the _Hussar_, a man-of-war, after a stout resistance, in which she lost heavily; it is impossible, however, to say how far the devout aspiration of the poet was fulfilled! MR. PETER BAKER AND THE "MENTOR" In the Reading-room of the Free Library in Liverpool there hangs an oil-painting, of which a reproduction is here given, illustrating an incident which occurred during the American War of Secession, in 1778. Liverpool merchants and shipowners were very active at that time in the fitting out of privateers; and some, or one of them, entered into a contract with one Peter Baker to build a vessel for this purpose. Now, Baker does not appear to have had the necessary training and experience to qualify him as a designer and builder of ships. He had served a short apprenticeship with some employer in the neighbourhood of Garston, near Liverpool, and had then worked as a carpenter in Liverpool, eventually becoming a master. However, he set to work to fulfil his contract; but he turned out of hand such a sorry specimen of a ship--clumsy, ill-built, lopsided, and with sailing qualities more suited to a haystack than a smart privateer--that the prospective owner refused her, throwing her back on his hands--a very serious matter for Peter Baker, who was heavily in debt over the venture. Strangely enough, this apparent calamity proved to be the making of him. Despairing of paying his debts, he resolved upon the somewhat desperate course of fitting out the ship as a venture of his own, and contrived to obtain sufficient credit for this purpose. Probably his creditors agreed to give him this chance, as the privateers not infrequently made considerable sums of money. Baker did not, however, aspire to the post of privateer captain; he appointed to the command his son-in-law, John Dawson, who had made several voyages to the coast of Africa, and knew enough about navigation to get along somehow. The vessel measured 400 tons, carried 28 guns, and shipped a crew of 102 men; but they were a very queer lot: loafers picked up on the docks, landsmen in search of adventure, and so on. With this unpromising outfit--a lopsided, heavy-sailing vessel, an inexperienced commander, and a crew of incapable desperadoes--Peter Baker entered upon his privateering venture, and in due course the _Mentor_, provided, no doubt, with a king's commission, proceeded down the Irish Sea, hanging about in the chops of the Channel for homeward bound French merchantmen. Dawson was not very persistent or enterprising, for we are told that in something under a week he was on the point of returning, not having as yet come across anything worthy of his powder and shot. Falling in with another privateer, homeward bound, he made the usual inquiry as to whether she had seen anything, either in the way of a likely prize or a formidable enemy; and was informed that a large vessel, either a Spanish 74-gun ship, or Spanish East Indiaman, had been seen just previously in a given latitude. Dawson thereupon resolved to put his fortune to the test--"For," said he, "I might as well be in a Spanish prison as an English one, and if I return empty I shall most likely be imprisoned for debt." So he made sail after the assumed Spaniard, and found her readily enough; as he closed, he made out through his glass that she was pierced for 74 guns, and was, of course, in every respect a far more formidable craft than the lopsided _Mentor_. Handing the glass to his carpenter, John Baxter, evidently an observant and intelligent man, the latter exclaimed that the stranger's guns were all dummies! Thereupon John Dawson bore down to the attack, boarded the enemy, and carried her, with his harum-scarum crew, almost unopposed. She proved to be a French East Indiaman, the _Carnatic_, with a most valuable cargo--said to be worth pretty nearly half a million sterling. One box of diamonds alone was valued at £135,000. [Illustration: CAPTURE OF THE FRENCH EAST INDIAMEN "CARNATIC"] The crew had been three years in the vessel, trading in gold and diamonds, and did not even know that war had broken out. Here was a piece of luck for Peter Baker! When the rich prize was brought into the Mersey, in charge of the proud and happy Dawson and his crew, bells were set ringing, guns were fired, and both captors and victors were entertained in sumptuous fashion by the delighted townspeople. Baker became, of course, immediately a person of importance: he was jocosely alluded to as "Lord Baker," and was later elected Mayor of Liverpool and made a county magistrate. He proceeded to build himself a large house at Mossley Hill, outside Liverpool, which either he or some facetious friend dubbed "Carnatic Hall"; it was partially destroyed by fire later on, and rebuilt by the present owners, Holland by name. Baker and Dawson entered into partnership as shipbuilders, and the uncouth but lucky _Mentor_ continued her cruising, capturing two or three more prizes of trifling value. In 1782, however, while on her passage home from Jamaica, she foundered off the Banks of Newfoundland, thirty-one of her crew perishing. Such is the story of Peter Baker's sudden rise of fortune, illustrating the extraordinary uncertainty of those privateering times. Baker had, so to speak, no business to succeed; one cannot help regarding him, in the first instance, as something of an impostor in undertaking to build a ship under the circumstances--for we may be sure that she was not rejected without good reason; but she caused all this to be forgotten by one piece of good luck. Her fortunate builder and owner died in 1796. CAPTAIN EDWARD MOOR, OF THE "FAME" A privateer commander of the best type was Captain Edward Moor, of the _Fame_, hailing from Dublin. His vessel carried 20 six-pounders and some smaller pieces, and a crew of 108 men. It was in August 1780, when he was cruising off the coast of Spain and the northern coast of Africa, that he received news of the departure of five ships from Marseilles, bound for the West Indies: all armed vessels, and provided with fighting commissions of some kind--letters of marque, as they are styled. Being a man of good courage, and not afraid of such trifling odds as five to one, Moor went in search of these Frenchmen; and on August 25th he was lucky enough to sight them, off the coast of Spain. As dusk was approaching he refrained from any demonstration of hostility, but took care, during the night, to get inshore of the enemy. At daybreak they were about six miles distant, and, upon seeing the _Fame_ approach in a businesslike manner, they formed in line to receive her. Adopting similar tactics to those of George Walker in attacking eight vessels--perhaps purposely following the example of a man who had such a great name, and whose exploits were sure to be known among privateersmen[10]--Moor bade his men lie down at their guns, and not fire until he gave the word. At half-past six they were within gunshot, and the Frenchmen opened fire; but the _Fame_ swept on in silence until she was close to the largest ship; then they blazed away, and in three quarters of an hour she surrendered. Without a moment's delay Moor tackled the next in size, which also shortly succumbed. Putting an officer and seven men on board, with orders to look after _both_ ships--what glorious confidence in his men!--he went after the others, which were now endeavouring to escape; only one succeeded, however, though one would have imagined that, by scattering widely, they might have saved another. These two fugitives made no further resistance, and Captain Moor thus got four ships, to wit--_Deux Frères_, 14 guns, 50 men; _Univers_, 12 guns, 40 men; _Zephyr_ (formerly a British sloop-of-war, according to Beatson's "Memoirs"), 10 guns, 32 men; and _Nancy_, 4 guns, 18 men--a total of 40 guns and 140 men, against his 26 guns and 108 men. The Frenchmen certainly ought to have made it hotter for him; but probably their crews were not trained, and Moor evidently had his men well in hand, just as Walker had. He took his prizes into Algiers, where he landed the prisoners, who gave such a good account of the kind and generous treatment they had received from their captors that the French Consul-General at Algiers wrote a very handsome letter to Moor, expressing in the strongest terms his appreciation of his conduct. This Edward Moor was evidently one of those commanders like Walker and Wright; a gentleman by birth and instinct, combining the highest courage with refinement of mind and humanity; he would have been well employed in the Royal Navy. CAPTAIN JAMES BORROWDALE, OF THE "ELLEN" Earlier in this same year, 1780, a Bristol ship made a very brilliant capture. This was the _Ellen_, an armed merchantman, provided with a letter of marque. She carried 18 six-pounders and a crew of 64, half of them boys and landsmen on their first voyage. She was commanded by James Borrowdale, a careful man, who, while fully aware that he was expected to make as good a passage as possible, and refrain from engaging in combat unless it was forced upon him, took some pains to ensure that, in such event, the foe should not have a walk-over. He had as passenger one Captain Blundell, of the 79th--Liverpool--Regiment, going out to join his regiment in Jamaica; and this gentleman, in order, no doubt, to beguile the tedium of the voyage, undertook to train sixteen of the crew to act as marines--hoping, probably, for an opportunity of proving their metal; and he was not disappointed. A month out, on April 16th, a ship was sighted to windward, apparently of much the same size and force as the _Ellen_. Captain Borrowdale, with all his canvas set to catch the Trade-wind, stood on, apparently unheeding the approach of the stranger; but his men had the guns cast loose and loaded, and Blundell, with his little band of amateur marines, was very much on the alert. Arriving within gunshot, the stranger fired a gun, hoisting Spanish colours; upon which Borrowdale shortened sail, seeing that it was impossible to avoid a fight, and hoisted American colours, to gain time; for his idea was to commence the action at very close quarters. He then addressed his crew, bidding them ram down a bag of grape-shot into every gun--on top of the round shot, of course--to keep cool, and reserve their fire for close quarters, keeping the guns trained on the enemy meanwhile; to fire as quickly as possible, and to fight the ship to the last extremity. When the other was within hailing distance down came the American colours, up went the English, and a deadly broadside was delivered, accompanied by a well-directed volley from Blundell's contingent. So effective, in fact, was the sudden and vigorous attack, that it quite staggered the Spaniards, who fell into confusion, neglecting the proper handling of their vessel, so that she fell off from the wind and got under the _Ellen's_ lee; upon which the other broadside was poured into her. The Spanish captain, imagining that he had only an ordinary armed trader to deal with--and many of them were very poor fighters--had perhaps not made full preparation for action; at any rate, he and his men were so demoralised by these two broadsides that he put his helm up and ran for it. The English captain, having successfully defended his ship, might now have pursued his voyage, without any loss of credit, that being his business; but no such idea entered his head. The crew gave three hearty cheers as they trimmed and cracked on sail, and the Spaniard, having sustained some damage aloft, was unable to escape. Running alongside, the _Ellen_ attacked again, and the action was maintained for an hour and a half, the two vessels running yardarm to yardarm; and then, the _Ellen's_ fire having completely disabled the foe aloft, the Spanish colours came down, and Captain Borrowdale found himself in possession of the _Santa Anna Gratia_, a Spanish sloop-of-war, mounting 16 heavy six-pounders and a number of swivels, with a crew of 104 men, of whom seven were killed and eight wounded; the _Ellen_ had only one killed and three wounded; but these small losses were doubtless owing to the two vessels mutually aiming at the spars and rigging, each endeavouring to cripple her opponent aloft. This was a very brilliant little affair, and Borrowdale and his merry men must have felt very well pleased with themselves as they sailed into Port Royal, Jamaica, the prize in company, with the English colours surmounting the Spanish. [Footnote 10: The account of George Walker's exploits comes later on.] TWO GREAT ENGLISHMEN CHAPTER IX FORTUNATUS WRIGHT Surely the fairies must have been busy with suggestions at the birth and naming of this fighting seaman--great seaman and determined fighter, and withal a smack of romantic heroism about him, which is suggested at once by his Christian name--Fortunatus. No man with such a name, one is disposed to assume, could be an ordinary and commonplace sort of person, muddling along in the well-worn grooves of every-day life. This, of course, would be an absurd assumption; men have been named after all kinds of heroes, naval and military, statesmen, masters of the pen, and so on, and have fallen very far short--to put it mildly--of the aspirations of their fond and admiring parents. Wright's father was a master-mariner of Liverpool, of whom we are told that he had upon one occasion defended his ship most gallantly for several hours against two vessels of superior force--an exploit which is recorded upon his tombstone in St. Peter's churchyard, Liverpool, and from which we gather that he was either a privateer commander, or that his vessel, an ordinary trader, was armed for the purpose of defence. We do not know, however, why he named his son Fortunatus--we can only fall back upon the fairies; but a supplementary inscription upon the tombstone tells us that "Fortunatus Wright, his son, was always victorious, and humane to the vanquished. He was a constant terror to the enemies of his king and country"; and that is a very good sort of epitaph; moreover--unlike many such effusions, recording amiable or heroic characteristics of the dead which few had been able to recognise in the living--it is a true one. If not always victorious--and a probably true story, presently to be narrated, appears to point to one instance, at least, in which he and his antagonist parted indecisively--he was, at any rate, never beaten; and his conduct and character obtained for him, from a brave seaman and fighter of his own stamp, who sailed under him, the epithet, "that great hero, Fortunatus Wright"; the actual words, by the way, are "that great but unfortunate hero," and herein is an allusion, no doubt, to some very ungenerous treatment meted out to Wright by foreign authorities, and also to his unknown, and probably tragic, fate. We have but little information concerning his early manhood; there is not, indeed, any evidence to hand of even the approximate date of his birth. Smollett, in his "History of England," alludes to Wright's exploits, and describes him as "a stranger to a sea-life," until he took to privateering in the Mediterranean; but it is not easy to see upon what grounds the historian bases such an assumption. Fortunatus Wright was, as we have seen, the son of a sea-captain of no ordinary stamp, and the probability is that he would be brought up in his father's calling--a probability which becomes, practically, a certainty when we reflect that, immediately upon assuming the position of privateer commander, he displayed a consummate skill in seamanship, combined with remarkable tactical powers in sea-fighting, which elicited the enthusiastic admiration of his subordinates; and these qualifications are not acquired on land. No; Fortunatus Wright was undoubtedly trained as a seaman, and very possibly a privateersman; but it appears that, somewhere about the year 1741, having previously retired from the sea, and settled in Liverpool as a shipowner, he realised his business, and went to reside abroad; and in 1742 we come across news of him in Italy. Mr. (afterwards Sir) Horace Mann, at that time British Resident at the Court of Florence, in a letter to his friend Horace Walpole--with whom he kept up an enormous correspondence--relates how he had had complaints concerning the violent conduct of Mr. Wright at Lucca. It appears that our friend, travelling in that part of Italy, with introductions to some of the nobility, presented himself one day at the gates of Lucca, never doubting but that, as a respectable and peaceably disposed person, he would immediately be admitted. He had not reckoned, however, with the particular form of "red tape" which prevailed there. He had upon him a pair of pistols; and, upon being informed that the surrender of these weapons was the condition of being permitted to pass the gates, his English choler immediately rose against what appeared to him to be a tyrannical and unnecessary proceeding; and his natural instinct being--as it always is in fighting men of his stamp--rather to beat down and override opposition than to yield to it, disregarding the serious odds against him--twenty soldiers and a corporal _versus_ Fortunatus Wright--he presented one of the offending pistols at the guard, and clearly indicated that the first man who endeavoured to arrest him would do so at the cost of his life. This was very awkward; no one cared to be the first victim of the "mad Englishman," who was evidently a man of his word, and how it might have ended nobody knows, had there not appeared upon the scene a superior officer--a colonel--with thirty more soldiers. Mr. Wright was thereupon persuaded that the odds were too heavy even for a "mad Englishman," and was escorted to his hotel by this imposing bodyguard, being there made a prisoner while representations were made to the English Ambassador. Fortunately, one of the Luccese noblemen to whom he had an introduction intervened, undertaking that no harm should result; and on the morning of the fourth day, at the early hour of four, the irate Englishman was informed that since he had been so daring as to endeavour to enter the town by force of arms, it was therefore ordered that he should forthwith leave the State, and never presume to enter it again without leave from the Republic; and that post-horses, with a guard to see him over the border, were waiting at the door. "He answered a great deal," says Sir Horace Mann, "not much to the purpose"; and so was seen safely out of Lucca, with his pistols in his pocket, we may presume, swearing at the unreasonableness of Italians and their laws. He continued, however, to reside in Italy, and was living at Leghorn when, in 1744, war was declared with France; and then there came to Fortunatus Wright the imperative call to return to a seafaring life. The war had not been long in progress before the English merchants in Leghorn began to suffer immense annoyance and loss from the depredations of the French privateers which swarmed upon the coast of Italy. Their trade was stifled, their ships compelled to remain in port, or almost inevitably captured if they ventured out; apparently there were not men-of-war available for escort, and the situation became unbearable. When men have come to the conclusion that things are past bearing they look about for some drastic remedy, and in this instance Mr. Wright was the remedy; Mr. Wright, living quietly in Leghorn, with his wife and family, but with his sea-lore available at the back of his mind, and, for all we know, the love of the salt water tugging at his heart-strings--sailors are made that way. Why not fit out a privateer, and place Mr. Wright in command? The suggestion may, indeed, have come from him in the first instance; at any rate, no time was lost. There was a vessel available, to wit the _Fame_, a staunch brigantine. We have no precise details of her tonnage and force, but she was undoubtedly an efficient craft for the purpose, and Wright speedily demonstrated that he was an entirely fit and proper person to be placed in charge. Carefully studying the winds of the Mediterranean, and the probable track of the enemy's privateers and merchant vessels, he had his plan of action matured by the time the ship was ready; and this is how it is set forth by William Hutchinson, one of his officers, writing thirty years later: "Cruising the war before last, in the employ of that great but unfortunate hero, Fortunatus Wright, in the Mediterranean Sea, where the wind blows generally either easterly or westerly--that is, either up or down the Straits--it was planned, with either of these winds that blew, to steer up or down the channels the common course, large or before the wind in the daytime without any sail set, that the enemy's trading ships astern, crowding sail with this fair wind, might come up in sight, or we come in sight of those ships ahead that might be turning to windward; and at sunset, if nothing appeared to the officer at the masthead, we continued to run five or six leagues, so far as could then be seen, before we laid the ship to for the night, to prevent the ships astern coming up and passing out of sight before the morning, or our passing those ships that might be turning to windward; and if nothing appeared to an officer at the masthead at sunrise, we bore away and steered as before. And when the wind blew across the channel, that ships could sail their course either up or down, then to keep the ship in a fair way; in the daytime to steer the common course, under the courses and lower staysails, and in the night under topsails with the courses in the brails, with all things as ready as possible for action, and to take or leave what we might fall in with." Before many months had elapsed the soundness of these tactics, and the sagacity with which Wright determined what to take and what to leave, were very conspicuous. In the months of November and December, 1746, the _Fame_ had to her credit no fewer than eighteen prizes, one of which was a privateer, of 200 tons, with 20 guns and 150 men, fitted out by the French factories on the coast of Caramania, with the express object of putting a stop to the inconveniently successful cruising of Fortunatus Wright, who, however, turned the tables upon her, sending her as a prize into Messina. The Frenchmen, to avoid being taken prisoners, had run her on shore and decamped; but the English captain was not going to be deprived of the prize-money which he and his men had justly earned, so they set to work and got the vessel afloat again, in order that she might be produced and duly condemned as "good prize." Wright's success, both in fighting and in the pursuit of traders, infuriated the French, and particularly the Knights of St. John, in Malta, where there was very hot antagonism between the two factions--the French and Spaniards on one side, and the Austrians and English on the other. When Wright kept on sending in his prizes the Austrians would "chaff" the French. "Here's another of your ships coming in, under the care of Captain Wright," we can imagine them saying. Some duels were fought by angry officers, and eventually the French sent urgent representations to Marseilles, and a vessel was fitted out and manned with the express object of humiliating the English by capturing the _Fame_ and putting a stop to Wright's victorious career. In due course the privateer put in an appearance at Malta. She was of considerably superior force to the _Fame_, the captain was a man of repute as a seaman and fighter, and was entertained by the French, who patted him on the back and sent him forth to conquer. But it is never safe to pat a man on the back for prospective triumphs. As the days passed excitement and expectation became intense; the points of vantage, whence a good view of incoming vessels could be obtained, were thronged with anxious spectators of both factions; and we may suppose that there was a considerable amount of mutual banter, not in the best of good-humour. At length two vessels were sighted; as they approached it was seen that one was towing the other. Then the French privateer was recognised, and it was noticed that the other vessel, in tow, was very much knocked about. While conjecture was ripening into triumphant conviction up went the colours--French colours! That decided the question--the career of the obnoxious Wright--"ce cher Wright," sarcastically--was at an end, and the enthusiastic Frenchmen shook hands and embraced, and waved hats and handkerchiefs to the victor. There was one delightful characteristic of "ce cher Wright," however, which they had failed to realise--he was possessed of a very keen sense of humour. In spite of the shattered condition of the staunch little _Fame_, she had come off victorious, and Wright had very naturally placed her in tow of the larger vessel, which he himself was navigating, her crew his prisoners of war; and seeing the crowded ramparts from afar, this agreeable but unsuspected little trait of his had displayed itself in the hoisting of French colours. Then, when the cheering and embracing was at its climax, as the vessels rounded the fort, the English colours sailed up to the peak, with the French below! And then--well, then we may imagine that there was the making of some more duels! Fortunatus Wright was no mere filibustering swashbuckler, like so many other privateer commanders who, as we have seen, brought their calling into sad disrepute; nor was he a man to be intimidated by his crew into committing any unlawful act for the sake of plunder; but he was very tenacious of his rights, and on more than one occasion came to serious loggerheads with high authorities; very much, eventually, to his cost. In December 1746, while reports were going home of his numerous captures, he overhauled and seized a French vessel, on a voyage from Marseilles to Naples, having on board the servants and all the luggage and belongings of the Prince of Campo Florida. The French skipper produced a pass, from no less a person than King George II. of England, by which these persons and goods should be exempt from molestation by English cruisers; but there was a flaw in this document, for the name of the ship was not entered upon it. "All very well," said Wright, "but how am I to know that King George intended this ship to go free? She is not named on the safe-conduct"; and into Leghorn she went as a prize, prince's servants, baggage, and all, to the horror of the British Consul, and to the great disgust of the Prince of Campo Florida; nor would Wright listen to the remonstrances of the Consul, maintaining that he was technically justified in his action; and there was undoubtedly some ground for this contention. However, the British Minister persuaded him to refer the matter to the Admiral commanding on the station, by whose adverse decision Wright loyally abided, and the vessel was released accordingly. It was a much more serious affair when, in 1747, he fell out with the Turkey Company--officially known as "The Company of English Merchants trading to the Levant Sea"--a very wealthy and powerful organisation, jealous of its rights, and somewhat perturbed, moreover, at this particular period, by the falling off in its returns; so that it was exceedingly annoying to find Turkish goods being seized by Captain Wright on board French ships. There were two vessels in question, and the English Consul at Leghorn received orders from home to investigate the business. With his previous experience of the privateer captain's stiffness and command of technical knowledge of prize law, the Consul, we may be sure, did not anticipate an easy acquiescence in any suggestions he might make; and, in fact, Wright's reply was a very decided refusal to admit that he was in fault. He said that both ships had a French pass, hailed from Marseilles, and hoisted French colours; and one of them offered a stout resistance before she struck. "For these reasons I brought them to Leghorn, and have had them legally condemned in the Admiralty Court, by virtue of which sentence I have disposed of them and distributed the money." Quite an unassailable position, one would imagine; but the irate Governors of the Turkey Company were able to procure, by some means or other, an order from the English Government that Turkish cargoes in French vessels were to be exempt from capture. Upon this order being communicated to the privateer captains and Admiralty Courts in the Mediterranean, it was expected that Wright would refund the prize-money; but he, very properly, as it appears, refused to admit that such an order could be retrospective--he had the money, and meant to keep it; and then there was trouble. Orders were sent from England to have him arrested and sent home; the Italian authorities obligingly caught him and locked him up, refusing, with singular and gratuitous crookedness, to yield him up to consular jurisdiction--and there he remained in prison at Leghorn for six months, when he was at length handed over to the Consul. Wright had, however, had enough of prison, and, upon giving bail to answer the action in the High Court of Admiralty, he was set at liberty. The action appears to have dragged on for two or three years, without result--at any rate, Captain Wright never refunded the money, and one cannot help feeling gratified at his success. He wrote, in June 1749, a long letter to the Consul in vindication of his right, which concludes as follows: "They attacked me at law; to that law I must appeal; if I have acted contrary to it, to it I must be responsible; for I do not apprehend I am so to any agent of the Grand Signior, to the Grand Signior himself, or to any other Power, seeing I am an Englishman and acted under a commission from my prince"; surely a most logical, and certainly a most dignified attitude. Peace restored, Wright engaged in commerce, in partnership, apparently, with William Hutchinson. They fitted out as a trader an old 20-gun vessel--the _Lowestoft_--which made several voyages to the West Indies--Wright continuing to reside at Leghorn. CHAPTER X FORTUNATUS WRIGHT--_continued_ In 1755 it became apparent that a renewal of hostilities between France and England could not be long delayed; and the staunch little _Fame_ not being again available, Wright had a vessel built for him at Leghorn--quite a small vessel, which he named the _St. George_. The Tuscan authorities were, however, in spite of declared neutrality, very strongly in sympathy with France, and they did not regard Captain Wright's little ship-building venture with any favour; in fact, they instituted a minute supervision over all English vessels in the port, and naturally, knowing his reputation, they paid particular attention to Wright's little craft; and thereby they stimulated that sense of humour which he had previously exhibited at Malta. Humbly begging for precise information as to the force he was permitted, as a merchant vessel, to take on board, he was informed, after some deliberation, that he must limit himself to four small guns and a crew of five-and-twenty, and the authorities kept a very sharp eye upon him to see that he complied. Not in the least disconcerted, Wright displayed the greatest anxiety not to exceed the limit, and even suggested that guard-boats should be kept rowing round his ship, as a precautionary measure; one would imagine that these Tuscan magnates could have had but little sense of humour! Finally, before sailing, Wright obtained from the Governor a certificate to the effect that he had complied with all requirements. Armed with this, he put to sea on July 28th, 1756, in company with four merchant vessels, with valuable cargoes, bound for England. In their anxiety to prevent any irregularities on board the _St. George_, the port authorities had overlooked the lading of these vessels, which carried a proper armament and a large accession of men for the former! In spite of his astuteness, Wright nearly got into a mess; for the authorities had apparently given timely notice to the French that Wright's little squadron would be worth attention, and that he could offer but a feeble resistance, and a vessel had been fitted out with the express purpose of waylaying the _St. George_: those little incidents at Malta had not been forgotten, we may be sure. This vessel, a large zebeque--that is to say, a vessel with three masts, each carrying a huge three-cornered sail, probably a fast sailer, and very efficient at beating to windward--carried, according to _The Gentleman's Magazine_ of August 1756, sixteen guns of considerable size, besides swivels and a full supply of small arms, with a crew of 280 men. She had been waiting off the port for some time, and her captain had been heard to ask in Leghorn, "When is Captain Wright coming out? He has kept me waiting a long time already." No wonder he was impatient, for it is said that the French king had promised knighthood and a handsome pension for life to the man who should bring Wright into France, _alive or dead_; while the merchants of Marseilles had posted up "on 'Change" the offer of double the value of Wright's vessel to her captor. Here were nice pickings, indeed! And these offers afford in themselves a pretty good indication of the Englishman's personality; he was, indeed, a terror to the enemies of his country. Sailing out from Leghorn in the hot summer weather, Wright had to make what seamen term an offing, before he could set about transhipping his guns and men; and before he had got half-way through with it, the zebeque, bristling with cannon and crowded with men, was sighted, bearing down with the confidence assured by vast superiority of force. Fortunatus Wright saw her coming, and measured the decreasing distance, calculating the time which remained for him to prepare with a cool and critical eye, while his men worked like giants; and, when all was done, he could mount but twelve guns, including the four pop-guns which he had been permitted to ship in port: while his crew--a medley of half a dozen nationalities, who had never worked together--numbered seventy-five all told. Hastily telling off his men to their stations, and leaving his four traders lying to in a cluster, Wright made sail for the Frenchman; the wind, we may conclude, must have been light or the latter would have been down upon him before. And now the royal favour and comfortable pension, the handsome donation from the Marseillaise merchants, must have loomed very large in the eyes of the French skipper. Even supposing, as would seem probable, that he was not altogether unaware of the operations of the Englishman, his vastly superior force, with his practised crew, should have placed the betting at three to one in his favour; but the layer of such odds would have failed to reckon with the forceful personality of Fortunatus Wright, which inspired his men with the conviction that, odds or no, they must win. When men go into action with that sort of spirit they invariably do win; nothing will stand against them. Handling his ship with his customary skill, Wright manoeuvred repeatedly to the disadvantage of his antagonist, while his rag-tag-and-bob-tail crew, standing to their guns with the utmost intrepidity, poured in such a hot fire that the French captain speedily realised that his only chance was to board and overwhelm the English by superior numbers; but when he got alongside he found them quite as handy with pikes and cutlasses as with guns, and a desperate minority, which is not going to acknowledge itself beaten, soon daunts the hearts of a superior force. The French were repulsed with great slaughter, and, after some further attention from the guns of the gallant little _St. George_, the enemy hauled off, and ran, having suffered such serious damage as rendered their vessel almost unseaworthy. Wright followed, but, seeing another Frenchman threatening his convoy, he returned to their protection, sent them back into Leghorn, and anchored there himself on the following day. According to the account in _The Gentleman's Magazine_, the French ship lost her captain, lieutenant, lieutenant of Marines, and 88 men killed and 70 men wounded. No sooner had the gallant Wright cast anchor in Leghorn, than he realised that he had landed in a nest of hornets. The authorities were furious at the failure of their schemes, and the clever fashion in which Wright had hoodwinked them. He was ordered to bring his vessel to the inner harbour, or she would be brought in by force. He refused, and two vessels of vastly superior force were placed alongside his. He appealed to Sir Horace Mann, and there was a fine battle of words between him and the Tuscans, the latter alleging that Wright had deceived them as to his force, and had fought in their waters; and they were very angry also that he should have dared to refuse to take his vessel inside the mole. To all of which Sir Horace very properly replied that--well, that it was a parcel of lies, though he put it in the language of diplomacy; and he flourished the Governor's certificate in their faces, which made them feel very sick indeed--having no sense of humour. A couple of months elapsed without either side giving way; and then the problem was solved by the appearance of two powerful English men-of-war; to wit, the _Jersey_, of 60 guns, commanded by Sir William Burnaby, and the _Isis_, of 50 guns. Sir William explained politely to the authorities that he was under orders from the Admiral (Sir Edward Hawke) to convoy any English vessels which might be there, and also to release the _St. George_. To the Governor's protest the English captain replied that he had his orders, and intended to carry them out, if necessary, by force; and so the little fleet of English vessels took their departure in a few days, and Wright was free to resume his operations. In a little while, having taken some more prizes, he put into Malta, only to find that French influence was there as potent as at Leghorn. He was not permitted to buy necessary stores for his crew, and when he took on board a number of English seamen, who had been landed there from ships taken by French privateers, he was compelled to send them on shore again; and so he went to sea again, on October 22nd, 1756. Twenty-four hours later a big French privateer, of 38 guns, sailed with the intention of eating him up; but, according to the account of one Captain Miller, of the English vessel _Lark_, "When the great beast of a French privateer came out Wright played with him, by sailing round him and viewing him, just to aggravate him, as Wright sailed twice as fast as him." Of the further exploits of Fortunatus Wright there is but little definite account. Early in 1757 the Italian authorities, realising that they had, by their duplicity and anti-English rancour, done their trade an infinity of harm, undertook, on the representation of Sir Horace Mann, to observe a strict neutrality in future; and thereupon Sir Horace wrote to Wright that he might bring his prizes into Leghorn. But he was compelled to rescind this permission; whatever else they might be prepared to yield, they could not stomach Wright! In July 1757, after lamenting the injury to trade caused by French privateers, etc., Sir Horace Mann continues: "A few stout privateers, as in the last war, would totally prevent this ... Captain Wright, of the _St. George_ privateer, did great service of this kind in the beginning of the war; but it is feared by some circumstances, and by his not having been heard of for some months, that he foundered at sea. Several prizes made by him have lain some months at Cagliari in Sardinia, waiting for an opportunity to get with safety to Leghorn." And so this great man disappears; his father's tombstone holds the sentence already recorded, inscribed, no doubt, at the instigation of his children; but neither filial piety nor national esteem could avail to place the legend, "Here lies Fortunatus Wright." His place of rest remains, "unmarked but holy." Mr. Smithers, in his "History of the Commerce of Liverpool," says: "Tradition tells that he became a victim to political interests." This is possible, for he was well hated, as is usual, by those who had injured him; but it appears more probable that he was lost at sea. In connection with the career of this fine Englishman, it is impossible to omit some reference to a romantic tale which appears in _The Gentleman's Magazine_ for August 1757. The story is told, without preface or explanation, as it is alleged to have been narrated by the hero of the adventure, and evidently refers to a period ten or eleven years previously to its publication, when the _Fame_ was afloat. It is, as has been stated, a most romantic tale, but by no means an incredible one: and the specific allusion to Fortunatus Wright, which renders it of interest in this volume, also constitutes a certain guarantee of genuineness. Selim, the son of a Turkish grandee, on a voyage to Genoa, was captured by a Spanish corsair, and eventually sold as a slave to a young Moor at Oran, in Barbary. Here he suffered many cruel hardships, but after a time there appeared upon the scene a beautiful girl, cousin to Selim's master, and destined, according to family arrangements, to be his wife. The lovely Zaida had, however, like other young women of all ages, her own ideas about the sort of man she favoured. Being kind and pitiful by nature, she exerted herself to mitigate the sorrows of her cousin's slaves, discovered that Selim was of superior birth, and fell in love with him. All this is told at great length; the upshot was that the lovers escaped together, and got on board a French privateer, together with a Swede, also a captive. Then they were informed that the privateer "had orders to cruise near Malta, in order to take a bold Englishman called Fortunatus Wright, and, if the winds would permit, we should be landed in that island.... Ten days were passed before we obtained a sight of Malta, ... when a signal was made for standing out to sea in pursuit of a ship which, upon a nearer view, was found to be the very privateer which the French captain had orders to take." Then ensued a hot engagement, during which Selim remained below for some time, consoling and encouraging his lady-love until the issue became doubtful, when he felt impelled to take the Frenchman's part. "Pretending to Zaida we were victorious, I sprang upon the deck, and, observing that the English endeavoured to board us ahead, I slew the first who attempted our deck, and, beckoning to the French to follow me, leapt on board the enemy's ship, unseconded by any excepting my Swedish fellow-captive, who, seeing me overpowered, leapt back and regained his ship. Thus was I made a prisoner, and my fair Moor left a prey to all the wretchedness of despair. After several vain attempts to board each other, the two ships parted; the French steered towards France, and I was carried into Malta. The good captain, whose prisoner I was, observing my despondence, ordered me to be set free, though I had killed one of his men; and when I informed him of my unhappy story, and my resolutions to go in quest of Zaida, he gave me 100 guineas, and advised me to sail for England; 'where, though I am unhappily exiled from it, said he, 'you will be generously treated, and will hear the fate of the French privateer.'" Selim took this sound advice, backed by such a generous donation, and, after a two months' voyage, arrived in England, where the first thing he saw was the identical vessel in which his Zaida had been borne away from him: she had been captured and sent home. The officer in charge lent a sympathetic ear to Selim's tale of woe, and, after some fruitless inquiries, "We landed at a fair town, on the banks of a small river called Avon; and the captain, who had not drowned his humanity in the rough element on which he traded, conveyed me to the prison, where, after searching various apartments, at last I found my fair, afflicted Zaida lying on the ground, with her head on the lap of her women, and the Swede sitting near to guard her. As soon as she saw me her voice failed her; I had almost lost her by an agony of astonishment and joy as soon as I had recovered her. Hours were counted ere she would believe her senses, and even days passed over us in which she sat with a silent admiration, and even still doubts whether all is real." The reader is, of course, at liberty to share the doubts of the fair Zaida; but it appears probable that the story is true with regard to the main incidents. The remark attributed to Wright--which it is scarcely possible to imagine could have been invented by the narrator--that he was "unhappily exiled" from England appears to point to some complications at home to which there is no clue. And so we must bid farewell to Fortunatus Wright, who, had he been an officer in the Royal Navy, might certainly have rivalled some of our most illustrious seamen in his exploits, and, in place of an unknown and nameless grave, have found his last resting-place in Westminster Abbey. William Hutchinson, already alluded to as Wright's subordinate and subsequent partner, is justly entitled to some further notice. He was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne, in 1715, and commenced his sea-career at an early age as "cook, cabin-boy, and beer-drawer for the men" on board a collier. From this humble beginning he worked his way up, with varied fortune and a full share of the hardships which were so frequently the lot of seamen in those days. He was always apparently a strenuous, conscientious, and courageous man, and attained immense skill as a seaman. His first privateering experience was, as far as can be gathered, under Wright in the _Fame_, when he conceived that profound respect and admiration of his captain which is exhibited in his remarks, already quoted. It was probably during this time that an incident occurred which called for ready wit and pluck in order to avert disaster, not to say disgrace. Hutchinson may have been in command of a privateer at the time--1747--but it is more likely that he was with Wright, and in charge of the deck; and there were a number of French prisoners on board, the crews of three prizes, who were, perhaps somewhat rashly, permitted to be on deck, with full liberty, all at one time. Hutchinson had occasion--no doubt in connection with the scheme of cruising already described--to take all the canvas off the ship, and, having clewed up everything, he sent all his men aloft to furl sails. While they were so employed he detected a movement among the prisoners which appeared suspicious: one of the French captains was going about among them, evidently inciting them to some concerted action; which, with all the English crew aloft, might well have been entirely successful. But they had not reckoned with the officer in charge. With his hand in his pocket, clutching his pistol, but not exhibiting it so as to precipitate violence, he approached the French captain, and quietly told him that instant death was his portion on the smallest evidence of any attempt to capture the ship; then, hailing his own men, he bade them look sharp down from aloft, and the danger was averted in a few minutes. Nothing save undaunted courage, combined with absolute outward calm, could have saved the situation; had Hutchinson appeared alarmed or flustered he would have been lost; and this incident, briefly and modestly related by himself, affords a sure indication of his character. In 1757, after the war with France was renewed, Hutchinson was in command of a fine privateer, the _Liverpool_, named after the port from which she hailed, in which he made several successful cruises. We are told that "he would not permit the least article to be taken from any of the French prisoners," from which we may conclude that, as we should expect of a man of his stamp, he was an honourable and strict privateer commander, who was emphatically captain of his ship, and insisted upon a high standard of duty. One night he made a lamentable mistake. Continuing, after dark, the chase of a vessel which had been previously sighted, and was believed to be a French privateer, he came up with her and hailed her in _French_. The only reply was a tremendous and well-directed broadside, which did serious damage aloft, pierced the hull close to the water-line, and wounded no fewer than twenty-eight of the crew. Captain Hutchinson devoutly wished that he had stuck to his native tongue, instead of airing his French, for the vessel turned out to be his Majesty's ship _Antelope_! Hutchinson did no more in the way of privateering after the year 1758. In the following year he was appointed principal water-bailiff and dockmaster of Liverpool, and held this post for nearly forty years. In 1777 he published a book entitled "A Practical Treatise on Seamanship," and justified--if it needed justification--this act by a verse under the frontispiece (a vessel under full sail), whether original or a quotation does not appear: Britannia's glory first from ships arose; To shipping still her power and wealth she owes. Let each experienced Briton then impart His naval skill to perfect naval art. He was certainly well qualified for the task, and the work is very full and complete, containing incidentally some yarns concerning his own experiences, and practical hints upon sundry subjects, as, for instance, the brewing of tea when at sea, without the common adjuncts of teapot, cups and saucers, etc.: put the tea-leaves into a quart bottle, filled with fresh water, and well corked up, and boil it in the ship's copper, along with the salt beef! Whether the salt beef added to the virtue of the "brew" we do not know; probably the gallant and hardy skipper was "tannin-proof" inside! Hutchinson was a religious man apparently, in a true sense, always seeking to discharge his duties in accordance with the high standard thus derived. It is related of him that, when his ship had foundered--the date is not mentioned--upon one occasion, and he and some of his shipmates were in danger of perishing through hunger and thirst, they adopted the terrible device of drawing lots as to which of them should die and furnish the remainder with this ghastly means of prolonging life. The lot fell upon Hutchinson; but, before the horrible act could be consummated, a sail appeared, and they were rescued. Hutchinson, it is said, observed the anniversary of this day with strict devotions of thanksgiving for the remainder of his life. Such recognition was certainly due; but how many sailors would so faithfully have rendered it? CHAPTER XI GEORGE WALKER In the year 1745 some merchants of London fitted out three privateers--the _Prince Frederick_, 28 guns, 244 men, commanded by Captain James Talbot, who was in chief command; the _Duke_, of 20 guns, 150 men, Captain Morecock; and the _Prince George_, 20 guns, 134 men. This little squadron sailed from Cowes on June 2nd, and on the 7th a frightful disaster befell them, the _Prince George_, under circumstances not explained, capsizing and going down. These vessels were very heavily masted, and, if the weights were not carefully bestowed, a sudden squall when under full sail, with, perhaps, the lee gun-ports open, might easily be fatal. The unfortunate _Eurydice_, though of somewhat later construction, was of this type of vessel, and, as will be remembered, capsized off the Isle of Wight one Sunday afternoon, only two being saved out of the whole crew. The Commodore contrived to save some twenty men from his unhappy consort; and then proceeded, with the _Prince Frederick_, to cruise between the Azores and the banks of Newfoundland. This cruise is remarkable for two things: its brevity and the richness of the prizes captured. On July 10th three sails were seen, bearing west, and the two privateers immediately gave chase. These were the _Marquis d'Antin_, 450 tons, 24 guns, and 68 men, commanded by Magon Serpere; the _Louis Erasmé_, 500 tons, 28 guns, and 66 men, commanded by Pedro Lavigne Quenell; and the _Notre Dame de Deliverance_, 300 tons, 22 guns, and 60 men, commanded by Pedro Litant; all three hailing from St. Malo. They were now returning from Lima; and little did Talbot and his men suspect the riches they carried. [Illustration: CAPTURE OF THE FRENCH ARMED SHIPS] However, they chased, and the others kept their wind, paying little heed. At seven o'clock Talbot fired a shot at them, upon which they hoisted their colours and formed line. The _Duke_, to windward, attacked first; Talbot afterwards engaged the _Marquis d'Antin_ for three hours, when she struck, though the _Prince Frederick_ was for a while between two fires, the _Louis Erasmé_ getting on her bow. When the _Marquis d'Antin_ surrendered the other attempted to flee, but was caught and captured. Meanwhile, Captain Morecock had been hotly engaged with the _Notre Dame de Deliverance_, which, however, realising that her consorts had struck, crowded sail and contrived to escape--the _Duke_ being probably hampered by damage aloft. The casualties were not heavy on either side, but the two French ships were dismasted. Reaching Kinsale on July 30th, the news of the immense value of the prizes caused special care to be used; they were escorted to Bristol by three men-of-war, and thence the treasure was conveyed to London in forty-five waggons. This tremendous cavalcade made its way through the city to the Tower, colours flying, bands playing, and a strong guard of bluejackets marching with it. The amount of treasure may be imagined from the fact that each seaman's share came to £850; the officers, of course, receiving much larger sums, in proportion to their rank. The owners' share was not less than £700,000; and the Scottish rebellion--"the '45"--having just broken out, they offered the money as a loan to the Government. Captain Talbot is said to have behaved with great kindness and generosity to his prisoners, permitting the officers to retain all their valuables and their swords, and presenting each seaman with twenty guineas when they were landed. The enemy, we are told, was most anxious to ransom the ships, but this, of course, was out of the question; and subsequently some of the crews revealed hiding-places in which considerable treasure was stowed in the "linings," or double sides, receiving a handsome present for their pains. Furthermore, in overhauling the cargo, the British seamen every now and then came across a "wedge of gold." After this Commodore Talbot decided to remain on shore and enjoy his fortune; he joined the body of merchants, who determined to fit out another squadron, the command being entrusted to a man of remarkable character, whose career as a privateer captain we shall now proceed to trace. Among eighteenth-century privateersmen there is no more honourable name than that of George Walker. He was, of course, a contemporary of Fortunatus Wright, and Sir William Laird Clowes, the eminent naval historian, very truly remarks of these two men that they "did as much to uphold British prestige at sea as any captains of the Royal Navy"; the case might, indeed, be put in stronger language, for there were unhappily a good many instances at this period, in which naval commanders cut a somewhat sorry figure, and Walker himself, as we shall see, was witness upon one occasion of a lack of zeal and enterprise--to put it mildly--on their part which was in striking contrast to the intrepidity and resource displayed by him upon every occasion. Beyond casual, but invariably complimentary allusions in naval histories, we should have known but little of George Walker, had it not been for the industry of an ardent admirer, who served under him on nearly all his cruises, and subsequently wrote an account of them. The writer withholds both his name and his rank, and tells his story with great simplicity, prompted solely by his admiration of his former chief, and the desire of vindicating his name as a great seaman and a born leader of men; for Walker was, at that time, in gaol for debt, owing to some dispute with his owners, who do not appear to have treated him with the generosity due to so faithful a servant. This is the sordid side of privateering, which, as has been before remarked, is too much in evidence; we need not, however, concern ourselves overmuch with the question of George Walker's financial dealings with his principals; he may, for all we know, have muddled his accounts, but we are prepared to go bail for his honesty of intention. There is abundant evidence of his character in this little book, and no one who reads it will entertain a doubt as to his absolute integrity. The narrator, in his Introduction, dwells much upon Walker's unwillingness to have his exploits discussed or published. It was with the utmost difficulty that he was persuaded to sanction the publication of this book, and when, in accordance with his strict injunctions, the copy was submitted for his approval before going to the printer, his deletions disposed of nearly one-third of the matter; "at which," says the writer, "I am not so much disobliged by the shortening of the performance as at the loss of real truths which would have illustrated the chief personage of my work. And though this account may speak to the modesty of the gentleman himself, yet it is so far paradoxical that it takes greatly from his merit.... I will only say of him herein, as Mr. Waller does of good writers: Poets lose half the praise they would have got, Was it but known what they discreetly blot." Nothing appears to be known of George Walker's birth and early training, save that he served in the Dutch Navy, and was involved in some engagement with, probably, Mediterranean pirates. In 1739 he was commander and part owner of the ship _Duke William_, trading to Gibraltar and South Carolina; and, with the view of being able to defend himself in case of attack, he obtained a letter of marque, and provided his vessel with twenty guns. His crew numbered only thirty-two: but, with characteristic forethought and resource, he shipped a quantity of seamen's clothing, in order, should occasion arise, to rig up dummies; and this, according to his biographer, he actually did on the approach of a Spanish privateer of superior force, crowded with men: "setting up all the handspikes and other provided utensils, and dressing them in the marine clothes, and also exercising the boatswain's call in the highest notes, as is usual in king's ships." This done, Walker proceeded to prepare for the grim realities of action, should it be forced upon him, he and his crew, as they busied themselves clearing away the guns, etc., going into fits of laughter at the grotesque appearance of the row of dummies, standing stiff and motionless amidships. All being ready, Walker, consistently maintaining his game of bluff, fired a shot across the bows of the Spaniard, which was to windward of him. This invitation to fight was not accepted, and, though the Spaniard hung on for a couple of days, he eventually disappeared; so we must suppose that the toy seamen and the boatswain's whistle carried the day! Arrived at his destination, Walker, while waiting for a cargo, offered his services to the colonial authorities to put an end to the ravages of two Spanish privateers, which were having it all their own way on the coast of North Carolina. His crew was increased by nearly one hundred men, and several gentlemen volunteered their services. The tidings of an English privateer being abroad appears to have been enough for the Spaniards: "We could fall in with nothing which would stay for us upon the seas"; an English vessel was easily retaken from the enemy, a shore battery destroyed, and there was no more trouble. Walker received a tremendous ovation on the conclusion of this service, all the influential persons in the colony offering to sign a request that he might be given command of a king's ship. Upon his declining this, they tendered him an immense piece of land if he would remain amongst them; but Walker preferred to stick to his ship, and sailed for Barbadoes, and thence for England, in company with three traders who placed themselves under his convoy. The vessels parted company in a gale, which blew with such violence that the _Duke William_ started some of her planks, and leaked like a sieve. Walker was laid up in his cabin, and was indeed so ill that the surgeon despaired of his life. Things went on from bad to worse: all the guns save two--retained for signalling purposes, by Walker's orders, issued from his bunk--were thrown overboard; the boat was with difficulty preserved from following them, Walker being carried up from below to remonstrate and command; and when a section of the crew, despite his orders, were preparing to desert in the boat--a very desperate venture--a sail appeared; their signals were seen and heard, and she bore down--then, evidently suspecting a ruse by an armed vessel, she hastily hauled off. While the crew were gazing at one another in despair, Walker coolly gave orders to cut away the mizzen-mast instantly; after a momentary hesitation his order was obeyed, and the meaning of it was immediately obvious. Another gun being fired, the stranger, convinced by the crippled condition of the ship, returned to the rescue, and proved to be no stranger, but one of their convoy. The transhipment of Walker and his men was safely effected at immense risk, and they reached home in a sorry plight, this vessel proving almost as unseaworthy as the other. And there Walker was greeted with very unwelcome tidings: he had lost his ship, and his agents had suffered the insurance to lapse; he was a ruined man. Before entering upon his distinguished career as a privateer captain Walker commanded for eighteen months a vessel trading to the Baltic; and, returning from his last trip in 1744, just after war was declared against the French, he again most successfully adopted a policy of "bluff." Having shipped a number of wooden guns, and otherwise disguised his vessel, being chased off the coast of Scotland by a privateer, and finding she had the heels of him, he tacked, hoisted ensign, jack, and man-of-war's pendant, and fired a gun, as much as to say, "Come on; I'm waiting!" The enemy did not wait, and Walker proceeded quietly upon his homeward voyage. In this same year, 1744, two fine vessels were equipped as privateers by some London and Dartmouth owners, and Walker was offered command of the _Mars_, of 26 guns and 130 men, her consort being the _Boscawen_, a vessel of similar armament, but of larger tonnage and with a more numerous crew. When two days out from Dartmouth they encountered a French king's ship, of force about equal to the _Boscawen_, and Walker, of course, immediately engaged her, justly considering that, with his consort, he would soon overpower her; indeed, he would have attacked had he been cruising alone. The captain of the _Boscawen_, however, was quite a different sort of man, with a strong dislike of hard knocks. Instead of seconding Walker's attack, he held off out of range, letting drive once or twice a futile shot, which dropped far short; so Walker was left to fight alone, and after a severe tussle, he and the Frenchman parted, both ships a good deal knocked about. While his crew were repairing damages Walker went on board the _Boscawen_ to have a little talk with her skipper--whose name is not mentioned--"but was never heard to throw any censure publicly on his behaviour." Walker was always a gentleman, and an instinctive disciplinarian. No doubt he gave the other, in private, a slice of his mind, but, as we shall see, without any good result. A month later, in December, at midnight, with a fresh breeze and thick rain, they suddenly found themselves close to two large vessels. They could hear the people on board talking excitedly, in French, and apparently in a state of alarm, and, judging from these signs that they were treasure ships, Walker and his consort hung on their heels. At eight o'clock next morning the weather cleared and the two strangers were revealed as French men-of-war, the one of 74 and the other of 64 guns; which was exceedingly awkward for the two Englishmen. The Frenchmen were, however, both treasure-ships as well as men-of-war, being bound from the West Indies with cargoes valued at nearly four millions sterling, were not in good fighting trim, and were very anxious to get into Brest with their treasure, so it is quite probable that they would have gone on their way and left the two privateers alone. The captain of the _Boscawen_, however, did not wait to see what they would do; directly he realised their force he crowded sail, and disappeared from the scene without even a parting greeting to his consort; and, seeing only one enemy left, and this a small one, the 64-gun ship--the _Fleuron_--was sent in chase of the _Mars_, rapidly gaining upon her. "Gentlemen," said Walker, "I do not mean to be so rash as to attempt a regular engagement with so superior a force; all I ask of you is, to confide in me and my orders, to get away, if possible, without striking; and, be assured, I shall employ your assistance neither in revenge nor vainglory, nor longer than I think it of use to our design. The ship which pursues is certainly the best sailer of the enemy, by being ordered to the chase; if, by good fortune, we bring down a topmast or yard, or hurt her rigging so as to retard her pursuit, we may entirely get clear." So he hoisted his colours and opened fire with his stern guns, the enemy replying with his bow-chasers by the space of over two hours. The _Mars_, however, was not a brilliant sailer, and by this time the 74--the _Neptune_--had crept up, so that she was almost between two fires. There was nothing for it but surrender. "Well, gentlemen," said Walker, smiling, "we don't strike to one ship only--haul down the colours!" And so he went on board the _Fleuron_ to surrender his sword and his privateer commission. The French captain was not as polite as he expected: "How dare you, sir," he asked, in excellent English, "in so small a ship, fire against a force like me?" "Sir," replied Walker, "if you will look at my commission you will find I had as good a right to fight as you; and if my force had not been so inferior to yours I had shown you more civil treatment on board my ship"--which was a very good specimen of English politeness. "How many men of yours have I killed?" demanded the Frenchman. "None at all, sir." "Then, sir, you have killed six of mine, and wounded several; you fired pieces of glass." This preposterous accusation was, of course, denied; but it turned out that some missiles of a very unusual nature _had_ been discharged from the _Mars_. The captain of one of the stern guns, realising that they must surrender, took about sixteen shillings from his pocket, saying that "sooner than the French rascals should plunder him of all he had in the world, he would first send it among them, and see what a bribe would do." So he wrapped his shillings up in a rag, crammed them into the gun, and sent them humming and whistling through the Frenchman's rigging, which no doubt gave rise to the glass theory--neither Frenchmen nor any one else could be expected to recognise the "ring" of a coin under the circumstances! The facetious gunner was an Irishman. Well, the _Mars_ was captive, while the _Boscawen_ had prudently escaped; but this was not the end of the incident. The action took place on a Friday, and at daybreak on Sunday morning four large ships were sighted astern; it did not require a long period of observation to realise that they were coming up pretty fast, and in a couple of hours they were recognised as English men-of-war. Then the Frenchmen began to regret that they had stopped to capture the privateer, instead of making the most of their way homeward with their treasure, which now appeared almost inevitably destined to become English treasure. The captain of the _Fleuron_--who by this time had learned that his prisoner, though only captain of a privateer, was worthy of respect--discoursed to Walker in some bitterness on this subject, and added: "It is seldom any great accident happens from single causes, but by a chain or series of things; thus, if we be here overcome, our loss will be owing to the waspishness of a single frigate, which would not cease fighting so long as it had a sting in its tail"--a remark which, if somewhat bitter, was appreciative. The English squadron gained steadily, and the French officer in charge of the _Mars_ put his helm up and ran to leeward, hoping to draw off one of the ships after him; in which he was successful, the _Captain_, a 70-gun ship, giving chase, and eventually recapturing the _Mars_. The other three ships were the _Hampton Court_, 70 guns, and the _Sunderland_ and _Dreadnought_, each of 60 guns. The _Sunderland_ lost a spar, and dropped astern, but the other two were nearly alongside the French ships by sunset, the _Dreadnought_, a poor sailer, being somewhat astern. The French captain thereupon, seeing an action inevitable, politely requested Walker and his officers to go below. "Sir," said Walker, "I go off with great pleasure on the occasion, as I am now certain of my liberty; and I hope to have the satisfaction of seeing you again in being." He was not destined, however, to regain his liberty so easily, for these naval captains, what with faulty tactics and absolute want of zeal and enterprise, entirely bungled the whole business, and permitted the French ships to escape, treasure and all. The _Captain_ was commanded by Captain Thomas Griffin, senior officer of the squadron, who detached himself to chase the _Mars_, and gave, as an excuse, when he was tried by court-martial, that he thought the _Mars_ was the only man-of-war, and the two larger vessels her convoy. The court apparently accepted this flimsy story--although the _Captain_ was nearer than the other ships, and no one else had any such notion--but the Service generally did not. Captain Savage Mostyn, of the _Hampton Court_, hung about the French ships without firing a shot, waiting for the _Dreadnought_ to come up, instead of endeavouring to disable them aloft; and he also cut an extremely sorry figure at the court-martial; but his lame and almost incredible excuses were accepted. He was acquitted, and said to have "done his duty as an experienced good officer, and as a man of courage and conduct." There seemed to be a determination to let off everybody just then; but the public did not let off Mostyn, for when he sailed from Portsmouth a year later, still in command of the _Hampton Court_, it was to the cry of "All's well! There's no Frenchman in the way!" Now, it is a sad thing to have to say all this of naval commanders; and still more humiliating to reflect that, had George Walker, master-mariner and privateer skipper, been in command of that squadron, no such fiasco would have occurred; but this is most undoubtedly true. Walker would have had those French treasure ships had he been in command of the _Hampton Court_, as surely as he was then a prisoner on board one of them, watching with shame and disgust the paltry tactics of his countrymen, and compelled subsequently to listen to the boastful and disparaging comments of the Frenchmen. Arrived at Brest, the Englishmen had no cause to complain of their treatment. Walker had by this time so ingratiated himself with the captain of the _Fleuron_, that the latter acceded to his request that the crew of the _Mars_ might be landed at once, on the day after their arrival, and might receive every possible consideration until they could be exchanged; and he resisted strenuously Walker's request that he might go and see personally to the comfort of his men, begging to know in what he had fallen short, to be thus deprived of his esteemed company. Walker politely insisting, the French captain gave him a most flattering letter of introduction to the Governor, who liberated the English captain and all his officers on parole, and treated them handsomely in every respect. They left the _Fleuron_ none too soon. On the following day, while Walker was in the act of writing to the captain to beg him to send him his letter of credit, which was in a tin box with his commission, people came running in crying that the _Fleuron_ had blown up. It was, indeed, too true; and the catastrophe was entirely due to the gross carelessness of the gunner, who, landing the powder, left some four or five barrels in the magazine for saluting purposes, and did not even have the loose powder, spilt in emptying the cartridges, swept up under his own eye. Some stupid fellows, engaged afterwards in this work, took a decrepit old lantern down with them; the handle broke, the flame ignited the loose powder, and that was the end of the _Fleuron_; she burnt to the water's edge, and then went down, treasure and all; and the guns having been left loaded--it seems almost incredible, but we have the account of an eye-witness--kept going off at intervals, preventing the approach of boats, etc., which might have saved many of the crew. Walker had to mourn the loss of his friend, the courteous and generous captain, and also that of his letter of credit--a serious temporary inconvenience. We must not dwell in detail upon the sojourn of Walker and his crew in France. Their exchange was arranged in a few weeks, Walker, by his courage, tact, and ability smoothing over every difficulty as it arose, and making many friends in the process. Indeed, the simple and straightforward account by the narrator of his cheerful and undaunted bearing under sundry incidental trials which arose, from lack of means, etc., fills one with admiration of the man. They arrived at Weymouth on February 28th, 1745, and Walker lost no time in reporting himself to his owners at Dartmouth, who, though they had heard, through the recaptured _Mars_, of his whereabouts, and had sent him fresh letters of credit, scarcely expected him so soon. The _Mars_ being repurchased, the two vessels were again fitted out for a cruise, the very cautious captain of the _Boscawen_ being replaced by Walker's first lieutenant, who, however, was placed in command of the _Mars_. Walker selected the _Boscawen_ as his own command, as being the finer vessel and the better sailer; she was a French-built ship, a prize in the last war, mounting 28 nine-pounders. Walker increased her armament to 30 guns, twelve and nine-pounders, and shipped a crew of 314 men. Thus she was, as the writer says, "perhaps the most complete privateer ever sent from England"; but she was not as good as she looked, and Walker had cause afterwards to regret that he had increased her weights, for she was structurally what an English shipwright would describe as a "slopped" ship; cheaply built, and inefficiently fastened. However, she was good enough for some brilliant work, with her able skipper and an enthusiastic crew, in the shipping of which there had been a passage of arms between Walker and one Taylor, captain of an Exeter privateer then fitting out, who found Walker in such favour that he could not obtain a full crew; so he had recourse to some very underhand devices to decoy the _Boscawen's_ men, one of whom, with address worthy of his captain, led him into a trap and made a complete fool of him, eventually taking nearly all the men he had succeeded in shipping to make up the _Boscawen's_ crew; while Captain Walker interviewed the owner--whose brother he had been instrumental in getting exchanged in France--and told him what he thought of him and his methods--and no one could talk straighter then Walker, when he found it necessary. There were some very amusing incidents in connection with these doings, which, however, must be omitted for lack of space; we must get to sea again. Without waiting for the _Mars_, Walker put to sea on April 19th, 1745, and a month later fell in with the privateer _Sheerness_, Captain Parnell, and kept company during the night. At daybreak, being then fifty miles west of the Lizard, they sighted eight vessels, evidently in company, and gave chase. The _Boscawen_ left the other astern, and about nine o'clock the enemy formed line, and were soon made out to be armed vessels, awaiting attack. This was odds enough to discourage most men, and the _Sheerness_ being hopelessly astern, no one imagined that Walker intended engaging, though all preparation was made for action. Reading some suspense and anxiety in the faces of his officers, Walker called them together and addressed them: "Gentlemen, I hope you do not think the number of prizes before us too many. Be assured, by their being armed, they have something on board them worth defending; for I take them to be merchantmen with letters of marque, and homeward bound. Without doubt we shall meet with some opposition, in which I have not the least doubt of your courage; but I see we must here conquer also by a mastership of skill. Be cool, and recollect every man his best senses; for, as we shall be pressed on all sides, let every man do his best in engaging the enemy he sees before him, and then one side need not fear nor take thought for the other. In a word, gentlemen, if you give me your voice for my leading you on, I pawn my life to you, I will bring you off victorious." Was ever a more masterly speech from a chief to his subordinates? But one reply was possible; the men went to their quarters and the _Boscawen_ sailed on into the thick of the enemy's line, strict orders being issued that, whatever fire they might receive, not a shot was to be returned until the captain gave the word. There were, unfortunately, sixty men sick, and these, with the exception of three, crawled on deck to render what assistance they could, or at least to see the fun. Steering straight for the largest vessel, though already considerably damaged aloft by the fire of the others, Walker delivered his broadside, and then the enemy got round him, two on either side, one ahead and one astern; the other two apparently decamped, and took no part in the action. The ship astern, after attempting to rake the _Boscawen_, was so roughly handled by her stern guns that she hauled off, and struck her colours. The fight was continued with the remaining five for the space of an hour; and the writer asserts that it was maintained on board the _Boscawen_ without any confusion or disorder, the men, under the officers' orders, banging away at whatever happened to be in front of their guns, "without fear or thought for the others." The flagship struck, and sank ten minutes later; the remaining four stuck to it, hoping yet to subdue the sorely battered _Boscawen_; but Walker's men remembered his pledge to them, and were resolved that he should not be stultified. In another half-hour every flag was down, and the _Sheerness_, at length coming up, chased and captured one of the runaways; so the "bag" was one sunk and six captured. The enemy is stated to have had 113 killed and drowned, while the _Boscawen's_ casualties amounted only to one killed and seven wounded. The writer ascribes this comparative immunity to a protection, a raised bulwark, "man-high," of elm planking, which Walker had caused to be erected, with a step on which the marines could mount to fire, and stand down to load; and he says the elm did not splinter, but kept out bullets, and closed up round the holes made by shot. With due allowance for this, however, the Frenchmen must have made very wretched practice; they were probably unpractised and undisciplined merchant crews; but it was a brilliant affair. The vessels were all homeward bound "Martinico men," as Walker had surmised, provided with letters of marque. An old lady, a person of some distinction, a passenger in the commodore's ship, was picked up, floating about on a bale of cotton; she did not know how she had got there. The commodore was also rescued, and Walker gave them the use of his cabin, and fitted out the old lady with "a silk nightgown, some fine linen waistcoats, cambric night-caps, etc., in which she appeared a kind of hermaphrodite in dress"; a droll figure, indeed! But a privateer skipper can scarcely be expected to be provided with requisites for such an occasion. The poor old lady had a tragic tale to tell, for her daughter, a young girl, went down with the ship; and her account of the scene between decks, where she and her daughter retired during the action, is ghastly enough: "Hither they brought the poor bleeding sailors, one after another, without legs, without arms, roaring with their pains, and laid in heaps to be butchered anew by the surgeon, in his haste and despatch of cure or death. Here several of the objects died at our feet. Thus surrounded by the ghastly prospect, all at once death himself came breaking in upon us, through the side of the ship; cut down the surgeon and one of his mates, and shattered the whole medicine-chest in pieces. Here was a total suspension of all relief to the poor wounded wretches; death coming, as it were, to reinforce his own orders and stop every means or effort to prevent him." Arrived with his shattered vessel and equally dismantled prizes at King's Road, Bristol, Walker, reporting proceedings to the Admiralty, received a handsome congratulatory letter from the Secretary. Sailing once more in July, Walker captured in August a vessel, the _Catharina_, which he subsequently bought as a tender, naming her the _George_; and in the following month he found himself, as was so often the case in privateers, at loggerheads with his crew over a vessel--a Dutchman--which he overhauled, and, being satisfied that her cargo was not contraband, dismissed her. The crew, after grumbling among themselves, assembled on deck while Walker was at supper, demanding to see him. He and his officers armed themselves and went on deck, and faced the three hundred angry men, who required to know why the Dutchman was not good prize. Walker's reply was admirable: "This is not the way to ask me. I am willing that the meanest man in the ship shall be satisfied of my conduct, but I will give that satisfaction in my own way, and not be called to account by you. I am sorry, indeed, that it should ever be said of me that I was obliged to take up arms against my own people, in defence of conduct which can be so easily supported by words only. It will be a pain to me to reflect upon it, as long as I live, and a blot on the character I imagined I had gained. I am very willing to explain to you what rights we have over Dutch vessels, but I shall choose my own time for doing it; and every man who does not instantly separate to his duty, when I give the word, I shall treat him as an associate in a mutiny." Two of the men called out that it would be too late to explain when the chase was out of sight. "Bring those men aft, and put them in irons," said Walker; and he was obeyed. Next morning he gave them a lecture on prize law and discipline, to which they listened in all submission. CHAPTER XII GEORGE WALKER--_continued_ It was towards the end of this year--1745--after a visit to Madeira--where some of the crew got into trouble over a very foolish practical joke, putting a handful of soot in the holy-water fount at a church door--and a short cruise off the Azores, that Walker and his men were called upon to face death in a new form: not amidst the interchange of cannon-shot, the rattle of musketry, the clash of steel, but the gradual encroachment of the sea in a desperately leaky ship, threatening day by day to engulf them. It was upon this occasion that George Walker displayed the noblest qualities, and by his fortitude, tact, and unwearying exertions kept the ship afloat and saved the lives of all on board. The story is a thrilling one. The beginning of disaster was on November 12th, when the _Duke of Bedford_ privateer had been for some days in company, and some hard gales had been experienced, the wind again increasing to a gale upon this day, with heavy rain. The mainyard, which should have been held aloft in its place by chain-slings, had been left, through carelessness, hanging by the tackle which was used to raise and lower it--termed the "geers"--and, upon the men being sent up to furl the mainsail, the strap supporting the upper block gave way, and the yard--the heaviest in the ship--came down, with all the men upon it. Strangely enough, no one was injured or thrown overboard; but the narrator alleges that the shock of the yard falling shook up the ship, so as to open some of her joints. It may as well be pointed out, for the information of the non-professional reader, that no such result had any right to ensue in a ship with any pretension to being decently built; the utmost damage should have been, perhaps, broken bulwarks, and probably some injury to the spar itself. However, whether by coincidence or from the vessel being really so shaky, she commenced, after this, to make water too freely, and two days later alarmingly, so that two pumps constantly going would scarcely keep her clear. The wind and sea increased, the ship laboured more and more, her planks working and seams opening everywhere. She was then off the Azores, some fifteen hundred miles from the Land's End, and Walker steered a course for the south of Ireland, intending to finish the cruise in those waters. On the 17th, however, the water increased enormously, and the officers, thoroughly alarmed, signed a petition to Walker to make for the nearest port. After some discussion, and a most disheartening report from the carpenter, he gave his consent, reminding them that his honour and his duty to the owners obliged him to speak every ship he sighted; and recommending them to endeavour in every way to encourage the crew and keep their spirits up. Vain endeavour! a day or two of constant pumping revealed the fact that all the power available would not keep the water under, and a large number of men had to be kept incessantly baling--dipping up the water in buckets from the hold, passing it from hand to hand, and emptying it on the deck, upon which the pumps also discharged, so that the scuppers would scarcely suffice to keep the deck free; water below, water on deck, and a winter gale howling through the rigging, the ship labouring and lurching helplessly under reduced canvas. Almost mechanically the weary crew took their turns at pumping, baling, handling the ship; despair began to grow upon them, and, after a week of toil and slow progress, it came to Walker's knowledge, through some men whom he could trust, that there was a plot to seize the arms, take the boats by force, with as many as they would hold, and leave the rest to perish. He responded with a counter-mine. At a given signal the officers, already disposed near where the arms were kept, suddenly threw every weapon overboard, except a sufficient number to arm themselves, thus turning the tables upon the astonished conspirators, who now imagined that they would receive the treatment they had designed for others; but Walker, humane and sympathetic as he was brave, did not speak an angry word to them: "I sincerely forgive you your folly and rashness," he said, "which came rather from your fears than from deliberate disobedience. If you will now exert yourselves, and stick to the pumping and baling, we shall save the ship; if not, we go to the bottom. And remember, that I have now the power to provide for myself and the officers alone, as you would so selfishly have done for yourselves; but if you stick to us, we will stick to you, to the last." The crowd of rough, sea-soaked, half-starved, wearied men, swaying on the slippery deck with the motion of the ship, had no words in which to reply to such a speech. Some of them were moved to tears, and when, as an earnest of their goodwill, one or two called for cheers for the captain, their voices, mingled with the dismal howling of the wind and the ominous sound of water surging about below, rang so quavering and feeble, that Walker turned aside to conceal his own emotion. From that time forward he never left the deck, nor lay down for a week, sleeping as he stood, leaning on the rail. Every eye was turned to that solitary, dauntless figure. Never a sign of fear or yielding did he show, and when he spoke words of encouragement as they toiled at the pumps, they would look up at him, some with a murmur of blessing and admiration, some with tears in their eyes. Already six guns had been thrown overboard; in a few days, the gale increasing, nearly all the remainder followed. The anchors were cut away, and also some spars which were superfluous in such a gale; the sails were split by the violence of the wind, the rigging gave out, the masts swaying and threatening to go by the board, and never a sail appeared: not even a foe of superior force, which they would have welcomed in their dire extremity. At length the word was beginning to be passed about that it was useless any longer to toil at the pumps. Nothing could save the ship, and the lassitude of despair was settling down upon them. The officers began to share the despondency of the crew, and Walker, looking round for those with whom he would consult, missed them: they had gone below to take eternal leave of one another. Calling a seaman, Walker sent him aloft, with orders to cry "A sail!" and then, sending for the drummer, he bade him beat to quarters. Sudden animation ran through the ship. The men paused in their labour, looking round the horizon; the officers ran on deck, and closed round the captain: "Sir, do you think of engaging?" asked one. "Yes, sir," replied Walker, in a low voice. "When I see an enemy so near--your own fears, which attack the hearts of all my other men. I am willing to take my greater part of duty, but you leave too much to my share." Ashamed, they endeavoured to emulate his fortitude, and this desperate ruse procured another respite from despair, and a night of renewed vigour at the pumps, in the hope of rescue in the morning. But there was no sail, and, though the wind had abated, despair returned; Walker assured them positively that they would sight land next day, and thus induced them to turn to once more, though he was by no means confident that his word would come true: and when a man ran aft in a sudden panic, or sent by others to tell the news, crying that the ship was just about to sink, his patience gave way for a moment, and he floored the scaremonger with a blow of his fist. "You lie, you villain!" he said; "she told me otherwise, as she rose on that last sea!" But it was over at last. On the following day the coast of Cornwall was sighted, and in the afternoon the battered and water-logged _Boscawen_ ran into St. Ives. Anchorless, she drifted helplessly, and, in spite of the efforts of the Cornish boatmen, swept past the pier and grounded on a rocky beach, where she instantly parted, her masts falling every way. All the crew save four were got on shore in safety: Walker remained to see the sick got out of the cabin window, telling his men not to mind about him, as he would presently swim on shore; but two of the townsmen, who had probably heard from some of the seamen what sort of hero was in danger of perishing on the wreck, came out and brought him off. And that is the story of how George Walker, by sheer undaunted courage and force of will and example, kept his ship afloat and saved his own and over three hundred lives from a horrible end in mid-ocean: the noblest victory he ever won. When he presented himself before his owners they received him, says the writer, "with marks of esteem, and a joy equal to what had been the claim of the best success." One of the first questions Mr. Walker asked was, whether they were insured? The answer was, "No, nor ever would be in a ship where he commanded"--a remark which, while exceedingly and intentionally complimentary to the gallant Walker, scarcely represents a sound commercial attitude. Walker's next command was a much more important one, for he was, as already stated, placed in charge of a squadron of privateers, all named after royal personages, and known collectively as "The Royal Family Privateers." The vessels were fitted out at Bristol, and were named: Guns. Men. _King George_, George Walker, Commodore 32 300 _Prince Frederick_, Hugh Bromedge, Captain 26 260 _Duke, Edward Dottin_, Captain 20 260 _Princess Amelia_, Robert Denham, Captain 24 150 --- --- 102 970 A formidable force, under such a commander. The _Prince Frederick_, however, got aground in the Bristol Channel, and was compelled to put back and dock: so the three others set forth in company at the beginning of May 1746, and had only been a week at sea when they encountered three French line-of-battle ships, from which Walker escaped in the dark by the ruse of leaving a lantern floating in a cask, while he extinguished all lights and altered his course; but the _Princess Amelia_ parted company and eventually put into Lisbon. A little later, at Safia, on the coast of Morocco, having chased a small French vessel into the bay, Walker determined to cut her out that night with his boats--an operation not often undertaken by privateers, though numerous feats of the most daring description have been performed in this connection by the Navy. Walker considered, however, that he and his men were fully capable of planning and executing such an enterprise, and, having given detailed directions, he despatched three boats under the command of Mr. Riddle, his second lieutenant, on this dangerous service, about midnight. As is frequently the case with such undertakings, the original plan had to be modified, and they found the Frenchmen very much on the alert. The lieutenant in command was very severely wounded immediately, but nothing would stop Walker's men, and, after a tussle, they carried the vessel and brought her out in triumph. As she was a smart little craft Walker made her a tender in place of the _Princess Amelia_, naming her _Prince George_ and putting his first lieutenant, John Green, in command. Mr. Green, we are told, would have been sent in charge of the cutting-out expedition, but that he had expressed the opinion that it would be better to wait until daylight. "Sir," says Mr. Walker, "though I have no reason to doubt your prowess, yet I never will send a man upon an expedition to which he has any objection." He gave him the command, however, of the new tender, displaying his customary fairness of dealing with all his subordinates. During this eight months' cruise "The Royal Family" made some valuable prizes and put into Lisbon with more than £220,000 to the good, and without a single man having been killed. Having overhauled and refitted his ships--now increased to six in number by the addition of the _Prince George_ and the _Prince Edward_, a vessel purchased at Lisbon--Walker put to sea again on July 10th, 1747 and in October following occurred the most remarkable action in which he was concerned. He had, before this, lost one of his squadron, the _Prince Edward_, by a very extraordinary accident. Crowding sail to come up with her consorts, being astern, she was suddenly observed to reel, and immediately foundered, going down stern first. The survivors--her captain and two men only--stated that the mainmast had slipped out of the "step" in the bottom of the ship--or more probably had displaced the step by the strain upon it--and the heel of the mast had gone through her bottom, the mast, with all the sails set, falling over the stern. On October 6th the squadron had been watering in Lagos Bay--that same harbour in which we saw Bernard D'Ongressill so scurvily treated by the Portuguese nearly five hundred years previously--and the _King George_ and _Prince Frederick_, coming out about five o'clock in the morning, leaving the _Princess Amelia_ still at anchor, saw a large sail standing to the northward. Walker made the signal to chase, and sent a small vessel, a recent prize, into the anchorage to hurry up the _Princess Amelia_. The _Duke_ and _Prince George_, having completed their watering earlier, were in sight; but, after chasing for about an hour, for some unexplained reason discontinued--or could not get up. The chase, seeing she was likely to be hemmed in by the two nearest ships, kept away to the westward, making all sail; and Walker, with his two ships, chased her until noon, when the _King George_ was nearly up with her, the _Prince Frederick_ some distance to the southward. They had not yet disclosed each other's nationality, but Walker realised by this time that the stranger was a very big ship, and he was within gunshot of her, practically alone; and then it suddenly fell a flat calm, and the chase, hoisting her colours, ran out her guns, disclosing herself as a 74-gun ship. The colours, however, hung down in the calm, and it was impossible to tell whether they were Spanish or Portuguese--for the two ensigns were very similar at that time, though they are not so now. After about an hour, during which the _Prince Frederick_ could get no nearer, and Walker and his big opponent were eyeing each other curiously, the latter ran in her lower deck guns, and closed the ports. This looked as though she was a treasure ship, unwilling to fight if she could avoid it; and, as a matter of fact, she was just that; only she had already--after being chased by some English men-of-war--landed her treasure, to the value of some three millions sterling, at Ferrol, and was on her way to Cadiz. However, seeing her somewhat shy, Walker's officers and men were all for fighting; and when a light breeze sprang up about five o'clock, and the big ship again made sail on her original course, the _King George_ at once continued the chase, leaving the _Prince Frederick_, which did not get the breeze so soon, yet further astern. At eight o'clock, in bright moonlight, Walker was within speaking distance, cleared for action, his men lying down at their quarters. He hailed in Portuguese: no reply. Then he hailed in English, asking her name; in reply, she asked his name, also in English. "The _King George_!" replied Walker, and then came a thundering broadside, dismounting two guns and bringing down the maintopsail yard. Walker's men were on their feet and had their broadside in in a few seconds; and then this ridiculously uneven contest went on, the huge Spanish ship--her name, the _Glorioso_--towering above the other, and both letting drive with guns and small arms for all they were worth. Why the _King George_ was not sunk it is impossible to say. The chronicler of the fight says that the Spaniards did not manage to fire their broadsides regularly but only a few guns at a time, while the _King George's_ men got theirs in with great precision and regularity, and also maintained a very hot fire of musketry, under the control of the Captain of Marines. This desperate conflict was maintained for three hours, at close range--so close at times that some burning wadding from the Spaniard's guns set fire to the _King George's_ mainsail. The incident, as Sir John Laughton remarks, was unique in naval warfare; there have been instances in which a vessel of vastly inferior force has contrived to maim or delay her big antagonist until assistance arrived, and so to contribute very materially to her capture, advantage being taken of superior speed and handiness, or circumstances of wind and sea, and so on; but for a vessel of the _King George's_ size to maintain a close ding-dong action with a 74-gun ship, in fine weather, for this space of time is entirely unprecedented. Had Walker been in command of a king's ship, he would certainly have been held blameless if he had run away; but running away, even from a vastly superior force, was not, as we have seen, a proceeding which found any favour in the eyes of George Walker; and there was, of course, the strong inducement of the assumed treasure, which, after all, was not there. The writer attributes their immunity from destruction and their trifling casualties--one killed and fifteen wounded--partly to the very closeness of the action, the Spanish ship's shot not hitting the hull; and also, to the fact that, probably from the overloading of the guns with several shot, in the hope of knocking a huge breach in the _King George's_ side, the shot came with such reduced force that, when they hit, they did not penetrate. Walker's device of high bulwarks of elm planking, before alluded to, he likewise considers had a share in their miraculous salvation. [Illustration: ACTION BETWEEN THE SPANISH 74-GUN SHIP "GLORIOSO" AND THE "KING GEORGE" AND "PRINCE FREDERICK" OF THE "ROYAL FAMILY" PRIVATEERS] Walker, he says, "fought and commanded with a calmness almost peculiar to himself"; and his high example conduced to order and discipline even in the thickest of the fight. When the mainsail was set on fire he ordered some hands aloft to extinguish it, and when another man was somewhat officiously following, he called him down. "I have sent men enough aloft for the business, in my opinion; if they fail in their duty, I'll send for you"; such an episode, in the thick of a terrible engagement, is significant, indeed, of calmness and absolute self-possession, which is heroic in its measure. The action was fought, we are told, so close under Cape St. Vincent that the castle on the Cape repeatedly fired upon the combatants, "as a neutral power commanding peace"; in other words, as a protest against the action being fought in Portuguese waters, within gunshot of the coast. By half-past ten the _Prince Frederick_ came up to the assistance of her consort. At this time the _King George_ had received so much damage aloft, that there was no choice but to remain, for she could not have run away. "All our braces and maintopsail yard were shot away, the foremast quite disabled, and the mainmast damaged. We could not work our ship, and bravery became now a virtue of necessity." There was no mention of striking the colours, however; and half an hour later the _Glorioso_ desisted from action, and retired from the field. When, at daybreak, Captain Dottin, of the _Prince Frederick_, came on board, his first inquiry was as to whether the commodore was alive; then, seeing the ship's company so nearly intact, and his friends among the officers unhurt, he embraced the gallant commodore in the enthusiasm of his joy and admiration. Despatching the _Prince Frederick_, with the _Duke_ and _Prince George_, in pursuit of the enemy, Walker set to work to refit; and then a fresh alarm arose, for a large sail was seen approaching from the eastward. She proved, however, to be a friend, the _Russell_, an 80-gun ship, and Walker lost no time in acquainting her captain with the state of affairs. Helpless in his dismantled vessel, Walker watched with his glass the progress of the chase, his own three vessels nearing the Spaniard, with the giant _Russell_ crowding sail to join them; but he could not account for a fourth vessel which now seemed to be in the fight. The headmost ship, apparently the _Prince Frederick_, now engaged the Spaniard hotly, and Walker, speaking his thoughts aloud to his officers, deplored her captain's unwariness in not waiting for the others to come up; for Dottin was blazing away for all he was worth, and Walker's experience immediately suggested a new danger. "Dottin will fire away all his cartridges at too great a distance, and afterwards be obliged to load with loose powder, by which some fatal accident may happen." Scarcely had he spoken, keeping his glass upon the vessel, when simultaneously with the discharge of a broadside a pillar of smoke and flame shot up. "Good heavens, she's gone!" cried Walker. "Dottin and all his brave fellows are no more!" One of the officers suggested that it was merely the smoke of her last broadside. "It's a dreadful truth you tell," replied Walker, still looking through his glass, "for 'tis the last she will ever give!" And when the smoke cleared away there was no ship to be seen! This terrible incident so affected the ship's company that Walker called the officers aside into the companionway in order to admonish them that they must keep up an air of cheerfulness before the men, who might otherwise be backward in fighting; and while he spoke there was a series of sudden explosions, mingled with cries of alarm. Running out on deck, they found the crew in a panic, some clinging outside the ship, others climbing out on the bowsprit, in readiness to jump overboard when the ship should blow up. The alarm was caused by a seaman stepping upon a number of loaded muskets, which were covered with a sail, and firing one off, which quickly set the others going, some spare ammunition also exploding; bullets were flying about, the sail was on fire, and the men could not be persuaded to quit their temporary refuge, so completely scared were they by this sudden din, following closely upon the tragic occurrence they had just witnessed. The captain and officers extinguished the fire, assisted by the chaplain--"a very worthy gentleman"--apparently of the same type as that excellent parson described in "Midshipman Easy," who rendered such material assistance under similar circumstances, and was anxious to ascertain afterwards whether he had allowed his tongue too free play for one of his cloth; he had, but Jack Easy consoled him. "Indeed, sir, I only heard you say, 'God bless you, my men; be smart,' and so on." Well, the _Russell_, aided by "The Royal Family," captured the Spaniard, of course, though she made a more stubborn fight than they expected, and the _Russell_ was very short of men. The _King George_, however, had no decisive news on the subject for some days, when, encountering their consort, the _Duke_, what was the joy on board upon learning that the _Prince Frederick_ was safe and sound! The vessel which so unhappily blew up was the _Dartmouth_, a frigate which had come up, hearing the guns, to see the fun. Only seventeen of her crew were picked up by the _Prince Frederick's_ boats; one of them was an Irish lieutenant, O'Brien, who apologised to captain Dottin for his dress: "Sir, you must excuse the unfitness of my dress to come aboard a strange ship, but really I left my own in such a hurry that I had no time to stay for a change." He had been blown out of a port! It was not until he was introduced to the Spanish captain, on board the _Russell_, that Walker learned that the treasure was safe at Ferrol--a great blow to him and his men; and on arriving at Lisbon he was, to his surprise, confronted by one of his owners, who blamed him severely for venturing the privateers against a man-of-war. Walker very justly replied, "Had the treasure, sir, been aboard, as I expected, your compliment had been otherways; or had we let her escape from us with that treasure on board, what had you then have said?" Walker was then, in fact, treated very scurvily by the owners, if we are to believe the quite simple and apparently straightforward story of his friend and former officer, and was at the last hustled out of his ship, the _King George_, at Lisbon, by a scandalous subterfuge. Probably avarice was at the bottom of all this sordid business; privateer owners had a very keen eye for the main chance, and did not set too much store by heroism--without profits! Walker took his passage home in the packet, an armed vessel, commanded by an elderly and somewhat timid gentleman. They encountered an Algerine of greater force, and some of Walker's men who were on board were heard to remark that if their captain had commanded he would knock her out of the water; so two English merchants, who were passengers, begged the captain to turn over the fighting command to Walker. This was actually done, and Walker, playing a clever game of bluff, sent the enemy off without firing a shot. This is the last we hear of Walker at sea. We find him in gaol for debt, but the precise circumstances which induced his formerly very admiring owners to place him there are not quite clear. As we know, it was no disgrace in those days to be imprisoned for debt, and the process was, indeed, a remarkably easy one. As has already been remarked, it is impossible to believe that George Walker was otherwise than a man of strictest honour and probity: he proved himself almost quixotically so, in fact, for when, upon one occasion, a couple of rich East India ships offered him £1,000 to convoy them safely to Lisbon, he replied that "he would never take a reward for what he thought his duty to do without one"; nor would he accept the smallest present from them, after seeing them safely into port. According to _The Gentleman's Magazine_, George Walker died September 20th, 1777. Where he was buried does not appear; whether he was ever married or left any family is equally obscure. One thing, however, is certain: he left behind him the reputation of a very noble and brave seaman, the idol of his men, the terror of his king's enemies. There is no eulogy which has been engraved upon the tombstones of our naval and military heroes which might not with justice have been included in George Walker's epitaph. So far as his opportunities went, he set an example which could scarcely have been improved upon. SOME FRENCHMEN [Illustration: JEAN BART, A FAMOUS FRENCH PRIVATEER CAPTAIN] CHAPTER XIII JEAN BART Privateering was very much resorted to in France, from the middle of the seventeenth century onwards; it was greatly encouraged by the State, and frequently men-of-war were lent to private individuals or corporations, who maintained them at their own cost, and of course pocketed the proceeds of the prizes captured. Some of these were large and powerful vessels, mounting fifty or sixty guns, and, having been built for men-of-war, were far superior to most privateers, which were frequently merchant vessels adapted for the purpose. Their crews were very numerous, not infrequently outnumbering those of our 64-gun ships, and it was not of much use for any vessel of less force than these to tackle them. One of these big privateers, in the year 1745, was engaged off the south coast of Ireland with the 40-gun ship _Anglesea_, Captain Jacob Elton, with a very sad and tragic result. The _Anglesea_, having put into Kinsale to land some sick--her senior lieutenant being one--sailed again on March 28th, being one of the vessels ordered to command the entrance of the channel. On the following day, with a fresh breeze blowing, a large sail was reported to windward. Captain Elton, for some reason, assumed that this was his consort, the _Augusta_, of 64 guns; it was just twelve o'clock, so he ordered his boatswain to pipe to dinner, making no preparation for action. The stranger came down rapidly, displaying no colours, apparently--which should have aroused Elton's suspicion--and suddenly, when he was quite near, it was realised that the ornament on her quarter was in the French style. Then, all in a hurry, they beat to quarters, and the English captain, in order to gain time for his preparations, made more sail, setting his foresail; but the wind was strong, with a lumpy sea, and the increased pressure of sail, as the gun's crews opened the lee ports, brought tons of water in on to the lower deck, threatening to water-log the ship. The enemy--which was the _Apollon_, 50 guns, fitted out as a privateer--had it all her own way. Passing under the stern of the _Anglesea_, she rounded to on her lee quarter, and delivered a heavy fire. The guns were not cleared away, there was a lot of water below, and in a minute or two sixty men were dead or wounded. The captain and master were killed by the first broadside, and the command of the ship thus devolved upon the second lieutenant, a young and inexperienced officer. He was in a very tight place. The Frenchman being on the lee quarter, he could not bear up and run, as he would have fallen on board the enemy, which carried many more men, and his ship meanwhile was under a heavy fire, which could not be returned, his men falling fast. After consultation with the third lieutenant, he surrendered--and really it is difficult to see what else he could have done. Possibly an older man, of consummate skill and great experience, might have found a way of handling his ship so as, at least, to gain some respite; on the other hand, no such man would have had any business to find himself in this predicament. So the lieutenant--Baker Phillips by name--hauled down his colours, and in due course was tried by court-martial for the loss of his ship. The court "was unanimously of opinion that Captain Elton, deceased, did not give timely directions for getting his ship clear or in a proper posture of defence, nor did he afterwards behave like an officer or a seaman, which was the cause of the ship being left to Lieutenant Phillips in such distress and confusion. And that Lieutenant Baker Phillips, late second lieutenant of the said ship, by not endeavouring to the utmost of his power after Captain Elton's death to put the ship in order of fighting, not encouraging the inferior officers and men to fight courageously, and by yielding to the enemy, falls under part of the tenth Article.[11] They do sentence him to death, to be shot by a platoon of musqueteers on the forecastle; ... but ... having regard to the distress and confusion the ship was in when he came to the command, and being a young man and inexperienced, they beg leave to recommend him to mercy." That is to say, they felt bound, under the clause referred to in the Articles of War, to sentence him to death, but obviously hoped that the extreme penalty would not be inflicted under the circumstances--a very proper view to take. The recommendation, however, was ignored--it will be recollected that just at this period the British Navy was, for some reason, passing through a very unsatisfactory phase; courage and energy appeared often to be lacking--as in the instance of the treasure ships, in the previous year, when George Walker was compelled to witness the outrageous incapacity and supineness of the captains of the men-of-war. These men were acquitted--Lieutenant Baker Phillips was not. Perhaps it may be permitted to ask, would Captain Elton have been shot had he survived the action? His lieutenant was made an example of, and there is some story that a reprieve was refused on account of his Jacobite tendencies; no evidence appears to be forthcoming in support of this view. Another and very terrible tale in connection with the incident relates that Phillips's wife, after a reprieve had been refused, went in person to Queen Caroline and obtained one, with which she posted in feverish haste to Portsmouth; but the unhappy young officer, desiring to avoid the terrible pain of a final interview with her, had, in ignorance of her mission to the queen, requested that the hour of his execution might be hastened. When she arrived, he had already been shot. One can only hope that this story is not true; it is too terrible to dwell upon. Well, that is how the privateer _Apollon_ scored off us. Five-and-thirty years later, in 1780, within a mile or two of the same spot, a still more powerful vessel, similarly commissioned--to wit, the _Comte d'Artois_, of 64 guns--was overcome and captured by the _Bienfaisant_, 64 guns, captain Macbride, after a smart action of over an hour. The _Bienfaisant_ was countenanced, more than assisted, by the presence of the _Charon_, 44 guns, which took little or no part in the action. The French loss was 21 killed and 34 wounded, while the British lost 3 killed and 23 wounded. It was one of these privately maintained king's ships which was selected to convoy the young Pretender to Scotland in 1745; indeed, both the _Elizabeth_, of 60 guns, and the _Dentelle_, a much smaller vessel, in which the prince embarked, were of this class. The two vessels encountered the British 60-gun ship _Lion_, off Ushant, and of course there was a fight. The _Lion_ and _Elizabeth_, pretty equally matched, and each commanded by a doughty fighter, blazed away at each other by the space of four or five hours, when both had had enough. Captain Brett, of the _Lion_, while regretting that he had not been able to capture the _Elizabeth_, was pleasing himself with the reflection that he had "spoiled her voyage"--and so he had, for she had 65 killed and 136 wounded, while her hull was fearfully battered, and she was compelled to make for the nearest French port. Brett took but little notice of the smaller craft, which, endeavouring at first to assist the _Elizabeth_, was easily disposed of by the _Lion's_ stern chasers, and hung about out of range until the big ships separated, when she proceeded on her voyage to Scotland. Brett must have been rather annoyed afterwards to think that he had not made a capture of the _Dentelle_; but he had, in fact, spoiled their voyage very effectually, for the _Elizabeth_ had on board all the stores and munitions for the campaign in Scotland, and Charles Edward Stuart landed very empty-handed in consequence. One of the most prominent among French privateer captains is Jean Bart; he is, in fact, perhaps somewhat unduly prominent, as it does not appear, from authentic accounts, that he performed any more wonderful or daring feats of seamanship and battle than some others. It may be that the many unfounded, or at least unsupported tales of his prowess--incredible tales, many of them--form the basis, to a large extent, of his immense popularity; or, on the other hand, this very popularity may have given rise to these exaggerated anecdotes. He was, without doubt, a very fine seaman, and a determined and capable commander, very worthy of the public esteem, and his reputation gains nothing from wild inventions. He was born in 1650, at Dunkirk, though his family is said to have been of Dieppe origin. He came of privateering, semi-piratical stock, and at the age of twelve he embarked as boy on board a Dunkirk smuggler, under a brutal, but capable ruffian named Jerome Valbué; his father's old boatswain, Antoine Sauret, accompanying him, apparently, as a kind of "sea-daddy"--and it appears to have been just as well that he had some one to stand between him and the skipper. After a four years' apprenticeship, young Bart, always enthusiastic and eager to learn, had acquired remarkable proficiency in seamanship and gunnery, and is said to have won the prize for the best marksman at the annual competition on the Dunes. Thanks to Sauret's teaching and his own zeal, the lad was considered competent, at the age of sixteen, to fill the post of mate on a brigantine, the _Cochon Gras_, of which the redoubtable Valbué was appointed commander. Jean Bart and his elderly adviser, Sauret, were, however, destined soon to find employ elsewhere, the occasion of their leaving the _Cochon Gras_ being an exhibition of wanton cruelty on the part of their captain. The fact of the two having protested rendered it advisable that they should not remain. M. Valbué, it appears, in common with many captains, both in the Navy and elsewhere at that period, still affected to be bound, together with his crew, by the Laws or Judgments of Oléron--a brutal code, dating from the twelfth century. Valbué, half drunk, had been relating some wonderful tale of the miraculous intervention of a saintly bishop to save a fishing-boat, and proceeded to emphasise his own belief and his contempt for heretics by flinging his half-empty tin cider-mug at one Lanoix, a harmless Huguenot seaman. (Huguenots are habitually represented by the ordinary British writer as harmless, exemplary persons; a large number of them were, in fact, bloodthirsty, cruel, and seditious ruffians, who richly deserved all they got.) Lanoix meekly but firmly pointed out that the Laws of Oléron ordained that the captain was not to punish a seaman until his anger had cooled down. (It reminds one rather of Midshipman Easy walking about with the Articles of War under his arm, and admonishing his superior for using strong language!) Valbué's rejoinder was a blow with a handspike, which narrowly missed braining the seaman. Antoine Sauret ventured to remonstrate, but was warned that he was in danger of similar treatment: for the Laws of Oléron allow the captain one blow, just as the law of England allows a dog one bite--only the skipper was apparently permitted one crack at each member of his crew. So Sauret said no more. Lanoix, however, was as well up in the law as his captain, and, jumping over the iron rail which separated the forecastle from the after part of the vessel, reminded Valbué that if he followed him on to the forecastle and repeated the blow he would put himself in the wrong, and he, Lanoix, would have the right to retaliate. Valbué immediately let loose a string of contemptuous and insulting epithets, and, passing the barrier, struck Lanoix two violent blows on the face. Out came the seaman's knife, and in a second the captain's arm was badly gashed; but the instinct of discipline induced the crew to rush to the rescue, and they pinioned Lanoix--but not before he had killed one man, stabbing him to the heart. Valbué thereupon sent his cabin-boy down to bring up a copy of the Laws of Oléron, Jean Bart, at the helm, looking on all this while with disapproval and horror very plainly expressed in his countenance. When the boy appeared with the book Sauret went aft and sat down by the helmsman. Thinking to place Sauret and his young companion in the wrong, Valbué bade the former come forward and read out the law. He refused, pointing out that Valbué had himself broken the law, and that Lanoix was entitled to purgation of his offence by means of certain oaths and formulæ. However, the protests of Jean Bart and the brave old man were of no avail. Ignoring their veto, and declaring that six out of eight of the crew agreed that Lanoix had wounded his captain and slain one of his shipmates, Valbué inflicted upon the unfortunate Huguenot the penalty for the first offence, lashing his arm to a sharp sword fixed to the windlass and then knocking him down, so that the flesh was stripped from his arm; and finally, ordering the dead body of the other man to be brought along, he caused Lanoix, sorely wounded but still alive, to be bound to it, and both were thrown overboard--which is also strictly in accordance with the Laws of Oléron, in the event of a seaman killing one of his comrades at sea--as he who runs may read. Jean Bart and the boatswain acquired from that moment a strong distaste for the Laws of Oléron, and quitted the vessel upon arriving, the same evening, at Calais. Valbué, consistent with all his brutality, reported the circumstances, as enjoined by the same code, to the authorities; and the incident, we are told, led to the framing of the Maritime Code of France. Bart and Sauret were highly commended for their plucky protest, and a few days later the former was entrusted with the responsible task of conveying some French noblemen, in a half-decked sailing-boat, to join De Ruyter in the Dutch fleet, then lying off Harwich--so we are told in the account given by Mr. C.B. Norman, in "The Corsairs of France"; but Mr. Norman is very vague as to dates, and we can only conclude that this was during the interval between the "four days' fight," from June 1st to 4th, 1666, and the subsequent decisive action on July 25th and 26th. It is said that he distinguished himself in the "hard-fought action"--between Albemarle and De Ruyter--on August 6th following; but there is no record of any action on this date. However, these matters are not of much importance, especially in the case of Jean Bart, concerning whom, as has been stated, fables are plentiful. It appears to be certain that he was some five years in the Dutch service, his heart being all this time with France; and when, in 1672, war was declared between France and the States-General, he immediately returned to Dunkirk, and entered upon his career as a privateersman. Commencing as a subordinate, he was given his first command in 1674--when he was four-and-twenty--a small vessel, mounting two guns, with a crew of thirty-six. In this vessel--the _King David_--Bart soon showed himself to be a bold and capable captain; in four or five months he captured six prizes. No fighting was entailed, it is true; but those who knew Jean Bart did not doubt that he could fight, should the occasion arise; and his old friend and "sea-daddy," Antoine Sauret, loafing and chatting with his cronies in Dunkirk, did not allow his young friend's exploits to be forgotten. Naturally, his next command was a larger vessel--a brigantine, named _La Royale_, mounting ten guns, and his success continued unabated. He cruised in company with two other Dunkirk men, and made many captures, the most important being the _Esperance_, a States-General man-of-war, carrying 12 guns, by which he appears to have won great renown--though she was only overcome by the heavy odds against her, Bart having the assistance of at least one of his allies. However, there is no small merit in always contriving to outnumber the foe. Having taken four months' leisure in order to get married, Jean Bart once more put out, in July 1675, and met with immediate success; and, capturing quite a number of fishing-vessels, he permitted the captains to ransom them for a handsome sum--a much more convenient arrangement, in many instances, than bringing a number of prizes into port; it was, however, forbidden, as liable to lead to great abuses, and Bart was deprived of half the proceeds and warned to be more careful in future--a warning to which he did not pay much heed. Ransoming was subsequently forbidden to British privateers, and other precautions against semi-piracy were instituted, more or less copied from the French, who were always in advance of us in their regulation of privateering. So successful was Jean Bart in _La Royale_ that early in 1676 he was given command of a much more important vessel--the _Palme_, of 24 guns, with a crew of 150 men--a regular frigate of those times. Again he was lucky in hunting in company, for he and his consorts were opposed to eight armed whalers and three privateers, which they fought for three hours, when Bart boarded and carried the largest, while his consorts secured the whalers, the two other privateers finding it too hot to remain. Bart was by no means satisfied with these exploits. A genuine fighting man, he longed to be matched singly against a man-of-war or a privateer of fully his own force; and this wish was gratified on September 7th, 1676, when he fell in with a fleet of fishing-vessels, convoyed by the _Neptune_, a vessel carrying 32 guns. Bart sailed into the convoy, and, hoisting his colours, fired a gun for the enemy to bring to. Up went the Dutch colours, with a broadside by way of emphasis; the Dutch captain was a man of Jean Bart's stamp--a foeman worthy of his steel--and they had a great fight. For three hours, at close range, they battered each other, Bart all the while trying to get a favourable position for boarding, but being constantly frustrated by the good seamanship of the other. At length, however, the _Neptune_ was so seriously damaged aloft that she was no longer under full command; Bart, instantly and skilfully availing himself of the chance, got his vessel lashed alongside, and headed the boarding party, consisting of nearly all his crew. The Dutch captain, grievously wounded, sat on one side, like desperate Andrew Barton, and shouted to his men to lay on; but they were demoralised by the banging they had had, and Bart and his boarders were not to be denied; in a few minutes the affair was over, and the French flag replaced the Dutch. It was a proud moment for Jean Bart, and a proud day when he sailed into Dunkirk with the captured vessel in his wake, followed by the fleet of fishing-boats which his victory had thrown into his hands. The fame of this exploit soon spread abroad, and one fine day Jean Bart received a gold chain from the king as a mark of appreciation of his prowess; at the same time the authorities began to discuss the question of keeping a list, or roll, of the best fighting privateer captains, in order that they might be transferred to the Navy in case of need--not necessarily an advantage to a keen privateersman, as he would occupy at first a subordinate position, very irksome after the freedom of his former life, in command of his ship. Colbert, the Minister of State, was very eager about the matter, and advocated giving the most efficient privateer commanders the rank of commodore among their brethren, so that they could operate in squadrons, and attack the enemy's men-of-war. He caused inquiries to be made at Dunkirk and other ports as to the character and capability of the leading privateersmen; and of course he received extremely favourable reports of Jean Bart, who meanwhile was again at sea in the _Palme_, doing great execution. His employers soon displayed their appreciation of his services by providing him with a yet larger ship--the _Dauphin_, of 30 guns, with a crew numbering 200. In this vessel, a year later, he encountered another Dutchman of the same sort as the captain of the _Neptune_. Sailing in company with two smaller privateers, on June 18th, 1678, a Dutch frigate was sighted. The smallest privateer happened to be nearest to the enemy, who immediately attacked, hoping to carry her before her consorts could arrive. The Frenchman, however, handled his craft so judiciously as to keep his big antagonist in play until Bart came up. The two larger vessels--the Dutchman was the _Sherdam_, Captain Ranc--at once got into action, while Bart's smaller consort stood off, awaiting a chance. Seeing his opportunity, Bart signalled to her to bear down, and between them they got the Dutchman in such a position that he could not avoid being boarded. A crowd of men from both French vessels was speedily on his deck; but they had no kind of a walk-over; Ranc, though severely wounded, rallied his men again and again, and it was not until two-thirds of his crew were disabled or killed that he at length surrendered. Bart was wounded in the leg, and badly burnt by the discharge of a gun, almost in his face, as he leaped on board; six of his men were killed and thirty-one wounded, while as for the saucy _Dauphin_, her career was at an end. So well had the Dutchmen plied their guns that her hull was shattered beyond repair, and it was with extreme difficulty that she was brought into harbour. Bart, of course, had another ship at his disposal immediately--such an invincible corsair was not allowed to be idle--and he was at sea again in a fortnight, in the _Mars_, of 32 guns; a few weeks later, however, the war came to an end, and he returned to Dunkirk to have a spell on shore. And here the career of Jean Bart as a privateer captain comes to an end; in January 1679 he was given a commission as lieutenant in the navy. This was not very much to his taste; besides the comedown from captain to lieutenant, the aristocrats who predominated among French naval officers regarded a privateersman, thus pitchforked in among them, with a very supercilious air, and made things decidedly unpleasant for him. However, Jean Bart pulled through this all right, and eventually had opportunity of displaying his capacity in the royal ships. There are, as has been remarked, a number of romantic tales extant about Jean Bart; most of them are quite incredible, and for the others there is no reliable authority. One may be given here as a sample. At Bergen, in the year 1691, it is said that Bart made the acquaintance of the captain of a large English vessel, who expressed a keen desire to meet him outside. Bart said if he would wait a few days his wish should be gratified, and sent word one day that he would sail on the morrow. The Englishman politely invited him to breakfast before they sailed to have it out, and Bart, after a little hesitation, accepted. After breakfast he lit his pipe, and soon remarked that it was time to go. "No," said the Englishman, "you are my prisoner!" "I am not your prisoner," replied Bart, "I will blow up your ship!" Rushing out of the cabin, with a lighted match, he ran to where stood a barrel of gunpowder which had most opportunely been hoisted up from the magazine--a cask with the head out, we must imagine, and the powder exposed. Here, of course, he had it all his own way; the Englishmen were afraid to touch him, lest he should put the match to the powder--and the crews of the French ships, having heard his shout of defiance, rallied on board the English vessel in numbers, cut down many of the crew, captured the ship, and carried her into Dunkirk. It must be to this absurd story that M. Henri Malo alludes in "Les Corsaires," where he writes, in derision of privateering romances: "Privateers! We read in these accounts the names of heroes of romance--Jean Bart, smoking his pipe, mark you, on a barrel of gunpowder; Robert Surcouf, popularised in operetta." Jean Bart deserves better than to be lampooned in this fashion; and, though he rose to distinction in the Navy, and there has almost always been a French man-of-war named after him, it is chiefly as the indomitable corsair that his memory is cherished in Dunkirk. [Footnote 11: The tenth Article of War, at that time, read as follows: "Every flag-officer, captain, and commander in the fleet who, upon signal or order of fight, or sight of any ship or ships which it may be his duty to engage, or who upon likelihood of engagement shall not make the necessary preparations for fight, and shall not in his own person, and according to his place, encourage the inferior officers and men to fight courageously, shall suffer death, or such other punishment as from the nature and degree of the offence a court-martial shall deem him to deserve; and if any person in the fleet shall treacherously or cowardly yield, or cry for quarter, every person so offending and being convicted thereof by the sentence of a court-martial, shall suffer death."] [Illustration: RENÉ DUGUAY-TROUIN, A FAMOUS FRENCH PRIVATEER CAPTAIN] CHAPTER XIV DU GUAY TROUIN Another hero, privateer first and naval officer later, was Du Guay Trouin--this being the name by which he was eventually known, and which has been bestowed upon more than one vessel of the French Navy in commemoration of his exploits. His family name was, properly speaking, Trouin; his father was Luc Trouin, calling himself, after an estate which he owned, Trouin de la Barbinais. The future privateer captain and hero was the third son, and was born on June 10th, 1673, being named René, after his uncle, then French consul at Malaga--a post which had been held for some generations, apparently, by some member of the Trouin family. Little René, placed under the care of a nursing woman at the village of Le Gué, near by, became known as René Trouin du Gué, which was twisted about until it became Du Gué, or Du Guay Trouin. René was by no means intended from the first to follow an adventurous career at sea; his father had a very different aim in view. His uncle and namesake, René Trouin the consul, who was also his godfather, was very friendly with the Archbishop at Malaga, and it was considered politic that the boy should become an ecclesiastic, and so benefit by the friendliness of the prelate towards his uncle; and indeed, he was actually sent to the seminary at Rennes, as a very small boy, to commence his studies for the priesthood--very much against his will, but Luc Trouin was not to be trifled with; and so, until he was fifteen years of age, René was held to be destined for the Church. Then came a sudden change--his uncle and his father died within a year of one another, and he prevailed upon his mother to permit him to quit the seminary and study for the law. With this end in view he was sent to Caen, but we do not learn that he became a very diligent student--on the contrary, he displayed extreme precocity in getting into mischief of every kind, the only good thing he learnt, apparently, being the use of the sword; and finally, having betaken himself to Paris to kick up his heels, he heard the waiter in a café order some wine for _Monsieur Trouin de la Barbinais_, his eldest brother, who imagined him to be engaged upon his studies at Caen--and thither young René fled incontinently. His brother had, however, got wind of his proceedings; he was summoned home, a family court-martial held upon him, and he was sentenced to be sent off to sea, in a privateer of 18 guns, the _Trinité_, fitted out by the house of Trouin. As René was then only sixteen it was obviously a wholesome programme for a lad of such precocious proclivities; he was soon to prove, however, that he was in advance of his age in other matters than dissipation. There was not much doing for a year or two; but, after having assisted to take a small prize into St. Malo, young Du Trouin soon had an opportunity of seeing hard knocks exchanged. This was in a fight with a Dutch privateer, the _Concorde_, a vessel of equal force, but the _Trinité_ had some thirty men absent in prizes. However, the skipper, Fossart, was not a man who was afraid of odds, and, seeing the stranger to leeward, cracked on his canvas in chase, came up with her about noon, and fired a blank cartridge, followed by a shot across the Dutchman's bows. This elicited the desired response--or, at least, the expected response--of a broadside, and they went at it, hammer and tongs, for over two hours, by which time the _Concorde_ was considerably knocked about and the Frenchman thought it was time to finish the affair by boarding. Directly the two vessels touched the captain sprang on board. Young Du Guay Trouin leaped beside him. As he did so, the vessels rebounded apart, and several Frenchmen fell between them, only to be crushed to death as the helmsman brought the _Trinité_ up again. An old acquaintance of Du Guay Trouin was among the number, being killed, to his horror, under his very eyes. However, there was no time for lamentations over lost comrades. René's skill with the sword now came into play, and he used it to good purpose, killing two out of three Dutchmen who were attacking his captain. The Dutchmen yielded, after a creditable resistance; and so Du Guay Trouin had his baptism of fire and sword. On his next ship, the _Grenedan_, he took a prominent part in the capture of three out of a convoy of fifteen English ships off the south-west coast of Ireland. Young as he was, he was always in the front rank when fighting was going; and on his return, the _Grenedan_ entering the harbour at St. Malo with the three prizes in her wake, amidst enthusiastic cheers from the townspeople, his brother thought he might be entrusted with the command of a ship. This was in the year 1691, when he was not yet turned eighteen, and of course he would never have got a command at that age under ordinary circumstances. He had, however, proved himself to be something other than an ordinary lad, and his brother, as head of the house, had the power to appoint him captain of one of their privateers, if he was so minded. Accordingly, the young sailor was given command of the _Danycan_--not much of a craft, being a slow sailer and not heavily armed. Caught in a gale of wind, the vessel was blown down Channel, and afterwards chasing some vessels--she could never catch them--into the Shannon, Du Guay Trouin landed his men in the night, burnt a couple of vessels on the beach, did a little pillaging, and alarmed the whole district. Messages were sent hot-foot to Limerick for the soldiers--it was a French fleet, an invasion in force! Du Guay Trouin embarked his men just as the soldiers came in sight, up anchor, and got away cleverly. This was the only fun he had in the _Danycan_, for every vessel she encountered could "wrong" her, as they used to say in those days; that is to say, could sail round her; so there was not much honour and glory to be got out of her. On his return to St. Malo Du Guay Trouin was given a better craft--the _Coëtquen_, of 18 guns. It is said that he held his commission from James II., the ex-king of England--it is certain that James did issue such commissions after his abdication, and indeed his consort, the _Saint Aaron_, commanded by one Welch, of Irish extraction, was thus commissioned. Du Guay Trouin soon had some exciting adventures. Falling in with a fleet of English merchant vessels, under convoy of a couple of sloops, the two privateers captured five ships and the two men-of-war; but, as they were taking their prizes into St. Malo, an English squadron gave chase; then they had to get in where they could. Welch got safely into St. Malo with some of the vessels; Du Guay Trouin, being cornered, made a dash for the Isle of Brehat, behind which the navigation is of the most intricate and perilous description, with dozens of half-submerged rocks and a swishing tide. He managed to get in, and some of the English vessels which tried to follow him very nearly came to grief. He had been under fire for some time, and unluckily his pilot was killed, and also some others who were familiar with the locality; so he contrived to find his way out without them, thus displaying that sort of intuitive skill in navigation and the handling of a ship which has almost always distinguished great seamen. He was not an accomplished navigator, having neglected his studies; he was accustomed to trust entirely to "dead reckoning." Certainly, the means of observing the altitude, etc., of the sun and stars were very rude in those days; but Du Guay Trouin was not expert even with these. However, he got out of this trap, was presently blown into the Bristol Channel, and found an English 60-gun ship arriving about the same time. "Luckily," says one of his biographers, "there is an island in the middle of this estuary; while the enemy came in on one side of it Du Guay Trouin went out on the other." This, of course, is Lundy Island; and, getting a good start, Du Guay Trouin escaped cleverly--going out, so to speak, by the back door as his opponent came in by the front. After this Du Guay Trouin had a bad time in the _Profond_, a very poor sailer, and altogether an unlucky ship, so that he was glad to see the last of her, and take command of the _Hercule_, of 28 guns. After a little good fortune, he again fell upon evil days. No prey was sighted for two months, provisions began to run short, sickness broke out among the crew, discontent and insubordination soon followed. The officers and men demanded that he should return to France, but, partly by conciliation and partly by firmness, he persuaded them to keep the sea for eight days longer, promising them that, if they did capture a prize, they should pillage her and divide the spoil. On the last night at sea, Du Guay Trouin tells us, he had a vivid dream that two deeply laden ships hove in sight; at daybreak he went aloft--and there they were! He took them both; they were rich prizes, and the crew were made happy by being allowed, as he had promised, to pillage one of them. His next ship was the _Diligente_, of 40 guns; and in her he was destined to experience the misfortune of defeat and capture. First, however, he came across the _Prince of Orange_, a hired armed vessel of considerable force--Du Guay Trouin says of 60 guns--convoying a fleet of thirty vessels. Having hailed one of them, and ascertained that they were laden with coal, he determined not to risk loss and damage for such a comparatively worthless cargo. Finding however, that his vessel easily "had the heels" of the other, he indulged in some aggravating antics, taking in sail so as to allow the English to come within gunshot, shooting ahead again, under English colours, which he hoisted "union down," _i.e._ as a signal "Am in need of assistance"; then, dropping down once more, he so far forgot himself as to fire at the other while still under English colours--a gross breach of international law, accounted as an act of piracy. It was done, no doubt, through inadvertence, but the English captain did not forget it, and the Frenchman had cause to regret his carelessness. And then came misfortune; nine days later he fell in with a squadron of six English men-of-war cruising between Ireland and the Scilly Isles. They immediately gave chase. A hard gale blowing, Du Guay Trouin ran for the Scilly Isles, hard pressed by the _Adventure_ and _Dragon_. In among the islands they ran, and by eleven o'clock the _Adventure_ was near enough to engage, the _Diligente_ replying with her stern guns. Still gaining in the heavy breeze, the _Adventure_--a 44-gun ship--was within easy range, the _Dragon_--46 guns--not far astern. Du Guay Trouin engaged the _Adventure_ for nearly three hours, hoping all the time to escape; however, at half-past two his fore and main topmasts were shot away, and the English vessel ranged up alongside, hauling up her courses, the _Dragon_ at the same time signalising her arrival by a broadside. This was a pretty desperate state of affairs, but the gallant Frenchman would not yet acknowledge himself beaten. Seeing the English vessel so near, he conceived the idea of suddenly boarding her, and carrying her off. He sent his officers to call the crew on deck, got the grapnels ready, and ordered the helm to be put over. The two ships were rapidly closing when one of the lieutenants of the _Diligente_, looking through a port, and not imagining for a moment that his captain really contemplated such a desperate measure, ordered the quartermaster to reverse the helm. The ships fell apart, but Du Guay Trouin shouted to jam the helm over again. It was too late; the English captain, knowing that he and his consorts had the Frenchman secure, did not see the use of having a hundred and fifty desperate men jumping on board, so he set his courses, sheered off, and banged away again with his guns. The _Monk_, of 60 guns, now arrived, and the _Diligente_ was fairly surrounded, two more ships coming up shortly. Still the French flag was kept flying. The men, less heroic than their captain, began to run from their quarters. Du Guay Trouin cut down one, pistolled another, and was hustling them generally, when fire broke out below. He rushed down and had it extinguished, then provided himself with a tub of grenades, which he began throwing down into the hold, so that his crew found it too hot to remain below, and manned some of the guns. However, this could not go on against such fearful odds, and on gaining the deck once more he found that "some cowardly rascal" had lowered the colours. He ordered them up again, but his officers demurred; and then, with the last shot fired in the action, he was wounded severely in the groin and dropped senseless. When he came to himself the ship was in the possession of the English. He was taken on board the _Monk_, where Captain Warren treated him right well--"with as much care as though I had been his own son," says Du Guay Trouin--and he was probably quite old enough to have been father to the young French captain, who was then only one-and-twenty. Arriving at Plymouth, the gallant young Frenchman became the object of much interest and favour; naval and military officers entertained him, civilians followed suit, and he was given, as he says, "the whole town for his prison"; in other words, he was placed on his parole, and allowed full liberty. Always susceptible to the attractions of women, he found, as he tells us, "une fort jolie marchande"--a sweetly pretty shop-girl, or shop-woman, with whom he formed a close acquaintance, and who was eventually mainly instrumental in procuring his liberty. Pretty girls, as we know, are reputed to be more abundant in Devonshire than in many other parts, and no doubt the Frenchman found her very seductive. It is curious what a diversity of parts this young woman is made to assume among the biographers of Du Guay Trouin. One makes her out just a shop-girl; another says she was "une jeune marchande qui preparait les repas de Duguay"--a young shop-woman who prepared his meals--while Mr. C.B. Norman, on what ground does not appear, calls her a "fair _compatriote_"--a Frenchwoman, married to a "Devonshire merchant," and has a good deal to say about the way in which she hoodwinked her good husband while she was obtaining information for the young Frenchman when he was in prison; we shall get him there directly. Du Guay Trouin, in his "Mémoires," simply speaks of her as already quoted; and "_marchande_" certainly does not mean "merchant's wife." However, there she is, being entertained sometimes by Du Guay Trouin, and no doubt very proud of being the object of his attentions--just a shop-girl, he says; and he ought to know. This delightful condition of affairs was, however, unexpectedly interrupted, for one fine day there arrived the _Prince of Orange_, to refit after seeing her colliers safe; and the captain soon recognised, in the prize lying at anchor, the vessel which fired at him under the English flag. He was in a great state of mind, reported the circumstances to the Admiralty, and demanded that Du Guay Trouin should be treated as a pirate. The authorities demurred to this request, but thought it advisable, during their deliberations, that he should not have "the whole town for his prison"; so they put him in gaol, allowing him, however, to order his own food and entertain his friends there. The English officers who took turns on guard at the prison were very glad to dine with him; and "my pretty shop-girl also came very often to pay me a visit." Too often, apparently, for the peace of mind of a young French refugee officer, doing duty with an English company of soldiers; and he actually came to Du Guay Trouin and begged his good offices to induce the girl to marry him--or, at least, to show him favour. Du Guay Trouin was at first disposed to refuse indignantly, though he apparently wishes to imply that his intimacy with her was quite innocent. It occurred to him, however, that the young soldier's infatuation might be turned to good account. He would, he said, serve him with all his heart; but he was rather worried in his room, and could not see his way to do much unless he could entertain her in some more open place--the café close to the prison would do very well; she could come there without suspicion, and, if he had but one chance there, he would use all his eloquence with her, and would even arrange that the love-lorn young soldier should spend the rest of the evening with her. The bait was too strong for his loyalty. Du Guay Trouin, having established an understanding with "his gentle shop-girl," represented to her feelingly that the trial of imprisonment would soon cause him to succumb if she would not have the goodness to assist him to escape; which, of course, she did, first becoming his messenger to a Swedish captain, who sold him a good boat for £35, with sails and oars complete. The whole scheme came off to admiration. Du Guay Trouin, with the connivance of the impatient lover, who had seen his lady enter the café, left his room and followed, the young officer only imploring him not to keep him long in suspense. "But," says Du Guay Trouin, "I scarcely gave myself time to thank and kiss that wholesome little friend"--he was out at the back, over the wall, and in the company of some of his officers and six stalwart, well-armed Swedish sailors before the French officer had any time to be anxious; and by ten o'clock they were in the boat, sailing by the men-of-war, answering "Fishermen" to the hail of the sentries, and so to sea. They reached the island of Brehat after a rough passage of fifty hours, and, after resting for a while, made their way to St. Malo, where Du Guay Trouin learned that his brother had a fine ship fitting out for him at Rochefort. Whether the love-sick soldier went to look for "la jolie marchande" and what she said to him are not recorded; but it is to be feared that he experienced a rude awakening. In his new command, named _François_, of 48 guns, Du Guay Trouin was soon busy, taking several prizes of considerable value off the coast of Ireland. He was longing, however, for an opportunity of avenging himself for his defeat and capture, and early in the year 1695 he had his wish, encountering a large convoy of vessels laden with huge spars, suitable for masts, etc., bound from North America, under the protection of the _Nonsuch_, of 48 guns. One of the convoy, the _Falcon_, was also well armed, carrying 38 guns, according to Du Guay Trouin, and pierced for 72. He calls the _Falcon_ the _Boston_, and the _Nonsuch_ by the equivalent French name, _Sanspareil_. He says that the inhabitants of Boston had had the _Falcon_ built, and loaded with valuable mast-timber and choice skins, as a present to King William III. Sighting the enemy about noon, Du Guay Trouin immediately attacked the _Falcon_, and with his first few broadsides inflicted immense damage, sending her maintopmast by the board, and smashing her mainyard. Leaving her for a time, he laid his ship on board the _Nonsuch_, the two ships exchanging a hot fire from great guns and small arms the while. The Frenchmen discharged a number of grenades on the decks of the _Nonsuch_, and then the boarders leaped across; but fire broke out on the after part of the English ship, and raged with such fury that Du Guay Trouin was compelled to recall his men and disengage his vessel. Seeing the flames nearly extinguished, he closed again; but he was premature, for the fire once more flared up, and caught his own maintopsail and foresail. While both ships were busy tackling the fire night came on, and they fell apart, repairing damages on both sides. At daybreak Du Guay Trouin renewed his attack upon the _Nonsuch_; but just as he was laying her aboard her fore and mainmasts fell with a crash, and he was compelled once more to sheer off--this time however, with the certainty that she was his. Seeing the _Falcon_ making all sail in the endeavour to escape, he steered for her, and very quickly obtained her submission; meanwhile, the _Nonsuch_ had lost her remaining mast, and was an absolute wreck, sorely damaged also in her hull. Thus the determined young French captain had things all his own way; and he thoroughly deserved his success, which was the outcome of fine seamanship, backed by good gunnery and indomitable courage. The captain of the _Nonsuch_ was killed. The court-martial which was subsequently held on the surviving officers found that he had not made adequate preparation for fighting, and so was overcome by a considerably inferior force, for the _Nonsuch_ and the _François_ were about equal. All the vessels engaged were very badly damaged, and, a gale of wind springing up immediately after the action, their position became very hazardous. The _Falcon_ was recaptured by four Dutch privateers; the _Nonsuch_ and _François_ with difficulty managed to reach port. On hearing of this achievement the King of France sent Du Guay Trouin a sword of honour, and his name was in every mouth. He sailed next with a squadron under the Marquis de Nesmond which captured the English 70-gun ship the _Hope_, and subsequently he and a consort took three East Indiamen, with cargoes valued at about one million sterling. After having been, to his great delight and exultation, presented to the king in Paris, he fitted out the _Nonsuch_, under the name _Sanspareil_, with an armament of 42 guns, and cruised off the coast of Spain. On this cruise there occurred an incident which was very characteristic of Du Guay Trouin's presence of mind and audacity. Having news of three Dutch merchant ships lying at Vigo awaiting the escort of an English man-of-war, he took advantage of the English build and appearance of his ship, and hoisting English colours, appeared in the entrance of Vigo Bay. Two of the Dutchmen, completely deceived, immediately joined him, and were, of course, captured; the third, luckily for her, was not ready for sea. This was all very nice; but one fine morning, at daybreak, he found himself close under the lee of a strong English fleet. Many men would have despaired of getting out of such a trap; but Du Guay Trouin instantly conceived a plan of action. Signalling to his prize-masters in the two Dutch ships to salute him with seven guns, and run to leeward, he calmly stood towards the fleet, as though he belonged to it, and had merely fallen out to overhaul the two Dutch vessels. Two large ships and a 36-gun frigate hauled out of line to inspect him, but, being completely deceived by his appearance and nonchalance, they desisted--the frigate, however, displaying undue curiosity with regard to the two Dutch vessels. This was very disturbing, and Du Guay Trouin was on tenter-hooks as he watched her approach them; however, he kept jogging along quietly with the English fleet, until, by edging away gradually, he was in a position to make a run for it. Setting all his canvas, he tried to place himself between the frigate and his prizes; and he rapidly conceived the glorious idea of boarding and capturing the frigate in view of the whole fleet--most likely he would have succeeded, as he had a far more numerous crew; but the English captain began to suspect, and, keeping a gunshot to windward, lowered a boat to board and question Du Guay Trouin. When it was half-way on its journey, the boat's crew suddenly realised the truth, and hastily returned; upon which Du Guay Trouin hoisted his colours and opened fire on the frigate. This woke up the Englishmen--who must, indeed, have been very sleepy--and several large ships detached themselves and came down upon the _Sanspareil_; before they could reach her, however, the frigate, much damaged by Du Guay Trouin's fire, made urgent signals of distress, and while they were soothing the frigate and recovering her boat, Du Guay Trouin quietly made off and took his prizes safely into port! He was really a glorious fellow--and only now three-and-twenty. Du Guay Trouin, shortly after this, had cause of complaint against a naval captain whom he encountered at sea, and who, evidently jealous of his successes, fired on his boat, and, calling him on board his ship, rated him in the most contemptuous and insulting manner, threatening to "keel-haul" him, and so on. This is a good example of the behaviour of the aristocratic naval officers towards privateersmen, and it is not surprising if the latter demurred to accepting commissions in the Navy. Du Guay Trouin, however, was destined ere long to take his place there, after a most tremendous and bloody encounter with some Dutch men-of-war escorting a fleet of merchantmen. He was then commanding the _St. Jacques des Victoires_, and had in company his old ship the _Sanspareil_, commanded by his cousin, Jacques Boscher, and the _Leonore_, of 16 guns. Being joined, after sighting this fleet, under the care of two 50-gun and one 30-gun ship, by two large St. Malo privateers, Du Guay Trouin reckoned that he was strong enough to attack--with five ships to three, though the _Leonore_ did not count for much in such an action. However, he despatched her to seize some of the convoy, told his cousin in the _Sanspareil_ to tackle one of the 50-gun ships while he went for the other, and the two St. Malo men took care of the frigate in the middle. By the action of the Dutchmen Du Guay Trouin and his cousin exchanged antagonists; the ship destined for Boscher fell foul of the _St. Jacques_, and Trouin, with his customary promptitude and impetuosity, immediately launched half his crew on board and carried her. The Dutch commodore's ship, the _Delft_, proved a very hard nut to crack. The _Sanspareil_ was repulsed with great loss, her poop on fire, cartridges exploding promiscuously, and nearly a hundred men blown up, shot dead, or wounded. She sheered off, and Du Guay Trouin ran alongside the _Delft_, to be received with even greater warmth. Her captain, an heroic man, fought like a demon, and the _St. Jacques_ also was forced to haul off to breathe the men, who were getting somewhat disheartened, and repair considerable damages. Meanwhile, the larger of the St. Malo vessels, the _Faluère_, was directed to keep the redoubtable Dutchman amused, but she soon had enough of it, losing her captain, and running to leeward. Du Guay Trouin was not going to give in, however. He rallied his men, and, summoning the _Faluère_ to his aid, he went for the _Delft_ once more--as he says, "with head down." He got her--but it cost him more than half his crew, and every one of the Dutch officers was killed or wounded. The commodore, Baron de Wassenaer, fell on his quarter-deck with four deadly wounds, his sword still grasped in his hand, and was made prisoner. Then they had an awful night, for it came on to blow hard, on a lee shore; all the ships were frightfully battered and leaking, masts and rigging cut to pieces, and the already exhausted crews had to turn to at the pumps for dear life. On board the _St. Jacques_ the Dutch prisoners were set to work to lighten the ship by throwing overboard all her upper-deck guns, spars, shot--everything movable, to keep her afloat. Day broke at length, the wind abated, and, with the assistance of boats from the shore, the ship was brought in: a sorry wreck, indeed, but the fruits of her labour soon came to hand--three Dutch men-of-war and twelve ships of the convoy. The _Sanspareil_ arrived twenty-four hours later, having barely survived the Dutchman's furious onslaught. For this service Du Guay Trouin received a commission as commander in the Navy, and was again presented to the king. As a regular naval officer, he no longer remains within the scope of these pages; but there is one incident which should not be omitted, even though it be somewhat to the discredit of the English. In the year 1704 Du Guay Trouin was in command of the _Jason_, 54 guns, in company with the _Auguste_, of equal force, when they fell in, at night, with the English ship _Chatham_, an old antagonist, which had before escaped them. At daybreak they were on either side of her, blazing away, the English vessel making every effort to escape, while maintaining creditably her part in the fighting, and the three of them ran into the English fleet. Then things became serious for the two French ships: some of the fastest sailers in the fleet were sent after them. The _Auguste_ was a poor sailer, so they agreed to separate. But the English had force enough to pursue them both, and the _Auguste_ was soon disposed of. The _Jason_ held on, and presently was tackled by the _Worcester_, of 50 guns, which was considerably knocked about, and dropped astern. Other ships came up, however, and, supported by their presence, the _Worcester_ again attacked indecisively. With the dusk, the wind dropped altogether, and there was the _Jason_, surrounded by foes in the darkness, only waiting for daylight to eat her up. Naturally, her captain did not find it easy to sleep; and it was characteristic of him that he still planned in his mind some desperate measure. He told his officers that he intended to go straight for the English flagship; that he himself would take the helm and run aboard her, and that he thus hoped to perform a brilliant feat of arms, by carrying this ship, before they succumbed to superior force--and in any case, his flag was not coming down unless the enemy could get there to haul it down themselves. With this heroic resolve in contemplation, he paced the deck. There was not a breath of wind. The ship rolled a little uneasily, the timbers creaking and blocks rattling aloft, while the few sails that were set slatted against the masts and rigging occasionally in that irritating fashion with which all seamen are familiar. At various distances round him were the enemy's vessels, few of them probably out of gunshot, and some very near. About an hour before daybreak Du Guay Trouin noticed a dark line above the horizon ahead of his ship; he watched it carefully, and felt convinced that a breeze was coming from that quarter. Calling the crew quietly on deck, he made sail, braced the yards up, and with one or two of the huge oars or "sweeps" provided in those days, he got the ship's head round so as to catch the breeze in a favourable manner in case it should come. And it did come: at first a breath, which barely gave the ship steerage-way; then a little stronger--she steals ahead, two knots, three knots; the Englishmen are all taken aback, with their topsails lowered, their yards braced anyhow. Before they can make and trim sail the _Jason_ is clear of the ruck of them, a good gunshot clear! The _Worcester_ was once more the only one to tackle her, and was soon shaken off--by noon she was fast dropping astern; and, says Du Guay Trouin, "I looked on myself as though risen from the dead." Well he might do, too. And what were all those Englishmen thinking about, each ship with an officer in charge of the deck? One would imagine that they could see a breeze coming as well as a Frenchman could. But Du Guay Trouin had one essential element of success about him--- _he never threw away a chance._ He died in 1736. France may well be proud of him. Think of a lad of one-and-twenty, pressed by half a dozen ships among the Scilly Islands, conceiving that plan of boarding and capturing the _Adventure_! That incident alone is sufficient to mark him as excelling by many degrees the average--nay, the more than average--fighting seaman. CHAPTER XV JACQUES CASSARD Among the less well-known French privateersmen is Jacques Cassard, a native of Nantes, where there stands to this day a commemorative statue of him. He was born in 1672, and so was a contemporary of Du Guay Trouin. The son of a seafarer, young Jacques was predestined to a similar life, but there is very little known of his early doings. He appears to have commenced as a privateer at the early age of fourteen, and he must evidently have established, during the following ten years, a reputation for skill and daring, for when he was five-and-twenty he was selected to command the bomb-ship in an expedition against Carthagena, under De Pointis, in 1697. The sluggish and unseaworthy vessel which Cassard commanded parted company from the squadron while crossing the Atlantic, but in due course he arrived at St. Domingo, the rendezvous, where was assembled a formidable squadron, with 5,000 troops, and a contingent of 1,200 filibustering ruffians under Du Casse, Governor of St. Domingo. The first assault by the ships on the forts at Carthagena was met with such a furious fire that De Pointis was glad to haul off for a time; Cassard, however, backed up by Du Casse, was so insistent in urging an immediate renewal of the attack that they carried the day. Cassard distinguished himself throughout; he took his little bomb-vessel close under the strongest fort and bombarded it mercilessly. When the Spaniards' fire began to slacken he and Du Casse led the assault on the battered defences, and, after a desperate conflict, carried the first fort. Cassard, prompt and resourceful, turned the guns upon an adjacent work, and by the evening the Spaniards, driven to the citadel, displayed the flag of surrender. It was after the defenders had marched out, followed by numbers of the townspeople, however, that Cassard performed the most valuable service. A scene of horror ensued: the regulars and filibusters, mad with drink and lust, scoured the town, ransacked churches and houses, and perpetrated shocking outrages. Their officers lost all control, and were even shot down by the mad rioters when they attempted to remonstrate. Then Cassard, having obtained permission to take the matter in hand, picked out a band of about three hundred Bretons from among the crews of the war-ships, and landed with them. He did not mince matters. He was well aware that the only course to pursue, with any hope of success, was to meet savagery with savagery, and the plunderers soon found themselves confronted with the alternative of submission or death. They fought it out in forty-eight hours, Cassard guarding the gates strongly, and searching systematically every quarter of the town. With his own hand he is said to have shot down a score of looters; and when it was over he had to arrange for the burial of three hundred and seventy unhappy women, who had been ill-treated and murdered, often in the very churches. De Pointis, on their return, strongly recommended Cassard for a commission in the Navy, but prejudice was too strong against his class, and it was not until nearly three years later, after some successful privateering, that he was summoned to the royal presence. "I have need," said the king, "of all the brave men I can find for my Navy, and as you, they say, are the bravest of the brave, I have appointed you a lieutenant in my fleet, and have given instructions that a sum of £2,000 be handed over to you, to enable you to support your position in a proper manner." This was all very well; but his newly earned honours sat heavily upon him, and the jealousy of the naval aristocrats made things unpleasant; so it was in the capacity of commander of a private ship of war that he gained further laurels. This was the _St. William_, fitted out by merchants of St. Malo in 1705, a small vessel, mounting only eight guns of insignificant power and manned by sixty-eight harum-scarum fellows picked up on the quays at St. Malo. After a fruitless cruise he returned to refit, and then made a successful raid upon small traders off the south coast of Ireland, thereby gaining a little prize-money to encourage his crew. After a visit to Brest, he was returning to the coast of Ireland when he came across a Dutchman of greatly superior force, with which he had an heroic encounter. The Dutchman fired the usual "summoning" gun, to which Cassard paid no heed. A shot across his bows followed, but he held on his course. The Dutchman cleared for action, crowding sail and rapidly overhauling the _St. William_. It looked like a foregone conclusion that she should succumb to this formidable adversary, carrying fourteen 9-pounders. Cassard, however, had his own ideas as to the conduct of the engagement. As the enemy rapidly came up, pounding him with his bow-guns, the Frenchman suddenly shortened sail, squared his mainyard, and threw his ship aboard the other. A discharge of grape and chain-shot from the _St. William's_ 3-pounders was instantly followed by a rush of sixty desperate men, headed by their captain. A most bloody encounter ensued. Dutchmen are not easily beaten, and the deck had to be gained step by step. It is said that Cassard had told off one of his leading men to endeavour, the moment he gained a footing on board, to run in one of the Dutchman's guns and point it along the deck; and while the remainder were at grips with the enemy, this man and half a dozen others contrived to effect this, loaded the gun with langrage--which means any odd bit of metal you can scrape up--and watched for a chance. Then they shouted, "Stand clear of the gun!" The French suddenly parted to either side of the deck, and the shower of iron peppered the astonished Dutchmen. This was twice accomplished, the Frenchmen each time rushing forward in the smoke; and then the Dutch captain, wounded and bleeding, proffered his sword to Cassard. It was a good device, if the story be true; but not as easy of accomplishment as it is made to appear in the accounts of the action. It is said that the Dutch loss, out of a crew of 113, was 37 killed and 51 wounded. Cassard had 16 killed and 23 wounded. Some three or four years of success followed, during which Cassard adopted the illegal, but tempting device of ransoming his prizes and taking the captains as hostages for payment--a practice for which, like Jean Bart, he was brought to book, without very much practical result. However, he made a great deal of money, and in the year 1709[12] he was appealed to by some merchants of Marseilles to convoy from Bizerta, on the north coast of Tunis, a fleet of grain-ships--an urgent business, as France was in very great need of grain. He was induced to put his hand in his pocket and fit out at his own expense two men-of-war--the _Éclatant_ and _Serieux_--lent by the Government, the latter of which he commanded himself, and made sail for Bizerta, where he found the grain-ships safe enough. The difficulty was, to get them safely to Marseilles, the English fleet being on the alert. With this end in view he had recourse to a ruse, which is not very clearly set forth in the accounts; but in the end he enticed a frigate out of Malta and led her away from his convoy, which he had left in charge of the _Éclatant_, though it involved a desperate running action with a vessel of superior force, in which he nearly came to grief. Arriving at length at Marseilles, he found that the grain-ships had turned up safely, which was really a great triumph; but the wily merchants were too cunning for the simple seaman. There was, it appears, a clause in the agreement to the effect that Cassard should bring in the convoy--it is easy to imagine how such a document would be worded--and, because he had not personally conducted the ships into port, the merchants refused to pay him the stipulated sum for his services! He appealed, but the merchants had too many friends at court; so he found himself some £10,000 out of pocket in the long run, as a reward for averting a famine by his skill and courage. He was destined, however, to repeat the exploit. In June 1709 a huge fleet of eighty-four merchant vessels, under convoy of six men-of-war, was despatched to Smyrna to bring back grain. The squadron consisted of the _Teméraire_, 60, _Toulouse_, 60, _Stendard_, 50, _Fleuron_, 50, _Hirondelle_, 36, and _Vestale_, 36, under the command of M. de Feuquières. Reaching Smyrna in safety, they sailed in October on the return voyage, with their precious freight; but De Feuquières, learning that a strong English squadron was watching for him in the Gulf of Genoa, put into Syracuse, in Sicily; and sent the _Toulouse_ to Marseilles for additional force. The people of Marseilles shamelessly appealed to Cassard, whom they had treated so scurvily; he refused at first to have anything to do with it. However, he was eventually placed in command of a little squadron, consisting of the _Parfait_, 70, with his flag; the _Toulouse_, Captain De Lambert; _Serieux_, 60, Captain De l'Aigle; and _Phoenix_, 56, Captain Du Haies. With a fair wind, on November 8th he sailed for Syracuse, according to Mr. Norman, arriving there on the evening of the following day--a feat which may be safely put down as practically impossible, the distance being over 650 nautical miles, or knots. However, there is no doubt that Cassard arrived off Syracuse one day, and found only two English men-of-war watching for the grain fleet, instead of a strong squadron, as he expected. With these he resolved to deal at once, and bore down upon them. The two English ships were the _Pembroke_, 64, Captain Edward Rumsey--not _Rumfry_, as Mr. Norman calls him, probably from some French document--and the _Falcon_, 36, Captain Charles Constable, the remainder of the squadron having gone to Mahon, in Corsica, to refit. The _Pembroke_ had apparently had her turn there and returned to her station a few days previously, the _Falcon_ joining her. When Cassard's squadron hove in sight and Captain Rumsey, having failed to receive from them the acknowledgment of the private signal, realised that he was in for a serious business, he signalled the _Falcon_ to shorten sail, and, running up alongside her, he asked Captain Constable what he made of the strangers, to which the latter replied that one of them was a very big ship, but he could not make much of the others. "Shall we fight them?" shouted Rumsey through his speaking-trumpet. "Just as you please, sir!" bawled Constable. "That's no answer," rejoined Rumsey. "With all my heart," said Constable, and they cleared for action--none too soon, for the French ships, bringing up a stronger breeze with them, were already almost within gunshot. Cassard had signalled Feuquières to weigh and convoy the grain-ships out while he engaged the two English ships. Rumsey, realising that he was imperatively called upon to prevent, or at least to retard their escape, had probably made up his mind before he spoke to Constable. Leaving only two ships there was a blunder, and he really had no choice about fighting, for he could not well have escaped. The action which ensued was one of the most stubborn sea-fights on record. Cassard attacked with three ships, the _Parfait_ ranging alongside the _Falcon_, while the _Serieux_ and _Phoenix_ tackled the _Pembroke_. If the Frenchmen expected an easy conquest of the _Falcon_ by the huge 70-gun ship they were very much in error. With her crew of 740 men the _Parfait_ was run alongside, and her bowsprit lashed to the fore-rigging of the _Falcon_. Instantly Constable turned the tables on the foe, rushing on board at the head of one hundred men. They were repulsed, with heavy losses on both sides, and before Cassard could return the compliment the two ships fell apart. The _Falcon's_ flight was soon stayed by the heavy fire of the French ship, which brought down spars and cut rigging extensively, and once more Cassard laid her on board. His first attack was repelled by the indomitable Constable and his men; but the price was too heavy: something like 120 men had been killed or desperately wounded already, and Constable, taking counsel with his officers, was forced to the conclusion that it was useless to sacrifice more lives, and so hauled down his colours; he had been badly wounded in the shoulder, but kept his place on deck. According to Captain Schomberg, in his "Naval Chronology," there were only sixteen men of the _Falcon's_ crew able to stand at their quarters when she surrendered. Meanwhile, the _Pembroke_ and the other two ships were hammering each other at close range, and much damage resulted on both sides. After an hour and a half of fighting Captain Rumsey, who had behaved splendidly, was killed, and Barkley, the first lieutenant, came on deck and took his place. For two hours after the captain's death the unequal conflict was maintained: Cassard came down and joined the fray after the _Falcon_ was captured, and had a tremendous cannonade with the _Pembroke_, yardarm to yardarm, while the _Serieux_ pounded her on the other quarter. It could not last; the English ship's mizzen-mast went crashing by the board, her maintopmast followed, her rigging was nearly all cut away, her mainmast wounded and tottering, her decks lumbered with wreckage, which also rendered the ship almost unmanageable, and the crew falling by tens--to hold out longer would be worse than useless, so Barkley and his brother officers agreed, and the colours had to come down. The losses on both sides afforded ample testimony to the splendid courage of the Englishmen and the gallant pertinacity of the French. Six months later Constable and the surviving officers of the _Pembroke_ were tried by court-martial, were judged to have done their duty, and honourably acquitted. It now remains to clear up some chronological discrepancies. According to Mr. Norman, this engagement took place on November 10th, 1710, and Cassard entered Toulon with his prizes on the 15th. Where he obtained these dates does not appear; but, as a matter of fact, the court-martial took place on June 21st, 1710, and the sworn testimony of the officers of both ships places the engagement on December 29th, 1709; Captain Rumsey wrote from Mahon on December 10th, reporting to the admiral--Sir Edward Whittaker--that his ship had been careened, and was nearly ready for sea. These official reports being unimpeachable, it appears probable that the first affair with the grain-ships took place in 1708, as has already been hinted.[13] However, this does not affect the actual facts with regard to the engagement, which was so creditable to both sides. Promoted to the rank of commander, Cassard was appointed to command the military works in progress at Toulon; but he was not happy in this post, and, after trying in vain to obtain restitution of the money he had lost on the first grain venture, he took command of a squadron, consisting of nine vessels, men-of-war, but fitted out by private enterprise in St. Malo and Nantes. With this force, and a proportional number of troops, he took St. Iago, in the Cape Verde Islands, then crossed the Atlantic and pillaged Montserrat and Antigua, ransomed Surinam and St. Eustatia, and, after some difficulties, treated Curaçoa similarly. Despite his really brilliant achievements, Jacques Cassard was destined to spend his declining years in comparative poverty, and die in confinement. Jealousy on the part of the aristocrats, false accusations of misappropriation of prize goods, impudence amounting to mutiny in dealing with an admiral, and finally loss of temper and insolence to the all-powerful Cardinal Fleury--this was the end of all: he was imprisoned in the fortress of Ham, and there he died, in 1740, having survived Du Guay Trouin by four years. [Footnote 12: As related in "The Corsairs of France," by C.B. Norman; but it appears probable that it was in the previous year, for reasons to be stated later.] [Footnote 13: See note, p. 233.] CHAPTER XVI ROBERT SURCOUF Robert Surcouf, another prominent French privateersman, was born on December 12th, 1773--just one hundred years after Du Guay Trouin, to whose family he was related. Like his famous relative, he was intended for the Church; but he speedily manifested a militant spirit by no means of an ecclesiastical quality--he was, in fact, an awful pickle at home and at school; insubordinate, always fighting with some one, tearing his clothes to pieces, and quite unamenable to parental or pedagogic admonition. Severity and entreaty were alike futile. However, he was sent to a seminary at Dinan, under a superior of great reputed strictness, and here for a time he raised his parents' hopes; but he soon grew weary of the monotony of obedience, ceased to evince any interest in his studies, and speedily became the leader in every description of mischief. The crisis arrived one day when the class-master seized young Robert with the intention of administering personal chastisement. The scholar proved to be exceedingly robust for his years, and resisted the operation with tremendous vigour; and when at length the master had got him down, he seized his leg in his teeth, and compelled him to desist for the moment and seek for assistance. Surcouf's classmates loudly applauded him; but, knowing that he would be ultimately compelled to yield to superior force, he got through the window, scaled the garden wall, and, without hat or shoes, started to walk home, the snow lying thickly on the ground. He had more than twenty miles to walk, and when it became dark he slipped about on the frozen snow, and at length, worn out and half perished with cold and hunger, he sank senseless by the roadside. Luckily, some fish-merchants found him and took him home, where he was nursed by his mother with the tenderest devotion during an attack of pneumonia. Thanks to his strong constitution, he recovered completely; but he was not sent back to Dinan. It was obvious that there was nothing to be done but to recognise his vocation as a seaman; and accordingly, at the age of thirteen, he was shipped on board the _Heron_, brig, bound for Cadiz. This kind of coasting voyage was not at all to the mind of the impetuous and ambitious Robert. Some of the crew who had made distant voyages had wonderful tales to tell, and he longed to visit these far-off lands. It was two years, however, before his wish was gratified. In March 1789, at sixteen, he embarked as volunteer on board the _Aurora_, of 700 tons, bound for the East Indies. They had a gale of wind, with a tremendous sea, off the Cape, and young Surcouf displayed remarkable courage and aptitude in the various emergencies which are sure to arise on such an occasion, for which he was duly praised by his superiors on board. After touching at the Mauritius, they went on to Pondicherry; and during this latter portion of the voyage Surcouf became very friendly with the fourth officer, M. de Saint-Pol, who, having been born on the Coromandel Coast, was conversant with the Eastern seas, was a very good officer and a well-informed man. He took pleasure in imparting to his young shipmate the knowledge at his command, and the seed fell upon fruitful ground, young Surcouf drinking in with avidity every detail concerning the Indian Seas, which he was destined one day to hold for a while completely. Saint-Pol's enthusiastic description of the exploits of Suffren served to inflame his ardour. However, he had some unpleasant work before him ere he found the opportunity he sought. The _Aurora_, having conveyed some troops from Pondicherry to Mauritius, sailed for Mozambique, and there embarked four hundred negro slaves for the West Indies. This was in February 1790, the season at which the tremendous cyclones of the Indian Ocean are most frequent and formidable. The _Aurora_ fell in with one of these storms on the 18th, and, in spite of the brave efforts of master and crew, she was cast, dismasted and helpless, on the coast of Africa. The crew, together with the female slaves and children, were saved; but the negroes confined in the hold perished, every man, in that horrible death-trap, in spite of some brave attempts, in which young Surcouf took a part, to rescue them. When the wind went down there was the terrible task to be performed of clearing out the ship, which appeared not to be damaged beyond repair; and in this work, which occupied fifteen days, Surcouf distinguished himself by his willing and untiring energy. Twice he was brought up fainting from that awful hold, but he continued to labour and set an heroic example until the end; and such fortitude in a lad of his age naturally attracted attention. He went back as mate in a vessel hired to convey the crew to Mauritius. She was driven terribly out of her course, and did not arrive until December; and Surcouf finished his first voyage as quartermaster, on board a corvette, the _Bienvenue_, for the homeward passage, reaching L'Orient on January 3rd, 1792. He made haste to visit his parents, who, no longer remembering the escapades of the school-boy, welcomed with pride and affection the stalwart, bronzed young seaman of eighteen, who appeared likely, after all, to do them credit. The Indian seas called him again, and, after six months at home, he sailed as a lieutenant on board the armed ship _Navigator_, for Mauritius. After a couple of trading voyages between this island and the African coast, war broke out with England, and the _Navigator_ was laid up. Surcouf now became lieutenant on board another vessel, trading to Africa, in which he made several voyages. There was no opportunity of acquiring any honour and glory in action, so he applied himself to his profession, and became a very good seaman, with an excellent knowledge of the navigation of the Indian Ocean. He was not as lucky, however, as he had been in the _Aurora_, with regard to his superiors. The first lieutenant was a Portuguese, and for some reason he conceived a deadly hatred of Surcouf. One sweltering hot day, the ship being becalmed, the men obtained leave to bathe over the side; after they had finished Surcouf thought he would like a dip, and took a header from the gangway. No sooner had he done so than he was seized with a sort of cataleptic fit, and found himself sinking helplessly. Luckily, it was noticed that he did not come up again, and some of the crew lowered a boat, while others dived for him, recovered him, and brought him on board; but all their efforts failed to evoke any signs of life, and the Portuguese, obviously and brutally exultant, after declaring repeatedly that Surcouf was dead, seized the inert body and with his own hands dragged it to the ship's side. Surcouf, conscious of all that went on around him, realised that, unless he could make some sign, he had only a few seconds to live. With a tremendous effort, he contrived a voluntary movement of his limbs--it was noticed, and the further exertions of his shipmates sufficed to restore him. The Portuguese, however, had not done with him. On their next visit to Africa some of the crew were laid up with malarial fever, and the first lieutenant caught it. He was very ill, and Surcouf earned the warm approbation of the captain for the manner in which he performed his senior's duties on the return voyage. After they arrived at Mauritius he was just going on shore when he received a message begging him to go and see the Portuguese, who said he must speak to him before he died. Surcouf did not much like the idea, but, after some hesitation, he went, having put a pair of loaded pistols in his pocket. The sick man made a sign to his servant to retire, and then said: "I wish to speak to you with a sincere heart before I pass from this world, to relieve my conscience, and ask your forgiveness for all the evil I have wished to do you during our voyages." Surcouf, touched by this appeal, assured him that he bore no malice. Just then the dying man appeared to suffer from a spasm which contorted his body, one arm stretching out towards a pillow near him. Surcouf quietly seized his hand and lifted the pillow, disclosing a couple of loaded pistols. He seized them, and, pointing one at his enemy's face, said: "You miserable beast! I could have shot you like a dog, or squashed you like a cockroach; but I despise you too much, so I'll leave you to die like a coward." Which, we are told, the wretched man did, blaspheming in despairing rage. After this, his ship being laid up in consequence of the blockade, he was appointed junior lieutenant of a colonial man of war, with a commission signed by the Governor. Then came news of the death of Louis XVI. by the guillotine--news which astounded the colonists and seamen, who, in the Indian seas, were defending the "honour" of France--which they continued to do to the best of their ability, disregarding the deadly feuds and bloodshed at home. In October 1794 a little squadron was despatched from Mauritius to attack a couple of English men-of-war which were practically blockading the island--these were the _Centurion_, of 54 guns, and the _Diomede_, of the same force but fewer men; and the French squadron consisted of the _Prudente_, 40 guns, the _Cybèle_, 44 guns, the _Jean Bart_, 20 guns, and the _Courier_, 14 guns. The Frenchmen attacked with great spirit, and the English vessels were practically driven off the station; partly owing, it was said, to the extreme caution displayed by Captain Matthew Smith, of the _Diomede_, for which he was subsequently called upon to answer before a court-martial.[14] In this spirited action, on the French side, Robert Surcouf took part as a junior lieutenant on board the _Cybèle_. The casualties were heavy, but he escaped without a single scratch, and was commended for his courageous attitude. But soon afterwards he found himself at a loose end, the volunteers being discharged; so he presently accepted the command of the brig _Creole_, engaged in the slave trade, and made several successful voyages before the authorities realised that the traffic was, by a recent ordinance, illegal. They gave orders to arrest Surcouf upon his arrival at Mauritius; he, however, having got wind of this intention, steered instead for the Isle of Bourbon, and there landed his cargo during the night, in a small bay about ten miles from St. Denis, the capital of the island. At daybreak he anchored in St. Paul's Bay, in the same island. About eight o'clock he had a surprise visit from three representatives of the Public Health Committee, who desired to come on board. Surcouf, concealing his annoyance, gave permission, and of course they were not long in discovering undoubted indications of the purpose for which the brig had been employed. They drew up an indictment on the spot, and warned Surcouf that he would have to accompany them to answer to it. "I am at your service, citizens," he replied politely; "but don't go until you have given me the pleasure of partaking of the breakfast which my cook has hastily prepared." The invitation was accepted. The conscientious commissioners--"improvised negro-lovers, under the bloody Reign of Terror," as Robert Surcouf's namesake and biographer contemptuously styles them--were fond of good things, and the sea-air had sharpened their appetites. Surcouf had a short and earnest conversation with his mate before he conducted his guests below. The cook's "hasty" efforts were marvellously attractive, and the wine was excellent--Surcouf was a bit of a _gourmet_ himself, and liked to have things nicely done--so what need was there for being in a hurry? Meanwhile, the mate had dismissed the state canoe of the commissioners, telling the coxswain that the brig's boat would take them on shore. Then the cable was quietly slipped, and the _Creole_, under all sail, rapidly left the anchorage, and, opening the headland, lay over to a fresh south-west wind. The unaccustomed motion began to tell upon the landsmen. Surcouf invited them to go on deck, and there was the island, already separated from the vessel by a considerable tract of foam-flecked ocean--and Surcouf was in command! In reply to their threats and remonstrances he told them that he was going to take them across to Africa, among their friends the negroes, and meanwhile they could come below and receive his orders. During the night the wind freshened considerably, and the morning found the commissioners very anxious to regain terra firma at any cost; Surcouf had it all his own way. The indictment was destroyed, and a very different document was drawn up, to the effect that they had found no traces on board the brig of her having carried negroes, and that she had been suddenly driven from her anchor by a tidal wave--with other circumstantial little touches, which amused Surcouf and did them no great harm. Eight days later he landed them at Mauritius. He had, however, had enough of slave trading. Of course, his exploit was the talk of the town, and most people were much amused over his impudent capture of the commissioners, who were compelled, in view of their written acquittal, to keep quiet. The general idea was that Surcouf had displayed qualities which would be extremely useful in the captain of a privateer; and it was not long before he was offered the command of the _Emilie_, of 180 tons and 4 guns. Just when she was ready for sea, however, the Governor let it be understood that, for certain reasons, he did not intend to issue any privateer commissions. This was a very keen disappointment; Surcouf obtained an interview with the Governor, who received him kindly but remained inflexible. Stifling his feelings, he sought his owners, and asked them what they were going to do. He received orders to go to the Seychelles for a cargo of turtles, and, failing these, to fill up with maize, cotton, etc., at these and other islands, and to fight shy of the cruisers that might be to windward of the island: a very tame programme. However, he took comfort from the reflection that, although his ship was not a regular privateer, she was at least "an armed vessel in time of war"; and, as such, was permitted to defend herself when attacked; so he might yet see some fighting. While at anchor at Seychelles, taking in cargo, two large English men-of-war unexpectedly appeared in the offing, and Surcouf only escaped by the clever manner in which he navigated the dangerous channels among the islands, to the admiration of his crew. This incident set him thinking, and, calling his staff together, he drew up a sort of memorandum, setting forth how that they had been obliged to quit Seychelles on account of these two men-of-war, and could not return to complete their cargo; and that they had therefore resolved, by common consent, to go to the coast of "the East"--_i.e._ Sumatra, Rangoon, etc.--for a cargo of rice and other articles; "and at the same time to defend ourselves against any of the enemy's ships which we may encounter on the way, being armed with several guns." This was signed by Surcouf and his officers and by some of the leading hands. No doubt it made him feel happier; but he had quite made up his mind as to his future conduct. They got in a cyclone south of the Bay of Bengal, and then steered for Rangoon, off which place they sighted an English vessel steering for them. She came steadily on, and, when within close range, fired a shot--the "summoning shot," for the _Emilie_ to display her colours. It was not an attack, and Surcouf had no right so to consider it; but that is what he chose to do. Hoisting his colours, he replied with three shots. The Englishman attempted to escape; but the _Emilie_ was the faster, and, running alongside, delivered her broadside, upon which the other struck his colours. "This was the first time," says his biographer, "that our Malouin had seen the British flag lowered to him, and though he had had only the commencement of a fight, his heart swelled with patriotic pride and beat with hope. The first shot has been fired; the captain of an armed ship in time of war gives place to the privateer commander. Surcouf arrives at a decision as to his future--he has passed the Rubicon!" All very fine; but it was an act of piracy, for which he could have been hanged at the yardarm. He repeated it shortly afterwards, capturing three vessels laden with rice, and appropriating one, a pilot brig, in place of the _Emilie_, which was losing her speed on account of a foul bottom. A few days later, having now thrown away all hesitation, he seized a large ship, the _Diana_, also laden with rice, and started to take her, in company with his stolen brig, the _Cartier_, to Mauritius. On the voyage, however, Surcouf improved upon his former captures. A large sail was reported one morning, and it was presently apparent that she was an East Indiaman. The two French ships had not made much progress down the Bay of Bengal, and the English vessel was obviously standing into Balasore Roads, there to await a pilot for the river Hooghly, unless she picked up one earlier. The account given in _The Gentleman's Magazine_ for June 1796 states that the Indiaman--the _Triton_--was at anchor in Balasore Roads when she was sighted. In the latest life of Surcouf, however, written by his great-nephew and namesake, it is said that she was standing towards the Orissa coast, on the starboard tack--Balasore being, of course, in the province of Orissa, and the open anchorage a convenient place for picking up the Calcutta pilot. The difference is of some importance with regard to Surcouf's attack: it is one thing to board and carry a vessel at anchor, on a hot afternoon, when every one who is not required to be moving about is having a siesta, and quite another thing to board her when she is standing in to her anchorage, with the captain and officers on deck, and the crew standing by to handle the sails; and this latter feat is what M. Robert Surcouf claims to have been performed by his great-uncle. It is possible, however, that both accounts may, in a measure, be correct; that is to say, the _Triton_, when first sighted from aloft on board the _Cartier_, may have been standing in towards the anchorage, which she may have reached, and dropped anchor, before the Frenchman came alongside. However this may be, Surcouf was quick enough to realise that the Indiaman, if fought in anything like man-of-war style, was far too strong for him. He had on board only nineteen persons, including himself and the surgeon, belonging to the ship, and a few Lascars who had been transferred from the _Diana_: a ridiculous number to attack an Indiaman. Finding that he did not gain upon the chase, and knowing that his own vessel had been a pilot brig, Surcouf hoisted the pilot flag; upon which the _Triton_ immediately hove to and waited for him; or, possibly, being already in the roads, dropped anchor; but the story distinctly says, "met en travers, et permit ainsi de l'atteindre," which has only one possible interpretation. Surcouf was still some three miles distant, and kept an anxious eye upon his big opponent, or rather, upon his possible prey, for the _Triton_ could scarcely be styled an opponent. He saw that she mounted some six-and-twenty guns, but that they were not ready for action. He saw also on deck "beaucoup de monde"--a great crowd of people, most of whom, he hoped, would prove to be Lascars; but he very shortly discovered that they were nothing of the kind. He was now within gunshot, and realised that the business might be serious for him; but the Englishmen were as yet quite unsuspicious, so he harangued his crew: "My lads, this Englishman is very strong, and we are only nineteen; shall we try to take him by surprise, and thus acquire both gain and glory? Or do you prefer to rot in a beastly English prison-ship?" It was cleverly put, from his own standpoint: he was spoiling for a fight, for an opportunity of displaying his masterly strategy and determined courage, to say nothing of the dollars in prospect; but the implication was perfectly unjustifiable that the choice lay between a desperate assault and certain capture. If he did not want to fight, he had only to sheer off and run for it; no Indiaman would initiate an action, or give chase, under such circumstances. However, he knew his audience, and his speech had the desired effect: "Death or victory!" cried the eighteen heroes. "Good!" replied their captain, "this ship shall either be our tomb or the cradle of our glory!" It was really very fine and melodramatic--more especially since it was the prelude to an act of undoubted piracy. This fact, however, does not detract from the merit of a very clever and bold attack, which was perfectly successful. Making his eighteen heroes lie down, while the Lascars stood about the deck, he took the helm and ran down for the _Triton_. The people on board only saw the expected pilot brig approaching, as no doubt they habitually did, to within a biscuit-toss, to tranship the pilot. Suddenly she hoisted French colours and let drive a heavy dose of grape and canister among the Indiaman's crew. A cry of dismay and astonishment rose from her deck, as every one instinctively sought shelter from the hail of iron. In another moment the brig was alongside, and Surcouf was leaping on board at the head of his small company. The surprise was so complete that there was but little resistance. The captain and a few others made a brave attempt, but were killed immediately; the rest were driven below, and the hatches clapped on. And so, with five killed and six wounded on the English side, and one killed and one wounded on the French, the thing was over. Really, it was a masterly affair. Putting his prisoners on board the _Diana_, which he permitted her captain to ransom, he left them to make their way to Calcutta; and it is stated by contemporary Indian newspapers that he treated them with consideration, and was polite to the lady passengers. The _Cartier_ was captured by an English man-of-war, but Surcouf carried the _Triton_ in triumph to Mauritius, where he was, of course, received with a tremendous ovation. He was greatly dismayed, however, upon having it pointed out to him by the Governor that those who choose to go a-pirating are liable to be called upon to pay the piper. All his captures were condemned, and forfeited to the Government, as he had not been provided with a letter of marque. This was perfectly right and proper, though his biographer tries to make it out an injustice. There was a fearful outcry, of course, and eventually the matter was referred home, Surcouf appearing in person to plead his cause; the appeal was successful, and all the captures were declared to be "good prize," which was very nice for Surcouf and his owners, who pocketed a good round sum of money. About the morality of the proceedings the less said the better. During this period of litigation the privateer hero had, of course, revisited St. Malo and seen his family and friends; and there he also fell in love with Mlle. Marie Blaize, to whom he became engaged. But the sea was calling him again, and he left her without being married. His new command was the _Clarisse_, 14 guns, with a crew of one hundred and forty hardy seamen of St. Malo and elsewhere; while Nicolas Surcouf, brother to the captain, and a man of similar type, was chief officer. She sailed in July 1798 for the old familiar cruising-ground in the Indian Ocean; and just after crossing the Equator, fell in with a large armed English vessel, from which, after a sharp action, she parted, considerably damaged; but Surcouf consoled himself for this failure--from which, as his biographer puts it, "there remained only the glory of having seen the flag of England flying before the victorious standard of France!"--by the capture of a rich prize off Rio Janeiro; and anchored in December 1798 at Port Louis, Mauritius, "where his expected return from Europe was awaited with impatience by those who had built great hopes upon the conqueror of the _Triton_." Space does not admit of following the adventures of Robert Surcouf in detail; his grand-nephew spares no pains, indeed, in this respect, spinning out his narrative, embellished with admiring outbursts of national and personal eulogy, in a somewhat tedious fashion. In the _Clarisse_ Surcouf had more successes, capturing two armed merchant vessels very cleverly at Sonson, in Sumatra, not without damage, which rendered it advisable to return to Port Louis to refit: thence, putting out again, he was on one occasion chased by the English frigate _Sibylle_; and so hard pressed was he that he was compelled to have recourse to desperate measures to improve the speed of his vessel: eight guns were thrown overboard, together with spare spars and other loose material, the rigging was eased up, the mast wedges loosened, the between-deck supports knocked away. It was a light breeze, of course, and these measures have a remarkable effect under such circumstances, rendering the vessel "all alive," as it were, and exceedingly susceptible of the smallest variation of pressure on the sails--and so the _Clarisse_ escaped. Two days later she captured an English vessel, the _Jane_--which is misnamed _James_ in French narratives--whose skipper wrote a long account of the affair. She sailed in company with two Indiamen, the _Manship_ and _Lansdowne_, having been warned that Surcouf was on the prowl outside. The captain imagined that, by keeping company with the two large Indiamen--armed vessels, of course--he would be safe from molestation; but he was sorely mistaken, for when the privateer hove in sight, and he signalled his consorts, they calmly sailed on and left the _Jane_ a victim, after a trifling resistance. Surcouf, being informed that these two large vessels, still in sight, were Indiamen, contemptuously remarked: "They are two _Tritons_," and he and his officers expressed the opinion that the captains deserved to be shot. Next he encountered two large American ships: there was much ill-feeling between France and the United States, though war had not been declared, and when they met they fought like dogs of hostile owners. One of these vessels Surcouf captured by boarding, the other escaping; and this was his last cruise in the _Clarisse_. It is in connection with his next command that Surcouf's name is, perhaps, most familiar. This was the _Confiance_, a new ship, and by all accounts a regular beauty. Before he got away, however, he had a quarrel with Duterte, another privateer captain of some note, commanding the _Malartic_, who had recourse to a ruse to obtain the pick of the available seamen in Mauritius for his own ship. Surcouf eventually contrived to circumvent him, and, after some high words in a café, they arranged a meeting with swords at daybreak. The Governor, General Malartic, however, intervened, commanding their attendance at the hour arranged for the duel, and, after an harangue from him, the two corsairs embraced and remained friends thereafter--they cruised, in fact, in consort for a time, in the Bay of Bengal, with much success. Surcouf's great exploit in the _Confiance_ was the capture of the _Kent_, East Indiaman, at the end of her voyage. M. Robert Surcouf, in describing this event, dwells upon every detail, from the moment the _Kent_ was sighted, with most tedious prolixity, as though this was one of the decisive battles of the world. What happened is as follows: On October 7th, 1800, a large sail was sighted at daybreak. After careful scrutiny, Surcouf decided that she was an Indiaman, a rich prize, and determined to have her if possible; so he hailed from aloft, where he was inspecting the stranger: "All hands on deck, make sail--drinks all round for the men! Clear for action!" Then, coming down from aloft, he mounted on the companion hatch, ordered everybody aft, and harangued them--he was great at a speech on an occasion of the kind, though probably his biographer has embellished it--told them the Englishman was very strong, but that he intended to board at once. "I suppose each one of you is more than equal to one Englishman? Very good--be armed ready for boarding--and, as it will be very hot work, I will give you an hour of pillage." It was very hot work. The _Kent's_ people certainly greatly outnumbered the privateer's; she had on board a great proportion of the crew of the _Queen_, another East Indiaman, which had been destroyed by fire on the coast of Brazil. Surcouf says she had 437 on board, and the _Confiance_ only 130; but the figures for the _Kent_ are probably greatly exaggerated. After the exchange of some broadsides, Surcouf at length out-manoeuvred the English captain, his vessel being probably far more handy, and succeeded in laying him aboard. Captain Rivington, of the _Kent_, was a man of heroic courage, and fought at the head of his men with splendid determination; but the privateer crew had all the advantage of previous understanding and association. The _Kent's_ men were undisciplined and but poorly armed for such an encounter, while Surcouf's, we are told, had each a boarding axe, a cutlass, a pistol, and a dagger--to say nothing of blunderbusses loaded with six bullets, pikes fifteen feet long, and enormous clubs--all this, in conjunction with "drinks all round," and the promise of pillage! As long as their captain kept his feet the "Kents" maintained the desperate combat; but when at length he fell mortally wounded, though his last cry was "Don't give up the ship!" the flag was shortly lowered, though the chief officer made a desperate attempt to rally the crew once more. And then commenced the promised pillage. Surcouf, hearing the loud complaints of the English, despoiled of their property, was on the point of angrily restraining his crew, when he remembered his promise, and stepped back, we are told, with a sigh of regret. But then came the screams of women. "Good Lord! I'd forgotten the women!" he cried, and called his officers to come and protect them, which was very necessary. So hideous was the scene of plunder, amid the dead and wounded, that Surcouf exerted his power of will to cut short the time. He landed the prisoners in an Arab vessel, and arrived at Mauritius with his prize in November. The French were accused of having behaved with great brutality, even wantonly poniarding the wounded and dying. This, of course, is denied; but it does not require a very vivid imagination to picture the scene--a crowd of half-disciplined men, excited with liquor, brutalised by bloodshed, elated with victory, turned loose to plunder; some word of remonstrance from a wounded man, finding his person roughly searched, and a knife-thrust, or fatal blow with the butt of a pistol, would be the only reply. Surcouf's protection of the ladies was, however, said to be effective; and this is probably true. Surcouf took his flying _Confiance_ back to France, with a letter of marque; he caught a Portuguese vessel on the passage, and arrived at La Rochelle on April 13th, 1801. His adventure in the East had not cooled the ardour of his feelings towards Mlle. Marie Blaize, whom he married six weeks later; and he now became in his turn the _armateur_ or owner of privateers. He was persuaded, however, to go to sea once more in 1807, when war had broken out again, in a vessel which he named the _Revenant_--_i.e._ the _Ghost_: and she had for a figure-head a corpse emerging from the tomb, flinging off the shroud. With 18 guns and a complement of 192 men, the _Revenant_, a swift sailer, was quite as formidable as her predecessor; and so effectually did Surcouf scour the Bay of Bengal and the adjacent seas, so crafty and determined was he in attack, so swift in pursuit or in flight, that his depredations called forth an indignant but somewhat illogical memorial, in December 1807, from the merchants and East India Company to the Admiralty. The fact was that the British men-of-war on the station were doing pretty well all that could be done, but the _Revenant_, when it came to chasing her, was apt to become as ghostly as her figure-head--she had the heels of all of them, and her captain seemed to have an intuitive perception as to the whereabouts of danger. Surcouf eventually settled down as a shipbuilder and shipowner at St. Malo. He had, of course, made a considerable fortune, and his business prospered, so he was one of the most wealthy and influential men in the place. He died in 1827. Captain Marryat, in one of his novels, "Newton Forster," gives a vivid description of a fight between Surcouf and the _Windsor Castle_ Indiaman, commanded by the plucky and pugilistic Captain Oughton. Such a yarn, by an expert seaman and a master-hand, is delightful reading, and the temptation to transcribe it here is strong. It must, however, be resisted, as the story is, after all, a fiction, and therefore would be out of place. There are other French privateersmen well worthy of notice, did space permit, foremost among whom is Thurot, who, single-handed, contrived to harass the English and Irish coasts for months; the brothers Fourmentin, the eldest of whom has the Rue du Baron Bucaille in Boulogne named after him, though his biographer informs us that he never called himself Bucaille, nor was he a baron--but somehow this title became attached to him. M. Henri Malo, in "Les Corsaires," tells a story of him which is said to be traditional in his family, and is certainly entertaining; so it shall be transcribed as related. "One evening, several privateer captains were dining together. There was a leg of mutton for dinner, and a discussion arose as to whether French mutton was superior or inferior to English. Fourmentin said the only way to decide the question was to have the two kinds on the table; they had French mutton, they only wanted a specimen of the English mutton--he would go and fetch it. Forthwith he proceeded to the harbour, and, according to his custom, summoned his crew by beating with a hammer on the bottom of a saucepan. Making sail, he landed in the middle of the night on the English coast, seized a customs station, and bound the officers, except six, whom he directed, pistol in hand, to conduct him to the nearest sheep-fold. Choosing the six finest sheep in the flock, he made the six customs officers shoulder them and take them on board his vessel. He gave his six involuntary porters a bottle of rum by way of reward for their trouble, and straightway made sail for France. He had left on the flood-tide--he returned on it, with the required sheep, which he and his colleagues were thus able to appreciate and compare with the others." A very good family story, and probably quite as true as many another! These Frenchmen of whom we have been discoursing were certainly fine seamen, and intrepid fighters; they had, no doubt, the faults common to privateers, but they were able and formidable foes, and left their mark in history. CONCERNING THE FRONTISPIECE On July 27th, 1801, capture was made of a remarkable vessel. There was no fighting, but the ship herself excited a good deal of interest at the time. We learn from the captain's log of the British frigate _Immortalité_ that, in the small hours of the morning, a large ship was observed, and sail was made in chase. At daylight the chase proved to be a four-masted vessel, fully rigged upon each mast--a common enough object nowadays, but then almost unique. This was the French privateer _Invention_, a ship built under the special supervision of the man who commanded her--M. Thibaut. She was brand-new, having sailed upon her first voyage only eight days previously, and had already eluded one of our frigates by superior speed. She was probably a very fast vessel, and might quite possibly have outsailed the _Immortalité_; but, very unhappily for Captain Thibaut, another British frigate, the _Arethusa_, Captain W. Wolley, appeared right in her path. Thus beset, Thibaut's case was hopeless, and so the _Invention's_ very brief career as a privateer came to an end, the _Immortalité_--commanded by Captain Henry Hotham--taking possession at eight o'clock. Captain Wolley, as senior officer, reported the circumstances to the Admiralty: "She is called _L'Invention_, of Bordeaux, mounting 24 guns, with 207 men. She is of a most singular construction, having four masts, and they speak of her in high terms, though they say she is much under-masted. I directed Captain Hotham to take her into Plymouth. I should have ordered her up the river for their lordships' inspection, but I did not choose to deprive Captain Hotham of his men for so long a time." The corner of the letter is turned down and on it is written: "Acquaint him that their lordships are highly pleased with the capture of this vessel." There is an enclosure giving the dimensions of the vessel, as follows: Ft. In. Length of keel 126 10 Extreme length 147 4 Breadth of beam 27 1 Depth of hold 11 9 Draft of water 13 9 Mention is also made of a sketch enclosed, but this is not now with the letter. It is probable, however, that a small woodcut, on the first page of vol. vii. of _The Naval Chronicle_, is copied from this sketch, and the frontispiece of this volume is an enlargement and adaptation from the woodcut. The _Invention_ had less beam in proportion to her length than was usual in those days, and perhaps Captain Thibaut was afraid of masting her too heavily lest she should be "tender" under canvas. Her draft of water is moderate for her other dimensions, which would be an additional occasion of anxiety on this score; but, with a large spread of canvas, she would have been very swift in moderate weather. There does not appear to be any record to hand as to what became of the _Invention_, whether she was afterwards sent up the river for the inspection of their lordships, or taken on as a man-of-war; possibly some dockyard archives may contain the information. On August 25th, 1801, the Navy Board reported to the Admiralty that the _Invention_ had been surveyed, and was a suitable vessel for the Royal Navy, and asked whether her four masts should be retained; and September 1st following they ask that the sketch of the ship may be returned; but there is no reply to be found to either of these letters in the proper place; so the further correspondence must either have been lost or placed among other papers. Possibly the ship was not, after all, taken for the Navy; if she was it would probably be under some other name. [Footnote 14: Captain Smith appears, however, to have been very harshly used, through the implications, rather than any specific accusation, of his senior, Captain Osborn; and upon his presenting a memorial to the King (George III.), setting forth the circumstances under which he was tried in the East Indies, the case was referred to the law officers of the Crown and the Admiralty Counsel, who declared that the finding of the court was unwarrantable, and should not be upheld. Captain Smith, who had been dismissed the Service, was thereupon reinstated; but an officer who thus "scores" off his superiors is not readily pardoned, and he was never again employed. It appears to have been a shady business, with some personal spite in the background.] SOME AMERICANS CHAPTER XVII CAPTAIN SILAS TALBOT During the American War of Secession in the eighteenth century, as well as in that of 1812, American seamen took very kindly to privateering. There were many smart vessels afloat, commanded by intrepid and skilful men, with hardy and well-trained crews, and British naval historians are all agreed as to the success of their ventures and the immense amount of damage inflicted upon our sea-trade by them. Their fast-sailing schooners were usually able to outpace our men-of-war and privateers, and so to make their choice between fighting and running away; and they do not appear to have been averse to fighting when there was the smallest chance of success, or even against considerable odds. We find, nevertheless, among American writers, considerable diversity of opinion as to the advantages of privateering and the conduct of privateers. In the _North American Review_ for July 1820, six years after the conclusion of the last war, there is a most urgent appeal against privateering, denouncing all privateers, American and others, as practically pirates, and setting forth in the strongest possible terms the gross iniquity of the whole business. Mr. Roosevelt, in his "History of the Naval War of 1812," alludes to their privateers in very disparaging terms, pointing out that they were far more keen upon plunder than fighting, and were utterly unreliable; would fight one day, and run away the next. Mr. George Coggleshall, in the introduction to his "History of the American Privateers during our War with England in the years 1812-14," says: "I commence my plea, soliciting public approbation in favour of privateersmen, and for those who served in private armed vessels in the war"; and quotes Jefferson in support of his views. Mr. E.S. Maclay, in his "History of American Privateers," says: "In general, the conduct of American privateersmen on the high seas was most commendable." It is, of course, most natural that these writers should stand up for their countrymen, and Englishmen, as has already been stated, are not slow to acknowledge the prowess of American privateersmen. For the details of actions between these and British vessels we are indebted almost entirely to American accounts, and particularly to the two works above mentioned; such engagements are usually only referred to in the briefest terms, or altogether unnoticed, in our naval histories; and the American writers--especially Mr. Coggleshall--display a bitterly hostile spirit which is apt to be very detrimental to the merits of so-called history. And so, while there is no intention of questioning their good faith, one is at least at liberty to wonder where they obtained their information. According to these writers, British naval officers and privateersmen habitually treated prisoners of war with shocking, wanton brutality: while the Americans exhibited invariable kindness, even beneficence, towards British prisoners: an allegation to which it is impossible to accord full credence, especially when statements are made without reference or authentication. Moreover, the exploits of American privateersmen are frequently exhibited in an artificially heroic light; the most trivial and obvious measures for the safety of the ship, for instance, related as though they demonstrated extraordinary qualities of courage and resource; while the "long bow" is occasionally conspicuously in evidence, the author apparently not possessing the requisite technical knowledge to perceive the absurdity of some story which he has come across. In support of his contention that the conduct of American privateers was admirable, Mr. Maclay tells the following story, which, he says, appeared in a London newspaper in December 1814--he does not tell us the precise date, or the name of the paper. Still, here is the story (page 15): "A trading vessel laden with wheat, from Cardigan, was taken in the Channel by an American privateer. When the captain of the latter entered the cabin to survey the prize, he espied a small box with a hole in the top, on which the words 'Missionary Box' were inscribed. On seeing this the American captain seemed not a little astonished, and addressed the Welsh captain as follows: "'Captain, what is this?' pointing to the box with his stick. (Why a _stick_, at sea?) "'Oh,' replied the honest Cambrian, heaving a sigh, ''tis all over now.' "'What?' said the American captain. "'Why, the truth is,' said the Welshman, 'that I and my poor fellows have been accustomed, every Monday morning, to drop a penny each into that box for the purpose of sending out missionaries to preach the Gospel to the heathen; but it is all over now.' "'Indeed,' answered the American captain; 'that is very good.' "After pausing a few minutes, he said, 'Captain, I'll not hurt a hair of your head, nor touch your vessel'; and he immediately departed, leaving the owner to pursue his course." There is no disputing the humanity of this American privateer skipper, if the tale be true; but one would be disposed to wonder what his owners said to him about the business. They might want to know what he meant by allowing a Welshman to score off him by means of a pious fraud! A privateer skipper, however religiously disposed, should not put to sea without his sense of humour. "A still more forcible illustration of the humanity of American privateersmen," says Mr. Maclay (page 16), "is had early in 1782, when the private armed sloop _Lively_, Captain D. Adams, of Massachusetts, rescued the officers and crew of the British frigate _Blonde_, which had been wrecked on a barren and desolate island. The treatment which all American prisoners, and especially privateersmen, had received at the hands of the British would have almost justified the commander of the _Lively_ in leaving these shipwrecked mariners to their fate. But the American jack tar is a generous fellow, and nothing appeals so strongly to his compassion as a fellow-seaman in distress, and on this occasion the people of the _Lively_ extended every assistance to their enemies and brought them safely into port." Really, they would have been no better than pirates if they had left them there. There does not appear to be any reason for supposing that American privateersmen were either more or less scrupulous than their British cousins; there was always plunder in view on both sides, and, if plunder could be obtained without fighting, so much the better. The editor of _De Bow's Commercial Review_ (vol. i., page 518, June 1846), in a note appended to an article upon privateering, says: "Privateering constitutes a separate chapter in the laws of nations. Every nation has resorted to this method of destroying the commerce of the enemy, without questioning for a moment their right of doing so. Many have affected to consider it, after all, but legalised piracy, and calculated to blunt the finer feelings of justice and sear the heart to noble sentiments. We are at a loss, ourselves, to understand how the occupation of a mere privateer can be reconciled with any of the higher feelings of our nature: an occupation whose whole end and purpose is pillage upon the high seas and pecuniary gain out of the fiercest bloodshed. The love of country, patriotic self-devotion, and ardour, have no place in such concerns.... It cannot be doubted, that men estimable in other respects have been found in the pursuit of privateering; but exceptions of this kind are rare, and could not, we think, occur again, in the improved moral sense of mankind." With these preliminary remarks, let us now recount the doings of some of the American privateersmen, commencing with Silas Talbot. CAPTAIN--OR COLONEL--SILAS TALBOT "The Life and Surprising Adventures of Captain Silas Talbot; containing a Curious Account of the Various Changes and Gradations of this Extraordinary Character." Such is the title of a small volume published in America about the year 1803; and the editor states that the bulk of the information contained therein was communicated personally by Talbot, and has since been substantially confirmed from various quarters. Silas Talbot, we learn, was born at Dighton, Mass., about the year 1752, and commenced his career at sea as cabin-boy. At the age of twenty-four, however, he blossoms into a captain in the U.S. Army--or the rebel army, according to British notions--in the year 1776; and by virtue, we must suppose, of his nautical training, he was placed in command of a fireship at New York, and soon after promoted to the rank of major--but still with naval duties. He speedily attracted attention as a daring and ingenious officer, and was very successful in several enterprises, the most notable being the conquest and capture of a well-armed stationary British vessel, moored in the east passage off Rhode Island. He made the attack at night, and devised an ingenious plan for breaching the high boarding-nettings of the Britisher, fixing at the bowsprit end of his sloop a small anchor, which, being forcibly rammed into the net by the impetus of the vessel, tore it away. The attack was devised as a surprise, but the approach of the gallant Talbot was observed, and it was under a heavy fire that he and his men succeeded in their desperate enterprise. In 1779, having meanwhile been promoted to the rank of colonel, he commenced his career as a privateer commander. The British had a considerable number of private ships of war afloat on the American coast at that time, and Talbot was placed in command of the _Argo_, a sloop of under 100 tons, armed with twelve 6-pounders, and carrying 60 men. She was very heavily sparred--with one mast, of course, and an immense mainsail, the main boom being very long and thick. She was steered with a long tiller, had very high bulwarks, a wide stern, and looked like a clumsy Albany trader; we are told, however, that "her bottom was her handsomest part," which is only another way of saying that, with her big spars, she was, in spite of her uncouth appearance, a swift and handy craft. In this little stinging wasp Talbot set forth, and, after one or two indecisive skirmishes, he encountered the _King George_, a privateer commanded by one Hazard, a native of Rhode Island, who had been very busy. Captain Hazard had been greatly esteemed, until he elected to fight on the British side, "for the base purpose of plundering his neighbours and old friends"; after which he was naturally regarded with the bitterest hatred, and Talbot approached to the attack, no doubt, with a grim determination to put a stop to the depredations of the renegade. The _King George_ was of superior force to the _Argo_, carrying 14 guns and 80 men; but her captain apparently permitted Talbot to come to close quarters without opposition, for the writer tells us that he "steered close alongside him, pouring into his decks a whole broadside, and almost at the same instant a boarding party, which drove the crew of the _King George_ from their quarters, and took possession of her without a man on either side being killed." Talbot was, unquestionably, a born fighter and well versed in nautical strategy and attack; but the writer of these records strikes one as being an enthusiastic and ingenuous person, without practical knowledge of seamanship or warfare, and consequently liable to be imposed upon by any one who could not resist the temptation to tell a "good yarn." Silas Talbot may have been afflicted with this weakness, for all we know. It is a genuine American characteristic, and by no means incompatible with the highest attributes of personal courage and skill in warfare. However, there is no cause to doubt the truth of the account of the capture of the _King George_, for which Talbot and his men deserve credit. The next antagonist of the _Argo_ was the British privateer _Dragon_, of 300 tons, 14 guns, and 80 men--rather a small armament and crew for a vessel of that tonnage, in those days. This was a desperate engagement, carried on for four and a half hours, at pistol-shot. The gallant Talbot had some narrow shaves, for we are told that his speaking-trumpet was pierced with shot in two places, and the skirts of his coat torn off by a cannon-shot! We cannot avoid the conclusion that the gentle narrator was, in vulgar parlance, being "had" over this story. A modern small-bore bullet, with high velocity, would probably make a clean hole through a tin speaking-trumpet, which might possibly be retained in the hand, if held very firmly, during the process. But a clumsy, slow-sailing pistol or musket ball of that period would simply double up the tin tube and send it flying; while as to the coat-tails--well, it is not stated that Captain Talbot experienced any discomfort in sitting down afterwards, or inconvenience for lack of anything to sit upon. It was a most discriminating cannon-ball! Nearly all the men on deck--a vessel like the _Argo_ certainly did not fight any men _below_--were either killed or wounded; and the _Dragon_, losing her mainmast, at length struck her colours. Then came an alarm that the _Argo_ was sinking; "but," says the gentle story-teller, "the captain gave orders to inspect the sides of the sloop, upon which he found several shot-holes between wind and water, which they plugged up." And a very good device, too, though a somewhat obvious one, to prevent a vessel from sinking! Having refitted his ship, Talbot put out again, this time with the _Saratoga_, another privateer, of Providence, commanded by Captain Munroe, in company; and in due course they came across the _Dublin_, a very smart English privateer cutter of 14 guns, coming out of Sandy Hook. It was agreed that Talbot should first give chase, for fear the sight of two vessels bearing down upon him should make the Britisher shy: rather a transparent device, since Munroe's craft was in sight, at no great distance, the whole time. The Englishman, however, awaited the attack, and a spirited duel ensued by the space of an hour. When Munroe thought it was time for him to cut in, he found that his ship would not answer her helm. This is explained as follows: "The _Saratoga_ was steered with a long wooden tiller on common occasions, but in time of action the wooden tiller was unshipped and put out of the way, and she was then steered with an iron one that was shipped into the rudder-head from the cabin.... The _Saratoga_ went away with the wind at a smart rate, to the surprise of Captain Talbot, and the still greater surprise of Captain Munroe, who repeatedly called to the helmsman, 'Hard a-weather! Hard up, there!' 'It is hard up, sir!' 'You lie, you blackguard! She goes away lasking! Hard a-weather, I say, again!' 'It is hard a-weather, indeed, sir!' Captain Munroe was astonished, and could not conceive what the devil was the matter with his vessel. He took in the after-sails, and made all the head-sail in his power. All would not do--away she went! He was in the utmost vexation lest Captain Talbot should think he was running away. At last one of his under-officers suggested that possibly the iron tiller had not entered the rudder-head, which, on examination, was found to be the case. The blunder was now soon corrected, and the _Saratoga_ was made to stand towards the enemy; and, that some satisfaction might be made for his long absence, Captain Munroe determined, as soon as he got up, to give her a whole broadside at once. He did so, and the _Dublin_ immediately struck her colours; yet, strange to tell, it did not appear, on strict inquiry and examination afterwards, that this weight of fire, which was meant to tear the cutter in pieces, had done the vessel or crew the least additional injury." Here is a capital yarn, for the uninitiated; but it serves to illustrate the danger of entering upon technical details without adequate understanding. It may be true enough that the tiller was not properly shipped in the first instance; but, this granted, to begin with, any sailing-vessel that is properly trimmed will, upon letting go the tiller, come up into the wind, instead of running off it. Even admitting, however, that the _Saratoga_ was so "slack on her helm," in nautical parlance, as to "go away lasking"--_i.e._ almost before the wind--under such conditions, the very last order the captain would give would be "Hard up," or "Hard a-weather," which would only cause her to run away worse than ever; while taking in the after-sail and piling on head sail would aggravate the evil! If the writer had represented Captain Munroe as shouting, "Hard down! Hard a-lee, you blackguard!" hauling in his mainsheet and taking off the head-sail, one might believe that Talbot or some other sailor-man had told the story. As it stands, it is ridiculous; but it is repeated, word for word, in various accounts--among others by Mr. Maclay. Well, the _Dublin_ was captured, hauling down her colours after Munroe's innocuous broadside; and Talbot's next antagonist was the _Betsy_, an English privateer of 12 guns and 38 men, "commanded by an honest and well-informed Scotchman." After some palaver at pistol-shot, Talbot hoisted the stars and stripes, crying, "You must now haul down those British colours, my friend!" To which the Scot replied, "Notwithstanding I find you an enemy, as I suspected, yet, sir, I believe I shall let them hang a little longer, with your permission. So fire away, Flanagan!" Had the honest Scot been of the same type of privateer captain as George Walker he would certainly have banged in his broadside before the stars and stripes were well above the rail, and perhaps altered the outcome of the action. As it was, Talbot took him, killing or wounding the captain and principal officers and several men. The little _Argo_ was subsequently put out of commission and returned to her owners; and in 1780 Talbot was given command of another privateer, the _General Washington_. After making one capture, however, he was taken, we are told, by an English squadron off Sandy Hook, and sent on board the _Robuste_, Captain Cosby, where he was courteously treated. Being transferred, however, to a tender--name not stated--for conveyance to New York, the commander--"a Scotch lord," we are told, "put his gallant captive into the hold. The only excuse for this dastardly behaviour is to be found in the craven fears of his lordship. By a remarkable coincidence, the pilot he employed was the same formerly on board the _Pigot_ (the stationary vessel captured by Talbot at Rhode Island), and this man so frightened his superior with the story of his prisoner's reckless daring that he--notwithstanding a written remonstrance which Captain Talbot forwarded to the British admiral--was thus kept confined below until they reached New York; and the arm-chest was removed to the cabin." This is quoted from "The Life of Silas Talbot," by Henry T. Tuckerman, published in 1850. The story is given for what it is worth. Had the name of the tender and of the so readily scared "Scotch lord" been given, it would have been more worthy of consideration. After this Talbot was confined on board the _Jersey_ prison-ship, off Long Island, where it is said that prisoners were treated with gross inhumanity; and being eventually conveyed to England on board the _Yarmouth_, was kept in prison on Dartmoor, where he made four desperate attempts to escape. He was liberated in the summer of 1781, and found his way home to Rhode Island. He died in New York, June 30th, 1813. CHAPTER XVIII CAPTAIN JOSHUA BARNEY Among the earlier privateersmen in the War of Secession was Joshua Barney, a naval officer, who, after having been a prisoner of war for five months, was released by exchange, and, failing naval employment, went as first officer of a privateer under Captain Isaiah Robinson--also a naval officer. Barney had previously made a venture on his own account in a small trading-vessel, which was speedily captured, the English captain landing his prisoners on the Chesapeake. After some difficulty, Robinson secured a brig named _Pomona_; she carried a scratch armament of 12 guns of various sizes and a crew of 35 men. The vessel was laden with tobacco for Bordeaux, and the primary object was to get the cargo through safely: but Robinson and Barney, with their naval training, were by no means averse to a fight, and they had only been out a few days when the opportunity arose, a fast-sailing brig giving chase and quickly overhauling the _Pomona_. At 8 p.m. on a February evening, with a bright moon, the stranger came within hail, ran up her colours, and asked, "What ship is that?" The American ran up his flag, and the Englishman immediately shouted to haul it down. Upon this Robinson delivered his broadside, which inflicted considerable damage upon the other, bringing down his foretopsail, cutting some of his rigging, and causing, we are told, much surprise and confusion on board--though why the Englishmen should be surprised it is difficult to comprehend, as it is to be presumed that they chased with the intention of fighting. Then commenced a running action, which lasted until nearly midnight. The English captain, finding that the _Pomona_ had no stern-gun ports, endeavoured to keep as much as possible astern and on the quarter where he could ply his bow-guns without receiving much in return; but, we are told, the crew had been thrown into such confusion by the _Pomona's_ first broadside that they were able to fire _only one or two shots every half-hour_--three or four rounds an hour; so Robinson had a port cut in his stern, and ran out a 3-pounder gun there; and, when the English vessel was coming up again for another of her leisurely discharges, she received a dose of grape which caused her captain to haul off--nor did he venture near enough during the night to fire another shot. Daylight showed the English brig to be armed with sixteen guns; and several officers were observed, displaying themselves in conspicuous places, in uniforms resembling those of the Navy. This was supposed to be a ruse, whereby the Americans were to be demoralised, imagining themselves to be engaged with a regular ship of war. "This, the English thought," says Mr. Maclay, "would show the Americans the hopelessness of the struggle, and would induce them to surrender without further resistance"; but he does not know what the English thought, or whether the officers in this privateer habitually dressed in some kind of uniform of their own. However, the enemy, about sunrise, approached the quarter of the _Pomona_ with the obvious intention of boarding; and then the 3-pounder came into play once more. It was loaded with grape-shot, "and the charge was topped off by a crowbar stuck into the muzzle." Waiting until the enemy was just about to board, Robinson, with his own hand, let go this charge of grape and crowbar, "and with such accurate aim" (at, say, ten yards range!) "that the British were completely baffled in their attempt, their foresails and all their weather foreshrouds being cut away." Well, one cannot, of course, say that this is untrue; but that 3-pounder was certainly a marvellous little piece. It carried a solid ball, the size of which may be judged by any one who will toss up a three-pound weight from an ordinary set of scales, and the bore of the gun was just large enough to admit it easily; yet we are told that the charge of grape--small iron or leaden bullets--was equal to cutting all the foreshrouds, and all the head-sail halyards--if this is what is meant by "foresails," which is a vague term, not in use among seamen. This, however, is the story; and the English captain immediately putting his helm "hard up" to take the strain off his unsupported foremast, Robinson took occasion to give him a raking broadside; and this was the last shot fired, the Englishman failing to come up to the scratch again, and the _Pomona_ proceeding on her voyage. The British vessel was said to be the privateer _Rosebud_, with a crew of one hundred men, of whom forty-seven were killed and wounded; we are not told the _Pomona's_ loss. Captain Duncan, of the _Rosebud_, complained at New York that the Americans had not "fought fair," using "langrage"--_i.e._ rough bits of iron, old nails, etc.; but this illusion was put down to the crowbar--quite a legitimate missile! There is no British account to hand of this action; but it is impossible to feel any great admiration of the "Rosebuds," in allowing a vessel of such inferior force to beat them off. They must have been sadly lacking in thorns! The _Pomona_ reached Bordeaux in safety, and there her captain, having sold his tobacco, purchased a more satisfactory lot of guns, powder, and shot, and raised his crew to 70 men; and, having shipped a cargo of brandy, made sail on his return voyage to America. On the road he encountered a British privateer of 16 guns and 70 men; after several encounters, the Englishman all the while endeavouring to escape, Robinson captured her: British loss, 12 killed, and "a number" wounded; American loss, 1 killed, 2 wounded. The _Pomona_, however, was destined to have her career cut short by capture, and then there commenced a series of adventures for Joshua Barney as a prisoner of war. We are not told when or by whom the _Pomona_ was captured; Mr. Maclay, on page 148, says: "In the chapter on 'Navy Officers in Privateers', mention was made of the capture of the armed brig, _Pomona_, commanded by Captain Isaiah Robinson, who had, as his first officer, Lieutenant Joshua Barney, also of the regular service." There is nothing, however, to be found, in the chapter referred to, about the capture of the _Pomona_. The final allusion is to her safe arrival in America from Bordeaux, probably in September 1779. However, it appears that Joshua Barney became a prisoner some time between September 1779 and the autumn of 1780, and was placed in one of the prison-ships. The arrival of Admiral Byron, it is said, brought about a welcome change in the prison administration; some additional ships were ordered for the accommodation of the American officers, and the admiral personally inspected all the prison-ships once a week; while some of the officers who belonged to the regular navy were taken on board the flagship _Ardent_. Barney, it appears, was selected for special consideration by Admiral Byron, having a boat placed at his service, and being entrusted with the duty of visiting the prison-ships in which his compatriots were confined and reporting upon their condition to the admiral. The only restriction placed upon his liberty was the obligation to sleep on board the _Ardent_: he was certainly a most highly favoured prisoner of war. Upon one occasion, landing in New York in his American naval uniform, to breakfast with one of the admiral's staff, he was seized upon by an infuriated mob, who were proceeding to throw him into a fire which was raging, alleging that he had originated the conflagration. A British officer fortunately intervened and explained the situation. Upon the advent of Admiral Rodney, however, this pleasant time came to an end; and in November--_not_ December, as in Mr. Maclay's account--1780, Barney, in company with about seventy other American officers, was placed on board the _Yarmouth_, a 64-gun ship, under the command of Captain Lutwidge, for conveyance to England; and here is Mr. Maclay's description of the treatment they received. "From the time these Americans stepped aboard the _Yarmouth_ their captors gave it to be understood, by hints and innuendoes, that they were being taken to England to 'be hanged as rebels'; and, indeed, the treatment they received aboard the _Yarmouth_ on the passage over led them to believe that the British officers intended to cheat the gallows of their prey by causing the prisoners to die before reaching port. On coming aboard the ship of the line these officers were stowed away in the lower hold, next to the keel, under five decks, and many feet below the water-line. Here, in a twelve-by-twenty-foot room, with up-curving floor, and only three feet high, the seventy-one men were stowed for fifty-three days like so much merchandise, without light or good air, unable to stand upright, with no means and with no attempt made to remove the accumulating filth! Their food was of the poorest quality, and was supplied in such insufficient quantities that, whenever one of the prisoners died, the survivors concealed the fact until the body began to putrefy, in order that the dead man's allowance might be added to theirs. The water served them to drink was so thick with repulsive matter that the prisoners were compelled to strain it between compressed teeth. "From the time the _Yarmouth_ left New York till she reached Plymouth, in a most tempestuous winter's passage, these men were kept in this loathsome dungeon. Eleven died in delirium, their wild ravings and piercing shrieks appalling their comrades, and giving them a foretaste of what they themselves might soon expect. Not even a surgeon was permitted to visit them. Arriving at Plymouth the pale, emaciated, festering men were ordered to come on deck. Not one obeyed, for they were unable to stand upright. Consequently they were hoisted up, the ceremony being grimly suggestive of the manner in which they had been treated--like merchandise. And what were they to do, now that they had been placed on deck? The light of the sun, which they had scarcely seen for fifty-three days, fell upon their weak, dilated pupils with blinding force, their limbs unable to uphold them, their frames wasted by disease and want. Seeking for support, they fell in a helpless mass, one upon the other, waiting and almost hoping for the blow that was to fall upon them next. Captain Silas Talbot was one of these prisoners. "To send them ashore in this condition was 'impracticable,' so the British officers said, and we readily discover that this 'impracticable' served the further purpose of diverting the just indignation of the landsfolk, which surely would be aroused if they saw such brutality practised under St. George's cross. Waiting, then, until the captives could at least endure the light of day, and could walk without leaning on one another or clutching at every object for support, the officers had them moved to old Mill Prison." This is a terrible picture of the treatment of American prisoners of war, in striking contrast to the generous conduct of Vice-Admiral the Hon. John Byron--to give him his correct title--towards Barney and his fellow-prisoners. If it is to be accepted as absolutely true, it should make Englishmen blush to read it, constituting a shameful record against us, as represented by Captain Lutwidge and his subordinates. But is it absolutely true? This question is suggested, in the first instance, by the utter wildness of the writer's chronology with regard to the pleasing episode in connection with Admiral Byron; for it was during Joshua Barney's _first_ period of imprisonment that he came in contact with Byron, in the year 1778. It could not have been after the capture of the _Pomona_, as Byron was in the West Indies in the summer of 1779, in pursuit of the French Admiral D'Estaing, and returned thence to England, arriving on October 10th in that year--he was not employed again. Moreover, during the time of Barney's second imprisonment, at New York, there was no _Ardent_ on the Navy List: she was captured by the French on August 17th, 1779--while Barney was on his homeward voyage in the _Pomona_--and recaptured in April 1782. Such reckless chronicling might well discredit the whole of this writer's account of the incidents; fortunately--or unfortunately--for him, however, there is another source of information in a "Biographical Memoir of Commodore Barney," by Mary Barney--his daughter, perhaps--published in 1832, in which the dates are more consistent with possibilities. Probably Mr. Maclay derived his information from this volume, and, by an extraordinary oversight, confused the two periods. From this record it appears that Barney was a lieutenant on board the frigate _Virginia_ when she was captured by the British on April 1st, 1778, and that he was very kindly treated by two English captains, Caldwell and Onslow, under whose charge he found himself for a time and subsequently, as related, by Admiral Byron.[15] Moreover, it is here stated that it was while serving on board a regular war-ship, the _Saratoga_, that Barney was a second time made prisoner, being captured when in charge of a prize, and not on board the _Pomona_ at all: so here is more recklessness of narration, which appears quite inexcusable, as the writer, it is to be presumed, had access to this memoir, which is said to be compiled from Barney's own statements to the author. Now, with regard to the shocking treatment of the prisoners on board the _Yarmouth_. Mary Barney disclaims any wish to aggravate the case, declaring that she had the story from the lips of Joshua Barney, and appeals to his generous recognition of former kindness as a guarantee against wilful misrepresentation on this occasion. Very good. But there is in existence the captain's log of the _Yarmouth_, also his letter to the Admiralty, reporting his arrival in England, and these official documents tend to discredit the dismal story in some important particulars. The _Yarmouth_, we learn, sailed on November 15th, 1780, and arrived at Plymouth on December 29th--so she was forty-four, not fifty-three days at sea. The weather was very rough, and the ship developed some serious leaks, which increased alarmingly through the straining in the heavy sea. Under these circumstances, the ship's company being very sickly, with more than one hundred men actually on the sick list--one hundred and eleven, according to the "State and Condition" report on arrival--Captain Lutwidge states that he had the prisoners "watched"--_i.e._ divided into port and starboard watch, and set them to the pumps: "I found it necessary to employ the prisoners at the pumps, and on that account to order them whole allowance of provisions--the ship's company, from their weak and sickly state, being unequal to that duty." According to the log, _five_ prisoners, not eleven, died on the voyage, the deaths and burials at sea being precisely recorded. So here we have the official record that, while the ship's company were too much enfeebled by sickness to work the pumps--in addition, of course, to constant handling of the heavy sails and spars in tempestuous weather--the American prisoners were sufficiently robust to perform this duty, and probably save the vessel from serious peril through her leaky condition. In order to do this they must have been called on deck and mustered, placed in watches, and subsequently summoned in regular turn for their "spell" at the pumps. This story is obviously incompatible with the other, and it is, to say the least of it, very remarkable that this pumping in watches, and full provision allowance, should have been entirely forgotten by Barney in his narration. It is certainly open to any one, in view of this omission, to question the accuracy of other statements; to hesitate before accepting the story of seventy-one men being confined in a space twenty feet by twelve and only six inches higher than an ordinary table; of eleven of them dying in shrieking delirium, denied medical attendance, and six out of eleven deaths being suppressed. The treatment of our American prisoners was undoubtedly sometimes unduly harsh, but it is impossible to accept this story as literally true. Mr. Maclay's book and Mary Barney's memoirs are alike accessible to any one, and for this reason it is necessary that the other side should be heard--Joshua Barney having been a very prominent American privateersman. While on the subject, it is as well to refer to the treatment of prisoners in Mill Prison, at Plymouth, of which Mr. Maclay has a good deal to say; and in support of his contention as to their being placed upon a different diet from other prisoners of war, he has two sentences in inverted commas (page 152), which are stated in a footnote to be quoted from the _Annual Register_ of 1781, page 152; but no such passages occur there, nor in adjacent pages. It is, however, perfectly true that a petition was presented, on June 20th, 1781, to the House of Lords, and discussed on July 2nd following, from these prisoners. The only complaint which was found to be substantiated was that the Americans were allowed half a pound less bread daily than the French and other nationalities. It would have been more accurate to put it that the French had half a pound more--for this was stated to be supplied, as being equal to the allowance to British prisoners in France. The question of increasing the allowance was put to the vote, and negatived; but it was shown that the American prisoners' diet was, as a whole, superior to that allowed to our own troops on board transports; and their health was stated to be excellent, which is borne out by the fact, as stated by Mr. Maclay, that they indulged in athletic games as a pastime. Men who are half naked and nearly starving do not indulge in such pastimes. And now for the continued adventures of Joshua Barney, privateersman. Bold and resourceful, he determined to face the difficulties of escape, and the very unpleasant consequences of detection. One day, playing at leap-frog, he pretended to have sprained his ankle, and for some time afterwards went about on crutches, maintaining the deception so skilfully as to throw the warders off their guard, and completely deceive all but a few of his intimate friends. He had already paved the way, by making friends with a soldier of the prison guard, who had served in the British army in America, and had there received some kindness, which he was willing to requite by civility to the Americans in Mill Prison. On May 18th, 1781, this man was on sentry outside the inner gate--the prison being encircled by two high walls, with a space between--and Barney, hopping by on his crutches, whispered through the gate: "Today?" "Dinner," replied the sentry, with equal terseness, which meant one o'clock, when the warders dined. The friendly but disloyal soldier had provided Barney with the undress uniform of a British officer--which appears an unusual sort of thing for a private soldier to be able to lay hands upon without detection--and this Barney donned in his cell, putting on his greatcoat over it--his greatcoat, which, since he sprained his ankle, he had been wearing "for fear he should catch cold": Barney was a man of details. Still upon crutches, he left his cell, and, at a prearranged signal, some of his friends proceeded to engage the several sentries in conversation, while one, a stalwart individual, stood close by the gate. Throwing aside his crutches, Barney walked across the enclosure towards the gate, and, first exchanging a reassuring wink with the sentry, sprang with catlike agility upon the shoulders of his athletic accomplice, and in a moment was over the wall. Slipping off his greatcoat, and "tipping" the soldier to the extent of four guineas, he passed through the gate in the outer wall, which was usually left open for the convenience of the prison officials, but with an attendant on duty who, though we are not told that he had been "squared," obligingly turned his back as the escaping prisoner passed through. So far, so good. And really Joshua Barney is to be congratulated upon the accommodating character of his custodians, which rendered it possible for him to cross the prison-yard at one o'clock on a May day and scale the wall, while the sentries conversed with his friends and the warders enjoyed their dinner, having previously been permitted to malinger with a sham sprained ankle. We are told that he had it bathed and bandaged for some time without being challenged and detected by the surgeon, though somebody in authority must have provided him with crutches. It appears somewhat absurd to insist upon the rigour of confinement in Mill Prison, in the face of this. However, Barney was free, and he had friends near by who concealed him, and took him on to the house of an old clergyman in Plymouth in the evening. No immediate inquiry was made for him in the prison, for he had provided a substitute to answer his name at roll-call in the cell every day--a "slender youth," we are told, "who was able to creep through the window-bars at pleasure," and so crawled into Barney's cell and answered for him. We are not told who the "slender youth" was, or how, if he was an American prisoner, he contrived also to answer for himself in his own cell. Anyhow, this was an amazingly slack prison, for any such freak to be possible. Finding two fellow-countrymen who had been captured as passengers in a merchant vessel and were looking for a chance of returning, they secured a fishing-smack, Barney rigged himself up in an old coat tied with tarred rope round the waist and a tarpaulin hat, and soon after daybreak they sailed down the River Plym, past the forts and men-of-war, and safely out to sea. But they were not destined so easily to reach the coast of France, whence they hoped to find a passage to America. An inconveniently zealous British privateer from Guernsey boarded the smack, and the skipper was unduly inquisitive. Upon Barney opening his coat and showing his British uniform, the privateersman, though more polite, was obviously suspicious. What business had a British officer on the enemy's coast?--for Barney had stated that he was bound there. Barney made an official mystery of his "business," and refused to reveal it--a state secret, and so on. No use! The privateer captain's sensitive conscience would not permit him to let the smack go, and so the two vessels beat up for the English coast in company, and on the following morning came to anchor in a small harbour about six miles from Plymouth, probably Causand Bay. Here the privateer captain went on shore, on his way to Plymouth, to report to Admiral Digby, while most of his crew also landed to avoid the risk of being taken by the press-gang on board. Barney, however, though he was treated with courtesy, was detained on board the privateer. There was a boat made fast astern, and into this the American quietly slipped, hurting his leg as he did so, and sculled on shore, shouting to some of the idlers on the beach to help him haul up the boat. The customs officer was disposed to be inquisitive and talkative, but Barney pointed to the blood oozing through his stocking, and said he must go off and get his leg tied up. "Pray, sir," he said, "can you tell me where our people are?" He was told they were at the Red Lion, at the end of the village, which he discovered, much to his annoyance, that he was obliged to pass. He had almost succeeded in doing so unobserved, when one of the men shouted after him, and, approaching, gave him to understand that some of the privateer's crew had an idea of shipping in the Navy, and wanted some particulars from him; showing that his disguise had deceived them. Barney invited the man to accompany him to Plymouth, walking away rapidly while he spoke; but, as Mr. Maclay puts it, the tar "seemed to think better of his plan of entering a navy noted for its cruelty to seamen," and accordingly turned back. Barney now began to be very anxious about his safety. He was on the high road to Plymouth, where he might at any moment encounter a guard sent out to recapture him; so he jumped over a hedge into Lord Mount-Edgecumbe's grounds, where the gardener, pacified by a "tip," let him out by a private gate to the waterside--and none too soon, for, as he passed out, the guard sent to seek him tramped along on the other side of the hedge he had jumped over. A butcher, conveying some stock by water, took him across the river, and that night he found himself back at the old clergyman's house from which he had started. His two friends of the fishing-smack adventure here joined him once more, and while they were at supper the town-crier bawled under the window that five guineas reward would be paid for the capture of Joshua Barney, a rebel deserter from Mill Prison. Three days later, dressed in fashionable attire, Barney stepped into a post-chaise at midnight and drove off for Exeter. He was stopped at the Plymouth gate, and a lantern thrust in to see if he corresponded with the description of himself which had been circulated. Apparently he did not, for he was permitted to proceed, and eventually passed on to Bristol and London, France, and Holland; whence he shipped on board the armed ship _South Carolina_, which he saved, by prompt measures and good seamanship, from being wrecked on the Dutch coast--her officers being, apparently, timid and incompetent. Eventually, having transhipped on board the _Cicero_, another American privateer, Barney reached Beverley, Massachusetts--the writer does not give the date, but it must have been in the autumn of 1781. At Boston, we are told, he met several of his fellow-prisoners who had also escaped from Mill Prison. [Footnote 15: There still remains the question of Byron's flagship. She was certainly the _Princess Royal_ when he arrived at New York; but as the _Ardent_, 64, was one of the vessels of his squadron, it is, of course, possible that he may subsequently have hoisted his flag on her temporarily.] CHAPTER XIX CAPTAINS BARNEY AND HARADEN In April of the following year, 1782, Barney was again afloat in command of a privateer, the _Hyder Ali_ (spelt _HydeA lly_ in Mr. Maclay's book), fitted out, by merchants of Philadelphia, with sixteen 6-pounder guns and a crew of 110. In this vessel he fought a remarkable and successful action against the _General Monk_, a British man-of-war, of alleged superior force, though this is not borne out by British accounts. She was formerly the _General Washington_, was captured by a British squadron in 1780, and renamed upon being added to the British Navy. She was commanded on this occasion by Commander Josias Rogers, an officer of great courage and resource, and was armed with sixteen 9-pounder carronades and two 6-pounders. A 9-pounder carronade was a foolish little piece, very short, and addicted to jumping violently and capsizing when it became at all hot: and it would be quite outranged by a long 6-or 9-pounder. We are not told, either in the British or American account, the tonnage of the two vessels, but in the latter the _General Monk_ is described as being pierced for twenty guns: and in the former the _Hyder Ali_ is said to have carried eighteen guns, 6-and 9-pounders (proportion of each not stated), while her crew is put down as 130 men. Dropping down the river Delaware with several merchant vessels under convoy, Barney had reached Cape May Roads, just inside Delaware Bay, where he anchored, and was there discovered by a blockading squadron under Captain Mason, of the _Quebec_ frigate. Sending Rogers in to reconnoitre, and, if possible, attack, Mason endeavoured to sail a little higher up the bay, to prevent the American vessels running for the Delaware River, while Rogers, engaging the assistance of the _Fair American_, a privateer, went straight for the convoy. No sooner had he rounded Cape May, in sight of the Americans, than Barney, signalling his convoy to run for the river--the _Quebec_ not having yet got far enough up to head them off, on account of the shoal water--endeavoured to put his ship in the way of the pursuers. The _Fair American_ ran past him, with a broadside which was not returned, captured one vessel, chased another on shore, and then, in the endeavour to cut off three others, ran aground herself. This cleared the field for a duel between the _General Monk_ and the _Hyder Ali_, and they had a very pretty fight. Barney, as the _General Monk_ came on with the intention of boarding, delivered his broadside at pistol-range, and then frustrated the Englishman's plan of boarding by a ruse. Bidding the helmsman interpret his next order by "the rule of contrary," he shouted, as the vessels were on the point of fouling, "Hard a-port! Do you want him to run aboard us?"--the intention being that the order, distinctly audible on board the British vessel, should convey a false impression; for the helmsman, in accordance with the hint just received, put the helm _hard a-starboard_, the result being that the English vessel's jibboom became entangled in the _Hyder Ali's_ fore-rigging. This is all very possible, and Barney was just the kind of man to have recourse to a ruse of this kind; but the relative positions of the ships at the moment are not technically described, so it is impossible to judge of the feasibility of the manoeuvre, or of its efficacy. However, we are told that the Americans lashed the head-gear of the _General Monk_ to their rigging, and raked her with their fire, to which she could make no effective return. Rogers called his men to board, but the American defensive measures were too strong, and they fell back. Then ensued a conflict chiefly with small-arms, and there are some little stories in connection with it. Barney, it appears, had among his crew a number of backwoodsmen, crack shots, but little accustomed to the amenities of discipline. One of these men kept on asking his captain, whenever he came within earshot, where the musket which he was using was made. Barney, annoyed by this freedom, ignored him for a time, then asked him sharply why he wanted to know. "W-a-a-l," drawled the backwoodsman, "this 'ere bit o' iron is jes' the best smoothbore I ever fired in my life"--and he went on picking off the Britishers. Another drew Barney's attention to his next shot. "Say, Cap., do you see that fellow with the white hat?"--and in another moment the individual in the white hat leapt three feet in the air, and fell to rise no more. It was found, after the action, says the narrator, that every one of the Englishmen killed or wounded by musketry was struck either in the head or breast. The Britishers, however, were not idle with their small-arms; Barney, jumping on the compass stand to see better what was going on, had his head shaved by a ball which perforated his hat. Another tore off part of his coat-tail. Upon this he ordered his Marine officer to direct his men's fire at the enemy's tops, and _in a few minutes the tops were cleared_. Then a round-shot struck the binnacle, or compass stand, upon which Barney stood, and sent him flying. Just before this occurred he had had a vision of one of his officers, with the cook's axe uplifted, in act to floor a seaman who had got nervous, and was hiding behind the mainmast. The next moment Barney turned an involuntary somersault, and found the officer, who had dropped the cook's axe, standing over him in apprehension. Finding his captain unhurt--most of us would have been a good deal hurt under the circumstances, but perhaps Captain Barney came down on the spot, like a sixpence when a billiard-ball is knocked from under it--the stern officer resumed his murderous weapon, and made for the timid seaman again. But the latter had by this time realised that the cook's axe was a certainty and the enemy's fire a chance, so he returned to his quarters. And so, with these little amenities, the fight went on; but it was a losing fight for the British. Rogers could not get his ship away. His guns--his stupid little carronades--were behaving in a fiendish manner, tumbling about and shooting anywhere except in the right direction; and his men were falling fast. His masts and rigging were so damaged that he could not handle the sails, and he was at length compelled to yield, himself severely wounded and many of his officers and men dead and dying around him; and so the _General Monk_ changed hands again, and became once more the _General Washington_. Captain Barney, without doubt, fought his craft with immense pluck and dexterity, and thoroughly deserved the victory; but it is extremely doubtful whether the superiority of force was not on his side. Neither account gives the tonnage of the two vessels. Robert Beatson, a good authority, gives the _General Monk's_ armament as above described, and gives also a very different account of the action, ascribing Rogers's defeat chiefly to the inefficiency of his guns. He says, at the commencement, that the _Hyder Ali_ "cut her boat adrift, and did everything else to get away, _notwithstanding her superior force_." The reader can take his choice. This ends Joshua Barney's career as a privateer during this war. He was placed in command of the _General Washington_, and subsequently visiting Plymouth, he entertained on board his ship the friends who had aided his escape and a number of British officers, and bestowed a purse of gold upon Lord Mount-Edgecumbe's gardener, who had so opportunely opened the little gate for him. There are other privateer heroes of this period who richly deserve notice, but space does not admit of a detailed account of their doings. There was Jonathan Haraden, of Salem, for instance, conspicuous by his seamanlike skill and marvellous coolness under fire, as well as by his bold tactics in the presence of a superior force. It is related that, upon a dark night in the Bay of Biscay, being then in command of the privateer _General Pickering_, of 180 tons and 16 guns, he came across the British privateer _Golden Eagle_, of 22 guns--as was afterwards discovered. Haraden was not aware of her name and force when he sighted her--at no great distance, of course; but, having neared her, as is stated, unobserved, he concluded that she was a vessel of superior force to his own. In the words of the narrator, "having formed a fairly accurate idea of her force," he resolved to have recourse to a ruse--it was a very foolhardy proceeding, but it was justified by success. Running up alongside the English vessel, he hailed the captain while the two ships, at close quarters, plunged along together. "This is an American frigate of the largest class; if you don't surrender immediately, I'll blow you out of the water!" Now, Haraden's craft was of 180 tons, and an American frigate of the largest class at that time--the year 1780--would be at least 800 tons; the two vessels were close together, and we have seen that the American captain had, some time previously, been able to estimate the size and probable strength of the other; so what was the use of shouting such a fable to the Britisher? Any seaman of moderate experience would ridicule the idea of mistaking a vessel of 180 tons, close alongside, even at night, for a first-class frigate, with her comparatively large hull and immense, towering spars. Some of the English privateer captains whom we have been discussing would have had a very short reply for Haraden--"Frigate, be d----d!" and a broadside; and it was really very lucky for the American that he had dropped upon a "soft thing" in finding a British skipper so extremely unsophisticated as to be deceived for a moment. However, the captain of the _Golden Eagle_ chanced to be the one man in a thousand who would be so taken in, and he hauled down his colours without firing a shot! Had he been a naval officer, he would have had to answer at a court-martial for his conduct, and it is impossible to imagine any punishment for such an offence, short of death. However, nothing succeeds like success; Haraden--according to the story, as narrated by Mr. Maclay--made good his piece of "bounce," and took possession; and the most appropriate comment appears to be that each captain got what he deserved. Shortly afterwards Captain Haraden engaged a privateer--the _Achilles_--of vastly superior force, off Bilbao, so close in shore that the Spaniards crowded the headlands in hundreds to see the fun. Haraden, by superior seamanship, succeeded in beating off his big antagonist and in recovering the _Golden Eagle_, which the enemy had recaptured but could not hold, and which had on board an officer and prize crew from the _Achilles_. So the balance was in the American's favour. An onlooker--one Robert Cowan--is reported to have said that the _General Pickering_ looked like a longboat in comparison with the _Achilles_, and that "Haraden fought with a determination that seemed superhuman; and, although in the most exposed positions, where the shot flew around him, he was all the while as calm and steady as amid a shower of snowflakes." Another of Captain Haraden's exploits was the capture of "a homeward-bound king's packet from one of the West India islands," under very dramatic circumstances, the American captain, his watch in one hand and a lighted match in the other, with only a single round of ammunition remaining, giving the battered Britisher five minutes in which to surrender. But surely some less vague relation is due before such a story can be accepted--the name of the packet, her force, the date, latitude and longitude, and so forth. However, Captain Haraden was, no doubt, a fair specimen of a very fine class--the Salem skippers--and Americans have every cause for being proud of him. CHAPTER XX CAPTAIN THOMAS BOYLE Upon the declaration of war with England in 1812 Americans naturally inaugurated at once a vigorous privateering campaign. War was declared on June 18th, and by the end of the month two privateers had put out from Salem, and a dozen more were almost ready for sea; while New York had sent out, by the middle of October, twenty-six vessels, mounting some three hundred guns, and manned by more than two thousand men. On July 10th occurred a curious episode, quite impossible in these days, when the earth is tied up in every direction with telegraph cables. The British man-of-war schooner _Whiting_ was lying in Hampton Roads; her commander, Lieutenant Maxey, ignorant of the declaration of war, was in his boat, going on shore, when the American privateer _Dash_, Captain Carroway, arrived upon the scene. Carroway, better informed, seized the English commander and his boat, and, running alongside the _Whiting_, called upon the officer in charge to surrender--which he did. The American Government, however, in view of the English captain's ignorance of the commencement of hostilities, ordered the _Whiting_ to be returned. A similar incident is said to have occurred in the case of the _Bloodhound_, an English sloop of 12 guns, captured by the 8-gun privateer schooner _Cora_. Neither of these events is chronicled by British naval historians. One of the most daring and skilful privateer captains during this war was Thomas Boyle. His first command was the _Comet_, a staunch, fast-sailing schooner, and he lost no time in getting to work, starting upon his first cruise in July 1812, within a month of the declaration of war. Returning in November, after capturing several vessels, he refitted his craft and prepared to set forth again. There was more difficulty, however, in getting out upon this occasion, as the English had a strong squadron blockading Chesapeake Bay. Waiting for a dark, squally night, Boyle made his venture on December 23rd, and all went well until near daybreak, when he suddenly found himself under the guns of a frigate, which let drive a broadside at him. The _Comet_ sustained but little damage, however, and got clear away, heading for the coast of Brazil, where Boyle learned that some English vessels were about to sail from Pernambuco. This information proved to be correct, and on January 14th they were discovered, standing out to sea--three brigs and a ship--_i.e._ a larger vessel full-rigged. Boyle was prepared to find the merchant vessels armed, but did not reckon upon a very obstinate resistance from them. He stood out to sea, so as to be able easily to get between the English vessels and the coast; and about three o'clock he put his helm up and gave chase. The fast schooner soon neared the other ships; and then Boyle discovered that he was in for a more exciting adventure than he had anticipated, for one of the brigs was obviously a man-of-war, of formidable strength, though he had been informed that there were no British war-vessels in the neighbourhood. However, he put a bold face on, cleared for action, and steered for the cruiser, hoisting his colours as he came abreast of her. She replied with Portuguese colours, and hailed that she would send a boat on board. Boyle, distrustful, but wishing to ascertain the real nationality of the stranger, hove to and awaited her boat; for he did not see what a Portuguese man-of-war had to do with convoying British vessels. Well, nobody else can see it, either; but she turned out to be a genuine Portuguese, and the officer gave Boyle a great idea of her force, telling him that the merchantmen were under his charge, and must not be molested. Boyle, producing his commission from the American Government, replied: "This is an American cruiser, here are my papers, and I am going to take these English vessels if I can. I don't recognise your right to interfere, and I shall fire upon you if you do." To this plain statement of the case the Portuguese officer replied that his ship had orders to protect the merchantmen, and that he would be very sorry if anything disagreeable occurred. "Oh, so shall I," said Boyle; "very sorry; but if you oppose me, I shall fire into you." The Portuguese officer returned to report to his captain, promising to come back presently. This, however, he did not do. It was by this time quite dark, and Boyle, hailing to know when he might expect the boat, was asked to send his boat; but he did not quite like this plan--indeed, it was highly suspicious; so he replied that he did not care about sending his boat away in the dark. "And now I'm going to take those English vessels." Accordingly, he "let draw" his sails, and was soon among them, hailing the ship to heave-to as he romped past her, having great way on the schooner. Finding no attention paid to his demand, he tacked and came alongside the ship, and opened fire upon her and one of the brigs--the man-of-war being close on his heels, and speedily joining in the fray. All five vessels, under a press of sail, were now running together in a ruck, the _Comet_, from her superior sailing qualities, being compelled to tack and manoeuvre to maintain her position. There was a bright moon, but presently the smoke from the guns accumulated in a great cloud, obscuring the view, so it was difficult to tell one vessel from another. This was quite an agreeable arrangement for Captain Boyle, as he could make no mistake, while the others were in constant dread of hitting a friend--and probably did so occasionally. This running fight lasted until nearly midnight. The Portuguese fired away whenever he could do so without risk of hitting his convoy, but made wretched practice, while Boyle took but little notice of him, sticking to his prey tenaciously, until the ship and one brig surrendered, much cut up; but the _Comet's_ boat, going to take possession, was struck by a broadside from the Portuguese, and returned, almost sinking. Then the privateer and the man-of-war had a set-to alone, the latter eventually sheering off, but hovering near, evidently watching for a chance. Boyle, however, managed to send a prize crew on board the brig. The captain of the ship hailed that he was severely damaged, almost sinking, and his rigging cut to pieces; but he would endeavour to follow, as ordered, if he could get his ship under command. Standing by his prize until daybreak, Boyle saw the war-brig again bearing down upon him; he immediately tacked and went to meet her. But the Portuguese had apparently had enough of it; she managed to take the ship and one brig with her into Pernambuco, the two merchantmen in an almost sinking condition, masts tottering, sails cut to pieces, leaving Boyle with his one prize--a rich one. It was altogether an extraordinary affair, for the _Comet_ only carried 14 guns and about 120 men; and the Portuguese brig, seen afterwards by some Americans at Lisbon, was found to be a very formidable vessel, heavily armed. Why she was convoying British vessels, Portugal not being at war with America, does not appear to have been explained. Her name is not given. This incident affords a good indication of the character of Thomas Boyle; he found the _Comet_ so superior in speed, as a rule, to any vessel, small or great, which he encountered that he used sometimes to sail round a ship of superior force, just out of range of her guns--thereby vastly amusing himself and his crew, and greatly annoying the other man. By pursuing these tactics upon one occasion, he secured the retreat of a prize, keeping a British man-of-war brig engaged in trying to catch him, while the prize got safely away. The _Comet_ made seven-and-twenty prizes; and Captain Boyle was then placed in command of the _Chasseur_, a more formidable vessel, mounting sixteen long 12-pounders. She is said to have been one of the fastest and most beautiful vessels afloat, and in her Boyle had a most successful career. The last and most important action he fought was with the British man-of-war schooner _St. Lawrence_, of 13 guns--an American-built vessel, formerly the _Atlas_, privateer, and captured by the British in July 1813. This was on February 26th, 1815, off the coast of Cuba, when Boyle, about 11 a.m., gave chase to a schooner apparently running before the wind. She was discovered to be a man-of-war, with a convoy, just visible from aloft, as was imagined, in company. The _Chasseur_ gained, though not very fast, and the stranger presently hauled nearer to the wind, apparently anxious to escape. At 12.30 Boyle showed his colours and fired a gun, but the other made no sign, continuing her efforts to escape, and losing her foretopmast through the press of sail she carried. The _Chasseur_ now came up rapidly, and at one o'clock the chase fired a gun and hoisted English colours. Watching her narrowly, Boyle made out only three gun-ports on one side, and there appeared to be very few people on deck. So he cracked on his canvas, anxious to get alongside and make short work of her; and, not anticipating serious fighting, made no great preparations for action. When, however, he ran up within pistol-shot, about half-past one, a sudden change came over the English vessel--port-covers were triced up, showing her full armament, with a crowd of men at quarters, who gave three cheers and promptly put in a broadside. Boyle had been caught napping for once. He and his men did not take long, however, to recover themselves. The _Chasseur_ at this time had only 14 guns on board, according to American accounts, having sacrificed some on a former occasion in escaping from a British frigate. She is put down in Sir W. Laird Clowes's "Royal Navy" as carrying 24 guns. This, however, is an error. However this may be, Boyle got to work, hammer and tongs; came to close quarters, ran his foe aboard, and, in a quarter of an hour from the first shot, the Englishman surrendered! The equality of the two vessels, or rather, to be precise, the slight preponderance of force in the _Chasseur's_ favour, is dwelt upon in detail by Mr. Maclay (page 296). "Here," he says, "we have an admirable opportunity to compare the relative merits of American and British man-of-warsmen; for the _St. Lawrence_, being built and equipped by Americans, deprives our friends, the English, of their oft-repeated cry that our vessels were better built, etc. The _Chasseur_ carried 14 guns and 102 men as opposed to the _St. Lawrence's_ 13 guns and 76 men. Both vessels were schooners." In view of the categorical statement which ends this paragraph, Mr. Maclay would have done well to take into consideration the illustration of the action which appears opposite page 298, a replica of that in Mr. Coggleshall's book, in which the American vessel is clearly a brig. One does not, of course, place much reliance upon details in illustrations of this class, as proving or disproving important statements, and the draftsman has represented the British schooner "all on end" aloft, whereas she had lost her foretopmast before the action commenced. But what says Mr. Coggleshall? "The _Chasseur_ was a fine, large brig" (page 367); and he was a seaman, so he took care that his illustration should be technically correct and in agreement with the text, with regard, at least, to the rig of the vessels. This discrepancy naturally arouses some suspicion as to other details, and a perusal of the minutes of the court-martial upon Lieutenant James Edward (_not_ Henry Cranmer) Gordon,[16] held at Bermuda, April 21st, 1815, throws considerable light upon the matter. Lieutenant Gordon describes the _Chasseur_ as a large brig, registering upwards of 400 tons, British measurement, and much superior to our 18-gun brigs. Making every allowance for unconscious exaggeration on the part of an officer upon his defence, this description accords with that of the American seaman, Coggleshall. Gordon further states that he had on board 52 seamen and officers, 6 passengers, and 6 boys, total 64, which was 12 short of his complement. Compare Captain Boyle's statement, in his letter to one of the owners, that the _St. Lawrence_ had on board "a number of soldiers, marines, and some gentlemen of the navy, passengers"; in another place "eighty-nine men, beside several boys." The crew of the _Chasseur_, according to the evidence of some officers of the _St. Lawrence_, admitted in conversation that they had 119 on board, though some were away in prizes. The officers of the _St. Lawrence_, on their oath, state that there were 48 men at quarters, and that the long 9-pounder was not in action, _as they had not the men to man it_. There is no mention, either in Gordon's letter or the evidence, of any attempt to disguise the force of the schooner. She had no convoy with her, and simply tried to get away on account of the important despatches, which were weighted and thrown overboard before surrender. Gordon and his officers were honourably acquitted, the court being satisfied that they had done their best against heavy odds, handicapped as they were by the loss of the foretopmast. The duration of the action is stated as half an hour, or more, by the schooner's officers; this, however, is not of very much importance. Captain Boyle was, no doubt, a very brave man and a fine seaman, and the capture of a regular British war-vessel was a great feather in his cap; but it is really no very extraordinary feat for a large brig to take a schooner, fighting two guns less, and with a crew, including boys, in a minority of about forty--accepting the American statement as to the _Chasseur's_ crew--and partially crippled aloft. Captain Boyle, rendered more and more bold and enterprising by success, sent a "Proclamation of Blockade" of the British coast to be posted in Lloyd's Coffee House. This was a joke, said to be in imitation of the farcical "paper" blockades of the American coasts issued by British admirals, when they had not the ships present to enforce it. The British blockade, however, was no farce as a whole, as American writers testify. [Footnote 16: Mr. Maclay is not, however, responsible for this error, as Gordon is so named by Sir W. Laird Clowes, vol vi., p. 155. The mistake does not recur in the list of British losses, p. 555, the name being given as James Edward Gordon, as in the official report of the court-martial.] CHAPTER XXI THE "GENERAL ARMSTRONG" One of the most formidable American privateers during this war was the _General Armstrong_, a large brig, armed with a heavy long gun amidships, and eight long 9-pounders. The last action in which she was engaged was of a most desperate nature, against the boats of a British squadron. The privateer was lying, on September 26th, 1814, at Fayal, in the Azores, and her commander, Samuel Chester Reid, having been on shore to see his Consul and arrange about a supply of water, returned on board about 5 p.m., accompanied by the Consul and some friends. They were chatting on deck, and the captain was informed that no British cruisers had been seen in the vicinity for several weeks, when their conversation was most unexpectedly broken in upon by the appearance of a large British brig-of-war rounding the northern point of the anchorage, within gunshot of the privateer. Reid at first contemplated cutting his cable and making a bolt for it, confident in the sailing powers of his fine craft. The wind, however, was light and uncertain, and the British brig had most of what there was at the moment, so he abandoned the idea, being informed by the Consul that he would not be molested as long as he remained at anchor--which was, of course, a very correct and proper assumption, Fayal being a Portuguese possession, and therefore a neutral port. So Captain Reid and his friends watched the brig, which was the _Carnation_--of 18 guns, commander, George Bentham--standing in through the gathering dusk. After the pilot had boarded her, she came on and anchored within pistol-shot of the _General Armstrong_. The American did not feel at all easy as to the efficacy of neutral protection; and, while he discussed it, an English 74-gun ship and a 38-gun frigate appeared round the point--to wit, the _Plantagenet_, Captain Robert Lloyd; and the _Rota_, Captain Philip Somerville--and the brig immediately commenced signalling furiously to them. This was getting a little too hot; and, seeing the brig presently send her boats to the line-of-battle ship. Captain Reid resolved, escape seaward being impossible, to be prepared for the worst. So, the wind having dropped, he got out his sweeps and slowly pulled his vessel further inshore. The _Carnation_ immediately got under way and followed; but the wind was too light, and she was unable to close the privateer. About 8 p.m. the Americans--to give their version first--perceived four boats, armed and full of men, approaching. Captain Reid thereupon dropped his anchor with a spring on the cable, and swung his broadside upon the boats. When they came within hail he warned them not to approach nearer, on pain of being fired upon; they came on, however, and the privateer opened on them with cannon and small arms. "The boats promptly returned the fire, but so unexpectedly warm was the reception they got from the privateer that they cried for quarter and hauled off in a badly crippled condition." Captain Reid says he had one man killed and his first officer wounded. Being convinced that he had not seen the last of the British boats, he hauled so close in that the vessel was almost touching the rocks, right under the castle, and anchored head and stern. The _Carnation_ was observed, about nine o'clock, towing in a number of boats; she could not, however, get close enough in to co-operate with them, as the wind was baffling and the tide was adverse; so the boats cast off and remained for some time under cover of a low reef of rocks. There were eleven of them, according to the British official report--twelve, the Americans say--and they must have contained at least two hundred men; probably more, as some would be very large boats, pulling fourteen or sixteen oars. Such a force would have been considered far more than adequate for the cutting out of a French vessel; indeed, much larger vessels than the _General Armstrong_ have often been captured by British boats with considerably less force than was despatched upon this occasion. We rather "fancied" ourselves in this matter of cutting out vessels from a harbour, and some splendid feats have undoubtedly been performed in this way. It was a sort of adventure which was considered essentially British in character; and justly so, as our enemies certainly never ventured much in the way of attempting to cut out our vessels. Captain Lloyd and his merry men were now to learn the difference between French or Spanish seamen and Americans. Meanwhile, the Governor had sent a letter to the British captain begging him to respect the neutrality of the port and abstain from further attack upon the privateer. Captain Lloyd replied by pointing out that the Americans had broken the neutrality of the port by firing into his boat without the least provocation. That he had intended to respect it, but was now determined to seize the privateer, and hoped the Governor would direct the fort to assist him. About midnight the flotilla of boats advanced to the attack. They were allowed to approach within what used to be termed "point blank" range--a vague term, but equivalent, probably, to longish pistol-shot, and then came the round and grape from the privateer, doing considerable execution. The British responded with the guns mounted in their boats; then, with loud cheers, they raced for the _General Armstrong_, boarding her in several different places. A most bloodthirsty and terrible conflict now took place. The British seamen, with characteristic dash and courage, climbed up the vessel's side on all hands, nothing daunted by the fierce resistance of her crew. The Americans, armed with every kind of weapon which would serve at close quarters, met them at arm's length with such ferocity that the boats were soon cumbered up with wounded and dying men, hurled back with pistol, pike, or cutlass. Wherever an English head cropped up above the bulwarks it was a target. And still they continued the attack, and with so much success in the bow that a number gained a footing on the forecastle, and the two American officers in charge forward were killed or disabled. Learning the state of affairs forward, Captain Reid, who, with the after-hands, had pretty well disposed of the attack at the stern, rallied his men, and, leading them forward on the run, drove the British over the bows into their boats--and that was the end of it. The fight lasted forty minutes--a tremendous time for such a desperate affair, proving the stubborn courage on both sides. Two of the frigate _Rota's_ boats, the American account states, were taken possession of, loaded with dead and dying men. "Of the forty or fifty men in these boats only seventeen escaped death, and they by swimming ashore. Another boat was found under the privateer's stern, commanded by one of the _Plantagenet's_ lieutenants. All the men in it were killed but four, the lieutenant himself jumping overboard to save his life." These details appear to corroborate the description of an eye-witness, given by Mr. Maclay; he says: "The Americans fought with great firmness, but more like bloodthirsty savages than anything else. They rushed into the boats sword in hand, and put every soul to death as far as came within their power." The estimate of killed and wounded, as given by Mr. Maclay, respectively 120 and 130, is greatly exaggerated; the official account, with names of officers, seamen, and marines, gives it as 36 killed and 84 wounded--and quite enough, too! The affair was disastrous for the British; but Captain Reid had, of course, to lose his ship. He received a communication at 3 a.m. from his Consul that Captain Lloyd was determined to have him, and at daybreak the _Carnation_ stood in and engaged him. But, being unable at the moment to pick up the best berth for operations, the British vessel hauled off again, with some small damage from the American long gun. A second time she was more successful, and, bringing her heavy short guns to bear at close range, sealed the fate of the _General Armstrong_. Reid and his men, prepared for this ending, scuttled their ship and went on shore, upon which the English set her on fire, completing her destruction. Captain Lloyd, in his report, declares that the _General Armstrong_ was so close inshore that the attacking boats had not room to board on the inside; and that "every American in Fayal, exclusive of part of the crew, being armed and concealed in these rocks, which were immediately over the privateer, it unfortunately happened when these brave men gained the deck they were under the painful necessity of returning to their boats, from the very destructive fire kept up by those above them from the shore, who were in complete security." This is rather a wild story, to which the thoughtful reader will not be disposed to yield full credence. With regard to the breach of neutrality, there is an affidavit, sworn before the British Consul, by Lieutenant Robert Faussett, of the _Plantagenet_, to the effect that he approached, unarmed, in the pinnace, for the purpose of ascertaining what vessel it was; and that the Americans warned them off when they were so close that the boat was shoved off with a boathook, and then opened fire; that Faussett called for quarter, shouting, "Don't murder us!" and they continued their attack; that he had no means of returning a shot, and could only retire, with two killed and seven wounded. He says nothing about the proximity of other boats, armed or otherwise; and so the Americans would appear to have been technically guilty of the initial breach of neutrality. Captain Lloyd, by way of showing that American privateers were addicted to this kind of thing, encloses a copy of the affidavit of William Wilson, late master of the transport brig _Doris_, which was captured, in defiance of the law of neutrality, on June 25th preceding, in the anchorage of Flores, another island of the Azores. Captain Lloyd, however, got no credit out of this affair. The Lords of the Admiralty expressed very strong disapproval of the whole business; told him he ought to have known that the sending of a boat after dark was sure to lead to some such incident; that, if the Americans broke the neutrality of the port, his first business was to make representation to the Governor, and not take the law into his own hands; that the honour of the flag and the prestige of the British Navy, represented by a 74-gun ship, a frigate, and several sloops, was not likely to be endangered by the presence of one privateer--with other home truths and doses of common sense. And really, one cannot help agreeing cordially with their lordships, and heartily deploring the loss of so many brave men in a fiasco due to thorough bad management. A fortnight later the boats of the British frigate _Endymion_, Captain Henry Hope, made an attempt to carry the _Prince de Neufchatel_--a very successful privateer, but why such a clumsy name?--off Nantucket, with very similar results. The fight was even more desperate than in the case of the _General Armstrong_, the privateer having only nine of her crew untouched, while the British casualties amounted to fully half of the men engaged. The privateer escaped. * * * * * Such are some of the incidents of the two American wars; of this type were the men--or many of them--who commanded the privateers. The British records of the period, during the war of 1812, bear full testimony to their success, and the officers of the Royal Navy come in for some rough handling by the Press--as in _The Times_ of February 11th, 1815: "The American cruisers daily enter in among our convoys, seize prizes in sight of those that should afford protection, and, if pursued, 'put on their sea-wings' and laugh at the clumsy English pursuers. To what is this owing? Cannot we build ships? It must indeed be encouraging to Mr. Madison to read the logs of his cruisers. If they fight, they are sure to conquer; if they fly, they are sure to escape." That the Americans have the knack of building faster sailing-vessels than ours is a fact which we have been compelled to accept. Not that our smartest clippers would be beaten, as a matter of course, by any of theirs; but, taking it all round, an American who wants to turn out a specially swift sailing vessel will almost always eclipse our efforts in the same direction. Are we not still trying in vain to win back the "America" Cup? The long, rakish craft, of comparatively small beam and tapering lines, was no doubt originally an American production. These swift vessels, sailed by such men as Boyle, Haraden, Barney, Coggleshall, and others, were both hard to catch and bad to beat. The sentence quoted above from _The Times_ sums up the situation pretty accurately; and, this being the case, it is all the more to be regretted that the accounts of their exploits should so constantly be tainted with obvious exaggerations, or embellished with incredible little anecdotes. SOME MORE ODD YARNS CHAPTER XXII THE "PRINCESS ROYAL" PACKET In the days of sailing-vessels the mails were regularly carried by fast-sailing brigs, which were known as packets. They were virtually men-of-war, but were not heavily armed, nor did they carry a numerous crew. The captain's first duty was to convey the mails with expedition and safety, and he was not expected to go out of his way to engage an enemy, but to escape if possible. Some fire-eating commanders of packets required, indeed, to be admonished as to their duties in this respect. The brigs were usually very heavily masted, and it was considered a point of honour to "carry on" their canvas, sometimes to a dangerous extent. More than one of these craft has unaccountably disappeared, having no doubt foundered in a storm. They were very fine little vessels, however, and there was probably a certain amount of "swagger" attached to belonging to them--a sort of craft that was not under anybody's orders, and was not to be interfered with; and when they were attacked, and found escape impossible, their "swagger" assumed the form, in many instances, of a most heroic defence --while the mails were always sunk before surrendering. Here is a very interesting letter, describing an action between the _Princess Royal_ packet, Captain John Skinner, and a French privateer of vastly superior force. It is written by one of the passengers, who "plied the small arms with much effect." "NEW YORK, _August 25th, 1798_. "I have at last the pleasure to inform you of my arrival here, the 14th instant, after a very tedious passage. We left Falmouth on June 12th, in company with the _Grantham_ packet, bound to Jamaica, which kept with us five days. Four days after, on the morning of June 21st, we fell in with a French privateer; at five o'clock she made sail after us. We had light airs and a smooth sea--all sails set. At midday, we triced up our boarding-nettings and made clear for action, with our courses up. The privateer, towards the afternoon, came up with us fast, by the assistance of her sweeps. At 7 p.m. our men were all at quarters. She hoisted English colours, firing a shot,[17] which we returned, and she answered by a gun to leeward. At this time she was within cannon-shot, but, it growing dark, kept in our wake; and we turned in, not expecting an attack till next morning. However, before daylight, at half-past three in the morning, she came within pistol-shot, and fired a broadside of great guns, swivels, etc., which we immediately returned, and kept up a general fire with our cannon and small arms. Our force was only two 6-pounders, and four 4-pounders; of which six guns we got five on one side to bear on them. We mustered thirty men and boys, exclusive of Captain Skinner and his master, besides thirteen passengers and four servants: in all forty-nine. "The privateer was a low brig, apparently mounting twelve or fourteen guns, and full of men. Our guns were extremely well plied; a lieutenant, going to join the _St. Albans_ man-of-war, was captain of one of our 6-pounders, and the rest of us passengers plied the small arms with much effect. The engagement continued, without intermission, for two hours, when she out with her sweeps, left off firing, and rowed off, for it was near calm, there not being wind enough to carry us a knot through the water. As she was rowing off we got our two stern-chasers, the 6-pounders, to bear upon her, and hit her twice in her counter, which must have gone through and through, for it caused great noise and confusion on board, and soon after we saw two men at work over her stern. At six o'clock, being out of cannon-shot, we ceased firing, and set about repairing our damage. She had some swivels fixed in her tops, which would have done us considerable mischief, had they not been drove from them early in the action, which was Captain Skinner's first object at the beginning of the engagement. "Thank God, we had no one killed; most of their shot went above us. The boarding-nettings, directly over our quarter-deck, were shot away, as their principal force seemed to aim at the passengers, who plied fourteen muskets to some advantage, and annoyed the privateer much. "Captain Skinner conducted himself well; it was no new business to him. His orders were given coolly and everything done with great precision and regularity. I believe you know that he lost his right arm in an engagement on board of a frigate last war. "I cannot omit mentioning that a lady (a sister of Captain Skinner), who, with her maid, were the only female passengers, were both employed in the bread-room during the action making up papers for cartridges; for we had not a single four-pound cartridge remaining when the action ceased. "Our sails were shot through, rigging very much cut, our spars and boat upon deck shot through, several grape and round-shot in our bows and side, and a very large shot, which must have been a 9-or 12-pounder, in our counter. The ship proved a little leaky after the action, but she got pretty tight again before our arrival. Captain Skinner was slightly wounded, but is now well." This plain and very credible story was afterwards supplemented by the independent testimony of an American gentleman, who was a prisoner on board the privateer during this engagement. She was the _Aventurier_, and this gentleman states: "That her force was fourteen long French 4-pounders, and two 12-pounders; that she had eighty-five men on board at the time, of whom two were killed and four wounded in the action. That all her masts were shot through, her stays and rigging very much cut; that when she got to Bordeaux she was obliged to have new masts and a complete set of new rigging. They supposed, on board the privateer, that there was not a single shot fired from the packet that did not take effect: which seems probable, for, though so low in the water, she had nineteen shot in her bottom under her wale.[18] At the time there were on board thirty English and American prisoners. She was so peppered that she would certainly have been made a prize of, could the packet have pursued her; and was so cut to pieces by the action that she afterwards ran from everything until she got into Bordeaux to refit; the shots that raked her as she moved off went quite through, and caused much confusion." This is a very pretty tale of pluck and skill combined. The reproach which has been laid against the British Navy in this--1798--and subsequent years of inexpertness in gunnery, certainly could not have been levelled against the crew of the _Princess Royal_, who put in their 4-and 6-pounder shot in such businesslike fashion, while the passengers picked off the dangerous swivel-men in the tops. The two undaunted women quietly making cartridge-bags in the bread-room rounds off the picture very agreeably. TWO COLONIAL PRIVATEERS Here are two instances in which privateers fitted out by our colonies have performed very brilliant services; and the first is introduced by Vice-Admiral Sir Roger Curtis, Bart., Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty's ships and vessels at the Cape of Good Hope, who writes from Capetown on December 20th, 1801, to Evan Nepean, Esq., Secretary to the Admiralty, as follows: "SIR,--The private ship-of-war, the _Chance_, belonging to Mr. Hogan, of this place, and commanded by Mr. William White, having been a cruise on the coast of Peru, returned on the 11th instant. The Commander of the _Chance_ addressed a letter to me containing an account of his proceedings during his cruise. He appears to have uniformly acted with great propriety; but his conduct, and that of his officers and men, was, on two occasions, so highly creditable to them that I send his account of these occurrences for their lordships' information. "I am, etc., "ROGER CURTIS." Extract of a letter from Mr. William White, commander of the _Chance_ private ship of war, fitted out at the Cape of Good Hope, to Vice-Admiral Sir Roger Curtis, Bart: "At four p.m. on August 19th (1801), the island St. Laurence[19] bearing N.E. two leagues, saw a large ship bearing down upon us. At nine brought her to close action, and engaged her within half pistol-shot for an hour and a half, but finding her metal much heavier than ours, and full of men, boarded her on the starboard quarter, lashing the _Chance's_ bowsprit to her mizzen-mast, and, after a desperate resistance of three-quarters of an hour, beat them off the upper deck; but they still defended from the cabin and lower deck with long pikes in a most gallant manner, till they had twenty-five men killed and twenty-eight wounded, of whom the captain was one. Getting final possession, she was so close to the island that with much difficulty we got her off shore, all her braces and rigging being cut to pieces by our grape-shot. She proved to be the new Spanish ship _Amiable Maria_, of about 600 tons, mounting fourteen guns, 18, 12, and 9-pounders, brass, and carrying 120 men, from Concepcion bound to Lima, laden with corn, wine, bale goods, etc. On this occasion, I am much concerned to state, Mr. Bennett, a very valuable and brave officer, was so dangerously wounded that he died three days after the action; the second and fourth mates, Marine officer, and two seamen badly wounded by pikes, but since recovered. On the 20th, both ships being much disabled, and having more prisoners than crew, I stood close in and sent eighty-six on shore in the large ship's launch to Lima. We afterwards learned that seventeen of the wounded had died. "At 4 a.m. on September 24th, standing in to cut out from the roads of Puna, in Guaiquil Bay, a ship I had information of, mounting twenty-two guns, fell in with a large Spanish brig, with a broad pendant at maintopmast-head. At five she commenced her fire on us, but she being at a distance to windward, and desirous to bring her to close action, we received three broadsides before a shot was returned. At half-past five, being yardarm and yardarm, commenced our fire with great effect, and, after a very severe action of two hours and three-quarters, during the latter part of which she made every effort to get away, I had the honour to see the Spanish flag struck to the _Chance_. She proved to be the Spanish man-of-war brig _Limeno_, mounting eighteen long 6-pound guns, commanded by Commodore Don Philip de Martinez, the senior officer of the Spanish Marine on that coast, and manned with 140 men, sent from Guaiquil for the express purpose of taking the _Chance_, and then to proceed to the northward to take three English whalers lying in one of their ports. She had fourteen men killed and seven wounded; the captain mortally wounded, who died two days after the action. The _Chance_ had two men killed and one wounded, and had only fifty men at the commencement of the action; mounting sixteen guns, 12-and 6-pounders." Captain White's little argument in favour of boarding the _Amiable_ (?) _Maria_ reads rather quaintly: "Finding her metal much heavier than ours, _and full of men_": a good argument for reversing the boarding operations, one would imagine; but the _Amiable Maria_ was not equal to the occasion--was not, in fact, if the pun may be pardoned, _taking any chances_! The other colonial privateer about which good things are recorded was the _Rover_, of Liverpool, Nova Scotia. This loyal province, it appears, fitted out some fifteen privateers in 1794 and the three following years; and of these seven or eight hailed from the little town of Liverpool. Captain Godfrey shall be allowed to tell his own simple and straightforward tale: "The brig _Rover_, mounting fourteen 4-pounders, was the present year (1798) built and fitted for war at Liverpool in this province. She sailed under my command June 4th last on a cruise against the enemies of Great Britain, being commissioned by His Excellency Sir John Wentworth, Bart. Our crew consisted of 55 men and boys, including myself and officers, and was principally composed of fishermen." "On the 17th of the same month, in the latitude of 23 N. and longitude 54 W.[20] we fell in with six sail of vessels, whom we soon discovered to be enemies, one being a ship, with four brigs and a schooner. The schooner showed 16 guns, one of the brigs 16 guns, another 6 guns. These six vessels drew up close together, apparently with an intention of engaging us. On consulting with my ship's company, we determined to bear down and attack them, but so soon as the enemy perceived our intentions, they by signal from the schooner dispersed, each taking a different course, before we got within gunshot of them. After a few hours' chase we took possession of the ship and one of the brigs. The ship proved an American, bound from the South Seas, laden with oil, and the brig an American, laden with wine, from Madeira. From them we learned that they had been captured some short time before by a French privateer, which was the schooner in company; that she mounted sixteen guns, two of which were 9-pounders and the rest sixes, and carried 155 men; and that the other three were American vessels which she had taken, one of which was from the East Indies. Night coming on, we were prevented from taking any more of them. "On September 10th, being cruising near to Cape Blanco, on the Spanish Main, we chased a Spanish schooner on shore and destroyed her. Being close in with the land and becalmed, we discovered a schooner and three gunboats under Spanish colours making for us. A light breeze springing up, we were enabled to get clear of the land, when it fell calm, which enabled the schooner and gunboats, by the help of a number of oars, to gain fast upon us, keeping up at the same time a constant fire from their bow-guns, which we returned with two guns pointed from our stern; one of the gunboats did not advance to attack us. As the enemy drew near we engaged them with muskets and pistols, keeping with oars the stern of the _Rover_ towards them, and having all our guns well loaded with great and small shot, ready against we should come to close quarters. When we heard the commander of the schooner give orders to the two gunboats to board us, I waited to see how they meant to attack us, and, finding the schooner intended to board us on our starboard quarter, one of the gunboats on our larboard bow, and the other on our larboard waist, I suffered them to advance in that position until they came within about fifteen yards, still firing on them with small-arms and the stern-guns. I then manned the oars on the larboard side, and pulled the _Rover_ round so as to bring her starboard broadside to bear athwart the schooner's bow, and poured into her a whole broadside of great and small shot, which raked her deck fore and aft, while it was full of men ready for boarding. I instantly shifted over on the other side [_i.e._ sent the men over] and raked both gunboats in the same manner, which must have killed and wounded a great number of those on board of them, and done great damage to their boats. I then commenced a close action with the schooner, which lasted three glasses [an hour and a half], and, having disabled her sails and rigging much, and finding her fire grew slack, I took advantage of a light air of wind to back my headsails, which brought my stern on board of the schooner, by which we were enabled to board and carry her, at which time the gunboats sheered off, apparently in a very shattered condition. We found her to be the _Santa Rita_, mounting ten 6-pounders and two 12-pounder carronades, with 125 men. She was fitted out the day before by the Governor of Porto Cavallo, with the gunboats, for the express purpose of taking us. Every officer on board of her was killed except the officers who commanded a party of 25 soldiers; there were 14 dead men on her deck when we boarded her, and 17 wounded; the prisoners, including the wounded, amounted to 71. "My ship's company, including officers and boys, was only 45 in number, and behaved with that courage and spirit which British seamen always show when fighting the enemies of their country. It is with infinite pleasure I add that I had not a man hurt; from the best account I could obtain, the enemy lost 54 men. The prisoners being too numerous to be kept on board, on the 14th ult. I landed them all except eight, taking an obligation from them not to serve against his Majesty until regularly exchanged. I arrived with my ship's company in safety this day (October 17th) at Liverpool, having taken during my cruise the before-mentioned vessels, together with a sloop under American colours bound to Curaçao, a Spanish schooner bound to Port Caballo, which have all arrived in this province; besides which I destroyed some Spanish launches on the coast." A very successful four month's cruise. Godfrey's crew of Nova Scotian fishermen would be very difficult to beat: they were stalwart, hard-bitten fellows, well used to hardship in their calling, and not afraid of anything; much the same type, in fact, as those Salem men who gave us so much trouble in the war of 1812. To the initiated, Captain Godfrey's handling of his craft on the approach of the three Spanish vessels will commend itself. It was an exceedingly pretty bit of seamanship, only possible at such a moment to a captain of consummate coolness, with his crew well in hand. The Spaniards appear on this, as on so many other occasions, to have made the wildest practice with their firearms; Godfrey had not a man touched, after an action of one hour and a half, with a hand-to-hand fight at the end of it! [Footnote 17: An illegal and piratical act; she was bound to show her own colours before firing.] [Footnote 18: Wale, or wales, sometimes termed "bends"; the thickest outside planking of the ship, at and above the water-line.] [Footnote 19: There does not appear to be an island under this name on the west coast of South America, in any modern atlas. It must have been close to Callao, the sea-port of Lima, as he sent his prisoners on shore there next day.] [Footnote 20: That is, to the north-westward of the northernmost of the Windward Islands, in the West Indies.] CHAPTER XXIII THE AFFAIR OF THE "BONAPARTE" In the year 1804 there was a very formidable French privateer cruising in the West Indies, by name the _Bonaparte_, carrying 18 guns and a crew of over 200. This vessel encountered, in the month of August, the British ship of war _Hippomenes_--a capture from the Dutch at the surrender of Demerara in the previous year--of 18 guns, commanded by Captain Kenneth McKenzie, who had in some measure disguised his ship in order to entrap privateers. The Frenchman was so far deceived as to invite a conflict, believing the _Hippomenes_ to be a "Guineaman," or African slave-trader, which were almost always armed, but which the _Bonaparte_ would have no cause to fear. Having caught a tartar, the French captain did not on that account endeavour to avoid battle, and a sharp action ensued. After some time, the French ship fell aboard the _Hippomenes_, upon which Captain McKenzie instantly had the two ships lashed together, and, calling upon his men to follow him, sprang on board the _Bonaparte_. He appears, however, to have been very unfortunate in his crew, many of whom, it is said, were foreigners, and only eight men had the stomach to follow him. This little band, however, under their captain's gallant leadership, actually drove the Frenchmen from their quarters for a time, no doubt under the impression that this was merely the vanguard of a formidable force of boarders. Finding themselves opposed by such insignificant numbers, however, they rallied, and the plucky Englishmen were terribly cut up, McKenzie receiving no less than fourteen wounds, while the first lieutenant and purser were killed and the master wounded. There was nothing for it but to scramble back on board their own ship, which they barely succeeded in doing when the lashings gave way, and the vessels swung apart, Captain McKenzie almost missing his leap, and falling senseless into the "chains" of his own ship. The Frenchman had had enough, so the action ended indecisively, and the _Bonaparte_ was free to continue her depredations. Had the whole of the English crew been of the same kidney as the gallant eight her career in the French service would certainly have been ended then and there. A month or two later the _Bonaparte_ fell in with three British armed merchantmen, to wit the _Thetis_, _Ceres_, and _Penelope_, which had sailed in company from Cork in October, John Charnley, captain of the Thetis, being commodore of the little squadron. The _Bonaparte_ was sighted at 7 a.m. on November 8th, to windward of Barbadoes, and the three English ships at once hauled their wind and prepared for action. What ensued shall be told in the language of the three captains, as illustrating the curious diversity of views which may result from distorted vision in the heat of action--for that one or other of these captains had his vision so distorted there can be no doubt. All three letters are dated November 10th, 1804, from Bridge Town, Barbadoes, and are addressed to the owners--though whether all three ships were owned by one firm does not appear. The captain of the _Ceres_ writes: "I am happy to inform you of my safe arrival here, in company with the _Penelope_ and _Thetis_. The day we came in we fell in with the _Bonaparte_, French privateer, of twenty guns, which bore down upon us, and commenced a very heavy fire, which we returned as warm as possible. She attempted to board the _Thetis_, and, in the act, lost her bowsprit, and soon after her foremast went over the side--a fortunate circumstance, as I understand she was the terror of the West Indies. She sent a challenge here by an American, the day before we arrived, to any of our sloops of war to fight her. We understand she had beaten off one of them. The action was very smart for about two hours; we began firing at nine o'clock in the morning, and did not leave off till half after twelve. My ship was on fire three times by neglect of the people with their cartridges. She once got on fire in the cabin; but, by the exertions of the crew, it was soon extinguished. They behaved with the greatest spirit; and, I believe, would have fought to the last, though half of them were foreigners. I had several shots in the hull and my rigging and sails were very much cut. The small shot and grape came on board us like hail, though they did not hit one man. I had two men blown up by the cartridges taking fire, who are very much burnt." The _Penelope_ account comes next: "I arrived here safe, after a passage of thirty-three days, in company with the _Ceres_ and _Thetis_, and shall be detained here some time to refit: having on the 8th inst., in lat. 13.26 N., long. 57.30 W. had an engagement with the _Bonaparte_ privateer, of 22 guns and 250 men, for three hours; in which engagement we had ten of our guns dismounted, which I must repair here, and likewise replenish our powder. I suppose I shall be ready for sea by the 13th. I am sorry to say Mr. Lindo was killed in the engagement, and his poor wife is very disconsolate. I wish her to return home from hence, but she refuses. I send this by the _Burton_, of Liverpool, who is now under weigh, or otherwise would be more particular. The action commenced at 9 a.m., and we engaged until half-past meridian, when we left off chase. The privateer lost her bowsprit and foremast in attempting to board the _Thetis_, who had two men killed and five wounded." Captain Charnley's report is as follows: "MESSRS. STUART, HEESMAN, & CO." "GENTLEMEN, "I arrived here, in company with the _Ceres_ and _Penelope_, last evening. On the 8th instant, at 7 a.m., seeing a strange sail and a suspicious one (being commodore), I made a signal for an enemy, and to haul our wind on the larboard tack to meet her. At nine we met; she kept English colours flying till after firing two broadsides. Seeing him attempt to lay us alongside to leeward, thought it better to have him to windward, so wore ship on the other tack. He was then on our quarter, and lashed himself to our mizzen chains; the contest then became desperate for one hour. They set us on fire twice on the quarter-deck with stink-pots and other combustibles, and made four very daring attempts to board, with at least eighty men, out of their rigging, foretop, and bowsprit, but were most boldly repulsed by every man and boy in the ship. At the conclusion, a double-headed shot, from our aftermost gun, carried away his foremast by the board; that took away his bowsprit and maintopgallant-mast. He then thought it was time to cast us off. No less than fifty men fell with the wreck. We then hauled our wind as well as we could, to knot, splice, and repair our rigging for the time, which gave the other ships an opportunity to play upon the enemy; but, being a little to leeward, had not so good an effect. A short time afterwards wore ship for him again, with the other ships, and engaged him for about an hour more; but, finding it impossible to take him, owing to his number of men, and no surgeon to dress our wounded, I thought it best to steer our course for this island. Her name is the _Bonaparte_, of 20 9-pounders and upwards of 200 men. I had 18 6-pounders and 45 men, 19 never at sea before, boys and landsmen. As to the behaviour of my whole crew, to a man they were steady, and determined to defend the ship whilst there was one left alive. I had two killed and nine wounded. On our arrival Commodore Hood paid us every attention, sent the surgeon and mate to dress the wounded, also men to assist the ship to anchor, and gave me a written protection for my crew.[21] I cannot conclude without mentioning the gallant and spirited conduct of Mr. Dobbs, a midshipman (passenger with me), who acted as Captain of Marines, and during the action fought like a brave fellow, as well as exciting in the minds of the crew unconquerable zeal. We are much shattered in our hull, sails, and rigging; it will take us two days before we can be ready for sea." "I remain, in haste, gentlemen, "Your very obedient servant, "JOHN CHARNLEY." In another letter to a friend, a day or two later, Charnley says: "The _Bonaparte_ privateer is the completest ship in these seas. She made too certain of us. Freers, my first mate, behaved most gallantly, and fought like a lion; so did Lambert, my second mate. Indeed, I cannot say enough for every man and boy in the ship. The greatest part of them stripped and fought naked, and I am sure would have died sooner than have been carried. There was one hour's hard work, I assure you. I was near going frequently, as they fired several musket-balls through my clothes." This appears to be a straightforward account, and though it differs from the others, in respect of the parts played by them in the action, Captain Charnley does not attach any blame to them for lack of zeal or enterprise. The Barbadoes _Mercury_ headed the account of the action--"Defeat of _Bonaparte_! _not_ the Great, but celebrated privateer of Guadaloupe!" Four months later Captain Charnley deemed it necessary to publish, in the _Bristol Journal_ of March 16th, 1805, the following justification of himself: "On our arrival in this port, observing a paragraph in the London papers respecting a late action between the _Bonaparte_, French privateer, and the ships _Thetis_, _Ceres_, and _Penelope_, off Barbadoes, which makes it appear to the public that the two latter did wonders, and the _Thetis_ little or nothing; I now think it incumbent on me, and a duty I owe to my crew, as commander of the _Thetis_, to state a few facts, and confute any reports that have been made of the action; which would have been passed over in silence by me, had they not resorted to the means they have of obtaining unmerited credit at the expense of others. The three ships sailed in company from Cork, the _Thetis_ to act as commodore. Nothing material occurred till November 8th, when at 7 a.m. the man at our masthead called out, 'A sail!' It soon appearing a suspicious one, I made a signal for an enemy, and to haul our wind on the larboard tack to meet her; which was answered by our consorts. At nine the privateer and the _Thetis_ met; the other ships not sailing so fast, were at this time about one mile astern in her wake. The privateer hailed us in English twice, with English colours flying; the latter we answered with a broadside from our larboard guns. Seeing him determined to board us, we wore ship and sailed large; in the act of doing which she raked us twice, ran up alongside under a press of sail, and made herself fast to our mizzen-chains. By this time the other ships were nearly up; but, instead of coming into action on the enemy's quarter, which ought to have been their station, bore up before they reached us, fired five or six guns (the contents of which we shared with the enemy); and during the whole time (upwards of one hour) we were lashed together they were sailing ahead of us at about half a mile distance, although the crew of the _Penelope_ went aft to their commander and told him it was a shame to see the _Thetis_ so mauled and render no assistance: this was their report on board his Majesty's ship _Centaur_. At the conclusion of the fight a fortunate double-headed shot from our aftermost gun carried away the enemy's foremast, bowsprit, and maintopgallant-mast; upon which he cut us adrift, when we hauled our wind to the northward, with an intention to gain so far to windward as to get on his weather-side, where all the wreck was lying. On examining my crew, I found two killed and seven wounded, our sails and rigging so much cut that the ship was ungovernable; however, by uncommon exertions, we got her wore on the other tack, but only fetched under the enemy's lee, when we passed almost shaving her, and gave her two broadsides, at the same time receiving one from her which wounded two more men and disabled four guns. Afterwards spoke the _Ceres_, whose commander inquired into the state of our ship and men; he and his passengers drank my health, and he expressed himself more than once (through his trumpet), that he was very sorry it was not in his power to give us any assistance. I then urged a wish to further annoy the enemy, as she would be an easy capture. His answer was, "It is impossible; she has too many men." During this time, for about half an hour, the enemy was lying a complete log, while our consorts had received no damage. However, at length all three of us made sail together for her again, and engaged her at a distance for about an hour. My wounded being in great agony, I shaped a course for Barbadoes, where we all arrived next evening. "When we anchored I was visited by Captain Richardson, of his Majesty's ship _Centaur_, who immediately sent for a surgeon, Mr. Martin, who has my thanks for his particular attention to the wounded. Commodore Hood very handsomely gave me a protection for my crew, and took the wounded into the Royal Hospital. "So little credit was given to the account of the action given by the captains of the _Ceres_ and _Penelope_ at Barbadoes, that they resorted to the means of obtaining the captain of the _Bonaparte's_ signature to a letter, in direct contradiction of his statement to a naval officer who captured him, which was in the fullest manner corroborated by the surgeon who was stopped at Dominica on his way to Guadaloupe. "The action speaks for itself. Neither of the vessels, the _Ceres_ or _Penelope_, was in the smallest degree injured, although one of them reported he expended _six barrels_ of gunpowder. Double that quantity might have been expended with equal effect, as a large proportion of it was set fire to in the barrels. The _Penelope_, I understand, lost a passenger by a chance shot, yet I believe was equally as fortunate as the _Ceres_ in escaping without damage. "The steady behaviour of the _Thetis's_ officers and crew in this action, and their conduct during the voyage, demand my highest esteem, and will be for ever imprinted on my memory." The inhabitants of the island of Dominica, in presenting Captain Charnley with a handsome sum of money and a piece of plate, allude to his gallant defeat of the _Bonaparte_ as "thereby protecting two valuable ships under your convoy": which is significant of the version of the affair which had got abroad, either through Charnley or the French captain. However, it was not done with yet, for Daniel Bousfield, captain of the _Ceres_, arrived in England in April and immediately proceeded to enlighten the editor of the _Bristol Journal_ as to the "true facts" of the case, enclosing a copy of the letter which he had received from the captain of the _Bonaparte_, and which readers are requested "to compare with the partial and pompous account of the action inserted, on the authority of Mr. Charnley, in the public papers." "Sir, I have been astonished at the account given against you of the engagement we had together; the manner in which you conducted yourself obliges me, upon my honour, to inform the public of the fact. On my arrival here, I was surprised to find that the captain of the _Thetis_ took to himself all the merit of having fought with me. It is true that, during the heat of the action, he was the nearest ship to me, but that was from necessity, as it was him that I attacked first, and which I did because I saw that he was the best armed of the three. He commenced the fire, which was soon followed up by you and the other letter of marque. The courage you have all three shown cannot be too much admired. Your manoeuvres convince me that they were the result of reflection and experience; and the national character which you have manifested certainly merits the eulogium of the public. "Your fire was tremendous for me; and I can with truth affirm that it was you who did me most damage, and who dismasted my vessel, which was the reason that I was unable to capture the _Thetis_. A single ship, then, has not all the honour of the fight, but certainly all three. In short, sir, I thank the accident that has procured me the pleasure of your acquaintance, and to express the satisfaction that I feel in my heart in writing this letter. I leave you full liberty to make it public among your countrymen. In proving my particular esteem for your person, it will no doubt, at the same time, ensure you the public approbation, and preserve you from those malicious tongues who shall dare attack your respectable character. "I have the honour to be, with consideration and esteem, sir, your obedient servant, "PAINPENY." * * * * * The Frenchman declares that it was the _Ceres_ which dismasted his ship, though both the captains state in their letters that she lost her foremast, etc., in boarding the _Thetis_. Captain Charnley says the two other ships stood off, and came out of the fight undamaged, whereas they both report considerable injury, and the captain of the _Penelope_ states that ten of her guns were disabled. The only casualty, however, appears to have been one passenger killed, while the _Ceres_ had only two men injured, through their own careless handling of the ammunition--though "the small-shot and grape came on board like hail." Now, when we are told that a ship has ten guns disabled in action, and that the only person touched was a passenger, presumably not stationed at a gun, the question inevitably presents itself--where were the guns' crews? Also, when grape and case are coming on board like hail, it seems odd that nobody is hit. Every one who has any experience or knowledge of battle is aware, of course, that the saying that "every bullet has its billet" is rank romance; a vast majority of bullets discharged in hot action find no other billet than the bottom of the sea--unless, indeed, they are swallowed by inquisitive fish while sinking--or the nearest hillside. Still, these two good men do not appear to make out their case very well; let us hope that they did not deliberately lie to their owners. The Frenchman was, of course, interested in demonstrating that he was beaten off by three, rather than by one ship; still, he was perhaps a very truthful man: and there we must leave it. The only thing quite clear is that the _Bonaparte_ made rather sure of catching three good prizes, and was considerably sold. [Footnote 21: That is, indemnity from having the crew pressed by any man-of-war which was short of hands. As a regular privateer, she would be exempt from this; but apparently she and her consorts were merchantmen, armed and probably provided with what were loosely termed letters of marque for protection in case of attack.] [Illustration: CAPTURE OF THE FRENCH PRIVATEER "JEUNE RICHARD"] CHAPTER XXIV THE "WINDSOR CASTLE" PACKET One of the most brilliant instances of the defence of a packet is that of the encounter of the _Windsor Castle_ with the French privateer _Jeune Richard_. The packet was outward bound to the West Indies, and fell in with the privateer not far from Barbadoes, about half-past eight on the morning of October 1st, 1807. The privateer immediately gave chase, being probably well aware of the class of vessel she would encounter, and confident in her very great superiority in numbers. The packet, commanded by acting-Captain W. Rogers, cracked on sail, as in duty bound, to escape; but the big privateer schooner of those days was among the fastest craft afloat, and it was speedily apparent that some fighting would have to be done. Rogers had only twenty-eight in his crew, all told, men and boys--sufficient to work the brig fairly well, but not, one would imagine, to fight her against a schooner crowded with men. However, he beat to quarters and made all his arrangements, not forgetting to place some responsible persons in charge of the mails, to shift them about to a place of safety as required, and, in the last resort, to sink them. This, of course, reduced his little fighting force still further. The privateer was within gunshot at noon, and, hoisting French colours, opened fire, the packet returning it with her stern-chasers. Arriving within hail, the French captain, who appears to have been sadly deficient in that politeness which is characteristic of his countrymen, demanded, in rude and contemptuous terms, the lowering of the British colours. He could very plainly see, by this time, how scanty was the crew of the packet compared with his own, and, upon Rogers declining to surrender, he immediately ran aboard the _Windsor Castle_, intending to finish the affair off at once by sheer weight of numbers--for he mustered no less than ninety-two, against the British modest twenty-eight, minus the mail-tenders. However, they did not get on board; so sharp and stubborn was the resistance offered, that they were glad to return to their own decks, eight or ten short in their number, and immediately cut the grappling-ropes to get clear. The vessels, however, had got locked by their spars, and a desperate encounter ensued. The men in charge of the mails, upon whom the captain, in spite of the fighting, contrived always to keep an eye, were running about from one place to another with them; but they did not prematurely sink them, though matters must have looked hopeless enough. About three o'clock, seeing the enemy about to attempt boarding again, Rogers crammed one of his 6-pounder carronades with grape, canister, and a bagful of musket-balls, and let drive just as the Frenchmen commenced their rush. The result was tremendous, a great number being killed and wounded. "Soon after this," says Captain Rogers, in the most matter-of-fact style, as though it were quite an ordinary kind of affair, "I embraced the opportunity of boarding, in turn, with five men, and succeeded in driving the enemy from his quarters, and about four o'clock the schooner was completely in our possession. She is named the _Jeune Richard_, mounting six 6-pounders and one long 18-pounder, having on board at the commencement of the action ninety-two men, of whom twenty-one were found dead upon her decks, and thirty-three wounded. From the very superior number of the enemy still remaining, it was necessary to use every precaution in securing the prisoners. I was obliged to order them up from below, one by one, and place them in their own irons as they came up, as three of our little crew were killed, and ten severely wounded, the mizzen-mast and mainyard carried away, and the rigging fore and aft much damaged. It is my duty to mention to you, sir, that the crew of the packet, amounting at first to only twenty-eight men and boys, supported me with the greatest gallantry during the whole of this arduous contest." So runs the bare narration, in a service letter to Rear-Admiral the Hon. Sir Alexander Cochrane, who, in forwarding it to the Admiralty, remarks: "It is such an instance of bravery and persevering courage, combined with great presence of mind, as was scarcely ever exceeded." No one will feel disposed to quarrel with this verdict. Rogers would have done well, if, against such odds, he had beaten off his opponent, and saved the mails; the boarding and carrying of the privateer by six men was certainly something outside the bargain! THE "CATHERINE" The _Naval Chronicle_ for December 1808 contains a copy of a letter from the mate of an armed ship, the _Catherine_, the property of Messrs. Hogg & Co., of London, giving an account of a severe action with a French privateer. The mate--whose name was Robertson--writes very simply and convincingly, and shall tell his own story: MALTA, _September 26th, 1808_. "GENTLEMEN, "I do myself the honour to inform you of the safe arrival of the ship _Catherine_ in this port from Gibraltar, which place she left on the 8th instant; but I am sorry to add that Captain Fenn was very badly wounded, on the 13th inst., in latitude 38 deg. 35 min. N., longitude 3 deg. 20 E.,[22] by a shot in an action with a French privateer. On that day a sail hove in sight on the larboard bow, on a wind, standing for us. We hoisted ensign and pendant, and fired a gun. She showed St. George's flag and pendant, and stood on until she got into our wake, then bore up directly for us. We prepared everything for action, being suspicious of her; and as soon as it was possible to be understood, by Captain Fenn's order, I hailed and asked from whence she came? She answered, from Gibraltar, and was in distress for water. I ordered her to haul her wind immediately, or we should fire into her. She still cried out, 'Water! water!' and came on, when I immediately pointed one of the stern guns, and ordered fire. I then jumped to the opposite gun, pointed it, and ordered fire. This order was countermanded, in consequence of her crying 'Mercy!' and 'Water!' But as soon as the smoke of the first gun cleared away, Captain Fenn saw with his glass that they were getting ready to change their colours, and were pointing their bow-guns. He called out, 'It is a Frenchman, fire away!' He no sooner spoke than he got the contents of the second; but before our guns could be fired again he grappled, and commenced a heavy fire with grape and musketry. I immediately seized a musket and shot the captain, who was going to give orders through his trumpet. I sung out, 'I have shot the captain! Victory, my boys!' and we gave him three cheers to advance. They returned the same, and came on bravely; when poor Fenn, with his boarding-pike in his hand, was shot through the body. He addressed himself to me: 'I am shot; but fight on, my dear fellow.' I encouraged my men, and soon repelled the boarders with very great slaughter. "In about half an hour, like savages, they sang out and came on again; but were again repulsed with considerable loss. This caused such great confusion among them that they got their grapplings unhooked and took a broad sheer off; which I improved immediately by sheering likewise, and got two of the great guns into him before he could get to again. This, no doubt, damped their courage; but they again boarded, with three cheers, and several succeeded in getting over our nettings into the poop; but our men, like heroes, made a bold push, and either killed or wounded every man who made his appearance; and those poor devils who had the impudence to come on the poop were all shoved overboard with the pikes fast in their bodies. This was the sickening job, for they made a terrible noise, and got their grapplings unhooked; when I ordered the man at the wheel to luff the ship to give a broadside. Unfortunately, the ship was unmanageable, her sails and running rigging flying in all directions; but, as a substitute, we gave them the stern-chasers, entirely loaded with grape, as long as it could be of service. I then gave all the hands a good glass of grog, and, like smart fellows, they soon got the vessel on her course again. This being done, I ran to the captain and dressed his wounds. He was then apparently dying; but, through a miracle, we have preserved his life. He is in a tolerably fair way, and on shore, under the doctor's charge. "The privateer was a fine, lateen-rigged vessel, carrying two large sails, and her decks as full of men as possible--we judge from seventy to eighty. We must have killed a great number, as a great quantity of blood rose on the water. It appeared to me a miracle that none of our men were killed, as the grape and musket-balls came in like hail. We had only two men slightly wounded, one of whom was at the wheel." Little comment is necessary to supplement this narrative, except that the _Catherine's_ loss was very trivial for so severe an action. It is impossible to explain these things, which so frequently crop up in the reports of battles, both by land and sea. A whole company or a ship's crew comes almost unscathed out of a "hail of lead and iron." Well, either the "hail" was not quite as thick as was imagined in the heat of action or the balls found every gap between the men. The _Catherine_ would not, of course, have more than about five-and-thirty hands, if as many, and they would be scattered about at the guns until the Frenchmen endeavoured to board. Mr. Robertson's graphic and circumstantial story is quite worthy of credence, and he was certainly an able second in command. Another spirited incident of a similar description is the defence of the _Fortune_, armed ship, Captain Hodgson, against a French privateer, on April 13th, 1811. The odds were, as usual on such occasions, very greatly in favour of the privateer, which was a brig, carrying 16 guns and about 120 men; while the _Fortune_, which was not intended for aggression, had 8 small guns and 2 swivels, and 19 persons on board, all told. The action took place in the Atlantic some distance west of Ireland, and lasted for an hour and twenty minutes. The Frenchman, as usual, hoisted English colours at first, and, getting within hail, desired Captain Hodgson to send his boat on board. This was too stale a trick to meet with any success: "If you have any business with me, send your boat here," was the reply. Failing in his ruse, the privateer captain immediately hoisted French colours and fired, first a single shot between the _Fortune's_ masts and then a broadside, which was promptly returned with 100 per cent. interest. Then the enemy, very naturally, sought to bring matters to a conclusion by boarding; but, in spite of their numbers, they could not obtain any footing on the _Fortune's_ deck. Eight of them managed to get into the jolly-boat, which hung from the stern--a very convenient method of boarding, provided that no one happens to be handy with a sharp knife. Unluckily for the eight Frenchmen, an English seaman with a cool head and a keen knife happened to be close by--possibly he was steering--and in a moment the jolly-boat's tackles were cut, and she disappeared with her freight. On the forecastle, however, a considerable number had got on board at one moment, but Hodgson, nothing daunted, ordered a volley and led a charge with such impetuosity that the enemy was driven from the deck--mostly overboard. The _Fortune's_ colours were shot away twice, and, after the second time, were nailed to the gaff by a young lad, who, of course, immediately became a mark for the enemy's small-arms; but it is said that he very coolly completed his operations, encouraging the Frenchmen to "fire away." This is very probably true; it is just the kind of thing an English boy delights in doing--more readily, perhaps, than one of more experience. The _Fortune_, however, in spite of the sustained and courageous resistance of her company, was soon in a bad way: her sails riddled, her rigging cut to pieces, and too large a proportion of her crew wounded or killed, it seemed inevitable that she must surrender; but a lucky shot--or rather, let us say, a skilful shot, and give the gunner the credit, instead of "luck"--brought down the privateer's foretopmast. The "Fortunes" raised a hearty cheer, and the enemy, hampered by the wreck, sheered off, receiving a parting kick in the shape of a broadside. Hodgson and his men hurried up to repair damages, expecting a renewal of the attack; but the privateers had had what is known in sporting circles as a "bellyful," and did not come up to the scratch again. Out of her small ship's company, the _Fortune_ had four killed and six wounded--which only leaves nine to fight! THE "THREE SISTERS" Captain George Thompson, of the merchant ship _Three Sisters_, addressed the following letter to his owners on September 18th, 1811, being then off the Isle of Wight: "I have to acquaint you with a desperate engagement I have had with a French privateer, Le Fevre, mounting 10 guns--six long sixes, and four 12-pound carronades--with swivels and small arms, manned with 58 men, out from Brest fourteen days, in which time she captured the _Friends_ schooner, from Lisbon, belonging to Plymouth, and a large sloop from Scilly, with codfish and sundries, for Falmouth. On the 11th, at nine p.m., we observed her on the larboard bow; we were then steering N.N.E. about ten leagues from Scilly, and nearly calm. "I immediately set my royals, fore steering-sails, and made all clear for action. At two a.m., when all my endeavours to escape were useless, she being within musket-shot, I addressed my crew, and represented the hardships they would undergo as prisoners, and the honour and happiness of being with their wives and families. This had the desired effect, and I immediately ordered the action to commence, and endeavoured to keep a good offing; but which he prevented by running alongside, and immediately attempted to board, with a machine I never before observed, which was three long ladders, with points at the end, that served to grapple us to them. They made three desperate attempts, with about twelve men at each ladder, but were received with such a determination that they were all driven back with great slaughter, and formed a heap for the others to ascend with greater facility. "Finding us so desperate, they immediately, on their last charge failing, knocked off their ladders, one of which they were unable to unhook from our side, and left it with me, and sheered off; but, I am sorry to say, without my being able to injure them, as they had shot away part of my rudder before they boarded me, and I am sorry to say wounded several of my masts and yards, for it seemed to be their aim to carry away some of my masts, but which, happily, they did not effect. The most painful part of my narrative is the loss of two men and a boy killed, and four wounded; but the wounded are doing well. Our whole crew amounted, officers and men, to twenty-six men and four boys, and deserve the highest applause that can be bestowed upon them. I arrived off here this afternoon, and, as it is fine weather, I have no doubt of reaching London in safety, as I have but little damage in my hull." CONCLUSION With this brilliant little incident this account must come to a close. Are there to be any privateering actions in future naval warfare? The Declaration of Paris, in 1856, at the close of the Crimean War, lays down that "Privateering is and remains abolished"; but will this dictum be accounted as holding good, if it should suit any naval power to resort to the practice? It cannot be expected that this will be so. The days of the raking, fast-sailing brig or schooner are, indeed, over; but there remain the swift ocean "greyhounds," admirably adapted, if armed with a few long-ranged, quick-firing guns, for running down and capturing merchant vessels, and showing a clean pair of heels on the appearance of a cruiser. Can it be doubted that some of them will be utilised for the purpose? At the recent International Conference it was distinctly suggested that fast merchant vessels may be converted into men-of-war, on the high seas; and though the British delegates refused to recognise the principle, it was not negatived, and remains open. If a merchant skipper has instructions, upon learning of the declaration of war, to hoist up the guns from his hold and act as a cruiser against the enemy's commerce, the margin between this and privateering is an exceedingly narrow one: moreover, we have had numerous instances lately of the treatment of international treaties and declarations as so much piecrust; so we must not be surprised if the Declaration of Paris shares the same fate. We may, in fact, in this twentieth century, hark back to the dictum of that shrewd old Admiralty judge, Sir Leoline Jenkins, previously quoted: privateers will probably remain, as "a sort of people that will always be found fault with, but still made use of." [Footnote 22: That is, a little south of the island of Majorca.] INDEX _Achilles_, 305, 306 Actions (in order of relation): _Lion_ (Andrew Barton) and _Jenny Pirwin_ and two English ships, 22-24; _Amity_ and two Spaniards, 29-32; _Duke_ (Captain Rogers) and Panama ship, 63; _Duke_ and _Duchess_ and Manila ship, 71; _Speedwell_ and Spanish ship, 85-87; _Alexander_ and _Solebay_, 95, 96; _Antigallican_ and _Duc de Penthièvre_, 99, 100; _Terrible_ and _Vengeance_, 106-111; _Mentor_ and _Carnatic_, 113, 114; _Fame_ (Capt. Moor) and five French ships, 115-117; _Ellen_ and _Santa Anna Gratia_, 118-120; _St. George_ (Capt. Wright) and French privateer, 137-139; _Duke_ (Capt. Morecock) and _Prince Frederick_ and three French ships, 150; _Mars_ (Capt. Walker) and _Boscawen_ and French man-of-war, 157; _Mars_ and French men-of-war, 158-160; _Mars_ and _Sheerness_ and eight French ships, 165-169; French ship and boats of George Walker's squadron, 177, 178; George Walker's squadron and Spanish treasure-ship, 179-185; _Anglesea_ and _Apollon_, 191-195; _Lion_ (Capt. Brett) and _Elizabeth_, 195, 196; _Palme_ (French) and _Neptune_ (Dutch), 202, 203; _Dauphin_ and _Sherdam_ (Dutch), 204; _Trinité_ (French) and _Concorde_ (Dutch) 210; _Diligente_ and six English men-of-war, 214-216; _François_ and two English ships, 220, 221; _St. Jacques_ and four consorts (French) and three Dutch ships, 224, 225; _Jason_ (French) and English squadron, 226-228; _St. William_ (French) and Dutch ship, 232, 233; Cassard's squadron and two English ships, 235-238; _Centurion_ and _Diomede_ (English) and French Squadron, 246; _Cartier_ (French) and _Triton_, 251-255; _Confiance_ and _Kent_, 258-260; _Argo_ (American) and _King George_, 275, 276; _Argo_ and _Dragon_, 277, 278; _Argo_ and _Saratoga_ and _Dublin_, 278-280; _Pomona_ (American) and _Rosebud_, 283-285; _Hyder Ali_ (American) and _General Monk_, 299-303; _General Pickering_ (American) and _Golden Eagle_, 304, 305; _General Pickering_ and _Achilles_, 305, 306; _Comet_ (American) and four English ships convoyed by Portuguese war-ship, 309-311; _Chasseur_ (American) and _St. Lawrence_, 312-316; _General Armstrong_ (American) and _Carnation_, 317-324; _Princess Royal_ packet and _Aventurier_, 330-333; _Chance_ (colonial privateer) and Spanish ship, 334, 335; _Chance_ and Spanish war-ship, 335, 336; _Rover_ (colonial privateer) and five French ships, 337, 338; _Rover_ and three Spanish ships, 338-340; _Bonaparte_ and _Hippomenes_, 341, 342; _Bonaparte_ and three English ships, 342-353; _Windsor Castle_ packet and _Jeune Richard_, 354-357; _Catherine_ and French privateer, 357-360; _Fortune_ and French privateer, 360, 362; _Three Sisters_ and French privateer, 362-364 Admiralty, High Court of, 11 _Adventure_, 214, 215, 228 Aigle, Captain de l', 235 Albatross, The, 80, 81 Albemarle, Lord, Admiral, 200 _Alexander_, 95 _Alexandre le Grande_, 106 Algiers, 117 America Cup, The, 325 American War of Secession, 112 _Amiable Maria_, 335, 336 _Amity_ and the Spaniards, 28-32 "Ancient Mariner, The," 81 _Anglesea_, 192 Anne, Queen, 48 Anson, Admiral Lord, 98 _Antelope_, 147 _Antigallican_, 97-99, 103, 104 Antigallicans, Society of, 96-99, 103, 105 Antigua, 239 _Apollon_, 192, 195 _Ardent_, 286, 289, 290 _n._ _Arethusa_, 264 _Argo_, 275-277, 280 Arica, 83 Aristocrats, French Naval; their hatred of privateersmen, 205, 224 Armed merchant vessels, Distinction of, 12 Articles of War, 193, 198 _Augusta_, 192 _Auguste_, 226 _Aurora_, 241, 242, 244 Austrian Succession, War of the, 47 _Aventurier_, 332 Azores, The, 149, 171, 172, 317 Backwoodsmen as Marines, 301, 302 Bahamas, The, 72 Baker, Mr. Peter, 111-115 Balasore Roads, 251 Ballet, John, 44 Barbadoes, Island of, 155, 342, 343, 349, 354 Barbary, 142 Barkley, Lieutenant, 237, 238 Barney, Joshua; captured in a trader, 282; first officer of _Pomona_, 282; sails for Bordeaux, 282; fights English privateer, 283; a marvellous 3-pounder, 284; reaches Bordeaux, 285; captures an English privateer, 285; is a prisoner of war, 285; kindly treated by Admiral Byron, 286; accused of incendiarism, 286, 287; sent to England in _Yarmouth_, 287; alleged cruel treatment, 287-289; sent to Mill Prison, 289; his ruse to escape, 293, 294; his escape, 294, 295; gets off in a fishing smack, 296; brought back to England, 296; escapes to Plymouth, 297, 298; gets away to Holland, 298; arrives in America, commands _Hyder Ali_, 299; his action with _General Monk_, 299-303; conflicting accounts of action, 303; commands _General Washington_ (late _General Monk_), 304; revisits Plymouth, 304; other reference, 325 Barney, Mary (probably daughter of Joshua), 290, 291, 292 Bart, Jean, famous French privateer captain, romantic stories about, 196, 206; his origin, 197; boy on board a smuggler, 197; mate on board _Cochon Gras_, 197; wanton brutality of captain, 197; witnesses application of the Judgments of Oléron, 198-200; pilots French nobles to Harwich, 200; joins the Dutch navy, 201; returns to France and commands a small privateer, 201; captures a States-General war-ship, 201; is admonished for ransoming prizes, 202; captures eight armed ships, 202; his desperate fight with a Dutchman, 202, 203; receives a gold chain from the king, 203; his continued success, 204; takes another Dutch ship after a bloody encounter, 204, 205; gallantry of the Dutch captain, 205; he is badly wounded, and his ship destroyed, 205; returns to Dunkirk after peace is declared, 205; accepts a commission in the Navy, 205; is snubbed by the aristocrats, 205; the cask of gunpowder fable, 206, 207; chiefly remembered as a privateer, 207 Barton, Andrew; a leader of men, 20; suppresses Flemish pirates, 21; sends their heads to the king, 21; his exploits under letter of marque, 21; accused of piracy, 21; two ships sent to take him, 22; his fight with Howard, 23; his gallantry and death, 23; surrender of the _Lion_, 24; the crew imprisoned, 24; released on certain conditions, 25; redress for his death refused by Henry VIII., 25; "Ballad of Sir," 25, 26, 27; the incident a true one, 27; not a knight, 27; no proof of his piracy, 28; other reference, 203 Barton, John, father of Andrew, 19 Barton, Robert, brother of Andrew, 20 _Batchelor_, 72 Bath, William, 53 Bayonne, 6 _Beginning_, 61 Bengal, Bay of, 250, 251, 258, 261 Bentham, Com. George, 318 Bergen, 206 Bermuda, 314 Betagh, William, 76, 77, 78, 80, 82, 86, 87, 92 Betsy, 280 _Bienfaisant_, 195 _Bienvenue_, 243 Bizerta, 233 Blaize, Mlle. Marie, who marries Robert Surcouf, 255, 261 Blanco, Cape (South America), 338 _Bloodhound_, 308 Blundell, Captain (of Liverpool Regiment), 118 _Bonaparte_, 342-353 Bordeaux, 264, 282, 285, 286, 333 Borrowdale, Captain James, 117-120 _Boscawen_, 157, 158, 160, 164, 166, 167, 176 Boston, 220 Boulogne, 266 Bousfield, Captain Daniel, 350 Boyle, Captain Thomas, commands the _Comet_, 308; runs blockade of Chesapeake, 308; encounter with Portuguese war-ship and four English ships, 308-311; captures one, 311; his success in _Comet_, 312; commands _Chasseur_, 312; successful action with English man-of-war schooner _St. Lawrence_, 312-16; discrepancies in accounts of action, 314, 315; posts "Proclamation of Blockade" at Lloyd's, 316; other reference, 325 Brazil, 52, 80 Brehat, Island of, 212, 219 Brest, 158, 162, 231 Bridgetown (Barbadoes), 343 _Brilliant_, 86 Bristol, 41, 43, 150, 169, 177, 298 Bristol Channel, 213 Brittany, Sir John of, 6 Bromedge, Captain Hugh, 177 Brook, John, 82, 83 Bruce, Sophia, 74 Bucaille, Baron, 262 Buccaneers, 14, 36, 39, 65, 73 Buchanan, George, Scotch historian, 24, 25, 27 Bulls, The Pope's traffic in, 29 Burnaby, Captain Sir William, 140 Byron, Vice-Admiral the Hon. John, 286; wild chronology with regard to, 289, 290 Cadiz, 100, 101, 102, 180, 241 Caen, 209 Cagliari, 141 Calais, 200 Caldwell, Captain, 290 Campo Florida, Prince of, 132 Canary Islands, 76, 77 Cancer, Tropic of, 48 Candis, Mrs. (who married Alexander Selkirk), 74 Cape May (Delaware), 300 Cape May Roads, 300 Cape Verde Islands, 50, 239 Caper, 4 _Captain_, 161 Caramania, 129 Cardigan, 271 _Carnatic_, 114 _Carnation_, 318, 319, 322 Carolina, North, 155 Carolina, South, 154 Caroline, Queen (of George II.), 195 Carronade, 9-pounder, 299, 303 Carroway, Captain, 307 Carthagena (South America), 229, 230, 231 _Cartier_, 251, 252, 255 Cassard, Jacques, French privateersman, his origin, 229; joins expedition against Carthagena, 229; gallantry and resource in attack, 230; his suppression of pillage, etc., 230, 231; appointed naval lieutenant, 231; but goes privateering, 231; desperate and successful action with a Dutchman, 232, 233; admonished for ransoming prizes, 233; convoys grain-ships to Marseilles, 234; is cheated by the merchants, 234; convoys more grain-ships, 235; his desperate fight with two English war-ships, 236-238; he captures both, 238; supervises military works at Toulon, 238; commands a squadron and makes various conquests, 239; jealousy of aristocrats and his own imprudence land him in prison, where he dies, 239 _Catharina_, 169 _Catherine_, 357-360 Causand Bay (Devon), 296 _Centaur_, 348 _Centurion_, 246 _Ceres_, 342, 343, 344, 347, 349, 350, 352 _Chance_, 334-336 Charles, Archduke of Austria, 47 Charles II., King, 8, 11 Charles VI., Emperor, 75 Charnley, Captain John, 342, 346, 347, 350, 351, 352 _Charon_, 195 _Chasseur_, 312-316 _Chatham_, 226 Chesapeake Bay, 308 Chesapeake River, 282 Chiloe, 81 _Cicero_, 298 _Cinque Ports_, 37, 38, 39, 59, 61 Civil War (American), 13 _Clarisse_, 255, 256, 257 Clipperton, John, commands _Success_, with _Speedy_ as consort (Captain Shelvocke), 76; ill-will between them, 76; separates from Shelvocke, 77; leaves record at Juan Fernandez, 87; has trouble with his crew, 88; takes some prizes, 88; one of them recaptured, 88, 89; captures rich prize, 89; she is recaptured by Spanish war-ships, 89; takes to drink, 89; some of his crew desert, 90; encounters Shelvocke, 90; they disagree and part, 91; sails for China, 91; returns home in an Indiaman, 91; his death, 91; other reference, 38 Clowes, Sir W. Laird, naval historian, 12 _n._, 313, 314 _Cochon Gras_, 197 Cochrane, Rear-Admiral the Hon. Alexander, 356 _Coëtquen_, 212 Coggleshall, George, American seaman and writer, 270, 314, 325 Colbert, French Minister of State, 204 Coldsea, Mr., 85 Coleridge, Samuel T., the poet, 81 _Comet_, 308, 310, 311, 312 _Comte d'Artois_, 195 Concepcion (Chili), 81 _Concepcion_, 91 _Concorde_, 210 Confederate States of America, 13 _Confiance_, 257, 258-260 Connelly, Mr., 66 Constable, Captain Charles, 235, 236, 237 Cooke, Edward, 51, 61 _Cora_, 308 Cork, 42, 43, 45 Corunna, 99, 104 Cosby, Captain, 281 _Courier_, 246 Courtney, Captain Stephen, 45, 60, 61 Courts-Martial: Captain Charles Constable, of the _Falcon_, 238 Captain William Dampier, of the _Roebuck_, 36 Lieutenant James E. Gordon, of the _St. Lawrence_, 314, 315 Captain Thomas Griffin, of the _Captain_, 161 Captain Savage Mostyn, of the _Hampton Court_, 162 Lieutenant Baker Phillips, of the _Anglesea_, 193, 194 Captain Edward Rumsey, of the _Pembroke_, 238 Captain Matthew Smith, of the _Diomede_, 246 Surviving officers of the _Nonsuch_, 221 _Creole_, 247 Crow, Captain Hugh, 12, 13 Curaçao, 239, 340 Curtis, Vice-Admiral Sir Roger, 334 _Cybèle_, 246, 247 Cyclones of the Indian Ocean, 242 Dampier, William, circumnavigator and privateer, served in the Navy, 35; a buccaneer, 36; commands a man-of-war, 36; is tried by Court-Martial and dismissed, 36; commands _St. George_, privateer, with _Cinque Ports_ as consort, 37; South Sea voyage a failure, 37; discontent, mutiny, and desertions, 37; futile action with French ships, 37; captures a large Spanish provision ship, 37; parts from _Cinque Ports_, 38; men desert with mate and steward, 38; takes a brigantine and sails for East Indies, 38; imprisoned in Dutch factory, 38; arrives in England, 38; controversy as to account of voyage, 38; other references, 41, 44, 55, 58, 59, 64, 65, 73, 75 Dana, Richard, 83 Danes, The, 5 Daniel, Captain James, 82 _Danycan_, 211, 212 Dartmoor Prison, 281 Dartmouth, 157 _Dartmouth_, 185 _Dash_, 307 _Dauphin_, 204, 205 Dawson, Captain John, 112, 113, 114 Death, Captain, of the _Terrible_, 106, 109, 110, 111 _Defiance_, 98 Defoe, Daniel, 40, 57 Delaware Bay, 300 Delaware River, 300 _Delft_, 224, 225 Demerara, 341 Denham, Captain Robert, 177 _Dentelle_, 195, 196 De Pointis, 229, 231 De Ruyter, Dutch Admiral, 200 _Deux Frères_, 116 _Diana_, 251, 252, 254 Digby, Admiral, 296 Dinan, 240, 241 Dighton, Mass., 274 _Diligente_, 214, 215 _Diomede_, 246 Dominica, Island of, 350 D'Ongressill, Bernard, 6, 7, 8, 179 _Doris_, 323 Dottin, Captain Edward, 177, 183, 184, 185 Dover, Thomas, 43, 44, 55, 56, 58, 62, 65, 66, 71, 72 _Dragon_ man-of-war, 214, 215 _Dragon_ privateer, 277 _Dreadnought_, 161, 162 Dublin, 115 _Dublin_, 278-280 Du Cange, French archæologist, 7 _n._ Du Casse, Governor of St. Domingo, 229, 230 _Duc de Penthièvre_, 99, 100, 102-104 _Duchess_, 42, 44, 46, 53, 54, 60, 62, 65, 71 Du Haies, Captain, 235 _Duke_ (Rogers's ship), 42, 44, 46, 53, 59, 60, 61, 62, 65 _Duke_ (Jas. Talbot's ship), 149, 150, 177, 179, 183, 185 _Duke of Bedford_, 171 _Duke William_, 154, 155 Duncan, Captain, 285 Dunkirk, 197, 201, 203, 204, 205, 207 _Éclatant_, 233 Edward the Confessor, King, 5 Edward I., King, 6 _Elizabeth_, 195 Elizabeth, Queen, 25 _Ellen_, 117-119 Elton, Captain Jacob, 192, 193 _Emilie_, 249-251 _Endymion_, 324 _Esperance_, 201 _Eurydice_, 149 Exeter, 298 _Fair American_, 300 _Falcon_, armed ship, captured by Du Guay Trouin, 220, 221 _Falcon_, man-of-war, captured by Jacques Cassard, 235, 236 _Faluère_, 225 _Fame_ (Captain Moor), 115-117 _Fame_ (Captain Wright), 128-131, 135, 142 Faussett, Lieutenant Robert, 322 Fayal, Azores, 317, 318, 322 Fenn, Captain, 357, 358 Ferrol, 180, 186 Feuquières, M. de, 234, 236, 237 Fisher, Lieutenant, 36 _Flamborough_, 97 _Fleuron_, 158-160, 162, 163, 234 Fleury, Cardinal, 239 Flodden Field, Battle of, 19 Florence, 125 Fly-boat, 30 Forteventura, Island of, 47 _Fortune_, 360-362 Foster, Captain William, 97, 98, 101, 104 Fourmentin, Denis, 262, 263 _François_, 219, 221 Frio, Cape, 77, 92 Funnell, William, 38 Gabriel, John, 68 Galapagos Islands, 68, 69, 73, 89 _General Armstrong_, 319-324 _General Monk_, 299-303; conflicting accounts of action, 303 _General Pickering_, 304-306 _General Washington_ (Silas Talbot's ship), 280 _General Washington_ (afterwards _General Monk_, then recaptured), 299 Genoa, Gulf of, 234 _George_, 169 George II., King, 132 George III., King, 55, 246 _n._ Gibraltar, 100, 102, 104, 154, 357 Gibraltar, Strait of, 29 _Glorioso_, 181, 182 Godfrey, Captain, 337, 340 Godwin, Earl, 5 _Golden Eagle_, 304-306 Goldsworthy, Mr., Consul at Cadiz, 101 Good Hope, Cape of, 334 Gordon, Lieutenant James Edward, 314, 315 Grain-ships, French, 233-238 Green, Mr. John, 178 _Grenedan_, 211 Griffin, Captain Thomas, 161 Guadaloupe, Island of, 350 Guam, 70 Guano, 83 Guayaquil, 61, 63, 64, 69, 73, 88, 335, 336 Hall, Edward, Chronicler, 24, 25, 27 _Hampton Court_, 161, 162 Hampton Roads (America), 307 Haraden, Captain Jonathan, of Salem; his skill and coolness under fire, 304, 306; captures _Golden Eagle_ by an almost incredible ruse, 304, 305; captures _Achilles_, 305, 306; doubtful story of capture of an English packet, 306; other reference, 325 Harrison, John, maker of first chronometer, 55 Harwich, 200 Hatley, Simon, 69, 76, 78-81 _Havre de Grace_, 69 Hazard, Captain, 276 Henry III., King, 5, 8 Henry VIII., King, 9, 21, 24, 25, 27 _Hercule_, 213 _Heron_, 241 _Hippomenes_, 341 _Hirondelle_, 234 Hodgson, Captain, 360-362 Hood, Commodore, 349 Hope, Captain Henry, 324 Hopkins, Samuel, 44 Horn, Cape, 35, 37, 53, 80 Hotham, Captain Henry, 264 Howard, Lord Charles, 26 Howard, Lord Edward, 22, 24 Howard, Thomas, Earl of Surrey, 22 Howard, Lord Thomas, 22, 23, 26 Hull, 9 _Hussar_, 111 Hutchinson, William, 128, 134, 145-148 _Hyder Ali_, 299-303; conflicting accounts of action, 303 _Immortalité_ (British), 263, 264 _Invention_, 263-266 Iquique (South America), 83 _Isis_, 140 Isle Grande (Brazil), 52, 53 Isle de Rhé, 95 _n._, 96 Isle of Wight, 149 Jamaica, 13, 97, 118, 120 James II., King, 212 James III., of Scotland, 19, 20 James IV., of Scotland, 19, 20, 25 _Jane_, 257 _Jason_, 226, 228 _Jean Bart_, 246 Jenkins, Sir Leoline, 11, 365 _Jenny Pirwin_, 22, 24, 27 _Jersey_, 140 _Jersey_, prison ship at New York, 281 _Jesu Maria_, 90 _Jeune Richard_, 354-357 "John Crow" bird, 62 Jones, Paul, 13 Jonquière, M. de la, 80 Juan Fernandez, Island of, 37, 39, 40, 54, 55, 60, 66, 74, 82, 83, 87, 88, 89, 90 Katharine of Aragon, Queen, 27 _Kent_, 258-260 _King David_, 201 _King George_, 177, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 185, 186 _King George_ (of Rhode Island), 275, 276, 277 King's Road, Bristol, 169 Kinsale, 37, 150, 192 Knights of St. John, 129 Ladrone Islands, 71 Lagos (Portugal), 6, 179 Lambert, Captain de, 235 Lanoix, a Huguenot seaman, 198-200 _Lansdowne_, 257 _Lark_, 140 La Rochelle, 261 Laughton, Sir John, 181 _Le Fevre_, 362-364 Leghorn, 127, 133, 134, 135, 137, 139, 140, 141 Le Mair, Strait of (South America), 80 _Lenore_, 224 Leslie, Bishop John, Scottish historian, 20, 22, 24, 27 Leslie, R.C., 72 Letters of marque; abuse of term, 4; instance in 1295, 6; may be issued in time of peace, 8 Lima, 61, 62, 76, 83, 335 _Limeno_, 336 Limerick, 211 _Lion_ (Andrew Barton's ship), 22, 23, 27 _Lion_, British man-of-war, 195, 196 Lisbon, 6, 7, 98, 100, 178, 186, 311 Liverpool, 12, 111, 112, 124 Liverpool (Nova Scotia), 336, 337, 340 _Liverpool_, 146 Lloyd, Captain Robert, 318, 320, 321 Lobos, Island of, 61, 89 L'Orient, 104, 243 _Louis Erasmé_, 150 Louis XIV., King of France, 47 Louis XVI., King of France, 246 _Lowestoft_, 134 Lucca, 125, 127 Lundy Island, 213 Lutwidge, Captain Skeffington, 289; his log and letter about American prisoners, etc., 295, 296 Maclay, Mr. E.S., American naval writer, 270, 271, 272, 280, 284, 286, 287, 290, 292, 293, 297, 299, 305, 313, 314, 321, 322 Madagascar, 103 Madeira, 99, 171, 337 Madison, John, President of United States, 325 Madrid, 102, 105 Magee, W., 87 Magellan, Strait of, 87 Mahon (Corsica), 238 Majorca, Island of, 357 _n._ Malaga, 208, 209 Malartic, General, Governor of Mauritius, 258 _Malartic_, 258 Malo, M. Henri, 207, 262 Malta, 129, 130, 136, 140, 142, 143, 233, 357 Mann, Sir Horace, 125, 127, 138, 141 _Manship_, 257 Marcare, meaning of, 7 _n._ _Maria Theresa_, 99 _Marquis_, 69 _Marquis d'Antin_, 150 Marryat, Captain Frederick (the novelist), 262 _Mars_, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 164, 165 _Mars_ (French), 205 Marseilles, 115, 130, 132, 137, 138, 233 Martens, Von, 11 Mason, Captain, 300 Mauritius, Island of, 242, 243, 245, 246, 247, 249, 251, 255 Maxey, Lieutenant, 307 Maximilian, Emperor, 19 McBride, Captain, 195 McKenzie, Captain Kenneth, 341, 342 _Mentor_, 111-115 _Mercury_, 81, 86 Mersey, River, 114 Messina, 129 Midshipman Easy, 185, 198 Miller, Captain, 140 Mill Prison, Plymouth, 289; diet, etc., of American prisoners in, 293 Mill Prison, Barney's escape from, 293-295; a very slack prison, 296, 298 _Monk_, 215, 216 Montserrat (West Indies), 239 Moor, Captain Edward, 115-117 Morecock, Captain, 149 Morocco, 177 Mostyn, Captain Savage, 161, 162 Mount-Edgecumbe, Lord, 297, 304 Mozambique, 242 Munroe, Captain, 278, 279 _Nancy_, 116 Nantes, 229, 239 Nantucket, 324 Naples, 132 _Naval Chronicle, The_, 265 _Navigator_, 243 Navy Board, The, 265 Nelson, Lord, 12, 51 _Neptune_, 159 _Neptune_ (Dutch), 202-204 Newcastle, 9 Newfoundland, Banks of, 115, 149 New York, 274, 281, 285, 286, 289, 290 _n._, 307 Nicolas, Sir Harris, 7 _n._ _Nonsuch_ (alias _Sanspareil_), 220-224, 226 Norman, Mr. C.B., 200, 217, 233 _n._, 235, 238 _Notre Dame de Deliverance_, 150 Nova Scotia, 336 Oléron, Judgments of, 198, 199, 200 Onslow, Captain, 290 Oppenheim, Mr. M., 29 Oran, 142 Orissa (India), 252 Orotava (Teneriffe), 47 Osborn, Captain, 246 Ostend, 75, 76 Oughton, Captain (in Marryatt's novel), 262 Packets, description of, 329 Page, Mr., 51, 52 Painpeny, French captain, 352 _Palme_, 202, 204 Panama, 62, 63 Panama, Gulf of, 35 _Parfait_, 235, 236 Paris, Declaration of, 364 Parker, Admiral Sir Hyde, 51 Parker, John, 44 Parnell, Captain, 165 Payta, 84 _Pembroke_, 235-238 _Penelope_, 342, 343, 344, 347, 348, 349, 350, 352 _Peregrine_, 86 Pernambuco, 308 Peru, 61, 68, 69, 89, 334 Philadelphia, 299 Phillips, Lieutenant Baker, 193; his tragic end, 194, 195 Phillips, Captain, 95, 96 _Phoenix_, 235, 236 Pickering, Captain, 37 Piece of Eight, The value of, 67 Pirates, 1; confused with privateers, 1, 14, 72; Flemish, 20, 21; Mediterranean, 153 Pitt, Mr. William, Minister, 103, 105 _Plantagenet_, 318, 321, 323 Plymouth, 76, 106, 216, 264, 296, 297 _Pomona_, 282-284; inaccurate accounts of her capture, 285, 286, 287, 290 Pondicherry, 242 Port Louis, Mauritius, 256 Port Royal, Jamaica, 120 Portsmouth, 99, 195 Portugal, King of, 6, 7 _n._, 8 Portuguese mate; his hatred of Surcouf, 244, 245 "Pretty shop-girl," Du Guay Trouin's friend, 216-219 Powell, Commodore, 74 _Prince de Neufchatel_, 324 _Prince Edward_, 178, 179 _Prince Eugene_, 75 _Prince Frederick_, 149, 177, 179, 180, 183, 184, 185 _Prince George_ (Jas. Talbot's ship), 149 _Prince George_ (Geo. Walker's tender), 178, 179 _Prince of Orange_, 214, 217 _Princess Amelia_, 177, 178, 179 _Princess Royal_ (Admiral Byron's flagship), 290 _n._ _Princess Royal_ packet, 330-333 Prisoners of war, alleged cruel treatment of American, 271, 287-289 Privateering, origin of, 4, 5; only applicable to a state of war, 6; value of, 9; when fully recognised, 9; success in 16th century, 9; drawbacks of, 10, 11, 12; against Spanish treasure-ships in South Seas, 35; French men-of-war lent for, 192; future of, 364, 365 Privateers, number employed in French and American wars, 10; Scotch, 11; some fine men among commanders, 12; diversity of opinion about, 11, 12, 269, 270, 271, 273; exaggerated accounts of actions by, 271; an American, and Welsh prize, 271, 272; humanity of American, 272, 273; exploits of two colonial, 333-340 Private vessels employed as men-of-war, 5 _Profound_, 213 _Prudente_, 246 Puna, Island of (South America), 63, 64, 66, 68, 335 Quakers, 41, 43 Quebec, 300 Querangal, Lieutenant François de, 103 Quibo, Island of, 90 Ranc, Captain (Dutch), 204 Rangoon, 250 Ransoming prizes forbidden, 202, 233 Reid, Captain Samuel C., 317, 318, 319, 321, 322 Rennes, 209 _Revenant_ (the _Ghost_), Surcouf's last ship, 261 Rhode Island, 275, 281 Richardson, Captain, 349 Riddle, Mr., 178 Rio Janeiro, 52, 256 Robertson, Mr., 357, 360 Robinson Crusoe, 40, 57 Robinson, Captain Isaiah, 282-286 _Robuste_, 281 Rochefort, 219 Rodney, Admiral Lord, 287 _Roebuck_, 36, 37 Rogers, John, 45, 63 Rogers, Com. Josias, 299, 300, 301, 303 Rogers, Acting Captain W. (of _Windsor Castle_ packet), 354-357 Rogers, Woodes; wrongly alluded to as a pirate, 14, 72; his birth and parentage, 41; proposes expedition to South Seas, 41; some Quakers among his owners, 41; his lucid account of his voyage, 42; sails in _Duke_ with _Duchess_, 42; puts into Cork, 42; constitution of council, 43; staff of the two ships, 43, 44; Dampier sailing master, 44; mixed crews, 45; "continually marrying," 45, 46; condition of the ships, 46; sails for Madeira, 46; refuses demand of crew, who mutiny, 46; "breaking unlawful friendships," 47; captures Spanish vessel off Teneriffe, 47; his amenities with his prisoners, 47; dispute about his prize, 48; crossing the Tropic, 48, 49; his rules about plunder, 49; loses his linguist at St. Vincent, 50; frequent exchange of visits at sea, 50, 51; more mutiny; his firmness, 51, 52; he has prayers read daily, 52; refits ships at Isle Grande, 52, 53; "logs" Mr. Carleton Vanbrugh, and sends him to _Duchess_, 53; celebrates New Year's Day, 53; a mishap to _Duchess_, 54; goes far South, and doubles Cape Horn, 54; arrives off Juan Fernandez, 55; finds Alexander Selkirk and makes him a mate, 56-59; leaves Juan Fernandez, 60; Vanbrugh received on board again, 60; more rules about plunder, 60, 61; converts two small prizes to his own uses, 61, 62; Vanbrugh again in trouble, 62; captures two prizes; his brother killed in action, 63; arrives in Gulf of Guayaquil, 63; captures Governor of Puna, 63; disquieting news, 64; sends boats to attack Guayaquil, 64; finds people alert, 65; cautious counsels, 65; lands and attacks successfully, 66; disappointed of treasure, 66; the "modesty" of his crew, 67; agrees upon ransom, 67; returns on board, 68; leaves Guayaquil, 68; sickness and lack of water, 69; trouble over plunder, 69, 70; trials of a privateer captain, 70; captures a rich Manila ship, and loses another, 71; is severely wounded, 71; dispute about Dr. Dover, 72; returns home by way of the East Indies, 72; is made Governor of the Bahamas, 72; his death, 72; other references, 75, 76, 77, 80, 88 Roosevelt, Mr. Theodore (late President United States), 270 _Rosario_, 88, 89 _Rosebud_, 285 _Rota_, 318, 321 _Rover_, 336, 337 _Royale_, 201, 202 "Royal Family" privateers, 177, 178, 185 Rumsey, Captain Edward, 235-238 _Russell_, 183, 185, 186 Russo-Japanese War, 28 Safia, 177 Sailing ships, American and British, 325 _Saint Aaron_, 212 St. Antonio (Cape Verde Islands), 50 St. Catherine, Island of (Brazil), 80 St. Denis (Isle of Bourbon), 247 St. Domingo (West Indies), 229 St. Eustatia (West Indies), 239 _St. Fermin_, 82 _St. Francisco_, 28-32 _St. George_ (Dampier's ship), 37, 83 _St. George_ (Wright's ship), 135, 136, 138, 141 St. Iago (Cape Verde Islands), 239 St. Ives, 176 _St. Jacques des Victoires_, 224, 225 St. Malo, 106, 150, 210, 211, 212, 219, 224, 231, 239, 255, 261 St. Martin's Road (Isle de Rhé), 95 _St. Mary_, 6 St. Mary, Island of (Madagascar), 103 St. Paul's Bay (Isle of Bourbon), 247 St. Pol, M. de (French mate), 242 _St. Peter_, 28-32 St. Vincent, Cape, 182 _St. William_, 231, 232 Sandy Hook, 278, 281 _Sanspareil_ (_alias Nonsuch_), 220-224, 226 _Santa Anna Gratia_, 119 _Santa Familia_, 91, 92 _Santa Rita_, 339 _Saratoga_ (American man-of-war), 290 _Saratoga_ (American privateer), ridiculous story about, 278, 279 Sardinia, 141 Sauret, Antoine, 197, 198, 199, 201 Scarborough, 9 Schomberg, Captain (Naval chronicler), 237 Scilly Isles, 214, 228 Scottish Rebellion of '45, 151 Selcraig (original name of Selkirk), 74 Selim, a young Turk, 142-144 Selkirk, Alexander; sailing master in _Cinque Ports_, 38; been with buccaneers, 39; his hatred of Captain Stradling, 39; determines to desert at Juan Fernandez, 39; he is landed there, 39; the prototype of Robinson Crusoe, 40; is rescued by Woodes Rogers, 56; describes his adventures, 57, 58; is reluctant to sail with Dampier, 58, 59; made a mate on board _Duke_, 59; returns to Scotland, but laments his island, 73; elopes with Sophia Bruce, 74; marries Mrs. Candis, 74; dies in the Royal Navy, 74; other references, 62, 66 Semmes, Captain Raphael (of the _Alabama_), 13 _Serieux_, 233, 235-237 Seychelles Islands, 249, 250 Shannon, River, 211 _Sheerness_, 165-167 Shelvocke, George; commands two privateers under a foreign commission, 75; goes to Ostend, 75; commissions altered to English, 76; commands _Speedwell_ under Clipperton in _Success_, 76; his hatred of Clipperton, 76; sails from Plymouth, 76; they separate in a gale, 77; he robs a Portuguese ship, 77-80; alleged mutiny, 80; runs far south, 80; his officer shoots an albatross, 81; Coleridge's albatross, 81; rounds Cape Horn and sights Chili, 81; lingers on the coast, 81; captures two small prizes, 81; his men are ambushed, 82; burns a prize, 82; sails for Juan Fernandez, 82; finds there record of Clipperton, 82; his disingenuousness, 83; takes two guano ships, 83; fires the town of Payta, 84; action with a large Spanish ship, 84-86; his officer's account of the action, 86, 87; is wrecked on Juan Fernandez, 89; builds a small ship, captures and exchanges into a prize, 90; unpleasant meeting with Clipperton, 90; they part on bad terms, 91; exchanges into another prize, 91; Spanish Governor announces peace, and demands return of prize, 91; he disregards, and quits, 91; in difficulties, contemplates surrender, but eventually sails for China in another prize, 91; his suspicious conduct at Whampoa, 92; returns home in an Indiaman, and is arrested for piracy, 92; proofs failing, is imprisoned for fraud, 92; escapes and leaves England, 92; writes an account of his voyage, 92; his officer writes a very different one, 92 _Sherdam_, 204 _Sibylle_ (British frigate), 256 Skinner, Captain John, 330-332 Slave Trade, English, 12, 13 Slave Trade, French, 242, 243, 247, 248 Smith, Captain Matthew, 246 Smith, William, 97 Smollett, Tobias, historian, 124 Smyrna, 234 _Solebay_, 95, 96 Somerville, Captain Philip, 318 Sonson (Sumatra), 256 Spanish Succession, War of, 47 Spanish treasure-ships, 35 _Speedwell_, 75, 76, 81, 84-87, 90 _Staremberg_, 75 _Stendard_, 234 Stradling, Captain, 37, 39, 40, 61 Stretton, Mr., 72 Stuart, Charles Edward (the young Pretender), 195 _Success_, 75, 78, 82, 88 Sumatra, 250, 256 _Sunderland_, 161 Surcouf, Nicholas (brother of Robert), 255 Surcouf, Robert, famous French privateer captain; his origin, 240; destined for the Church, 240; sent to a seminary, 240; resents chastisement, and runs away, 241; ships on a brig, 241; volunteer on _Aurora_, 241; behaves well in a storm, 242; wreck of the slave ship, 242; his zeal and courage afterwards, 243; returns home, 243; back to Indian seas, 243; mate in a trading vessel, 243; enmity of the chief officer, 244; nearly dies in a fit, 244; episode at death-bed of chief officer, 245; joins a colonial war-ship, 245; in an action with English war-ships, 246; is commended, 247; commands a slave brig, 247; episode with the Health Committee, 247-249; offered command of a privateer, 249; commission refused, 249; sails as an armed trader, 249; narrowly escapes capture, 250; determines to act as a privateer, 250; captures several ships, and exchanges into one, 250, 251; captures the _Triton_ Indiaman, 252-254; his brig is captured, 255; arrives at Mauritius and finds his actions condemned, 255; he appeals home successfully, and pockets his unlawful gains, 255; becomes engaged to Marie Blaize, 255; goes to sea again, makes a prize, and arrives at Mauritius, 256; narrow escape from an English frigate, 256; captures an American ship, 257; the Governor prevents him from fighting a duel, 258; his capture of the _Kent_ East Indiaman, 258-260; returns home and is married, 261; his last ship, the _Ghost_, 261; complaint of merchants and East India company, 261; settles down at St. Malo; his death, 261; other references, 207, 262 Surcouf, Robert (great-nephew and biographer of the privateersman), 248, 251, 252, 256, 258 Syracuse, 234, 235 Talbot, Captain James, 149, 150, 151 Talbot, Captain (or Colonel) Silas; his birth, 274; ships as cabin-boy, 274; captain in U.S. army, 274; commands a fireship, 274; captures an English vessel at Rhode Island, 275; commands the _Argo_, a small privateer, 275; captures a Rhode Island privateer, 276; action with the _Dragon_ and marvellous escapes, 277; in company with _Saratoga_ captures a Dublin privateer, 278; ridiculous story, 278, 279; encounters an honest Scotchman, and takes his ship, 280; commands _General Washington_, but is soon captured, 280; his alleged ungenerous treatment by a "Scotch lord," 281; imprisoned at New York, 281; sent to England and imprisoned at Dartmoor, 281; vainly attempts to escape, is eventually liberated and returns to America, 281; his death, 281 Taylor, Captain, 165 Tea, recipe for making at sea, 148 _Teméraire_, 234 Teneriffe, 47 _Terrible_, 106-111 _Thetis_, 342, 343, 344, 347, 348, 350, 351, 352 Thibaut, Captain, 264, 265 _Three Sisters_, 362-364 Thurot, Émile, successful French privateer captain, 262 _Times, The_, strong comment on American successes by, 324 _Topaze_, 74 Torrington, Mr. (an "Antigallican"), 97 Toulon, 238 Toulouse, 234, 235 Trinidad, Island of (off Brazil coast), 52 _Trinity_, 88 _Triton_, 251-255, 256, 257 Trouin, Luc (father of René Du Guay), 208, 209 Trouin, René, uncle of René Du Guay, 208, 209 Trouin, René Du Guay, famous French privateer captain; his origin, 208; destined for the Church, 209; sent to a seminary, 209; elects to study law, 209; but learns nothing except fencing, 209; dissipating in Paris, encounters the head of the family, 209; his family sends him to sea in a privateer, 209; distinguishes himself in action, 210; takes part in capture of convoy, 211; takes command of a privateer at eighteen, 211; pillages in Ireland, 211; gets a better ship, 212; with a consort captures a convoy and two English sloops-of-war, 212; escapes at great risk from an English squadron, 212; his skilful navigation, 212, 213; narrow escape in Bristol Channel, 213; has some bad luck, 213; sickness, short food, and mutiny, 213; his dream comes true, 214; sails round the _Prince of Orange_, 214; fires at her under English colours, 214; chased by six men-of-war, 214; his desperate scheme, 215; holds out, though surrounded, 216; his crew shirk and fire breaks out, 216; brings his men up with grenades, 216; is badly wounded and surrenders, 216; kindness of the English captain, 216; on parole at Plymouth, 216; his "pretty shop-girl," 217; is recognised by captain of _Prince of Orange_, who denounces him as a pirate, 218; imprisoned pending decision, 218; allowed to receive friends, pretty shop-girl included, 218; plans escape with her assistance, 218, 219; a love-sick young Frenchman, 219; buys a boat from a Swede and is completely successful, 219; returns to France, and finds a ship ready for him, 219; captures two large English ships, 220, 221; his king presents him with a sword of honour, 221; with a consort captures three Indiamen, cargoes valued at one million sterling, 222; commands one of his prizes, and captures two Dutch ships off Vigo, 222; falls in with English fleet, 222; his bold and successful ruse, 222, 223; his ill-treatment by a French naval aristocrat, 224; with four consorts engages three Dutch war-ships with convoy, 224; desperate action with Dutch commodore's ship, 224, 225; gallantry of the commodore, 225; he captures all three, with heavy loss on both sides, 225; an anxious night, 225; he brings in his prizes, 226; is made a commander in the navy, 226; his marvellous escape from an English squadron, 226-228; his death, 228; other references, 229, 239, 240 Tuckerman, H.T. (biographer of Silas Talbot), 281 Turkey Company, The, 132, 133 Twiss, Sir Travers, 15 Underwood, George, 44 _Univers_, 116 Valbué, Jerome, 197, 198, 199 Vanbrugh, Mr. Carleton, 48, 53, 62, 70 _Vengeance_, 106, 109, 111 Vernon, Admiral, 11 _Vestale_, 234 Vigo, 222 Vigor, John, 44 Villeneuve, M.E. de, 103 _Virginia_, 290 Walker, George, a great English privateer captain; eulogised by naval historian, 152; enthusiasm of his biographer, 152, 153; his modesty, 153; served in Dutch navy, 153; commands _Duke William_, 154; frightens a Spanish privateer by a ruse, 154; clears Carolina coast of Spanish privateers, 155; sails for England with three traders, 155; in peril in storm, 155; intervenes from sick bed to save ship, 155, 156; his ruse to obtain assistance, 156; arrives in England to find that he is ruined, 156; trades to the Baltic, 156; again escapes capture by a ruse, 156; sails in _Mars_ with _Boscawen_, 157; fights a French war-ship, 157; "prudence" of _Boscawen's_ captain, 157; falls in with two French treasure-ships, 157; _Boscawen_ runs away, 158; surrenders _Mars_ to two French ships, 159; French and English politeness, 159; unusual projectiles, 160; four English war-ships give chase, 160; _Mars_ recaptured, 161; incapacity of English captains, 161, 162; arrives at Brest and is liberated on parole, 162, 163; _Fleuron_ is blown up, 163; his tact and courage, 164; arrives in England, 164; commands _Boscawen_ with _Mars_ in company, 164; _Boscawen_ a "slopped" ship, 165; outwits an Exeter privateer captain, 165; sails and meets _Sheerness_, 166; sights eight armed French ships, 166; his admirable speech to his officers, 166; sinks one and captures six, 167; his device for protection of his men, 168; rigs out an old lady prisoner, 168; her tragic account of the action, 168, 169; acknowledgment of his services by Admiralty, 169; captures and buys a vessel as tender, 169; his dealings with mutineers, 169, 170; a foolish joke, 171; his perilous voyage home and heroic conduct, 173-176; wrecked in St. Ives, crew saved, 176; his owner's eulogy, 176; commands the "Royal Family" privateers, 177; loses one ship, 177; chased by French, escapes; one ship parts, 177; cuts out a French ship at Safia, 177; his dealings with his officers, 178; makes a tender of his prize, 178; puts into Lisbon with much gain and no loss of men, 178; buys a ship at Lisbon, 178; but loses her by an extraordinary accident, 179; chases and engages a 74-gun Spanish ship alone, 180; an extraordinary engagement, 180-182; Spaniards' poor gunnery, 182; his courage and self-possession, 182; Spaniard desists and retires, 183; _Russell_ joins in chase, 183; _Dartmouth_ joins and is blown up, 184, 185; Lieut. O'Brien's apology, 185; Spaniard captured, but treasure already landed, 186; ungenerous conduct of his owners, 186; deprived of his ship, 186; goes home in packet, 186; saves her from a pirate, 187; is imprisoned for debt, 187; his integrity, 187; his death, 187; other references, 96, 116, 117, 194, 280 Waller, Edmund, the poet, 153 Walpole, Horace, 125 Wapping, 46 Warren, Captain, 216 Warren, Sir Peter, 98 _Warwick_, 98 Wassenaer, Baron de, 225 Welbe, George, 38 Welch, an Irish captain of a French privateer, 212 Wentworth, Sir John (Governor of Nova Scotia), 337 Weymouth, 164 _Weymouth_, 74 Whampoa, 91 White, Captain William, 334, 336 _Whiting_, 307 Whittaker, Admiral Sir Edward, 238 Whyte, Captain Thomas, 28-32 Williamson, Secretary, 11 Wilson, Captain William, 323 Winchester, Bishop of, 24, 25 _Windsor Castle_ packet, 354-357 _Worcester_, 226, 228 Wordsworth, William, the poet, 81 Wright, Fortunatus, a great English privateer captain; his father, 123; his epitaph, 124; allusion by Smollett, 124; settles in Liverpool, 125; retires and lives abroad, 125; his adventures at Lucca, 125-127; settles at Leghorn, 127; war with France, 127; depredations of French privateers, 127; commands the _Fame_ privateer, 127, 128; his plan of cruising, 128, 129; captures a large French privateer, 129; his success causes bitter feeling against him at Malta, 129, 130; a vessel specially fitted out to take him, 130; captures and brings her into Malta, 131; his sense of humour, 131; captures a ship under safe-conduct from George II., 132; submits to the Admiral's judgment and restores her, 132; seizes two French ships with Turkish cargoes, 133; action of the Turkey Company, 133; refuses to refund prize-money, 133; imprisoned in Italy, 133, 134; gives bail to answer the charge, 134; emerges triumphant--his dignified reply, 134; engages in commerce with William Hutchinson, 134; war being imminent, builds a vessel at Leghorn, 135; vigilance of Italian authorities, 135, 136; his plan to outwit them, 136; rewards offered for his capture, 137; fights a large French privateer sent out to waylay him, 137-139; disables her and returns with convoy to Leghorn, 139; is detained there by force, 139; liberated by two English war-ships, 140; his unfair treatment at Malta, 140; sails round a big French privateer, 140; refused admission to Leghorn, 141; unaccountably disappears, 141; suggestion of political intrigue, 141; the romantic story of Selim and Zaida, 142-144; "unhappily exiled" from England, 144; other references, 117, 152 _Yarmouth_, 281; treatment of American prisoners on board, 287-289 York, Bishop of, 24 Zaida, a Moorish maiden, 142-144 _Zephyr_, 116 _Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._ 
21065	----	The Log of a Privateersman By Harry Collingwood ________________________________________________________________________ Another cleverly written and interesting book by this prolific author of books about the sea for teenage boys. The time of the story is the very beginning of the nineteenth century, at which time the British were at war with France. The task of a privateersman is to act as a licensed pirate, preying on enemy ships. The hero is very successful at all this, and eventually is offered a permanent commission in the Royal Navy. Makes a good audiobook. ________________________________________________________________________ THE LOG OF A PRIVATEERSMAN BY HARRY COLLINGWOOD CHAPTER ONE. THE CAPTURE OF THE WEYMOUTH--AND WHAT IT LED TO. The French probably never did a more audacious thing than when, on the night of October 26th, 1804, a party of forty odd of them left the lugger _Belle Marie_ hove-to in Weymouth Roads and pulled, with muffled oars, in three boats, into the harbour; from whence they succeeded in carrying out to sea the newly-arrived West Indian trader _Weymouth_, loaded with a full cargo of rum, sugar, and tobacco. The expedition was admirably planned, the night chosen being that upon which the new moon occurred; it was a dismal, rainy, and exceptionally dark night, with a strong breeze blowing from the south-west; the hour was about two o'clock a.m.; there was an ebb tide running; and the ship--which had only arrived late in the afternoon of the previous day--was the outside vessel in a tier of three; the Frenchman had, therefore, nothing whatever to do but to cut the craft adrift and allow her to glide, silent as a ghost, down the harbour with bare poles, under the combined influence of the strong wind and the ebb tide. There was not a soul stirring about the quays at that hour; nobody, therefore, saw the ship go out; and the two custom-house officers and the watchman--the only Englishmen aboard her--were fast asleep, and were secured before they had time or opportunity to raise an alarm. So neatly, indeed, was the trick done that the first intimation poor old Peter White--the owner of the ship and cargo--had of his loss was when, at the first streak of dawn, he slipped out of bed and went to the window to gloat over the sight of the safely-arrived ship, moored immediately opposite his house but on the other side of the harbour, where she had been berthed upon her arrival on the previous afternoon. The poor old gentleman could scarcely credit his eyes when those organs informed him that the berth, occupied but a few hours previously, was now vacant. He looked, and looked, and looked again; and finally he caught sight of the ropes by which the _Weymouth_ had been moored, dangling in the water from the bows and quarters of the ships to which she had been made fast. Then an inkling of the truth burst upon him, and, hastily donning his clothes, he rushed downstairs, let himself out of the house, and sped like a madman down the High Street, across Hope Square, and so on to the Nothe, in the forlorn hope that the ship, which, with her cargo, represented the bulk of the savings of a lifetime, might still be in sight. And to his inexpressible joy she was; not only so, she was scarcely two miles off the port, under sail, and heading for the harbour in company with a British sloop-of-war. She had been recaptured, and ere the news of her audacious seizure had reached the ears of more than a few of the townspeople she was back again in her former berth, and safely moored by chains to the quay. It was clear to me, and to the rest of the _Weymouth's_ crew, when we mustered that same morning to be paid off, that the incident had inflicted a terribly severe shock upon Mr White's nerves. The poor old boy looked a good ten years older than when he had boarded us in the roads on the previous afternoon and had shaken hands with Captain Winter as he welcomed him home and congratulated him upon having successfully eluded the enemy's cruisers and privateers; but there was a fierce glitter in his eyes and a firm, determined look about his mouth which I, for one, took as an indication that the fright, severe as it undoubtedly was, had not quelled the old man's courage. The capture of the ship by the Frenchmen occurred during the early hours of a Friday morning; and on the following Tuesday evening I received a message from Mr White, asking me to call upon him, at his office, next day at noon. Punctual to the moment, I presented myself, and was at once ushered into the old gentleman's private sanctum, where I found my employer seated at his desk, with several bundles of papers lying before him. He shook hands with me very cordially, and signed to me to be seated. "Let me see, George," he commenced. "Your indentures will soon expire, will they not?" "Yes, Mr White," I answered. "I shall be out of my time on the sixteenth of next month." "Just so; just so. I thought that they would have about a month to run; but have been too busy the last few days to ascertain the precise date. Well, George," he continued, "I have come to the conclusion that the _Weymouth_ must be laid up, for the present at all events. Her capture the other night has opened my eyes more completely than they have ever been opened before, to the risk of working an unarmed ship during war- time. Were I to continue to do so, and the ship should happen to be captured, it would go far toward ruining me; and I am too old to endure such a loss; so I have made up my mind to lay up the _Weymouth_ while the war lasts. But there is good money to be made, even in war-time, if a man goes the right way to work. Privateering is a very profitable business when it can be carried on successfully; and success depends as much as anything upon the kind of men employed. I have been having a chat with Captain Winter upon the subject, with the result that I have purchased the schooner that they are now finishing off in Martin's building-yard; and I intend to fit her out as a privateer; that being the kind of work, in fact, that she has been especially built for. Captain Winter will have the command of her, of course, with Mr Lovell as chief mate; and, George, upon the captain's very strong recommendation, I have determined to offer you the berth of second mate. It will take more than a month to complete the schooner and fit her for sea; and by that time your indentures will have expired. Captain Winter gives you a most excellent character, and has recommended you for the berth; and from what I have seen of you, my lad, I have come to the conclusion that I shall not go very far wrong in giving it to you. Nay, you owe me no thanks, boy; you have earned the refusal of the offer by your steadiness and industry, so it is yours, freely, if you like to have it. I do not want you to make up your mind and answer me yea or nay upon the spur of the moment; take a little time to consider the matter if you like, and let me know by the end of the week." I needed no time for consideration, however; the offer was altogether too good and advantageous in every way to be left hanging in the balance, as it were. I therefore thankfully accepted it on the spot, and the question of pay and prize-money then being gone into and settled upon a very satisfactory basis, so far as I was concerned, I took my leave, and hurried off home to acquaint my relatives with my good fortune. Now the reader will have gathered from the foregoing that at the period of the opening of my story I was a sailor, and quite a young man; and probably I need say but little more to complete the acquaintance thus begun. My name is George Bowen, and I was the only son of my father, Captain Bowen, who was believed to have been drowned at sea--his ship never having been heard of after leaving England for the South Seas--when I was a little chap of only six years old. My sister Dora was born just about the time that it was supposed my father must have perished, and a year later my poor mother died, broken-hearted at the loss of a husband that she positively idolised. Thus, we two--Dora and I--were left orphans at a very early age, and were forthwith taken into the motherly care of Aunt Sophie, who had no children of her own. Poor Aunt Sophie! I am afraid I led her a terrible life; for I was, almost from my birth, a big, strong, high-spirited boy, impatient of control, and resolute to have my own way. But Dora--ah! Dora, with her sweet, docile disposition, made ample amends for all my shortcomings, and in the end, by her gentle persuasiveness, did much to subdue my rebellious spirit and render me amenable to domestic discipline. We were both exceptionally well educated, as education went then; for Uncle Jack--Aunt Sophie's husband--was a clever, long-headed fellow, who believed that it was not possible for a man to know too much; so Dora, in addition to receiving a sound English education, was taught French, music, and, in fact, the general run of what was then known as "accomplishments", while I, in addition also to a good sound English education, was taught French, Latin, and mathematics, including geometry, algebra, and trigonometry. I was allowed to continue at school until my fourteenth birthday, when, in consequence of my strong predilection for the sea as a profession, I was apprenticed by Uncle Jack to Mr White for a period of seven years. The first year of my apprenticeship was spent aboard a collier, trading between the Tyne and Weymouth; then I was transferred for three years to a Levant trader; and finally I was promoted--as I considered it--into the _Weymouth_, West Indiaman, which brings me back to the point from whence this bit of explanation started. The modest cottage which I called home was situated in the picturesque little village of Wyke; I had therefore a walk of some two miles before me when I left Mr White's office; and as I sped along the road I beguiled the way by building the most magnificent of castles in the air. After the brief peace of Amiens, war had again broken out in May of the preceding year; and everybody was of opinion that the struggle which then commenced was destined to be of quite exceptional duration and severity. Then, again, it was well-known that Spain was only waiting for a sufficiently plausible pretext to declare war against us; and that pretext, it was believed, would be found in the capture by a British squadron of the three Spanish treasure-ships _Medea_, _Clara_, and _Fama_, news of which had just reached England. All this was of course simply disastrous from a commercial point of view; but for navy men and privateersmen it opened up a long vista of opportunities to win both distinction and fortune; for it gave us the marine commerce of three rich and powerful nations--France, Holland, and Spain--as a lawful prey. Fortunes of almost fabulous magnitude had been made by lucky privateersmen during the last war; and was there not even then living in Weymouth the heroic Captain Tizard, who had captured a Spanish Plate ship and sailed into Plymouth Sound with his prize in tow, and a massive gold candlestick glittering at each mast-head? And if others had done such things, why not we? I knew Captain Winter for a man who not only had every detail of his profession at his fingers' ends, but who also combined the highest courage with the nicest discretion and a subtlety of resource that had already served us in good stead on more than one occasion. Then there was Robert Lovell, our chief mate, late of the _Weymouth_. He, like the captain, was a finished seaman; bold as a lion; and knew exactly how to deal with a crew, encouraging those who did their duty, while the idle skulkers found in him a terrible enemy. Our late second mate--a man named Penrose, who had only been one voyage with us--had not given the skipper satisfaction; he had proved to be untrustworthy, overbearing, obstinate, unscrupulous, and altogether objectionable, so I was not at all surprised to find that he had been passed over; but it was a surprise, and a most agreeable one, too, to learn that the captain had recommended me in place of him. It was a responsible post, more so even than that of second mate in an ordinary trader; but I had no fear of myself, and was quite determined to leave nothing undone to justify "the old man's" recommendation. Thus pondering, I soon found myself at home. Truth compels me to admit that I was greatly disappointed with the reception that my good news met with at the hands of Aunt Sophie and Dora. Instead of congratulating me they wept! wept because I was so soon to leave them again, and because of the dangerous character of my new berth! They declared their conviction that I should be killed by the first enemy that we might happen to fall in with; or, if I were fortunate enough to escape death, that I should be brought home to them a miserable, helpless cripple, minus a leg and arm or two, and all that Uncle Jack and I could say failed to shake that conviction. Dora even went so far as to endeavour to coax me to decline the berth; and only desisted upon my representation that, were I so foolish as to do so, I should inevitably be snapped up by the press-gang. That, and the indisputable fact--which they appeared to have forgotten--that there were at least a dozen men in Weymouth alone who had gone through the whole of the last war without receiving so much as a scratch, brought them to regard the matter somewhat more resignedly; and at length, when they had all but cried themselves blind, Uncle Jack's cheery and sanguine arguments began to tell upon them so effectually, that they dried their tears and announced their determination to hope for the best. Strange to say, although I had been at home six days, I had hitherto been so busy, running about with Dora and calling upon a rather numerous circle of friends that, up to the time of receiving Mr White's offer, I had not found time to do more than just become aware of the fact that Mr Joe Martin, our local ship-builder, happened to have a very fine craft upon the stocks, well advanced toward completion. Now, however, that it had come about that I was to serve on board that same craft as "dickey", I was all impatience to see what she was like; so, the next day happening to be fine, I set off, the first thing after breakfast, and, walking in to Weymouth, made my way straight to the shipyard. As I reached the gates I caught my first near view of her, and stood entranced. She was planked right up to her covering-board, and while one strong gang of workmen was busy fitting her bulwarks, another gang, upon stages, was hard at work caulking her, a third gang under her bottom, having apparently just commenced the operation of coppering. She was, consequently, not presented to my view in her most attractive guise; nevertheless, she being entirely out of the water, I was able to note all her beauties, and I fell in love with her on the spot. She was a much bigger craft than I had expected to see; measuring, as I was presently told, exactly two hundred and sixty-six tons. She was very shallow, her load-line being only seven feet above the lowest part of her unusually deep keel, but this was more than counterbalanced by her extraordinary breadth of beam. She had a very long, flat floor, and, despite her excessive beam, her lines were the finest that I had ever seen--and that is saying a great deal, for I had seen in the West Indies some of the most speedy slavers afloat. Altogether she impressed me as a vessel likely to prove not only phenomenally fast but also a perfect sea-boat. She was pierced for four guns of a side, with two stern- chasers; and there was a pivot on her forecastle for a long eighteen- pounder; she would therefore carry an armament formidable enough to enable us to go anywhere and do anything--in reason. Having thoroughly inspected her from outside, and gone down under her bottom, I next made my way on board, and went down below to have a look at her interior accommodation. This I found to be everything that could possibly be desired; the arrangements had evidently been carefully planned with a view to securing to the crew the maximum possible amount of comfort; the cabins were large, and as lofty as the shallow depth of the vessel would allow; there was every convenience in the state-rooms in the shape of drawers, lockers, sofas, folding tables, shelves, cupboards, and so on; and the living quarters were not only light, airy, and comfortable, but were being finished off with great taste and considerable pretensions to luxury. While I was prowling about below I encountered Harry Martin, the son of the builder, who told me that Mr White, when completing the purchase of the vessel, had given instructions that no reasonable expense was to be spared in making the craft as thoroughly suitable as possible for the service of a privateer. I spent fully two hours on board, prying into every nook and cranny of the vessel, and making myself thoroughly familiar with the whole of her interior arrangements, and then left, well satisfied with my prospects as second mate of so smart and comfortable a craft. As I was crossing Hope Square, toward the foot of Scrambridge Hill, on my way home again, I met Captain Winter, who, after congratulating me upon my appointment, informed me that he had secured _carte blanche_ from the owner as to the number of the crew, and that he was determined to have the vessel strongly manned enough to enable her to keep at sea even after sending away a prize crew or two. He was therefore anxious to secure as many good men as possible, and he suggested that I could not better employ my spare time than in looking about for such, and sending to him as many as I could find. This I did; and as the skipper and Mr Lovell, the chief mate, were both industriously engaged in the same manner, we contrived, by the time that the schooner was ready for sea, to scrape together a crew of ninety men, all told--a large proportion of whom were Portlanders,--as fine fellows, for the most part, as ever trod a plank. The schooner was launched a fortnight from the day upon which I had first visited her, and as she slid off the ways Joe Martin's youngest daughter christened her, giving her the name of the _Dolphin_. She was launched with her two lower-masts in, and was at once taken up the harbour and moored opposite Mr White's warehouse, where the work of rigging her and getting her guns and stores on board was forthwith commenced. Thenceforward I was kept busy every day, assisting the skipper and Mr Lovell in the task of fitting-out; and so diligently did we work that by mid-day of the 26th of November the _Dolphin_ was all ataunto and ready for sea. And a very handsome, rakish, and formidable craft she looked, as she lay alongside the quay, her enormously long and delicately-tapering masts towering high above the warehouse roof; her wide-spreading yards, extending far over the quay, accurately squared; her standing and running rigging as taut and straight as iron bars; her ten long nine-pounders grinning beneath her triced-up port-lids; her brightly-polished brass long eighteen-pounder mounted upon her forecastle; her spacious deck scraped and scoured until it was as white as snow; and her new copper and her black topsides gleaming and shimmering in the gently-rippling tide. Day after day, as the work of fitting-out progressed, the quay was crowded with people who came down to watch our operations and admire the schooner; and so favourable was the impression she created that, had we been in want of men, we could have secured volunteers in plenty from among the idlers who spent day after day alongside, watching us at work, and speculating among themselves--with their hands in their pockets--as to the measure of success that our bold venture was likely to meet with. When we knocked off work at noon, to go to dinner, our work was completed; and as Mr White had taken care to secure our letters-of- marque in good time, it was determined that the _Dolphin_ should proceed to sea that same evening, the crew having already signed articles, and been warned to hold themselves in readiness for a start at a moment's notice. As for me, my traps were already on board, and nicely arranged in my cabin--my sister Dora having, with her usual tenderness of affection, insisted upon attending to this matter herself--there was therefore nothing for me to do but to go home, say good-bye, and rejoin the ship. This ceremony I had always found to be a most painful business; but it was especially so in the present case; for I was not only once more about to brave the ordinary perils incidental to a sailor's life, but was, in addition, to be exposed to the still greater hazards involved in battle with the enemy. Poor Dora and my aunt were but too well aware, from the experience of others in the last war, what these hazards were; they knew how many men had gone out from their homes, hale, strong, and full of enthusiasm, either to find death in their first engagement, or to be brought back, sooner or later, maimed, helpless, and physically ruined for the remainder of their lives; and, as tender, loving women will, they anticipated one or another of these evils for me, and were therefore distressed beyond all hope of comfort. Nor could I shut my eyes to the possibility that their forebodings might come true, and that I might therefore be looking upon their dear faces for the last time. To bid them farewell, therefore, and tear myself from their clinging arms was a most painful business; and it was not until I had returned to the _Dolphin_, and was busying myself about the final preparations for our departure, that I was able in some degree to recover my equanimity and get rid of the troublesome lump that would keep rising in my throat. CHAPTER TWO. A FOGGY NIGHT IN THE CHANNEL. The town clock was striking four when, the muster roll having been called and all hands being found to be on board, we cast off the shore- fasts and, under the influence of a light, keen, frosty air from the northward, went gliding down the harbour under mainsail and flying-jib, fully two hundred people following us along the quay and cheering us as we went. The _Dolphin_ was the first privateer that Weymouth had fitted out since the last declaration of war, and the enthusiasm was intense; for, in addition to the foregoing circumstance, she was the largest, most powerful, and most heavily-manned privateer that had ever sailed out of the port; our full complement numbering no less than ninety, all told, including a surgeon, every one of whom was either a Weymouth or a Portland man; consequently there were plenty of friends and relatives to see us start and bid us God-speed. Upon clearing the harbour all sail was at once made upon the schooner, our object being, of course, to reach the open channel as quickly as possible--when we might hope to fall athwart a prize at any moment,--and a noble picture we must have made as, edging away to pass out round Portland, our noble spaces of new, white canvas were expanded one after the other, until we were under all plain sail, to our royal. The day had been one of those quiet grey days that occasionally occur about the latter end of November; the sky a pallid, shapeless canopy of colourless cloud through which the sun at long intervals became faintly distinguishable for a few minutes at a time, then vanished again. There was little or no wind to speak of, the faint breathing that prevailed being from the northward. The air was very keen, the atmosphere so thick that our horizon was contracted to a limit of scarcely three miles, and it looked very much as though, with nightfall, we should have a fog. The moon was a long time past the full, and the small crescent to which she had been reduced would not rise until very late; there was a prospect, therefore, that the coming night would be both dark and thick; just the kind of night, in fact, when we might hope to blunder up against a ship belonging to the enemy, and take her by surprise. Captain Winter's plan was to run across to the French coast, make Cherbourg, and then cruise to the westward, in the hope that, by so doing, we should either pick up a French homeward-bound merchantman, or succeed in recapturing one of the prizes that the French privateers occasionally captured in the Channel and generally sent into Cherbourg or Saint Malo. Should we fail in this, his next project was to cruise in the chops of the Channel for a fortnight, and then return to Weymouth to replenish our stores and water; it being hoped that by that time something definite would be known as to the prospects of war with Spain. Our course took us close past the easternmost extremity of Portland--the highest point of the miscalled "island"; and by the time that we had drifted across the bay--for our progress could scarcely be called more than drifting--the fog had settled down so thickly that, had we not by good fortune happened to have heard two men calling to each other ashore, we should have plumped the schooner on to the rocks at the base of the cliff before seeing the land. Even as it was, it was touch and go with us; for although the helm was put hard a-starboard at the first sound of the mens' voices, we were so close in that, as the schooner swerved heavily round, we just grazed a great rock, the head of which was sticking out of the water. But we now knew pretty well where we were, and hauling well off the land, out of further danger, we shaped a course that would take us well clear of the Shambles, and so stretched away athwart the Channel. By the time that we had hauled off the land about a mile it had fallen as dark as a wolf's mouth, with a fog so thick that, what with it and the darkness together, it was impossible to see as far as the foremast from the main rigging, while the wind had fallen so light that our canvas flapped and rustled with every heave of the schooner upon the short Channel swell; yet, by heaving the log, we found that the _Dolphin_ was slinking through the water at the rate of close upon three knots in the hour, while she was perfectly obedient to her helm. The most profound silence prevailed fore and aft; for Captain Winter had given instructions that the bells were not to be struck, and that all orders were to be passed quietly along the deck by word of mouth. The binnacle light was also carefully masked, and the skylight obscured by a close-fitting painted canvas cover that had been made for the express purpose. There was, therefore, nothing whatever to betray our presence except the soft rustling of our canvas, and, as the same sounds would prevail on board any other craft that might happen to drift within our vicinity, we were in hopes that, by keeping our ears wide open, we might become aware of their presence before our own was betrayed. It is true that these precautions greatly increased the risk of collision with other vessels; but we trusted that the watchfulness upon which we depended for the discovery of other craft in our neighbourhood would suffice to avert any such danger. In this way the time slowly dragged along until midnight, when I was called to take charge of the deck. Upon turning out I found that there was no improvement in the weather, except that the faint breathing from the northward had strengthened sufficiently to put our canvas to sleep, and to increase our speed to a trifle over six knots; but it was just as dark and thick as ever. Lovell, whom I was relieving, informed me that nothing whatever had been seen or heard during his watch; and that now, by our dead reckoning, we were, as nearly as possible, thirty miles south-by-west of Portland Bill. The skipper was still on deck; he had been up all through the first watch, and announced his intention of keeping the deck until the weather should clear. The night was now bitterly cold and frosty; the rail, the ropes coiled upon the pins, the companion slide, even the glass of the binnacle, all were thickly coated with rime, and the decks were slippery with it. It was close upon two bells; and everything on board the _Dolphin_ was silent as the grave, no sound being audible save the soft seething of the water past the bends, and the "gush" of the wave created by the plunge of the schooner's sharp bows into the hollows of the swell, when the skipper, who was standing near me on the starboard side of the binnacle, sucking away at a short pipe, caught hold of my arm and said in a low tone: "Listen, Bowen! you have sharp ears. Tell me if you hear anything hereaway on the starboard bow?" I listened intently for some seconds without hearing anything, and was about to say so, when I thought I caught a faint sound, as of the creaking of a boom; and at the same instant the two look-out men on the forecastle, forgetting, in the imminence of the danger, their instructions to be silent, simultaneously shouted, in sharp incisive tones: "Hard a-port! Hard over! there's a big ship right under our bow!" There was nothing whatever to be seen from where the skipper and I stood, but the cry was too imperative to be neglected; I therefore sprang with one bound to the wheel and assisted the helmsman to put it hard over, while the skipper rushed forward to see for himself what it was that was reported to be in our way. I had but grasped the spokes of the wheel when I heard a cry, close ahead of us of: "There's a small craft close aboard of us on our larboard beam, sir!" followed by a confused rush of feet along a ship's deck, and an order to "put the helm hard a-starboard, and call the captain!" These sounds appeared to be so close aboard of us that I involuntarily braced myself against the expected impact of the two vessels; but the next moment, through the dense fog, I saw the faint glimmer of a light opening out clear of our foremast, saw a huge, dark, shapeless blot go drifting away on to our port bow, and heard a sharp hail from the stranger. "Schooner ahoy! What schooner is that?" "The _Dolphin_, privateer, of Weymouth. What ship is that?" answered the skipper. "The _Hoogly_, East Indiaman; Calcutta to London. Can you tell me whereabouts we are?" "Thirty-six miles south-by-west of Portland Bill," answered the skipper. "Much obliged to you, sir," came the faint acknowledgment from the Indiaman, already out of sight again in the fog. This was followed by some further communication--apparently a question, from the tone of voice,--but the two vessels had by this time drawn so far apart from each other that the words were unintelligible, and the captain made no endeavour to reply; coming aft again and resuming his former position near the binnacle. He and I were still discussing in low tones our narrow escape from a disastrous collision, some ten minutes having elapsed since we had lost sight of the _Hoogly_, when suddenly a faint crash was heard, somewhere away on our port quarter, immediately followed by shouts and cries, and a confused popping of pistols, which lasted about a minute; when all became as suddenly silent again. "Hillo!" ejaculated the skipper, turning hastily to the binnacle, as the first sounds were heard, and taking the bearing of them, as nearly as possible; "there's something wrong with the Indiaman; it sounds very much as though one of the rascally, prowling, French lugger privateers had run him aboard and--" "D'ye hear that rumpus away out on the larboard quarter, sir?" hailed one of the men on the forecastle. "Ay, ay, my lad, we hear it; we're not asleep at this end of the ship!" answered Winter. "Depend upon it, George," he continued to me, "the _Hoogly_ has been boarded and carried by a Frenchman. There!" as the sounds ceased, "it is all over, whatever it is. We will haul up a bit, and see if we can discover what has happened. Starboard, my man!" to the man at the wheel; "starboard, and let her come up to full and by. Hands to the sheets and braces, Mr Bowen. Brace sharp up on the larboard tack; and then let the men cast loose the guns and load them. Call all hands quietly, and let them go to quarters." The skipper peered into the binnacle again. "Nor'-east, half east!" he continued, referring to the direction in which the schooner was now heading: "If we are in luck we ought to come athwart the Indiaman again in about twenty minutes--that is to say, if they have hove her to in order to transfer the prisoners." He pulled out his watch, noted the time, and replaced the watch in his pocket. "Just slip for'ard, Mr Bowen, and caution the hands to be as quiet as possible over their work," said he. "And give the look-out men a hint to keep their eyes skinned. The French have undoubtedly taken the Indiaman by surprise; now we must see if we cannot give the Frenchmen a surprise in turn." I went forward to execute my orders; and upon my return found the skipper, watch in hand, talking to the chief mate, who, with the rest of the watch below, had been called. Meanwhile the crew were at quarters, and, having cast loose the guns, were busily loading them, the work being carried on as quietly as possible. As I rejoined the skipper, the arms-chest was brought on deck; and in a few minutes each man was armed with a cutlass and a brace of pistols. By the time that these preparations were completed, the twenty minutes allowed us by Captain Winter to reach the scene of the recent disturbance had elapsed, and our topsail was laid to the mast, the word being passed along the deck for absolute silence to be maintained, and for each man to listen with all his ears, and to come aft and report if he heard any sound. Then we all fell to listening with bated breath; but not a sound was to be heard save the gurgle and wash of the water about the rudder as the schooner rose and fell gently to the lift of the sea. In this way a full quarter of an hour was allowed to elapse, at the expiration of which the skipper remarked: "Well, it is clear that, wherever the Indiaman may be, she is not hereabout. If, as I believe, she has been attacked, and has beaten the Frenchman off, she has of course proceeded on up channel; but if she has been taken, her captors have evidently headed at once for some French port, possibly having been near enough to have heard the hails that passed between us. If that was the case they would naturally be anxious to get away from the neighbourhood of their exploit as quickly as possible, for fear of being interfered with. And, assuming this supposition of mine to be correct, they will be certain to make for the nearest French port; which, in this case, is Cherbourg. We will therefore resume our course toward Cherbourg, when, if we are lucky, we may get a sight of both the Indiaman and the privateer at daybreak, if this confounded fog will only lift." We accordingly squared away once more upon our former course, which we followed until morning without hearing or seeing anything of the vessels for which we were looking. This being our first night out, and my watch being the starboard watch, I was relieved by Lovell at four o'clock a.m., and under ordinary circumstances should not have been called until seven bells, or half- past seven. But I was not greatly surprised when, on being called, I found that it was still dark, the time being five bells. It was Lovell who called me. "George!" he exclaimed, shaking me by the shoulder. "George! rouse and bitt, my lad; tumble out! The fog is clearing away, and the cap'n expects to make out the Indiaman at any moment, so it's `all hands'. Hurry up, my hearty!" "Ay, ay," grumbled I, only half awake; "I'll be up in a brace of shakes." And as Lovell quitted my cabin and returned to the deck, I rolled out of my bunk and hurriedly began to dress by the lamp that the chief mate had been considerate enough to light for my convenience. When I went on deck I found that, as Lovell had stated, the fog was clearing away, a few stars showing out here and there overhead; moreover the wind had hauled round from the eastward and was now blowing a fresh topgallant breeze that had already raised a short choppy sea, over which the _Dolphin_ was plunging as lightly and buoyantly as a sea-gull, doing her seven knots easily, although the skipper had taken all the square canvas off her, letting her go along under mainsail, foresail, staysail, and jibs. There was nothing to be seen, as the fog still lay thick on the water; but there were indications that it would probably lift before long, and Captain Winter had therefore ordered all hands to be called, so that we might be ready for any emergency that might arise. "Sorry to have been obliged to disturb you, George, before your time," said the skipper, as I appeared on deck; "but the fog shows signs of clearing, and I want to be ready to act decisively the moment that we catch sight of the Indiaman." "Quite so, sir," I replied. "Where do you expect to make her?" "Ah!" he answered; "that's just the question that has been puzzling me. We did not see enough of her last night to enable us to judge very accurately what her rate of sailing may be; but I rather fancy, from the glimpse we caught of her, that she is something of a slow ship, and, if so, we may have run past her. At the same time, if the French have got hold of her--of which I have very little doubt--they would be pretty certain to crowd sail upon her in order to get well over toward their own coast before daylight. I have shortened sail, as you see, so as to reduce our own speed as nearly as possible to what I judge hers will be; but this schooner is a perfect flyer--there's no holding her,--and it would not surprise me a bit to find that we have shot ahead of the chase. I feel more than half inclined to heave-to for a short time; but Lovell thinks that the Indiaman is still ahead of us somewhere." "Well," said I, "we ought to see something of her before long, for it is clearing fast overhead, and it appears to me that, even down here on the water, I can see further than I could when I first came on deck." It was evident that the skipper was very fidgety, so I thought I would not further unsettle him by obtruding my own opinion--which coincided with his--upon him; therefore, finding him slightly disposed to be taciturn, I left him, and made the round of the deck, assuring myself that all hands were on the alert, and ready to go to quarters at any moment. I passed forward along the starboard side of the deck, noticing as I did so that there was a faint lightening in the fog away to windward, showing that the dawn was approaching; and as I turned on the forecastle to go aft again, I observed that the fog was thinning away famously on the weather quarter. As I walked aft I kept my eyes intently fixed on this thin patch, which appeared to be a small but widening break in the curtain of vapour that enveloped us, for it was evidently drifting along with the wind. I had reached as far aft as the main rigging, still staring into the break, when I suddenly halted, for it struck me that there was a small, faint blotch of darker texture in the heart of it, away about three points on our weather quarter. Before I could be quite certain about the matter, however, the blotch, if such it was, had become merged and lost again in the thicker body of fog that followed in the track of the opening. But while I was still debating within myself whether I should say anything about what I fancied I had seen, I became aware of a much larger and darker blot slowly looming up through the leeward portion of the break, and apparently drifting across it to windward, though this effect was, I knew, due to the leeward drift of the break. This time I felt that there was no mistake about it, and I accordingly cried: "Sail ho! a large ship about a point on our weather quarter!" And I hurried aft to point it out to the skipper before it should vanish again. He looked in the direction toward which I was pointing, but was unable to see anything, his eyes being dazzled in consequence of his having been staring, in a fit of abstraction, at the illuminated compass-card in the binnacle. Neither could Lovell see anything; and while I was still endeavouring to direct their gaze to it, it disappeared. "Are you quite certain that your eyes were not deceiving you, Mr Bowen?" demanded the skipper rather pettishly. "Absolutely certain, sir," I replied. "And what is more, I believe it to be the Indiaman; for just before sighting her I fancied I saw another and smaller craft about two points further to windward, and astern of the bigger ship; and I am now of opinion that what I saw was a lugger." "Ay," retorted the skipper; "you fancied you saw a lugger; and so, perhaps, under the circumstances, would naturally fancy also that you saw the Indiaman. Did anybody else see anything like a sail astern of us?" he demanded in a low voice, addressing the crew. "Yes, sir," answered a voice from the forecastle. "I looked directly that I heard Mr Bowen sing out, and I fancied that I saw something loomin' up dark through the fog on the weather quarter." "Another fancy!" ejaculated the skipper. "However," he continued, "you may be right, Mr Bowen, after all. How far do you suppose the stranger to have been away from us?" "Probably a matter of three miles or thereabout," I answered. "The smaller craft would perhaps be a mile, or a mile and a half astern of her." "Then," said the skipper, "we will haul the fore-sheet to windward, let our jib-sheets flow, and wait a quarter of an hour to see what comes of it. If you are correct in your surmise, Mr Bowen, we ought to see something of these strangers of yours by that time." "And I have no doubt we shall, sir," answered I. "And if I may be allowed to offer a suggestion, it is that we should bring the schooner to the wind, so that she may eat out to windward of the Indiaman, all ready for bearing up and running her aboard when she heaves in sight." "A very good idea, Mr Bowen! we will do so," answered the skipper. The main- and fore-sheets were accordingly flattened in, when the schooner luffed up to about south-east, and slowly forged to windward, athwart what I believed to be the track of the Indiaman. Meanwhile, the dawn was coming slowly, while the fog was gradually thinning away under the influence of the freshening breeze, so that we were by this time able to distinguish the heads of the breaking waves at a distance of fully half a mile. As for me, I kept my eyes intently fixed upon the grey cloud of vapour that went drifting away to leeward past our weather quarter; and presently, when we had been hove-to about ten minutes, I caught sight of a thickening in the fog thereaway that, even as I looked, began to grow darker and assume a definite shape. "There she is, sir!" I exclaimed, pointing out the darkening blot to the skipper; and by the time that he had found it, that same blot had strengthened into the misty outline of a large ship under studding- sails, running before the wind, and steering a course that would bring her diagonally athwart our stern, and within biscuit-toss of our lee quarter. "Ay! there she is, sure enough!" responded the skipper eagerly. "Now," he continued, "the next thing is to find out whether she is the Indiaman or not, without arousing the suspicions of those aboard her. Haul aft your lee-jib and fore-sheets, there, my lads; we must not present the appearance of lying in wait for her. Luff all you can without shaking," to the man at the wheel; "I do not want the schooner to move fast through the water. We must let yonder ship pass near enough to us, if possible, to be able to read the name on her stern." "I do not think there is much doubt about her being the Indiaman, sir," said I; "for if you will look out here, broad on our weather quarter, you will see what I take to be the lugger that has captured her." "Ay, true enough, I do see something! You have sharp eyes, George, and no mistake," answered the skipper. "Yes, there certainly is something there; and, as you say, it looks uncommonly like a lugger! Well, she is a good two miles off. We shall have time to run the big fellow aboard and take her before that lugger is near enough to trouble us. Stand by, there, some of you, to jump aloft and loose the topsail when I give the word. Hillo, what is that? A gun from the lugger, by the hookey! They have made us out, and don't like the look of us, apparently, so they have fired a gun to wake up the people aboard the prize. Ha! now they have seen us aboard the big ship too, and are taking in their stunsails, to haul to the wind, I suppose. But you are too late, my hearties!" apostrophising the ship, now less than a cable's length from us; "you will be to leeward of us in another two minutes. Boy, bring me my glass. You will find it slung in beckets in the companion." On came the ship, near enough now for us to see that she was undoubtedly an Indiaman, and as undoubtedly British. The people on board her were evidently in a great flusteration, for they had started to take in all the studding-sails at once, and a pretty mess they were making of the job, most of the studding-sails having blown forward over the fore side of the booms. While they were still battling with the unruly canvas the ship swept, yawing wildly, close past our lee quarter; so close, indeed, that no glasses were required, for even in the faint light of the growing dawn it was possible to read with the unaided eye the gilt lettering on her stern--"_Hoogly, London_." CHAPTER THREE. OUR FIRST SUCCESS. "That settles the matter for good and all!" exclaimed the skipper, now in rare good-humour, as he pointed to the Indiaman's stern. "Up with your helm, my man," to the man at the wheel; "let her go broad off. We will pass under the Indiaman's stern, and board her from to leeward. Away aloft there and let fall the topsail, some of you. Mr Lovell, you will take twenty men--I don't suppose there are above forty Frenchmen aboard that craft--and board by the main and mizzen chains as we touch. You will have to be smart about it, as I do not want to remain alongside, grinding the schooner's side to pieces, a moment longer than is absolutely necessary. Take the ship; and, as soon as you have secured possession and driven the prize crew below, haul your wind, keeping us between you and the lugger. The moment that you and your party are aboard I shall haul off; and you may leave me to deal with that fellow to windward. You will make the best of your way to Weymouth, of course. See that your men freshen the priming of their pistols at once; and then station them, half by the main rigging, and half by the fore, ready to jump at the word." "Ay, ay, sir!" responded Lovell, as he hastened away to select his twenty men. The topsail was by this time sheeted home, and the men were mast-heading the yard. The skipper sprang upon the rail, steadying himself by the weather main swifter, to con our schooner alongside; and I, in obedience to an order from him, went forward and gave the word for those who were not of the boarding-party to arm themselves with muskets, and pick off any of the Frenchmen who might show their heads above the rail. It took us less than ten minutes to close with the Indiaman; and as we ranged up on her lee quarter and swept alongside a party of some ten or a dozen jabbering and gesticulating Frenchmen jumped up on her poop and saluted us with an irregular fire of musketry, which, however, did no harm; and upon our people returning the fire three of the Frenchmen fell, while the rest tumbled off the poop in such a desperate hurry that our fellows were fairly convulsed with laughter. The skipper conned us alongside in such a masterly style that I do not believe the hulls of the two vessels actually touched at all--at least, I was unconscious of any shock--yet we were close enough for the two boarding-parties to spring with ease and certainty from our rigging into the Indiaman's channels; and the next moment, as they tumbled in over the ship's rail, our helm was eased up, and the vessels sheered apart, without having carried away so much as a rope-yarn. There was a tremendous scuffle on the Indiaman's deck for perhaps half a minute, with a great popping of pistols, the sound of heavy blows, cheers from our lads, loud execrations on the part of the Frenchmen, a shriek or two of pain at some well-directed cut or thrust, then a rush forward, during which we remained some twenty fathoms to leeward of the Indiaman, ready to sheer alongside again and render assistance if necessary; and then Lovell sprang up on the poop and hailed that he had secured possession of the ship, and would haul his wind as soon as he could get in the studding- sails. Thereupon our helm was put hard up, and we wore short round, bracing sharp up on the starboard tack to intercept the lugger, which craft was now foaming along under all the canvas that she could spread. She was a big lump of a craft, of her class, measuring, according to my estimation, fully a hundred and fifty tons; and she appeared to be very fast. It was light enough by this time, what with the increasing daylight and the clearing away of the fog, for us to see that she mounted four guns--probably six-pounders--of a side, and there was something very like a long nine-pounder covered over by a tarpaulin, between her fore and mainmasts. She was well to windward of us, and presently crossed our bows at a distance of about a mile. We, of course, at once tacked, and, letting the schooner go along clean full, so as to head off the lugger, set our topgallant-sail and small gaff- topsail. We rapidly neared each other, the _Dolphin_ gradually edging away as the lugger fore-reached upon us, until only half a mile of water divided the two craft. Then we saw that her people were busy with the mysterious object between her masts, and presently, sure enough, a long nine- pounder, mounted upon a pivot, stood revealed. Five minutes later they tried a shot at us from this same piece--the ball from which struck the water some five fathoms astern of us,--and at the same time hoisted the French tricolour. We responded by running our ensign up to the gaff, but reserved our fire for a while, the skipper having as yet had no opportunity of finding out our lads' capabilities with the guns. At length, however, having edged up to within a quarter of a mile of the lugger, and having conclusively demonstrated our superiority of sailing, Captain Winter gave orders that our larboard broadside should be carefully levelled and trained upon the lugger's mainmast; and while this was being done she fired her starboard broadside at us, one of the shot from which passed through our mainsail, while another struck our fore-topmast about a foot above the topsail-halliard sheave-hole, bringing down the upper part of the spar and the topgallant-sail. The Frenchmen's cheers at this success were still floating down to us, when, having personally supervised the levelling and training of our guns, I gave the order to fire. Sharp at the word, our broadside rang out; and as the smoke blew over us and away to leeward the lugger's mainmast was seen to suddenly double up, as it were, in the middle, the upper portion toppling over to leeward and carrying the sail with it into the water, while the foresail began to flap furiously in the wind, the sheet having been shot away. "Hurrah, men! capitally done!" shouted the skipper; "you have her now," as the lugger, under her mizzen only, shot up into the wind, plunging heavily. "Ready about! and stand by to rake her with your starboard broadside as we cross her stern. Helm's a-lee! Load your port guns again as smartly as you please, my lads. Topsail haul! Stand by, the starboard battery, and give it her as your guns are brought to bear! Away aloft there, a couple of hands, and clear the wreck of the topgallant-mast!" The _Dolphin_, tacking as fast as the men could haul round the yards, without losing headway for an instant, went round like a top, and in less than half a minute was crossing the lugger's stern. There was tremendous confusion on board, her crew, to the number of some thirty or forty, rushing about her decks,--as we could now plainly see,-- apparently undecided what to do next. At the proper moment our starboard broadside was fired, and the great white, jagged patch that instantly afterwards appeared in the lugger's transom showed that pretty nearly, if not quite all, the shot had taken effect. "Well aimed, men!" cried the skipper in an ecstasy of delight. "That is the way to bring them to their senses. Ready about again! And stand by to give them your port broadside. Helm's a-lee!" Round swept the _Dolphin_ again, and presently we were once more crossing the stern of the lugger, the confusion on board being, as it seemed, greater than ever. We were by this time within a quarter of a mile of our antagonist, and again our broadside, discharged at precisely the right moment, told with terrible effect on board the lugger, not only raking her from stem to stern, but also bringing down her fore and mizzen-masts. And all this time they had not replied to our fire with a single gun. Standing on for a distance of about a cable's length, the _Dolphin_ again tacked, this time fetching far enough to windward to have enabled us to cross the lugger's bows had we desired to do so. Instead of that, however, Captain Winter gave orders to keep away and pass close under her stern, the starboard broadside being all ready to pour into her if need were. Captain Winter's orders were, however, not to fire until he gave the word. Reaching along on an easy bowline, we were soon on the lugger's starboard quarter, and within biscuit-toss of the vessel, when the skipper ordered the topsail to be laid aback, and as, with diminished way, we drifted fair athwart the lugger's stern, in a position admirably adapted for raking her from end to end, he sprang into the starboard main rigging, and hailed in French, asking whether they surrendered. A man, who looked like the captain, standing near the deserted wheel, looked at us intently for a few seconds, and then, observing that we were all ready to give him our starboard broadside, answered in the affirmative; whereupon our people, several of whom had a smattering of French, gave three hearty cheers as they dropped the lanyards of their locks to the deck, and laid down their rammers, sponges, and hand-spikes. "Take the starboard cutter, Mr Bowen, and ten men, and go on board to take possession," said the skipper. "Cut away the wreckage as soon as you have secured the crew below, and then send the boat back with a couple of hands, and be ready to receive a tow-line from us. We shall have to take you in tow, as I see that the Indiaman is now on a wind; and I have no fancy for leaving either her or you to make your way into port unprotected. As soon as you are fast to us, set your men to work to get up jury-masts, if you find that there are any spars aboard suitable for the purpose. There is a fine breeze blowing now, and if we have luck we ought to get into harbour to-night, prizes and all." "Ay, ay, sir," answered I. "The carpenter had better come with us, had he not? I expect we shall want his help in rigging our jury-masts." "Yes, certainly," assented the skipper; "take him by all means." "Thank you, sir," said I as I turned away. "Now then," I continued, "ten of you into the starboard cutter, lads, as quick as you like. And take your cutlasses and pistols with you. Come along, Chips, my man; get your tools, and tumble them into the boat." Ten minutes later we were on board the lugger, which proved to be the _Belle Jeannette_, of Saint Malo, and a very fine craft she was, as we saw, when we stood upon her broad, roomy deck. She mounted nine guns, eight of them being long sixes, while the ninth was the long nine- pounder between the fore and mainmast. I was astonished to see what havoc our shot had wrought, the deck and bulwarks being broadly streaked and splashed with blood, while each gun had its own little group of two or three killed and wounded lying about it. All three of her masts had been shot away, as already stated; and, in addition to this, her stern transom was regularly torn to pieces, one of the jagged and splintered holes being quite large enough for me to have passed through it had I been so minded. Three spokes of the wheel had been shot away, and it was a wonder to me, as I marked the path of our shot along the torn and splintered deck, that the whole concern had not been destroyed. The companion was badly damaged and started; and as for the cabin skylight, there was very little of it left. The crew--the few of them who could still stand, that is to say--had thrown down their arms and gone forward on to the forecastle upon hearing their skipper state that he surrendered, and there we found them when we boarded our prize. The skipper himself--a rather fine-looking man, some thirty-five years of age, with piercing black eyes, curly black hair and beard, and large gold ear-rings in his ears--had, of course, remained aft; and when I sprang over the bulwarks, in on deck, he advanced toward me, and handing me his sheathed sword, remarked rather bitterly: "Accept my sword, monsieur, and with it my congratulations upon your good fortune in having secured two such valuable prizes. The Indiaman herself is not to be despised, but I was a fool not to let her go when I saw that her capture was inevitable. I believe we could have escaped you had we hauled our wind when we first made you out; but, as it is, I have lost not only my prize but also my ship and the chest of specie which we took the precaution of removing from the Indiaman last night. You are certain to find it, as it is lying beneath the table in my cabin, so I may as well make a virtue of necessity and tell you of it at once. Perhaps, under the circumstances, monsieur will be generous enough to be content with the treasure, and allow me to retain my lugger, which represents all that I possess in the world?" "And thus restore to you the power to inflict further injury upon our commerce? I am afraid not, monsieur," answered I. "Had you been a mere harmless trader, it might possibly have been different; but, as it is, the proposal is--pardon me for saying so--preposterous." "As monsieur pleases, of course. But it will be my ruin," remarked the man gloomily. "With monsieur's permission, then, I will retire to my cabin." And he turned away as though to go below. "Pardon me, monsieur," said I, hastily interposing between him and the companion; "I am afraid that my duty necessitates my requesting that monsieur will be so obliging as to remain on deck for the present." "Then take that, curse you!" ejaculated he, whipping a big, ugly knife out of his bosom, and striking savagely at my heart with it. Fortunately the sudden glitter in his eyes warned me, and I succeeded in catching his upraised arm in my left hand, with which I gripped his wrist so strongly that he was perforce obliged to drop the knife to the deck or submit to have his wrist broken. Kicking the weapon overboard, through an open port close at hand, I called to one of my men to clap a lashing round the hands and feet of my antagonist, and then went forward to superintend the securing of the remainder of our prisoners. There were only fourteen of them uninjured, or whose wounds were so slight as to leave them capable of doing any mischief, and these we drove down into the hold, where, finding plenty of irons, we effectually secured them. By the time that this was done, the wreck of the masts cut away, and the sails--which had been towing overboard--secured, the _Dolphin_ was ready to pass a towrope on board us. This we at once took, securing the end to the windlass bitts, when the schooner filled away, with the lugger in tow, and stood after the Indiaman, which was by this time a couple of miles to windward of us, heading to the northward on an easy bowline, on the starboard tack. Russell, the _Dolphin's_ surgeon, came aboard us about the same time as the tow-line, and while he busied himself in attending to the hurts of the Frenchmen, we went to work to rig up a set of jury-masts--suitable spars for which we were lucky enough to find aboard the lugger--and, by dint of hard work, we contrived to get three spars on end,--securely lashed to the stumps of the masts, and well stayed,--by dinner-time, and by four bells that same afternoon we had the lugger under her own canvas once more, when we cast adrift from the _Dolphin_, it being found that, even under jury-masts, the _Belle Jeannette_ was quite capable of holding her own with the Indiaman in the moderate weather then prevailing. Long before this, however, I had found an opportunity to go below and have a look at the treasure-chest, which I had found in the position indicated by the French skipper. It was an unexpectedly bulky affair; so much so, indeed, that I thought the safest place for it would be down in the _Dolphin's_ run, and there it was soon safely stowed, after I had gone on board the schooner to report to Captain Winter the great value of our prize. It afterwards turned out that this chest contained no less than thirty thousand pounds in specie; so I was right in considering it worth taking care of. CHAPTER FOUR. ANOTHER FIGHT, AND ANOTHER PRIZE. The weather had been clearing all day, and when, about six bells that afternoon, we made the high land of Portland, the sky was without a cloud, the atmosphere clear and bright, and the sun was shining as brilliantly as though it had been midsummer, quite taking the keen edge off the frosty air. There was not a vessel in sight in any direction, which was rather a relief to us; for, situated as we were then, it would have been difficult to say whether the sight of a friend or of an enemy would have excited the most uneasiness in our breasts. A friend would almost certainly have been a man-o'-war; and although our papers were nominally a protection of our crew against impressment, we were fully aware that, as a matter of fact, they were nothing of the sort, the captains of our men-o'-war impressing almost as freely from a privateer as from an ordinary merchantman. Now, our men were, so far as we had had an opportunity of proving them, first-rate fellows, with scarcely a single exception, we were therefore most anxious not to lose any of them; and were consequently the reverse of desirous to meet with one of our own ships of war. On the other hand, we were by this time so close in with the English coast that, if we happened to encounter an enemy, it would certainly be a prowling privateer--like ourselves--heavily enough armed and manned to admit of their venturing, without much risk, over to our side of the Channel, on the look-out for homeward-bound British ships. To encounter such a customer as this would mean plenty of hard knocks, without very much profit, and with just the chance of losing one or the other of our prizes. We were, therefore, heartily thankful to find a clear horizon all round us when the fog cleared away. We were destined, however, to have another bout with a Frenchman before long, as will presently appear. We had made the high land of Portland about half an hour when the sounds of distant firing were faintly borne to our ears; and shortly afterwards two craft, a cutter and a brig--the latter evidently in chase of the former--hove into view, broad on our weather-bow. The firing was not very heavy, it is true, but it was briskly maintained; and as they came sweeping rapidly down toward us it became apparent that the two craft were exchanging shots from their bow and stern-chasers respectively. The cutter was flying the British ensign, while the brig sported the tricolour; and, the two vessels being dead before the wind, the brig carrying studding-sails on both sides, the Frenchman seemed to be getting rather the best of it, overhauling the cutter slowly but surely. As soon as this was seen, the _Dolphin_ hove-to and put ten more men on board the _Belle Jeannette_, with orders to me to close with the Indiaman, and to clear for action, both which orders I obeyed without loss of time. And, while doing so, the _Dolphin_ and ourselves hoisted British colours, as a hint to the brig that if she dared to meddle with us we were quite ready for her. The cutter and the brig happened to be steering a course that would bring them close aboard of our little squadron, and when the Frenchman saw the colour of our bunting he began at once to shorten sail by taking in his studding-sails, preparatory, as we supposed, to hauling his wind out of so perilous a neighbourhood. But in supposing thus we were mistaken; the fellow evidently at once hit off our respective characters to a T; he saw that the lugger--under jury-masts and bearing other unmistakable signs of having been very recently in action--was a prize; no doubt judged the Indiaman to be a recapture; and--perhaps believing that, with these two prizes, the schooner would be very short-handed--quickly made up his mind that either of the three would be more valuable than the cutter to him. At all events he shortened sail in a most determined and workmanlike manner, threw open all his ports, and, slightly shifting his helm, made as though he would slip in between the _Dolphin_ and the Indiaman. Captain Winter, however, would not have it so; as the Frenchman luffed, the _Dolphin_ edged away, until both vessels were heading well in for the West Bay, athwart the Indiaman's hawse, and running upon lines so rapidly converging that, within ten minutes of the declaration of the Frenchman's intentions, the brig and the schooner were within biscuit- toss of each other. The brig mounted six guns of a side against the _Dolphin's_ five; but this disparity was altogether too trifling a matter for our skipper to take any notice of, and accordingly, when the two vessels had neared each other to within about twenty fathoms, the Frenchmen showing signs of an intention to run the schooner on board, Captain Winter poured in his starboard broadside, and at the same time edged away just sufficiently to keep a few fathoms of water between himself and the brig. The broadside was promptly returned, and in another minute the two vessels were at it, hammer and tongs, yard-arm to yard-arm, and running almost dead away before the wind. Meanwhile, having sent a hand aloft to take a look round, and having thus ascertained that there was nothing else in sight to interfere with us, I came to the conclusion that the Indiaman might very well take care of herself for half an hour or so; and, accordingly, we in the lugger at once bore up to support the schooner. Up to the time of encountering the Frenchman we had been sailing about a quarter of a mile to leeward of the Indiaman, while the _Dolphin_ had been jogging along about the same distance to windward of the big ship; our positions, therefore, were such that we in the lugger had only to put up our helm a couple of spokes or so to enable us to converge upon the two combatants, which we did. By the time of our arrival upon the scene the fight was raging so hotly, and both craft were so completely enveloped in smoke that neither party was aware of our presence; I therefore steered so as to just shave clear of the _Dolphin's_ stern; and, having done so, our men deliberately fired each of the four long sixes in our larboard broadside slap into the stern of the brig, raking her fore-and-aft. Then, passing out clear of her, we tacked the instant that we had room, and, passing close under her stern again, gave her in like fashion the contents of our starboard broadside. This time the Frenchmen were ready for us, and returned our fire with their two stern-chasers, both shot passing through our mainsail without doing any further damage. Again we tacked; and this time I gave orders to put in a charge of grape on top of each round shot, which we rattled into the stern of the Frenchman at a distance of not more than three or four fathoms. Our shot must have wrought terrible execution; for after each discharge we could hear the shrieks and groans of the wounded even through the crash of the two other vessels' broadsides. This time they only gave us one gun in exchange for our four, the shot passing in through our port bulwarks and out through the starboard, killing a man on its way. Our shot, however, had killed the brig's helmsman, and almost immediately afterwards the vessel broached-to, her foremast going over the bows as she did so. This was enough for them; they received another broadside from the _Dolphin_, and then, just as we were in stays, preparatory to passing athwart their stern and raking them again, a man ran aft and hauled down their flag, at the same time crying out that they surrendered. The firing on both sides at once ceased, the smoke drifted away to leeward, and we were able to see around us once more, as well as to note the condition of the combatants after our brief but spirited engagement. The cutter had seized the opportunity to make good her escape, and was now more than two miles to leeward, running before the wind to the westward on her original course. The brig--which proved to be the _Etoile du Nord_, of Dunkirk--had, as already stated, lost her foremast, her bulwarks were riddled with shot-holes, and her rigging badly cut up. The _Dolphin_ also had suffered severely from the fire of her antagonist, her starboard bulwarks being almost destroyed, her rigging showing a good many loose ropes'-ends floating in the wind, and her main-boom so severely wounded that it parted in two when her helm was put down to bring her to the wind and heave her to. As for us, the damage that we had received from the brig's fire was so trifling as to be not worth mentioning. I knew, of course, that after so determined a fight the services of our surgeon would be in urgent request on board both the principal combatants; so, as he was aboard the lugger, I ran down close under the _Dolphin's_ lee and, having hove-to, lowered a boat and put the medico on board the schooner, going with him myself to see whether I could be of any service. The deck of the schooner bore eloquent testimony to the sharpness of the recent conflict, several dead and wounded men lying about the guns in little pools of blood, while the torn and splintered woodwork that met one's view on every side was grimly suggestive of the pandemonium that had raged there a few minutes previously. Captain Winter was one of the wounded, a splinter having torn a large piece of skin from his forehead, laying bare the skull over his right eye; but the gallant old fellow had replaced the skin as well as he could, lashed up the wound with his silk neckerchief, using his pocket handkerchief under it as a pad, and was attending to his duty as coolly as though he had escaped untouched. He instructed me to go on board the brig with ten men, to take possession, leaving the carpenter in charge of the lugger, and at the same time signalled the Indiaman--which had hove-to some two miles to windward--to close. The new prize was, as may be supposed, terribly knocked about; out of a crew of eighty-six men and boys she had no less than nineteen killed-- the captain among them--and forty-three wounded; while, in addition to the damage which had been noticeable before going on board her, I found that two of her guns had been dismounted, most probably by the lugger's raking broadsides. Fortunately, her hull was quite uninjured, the whole of the damage done being to the upper works. Our first task was to clear away the wreck of the foremast, the skipper hailing me soon after I had boarded to say that he intended the Indiaman to take us in tow. The wreck was soon cut away, and just as it was falling dark we got our tow-line aboard the Indiaman, and proceeded, the uninjured Frenchmen having meanwhile requested permission to attend to their wounded fellow- prisoners and make them comfortable below. More or less disabled as we all were, with the exception of the Indiaman, it took us until past midnight to reach Weymouth roadstead, where we anchored for the night, without communicating with the shore; no one in the town, therefore, was aware of our quick return to port, and our brilliant success, until the following morning; and as for Mr Peter White, our owner, the first intimation that he had of the affair was while he was dressing; when his servant knocked at his door to say that Captain Winter had returned with three prizes, and was waiting below to see him. The old gentleman, I was afterwards told, was so excited at the good news that he would not wait to dress, but descended to the parlour, where the skipper awaited him, in his dressing-gown. The old boy was almost overwhelmed at the news of his good fortune; insisted that Captain Winter should stay to breakfast with him; and afterwards, despite the cold weather, came off to the roadstead and visited each of the prizes in turn. It was as well, perhaps, that he did so, as there was a considerable amount of business to be transacted in connection with the recapture of the _Hoogly_, the captain of which was anxious to resume his voyage up channel as soon as possible. This important matter was arranged by noon; and about two o'clock, the wind having hauled round from the southward, the Indiaman weighed and proceeded, the passengers on board having meanwhile subscribed a purse of two hundred and thirty guineas for the officers and crew of the _Dolphin_, in recognition of what they were complimentary enough to term our "gallantry" in the recapture of the ship. This nice little sum was, however, only the first instalment of what was to come; there was the salvage of the ship to follow: and over and above that I may mention that the underwriters voted a sum of five hundred guineas to us; while the Patriotic Fund Committee awarded the skipper a sword of the value of one hundred guineas, and to me a sword of half that value, for our fight with and capture of the two privateers, poor Lovell being left out in the cold in consequence of his having been prize-master of the _Hoogly_, and having therefore taken no part in either of the engagements. He got his reward, however, in another way; for the _Etoile du Nord_ turned out to be such a very fine vessel, quite new and wonderfully fast, that Mr White purchased her on his own account, rechristening her the _North Star_, and put Lovell in command. He was fairly successful in her, I afterwards heard, but not nearly to such an extent as he ought to have been with so fine a vessel under him. He declared that luck was always against him. As for me, Mr White was so pleased with the report of my conduct which Captain Winter had given him that, as soon as ever the purchase of the _Etoile du Nord_ had been effected, and Lovell provided for, he offered me the berth of chief mate of the _Dolphin_, which berth I promptly and thankfully accepted. As for the _Belle Jeannette_, she, too, was sold, fetching a very good price, and before we left port again we had divided our prize-money, my share of which amounted to the very respectable sum of two thousand six hundred and odd pounds. The _Dolphin_ had received so severe a mauling in her fight with the French privateer brig that, although the utmost despatch was used in repairing and refitting her, it was not until the 24th of December that she was again ready for sea, by which time news had reached us of the declaration of war by Spain against Great Britain. This last circumstance, of course, threw all hands of us into a fever of impatience to get to sea again, in order that we might have an early opportunity of picking up a rich Spanish prize; but when Christmas-eve arrived, finding us still in harbour, our owner was generous enough to say that we might, if we pleased, defer our sailing until the day after Christmas-day, in order that the crew might have the opportunity to spend Christmas at home, which opportunity we thankfully made the most of. But all hands were on board by noon of the 26th, when we cast off and stood out of the harbour once more before a fresh south-westerly breeze, the day being, for a wonder--with the wind in a wet quarter-- brilliantly fine, and as mild as a day in early autumn; a circumstance which most of our lads were willing to accept as the omen of a prosperous cruise. Captain Winter's object was to reach the French coast as soon as possible, and then to work along it to the westward, right round to the Spanish coast, and thence as far as Gibraltar, and perhaps into the Mediterranean, hoping that somewhere on the way we might pick up something worth having, or at least obtain information relating to a homeward or outward-bound convoy; upon clearing Portland, therefore, we stood across the Channel, on a taut bowline, on the starboard tack, making Cape de la Hague, well on our lee bow, next morning at daybreak. We then shortened sail to our fore-and-aft canvas only, and, taking in our gaff-topsail, held on as we were going, with the French coast close aboard, to leeward, until we reached Granville, when, having seen nothing worthy of our attention, we tacked to the westward, and eventually found ourselves off Cape Frehel, the easternmost extremity of Saint Brieuc Bay. This was our third day out; we had seen nothing, and the men, who appeared to think, from our past experience, that we ought to take at least one prize every day, were beginning to grumble at our ill-luck. Great, therefore, was their enthusiasm when, on the following day,--the breeze being fresh at about north-north-west, and the time about five bells in the forenoon watch,--a large ship was seen to emerge from behind Chien Point, then about eight miles distant, a couple of points on our lee bow. She was coming along under larboard studding- sails. It was my watch on deck, and upon the ship being reported to me I took the glass, and at once went up to the fore-cross-trees to get a better look at her. So far as I could make out she was full-rigged; she floated very deep in the water; and the exceeding whiteness of her sails caused me to suspect that she was homeward-bound from a long voyage. She had somewhat the look of a Dutchman, to my eye, and if so she would probably afford very respectable pickings to a crew of hard-working privateersmen like ourselves. When first seen she was steering a course that would lead her about mid-way between the islands of Jersey and Guernsey; but before I returned to the deck it seemed to me that she had hauled up a point or two, and had braced her yards correspondingly further forward. Our game, of course, was to get between her and the land, if possible, before declaring ourselves, so that, if she happened to be what I suspected, she might be prevented from running in and taking shelter under the guns of one of the numerous batteries which the French had thrown up all along the coast, to cut her out from which might involve us in a heavy loss of men. I therefore gave no order to make sail, or to alter our course, but at once went down below to the skipper, who was lying down, his wounded head still troubling him a good deal, and reported the stranger to him. He immediately followed me on deck at the news, and took a good long look at the ship through the telescope; and while he was doing so she took in her studding-sails and hauled her wind. "Ah!" remarked the skipper; "they have made us out, and evidently don't quite like our looks. I suppose her captain thinks that, having hauled his wind, we shall now make sail in chase of him if we happen to be an enemy. But I know a trick worth two of that. You did quite right, Mr Bowen, not to shift your helm. Let him stand on another three miles as he is going, and then we will show him who and what we are. Just so; there goes his bunting--Dutch, as you thought. He is beginning to feel a little anxious. Perhaps it would ease his mind a bit if you were to run the tricolour up to our gaff-end, Mr Bowen." I did so, and we kept it flying for the next half-hour, by which time the Dutchman had been brought well out on our weather beam, about six miles distant, and his retreat cut off. We then hauled down the French flag and made sail, still, however, holding on upon the same tack. By the time that we had got our topsail, topgallant-sail, flying-jib, and small gaff-topsail set the stranger was about two points abaft our weather beam, and we at once tacked in chase. This was the signal for an immediate display of confusion on board the Dutchman; which ship immediately set her royals and flying-jib, and, when she found that that would not do, bearing away sufficiently to permit of her setting all her larboard studding-sails again. Of course, as soon as she bore away we bore away too, steering such a course as would enable us to gradually converge upon her. But we had hardly been in chase half an hour when another large ship appeared in sight ahead, steering toward us; and, approaching each other rapidly, as we were, another quarter of an hour sufficed us to discover that she was a frigate, and undoubtedly French. We stood on, however, a few minutes longer, trying to devise some scheme for slipping past her without being brought to, but it evidently would not do; her people suspected us, and clearly intended to have a nearer look at us if they could; so, as she was altogether too big a craft for us to tackle, we were reluctantly compelled to abandon the chase, and heave about to ensure our own escape. And now it became our turn to play the part of the pursued; for as we went in stays the frigate fired a gun, to ascertain whether we were within range, most probably, hoisted her ensign, and made all sail in chase. The shot--a twelve-pounder, we judged it to be by the sound of the gun--fell short; yet at the same time it came near enough to satisfy us that we had not turned tail a moment too soon. Captain Winter at once jammed the schooner close upon a wind, the vessel heading up about west-north-west for the chops of the Channel, in the hope of both out-weathering and out-sailing the frigate. But the wind had shown a disposition to freshen all day, and was by this time piping up so spitefully that we had been obliged to furl our topgallant-sail and haul down our flying-jib as soon as we hauled our wind; moreover there was a nasty, short jump of a sea on, into which the _Dolphin_ plunged to her knight-heads every time. The weather was, therefore, all in the frigate's favour, and very soon, to our extreme annoyance, we discovered that the Frenchman was slowly but surely gaining upon us; for when the frigate had been in chase about half an hour, she fired another gun, the shot from which reached within twenty fathoms of us, and it was capitally aimed, too. "We must get the topgallant-sail and flying-jib on her again, Mr Bowen, and shift our small gaff-topsail for the big one. This will never do; we shall be within range in another half-hour; and then, if that fellow happens to wing us, we shall be done for!" "The sticks will never bear it, sir," answered I. "Look at our topmasts now; they are bending like fishing-rods as it is; and unless we rig the preventers pretty quickly we shall lose them, in my opinion." "Then get up your preventers at once, my dear fellow," answered the skipper; "and be as smart as you please about the job. One thing is quite certain, and that is that unless we can drive the schooner a little faster we shall be nabbed!" "Perhaps, sir," said I, "if we were to keep the schooner away about half a point she would go along more freely. We are looking a good point higher than the frigate at present, but we are hugging the wind so closely that we have no life in us, and are losing as much as we gain." The skipper looked at the frigate astern, then up at the weather leech of our own topsail, which was lifting at every plunge of the schooner. "Perhaps you are right, George," said he. "At all events your suggestion is worth trying. So, my man," to the helmsman, at the same time peering into the binnacle, "keep her away to west-by-north; nothing higher." "West-and-by-north, and nothin' higher, sir," answered the man, easing his weather helm a couple of spokes as I turned away to see to the preventer back-stays being rigged. CHAPTER FIVE. THE FRENCH FRIGATE. Our preventer back-stays--which, for the benefit of the uninitiated, I may explain, were simply extra ropes intended to take a portion of the strain and so relieve the ordinary back-stays whenever it became necessary to carry a very heavy press of canvas--were already cut and fitted; all that we had to do, therefore, was to send their upper ends aloft and attach them to their respective spars by shackling the eye to a stout iron collar on the spar, fitted especially for the purpose, set up the lower ends by means of runners to ring-bolts in the stanchions, and the thing was done. Five minutes sufficed for this job, and we then reset our topgallant-sail and flying-jib, and shifted our gaff-topsail. The effect soon became apparent; for a few minutes after we had concluded our work the frigate fired another gun, the shot from which only reached to within about thirty fathoms of us. I was inclined to attribute this result, however, quite as much to our having eased the schooner away a trifle as to the extra canvas that we had packed upon her. I believed we should have done quite as well, if not better, without it; for the poor little craft seemed pressed down and buried by the enormous leverage of the wind upon her sails. She was heeling over so much that it was difficult to maintain one's footing upon the steeply inclined deck; the lee scuppers were all afloat, and at every lee roll the white, yeasty seething from her lee bow brimmed to the level of her rail, sometimes even toppling in over it. She was a magnificent sea- boat; but we were now driving her so unmercifully that at every plunge into the hollow of a sea she buried her sharp nose completely, taking green water in over both the lee and the weather-bow by tons at a time, so that it became necessary to close the fore-scuttle to prevent the water from going below. As for the spray, it flew over us in clouds, coming right aft, and wetting our mainsail as high up as the second reef-band. Another gun from the frigate served to conclusively demonstrate that we were at least holding our own; but our topmasts were bending like fishing-rods, and at every savage plunge of the schooner I quite expected to see one or both of them go over the side. The skipper, too, was very uneasy, as I could see by the anxious glances that he continually flung aloft. At length, when the frigate had fired yet another gun, the shot from which fell at about the same distance astern of us as the preceding one had done, he turned to me and said: "This is all very well, George, as far as it goes; and if the wind would only drop a little we might snap our fingers at that fellow astern; but I don't at all like the way that those topmasts are whipping about, up there. If so much as a rope-yarn parts we shall lose them, as sure as fate; and then we may bear up for a French prison as soon as we please. The frigate keeps popping away at us, in the hope, I suppose, that a lucky shot may wing us; and I don't see why we shouldn't return the compliment. We are just out of reach of her twelve-pounders, but I think our long eighteen ought to be capable of pitching a shot aboard her. Just bowse it up to wind'ard as far as it will go, and let us see what it will do." "Ay, ay, sir," answered I. "The gun ought to reach her; and if we can but wing her, though ever so slightly, we may scrape clear after all. Lay aft, here, some of you, and get the tarpaulin off this Long Tom, and pass the word for the gunner." We soon got the gun into position, and the captain of it--a man who had seen a great deal of service on board a man-o'-war, from which he had deserted just before joining the _Dolphin_--tried a shot at the frigate. The gun was splendidly aimed, but it was fired just a second too late, as the schooner's stern was dipping; the result was that the shot, which flew straight for the frigate, struck the water some distance ahead of her. "Very good, Mason, for a first attempt!" remarked the skipper approvingly. "Try again, my lad." The gun was sponged, loaded, and again fired, and this time the shot hulled the frigate fair and square, striking her about a foot below the larboard hawse-pipe. "Now," remarked the skipper, "try her again, my fine fellow. You ought to do something worth the powder this time." The words were hardly spoken when the frigate bore almost square up for a moment, and let fly her whole weather broadside at us; but every one of the shot fell short. The moment that she had fired she luffed up into our wake once more. Again Mason pointed the long gun and fired, but this time--perhaps because he was too careful--the shot flew wide, striking the water some distance to leeward and, as we all thought, astern of the frigate. "Keep cool, Mason, keep cool, my man," warned the skipper. "That shot was well meant, and shows that you have got the range to a nicety; but you were in too much of a hurry. Try again." Mason mopped his forehead with his handkerchief, although the wind was piercingly cold; the gun was reloaded, and then Mason pointed and levelled it with the utmost care. When this was done, taking the lanyard in his hand he stepped back to the utmost length of the line, and with arm outstretched, stood for more than a minute squinting along the sights of the gun. Suddenly he pulled the lanyard, the gun belched forth a torrent of flame and smoke, and, as I stood looking at the frigate through my own telescope, I saw a small round hole appear in the foot of the fore-topgallant-sail, another moment and the topgallant-mast doubled over and went, hanging down by its rigging, under the lee of the topsail, with the topgallant-sail and royal attached. "Hurrah!" shouted I, in an ecstasy of delight; "winged her, by all that is fortunate!" The men heartily echoed my cheer; one or two of them playfully patting Mason on the shoulder, by way of encouragement. "A most excellent shot!" remarked the skipper. "I owe you a glass of grog for that, Mason; and you shall have it, my lad, but by and by, not now; you must keep your head perfectly clear until we have done with that gun. Try her again!" They were certainly a very smart set of fellows aboard the Frenchman; for no sooner had the topgallant-mast fallen than the hands were in her rigging on their way aloft to clear away the wreck. Again Mason levelled the gun, taking a long and careful aim as before; and this time the shot struck the sill of the frigate's lee bridle port, entering the port, and no doubt raking the deck for a considerable portion of its length. That it did enough damage to greatly exasperate the French captain seemed almost certain, for presently he bore away again and treated us to another broadside, the shot of which fell so far astern that it looked as though we were now creeping away from her. Mason now seemed to have got his hand in, for his next shot hit the frigate's bowsprit-end as fair as though he had specially aimed at it, knocking the cap to pieces, and causing the jib-booms to go over to leeward. This completely disabled the frigate, so far as chasing to windward was concerned, as with the loss of her jib-booms she also lost the use of her jibs; the pressure of her after-sail at once throwing her up into the wind until she was all aback. They at once went to work to take in all the sail upon her mizzen-mast, and presently boxed her off again; but her captain knew that to think of catching us now was out of the question, and presently he wore round and hauled up to the northward and eastward, on an easy bowline; his people swarming on the forecastle as they busied themselves in securing the jibs. Our lads gave three rousing cheers as they saw the frigate bear up; but it appeared that we had not quite done with her yet, for as the men ceased cheering, the skipper very quietly remarked: "Now it is our turn! That fellow has given us some anxiety; and, now that we have the opportunity, we will return the compliment. I mean to teach him that he cannot bully us poor, hard-working privateersmen with impunity. Take in your topgallant-sail, flying-jib, and gaff-topsail, Mr Bowen, and then stand by to 'bout ship." Our men responded to this with a cheer of rapturous delight. We had had an opportunity to take a good look at the frigate as she wore round, and we had made her out to be a vessel of thirty-six guns. The audacity of the idea of the _Dolphin_ actually chasing such a ship exactly suited the taste of our people; it was a stupendous practical joke to them, and they entered into it with all the glee and spirit of so many overgrown school-boys. Sail was quickly shortened, and we then hove about and steered after the Frenchman. The first thing to be done was to get the long gun over to windward. This was soon accomplished; and then Mason went to work once more. His first and second shots were misses; but the third one plumped slap in through the frigate's cabin windows. The next shot struck the gig that was hanging at the frigate's weather quarter, tearing her bottom out; and the next passed through her main-topsail. After this came four misses in succession, to the unspeakable disgust of all hands, who chaffed poor Mason so unmercifully that he almost lost his temper over it. The skipper thought the opportunity a good one to serve out a glass of grog to the gun's crew, which had the effect of restoring harmony; and presently Long Tom began to speak again. The shot struck fair upon the frigate's stern; and almost instantly she flew up into the wind, with all the appearance of something having gone wrong with her steering-gear. She remained head to wind for so long a time that at length the skipper caused our own helm to be put down and the topsail laid to the mast lest we should stand on too far and get within range of her guns. And we were not a moment too soon; for as we rounded-to she fired the whole of her larboard broadside at us, the shot making the water spout all round us, and one of them actually striking our hull; it was, however, so far spent that it did no damage. Lying almost broadside-on to us, as the frigate now was, she presented a very pretty mark for target practice; and our long eighteen was brought to bear upon her most effectively. Shot after shot we gave her, as fast as the men could load, and almost every one of them struck her somewhere. Mason's blood was now thoroughly up; he was making a reputation as a crack shot, and he knew it. I saw, by the increasing care with which he every time sighted his piece, that he was striving to do something specially good; and presently he did it. Taking an unusually long and careful aim he at length gave a smart tug to the lanyard, and immediately sprang aside to watch the result. "Did it, by the great horn spoon!" shouted he delightedly; and even as he spoke we saw the white splinters fly from the frigate's mainmast- head; the topmast swayed aft, tottered for a moment, and came down by the run! The delight of our men--every soul of whom was by this time on deck--was a sight to see! They cheered shouted, laughed, patted Mason on the back, and were in the midst of a variety of ludicrous antics, expressive of supreme gratification, when another broadside rattled out from the frigate, and this time the shot went humming close over our heads, drilling half a dozen holes in our canvas, and showing us that we had drifted within range of her guns. We immediately filled on the schooner, and hauled off to a respectful distance; for we had no fancy for being reduced to the same plight as the Frenchman. But the moment that we considered ourselves safe from her guns we again hove-to, and resumed our attentions with the long gun. They were now in a very pretty mess on board the frigate; but they managed at length to box her off again; and this time they bore up for the land; making as though they would run in behind the Saint Riom islands. We immediately bore up in chase, and, running parallel with her, and taking care to keep just beyond the range of her broadside, plied her with the long gun again so effectively that some twenty minutes afterwards her foremast went over the bows, and, broaching-to once more, she lay completely at our mercy. "There," exclaimed the skipper, in a tone of great gratification, "that will do with the gun. We have done enough for honour, I think, and have given him a thorough good licking, so we may as well be off. We cannot take him," he continued, in answer to my exclamation of astonishment at this decision on his part; "he is altogether too big a fish for our net. If he were to haul down his colours he would rehoist them directly that, in running down to take possession of him, he had got us fairly within the range of his broadside; and at close quarters he would simply sink us in ten minutes. No; I am sorry, but I can see nothing for it but to leave him--unless you have any plan to suggest, Mr Bowen." "I am really very much afraid that what you say is only too true, sir," answered I mournfully. "I suppose we could compel him to haul down his colours, by pegging away at him with our long gun, as he is fairly in our power now; but, naturally, he would seize any opportunity that might present itself to effect a recapture. At the same time it seems a thousand pities to leave him now that we have given him such a terrible mauling. Why not keep pounding away at him a little longer? Perhaps we may yet hit upon some plan by which to secure possession; and only think of what a feather it would be in our caps if we could but capture a fine frigate like that, and take her into port!" "That is very true," answered the skipper, and I could see that my reference to the credit of such an exploit had touched him in a weak spot. "Well," he continued, "we will not give up yet awhile. The frigate is unmanageable at present, and will continue so until they can get some sort of a jury-mast rigged for'ard; so we will fill on the schooner, and make a stretch to windward until we can get into a raking position, then drop down upon mounseer, and see what we can do with him. But it is a risky business; a lucky shot may cripple us at any moment, and we should then be done for. However, `nothing venture, nothing have!' so fill your topsail, Mr Bowen, and we will make a bid for glory, although that is not our business." This decision was received with enthusiasm by the men, who at once went to work with hearty good-will to execute the orders that the skipper now rapidly issued. We filled upon the schooner, and reached away to the northward and eastward on an easy bowline, keeping just beyond reach of the frigate's guns, and making play diligently all the time with our own long eighteen, aiming for the stump of the foremast, so as to embarrass the Frenchmen as much as possible in any attempt that they might make to rig up a jury spar. But the French captain was game to the backbone, and, helpless as he was to retaliate upon us, omitted no effort to extricate himself from the difficulties by which he was surrounded. What would he not have given, at that moment, for a single gun powerful enough to have reached us? As it was, he fired at us at frequent intervals, for the apparent purpose of ascertaining whether we had inadvertently ventured within range; and I noticed that every shot fell further away from us. I could not at first comprehend this, as our own shot continued to strike every time; but at length I thought I had hit upon an explanation of the mystery, which I mentioned to Captain Winter. My belief was that the French captain was gradually reducing his charges of powder, in the hope that, by so doing, he would tempt us to draw nearer, under the impression that we were well out of range, when, perhaps, by a well-directed broadside, with a full powder charge, he might succeed in unrigging us; when our capture, by means of his boats, would be an easy matter. We were not, however, to be so easily tempted. At length, by dint of great exertion, and probably at the cost of many men, the Frenchmen succeeded in cutting adrift the wreck of their foremast; when, by furling all the canvas upon their mizzen-mast, they managed to once more get the frigate before the wind and heading in for the land. And now came our opportunity, for we were by this time dead to windward of our antagonist; and no sooner was she before the wind than we, too, kept away, gradually closing with her, and keeping our long gun playing upon her until there was a hole in her stern big enough to have driven a coach through. As soon as we were near enough she opened fire upon us with her two stern-chasers; and at the very first fire both shots came in through our bows and raked us fore and aft, killing one man and wounding three others with the splinters that were sent flying about our ears. Finding that we had approached her too closely, we immediately hauled our wind, and began to sail to-and-fro athwart her stern, keeping up a brisk fire upon her with our long gun, and raking her at every shot. This went on for about a quarter of an hour, during which she repeatedly returned our fire, but without effect; and then a lucky shot from us cut her main-yard in two in the slings, and she was once more helpless, broaching-to, and lying with her bows well up to the wind. This reduced to nothing her hopes of escape by running in under the land and anchoring within the shelter of the guns of a battery; and after receiving three or four more shots from us, she actually hauled down her colours and surrendered, to the unmitigated delight of our lads, who cheered themselves hoarse over their victory. And now came the delicate question of taking possession. We fully realised that it was only the superior power of our long eighteen that had enabled us to accomplish the astonishing feat of compelling a frigate of thirty-six guns to haul down her colours to a schooner mounting less than a third of that armament; and we felt that our only chance of securing peaceable possession of our prize, now that she had surrendered, was to maintain the advantage conferred upon us by this superiority. It was, therefore, at length decided that I should go on board the prize with forty men to take possession, while the schooner remained hove-to out of range of the frigate's guns, but near enough to open fire again with the long gun, should we meet with any difficulty from the French crew. My instructions were, to go on board, secure the crew, and then fire three blank cartridges in quick succession as a signal that I had obtained possession; upon which the schooner was to close and render me all possible assistance. CHAPTER SIX. WE ARE COMPELLED TO ABANDON OUR PREY. We lowered our two cutters and the gig, and then, picking out my forty men, and arming them with a cutlass and a brace of pistols apiece, I shoved off to take possession of our prize. There was a rather nasty, short, choppy sea running; but, fortunately, we were to windward, and only had to run down before it. As we neared the frigate it became increasingly apparent to us that she was an exceedingly fine and handsome ship; her tonnage, according to my estimate, being not far short of nine hundred tons. She had been knocked about a good deal more severely than I had anticipated; and as we drew still nearer I was astonished to perceive that some of her scuppers were running blood. It took us about half an hour to pull down to her; and when we went alongside, under her lee, we met with no opposition whatever in boarding, somewhat to my surprise, I must confess, for, as a matter of fact, I did not believe that they had really surrendered, the hauling down of their colours being, in my opinion, only a ruse to get us within reach of their guns. In this, however, as it turned out, I was mistaken, and did the commanding officer an injustice. We clambered up the frigate's lofty side without let or hindrance; and when I sprang, sword in hand, down upon her deck, I was met by a mere lad, his beardless face deadly pale, his head bound up in a blood-sodden bandage, and his right arm hanging helpless--and broken--by his side. With his left hand he tendered to me his sword, in silence, and then, turning away, burst into tears. And as I looked around me I could well understand the cause of the poor young fellow's emotion. It was not only that this fine, handsome ship-- brand-new, as it turned out, and only commissioned a few days previously--was a perfect wreck aloft, but the dead and wounded were lying about her decks, especially in the vicinity of the stump of the foremast, in heaps. Her bulwarks were shot through and through; her wheel was smashed to pieces; and there were long scorings fore-and-aft her decks, showing the paths that our eighteen-pound shot had ploughed up in their destructive passage. But even this was not the worst of it; for when I turned to the young officer and tried to soothe him by the utterance of some platitude having reference to "the fortune of war", he informed me that, although he had that morning been the ship's junior lieutenant, he was now the senior surviving officer; the captain and the other lieutenants being among the killed. "And to think," he ejaculated bitterly, "that we should have been compelled to strike to such an insignificant craft as that!" pointing to the schooner. "But," he added, "you did not fight fair; you never gave us a chance. Had you but once fairly come within range of our guns we would have blown you out of the water!" "Precisely!" I agreed; "we were well aware of that, monsieur, and, therefore, we preferred to fight you at a respectful distance. And now," I continued, "as I have relieved you of your command, let me beg you to lose no time in going below to the surgeon to get your hurts attended to; I am sure that France can ill afford to lose so brave a man as yourself." The poor fellow smiled wanly at my clumsy compliment, and with a bow turned away to follow my suggestion; while I went to work to get the prisoners disarmed and secured below. This was managed without difficulty; the French appearing to be too utterly downcast and broken- spirited to dream of resisting us after having hauled down their colours; and I was not surprised at this when I shortly afterwards learned that, out of a crew numbering two hundred and eighty-four, she had lost no less than seven officers and sixty-three men killed, and eighty-eight officers and men wounded. It was astonishing; the more so when I came to reflect that all this loss and damage had been inflicted by one gun! But then it was to be remembered that the unfortunate frigate had been under the fire of that one gun for close upon five hours; the dusk of the short winter's day closing down upon us shortly after we had boarded our prize--the name of which, by the way, was the _Musette_. Having secured our prisoners, I fired the three blank cartridges agreed upon as a signal, when the _Dolphin_ ran down and sent the end of a hawser aboard for the purpose of taking us in tow. She also put very nearly her whole crew aboard, retaining merely enough hands to work her, in order that we might have as much strength as possible for the purpose of rigging up jury-masts. We had been in tow of the schooner but half an hour when Captain Winter came aboard in a boat to say that we were rather too heavy for him to manage, the breeze having been steadily freshening all day and raising a sea that caused the schooner to strain to an alarming extent with so heavy a craft as the frigate hanging on to her. We therefore went to work to get some sail upon the prize forthwith, and, having routed out a main-staysail, we set it. We found that, in the strong breeze then blowing, even this small amount of canvas was sufficient to place the frigate under command; we therefore cast off from the _Dolphin_, and that craft thereupon shortened sail to her boom-foresail and fore- staysail, so that she might not run away from us. But even under that short canvas she was able to sail round and round us. During the whole of that night we stood to the northward and eastward; and all night long, too, we were hard at work, watch and watch, getting up jury spars; the result of our labours being that, by daybreak next morning, we had got a very serviceable jury foremast in place, enabling us to set a fore-staysail, and also a main-topsail in place of a foresail. With this head sail we were also enabled to give the frigate her close-reefed mizzen-topsail and spanker; with which canvas we began to move through the water at quite a respectable pace--that is to say about four knots per hour. This, however, was not all; for the carpenter had been hard at work all through the night preparing a jury fore-topmast and jib-boom; while we had got a spare main-yard swung aloft and slung; by mid-day, therefore, we were enabled to set a fore- topsail, jib, and mainsail, which further increased our speed. By four bells in the afternoon watch the island of Jersey was in sight, broad upon our lee bow, some six miles distant; and at eight bells we tacked ship, being anxious not to draw too close in with the French coast in our then disabled condition. As the sun went down that night the weather manifested a tendency to improve, and by midnight the wind had softened down to a gentle breeze that barely gave us steerage-way through the water. Finally it died away altogether, and when the sun rose next morning, clear and bright, the _Dolphin_ and ourselves were boxing the compass, not half a cable's length apart. This in itself was rather provoking, as we were exceedingly anxious to get our prize into port, and off our hands; but the delay was as nothing compared with the disagreeable circumstance that there were three exceedingly suspicious-looking sails in sight, about ten miles to the westward of us, apparently consorts, for we could see a good deal of signalling going on between them, of which we could make nothing. They were a ship, a brig, and a large lugger, and the cut of their canvas left us little room to doubt that they were French. Of course it was quite possible that they might all three be perfectly harmless merchantmen, but there was a certain smart, knowing look about them eminently suggestive of the privateersman, and if that was their character there could be no doubt whatever that we should find them very objectionable and dangerous neighbours immediately that a breeze happened to spring up. So little did Captain Winter like their appearance that, immediately after breakfast--the calm seeming likely to continue for some few hours--he ordered his own gig to be lowered, and went away in her to get a nearer look at them. There was not much danger in this course, as the gig was a beautifully light, splendidly modelled, fast-pulling boat, exactly suited for such a service, and not in the least likely to be overtaken by any boat such as either of the three vessels in sight might be expected to carry. I did not, therefore, greatly concern myself with the skipper's movements, but gave my whole attention to the getting of additional jury spars aloft, in order that, if possible, the frigate might be brought into something like fighting order by the time that the breeze should come. We were busy pointing a new main-topmast when the boatswain, who was in the top, hailed the deck to say that the lugger and brig had rigged out their sweeps, and were heading in our direction, while the ship had lowered her boats and sent them ahead to tow. I went up into the mizzen-topmast cross-trees, taking my glass with me, and soon discovered that the report was only too correct; for when I reached my perch all three craft were heading straight for us, the lugger churning up the water with her sweeps and coming along at quite a smart pace, the brig following close behind, and the ship, in tow of her own boats, bringing up the rear. This effectually disposed of the theory that they might possibly be merchantmen; they were far too heavily-manned to be anything but privateers or men-o'-war, and it was perfectly clear that they were fully bent upon paying us a visit. It afterwards appeared that Captain Winter did not suspect this new development until some time after the strangers had got into motion; then, observing that all three vessels kept their heads persistently pointed in our direction, and that he appeared to be nearing them much faster than at first, an inkling of the truth dawned upon him, and he ordered his crew to pull easy, that they might reserve their strength for a spurt in case of need. Nevertheless, he continued to pull toward them until he had arrived within gun-shot of the lugger--the crew of which at once opened fire upon him--when, having ascertained the force of the squadron, he returned with all speed to us, having meanwhile made up his mind how to act. He discovered that the lugger mounted six six-pounders; the brig showed five ports of a side, but the weight of her metal he could not ascertain, since her guns were run in and her ports closed; and the ship mounted sixteen guns, apparently nine-pounders. Now this was a force altogether too strong for us to cope with, even had we not been hampered with a prize to look after; for, unlike the case of the frigate, the force was distributed among three vessels instead of being concentrated on board of one only; and while Captain Winter was always ready to trust something to the chapter of accidents, and to risk a good deal upon the chance that a lucky shot might seriously disable a single antagonist, it became a different matter altogether when there were three craft to contend with. He, therefore, reluctantly came to the conclusion that our prize must be sacrificed in order to ensure our own safety. He therefore pulled straight to the _Dolphin_, and ordering the whole of her boats to be lowered and manned, sent them alongside the frigate, coming on board himself to superintend the operations upon which he had decided. His first act was to order the whole of the frigate's boats to be stripped of their oars, rowlocks, and bottom-boards, and when this was done they were lowered, and the prisoners, wounded as well as sound, sent down into them; when, as soon as he had satisfied himself that the whole of the Frenchmen were out of the ship, the frigate's boats were towed about a mile away and cast adrift. Meanwhile, in obedience to instructions, I had collected all the inflammable material that I could lay hands upon, and had set the ship on fire in four places, with the result that when the _Dolphin's_ boats returned alongside our prize to take us off, she was well alight, with the smoke pouring in dense clouds up through every opening in the deck. It took us but a short time to leave her, and the moment that we were once more on board the schooner the sweeps were manned and the vessel put upon a northerly course, this direction having been chosen in consequence of the discovery that a light air had sprung up and was coming down from the northward and eastward, which would place us dead to windward of our formidable antagonists by the time that it reached us. At the moment when the _Dolphin_ began to move, the lugger was some seven miles away, bearing due west, the brig being about half a mile astern of her, and the ship perhaps a mile astern of the brig. Very shortly afterwards the flames burst up through the frigate's main hatchway, and half an hour later she was blazing from stem to stern; so that, although we had lost her, there was no chance of her again falling into the hands of the French. The breeze was a long time in finding its way down to us; so long, indeed, that after waiting a full half-hour, with the cat's-paws playing upon the water within biscuit-toss of us, the helm was ported and the schooner headed straight for the fringe of delicate blue that marked the dividing line where the calm and the wind were contending together for the mastery. This was reached in about a quarter of an hour, when, after a feeble preliminary rustling, our canvas filled, the sweeps were laid in, and we began to move through the water at a speed of some two and a half knots per hour, heading up nearly due north, while the lugger and the brig at the same time kept away, in the hope apparently of intercepting us, and the ship despatched two of her boats to the rescue of their helpless compatriots adrift in the frigate's boats. The lugger, which was a very fine and evidently very fast vessel of her class, was making desperate efforts to close with us, with such success that at the end of another half-hour it became evident that, unless the light and fickle breeze freshened somewhat in the interim, another couple of hours would see her within gun-shot of us. This, however, gave us no concern whatever, for we were far more than a match for her alone, and although the brig also was doing her best, we were both drawing away from her so steadily that we of the _Dolphin_ quite reckoned upon being able in due time to fight and take the lugger before her consort could come up to her assistance. Six bells in the forenoon watch had just struck when the frigate blew up with a dull, heavy boom, not nearly so loud as I had expected to hear, but the concussion was terrific, causing the schooner to quiver to her keel, while its effect upon the languid breeze was such as to completely kill it for three or four minutes. At the end of that time it came creeping stealthily along the water again, and about half an hour later it reached the lugger, which immediately laid in her sweeps and hauled close to the wind in pursuit of us. We were at this time under all plain sail, to our royal and flying-jib, creeping along at a speed of about four and a half knots, the lugger being about a point abaft our lee beam and two miles distant from us, but looking up about half a point higher than ourselves, in her eagerness to close with us. By noon it had become apparent that we had the advantage in point of speed, so that it lay with us to make good our escape, or not, as we pleased. We had, however, lost one valuable prize, through the inopportune appearance of the lugger and her consorts, and were by no means disposed to go off empty-handed, if we could help it. We therefore quietly and unostentatiously checked our sheets and weather braces just sufficiently to permit the wind to all but spill out of our canvas, thus deadening our way somewhat; and the men then went to dinner. Our little ruse had its desired effect, the lugger having closed up to within a mile by the time that the men were ready to turn to again; and as the schooner had long ago been cleared for action, the galley fire was now extinguished, and the crew went to the guns in readiness for the coming struggle. At the same time our helm was eased up a trifle, and we began to edge down upon our antagonist. Just about this time the brig caught the first of the breeze, and at once crowded sail in chase. It was therefore time for us to set about our work in earnest, if we did not desire to have her to reckon with as well as the lugger. Nevertheless, we still withheld our fire; the skipper being determined not to begin until he could make short work of it. "Mr Bowen," said he to me, when we were within about half a mile of the lugger, "I want to take that fellow with as little damage as possible to his spars and rigging, because if they happen to be much cut up we may find ourselves so seriously hampered as to have some difficulty in getting away from the other two. Be good enough, therefore, to go round the deck, and direct the men to aim with the utmost care at the ports, so that our shot may sweep her decks and drive her men from their guns, after which it will be an easy matter to run alongside and carry her with a rush. I expect her people are already so tired with their long spell at the sweeps that they will not have much stomach for a hand-to- hand fight. Ha! there she opens fire! So it is time to show our colours." And he proceeded to bend on and hoist the ensign with his own hands, while I turned away to carry out his instructions. The single shot that the lugger had fired flew fair between our masts, cutting our lee topsail brace. The damage, however, was repaired in less than five minutes by a hand who sprang aloft and neatly spliced and re-rove the brace. Meanwhile our lads had carefully levelled and pointed their guns, and now only awaited the word to fire. This soon came from the skipper, whereupon the five guns in our larboard broadside rang out together, five neat holes in the lugger's bulwarks testifying to the accuracy with which they had been aimed. The lugger almost instantly replied with her starboard broadside, and again the shot went humming over us, but this time without doing any damage. They probably had no very keen desire to engage us single-handed, but were anxious to cripple us and so give time for the brig to close to their support; but in their anxiety to do this they had pointed their guns so high that the shot had flown over us altogether. Our lads were quite wide-awake enough to understand the importance of making short work of the lugger. They therefore handled their guns very smartly, giving the enemy two broadsides in exchange for their one, and we were now close enough to observe that the second of these two broadsides had dismounted one of the lugger's guns. "Hurrah, lads!" exclaimed the skipper; "look alive and load again. If you are smart we shall just have time to give another broadside, and board in the smoke. Stand by, fore and aft, with your grappling-irons, and heave as we touch. I will lead the boarders myself, Mr Bowen; so be good enough to take charge of the ship--" He was interrupted by another broadside from the lugger, which this time crashed in through the bulwarks, and I immediately felt that I was hurt, a sharp, stinging, burning pain just above my left elbow indicating the locality of the injury. It proved to be a mere trifle, however, a large splinter having been driven into the flesh. I quickly pulled it out, and hurriedly bound up the wound with my pocket handkerchief, and as I was doing so Captain Winter gave the word to the helmsman to "Up helm, and run her aboard!" "I see that you are hurt, Mr Bowen," said he, turning to me. "Nothing very serious, I hope?" "A mere scratch, sir, I thank you," replied I. "Nothing worth speaking about." "So much the better," answered the skipper. "Are you ready, there, with the guns? Then fire as we touch, and then follow me everybody but the sail-trimmers. Fire!" The two vessels collided with considerably more violence than I had anticipated, so much so, indeed, that the shock sent me reeling to the deck, whereby I just escaped being shot through the head by the volley of musketry with which the Frenchmen greeted our arrival; at the same moment our broadside again crashed through and through the lugger's bulwarks; and with a hearty cheer on our side, and a terrific hullabaloo on the part of the French, our lads leapt aboard the lugger, and, taking no denial, succeeded in clearing her decks after an obstinate fight of about a minute, during which several rather severe hurts were given and received on both sides. CHAPTER SEVEN. OUR ATTACK UPON ABERVRACH HARBOUR. The unwounded prisoners were quickly secured below;--the wounded on both sides being as quickly transferred to the _Dolphin_, in order that they might the more conveniently be attended to by our worthy surgeon; after which the prize was placed in charge of our second mate--a Portland man named John Comben--and we made sail in company. The brig was at this time about a mile distant on our lee quarter, while the ship was about a mile and a half distant, just open of the brig's stern. Captain Winter stood looking wistfully at the two vessels for a long time; but at length turned away and said regretfully: "I am afraid we shall have to be content with what we have got, George. If there was only one of them, and I wouldn't care very much which of them it was, I would tackle her unhesitatingly; but the two of them together are rather too big a mouthful for us. So make sail and let us get back to Weymouth as quickly as we can; if another Frenchman were to heave in sight while those two are so close to us we might find it a hard matter to take care of ourselves, to say nothing of the lugger." The brig and the ship clung persistently to our skirts the whole of that day, although we gradually drew away from them; but during the night we lost sight of them, and late the next evening we arrived in Weymouth harbour without further adventure. Our prize--the _Cerf_, of Saint Brieuc--proved to be a very fine vessel, and quite worth the taking; still the prize-money accruing from her capture did not amount to very much, and Captain Winter came to the conclusion that, with so many vessels of our own nationality already swarming in the Channel, that locality could no longer be regarded as a very profitable cruising-ground. He therefore determined, with Mr White's full approval, to prosecute operations further afield; trying the Atlantic first of all, and afterwards--if that did not yield satisfactory results--pushing right across as far as the West Indies. This decision arrived at, we pressed forward our preparations with all speed, and a week later were once more ready for sea. We sailed early on a Saturday morning with a moderate breeze at west; and, having cleared the Bill of Portland, stretched away for the French coast, close-hauled on the starboard tack, making the land near Abervrach Harbour shortly after mid-day on the following Monday. We stood in to within a mile of the land, and then tacked. We were about ten miles off shore when our look-out reported a large sail on our weather beam, coming down under studding-sails, and it being my watch on deck I went up on to the topsail yard to have a better look at her. She was about ten miles dead to windward of us at this time, and was steering a course to take her between us and the land. She was evidently a merchantman of about six hundred tons burden or thereabout, floating pretty deep in the water, and had all the appearance of being French. Having completed my observations, I went down and reported to the skipper, who immediately gave orders to tack ship that we might get a nearer view of her. This was done, and when we got round it was found that the stranger bore broad on our weather-bow. We happened to be under easy sail at the time, and Captain Winter at first decided not to increase our spread of canvas, hoping by this means to impress our neighbour with the belief that we were in nowise concerning ourselves about him. But it would not do; he clearly distrusted us, for we were no sooner round than he edged away toward the land, making for Abervrach harbour; and an hour later we had the mortification of seeing the craft--by this time determinable as a barque--enter the harbour and anchor under the guns of one of the two batteries that guarded its entrance. We hoisted French colours, and steered as though we, too, were about to enter the harbour; but the skipper was altogether too wary to venture inside, so when by observation we had ascertained all that we could about the place without exposing the schooner to the fire of either of the batteries, we tacked and stood off shore again as though working along the coast. This was about six bells in the afternoon watch, and as the breeze was light and the flood-tide against us, we made very little progress, and of that little we wasted as much as we thought we dared without exciting suspicion; our object being to remain in the neighbourhood until after dark, and then attempt a cutting-out expedition. The harbour was a snug enough place, and excellently adapted for the purpose of sheltering shipping from the attack of an enemy; the entrance being guarded by two six-gun batteries--one on each headland--mounting thirty-two pounders, the combined fire of both batteries effectually commanding the entrance. These two batteries were apparently all that we had to fear; but they were quite enough, nay, more than enough, for they were capable of sinking a much bigger craft than the _Dolphin_ in less than ten minutes. It was these batteries, therefore, that we had to reckon with in the first place; and, after talking the matter quietly over in the cabin, it was ultimately decided that, as soon as it was dark enough to conceal our movements, the canvas should be taken off the schooner, and she should be allowed to drive, under bare poles, along the coast back to the eastward until once more abreast of the harbour entrance, when the anchor was to be let go. Then a sharp look-out was to be kept for the barque, and if there were no signs of her making an attempt to slip out to sea again before two o'clock in the morning, the boats were to be lowered, and the skipper and I, with all the hands that could be spared, were to pull in, surprise the batteries, spike the guns, and then dash aboard the barque and bring her out. The night happened to be dark, with an overcast sky and a thick drizzle of rain; it was therefore excellently adapted for our purpose, and having arrived within about a mile and a half of the land, the first part of our programme was carried out by furling everything and allowing the schooner to drive up the coast until a deeper blackness in the shadow that indicated the land revealed that we were off the harbour's mouth. Here the anchor was let go; and as every precaution had been taken to prevent any light from showing on board the schooner, we had good reason for hoping that our presence in that particular spot was unsuspected. An anchor watch was set, with instructions to keep a sharp look-out and at once report to the skipper anything of an unusual or suspicious character, when all hands turned in for the purpose of securing as much rest as possible prior to the execution of the important task that we had set ourselves. Nothing having occurred during the earlier part of the night, all hands were called at four bells in the middle watch, a cup of hot coffee and a biscuit was served out to each man, and then those who were to go away in the boats were told off and armed; after which the skipper made a short speech, explaining the nature of the service upon which we were about to engage, and how it was proposed to execute it, after which the boats were got into the water, and we pulled away with muffled oars for the shore. It had been arranged that the skipper should tackle the battery on the eastern side of the harbour mouth, while I was to deal with the one on the western headland; and as it was deemed possible that, despite all our efforts to mislead those on shore, our appearance during the afternoon might have awakened a sufficient amount of uneasiness to cause a watch to be set for us, it was further arranged that a landing should be effected, if possible, on the outside beach; since if we were expected, we should almost certainly be looked for somewhere along the more sheltered shore inside the harbour. Our expedition numbered sixty men, all told--thirty in each division,-- and upon shoving off from the schooner the two divisions at once separated, the skipper bearing away to the eastward, while I hauled up for a point about half a mile, as nearly as I could guess, to the westward of the western battery. The night was even thicker and darker than it had been when we brought the schooner to an anchor off the harbour's mouth; there was a cold, dismal rain persistently falling, and the breeze, having freshened up considerably, was now sweeping over the sea with a dreary, wintry, moaning sound that distinctly accentuated the discomfort of our situation, while it had knocked up a sea that threatened to render our landing a work of very considerable difficulty and danger. This became increasingly apparent as we drew closer in with the land, the roar of the surf upon the rocky beach and the ghostly white gleam and flash of the fringe of breakers exciting within me a feeling of very lively apprehension as to the safety of the boats. We pulled cautiously in to within about fifty fathoms of the beach, and then turned the boats round, bows on to the sea, while we looked anxiously about for a suitable spot at which to beach them, allowing them to drift shoreward meanwhile; but it soon became evident that, if we desired to land outside the harbour's mouth, it would be necessary for us to seek a more favourable spot for the purpose, the surf being so heavy and the shore so thickly cumbered with rocks, just where we were, that any attempt at beaching the boats would only result in their destruction, and possibly the loss of several lives. We therefore hauled off again a short distance, and directed our search somewhat further westward, when, after traversing the line of beach for somewhere about half a mile, we found ourselves in a sort of miniature harbour, about fifteen fathoms wide, formed by a projecting reef of rocks, under the lee of which we forthwith effected a landing without the slightest difficulty. I left two men in each boat, to take care of them and keep them afloat, and then, having satisfied myself as well as I could that our ammunition had been kept dry and in serviceable condition, I led the rest of my party up the steep, slippery face of the low cliffs beyond the beach. A breathless scramble of some three or four minutes carried us to the top; and all that remained was for us to follow the edge of the cliff to the eastward, when we should in due time find ourselves at the battery which was the primary object of our attack. The result of our procedure amply demonstrated the wisdom of the skipper's arrangements; for when we reached the battery--which we did rather sooner than I had expected--we found it absolutely unguarded at the rear, the sentinels, three in number, being so posted as to watch the harbour entrance only. Where the rest of the garrison were we could not at the moment discover, but, feeling certain that they were somewhere close at hand, it became necessary to proceed with the utmost caution; I therefore formed up my little band under the shelter and in the deep shadow of a projecting angle, and, enjoining upon them the most absolute silence, entered the battery alone for the purpose of reconnoitring. I gained the inside without difficulty--the gate having been carelessly left unfastened--and at once found myself in a semicircular court-yard formed by the gun platform of the battery and the sod revetment which surrounded it. The platform was about eight feet high, and was apparently case-mated, for immediately in front of me, as I entered, was a door and two windows, through the latter of which streamed into the blackness of the night the feeble rays of a barrack lantern. Pyramidal piles of round shot were stacked here and there about the gravelled court-yard; and upon approaching one of these and passing my hand over the shot, I came to the conclusion that the five guns which I dimly made out as shapeless masses of blackness upon the platform were thirty-two pounders. The three sentries, wrapped in their greatcoats, stood motionless, one in the centre and one at each extremity of the platform, facing to seaward, but I judged from their listless attitudes that they were anything but on the alert. Access to the platform was obtained by two broad flights of stone steps, one at either extremity. It was the work of but two or three minutes for me to ascertain these particulars, having done which I returned to my men, gave them most careful instructions how to proceed, and then led them into the battery, where, while the main body silently divided and stole round, in the shadow of the platform, to the guard-room door, about which they ranged themselves, I and two others, whom I had especially picked for the purpose, drew off our boots, and, in our stockinged feet, crept, silently as shadows, up on to the gun platform, where each of us crouched behind a gun waiting for a signal which I had arranged to give. I selected as my victim the sentinel who mounted guard in the middle of the platform, because he was the most difficult man to approach, the other two being posted close to the head of the two flights of stone steps, and I knew that by the time that I had reached him my men would be quite ready. The fellow stood close to the middle gun, on its lee side, and appeared to be sheltering himself as well as he could from the wind and the rain by crouching close to its carriage. His back was toward me. I therefore had no difficulty whatever in approaching him, which I did in a crouching attitude until I was near enough to touch the flapping skirts of his coat. Then, drawing myself up to my full height and taking a deep breath, I coughed loudly as a signal to my two men, at the same instant clapping one hand over the sentinel's mouth and seizing his musket in the other as I drove my knee into the small of his back and bore him irresistibly to the ground. "Utter no sound if you value your life!" I hissed in his ear, in French; and whether it was that my caution was effective, or that the poor fellow was too utterly surprised and astounded to speak, certain it is that he lay perfectly quiet, with my knee on his breast and my hand clutching his throat, while I carefully laid down the musket and drew a gag and some line from my pocket wherewith to secure him. A subdued scuffling to my right and left, scarcely audible above the rush of the wind and the roar of the breakers on the outside beach, told me that the other two sentinels were being similarly dealt with; but there was no outcry whatever, and in less than five minutes we had all three of them securely gagged, and bound hand and foot. The next thing was to secure the remainder of the garrison, and this we did without any difficulty, simply flinging open the guard-room door and dashing in, cutlass and pistol in hand, upon the sleeping soldiers, and seizing the muskets that stood neatly ranged in a rack along one of the walls. There was a terrific outcry and jabber among the astonished Frenchmen for a minute or two, with some show of a disposition to resist; but I pointed out to them that there were only thirty of them to twenty-six of us, that we were armed while they were not, and that we were not in the humour to put up with any nonsense whatever; which, with the resolute attitude of our men, had the effect of very speedily reducing them to subjection. I had brought a hammer and a handful of nails with me, and my next business was to spike the guns. This occupied but a very few minutes, and when it was done I returned to the guard-room with the intention of withdrawing my men. As I glanced round the room, however, I caught sight of a small bunch of keys hanging against the wall, and, thinking that these might possibly belong to the magazine, the spirit of mischief suggested to me the propriety of destroying the battery altogether, instead of merely temporarily disabling it; so I took down the keys, and, lighting another lantern, of which there were several, I proceeded to investigate. It was as I had anticipated. The keys were those of the magazine and the store-room, and, entering the former, I soon found that there was an ample stock of powder, in kegs and made up into cartridges, to wreck the entire structure. There was also a coil of slow match, a piece of which I cut off, and, taking it outside, lighted it for the purpose of ascertaining the rate at which it burnt. This was soon done, whereupon I cut off enough to burn for about twenty minutes, opened the kegs of powder, and emptying one of them in a heap in the middle of the floor, buried one end of the slow match in the pile, taking the other end outside. I then returned to the guard-room and marched the prisoners, surrounded by my own men, outside the battery, when, having assured myself that all hands were safe, I informed the Frenchmen that I was about to blow up the battery, and recommended them to run for their lives, at the same time directing my own men to let them go. The Frenchmen needed no second bidding. Away they went down the slope like startled deer, tumbling over each other in their anxiety to escape from the effects of the anticipated explosion, to the great delight and amusement of our people, and in less than a minute they had vanished in the darkness. The Frenchmen thus disposed of, I ordered my own men to make the best of their way down to the boats, there to wait for me, and then re-entered the battery. It had been arranged between the skipper and myself that each of us should, after taking our respective batteries, display a lantern or light of some sort, on the parapet, as a signal to the other. And my first act, therefore, upon returning to the battery, was to light a lantern and place it where it could be seen from the other battery, and at the same time be shielded from the wind and the rain. While doing this I noted with satisfaction that the captain's signal was already displayed; so, comforted with the assurance that both batteries were now rendered harmless, I descended to the court-yard, and, with some difficulty, succeeded in igniting the slow match. I waited only long enough to make quite sure that it was burning all right, and then made a bolt of it for my life, overtaking my men just as they reached the beach. We found the boats all right, and perfectly safe, but the men in charge growing very uneasy, as the tide was rising fast over the reef of rocks that sheltered the little cove in which they were lying, and a very nasty, awkward sea was beginning to roll in, occasioning the boat-keepers a great deal of trouble and anxiety in their endeavours to prevent the boats being stove. "All is well that ends well", however, the boats had thus far escaped, and we lost no time in tumbling into them and shoving off. Just as we did so a terrific glare lit up the sky for an instant, accompanied by a violent concussion of the rocks upon which some of us were standing, and followed by a deep, thunderous boom. Our battery had blown up, and presently, above the seething roar of the sea and the moaning of the wind, we caught the crashing sound of the falling fragments of masonry and earth, and the thud of the heavy guns dislodged from their resting-places upon the demolished platform. Meanwhile the wind and the sea had both been steadily increasing until it had grown to be what sailors expressively term "a regularly dirty night", and we were no sooner clear of our sheltering reef of rocks than we were struck by a comber that pretty nearly half-filled the boat that I happened to be in, the other boat, which was astern of us, faring little or no better. The men, however, bent to their oars with a will, and in about ten minutes, by keeping the boats stem-on to the sea, we forced our way out through the broken water and were enabled to head for the harbour, toward which, wet to the skin, and half-dead with the cold of the piercing bitter wind, we made the best of our way. Just inside the harbour entrance, and about mid-channel, we fell in with the skipper's two boats, which had arrived a few minutes earlier, and were lying upon their oars, waiting for us. Thus reunited, the skipper and I briefly exchanged details of the result of our respective efforts, after which we gave way in line abreast for the spot where we expected to find the barque. We pulled for a quarter of an hour but failed to discover her, although the skipper and I were equally confident that we must be close to the spot where we had seen her at anchor. Then, after a brief consultation, it was agreed that the boats should separate and search for her, a pistol-shot from the lucky boat being the signal arranged to notify that the search had been successful. This plan, or rather the first part of it, was at once put into execution, each boat pulling away in a different direction from the others; but although we diligently searched in every likely direction, frequently encountering one or another of the other boats, the barque was nowhere to be found, and, not to needlessly spin out this adventure, it may suffice to say that we fruitlessly hunted all over the harbour until daylight, when it became evident that in some mysterious manner the vessel had contrived to give us the slip and make good her escape. It had probably occurred during the time that the skipper and I had been busy with the batteries; but the most curious part of it all was that Comben, our second mate, left in charge of the schooner, declared that, although he had never relaxed his vigilance for an instant, from the time of our leaving until our return on board, neither he nor any of the men who shared his watch with him had seen anything whatever of the craft. We thus had an arduous, dangerous, and most trying night's work for nothing; for with the escape of the barque our work upon the batteries became absolutely useless to us. So, in no very good-humour, we all shifted into dry clothing, weighed our anchor, shaping a course to the northward and westward, and then went to breakfast. CHAPTER EIGHT. WE FALL IN WITH A CONVOY. The next three days were spent in dodging about the chops of the Channel, during which we saw nothing except a few homeward-bound British merchantmen--all of them armed and quite capable of taking care of themselves--and a British line-of-battle ship, by which we were chased for six hours, but which we had little difficulty in escaping by jamming the schooner close upon a wind. The unsophisticated reader may perhaps be inclined to wonder why we should have been chased by one of our own men-o'-war; and why, being chased, we should have taken any trouble to escape from her. The fact, however, was that the _Dolphin_ was altogether too rakish-looking a craft to be mistaken for a plodding merchantman, her long, low, beamy hull, taunt, tapering spars, and broad spread of superbly-cut canvas proclaimed her a sea-rover as far as the eye could distinguish her; and, as the ensign carried was at that time but an indifferent guarantee of a vessel's nationality, it was the imperative duty of our men-o'-war, when falling in with such a craft, to make sure, if possible, that she was not an enemy and a danger to our commerce. Our friend the two-decker was therefore quite justified in her endeavour to get alongside us and obtain a sight of our papers; and had we possessed any assurance that her delicate attentions would have ended there, her people would have been quite welcome to come aboard us, and overhaul the schooner and her papers to their heart's content. But, unfortunately, we had no such assurance. There was, at the time of which I am now writing, a very great difficulty in procuring men enough to adequately man our ships of war, and there was therefore no alternative left to the government but to resort to the process of impressment, a process which naval officers were too often apt to adopt with scant discrimination. In their anxiety to secure a full complement for their ships they deemed themselves justified not only in pressing men ashore, but even in boarding the merchantmen of their own nation upon the high seas and impressing so many men out of them that instances were by no means rare of traders being subsequently lost through being thus made so short-handed that their crews were insufficient in number and strength to successfully battle against bad weather. The crews of vessels furnished with letters of marque were nominally protected from impressment; but we were fully aware that the protection was only nominal, and altogether insufficient; hence it came about that a British privateer was always very much more anxious to escape from a man-o'-war flying the colours of her own country than she was to avoid a ship flying those of the enemy. And now, to return to my story. On the fourth day after our abortive adventure in Abervrach harbour the wind hauled round from the eastward, and, heartily tired of and disgusted with our ill-luck, we gladly squared away before it to seek a better fortune on the bosom of the broad Atlantic. For a fortnight we stretched away to the southward and westward, when we sighted and passed the lofty heights and precipitous cliffs of Flores and Corvo, in the neighbourhood of which Captain Winter determined to cruise for a week, it being customary for homeward-bound ships from the southward to endeavour to make these islands and so check their reckoning. The wind, meanwhile, had gone round, and was now blowing a very moderate breeze from the southward, with a clear sky, bright sunshine, and a pleasantly mild temperature. We cruised for eight days off the Azores, sighting only three vessels during the whole of that time; and as they were all British they were of course of no use to us. Then, intensely disappointed at our continued ill-luck, we hauled our wind and, with a freshening breeze from the south-west, stretched away to the westward on the larboard tack, Captain Winter having determined to look for better fortune in the West Indian waters. For the first two days after quitting the neighbourhood of the Azores we made excellent progress; and then a steadily falling barometer, accompanied by a lowering sky and a rapid increase in the strength of the wind, warned us to prepare for bad weather. Up to this time we had been carrying our topgallant-sail, flying-jib, and small gaff-topsail; but with the steady freshening of the wind, the approach of night, and the threatening aspect of the sky, the skipper deemed it prudent to stow our light canvas and to take down a reef in the mainsail and topsail. It was well that this precaution was taken; for during the night the wind increased to the strength of a gale, with a very heavy, dangerous sea; and when morning came it found us snugged down to the jib--with the bonnet off,--reefed foresail, and close-reefed mainsail. It was at this time looking very black and wild to windward; the sky all along the south-western horizon being of a deep slaty, indigo hue, swept by swift- flying streamers of dirty, whitish-grey cloud; while the leaden-grey sea, scourged into a waste of steep, foam-capped ridges and deep, seething, wind-furrowed valleys, had already risen to such a height as to completely becalm our low canvas every time that the schooner settled down into the trough. The time was evidently at hand when it would be necessary for us to heave-to; the schooner was therefore got round upon the starboard tack, with her head to the southward; and, as the barometer was still falling, the hands were set to work to send down the yards and house the topmasts while it was still possible to do so. The task was a dangerous one; but we had plenty of strength, and, the men working with a will, it was accomplished within an hour; and the schooner was then ready, as we hoped, to face the worst that could happen. By noon it was blowing so furiously, and the sea had increased to such an extent, that the skipper determined not to risk the vessel any longer by further attempting to sail her, and she was accordingly hove-to under a close-reefed foresail, when everybody but the officer in charge of the deck, and the man at the wheel, went below. As the day wore on the weather grew worse, and by nightfall it was blowing a perfect hurricane, the force of the wind being so great that, even under the small rag of a close-reefed foresail, the schooner was bowed down to her water-ways, and her lee scuppers were all afloat. Yet the little craft was making splendid weather of it, riding the mountainous seas as light and dry as a gull, looking well up into the wind, and fore-reaching at the rate of fully three knots in the hour. But it was a dreary and uncomfortable time for us all, the air being so full of scud-water that it was like being exposed to a continuous torrent of driving rain; despite our oil-skins and sou'-westers half an hour on deck was sufficient to secure one a drenching to the skin, while the spray, driven into one's face by the furious sweep of the hurricane, cut and stung like the lash of a whip. The schooner, being but a small craft, too, was extraordinarily lively; leaping and plunging, rolling and pitching to such an extent and with so quick a motion that it was quite impossible to keep one's footing without holding on to something; while to secure a meal demanded a series of feats of dexterity that would have turned a professional acrobat green with envy. And all this discomfort was emphasised, as it were, by the yelling and hooting and shrieking of the wind aloft, the roar of the angry sea, and the heavy, perpetual swish of spray upon the deck. It was about three bells in the first watch that night, when--I being in charge of the deck, and the skipper keeping me company--a light was made out upon our lee bow, quickly followed by another, and another, and still another, until the whole of the horizon ahead was lighted up like a town, there being probably over two hundred lights in sight. It was evident that we were approaching a large concourse of ships; and in about an hour's time we found ourselves driving into the very heart of the fleet. The night was altogether too dark for us to be enabled to make out who and what they were; but the skipper was of opinion that we had encountered a large convoy, and as it was impossible to tell whether they were friends or foes, he determined to wear the schooner round, as soon as we could find room, and heave her to with her head to the westward, like the rest of the fleet, when the morning would enable us to ascertain the nationality of our neighbours and decide whether anything was likely to be gained by keeping them company. At eight bells, therefore, by which time we had passed right through the fleet, we got the schooner round and waited impatiently until morning. There was a good deal of firing of blank cartridge, throughout the night, as also of signalling with coloured lanterns; but we could, of course, make nothing of it, and took it simply to mean that the men-o'-war in charge of the convoy were doing their best to keep the fleet from becoming scattered during the continuance of the gale. When morning dawned, and the light came struggling feebly through the thick pall of murky, storm-torn vapour that overspread the sky, it became apparent that the skipper's surmise as to the character of the fleet had been correct: the _Dolphin_ being in the midst of some two hundred and fifty sail of vessels of different rigs, from the stately ship to the saucy schooner, in charge of two seventy-fours, a fifty-gun ship, a frigate, and four eighteen-gun-brigs. The men-o'-war were all snugged comfortably down, royal and topgallant yards on deck, topgallant-masts struck, and not an ounce of unnecessary top-hamper aloft; but most of the merchantmen had kept everything standing, even to their royal-yards. There were a few, however--mostly the larger craft,--who had sent down their top-hamper; and there were others-- notably a very fine, frigate-built ship--that had lost one or more of their spars during the gale, and were now in great difficulties, with the wreck thrashing about aloft and not only threatening the remaining spars, but also the lives of the crew, who could be seen endeavouring to cut the raffle adrift. That the convoy was British became apparent as soon as the light grew strong enough to enable us to distinctly make out our nearest neighbours. It struck me that the men-o'-war's people were not keeping their eyes quite so wide open as they might have done; for there were only four other schooners beside ourselves in the whole fleet, and one would have supposed that the presence of a fifth would instantly have been noticed--especially when that fifth wore so very roguish an appearance as the _Dolphin_,--yet throughout the whole of that day no effort was made to ascertain our nationality, where we came from, whither we were bound, or anything about us! Of course, under ordinary circumstances, having ascertained that the convoy was British, and, therefore, of no especial interest to us, we should have parted company by getting the schooner round with her head to the southward. There was, however, one circumstance that decided the skipper to keep company with the convoy a little longer, and it was this: As has already been mentioned, there was a very fine, frigate-built merchantman in the fleet, which, when morning dawned, was seen to be in a situation of considerable difficulty, her fore and mizzen-topmast and main-topgallant-mast being over the side, having apparently been carried away during the night by the tremendous rolling and pitching of the ship. And near her was an exceedingly smart-looking brigantine, with main-topmast and fore topgallant-mast housed. This vessel joined the convoy about daybreak and was now hove- to under a close-reefed main trysail, and fore-topmast-staysail, which ought to have enabled her to easily forge ahead and eat out to windward of the disabled ship. And, as a matter of fact, she did so; yet somehow she always seemed to drop back again into her old place, just to leeward of the ship; and after observing her motions for some time, I became impressed with the idea that this was the result of deliberate design, rather than of accident. For something seemed to be constantly going wrong with her trysail sheet, necessitating a temporary taking in of the sail, during which she would pay off and go wallowing away to leeward for a distance of three or four miles, when the sail would be reset, and she would come creeping stealthily and imperceptibly up into somewhere near her old berth again. And this was done so naturally that, had it not occurred more than once, I do not know that I should have taken any notice of it. To me, however, the circumstance wore a rather suspicious appearance; and when I had mentioned it to the skipper he seemed somewhat disposed to take my view that the craft, although apparently British built, was in reality an enemy's privateer, with designs upon the disabled ship as soon as a favourable opportunity should occur for carrying them out. At all events there appeared to be enough probability in the hypothesis to induce Captain Winter to remain in company of the convoy, to watch the progress of events, instead of wearing round and resuming our course to the southward. The gale continued to blow all day with unabated fury, and the convoy, of course, remained hove-to. But, as the hours wore on, the several craft gradually became more scattered, the less weatherly vessels steadily settling away to leeward, until, by the time that the dark, gloomy day drew toward its close, the fleet was spread out over a surface of ocean measuring, as nearly as one could judge, nearly or quite twelve miles in every direction: those craft that had sustained damage aloft naturally for the most part settling to leeward at a greater rate than the rest, since they were unable to dispose their canvas so advantageously as the others for the purpose of lying-to. The frigate and gun-brigs were kept busy all day watching these stragglers, urging them by signal, and the occasional firing of guns, to close with the main body of the fleet, and generally playing the part of sheep- dogs; while the crews of the lame ducks could be seen clearing away the wreck of their broken spars, unbending their split sails and bending others in place, and, in fact, doing their utmost to comply with the orders of the men-o'-war. But, after all, their utmost was but little; the merchantmen being altogether too lightly manned to be able to do really effective work in the face of such a gale as was then blowing. The brigantine that had excited our suspicions had come in for a share of the attention of one of the gun-brigs, and it was noticeable that, after the man-o'-war had run down and hailed her, no further accidents appeared to have happened aboard her, so that the disabled ship had gradually settled away some five miles astern and to leeward of her. Just as the darkness was closing down upon us, however, she took in her trysail and fore-topmast-staysail, and set a main-staysail instead; but they were so long about it that, when at length the change had been effected, the ship had drawn up to within about half a mile of the brigantine's lee quarter. I directed Captain Winter's attention to this, and he agreed with me that the manoeuvre had an exceedingly suspicious appearance. "The ship, however, is quite safe for the present," he remarked; "for, even assuming the brigantine to be a Frenchman and a privateer, her people can do nothing so long as it continues to blow so heavily as at present. But directly that the wind shows signs of dropping we may look out; and if we observe any further suspicious manoeuvres we may safely conclude that she is French, and, if the men-o'-war do not forestall us, we will have a slap at her; for she appears to be a wonderfully fast and weatherly craft and is certainly a most magnificent sea-boat." I determined that I would keep a sharp eye upon the movements of that brigantine--for I could not rid my mind of a very strong suspicion that her people meant mischief,--and I accordingly watched her until she had displayed her light, which I then pointed out to a man whom I told off for the especial purpose of keeping his eye on it; it being my intention to persuade the skipper, if possible, to run down a little closer to her when it had become sufficiently dark to conceal our movements from observation. Captain Winter offered no objection to my proposal; and accordingly, at eight bells of the second dog-watch, when the deck was relieved, our helm was put up and we edged away down toward the light which was stated to be that of the brigantine. But when at length, by careful manoeuvring, we had contrived to approach within biscuit-toss of the vessel displaying it, it was discovered, to my chagrin, that she was not the brigantine, but a large barque, the skipper of which appeared to be greatly frightened at our sudden appearance near him; for he hailed us, in execrable French, that he was armed, and that if we did not sheer off forthwith he would fire into us. I replied, in English, that he need not be afraid of us, as we were British, like himself, and then inquired whether he had seen a large brigantine in his neighbourhood. I got a reply to my question, it is true, but it was utterly incomprehensible; and I doubt very much whether the man understood what I had said to him; for the wind rendered it almost impossible for the most powerful voice to make itself heard, unless at a very short distance and dead to windward, as was the barque when her skipper hailed us. We made several attempts to find the brigantine that night, but somehow failed to stumble across either her or the disabled ship upon which we suspected her of entertaining designs. CHAPTER NINE. A NARROW ESCAPE, AND A FORTUNATE DISCOVERY. About midnight there were signs that the gale had pretty well blown itself out. There was a distinct, if not very strongly-marked decrease in the strength of the wind, and about an hour before dawn the veil of impenetrable vapour overhead broke away, showing, first of all, a small patch of clear sky, with half a dozen stars or so blinking out of it, and then other and larger patches, with more stars; until, by the time of sunrise, the sky was clear, save for the thin detached tatters of fleecy vapour that still swept scurrying away to the northward and eastward. It was my morning watch on deck; and with the first grey light of early dawn I indulged in a thoroughly searching scrutiny of the fleet--or as much of it as still remained in sight,--on the look-out for the brigantine; but I failed to discover any traces either of her or of the disabled ship. This I considered not only surprising but exceedingly suspicious; as the crew of the ship had contrived, during the previous day, to clear away the wreck of their top-hamper, and to get their craft once more under command by setting their fore and main-topsails and a make-shift fore-staysail, under which the vessel appeared to be doing exceedingly well when the darkness of the preceding night had closed down upon the convoy. Indeed, so well had she been doing that it occurred to me as possible that she might, during the night, have managed to work herself into a tolerably weatherly position, relatively to the rest of the fleet; and I therefore took the ship's telescope and went up as far as the cross-trees, to see whether, from that elevation, I could discover anything of her to windward. But although I spent a long half-hour aloft, carefully scrutinising every craft in sight, I was quite unable to pick up either the ship or the brigantine. I was still aloft when the skipper made his appearance on deck; and, as I had by that time about concluded my search, upon seeing him looking up at me I gave one more comprehensive glance round the horizon, and then descended to make my report. "It is exceedingly odd," remarked the skipper, when I had assured him that both vessels had vanished. "What can have become of them? The brigantine can scarcely have taken the ship; for there has been, and still is, far too much sea for boats to live in; and nobody but a madman would ever dream of running a ship aboard in such weather; it would simply mean the destruction of both craft. I wonder, now, whether that actually is the explanation of their disappearance? But, no; the man who commanded that brigantine was a sailor, whatever flag he may have sailed under, and no sailor would even so much as think of attempting such a foolhardy trick! What is your opinion, George?" "I quite agree with you, sir, as to the impossibility of boarding a ship in such weather as that of last night," I answered. "Yet the fact remains that both craft have vanished. And I do not believe that their disappearance is the result of any accident such as, for instance, one of them running foul of the other during the darkness. Depend upon it, sir, the brigantine is safe enough; and, wherever she may be at this moment, the ship is not far from her." "Well, it is a very extraordinary circumstance," observed the skipper; "but I am inclined to believe, with you, that the disappearance of the one is intimately connected with the disappearance of the other. The question now is, in which direction ought they to be looked for?" I considered the matter a little, and then said: "It appears to me, sir, that there is at least one direction in which-- supposing our suspicions to be correct--they are quite certain not to be found, and that is to windward, in which direction the convoy will soon be making sail. If the brigantine is an enemy, and has had any hand in the disappearance of the ship, depend upon it she would not shape a course that would involve her being overtaken in a few hours by the convoy, hampered as she would be by the disabled ship. Nor do I think she would be altogether likely to run away to leeward; because if the ship happens to be missed by the men-o'-war--as she pretty certainly will be before long,--that is precisely the direction in which she would naturally be looked for. Here we are, all hove-to on the larboard tack, and my impression is that both vessels have remained on that tack; but, instead of being hove-to all night, like the rest of us, they have ratched away through the fleet, and have disappeared away there in the north-western board." "There is a good deal of sound reason and common sense in that argument of yours, George, and, upon my word, I don't know that we could do better than act upon it," answered the skipper meditatively. "The sooner the better, sir, I think, if you will excuse me for saying so," answered I. "The frigate yonder is signalling to the gun-brigs, who are all answering her; and that, to my mind, looks very much as though the absence of the ship and the brigantine has just been discovered. If so, we shall probably have some of the men-o'-war coming through the fleet making inquiries. And although we have our papers to show, I must confess I am not in love with the neighbourhood of those gentry. They may take it into their heads to order us to keep company until they can come aboard to examine our papers; and, should that happen, we may say good-bye to twenty or thirty of our best men, to say nothing of our chance of finding the brigantine. See, sir, the brigs are shaking out a reef already." "Ay, so they are," assented the skipper. "You are right, George; it is high time for us to be off. You may make sail at once. Those brigs sail fairly well in moderate weather, but they are very crank, and I believe we can run away from them in such weather as this. Here is one of them hereaway now, who looks as though she would like to have a word with us. Give the little hooker all that she will bear, George; and if that fellow wants to try his rate of sailing with us, he is heartily welcome to do so." I looked in the direction indicated by the skipper, and saw one of the gun-brigs about a mile and a half astern, heading straight up for us, with the men upon her yards shaking out a reef from her topsails. There was no time to lose, so I sang out to the men; and, the tone of my voice probably indicating the urgency of the case, they sprang into the rigging and came tumbling aft, and almost as soon as the brig had got her topsail-halliards sweated up, we were under double-reefed topsail, double-reefed mainsail, foresail, fore-staysail, and jib, leaving the rest of the fleet as though they had been at anchor. The brig astern now fired a gun as a signal for us to heave-to, but the shot never came near us, and the only notice that we took of it was to hoist our colours. This caused the brig to give chase in earnest, shaking out another reef in her topsails, and firing again. It was perfectly clear that we were looked upon with strong suspicion, and I had no doubt whatever that, if we were caught, we should be detained until the weather had moderated sufficiently for a boat to be sent aboard us. A few minutes, however, proved sufficient to set our minds at rest with regard to the brig astern; she was being pressed altogether too much-- for although the gale had certainly broken, it was still blowing heavily,--she was careened almost gunwale-to, and was sagging away to leeward bodily, as well as dropping astern of us. But unfortunately there were two other brigs, one about a mile to leeward and another about the same distance to windward, which now, in obedience to signals thrown out by the frigate, took up the chase, and matters began to look exceedingly awkward for us. The brig to leeward I cared nothing about; I felt satisfied that we could outsail and out-weather her; but it was the fellow to windward that caused me to feel anxious, for he was edging down upon us, and in a comparatively short time would have us under his guns. Luckily for us, there were a good many craft between us and this vessel, and there was a whole crowd of them ahead, into the thick of which we steered, in the hope that by threading our way among them we should render it almost impossible for our pursuers to fire upon us for fear of hitting some of the other vessels. All three of the brigs in chase were now under double-reefed topsails, and the way in which they drove along through the mountainous sea, now soaring up to the crest of a wave in a smother of spray, showing the whole of their fore-foot and some twenty feet of keel, and anon diving furiously into a hollow, burying themselves to the windlass bitts, was a sight worth seeing. The brig to windward had taken up the pursuit by edging broad away for us, but her people were not long in discovering that this would not do; the lively little _Dolphin_ was justifying her name by almost flying through the water, and we fore-reached out so rapidly that our friend quickly had to haul her wind again, and even then we were bringing her fast upon our weather quarter, although she was steadily decreasing the distance between us and herself. At length she tried a gun, and the shot struck the water some distance ahead and on our weather-bow. We were nearly, if not quite, within range. A few minutes later she fired again, and this time the shot fell so close that the spray actually wetted our jib-boom. But we were now close to a straggling bunch of some thirty or forty vessels, and before the brig could again fire we were among them, and for fully five minutes it became impossible for her to fire without running the risk of hitting one of them. This gave us a very handsome lift, of which we availed ourselves to the utmost; and the brig to leeward being now well on our lee quarter, Captain Winter thought he might venture to edge away a point, which brought the brig to windward broad on our weather quarter. The critical moment was now fast approaching, for the last-mentioned vessel was now very nearly as close to us as she would be at all, and if we could manage to weather out the next twenty minutes without mishap we might hope to make good our escape. We were soon clear of the cluster of shipping that had afforded us protection, and the moment that we were so the brig to windward again opened fire, the conviction of her people, no doubt, being by this time that we were an enemy, despite the British ensign streaming from our gaff-end. We heard the shot go humming over our mast-heads, and although it did no damage I could see that the skipper was beginning to feel very uneasy, as he kept glancing from the brig to our own sails, as though debating within himself the desirability of hazarding the attempt to give the schooner a little more canvas. Presently we saw the brig luff momentarily into the wind, a line of flame and smoke burst from her lee broadside, and nine six-pound shot came skipping along the water toward us. The broadside was splendidly aimed, but, luckily for us, the moment of firing was badly chosen, or the guns were too much depressed, for none of the shot reached us. Almost at the same moment the brig to leeward began firing, but her shot fell so far short that from that moment she gave us no further concern whatever. The luffing of the brig to windward gave us a slight advantage, as by so doing she fell astern several fathoms; moreover, she had by this time settled so far away on our quarter that a few minutes more would suffice to bring her almost directly into our wake, and I felt that, once there, we should have very little more to fear from her. This impression was quickly confirmed, for after her late experience she fired no more broadsides, the only guns that she could now bring to bear being her bow-chasers, and although the next three or four shot came unpleasantly near to us, those that succeeded fell short, and by the time that we were abreast of the most northerly stragglers of the convoy we were practically safe, provided that none of our gear carried away. Of this, however, we had but little fear, as our rigging was all new and of the very best. Fortunately for us, none of the big men-o'-war condescended to take part in the chase, or, from the weatherly position which they occupied, there is very little doubt that they would have cut us off. As it was, the brigs maintained the pursuit for a distance of some sixteen miles altogether, when they were recalled by signal from the commodore. We were greatly elated at this escape, for although the utmost that we had to fear was the loss, by impressment, of some of our men, the maintenance of our crew intact was an important matter with us, the more so now that we were bound upon what might prove to be a lengthened cruise, during the progress of which many vacancies might be expected to occur,--either by the necessity to send away prize crews or otherwise,-- which we should have little or no chance to fill up. But, over and above this, our adventure with the gun-brigs had afforded us a brief but sufficient opportunity to thoroughly test the powers of the schooner under circumstances of about as adverse a character as could well be imagined, and the triumphant manner in which she had more than justified our most sanguine anticipations gave us unbounded confidence in her. By noon that day the wind had moderated sufficiently to permit of our shaking out another reef, and when the sun went down out of a clear sky, shooting his last rays in a long trail of burning gold athwart the tumbling waste of still tumultuous waters, the _Dolphin_ was once more under all plain sail, and speeding to the westward in the direction that we surmised had been taken by the brigantine and the ship. During the night the wind dropped still further, and the following morning found us, with our sails barely filled, creeping lazily along over a long, low swell that had already begun to wear that streaky, oily appearance which sometimes heralds the approach of a stark calm. Our calculations had led us to hope that with the appearance of daylight on this particular morning we should sight the brigantine and her prize, as we had grown to consider the disabled ship; but, greatly to our disappointment, nothing was to be seen in any direction, even from the lofty elevation of our royal-yard. As the day wore on the wind died away altogether, and by noon the schooner had lost steerage-way, her head boxing the compass as she floated on the glass-smooth undulations that alone remained to tell of the elemental fury that had raged over the spot but a few hours previously. We remained thus becalmed for fifty-four hours, so utterly devoid of movement that the ash-dust and galley refuse hove overboard by the cook during that time collected into an unsightly patch alongside, just abaft the larboard fore-rigging, in the exact spot where they had been thrown. The weather was now excessively hot, and those of us who could swim took advantage of so favourable an opportunity for bathing by spending most of our time off duty in the water alongside, until the appearance of a shark's fin or two, at no great distance, warned us of the danger of such a proceeding, and caused the skipper to issue an order that no man was to go overboard without especial permission. A few hours of such weather, after the gale, would have been an agreeable change, affording us, as it did, an excellent opportunity to dry our drenched clothing; but it was spun out so long that we were all heartily glad when, toward sunset on the second day of the calm, a delicate line of blue, betokening the approach of a breeze, appeared along the northern horizon; and by the time that the sun had sunk out of sight, the first faint breathings reached us. We had by this time arrived at the conclusion that my surmise relative to the movements of the brigantine of suspicious character was erroneous, and that she had steered in some other direction. As soon, therefore, as our canvas filled and the schooner gathered steerage-way, a course was shaped for the south-west; the skipper and I having made up our minds that the West Indian waters afforded the most promising field for the operations of such enterprising privateersmen as ourselves. The breeze that had come to us proved to be but a very languid zephyr after all, a scarcely perceptible breathing, just sufficient to give the schooner steerage-way, and to drift us along at the rate of a bare two knots, to the south-west, through the soft, mysterious sheen of the star-lit night. With the dawning of the new day matters improved somewhat, our speed rising to nearly four knots. When I went on deck at six bells, to get a salt-water shower-bath in the head, I found the schooner gently stealing along over a smooth sea, softly wrinkled to a most delicate azure hue by the light touch of the faint breeze that came to us, cool, sweet, and refreshing, out of the north. The sky was a deep, pure, cloudless blue overhead, merging, by a thousand subtle gradations, into a warm, pinky, primrose tint along the horizon; and away to the north, low down in the sky, there floated a few indefinite, softly-luminous cloud shapes that gave us some reason to hope that we might be favoured with a more robust breeze later on in the day, notwithstanding the oily-looking streaks and patches of calm that appeared here and there upon the ocean's surface. The watch were busily engaged in swabbing the deck subsequent to a vigorous treatment with the holystone; the freshly-polished brasswork and the guns flashed like gold in the brilliant morning sunlight; the white canvas swelled and sank gently, as the schooner curtsied upon the almost imperceptible heaving of the swell; everything looked fresh and bright and cheerful, and a thin wreath of smoke that floated lazily out of the galley funnel and away over the lee cat-head to the melody of a rollicking sea-ditty chanted by the cook, as he busied himself with the preparation of breakfast, imparted that sense of homeliness and light-hearted happiness which seemed to be all that was required to satisfactorily complete the picture. Breakfast was over, and I had just set the watch to work upon certain jobs requiring the doing, when a boy, whom I had sent aloft to grease down the topmasts, as a punishment for some trifling misdemeanour, reported two sail, close together, broad on our starboard beam, and steering the same way as ourselves. In reply to an inquiry respecting their appearance, he furnished us with the further information that one was a brigantine, but he could not quite make out the rig of the other, although he thought she was a ship. I immediately suspected, from this reply, that we had accidentally tumbled upon the identical two craft that we were most anxious to find; and, the better to satisfy myself upon this important point, I took the ship's telescope and journeyed up to the royal-yard, from whence I should obtain the most satisfactory view of them possible. They were at least twenty miles distant, and therefore quite invisible from the deck, while even from the royal-yard their upper canvas only, and the heads of their lower sails, were to be seen; but I had not got them within the field of the telescope more than a minute when I became convinced that the lost was found--that they were the two vessels for which we had been looking. The ship was under quite a respectable jury-rig, and was carrying topgallant-sails and jib, while the brigantine seemed to be under double-reefed canvas, doubtless to moderate her speed to that of the disabled ship. They were close together, and steering to the south-west like ourselves. Having thoroughly satisfied myself upon these points, I descended and made my report to the skipper. The old fellow chuckled and rubbed his hands. "What a lucky thing it was that the breeze did not freshen during the night," he remarked. "Had it done so we should have passed those two craft without seeing them; whereas now, if all goes well, we will have the pair of them before dark. And to think that we were grumbling about the light airs during the night! Upon my word, I am beginning to believe that the parsons are only speaking the simple truth when they say that we can never tell what is really best for us. However, this is not the time to discuss matters of that sort. How do you say the vessels bear from us?" "Broad on the lee bow, sir, or as nearly as possible dead to leeward," answered I. "Then, if we keep away a couple of points we shall just about hit them off," remarked the skipper. He gave the necessary instructions to the helmsman, and then, turning again to me, continued: "We may as well get this business over as soon as possible, George; so get the stunsails, big gaff-topsail, and main-topmast-staysail on her at once, my lad, and give the little hooker a chance to go through the water." These additions to our canvas were soon made, and then the watch returned to the work upon which they had been previously engaged, as we did not expect to overtake the object of our pursuit for several hours. It was just noon, and we were still engaged upon our observations of the sun for the determination of the latitude, when the captain made out, through the telescope of his sextant, the mast-heads of the brigantine just peeping above the line of the southern horizon; and while we were in the cabin getting our dinner, Comben, who had charge of the deck, reported, through the open skylight, that the brigantine had apparently just sighted us, for she had hauled her wind and was making sail. "All right," remarked the skipper; "so much the better. That just suits me, for we shall get to fisticuffs all the sooner, and get the whole business comfortably over by dark. Let her go along as she is, Mr Comben." We finished our dinner comfortably, and then went on deck, to find that the brigantine had reached out well across our fore-foot; and shortly afterwards she tacked, heading well up to meet us. She was then about nine miles off, and some four points on our starboard bow; the ship being, perhaps, twelve miles distant, bearing a point on our port bow. The wind had freshened a trifle during the forenoon, and was now blowing a pretty little breeze that sent us along at about six knots; and if it would but freshen a trifle more it would become a perfect working breeze for a fight between two such craft as the brigantine and ourselves. As it was, I was by no means dissatisfied, for there was just wind enough to ensure the proper working of the schooner, while the water was smooth enough to admit of our laying our adversary aboard without injury to either vessel. The men were given plenty of time to finish their dinner in peace and comfort; a tot of grog was served out to them, and then all hands cleared the decks for action; the galley fire was extinguished, the magazine opened, powder and shot passed on deck, cutlasses and pistols served out, and the latter loaded; and then the crew went to quarters. The brigantine was by this time within three miles of us; we allowed her to close to within two miles, and then shortened sail to mainsail, foresail, topsail, topgallant-sail, and jibs, hoisted our colours, and fired a gun. CHAPTER TEN. THE AFFAIR OF THE TIGRE AND THE MANILLA. The brigantine was at this time under all plain sail, to her royal and main-topmast-staysail, standing toward us, close-hauled, on the port tack; but we had no sooner shortened sail and hoisted our colours than she did the same, displaying a very large tricolour at her peak. "Very good," commented the skipper approvingly; "that settles the question of her nationality, at all events, and shows that she is prepared to fight for the prize yonder, that she has somehow managed to secure. Well, I'm glad of it, George, for she is a wonderfully handsome craft, powerful, fast, and half as big again as we are; she will be quite worth the trouble of taking, I believe. A man ought to be able to do good work with such a fine vessel as that under his feet. There she comes round. Very pretty! very pretty indeed! Why, she works like a top! And look at the beam of her, and the height and spread of her spars! Upon my word it seems a pity to knock about such a beauty as that with shot! I suppose it will be impossible to avoid doing her some damage, but we must knock her about as little as possible. I tell you what, George, I believe our best plan will be to make short work of her. If we play the game of `hammer and tongs' we shall maul each other fearfully before we compel her to haul down her colours; so let the men clap a charge of grape and canister in on top of their round shot. We will run her aboard at once, firing as we touch; board in the smoke, and drive her people below, out of hand." This was quite in accordance with my own fancy, for, as the skipper had said, the brigantine was half as big again as the _Dolphin_; she mounted fourteen guns to our eleven, and the chances were that, in a fair stand- up fight, she might disable us to such an extent as to render her own escape and that of her prize an easy matter. So I went round the decks and personally saw to the execution of the skipper's orders, explaining to the men his intentions, warning them not to fire until they got the word, and cautioning all hands to be ready to follow the skipper and myself on to the brigantine's decks the instant that the two vessels were properly secured to each other. The brigantine had gone about while the skipper was speaking to me, and was now on our port bow, standing toward us on the starboard tack, and, with the exception of our own gun of defiance, neither vessel had as yet fired. It looked almost as if she were waiting for us to begin, in order that she might ascertain our weight of metal; but when the two craft were within about a quarter of a mile of each other our antagonist suddenly yawed and gave us her whole starboard broadside of seven twelve-pound shot. The guns were excellently aimed, the seven shot flying close over our heads and passing through our sails. But the seven perforations in our canvas represented the full extent of the damage, not one of our spars being hit, or so much as a rope-yarn cut. I could see that our lads' fingers were itching to return the fire, the captains of the guns squinting along the sights of their pieces and audibly remarking that the elevation was just right if the skipper would but luff and give them a chance to show what they could do; but I steadied them by passing along from gun to gun telling them that, if they would but have patience, their chance would come in a few minutes, in answer to which many of them clapped their hands to their cutlasses to make sure that they were loose in their sheaths, while others drew their pistols and carefully examined the priming. The brigantine luffed again immediately that she had fired, and we were now so close that I could see her people busily reloading. The two vessels were rapidly nearing each other, and I was in hopes that we should close before it would be possible for them to fire again. But there was a man on board, who, by his gestures, seemed to be urging them to expedite their work, and when we were only some twenty fathoms distant, while the brigantine was crossing our bows, I saw the guns again run out. "Look out, sir," I shouted to the skipper; "they are about to fire again! Luff, or they will rake us!" The skipper signed with his hand, and the helmsman gave the wheel a powerful whirl to starboard. The schooner swerved round, and almost at the same instant crash came another broadside, slap into us this time. There was a perceptible concussion as the shot struck, followed by a crashing and splintering of wood, two or three piercing shrieks of agony, and five men fell to the deck, with the blood welling out of the dreadful wounds inflicted by the shot and flying splinters. Then, as we bore down upon the brigantine, the skipper raised a warning cry. I drew my sword and rushed forward to head the boarders from that part of the ship. The skipper gave the word to fire, and, as our broadside rang out, the two vessels crashed together. There was an indescribable tumult of thudding shot, rending wood, groans, shrieks, and execrations on board the Frenchman, and, with a shout of "Hurrah, lads; follow me, and make short work of it!" I leaped on to the brigantine's rail and down on deck. The spacious deck of the French ship seemed to be crowded with men, as far as I could see through the thick pall of powder smoke that wreathed and twisted hither and thither in the eddying draughts of wind, but there were great gaps among them filled with prostrate figures, heaped upon each other, some lying stark and still, others writhing and screaming with agony, bearing fearful witness to the havoc wrought by our grape and canister, the discharge of which, at such close quarters, seemed to have stunned and stupefied the Frenchmen, for not a hand was raised to oppose me as I sprang down off the rail. I darted a quick glance along the deck, noticed that the skipper was leading his party on board, aft, and then made a cut at the Frenchman nearest me. This woke him up. He hurriedly raised his cutlass to guard the blow, and the next moment we were at it, cut, thrust, and parry, as hard as we could go. Our attack being made upon the two extremities of the brigantine's deck, we soon had her crew hemmed in between the skipper's and my own party, and for the next ten minutes there was as pretty a fight as one need wish to witness, the Frenchmen rallying gallantly to the call of their captain. The hubbub was terrific, the clash of steel, the popping of pistols, the shrieks, groans, and outcries of the wounded, the execrations of the Frenchmen, the cheers of our own lads, and the grinding of the ships together, creating a perfectly indescribable medley of sound. The struggle threatened to be stubborn and protracted, the Frenchmen at our end of the ship obstinately disputing every inch of the deck with us. I therefore determined to make a special effort, and see what the mere physical strength, of which I possessed a goodly share, would do for us. There was a handspike lying upon the deck, under my feet, which I had tripped over and kicked aside twice or thrice, so, suddenly hitting out with my left fist, I knocked down the man who happened to be at the moment opposed to me, quickly stooped and seized the handspike, dropped my sword, and, singing out to our own lads to give me room, I swung my new weapon round my head and brought it down with a crash upon the two or three Frenchmen nearest me. The force of the blow made my arm tingle to the elbow, but it swept the Frenchmen down as though it had been a scythe, and caused those behind to recoil in terror. Another flail-like sweep proved equally effective, the cutlasses raised to guard the blows being as useless as so many wands, and when I followed it up with a third it proved too much for the Frenchmen, who, seeing their comrades go down before me like ninepins, gave way with a yell of dismay, retreating aft until they were all jammed and huddled together like sheep, so closely that they had no room to fight effectively. The French captain, as I took him to be, finding things going badly in our direction, forced his way through the crowd, and, perhaps regarding me as the chief mischief-maker, levelled a pistol at my head and fired. I felt the ball graze my scalp, but at the same instant my handspike descended upon the unhappy man's head. I saw the blood spurt out over his face, and down he went. This proved sufficient. The Frenchmen nearest me threw down their weapons and cried that they surrendered. The cry was taken up by the rest, and the brigantine was won. The first thing now to be done was to see to the wounded. The carnage had been very great in proportion to the numbers engaged, and our men had no sooner sheathed their weapons than they went to work among the ghastly prostrate forms to separate the wounded from the dead. This task was soon completed, and it was then discovered that our loss had not been nearly so great as I had feared; the dead amounting to eleven, and the wounded to nineteen, three of whom were dangerously injured. Our own dead and wounded were carefully removed to the schooner, and then,--the unwounded Frenchmen having been driven below and securely confined in the hold,--the skipper put me in charge of the prize, with a crew of twenty men, and the two craft made sail in company, in pursuit of the merchantman, which was now hull-down in the south-western quarter. The moment that the two craft were clear of each other, and the sails trimmed, I set my people to work to convey the wounded Frenchmen below to the cabin, where, the vessel by good luck being provided with a surgeon, they were quickly attended to. When this was done it was found that the French loss totalled up to no less than twenty-seven killed and forty-four wounded, out of a complement of one hundred men with which she had commenced the engagement. She was a heavily-manned vessel, for, in addition to the number already given, she had thirty men on board the prize. Having seen the wounded carried below, the dead thrown overboard, and the decks washed down, I had an opportunity to look about me a bit, and take stock of the noble craft that we had captured. She turned out to be the _Tigre_ of Nantes, thirty-four days out, during which she had captured only one prize, namely, the ship of which we were now in pursuit. She was a brand-new vessel, measuring three hundred and seventy-six tons, oak-built, coppered, and copper fastened; of immense beam, and very shallow, drawing only ten feet six inches of water. She was extraordinarily fast with the wind over her quarter, running away from the _Dolphin_ easily. But I suspected that in a thrash to windward, in anything of a breeze, the schooner would prove to be quite a match for her, with, perhaps, a trifle to spare. She mounted fourteen twelve-pounders, and her magazine was crammed with ammunition, it having been the intention of her captain to try his luck, like ourselves, in the West Indian waters. It was about six bells in the afternoon watch when we filled away in pursuit of the ship, and the sun was within half an hour of his setting when we overtook and brought her to, the _Dolphin_ being at that time some two miles astern of us. I knew that there were thirty Frenchmen on board her, but did not anticipate any resistance from them, since it would be perfectly clear to them that anything of the kind, although it might temporarily prevent our taking possession, would be utterly useless in the end, and only result in loss of life. I therefore lowered a boat, and, taking with me ten men armed to the teeth, proceeded on board and secured undisputed possession of the ship. My first act was to release the crew of the prize, after which the disarmed Frenchmen were transferred to the brigantine, and confined below along with their comrades, and while this was still in process of performance the _Dolphin_ joined company, and Captain Winter came on board. He fully approved of all that had been done, and directed me to remain on board in charge, shifting himself over into the brigantine and placing the schooner under the temporary command of Comben. By the time that all these arrangements had been completed the night had fallen, dinner was about to be served in the cuddy, and at the earnest invitation of the captain of the ship, the skipper accepted a seat at the table. Meanwhile, all three of the craft had been hauled to the wind, on the larboard tack, and were heading to the eastward, the ship under everything that her jury-rig would permit to be set, and the schooner and brigantine under double-reefed topsails. We now had an opportunity to learn some few particulars relating to our prize, and the circumstances of her capture by the French privateer, the latter being somewhat remarkable. The ship, it appeared, was named the _Manilla_, and was homeward-bound with a rich cargo of spices and other rare commodities, including several tons of ivory which she had shipped at the Cape, together with a number of passengers. She had here joined the homeward-bound convoy, and all had gone well with her until the springing up of the gale during which we had fallen in with the convoy. During this gale, however, she had laboured so heavily that she had not only lost her fore and mizzen-topmasts and her main-topgallant-mast, but she had also strained so much that she had made a great deal of water, necessitating frequent and long spells at the pumps. This, and the clearing away of the wreck of her top-hamper, had, as might have been expected, greatly exhausted the crew, the result being that, on the night of her capture, the look-out was not quite so keen as perhaps it should have been. But after all, as the captain remarked, there really did not appear to be any necessity for the maintenance of an especially bright look-out beyond what was required to provide against their falling foul of any of the other ships belonging to the convoy, and although he admitted that he had noticed both the brigantine and the _Dolphin_, which he had immediately set down as privateers, he did not consider them as enemies, and even if any such suspicion had entered his mind he would not have deemed himself liable to attack within sight and reach of eight men-o'-war. Therefore, when night came on, he allowed his exhausted crew to get what rest they could, keeping only a sufficient number of men on deck to meet any ordinary emergency. He was thus profoundly astonished and chagrined at being awakened about one o'clock in the morning to find his crew overpowered and safely confined below, and his ship in possession of a crew of thirty Frenchmen. How they had contrived to get on board, in the height of so heavy a gale, and with so tremendous a sea running, he had been unable to ascertain, the Frenchman in charge resolutely refusing to explain. Such was the extraordinary story told by the captain of the _Manilla_; and that it was absolutely true there could be no doubt, for we had ourselves seen enough to assure us of that. I was greatly disappointed, however, at the captain's inability to explain by what means the Frenchmen had contrived to board the ship in the face of such formidable difficulties; for that was precisely the point that had puzzled me all through, and I resolved to find out, if I could, for such a secret was quite worth the knowing. Captain Winter had determined to return home with his prizes; and we accordingly continued to steer to the eastward all that night. The next morning at daybreak I turned to the hands and went to work to complete the jury-rig that the Frenchmen had so well begun; and, as the _Manilla_ happened to be well provided with spare spars, we contrived, after two days' hard work, to get her back to something like her former appearance, and to so greatly increase her sailing powers that the brigantine and the schooner could shake the reefs out of their topsails without running away from us. Meanwhile the wind had gradually hauled round until we had got it well over our starboard quarter, and were booming along at a speed of eight knots, with studding-sails set. The officer who had been put in charge of the _Manilla_ when she fell into the hands of the French privateersmen was a very fine young fellow named Dumaresq; a smart seaman, high-spirited, and as brave as a lion. We early took a fancy to each other, especially after I had offered him his parole, and we soon became exceedingly friendly. He possessed a rich fund of amusing anecdote, together with the art of telling a story well; he was refined in manner, excellently educated, and an accomplished pianist; he was, therefore, quite an acquisition to the cuddy, and now that the ship was no longer in his possession, was heartily welcomed there by Captain Chesney and his passengers. I scarcely ever turned in until after midnight, and by and by young Dumaresq contracted the habit of joining me on the poop and smoking a cigar with me after the passengers had retired for the night; and upon one of these occasions our conversation turned upon the clever capture of the ship by himself and his countrymen. This aroused my curiosity afresh, and after he had been talking for some time about it, I said: "But how in the world did you manage to get aboard in such terrific weather? That is what puzzles me!" "No doubt, _mon cher_," he answered with a laugh. "And how to manage it was just what puzzled us for a time also. We knew that our only chance was to do it during the height of the gale; for if we had waited until the weather moderated, we should have had some of your men-o'-war looking after us and instituting unpleasant inquiries which we should have found it exceedingly difficult to answer. So, after considerable cogitation, poor Captain Lefevre--whose brains I understand you were unkind enough to beat out with a handspike--hit upon a plan which he thought might succeed. We had a few barrels of oil on board, and one of these he broached for the purpose of testing his idea. He had a canvas bag made, capable of containing about four gallons of the oil, and this bag he filled, bent its closed end on to a rope, and threw the affair overboard, paying out the rope, as the brigantine drifted to leeward, until we had about a hundred fathoms of line out, with our bag about that distance to windward. "We soon found that the oil, exuding through the pores of the canvas, had a distinctly marked effect upon the sea, which ceased to break as soon as it reached the film of oil that had oozed from the bag. Still the effect was by no means as great as he desired, the oil not exuding in sufficient quantity to render the sea safe for a boat, so we hauled our bag inboard again, punctured it well with a sailmaker's needle, and then tried it again. It now proved to be everything that could be desired; the oil oozed out of the bag in sufficient quantity to make a smooth patch of water with a diameter fully equal to the length of our ship; and, after testing the matter through the whole afternoon, we all came to the conclusion that our boats would live in such a patch, and that the experiment was quite worth trying. Wherefore three bags were made, one for each boat, and attached by a becket to a length of line measuring about twenty fathoms. Then, when night had set in, and the darkness had become deep enough to conceal our movements, the bags were filled and dropped overboard, the other end of the line being made fast to the ringbolt in the stern of the boat for the use of which it had been destined. A party of thirty men was told off--ten to each boat, with four additional to take the boat back to the ship in the event of our venture proving successful,--and the brigantine was then sailed to a position about a mile ahead and half-a-mile to windward of the _Manilla_; that being the ship that we had marked down for our prey. The great difficulty that we now anticipated was that of unhooking the falls with certainty and promptitude the moment that the boats should reach the water; but our captain provided for that by slinging the boats by strops and toggles attached to the ordinary fall-blocks. We were now all ready to put the matter to the test; but at the last moment the captain suddenly decided that it was too early, and that it would be better to defer the attempt until after midnight. This was done; and at the appointed hour the brigantine was once more sailed into a suitable position with regard to the _Manilla_; the boats were manned, lowered, and we managed to get away from the brigantine without much difficulty. She remained hove-to upon the spot where we had left her, and to make matters as safe as possible for us, capsized overboard the contents of two of the oil-barrels. This smoothened the sea to such an extent that, deeply as we were loaded, and heavily as it was blowing, we did not ship a drop of water. We allowed the boats to drift down to leeward, with their oil-bags towing astern, and with only two oars out, to keep them stern-on to the sea; and so accurately had our distance been calculated that when the _Manilla_ came up abreast of us we only needed to pull a stroke or two to get comfortably under her lee. We boarded her by way of the lee channels, fore, main, and mizzen simultaneously; and that, let me tell you, was the most difficult part of our work, for the ship rolled so heavily that it was with the utmost difficulty we avoided staving or swamping the boats. Each man knew, however, exactly what to do, and did it without the necessity for a word to be spoken; and thus our desperate adventure--for desperate indeed it was, let me tell you-- was accomplished without mishap. Ah! there goes eight bells; time for me to turn in, so I will say good-night, _mon cher_ Bowen, and pleasant dreams to you!" CHAPTER ELEVEN. THE MANILLA IS STRUCK BY LIGHTNING. For a full week nothing occurred of sufficient importance to be worthy of record; our little squadron making good headway before the fair wind that had come to our assistance; neither the brigantine nor the schooner ever being more than three or four miles distant from us; while, in response to daily invitations from Captain Chesney, the skipper of the Indiaman, Captain Winter frequently came on board to dine and spend the evening with the cuddy passengers. But on the ninth day after the recapture of the _Manilla_, the wind dwindled away to a light air, and then shifted out from the north-east, gradually freshening to a strong breeze, and breaking us off to an east-south-east course, close-hauled on the port tack. We stood thus all through the night; and at daybreak the next morning a large ship was discovered about ten miles to windward, close-hauled on the starboard tack, dodging along under topsails, jib, and spanker, with her courses in the brails. A single glance at her was sufficient to assure us that she was a man-o'-war--a frigate--on her cruising-ground; and that her people were broad awake was speedily made manifest, for we had scarcely made her out when she shifted her helm and bore up for us, letting fall her courses and setting her topgallant-sails and royals as she did so. The discovery of this stranger was immediately productive of a very considerable amount of anxiety among us all, for she was a powerful vessel, and, if an enemy, likely to prove an exceedingly formidable antagonist. And there was very little doubt among us that she was an enemy; the cut of her square canvas being unmistakably French. Such was also Captain Winter's opinion; for he presently ran down under our stern and hailed me, stating his suspicions, and directing me to bear up and make the best of my way to leeward, while he and the _Dolphin_ would endeavour to cover my retreat and distract the stranger's attention until I had got clear off. His orders were that I was to run to leeward until out of sight of the Frenchman, and then to haul my wind on the starboard tack, when he would do his utmost to rejoin me; but that, in the event of his failing to do so, I was to make the best of my way home without wasting time in an endeavour to find him. I lost no time in obeying his instructions, instantly wearing the Indiaman round and crowding sail to leeward. The frigate had by this time neared us to within seven miles; and the moment that we in the Indiaman bore up, she set studding-sails on both sides in pursuit, while the brigantine and the _Dolphin_ stretched away to windward to intercept her. There was scarcely a shadow of doubt now in my mind that the stranger was a Frenchman; for although her studding-sails were set with a very commendable promptitude and alacrity, there was wanting in the operation a certain element of smartness, very difficult to describe, yet perfectly discernible to the eye of a seaman, which I have observed to be almost the exclusive attribute of the British man-o'-war. The difference, indeed, is so marked that, as in the present case, it has frequently been possible to decide the nationality of a ship merely by the way in which she is manoeuvred, and long before a sight of her bunting has been obtained. The conviction that the noble craft to windward was an enemy caused the greatest consternation on board the _Manilla_, particularly among the passengers; while even I, with all my knowledge of Captain Winter's indomitable courage, resource, and skill, could not but feel exceedingly anxious as to the result of his impending contest with so greatly superior a force. True, the memory of our gallant fight with and brilliant capture of the _Musette_ frigate was still fresh in my memory; but I regarded that affair rather as a piece of exceptional good luck than as the result of superior gallantry on our part, and it was quite on the cards that in the present case luck might go over to the side of the enemy. As in the case of the _Musette_, a fortunate shot might make all the difference between victory and defeat, and it was too much to expect that such good fortune as had then attended us would always be ours. Be it understood, I was in nowise fearful of personal capture. I felt pretty confident that the skipper would be quite able to occupy the attention of the frigate long enough to enable the _Manilla_ to make good her escape; but, that accomplished, would he be able also to save himself? Moved by so keen a feeling of anxiety as I have indicated, it will not be wondered at that I had no sooner got the Indiaman before the wind, with every stitch of canvas spread that I could pack upon her, than I devoted my whole attention to the movements of the three craft which were about to take part in the forthcoming ocean-drama. There was no outward sign of any hesitancy or doubt whatever in the movements of either vessel. The frigate had borne away into our wake the moment that we had borne away, and was now foaming along after us in gallant style, with studding-sails set on both sides, from the royals down; and was of course coming up with us, hand over hand. There was no question as to her intentions; she was after us, and meant to catch us if she could. On the other hand, the brigantine and schooner, under all plain sail, were stretching away to windward, close-hauled on the larboard tack, with a space of only a hundred fathoms or so dividing them, the brigantine leading. It looked as though the two vessels were about to engage the frigate on the same side, which,--if it was to be a running fight, as seemed probable,--was sound judgment on Captain Winter's part, since it would enable the frigate to use only one broadside, and so virtually reduce her weight of metal by one-half. The two craft continued to stand on this tack until the frigate was nearly abreast of them, when they hove about at the same moment, and simultaneously hoisted their colours. The frigate probably hoisted her colours in reply to this challenge, but, if so, we could not see what they were, her own canvas intervening to hide the flag from us; but she fired her whole broadside a few seconds later, and we saw the shot spouting up the water as they flew toward the two craft which dared to dispute the passage of the sea with her. They appeared to fall short; at all events no perceptible damage was done to either vessel; but a moment later the schooner fired, and the sound of the report told me that it was her long eighteen-pounder that was speaking. The shot struck the water about sixty or seventy fathoms from the frigate, ricochetted, and appeared to pass over her, for presently we saw the water spout up again well to starboard of the vessel. This was enough for the saucy little _Dolphin_; she was beyond the range of the frigate's guns, but could reach her antagonist with her own Long Tom. She therefore immediately bore up, set her square-sail and studding- sails, and, maintaining her distance, steered a parallel course to that of the frigate, while the brigantine stood on, with the now evident intention of taking up a raking position athwart the frigate's stern. The _Dolphin_ now opened a rapid fire upon the frigate with her long gun, and every shot showed that the latter was well within range. The frigate replied from time to time with single guns, but Comben was too wary to approach near enough to be hit, and so the fight went on for some time, with no apparent damage to either combatant. Meanwhile, the brigantine had, as I had anticipated, placed herself athwart the frigate's stern, well within range, and now traversed the Frenchman's wake, sailing to-and-fro athwart his stern, pouring in a whole raking broadside every time she crossed it, and receiving but two guns in reply. All this, of course, was exceedingly pretty and interesting as an exhibition of Captain Winter's skill and acumen in fighting an enemy of superior force; but thus far the firing had been comparatively ineffective, a few holes here and there in the Frenchman's sails being the only visible result of the expenditure of a considerable quantity of gunpowder, while he had neared us to within four miles, and was overhauling us so rapidly that another hour, at most, would see us within reach of his guns. Mason, however--the man who had formerly proved himself to be so excellent a shot with the eighteen-pounder,--was still aboard the schooner, and I had great hopes of him, especially as I knew that he would be by this time upon his mettle and animated by a feeling that it behoved him to speedily do something remarkable if he would save his reputation. Nor was I deceived in my expectations of him; for, very shortly afterwards, a shot from the schooner cut the halliard of the frigate's larboard lower studding-sail, and the sail dropped into the water, retarding the vessel's progress perceptibly until it was got in. It occupied the Frenchmen nearly a quarter of an hour to accomplish this, to splice the halliard, and to reset the sail. Meanwhile the brigantine had not been idle; and even while the Frenchmen were busy about their studding-sail, she recrossed the frigate's stern, firing another broadside at that vessel's spars, with considerable success, it appeared; for although we could not make out exactly what had happened it was evident that something had gone seriously wrong, Captain Chesney--who stood beside me, watching the fight--declaring that he had noticed an appearance strongly suggestive of the fall of the frigate's mizzen-mast. I hardly believed that such could be the case, for, steering as the frigate then was, dead before the wind, had her mizzen- mast fallen, it would have fallen forward, doing so much damage to the spars and sails on the mainmast that I think the effect would have been recognisable even where we were. I considered it far more probable that the mizzen-topmast or topgallant-mast had been shot away. The next shot from the schooner, however, was an exceedingly lucky one; it appeared to strike the frigate's fore-topmast about six feet below the cross-trees, and the next moment the whole of the wreck was hanging by the topsail- sheets from the fore-yard down on to the ship's forecastle, with her jibs and fore-topmast-staysail towing under her bows. This at once caused her to broach-to, and settled her business, so far as any hope of capturing us was concerned; but she had her revenge by pouring the whole of her starboard broadside into the brigantine, the sails and rigging of which were tremendously cut up by the unexpected salute. And as the frigate broached-to we saw that my surmise was not very far wide of the mark, her mizzen-topgallant-mast and mizzen-topsail yard having been shot away, the latter in the slings. The three vessels now went at it, hammer and tongs, the brigantine being for the moment fairly under the frigate's guns. But Winter soon very cleverly got himself out of this awkward situation, and,--while the Frenchmen were busily engaged in an endeavour to clear away the wreck and get their ship once more before the wind,--laid himself athwart their bows and, with his topsail aback, poured broadside after broadside into the helpless craft; while the _Dolphin_, gliding hither and thither, beyond the reach of the frigate's guns, sent home an eighteen- pound shot every two or three minutes, every one of which appeared to tell somewhere or other on the Frenchman's hull. We now ran away from them, fast, however, and by noon had lost sight of them altogether. But, when last seen, they were still hammering away at each other, the brigantine and schooner appearing to be getting rather the best of it. Once fairly out of sight of the combatants, we took in our studding- sails, and hauled our wind to the northward, in obedience to Captain Winter's orders; and although I had a sharp look-out for the _Dolphin_ and her consort maintained throughout the whole of the next day, I was not greatly surprised at their not heaving in sight. I had not much misgiving as to the ultimate result of the fight; but I believed that the brigantine at least would not get off without a rather severe mauling, in which case the schooner would naturally stand by her until she could be again put into decent workable trim. The fourth day after the fight dawned without bringing us a sight of our consorts, and I then began to feel rather uneasy; fearing that they had probably missed us, somehow, and that we should have to make our way home as best we could, unprotected; and to enter the English Channel just then, unprotected, meant almost certain capture. For although the Indiaman was certainly armed, after a fashion, most of her guns were "quakers", while the others--ten in all--were only six-pounders; and it would need the whole of her crew to work her only, under her awkward jury-rig, with no one to spare for fighting. However, it was useless to meet trouble half-way; so I determined to plod steadily onward and homeward, hoping for the best. Hitherto, ever since the day of our meeting with the Frenchman, we had experienced moderate but steady breezes from the northward and eastward, but on the day of which I am now writing there were indications of an impending change. The wind gradually died down to a light, fitful air that came in flaws, first from one quarter of the compass and then from another, lasting but a few minutes, with lengthening intervals of calm between them, while huge piles of black, thunderous-looking cloud gradually heaped up along the northern horizon until they had overspread the whole sky. The barometer, too, exhibited a tendency to fall; but the decline was so slight that I was of opinion it meant no more than perhaps a sharp thunder-squall, particularly as there was no swell making; moreover there was a close, thundery feeling in the stagnating air, which increased as the day grew older. It was not, however, until about an hour after sunset, and just as we were sitting down to dinner in the cuddy, that the outbreak commenced; which it did with a sudden, blinding flash of lightning that darted out of the welkin almost immediately overhead, instantly followed by a deafening crash of thunder that caused the Indiaman to tremble to her keel; the sensation being not unlike what one would expect to feel if the craft were being swept rapidly along over a sandy bottom which she just touched. This first flash was soon followed by another, not quite so near at hand, then by another, and another, and another, until the lightning was playing all about us in such rapidly succeeding flashes that the whole atmosphere was luminous with a continuous quivering of ghastly blue- green light, while the heavens resounded and the ship trembled with the unbroken crash and roll of the thunder. The spectacle was magnificent, but it was also rather trying to the nerves; the lightning being so dazzlingly vivid that it was positively blinding, while I had never heard such awful thunder before, even in the West Indies. Several of the lady passengers, indeed, were so unnerved by the storm that they retreated from the table and shut themselves into their cabins. Even young Dumaresq, who had hitherto appeared to be irrepressible, was subdued by the awful violence of the turmoil that raged around us. He was admitting something to this effect to me when he was cut short by a blaze of lightning that seemed to envelop the whole ship in a sheet of flame; there was a rending shock, violent enough to suggest that the Indiaman had come into violent collision with another vessel--although we were fully aware that such a thing could not be, the weather at the moment being stark calm,--the hot air seemed to suddenly become surcharged with a strong sulphurous smell; and then came a peal of thunder of so terrific and soul-subduing a character that it might have been the crash of a shattered world. For a brief space we were all so thoroughly overpowered, so awed and overwhelmed by this tremendous manifestation of the Creator's power that we remained speechless and motionless on our seats; then, as the echo of the thunder rumbled away into the distance, and our hearing gradually recovered from the shock of that last dreadful detonation, we became aware of loud shrieks of pain out on deck, a brilliant light, a confused rush and scurry of feet, and shouts of: "Fire! fire! The ship's been struck, and is all ablaze!" At the cry, Captain Chesney, Dumaresq, and I sprang to our feet and dashed out on deck. Merciful Heaven! what an appalling scene met our gaze! The foremast had been struck, and was cloven in twain from the jury topgallant-mast-head to the deck; it had also been set on fire, and the blazing mass of timber, cordage, and canvas had fallen back upon the mainmast, setting the sails and rigging of that mast also on fire; the flames blazing fiercely as they writhed and coiled about the spars and darted hither and thither, like fiery serpents, through the mazes of the tarred and highly inflammable rigging. But that was by no means the worst of it. The lightning, upon reaching the deck, appeared to have darted hither and thither in the most extraordinary way, for we presently discovered that a considerable quantity of metal-work, such as iron bands, belaying-pins, bolts, the chain topsail-sheets, and other such matters had been either wholly or partially fused by the terrific heat of the electric discharge; while several silent, prostrate figures on the deck, scorched black, and with their clothing burnt from their bodies, told that death had been busy in that awful instant when the bolt had struck the ship. But there was worse even than that; for there were other figures crouched and huddled upon the deck, moaning piteously with pain; and one man stood erect, with his hands clasped over his eyes, and his head thrown back, shrieking to be taken below, for he had been struck blind! It was a dreadful moment; a moment of frightful peril, and of horror indescribable; a moment when a man might well be excused if he found himself temporarily overmastered by the accumulated terrors of his surroundings; but Chesney, the captain of the Indiaman, proved equal to the occasion. For a single instant he stood aghast at the awful spectacle that met his horrified gaze; then he pulled himself together and, instinctively assuming the command--as, under the circumstances, he was perfectly justified in doing,--he made his voice ring from end to end of the ship as he ordered all hands to be called. The order, however, was scarcely necessary, for by this time the watch below-- startled by the shock of the lightning-stroke, the shrieks of the injured, and that indefinable conviction of something being wrong that occasionally seizes people upon the occurrence of some dire catastrophe--were tumbling up through the fore-scuttle with much of the hurry and confusion of panic, which was greatly increased when they beheld the masts, sails, and rigging all ablaze. By voice and example, however, we presently contrived to steady them and get them under control; and then, while one gang was told off to convey the injured men below--Dumaresq meanwhile hurrying away to summon the doctor, who was busily engaged in the cabin, endeavouring to soothe some of the lady passengers, who were in hysterics,--the rest of the crew were set to work to rig the pumps, muster the buckets, and pass along the hose. In a few minutes all was ready, the pumps were started, and the chief mate, with a line to which the end of the hose was bent, climbed up into the main-top, from which he began to play upon the fire. But by this time the flames had acquired such a firm hold upon the spars, canvas, and heavily tarred rigging that the jet of water from the hose proved quite incapable of producing any visible effect whatever upon them; and the mate himself soon became so hemmed in by the fire that he was in the very act of retreating to the deck when the flood-gates of heaven were opened, and the rain suddenly pelted down in such overwhelming torrents that in less than five minutes the conflagration aloft was completely extinguished; but not until the sails had been burnt to tinder, the spars badly charred, and most of the standing and running rigging destroyed. With the outburst of rain that had rendered us such excellent service the violence of the storm sensibly abated, perhaps because it had nearly spent itself; at all events the lightning discharges now succeeded each other at steadily lengthening intervals as the storm passed away to the southward, the thunder died down to a distant booming and rumbling, and finally ceased altogether in about an hour and a half from the commencement of the outbreak, while the lightning became a harmless, fitful quivering of vari-coloured light along the southern horizon. But we were now in a most awkward predicament; a predicament that might easily become disastrous should it come on to blow, as was by no means impossible. For not only had three men been killed outright and eight more or less seriously injured by that terrible lightning-stroke, but our sails were gone, our foremast destroyed, and our rigging so badly injured that our main and mizzen-masts stood practically unsupported; while we had too much reason to fear that the masts and spars themselves were so seriously weakened by the play of the flames upon them as to have become of little or no use to us. And, to crown all, it was now so pitch-dark that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain the full extent of our disaster until daylight. Our situation, however, was too critical to admit of our waiting until then; it was of vital importance that immediate steps should be taken to secure what had been left to us; and, with this object, the carpenter and boatswain procured lanterns with which they proceeded aloft to make a critical examination into the condition of the spars and rigging. They were thus engaged when the doctor, who had been down in the forecastle, attending to the hurts of the wounded men, appeared on deck, and, catching sight of Captain Chesney and myself standing together under the break of the poop, beckoned us to follow him into his cabin. CHAPTER TWELVE. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE MANILLA. "I will only detain you a moment, gentlemen," said the medico, as he closed the cabin door behind us; "but I wanted to speak to you strictly in private; since, if overheard, what I have to say might possibly produce a panic. The fact is that I am afraid we are not yet aware of the full extent of the disaster that has happened to us. I have been down in the forecastle attending to the wounded men; and I had no sooner entered the place than I noticed a faint smell as of burning; but I attached no importance to it at the moment, believing that it arose from the fire on deck. But, instead of passing away, as it ought to have done, with the extinguishment of the fire, it has persistently continued; and I am almost inclined to believe that it is now, if anything, rather stronger than it was when I went below. Do you think it possible that the ship's cargo is on fire?" "By Jove!" exclaimed the skipper; "I never thought of that. It shall be looked to at once. I am much obliged to you, Doctor, for mentioning the matter; and should have been even more so if you had communicated with me rather earlier. Come along, Bowen; we must investigate without further delay." The doctor hurriedly entered into an explanation to the effect that he could not leave his patients until they had been properly attended to, and that there was no one by whom he could send a message; but we could just then ill spare the time to listen to him; so, with a hasty acceptance of his excuses, the skipper led the way out on deck, I following. We made our way straight to the forecastle, into which we forthwith descended; and, sure enough, we were no sooner fairly below the coamings of the hatchway than we became aware of a distinct smell of fire, to which also one of the less seriously injured of the wounded men immediately directed our attention. We sniffed about, hither and thither, and soon found that the smell was stronger as we stooped nearer to the deck, or approached the bulkhead dividing the fore-hold from the forecastle. It was now almost certain that there was a smouldering of something somewhere below; and without more ado the skipper flung off his coat, lifted the hatch of the forepeak, and descended. He remained below about five minutes; and when he reappeared he composedly closed the hatch, resumed his coat, and beckoned me to follow him on deck. The crew were now busily engaged, under the direction of the chief and second mates, in clearing away the wreck of the foremast; we therefore walked aft until we were out of hearing of everybody; when the captain paused, and, turning to me, said: "I am very much afraid that the ship is on fire, but I cannot be sure. The smell is distinctly stronger in the forepeak than it is in the forecastle, yet not strong enough to lead to the belief that it is anything serious. Still, it must be attended to at once. So I shall knock off the men, call them aft, and speak to them before doing anything, or we shall have a panic among them. Then I shall have the fore-hatch opened, and proceed to make a proper examination of the cargo. Mr Priest," he continued, calling to the chief mate, "knock the men off for a minute or two, and send them aft, if you please." The mate, marvelling, no doubt, at this untimely interruption of an operation of great importance, did as he was bid, and in a few minutes all hands, except the injured men, were mustered in the waist, waiting to hear what the skipper had to say to them. As soon as silence had been secured, Captain Chesney advanced and said: "My lads, I have sent for you to come aft in order that I may communicate to you a matter that may prove of very considerable consequence to us all, and to invite your best assistance and co- operation in an investigation that I am about to cause to be made. The matter in question may or may not prove to be of an alarming character; but, in case of its turning out to be the latter, I want to impress upon you all the paramount importance of order, method, and the most implicit obedience, without which nothing of real importance can ever be achieved. There is at critical moments an impulse in every man to think and act independently, under the conviction that no one is so capable as himself of dealing efficiently and effectually with the matter in hand, and when this impulse prevails confusion and disorder follow, and all useful effort is frustrated. Where a number of men are working jointly together there must be a leader--one who will think for and direct the efforts of the rest, and it is essential to success that the orders of that leader should be obeyed. Now, in the present case, my lads, I will do all the thinking and planning and arranging, and if you will do the work quietly, methodically, and steadily there is no reason why all should not be well. "I have said all this with a double purpose: first, to prepare you for rather serious news; and, second, to quiet and steady you for the work which lies before us. And, first, as to the news. I fear that the lightning has done us rather more damage than we have hitherto had reason to suppose. In a word, men, I fear that it has set the cargo on fire--steady, lads, steady; I only say I fear that such is the case; I am by no means certain of it. But it is necessary that the matter should be investigated forthwith; I am, therefore, about to have the fore-hatch lifted and the cargo examined. Mr Priest, you, with your watch, will take off the hatches and rouse the cargo up on deck; and you, Mr Simcoe, with the starboard watch, will muster the buckets again, rig the pumps, and lead along the hose ready to play upon the fire, should such be discovered. Away, all of you, to your duty." It may possibly be thought by the reader that the above was rather a long speech for a man to make at a time when he believed the ship to be on fire under his feet, and when moments were consequently precious; but, after all, the delay amounted to only some three minutes, and those three minutes were well spent, for the skipper's speech had the effect of steadying the men, subduing any tendency to panic among them, and rendering them amenable to that strict discipline which is of such inestimable value and importance in the presence of great emergencies. They went away to their work in as quiet and orderly a manner as though they had been dismissed below. The wedges were quickly knocked out, the battens removed, the tarpaulin stripped off, the hatches lifted, and the upper tier of cargo disclosed, with the result that almost immediately a thin wreath of pale-brown smoke began to stream up from between the bales and cases. "No mistake about that, sir," observed the chief mate to the skipper, pointing to the curling smoke wreaths; "there's fire somewhere down there. Now, lads, let's get down to it, and make short work of it. You, Jim, and Simpson, get to work, and break out that bale and as much else as you can get at, and rouse it out on deck. Chips! ... Where's the carpenter?" "Here I are, Mr Priest," answered the carpenter, emerging from the forecastle hatchway after having stowed away his mawl again in the most methodical manner. "That's right," observed the mate. "Now, Chips, our foremast having gone, we want a derrick or a pair of sheers over this hatchway to help us in breaking out the cargo. Find a spar, or something that will serve our purpose, and let the bo'sun rig up what we want. Well done, men; now, out with that crate; jump down into that hole, one or two of you, and lend the others a hand." The work went forward rapidly and steadily, and in a very short time there was a goodly display of cargo on the deck about the fore-hatch. The smoke, however, which at first had streamed up in a mere thread-like wreath, was now pouring out of the hatch in a cloud so dense that the men working at the cargo were obliged to be relieved every three or four minutes to avoid suffocation. The business was beginning to assume a very serious aspect. And now, too, the storm having passed off, the passengers had ventured out on deck once more, and, observing the lights and the bustle forward, had gradually approached the fore end of the ship to see what was going on. The skipper, however, at once ordered them aft again, and, following them into the cuddy, explained just how matters stood, remaining with them until their excitement had subsided and he had got them pretty well in hand. Hitherto no water had been used, Captain Chesney being anxious to get as much of the cargo as possible--which was mostly of a valuable character--out on deck uninjured; but the rapidly increasing density and volume of the smoke showed that the question of damaging the cargo had now become a secondary one. The safety of the ship herself was imperilled, and the head pump was accordingly manned, the hose coupled up, and the second mate pointed it down the hatchway, while the third mate superintended the operations of a party of men who had been set to draw water and pass along a chain of buckets by hand. But when water had been pouring continuously down the hatchway for fully a quarter of an hour, and the smoke continued to stream up from below in ever- increasing volume, unmingled with any indication of steam, it became apparent that the seat of the fire was at some distance, for the water had evidently not yet reached the flames. Nevertheless, the men worked steadily on; but whereas at the commencement of their labours they had sung out their "Yo-ho's" and "Heave-ho's", and other encouraging exclamations, after the manner of sailors engaged in arduous labour, they now toiled on in grim silence. At length a feathery jet of white vapour began to mingle with the thick column of smoke surging up the hatchway, and was immediately greeted with a shout of triumph by the mate, followed by a few crisp ejaculations of encouragement to the men, who apparently accepted the same in good faith. Nevertheless, I could see by Priest's face that, although he might have deceived the men, he had not deceived himself, and that he knew, as well as I did, that the appearance of steam was an indication, not that the water had reached the fire, but that the fire had spread sufficiently to reach the water, a very different and much more serious matter. Suddenly the smoke thickened into a dense black cloud of a pungent, waxy odour, and immediately afterwards bright tongues of flame came darting up between the bales and packages upon which the men in the hold were working. There was a loud, hissing sound, as the water that was being poured down the hatchway became converted into steam, and then, with a quick, unexpected roar of fire, the flames shot up in such fierce volume that the men were driven precipitately up on deck. "Ah!" ejaculated the mate in an aside to me; "I know what that is; and it's what I've been fearing. There's a lot of shellac and gums of different sorts down there, and the fire's got at 'em. They'll burn like oil, or worse, and I'm afraid we shall have our work cut out now to get the fire under." I fully agreed with him, or rather I began to entertain a suspicion that the ship was doomed, for the heat, even while the mate had been speaking, had grown intense. The whole contents of the hatchway had burst into flame, and the ruddy tongues of fire were now darting through the hatchway, as through a chimney, to a height of fully twenty feet above the deck. The coamings were on fire, the pitch was beginning to bubble and boil out of the seams of the deck planking, and the planks themselves were already uncomfortably hot to stand upon. Unless the fire could somehow be checked it seemed to me that it would soon be time to think about getting out the boats. The skipper meanwhile had come forward again, and, although looking very anxious, was, I was glad to see, perfectly self-possessed. "We shall have to clap the hatches on again, Mr Priest, and endeavour to smother the fire," said he. "Let it be done at once." "Ay, ay, sir," answered Priest. "Now then, lads, on with the hatches some of you. Shall the carpenter cut holes in the deck, sir, for the water to pass through?" "Yes," answered the skipper. "We must keep the hose going, certainly." But when the men came to attempt the replacing of the hatches, it was found that the fire was already too much for them. The heat was so fierce, and the flames poured forth so continuously, that they could not get near enough to the hatchway to achieve their object. Then the skipper and I made the attempt, with no better success, getting severely scorched for our pains. "Perhaps," said I, "it might be possible to do something with a wetted sail--" "An excellent suggestion, for which I am much obliged to you, Mr Bowen!" exclaimed the skipper, interrupting me. "It shall be tried at once." And he forthwith gave the necessary orders. A main-topgallant-sail was got up out of the sail-room and dropped overboard, made fast by a line to one of the clews. Then, as soon as it was thoroughly saturated, it was dragged inboard, stretched athwart the deck, and dragged over the flaming hatchway, several men holding it in position while the carpenter rapidly spiked the head and foot of it to the deck. Meanwhile, the hose was played incessantly upon it, while bucket after bucket of water was emptied into it with frantic energy until the hollow of it over the hatchway was full of water. By keeping a continuous stream of water pouring into this hollow we seemed to check the fire for a time, although it was difficult work, on account of the great clouds of scalding steam that soon began to rise from the water. But in less than a quarter of an hour the scorched canvas gave way. The water that it had contained plumped down through the rent on to the blazing cargo, and was immediately converted into a vast volume of steam that momentarily checked the fire, and then the flames leaped up again far more fiercely than ever. "It is no good," murmured the skipper, turning to me; "the ship is doomed! The fire is rapidly spreading in spite of all that we can do. There is nothing for it, therefore, but to take to the boats, and the sooner that they are in the water the better." This was quite my own opinion, and I said so. The chief mate was accordingly called aside and given his instructions, and while the second mate, with his gang, continued to fight the fire, Mr Priest, with a few picked men, went to work to provision and water the several boats preparatory to getting them into the water. The long-boat was an exception to this arrangement. She stood on chocks upon the top of the main hatch, and, under ordinary circumstances, was hoisted out by means of yard tackles on the fore and main-yard-arms. Now, however, that the foremast was destroyed, it was no longer possible to handle her in this way, and the only plan that suggested itself was to launch her bodily off the deck, afterwards bailing out such water as she would probably ship during the operation. This was accordingly done very successfully, and in about two hours' time all the boats were alongside, with oars, rowlocks, a baler each, masts, sails, and other gear complete, and as much provisions and water as there was room for after allowing space for the necessary complement of passengers and crew. The Indiaman was well provided with boats, so there was room for everybody without overcrowding. While these preparations had been going on, Captain Chesney had been in the cuddy, stating the condition of affairs to the passengers, and directing them to prepare for their forthcoming boat-voyage by dressing in their warmest clothing and providing themselves with such extra wraps as would be useful at night or during severe weather. He also permitted them to each take a small package of valuables with them, explaining at the same time that they must be prepared to throw these overboard should the boats prove to be dangerously deep in the water, or should bad weather come on. At length, all being ready, the process of embarkation in the boats began, both gangways being used for this purpose. First of all, the crew of the long-boat and the first cutter descended into their respective boats, and stood by to receive the other occupants. The long-boat was a particularly fine and roomy craft, with accommodation enough to take all the women and children in her, and these were now accordingly ushered down the accommodation ladder, each being called by name by the skipper, who stood at the gangway with a list in his hand, which he ticked off by the light of the flames as each person left the ship. This was at the starboard gangway. Meanwhile Simcoe, the second mate, at the port gangway, was receiving the men who had been injured by the lightning that had set the ship on fire. All these were taken into the second cutter, and her full complement was made up with bachelor passengers. As soon as these two boats had received their full number they were ordered to pull away from the ship far enough to allow two other boats to come to the gangway, which in like manner quickly received their human freight, and hauled off. And so the work went on until everybody but the skipper and myself had left the ship, the gig, with eight hands, being at the gangway to receive us. The whole of the fore part of the ship, to within a few feet of the main hatchway, was by this time a roaring and blazing fiery furnace, the flames of which reached as high as the main-topmast-head. Part of the fore deck had fallen in; the heel of the bowsprit had been consumed, causing the spar, with all attached, to plunge into the water under the bows, and the deck planking, as far aft as the gangway, was almost unendurably hot to stand upon, while small tongues of flame were constantly springing into existence here and there about us in the most extraordinary way as the timber ignited with the intense heat. There was consequently not a moment to lose, and, as Captain Chesney very rightly insisted upon being the last to leave the ship, I wasted no time in making my way down into the gig, which I was to command, and into which I had already passed my few traps and my sextant. The skipper, meanwhile, had gone into the cuddy to take a final look round. He was absent nearly five minutes, and I was growing so anxious about him that I was at the point of leaving the boat again to hunt him up, when he appeared at the head of the gangway. The poor fellow seemed to be dreadfully cut up as he allowed his glances to wander fore and aft the noble ship, now ablaze almost to the spot upon which he stood, and with thick jets of black smoke and little tongues of flame forcing their way through the seams at a hundred different points. He had commanded the vessel ever since she left the stocks; he had conducted her safely to-and-fro over thousands of miles of ocean, through fair weather and foul; he had studied her until he had come to know every quality that she possessed, good or bad; had taken pride in the first, and found ample excuses for the last; he had grown to love her, almost as a man loves his wife or child, and now the moment had come when he must abandon her to the devouring flames that had already seared and destroyed her beauty, and were fast reducing her to a charred, shapeless shell of blazing timber. Involuntarily, as it seemed to me, he doffed his cap, as a man might do in the presence of the dying, standing there in the gangway, with his figure in bold relief against the glowing furnace of flame and the dense volumes of heavy, wreathing, fire-illumined smoke, while his eyes seemed to wander hither and thither about the burning ship as though unable to drag himself away; but at length the fire burst through the deck close to where he stood. Fiery flakes were falling thickly about him; the mainmast was tottering ominously; it was obviously full time to be gone. Such hints were not to be ignored, and replacing his cap upon his head with one hand as he dashed the other across his eyes, he slowly descended the ladder and gave the word to shove off. The men, who had latterly been growing very anxious and fidgety, lost no time in obeying the order. But we were none too soon, for the gig had barely left the gangway when the mainmast fell over the side with a loud crash and a fierce up- darting of millions of fiery sparks, followed by a great spout of flame that seemed to indicate that the mast, in falling, had torn up a considerable portion of the deck. The poor skipper, who had sunk down beside me in the stern-sheets of the boat, shuddered violently and heaved a heavy, gasping sigh as the mainmast struck the water close under the boat's stern, raising a splash that nearly drenched us to the skin. "Another half-minute and I should have been too late," he murmured, with a ghastly smile. "Well," he continued, "so far as the poor old ship is concerned, my duty is done. But there is still a heavy responsibility resting upon me, inasmuch as that the lives of all these people depend almost exclusively upon my judgment and foresight. Put me aboard the long-boat, please." CHAPTER THIRTEEN. THE GIG IS CAUGHT IN A GALE. Did as the skipper had requested, receiving young Dumaresq into the gig in his place, and then the several boats lay upon their oars, awaiting further orders. Captain Chesney seemed to be very reluctant, even now, to quit the neighbourhood of the burning ship; and therein I considered that he was displaying sound judgment, for the weather was still stark calm, and whatever movement we might make would have to be executed with the oars, which would soon result in greatly fatiguing the men without any commensurate advantage. Moreover the Indiaman was now a blazing beacon, the light from which would be distinctly visible at a distance of at least thirty or forty miles in every direction, and would be sure to attract attention should any craft be in the neighbourhood, probably leading to her steering in our direction as soon as a breeze should spring up; in which case we might all hope to be picked up. That this was in his mind was evident, for he presently summoned all the boats about him, and pointed out to their occupants the possibilities of rescue by remaining in the neighbourhood of the burning ship, and he then went on to say: "Our reckoning at noon showed that we were then--as we have since remained--seven hundred and twenty miles south-west by south from the island of Corvo, one of the Azores, which is the nearest land. There is a small town called Rosario upon this island, where, if we can but reach it, I have no doubt we can obtain succour; and I therefore intend to steer for Corvo, not only for the reason that I have mentioned, but also because most homeward-bound ships endeavour to make the Azores, and we therefore stand a very good chance of being picked up at any moment. Now, gentlemen, those of you who are in charge of boats will be pleased to remember that the course is north-east by north, and the distance seven hundred and twenty miles. You will also be pleased to remember that the boats are to keep company as long as the weather will permit, unless otherwise ordered by me. And now, as I do not intend to make a start until to-morrow morning, you had better arrange the watches in each boat, and secure all the rest that you can." This very sensible recommendation was at once adopted all round; but, as far as the gig was concerned, sleep appeared to be out of the question, the strong glare of light from the burning ship--although the boats had hauled off to a distance of fully half a mile from her--and, still more, the novelty and excitement of our situation, seeming to have completely banished slumber from our eyelids. At length, toward two o'clock in the morning--by which time the Indiaman had become the mere shell of a ship, a blazing furnace from stem to stern,--a light breeze sprang up from the north-north-east, almost dead in our teeth for the voyage to the Azores; and the order was passed along for the boats to set their sails and make short reaches, for the purpose of maintaining their position near the ship. This was done, and then the only bad quality that the boats appeared to possess rapidly declared itself. They were, one and all, staunch, well-built, and finely-modelled boats, excellently adapted for their work in all respects save one, which, in the present case, was of very great importance: their keels were so shallow that they had no grip of the water; and the result of this was that, as we quickly discovered, they would not turn to windward. The gig, which had been built with an especial eye to speed, was the least serious offender in this respect; indeed, so long as the water remained smooth, we managed to hold our own with her, and a trifle to spare; the long-boat, probably from her size and superior depth of body, came next; but the others sagged away to leeward from the first, despite the utmost efforts of those in charge; and, consequently, in order to remain in company, we were obliged to bear up and run down to them. Within an hour from the moment of making sail we were a mile to leeward of the ship; and with the steady freshening of the breeze we continued to increase our distance from her. The day at length broke, disclosing a sea ruffled to a hue of purest sapphire, flecked with little ridges of snowy foam by the whipping of the now fresh breeze, under a sky of blue, dappled with small, wool-like white clouds that came sailing up, squadron after squadron, out of the north-east, at a speed that told of a fiery breeze in the higher reaches of the atmosphere; and a sharp look-out for the gleaming canvas of a passing ship was at once instituted, but without result. About half an hour later the skipper, who was but a short distance to leeward of us, waved us to close; and when we had done so the long-boat and the gig ran down in company to the other boats in succession, Captain Chesney ordering each, as we passed, to follow him, until we finally all found ourselves near the jolly-boat, which was the most leewardly boat of all. The little flotilla then closed round the long-boat, which had been hove-to, and the skipper, standing up in the stern-sheets, addressed us: "Gentlemen," said he, "it is, as you may well imagine, a great disappointment to me to discover that the boats exhibit such very poor weatherly qualities, since it renders it plain that, unless something can be done to improve them in that respect, it will be useless for us to think of carrying out my original plan of making for the Azores in the teeth of the present foul wind. A plan has occurred to me that may possibly have the effect of helping the boats to go to windward, and I should like you all to try it. If it answers, well and good; if it does not, I am afraid there will be nothing for it but for us to try for the Canaries, which are considerably further away from us than the Azores, but which also lie much further to the southward, and consequently afford us a better chance, with the wind as it now is. "And now as to my plan for helping the boats to turn to windward. They are all fitted with bottom-boards; and I am of opinion that, if the triangular bottom-board in the stern-sheets is suspended over the lee side amidships by means of short lengths of line bent on to two of the corners, the arrangement will serve as a lee-board, and the boats will go to windward, although their speed may be slightly decreased. At all events I should like to give the plan a trial; so get your bottom-boards rigged at once, gentlemen, if you please, somewhat after the fashion of this affair that I have arranged." So saying, the skipper exhibited the long-boat's board, fitted to serve as a lee-board, and forthwith dropped it over the side, secured by a couple of stout lanyards, the other ends of which were made fast to the boat's thwarts. It appeared to require but little arranging, the leeway of the boat pressing it close to her side, and retaining it there in its proper position. The other boats were not long in following the skipper's example. Five minutes sufficed to get the lee-boards into action, and then the squadron hauled its wind, with the object of beating back to the neighbourhood of the ship. The value of Captain Chesney's idea soon became apparent, for in less than an hour we had reached far enough to windward to enable us to fetch the ship on the next tack. But we did not go about; for just at that time the wreck, burnt to the water's edge, suddenly disappeared, leaving no trace of her late presence but a dense cloud of mingled steam and smoke, that gradually swept away to leeward astern of us. The boats were on the starboard tack, and were kept so throughout the day, that being the leg upon which we could do best with the wind as it then was; and at noon an observation of the sun was secured which, the skipper having his chronometer and charts with him, showed that we were eleven miles nearer to our destination than we had been when we left the ship. This was no great slice out of a distance of more than seven hundred miles, but neither was it by any means discouraging, taking into consideration the distance that we had lost during the night. As for the passengers, particularly the women and children, they were in wonderfully good spirits, seeming to regard the boat-voyage rather as a pleasure-trip than the serious matter that it really was. The breeze continuing to freshen, it at length became necessary for the long-boat and ourselves to haul down a reef, in order that we might not outsail and run away from the remainder of the flotilla. But, despite everybody's most strenuous efforts, the boats manifested a decided disposition to become widely scattered, and it was only by the faster sailers heaving-to occasionally that the sluggards were enabled to keep in company. This proved so serious an obstacle to progress that just before sunset the long-boat again displayed the signal to close, and when we had done so the skipper informed us that, in view of the great difference in the sailing powers of the several boats, he withdrew his prohibition as to parting company, and that from that moment each boat would be at liberty to do the best that she could for herself. And it appeared to me that this was a most sensible decision to arrive at, since, taking into account the long distance to be traversed, the determination to regulate the progress of the entire squadron by that of the slowest boat must necessarily entail a very serious lengthening of the period of exposure and privation for those in the faster boats. Sail was accordingly made by the long-boat and ourselves; and when darkness closed down upon the scene, the gig was leading by about half a mile, the long-boat coming next, and the remainder stringing out astern, at distances varying from three-quarters of a mile to twice as far. It must not be supposed that, on this first day in the boats, the novelty of our situation caused us to feel indifferent to the possibility of a sail heaving in sight; on the contrary, one man in each boat was told off for the especial purpose of keeping a look-out; and I, for one, felt it to be a serious misfortune that up to nightfall nothing had been sighted; for, to tell the whole truth, I regarded the possibility of our reaching either Corvo or the Canaries as mighty problematical, trusting for our eventual rescue very much more to the chance of our falling in with a ship and being picked up. About eight bells of the second dog-watch the wind, which had been gradually freshening all day, freshened still more, piping up occasionally in so squally a fashion that I deemed it prudent to again haul down a reef; and by midnight it had become necessary to take in a second reef, the sky having clouded over, with a thick and rather dirty look to windward, while the wind came along in such heavy puffs that, staunch boat as was the gig, we had our work cut out at times to keep her lee gunwale above water. Moreover, a short, steep, choppy sea had been raised that proved very trying to us, the boat driving her sharp stem viciously into it, and throwing frequent heavy showers of spray over herself, that not only drenched us all to the skin, but also necessitated the continuous use of the baler. Fortunately, we were not very greatly crowded; so that, despite the weight of our party and that of our provisions and water, the boat was fairly buoyant, and we shipped nothing heavier than spray; but my heart ached as I thought of the poor women and children cooped up in the long-boat, and pictured to myself their too probable piteous condition of cold and wet and misery. As the night wore on, the weather grew steadily worse; and morning at length dawned upon us, hove-to under close-reefed canvas, with a strong gale blowing, and a high, steep, and dangerous sea running. And there was every prospect that there was worse to come, for the sun rose as a pale, wan, shapeless blot of sickly light, faintly showing through a veil of dim, grey, watery vapour, streaked with light-coloured patches of tattered scud, that swept athwart the louring sky at a furious rate, while the sea had that greenish, turbid appearance that is often noticeable as a precursor of bad weather. None of the other boats were anywhere near us, so far as could be made out; but one of the men was still standing on a thwart, steadying himself by the mast, looking for them, when he suddenly made our hearts leap and our pulses quicken by flinging out his right arm and pointing vehemently, as he yelled: "Sail ho! a couple of points on the lee bowl. A ship, sir, steerin' large, under to'gallant-sails!" "Let me get a look at her," answered I, as I clawed my way forward, noticing with consternation as I did so, that, despite the continuous baling that had been kept up, the water was fully three inches deep in the bottom of the boat, and that the lower tier of our provisions was, in consequence, most probably spoiled. The man, having first carefully pointed out to me the exact direction in which I was to look for the stranger, climbed down off the thwart and so made room for me to take his place, which I immediately did. Yes; there she was, precisely as the man had said, a full-rigged ship, scudding under topgallant-sails. She was fully seven--maybe nearer eight--miles away, and although rather on our lee bow at the moment when first sighted--in consequence of the gig having just then come to--was in reality still a trifle to windward of us. Of course it was utterly useless to hope that we could, by any means at our disposal, attract her attention at that distance; but as I looked almost despairingly at her, and noticed that she did not appear to be travelling very fast, it occurred to me that there was just a ghost of a chance that, by bearing up and running away to leeward, upon a course converging obliquely upon her own, we might be able to intercept her; or, if not that, we might at least be able to approach her nearly enough to make ourselves seen. It was worth attempting, I thought, for even though, in the event of failure, we should find ourselves in the end many miles more distant from Corvo than we then were, I attached but little importance to that; my conviction now being stronger than ever that our only hope of deliverance lay in being picked up, rather than in our being able to reach the Azores, or any other land. Noting carefully, therefore, the bearings of the stranger, and especially the fact that she appeared to be running dead to leeward, with squared yards, I made my way aft again, took the tiller, watched for a favourable opportunity, and succeeded in getting the gig before the wind without shipping very much water. Once fairly before the wind, the boat was able to bear a considerably greater spread of canvas than while hove-to; indeed an increase of sail immediately became an imperative necessity in order to avoid being caught and overrun, or pooped, by the sea; moreover we had to catch that ship, if we could. We therefore shook out a couple of reefs, and then went to breakfast; treating ourselves to as good a meal as the circumstances would permit. The gig being double-ended, and modelled somewhat after the fashion of a whale-boat, scudded well and no longer shipped any water; our condition, therefore, was greatly improved, and running before the gale, as we now were, the strength of the wind was not so severely felt, nor did the chill of the blast penetrate our saturated clothing so cruelly as while we were hove-to. Our clothes gradually dried upon us, we baled out the boat, and in the course of an hour or so began to experience something approaching a return to comfort. Meanwhile, at frequent intervals, the bearing and distance of the strange sail was ascertained, and our spirits rose as, with every observation, the chances of our ultimately succeeding in intercepting her grew more promising. Another result of these observations, however, was the unwelcome discovery that the stranger was travelling at a considerably faster pace than we had at first credited her with; and that only the nicest and most accurate judgment with regard to our own course would enable us to close with her. That in itself, however, was not sufficient to occasion us any very grave anxiety, for we had the whole day before us; and what we had most greatly to fear was a further increase in the strength of the wind. Unhappily there was only too much reason to dread that this might happen, if, indeed, it was not in process of happening already; for the sky astern was rapidly assuming a blacker, wilder appearance, while it was unquestionable that the sea was increasing in height and breaking more heavily. This last was a serious misfortune for us in a double sense; for, on the one hand, it increased the danger of the boat being pooped, while on the other it materially reduced our progress, our low sails becoming almost completely becalmed, and the boat's way slackening every time that we settled into the hollow of a sea. So greatly did this retard us that at length, despite the undeniable fact that the gale was increasing, we shook out our last reef and attempted the hazardous experiment of scudding under whole canvas. And for a short time we did fairly well, although my heart was in my mouth every time that, as the boat soared upward to the crest of a sea, the blast struck her with a furious sweep, filling the sail with a jerk that threatened to take the mast out of her, and taxing my skill to the utmost to prevent her from broaching-to and capsizing. But it would not do; it was altogether too dangerous an experiment to be continued. It was no longer a question of skill in the handling of the boat, we were tempting Providence and courting disaster, for the wind was freshening rapidly, so we had to haul down a reef again, and even after we had done this we seemed to be scarcely any better off than before. Meanwhile, however, in the midst of our peril and anxiety we had the satisfactory assurance that we were steadily nearing the ship; for we had risen her until, when both she and the gig happened to be simultaneously hove up on the crest of an unusually heavy sea, we could catch a glimpse not only of the whole of her canvas, but also of the sweep of her rail throughout its length, and we might now hope that at any moment some keen-eyed sailor might notice our tiny sail and call attention to it. Nay, there was just a possibility that this had happened already, for we presently became aware that the ship had taken in her topgallant-sails. Of course this might mean nothing more than mere ordinary precaution on the part of a commander anxious to avoid springing any of his spars; but it might also point to the conclusion that a momentary, doubtful glimpse of us had been caught by somebody, and that the officer of the watch, while sceptical of belief, had shortened sail for a time to afford opportunity for further investigation. But whichever it might happen to be, it improved our prospects of eventual rescue, and we were glad and thankful accordingly. The question now uppermost in our minds was whether we had or had not been seen by anyone on board the ship. Some of us felt convinced that we had--the wish, doubtless, being father to the thought; but, for my own part, I was exceedingly doubtful. For, as a rule--to which, however, some most shameful and dastardly exceptions have come under my own notice--sailors are always most eager to help their distressed brethren, even at the cost of very great personal inconvenience and peril; and, knowing this, I believed that, had only a momentary and exceedingly doubtful view of us been caught, steps would at once have been taken on board the ship to further test the matter. Some one, for instance, would probably have been sent aloft to get a more extended view of the ocean's surface; nay, it was by no means unlikely that an officer might have taken the duty upon himself, and have searched the ocean with the aid of a telescope, in either of which cases we should soon have been discovered; when the sight of a small boat battling for life against a rapidly increasing gale and an already extremely dangerous sea would doubtless have resulted in the ship hauling her wind to our rescue. Nothing of the kind, however, happened, and we continued our perilous run to leeward upon a course that was slowly converging upon that of the ship, with a feeling of growing doubt and angry despair at the blindness of those whom we were pursuing rapidly displacing the high hopes that had been aroused in our hearts at the first sight of that thrice-welcome sail. The ship held steadily on her way, and all that we could do was to follow her, with the wind smiting down upon us more fiercely every minute, while each succeeding wave, as it overtook us, curled its angry, hissing crest more menacingly above the stern of the deeply-laden boat. It was a wild, reckless, desperate bit of boat-sailing; and the conviction rapidly grew upon us all that it could not last much longer, we should soon be compelled to abandon the pursuit, or succumb to the catastrophe that momentarily threatened us. If we could but hold out long enough to attract the attention of those blind bats yonder, all might yet be well; but when at length our desperate race had carried us to within about two and a half miles of the ship, and an occasional glimpse of the whole of her hull could be caught when we were both at the same instant hove up on the ridge of a sea, there was no perceptible indication whatever that we had been seen by anybody aboard her. There was no truck, and no flag-halliard fitted to the mast of the gig, and we consequently had no means of hoisting a signal; but even if we had possessed such means they would probably have been useless, because if the sleepy lubbers had not noticed our sail, the exhibition of a comparatively small flag would hardly be likely to attract their attention. We were still in the midst of an anxious discussion as to what we could possibly do to make ourselves seen, when an end came to our pursuit. A furious squall of wind and rain swooped down upon us, there was a crash, and the mast thwart, unable to endure the additional strain thrown upon it, gave way, the mast lurched forward and went over the bow, sails and all, and at the same moment an unusually heavy sea overtook us, broke in over the boat's stern, and filled her half-way to the thwarts. I thought now that it was all over with us; fully expecting that the next sea would also break aboard, completely swamp the boat, and leave us all to swim for a few brief, agonising moments, and then to vanish for ever; yet with the never-slumbering instinct of self-preservation, I put the tiller hard over as the crest of the wave swept forward, and then frantically threw out an oar over the stern, with which to sweep the boat round head to sea. How it was achieved I know not to this day, but so furious a strength did I throw into my work that I actually succeeded in almost accomplishing my object; that is to say, I got the boat so far round that, when the next wave met us, the bluff of her starboard bow was presented to it, and although more water came aboard, it was not sufficient to very materially enhance the peril of our situation. Meanwhile the rest of the occupants seized the baler, a bucket that somebody had been thoughtful enough to throw into the boat when preparations were being made to leave the burning Indiaman, their caps, or even their hoots--the first thing, in fact, that came handy-- and began baling for their lives. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. THE SHADOW OF DEATH. The mast and sails of the boat had gone clean over the bows into the water, and would in all probability have been lost to us but for the fact that the shrouds still held; and, this being the case, the boat rode to them as to a sort of floating anchor, keeping her stem-on to the sea. Her trim was such that her bows were considerably more above water than her stern, which may have had something to do with the fact that, although the sea was now higher and more dangerous than ever, the water no longer broke into her. Dumaresq and I, however, were both of opinion that the floating mast, with the sails attached, served in some measure as a breakwater for the seas to expend their most dangerous energies upon, and after discussing the matter a little further it was determined to submit our theory to the test of experiment. The shrouds were accordingly unbent, and the mast hauled alongside, when the boat again began to ship water; moreover, an oar over the stern at once became necessary to keep her bows on to the sea. This experiment satisfied us that our impression was something more than a mere fancy, and we at once went to work to further test it. There were six oars in the boat, and another portion of her equipment was a painter, some six fathoms in length. We securely lashed together the whole six of the oars and the mast, with the sails still attached, in a sort of bundle, by the middle, using the end of the painter as a lashing, and when everything had been made secure we veered away the painter until the whole of it was out, and the bundle of oars and what-not was floating about five fathoms ahead of the boat. This served as a drag, again bringing the gig's bows on to the sea, and a comparatively short period of observation sufficed to convince us that the arrangement did indeed serve also as an appreciable protection to the boat. By the time that this was done the rain had nearly ceased, and presently it cleared up to leeward, revealing the ship once more, under double-reefed topsails, now broad on our larboard quarter and hopelessly beyond all possibility of being overtaken, even had we dared to resume the chase, which, after our recent experience, and in the face of the terrible weather, none of us dreamed of attempting. It was a cruelly bitter disappointment to us all to reflect that we had been so near to the possibility of rescue, and yet had missed it, and I caught the rumbling notes of more than one sea-blessing invoked upon the heads of the crew, who ought to have seen us, but apparently did not. It was useless, however, to cry over spilt milk, or to murmur against the mysterious decrees of Providence. Our business now was to do all that lay in our power to keep the boat afloat and enable her to ride out the gale; so we baled her dry, trimmed her a trifle more by the stern to enable her to present a bolder bow to the sea, and then piped to dinner. And now arose fresh cause for distress and apprehension, for when we came to look into the state of our provisions, it was found that pretty nearly everything that was spoilable had been ruined by the salt-water that we had shipped, our bread especially being almost reduced to pulp. We picked out the least damaged portions, however, and ate them, with some chunks of raw salt beef, washing down the whole with a sparing libation of weak grog, after which we felt in somewhat better spirits. But, oh! the cold and misery of it all! We were drenched to the skin, and the wind seemed to penetrate to our very marrow. Moreover, there was no hope whatever of the slightest improvement so long as the gale continued, for even though the rain had ceased, the air was full of spindrift and scud-water that fell upon us in drenching showers; while, cooped up as we were within the circumscribed dimensions of a small boat, there was no possibility of warming ourselves by exercise or active movement of any sort. The sea was running too dangerously high to admit of our taking to the oars and keeping ourselves warm by that expedient, and all that we could do to mitigate our misery was to huddle closely together in the bottom of the boat, and so shield ourselves as far as possible from the piercing wind and the drenching spray. Had we been able to smoke, matters would not have been so bad with us, but we had no means of obtaining a light; so there we crouched, hour after hour, our teeth clenched or chattering with cold, our drenched clothing clinging to our shivering bodies, and the gale howling over our heads with ever-increasing fury, while the sheets of salt spray lashed us relentlessly like whips of steel. So utterly miserable did we become that at length we even ceased to rise occasionally to take a look round, to see whether, perchance, another sail might have hove in sight. I believe that some of my companions in suffering found a temporary refuge from their wretchedness in short snatches of fitful sleep; at all events I caught at intervals the sound of low mutterings, as of sleeping men; but, as for me, exhausted though I was, I could not sleep. My anxiety on behalf of these poor wretches, who were in a way under my command, and who were certainly dependent to a great extent upon my experience and judgment, seemed to have driven sleep for ever from my eyes. And so we lay there, hour after hour, now flung aloft until the whole ocean to the limits of the horizon lay spread around us, anon sweeping down the back of some giant billow until it seemed that the boat was about to plunge to the ocean's bed, and the passage of every hour was marked by an increasing greyness and haggardness in the faces of my companions, while a more hopelessly despairing expression came into their eyes. At length, however, shortly before sunset, a welcome break appeared in the sky to windward; a gleam of watery, yellow light spread along the horizon; the pall of murky vapour broke up into detached masses; small but gradually widening patches of blue sky appeared here and here; and finally we got a momentary glimpse of the sun through a break in the clouds, just as the great luminary was on the point of sinking below the western horizon. We greeted the blessed sight with a cheer of reviving hope, for we knew that the gale was breaking, and that with the moderating of the wind and sea we should once again be able to take some active steps toward our preservation; while, apart from that, the finer weather would at least afford us some relief from our present suffering and misery. About half an hour later there was a noticeable diminution in the strength of the wind, which by midnight had become merely a moderate breeze. The sea no longer broke dangerously, the sky cleared, the stars beamed benignantly down upon us, and there was every prospect of our being able to resume our voyage on the morrow. But although, so far as the weather was concerned, matters were greatly improving with us, our suffering from cold was still very acute, for the night wind seemed to penetrate right through our wet clothes and to strike colder than ice upon our skins that were now burning with fever. As for me, I envied my more fortunate companions who were able to sleep. I was deadly weary, worn out with prolonged watching and anxiety and exposure; my eyes were burning and my head throbbing with the fever that consumed me, while my teeth were chattering with cold to such an extent that I could scarcely make my speech intelligible. Wild, fantastic, irrelevant fancies were whirling confusedly through my brain, and I found it simply impossible to fix my mind upon the important question of the direction in which we ought to steer upon the resumption of our voyage. For the impression now forced itself upon me that poor Captain Chesney had committed an error of judgment in adhering to his determination to make for the Azores, after the breeze had sprung up from a direction which placed those islands almost dead to windward, and his only alternative of making for the Canaries appeared to be open to the same objection, although in a considerably lesser degree. Then arose the question: If he was mistaken in thus deciding, what ought he to have done? But to this, in the then disordered condition of my mental faculties, I could find no satisfactory reply. At length, while mentally groping for a solution to this knotty problem, I sank into a feverish semi-somnolent condition that eventually merged into sleep, and when I again became conscious, the sun was flashing his first beams across the surface of the heaving waters, now no longer scourged to fury by the lashing of a gale, but just ruffled to a deep, tender blue by the gentle breathing of a soft breeze from the north-east. A very heavy swell was still running, of course; but it no longer broke, and there was nothing whatever to prevent our resuming our voyage at once, saving the question--Whither? The matter, however, that called for our first and most imperative attention was our own condition. We were still suffering greatly from the effects of prolonged exposure in our still damp clothes, and we could hope for little or no amelioration until our garments were once more dry, and the healthy action of our skin restored; so, to facilitate this, I suggested that we should all strip, and spread out our clothing to thoroughly dry in the sun's now ardent beams, and that, while the drying process was in progress, we should all go overboard and indulge in a good swim. The greater portion of our party thought this advice good enough to be acted upon, and in a few minutes seven of us were in the water and swimming vigorously round the boat; the other three were unable to swim, but they imitated us so far as to strip and pour buckets of water over each other. The water felt pleasantly warm in comparison with the temperature of the air, and we remained overboard for nearly half an hour; then we scrambled back into the boat again, rubbed ourselves and each other vigorously with the palms of our hands, while our bodies were in process of being dried by the joint action of the sun and air; and finally we donned our clothes again, they being by this time quite dry, feeling much refreshed and in every way considerably the better for our bath. Our next business was to go to breakfast, but our bread was by this time so completely destroyed as to be quite uneatable. We therefore threw it overboard, and made a meagre and unpalatable meal off more raw salt beef, washed down as before with weak grog. And while the meal was in progress I brought up the question that had been vexing me during the previous night; namely, the direction in which we should steer. I had been giving this matter my best consideration during the time that I had been overboard; indeed Dumaresq and I had been discussing it together as we swam industriously round and round the boat, and we both agreed in the conclusion that the appearance of the sky warranted the belief that we were on the very margin of the north- east trade-wind, if not actually within its influence. And if this were indeed the case, it appeared that the proper course for us to adopt would be to bear up and run for the West Indies, instead of attempting to reach the Azores or even the Canaries. For while Corvo was only seven hundred and twenty miles from the spot where the Indiaman was destroyed, while Teneriffe was about thirteen hundred and eighty miles, and Saint Thomas, in the West Indies, fifteen hundred miles from the same spot, we could reckon with tolerable certainty upon reaching the latter island in about twelve days if the breeze now blowing actually happened to be the young trade-wind; while, under the same supposition, it was exceedingly doubtful when, if ever, we should succeed in reaching either the Azores or the Canary Islands. It was altogether too momentous a question for me to settle off-hand and upon my own responsibility, so I laid the matter before the whole boat's company, inviting them to decide it by a preponderating vote. I found that the majority agreed with me in the opinion that we might be on the fringe of, if not actually within, the influence of the trade-wind, but when it came to the question of bearing up and running for the West Indies, the great distance to be traversed seemed to frighten them. They were hardly prepared to face the prospect of nearly a fortnight in an open boat, even although we might reckon with tolerable certainty upon a fair wind and moderate weather all the time. They pointed out that our stock of provisions was wholly inadequate for such a voyage, unless we were all prepared to go upon an exceedingly short allowance forthwith, and they appeared to consider that, by adhering to Captain Chesney's plan, we should stand a better chance of falling in with and being picked up by a ship. As to whether we should make for the Azores or the Canaries, we were pretty unanimously of opinion that, despite the much greater distance of the latter, if we were, as we supposed, within the influence of the trade-wind, we should stand a much better chance of fetching it; and after some further discussion it was definitely determined to shape the best course we could for Teneriffe. This important matter settled, all that we had to do was to lash the mast thwart in its place again, haul the mast and oars alongside, get them inboard, and make sail, which we did forthwith. For the next five days we sailed comfortably enough to the eastward, making on an average, about eighty-five miles in the twenty-four hours, during which not a single sail had been sighted; and then the wind gradually died away, and it fell stark calm. This obliged us to take to the oars; and whereas during the gale we had suffered greatly from cold and wet, all our complaint now was of the intense heat; for the clouds had passed away, leaving the sky a vault of purest blue, out of which the sun blazed down upon us relentlessly for about eleven hours out of the twenty-four. This, coupled with our exertions at the oars--and possibly the profuse perspiration induced thereby--provoked a continuous thirst which we had no means of satisfying; for immediately upon our determination to make for Teneriffe, we had carefully gauged our stock of provisions and water, and had placed ourselves upon a very short allowance of both. And, to make matters still worse, the setting in of the calm immediately rendered it imperatively necessary to still further reduce our already far too scanty allowance. There was nothing for it, however, but to toil on, hour after hour, with ever-decreasing strength; the only redeeming feature of our case being the knowledge that, should we now chance to sight a ship, she could not possibly sail away from us so long as the calm lasted. But when the calm had continued for twenty-four hours, during which we pulled continuously to the eastward, relieving each other at frequent intervals, this reflection almost ceased to afford us any comfort, for we found that short commons and hard work together were exhausting our strength with such alarming rapidity that, unless we sighted the hoped- for sail pretty speedily, we should have no strength left with which to pull to her. And when another twelve hours had passed over our heads, and another cloudless, breathless, blazing morning had dawned upon us, the men with one accord laid in their oars, protesting their utter inability to any longer keep up the exhausting work of pulling the boat I argued with, entreated, and threatened them alternately, without avail; they turned a deaf ear to me, and lay down in the bottom of the boat, where they almost instantly fell into a restless, troubled sleep. All, that is to say, except Dumaresq, who recognised as clearly as I did the vital necessity for us to push onward as speedily as possible; after discussing the situation for a while, therefore, we threw over a couple of oars, and, placing the boat compass between my feet where I could see it, paddled wearily and painfully onward until noon, when we ceased, that I might have an opportunity to take an observation for the determination of our latitude. While I was still engaged upon this operation the men awoke; and as soon as I had ascertained our latitude we went to dinner; if dinner that could be called which consisted of a small cube of raw meat, measuring about an inch each way, and as much tepid, fetid water as would half-fill the neck of a rum-bottle that had been broken off from the body to serve as a measure. After dinner the men again stretched themselves out, either in the bottom of the boat or on the thwarts, and once more sought surcease of suffering in sleep; and again Dumaresq and I threw out our oars and toiled at them until sunset. But it was cruel work, and nothing short of such urgent necessity as ours would have induced me to do it. Then the men awoke again, apparently somewhat refreshed by their day's rest, and we went to supper. The fact that Dumaresq and I had been working at the oars all through the scorching day, while they had been sleeping, seemed to awaken a sense of shame in some of them; and after supper they took to the oars of their own accord, announcing their determination to rest henceforth through the day, and to work all night, a plan which I was at once compelled to admit had much to recommend it. And so, while the men pulled pretty steadily on through the night, Dumaresq and I took watch and watch at the tiller. Another breathless morning dawned; we went to breakfast, and the men then lay down to sleep, as on the previous day, while Dumaresq and I laboured at the oars until noon, when the gallant young Frenchman was compelled to give up, declaring that he could not pull another stroke, even though his life depended upon it. I could, of course, do nothing single-handed; so after dinner we all lay down together, and the sleep of utter exhaustion soon fell upon me. When I next awoke the men were already astir and getting their supper; and it appeared to me, from the look in their faces, that they would have been better pleased had Dumaresq and I remained asleep. After supper they threw out their oars, and the Frenchman and I sat together in the stern-sheets, moodily discussing the situation, and marvelling at our strange ill-fortune in having sighted but one solitary sail ever since the destruction of the Indiaman. "The fact is," remarked Dumaresq, in a low tone, "that we have made a terrible mistake in deciding to try for Teneriffe. We ought to have acted upon your suggestion to bear away for the West Indies. Had we done so, we should have been more than half-way there by this time--if, indeed, we had not already been fallen in with and picked up. As it is, it is now clear enough that, if as we both believed, we were on the edge of the trade-wind, we have lost it again, and it may be many days before we shall get another breeze. And should that be the case, it is my belief that not one of us will ever see dry land again. Note our condition at this moment; observe our companions. When we abandoned the ill-fated _Manilla_ they were a stout, sturdy crew of willing, obedient men; whilst now they are a gang of gaunt and savage outlaws, no longer amenable to discipline, and rendered ferociously selfish by starvation. Did you observe the fell gleam of animosity with which they regarded us when we awoke this evening and helped ourselves to our share of the provisions? There has been no hint of violence thus far; but, mark my words, Bowen, unless we are rescued within the next forty-eight hours this boat will become the scene of a ghastly tragedy. Ah! _mon Dieu_! look at that!" Dumaresq had brought his lips close to my ear while speaking, and the accompanying turn of his head had permitted his eyes to glance over my shoulder into the water astern of the boat. As he uttered his closing exclamation he pointed to the boat's wake; and there, not two fathoms away from the rudder, could be seen two large sharks, their forms clearly indicated in the phosphorescent water, steadily following the boat, and swimming at a distance of about three feet below the water. "What did I say?" continued Dumaresq. "The shadow of death is hovering over this boat; those sharks see it, and they will follow us until they get their prey!" CHAPTER FIFTEEN. DYING OF HUNGER AND THIRST. I must confess that the sudden appearance of those two ferocious monsters of the deep excited within me a feeling of intense horror and uneasiness; for I had heard so much about the alleged mysterious instinct by which the shark is said to be enabled to foresee the approaching death of one or more members of a crew, and had listened to so many apparently authentic stories confirming this belief in the creature's powers, that I had grown to be quite prepared to believe that there might be something more than mere superstition at the bottom of it. And now it almost appeared as though I was to have an opportunity of learning by personal experience what amount of truth there really was in the gruesome theory. But after the first shock of horror had passed, reason and common sense whispered that the presence of these visitors, instead of being a constant horror and menace to us, might, by good luck, be converted into a valuable source of food-supply, and I accordingly at once informed the men that there were two sharks following us, and inquired whether any of them could suggest a plan for the capture of one of the fish. I immediately discovered, however, that I should have done better to have said nothing; for the announcement excited the utmost consternation; while my proposal to attempt the capture of one of the fish was ridiculed as something approaching the height of absurdity. Tom Hardy--a weather-beaten seaman, who had been knocking about in all parts of the world for thirty years from the time when he first plunged his hands into the tar bucket at the age of fourteen--at once rose from his thwart, where he was pulling the stroke oar; and, looking over the heads of Dumaresq and myself, stared intently down at the fish for a few seconds, and then resumed his seat, remarking: "Ay, mates, what Mr Bowen says is true enough; there's two of 'em; and that means that two of this here party is goin' to lose the number of their mess afore long; you mark my words and see if they don't come true. As to catchin' either of them sharks, why, we haven't got no hook to catch 'em with. And, if we had, 'twouldn't be of no use to try; them fish ain't to be caught; they're astarn of us for a purpose; and there they'll stay until that purpose have come to pass. I've knowed this sort of thing to happen afore. I was once aboard of a brig called the _Black Snake_, hailin' from Liverpool, and tradin' between the West Injies and the Guinea coast. We'd made a fine run across from Barbadoes, and was within a week's run of the Old Calabar river when it fell calm with us, just as it have done now. "There wasn't nothing the matter with none of us at the time; but a'ter we'd been becalmed about a week--which, let me tell ye, mates, ain't nothing so very much out of the common in them latitoods--the second mate fell sick, and took to his bunk. He hadn't been there not two hours when somebody sings out as there was a shark under the counter; and we goes to work to try and catch him. But, mates, he wasn't to be caught, though we tried him all ways, even to pitchin' the bait right down atop of his ugly snout. Mind you, he was ready enough to swaller as much pork as ever we chose to give him, so long as there wasn't no hook in it; but if there was a hook buried in it he wouldn't so much as look at it. "Well, we was obliged to give it up at last; and as we was haulin' in the line and unbendin' the hook I heard the chief mate say to the skipper:-- "`That settles poor Hobbs' hash, anyhow!' "`How d'ye mean?' says the skipper, short and angry-like. "`Why,' says the mate, `I means that Hobbs won't get better, and that shark knows it. He's just waitin' for him!' "`Oh, nonsense,' says the skipper; `I'm surprised, Mr Barker, to hear a hintelligent man like you sayin' such things.' "And he marches off down below, and goes into the second mate's cabin to see how the poor chap was gettin' on. About twenty minutes a'terwards he comes up on deck again, and tells the mate as poor Mr Hobbs have got the yaller fever. And, mates, I takes notice that the skipper weren't just then lookin' so extra well hisself. About a hour a'terwards he goes below again; and by and by the steward comes for'ard, lookin' pretty frightened, I can tell ye, and says as the skipper is sick, too. "`I wonder whether there's a shark come for him, as well as for the second mate,' says one of the men, jokin' like. `Run aft, steward,' says he, `and look over the taffrail, and see.' "The steward did as he was told; and presently he comes for'ard again, as white as a ghost; and:-- "`There's two of 'em now,' says he. And sure enough, shipmates, when we went aft and had a look for ourselves, there was two sharks just playin' about under the starn, scullin' here and there, lazy-like, but never goin' very far away. "I told the mate of this, and p'inted out the brutes to him; but he didn't seem a bit put out by it; he just laughed and said:-- "`Then the skipper's goose is cooked, too; and I shall have to take charge of the ship myself!' "And, as he said it, mates, you may believe me or not, as you like, but up comes a third shark, and jines company with the two that was standin' off and on. "`Hillo!' says the mate, now lookin' frightened enough; `what's the meanin' of this here, I wonder? Three of 'em,' he says; `one for Hobbs, and one for the cap'n: but who's the third one a'ter?' "Mates, what I'm goin' to tell you is as true as that I'm sittin' here on this here thwart: the mate was took ill that very night; and the next day he follered poor Mr Hobbs and the skipper over the rail; and then the three sharks left us. And a week later the brig went ashore on the coast, about the middle of as dark a night as ever you see, and me and two more was all as managed to reach the sand-hills alive." This weird story, told with all the impressiveness of a man who knew himself to be speaking the truth--emphasised as it was by the persistent presence of those two remorseless brutes under our own stern,--affected the listeners powerfully; and at its close there was not one of us, I will venture to say, but was firmly convinced that at least two of our party were doomed. We continued pulling to the eastward until nearly midnight that night, relieving each other at the oars at short intervals, when, suddenly, one of the men--Peter Green by name--dropped his oar and, with a choking cry, rolled off his thwart and fell prone into the bottom of the boat. His place was immediately taken by another; but within a quarter of an hour this man, too, was obliged to give up; and so, one after the other, they all succumbed, until only Dumaresq and myself were left; and we had not been tugging at the oars five minutes when the Frenchman cried: "It is no good, _mon ami_; I am `gastados', as the Spaniards say; I am expended, worn out!" He rose to his feet; staggered heavily aft, and sank down in the stern-sheets with a groan and a gasping cry of: "Water! water! For the love of God give me a mouthful of water, or I shall die!" The poor fellow had, of course, been receiving the same allowance as the rest of us; and the small quantity of putrid fluid now remaining in the bottom of our breaker was of such priceless value that I could not give him any more without inflicting a grievous injustice and injury upon the rest; nevertheless, I could not sit there and see him die; so I drew a single allowance from the cask--explaining to the men as well as my own parched throat would allow, that I would forego my own allowance next time that it was due--and, raising his head, I poured it into his mouth, bitterly grudging him every drop, I am ashamed to say, as I did so. There was only enough to just moisten his cracked lips and his dry, black tongue; but, such as it was, it seemed to revive him somewhat, and, squeezing my hand gratefully, he settled himself more comfortably on the thwart, and presently appeared to sink into a state of semi- unconsciousness that perhaps partially served in place of sleep. I would gladly have followed his example if I could, but it was impossible. My stubborn constitution seemed to defy the destructive wear and tear of prolonged hunger and thirst; but my sufferings were beyond the power of language to portray; my craving hunger was so intense that I believe I could have eaten and enjoyed any food, however revolting, could I but have obtained it; while my thirst was so overpowering that it was with the utmost difficulty I combated the temptation to open a vein and moisten my parched and burning tongue and throat with my own blood. Equally difficult was it to resist the temptation to take a long, cool, satisfying draught of the salt-water that lapped so tantalisingly against the sides of the boat, and shimmered so temptingly in the starlight all around me; but I knew what the consequences of such an act would be, and, by the resolute exercise of all the will power remaining to me I contrived to overcome the longing. Yet so excruciating was my torment that I felt I must do something to alleviate it, even though the alleviation were to be of the briefest. I therefore determined to try an experiment; and, stripping off all my clothing, I plunged the garments, one by one, into the water alongside, until they were saturated; when I donned them again. The cool, wet contact of them with my dry, burning skin seemed to afford some relief to my tormenting thirst; and, encouraged by this small measure of success, I next cut a strip of leather from one of my boots and, dividing this into small pieces, I placed them, one at a time, in my mouth, masticating them as well as I could, and finally swallowing them. It will, perhaps, convey to the reader some idea of the intensity of my hunger when I say that I actually enjoyed these pieces of leather, and that my unendurable craving for food was in an appreciable degree appeased by them, to an extent sufficient, indeed, to enable me to lie down and actually fall asleep. I remember that my dreams, that night, were of feasting and drinking, of a profusion of appetising viands and choice wines spread upon long tables that stood under the welcome shadow of umbrageous trees and close to the borders of sparkling streams of sweet, crystal-clear water; and when I awoke the sun was again rising above the horizon into a sky of fleckless blue reflected by an ocean of glassy calm unbroken by the faintest discoverable suggestion of a flaw of wind anywhere upon its mirror-like surface. My companions were also stirring; some of them contenting themselves by merely grasping the gunwale of the boat and so raising their bodies that they could look round them for a moment, and then sinking back with a moan of despair at the sight of the breathless calm and the blank horizon, while others--two or three whose strength still sufficed for the extra effort--painfully raised themselves upon their feet and scanned the horizon with a longer and more searching gaze for a sail. There was nothing to be seen, however, in the whole visible stretch of the ocean, save the fins of the two sharks which haunted us so remorselessly; so, with inarticulate mutterings of despair, and hoarse, broken curses at the ill-fortune which so persistently dogged us, we prepared to devour our last insignificant ration of food and consume the last drops of our hoarded water. The next minute saw us transformed into a crew of furious, raving maniacs; for--the food and the water had both disappeared! the locker forward in which our last morsel of meat had been deposited on the previous night was empty; the water-breaker was dry! some unscrupulous villain, some vile, dastardly thief among us had stolen and consumed both! The discovery of this detestable crime had the temporary effect of a powerful restorative upon us; our furious indignation temporarily imbued our bodies with new vigour; and in an instant every man of us was upon his feet and glaring round, with eyes ablaze, upon his fellows, in search of the criminal. In vain I strove to quell the excitement, to stay the clamour, and to restore order; discipline and obedience indeed were at an end, distinctions of rank no longer existed, the ordinary restraints of civilisation were discarded, our frightful situation had reduced us to the condition of wild beasts, and my entreaties that the matter might be dealt with in something like judicial form might as well have been urged upon the empty air. There was not much difficulty in identifying the culprit. He was a Welshman, named Evans, a poor, pitiful, sneaking creature, one of the under-stewards belonging to the _Manilla_, who had systematically shirked his share of the work, and done his best to evade his share of the hardship from the very first; and although, when taxed with his crime, he at first strenuously denied it, his manner belied his words, and presently he flung himself upon his knees and--with tears and protestations of his inability to resist the temptation that had suddenly come upon him--acknowledged the theft, and abjectly besought our forgiveness. I very much doubt whether, in my then frame of mind, I could have been induced to forgive the miserable creature: but I certainly had no desire to inflict any punishment upon him beyond what he would derive from my undisguised expressions of contempt and abhorrence. Not so his more immediate companions, however. Evans had no sooner confessed than, with a hoarse howl of fury, his self- constituted judges whipped out their sheath-knives, while in a paroxysm of terror the wretched steward leapt to his feet and hastily retreated forward, shrieking for mercy. The men followed him; and ere I could intervene there was a scuffle, a rapid rain of blows, a smothered groan, a splash alongside, and the next instant the Welshman's head reappeared above water, about a fathom away from the boat, his face grey and distorted with fear, and his skinny hands outstretched in a vain endeavour to reach the gunwale of the boat. Then, almost in the self- same instant, and before one's benumbed senses found time to realise the ghastly tragedy, there was a rapid swirl of water alongside, an ear- splitting yell, and the miserable man was dragged down, an ensanguined patch in the deep crystalline blue, and a few transitory air-bubbles alone marking the spot from which he had vanished. Involuntarily I glanced astern. There was but one shark's fin now visible! "Shame upon you, men; shame upon you!" cried I, emerging from the temporary trance of stupefaction which seemed to have seized me while this frightful tragedy was in progress. "You have taken a human life, and branded yourselves as murderers. And for what? Simply because that poor craven of a fellow appropriated a small morsel of putrid meat and a few drops of disgusting liquid that, evenly divided among you all, could have done you no appreciable good. At most, it could but have prolonged your lives an hour or two." "Ay, that's just it!" huskily interrupted one of the men. "The meat and the water that we've lost would have give us another hour or two of life, and who's to say that just that hour or two mightn't have made all the difference between livin' and dyin' to us? If anything was to happen to drift into view within the next few hours, that bit of meat and they few drops of water might have give us strength enough to handle the oars again and pull far enough to be sighted and picked up; but now we're done for, all hands of us. Our strength is gone, and we've nothin' left to give it back to us, even if a whole fleet was in sight at this present moment. When that chap stole the last of our grub he stole our lives with it. He's the murderer, not us, and he deserved what he got! Oh, my God, water! Give us water, for Christ's sake!" And, throwing up his poor, lean, shrivelled hands toward the cloudless sky, with a gesture eloquent of frantic, despairing appeal, the poor, tortured creature suddenly collapsed and fell senseless athwart the gunwale of the boat, with his arms hanging down into the water. We dragged him quickly inboard again, but we were not a second too soon, for we had scarcely done so when the remaining shark was alongside, glaring up at us with a look of fell longing in those cruel goggle eyes of his, that seemed to say he intended to have his prey sooner or later, although we had baulked him of it for the present. The dreadful exhaustion of reaction from the late excitement now seized upon the rest of us, and one by one we wearily sank down again into our respective places in the boat. Then I told the men by what means I had obtained temporary relief during the night, advising them to try the same method, and presently we were all sitting in our wet clothes, ravenously chewing away upon strips of our shoe leather. But nobody thought of again having recourse to the oars; indeed our strength had now so completely melted away that I doubt very much whether a single man in the whole of that boat's company--saving, perhaps, myself--could have laid out an oar unaided. The blazing hot, breathless day lagged slowly along, every hour seeming to spin itself out to a more intolerable length than the last, and with every moment our suffering grew more nearly unbearable, until toward evening I seemed to be going mad, for the most fantastic ideas went crowding through my whirling brain, and I now and then caught myself muttering the most utter nonsense, now laughing, now weeping and moaning like a child. Anon I found myself kneeling in the stern-sheets and supporting my body upon one arm as I gesticulated with the other while apostrophising that demon shark--or were there two of them again, or three? I remember laughing to myself uproariously, noticing at the same time, with a sort of wonder, what a wild, eldritch, gibbering laugh it was, at the thought of how those sharks--yes, there _were_ three; I was certain of it--would jostle and hustle each other, in their greedy haste to get at me, were I to simply stand up and topple over the gunwale into the water. And how easily--how ridiculously easily--I might do it too. I laughed again at the absurdity of taking so much trouble and enduring such frightful extremity of suffering to preserve a life that might be so readily got rid of, and wondered dully why I had been so foolish as to go through it all when it might be put an end to in a single moment. Why, I asked myself, should I remain any longer in the boat with that great, red, flaming eye staring so mercilessly down upon me out of that brazen sky, when the laughing blue water smiled so temptingly up into my eyes and wooed me to its cool embrace? There would be no more hunger and thirst down there, no relentless sun to torment me century after century by darting his fiery beams down upon my uncovered head and through my hissing, seething brain. A plunge, and all my miseries would be at an end. I would make that plunge; I would seek those cool, cerulean depths; I would--Ah! I had forgotten you, you devils! What! are you waiting for me? Are you growing impatient? How many of you are there? One, two, three, four--stop, stop. I cannot count you if you swarm around the boat in that unseemly fashion! Why, there are hundreds of you, thousands, millions! The sea is black with you! Your waving fins cover the ocean to the farthest confines of the horizon! And you are all waiting for me! Very well, then, I shall disappoint you. I shall-- When I recovered from my delirium it was night. The stars were shining brightly, and the air was deliciously cool after the scorching heat of the day. Strange to say, I no longer felt hungry. The craving for food was gone, but its place was more than supplied by an increased agony of thirst which seared my vitals as with fire. My lips were dry and cracked; my tongue felt shrivelled and hard in my mouth. I tried to speak to Dumaresq, who was lying in the bottom of the boat with his glazed eyes turned up at the stars, but I could give utterance only to a husky, hissing sound. There was no movement on the part of any of the forms that were dimly discernable, huddled up in the bottom of the boat. Whether they were dead or only asleep I knew not, nor cared. Life and everything connected with it had lost all interest for me I was dying. I knew it, and longed only for the end to come that I might be delivered out of my misery. With inexpressible pain I raised myself to my knees to take one more last look round, lest peradventure a sail should by some miraculous interposition of Providence have drifted within our ken, but there was nothing. There could be nothing while that murderous calm lasted. I felt the old delirium returning upon me; it was rioting within my brain. Strange forms and hideous shapes floated around me. The dead steward climbed in over the gunwale and stood in the eyes of the boat, denouncing us as murderers and calling curses down upon us. Then the scene changed. A glorious light shone round about us; soft strains of sweetest music came floating to us across the placid waters; delicious perfumes filled the air. There was a gentle murmuring sound as of a soft wind among trees and a gentle tinkling as of a running stream. Then my brain seemed to burst. I was dimly conscious that I was falling backward, and I knew no more. CHAPTER SIXTEEN. CAPTAIN RENOUF. Where was I? What was this darksome, foul, and evil-smelling place? Who was that forbidding-looking individual sitting there smoking under that swaying, smoky, dimly-burning, miserable apology for a lamp? And, finally, what had happened that my limbs should feel heavy as lead, and that I should be too weak to turn upon my cruelly-hard, box-like pallet? Such were the questions that slowly and laboriously formed themselves within my mind when I at length awoke from that state of blessed unconsciousness which I had believed to be death. For some time I lay painfully revolving these questions in my mind, groping about for information in a sort of dim, mental twilight, so obscure that I was not even certain of my own identity. Gradually, however--very gradually,-- the twilight brightened with returning life and reason, and I found myself beginning to identify my surroundings. I became conscious of a rhythmical rising and falling and swaying movement, accompanied by a creaking, grinding sound, and the wash and gurgle of water outside the planking that formed two of the three walls of the triangular apartment in which I found myself, and I somehow recognised these movements and sounds as familiar. Then I heard a voice at some distance, shouting something that I could not distinguish, answered by two or three voices almost immediately overhead. There was a noise of ropes being thrown down upon planking, and a further outcry of voices, accompanied by a creaking sound and the flapping of canvas. And then it suddenly dawned upon me that I was lying in a bunk in a ship's forecastle, and that the forbidding-looking stranger must be one of the crew. But why was it, I asked myself, that this man was a stranger to me? Why, indeed, was it that all my surroundings were strange to me; for I could not recall that I had ever seen any of them before? And then, as I lay puzzling over this perplexing problem, the past gradually unfolded itself before me; first of all confusedly, as one recalls the images and incidents of an imperfectly remembered dream, and then more clearly, until it had all come back to me in the fulness of its hideous reality. I recollected everything, my memories beginning, strangely enough, as I think, with the incidents of my earliest childhood, and gradually extending through the years until I arrived at the incident of the burning Indiaman, the boat-voyage, the pursuit of the strange ship, the gale, and our subsequent sufferings from thirst and starvation. And, as the remembrance of the final horrors of that awful experience returned to me, my thirst seemed to return with it, and I cried aloud for water, feeling surprised, as I did so, to find that my voice had returned to me, and that my throat, tongue, and lips, although still very sore and painful, were no longer dry and hard as they had been when I was last conscious of anything. The repulsive-looking individual, apparently the sole occupant of the forecastle except myself, at once rose from the chest upon which he was sitting, and approached my bunk, bending over and peering down into my face. "Aha! my frien'!" he exclaimed, in a strong French accent; "so you have come to life again, have you? _Bon_! zat is grand; ze capitaine he vill be rejoice to hear ze news; for he say, ven ve pull you up out of ze _bateau_, `Aha! here is von fine fellow; he mus' be _tres fort_ ven he is vell; ve mus' try to save him; he vill be more useful in our--vat you call, eh?--_gaillard d'avant_, dan in ze stomach of ze shark!' You vant vattare, eh? _Bon_! plenty vattare here, _mon ami_; plenty provision too; you not starve no more; you lie still in ze bunk, and I shall bring you all t'ings _necessaire_ to make you veil, _promptement_." So saying, he went to the other end of the forecastle, and producing a large, rusty, tin can, and an equally rusty, and woefully battered tin pannikin, poured out a draught, which he brought to me, and, supporting my head upon his shoulder, held to my lips. I had an opportunity to take a good look at him now, as he bent his face close to mine, and, so far as I could see by the dim light of the forecastle, his repulsiveness of appearance was due rather to the filthy condition of his person and clothing than to the expression of his countenance; for although his skin was dark with accumulated grime, his long whiskers, moustache, and black greasy locks matted and unkempt, and his features frightfully scarred with small-pox, there was a genial, mirthful sparkle in his coal-black eyes that somewhat favourably impressed me. The draught which he offered me was deliciously cool and refreshing; being composed of water strongly dashed with a crude, sour sort of wine. I swallowed it at a gulp, and was about to put a few interrogations to my new friend, when, from the bunk adjoining my own, there arose a feeble cry that I identified as the voice of Dumaresq; and my grimy nurse, gently laying my head back upon the pillow, at once hurried away to attend to his other patient. I heard a few low-murmured words from Dumaresq, followed by a reply from the unprepossessing unknown, and then I fell into a delightfully refreshing, dreamless slumber. When I next awoke it was night, for I could just catch a glimpse of a narrow strip of star-lit sky swinging to-and-fro athwart the open scuttle communicating with the deck, in unison with the pendulum-like roll of the ship. There appeared to be a fine breeze blowing, for the vessel was heeling strongly; the thunder of the wind in the sails, and the piping of it through the taut rigging came down through the scuttle with a pleasant, slumberous sound, and the roar of the bow-wave, close to my ear, with the quick, confused swirl and gurgle of water along the planks, assured me that the ship was moving at a tolerably rapid rate. The ever-burning lamp still swung from its blackened beam, its yellow flame wavering hither and thither in the eddying draught of wind that streamed down through the scuttle, and its fat, black smoke coiling upward in fantastic wreaths until it was lost in the darkness among the beams. A figure--a slumbering figure--still occupied the chest, and mistaking it at first for my grimy unknown friend, I called to him, for I felt both hungry and thirsty. He was evidently not sleeping very heavily, for he awoke at my first call and came to the side of my bunk; but I at once perceived that it was not the man I had before seen; this fellow's voice and manner were surly in the extreme, and as he bent over me he gruffly demanded, in a scarcely comprehensible French patois, what I wanted. I answered, in French, that I should like something to eat and drink; whereupon he produced, from a sort of cupboard in the darkest corner of the forecastle, a bowl and a large can of soup, together with a wooden tray of flinty biscuit and an old iron spoon. Pouring a liberal quantity of the soup into the bowl, and plunging the spoon into it, he handed it to me, placed the bread barge within my reach, and again composed himself to sleep. The soup was quite cold, and its surface was covered with floating lumps of congealed grease; nevertheless, after rejecting the grease, I consumed the whole of the soup, together with about half a biscuit, and felt very much the better for it. By and by the watch was called. I heard the men swarming up from the 'tween-decks abaft the forecastle; and presently my pock-marked friend of the repulsive countenance but kindly eye, descended into the forecastle to the relief of the surly dog who had handed me the soup. I thought this would be a good opportunity to learn something with regard to the character of the craft on board which I found myself, and also to obtain an insight into the circumstances under which we were picked up. I therefore proceeded to put a few questions to the new-comer, by means of which I elicited the following information from him. The vessel which had picked us up was the privateer schooner _Jean Bart_, of Morlaix, commanded by Captain Henri Renouf, an exceptionally brave and skilful seaman, it would appear, if the story of his successes, as told by Rene Ollivier, was to be believed. Indeed, if I understood the guileless Rene aright, it was chiefly, if not wholly due to these successes, or rather one result of them, the extreme short- handedness of the _Jean Bart_, caused by the losses sustained in her recent engagements, that Captain Henri Renouf had troubled himself to rescue us in the first place, and afterwards to issue orders that every effort should be made to restore us to health and strength; it being his intention to make good some of his losses by enrolling us as members of his crew. A little further questioning on my part resulted in the discovery that we had been picked up some four hours previously to my return to consciousness; our boat having been sighted right ahead at daybreak after the springing up of the breeze that had followed a period of calm of unprecedented duration in the experience of those on board the _Jean Bart_. Eight of us had been found in the boat, of whom six still exhibited some faint signs of life, and these six had been domiciled in the schooner's forecastle, and simply placed in charge of two of the crew--the vessel not carrying a surgeon--to recover or not as fate might decide. Upon learning from my friend Rene the date upon which we had been picked up, I made a little calculation, by which I arrived at the conclusion that I must have lain absolutely unconscious in the boat something like thirty hours, during which one of our number had mysteriously disappeared, probably by jumping overboard in a fit of delirium. During my conversation with Ollivier, Dumaresq awoke and joined in; upon which, assisted by the repulsive-looking but really sympathetic French seaman, I contrived to get out of my bunk and reach a chest alongside Dumaresq's bunk; and I was much gratified to find that the gallant young fellow, although still terribly weak, was making satisfactory progress. Further research resulted in the discovery that those saved from the gig were, in addition to Dumaresq and myself, Tom Hardy, Peter Green, Henry Anstey, and Philip Sendell; all four of whom were thorough staunch British seamen, who, except when driven mad by hunger and thirst, were to be implicitly depended upon. It was a very great relief to me to find that so many of us had survived; for, apart from other considerations, I foresaw that, if Captain Renouf's intentions towards us were such as Ollivier had stated them to be, complications were likely to arise of such a character that the strongest possible mutual support would be necessary to enable us to face them. The mere fact that this fellow, Renouf, had in so off-handed a manner arranged the destinies of six of his fellow-creatures, without even the formality of consulting them in the matter, rendered me exceedingly uneasy; such a proceeding seeming to indicate a headstrong, overbearing, exacting character, with which it would be exceedingly difficult to deal. Of course, so far as Dumaresq was concerned, the arrangement was not so objectionable; he would probably be quite willing to work his passage to the next port. But with us who were English it was quite another matter. The worst that Renouf had a right to do was to treat us as prisoners of war; to impress us into an enemy's service would simply be an outrage. Yet it was not infrequently done, not only by the French, but also by our own countrymen. Before any further development was possible, however, it would be necessary for us to become well and strong again; and there was always the hope that before that time should have arrived the _Jean Bart_ might fall in with an enemy and be captured. This hope, however, was not destined to be fulfilled; and on the third day after the recovery of my senses, being once more well and strong enough to move about, I determined to take the bull by the horns forthwith; with which purpose I sent a message aft by Ollivier to Captain Renouf, expressing a desire to personally thank him for his rescue of myself and the survivors of my boat's crew, and to make arrangements for obtaining our parole. By way of reply to this I received a curt intimation that Captain Renouf was in his cabin, and that I was to proceed thereto forthwith. In response to this summons I at once mounted to the deck for the first time, and, flinging a keen, hurried glance about me, found that I was on board a slashing schooner, some fifty or sixty tons bigger than the _Dolphin_. She was a tremendously beamy craft, flush-decked fore-and- aft, and was armed with ten twelve-pounders in her broadside batteries, with a thirty-two-pounder between her masts--a truly formidable craft of her kind. And it was evident, moreover, that she was manned in accordance with her armament, for the watch on deck, although I did not stay to count them, mustered fully forty men, as ruffianly-looking a set of scoundrels as I ever set eyes on. A glance over the side showed me that the vessel was a regular flier; for although there was but a moderate breeze blowing, and the craft was close-hauled, she was going along at a pace of fully nine knots. So smart a vessel, so heavily armed and manned, ought to have been the pride of her captain; but I could detect no traces of any such feeling, her decks being dark with dirt, while a general air of slovenliness pervaded the craft from stem to stern. I was conducted aft to the companion by Ollivier, who whispered to me, just as I was about to descend: "_Courage, mon ami_!" That the man should have deemed such an exhortation necessary was the reverse of encouraging, for it seemed to indicate that, in his opinion, I was about to undergo some more or less trying ordeal, a suggestion that only too strongly confirmed my own forebodings. If, however, I was about to be involved in a difficulty, my first step was, manifestly, to ascertain its nature; so, making my way down the companion ladder, I knocked at a door which confronted me, and was immediately bidden, in French, to enter. Turning the handle of the door and flinging it open, I obeyed, finding myself in a fine, roomy, well-lighted cabin, the beams of which, however, were so low that I could only stand upright when between them. The place was rather flashily decorated, with a good deal of gilding, and several crudely executed paintings in the panelling of the woodwork. A large mirror, nearly ruined by damp, surmounted a buffet against the fore-bulkhead, and the after-bulkhead was decorated with a trophy composed of swords, pistols, and long, murderous-looking daggers arranged in the form of a star. A massive mahogany table, occupying the centre of the cabin, reflected in its polished depths a handsome lamp of white, silvery-looking metal that swung in the skylight, and the locker underneath the trophy was occupied by a slight, youthful-looking, sallow-complexioned man, whose well-oiled hair clustered in coal-black ringlets all over his small, shapely head, while a pair of small, piercing black eyes flashed out from beneath black eyebrows that ran, unbroken, right across the root of the nose, and a set of large, even, pearl-white teeth gleamed through a well-kept, coal-black moustache and beard. The fellow was attired in a showy, theatrical-looking costume, consisting of blue cloth jacket, adorned with a double row of gilt buttons and a pair of bullion epaulettes upon the shoulders, over a shirt of white silk, open at the throat, a sword-belt of black varnished leather, fastened by a pair of handsome brass or gold clasps, served the double purpose of a support for his blue cloth trousers and a receptacle for a pair of pistols, handsomely mounted in silver. This was, of course, Captain Renouf; and a man who looked like, and afterwards proved to actually be, his brother sat beside him. This individual I rightly conjectured to be the chief mate of the _Jean Bart_. Both men were young, the captain being, perhaps, about four-and-twenty, while his brother would be about two years younger, and both would have been handsome but for the cruel, sinister expression of the eyes. They were ocean dandies of the first water; for, in addition to their showy garb-- that of the junior being similar to his captain's, except that the epaulettes were lacking,--they both wore gold ear-rings, while several apparently valuable rings flashed upon the rather dirty fingers of the senior officer. The pair looked at me intently as I made my bow, and, ere I could speak a word, Captain Renouf accosted me in French. "Well, my good fellow," said he, "pray who may you be?" "My name is Bowen," I answered. "I am chief officer of the British privateer _Dolphin_, and I was in command of the boat, the occupants of which you so humanely rescued a few days ago. Permit me, monsieur, to express to you, without further delay, on behalf of myself and my fellow-sufferers, our most hearty thanks for--" "And, pray, how came you and your fellow-sufferers to be adrift in that boat?" demanded Renouf, unceremoniously cutting short my expression of thanks. I could not help thinking that there was more than the suspicion of a mocking sneer in the tone in which he uttered the words "you and your fellow-sufferers". Moreover there was a distinct air of discourtesy in his manner of interrupting me, and a suggestion of antagonism in his flashing eyes that put me on my guard; so, curbing a very decided disposition to make a resentful retort, I answered: "The gig was one of the boats of the late East Indiaman _Manilla_, which the _Dolphin_ had recaptured from a French privateer named the _Tigre_, and which was afterwards set on fire by lightning and destroyed. I was prize-officer in charge of the _Manilla_ at the time; hence my presence in one of her boats." "And how came you, sir, to be chief officer on board a British privateer?" now demanded Renouf. I could not, for the life of me, comprehend the drift of this question, but there was no mistaking the insolent intonation of it. I therefore answered, rather haughtily: "Pardon me, sir, if I say that I cannot see what possible concern a Frenchman can have in such a matter as that which you have just referred to." "You cannot, eh?" he retorted, with a sudden flash of temper. "Then I will explain to you, my fine fellow. I asked the question because I feel curious to know what induced a French citizen to become a renegade and take up arms against his own country. You are a Breton, sir. I recognise you as such by your unmistakable dialect. And if I am not greatly mistaken you hail from Morlaix, in the streets of which town I am certain I have met that lanky carcase of yours hundreds of times. Nay, do not interrupt me! I will not have it--" "But I must and will interrupt you, Captain Renouf," I broke in, despite his efforts to talk me down. "What you assert is simply ridiculous, sir. No man in his senses would ever mistake my imperfect French for Breton or any other dialect than that of an Englishman. What your motive may be for endeavouring to persuade yourself that I am a fellow- countryman of your own I cannot guess; but I reject the suggestion with scorn. I am an Englishman, as you are certainly quite aware, and I insist upon being treated as such. It was my intention to have asked parole for myself and my four fellow-countrymen; but with a captain possessed of such extraordinary hallucinations it will probably be better for us to remain close prisoners." Renouf laughed disdainfully. "I have no doubt," said he, "that such an arrangement would suit you admirably, but it will not suit me. Now I want you to understand me clearly. You and your `four fellow- countrymen' are Frenchmen. Your clumsy attempt to pass yourselves off as Englishmen does not deceive me for a moment, nor do I believe it has really deceived that dolt Dumaresq, although he professes to have been temporarily taken in by you. You are all Frenchmen, however; that fact is indisputable. My brother here is as firmly convinced of it as I am; and, as France just now stands in need of the services of all her sons, it is my duty to see that you are made to serve her, willingly or unwillingly. But let me recommend you to render your service willingly; for if you do not it will be the worse for you. Now go on deck and turn to. And observe, my fine fellow, you will do well to recommend your `four fellow-countrymen', as you are pleased to term them, to commence duty at once, and to behave themselves; for I learn that you have great influence with them, and I shall hold you responsible for any shortcomings on their part. Now, go!" "Captain Renouf," answered I, "I have listened to you patiently, and I understand that it is your intention to compel us five Englishmen to serve on board this ship. You can only do this by force, sir, and I warn you that if you dare to use force to either of us you shall suffer for it. You are certain to be captured by an English ship sooner or later, and the captain of that ship will not be slow to amply avenge any violence you may be foolhardy enough to resort to in your determination to compel five Englishmen to serve an enemy of their country." "So!" he ejaculated, starting to his feet in a frenzy of passion. "You dare me, do you, you insolent rascal? Very well. Let us see how far your courage will carry you!" He struck a hand-bell furiously, and shouted "Gaspar!" A man, evidently the steward, promptly made his appearance at the cabin door, and responded: "Monsieur called?" "I did," answered Renouf. "Go on deck and tell Pierre to bring three men and some lashing down into the cabin." The steward disappeared, and, as he did so, Renouf whipped a pistol out of his belt and covered me with it. "Now, Monsieur Englishman, since you insist upon being so considered," he said, "if you make the slightest show of resistance I will shoot you through the head. Do you comprehend?" "Clearly," I answered. "But as I cannot fight all hands single-handed, and as I am not yet tired of my life, I shall not resist. You at present have me in your power, and, by the exercise of that power, can compel me to do your will. But you are laying a heavy debt upon me, Captain Renouf, a debt which I will not fail to pay off in full at the earliest opportunity." "_Pouf_!" answered he scornfully; "a fig for your threats! I have always been able to take good care of myself hitherto, and I doubt not I shall always be equally able to do so." CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. THE TRUE CHARACTER OF THE JEAN BART BECOMES MANIFEST. At this moment Pierre, who turned out to be the boatswain of the ship, accompanied by the three other men, one of whom carried a length of ratline in his hand, came clattering down the companion ladder, and entered the cabin. "Now, monsieur," continued Renouf to me, "will you go on deck and do your duty, or shall these men drag you there and compel you to do it by seizing you up to the gangway and flogging you into obedience?" "I will obey your orders, Captain Renouf," said I, "since you leave no alternative but that of being flogged, which I do not choose to submit to. But--" "Well, but what?" sneered Renouf. "Nothing at present," answered I, suddenly realising the absurdity as well as the imprudence of continuing to threaten while in so utterly helpless a condition. "Aha, Monsieur Braggadocio!" answered Renouf; "so you are coming to your senses already, are you? It is well. Now you are beginning to exhibit a glimmer of common sense, which I hope will increase with reflection, and if it does I doubt not that we shall get on well enough together after all; especially as you will find that there is plenty of prize- money to be earned on board this ship. Now go forward and tell your mates that you have accepted service under me, and persuade them to do the same. I hope, for your sake, that you will have no trouble in so persuading them." "I go, sir," replied I; "but I tell you, now, in the presence of these men, that I obey you under protest, and only because I do not choose to submit to the indignity of compulsion by mere superior brute force." And so saying I turned and left the cabin, being escorted to the deck by Pierre and his three myrmidons. I went right forward into the forecastle and, finding my fellow- survivors there, told them all that had passed in the cabin, at which they expressed the utmost indignation; Dumaresq being as loud as the loudest of my companions in his denunciation of Renouf's conduct. I let them finish their growl, and then said: "Well, lads, I have told you exactly what this fellow Renouf said, and how he acted. It is now for you to act, each according to what seems best to him; for although I have been ordered to persuade you to follow my example, I shall do nothing of the sort. Each man must act according to his own judgment, just as I did. It did not suit me to submit to the indignity of being flogged, and I therefore accepted the only alternative that was left to me, namely, to consent to serve aboard this ship. But I did so with several mental reservations, the nature of which I will communicate to you at some more convenient time." As I said this, my gaze involuntarily turned in Dumaresq's direction. The poor fellow flushed up painfully and said: "I hope, my dear Bowen, you have no suspicion that I will betray to this rascal--whom I blush to acknowledge as a fellow-countrymen--anything that you may choose to say in my presence. Believe me, I fully appreciate all the difficulties of your position, and can well understand that you have felt yourself compelled to yield to circumstances which you found it impossible to control. But give me credit for believing that your surrender was not the base, unconditional surrender of a coward who preferred to turn traitor to his country rather than submit to a flogging. If I have read your character aright--and God knows I have been associated with you under circumstances that ought to have given me some insight into it--you have yielded to this man Renouf for some ulterior purpose of your own, which you intend to communicate to your comrades at the first fitting opportunity. Now, so far as I am concerned, I have not the same reasons that you have for objecting to take service in this ship, and I shall therefore volunteer. But I want you to understand that the accident of our happening to belong to two nations, at present unhappily at war with each other, is wholly insufficient to lessen in the slightest degree the personal friendship I entertain for you and these good fellows here, your fellow-countrymen. I am your and their friend now and for ever; and I want to make it plain to you that, short of absolute treachery to my country, you may count upon me to stand by you through thick and thin. You hesitate, and very rightly, too, to speak of your plans before me. It would be no advantage to you, and it might be embarrassing to me, were you to discuss them in my presence; but I have so little sympathy with Captain Renouf in his high-handed method of dealing with you that, were I to accidentally become acquainted with any portion of your intentions, I should feel quite justified in remaining silent about them. If the fellow is foolish enough to compel you to serve him against your will, he need feel no surprise at your taking an early opportunity to free yourselves from so galling a yoke. And now, in order that I may not be a restraint upon you, I will relieve you of my presence by going aft and volunteering. But believe and trust in my friendship always, even should circumstances assume such a character as to suggest a doubt of it." So saying, he grasped the hand I offered him, wrung it heartily, and sprang up the ladder to the deck. As soon as he was gone I translated to my four fellow-prisoners what he had said, and we then resumed our discussion of the situation. I told my companions that although I had consented to serve on board the _Jean Bart_, nothing should induce me to take up arms against my fellow- countrymen; that, on the contrary, if we should chance to fall in with a British ship, I was fully determined, by every means in my power, to frustrate Renouf's intentions, and to hamper and obstruct him in every possible way, and at all hazards; and that, if they felt disposed to accept service with a similar determination, it would be strange if five resolute, determined men like ourselves could not do something very material toward assisting in the capture of the schooner, and the safe lodgment of Monsieur Renouf aboard a British hulk. The men seemed to look at the matter in pretty much the same light that I did. They recognised, as I did, that Renouf was an unscrupulous rascal, likely to hesitate at little or nothing to gain his own headstrong will; they realised the utter futility of attempting to resist him, backed as he was by his whole crew; and, finally, they made up their minds to follow my example, recognising me as their actual leader, and heartily pledging themselves to be ready to act upon my initiative at a moment's notice, and to obey me to the death whenever a suitable opportunity should arise to translate our somewhat vague plans into action. Having arrived at this understanding, I went aft and informed Captain Renouf that my comrades had consented, like myself under protest, to serve on board the _Jean Bart_; whereupon he ironically congratulated me upon my success--at which, nevertheless, I could see he was very much pleased--and gave orders that we were forthwith to be enrolled in the port watch, under his brother. We went on duty within the hour, were all placed in the same mess, and slept that night in that portion of the 'tween-decks devoted to the accommodation of the crew. I was called upon to perform the duty of an able seaman; and ere long it became apparent that, having gained his way with us Englishmen, Renouf was now desirous to render our service as pleasant as possible to us. We were called upon only to do such work as is usually allotted to the highest grade of seamen before the mast, and in many ways trifling but none the less acceptable indulgences were shown to us. One of our duties was, of course, to take our regular trick at the wheel, and in this way I soon discovered that we were heading for West Indian waters. It was on the fifth day after our submission to Renouf that, just after breakfast, a sail was made out from the mast-head, and the schooner's course was at once altered with the object of intercepting the strange ship, which was steering north. I was full of hope that the craft would turn out to be British, in which case there would almost certainly be a fight, and an opportunity would be afforded me of paying off part of the debt that I owed to Monsieur Renouf. But as the two craft neared each other, and the stranger's sails, and finally her hull, rose above the horizon, I was disappointed to discover that she was evidently a foreigner; and at length, in response to an exhibition of the French colours at the schooner's peak, she hoisted the Spanish ensign. Renouf, however, continued to bear down upon her; and presently the Spaniard, evidently growing alarmed at the menacing behaviour of the schooner, put up her helm and bore away before the wind, with the unmistakable intention of avoiding us if possible. But a cart-horse might as well hope to gallop away from a thorough-bred racer as that ship to outsail the _Jean Bart_. The stranger was clearly a big, lumbering merchantman, built for the purpose of stowing the greatest possible amount of cargo in a hull of her dimensions. She had no pretensions whatever to speed, while the schooner was, as I have elsewhere said, exceptionally fast; it was not wonderful, therefore, that we rapidly overhauled her without an effort. It was my impression that, as the Spaniard was probably homeward-bound from that part of the world toward which we were steering, Renouf was anxious to speak her and obtain what information he could with regard to the state of affairs generally in that quarter; and I was therefore not surprised at his persistent pursuit of the ship. But when later on in the day we had closed her to within gun-shot distance, and he began to fire into her, I certainly thought he was again carrying things with rather a high hand, and that, if he was not careful, he would probably get himself into serious trouble over the affair. Still it was no business of mine. The Spaniards, like the French, were at war with us, and if they chose to make war upon each other also it was not for me to object; on the contrary, any action calculated to produce a feeling of ill-will between the two nations could not fail to be of advantage to Great Britain. I therefore felt no qualms of conscience whatever when called upon to take my station at one of the guns, and did my duty with hearty good-will. We continued firing at the Spaniard for about half an hour, in a very leisurely way, but with such deliberate aim that every shot struck her; and then, without firing a shot in return, the great hulking craft shortened sail and hove-to. Ten minutes later we, too, were hove-to within pistol-shot of the Spaniard's weather quarter, and we then had an opportunity to learn, by the gilt lettering on her stern, that she was the _Santa Theresa_, of Cadiz. The _Jean Bart's_ three boats were at once lowered, and a party of about forty men, armed to the teeth, and led by Captain Renouf, his brother Gabriel, and young Dumaresq pushed off to take possession. I thought this last a most extraordinary proceeding, France and Spain being then on friendly terms with each other; moreover, it at once disabused me of the impression that it was information only that Renouf was seeking. Still, it was no business of mine; and even had it been, that was certainly not the moment for me to interfere, surrounded as I was by some forty evil-looking ruffians, fully armed, and the schooner in charge of the second mate--the most evil-looking scoundrel of the lot, and, moreover, a man who had not attempted to conceal the fact that he intensely hated the very sight of us Englishmen. The boats passed under the Spaniard's stern, and a few minutes later Renouf appeared upon her poop with his sword drawn, and waved a signal to Danton the second mate; whereupon a man was sent aloft to our royal- yard, with instructions to keep a sharp look-out all round the horizon, and to at once report the appearance of any strange sail that might perchance heave in sight. For close upon four hours the two craft remained thus hove-to, upon opposite tacks, gradually drifting further apart, except when Danton saw fit to fill upon the schooner from time to time for the purpose of again closing with the Spaniard, never nearing her, however, closer than half a mile to leeward; and during at least two hours of this time not a trace of life was to be discovered on board the bigger ship. At length, however, a slight movement became observable on board the _Santa Theresa_; and presently we saw that tackles were being got up on the main-topmast-stay and the lower yard-arms. The Spaniard's boats were then hoisted out and lowered from the davits, until all of them appeared to be in the water, when the long-boat was hauled alongside to leeward, abreast the main hatchway; half a dozen men clambered down the side into her; and, after a short interval which was probably employed in taking off the hatches, it became apparent that they were hoisting cargo up out of the _Santa Theresa's_ hold, certain selected bales and packages of which were from time to time carefully lowered down into the long-boat; a sight which went far toward confirming certain dreadful suspicions that had been slowly taking shape within my mind from the moment when I had seen Renouf, with his drawn sword, upon the Spanish ship's poop. We now once more filled upon the schooner, and this time closed the bigger ship to leeward within less than a cable's length, when we once more hove-to, on the same tack as our neighbour, and a powerful tackle was then got up on our lower yard-arm, and another on the triatic-stay. By the time that these preparations were complete, the long-boat was loaded as deeply as was prudent, and she was at once cast off and taken in tow by four men in one of the schooner's boats, the next largest of the _Santa Theresa's_ boats taking her place, for the reception of further cargo. The weather was at this time quite fine, with a very moderate breeze blowing, and so little swell running that it was not worth speaking about; yet the long-boat was no sooner fairly in tow than it became apparent that those in charge of her were in difficulties; and, but for the prompt measures taken by Danton, she would have missed the schooner altogether and gone wallowing away to leeward. With our assistance, however, she was got alongside, after a fashion, and brought to the schooner's lee gangway, when it became apparent that those in charge of her were so helplessly drunk that they could hardly stand. Yet, somehow, they managed, with assistance, to clamber up our low side and reach the deck; when, as well as their drunken state would allow, they forthwith proceeded, in ribald language, to entertain their more sober shipmates with a tale of gross, wanton, cruel outrage, perpetrated on board the Spaniard, that made my blood boil with indignation, and caused me, thick-skinned sailor as I was, to blush at the thought that the perpetrators were, like myself, human. I noticed that Danton listened with greedy ears to the foul recital; and by and by, when the long-boat's cargo had been roused out of her and struck down our main hatchway, he turned the schooner over to the carpenter, and, taking four fresh and sober hands with him, proceeded on board the _Santa Theresa_, leaving the four drunken ruffians behind. Shortly after the departure of the long-boat, one of the cutters came drifting down to us, loaded to her gunwale, and the four intoxicated scoundrels in charge of her amply verified the revolting story told by their predecessors, adding such details as abundantly confirmed my suspicions that the _Jean Bart_ was no privateer, but an out-and-out pirate of the deepest dye. Their tale so inflamed the sober portion of our crew, who had remained on board the schooner, that at one moment it looked very much as though they were about to throw off all the trammels of discipline and obedience, and proceed forthwith on board the Spaniard, to participate in the saturnalia still in progress there; and it was only by the production of a lavish allowance of rum, and a promise from the carpenter that they should all have their turn on board the doomed ship, that they could be restrained from heaving the cutter's cargo overboard--instead of hoisting it out and passing it down the hatchway,--seizing the boat, and proceeding on board the Spaniard _en masse_. As for me, it may be imagined what a raging fever of indignation and fury I was thrown into by what I had heard; and it was made all the more unendurable by the circumstance that I was utterly powerless to interfere. For what could I and my four fellow-countrymen say or do to restrain some eighty lawless ruffians animated by all the vilest and most evil passions that the human breast ever harboured? Absolutely nothing! not even though we should resolve to lay down our lives in the attempt. We might destroy some twenty or thirty of the Frenchmen, perhaps, before we ourselves went under, but that would in nowise serve the unhappy Spaniards, who would still be at the mercy of the ruthless survivors. A thousand schemes suggested themselves to me, but there was not a practical one among them all, not one that offered the remotest prospect of success; and, with a bitter execration at our helplessness, I was at length obliged to admit that things must take their course, so far as we were concerned. But, although helpless to intervene just then, I saw that there was a possibility of the Frenchmen's excesses bringing retribution in their train. For every man who had thus far come from the Spanish ship had been almost helplessly drunk; and I saw no especial reason why the rest should not be in the same condition. And, if they were, what might not five resolute, reckless Englishmen be able to do? I had observed that, when the carpenter found himself compelled to bribe what I may term the sober half of the schooner's crew to remain aboard, by producing a quantity of rum, my four English shipmates exhibited no backwardness in accepting and swallowing the very liberal allowance that had been offered to them; I also accepted mine; and, upon the pretence of being thirsty and therefore desiring to add water to it, I took it aft to the scuttle-butt, deftly hove the spirit overboard, and filling the pannikin with water, drank the contents with the greatest apparent gusto. And now, as certain vague possibilities began to present themselves to my mind, I contrived to draw Hardy, Green, Anstey, and Sendell away from the crowd of excited, chattering Frenchmen that swarmed in the waist and around the hatchway; and, getting them down into the deserted forecastle, I briefly and rapidly explained to them all that I had discovered relative to the real character of the _Jean Bart_ and her crew, as well as the nature of the doings aboard the Spanish ship; and, having thus wrought them up to a proper pitch of indignation, I unfolded to them my somewhat hazy plans, and inquired whether they were disposed to aid me in them. To my delight, I found that they were with me, heart and soul. They had never very greatly relished their compulsory service aboard the schooner, and now that they were made aware of her true character and that of her crew, they professed themselves ready and eager to do anything I might propose in order to escape the thraldom of a continuation of such service and companionship. Whereupon I bade them accept all the drink that might be offered them, but to religiously abstain from swallowing another drop of it, and to hold themselves in readiness to act under my leadership whenever I might deem that the favourable moment for such action had arrived. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. WE TURN THE TABLES UPON MONSIEUR RENOUF. It was drawing well on toward sunset when Renouf, having apparently appropriated all the most valuable portions of the Spaniard's cargo that he could readily lay hands on, began to clear his disorderly rabble of a crew out of the ship, sending them aboard the schooner, a boatload at a time, and, to my surprise, using the Spanish boats, as well as his own, for this purpose. Meanwhile, the stories told by the men who had from time to time come from the Spanish ship had had the effect of gradually enticing the more sober half out of the schooner and on board the _Santa Theresa_, until the _Jean Bart_ had at length been left practically in possession of us five Englishmen, and some thirty Frenchmen, the whole of whom were more or less helplessly drunk. And, this being the state of things on board the schooner, it would have been a comparatively easy matter for us five to have overpowered the Frenchmen, who were lying or staggering about the decks, and to have made off with the vessel; but not even to secure our liberty did I consider that I should have been justified in leaving Renouf and the bulk of his ruffians on board the _Santa Theresa_, to wreak his vengeance on the hapless crew and passengers. At length pretty nearly all the Frenchmen, save Renouf, his brother, and some half a dozen more, had rejoined the schooner, and I perceived with intense satisfaction that, although they were, without exception, in an almost helpless state of intoxication, every man brought with him at least a couple of bottles of wine or spirits; some men brought as many as half a dozen with them; and, at a hint from me, Anstey and his shipmates zealously assisted in getting these precious bottles safely up over the ship's side for their owners, who at once took them below and stowed them away in their hammocks. Among the earliest of the main body of arrivals, so to speak, came Dumaresq; he was perfectly sober, and I was gratified to observe that his countenance wore a quite unmistakable expression of fiery indignation, in which I thought I could also trace indications of horror and disgust. He caught my eye for an instant, as he sprang in over the rail; threw up his hands expressively, laid his finger on his lips, and vanished below. Only the schooner's gig and the Spanish ship's pinnace now remained to join, and I had found time to observe that the latter was being loaded with a number of very small but apparently heavy packages, the nature of which I shrewdly suspected, for I had seen something very like them before. At length the operation of loading the pinnace appeared to be complete. There was a pause of about a quarter of an hour, and then the gig started for the schooner, with the pinnace in tow. As soon as I saw these two boats coming I directed my four shipmates to go below and turn into their hammocks, as at least half the Frenchmen had done, and to remain there, if possible, until I should call them, at the same time warning them not to touch a drop of liquor, as they valued their lives. In a few minutes the two boats were alongside, and I saw that my suspicion as to the nature of the small packages was correct. There were just forty of them, weighing about one hundred pounds each; each package was carefully sewn up in raw hide, and I knew that these small but exceedingly heavy packages were so many gold ingots! So the _Jean Bart_ had made a very handsome haul, apart from the probably valuable bales that had come up out of the Spaniard's hold. As Renouf and his brother came up over the side I observed that their faces were flushed, as with excitement, or wine, or both, and their voices were thick and husky, but neither of them was what might be called intoxicated. As they turned to go aft to the cabin the brothers glanced at the Spanish ship, and the elder gave utterance to a brutal jest that made my hands tingle to take him by the throat and heave him overboard. But I seldom permit my passion to conquer prudence, and I allowed him to go, promising myself that his unhappy victims should be amply avenged in due time. Alas! even then I did not know the full measure of the villain's infamy, or I should have cast prudence to the winds, and dared everything for immediate freedom of action. They went below for a few minutes, and then returned to the deck to watch the trans-shipment of the gold, standing close to the gangway, and execrating in unmeasured terms the incapacity of the drunken mob who were performing the operation. For my own purpose I also assumed the demeanour of semi- intoxication, and accordingly came in for my full share of abuse. The gold, as it was hoisted on deck, was passed down into the cabin, and when it had all been got safely aboard the schooner, the pinnace was passed astern and made fast to the rest of the Spanish boats, when, to my astonishment, we filled and made sail with the _Santa Theresa's_ boats in tow! For some time I was puzzled to divine what could possibly be Renouf's motive in taking away the Spanish boats, for they could be of no use or value whatever to us. There was no room for them on deck or at the schooner's davits, and I could hardly imagine that a man like Renouf would seriously contemplate the idea of attempting to tow them across the Atlantic. It was while I was marvelling at this extraordinary eccentricity, as I considered it, that I happened to allow my gaze to rest abstractedly on the Spaniard that still remained hove-to, and as I gazed it dawned upon me that a subtle change was taking place in the appearance of the vessel. At first I could not satisfy myself at all as to the nature of the change, although I was convinced of its reality, but suddenly I understood it all. The craft was deeper in the water than before; she was gradually, almost imperceptibly, settling down, and already the rise and fall of her upon the swell was becoming characterised by that heavy sluggishness of movement that marks a water- logged ship. The scoundrels had scuttled her--I could understand it all now--and were taking away the boats in order that the miserable passengers and crew might by no possibility escape to tell the tale of Renouf's piratical behaviour. With this conviction strong upon me, I made my way below, and at length found Dumaresq, sitting upon a chest, with his face buried in his hands, and wearing every appearance of the most abject melancholy. "Dumaresq," exclaimed I, in a fierce whisper, grasping him by the shoulder and shaking him almost savagely in my agitation; "rouse yourself, man, and listen to me! I want to ask you a question or two. You have been aboard the Spanish ship, and were an eye-witness, I suppose, of some at least of the deeds of Renouf and his crew. I want to hear the particulars, as briefly as possible, and I also want to know what is your feeling in the matter." He removed his hands from his face and looked up at me, and even in the dim uncertain light of the 'tween-decks I could read the horror, sorrow, and indignation in his eyes. "Bowen, my friend," he replied in low, cautious tones, "do not ask me for I cannot tell you; I could not find words to describe the scenes of which I have been a helpless, horrified eye-witness this day. Everything may be summed up in a few words: Renouf and his crew are pirates of the most ruthless character; men who absolutely revel in wickedness of the vilest description, who take positive delight in inflicting the most horrible indignities upon those who unfortunately happen to fall into their power, who gloat over the unavailing tears and entreaties of their victims, and who scoff at the mere mention of the word `mercy'. Picture to yourself the very worst that you have ever heard or read of piratical atrocities, and you will be able to arrive at a very accurate conception of the horrors of which that unfortunate ship was the theatre to-day. And I, my friend, I was compelled to look on, powerless to mitigate a single horror; nay, worse, my remonstrances were jeered at, and if I ventured to intercede in behalf of a victim, some additional insult or barbarity was at once inflicted upon the unhappy creature. And these are the fiends into whose power we have fallen. It would have been a thousand times better had we perished in the gig!" "Is that your view of the matter?" I exclaimed contemptuously. "Then I can only say, Monsieur Dumaresq, that I have been mistaken in you. Man, man!" I continued angrily; "what are you thinking about? Are you going to crouch here, dumb, abject, and inactive, like a whipped hound, instead of bestirring yourself and helping me to put an end to the career of these fiends and bring them to justice, to say nothing of the possibility of saving those unhappy wretches on board the Spanish ship, unless I am to understand from you that they have all been murdered in cold blood." "No, no, it was not quite so bad as all that," he answered, looking at me with a bewildered air; "bloodshed there certainly was, and cruel torture to extract the secret of the hiding-place of the gold, but no life was actually taken, so far as I know. What do you mean by your talk of `saving' the unhappy wretches on board the Spanish ship?" "I mean," said I impressively, "that the ship has been scuttled, and is now surely but slowly sinking, while Renouf has all her boats in tow, in order that there may be no possible chance of escape for anybody on board her." "Merciful heaven! it cannot be!" he exclaimed, starting to his feet, and gripping me by the arm. "Why, nobody but a fiend incarnate would dream of doing such a thing!" "Then," said I, "Renouf is a fiend incarnate; and that is an additional reason for putting an end to his career at once; for, as surely as that you are standing here, he has not only dreamed of doing such a thing, but has actually done it." "Horrible, horrible!" exclaimed Dumaresq, smiting his forehead with his hand as he stared at me, still more than half incredulous. "But what can we do, my friend; what can we do? There are but six of us, at most, against more than eighty!" "True," I answered; "but if each of those six is as resolute as I am prepared to be, we may prove sufficient for my purpose. Now, listen to me. This is my plan. Look around you. There is not a man below here, save ourselves, but is nearly or quite helplessly drunk, and those on deck are little or no better. We must divide ourselves into three parties of two each, and each party must tackle one of these drunken wretches at a time, one of us clapping a gag between his jaws, while the other whips a lashing round him, and makes him fast, hands and feet. In this way everybody below here may be secured. Then, leaving two of our number here to deal with any others who may come down, the other four must go aft and seize Renouf and his brother; and when we have made them safe, we must tackle Danton. This done, our next move must be to get the schooner round, and return to the Spanish ship, and while we are making our way back we must go round the decks with a belaying-pin apiece, and simply knock the senses out of all who attempt to oppose us. It will not be a difficult matter, for I do not believe that there is a man on board, excepting ourselves and perhaps Renouf and his brother, capable of taking care of himself." "_Mon Dieu_!" exclaimed Dumaresq; "but it is a desperate scheme, and I do not believe that anybody but a Briton would have thought of it, much less talked of it so coolly as you have done. But, Bowen, my friend, dare we attempt it? Is there the remotest chance of our being successful?" "There is every chance, if we are but resolute," I answered, a little impatiently. "But, of course," I continued, "you are not called upon to join us if--" "Nay, nay," he interrupted, "you shall never say that Anatole Dumaresq flinched when desperate work had to be done. I am with you, my friend, heart and soul. Let me but clearly understand what is to be done, and you shall have no chance to say that I did not do my fair share. There is my hand upon it." I silently grasped his extended hand, and then went to the hammocks in which Hardy and his mates were pretending to sleep, and told them to tumble out at once. This they did, when I explained to them very briefly what I proposed to do. Having made my meaning clear, we rejoined Dumaresq, and without further ado the six of us seized a number of jackets, trousers, and other clothing that had been hung to the bulkheads and beams, and unceremoniously cut them into suitable strips, which we rolled into gags. On board the _Jean Bart_ the hammocks were never taken on deck, as they are on board a man-o'-war--the schooner not being fitted with a hammock- rail,--but were simply laced up every morning. Each hammock was consequently fitted with a good stout lacing, which I thought would admirably serve as a lashing for my prisoners. Having provided ourselves with as many gags as we could conveniently stow in our pockets, we next stationed ourselves in couples alongside three occupied hammocks, and while one of the twain loosely and quickly passed the lacing through the eyelet-holes the other stood by with the gag, which, at the proper moment, was slipped into the victim's mouth and lashed securely, the hammock lacing at the same moment being hauled taut and made fast; and in this way each prisoner was silently and effectually secured. It took the six of us fully twenty minutes to secure everybody below--to the number of sixty-three,--as some of them had to be gagged first and afterwards lashed into their hammocks; but the work was done effectually, noiselessly, and without a hitch, every one of the Frenchmen proving to be too completely intoxicated to offer the slightest resistance worthy of the name. This done, I crept up on deck, staggering and stumbling, with the most vacant expression of face that I could assume, and generally imitating, as nearly as I could, the gait and appearance of a drunken man, for the benefit of whosoever might happen to be in a condition to take intelligent notice of me. Reeling and staggering to the fore-rigging, I clutched at and hung on to a belaying-pin, and looked about me fore-and- aft. The deck was occupied by some twenty men or so, some of whom were asleep in the lee scuppers, while others, in little groups of two and three, hung over the bulwarks, staring idiotically at the white foam that swept aft from the schooner's keen cut-water; and four, who had probably assumed the duty of looking out, staggered and lurched in pairs, holding each other on their legs, to-and-fro between the windlass and the fore-rigging, occasionally indulging in an ineffectual attempt to exchange remarks. So far, all was right; nobody here seemed capable of giving us the slightest trouble. In fact, discipline was for the time being at an end, lawlessness reigned supreme, everybody was his own master, and the schooner was practically left to take care of herself. Danton, however, was in charge of the deck, and although he was a trifle unsteady in his walk, I could see that he had his wits pretty well about him and would have to be somewhat carefully tackled if we wished to secure him without giving the alarm to Renouf and his brother, both of whom, I took it, were below. Astern of us, or rather about a point and a half on our starboard quarter, and some four miles distant, lay the Spaniard, still hove-to, her brasswork and the glass of her sky-lights and scuttles flashing redly in the last rays of the setting sun as she laboured over the ridges of the low swell; and I was both startled and horrified to observe how deep she had sunk into the water during the comparatively short time that I had been below. It was clear enough that if the unhappy people aboard her were to be rescued there was not a moment to lose; I therefore staggered aft and, approaching Danton with drunken solemnity, touched my forehead and, wavering upon my legs and speaking thickly, asked him to come for'ard and down below and tell me whether he could smell fire. The scoundrel's face blanched at the word, as he probably pictured to himself the frightful predicament of all hands--himself included--should my suggestion prove true; then, without a word, he hastened forward to the hatchway, with me at his heels, and went stumbling down the steep ladder. As he reached the bottom I flung myself upon him, clasping him round the body and arms, and lifted him off his feet, at the same time singing out to Hardy to gag him; and in another minute we had him securely bound, hand and foot, and lashed hard and fast into a hammock. "So far, well!" I exclaimed, as I dragged him unceremoniously away to a dark corner. "We have now but to secure Renouf and his brother, and the schooner is ours. Hardy, Green, and Sendell, come you aft with me, providing yourselves with a belaying-pin each on the way; and you, Anstey, will keep Mr Dumaresq company on deck, mounting guard over the companion, to prevent anyone going below, or to knock down and secure anyone who may escape us and attempt to reach the deck. Our duty is very simple; four of us will enter the cabin; and while Hardy and I attempt to secure Renouf and his brother, the other two will stand by to assist, in the event of either of us becoming disabled by a pistol bullet. Come along, my hearties." So saying, I led my little party aft. At the head of the companion ladder Dumaresq and the man Anstey came to a halt, the former engaging the drunken helmsman in conversation, while the remaining four of us stole down the ladder, bare-footed, and noiseless as cats. I had already mentally arranged my method of procedure; so, whispering to Hardy that he was to tackle the chief mate, while I would look after Renouf, I boldly knocked at the cabin door. A command to enter, given in rather a drowsy, peevish tone of voice, was the immediate response, whereupon I flung open the door and passed into the cabin closely followed by Hardy. Renouf and his brother occupied a locker each on opposite sides of the cabin; and it was quite apparent that they had both been indulging in a nap, which I had rudely broken in upon. They were in the act of changing from a reclining to a sitting posture, yawning and stretching as they did so, when I entered the cabin. "Captain Renouf," began I, as I advanced toward him, "I have taken the liberty to--" My little ruse was, however, unavailing; the ruffian seemed to instinctively and immediately divine my purpose, and in a flash he had whipped a pistol and a long knife--the blade of which I noticed was smeared with blood--from his belt, and levelled the former straight at my head. There was no need for further words between us; nor was there time for hesitation; so, quickly ducking my head, I sprang upon him like lightning, and seized him by both wrists at the very instant that his pistol exploded; the bullet grazing the left side of my head, and neatly clipping off a lock of my hair. The fellow was as lithe as an eel in my hands, and made the most desperate efforts to stab me with his long, murderous-looking knife; but I had him fast in so powerful a grip that, after a furious struggle of a few seconds, he dropped both his weapons with a gasp of pain, my clutch having, as it presently appeared, forced both his wrists from their sockets. To snatch the remaining pistol from his belt with my right hand, while I shifted the grip of my left to his throat, was the work of but a single instant; and I then turned to see how Hardy was faring with his antagonist. He had apparently been less fortunate than myself, for his cheek was laid open by a long gash from the chief mate's knife, which, even as I turned my head, again descended and buried itself in Hardy's shoulder. The smart of this second wound seemed to fairly rouse my shipmate, and before I could do anything to help him his ponderous fist darted out with the force of a six-pound shot, catching the miserable Corsican fair in the centre of the face and dashing him backwards, with a shriek of pain, across the table. This blow settled the affair; there was no more fight left in either of the brothers--indeed I had unconsciously gripped my prisoner's throat so tightly, while watching the termination of the struggle between the other two, that his tongue and eyeballs were protruding, and he was already going black in the face. So we securely pinioned the precious pair, lashing their arms and legs together, and, bundling each into his own cabin, locked the doors, the keys of which I slipped into my pocket. This done, I helped myself, from the trophy upon the after-bulkhead of the cabin, to weapons enough for our entire party; found Gaspar, the steward, in his pantry, where I lashed him fast and locked him in; and then the four of us hastened on deck to ascertain what effect, if any, had been produced by the pistol-shot fired in the cabin upon the small residue of the crew who had not yet utterly succumbed to the stupefying influence of their immoderate potations. CHAPTER NINETEEN. THE FATE OF THE SANTA THERESA. Upon rejoining Dumaresq, I learned from him that the pistol-shot fired in the cabin had attracted only the most casual and momentary notice of the few Frenchmen on deck; the majority of them, indeed, scarcely rousing themselves sufficiently to do more than merely turn their heads to send a single inquiring glance aft. This was good news, as, although the schooner was now to all intents and purposes our own, there were few enough of us to navigate her, and I was most anxious that those few should not be weakened by possible injuries in a struggle to secure full and complete possession. That full and complete possession, however, it was absolutely necessary to secure at once, if anything was to be done toward rescuing the unhappy Spaniards on board the fast-sinking _Santa Theresa_; so Dumaresq and I went forward and, by dint of a little good- humoured force, succeeded in persuading the remainder of the Frenchmen to go below, where we secured them without much difficulty. This done, we at once brought the schooner to the wind, and proceeded to beat up toward the Spanish ship, which we could just make out in the rapidly deepening dusk of the tropical evening. I carefully noted her bearing and distance; and then, Dumaresq taking the wheel, the rest of us went to work to make our prisoners permanently secure. Fortunately for us, Renouf's foresight enabled us to do this very effectually, he having apparently recognised that circumstances might possibly arise rendering it important that he should possess the means to reduce a large number of men to absolute helplessness; for which purpose he had provided himself with an ample supply of irons, which now proved most useful to us. We lost no time in clapping these irons upon the hands and legs of the Frenchmen, thus rendering it impossible for them to give us the slightest trouble upon their recovery from their drunken debauch; and, having made all perfectly secure, our next business was to restore the cook and steward to sobriety, by subjecting them to a liberal douche of salt-water, and to set them to work to prepare us a meal, of which we began to feel that we stood in need. The task of effectually securing the whole of our prisoners occupied a considerable amount of time; so that when it was at length completed to my satisfaction the night had long since fallen, and we had completely lost sight of the Spanish ship, although Dumaresq had kept his eye upon her as long as possible. We had brought the schooner to the wind on the starboard tack, in the first instance, and we held on upon this tack until I found, by means of a simple little diagram, drawn to scale upon a piece of paper, that we could fetch her on the next tack when we hove the schooner round. But my hopes of being able to rescue the Spaniards were fast fading away, for the wind had evinced a decided disposition to drop with the setting of the sun; and when we at length tacked to fetch the spot where we expected to find the _Santa Theresa_, the schooner was going through the water at a speed of barely four knots. And, according to my reckoning, the ship was just that distance from us; so that it would occupy us another hour to fetch her, and I was exceedingly doubtful whether she would remain afloat so long. Indeed, I greatly feared that she had foundered already, for the night, although dark, was clear. The stars were shining brilliantly from zenith to horizon, and it appeared to me that if she was still afloat we ought to be able to see the blur of her canvas against the sky. But although I searched the horizon from broad on the one bow to broad on the other, using for the purpose an exceptionally fine night-glass that I found in Renouf's cabin, I was unable to make her out. Once or twice, it is true, I thought I had caught her right ahead, but it unfortunately happened that the portion of sky in that quarter was bare of stars over a space very considerably larger than would have been covered by the ship's canvas, and consequently I was without the assurance that would have been afforded me had the faint, dusky appearance that I took to be her sails alternately eclipsed and exposed a star. But I afterwards had reason to believe that I had really seen her, for when we had arrived within about a mile of the spot where I supposed her to be, a faint, wailing cry, as of people in the last extremity of despair, came pealing distinctly to us across the black water, and about a quarter of an hour later we suddenly found ourselves among a quantity of floating oars, buckets, hatches, and other articles that had undoubtedly belonged to the Spaniard. The presence of these articles proved conclusively that the unfortunate ship had gone down, and the cry that we had heard was doubtless the last despairing cry of her hapless, helpless passengers and crew. Thus to the crime of piracy Renouf had added the far worse one of wholesale murder, for Dumaresq asserted that, according to his estimate, the number of passengers and crew together on board the _Santa Theresa_ could not have fallen much, if anything, short of a hundred. We immediately hove the schooner to, and Dumaresq, with my four English shipmates, at once shoved off in a boat to search among the wreckage for possible survivors, but not one was found; which is not to be wondered at, for it afterwards transpired that Renouf had driven the Spanish seamen below and battened them down, while he had lashed the officers and passengers hand and foot and locked them into the cabins the last thing before scuttling the ship! We remained hove-to until past midnight, and then, having failed to find even so much as a floating body, sorrowfully filled away, and shaped a course for the West Indies, it being my intention to hand the whole crew over to the authorities upon a charge of piracy. A few days later, as we were running down the trade-wind, shortly after mid-day, we sighted ahead a whole fleet of large ships steering pretty nearly the same course as ourselves. They were under royals, with studding-sails set on both sides, and despite the fact that they were so much bigger than ourselves, we overhauled them so rapidly that by sunset we had brought them hull-up, and had neared them so closely that we were not only able to identify them as line-of-battle ships, but, with the aid of Renouf's splendid telescope, were able to read several of the names emblazoned upon their sterns. We made out such names as _Argonauta_, _Espana_, _Pluton_, _Terrible_, _Bucentaure_, _San Rafael_, and others, by means of which Dumaresq was able to identify some of them as ships that had been blockaded in the port of Toulon by Lord Nelson. Others were manifestly Spanish ships. Their names and appearance generally testified to that fact, and it therefore looked very much as though Vice-admiral Villeneuve had somehow contrived to evade the British fleet, and, having effected a junction with a Spanish fleet, was making the best of his way to the West Indies to work what damage might be within his power upon our colonies and our commerce in that quarter of the globe. There were twenty sail of them altogether. The fact that so formidable a fleet of our enemies was ranging the Atlantic and steering a course that would take them to some of the most valuable of Britain's possessions in the western hemisphere was important news indeed; and I reconnoitred the fleet as closely as I dared, contriving, before the daylight faded, to ascertain the name, and approximately the power, of every ship. They did not deign to take the slightest notice of us, beyond firing a shot or two at us whenever we ventured within range. So when darkness set in I bore away to the southward sufficiently to give the flank ship a berth of about four miles, when I crowded sail upon the schooner and ran past them, dropping them out of sight before sunrise next morning. Despite the fact that we were so short-handed, we continued to carry on, night and day, arriving at Port Royal on the morning of the eighth day after sighting the combined fleet. My first task was to seek out the Admiral, whom I expected to find at his _Pen_ on the slope of the hill at the back of the town of Kingston; so no sooner was our anchor down than I engaged a negro boatman to take me up the harbour. Arrived at Kingston, I procured a vehicle, and, driving to the Pen, was fortunate enough to catch the great man just as he was about to sit down to breakfast. The announcement that I was the bearer of important intelligence relating to the enemy secured my immediate admission to his presence, and, despite the fact that I was only a privateersman, the genial old seadog accorded me a hearty welcome, and insisted upon my sitting down to table with him directly he had elicited from me the fact that I had not yet broken my fast. He was, of course, profoundly interested in the intelligence that I was able to furnish him, relative to the presence of a combined French and Spanish fleet in the Atlantic, my information being the first that had reached him of the fact, and he was good enough to say that, in hastening to him with the news, I had rendered a service of the utmost importance to my country. Scarcely less interested was he in the narration of my adventures from the time of the abandonment of the _Manilla_ to the moment of the capture of the _Jean Bart_. He complimented me highly upon my conduct throughout, and, while promising to immediately relieve me of the charge of my prisoners, incidentally expressed his regret that I had not selected the navy as my profession. I answered him that I was but an obscure individual, with no influence or patronage whatever at my command, and that, therefore, had I entered the navy, I should probably never have been allowed to rise in my profession, the influence and patronage which I lacked causing other and more fortunate ones to be promoted over my head. His reply was characteristic. "Influence! patronage!" he exploded. "Ay, sir, you speak truly; there is too much of it altogether. It amounts to a very serious drawback and injury to the service in many ways. But, as for you, and men like you, you do not require either influence or patronage. You possess the best of all influence in this," lightly touching the hilt of my sword, "and it is a thousand pities that greater facilities are not afforded to men of your kidney for entrance into the service. But perhaps the profits derivable from successful privateering outweigh your patriotism, and you would rather be as you are than become the wearer of His Majesty's livery?" "You are mistaken, sir," answered I hotly. "To serve on His Majesty's quarter-deck would be the height of my ambition, but I confess I prefer my present position, as commander of a privateer to that of a warrant- officer aboard a man-o'-war." He answered me with a "Umph!" which afforded me no clue whatever to his opinion of my outspoken reply; and, my business with him being at an end, I took my leave. "Have you any engagement for to-night?" he asked, extending his hand very cordially. And upon my answering that I had not, he said: "Then come and dine with me; seven sharp. I want to see a little more of you." Of course I gladly accepted so flattering an invitation, and then hurried away to appoint an agent and return to the schooner. I was anxious to get to sea again as quickly as possible, for I looked upon the loss of the _Manilla_ as so much leeway, and a very serious amount too, that could not be too speedily made up. But I foresaw that my chief difficulty in so doing would arise from my lack of a crew, and how to scrape together a decent complement in a small town like Kingston I knew not, for I was fully aware that our men-o'-war kept the place pretty well swept of men. I was therefore greatly pleased when, having called upon the individual who had been recommended to me by the Admiral as an agent, he informed me, upon the conclusion of my business proper with him, that he knew a man who he believed would be willing, for a consideration, to find me as many good men as I might require. I at once asked for the address of this person, but was informed that it would be utterly useless for me, a total stranger, to call upon him, as he would most certainly decline to treat with me; but that if I felt disposed to leave the matter in his, the agent's, hands, he would do his best for me. I thought I understood pretty well what this meant. The system of impressment had done more than anything else to render our navy unpopular, and men were constantly deserting whenever and wherever they found a chance. And when they had once succeeded in making good their escape from the ship on board which they had been compelled to serve, their best chance of safety from recapture lay in getting to sea as quickly as possible, until which they were perforce obliged to lie in close hiding. This state of affairs soon produced a set of men known as "crimps", who kept boarding-houses for the especial accommodation and concealment of seamen who either had deserted from their ships, or who, having been paid off, were anxious to find other employment without the risk of impressment while openly looking for it. These crimps were to be found in every British seaport, abroad as well as at home, and a very good thing they made of it, what with their exorbitant charges for board and lodging on the one hand, and, on the other, the premiums or head- money that they received from ship-masters for the supply of men. It was, of course, to their interest to be loyal to the men, and hence they hedged themselves and their houses about with so many safeguards against undesirable intrusion that it became a matter of almost impossibility to approach them except through certain channels. I suspected that my agent was in touch with one or more of these men, and although I thoroughly hated the system, which was nothing short of the most audacious robbery, both of the unfortunate men whom it professed to befriend, and of the ship-masters who were compelled to avail themselves of it, my prospects of procuring a crew by any other means were so remote that I unwillingly assented to my agent's suggestion, stipulating only that I should see the men and have the option of refusing such as I deemed unsuitable. And with this understanding the agent undertook to do his best to find me at least forty thoroughly good men. This important matter put in train, I hastened back on board the schooner, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing Renouf and his scoundrel crew passed over the side into the boats that were to convey them to the prison-hulk. I had the still greater satisfaction of learning, not very long afterwards, that Renouf, his brother, and half a dozen more of the party had been hanged as pirates upon the evidence of Dumaresq, myself, and the other survivors of the gig's crew. This, however, is anticipating my story somewhat. That same night I dined with the Admiral, and had the honour of meeting the Governor and some half-dozen more of the principal personages of the island. I was rather astonished, I must admit, at the perfect equanimity with which my portentous tidings had been received. The Admiral had, of course, had a busy day of it in preparing and sending off despatches to the other islands belonging to the crown, as well as in arranging for the defence of our possessions generally; but I soon found that there was an utter absence of apprehension on the score of an attack. "No, no," exclaimed the Admiral confidently. "Villeneuve has escaped from Toulon, it is true, but he will be like a canary that has slipped out of its cage, he will be so frightened at unexpectedly finding himself free that he will not dare to make the least use of his freedom; his greatest anxiety will be to escape the pursuers that he knows must be on his track. For, d'ye see, Nelson will become aware of his escape in less than twelve hours, and will be after him forthwith. The only wonder to me is that he has not overtaken him and brought him to action before now. I would give a good deal for the power to let Nelson know the whereabouts of this fleet; but I haven't another ship at my disposal. By the way, Mr Bowen, what are you going to do next?" "I shall proceed to sea again without a moment's unnecessary delay, sir," I answered. "All I want is a crew." "_All_ you want!" echoed the Admiral. "By George, sir, I don't know where you will find a crew in Jamaica. I believe every available man has already been hunted out and appropriated by our men-o'-war. Have you no men at all?" "Four only; and I am not yet by any means certain that they will consent to ship with me. I have no authority whatever over them. They formed part of the crew of the _Manilla_." "Well," observed the Admiral, "I am afraid it is a bad look-out for you. At the same time if you should succeed in picking up enough to enable you to handle your schooner, let me know. I may find you some work to do, if you care to undertake it." I slept ashore that night; and upon calling upon my agent next day was as much astonished as gratified to learn that "his friend" was prepared to furnish me with sixty prime seamen,--every one of whom had served on board a man-o'-war,--upon payment of a guinea a head for them. It was a tolerably stiff premium to pay; but, as times then were, they would be fully worth it, should they turn out to be as represented, so I agreed to go and see them that night; with the result that--not to dwell at unnecessary length upon this part of my story--I next morning found myself in command of as smart a crew as a man need wish to have at his back. I found that I was indebted for this slice of good fortune principally to the fact that the crew of a privateer were exempt from impressment, which exemption was allowed to hold good in the West Indies, although the exemption was frequently little better than a dead letter at home and in other parts of the world. I now went to work to provision and water the schooner for a three-months' cruise; and so well did my agent work for me that, within seventy-two hours of my arrival at Port Royal, I was able to report myself ready for sea and at the Admiral's service. "That is well!" exclaimed the Admiral, rubbing his hands, when I so reported myself. "I congratulate you upon your smartness, Mr Bowen, and also upon your good fortune in finding a crew; it is a good deal more than our own people could have done. And now, if you are willing to render your country a further important service, I can afford you the opportunity. I am convinced that Lord Nelson will not remain inactive at home, now that Admiral Villeneuve has contrived to give him the slip, he will chase the combined fleet round the world, if need be. But it is important that Villeneuve should be watched. What, therefore, I want you to do is to sail in search of the combined fleet, and find them; ascertain as much as you can relative to their projected movements, and then find the British fleet and acquaint Nelson with all that you have been able to learn. When you have done that, you will be free to cruise wherever you please; but make an excuse to return to Jamaica at your earliest convenience, and do not fail to call on me." I thanked the Admiral for his kindness, promised to execute his commission to the best of my ability, and took my leave. Two hours later the schooner, which I had rechristened the _Sword Fish_, was outside the Pallisades, working her way to the eastward under as heavy a press of canvas as I dared pile upon her. CHAPTER TWENTY. I PERFORM AN IMPORTANT SERVICE. The task with which I had been intrusted was one of the very greatest responsibility; for the descent of a combined French and Spanish fleet upon West Indian waters could only be assumed to point to an intention, on the part of our enemies, to wrest at least some of our West Indian possessions from us; an intention which our available resources on the spot would be utterly inadequate to frustrate, in view of the formidable force possessed by the enemy. It was therefore of the last importance that any British reinforcements which might be hastening to the support of the colonies should be quickly found and communicated with; and it was equally important that they should be furnished with the latest possible intelligence with regard to the movements of the enemy. The duty, therefore, that I was asked to perform, single-handed, was such as actually called for the employment of several vessels. Unfortunately, however, there were absolutely none available for the Admiral at this juncture, the only ship in port at the moment of my arrival in Jamaica being the schooner _Firefly_, which vessel had immediately been despatched to the several islands belonging to the British Crown with a warning that a formidable force was approaching; for the reception of which the best possible dispositions were to be made. It thus came about that I, a young, untried hand, found myself called upon to perform a service of almost national importance with only my own discretion to guide me. My instructions, however, were simple and explicit enough, and I resolved to carry them out to the letter. After giving the subject the best consideration of which I was capable, I came to the conclusion that if Monsieur Villeneuve really intended to attack the islands in our possession, he would probably begin with the Windward Islands. Instead, therefore, of working my way out into the Atlantic, through the Windward Passage between Cuba and Saint Domingo, I stretched across the Caribbean Sea on a taut larboard bowline, and noon on the fourth day after sailing from Port Royal found us some ninety miles west-north-west of the French island of Martinique, and while I was at dinner the mate stuck his head through the skylight to report land right ahead. I went up on deck to get a look at it, and soon identified it as the summit of Mont Pelee, the highest point in the island. We stood on, keeping a sharp look-out for vessels, but saw nothing; and about two bells in the first watch that night we found ourselves within the influence of the land breeze which was blowing off the island. Half an hour later saw us off the mouth of the bay of Fort Royal, and as the night was dark I came to the conclusion that it might be worth my while to stand inshore a little closer, upon the chance of being able to pick up some information. Accordingly, we worked in against the land breeze, and had arrived within half a mile of Pigeon Island, when we encountered a small trading felucca coming out. We allowed her to get to seaward of us, when we bore up in chase, and a few minutes later we were alongside the craft, and had secured quiet possession of her. The felucca carried five hands, whom I caused to be transferred to the schooner; and my first business was to get the master of the craft down into the cabin, where I informed him that all I wanted from him was some information, and that if he would answer my questions truly, I would at once release him and return his vessel to him; but if I found that he was attempting to deceive me, I would burn his felucca, and retain him and his crew as prisoners. The man was eager in his protestations that he would tell me everything that I wanted to know, and begged me not to destroy his vessel, as she represented his entire possessions, and was his sole means of earning a livelihood; a piece of information that led me to hope he would not attempt to deceive me; so I went to work to question him forthwith, jotting his answers down upon a piece of paper. The information I obtained from the fellow was important enough to have justified me in running a far greater risk than I had actually incurred to procure it, and was to the effect that the combined fleets had been off the island that very day, with some forty prizes, comprising the Antigua convoy, in company; that it had captured Diamond Rock; and that, in consequence of certain information supposed to have been received from a schooner that had that day arrived from Europe, it had made all sail to the eastward. As to the character of the information, however, that had caused so powerful a force to take so unexpected a step, the man professed to know nothing. Having obtained this information from him, I sent the skipper on deck and had him conveyed forward, where he was placed in charge of two men, while I had his crew down into the cabin, one by one, and questioned them. Their answers bore out what the skipper had already told me. I therefore concluded that the news was true, and accordingly released the felucca, with a strict caution that he was to proceed forthwith on his voyage to Mariegalante--the island to which he was bound--and on no account to attempt to re-enter the harbour of Fort Royal, under penalty of instant recapture. The fellow was evidently only too glad to get out of our hands upon such easy terms; and no sooner found himself once more safely on the deck of his little hooker than he made all sail to the northward, and was soon lost in the darkness. Dumaresq, who had remained with me thus far, thought this a good opportunity to rejoin his countrymen, and, with my cordial permission, took a passage in the felucca. So far I had done very well; the combined fleet was only a few hours distant; and I had no doubt that, with so nimble-heeled a craft as the _Sword Fish_, I should have very little difficulty in overtaking them in the course of a day or two. The question now was whether I should proceed forthwith in pursuit of Monsieur Villeneuve, or whether I should devote an hour or two to an endeavour to ascertain the precise nature of the information said to have been brought from Europe by the schooner. This information might be of value, or it might not; but after giving the matter brief but careful consideration I came to the conclusion that it was hardly worth while troubling about; as, if the vessel had brought out despatches, they would have been delivered long since; and in any case, the captain and crew would know nothing of their contents. I therefore filled away forthwith, and by midnight had brought the island over our larboard quarter. There was now another question that bothered me somewhat, and it was this: I could not understand why the combined fleet should be steering east, or why they should have gone off in such a hurry as had been represented to me. I racked my brains for a long time in search of a satisfactory solution of this problem, as I felt that until I had found such I should be quite in the dark as to the course which I ought to steer in order to overtake them. For although I had been informed that, when last seen, the fleet was steering to the southward and eastward, close-hauled, I had no data upon which to base an opinion as to the length of time during which they would continue to steer in that direction, for the simple reason that there was no apparent object in their steering in that direction at all. We had no possessions in that quarter to tempt them, unless it might be Barbados; and even that island lay considerably to leeward of the course that Monsieur Villeneuve was said to be steering. At length, however, a possible explanation suggested itself. It occurred to me that the schooner, which was supposed to have brought the information leading to the precipitate departure of Monsieur Villeneuve, might have fallen in with and succeeded in eluding the British pursuing fleet, of the existence of which the admiral at Jamaica had felt so certain; and if she had, and had brought news to Martinique of the approach of such a fleet, I could understand Monsieur Villeneuve's anxiety to be off; for we were all fully persuaded that there was nothing the French admiral desired so little as to encounter Nelson. And, upon considering the matter further, the conviction forced itself irresistibly upon me that, if Monsieur Villeneuve had been given good reason to believe that he was pursued, his chief anxiety would be to get back to Europe as quickly as possible. Such a desire would fully account for everything in his movements that I had found difficult to understand, and it would also account for the course that he was said to be steering; that course being the only one that would at once lead him homeward and at the same time enable him to avoid a meeting with the suppositious British fleet. So thoroughly at length did I convince myself that this represented the actual state of the case that I unhesitatingly set the _Sword Fish's_ head in the same direction that I believed the combined fleet to be steering; and then, having issued orders that the schooner was to be driven at the highest speed consistent with safety to her spars, I went below and turned in. During the remainder of that night and the whole of the next day we carried on, without sighting anything in the shape of a sail; but at dawn of the second day my persistence was rewarded by the sight of a large fleet of ships strung out along the horizon, and by mid-day we had approached them near enough to enable us to identify them as the fleet of which we were in search. There was a big fleet of merchantmen in company, which I assumed to be the captured Antigua convoy; and by and by one of these--a fine full-rigged ship--wore round, in response to a signal, and headed for us. I allowed her to approach within a couple of miles of us, when we in turn shifted our helm and going round upon the starboard tack, assumed all the appearance of being in precipitate flight. But I was particular to flatten in all sheets and braces to such an extent that, by careful and persistent wind-jamming, the schooner became as sluggish as a log; and in this way we played with the ship until we had decoyed her a good twenty miles away from the rest of the fleet, sometimes allowing her to gain upon us a trifle, and then drawing away from her again, my object, of course, being to capture her if I could. And of my ability to do this--provided that I could decoy her far enough away from all possible support--I had very little doubt; for I did not consider it in the least likely that she would have more than sixty Frenchmen on board her as a prize crew, while I had an equal number of Englishmen. At length, about an hour before sunset, we allowed the ship to approach us within gun-shot, and shortly afterwards she opened fire upon us with a six-pounder. The shot flew wide; but all the same I caused our helm to be put down, and as the schooner slowly luffed into the wind I gave orders for all our sheets to be let fly, presenting an appearance of terrible confusion. The ruse was successful; the ship ceased firing, and came booming along toward us under _every_ inch of canvas that she could spread. Meanwhile our lads, hugely delighted at the fun in prospect, armed themselves, got the grappling-irons ready, and prepared for boarding the stranger. The weather was quite fine enough to admit of our running alongside in the schooner, there being very little swell on; so as soon as we were ready the men stationed themselves at the sheets and braces, and by a little judicious manipulation of these and the helm we contrived to get sternway upon the schooner just as the ship came booming down upon our weather quarter. Nobody on board her seemed to think of shortening sail until she was fairly abreast of us, and then a terrific hullabaloo broke out as her crew endeavoured to clew up and haul down everything at once--they even let run their topsail-halliards in their excitement. Then, in the midst of it all, just as the ship went surging past us, with a great rustling of canvas and lashing of loose cordage in the wind, a man sprang into her mizzen-rigging and hailed us in French, ordering us to follow until he could heave-to, when he would send a boat on board us. This suited my plans to a nicety; so we filled upon the schooner and followed the ship closely, luffing up for her lee quarter as we did so; and so well had everything worked with us that I believe none of the Frenchmen had the slightest suspicion that anything was wrong until we had actually run them aboard and thrown our grappling-irons. Then the excitement was even more distracting than before, everybody crying out at once; officers and men vying with each other in giving the most contradictory orders, and nobody dreaming of obeying any single one of them. The surprise was complete; and when our lads followed me over the ship's bulwarks, with drawn cutlasses, we found as our opponents only a shouting, shrieking, gesticulating mob, who reviled us for our perfidious mode of fighting in one breath, and in the next passionately conjured us not to overlook the fact that they surrendered. It was as amusing a bit of business as I had been engaged in for many a day. We lost no time in securing our prisoners--who were only some forty in number--and then I turned my attention to the ship, which I ascertained to be the _Caribbean_, of London, of twelve hundred and forty-three tons register, laden with sugar and rum. She was therefore a valuable recapture. She carried thirty-two passengers, and by great good luck her own British crew was also on board. It was not necessary, therefore, for me to weaken my own force by putting a prize crew on board her; my chief mate being quite sufficient to represent and watch over the interests of the _Sword Fish_ and her owners. The individual who had been put on board her as prize-master, when she was captured by Monsieur Villeneuve's fleet, happened to be a very talkative fellow, and accordingly I had not much difficulty in extracting from him the information that it had been rumoured through the fleet that the suddenness of Monsieur Villeneuve's departure from the West Indies was due to intelligence that Lord Nelson was in pursuit. This statement, if true, exactly bore out my theory; and a little more judicious questioning enabled me to ascertain that it had further been stated that, at the time of departure from Martinique, the British fleet was believed to be not more than four days' sail distant. I thus obtained something in the shape of a clue as to the direction in which my further search ought to be prosecuted; and accordingly hauled up to the southward, close-hauled on the starboard tack, with our recapture in company. It was more than a week, however, before we contrived to obtain any definite information as to the whereabouts of the British fleet, and even then I was four days longer in finding it; but when at length this was achieved, I had the satisfaction of learning that my information was the very latest of an authentic character that had been furnished to Nelson; and it had the effect of causing him instantly to determine to retrace his steps to Europe. This was good news to me, for it enabled me to send my recapture across the Atlantic with the British fleet as a protector, instead of taking her into Kingston, in Jamaica, where the necessary formalities connected with the capture would have involved us in a vast amount of trouble and expense. I accordingly wrote a brief letter or two home, which I forwarded by the _Caribbean_, and parted company with her and the fleet within an hour of having fallen in with the latter. And thus terminated, successfully and profitably, the service which I had undertaken at the instigation of the Admiral stationed at Jamaica. I was now my own master once more, free to go wherever my whim prompted me, and I determined that I would put into effect a plan that had long commended itself to me; namely, to cruise along the Spanish Main in the hope of picking up one of the galleons or plate-ships that were still despatched from time to time from Cartagena. Upon parting company, therefore, with the British fleet, I cruised along the whole line of the Windward Islands as far south as Tobago and Trinidad, and then bore up for the Main. In leisurely fashion and under easy canvas we coasted along the shore, taking a look into the Cariaco Gulf without finding anything worth picking up, and thence across to Cape Codera, off which the wind came out from the westward, compelling us to make a stretch off the land. This occurred about midnight. I secured an observation for my longitude at nine o'clock the next morning, and another for my latitude at noon, about which time I became aware that the barometer was falling, although not rapidly enough to give cause for any uneasiness. As the afternoon wore on, however, there were indications that a change of weather was impending. The sky lost the pure brilliancy of its blue, and by insensible degrees assumed an ashen pallor, which the sun vainly struggled to pierce until he merged from a palpitating, rayless ball of light to a shapeless blotch of dim, watery radiance, and then disappeared. At the same time the wind died away until we were left becalmed and rolling rail-under upon a swell that gathered strength every hour as it came creeping up from the westward. In a short time it became a fine example of what the Spaniards call a "furious calm", the schooner rolling so heavily that I deemed it prudent to send the yards and topmasts down on deck to relieve the lower-masts. And I did this the more readily because the steady, continuous decline of the mercury in the tube assured me that we were booked for a stiff blow. Yet hour succeeded hour until the darkness closed down upon us, and still, beyond the portents already mentioned, there was no sign of the coming breeze. The night fell as dark as a wolf's mouth; the air was so close and hot that the mere act of breathing was performed with difficulty; and the quick, jerky roll of the schooner at length became positively distressing in its persistent monotony. Of course, under the circumstances, turning in was not to be thought of, so far as I was concerned. I therefore made myself as comfortable as I could upon the wheel-grating, and awaited developments. The fact is that I was puzzled. I did not know what to make of the weather. Had it not been for the steady, continuous fall of the mercury I should have expected nothing worse than a fresh breeze from the westward, preceded perhaps by a thunder-squall; but the barometer indicated something more serious than that, yet the sky gave no verifying sign of the approach of anything like a heavy blow. But I had long ago taken in everything except the boom-foresail, to save the sails from beating themselves to pieces, so I was pretty well prepared for any eventuality. It was close upon midnight when the change came, and then it was nothing at all alarming, being merely a sudden but by no means violent squall out from about due west, followed by a heavy downpour of rain. The rain lasted about a quarter of an hour, and when it ceased we were again becalmed. Suddenly I became conscious of a faint luminousness somewhere in the atmosphere, and looking about me to discover the cause, I observed what looked like a ball of lambent, greenish flame clinging to the foremast-head, where it swayed about, elongating and contracting with the roll of the ship, exactly as a gigantic soap-bubble might have done. It clung there, swaying, for some moments, and then glided slowly down the mast until it reached the jib-stay, down which it slid to the bowsprit, whence, after wavering for a few seconds, it travelled along the bowsprit, inboard, and vanished, not, however, until it had revealed by its corpse-like light the horror-stricken features of some half a dozen of the watch huddled together on the forecastle, in attitudes every curve and bend of which were eloquent of consternation. "That's a bad sign, sir; so they say," remarked Saunders, my chief mate, whose watch it was. "What? The appearance of that light?" demanded I. "Not so much the appearance of it, sir, but the way that it travelled. They say that if a corposant appears aboard a vessel and stays aloft, or travels upwards, it's all right; but if it comes down from aloft, it means a heavy gale of wind at the very least," answered Saunders. "Pooh!" said I; "mere superstition. Everybody knows nowadays that a corposant is nothing whatever but an electrical phenomenon, and therefore merely an indication that the atmosphere is surcharged with electricity. As to whether it travels up or down, that, in my opinion, is mere chance or accident, call it which you will." "Have you ever seen any of those things before, sir?" inquired the mate. "No," said I; "this is the first time that I have ever been shipmates with one." "Ah!" remarked the mate, with a distinct accent of superior experience in his tone; "I've seen 'em often enough; too often, I may say. Why, there was one time when I was aboard the little _Fox_, bound from Jamaica to New Providence. We were lying becalmed, just as we are to- night, close to the Diamond Bank, and with pretty much the same sort of weather, too, when one of them things boarded us, making its appearance on the spindle of the vane at our main-topmast head. It wavered about for a minute or two, exactly like that thing just now, and then rolled, as it might be, down the spar until it met the topmast-stay, down which it travelled to the foremast-head, and from thence it came down the topsail sheet to the deck, where it bursted. Ten minutes after that happened, sir, we were struck by a squall that hove us over on our beam- ends. We had to cut both masts away before she would right with us, and when at length she rose to an even keel, there was five feet of water in the hold. Of course we could do nothing but scud before it, and, the squall hardening into a furious gale of wind, we went ashore about two hours afterwards on South Point, Yuma Island, and out of a crew of thirty-four men only seven of us was saved! Now, what d'ye think of that, sir?" "Why, I think it was a terribly unfortunate affair; but I don't believe that the corposant had anything to do with it," answered I. "Well, sir," answered the mate, "I only hope that it hadn't; because, d'ye see, if your view is the correct one, we needn't fear anything happening in consequence of--Why, bust me, but there's another of 'em!" It was true. While Saunders was in the very act of speaking, another of the strange, weird lights had suddenly become visible, this time on the mainmast-head, where it hung for a few minutes, finally sliding down the mast to the deck, where it rolled to and fro for perhaps half a minute, presenting the appearance of a sphere of luminous mist, the most brilliant part of which was its centre. I am by no means a superstitious person, but I am free to admit that the sight of this weird, uncanny thing gliding about the deck and emitting its ghostly light, almost at my feet, produced a sufficiently creepy feeling to make me unfeignedly glad when it presently disappeared. "Now, you mark my words, sir, if we don't have some very ugly weather after this," observed Saunders, producing his tinder-box and lighting his pipe. I walked to the skylight and took a squint at the barometer. It was still falling, and by this time the depression had assumed such proportions as to fully justify such an expectation as that entertained by the mate. I thought, therefore, that it might be only prudent to make some further preparation, and I accordingly gave orders to reef the foresail and fore-staysail. All this time it continued as dark as pitch, and so breathlessly calm that the helmsman, wishing to prick up the wicks of the binnacle-lamps, was able to do so in the open air, the only wind affecting the naked flame being the draught occasioned by the heavy roll of the schooner. But this was not destined to last very long. Some ten minutes or a quarter of an hour after the second corposant had vanished we felt a faint movement in the atmosphere which caused our small spread of canvas to flap heavily once or twice; then came a puff of hot, damp air that lasted long enough to give the schooner steerage-way; and when this was on the point of dying, a scuffle of wind swept over us that careened the schooner to her bearings, and before she had recovered herself the true breeze was upon us, with a deep, weird, moaning sound that was inexpressibly dismal, and that somehow seemed to impart a feeling of dire foreboding to the listener. Not that there was anything in the least terrifying in the strength of the wind--far from it, indeed,--for it was no heavier than a double-reefed topsail breeze, to which the schooner stood up as stiff as a church, but there was a certain indescribable hollowness in the sound of it--that is the only fitting term I can find to apply--that was quite unlike anything that I had heard before, and that somehow seemed, in its weirdness, to indisputably forebode disaster. The schooner was now forging through the water at a speed of some four knots, and looking well up into the wind, which had come out from the westward. As I have said, there was already a very heavy swell running, and upon the top of this a very steep, awkward sea soon began to make, so that within half an hour of the breeze striking us we were pitching bows under, and the decks to leeward were all afloat. By this time, too, it had become perfectly apparent that the wind was rapidly gaining strength; so rapidly, indeed, that about an hour after the first puff it came down upon us with all the fury of a squall, laying the schooner down to her rail, and causing her to plunge with fearful violence into the fast-rising sea. Within the next half-hour the wind had increased so greatly in strength that I began to think there really might be something in Saunders's theory after all, and I was inwardly debating whether I should haul the fore-sheet to windward and heave the schooner to, or whether it would be better to up helm and run before it until the weather should moderate a bit, when a third corposant suddenly appeared, this time on the boom-foresail gaff-end. "Now, sir," remarked Saunders, "we shall soon know whether we've got the worst of the blow yet or not. If we have, that thing'll shift higher up; but if we haven't, it'll come down like the others." I did not answer him, for I was at the moment straining my eyes into the blackness on the weather-bow, where I fancied I had caught, a second or two before, a deeper shadow. There were moments when I thought I saw it again, but so profound was the darkness that it really seemed absurd to suppose it possible to discern anything in it; to make sure, however, I sang out to the look-out men on the forecastle to keep their eyes wide open, and their answer came so sharp and prompt as to convince me that they were fully on the alert, and that I had allowed my imagination to deceive me. I therefore turned to Saunders with some remark upon my lips in reply to his, when I saw the corposant suddenly leave the gaff- end and go driving away to leeward on the wings of the gale. I naturally expected that it would almost immediately vanish, but it did not; on the contrary, it had all the appearance of having been arrested in its flight, for I saw it elongating and collapsing again, as it had done with the motion of the schooner, and it also appeared to me to be describing long arcs across the sky. For a moment I was puzzled to account for so strange a phenomenon, and then the explanation came to me in a flash. I had not been deceived when I believed I caught sight of a shadowy something sweeping athwart our bows. I had seen a ship, and there she was to leeward of us, with the corposant clinging to one of her spars. I had just time to give the order to bear up in pursuit, and to get the schooner before the wind, when the corposant seemed to settle down nearer to the water, and in another instant it had vanished. CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. A TERRIBLE ADVENTURE. With the disappearance of the corposant there was nothing whatever to betray the presence of a strange sail in our vicinity; for now, strain my eyes as I would, I could not be at all certain that I saw anything, although there were times when the same vague, shapeless blot of deeper darkness that had previously attracted my attention seemed to loom up momentarily out of the Stygian murkiness ahead. There were times also when, the water being highly phosphorescent, it appeared to me that, among the ghostly gleamings of the breaking surges, I could faintly discern a more symmetrical space of luminosity, corresponding to the foaming track of a ship moving at a high rate of speed through the water. But, to make sure of the matter, I ordered the reef to be shaken out of the foresail, and also set the mainsail, close-reefed, with the boom topped well up. This increased the speed of the schooner quite as much as I thought desirable, more, indeed, than was at all prudent; for, let me tell you, it is risky work to be flying along before a gale of wind at a speed of fully nine knots an hour on a pitch-black night, with a suspicion, amounting almost to absolute certainty, that there is another vessel directly ahead, and close aboard of you for aught that you can tell to the contrary. And, indeed, we soon had evidence of this; for, feeling uneasy upon the matter, I had started to go forward with the intention of warning the look-out men that I had reason to believe there was a ship close ahead of us, and that they must therefore keep an extra bright look-out, when, as I arrived abreast the fore- rigging, my eyes still straining into the darkness ahead, the schooner was hove up on the breast of a heavy, following sea, and as she topped it with the ghostly sea-fire of its fiercely-hissing crest brimming almost to the rail, a black shape seemed to suddenly solidify out of the gloom ahead, apparently within biscuit-toss of our jib-boom end, with an unmistakable wake of boiling foam on each side of it, and the two look- out men yelled, as with one voice, and in the high-pitched accents of sudden alarm. "Hard-a-port! hard a-port! There's a ship right under our bows, sir!" The helm was promptly put over, the schooner sheered out of the wake of the black mass ahead--apparently a craft of considerable size,--and we ranged up on her starboard quarter. It will convey some idea of the closeness of the shave we made of it when I say that, even above the howling of the gale, the fierce hiss of the rapidly rising sea, and the roar of our bow-wave, we caught the sound of an unintelligible hail from the stranger, which almost immediately displayed a lantern over her taffrail for a few seconds, as a warning to us, her people being doubtless under the impression that our encounter had been accidental, and that we had only that moment seen her for the first time. Having now established beyond all question the fact of the stranger's proximity to us, I ordered our mainsail to be hauled down, balance- reefed, and reset, by which means we presently found that the stranger was gradually drawing ahead of us again; and the danger of collision being thus averted, I began to ask myself whether it was advisable to continue the chase any longer. The fact is, I had followed this craft instinctively, for I knew that there were so few vessels flying British colours in that precise part of the world that the presumption was strongly in favour of this one being either a Spaniard or a Dutchman, and in either case an enemy. But assuming her to be one or the other, she was just as likely to be a man-o'-war as a merchantman--she had appeared to be quite large enough to be the former, in that brief, indistinct glance that we had caught of her,--and if she happened to be a man-o'-war we should probably find ourselves in the wrong box when daylight broke. On the other hand she had not appeared to be so large as to preclude the possibility of her being a merchantman--a Spanish or Dutch West Indiaman; and should she prove to be either of these, she would be well worth fighting for. I considered the question carefully, and at length came to the conclusion that the risk of following her was quite worth taking, and we accordingly held all on as we were. Meanwhile the gale was steadily growing fiercer, and the sea rising higher and becoming more dangerous with every mile that we traversed in our blind, headlong flight before it; and it appeared to me that the option whether I should continue the pursuit of the stranger would soon be taken from me by the imperative necessity to heave-to if I would avoid the almost momentarily increasing danger of the schooner being pooped, when a piercing cry of "Breakers ahead?" burst from the two men on the look-out forward, instantly followed by the still more startling cry of "Breakers on the port bow!" "Breakers on the starboard bow!" I sprang to the rail and looked ahead. Merciful Heaven! it was true, right athwart our path, as far as the eye could penetrate the gloom on either bow, there stretched a barrier of wildly-leaping breakers and spouting foam, gleaming spectrally against the midnight blackness of the murky heavens; and even as I gazed, spell-bound, at the dreadful spectacle I saw the black bulk of the strange ship outlined against the ghostly whiteness, and in another instant she had swung broadside-on; and as a perfect mountain of white foam leaped upon her, enfolding her in its snowy embrace, her masts fell, and methought that, mingled with the sudden, deafening roar of the trampling breakers, I caught the sound of a despairing wail borne toward us against the wind. Oh! the horror of that moment! I shall never forget it. There was nothing to be done, no means of escape; for the walls of white water had seemed to leap at us out of the darkness so suddenly that they were no sooner seen than we were upon them; and the only choice left us was whether we would plunge into them stem-on, or be hove in among them broadside-on, as had been the case of the strange ship. With the lightning-like celerity of decision that seems to be instinct in moments of sudden, awful peril, I determined to drive the schooner ashore stem- on; hoping that, aided by our light draught of water, we might be hove up high enough on the beach, or whatever it was, to permit of the escape of at least a few of us with our lives; and I shouted to the helmsman to steady his helm, the breakers right ahead of us seeming to be less high and furious than those on either bow. There was no time for more; no time to order all hands on deck; no time even to utter a warning cry to those already on deck to grasp the nearest thing to hand and cling for their lives, for my cry to the helmsman was still on my lips when the schooner seemed to leap down upon the barrier of madly-plunging breakers, and in an instant we were hemmed about with a crashing fury of white water that boiled and leaped about us, smiting the schooner in all parts of her hull at once, foaming in over the rail here, there, and everywhere like a pack of hungry wolves, spouting high in air and flying over us in blinding deluges of spray until the poor little craft seemed to be buried; while I, without knowing how I got there, found myself on the wheel-grating, assisting the helmsman, with the yeasty water swirling about our knees as it boiled in over the taffrail. I caught a momentary glimpse of the strange ship as we swept athwart her stern at a distance of less than a hundred fathoms. Her black bulk was sharply outlined against the luminous loam as a whelming breaker passed inshore of her, and left her, for a second, up-hove on the breast of the next one; and I could see that she was on her beam-ends--a large ship of probably twelve hundred tons. I could see no sign of people on board her, but that was not surprising; they had probably been all swept overboard by the first mountain--wall of water that swept over her after she had broached-to. And such was to be our fate also. My only wonder was that it had not come already; but come it must, and I braced myself for the shock, already feeling in imagination the terrific grinding concussion, the sickening jar, the awful upheaval of the schooner's quivering frame, and the wrenching of her timbers asunder. But second after second sped, and the shock did not come; and half-buried in the boiling swirl of maddened waters, the schooner swept ahead, now up-hove on the breast of a fiery breaker that swept her from stem to stern as it flung her forward like a cork, now struggling and staggering in a hollow of seething, yeasty foam. At length, as the schooner settled down into one of these swirling hollows, she actually did strike, but the blow was a light one, only just sufficient to swear by and not enough to check her headlong rush for the smallest fraction of a second; and shortly afterwards I became aware that the breakers were perceptibly less weighty, so much so that in about another minute they ceased to break inboard. It now dawned upon me that we must be passing over a submerged reef of considerable extent, and my hopes began to revive; for since we had traversed it thus far in safety, there was just the ghost of a chance that we might manage to blunder across the remainder of it without serious damage. As my thoughts took this direction my eyes fell upon a figure clinging to the main rigging, and I made it out to be Saunders, my chief mate. I shouted to him, and by good luck my voice reached him, and he came staggering aft to me. Without relaxing my grip on the wheel, I hurriedly explained to him my impression with regard to our situation, and directed him to go forward and see both anchors clear for letting go; for I had determined that, should my supposition prove correct, and should we be so extremely fortunate as to traverse the remaining portion of the reef in safety, I would anchor immediately that we should emerge into clear water. Fortunately for us all in our present strait, our cables were always kept bent, so that there was not very much to be done; and in a few minutes Saunders returned aft with the intelligence that all was ready for anchoring at any moment. And now I really began to hope in earnest that we might perchance escape, for the sea was not breaking nearly so heavily around us; indeed I could distinguish, at no great distance ahead, small patches of unbroken water, with wider patches beyond; and, best of all, we had only touched the reef once, and that but lightly. Presently the schooner shot into a patch of unbroken water that appeared to communicate at one point with a larger patch, and I at once steered for the point of junction, at the same time singing out to the mate to get in the mainsail, and for the hands to stand by the fore and staysail halliards. A line of breakers still extended for some distance ahead of us, but they were now detached, with clear water between them, and if we could only contrive to keep the schooner in the unbroken water all might yet be well. We were still rushing along at a great pace, for the gale was blowing, if possible, more fiercely than ever; but the water was smooth, and I was consequently hopeful that, by letting go both anchors and giving the schooner the full scope of her cables, we might manage to ride it out without dragging. At length we brought the last of the visible breakers fair on our quarter, and I was in the act of putting the helm over, singing out at the same time to haul down the staysail and foresail, when the mate, who was on the forecastle ready to attend to the letting go of the anchors, shouted that he thought he could make out something like a large rock or small islet a short distance ahead. Hurriedly instructing the helmsman to keep the schooner as she was going, I ran forward, and immediately made out the object, which looked amply large enough to give us a lee to anchor under. We were pretty close to it; so without further ado the schooner was stripped of her remaining canvas and conned into a berth close under the lee of the huge mass, when both anchors were let go, the port anchor first and the starboard anchor half a minute later; and in less than five minutes we had the supreme satisfaction of finding the _Sword Fish_ riding snugly, and in smooth water, with some three fathoms between her keel and the sandy bottom. I was by this time pretty well fagged out, for the hour was drawing well on toward daybreak. Nevertheless my curiosity was so powerfully excited with regard to the spot which we had stumbled upon that, after thoroughly satisfying myself that the schooner was safe, and before turning in, I got out my chart and spread it open upon the cabin table. Our position at noon on the previous day was of course laid down upon it, and it needed but a few moments' consideration of the courses and distances that we had subsequently steered to demonstrate that we had blundered right into the heart of Los Roques, or the Roccas, the most dangerous group of islets, without exception, in the whole of the Caribbean Sea. They are situated some seventy-five miles due north of La Guayra, and extend over an area of ocean measuring about twenty-five miles from east to west, and about half that distance from north to south. The group consists of two islands proper, Cayo Grande and Cayo de Sal, the first being triangular in shape, and measuring some six and a half miles each way along the perpendicular and base of the triangle, while Cayo de Sal is about seven and a half miles long by perhaps half a mile broad. There are about thirty other islets in the group, all of them very much smaller than the two above named, and some of them so small as to deserve rather the name of _rocks_ than islets. But the peculiarity about the group which renders it so exceedingly dangerous to strangers is that it forms part of an extensive reef, roughly of quadrangular form, the belt of reef being about three miles wide, with a fine open space inside divided into two fairly good anchorages by a reef stretching across it in a north-westerly direction, from the westerly extremity of Cayo Grande to the main reef. There are several passages leading through the main reef into these anchorages, notably one on the northern side of the reef, but the difficulties of the navigation are so great to strangers that, if report is to be believed, it was, up to a comparatively recent date, a favourite resort of pirates, who, once through the reef, were practically safe from pursuit. Such was the spot into which the _Sword Fish_ had rushed, blindfold as it were. And I can only account for our escape from destruction by supposing that we had providentially hit off one of the channels through the reef, or else that the gale had heaped the water upon the reef to such an extent that, with our light draught, we were able to pass over it. However, I had only to look at the group, as portrayed upon the chart, to feel thoroughly assured as to the safety of the schooner and ourselves; so I turned into my bunk with an easy mind and a grateful heart at our truly miraculous escape, and fell asleep the moment that my head touched the pillow. When the steward came to call me at seven bells the gale was still raging furiously; but about four bells in the forenoon watch a break in the sky appeared to windward, and shortly afterwards there was a noticeable decrease in the strength of the wind. Meanwhile the break in the clouds widened, patches of blue sky appeared here and there, extending rapidly, and when noon arrived I was able to get a meridian altitude of the sun, which conclusively demonstrated the truth of my surmise that we were anchored in the Rocca group. The rock that sheltered us was some forty feet high, and about twenty acres in extent, situate nearly in the middle of the northern anchorage; and astern of us, at a distance of four miles, lay Cayo Grande, with Cayo de Sal about the same distance on our larboard beam. Now that it was daylight it was a perfectly simple and easy matter to identify our surroundings with the aid of the chart. By the time that dinner was over the gale had so far moderated that, in our sheltered position, it had become perfectly safe to lower a boat. I therefore ordered away the gig, and, taking the ship's telescope with me, landed upon the rock which had afforded us so welcome and timely a shelter, and climbed to its summit to see whether any portion of the wreck of the unfortunate stranger that had been in company with us during the preceding night still hung together. To my surprise I found that quite a considerable portion of her was visible; indeed at times it appeared to me that I could see almost if not quite the whole of her hull; but as she was some eight miles distant I could not be at all certain of this. The sea appeared to be still breaking heavily over her at times, but she seemed to have beaten almost entirely across the reef, there being but little broken water between us and her; and to this circumstance I attributed the fact that she was still in existence. I spent quite half an hour upon the summit of the rock, gazing upon the strange, wild scene by which I was surrounded; and when at length I rejoined the boat the wind had moderated to such an extent that, although it was still rather too strong for an eight-mile pull to windward, there was no reason why we should not sail as far out as the wreck, to see whether any of her crew still survived. I therefore returned to the schooner, and, procuring the boat's mast and sails, started upon our expedition. But we were rather late in getting away; so that it took us until within half an hour of sunset to work up to the wreck, and even then we could not approach her nearer than within a cable's length because of the broken water; but we got near enough to enable us to make out that she was an armed ship--she had all the look of a small frigate--and I took her to be Spanish. But although her hull was not nearly so much battered about as I had expected it would be, there was no sign of life aboard her, at which I was not surprised when I looked at the broad belt of still angry surf through which she had beaten. But I saw enough to determine me to pay the wreck a visit before leaving the group, and accordingly, when I got back to the schooner, which Saunders had made all ataunto once more during my absence, I made arrangements to weigh and beat up to the wreck immediately after breakfast next morning. By daylight the wind had dwindled away to a gentle breeze, while the sea had gone down to such an extent that I anticipated no difficulty whatever in boarding the wreck. Nor was I disappointed, for when we reached the craft, shortly after six bells in the forenoon, the sea was no longer breaking over her, or even round her, the breakers now being confined to the outer fringe of the reef. But imagine, if you can, my astonishment at seeing a man--a wretched, ragged, scarecrow of a fellow he looked to be--on the poop, who, as we drew near, began to wave and signal to us with frantic energy. He appeared to be desperately afraid that we had not seen him, or that, having seen him, we should still not trouble to take him off, for he was waving a large, dark cloth when we first made him out, and he continued to do so until the boat was almost alongside. We bumped against the wreck in the wake of her mizzen chains--her main and fore chains were under water--and, the instant that the bowman hooked on, this man, who seemed to be the only survivor of the wreck, came slipping and sliding down the steeply inclined deck until he stood just above us, when he stood for a few seconds staring down upon us in silence. Then he cried, in a piercing voice: "Say, for the love of God, are you English?" "Ay, ay, my hearty; you have guessed right the first time," I answered. "But, pray, who in the name of fortune are you? And what ship is this?" For answer the fellow plumped down upon his knees, clasped his hands before him, lifted up his eyes to heaven, and by the movement of his lips I supposed him to be engaged either in prayer or thanksgiving. One or two of the men in the boat with me laughed, and a third must needs display his wit by calling out a profane jest; but I silenced them sharply, for there was an intense abandonment in this strange man's manner and behaviour that showed him to be under the influence of extraordinary emotion. Presently he rose to his feet, and, scrambling down into the boat with the most astonishing activity, grasped my hand and pressed it to his lips fervently. Then he looked me in the face and said: "Oh, sir, I thank God most humbly and heartily for this His great mercy to me, a poor, miserable sinner. But you'll take me away with you, sir; you'll not leave me aboard here to fall into the hands of my enemies again? Sir, sir, you are an Englishman, you say, and your tongue is English. You have a kind, good face. Sir, take me with you, and make me your slave if you will, but let me not fall into the hands of those incarnate fiends the Spaniards again." "Have no fear, my good fellow," answered I. "Of course we will take you with us, not as a slave, but as a shipmate if you will. But you have not yet answered the question I asked you. Who are you? And what ship is this?" "Who am I?" he repeated, staring wildly at me. "Why, I used to be called Isaac Hoard to home in Exmouth, and among my shipmates, but for the last five years, ever since I've been in the hands of the accursed Spaniards, I've known no other name than `heretico'." "And the ship," I reiterated; "is she Spanish?" "Yes, sir; she is Spanish," answered the poor fellow, who looked half- mad as well as haggard, and thin almost like a skeleton. "She was a fine frigate forty-eight hours ago, named the _Magdalena_; now the vengeance of God has fallen upon her and her crew, and she lies a wreck, while every one of them has perished and gone to his own place." "And how happens it that you survive while all the rest of the crew have perished?" I demanded. "By the mercy of God and the inhumanity of the Spaniards," he answered. "They made me a slave of the crew, at whose every beck and call I was from the beginning of the morning watch until four bells in the first watch; and when my day's work was over they used to lock me into a cell under the forecastle. So that when the ship struck I was unable to rush on deck with the rest of them, and so my life was saved." "Well," said I, "it appears that you have a story to tell that may be well worth listening to at some future time. Now, tell me, do you know where this frigate was last from, and whither she was bound?" "Yes," answered Hoard, "I can tell you that, sir. She sailed from Cartagena five days ago, and was bound to Cadiz with despatches; at least such was the talk among the crew." "With despatches!" I ejaculated. "Good! Now, do you happen to know where those despatches are to be found?" "No, sir; that I don't," answered Hoard. "I've never been abaft the mainmast until to-day, if you'll believe me; and I don't even know the cap'n's name. But I expect his despatches will be in his cabin, along with any other papers of value that he may have had in his possession." "Quite so; most likely they are," I remarked. "I'll go on board and give the craft an overhaul. Jump on deck, a couple of you, to lend me a hand in case I should need you; and catch a turn with the painter somewhere." So saying, I climbed up on the ship's poop, and with considerable difficulty--owing to the exceedingly steep slope of the deck--made my way to the companion, which I descended. At the foot of the ladder, I found myself confronted by a bulkhead which, as I soon found, partitioned off the captain's quarters from the other part of the ship. Opening a door that faced me, I entered a fine, handsome cabin, magnificently fitted up, and very little damaged, except that the two guns which had evidently been in it seemed to have broken adrift and gone through the vessel's side, the gun on the weather side having smashed a handsome mahogany table to smithereens in its passage athwart the cabin. There were stains of wet on the sofas on the lee side and on the carpeted deck, showing that the water had entered through the breach in the ship's side: but that, with the smashed table and the hole in the side, constituted all the visible damage in the cabin. There was another bulkhead in front of me, with an open door in it, through which I caught a glimpse of stern windows, together with certain indications that the cabin into which I was looking was in all probability the captain's state-room. Here, if anywhere, I thought I should be most likely to find the despatches which constituted the chief object of my search; and I accordingly made my way into the after-cabin. A handsome and roomy cot, slung on the starboard side, confirmed my impression that this must be the captain's private sanctum; and I at once looked round for a likely receptacle for papers of importance and other articles of value. I had not far to look. Close to the door, against the bulkhead, stood a massive and handsome cabinet writing-table, so placed that the light from the stern windows would fall over a sitter's shoulders on to the table. Right up against the starboard side of the ship stood a large chest of drawers, with the top arranged as a dressing-table: and against the port side was a book-case with glazed doors, three or four of the panes of glass being smashed so completely that several of the volumes had tumbled out on to the floor. I took up one or two of the books and opened them, but could make nothing of their contents, they being in Spanish, which was all but a sealed language to me. The book- case was full of books from top to bottom, so it was clear that it was useless to look there for the documents I desired to find; I therefore turned to the next nearest object, which was the writing-table. This was fitted with a sloping top that evidently lifted, and a nest of capacious drawers occupied the back of the affair, above the writing- desk, while a large cupboard on each side formed the base, with room for a man's legs between the two. I tried the top, the cupboards, and the drawers, but all were locked; and the article was so solidly constructed that I at once saw it would be useless to think of breaking it open without proper tools. I therefore sang out to the two men on deck to take the boat and return to the schooner for the carpenter, bidding him bring with him everything necessary to pick a number of locks, or otherwise open some drawers and cupboards. And while the boat was gone I turned my attention to the dressing-table. CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. HOARD COMMUNICATES TO ME SOME VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION. This, too, was a very substantial and handsomely made piece of furniture, the material being Spanish mahogany. But, unlike the writing-table, all its drawers were unlocked; and, opening them one after the other, I found them to be full of apparel: shirts of finest linen, silk stockings, a brand-new suit of uniform, coats, breeches--in short everything necessary to complete the toilet of a man in the very pink of fashion. And, hanging by its belt from one of several brass hooks screwed to the bulkhead, I saw a very handsome sword with a gold hilt. This I took down and examined, drawing the weapon from its sheath to do so. The blade proved to be of Toledo make, a magnificent piece of steel, so elastic that by exerting a considerable amount of strength I succeeded in bringing the point and hilt together, and when I released it, the blade at once straightened itself out again as perfectly as before my experiment. The steel was elaborately damascened with a most beautiful and intricate pattern in gold, and altogether the weapon so irresistibly took my fancy that I unhesitatingly appropriated it forthwith. The shirts and stockings, too, and a few other articles of clothing that looked as if they would fit me, promised to make a very welcome addition to my rather meagre wardrobe; so I made them up into a good-sized bundle for transference to the schooner. By the time that this was done the boat was alongside again, with the carpenter; and presently that individual came clawing his way below with his tools. I showed him what I wanted done, and he immediately set to work; but so substantially put together was the table, and so strong and intricate the locks appertaining to it, that the man was compelled to virtually take the whole affair to pieces before we could get at its contents. But the trouble was amply worth the taking; for I found the despatches, locked in an iron box and sealed with the great seal of the Governor of Cartagena, together with several other important-looking documents which subsequently proved to be of the utmost value. In fact, as my knowledge of Spanish was altogether too imperfect to admit of my determining what papers were valuable and what were valueless, I took every one that I could find. This was not all, however. There were five Orders--what they were I knew not, but they were handsome enough, being elaborately set with superb jewels, to show that the late captain of the _Magdalena_ was a man of _very_ considerable distinction. Also a magnificent pair of long-barrelled pistols, the barrels of which were damascened like the sword. And last, but not least, an oaken casket, strongly bound with heavy, handsomely-worked iron clamps and hinges, also sealed with the seal of the Governor of Cartagena, and which, upon being broken open, was found to contain a quantity of uncut gems, among which I recognised some rubies of extraordinary size and fire. All these valuables, needless to say, I unhesitatingly appropriated, for the twofold reason that if I did not they would certainly go to the bottom of the sea when the ship broke up, as she probably would in a few days; and in the next place, they were spoils of the enemy, to which we of the _Sword Fish_ had as valid a title as anybody. Having at length thoroughly ransacked the captain's cabin, I proceeded to overhaul the rest of the ship, devoting, indeed, practically the whole day to the work; but nothing else was found worthy of mention, except a chest containing a thousand gold Spanish dollars, in what I took to be the purser's room. And as for the rest of the ship, everywhere forward of the stump of the mainmast, she was so strained and battered as to be nothing better than a basket, the water washing in and out of her as she lay. We removed from the wreck the dollars, the casket of gems, and the few other matters that seemed to be worth taking, and still had daylight enough left to find our way out through the northern channel. Sunset, that night, therefore, found us once more at sea, and heading for Jamaica, I having determined to place the despatches and other documents, found on board the wreck, in the Admiral's hands without loss of time. The trade-wind was again blowing, and blowing strong, too, so that, by carrying on, night and day, we made the passage in exactly three days, almost to a minute, from the Roccas; and I had the satisfaction of handing the despatches to the Admiral that same night. The jolly old fellow was at dinner when I presented myself, and was entertaining a number of officers, naval and military; but upon my name being announced he at once ordered me to be admitted and directed a knife and fork to be placed on the table for me. He received me with much cordiality, and also introduced me to his guests; but I could see that my presence was deemed an intrusion by most of them, the naval men especially, who were not only jealous of privateersmen, but were also very much inclined to look down upon us as inferior beings to themselves. There were one or two exceptions, however, notably the Honourable Augustus Montague and his first lieutenant, both of the frigate _Calypso_, then in port; the former a most amiable and genial young officer, with no nonsense at all about him, while his lieutenant, Mr Birdwood, was as fine a fellow in every way as I had ever met. The Admiral thanked me most warmly for the despatches, which he handed over at once to his secretary for translation; and I had the intense satisfaction of learning, before I left the Pen that night, that the documents were deemed of sufficient importance to justify their immediate despatch to England by a frigate. The Admiral was kind enough to invite me to sleep at the Pen; but I excused myself, the fact being that the schooner's rigging needed overhauling, and her supply of stores and water required replenishing. I therefore slept in Kingston that night; and having arranged, the first thing next morning, for the supply of the stores and water, I went aboard to give orders to send down topmasts and have the rigging lifted. But an interview with Hoard, the man that we had taken off the wreck of the Spanish frigate, suddenly altered all my plans. The way that it came about was this. I reached the schooner about ten o'clock in the morning, and at once gave my orders to Mr Saunders, who forthwith set all hands to work. I then went below to my cabin to write some letters home, to be forwarded by the frigate that was to take the Spanish despatches; and whilst I was thus engaged a timid, hesitating knock came to the door. "Come in!" shouted I; and forthwith entered the man Hoard, carefully closing the door behind him. "Beg pardon, Cap'n Bowen, for interrupting you," he began; "but there's a matter that I should like to speak to you about, if I ain't making too bold." "Not at all, Hoard," I answered. "But is the matter important? Won't it wait? You see I am very busy just now, but I can give you as long as you like this afternoon." "Well, sir," answered the man, fidgeting uneasily with his cap, "it's for you to say whether it's important or not. It's about a galleon that's loading at Cartagena for Spain; and, understandin' that this schooner is a privateer, I thought that maybe you'd like to have a try for her, and if so, sir, I'd advise you--beggin' pardon for bein' so bold--not to start so much as a rope-yarn of this vessel's rigging, or mayhap you'll be too late for the galleon." "By George, man," exclaimed I, "this is important news indeed! Why in the world did you not speak to me about it before?" "Well, sir," he answered, "you see, the way of it is this. Five years ago I belonged to the brig, _Mary Rose_, of Plymouth. She was a slaver; and in one of our runs across to the Coast she caught fire, and burnt us out of her. We took to the boats, and two days afterwards the boat that I was in, bein' separated from the others in a strong breeze, was picked up by a Spanish ship called the _San Sebastian_, and we were taken on to Cartagena. We were a wild set, I can tell you, and perhaps I was the wildest and wickedest of the lot; and we offended the Spaniards because we scoffed and laughed at 'em for plumpin' down on their marrow-bones and prayin', in a stiffish gale that we fell in with, instead of goin' to work to shorten sail, and take care of the ship. Me and my mates did that for 'em while they prayed; but we'd offended 'em mortally, and they never forgave us. So the first thing that they does, when we arrived at Cartagena, was to denounce us as heretics, and we was all clapped into prison. What happened to my mates I never knowed, but I never saw any of 'em again. But as for me, if you'll believe me, sir, the five years that I've been in the hands of the Spaniards I've been in hell! They wanted to convert me, so they said; and the way that they went about it, was to make my life a burden to me. They put me to work in chains on the roads; they sent me into the country, away from the coast, to work in their mines; they even tortured me! If you'll believe me, Cap'n Bowen," and I saw the poor fellow's eyes grow wild, and begin to blaze as he spoke of his sufferings, "for four years I never had the chains off my hands and legs, except when I was bein' tortured! "But there," he continued, pulling himself together, "I didn't come down into this cabin to tell you about my sufferin's; but I will tell you, sir, that by God's mercy those same sufferin's did convert me, not the sort of conversion that the Spaniards wanted to bring about, but the conversion that, I humbly trust, has caused me to see and repent of my former wicked life. Not but what the old Adam is strong in me yet at times, sir, I won't deny it, and he's never stronger than when I think of the wrongs and the sufferin's that I've endured at the Spaniards' hands. And it was just that, and nothin' else, that's kept my lips closed all this while about the galleon. We are told, sir, that we must forgive our enemies, and return good for evil; and that's exactly what I've been trying to do, ever since I set foot aboard of this schooner. As soon as ever I came to myself, and was able to understand that I'd escaped from my enemies, and was once more safe under the flag of dear old England, the devil comes to me, and says:-- "`Now's your time, Isaac, to be revenged upon your enemies, and to pay 'em off for a little of the misery that they've been makin' you suffer all them five years that they had you in their power. You know that they're goin' to send away this galleon, hopin' that by keepin' well to the south'ard she'll escape capture. You know, too, that her cargo's to be a rich one, and that, over and above her cargo she's to ship an astonishin' quantity of gold and precious stones, brought down to the coast from Peru; and of course you know that Cap'n Bowen and his lads 'ud lay wait for her, and maybe get her, if you was to tell 'em about her. And if they was to get her, only think what a blow the loss of her 'd be to the Spaniards! Why, it 'ud be so tremendous heavy that it 'ud go a good ways towards payin' 'em off for all that they've made you suffer. It 'ud be a fine bit of revenge, now, wouldn't it?' "Now, I know well enough that this cravin' for revenge is wrong, and I've been fightin' against it with all my strength. But, somehow or another, it won't do, Cap'n! it won't do! The temptation is too great for me, miserable sinner that I am!" He smote his forehead despairingly with his hand. "I feel that I _can't_ keep quiet and let that galleon slip by! That gold and them jewels that she's goin' to ship has been dragged out of God's earth by God's creatures with sufferin', and tears, and blood more than any man can measure; and I say that it ain't right that the Spaniards should have it. If all this heap of treasure was to get safely across the Atlantic, and into the Spaniards' treasure-chests, it would just encourage 'em to strive for more; and then there would be more tears, more blood, more despair, more lives rendered a burden and a curse to their owners. But if all this treasure that they keeps sendin' across to Old Spain was to be taken from 'em, then, perhaps, they'd cease to collect it; and the poor, unhappy wretches who're made to dig for it would have some peace. And above and beyond all that, I want the cowardly curs to suffer, in return for all the sufferin' that they've inflicted upon me and thousands that are a good deal better than me. They love wealth. Then make 'em suffer, by takin' it from 'em. And they love their lives. Make 'em suffer all the horrors of death, by goin' against 'em with fire and steel! Let 'em know the pain, and horror, and despair of feelin' that they're not only goin' to lose their treasure, but that they stand a good chance to lose their lives as well. And, above all, Cap'n, let me be there to witness their anguish. They taunted me, and gloated over me when they'd made my misery such that I begged 'em to finish me off at once, and have done with it; and now I want to pay off some of my debt to 'em, I do." It was really terrible to witness the frenzy of passion and fury into which this unhappy man goaded himself, as he recalled his past sufferings, and spoke of those who had made him endure them. His eyes gleamed and flashed like those of a savage beast; his face went deadly pale; his lips contracted into a snarl that showed his clenched teeth; he actually foamed from the mouth at last, and his hands clawed the air, as though he saw the Spaniards before him, and was reaching for their throats! I thought it my duty to check so maniacal an intensity of hatred, and I said to him: "Come, come, Hoard, this will never do! I understood you to say, just now, that you had been converted from the error of your ways, and had become a Christian. Do you call it Christian-like to hate with such intensity as you exhibit? The Bible says that we should love our enemies, bless those who curse us, and do good to those who despitefully use us. How do you reconcile your present feelings with such an injunction as that?" "Ah!" he groaned, sinking back upon the locker from which he had risen in his excitement; "you have me there, sir; I can't reconcile it; that's just where it is. I can't forgive my enemies, nor I can't love 'em; and I can't bring myself to do good to 'em. No; I've tried, I've kept my lips closed, I've prayed, I've done all that a man can do, and it's no good; I shall never be able to rest until I've seen them cruel, haughty, overbearin' wretches brought low. They're the enemies of God and man, because they drive poor, weak souls to curse their Maker for permittin' such cruelty. I've done it myself, over and over again! the good Lord forgive me! No, sir, it ain't in man's power to forgive a Spaniard who's got you into his power, and I can't believe that such an impossibility is expected of us. I don't believe that the passage you quoted just now was ever meant to apply to Spaniards at all!" "Well," said I, "I am afraid that such a question is altogether too difficult a one for me to argue with you; you had better see a clergyman, and discuss the whole matter with him. But we have wandered somewhat from our original subject, which was the galleon. What more can you tell me about her? When is she to sail?" "It was said," answered Hoard, "that she was to sail exactly a fortnight after the _Magdalena_. That's why I've made so bold as to come down and tell you about it now. If you start to overhaul your rigging, I'm afraid that you'll not be ready in time to catch her. She is a big ship, sir; close upon sixteen hundred tons, I should call her, and I ought to know; for the _Magdalena_ laid within a cable's length of her for more than a week. She is heavily armed, too; mounts twenty-eight eighteen-pound carronades; and carries on her books a complement of close upon two hundred men. Her name is _Nostra Senora del Carmen_." "Ah!" answered I musingly; "then she is likely to prove a pretty tough customer!" "Not too tough for this schooner and her crew, sir," exclaimed Hoard eagerly. "Why, sir, one Englishman is equal to six Spaniards, any day; and as to her guns, a little management will keep the schooner out of the way of their shot. Besides, sir, I don't suppose you'd engage her in a regular `hammer and tongs' fight? The proper way 'll be to let her pass ahead, and then run alongside, and carry her by boardin'! She'll be but a slow ship, from the looks of her. For the Lord's sake," he continued anxiously, "don't go to say or to think that she's too big for you! Or, if you think that she is, get a man-o'-war to help you! You've only to repeat in the proper quarter what I've told you, and you'll be certain to get all the help you want--" "No doubt," interrupted I drily; "but if I undertake the matter at all, I will undertake it single-handed. Meanwhile, it is so well worth consideration that I will countermand my orders for overhauling the rigging; so, if you have nothing more to tell me at present, Hoard, just ask the mate to step below, will you?" "Ay, that will I, most gladly, sir," answered Hoard. "And I'm quite sure, Cap'n Bowen," he continued, pausing with his hand upon the handle of the door, "that when you've had time to think about the matter, you'll make up your mind to have a try for the _Senora_." With which he turned and left the cabin, and presently, in obedience to my message, Saunders came down. I gave him my instructions, and then proceeded with my letters, which I had to considerably abbreviate in consequence of the rather heavy demand that Hoard had made upon my time. However, I got them finished in time for the _Calypso_--which was the vessel selected by the Admiral for the conveyance of the Spanish despatches to England--and had the satisfaction of placing them in the hands of the Honourable Augustus Montague himself, and of receiving his assurance that he would undertake to forward them to their destination upon his arrival home. During the afternoon a boat came alongside the schooner with a note from the Admiral, inviting me to dine with him that evening, the invitation being accentuated by the statement that he had some news of importance for me. I despatched an acceptance by the boat that had brought the information, and in due time once more found myself within the hospitable portals of the Pen. As usual, the room was full of guests, but after dinner my host found an opportunity to invite me into his office for a short time, when I learned that the important news referred to in his note of invitation consisted simply of some intelligence, gleaned from the Spanish documents taken by me out of the wreck of the _Magdalena_, confirming Hoard's story of the galleon. "I have told you this for a twofold reason," said the Admiral, when he had read out from his translation the extracts relating to the galleon. "In the first place, I am, as usual, without a ship upon which I can lay my hands; the departure of the _Calypso_ to-day depriving me of the only vessel I had in a fit state to go to sea. And, in the next place, as you brought me this news I think it only right that you should be the one to profit by it. So there you are, and, if you will take my advice, you will not remain in port a single hour longer than is absolutely necessary, or you may miss her; and, if what these papers state be true--as I have no doubt it is--she is a ship worth taking a good deal of trouble to find." I thanked the Admiral for his information, but deemed it best to let him understand that I was indebted to him only for details, and shortly afterwards took my leave, having suddenly made up my mind to sail that same night, if I found that the stores and water had been sent aboard that afternoon, as promised. I reached the schooner about half-past ten o'clock, and found all hands excepting the mate turned in. Saunders was considerably surprised to see me, as he did not expect me aboard that night; but, upon my questioning him with regard to the stores and water, he informed me that both had come alongside almost immediately after my departure for Kingston. There was consequently no reason why we should delay another moment; and within half an hour we had got up our anchor and were bowling away to the southward and westward before the land breeze. Before daylight the high land of Jamaica had sunk beneath the horizon, and we had caught the trade-wind. It now became necessary for me to form some sort of a plan of operations; and for this purpose I determined to consult with Hoard. As soon, therefore, as I had secured my sights for the longitude, after breakfast, I sent for him, and he came down into the cabin. "I have sent for you, Hoard," said I, "because, as no doubt you already guess, I have made up my mind to have a try for the galleon; and as I understood you to say that you had spent some time ashore, at or near Cartagena, it occurs to me that you may be able to furnish me with some valuable information. And I want to ask you, first, whether, while you were in Cartagena harbour, you heard anything said that might lead you to suppose the Spaniards deem it so far possible that the news of the galleon may have spread far enough to lead to her captain taking extra precautions against capture by steering a course right out to sea, instead of making the best of his way to the eastward along the land, as far as, say, Point Gallinas?" "I think, Cap'n, I understand what's in your thoughts," answered the man. "No, sir; I never heard anything that 'ud seemed to point to their imaginin' that any news of the ship 'ud be likely to get to an enemy's ears. At the same time, I don't doubt, from what was rumoured about the amount of the treasure that she's to ship, that her skipper'll do everything his wit 'll teach him to keep out of the road of our cruisers and privateers. That, however, ain't very valuable information to give you, because you'll have guessed as much as that yourself. And I'm afraid that I ain't able to tell you any more--except this: that it'll never do for this schooner to be seen dodgin' about anywheres near Cartagena. If she was seen once I don't suppose any harm would come of it, especially if she happened to be under a fairish amount of canvas, because it 'ud probably be supposed that she was bound south to the Gulf of Darien. But if she should happen to be seen twice, it 'ud be all up with us, for a time, at least; they'd be pretty sure to delay her sailin' and send something out to watch us. And as to cuttin' her out, Cap'n, I'm afraid it couldn't be done. Besides, it 'ud be no use to try it unless all the treasure was aboard; and I don't suppose they'll ship that until her hatches are on, and she's all ready for sea, so that she can up anchor and make a start directly the last ingot's hoisted in." "Quite so," I assented; "that will no doubt be their mode of procedure. But, on the other hand, she may be all ready for sea, even to having all the treasure on board, and yet not sail for a day or two. Because it is quite clear to me that, for some reason or other, they believe this galleon to have a very fair prospect of safely reaching her destination, or they would keep her back until they could send her home under convoy. Now, if they entertain such a belief as that, it seems to me highly probable that some of their big officials will embrace so apparently safe an opportunity to take a passage home in her, and they might not be ready quite so soon as the ship. Now, if that should happen, what is to prevent our cutting her out?" "Do you happen to know what Cartagena harbour is like, sir?" inquired Hoard, beginning his answer to my question by asking another. "No," said I. "I have never been near it; nor have I ever seen a chart of it." "Of course you haven't, sir," answered my companion; "for the simple reason that the Spaniards won't let a chart of it be made, for fear that it should get into an enemy's hands. But I can tell you what it's like, sir. It is about eight miles long, with a width varyin' from four miles down to about one and a half. It is completely landlocked by the island of Tierra Bomba, that forms the seaward face of it, and there's only one channel, called the Boca Chica, about half a cable's length wide, by which a ship can get in or out. And just abreast the narrowest part of this here channel there's a battery, called the San Fernando Battery, mounting twelve sixty-eight pounders. So, you see, sir, that cuttin' a ship out of Cartagena harbour ain't to be thought of." "Are there any other forts or batteries anywhere along the shores of the harbour?" asked I, my thoughts flitting back to our exploit at Abervrach. "No, sir," answered Hoard, in surprise at my question. "But you'd find the San Fernando more than enough, if you was to try to get in. They're always on the watch, whenever there's a craft headin' for the harbour; and they won't let her pass until the port cap'n have been off to her, and is satisfied that she's all right." "Well," said I, "I must have some clearer information than you have been able to give me. I must ascertain the precise date fixed for the sailing of the galleon; and I must have a look at Cartagena harbour, so that I may be able to judge for myself what will be the best mode of action. Now, how is this to be done?" "Oh, sir," answered Hoard, "so far as getting news is concerned, I'll undertake to do that for you. I speak Spanish like a native, and contrived to make a friend or two here and there among the fishermen and porters and people of that class, in spite of the priests and the soldiers. There's one man in particular, named Panza--I took the blame of something that he did one day, when he was a fellow-prisoner, and was flogged instead of him, he being at the time a'most dead with fever, he's a fisherman, and lives in the little village of Albornos, some four miles out of Cartagena; he'll do anything for me. He don't know--nobody exceptin' the prison authorities knows--that I was shipped off aboard the _Magdalena_; so all I've got to do is to get ashore and make my way to his hut, tellin' him that I've escaped from prison--which God knows is the truth,--and he'll hide me as long as I like to stay with him, and tell me all the news into the bargain." "Well, perhaps that might be managed--if you are not afraid to venture back among your enemies," said I. "Lord bless you, sir, I ain't afraid! not a bit of it," answered Hoard. "The priests and soldiers believes me to be aboard the _Magdalena_; so, as long as I keeps out of their sight--which I'll take precious good care to do--I shall be all right." "Very well, then," said I; "we can settle the details of your scheme later on. The next question is: How am I to get a view of Cartagena harbour?" "Ah, sir! that'll be a very difficult and dangerous matter," was the reply. "And yet," he continued correcting himself, "I don't know but what it may be done without so very much risk a'ter all, if the weather is but favourable. But the only way that you could do it would be to land durin' the night on Tierra Bomba, and remain on the island all day, viewin' the harbour from the top of a hill that stands pretty nearly in the centre of the island. You'd have to conceal yourself among the bushes; and as there are very few people movin' about on the island you'd not be so very likely to be seen. Then the boat 'ud have to come ashore for you next night; and the schooner 'ud have to be kept well in the offing during the daytime." "Should I be able to obtain a good, uninterrupted view of the harbour from the point you name?" I demanded. "First-rate, sir; couldn't be better," answered Hoard. "The harbour 'ud be spread out like a map below ye, and you'd see from one end to t'other of it; ay, and you'd see the galleon herself, lying in the small inner harbour." "Then I'll risk it," exclaimed I decisively. "There is a new moon coming on in about a week's time, so that the nights will be dark, and therefore favourable to our adventure. Thank you, Hoard; that is all I want with you now. I will have another chat with you when we reach the coast." CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. I PLAN A MOST DARING AND HAZARDOUS ENTERPRISE. Our run across to the Main was uneventful, and on the sixth morning out from Port Royal we made Point Gallinas, arriving off Cartagena some twenty hours afterwards. By great good luck the weather happened to be favourable for our immediate embarkation upon our adventure, so after a further and final chat with Hoard, the schooner was headed in for the land. The night was dark as pitch, the sky being overcast, and there was a gentle breeze blowing off the land, affording us smooth water for the delicate operation of landing. But there was no time to be lost, it wanting only four hours to daylight, by which time it would be necessary that the schooner should have secured a good offing; so, having under Hoard's pilotage stood in until the lead gave us twenty-one fathoms--at which point Hoard informed us that we might consider ourselves half a mile from the land--the gig was lowered, and, with her crew armed to the teeth, we shoved off, the second mate being in charge, with Hoard and myself sitting on either side of him in the stern-sheets, the former still acting as pilot. We paddled gently in, with muffled oars, and in the course of about ten minutes the boat gently grounded on a narrow strip of smooth, sandy beach at the base of a low, rugged cliff in a shallow bay. Here Hoard and I landed, the second mate receiving instructions to be at the same spot with the boat and a small supply of cooked provisions every night at midnight, and to remain a couple of hours, when, if he saw nothing of either of us, he was to return to the schooner until the next night. We stood on the beach until the boat had shoved off again and was lost in the darkness, when we turned away, and, Hoard leading, proceeded to climb the face of the cliff, which was by no means a difficult matter, as the ground, although somewhat precipitous, was grass-grown and thickly dotted with low, sturdy bushes. Five minutes sufficed us to reach the top, when we found ourselves facing a hillside, rising on our right to a very respectable height. This, however, was not the hill to which Hoard had alluded in his conversation with me. To reach the latter we should have to walk about a mile, he informed me; so, having paused for a minute or two to get our breath after our unwonted exertions, we struck inland, passing over the spur of the hill on our right and dipping down into a shallow valley, along which we passed, steering a southerly course for a pair of steep, lofty hills, the summits of which were within half a mile of each other. The more southerly of these two was the one for which I was bound, and an hour's steady climbing carried us to the top of it, when we lay down in the long grass among the bushes, and, regardless of insects and possible reptiles, snatched a catnap while we waited for daylight. At daybreak we roused up, and, making our way to a clear space on the very summit of the hill, looked abroad at the scene. Seaward, the ocean stretched away, a vast plain of delicate blue, to the horizon, and some twenty miles in the offing we made out a speck of white, gleaming in the brilliant morning sun, which we decided must be the schooner. Then, turning our backs upon the sea, we had the hilly foreground of the island before us, sloping away to right and left and in front of us down to the smooth, placid waters of the spacious harbour. On our right was the Boca Chica, the only entrance to the harbour, a narrow, winding channel with a sort of bar at its inner extremity, whereon, Hoard informed me, there is scarcely four fathoms of water. Nevertheless, viewed from the elevation which I occupied, the navigation of the channel appeared simple enough, the submerged sand-banks on each side of it showing up quite clearly through the blue water. At the inner extremity of the channel lies the outer harbour, a sheet of water roughly circular in shape, and measuring some four miles across in either direction. I noticed a few small shoals dotted about here and there in this outer harbour, but there was only one that appeared to be at all dangerous, and that one was to be easily avoided. The northern boundary of the outer harbour seemed to be pretty well defined by a cluster of decidedly dangerous shoals stretching right across from the island of Tierra Bomba to the mainland, but with fairly wide channels of deep water between, and north of this lay what might be termed the intermediate harbour. This is a sheet of water of about half the area of the outer harbour, with a good clean bottom and plenty of water. It is formed by a shoal uniting the island of Tierra Bomba with the mainland, a reef of rocks projecting above the sand and rendering the Boca Grande--once the main entrance to the harbour--quite impassable by anything larger than a boat. Then, inside this again, and rendered especially safe and snug by being inclosed by two long, low, projecting spits with a narrow channel between them, is the inner harbour, having an area of about three-quarters of a square mile, with plenty of water for the largest ships. The head of this harbour washes the walls and wharves of the town of Cartagena; indeed it does more, for, as Hoard informed me, it divides the town into two nearly equal parts, the tide flowing right through it and for some distance beyond. In this inner harbour lay quite a fleet of small coasting-craft, and towering high among them all could be made out the tall spars of the galleon. Immediately in front of us, and on the opposite side of the harbour, the country was low, swampy, and thickly covered with scrub and bush, among which could be made out the whitewashed mud walls of the villages of Buenavista, Gospique, and Albornos, in the latter of which Hoard's friend Panza had his habitation. The fishing-boats from these villages were dotted all over the bay--they had probably been out all night,--and having pointed out to me the several objects of interest in the noble scene that stretched around us, my companion intimated that the time had arrived for him to leave me, as he intended to get a passage across to the mainland forthwith, and then make his way to the town for the purpose of acquiring information. He cautioned me to keep a bright look-out for chance stragglers, and to carefully avoid them, for he assured me that, if discovered, I should certainly be dragged off to the town, and probably meet with the same fate that he had suffered. And finally, he undertook to return, if possible, the next night to the spot whereon we then stood, adding that, should he fail to appear, I was not to be alarmed. I watched him make his way down the hillside, lost sight of him among the bush, and finally made him out again, with the aid of my glass, just as he was entering a little hamlet on the harbour shore of the island. I watched him sauntering hither and thither among the dozen or so of huts that composed the hamlet, saw him engage in conversation with several people, and at length observed him making his way down to the beach, accompanied by a couple of men. The trio entered a boat and pushed off, and I watched the crazy craft heading straight across the harbour to the village of Gospique, from whence I concluded he would make the best of his way to Albornos. I had now the rest of the day before me in which to look round and make my observations, and I determined to do so to the utmost extent of my ability. But I was by this time hungry and thirsty, so before doing anything else I sought out a comfortable spot in the shadow of a clump of bush, and sat down to discuss a portion of the viands that I had been careful to bring with me. Then, my meal finished, I produced pencil and paper, and proceeded to very carefully draw a map of the harbour, preserving as accurately as I could the just proportions of every feature, and marking the shoals in their proper places, as also the battery guarding the entrance channel, and the position of the villages dotted here and there along the shore. I had taken the precaution to bring a small pocket-compass with me, and this I found most useful as a means of laying down the bearings of the various features from my point of observation. By drawing the whole roughly to scale, judging my distances as accurately as possible, and freely using my pocket-compass, I found that by the end of the day I had secured a sketch map that had the appearance of being fairly accurate. Not a soul came near me throughout the day, but several small craft passed out of or into the harbour, and these afforded verification of Hoard's statement as to the extraordinary precautions observed by the authorities, every one of them being obliged to heave-to until a boat from the battery had boarded them. A large ship, apparently a Spanish Indiaman, also arrived pretty late in the afternoon, so that I had an opportunity of witnessing for myself the manner in which such craft made their way through the channel to the inner anchorage. At length, when the sun was within an hour of setting, I observed a fishing-boat under sail emerge from among the group of islets that block the approach to the village of Albornos, and it presently became evident that she was making for the island, on the highest point of which I was perched. I brought my telescope to bear upon her, but for some time was unable to distinguish her occupants, the sail being in my way. At length, however, one of them moved forward and stood for a few minutes under the lee of the sail, and the boat being by this time more than half-way across, I was able to recognise the ragged habiliments worn by Hoard when we took him off the wreck of the _Magdalena_, and which he had resumed for the occasion. The sun was just dipping beneath the western horizon, and the shadow of the island of Tierra Bomba had enshrouded the waters of the harbour in a soft dusk, when the boat entered a shallow lagoon at the north-eastern extremity of the island, and grounded on the low, swampy shore. I saw Hoard disembark and stand talking with his companions for a few minutes, and then the boat shoved off again and made her way to about mid-channel, when her crew doused her sail and proceeded to shoot their nets. Meanwhile I had lost sight of Hoard behind a hill that lay between me and the lagoon where he had landed, and I saw no more of him until he suddenly appeared against the star-lit sky only a few paces from me. "Well, sir," said he, as he ranged up alongside, "I've got some news for you, and no mistake; but I greatly doubt whether it'll be very acceptable." "How so?" I exclaimed; "has anything gone wrong?" "Well, I don't exactly know about `gone wrong'," was his reply; "but the way of it is this: The galleon is finished loadin', and her hatches is on. The gold is expected to arrive in the town to-morrow evening, and if it does, it'll be got aboard the day after to-morrow; and next day three hundred sojers is to be marched aboard of her, and she'll then sail for Europe!" "Three hundred soldiers!" exclaimed I incredulously. "No wonder that they consider the vessel capable of making her way home without a convoy!" "Ay, you may well say so, sir," was the reply. "It seems that the whole thing have been planned out for a long time. These three hundred sojers is to go home as invalids, so I hear; and the relief has arrived to-day in the Injieman that, mayhap, you saw come into the harbour this a'ternoon. She's been expected this three weeks, so my friend Panza tells me." "Well," said I, "that is, as you say, news indeed; and it was a most fortunate thing that we came ashore, as we did. Had we simply dodged off and on, waiting for the galleon to come out, those three hundred soldiers would have done for us. You say that the gold train is expected to arrive to-morrow. Is this expectation pure conjecture, or have they reason for it?" "Oh, they've reason enough for it, sir; so I understand," answered Hoard. "You see, the shippin' off of this here gold is the talk of the town; nobody's thinkin' of anything else; and everything that happens concernin' it is knowed at once all over the place. That's how I got my news. Panza had heard all about it, and as soon as he sees me he starts talkin' about it, not knowin' that I'd been shipped off in the _Magdalena_; and I just let him talk, puttin' in a question here and there until I'd found out all about it. As to the gold train, I don't think there's much doubt about it, because the news in the town is that a runner came in from Barranca this morning with a message from the commandant that the train had arrived there last night, and might be expected at Cartagena some time to-morrow, most likely pretty late in the evening. I was wondering whether it 'ud be possible for us to lay in wait for the train somewhere on the road, and get hold of the gold that way; but that plan ain't any good, because the three hundred sojers that's to go home in the ship are comin' down with it; and sixty men again' three hundred is rather long odds." "Yes," I agreed, "too long for my purpose, at all events; for I have no doubt that the rascals would make a stubborn fight for it; and even if we should succeed in capturing the gold, we should certainly lose a good number of our men, while I want to get the gold, and the ship too, without any loss at all, if it can be managed." "Ay, sir," answered Hoard. "But I don't see how it can." "Well, I have a plan," said I, "and you, perhaps, with your knowledge of the place, will be able to tell me what chance there is of its being successful. And, first of all, do you happen to know how many men are stationed in that battery there that guards the entrance channel?" "Yes, sir, I think I can tell you pretty nearly," answered Hoard; "because, d'ye see, afore I was sent aboard the _Magdalena_ I was one of the slaves that had to man the water-boat that took 'em their daily supply of fresh water, there bein' none on the island. How many men? Well, I should say that, countin' all hands, officers and men together, there's a matter of nigh on to eighty of 'em." "No more than that?" "No, sir; certainly not more than eighty. Call 'em eighty, and you'll not be very far wrong; over the mark a trifle, if anything." "Very well, then," said I. "This is my plan. You say that the gold is to be put aboard the galleon the day after to-morrow. The fact of its shipment must be absolutely established, and, in order that it may be so, I propose that you shall remain ashore--if you think you can do so without fear of discovery--and witness for yourself the loading of it. Then, when it is all aboard the ship, you will make the best of your way across to this island, and wait for me at the spot where we landed last night. I shall come ashore with all the boats and the whole of the crew, except the idlers, fully armed. Then, if the gold has been shipped, we will land on a little strip of sandy beach at the seaward end of the channel, which I noticed to-day, march across the point, and take the battery, spiking the guns. And, when this is done, we will pull up the harbour, board the galleon, and carry her out to sea before the soldiers are embarked." "The very thing, sir! the very thing!" exclaimed Hoard delightedly. "What a fool I was not to think of such a simple plan as that myself! Yes, sir, it'll do, I don't doubt. The sojers is sure not to be put aboard that night; they'll give 'em a day or two to rest after their journey down the country, not for the sake of the men, sir, but because the officers 'll want it." "Then you think that my plan will do?" asked I. "Yes, sir, I do; I haven't a doubt about it," was the confident answer. "Then, in that case," said I, "I shall go aboard the schooner to-night, leaving you ashore to find out all the news you can. I shall not come ashore to-morrow night, because there appears to be no need, and the less frequently that the schooner approaches the land the less will be the danger of discovery. But the night after to-morrow, at midnight, I shall be at the spot where we landed, with all the boats, and fully prepared to capture the battery. So you must find means to meet me there. Are you quite sure that you will run no risk by remaining ashore?" "Oh, yes, sir; I shall be all right. Never fear for me! I know the town now, and know how to take care of myself. But how will you manage, sir, supposin' that it happens to be blowin' strong, with the wind on the shore, when you wants to land, the night after to-morrow?" "Does that ever happen here?" I inquired, considerably taken aback by the suggestion. "It do sometimes, sir, but not often," answered Hoard. "Mostly the land breeze springs up about eight o'clock, and blows until about seven in the mornin'." "Well," answered I, after considering awhile, "in the case that you mention, it appears to me that our best plan will be to make boldly for the channel, the four boats keeping abreast, so as to show as little as possible; let the wind blow them past the battery, and land in the little bay about half a mile inside. I noticed a big rock, the only one, jutting out of the sand there to-day. That should be a very good spot at which to meet you." "Yes, sir, I know the rock well; I've seen it hundreds of times," remarked Hoard. "You can't do better, sir, unless the wind happens to be off shore. If it is, the other plan will be best." "Very well, then, that is understood," said I. "And now, how will you manage about getting back to the mainland?" "Oh," remarked my companion, "I shall have to stay on this here island all night. But Panza will keep a look-out for me and take me across to- morrow morning." "Then," said I, "you had better walk with me as far as the beach, and get the fresh stock of provisions that they will bring ashore. And how are you off for money, in case you should want any?" "Why, the fact is that I haven't got any, and I was goin' to ask you to let me have some, sir; it might come handy," was the reply. I happened to have a few dollars that I had taken the precaution to slip into my pocket before leaving the ship; these I handed to him, and we then sauntered slowly toward the spot where the boat was to meet us. I went on board the schooner that night, and devoted the whole of the following day to the preparations for our great _coup_, setting all hands to work sharpening cutlasses, cleaning pistols, effectually muffling the boats' oars and rowlocks, and, in fact, making every possible provision that I could think of to ensure our success. And the next day I made the men rest all day, so that they might be fit for a long and arduous night's work. It may be imagined that I kept an exceedingly anxious eye on the barometer throughout that day, for I realised that the weather would have much to do with the making or marring of our fortunes on the eventful night. The mercury remained steady in the tube until close upon sunset, and then it began to drop a little, the drop continuing until it had gone down nearly three-tenths of an inch. I scarcely knew what to make of this; whether to expect a shift of wind and a strong breeze, or whether it merely meant rain, or a thunder-storm. The sun, however, had scarcely set when we got a hint of what was to come, in the shape of a bank of dark, purplish, slate-coloured clouds that began to pile themselves along the eastern horizon, their edges as sharply defined against the clear sky as though the masses had been clipped out of paper. We were to be treated to a thunder-storm, and a pretty severe one, too, if the promise of those clouds was to be relied upon. We had been hove-to all day, some twenty miles in the offing, under mainsail and jib only; so that, by keeping our canvas low, we might escape observation from the land, although I had but little fear of this unless anyone happened to have wandered up to the top of one of the hills of Tierra Bomba, from which it would have been possible to see us. But the moment that the sun had fairly disappeared below the horizon, sail was packed upon the schooner, and we proceeded to work in toward the land, my chief anxiety now being lest the thunder-storm should gather and break before we had succeeded in effecting a landing, in which case we stood a very fair chance of being discovered, and of finding everybody on the alert to give us a warm reception. We reached in, on the starboard tack, until we were within about two miles of Punta de Canoas, when we hove about and reached along the land to the southward. By this time the thunder-clouds had completely overspread the sky; it was as dark as the inside of a cavern, and the storm might burst upon us at any moment. It hung off, however, and at length, much to my relief, we found ourselves close to the northern extremity of Tierra Bomba, and within half a mile of the shore. It was so dark that it was quite impossible to see anything, the land merely showing as a slightly deeper shadow against the intense blackness of the overcast sky. But I had so thoroughly studied all the natural features of the harbour and its surroundings during my day's sojourn ashore that I now seemed to be perfectly familiar with them all. I therefore had no hesitation whatever in hauling the schooner in under the lee of the island until we were actually becalmed, when, the lead giving us a depth of barely four fathoms, I let go the anchor and stripped the schooner of all her canvas, not furling it, however, but simply passing a few turns of the gaskets, so that everything might be ready for making sail again at a moment's notice. We were now, according to my judgment--for, as I have said, we could actually see nothing,--in the shallow bay where Hoard and I had landed three nights previously; and I believed, moreover, that we were so close to the land as to be completely shut in and hidden, both from the north and from the south. Needless to say, I had long ago issued orders to extinguish all unnecessary lights, and for those that were indispensable to be closely masked. There was therefore nothing to betray to the sight our whereabouts; and as to sound, every sheave and tackle that was in the least likely to be used had been so thoroughly greased that it worked in absolute silence, while the men, although shod for our tramp across the narrow point at the southern extremity of the island, had lashed thick wads of oakum to the soles of their shoes, and consequently moved about the decks as silently as ghosts. Moreover, the boats had all been so thoroughly prepared, hours beforehand, for the expedition, that there remained nothing whatever to be done but to lower them into the water, unhook the tackles, and shove off. When we let go our anchor it still wanted a good hour to midnight; nevertheless, so anxious was I lest the threatening storm should break, and the lightning betray our movements, that I determined to man the boats forthwith, and beach them if necessary, believing that thus we should run less risk of detection. All these precautions, it must be understood, were adopted not so much from any apprehension of ultimate failure, for I had determined to have the galleon, but because I wanted to save my men. I now summoned Saunders down into the cabin, and read over to him the instructions that I had carefully prepared for his guidance during the earlier part of the day, explained them to him fully, and then handed him the paper. The men who were to accompany me on the expedition were next mustered in the 'tween-decks and sent to supper, after which their weapons were carefully inspected, and a liberal quantity of ammunition served out to them; and then, when I had satisfied myself that all was right, I made them a little speech, explaining what I purposed doing, and how I wanted it done; when, having enjoined them to observe the most absolute silence, the light was extinguished, all hands groped their way on deck, the boats were lowered and manned, and we shoved off, each boat attached by her painter to the one ahead, so that we might not part company in the profound darkness. It was presently found, however, that this precaution was unnecessary, the water being so brilliantly phosphorescent as to afford all the guidance that was needed; indeed, there was altogether too much luminosity to please me. We were even closer to the shore than I had imagined, for we had not been under way five minutes, when the gig, in which I led the way, grounded upon the sand. And as she did so, I became aware of a weird, gaunt-looking figure, clad in rags, standing at the water's edge, close to the boat's stem. "All right, Cap'n, it's me--Hoard--sir," explained this figure, in a low, hoarse whisper, as I sprang ashore and gripped the fellow by the throat. "There was nothing to keep me," he continued, as I relaxed my grip upon him; "so I came right on here, thinkin' that, mayhap, you'd be a little bit afore your time, and wouldn't want to be kept waitin'. Everything is just as right, sir, as if you'd planned the whole thing yourself; the gold is all shipped; the _Senora_ has been hauled out to the Manzanilla anchorage, ready to sail as soon as the sojers is shipped to-morrow morning; and the commandant is givin' a farewell _festa_, as they calls it, to all the officers to-night; so that the chances are not one of 'em will think of goin' aboard until daylight." "Good heavens!" I exclaimed; "what carelessness! what folly! I should have thought they would have been afraid to leave so vast an amount of treasure unguarded." "Why so, sir?" demanded Hoard. "They believe that the whole thing has been kept as secret as the grave--and so it would have been, too, but for the wreck of the _Magdalena_--so they don't expect any such attack as you're preparin' for 'em. And as to anybody ashore attemptin' to meddle with the ship--why, they'd sooner jump overboard and drownd theirselves. So that it ain't so very wonderful, a'ter all, to my mind, that they believes their gold to be perfectly safe. Besides, there's the San Fernando battery: who'd ever dream of that bein' attacked and took?" "Well," said I, "it all seems fairly reasonable as you put it, Hoard; still I cannot understand such an extraordinary lack of precaution. But, of course, it is so much the better for us. What about her crew?" "Oh! they're all aboard, sir; but they'll be turned in and sound asleep by this time,--anchor watch and all, as likely as not," was the reply. "Do you happen to know how many they muster?" asked I. "Panza told me that he'd heard it said that her full complement was two hundred and twenty-six men, countin' officers and all. But if we can only manage to surprise 'em, and get aboard afore the alarm's given, I don't reckon that they'll give us so very much trouble," answered Hoard. "We must risk that," remarked I. "And now, as you happen to be here, there is nothing to detain us; we may, therefore, as well be moving. The sooner that we get this battery business over, the better." "Very well, sir, I'm quite ready," answered Hoard. "I suppose you didn't happen to think of slippin' a cutlash, or a pair of pistols, or anything into the boat for me, sir?" he continued. "Oh, yes, I did!" said I. "Thomson, the coxswain of the gig, will fit you out. And you had better come in the gig with me, as we shall probably want you to act as pilot." "All right, sir, I'll do that with all the pleasure in life," was the answer. And therewith he clambered noiselessly into the boat and made his way aft to the stern-sheets, where I presently found him with a naked cutlass in his hand, the edge of which he was testing with his thumb, and mumbling his satisfaction at its condition. We now shoved off, and the gig leading, gave way at a long steady stroke, for the southern extremity of the island, which we reached within the hour, although it was a pull of fully three miles. Arrived at the low point, and leaving each boat in charge of a couple of men, we landed; and as I was marshalling the men upon the beach, the blackness of the night was momentarily dispelled by a blaze of vivid lightning that flashed from the clouds immediately overhead; and almost simultaneously with the flash there came a crash of thunder that seemed to make the solid ground beneath our feet vibrate and tremble. This was horribly annoying; for to advance upon the battery in the midst of a storm of lightning was almost certainly to betray ourselves, while time was now of some importance, I being anxious to be aboard the galleon not much later than two o'clock in the morning, that being the hour when man is supposed to sleep his soundest and to be least liable to awake prematurely. However, there was nothing for it but to wait, so I hurriedly ordered the men to lie down behind the ridge of sand which formed the junction of the beach with the grass-land; and there we crouched, with the lightning flashing and quivering all about us for fully a quarter of an hour. Then down came the rain, not in drops, but in sheets, with the lightning flashing and darting and quivering hither and thither through it, until we appeared to be enveloped in a gigantic diamond; so exquisitely beautiful were the glancing colours of the lightning through the rain. Of course we were wetted to the skin in an instant, but that did not very greatly matter, as our pistols and ammunition were carried in waterproof cases; moreover, the rain afforded us an excellent curtain under cover of which to advance; so at a word from me the men sprang to their feet, and we pushed rapidly forward. The battery was but a quarter of a mile from the spot where we had landed, and so accurately had I taken my bearings that, in about five minutes after we began to move, the structure loomed up, dark and grim, before us. Hoard had informed me that its landward sides were protected by a deep moat, connected with the sea, and spanned by a drawbridge; and it was for this bridge that I was keeping a sharp look-out. I was so close aboard of it before I saw it that three or four paces sufficed to carry me to the sentry-box at its landward end; and just as I reached this box a vivid flash of lightning revealed its interior, and there, bolt upright, stood a tall Spanish grenadier, with his musket resting in a corner of the hut, close to his hand. I realised instantly that the briefest period of hesitation now meant our undoing; for as I had seen the soldier, he had also undoubtedly seen me; so the man no sooner stood revealed before me than, with one bound, I was in the sentry-box with him, one hand grasping his throat to prevent him from crying out, while with the other I seized his musket and passed it out to the man next behind me. The soldier struggled manfully, and did his utmost to free his throat, but I held him fast, and in so fierce a grip that ere many seconds were over I felt him sink powerless to the ground. To lash him, hands and feet together, like a trussed fowl, with his own cross-belts, and to gag him with a good-sized stone, secured in his mouth by a strip slashed from his own coat, was but the work of two or three minutes; and when at length, satisfied that the fellow was secure and harmless, I emerged from the box, I had the satisfaction of finding that Tom Hardy,--now acting as the schooner's second mate,--had promptly followed my example by securing the sentry at the far side of the drawbridge. We were now consequently in possession of this structure, and that, too, without the slightest alarm having been given to the garrison, and in another minute all hands of us stood inside the battery, which was a fine, solid earthwork, with casemates, very like the battery that we had seized at Abervrach harbour. Unlike the French battery, however, all the casemates were open, with the exception of four, two of which were converted into the officers' quarters, while the other two constituted the magazine; and in the shelter of these open casemates the artillerymen were slumbering soundly in hammocks, despite the storm, with their muskets piled under the shelter of a verandah that ran all along the front of the casemates. To possess ourselves of these muskets, and to heave them into the moat was the work of but a few minutes; and when this was done I went up on to the platform, and with my own hands effectually spiked every one of the guns. It was a most unaccountable thing to me that the whole garrison should have slept so soundly through the terrific crash and roar of the thunder, and the blaze of the lightning; but they did, perhaps because they were accustomed to that kind of disturbance; and as the thunder was practically continuous, I had no difficulty in carrying out my operations without a single clink of the leather-covered hammer being audible. The battery was now useless for some hours at least; and, since we had been so fortunate as to render it so without any of the garrison becoming any the wiser, I thought it would be an advantage to leave them in ignorance for a few hours longer, I therefore quietly withdrew my men, and, taking the two gagged and bound sentinels with us, effected an orderly retreat to the beach. CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. THE CAPTURE OF NOSTRA SENORA DEL CARMEN. Arrived at the boats, we lost not a moment in tumbling into them and getting under way again, for time was now a precious commodity, there being still a journey of some four miles before us ere the galleon could be reached. But, once fairly clear of the Boca, or channel, we should be able to use our sails, which I had taken the precaution to have placed in the boats, and then we should make good progress, while the men would be resting. The first question for consideration, however, was what to do with our two prisoners. This was speedily settled by Hoard, who suggested that they should be landed upon a small islet, called Brujas Island, situate on the opposite side of the harbour, and lying but little out of our regular way. This we did, of course first casting them loose and taking the gags out of their mouths; but although they were thus freed from actual physical restraint they remained as harmless as before, so far as we were concerned, for Brujas Island was uninhabited, and separated from the mainland by two channels which, although only narrow, were so dangerous, in consequence of the sharks with which the harbour was infested, that the Spaniards were not at all likely to imperil their lives by attempting to swim them. There they were, therefore, harmless enough, so far as we were concerned, until morning, when probably some passing fisherman might be attracted by their cries, and would release them. But, whether released or not, I had very little fear that they would attempt to return to the battery and give the alarm there; the fact that they had allowed themselves to be surprised and made prisoners would be accounted by their officers an unpardonable crime; and the probability was that, when released from the island, they would take to the forest and make for the interior to escape punishment. By the time that we had landed these two unfortunate men the thunder- storm had passed away to seaward, the crash of the thunder had become modulated to a booming rumble, and a steady, drenching downpour of rain had set in; the clouds overhead, however, were not nearly so heavy and black as they had been previous to the outbreak of the storm, and there was sufficient light to enable us to see where we were going. We accordingly shoved off from Brujas in high spirits, and, hoisting our sails, headed up the harbour. The land wind was blowing, although not very strongly, and when we had been under way about half an hour we began to look out for the galleon. Hoard was the first to see her-- probably because he knew best of us all where to look for her,--and, the moment that she was sighted, the gig's sails were lowered, as a signal for the other boats to close round us. This they immediately did, when I repeated, in a low voice, the orders that I had already given before leaving the schooner, in order that every man might know exactly what duty was expected of him, and do it. Then, having thus refreshed every man's memory, I gave the order to draw cutlasses and paddle quietly alongside. A few minutes sufficed to take us to the galleon; and a fine, stately, noble-looking craft she was, towering out of the water like a line-of- battle ship; her lofty masts and wide-spreading yards seeming to pierce the sky and lose themselves among the few stars that now came twinkling mistily out, here and there overhead. We got alongside without being challenged--to my great surprise; and, half of us boarding her to port and the other half to starboard, in less than a minute we were all on deck, and gliding softly and noiselessly as shadows here and there; some securing the fore-scuttle, others the companions and sky-lights; while others again were briskly swarming up the shrouds to loose the canvas; the carpenter--with his axe specially sharpened for the occasion--at once stationing himself by the cables, ready to cut them at a sign from me, while two men placed themselves at the ponderous and highly-ornamented wheel. The singular circumstance that we had succeeded in getting alongside without being challenged was fully accounted for by the fact that not a single soul was on deck when we had glided in over the galleon's lofty bulwarks. If an anchor watch had been set, the men composing it had--as Hoard had predicted--quietly ignored their duty, in the absence of the officers, by turning in and leaving the ship to take care of herself. The surprise was complete; the galleon had fallen into our hands without so much as a single blow being struck. Of course, there was the crew below to be reckoned with still, but meanwhile they were close prisoners and asleep; and, even in the event of their awaking at once and proceeding to force their way on deck, it would be some time ere they would be able to break out; and by that time, if all went well, we should be far enough from the neighbourhood of the town to render any prospect of assistance from that quarter practically out of the question. What I most feared was that somebody on board one or another of the many craft that were anchored in our immediate vicinity might notice the operation of loosing and setting the galleon's canvas, and suspecting something to be wrong, man a boat and go ashore to give the alarm; in which case we should soon have three or four swift galleys after us; when we were likely enough to find ourselves in an exceedingly awkward scrape. That, however, was a danger that we had to face. And after all it was not so very great; for if no anchor watch was being kept on board the galleon, how much less likely was it that such a watch would be kept on board the comparatively valueless coasters by which we were surrounded. I had carefully explained to my crew beforehand what it was that we had to do; and I had also given instructions that the whole of the work was to be carried forward in absolute silence, no one calling out unless the necessity for so doing was urgent. Consequently, from the moment when we first dropped in over the bulwarks, not a sound save the soft patter of muffled feet was heard aboard the galleon until first the topsails and then the courses were let fall, when, of course, there arose a sound of canvas fluttering in the wind, which, to my excited imagination, seemed loud enough to wake the dead. Then came the sharp cheep, cheep of sheaves upon their pins as the topsails were sheeted home and the yards mast-headed, followed by a still louder flapping of canvas as the jib was hoisted. Then came the dull, heavy crunch of the carpenter's axe as he smote at the cables. I suppose it was these sounds that awakened the galleon's crew, for while the carpenter was still hacking away there arose from the interior of the fore-scuttle a loud knocking, and the muffled sounds of voices angrily demanding that the hatch should be lifted. Hoard, however, had been standing by, in expectation of something of this sort, and the moment that there came a pause in the knocking and shouting I heard him informing the prisoners that the ship was in the hands of the English, and that unless they--the Spaniards-- immediately ceased their row the whole lot of them would be quickly subjected to certain dreadful pains and penalties which I but imperfectly understood. The threat, however, had the desired effect of quieting our prisoners, who promptly subsided into silence. It was a somewhat difficult matter to get so big a ship under way in the rather thickly crowded anchorage, and we were obliged at the outset to make a rather long and complicated stern-board, which entailed two or three very narrow shaves of fouling one or another of the craft that were in our way. The sky, however, was clearing fast, the stars were shining brightly through great and rapidly increasing rifts in the clouds and affording us enough light to see what we were about; moreover, the land breeze was piping up strong, and whistling shrilly through our rigging, so that as soon as we were able to swing the yards and get headway upon the lumbering old wagon of a craft, we managed well enough, and contrived to scrape clear of everything; and that, too, without attracting any very serious amount of attention, only one hail-- and that, apparently, from somebody more than half drunk--saluting us as we glided with a slow and stately movement out of the anchorage toward the somewhat contracted passage between the island of Tierra Bomba and the Main. Once fairly clear of the anchorage, and the shipping that encumbered it, we crowded sail upon the old hooker, and were soon booming down toward the chain of shoals at the rate of fully seven knots. And now Hoard once more made himself useful by undertaking to pilot us through the shoals, which he did very successfully, hugging Brujas Island pretty closely, and then bearing almost square away for the Boca Chica channel. A short half-hour sufficed to carry us to the inner end of it; and here our utmost vigilance was called into play in the navigation of the sharply-winding passage. But we managed to achieve it successfully, all still being dark and silent in the San Fernando battery as we passed it, and after an anxious ten minutes I had the satisfaction of feeling _Nostra Senora del Carmen_ rising and falling ponderously upon the swell of the open Caribbean. In anticipation of the possibility that we might be pursued, I now shaped a course due west, right off the land, that being, in my opinion, the direction in which we were least likely to be looked for, and when we had been running to leeward for about half an hour, and had made an offing of nearly four miles, I burned three portfires simultaneously as a preconcerted signal to the schooner that all was well and that she was to follow us, and an hour later she came foaming up on our weather quarter and hailed us. We now hove-to and sent alongside her the boats that had hitherto been towing astern; and as soon as they were hoisted in we both filled away once more, still standing straight off the land, so that when day dawned I had the satisfaction of finding that we had run the coast out of sight. We had, of course, long ere this secured our prisoners, numbering in all two hundred and twenty-six men, and now the problem was how to get rid of them; for I did not at all care to have so many men aboard who would require to be constantly watched in order that they might not rise upon and overpower us at some unguarded moment. Happily, the problem was soon solved; for about noon we sighted a trading felucca, bound from Porto Bello to Santa Marta, which the schooner brought to, and as she proved to be a fine, roomy craft I hove-to, lowered the boats, and transhipped our prisoners into her, despite the protests of her unhappy captain, who called all the saints to witness that the food he had on board would not suffice to feed so many men more than a couple of days at most. This objection I met by pointing out to him that he could bear up for Tolu, on the Gulf of Morrosquillo, which he could easily fetch in twenty-four hours, and so left him to settle the matter in whichever way seemed best to him. As soon as we had parted company with the felucca, and were fairly under way again, I set to work to search for the treasure, of the actual presence of which on board I had as yet had no time to satisfy myself. Hoard was of opinion that it would be found stowed away in a strong-room beneath the cabin deck, in the position usually occupied by the lazarette, and there, sure enough, I found such a room--a solidly built structure of hard timber, fully six inches thick, plated with iron, the door being secured by three massive iron bars passed through thick iron bands, and secured at either end by heavy iron padlocks, six in all, the keyholes of which were sealed with great seals the size of the palm of my hand. These seals I broke without a particle of hesitation or reverence for the great personage who had caused them to be placed there, and then instituted a hunt for the keys, which resulted, as I had feared it would, in failure. The keys were doubtless at that moment at Cartagena, in the possession of the unfortunate captain of the ship, or in the hands of the official to whose custody the treasure had been confided. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to set the armourer to work upon the padlocks, and by dint of hard work he managed to get them off and the door open by eight bells in the afternoon watch. The room, when opened, proved to be an apartment measuring about five feet each way, and it was lined inside as well as outside, with thick sheets of iron. But it was more than half full of gold ingots; that is to say the ingots were packed in rows of twenty each athwart the room. There were five rows of twenty each, constituting a tier, and the ingots were stored eight tiers high; so that, if the lower tiers contained the same number of ingots as the top tier, as was pretty certain to be the case, there were eight hundred ingots of solid gold, each weighing approximately half a hundredweight! the ingots being made uniformly of this size and weight in order that they might be conveniently transported from the mines to the coast by means of trains of Indians. I was struck dumb with astonishment and admiration as I stood gazing at the pile of dingy packages, each ingot being tightly sewn up in a wrapper of raw hide. I could scarcely believe my eyes for the moment. Twenty tons of gold! Why, there was a fabulous fortune before me! I reckoned its value roughly, and found that, at the then ruling price of gold, the value of the packages before me approximated well on toward three millions sterling. Nor was this all. There was a heavy, oaken, iron-bound case, measuring about two feet square by about a foot and a half high. This, I presumed, contained the uncut gems which Hoard had told me were to be sent home in this lumbering old treasure-tub. Man alive! when I came to realise in a measure the approximate value of all this wealth, I tell you I was frightened; fairly terrified to think that I was now responsible for it all. For upon me devolved the task of conveying this enormous wealth safely across the ocean and delivering it into the hands of my owner, to be by him subdivided into the shares to which each of us was entitled. I believe I never realised so vividly as at that moment the manifold perils of the sea: the peril of fire, of tempest, of shipwreck, and of the enemy. And to think that it had all been intrusted to a bottom that, under the most favourable circumstances, could hardly be expected to get up a speed of ten knots, and that consequently was open to capture by the first fast-sailing picaroon that happened to fall in with her. It was positively frightful to merely contemplate such a very likely eventuality. "But, thank goodness," thought I, "that danger is easily provided against!" And, going on deck, I immediately ordered the ship to be hove-to, and the launch hoisted out, and I also signalled the schooner to close. It was a lovely evening; the water quite smooth, and a gentle westerly breeze blowing. I determined, therefore, to seize that opportunity to transfer the whole of the treasure to the _Sword Fish_, in the hold of which craft I considered it would be far safer than where it was then. And, that done, I determined to make my way, first to Jamaica, to pick up a few more hands to help in working the galleon, and then to make the best of my way home without risking the loss of all by engaging in any more fighting, however tempting might be the opportunity. The men went to work cheerily; easily divining my motive for transhipping the treasure, and being, of course, each in his own degree, as anxious for its safety as I was. Moreover, the galleon's launch was a fine big lump of a boat; so we managed to tranship the whole and get it safely stowed away before sundown. That night I resumed command of the schooner, and turned the command of the galleon over to Saunders, who was a thoroughly steady, reliable fellow. At midnight, as arranged by me prior to leaving the galleon, both craft hauled up to the northward for Jamaica, and we then found that--so slow was the galleon, with the wind anywhere but on her quarter--the schooner, under mainsail, stay foresail, and jib, was quite able to keep pace with her even when she was carrying topgallant-sails, above which the galleon set nothing. This promised a long, wearisome voyage across the Atlantic, and doubly justified me in transhipping the treasure to the schooner. Nevertheless I looked forward with a great deal of pride to the day when I should take the prize into Weymouth harbour. It was early days, however, to think of that as yet, for there was the whole of the Atlantic and two-thirds of the Caribbean between ourselves and home, with who could say how many chances of shipwreck or capture before that distance could be traversed. And, as though to enforce the recollection of the latter contingency more effectively upon us, the dawn next morning revealed a long, snake- like two-masted craft hovering some five miles to windward, which I by and by made out to be one of those pestilent war-galleys which were apt to prove such formidable antagonists, and to give so much trouble in such moderate weather as we were then experiencing. I judged that this galley, which was under sail when first sighted, had come out from Cartagena in search of us, and from the fact that she did not at once bear down upon us, but hung persistently to windward, I conjectured that she was not alone, that she had one or more consorts somewhere to windward, and that, upon fully identifying the galleon, she would lower her sails, out sweeps, and be off to windward for help to tackle us. This I was most anxious to prevent, if possible, and after considering awhile I hit upon a plan which I thought might serve. I accordingly closed with the galleon, and ordered Saunders to at once bear up before the wind and run away to leeward, piling all the sail possible upon the old tub, to convey the impression that he was terribly frightened, and was exceedingly anxious to escape recapture. At the same time all sail was crowded upon the schooner, the precaution being taken, however, to tow an old spare foresail overboard, abreast the lee gangway, which had the effect of causing the schooner to sail as if she were water-logged. I also shaped a course with the schooner diverging about four points from that of the galleon. The latter now, of course, ran away from us, hand over hand; while now the galley manifested a disposition to edge down a little and get a nearer look at us both. This was precisely what I wanted, my hope being that our precipitate retreat would be construed by the Spaniards as a sign of weakness and fear on our part, and that the commander of the galley would thus be inveigled into attempting the recapture of the galleon single-handed, instead of sharing the honour with his consorts. I anticipated that, if he should yield to my blandishments, he would make a dash straight for the galleon without troubling himself about the schooner, the sluggish movements of which would render her in his eyes an altogether contemptible adversary, utterly beneath his notice, and only to be tackled and submitted to an exemplary punishment after the recapture of the galleon had been achieved. And, should I prove correct in this line of reasoning, he would run away to leeward after the galleon, when I should have him exactly where I wanted him, namely, to leeward of the schooner, when it would be my business to see that he did not again get to windward of us. CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. I END MY CAREER AS A PRIVATEERSMAN. For fully an hour the galley dallied with the tempting bait that I had thrown out, now edging down towards us for a few minutes, and anon hauling her wind again, her commander apparently suspecting some ruse on our part. But at length our seemingly single-hearted anxiety to place as much water as possible between ourselves and him, together with the fact that both vessels were perceptibly increasing their distance from him--the galleon fairly rapidly, the schooner much less so,--got the better of his prudence; and, suddenly putting up his helm, he came booming along down to leeward, wing and wing, steering a course that, as I had expected, would soon carry him alongside the _Senora_. The moment that it became apparent that he was in earnest I sent my scanty crew to quarters, the long thirty-two was cleared away and loaded, and all hands stood by to haul inboard again the sail that had hitherto served so efficiently as a drag. But, beyond this preparation, no other change was made, the schooner still adhering to her course, as though only anxious to escape from so formidable an adversary. About half an hour after bearing up, by which time the galley had neared us to within about a mile and a half, she fired a shotted gun in the direction of the galleon, and hoisted her colours. Saunders, to whom I had communicated my intentions, took no notice whatever of this; nor did we. The shot fell a long way short, and was of course merely intended as a hint for the galleon to heave-to. Another quarter of an hour brought the galley down abreast of us, and about a mile distant, but she took no notice whatever of us, her object evidently being to recapture the galleon first, and so secure--as they would suppose--the treasure that had been embarked aboard her; after which her commander would doubtless have a word to say to the schooner which had so audaciously presumed to appropriate, even temporarily, the gold of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain. As the galley swept past us I observed, with keen satisfaction, that she was not going much over eight knots; and I estimated that, when we should have got rid of our drag, we should be fully a knot and a half better than she was. Of course it would be in her power to rig out her sweeps to increase her speed; but I considered that, with the breeze that was then blowing, they would be practically useless except when going directly head to wind; and what I had to do was so to manoeuvre the schooner as to cut off her escape in that direction. What I was chiefly afraid of was that the consorts of the galley--for I was confident that she had consorts somewhere or other-- were close enough at hand to hear the sound of firing; and to make certain upon this point I shinned up to the royal-yard and had a good look round, and I was greatly relieved to find that there was nothing in sight. I allowed her to get about a mile to leeward of us, and then, instead of hauling our drag inboard, as I had at first intended, we cut it adrift and let it go altogether, at the same time jibbing over our main-boom and giving chase to the galley. For a space of perhaps ten minutes no perceptible notice was taken, by those on board the galley, of our change of tactics; but by the end of that time our sudden and--to the Spaniards--unaccountable improvement in speed had become so marked that it could not fail to attract attention; and presently signs became observable that it was occasioning considerable uneasiness. The galley's sweeps--forty in number--were suddenly rigged out, and she assumed the appearance of a gigantic centipede hurrying over the surface of the sea, her long oars rising and falling swiftly, with a gun-like flash of sunlight off their wet blades, as they churned the water into snow-white foam on each side of her. But a very few minutes sufficed to prove the correctness of my judgment as to their uselessness under the present circumstances, a very distinct confusion of movement among the shining blades revealing--what I had foreseen--that her canvas was driving her too fast through the water for her oarsmen to keep pace with her. The confusion rapidly became more pronounced, until every individual oar-blade was rising and falling independently of all the others, while frequent pauses of movement, accompanied by a great splashing of water, revealed that the unhappy oarsmen were busily engaged in the unseamanlike operation of "catching crabs". As a matter of fact, her sweeps were proving to be a hindrance rather than a help to her, and we began to overhaul her so fast that we were soon within point-blank range of her. Tom Hardy had assumed charge of our Long Tom, and he had gradually worked himself up into such an uncontrollable condition of fidgety impatience, running his eye along the sights and then glancing round at me, that it seemed cruel to keep him thus any longer on the tenter-hooks of suspense, and I, rather reluctantly, nodded permission to him to fire. The next instant the gun spoke out, the shock of its discharge jarring the schooner to her keel, and the shot flew high over the mast-heads of the galley and a little wide of her. "I expected as much, Tom," remarked I reprovingly. "You are far too much excited. Take it coolly, man; take it coolly. That galley must be effectually disabled, or she will give us the slip to windward and bring two or three more like herself after us, which I have no desire at all to see. And I have no desire to take her, for she would be worse than useless to us, she would be a really dangerous possession. Ah! I expected as much; down comes her canvas; she is going to try to dodge us and work out to windward in the wind's eye! Never mind the gun just now; in with the stunsails, for your lives, or she will be too quick for us!" What I feared and expected had come to pass. Our heavy shot had fairly frightened the people aboard the galley; they realised at last that a trick had been played upon them, and her commander's great anxiety now evidently was to get as quickly as possible out of the trap that he had been decoyed into. And, with this object, he had suddenly lowered his sails and put his helm hard over, with the object of returning by the way that he had come. But we were to windward of the galley, and, our stunsails coming in with a run, we were able to haul close upon a wind almost as quickly as the galley, when--the latter now depending upon her oars alone--the schooner proved to be considerably the faster of the two, thus effectually cutting off our antagonist's escape in that direction. "Now, back to your gun, and load as quickly as you like!" exclaimed I; for I knew that a very critical moment was at hand for us; a moment that would decide whether it was the galley or ourselves that was to be victorious. And presently my anticipation became realised; the Spaniard, finding his escape cut off, again putting over his helm until the vessel swerved round with her long, keen bows pointing straight at us. Her commander intended to run us aboard--if he could--and, should he succeed, the schooner would either be sent to the bottom by the violence of the shock, or we should fall into the hands of the Spaniards, to endure, in all probability, a fate even more horrible than that from which Hoard had escaped. Straight as an arrow for us came the galley, her two masts keeping steadily in one as her helmsman relentlessly followed the schooner's movement through the water, while the long oar-blades now rose and fell quickly in perfect time, urging the long, snake-like hull toward us at a speed of fully seven knots. Tom Hardy mopped the perspiration of excitement from his brow with a bright red handkerchief as he muttered anathemas upon his previous ill-luck, but I saw that he had pulled himself together, for his hand was as steady as yours is at this moment as he gently waved it in direction of those who were training the gun. "Now, Tom," said I, when he had reported all ready, "this shot must go home, mind; there must be no missing this time! So take it coolly; let her approach us to within a hundred fathoms before you think of firing-- I will give you the word--and then let her have it as soon as you are certain of your aim." "Ay, ay, sir," answered Tom. "I'll have her this time or you may call me a sojer. Give the word, sir, whenever you like." "There is no hurry, Tom," said I. "Keep her covered for another three minutes, and then you may do as you like. And you, my man," I continued, turning to the helmsman, "steer small for the next few minutes, and give Tom a chance." "Ay, ay, sir; `steer small' it is!" answered the man. "They're at work upon that gun of theirs, sir," reported Hardy at this moment. "Shall I fire and stop 'em, sir?" "Yes," said I; "she will do now. But don't fire until you are absolutely certain of her." The galley was now within about a hundred and fifty fathoms of us, coming on at a tremendous pace, the water leaping and foaming and glancing about her bows, and her long length still pointed obstinately at us. There was a brass gun mounted upon her forecastle, the rays of the sun flashing off it as though it had been made of gold; and about this gun some seven or eight figures could be distinctly seen busily moving; while aft upon her poop were grouped four men in brilliant uniforms and with their swords drawn. And beyond her forecastle, grouped along either rail, could be just made out the heads and the flashing weapons of a strong body of boarders, ready to spring in upon our decks at the instant when the two hulls should come together. Despite the anxiety and suspense of the moment I could not help remarking to myself that, if they intended to carry us by boarding, the commander of the galley was conning his craft in a very lubberly, unseamanlike way. As the thought passed through my brain there was a bright flash, a stunning report, and a jarring of the whole frame of the schooner as our long gun again spoke out; and, so instantly following the report that it seemed to be almost a part of it, I distinctly heard a crash, immediately followed by a dreadful outcry of screams and yells and groans of mortal anguish, seeming all to start at the same instant out of a hundred throats. Our shot had evidently gone home, and it had as evidently told severely; but exactly how much damage it had done could not be guessed at for the moment until our smoke had blown away to leeward of the galley. And ere it had done this there came a flash and a report from her, and the next instant I was aware of a shot that came humming so closely past my head that the wind of it actually blew my cap off and all but overboard. I stooped, picked it up, and replaced it on my head. As I again turned my gaze to leeward, there was the galley, with a clean, neat shot-hole in her starboard bow, so close to the water-line that the furrow ploughed up by her rush through the water was flashing and leaping right over it; and--what was of at least equal importance to us just then--both banks of oars were trailing limp and motionless, as if suddenly paralysed, in the water alongside of her. And paralysed they certainly were, for the moment at least, because our thirty-two- pound shot had evidently raked the oarsmen's benches from end to end of the ship. Her way immediately began to slacken; and although I saw an officer dash aft and with his own hands jam the helm hard over to lay us aboard, her movements became so sluggish that we had no difficulty in avoiding her, she being fully ten fathoms distant when she went drifting slowly across our stern. As she did so, a heavy, confused volley of musketry was poured into us from the boarders that lined her gunwale, but although the bullets flew past us like hail, not one of us was touched; and immediately afterwards a loud outcry arose aboard the galley, upon which every man at once threw down his arms and jumped below. "Ready about!" shouted I. "And you, Tom, load again, and stand by to give her another shot as we cross her bows. We must not leave her now until we have rendered it impossible for her to get up to windward again and tell of our whereabouts, and that of the galleon. If you could contrive to smash a good number of her oars with a raking shot it would be better even than hulling her; for, after all, it would be a terrible thing to destroy so much life. She must have at least two hundred and fifty people aboard her." "Ay; all that--or more, sir. It'll take at least four men to handle one of them long, heavy sweeps, the way that they was handled just now. But, as to smashing of 'em, I don't know as I can do it; a man would have to be a very tidy shot to hit more'n one or two of 'em. But I'll do my best, sir; and no man can't do no more." The schooner's helm was put down, and she was hove round upon the opposite tack, and at once kept away for the galley, which had by this time fallen broadside-on to the sea, her oars still remaining motionless. We steered a little to leeward of her, with the intention of luffing into the wind athwart her stern and throwing our topsail aback, so giving Hardy time to level and point his thirty-two-pounder; and we had gained our position and were in the act of backing our topsail, when the officer of whom I have already spoken reappeared upon the poop and, hastily hauling down the galley's colours, hailed in very fair English: "We surrender, senor; we surrender! In the name of the Blessed Virgin I pray you not to fire again! The galley is in a sinking condition; and unless we can quickly stop the leak she will go down and drown us all. What is it you will that we shall do in the matter?" "Where is the leak situated?" demanded I. "In the bow, senor; so close to the water-line that the sea is pouring into the vessel like a river," was the answer. "Then," said I, "you had better cut both your sails adrift and fother them over the leak; after which your only chance of safety will be to make for the nearest port--which I take to be Porto Bello. I will stand by you until you have choked the leak; but I can do no more for you, as my carpenter is aboard the galleon; and moreover he does not understand Spanish, and therefore could not direct your people." "A thousand thanks, senor," answered the Spaniard, bowing low to me. "I will follow your instructions, and am in hopes that, by adopting the plan you have suggested, we may be able to reach the land." Then, with another bow to me, which I duly returned, he disappeared; and a moment later I heard him shouting some orders to his people, some twenty or thirty of whom at once sprang on deck and began to cut the lateen sails away from the long, tapering yards. Meanwhile, I could now see that the galley was gradually filling, as she was perceptibly deeper in the water than when we had first encountered her; and thinking it possible that I might be of use, I ordered our people to launch the dinghy, in which, with one hand, I went under the bows of the galley. The shot-hole which was the cause of all the mischief was now completely under water more than half the time, showing only when the bows of the vessel lifted over a swell. I saw that they had plugged it with canvas from the inside, and the officer informed me that two men were engaged in holding the canvas in place against the pressure of the water, while the rest of the crew were, as I could see, engaged in baling. I thought I could see my way to improve matters a little; so I directed the officer to launch his gun overboard, to lift the bows a little, and to shift all his movable weight as far aft as possible. I then returned to the schooner, and procured a thin sheet of lead, a dozen nails, and a hammer, and with these I contrived, with some difficulty, to pretty well stop the leak, although I was careful not to stop it too effectually, lest the officer should decide to take the risk of making his way to windward instead of to the nearest land. But I do not think I had any real ground for apprehension, for I could see that the poor fellow was thoroughly frightened; and when I had patched up the hole, and had told him that there would be no need to use the sails, save to help him to reach Porto Bello as quickly as possible, he was overpoweringly profuse in his expressions of gratitude for my help and what he was pleased to term my "generosity." It was drawing well on toward noon when at length the galley was once more in a condition to get under weigh, which she did forthwith, heading to the southward under oars and sails; and inexpressibly thankful was I to see the last of her, and still more so to think that I had contrived to get rid of her without sending her and all her company to the bottom. Before parting I contrived to elicit from her commander that two of his consorts had proceeded to search for us in the Gulf of Darien, while three more had made the best of their way to Point Gallinas, to intercept us there in the event of our trying to make our way to the eastward. Having thus successfully shaken off our formidable foe, I crowded sail upon the schooner in pursuit of the galleon--which all this while had, in pursuance of my orders, been running off the wind to leeward,--and when at length we overtook her, the galley had long vanished in the south-eastern board. We consequently hauled up to the northward once more, and shaped a course for Jamaica, where,--not to make the story too long,--we arrived without further adventure on the fourth morning after our encounter with the galley. As may be supposed, I lost no time in waiting upon my very good friend, the Admiral; whom I found up to the eyes in business in his office at Port Royal. Nevertheless, busy though he was, he gave orders for me to be admitted, and shook hands with me heartily as I presented myself. "Good morning, Mr Bowen," said he. "I won't ask you to sit down, for I am so busy this morning that I positively don't know which job to tackle first. I merely consented to see you in order that I might congratulate you--for I hear that you have brought in a prize of some sort, and a big lump of a craft she is, too," casting his eyes toward her as she lay full in view of his office window. "Not the galleon, though, I suppose? No such luck--What? is it really so? Upon my honour, I very heartily congratulate you, my dear sir, I do indeed. And my ears are tingling to hear your story, which I am certain will be well worth listening to; but I haven't the time for it just now. Come up to the Pen to dinner to- night, and tell it me then, will you? That's right; sharp seven, mind! And now, good-bye until this evening, you lucky young dog!" Upon leaving the Admiral, I proceeded up the harbour to Kingston in a boat manned by negroes. A large fleet of ships of all sizes occupied the anchorage abreast of the town; and as we drew nearer two vessels seemed to stand out from among the rest and challenge my recognition. I looked at them more intently. Surely I could not be mistaken! "Cuffee, what are the names of those two vessels--the brigantine and the schooner--that are moored close together there?" demanded I of the captain of the boat. "My name not Cuffee, sah; my name am Julius Caesar Mark Anthony Brown, sah! And dem two vessels am called respectably de _Dolphin_ and de _Tiger_; bofe of dem privateers, sah," was the boatman's answer, given with great dignity and the utmost gravity. "Thank you, Julius Caesar Mark Anthony Brown," retorted I, with equal gravity. "Have the goodness to shove me alongside the _Dolphin_, will you?" "Certainly, sah; wid de utmost pleasure, sah," answered the negro, with a broad grin of delight at the unwonted receipt of his full cognomen. And in a few minutes we ranged up alongside the old familiar schooner, and I recognised many old familiar faces looking curiously down into the boat. "By the living jingo if it ain't Mr Bowen come back to life!" I heard one man say; and in a moment there was an eager rush to the gangway to meet me. The unexpected sight of so many well-known faces, most of them hailing from the same birthplace as myself, and all of them evidently glad to see me again, moved me strongly; and almost before I knew where I was I found myself on deck and heartily shaking hands all round. Then, as soon as the excitement had abated somewhat, I inquired for Captain Winter. "He is ashore, Mr Bowen," answered the mate, who had caught my name and evidently appeared to be familiar with it, although the man was a total stranger to me. "He went ashore directly after breakfast, and I don't much expect to see him aboard again until pretty late in the afternoon. But I expect you'll find him and Cap'n Comben either at Anderson's store, or at Mammy Williamson's hotel. Or, if you don't find 'em, you'll be sure to get news of 'em at one or the other of them two places." "Thank you," said I; "I will look them up. But in case I should not find them, please say that I will call aboard again to-morrow morning about nine o'clock." So saying, I climbed down into Julius Caesar's boat again, and ten minutes later was landed upon the wharf. It was by this time drawing well on toward noon, or "second breakfast" time; so I shaped a course for Mammy Williamson's in the first place; and there, sure enough, I came upon my old skipper and Comben, seated at table among a number of other ship-masters and a sprinkling of civilians. As I entered I heard my name mentioned by Winter, and thought I also caught the word "galleon." "Speak of an angel, Captain Winter, and--you know the rest," said I, as I stepped up to him with outstretched hand. In a moment every man had started to his feet, and I was surrounded-- hemmed in--by an enthusiastic crowd, who, having somehow got wind of my lucky capture, were eager to congratulate me. Nothing would do but I must sit down and take breakfast with them and relate my adventure; and it was past two o'clock that day before any of us budged. For not only had I to tell the whole story of my doings from the day when I parted company in the _Manilla_, but I also had to hear Captain Winter's story as well. The latter I shall not relate here, as it would require a whole volume to do justice to it; but for the gratification of the reader's curiosity, I may say that the _Dolphin_ and the _Tiger_, after a protracted fight, in which both suffered severely, succeeded in beating off the French frigate. Since then they had both been knocking about in the Atlantic, with only moderate success, making Barbados their head-quarters; hence they had heard nothing of me save in a letter received from Mr White, in which he stated that, up to the time of writing, no news had been received of the _Manilla_, and that he greatly feared she must have been lost or captured. Having at length transacted the business that had taken me to Kingston, I returned to the schooner pretty late in the afternoon, Winter and Comben accompanying me to have a look at the galleon and the _Sword Fish_; and later on I returned with them to Kingston to keep my dinner appointment with the Admiral. I found my host, as usual, with his table full of company, among them being the captain of the _Triton_ frigate, and several other naval officers, all of whom were exceedingly civil to me, especially after I had related the particulars of the capture of the galleon. We spent a very pleasant evening; and when at length the guests rose to go, the Admiral whispered to me to remain as he had something to say to me. Accordingly, when all hands but myself had left, my host conducted me to what he called his "snuggery", which was a comer of his spacious verandah inclosed with large glazed partitions, and fitted up as a smoking-room. His negro butler set out the table with glasses, decanters, a big crystal jug of sangaree, and a box of cigars, and left us. As soon as we were alone and had made ourselves comfortable, the old gentleman turned to me, seemed to look me through and through for several seconds, so intently did he rivet his gaze upon me, and then he remarked: "I dare say you are wondering what this important matter can be that has caused me to keep you behind in order that I may have an opportunity to talk it over with you. Well, my dear fellow, I am a poor hand at beating about the bush; if I have a thing to say, I like to say it outright; so tell me, now, has it ever occurred to you to wish that you were a king's officer, instead of being merely a privateersman?" "Upon my word, Sir Peter, that is a strange question indeed to ask," said I; "but I do not mind confessing to you that I have over and over again regretted that circumstances did not permit me to enter His Majesty's service. Not that I have any real cause to complain, for I suppose I may now call myself a fairly rich man, with the division of the galleon's prize-money in prospect; much richer than I should have been by this time had I had an opportunity to enter the navy. At the same time I have been impressed over and over again with the honour and distinction attaching to His Most Gracious Majesty's service, and which are wholly apart from any question of the length of a man's purse; and it is impossible to shut one's eyes to the fact that, if a man happens to be ambitious, there is no service where his ambition has more scope for gratification than in the British navy." "Precisely," agreed the Admiral. "And do you happen to be ambitious?" "Yes," I answered frankly. "Every one of my successes, such as they have been, has been robbed of a very appreciable amount of its sweetness by the reflection of the far greater honour and glory that would have been mine had I happened to have been a wearer of the King's uniform." "Then," said the Admiral, "may I take it that, if an opportunity were to offer for you to enter the King's service, you would accept it?" "Undoubtedly you may, sir," answered I excitedly, as the drift of the conversation suggested itself to me for the first time. Then, in a flash, I qualified my statement by adding: "Of course I mean if I could enter as a commissioned officer. As a warrant-officer I fear I should be quite out of place. I have had so much liberty, and have been, so to speak, my own master for so long--" "That you think you would find the discipline irksome?" interrupted the Admiral. "My dear boy, I have no doubt you would, and nobody but a fool would ever think of spoiling a fine, dashing, young fellow like yourself by attempting any such transformation. As you say, you would be woefully out of place in such a position. You would be wasted. But upon your own quarter-deck, with a good crew of thoroughly disciplined men to back you up, and the authority of the King's commission to give you confidence, you would soon make a name and a place for yourself. Now, you did a very important and valuable service to the State when you brought timely intelligence of the approach of the combined French and Spanish fleets to West Indian waters, and you did a still more important and valuable service in watching that fleet, and afterwards communicating with Lord Nelson. In recognition of those services, therefore, it affords me very great pleasure to offer you a commission as lieutenant in His Majesty's navy. There it is, my boy," producing a large official-looking document from his pocket; "and I sincerely hope that you will not only accept it, but that also, with such friendly help as I may be able to afford you, you will rapidly distinguish yourself and do credit to my penetration in selecting you for so unusual an honour." For the moment I was altogether too thoroughly overwhelmed to utter a word, which the old gentleman at once perceived, for he said hastily: "There, there! no thanks, no thanks; I know exactly what you are struggling to say, and I will take it as said. You need not trouble to thank me in words. Let your deeds express your gratitude; and if you behave as well under the pennant as you have hitherto done under the merchant flag, I shall be more than satisfied. And I intend to give you every opportunity of distinguishing yourself and doing me credit. For it happens that the _Triton's_ boats captured a becalmed pirate schooner last week, and brought her in. The lieutenant who led the attack lost his life, poor fellow, in boarding, so that he has not to be considered; and I propose, therefore, to purchase the craft into the service and give you the command of her. She sails like a witch, I am told, and is a wonderfully powerful vessel, just the sort of craft to give a smart, young fellow like yourself every chance to race up the ratlines of promotion. So now, all that you have to do is to arrange somehow to be relieved of your present command as soon as possible, and then to step into your new berth." This I had no difficulty whatever in doing, thanks to the lucky chance of Captain Winter being in the same port. I slept at the Pen that night, my kind friend, the Admiral, insisting upon my so doing; and the next evening I found myself in a position to inform him that all arrangements had been made to relieve me of the command of the _Sword Fish_, and to take the galleon home to England. And within forty-eight hours of the receipt of my commission I had entered upon my new career, and had ceased to be a privateersman. THE END. 
29894	----	produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) A ROMANCE OF THE WEST INDIES. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF EUGENE SUE. BY MARIAN LONGFELLOW. F. TENNYSON NEELY, PUBLISHER. LONDON. NEW YORK. Copyright, 1898, by F. TENNYSON NEELY, in United States and Great Britain. All Rights Reserved. TO THE MEMORY OF WILKIE COLLINS, AUTHOR AND ARTIST, WHO FIRST DIRECTED MY ATTENTION TO THIS WORK AND SUGGESTED ITS TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK IN KINDLY REMEMBRANCE. THE TRANSLATOR. CONTENTS. PART I. I. The Passenger II. A Female Blue Beard III. The Arrival IV. The Priest's House V. The Surprise VI. The Warning VII. The Cavern VIII. The Devil's Cliff IX. Night X. A Buccaneer XI. Master Rend-Your-Soul PART II. XII. The Marriage XIII. Supper XIV. True Love XV. The Envoy from France XVI. The Storm XVII. The Surprise XVIII. My Lord the Duke XIX. A Second Surprise XX. The Departure XXI. The Betrayal PART III. XXII. The Viceroy of Ireland and Scotland XXIII. The Arrest XXIV. The Interview XXV. Revelations XXVI. Devotion XXVII. The Martyr XXVIII. The Duke Relates the Sacrifice to which He Owes his Life XXIX. The Departure PART IV. XXX. Regrets XXXI. Croustillac Departs XXXII. The Frigate XXXIII. The Judgment XXXIV. The Chase XXXV. The Return EPILOGUE. XXXVI. The Abbey XXXVII. Reunited A ROMANCE OF THE WEST INDIES. PART I. CHAPTER I. THE PASSENGER. Toward the latter part of May, 1690, the three-masted schooner the Unicorn sailed from Rochelle for the island of Martinique. A Captain Daniel commanded this vessel, which was armed with a dozen pieces of medium-sized ordnance, a defensive precaution necessary at that period. France was at that time at war with England, and the Spanish pirates would often cross to the windward of the Antilles, in spite of the frequent pursuit of filibusters. Among the passengers of the Unicorn, few in number, was the Reverend Father Griffen, of the Order of the Preaching Brothers. He was returning to Martinique to resume his parish duties at Macouba, where he had occupied the curacy for some years to the satisfaction of the inhabitants and the slaves of that locality. The exceptional life of the colonies, then almost continually in a state of open hostility against the English, the Spanish, and the natives of the Antilles, placed the priests of the latter in a peculiar position. They were called upon not only to preach, to hear confessions, to administer the sacraments to their flocks, but also to aid in defending themselves during the frequent inroads of their enemies of all nations and all colors. The priest's house was, as other habitations, alike isolated and exposed to deadly surprises. More than once had Father Griffen, assisted by his two slaves, intrenched himself securely behind a large gateway of mahogany, after having repulsed their assailants by a lively fire. Formerly a professor of geometry and mathematics, and possessed of considerable theoretical knowledge of military architecture, Father Griffen had given most excellent advice to the successive governors of Martinique on the construction of works of defense. This priest knew thoroughly the stonecutter's and carpenter's trades; learned in agriculture, an excellent gardener, of an inventive spirit, full of resources, of rare energy, a determined courage, he was a valuable man to the colony, and, above all, to the quarter he inhabited. The word of the gospel had not, perhaps, in his mouth all the unction to be desired; his voice was rough, his exhortations were unpolished; but their moral quality was excellent; they abounded in charity. He said the mass as rapidly and as forcibly as if he were a buccaneer. One could pardon him when one knew that this holy office was often interrupted by a raid of the heretical English or the idolatrous Caribbeans; and that then Father Griffen, leaping from the pulpit from which he had preached "peace and concord," was always one of the first to put himself at the head of his flock in order to defend it. As to the wounded and prisoners, once the engagement was ended, the worthy priest ameliorated their situation as far as he could, and with the greatest care dressed the wounds which he had himself made. We will not undertake to prove that the conduct of Father Griffen was in all points canonical, nor to solve the question so often debated, "Under what circumstances may the clergy go to war?" We do not claim for this subject either the authority of Saint Gregory nor that of Leo IV. We simply say that this worthy priest did good and combated evil with all his might. Of a loyal and generous character, frank and gay, Father Griffen was mischievously hostile and mocking where women were concerned. He was continually making jests upon the daughters of Eve; these temptresses, these diabolical allies of the Serpent. In justice to Father Griffen, we must say that he showed in his railleries, otherwise without malice, a little rancor and contempt; he jested lightly on the subject of a happiness that he regretted not being able to desire; for, in spite of the extreme license of Creole customs, the purity of Father Griffen's life was never questioned. He might have been accused of loving the pleasures of the table; not that he abused them (he observed bounds in enjoying the good gifts which God bestowed), but he was singularly fond of indulging himself with marvelous recipes for dressing game, seasoning fish, or preserving in sugar the fragrant fruits of the tropics; at times, even the description of his epicurean tastes became contagious, when he would enlarge upon certain repasts after the manner of buccaneers, prepared in the depths of the forests or on the shore of the island. Between you and me, Father Griffen possessed, among others, the secret of cooking a turtle, buccaneer-fashion, of which the mere recital was enough to excite ravenous hunger on the part of his hearers. In spite of his usually formidable appetite, Father Griffen scrupulously observed his fasts, which an edict of the pope's decreed should be much less strict at the Antilles and in the Indies than in Europe. It is unnecessary to say here that the worthy priest would abandon the most delicate repast in order to fulfill his duties as a priest to a poor slave; no one was more pitiful than he--a more charitable or prudent manager, regarding the little he possessed as the property of the unfortunate. Never was his consolation or succor lacking to those who suffered; but once his Christian task fulfilled, he worked gayly and vigorously in his garden, watered his plants, hoed his paths, pruned his trees, and when night came he loved to rest after his salutary and rustic labor, and enjoy, with an intelligent keenness of palate, the gastronomic riches of the country. His flock never allowed his cellar or his larder to become empty. The finest fruit, the best portion from the chase or the rod, was always faithfully sent to him. He was beloved--he was blessed. They came to him to settle all points of dispute, and his judgment was finally accepted on all questions. The physique of Father Griffen accorded perfectly with the impression perhaps formed of him after what has just been said of his character. He was a man of not more than fifty years, robust, active, though perhaps rather too stout; his long robe of white wool and his black cape set off his broad shoulders; a felt cap covered his bald crown. His red face, his triple chin, his lips thick and crimson, his nose long and flat at the end, his small and lively gray eyes, gave him a certain resemblance to Rabelais; but what specially characterized Father Griffen's physiognomy was a rare mixture of frankness, goodness, strength and innocent raillery. At the commencement of this story, the Preaching Brother stood on the stern of the vessel, in conversation with Captain Daniel. The ease with which he maintained his equilibrium, in spite of the violent rolling of the vessel, proved that Father Griffen had long since found his sea-legs. Captain Daniel was an old sea-dog; once at sea, he left the management of his vessel to his mates and pilot, and became intoxicated regularly every night. Frequently making the trip from Martinique to Rochelle, he had already brought Father Griffen from America. The latter, accustomed to the inebriety of the worthy captain, attentively studied the ship's management; for without possessing the nautical science of Father Fournier, and other of his religious colleagues, he had a sufficiently theoretical and practical knowledge of navigation. Often had the priest made the passage from Martinique to San Domingo and beyond, on board the privateer vessels, which always yielded a tithe of their prizes to the churches of the Antilles. Night approached. Father Griffen inhaled with pleasure the odor of supper which was being prepared. The captain's boy came to announce to the passengers that the repast was ready; two or three among them, who had successfully resisted seasickness, entered the cabin. Father Griffen said grace; they had hardly seated themselves when the door of the cabin opened suddenly, and the following words were pronounced with a strong Gascon accent: "There is, I hope, noble captain, a small place for the Chevalier de Croustillac?" All the guests made a movement of surprise, then strove to read in the features of the captain an explanation of this singular apparition. The captain remained stupefied, regarding his new guest with an air almost of affright. "Eh, there, who are you? I do not know you. Where the devil did you come from, sir?" he finally said. "If I came from the devil, this good priest," and he kissed the hand of Father Griffen, "this good priest would send me back there very quickly, by saying, 'Get thee behind me, Satan.'" "But where _do_ you come from, sir?" cried the captain, stupefied by the confident and smiling air of this unexpected guest. "One does not come thus on board. You are not on my list of passengers. You have fallen from the sky, perhaps?" "A few minutes since it was from the infernal regions; now it is from the heavens that I come. Faith! I do not lay claim to an origin so divine nor so infernal, worthy captain; I----" "It matters not as to that," replied the captain. "Tell me, how came you here?" The chevalier assumed a majestic air. "I should be unworthy of belonging to the noble house of de Croustillac, one of the oldest in Guienne, if I had the slightest hesitation in satisfying the legitimate curiosity of the illustrious captain." "So--this is very lucky," cried the latter. "Do not say it is lucky, rather say it is right. I fall upon your vessel like a bomb; you are astonished; nothing is more natural; you ask me how I came on board. This is your right. I explain it to you--that is my duty. Completely satisfied by my explanation, you extend to me your hand and say, 'This is well, chevalier, place yourself at table with us.' I respond to you, 'Captain, I cannot refuse, for I am dying for lack of sustenance. Blessed be your benevolent offer.' So saying I slip in between these two estimable gentlemen. I make myself small; very small; in order not to incommode them; on the contrary, the motion is so violent that I wedge----" So saying, the chevalier put his words into execution; profiting by the general surprise, he insinuated himself between two guests and provided himself with the glass of one, the plate of another, and the napkin of a third. Profound amazement made his neighbors oblivious to the things of this world. All this was accomplished with so much quickness, dexterity, confidence and boldness that the guests of the illustrious captain of the Unicorn and the illustrious captain himself did not dream of more than looking with the greatest curiosity and astonishment at the Chevalier de Croustillac. The adventurer proudly wore an old waistcoat of rateen, once green, but now of a yellowish blue; his frayed breeches were of the same shade; his stockings, at one time scarlet, were now a faded pink, and seemed in places to be fairly embroidered with white thread; a badly worn gray felt hat, an old sword-belt trimmed with imitation gold lace, now tarnished, supported a long sword upon which the chevalier, on entering, leaned with the air of a grandee. Croustillac was a very tall and excessively thin man. He appeared to be from thirty-six to forty years of age. His hair, mustache, and eyebrows were jet black, his face bony, brown and tanned. He had a long nose, small hazel eyes, which were extraordinarily lively, and his mouth was very large; his physiognomy betrayed at the same time an imperturbable assurance and an excessive vanity. Croustillac had that overweening belief in himself which one finds only among the Gascons. He so exaggerated his merits and natural graces to himself that he believed no woman was able to resist him; the list of his conquests of every kind had been interminable. In spite of the most amazing falsehoods, which cost him little, it cannot be denied that he possessed true courage and a certain nobility of character. This natural valor, joined to his blind confidence in himself, sometimes precipitated him into almost inextricable situations, into which he threw himself headlong, and from which he never emerged without hard blows--for if he was as adventurous and boastful as a Gascon, he was as obstinate and opinionated as a Breton. Heretofore his life had been very similar to that of his Bohemian companions. The younger son of a poor Gascon family of doubtful nobility, he had come to seek his fortune at Paris; by turns petty officer of a forlorn hope; provost of an academy, bath-keeper, horse jockey, peddler of satirical news and Holland gazettes; he had more than once pretended to be a Protestant, feigning conversion to the Catholic faith in order to secure the fifty crowns that M. Pelisson paid each neophyte as the price of conversion. This cheat discovered, the chevalier was condemned to the lash and to prison. He suffered the lash, escaped from prison, disguised himself by means of an immense shade over his eye, girded himself with a formidable sword with which he ambled about, then embraced the profession of wheedling country folk for the benefit of gambling houses, into which he led those innocent lambs, who did not come forth again until completely shorn. It must be said--to the chevalier's credit that he took no part himself in these rascalities; as he said to himself--if he did bait the hook, he at least did not eat the fish. The laws regarding duels were at that time very severe. One day the chevalier encountered a well-known brave named Fontenay-Coup-d'Epée. The latter roughly elbowed our adventurer, saying, "Take care! I am Fontenay Sword-Thrust." "And I," said the Gascon, "Croustillac Cannon-Ball," whipping out his sword. Fontenay was killed, and Croustillac obliged to flee in order to escape capture. The chevalier had often heard of the wonderful fortunes to be realized in the colonies. Journeying sometimes on foot, sometimes on horse, sometimes in a wagon, he went to Rochelle hoping to embark for America. Once there, Croustillac found that he not only must pay his passage on board a vessel, but must also obtain from the intendant of marine, permission to embark for the Antilles. These two things were equally difficult of accomplishment; the emigration of Protestants, which Louis XIV. wished to prevent, made the officers of the ports extremely severe, and the voyage to Martinique cost no less than eight or nine hundred livres. In all his life the adventurer had never been possessed of a tithe of this amount. Arriving at Rochelle with ten crowns in his pocket, dressed in a smock frock and carrying his clothing on the end of his scabbard, the chevalier went, like a journeyman, to lodge at a poor tavern, ordinarily frequented by sailors. There he inquired as to outgoing vessels, and learned that the Unicorn would set sail in a few days. Two of the crew of this vessel frequented the tavern which the chevalier had selected for the center of his operations. It would take too long to tell by what prodigies of astuteness and address; by what impudent and fabulous lies; by what mad promises Croustillac succeeded in interesting in his behalf the master cooper charged with the stowage of the casks of fresh water in the hold; it is enough to know that this man consented to hide Croustillac in an empty cask and to carry him on board the Unicorn. According to custom, the intendant's assistants and the admiralty clerks carefully examined the vessel at the moment of its departure, in order to see that no one had fraudulently embarked. The chevalier kept quiet at the bottom of his cask and escaped the careful search of the king's servants. His heart bounded freely when he felt the vessel under way; he waited some hours before daring to show himself, knowing well that, once on the high seas, the captain of the Unicorn would not return to port to bring back a contraband passenger. It had been arranged between the master cooper and the chevalier that the latter should never disclose the means whereby he had been smuggled on board. A man less impudent than our adventurer would have timidly kept his place among the sailors, waiting with uneasiness the moment when Captain Daniel should discover the stowaway. Croustillac, on the contrary, went boldly to his end; preferring the captain's table to the mess of the crew, he was not a moment in doubt that he would be seated at that table--if not rightfully, at least in fact. We have seen how his audacity served his purpose. Such was the unexpected visitor at whom the guests of the Unicorn looked curiously. CHAPTER II. BLUE BEARD. "Now, sir, explain how you came here!" cried the captain of the Unicorn, too impatient to learn the Gascon's secret to send him from the table. The Chevalier de Croustillac poured out a large glass of wine, stood up, and said in a loud tone, "I will first propose to the illustrious company to drink the health of one who is dear to us all--that of our glorious king, that of Louis the Great, the most adored of princes!" In that troublous time, it would have been unwise and even dangerous for the captain to receive the chevalier's proposition with coolness. Captain Daniel and the passengers following his example, responding to the toast, repeated in chorus, "To the king's health! to the health of Louis the Great!" One person alone remained silent; this was the chevalier's neighbor. Croustillac looked at him frowningly. "By the gods, sir, are you not one of us?" said he; "are you, then, an enemy of our beloved king?" "Not at all, sir; not at all. I love and venerate this great king, but how can I drink. You have taken my glass," replied the passenger timidly. "What! gods! Is it for such a trifle as this that you expose yourself to passing for a bad Frenchman?" exclaimed the chevalier, shrugging his shoulders. "Are there not enough glasses here? Waiter! bring this gentleman a glass. My dear friend, good luck. Now stand and let us say, 'To the king's health--our great king!'" After this toast all reseated themselves. The chevalier profited by the confusion to give a napkin and plate to his neighbor. Then, uncovering a dish placed before him, he said boldly to Father Griffen, "Father, may I offer you some of this potted pigeon?" "Zounds, sir," cried the captain, struck by the liberties taken by the chevalier, "you put yourself very much at your ease." The adventurer interrupted the captain and said to him with a solemn air, "Captain, I know how to render to each what is due. The clergy is the first order of the state; I conduct myself then as a Christian in serving at once this reverend father. I shall do more--I shall seize this occasion to render homage, in his respectable and holy person, to the evangelical virtues which distinguish and always will distinguish our church." So saying, the chevalier served Father Griffen. From this moment it became very difficult for the captain to oust the adventurer. He had not refused the chevalier's toast, nor prevented him from doing the honors of the table. Meanwhile he continued to question him. "Come, sir, you are a gentleman, so be it! you are a good Christian, you love the king as we all love him--this is very well, but tell me, how the devil came you here to eat supper with us?" "Father," said the chevalier, "I call upon you to bear witness, in the presence of this honorable company----" "To bear witness to what, my son?" replied the priest. "To bear witness to what the captain has said." "How? What have I said," exclaimed the captain. "Captain, you have said, you will remember, in the presence of this company, that I am a gentleman." "I have said so, no doubt, but----" "That I am a good Christian." "Yes, but----" "That I love the king." "Yes, because----" "Very well," replied the chevalier. "I again call this illustrious company to bear witness that when one is a good Christian, when one is a gentleman, when one loves his king, what more can be asked? Father, shall I help you to some of this roast?" "I will take some, my son, for my seasickness takes the form of a robust appetite; once on shipboard, my hunger redoubles." "I am delighted, Father, at this similarity in constitution. I, too, have a ravenous appetite." "Very well, my son; as our good captain has given you the means wherewith to satisfy your appetite, I would say, to make use of your own words, that it is just because you _are_ a gentleman, a good Christian, and well-disposed toward our beloved sovereign, that you ought to answer the questions of Captain Daniel as to your extraordinary appearance on board his ship." "Unhappily, that is just what I cannot do, Father." "How? cannot do?" cried the irritated captain. The chevalier assumed a solemn air, and replied, as he turned toward the priest, "This reverend father can alone hear my confession and my vows; this secret is not mine alone; this secret is grave, very grave," he added, raising his eyes in contrition to heaven. "And I--I can force you to speak," cried the captain, "when I cause a cannon ball to be tied to each of your feet and ride you on a rail until you disclose the truth." "Captain," answered the chevalier, with imperturbable calm, "I never permit any one to threaten me. The motion of an eyelid, a sneer, a gesture, a nothing, which seems insulting--but you are king on your own ship, and therefore I am in your kingdom and recognize myself to be your subject. You have admitted me to your table--I shall continue to be worthy of this favor always--but there is no reason to arbitrarily inflict upon me such bad treatment. Nevertheless, I shall know how to resign myself to it, to support it, unless this good priest, the refuge of the feeble against the strong, deigns to intercede with you in my behalf," replied the chevalier humbly. The captain was very much embarrassed, for Father Griffen did not hesitate to speak a few words in behalf of the adventurer who had so suddenly sought his protection, and who had promised to reveal, under the seal of the confessional, the secret of his presence on the Unicorn. The anger of the captain was somewhat appeased; the chevalier, at first flattering, insinuating, became jovial and comical; for the amusement of the passengers he performed all kinds of tricks; he balanced knives on his nose; he built up a pyramid of glasses and bottles with wonderful ingenuity; he sang new songs; he imitated the cries of various animals. In fact, Croustillac knew so well how to amuse the captain of the Unicorn, who was not very hard to please, that when supper was concluded the latter clapped the Gascon on the shoulder, saying: "After all, chevalier, you are here on board, there is no way to undo that. You are good company, and there will always be a plate for you at my table, and we will manage to find some corner in which to swing a hammock for you." The chevalier overwhelmed the captain with thanks and protestations of gratitude, and betook himself quickly to the place assigned to him, and soon was profoundly sleeping, perfectly satisfied as to his well-being during the voyage, although a little humiliated from having had to suffer the captain's threats, and from having had to descend to tricks to win the good will of one whom he mentally designated a brute and a seabear. The chevalier saw in the colonies a veritable Eldorado. He had heard of the magnificent hospitality of the colonists, who were only too happy, he had been told, to keep the Europeans who came to see them as guests, for months, and he drew this very simple deduction: there are about fifty or sixty rich plantations at Martinique and Guadeloupe; their proprietors, bored to death, are delighted to keep with them men of wit; of gay humor, and of resources. I am essentially one of these; I have only, then, to appear to be petted, fêted, spoiled; admitting that I spend six months at each plantation, one after another--there are fully in the neighborhood of sixty--this will give me from twenty-five to thirty years of enjoyment and perfectly assured comfortable existence, and I count only on the least favorable chances. I am in the full maturity of my gifts; I am amiable, witty, I have all kinds of society talents; how can one believe that the rich owners of these colonies, will be so blind, so stupid, as not to profit by the occasion and secure to themselves in this way the most charming husband that a young girl or a fascinating widow has ever pictured in sleepless nights. Such were the hopes of the chevalier; we shall see if they were realized. The following morning Croustillac kept his promise and made his confession to Father Griffen. Although sincere enough, the avowal revealed nothing new as to the position of the penitent, which he had very nearly divined. This was, in effect the chevalier's confession: He had dissipated his fortune; killed a man in a duel; pursued by justice and finding himself without resources, he had adopted the dangerous part of going to the West Indies to seek his fortune; not having the means of paying for his passage, he had had recourse to the compassion of a cooper, who had carried him on board and hidden him in an empty cask. This apparent sincerity caused Father Griffen to look upon the adventurer with leniency; but he did not hide from the Gascon that any hope of finding a fortune in the colonies was an error; he must bring quite an amount of capital with him to obtain even the smallest establishment; the climate was deadly; the inhabitants, as a general thing, were suspicious of strangers, and all the traditions of generous hospitality of the first colonists completely forgotten, as much through the egotism of the inhabitants as because of the discomforts following a war with England--which had gravely affected their interests. In a word, Father Griffen counseled the chevalier to accept the offer which the captain made, of taking him back to Rochelle after having touched at Martinique. In the priest's opinion, Croustillac could find a thousand resources in France, which he could not hope to find in a half-civilized country; the condition of the Europeans being such in the colonies that never, in consideration of their dignity as whites, could they perform menial employment. Father Griffen was ignorant of the fact that the chevalier had exhausted the resources of France, and therefore had expatriated himself. Under certain circumstances, no one was more easily hoodwinked than the good priest; his pity for the unhappy blinding his usual penetration. The past life of the chevalier did not appear to have been one of immaculate purity; but this man was so careless in his distress, so indifferent to the future which menaced him, that Father Griffen ended by taking more interest in the adventurer than he merited, and he proposed that the latter should stay in his parsonage at Macouba, while the Unicorn remained at Martinique; an invitation that Croustillac took care not to refuse. Time went on. Captain Daniel was never tired of praising the wonderful talents of the chevalier, in whom he discovered new treasures of sleight-of-hand each day. Croustillac had finished by putting into his mouth the ends of burning candles, and by swallowing forks. This last feat had carried the captain beyond bounds of enthusiasm; he formally offered the Gascon a situation for life on board ship if the chevalier would promise to charm thus agreeably the tedium of the voyages of the Unicorn. We would say here, in order to explain the success of Croustillac, that at sea the hours seem very long; the slightest distractions are precious, and one is very glad to have always at one's beck and call a species of buffoon endowed with imperturbable good humor. As to the chevalier, he hid under a laughing and careless mask, a sad preoccupation; the end of his journey drew near; the words of Father Griffen had been too sensible, too sincere, too just not to strongly impress our adventurer, who had counted upon passing a joyous life at the expense of the colonists. The coldness with which many of the passengers, returning to Martinique, treated him, completed the ruin of his hopes. In spite of the talents which he developed and which amused them, none of these colonists made the slightest advance to the chevalier, although he repeatedly declared he would be delighted to make a long exploration into the interior of the island. The end of the voyage came; the last illusions of Croustillac were destroyed; he saw himself reduced to the deplorable alternative of forever traversing the ocean with Captain Daniel, or of returning to France to encounter the rigors of the law. Chance suddenly offered to the chevalier the most dazzling mirage, and awakened in him the maddest hopes. The Unicorn was not more than two hundred leagues from Martinique when they met a French trading vessel coming from that island and sailing for France. This vessel lay to and sent a boat to the Unicorn for news from Europe. In the colonies all was well for some weeks past; not a single English man-of-war had been seen. After exchanging other news, the two vessels separated. "For a vessel of such value (the passengers had estimated her worth at about four hundred thousand francs) she is not very well armed," said the chevalier, "and would be a good prize for the English." "Bah!" returned a passenger with an envious air, "Blue Beard can afford to lose such a vessel as that." "Yes, truly; there would still remain enough money to buy and arm others." "Twenty such, if she desired," said the captain. "Oh, twenty, that is a good many," said another. "Faith, without counting her magnificent plantation at Anse aux Sables, and her mysterious house at Devil's Cliff," returned a third, "do they not say she has five or six millions of gold and precious stones hidden somewhere?" "Ah, there it is! hidden no one knows where!" exclaimed Captain Daniel; "but one thing sure, she _has_ them, for I have it from old father 'Wide-awake,' who had once seen Blue Beard's first husband at Devil's Cliff (which husband, they say, was young and handsome as an angel). I have it from Wide-awake that Blue Beard on this day amused herself by measuring in a bowl, diamonds, pearls and emeralds; now, all these riches are still in her possession, without counting that her third and last husband, as they say, was very rich, and that all his fortune was in gold dust." "People say she is so avaricious that she expends for herself and household only ten thousand francs a year," continued a passenger. "As to that, it is not certain," said Captain Daniel; "no one knows how she lives, because she is a stranger in the colony, and not four persons have ever put their feet inside Devil's Cliff." "Truly; and lucky it is so; I am not the one who would have the curiosity to go there," said another; "Devil's Cliff does not enjoy a very good reputation; they do say that strange things take place there." "It is certain that it has been struck by lightning three times." "That does not surprise me; and strange cries, they say, are heard round the house." "It is said that it is built like a fortress, inaccessible, among the rocks of the Cabesterre." "That is natural if Blue Beard has so great a treasure to guard." Croustillac heard this conversation with great curiosity. These treasures, these diamonds, were pictured in his imagination. "Of whom do you speak, gentlemen?" he said. "We are speaking of Blue Beard." "Who is this Blue Beard?" "Blue Beard? Well, it is--Blue Beard." "But is this a man or a woman?" said the chevalier. "Blue Beard?" "Yes, yes," said Croustillac impatiently. "'Tis a woman." "How, a woman? and why, then, call her Blue Beard?" "Because she gets rid of her husbands as easily as Blue Beard of the old story got rid of his wives." "And she is a widow? She is a widow! Oh," cried the chevalier, clapping his hands while his heart beat rapidly, "a widow! rich beyond belief; rich enough to make one dizzy only to try to estimate her wealth--a widow!" "A widow; so much of a widow that she is such for a third time in three years," said the captain. "And is she as rich as they say?" "Yes, that is conceded; all the world knows it," replied the captain. "Worth millions; rich enough to fit out vessels worth four hundred thousand livres; rich enough to have sacks of diamonds and emeralds and fine pearls!" cried the Gascon, whose eyes sparkled and nostrils dilated, while his hands clinched. "But I tell you that she is rich enough to buy Martinique and Guadeloupe if she were so pleased," said the captain. "And old? very old?" asked the Gascon, uneasily. His informer looked at the other passengers with a questioning air. "What age should you say Blue Beard was?" "Faith, I do not know," said one. "All I know," said another, "is that when I came to the colony two years ago she had already had her second husband, and had a third in view, who only lived a year." "As to her third husband, it is said that he is not dead, but has disappeared," said a third. "He is certainly dead, however, because Blue Beard has been seen wearing a widow's garb," said a passenger. "No doubt, no doubt," continued another; "the proof that he is dead is that the parish priest of Macouba was instructed, in the absence of Father Griffen, to say the mass for the dead, for him." "And it would not be surprising if he had been assassinated," said another. "Assassinated? by his wife, no doubt?" said still another voice with an emphasis that spoke little in favor of Blue Beard. "Not by his wife!" "Ah, ah, that is something new!" "Not by his wife? and by whom, then?" "By his enemies in the Barbadoes." "By the English colonists?" "Yes, by the English, because he was himself English." "Is it so, then, sir; the third husband is dead, really dead?" asked the chevalier anxiously. "Oh, as to being dead--he is that," exclaimed several in chorus. Croustillac drew a long breath; a moment's thought, and his hopes resumed their audacious flight. "But the age of Blue Beard?" he persisted. "Her age--as to that I can satisfy you; she must be anywhere from twenty, yes, that is about it, from twenty to sixty years," said Captain Daniel. "Then you have not seen her?" said the Gascon, impatient under this raillery. "Seen her? I? And why the devil should you suppose I had seen Blue Beard?" asked the captain. "Are you mad?" "Why?" "Listen, my friends," said the captain to his passengers; "he asks me if I have seen Blue Beard." The passengers shrugged their shoulders. "But," continued Croustillac, "what is there astonishing in my question?" "What is there astonishing?" said the captain. "Yes." "Hold; you come from Paris, do you not? and is Paris not much smaller than Martinique?" "Without doubt." "Very well; have you seen the executioner at Paris?" "The executioner? No, but why such a question?" "Very well; once for all, understand that no one is any more curious to see Blue Beard than to see the executioner, sir. Beside, the house in which she lives is situated in the midst of the wilds of Devil's Cliff, where one does not care to venture. Then an assassin is not an agreeable companion, and Blue Beard has too bad associates." "Bad associates?" said the chevalier. "Yes, friends; friends of the heart; not to go into the matter any further, it is a saying that it is not well to encounter them by night on the plain; by night in the woods; or after sunset under the lee of the island," said the captain. "'Whirlwind'--the filibuster first," said one of the passengers with an affrighted air. "Or 'Rend the Soul'--the buccaneer of Marie-Galande," said another. "Or 'Youmäale,' the Caribbean cannibal of the lake of the Caimans," continued a third. "What?" cried the chevalier, "does Blue Beard coquette at the same time with a filibusterer, a buccaneer, and a cannibal? Bah! what a woman!" "So they say, sir." CHAPTER III. THE ARRIVAL. These singular revelations concerning the morals of Blue Beard made a great impression upon the chevalier. After some moments of silence he asked the captain, "Who is this man, this filibuster whom they term the Whirlwind?" "A mulatto from San Domingo, they say," replied Captain Daniel, "one of the most determined filibusters of the Antilles; he has dwelt in Martinique for the past two years, in a solitary house, where he lives now like an alderman." "And you think that this bully is favored by Blue Beard?" "They say that all the time that he does not pass at his own house, he is at Devil's Cliff." "This proves at least that Blue Beard has never loved sentimental swains!" said the chevalier. "Well, but the buccaneer?" "Faith," cried one of the passengers, "I do not know if I would not rather have the Whirlwind for an enemy than the buccaneer 'Rend-your-soul!'" "Zounds! there is at least a name which holds possibilities," said Croustillac. "And which fulfills them," said the passenger, "for him I have seen." "And is he so terrible?" "He is certainly as ferocious as the wild boars or the bulls which he hunts. I will tell you about him. It is now about a year since I was going to his ranch in the Great Tari, in the northern part of Martinique, to purchase of him some skins of wild cattle. He was alone with his pack of twenty hounds who looked as wicked and savage as himself. When I arrived he was anointing his face with palm oil, for there was not a portion of it that was not blue, yellow, violet or purple." "I have had these irridescent shades from a blow on the eye, but----" "Exactly, sir. I asked him what had caused this, and this is what he told me: 'My hounds, led by my assistant, had flung themselves upon a two-year-old bull; he had passed me, and I had sent a ball into his shoulder; he bounded into a thicket; the dogs followed. While I was reloading, my assistant came up, fired, and missed the bull. My boy, seeing himself disarmed, sought to cut at the bull's legs, but it gored him and stamped him underfoot. Placed as I was, I could not fire at the animal for fear of finishing my man. I took my large buccaneer's knife and threw myself between them. I received a blow of its horn which ripped up my thigh, a second broke this arm (showing me his left arm, which was suspended in a sling); the bull continued to attack me; as there remained but the right hand that was of any use, I watched my opportunity, and at the instant when the animal lowered his head to rip me up, I seized him by the horns and drew him within reach, and seized his lip with my teeth, and would no more let go than an English bulldog, while my dogs worried his sides.'" "But this man is a blockhead," said Croustillac, contemptuously. "If he has no other means of pleasing--faith, I pity his mistress." "I have told you that he was a species of savage animal," replied the narrator, "but to continue my story. 'Once wounded on the lips,' said the buccaneer, 'a bull falls. At the end of five minutes, blinded by the loss of blood (for my bullets had done their work), the bull fell on his knees and rolled over; my dogs sprang upon him, seized him by the throat, and finished him. The struggle had weakened me; I had lost a great deal of blood; for the first time in my life I fainted just like a girl. And what do you suppose my dogs had been at during my swoon? They had amused themselves by devouring my servant! They were so sharp and well-trained.' 'How,' said I to Rend-your-soul, terrified, 'because your dogs have devoured your servant, does that prove that they are well-trained?' I declare, sir," continued the passenger who had related this story of the buccaneer to the Gascon, "I looked with considerable alarm upon these ferocious animals who walked round and round me and smelt at me in a manner far from reassuring." "The fact is, such customs as these are brutal," said Croustillac, "and it would be a mistake to address such a man of the woods in the beautiful language of gallantry. But what the devil can he indulge in in the way of conversation with Blue Beard?" "God forbid I should act as eavesdropper," exclaimed the passenger. "When Rend-your-Soul has said to Blue Beard, 'I have seized a bull on the lips, and my dogs have devoured my servants,'" replied the Gascon, "the conversation would languish; and zounds! one cannot always be feeding a man to the dogs in order to furnish entertainment." "In faith, one cannot tell," said a listener; "these men are capable of anything." "But," said Croustillac, "such an animal can know nothing about small courtesies; flowery language always takes the ladies." "No, certainly," replied the narrator, whom we suspect of a slight exaggeration of the facts, "for he swears enough to sink the island; and he has a voice like the bellowing of a bull." "That is easily accounted for; from frequenting their society he has acquired their accent," said the chevalier; "but let us hear the end of your story, I beg." "Here it is. I demanded then of the buccaneer how he dared assert that dogs who would devour a man were well trained. 'Doubtless,' replied he, 'my dogs are trained never to insert a tooth in a bull when he is down, for I sell the skins, and they must be intact. Once the bull is dead these poor brutes, hungry though they be, have the sense to respect it, and to await its being skinned. Now this morning their hunger was infernal; my servant was half dead and covered with blood. He was very inhuman toward them; they began, no doubt, by licking his wounds; then, as it is said the appetite increases with what it is fed on, this made the mouths of the poor brutes water. Finally, they did not leave a bone of my servant. Had it not been for the bite of a serpent which nipped sharply but which was not venomous, I might have remained in my swoon. I recovered consciousness; I wrenched the snake from my right leg, round which it had coiled itself, I took it by the tail, I whirled it like a sling and I crushed its head on the trunk of a guava tree. I examined myself; I had a thigh ripped open and an arm broken; I bound the wound in my thigh with fresh leaves and secured them by a vine. As to my left arm, it was broken between the elbow and the wrist. I cut three little sticks and a long creeper and I tied it up like a roll of tobacco. Once my wounds dressed, I sought for my servant, for I could not see him. I called him, there was no answer. My dogs were crouched at my feet; they appeared so innocent, the cunning creatures! and looked at me as they wagged their tails as if nothing was wrong. Finally I arose, and what should I see at twenty paces distance but the remains of my servant. I recognized his powder-horn and the sheath of his knife. That was all that remained of him, I tell you this to prove to you that my dogs are very snappish and well-trained; for they will not injure a hair on the bull's skin.'" "There, there! the buccaneer exceeds the filibuster," said Croustillac. "I can only say that Blue Beard is greatly to be pitied for not having had, up to this time, but an alternative of two such brutes." And the Gascon continued compassionately, "It is very easy to understand, this poor woman has not an idea of what constitutes a gentleman; when one has all one's life fed on lard and beans, one cannot conceive of anything as fine, as delicate as a pheasant or an ortolan. Zounds! I see it has been reserved to me to enlighten Blue Beard on a variety of things, and to discover to her a new world. As to the Caribbean, is he worthy of figuring at the side of his ferocious rivals?" "Oh, as to the Caribbean," said one of the passengers, "I can speak from knowledge. I made this winter in his canoe the journey from Anse aux Sable to Marie-Galande. I was pressed to reach this latter place. The Rivière des Saints had overflowed, and I was compelled to make a great circuit in order to find a place which could be forded. At the moment when I embarked, I saw at the prow of the boat of Youmäale a kind of brown figure. I drew near; what did I see? My God! the head and arms dried to that of a mummy, forming the figurehead as an ornament for his canoe! We started on our voyage, the Caribbean silent, like the savage that he was, paddled without uttering a word. Arriving off the Caribbean Island, where a Spanish brigantine had stranded some months previous, I asked him, 'Is it not here that the Spanish vessel was wrecked?' The Caribbean nodded an assent. It would be as well to say here that on board this vessel was the reverend Father Simon of Foreign Missions. His reputation for sanctity was such that it had reached even the Caribbeans; the brigantine had been wrecked, passengers and cargo--at least such was believed to be the case. I said then to the Caribbean, 'Is it there that Father Simon perished--you have heard of it?' He made me another affirmative sign with his head, for these people never speak an unnecessary word. 'He was an excellent man,' I continued. 'I have eaten him,' replied this wretched idolater, with a kind of ferocious and satisfied pride. "That was one method of enjoying a person," said Croustillac, "and of sharing his qualities." "For a moment," replied the passenger, "I did not understand what this horrible cannibal was saying, but when I had compelled him to explain himself, I learned that in accordance with I know not what savage ceremony, the missionary and two sailors who had escaped to a desert island had been surprised by the cannibals and eaten at once! When I reproached Youmäale for this barbarous atrocity, saying that it was frightful to have sacrificed these three unhappy Frenchmen to their ferocity, he replied, sententiously, and in a tone of approbation, as if he would prove to me that he understood the force of my arguments in classing, if not to their value, at least according to the flavor of three different nationalities. 'You are right: a Spaniard never, a Frenchman often, an Englishman always!'" "This would prove that an Englishman is incomparably more delicate than a Frenchman, and that a Spaniard is as tough as the devil," said Croustillac; "but this gourmand will finish some day by devouring Blue Beard when caressing her. If all this be true----" "It is true, sir." "It follows then positively that this young or old widow is not insensible to the ferocious attractions of Rend-your-soul and of the cannibal?" "Public opinion accuses her thus." "Are they often with her?" "All the time Whirlwind is not engaged in privateering, that Rend-your-soul is not hunting, and Youmäale is not in the woods, they pass with Blue Beard." "Without becoming jealous of each other?" "It is said that Blue Beard is as despotic as the Sultan of Turkey, and she forbids their being jealous." "Faith! what a seraglio she has! But listen, gentlemen: you know that I am a Gascon; that they accuse us of exaggerating and you would ridicule----" But Captain Daniel interposed, with a serious air, which could not be feigned, "When we arrive at Martinique ask the first creole whom you meet as to this Blue Beard; and may St. John, my patron saint, curse me if you will not hear concerning Blue Beard and her three friends the same thing." "And as to her immense wealth, will they also speak to me of that?" asked the chevalier. "They will tell you that the plantation where Devil's Cliff is situated is one of the most beautiful in the island, and that Blue Beard possesses a counting house at Fort St. Pierre, and that this counting house, managed by a man in her employ, sends out each year five or six vessels like the one we have just passed." "I see how it is, then," said the chevalier in raillery. "Blue Beard is a woman who is weary of riches and the pleasures of this world; in order to distract her thoughts, she is capable of entertaining a buccaneer, a filibuster, and even a cannibal, if her heart so dictates." "That it pleases her is evident in that she is never bored," replied the captain. At this moment Father Griffen mounted to the deck. Croustillac said to him, "Father, I have told these gentlemen that we are accused, we Gascons, of telling fibs, but is what they say of Blue Beard the truth?" The face of Father Griffen, ordinarily placid and joyful, took on a darker hue at once, and he replied gravely to the adventurer, "My son, never breathe the name of this woman." "But, Father, is it true? She replaces her deceased husbands by a filibuster, a buccaneer and a cannibal?" "Enough, enough, my son," returned the priest, "I pray you do not speak of Devil's Cliff and what goes on there." "But, Father, is this woman as rich as they say?" pursued the Gascon, whose eyes were snapping with covetousness; "has she such immense treasures? Is she beautiful? Is she young?" "May heaven defend me from ascertaining!" "Is it true that her three husbands have been murdered by her, father? If this be true, how is it that the law has not punished such crimes?" "There are crimes that may escape the justice of men, my son, but they never escape the justice of God. I do not know, however, if this woman is as culpable as they say, but still I say, do not speak of her, my son, I implore you," said Father Griffen, whom this interview seemed to affect most painfully. Suddenly the chevalier assumed a resolute attitude, pulled his hat down over his forehead, caressed his mustache, balanced himself on his toes like a barnyard fowl preparing for combat, and cried with an audacity of which a Gascon alone is capable, "Gentlemen, tell me the day of the month." "The 13th of July," replied the captain. "Well, gentlemen," continued our adventurer, "may I lose the name of De Croustillac, may my coat of arms be forever smirched with disgrace, if in one month from this very day, in spite of all the buccaneers, filibusters or cannibals in Martinique or in the world, Blue Beard is not the wife of Polyphème de Croustillac!" That evening when they went down to the saloon the adventurer was taken aside by Father Griffen; he sought by every possible means to ascertain if the Gascon knew more than he appeared to, concerning the surroundings of Blue Beard. The extraordinary persistence with which Croustillac occupied himself with her and the men about her had aroused the suspicions of the good priest. After speaking at some length on the subject with the chevalier, the priest was almost certain that Croustillac had not spoken other than by presumption and vanity. "It matters not," said Father Griffen, "I'll not lose sight of this adventurer; he has the appearance of an empty-headed fool, but traitors know how to assume all guises. Alas!" continued he sadly, "this last voyage imposes upon me great obligations toward those who dwell at Devil's Cliff. Meantime, their secret is, so to speak, mine, but I have done what I could; my conscience approves. May they long enjoy the happiness they deserve, of escaping from the snares set for them. Ah! what dangerous enemies kings are, and one often pays dearly for the doubtful honor of being born on the steps of a throne. Alas!" went on the priest with a profound sigh, "poor angelic woman, it rends my heart to hear her thus spoken of, but it would be impolitic to defend her. These rumors are the preservation of the noble creatures in whom I am so deeply interested." After considering awhile Father Griffen said to himself, "I at first took this adventurer to be a secret emissary from England, but I am doubtless deceived. Nevertheless, I will watch this man. In fact, I will offer him the hospitality of my house; thus his movements will not escape me. In any case, I will warn my friends at Devil's Cliff to redouble their prudence, for, I know not why, the presence of this Gascon disturbs me." We will here hasten to inform the reader that the suspicions of Father Griffen, so far as Croustillac was concerned, were without foundation. The chevalier was nothing more than the poor devil of an adventurer which we have shown him to be. The excellent opinion he held of himself was the sole cause of his impertinent wager of espousing Blue Beard before the end of the month. CHAPTER IV. THE PRIEST'S HOUSE. The Unicorn had anchored at Martinique three days. Father Griffen, having some matters requiring his attention before his return to his parish of Macouba, had not as yet quitted Fort St. Pierre. The Chevalier de Croustillac found himself landed in the colonies with but very little money in his pocket. The captain and passengers had considered the adventurer's declaration that before a month had passed he would be the husband of Blue Beard, as an idle boast. Far from having given up the idea, the chevalier persisted in it more and more since his arrival in Martinique; he had carefully informed himself as to the riches of Blue Beard, and was convinced that, if the life of this strange woman was surrounded with the profoundest mystery, and she the subject of the wildest exaggeration, it was at least true that she was enormously wealthy. As to her face, age and origin, as no one had on this point as much knowledge as Father Griffen, nothing could be affirmed. She was a stranger in the colony. Her man of business had come in advance to the island in order to purchase a magnificent estate and to build the mansion at Devil's Cliff, situated in the northern and most inaccessible and wildest portion of Martinique. At the end of several months it became known that the new proprietor and his wife had arrived. One or two of the colonists, impelled by their curiosity, had penetrated into the solitude of Devil's Cliff; they were received with a royal hospitality, but they did not see the owners of the place. Six months after this visit, news was received of the death of the first husband, which occurred during a short visit taken by the couple to Terre-Ferme. At the end of one year of absence and widowhood, Blue Beard returned to Martinique with a second husband. It was said that this latter was killed, accidentally, while taking a walk with his wife; his foot slipped and he fell into one of those bottomless abysses which are so common in the volcanic soil of the Antilles. Such was, at least, the explanation that his wife gave concerning his mysterious death. No one knew anything positive concerning the third husband of Blue Beard and his death. These three deaths, so close together, so mysterious, caused strange stories to be circulated regarding this woman, and reached the ears of the Governor of Martinique, who was then Chevalier de Crussol; he started with an escort for Devil's Cliff; arriving at the foot of the thickly-wooded ascent, on the summit of which towered the mansion, he found a mulatto who gave him a letter. After reading this letter, the governor showed great surprise, and ordering his escort to await his return, he followed the slave, alone. At the expiration of four hours the governor returned with his guide, and immediately retraced his steps to St. Pierre. Some of those who formed his escort remarked that he was very pale and very much agitated. From that moment until the day of his death, which occurred thirteen months to the very day after his visit to Devil's Cliff, no one ever heard him pronounce the name of Blue Beard. The governor made a long confession to Father Griffen, who came to him from Macouba. It was observed that in leaving the penitent, Father Griffen appeared to have received a great shock. From that time the kind of fatal and mysterious reputation which had attached itself to the name of Blue Beard increased day by day. Superstition mingled with the terror which she inspired, until her name was never mentioned without terror; it was firmly believed that she had assassinated her three husbands, and that she had escaped punishment by law only through the power of her wealth, thus purchasing the support of the different governors who succeeded each other in turn. No one, then, was tempted to trouble Blue Beard with visits to the wild and solitary place in which she dwelt, above all since the cannibal, the buccaneer and the privateer had come, as they said, to be companions or consolers to the widow. Whether or not these men had ever legally rendered themselves liable for any crime, it was asserted that they pursued with an implacable hatred and vengeance all who attempted to come near Blue Beard. By reason of being repeated and exaggerated, these threats bore their fruit. The islanders care little to go, perhaps at the peril of their lives, to penetrate into the mysteries of Devil's Cliff. It required the desperate audacity of a Gascon in extremity, to attempt to surprise the secret of Blue Beard and undertake to espouse her. Such was possibly the fixed design of the Chevalier de Croustillac; he was not a man to renounce so easily the hope, insane as it was, of marrying a woman worth millions; beautiful or plain, young or old, it mattered little to him. As a means to success, he counted upon his good carriage, his spirit, his amiability, and his manner, at the same time gallant and proud--for the chevalier had an excellent opinion of himself--but he counted still more on his wit, his cunning, and his courage. In fine, a man alert and determined, who had nothing to lose and feared nothing, who believed implicitly in himself and his star; who could say to himself as did Croustillac, "In risking death during a moment--for death can be but a moment's agony--I _may_ live in luxury and opulence"--such a man can perform miracles above all when he undertakes a project with such a grand object and as stimulating as that proposed by Croustillac. According to his resolve, Father Griffen, after he had brought to a close the affairs which detained him at St. Pierre, invited the chevalier to accompany him to Macouba, to remain there until the Unicorn should sail again for France. Macouba being distant not more than four or five leagues from Devil's Cliff, the chevalier, who had spent his three crowns and who found himself without resources, accepted the offer of the worthy priest, without further enlightening him as to his resolve concerning Blue Beard; this he would not reveal until the moment arrived to put it into execution. After taking leave of Captain Daniel, the chevalier and the priest embarked in a small boat. Favored by a good wind from the south, they set sail for Macouba. Croustillac appeared indifferent to the magnificent and novel scenes which were afforded by the coast of Martinique, seen from the water; the tropical vegetation whose verdure, of a tone almost metallic, outlined on a glowing sky, affected him very little. The adventurer, with his eyes fixed on the scintillating wake which the boat left behind her, seemed to see flashing the living rays of Blue Beard's diamonds; the little green herbs, standing in relief from the submerged meadows which edged the winding shores, pictured to the Gascon the emeralds of the widow; while some drops of water sparkled in the sun in the fall of the oars made him dream of the sacks of pearls which the terrible resident at Devil's Cliff possessed. Father Griffen was also deeply absorbed; after thinking of his friends at Devil's Cliff, he turned his thoughts, with a mixture of disquietude and joy, to his little flock at home, his garden, his poor and unpretentious church, his house, his favorite horse, his dog, and his two slaves who had always given him the most devoted service. And then--shall we say it?--he thought of certain preserves which he had made some days before his departure, and as to the condition of which he was ignorant. In three hours our travelers arrived at Macouba. Father Griffen had not long to wait; the canoe was moored in a little bay, not far from the river which watered this section, one of the most fertile of Martinique. Father Griffen leaned upon the chevalier's arm. After having for a time followed the shore where the high and powerful waves of the Caribbean Sea rolled on, they reached the village of Macouba, composed of some hundred houses built of wood and covered with roses and palms. The village was built on a semicircular plan which followed the outline of the Bay of Macouba, a little port where many canoes and fishing boats were built. The church was a long wooden edifice from the center of which four beams arose, surmounted by a little belfry in which was hung a bell; the church overlooked the village, and was in turn overshadowed by immense cliffs, covered by rich vegetation, which made an amphitheatre of living green. The sun was rapidly setting. The priest trod the only street that crossed Macouba, and which led to the church. Some small negroes, absolutely nude, were rolling in the dust; uttering loud cries; they fled at the approach of the priest. A number of creole women, white or of mixed blood, dressed in long robes of Indian and madras cloth, in striking colors, ran to the doors; recognizing Father Griffen, they testified to their surprise and joy; young and old hastened to respectfully kiss his hand, and to say in creole, "Blessed is your return, good Father; you have been missed in Macouba." Numbers of men came out at once and surrounded Father Griffen, with the same tokens of attachment and respect. While the priest talked with the villagers of the events which had taken place at Macouba during his absence, and in turn gave them news of France, the housewives, fearing that the good father would not find sufficient provision at the parsonage, had retired to select, one a fine fish, another a beautiful pullet; this one the quarter of a fine fat buck, that one some fruits or vegetables, and a number of little negroes were ordered to carry to the parsonage these voluntary tithes. The priest reached his house, situated on one side, at some distance from the village, overlooking the sea. Nothing could be more simple than this modest wooden house, covered with roses, and of one story. Curtains of clear linen dressed the windows and took the place of blinds, which were a great luxury in the colonies. A large room, comprising at the same time parlor and dining room, communicated with the kitchen built at the rear; at the left of this principal room were the bedroom of Father Griffen, and two other small rooms opening into the garden and set apart for strangers or the other priests of Martinique who might, at times, ask the hospitality of their brother priest. A henhouse, a stable for the horse, lodgings for two negroes, and several sheds, completed this establishment, furnished with a rustic simplicity. The garden had been carefully laid out. Four broad paths were divided by many beds bordered by thyme, lavender, wild thyme, hyssop and other fragrant plants. The four principal beds were subdivided into numerous little ones set apart for vegetables or fruits, but surrounded by wide borders of fragrant flowers. Between two little walls of verdure, covered with Arabian jasmine and odorous creepers, could be seen, in the horizon, the sea and the hills of the other islands. No fresher or more charming spot than this garden, in which the most beautiful flowers mingled with fruits and magnificent vegetables, could be found. Here a bed of melons, of an amber color, was bordered by dwarf pomegranates, shaped like a small box and covered at the same time with purple blossoms and fruit so heavy and so abundant that it touched the earth. A little further on, a branch of Angola wood with its long, green husks, and its blue flowers, was surrounded by a line of white and pink almonds, sweet with perfume; the carrot plant, sorrel, gimgambo and leek, were hidden in a fourfold rank of tuberoses of the richest tints; finally, came a square of pineapples which perfumed the air, having a row of magnificent cacti for a border, with yellow calix and long silver pistils. Behind the house extended an orchard composed of cocoanuts, bananas, guava, tamarind, and orange trees, whose branches were weighted down to the earth with flowers and fruit. Father Griffen followed the paths of his garden with unspeakable happiness, observing each flower, plant and tree. His two slaves attended him; one was called Monsieur, the other Jean. These two good creatures, weeping with joy at the sight of their master, could not reply to his questions, so much affected were they, and could only say one to the other, with hands raised to heaven, "God be praised--he is here! he is here!" The chevalier, indifferent to the joy of the natives, followed the priest mechanically; he was consumed with the desire to inquire of his host if, through the woods which rose in an amphitheatre, one could see the road to Devil's Cliff. After examining his garden, the good priest went out to inspect his horse which he had named Grenadille, and his large English mastiff called Snog; as soon as he opened the stable door Snog threw himself upon his master and bounded around him. He not only jumped upon him but barked with joy, with such evidence of affection that the negro, Monsieur, was obliged to take the dog by his collar and could with difficulty restrain him, while the priest caressed Grenadille, whose glossy coat and well-covered ribs bore testimony to the good care of Monsieur, who had charge of the stable. After this thorough visit through his little domain, Father Griffen conducted the chevalier into the bedroom which he had intended for him. A bed draped with a mosquito-netting under a linen canopy, a large bureau of mahogany wood, and a table, was the furnishing of this room, which opened upon the garden. Its only ornament was a crucifix suspended from the center of the slightly roughened wainscot. "You will find here a poor and modest hospitality," said Father Griffen to the chevalier, "but it is offered you with a good heart." "And I accept it with gratitude, Father," said Croustillac. At this moment Monsieur came to announce that supper was ready, and Father Griffen led the way to the dining room. CHAPTER V. THE SURPRISE. A large glass wherein burned a candle of yellow wax, lighted the table; the dishes were placed on a table cloth of coarse but very white linen. There was no silver; the steel knives, and spoons of maple wood, were of great neatness. A bottle of blue glass contained about a pint of canary; in a large pewter pot bubbled the _oagou_, a fermented beverage made from the grain of sugar cane; a sealed earthen vessel held water, as fresh as if it were iced. A fine dorado grilled in its scales (a Caribbean dish), a roasted paroquet of the size of a pheasant, two dishes of sea crabs cooked in the shell and served with sauce of the citron juice, and a salad of green peas, had been symmetrically placed on the table by the negro Jean, around a centerpiece composed of a large basket containing a pyramid of fruit, which had at its base a European melon, a watermelon, and at its summit a pineapple; there was a side dish of sliced palm-cabbage dressed with vinegar, and little whitefish preserved in spiced pickle, which would tempt the appetite of the guests or excite their thirst. "You are treating me with royal magnificence, Father," said the chevalier to the priest. "This island is the 'promised land,' surely." "With the exception of the canary wine, which was a gift, my son, all this is the product of the garden which I cultivate, or the fishing and hunting of my two slaves, for the offerings of my parish are superfluous, thanks to the foresight of Monsieur and Jean, who were advised of my arrival by a sailor at Fort St. Pierre. Help yourself to this paroquet, my son," said the priest to the chevalier, who appeared to find the fish very much to his taste. Croustillac hesitated a moment and looked at the priest in an uncertain manner. "I do not know why, but it seems strange to eat a paroquet," said the chevalier. "Try it, try it," responded the priest, and he placed a wing on his plate. "Is a pheasant's flesh more plump or more golden? It is cooked to a marvel; and then, did you ever smell anything more appetizing?" "I should say four spices are employed," said the chevalier, inhaling the odor. "It is claimed that these birds are very fond of the berry of the Indian trees which they find in the forest; these trees have at once the taste of cinnamon, clove and pepper, and the flesh of the game partakes of the scent of this aromatic tree. How this juice is flavored. Add a little of the orange sugar, and then tell me if the Lord has not blessed his creatures in bestowing such gifts upon them?" "In all my life I have never eaten anything more tender, more delicate or more savory than this," replied the chevalier, with full mouth, and half shutting his eyes in sensual enjoyment. "Is it not good?" said the good priest, who, knife and fork in hand, looked at his guest with satisfied pride. The repast ended, Monsieur placed a pot of tobacco and pipes at the side of the bottle of canary, and Father Griffen and Croustillac were then left alone. After filling a glass of wine and passing it to the chevalier, the priest said to him, "Your health, my son." "Thanks, father," said the chevalier, lifting his glass. "Drink also to the health of my future bride; it will be a good omen for me." "How? your future bride?" replied the priest; "what do you mean?" "I allude to Blue Beard, father." "Ah--always jesting! Frankly, I believe the men of your province are most inventive, my son," said Father Griffen, smiling mischievously, and emptying his glass in small doses. "I never spoke more seriously, father. You heard the vow which I made on board the Unicorn?" "Impossibility nullifies a vow, my son; because you should swear to measure the ocean, would you engage to fulfill this oath?" "How, Father--is the heart of Blue Beard as bottomless as the ocean?" gayly exclaimed the chevalier. "An English poet has said of woman, 'Perfidious as the waves,' my son." "However perfidious women may be, my worthy host," said the chevalier with a self-sufficient air, "we men know how to disarm them, and I shall exercise afresh that power in dealing with Blue Beard." "You will not attempt anything of the kind, my son; I am easy on that point." "Allow me to say, father, that you deceive yourself. To-morrow, at daybreak, I shall ask of you a guide to conduct me to Devil's Cliff, and I shall confide the course of this adventure to my Star." The chevalier spoke with so serious an air that Father Griffen hastily placed upon the table the glass which he was raising to his lips, and regarded the chevalier with as much astonishment as distrust. Until then he had really believed the matter to be only a pleasantry or idle boast. "Are you sincere in this resolve? This is absolute madness, but----" "Excuse me, Father, for interrupting you," said the chevalier, "but you see before you the younger son of my family, who has tempted every fortune, wasted all his resources, and with whom nothing has succeeded. Blue Beard is rich, very rich. I have everything to gain, nothing to lose." "Nothing to lose?" "Life, perhaps, you will say. I make a good bargain; and then, barbarous though this country may be, helpless as justice may prove, I do not think that Blue Beard will dare treat me, on my arrival, as she treated her three husbands; if so, you will know that I have fallen a victim; you will demand an account of my death. I risk nothing more than seeing my homage rejected. Ah! well, if such be the case, if she repulses me, I shall continue to delight Captain Daniel during his trips by swallowing lighted candles and balancing bottles on the end of my nose. Certainly such an occupation is honorable and amusing, but I prefer another life. So, then, no matter what you say, Father, I am resolved to attempt the adventure and to go to Devil's Cliff. I cannot tell you what secret presentiment tells me I shall succeed, that I am upon the eve of seeing my destiny fulfill itself in a most wonderful manner. The future seems tinted with rose and gold; I dream only of magnificent palaces, wealth, and beauty; it seems to me (excuse the pagan comparison) that Love and Fortune have come and taken me by the hands and are saying to me, 'Polyphème de Croustillac, happiness awaits thee.' You will say, perhaps, Father," continued the chevalier, throwing a mocking glance at his faded coat, "that I am poorly dressed to present myself in this beautiful and brave company of fortune and happiness; but Blue Beard, who must be intelligent, will comprehend at once that under this outside, the heart of an Amadis, the spirit of a Gascon, and the courage of a Cæsar dwells." After a moment's silence the priest, instead of smiling at the pleasantries of the chevalier, said to him in a tone that was most solemn, "Is your resolve finally taken?" "Unwaveringly and absolutely taken, Father." "Hear me then; I heard the confessions of the Chevalier de Crussol, the former governor of this island; he who, when the third husband of this woman disappeared, went to Devil's Cliff." "Well, father?" "While I must respect the secrets of the confessional, I can, I must, tell you that if you persist in your insane project, you expose yourself to great and unavoidable peril. Without doubt, if you lose your life, your death will not remain unpunished; but there will be no means of preventing the fatal end upon which you would rush. Who obliges you to go to Devil's Cliff? The resident of that place wishes to live in solitude; the barriers of that abode are such that you cannot break them down without violence; for in every country, and above all in this one, he who trespasses upon the property of another exposes himself to grave danger--danger the greater that all idea of a union with this widow is impossible, even if you were of a princely house." These words hurt immeasurably the self-esteem of the Gascon, who exclaimed, "Father, this woman is but a woman, and _I_ am Croustillac." "What do you say, my son?" "That this woman is free; that she has not seen me; that but one look, one only, will change entirely her resolve." "I do not think it." "Reverend Father, I have the greatest, the blindest confidence in your word; I know all its authority; but this concerns the fair sex, and you cannot understand the heart of woman as _I_ understand it, you do not know what inexplicable caprices they are capable of; you do not know that what pleases them to-day displeases them to-morrow; and that they wish for to-day, that which they disdained yesterday. With women, my reverend sir, one must dare in order to succeed. If it were not for your cloth, I would tell you some curious adventures and audacious undertakings by which I have been recompensed amorously!" "My son!" "I understand your sensitiveness, Father, and to return to Blue Beard: once in her presence, I shall treat her not only with effrontery, with haughtiness, but as a victor--I dare say it, as a lion who comes proudly to carry off his prey." These remarks of the chevalier were interrupted by an unforeseen accident. It was very warm; the door of the dining room which looked on the garden was half open. The chevalier, with back turned to this door, was seated in an arm chair with a wooden back which was not very high. A sharp hissing sound was heard and a quick blow vibrated in the middle of the chevalier's chair. At this sound Father Griffen bounded from his chair, rushed and took his gun down from a rack placed in his bedroom, and precipitated himself out of doors, crying, "Jean! Monsieur! Take your guns! Follow me, my children! follow me! The Caribbeans are upon us!" CHAPTER VI. THE WARNING. All this took place so rapidly that the chevalier was dumfounded. "Get up! get up!" cried the priest. "The Caribbeans! Look at the back of your chair--get out of the light!" The chevalier rose quickly, and saw an arrow three feet in length fixed in the back of his chair. Two inches higher and the chevalier would have been pierced through the shoulders. Croustillac seized his sword, which he had left on a chair, and hurried after the priest. Father Griffen, at the head of his two negroes, armed with their guns, and preceded by his mastiff, sought for the enemy; unfortunately, the door of the dining room opened upon a trellised orchard; the night was dark; doubtless the person who had sped the arrow was already far away, or well hidden in the top of some thick tree. Snog bounded hither and thither in the eagerness of his search. Father Griffen recalled his two slaves who were too venturesome and would have penetrated into the orchard. "Well, father, where are they?" said the chevalier, brandishing his sword: "shall we charge upon them? A lantern--give me a lantern; we will visit the orchard and the neighborhood of the house." "No, no, not a lantern, my son, it would serve to point us out to the assailants if there are a number, and you would be too much exposed; you would receive an arrow in you. Come, come," said the priest, lowering his gun after some moments of attentive scrutiny; "it is but an alarm; let us return and thank the Lord for the clumsiness of this cannibal, for if he had not blundered, you would not be here, my son. What astonishes me, and for which I thank God, is that you have escaped; a native so bold as to make such an attempt should have a true eye and a sure hand." "But what harm have you ever done these savages, Father?" "None! I have often been in their settlement at the Isle des Saintes, and have always been properly received; thus I cannot understand the object of this attack. But let us look at this arrow--I shall know from the feather if it is a native arrow." "We must keep a good watch, to-night, Father, and to this end confide in me," said the Gascon. "You see that it is not only in a love affair that I have firmness." "I do not doubt you, my son, and I accept your offer. I will fasten the windows securely against the assassins, and bar the door strongly. Snog will act as picket. It will not be the first time this house has stood a siege; a dozen English pirates attacked it two years ago, but with my slaves and the aid of an official from Cabesterre, who was accidentally at my house, we punished the heretics severely." So saying, Father Griffen entered the dining room, withdrawing with some effort the iron-barbed arrow which stuck in the back of the chair, he exclaimed with surprise, "There is a paper attached to the feather of this arrow!" Then, unfolding it, he read these words, written in a large and bold hand: "Warning number one, to the Chevalier de Croustillac." "To the Rev. Father Griffen, respect and affection." The priest looked at the chevalier without saying a word. He, in turn, took the bit of paper and read it. "What does this mean?" he exclaimed. "It means that I have not been deceived in speaking of the sure aim of the Caribbeans. The person who shot the arrow could have killed you had he so willed. See! this arrow tip is poisoned, doubtless; it entered an inch into the back of this chair of hard wood; if it had struck you, you would be dead. What skill was displayed in thus guiding this arrow!" "Zounds, Father! I find it rather more marvelous that I am not touched," said the Gascon. "But what the devil have I done to this savage?" Father Griffen struck his forehead with his hand. "When I have read you this?" he exclaimed. "Read what, Father?" "Warning number one, to the Chevalier de Croustillac." "Well?" "Well! this warning comes from Devil's Cliff." "You believe it to be so?" "I am sure of it. They have learned of your project and they desire to force you to give it up." "How can they have learned it?" "You did not hide it on board the Unicorn. Some of the passengers, disembarking three days ago at St. Pierre, have spoken of it; this rumor has reached the counting house of Blue Beard and her business manager has informed his employer." "I am forced to confess," replied the chevalier, after a moment's reflection, "that Blue Beard has singular means of corresponding with one. This is a queer little mail." "Ah, well, my son, I hope the lesson will profit you," said the priest. Then he continued, addressing the two slaves who were carrying in the blinds and were about to raise them into place, "It is unnecessary, my children, I see there is nothing to fear." The slaves, accustomed to a blind obedience, took away the impromptu defenses. The chevalier looked at the priest with astonishment. "Without doubt," said the good father, "the word of the dwellers at Devil's Cliff is sacred; I have nothing at present to fear from them, nor you either, my son, because you are warned, and you will necessarily give up your mad plan." "I, Father?" "How----" "May I become blacker this moment than your two negroes if I renounce it." "What do you say--after such a warning?" "Well, who is to tell me that this warning comes from Blue Beard? It may come from a rival--from the buccaneer, the filibuster, or the cannibal. For I have quite a selection among the gallant admirers of the beauty of Devil's Cliff." "Ah, well, what does it signify----" "How? What does it signify, Father? But I intend to show these would-be wits what the blood of a De Croustillac is! Ah! they think to intimidate me! They do not know this sword which, look you, would move in its scabbard! whose steel would blush with indignation if I were to renounce my undertaking!" "My son, this is madness, sheer madness----" "And what a coward, what a sheep, would the Chevalier de Croustillac appear in the eyes of Blue Beard if he were so pusillanimous as to be daunted by so little!" "By so little! but two inches higher and you would have been killed!" "But as it was two inches lower, and I was _not_ killed, I will consecrate my life to taming the willful heart of Blue Beard and to vanquishing my rivals, be they ten, twenty, thirty, one hundred or ten thousand," replied the Gascon, with growing enthusiasm. "But if this act was the order of the mistress of Devil's Cliff?" "If it was done by her order, she shall see, the cruel one, that I will brave the death to which she would send me, in order to reach her heart. She is a woman; she will appreciate such valor. I do not know if she is a Venus but I know that without wronging the god Mars I Polyphème Amador de Croustillac am terribly martial; and from beauty to courage there is but a step." One must imagine the exaggeration and Gascon accent of the chevalier to have an idea of this scene. Father Griffen hardly knew whether to laugh or to be appalled at the opinionated resolve of the chevalier. The secret of the confessional forbade his speaking, from entering into any details concerning Devil's Cliff; he knew not how to induce the chevalier to renounce his fatal intention. He had endeavored to do so, but in vain. "If nothing can withhold you, my son, it cannot be said that I have been, even indirectly, an accomplice in your mad enterprise. You are ignorant of the position of Devil's Cliff; neither myself, nor my slaves, nor, I assure you, any of my parishioners will be your guide. I have instructed them to refuse. Beside the reputation of Blue Beard is such that no one would care to infringe my orders." This declaration of the priest's seemed to make the chevalier reflect. He bent his head in silence then he began again resolutely: "I know that Devil's Cliff is some four leagues from this spot; it is situated in the northern part of the island. My heart will serve as a compass to guide me to the lady of my thoughts, with the assistance of the sun and the moon." "But, madman," cried the priest, "there is no path through the forests which you would traverse; the trees are so thick that they would hide from you the position of the sun--you would be lost." "I shall go right ahead; I shall arrive somewhere. Your island is not so large (be it said without disparaging Martinique), Father; then I shall retrace my steps, and I shall seek until I find Devil's Cliff." "But the soil of the forest is often impassable; it is infested with serpents of the most dangerous species; I say to you that in what you propose, you are courting a thousand deaths." "Ah, well, Father, 'nothing venture, nothing have.' If there are serpents I will get upon stilts after the manner of the natives of my country." "Going to walk on stilts in the midst of creepers, brambles, rocks, trees overturned by storms? I tell you, you do not know our forests." "If one always considered the perils of an undertaking one would never accomplish any good. Did you think of the deadly fevers when you tended those of your parishioners who were attacked with it?" "But my object was a pious one; I risked death in the observance of my duty; while you rush upon yours out of vanity." "Vanity, Father! A companion who has sacks filled with diamonds and fine pearls, and probably five or six millions more in gold! Zounds! what a 'vanity!'" Having seen the futility of overcoming such unparalleled opinionativeness, the good priest said no more. He conducted his guest to the room assigned to him, fully resolved to put every difficulty possible in the way of the chevalier the next day. Inflexible in his resolve, Croustillac slept profoundly. A lively curiosity had come to the aid of a natural obstinacy and an imperturbable confidence in his destiny; the more this confidence had been, till then, disappointed, the more our adventurer believed that the promised hour was about to come to him. The following morning, at break of day, he arose and went on tiptoe to the door of Father Griffen's room. The priest still slept, not thinking for a moment that the chevalier would dream of starting off on a journey through an unknown country without a guide. He deceived himself. Croustillac, in order to escape the solicitation and reproaches of his host, started at once. He girded on his formidable sword, a weapon very inconvenient to travel with through a forest; he jammed his hat well down on his head, took a staff in his hand with which to frighten the serpents, and with firm tread and nose in the air, though with a heart beating rather rapidly, he quitted the hospitable house of the priest of Macouba, and directed his steps toward the north, for some time following the extremely thick vegetation of the forest. He shortly afterward made a circuit of this dense vegetation, which formed an angle toward the east, and stretched indefinitely in that direction. From the moment that the chevalier entered the forest, he did not hesitate in the slightest degree. He recalled the wise counsels of Father Griffen; he thought of the dangers which he was going to encounter; but he also invoked the thought of Blue Beard's treasures; he was dazzled by the heaps of gold, pearls, rubies and diamonds which he believed he saw sparkling and quivering before his eyes. He pictured to himself the owner of Devil's Cliff, a being of perfect beauty. Led on by this vision, he entered resolutely the forest, and pushed aside the heavy screen of creepers which were suspended from the limbs of the trees which they draped. The chevalier did not forget to beat the bushes with his staff, crying out in a loud voice, "Out, ye serpents, out!" With the exception of the voice of the Gascon, there was not a sound. The sun rose; the air, freshened by the plenteous dew of the night, and by the sea breeze, was impregnated with the aromatic odors of the forest, and its tropical flowers. The rest was still plunged in the shadow when the chevalier entered it. For some time the profound silence reigning in this imposing solitude was only broken by the blows of the chevalier's staff on the bushes, and by his repeated cries, "Out, ye serpents, out!" Little by little these sounds grew fainter and then ceased all at once. The gloomy and profound silence which reigned was suddenly broken in upon by a kind of savage howl which had in it nothing human. This sound, and the first rays of the sun trembling on the horizon, like a sheaf of light, appeared to rouse the inhabitants of the great forest. They responded one after another until the uproar became infernal. The chattering of monkeys; the cry of wildcats; the hissing of serpents; the grunts of wild boars; the bellowing of cattle, broke from every direction with a frightful chorus; the echoes of the forest and the cliffs repeated these discordant sounds; one would have supposed a band of demons was responding to a superior demon's call. CHAPTER VII. THE CAVERN. While the chevalier sought a road to Devil's Cliff by which to traverse the forest, we will conduct our readers toward the most southern portion of the coast of Martinique. The sea rolled with slow majesty at the foot of large rocks near a peak which formed a natural defense to this part of the island, and which rose in a perpendicular wall some two hundred feet in height. The continued beating of the waves rendered this coast so dangerous that a vessel could not touch at this place without being, inevitably, broken to pieces. The site of which we speak had a wild and grand simplicity; a wall of barren rocks, of a dull red, was outlined on a sky of sapphire blue; their base was swallowed up in a whirl of snowy foam, hidden by the incessant shock of enormous mountains of water which broke upon these reefs in tones of thunder. The sun with all its strength threw a brilliant, torrid light on this mass of granite; there was not a cloud in the brazen heavens. On the horizon there appeared through a burning vapor the high land of the other Antilles. At some distance from the coast, where the waves broke, the sea was of a somber blue, and as calm as a mirror. An object scarcely perceptible, because it offered little surface above the water, approached rapidly the portion of this island called Cabesterre. Little by little, a long, light canoe was to be distinguished, whose stern and bow cut the sea evenly; this vessel, without sails, was impelled forward by the strength of the waves. On each seat was clearly seen a man vigorously rowing. Whether or not the coast was as unapproachable at three leagues as at this place, it was evident that the canoe was directed toward these rocks. The object of those who were approaching seemed to be hard to understand. Presently the canoe was caught in the midst of the surf beating upon these reefs. Had it not been for the marvelous ability of its pilot, who avoided these masses of water following the frail bark and incessantly menacing it, she would very soon have been swallowed up. At two gunshots from the rocks, the canoe reversed and rested, and took advantage of an interval in the succession of waves, at a moment of calm, which occurred periodically after seven or eight waves had broken into foam. The two men, who by their clothing were easily seen to be European sailors, pressing their caps more securely on their heads, sprang overboard and boldly struck out for the shore while their companions turned at the edge of this calm, regained the open, and disappeared after having braved anew the fury of the mountainous waves with wonderful skill. During this time the two intrepid swimmers, by turn submerged or cast up from the midst of the enormous waves which they adroitly traversed, arrived at the foot of the rocks in the center of a sea of foam. They appeared to be rushing upon certain death, and it looked as if they would be dashed to pieces upon the reefs. Nothing of the sort occurred, however. These two men seemed to perfectly understand the coast; they directed their course toward a place where the violence of the waves had hollowed out a natural grotto. The waves, engulphing themselves under this roof with a horrible din fell back from it in a cataract into a smaller basin, hollow and deep. After some heavy undulations, the waves grew feebler; in the center of a gigantic cavern formed a little subterranean lake which, when full, returned to the sea by some hidden channel. It required great temerity to so abandon themselves to the impulse of these furious waves which precipitated them into the abyss; but this momentary submersion was more frightful than dangerous; the mouth of the cave was so large that there was no danger of being bruised by the rocks, and the cloud of foam threw them into the midst of a peaceful pond, surrounded by a fine, sandy beach. Sifting through the fall of water which bubbled at the entrance of this enormous roof, the light was feeble, soft, and bluish like that of the moon. The two swimmers, breathless, deafened and wounded by the shook of the waves, emerged from the little lake and stretched themselves on the sand, where they rested for some time. The larger of these two men, though he was dressed like a common sailor, was Colonel Rutler, a stanch partisan of the new King of England, William of Orange, under whose orders he had served when the son-in-law of the unfortunate James II. was only a stadtholder of Holland. Colonel Rutler was robust and tall; his face wore an expression of audacity, bordering on cruelty; his hair, lying in close, damp meshes, was of a deep red; his mustache of the same color hid a large mouth overshadowed by a hooked nose, resembling the beak of a bird of prey. Rutler, a faithful and resolute man, served his master with blind devotion. William of Orange had testified his confidence in him by intrusting to him a mission as difficult as it was dangerous, the nature of which we shall know later on. The sailor who accompanied the colonel was slight but vigorous, active and determined. The colonel said to him in English, after a moment's silence, "Are you sure, John, that there is a passage leading from here?" "The passage exists, colonel, be easy on that score." "But I do not perceive any----" "By and by, colonel, when your view shall have become accustomed to this half light, like that of the moon, you will lay yourself down flat on your stomach, and there, at the right, at the end of a long natural passage in which one cannot advance except by crawling, you will perceive the light of day which penetrates through a crevasse in the rock." "If the road is sure, it certainly is not easy." "So far from easy, colonel, that I defy the captain of the brigantine who brought you to the Barbadoes, with his great stomach, to enter the passage which remains for us to travel. It is as much as I could do heretofore to glide through; it is the size of the tunnel of a chimney." "And it leads?" "To the bottom of a precipice which forms a defense for Devil's Cliff; three sides of this precipice are a peak, and it is as impossible to descend as to ascend it; but as to the fourth side, it is not inaccessible, and with the help of the jutting rocks one can reach by this road the limits of the park of Blue Beard." "I understand--this subterranean passage will conduct us to the bottom of the abyss above which towers Devil's Cliff?" "Exactly, colonel; it is as if we were at the bottom of a moat, one of whose sides is perpendicular and the other sloping. When I say sloping, that is simply a figure of speech, for in order to reach the summit of the peak, one must more than once hang suspended by some vine between heaven and earth. But when there, we find ourselves at the edge of the park of Devil's Cliff--once there, we can hide ourselves in some place and wait our opportunity----" "And this opportunity is not far distant; come, come, you, who know so much, must, at one time, have been in the service of Blue Beard!" "I told you, colonel, I came from the coast with her and her first husband; at the end of three months, they sent me back; then I left for San Domingo. I have heard no further word of them." "And she--would you know her well?" "Yes, as to her height and general air, but not her face; for we reached the coast at night, and once on shore she was carried in a litter to Devil's Cliff. When by chance she walked in the daytime, she wore a mask. Some say she is as beautiful as an angel; others, that she is ugly as a monster. I cannot say which are in the right, for neither I nor my mates ever put foot in the interior of the mansion. Those who perform the special attendance and service are mulattresses as mute as fish." "And he?" "He is handsome, tall and slender, about thirty-six years old, brown, with black hair and mustache, and has an aquiline nose." "It is certainly he," said the colonel, when John had thus described him. "It is thus that he was always described; and it is not positively known that he is dead?" "It is said he died on the voyage, but no one has ever really known." "And no one doubts that he died?" "Faith! no, colonel, because Blue Beard has been married twice since then." "And have you seen these two husbands?" "No, colonel, for when I arrived from San Domingo, only eight days since, you engaged me for this expedition, knowing that I could serve you. You have promised me fifty guineas if I will introduce you into this island, in spite of the French cruisers, which, since the war, do not allow any vessels to approach the coast, which is accessible, be it understood. Our canoe, however, was not interfered with, for, thanks to the sharp rocks of Cabesterre, no one could conceive that we could land on this coast of the island, and they have not watched that." "And then, beside, no one would suspect our presence on the island, though, according to what you tell me, Blue Beard has a kind of police who keep her informed of the arrival of all strangers." "At least, colonel, they say that the men who are so employed, at St. Pierre and Fort Royal, were on the watch and that a stranger who landed at Martinique did not escape their vigilance." "All that is for the best; you shall have your fifty guineas. But, once more, you are very sure about this subterranean passage?" "Be easy as to that, colonel; I have passed through it, I tell you, with a negro who was a pearl-fisher, and he it was who first took me through it." "But you were obliged to climb the precipice in order to reach the park of Devil's Cliff?" "Doubtless, colonel; since it was from curiosity to see this park, in which no one was permitted to enter, that I accepted the pearl-fisher's offer; being of the household, I knew Blue Beard and her husband were absent; I was then sure that I could pass through the garden after climbing the precipice; that was what we did, not without the risk of breaking our necks, however, a thousand times, but what would you have? I was dying with curiosity to see the interior of this place, which had been forbidden. It was a perfect paradise. What was most amusing was the surprise of the mulattress who guarded the entrance; when she saw us, myself and the negro, she could not conceive how we had been able to enter. We told her we had escaped her notice. She believed us; she put us out as quickly as possible, and she committed suicide rather than be punished by her employers." After a few minutes' silence the colonel said abruptly, "This is not all; now there is no retreat, I must tell you everything." "What then, colonel?" "Once introduced into Devil's Cliff, we have a man to surprise and overcome; whatever he does to defend himself, a hair of his head must not be harmed, at least, unless he absolutely forces us to protect our lives; then," continued the colonel, with a sinister smile, "then two hundred guineas for you, whether we succeed or not." "A thousand devils! you have waited rather long to say this to me, colonel. But, as the wine is drawn, it must be quaffed." "Come, I did not deceive myself, you are a brave man." "Ah, as to that, is the man whom you seek also strong and brave?" "Well," said Rutler, after some minutes of reflection, "consider a little the first husband of the widow--a man tall and slender." "The devil! he was slender, 'tis true; a rod of steel is, also, slender, but that does not prevent its being furiously strong. See here, colonel, that man was made of iron. He was so strong that I have seen him take an insolent negro by the middle and throw him ten feet from him, as if he were an infant, though the black was larger and more robust than you. So, colonel, if the man you seek resembles that one, we would be unwise to bait him--as you say----" "Less than you believe. I will explain to you----" "And then," continued John, "if by chance the filibuster, the buccanneer or the cannibal who they say frequently visit the widow, should also be there, it would become somewhat embarrassing." "Hear me; after what you have told me is there at the end of the park a tree where one could hide?" "Yes, colonel." "With the exception of the buccaneer, the filibuster or the cannibal no one enters the private habitation of Blue Beard?" "No one colonel except the mulattresses who wait upon her." "And except also the man whom I seek, be it remembered; I have my reasons for believing we shall find him there." "Well, colonel?" "Then nothing is simpler; we will hide ourselves in the thickest tree until our man comes to our side." "That cannot fail to occur colonel because the park is not large and when one walks in it he is forced to pass near a marble basin not very far from the place where we shall be hidden." "If our man does not take a walk after night comes, we will wait until he has gone to bed, and we will surprise him there." "This will be easy, colonel, unless he calls one of Blue Beard's comforters to his succor." "Be easy about that; for with your assistance I can place my hand on him and then though he were surrounded by a hundred men armed to the teeth he is mine; I have a sure means of obliging him to obey me; this concerns me. All that I require of you is to conduct me into the ambush from which I can spring upon him suddenly." "This shall be done, colonel." "Then let us be going," said Rutler, rising from the ground. "At your orders, colonel; but instead of walking, we must creep. But let us see," continued John, bending down, "if we can perceive the daylight. Yes, it is there--but how distant it seems. Speaking of that, colonel, if, since I came by this road, it should have been stopped up by a landslide, we should cut, in such a case, a sorry figure! condemned to remain here, and to die of hunger or to eat each other! Impossible to get out by the gulf, seeing that one cannot remount a sheet of water as a trout ascends a cascade." "That is true," said Rutler, "you appal me; happily, there is no likelihood of this. You have the sack?" "Yes, colonel; the straps are strong and the skin impervious. We shall find our knives, our pistols and our cartridges in it as dry as though they came from an armory." "Then, John, let us be starting; go ahead," said the colonel. "We must have time to dry our clothes." "That will not take long, colonel; once at the foot of the precipice we shall be as in an oven; the sun shines full upon it." John lay down on his face and commenced to glide into the passage, so small that he could scarcely enter. The darkness was profound; in the distance only, one could distinguish a faint light. The colonel followed, dragging himself over a damp and dirty soil. For some time the two Englishmen advanced in this manner, crawling on their knees, on their hands, and on their stomachs, in total darkness. All at once John paused suddenly and cried in a frightened voice, "Colonel!" "What is it?" "Do you not notice a strong odor?" "Yes, a fetid odor." "Do not move; it is the serpent--'Fer de lance'--we are lost." "A serpent!" exclaimed the colonel, with horror. "We are dead. I dare not advance; the odor is growing stronger and stronger," murmured John. "Be quiet--listen." In mortal terror the two men held their breath. All at once at some little distance they heard a continuous, rapid sound, as if something was beating the earth with a flail. The nauseating and penetrating odor which exhales from these large serpents became stronger and stronger. "The serpent is furious; it is his tail which is beating the earth thus," said John in a feeble voice. "Colonel, let us commend our souls to God!" "Let us cry out and terrify the serpent," said Rutler. "No, no, it would but precipitate itself at once upon us," replied John. The two men remained for some moments a prey to the most horrible suspense. They could neither retreat nor change their position. Their chests rested upon the earth; their backs touched the rocks. They dared not make a movement of recoil for fear of drawing the reptile in pursuit of them. The air, more and more impregnated by the infectious odor of the serpent, became suffocating. "Can you not find a stone at hand in order to throw at it," said the colonel in a low tone. Hardly had he said these words when John uttered the most piercing cries and struggled violently, exclaiming, "Help! help! I die!" Paralyzed with terror, Rutler strove to turn about, but he struck himself violently on the head against the side of the passage. Then, retreating as rapidly as he could with the assistance of his knees and hands, he sought flight by backing out, while John, in extremity with the serpent, made the most terrible and pitiful cries of terror and suffering. All at once these cries became fainter and inarticulate, as if the sailor was strangling. In fact, the enraged serpent, after having, in the obscurity, stung John in the hand, the throat and face, attempted to introduce its flat and lance-like head into the open mouth of the unfortunate man, and stung his lips and tongue; but this last assault finished the sailor. The serpent, having satisfied his rage, withdrew his horrible fangs and took to flight. The colonel felt a damp, icy body touch his cheek; he remained motionless. The serpent glided rapidly along the side of the subterranean passage and escaped. The danger past, the colonel remained some moments petrified with terror; he heard the last struggle of John; his agony was short. Rutler heard him make several convulsive shudders and that was all. His companion was dead. Then Rutler advanced and seized the sailor's leg. The leg was already cold and stiff; for the venom of the serpent works rapidly. A new cause for fear assailed the colonel. The serpent, not finding an egress in the cavern, might return the same way it had gone. Rutler seemed already to hear a slight noise behind him. He could not proceed in advance, because the body of the sailor completely blocked the passage; flight by the rear was only to expose himself to an encounter with the serpent. In his terror the colonel seized the corpse by the two legs, to the end that he might drag it to the entrance of the subterranean passage and thus clear the only outlet to the cavern. His efforts were in vain. Whether his strength was paralyzed, he being in such a cramped position, or whether the poison had already distended the body, Rutler could not extricate it. Not wishing to think that this only and last chance for salvation was taken from him, he found a means of detaching his belt and of fastening it to the feet of the dead man; he took it between his teeth, and, aiding himself by his two hands, pulled with all the energy of despair. He could scarcely cause even the slightest movement of the corpse. His terror increased; he sought his knife, in the mad idea of cutting up the body of the sailor. He saw soon the uselessness of this attempt. The pistols and ammunition of the colonel were in the sack of skin swung over the shoulders of the dead man. He set himself to work to remove the sack from his companion; he did so after great difficulty. He then set himself anew to retreat to the entrance of the passage. Once again in the cavern he felt faint, but the air revived him; he plunged his head into the cold water and seated himself on the sand. He had almost forgotten the serpent. A long hiss caused him to raise his head; he saw the reptile balancing itself a few paces above him, half coiled up on the rooks which formed the roof of the cavern. The colonel recovered his coolness at the sight of this danger; remaining almost immovable, and using his hands only, he unfastened his pouch and drew from it a pistol and cocked it. Happily the charge and priming were intact. At the moment that the serpent, irritated by the movement of Rutler, precipitated itself upon him, the latter aimed and fired. The serpent fell at his feet with his head crushed. It was of a blue-black, spotted with yellow, and some eight or nine feet in length. Delivered from this enemy, and encouraged by his success the colonel made a final effort to clear out the only path by which he could pass. He glided anew into the passage, but, in spite of his strength, his efforts were in vain--he could not move the corpse of the sailor. Returning to the cave, he examined it in every direction but could find no outlet. He could not hope for help outside; his shouts could not be heard. At this terrible thought his eyes fell upon the serpent. Here was a momentary resource; he knew that sometimes the famished negroes ate this flesh, which, though repulsive, was not poisonous. Night came, and he found himself in profound darkness. The waves murmured and broke at the entrance of the cave; the waterspout precipitated itself with a crash into the lower basin. A new fear took possession of Rutler. He knew that the serpents went in pairs and often rejoined each other at night; drawn by the tracks, the male or female of the reptile which he had killed would come in search of its mate. The colonel's vigil became frightful. The slightest sound made him tremble, in spite of his courageous nature; he asked himself whether, in case he came through this horrible situation by a miracle, he should continue the enterprise he had commenced. At first he believed that he saw, in this adventure, a warning from heaven; then he accused himself of cowardice, and attributed his mad fears to the feeble condition in which he found himself. Leaving the colonel in this difficult strait, we will transport our reader to Devil's Cliff. CHAPTER VIII. DEVIL'S CLIFF. The moon, brilliant and pure, shed a light almost as strong as the European sun, and enabled one to distinguish perfectly the top of a very high rock, and surrounded by woods on all sides of a dwelling built of brick, and of peculiar architecture. One could reach it only by a narrow path, forming a spiral around this species of cone. The path was bounded on one side by a mass of perpendicular granite; on the other by a precipice of which in the broad daylight one could not discover the bottom. This dangerous road terminated in a platform crossed by a brick wall, of great thickness and edged with spikes. Back of this species of glacis arose the walls surrounding the dwelling, into which one entered by a very low oak door. This door communicated with a large, square court, occupied by the outbuildings and other buildings. This court passed, one discovered a vaulted passageway leading to the sanctuary; that is to say, to the pavilion occupied by Blue Beard. None of the blacks or mulattoes who formed the large force of servants of the house had ever passed the limits of this passageway. The serving of Blue Beard was done through the intermediary of a number of mulattresses, who alone communicated with their mistress. The house was built on a slope opposite the one by which access was had from the cliff. This slope, much less steep, and laid out in a number of natural terraces, was composed of five or six immense steps which, on all sides, commanded the precipice. By a phenomenon frequent in these volcanic islands, a pond of about two acres' circumference covered almost all the length of one of the upper terraces. Its waters were limpid and pure. Blue Beard's residence was separated from this small lake by a narrow path of smooth sand, shining like silver. This house was of one story. At the first glance it seems to be constructed entirely of trees from which the bark had been removed. Its bamboo roof was steeply inclined and overlapped by some five or six feet the outer wall, which rested upon the trunks of palm trees driven into the ground, and formed a kind of gallery around the house. A little above the level of the lake, in gentle declivity, was a lawn of turf as fresh and green as that of the most beautiful English fields; this was a rare thing at the Antilles, and was due to underground irrigation which flowed from the lake and gave to this park a delightful freshness. From this lawn, ornamented by baskets of tropical flowers, opened a garden composed of large variegated shrubs, the slope of the ground being such that one did not see their trunks, but only their enameled tops of the freshest color; then, beyond these trees, on a terrace lower still, was a large orange and citron grove covered with fruit and flowers. In the daytime, seen thus from above, one would have said it was a carpet of perfumed snow strewn with golden balls. At the extreme horizon the slender stems of the banana and cocoanut trees, formed a splendid retreat and overlooked the precipice at the bottom of which was the subterranean passage of which we have spoken, and in which Colonel Rutler was then imprisoned. Meantime, let us enter one of the most remote portions of this mansion. There we will find a young woman of from twenty to twenty-three years; but her features are so infantile, her figure is so tiny, her freshness so youthful, she would easily pass for sixteen. Robed in a muslin gown with flowing sleeves, she is reclining on a sofa covered with Indian silk, brown in color, embroidered with golden flowers; she leans her white forehead on one hand, half-hidden by a wilderness of loose curls of reddish blond tint, for the young woman's hair is dressed _à la Titus_, a profusion of silky curls falls on her neck, her snowy shoulders, and frames her charming little face, rounded, firm and rosy as that of a child. A large book, bound in red morocco, lies at the side of the divan on which she is stretched, and is open before her. The young woman reads attentively, by the light of three perfumed candles, which rest in a little silver gilt candelabra, enriched by exquisite chasing. The eyelashes of the pretty reader are so long that they threw a slight shadow on her cheeks, where are to be seen two charming dimples. Her nose is of a rare delicacy; her mouth curved and crimson, and her beautiful blue eyes large and expressive; her whole face presents a ravishing expression of innocence and candor. From the edge of her muslin gown appear two feet like Cinderella's, shod in white silk hose and Moorish slippers of cherry satin embroidered with silver, which one could hold in the palm of one's hand. The attitude of this young woman leaves to the imagination an exquisite whole, in spite of her slight figure. Thanks to the width of her sleeve, which has fallen back, one can admire the ravishing outline of a rounded arm, polished like ivory, and having at the elbow a charming dimple. Her hand which turns the leaves of her book is worthy of such an arm; the nails, very long and of the transparency of agate. The tips of the fingers shade to a deep rose color, such as is imparted by the henna of the Orientals. The figure of this charming creature recalls the ideal Psyche, the lovely realization of a beauty so fleeting that it passes with the first flower of youth. Certain organizations retains their first youth a long time, and as we have said, in spite of her twenty-three years, Blue Beard is of the number of these privileged persons. For this is Blue Beard. We will no longer hide the name of the inmate of Devil's Cliff from our readers, but will say she is called Angela. Unfortunately, this celestial name, this candid face, contrasts singularly with the diabolical reputation which this widow of three husbands possesses; and who it is said has as many consolers as she has had husbands. The course of this story will enable us to condemn or vindicate Blue Beard. At a slight sound which she hears in the adjoining room, Angela lifts her head suddenly, like a gazelle on the alert, and seats herself on the edge of the sofa, throwing back her locks by a graceful movement. At the moment she rises, exclaiming, "It it he!" a man raises the _portière_ of the room. Not sooner does the iron fly to the magnet than does Angela to the newcomer. She throws herself into his arms, and twining them about him in a kind of tender fury, covered him with caresses and passionate kisses, and joyfully cries, "My tender friend--my dear James!" This first ebullition over, the newcomer takes Angela into his arms as if she were a child, and carries his precious burden over to the sofa. Then Angela, seated on his knee, takes one of his hands in hers, passes her beautiful arm about his neck, draws his head to her, and looked at him with eager delight. Alas! were the scandal-mongers right in suspecting Blue Beard's morality? The man whom she receives with such familiar ardor is of the copper color of a mulatto; he is tall and supple, active and robust; his noble and fine features show nothing of the negro type; a profusion of jet black curls frame his forehead; his eyes are large and of velvety blackness; under his thin lips, red and moist, shine the most beautifully enameled teeth. This beauty, at once charming and manly, this appearance of strength and elegance, resembles the noble proportions of an Indian Bacchus or of an Antinous. The mulatto's costume is such as certain filibusters then generally adopt when on shore. He wears a waistcoat of rich maroon velvet, with buttons of filigree gold; large Flemish boots of like material and ornamented with the same style of button, which extend the length of the thigh, being met by a belt of orange silk, in which is stuck a poignard richly chased; and, finally, long leggings of white kid embroidered in many colored silks after the Mexican style, show a leg of the finest outline. Nothing could be more striking or pretty than the contrast between James and Angela thus grouped. On the one hand, blond tresses, alabaster tints, rosy cheeks, infantile grace and elegance; on the other, the bronze tint, ebony locks, and manner at once assured and manly. Angela's white dress is outlined on the somber colors of James' vestments; and thus the fine and supple figure of Blue Beard is accentuated. Fixing her great blue eyes on the black eyes of the mulatto, the young woman amuses herself by turning back the embroidered collar of James' shirt, in order to admire the better his sunburned neck, which in color and shape rivals the most beautiful Florentine bronze. After prolonging this unconventional performance, Angela gives the mulatto a noisy kiss under his ear, takes his head between her two hands, mischievously rumples up his black locks, gives him a little blow on the cheek, and says, "That is how I love you, Monsieur Hurricane." A slight sound is heard behind the tapestry forming the _portière_, and Angela calls, "Is it you, Mirette? what do you wish?" "Madame, I am coming with the flowers and will arrange them in the stand." "She hears us!" said Angela, making a mysterious signal to the mulatto; then she amuses herself laughing madly at and rumpling her lover's hair. He takes her little caprices with complaisance, and contemplates her with love. Then he says, smilingly, "Child! because you look only sixteen, you think everything is permitted you." Then he adds in a tone of gentle raillery, "and who would think, seeing this little rosy, ingenuous face that I hold on my knees the most notable scamp of the Antilles?" "And who would think that this man, who speaks in so sweet a voice, is the ferocious Captain Hurricane, the terror of England and Spain?" cried Angela, breaking into a laugh. The mulatto and the widow express themselves in the purest French, and without the slightest foreign accent. "What matters it," she cries, smilingly, "it is not _I_ whom they call Blue Beard." At these words which appear to call up sad memories, the little widow, with a coquettish pout, gave a hardly perceptible tap to the end of Captain Hurricane's nose, indicating by a movement of her hand that in the neighboring room one can hear him, and says with a mischievous air, "That will teach you to speak of trespassing." "Fie! the monster!" says the captain, breaking into a laugh; "and what of remorse, then, madame?" "Give me a kiss of remorse, then, and I shall----" "May Lucifer assist me! It takes a woman to be chief of criminals! Ah, my dear, you are well named; you make me tremble! Suppose we have supper." Angela touches a bell. The young mulattress who had overheard the above conversation enters. She wears a dress of white linen with bright stripes, and has silver rings on arms and ankles. "Mirette, have you arranged the flowers," said Blue Beard. "Yes, madame." "You have been listening?" "No, madame." "However, it does not matter; when I speak it is that I may be heard. Make ready the supper, Mirette." Then, addressing herself to the captain, "What wine do you prefer?" "Sherry, but let it be iced; this is a notion of mine." Mirette goes out for a moment, and shortly reappears and begins to prepare the table. "By the way, I forgot to tell you of a great event," says Blue Beard's companion. "What then? has one of my deceased husbands returned to life?" "Faith, almost." "Now? Ah, Master James, Master James, no more of your wicked pleasantries," cries Angela, with a frightened air. "No, it is not a dead man, a ghost, but a very living pretender who demands your hand in marriage." "He wishes to marry me?" "He wishes to marry you." "Oh, the unhappy wretch! is he then weary of life?" cried Angela, laughing. Mirette, at these words, makes the sign of the cross while superintending the spreading of the board by two other mulattresses who are carrying bottles of Bohemian glass, engraved with golden arabesques, and plates of the most magnificent Japanese porcelain. Blue Beard continues, "This lover of mine is not a countryman, then?" "By no means! for in spite of your wealth, my dear, I defy you to find a _fourth_ husband, thanks to your diabolical reputation." "Where does he come from, this would-be husband, my dear James?" "From France." "France! he comes from France to espouse me, the deuce!" "Angela, you know that I do not like to hear you swear," says the mulatto, with pretended seriousness. "Pardon, Captain Hurricane," replies the young woman, dropping her eyes with a hypocritical air. "I only meant to signify that I find your news very astonishing. It appears that my reputation has reached Europe." "Do not be so vain, my dear. It was on board the Unicorn that this worthy paladin heard you spoken of, and by the mere mention of your riches he has become enamored, yes, madly enamored of you. This, I trust, will take down your pride." "The impertinent fellow! and who is this man, James?" "The Chevalier de Croustillac." "Who?" "The Chevalier de Croustillac." "This is the name of the pretender to my hand?" And Angela breaks into a merry peal of laughter which nothing can arrest, and the mulatto finally joins in her merriment. The two have scarcely subsided when Mirette enters preceded by two other mulattresses who carry a table sumptuously set out in gilded dishes. The two slaves place the table near the divan; the captain arises to take a chair, while Angela, kneeling on the edge of the sofa, uncovers the dishes one after another, and examines the table with the air of an epicurean kitten. "Are you hungry, James? As for me, I am famished," says Angela. And as if to prove without doubt this assertion, she opens her coral lips and shows two rows of ravishing little pearly teeth which she clinches twice. "Angela, my dear, you were certainly badly brought up," said the captain, helping her to a portion of dorado, served with ham and an appetizing sauce. "Captain Hurricane, if I receive you at my table, it is not that you may scold," said Angela, making an almost imperceptible grimace to the mulattress. Then she continues, attacking her fish bravely, and pecking at her bread like a bird, "If he scolds me, Mirette, I will not receive him again?" "No, mistress," said Mirette. "And I will give his place to Rend-your-soul, the buccaneer?" "Yes, mistress." "Or to Youmäale, the cannibal?" "Yes, mistress." "You hear that, sir?" said Angela. "Never mind, my dear, I am not jealous, you know that; beauty is as the sun, it shines for all the world." "Because you are not jealous, then, I will pardon you. Help yourself to what is before you. What is that, Mirette?" "Madame, the roe of fish fried in pigeon's fat." "Which is not equal to the fat of quail," says the captain, "but it must have the juice of a lemon while it is warm." "See what a glutton! Ah! but my future spouse, I had forgotten him. Pour me some wine, Mirette." The filibuster, corsair as he is, forestalls the mulattress and pours out some iced sherry for Angela. "It must be that I love you, to drink this, I who prefer the wines of France." And Blue Beard drinks resolutely three drops of the sherry, which puts fresh life into her lips and blue eyes and tinged her cheeks a carmine hue. "But to return to my future spouse. How is he? Is he agreeable? Is he worthy to join the others?" Mirette, in spite of her passive submission, cannot prevent a tremor in hearing her mistress speak thus, although the poor slave must be accustomed to these atrocious pleasantries, and doubtless many greater enormities. "What ails you, Mirette?" "Nothing, mistress." "If you are unwell----" "No, mistress." "You would be sorry to see me marry again? I shall not do so for a long time. Go, child." Then, addressing Captain Hurricane, "And the Chevalier de--de--what did you say was his name?" "Chevalier de Croustillac." "Have you seen him?" "No; but knowing his plans and that he intends, at all hazards, and in spite of the efforts of the good Father Griffen, to come here, I begged Youmäale, the cannibal," says the captain, looking at Angela in a singular way, "to address a little warning in order to induce him to renounce his projects." "And you did this without letting me know, sir? What if I do not wish to rebuff him, this pretender; for, after all, this Croustillac is a Gascon, and I never married a Gascon." "Oh, he is the most famous Gascon that has ever gasconaded on the earth; with that, a figure indescribable and assurance unbounded; and as to the rest, sufficient courage." "And Youmäale's warning?" "Has accomplished nothing. It glided off the undaunted soul of this man as a ball from the scales of a crocodile; he started out this morning bravely, at break of day, to traverse the forest, with his pink silk hose, his rapier at his side, and a staff to frighten the serpents. He is still there, without doubt, at this hour, for the road to Devil's Cliff is not known to all the world." "James, I have an idea!" cries the widow joyfully; "let him come here and amuse us; that we may torment him. So, he is in love with my riches and not myself! So, he would espouse me, this fine knight errant. We will see as to that! Well? You do not laugh at my idea, James. What ails you? But moreover, you know, sir, that I will not be thwarted; I will make a feast for this Gascon. If he is not devoured by the wildcats or killed by the serpents I will have him here to-morrow. You go to sea to-morrow; tell the cannibal and Rend-your-soul to bring him to me." The captain, instead of joining in the gayety of Blue Beard, according to his custom, is serious, pensive, and seems to reflect deeply. "James! James! do you not hear me?" cries Angela, impatiently, tapping her foot. "I want this Gascon. I want him." The mulatto makes no reply; he draws with the forefinger of his right hand a circle about his throat, and looks significantly at the young woman. She understands this mysterious sign; her face all at once expresses both sorrow and distress; she rises suddenly, runs to the mulatto, falls on her knees before him and cries in a touching voice, "You are right. My God! you are right! I am insane to entertain such a thought. I understand you." "Rise, Angela, calm yourself," says the mulatto. "I do not know if this man is to be feared, but he is a stranger, he may come from England or France, and----" "I tell you I was mad! that I was jesting, my dear James! I forgot that which I never ought to forget--it is frightful." The beautiful eyes of the young woman fill with tears; she bends her head, and takes the hand of the mulatto, over which she weeps silently for some minutes. Hurricane kisses tenderly the forehead and tresses of Angela, and says gently, "I never wish to recall these cruel memories. I should have said nothing to you, assured myself that there is no danger in bringing this imbecile to you as a plaything, and then----" "James, my friend," cries Angela sadly, interrupting the mulatto, "my love, what do you think then? for a childish caprice that I would expose you, you whom I love most dearly in the world?" "There! there! be calm," replies the mulatto, lifting her up and seating her near him; "do not be frightened; Father Griffen has informed himself as to the Gascon, he is only ridiculous. In order to be more certain, I will go to-morrow and speak with him at Macouba, and then I will tell Rend-your-soul, who is fortunately hunting on the coast, to discover this poor devil in the forest, where he has, no doubt, lost himself. If he is dangerous," says the mulatto, making a sign to Angela (for the slaves were still present awaiting the conclusion of supper), "the buccaneer will relieve us of him and cure him of the desire to know you; if not, as you never have any amusement here, he shall bring him to you." "No, no, I do not wish it," says Angela. "All the thoughts which come to me, now are of mortal sadness--my disquietude returns." Angela, seeing that the mulatto would not eat any more, arose; the filibuster imitated her, and says, "Reassure yourself, my Angela, there is nothing to fear. Come into the garden, the night is fine, the moon magnificent. Tell Mirette to bring my lute; in order to make you forget these painful thoughts I will sing you the Scotch ballads you love so." So saying, the mulatto passes one arm around the figure of Angela, and clasping her thus, he descends the few steps leading to the garden. On leaving the apartment Blue Beard says to her slave, "Mirette, bring the lute into the garden, light the alabaster lamp in my bed-chamber. You can go, I shall not need you again to-night. Do not forget to say to Cora and to the other mulattresses that to-morrow begins their service." Then she disappears, leaning on the arm of the mulatto. This last order of Angela was occasioned by a habit she has had, since her last widowhood, of alternating every three days the service of her women. Mirette carries a very beautiful ebony lute incrusted with gold and mother of pearl, into the garden. After an interval of some moments, the filibuster's voice is heard singing with infinite grace and pathos the Scotch ballads which the chief of royalist clans always sang in preference during the protectorate of Cromwell. The voice of the mulatto is at once sweet, vibrant and melancholy. Mirette and the two slaves listen with delight during some moments. At the last lines, the voice of the filibuster becomes moved, tears seem to mingle in it--then the songs cease. Mirette enters Blue Beard's chamber in order to light the alabaster lamp, which throws a soft and veiled light on the surrounding objects. This room is splendidly furnished in Indian stuff with white ground embroidered with flowers; a mosquito net of muslin, fine as a spider's web, envelopes an immense bed of gilded wood with a headboard of plate-glass, which appears thus in a slight mist. After executing the orders of her mistress, Mirette withdraws discreetly, and says to the two slaves with a malicious smile, "Mirette lights the lamp for the captain, Cora for the buccanneer, and Noun for the Caribbean." The two slaves nod their heads with an intelligent air, and the three go out, after carefully closing and locking the door which leads to the outbuilding of this special domain of Blue Beard. CHAPTER IX. NIGHT. We had left the chevalier when he had penetrated into the forest, which was alive with the cries of all the animals which peopled it. For a moment stunned by the tumult, the Gascon bravely pursued his course, turning his steps ever toward the north, at least toward what he believed to be so, thanks to his astronomical knowledge. As the priest had foretold, he could not find any path through the forest; decayed vegetation, tall shrubs, vines, trunks of trees, an inextricable undergrowth, covered the ground; the trees were so thick that the air, light and sun, penetrated with difficulty through this veil of foliage, among which exhaled a warm moisture almost suffocating produced by the fermentation of vegetable matter which to a great extent thickly covered the earth. The heavy perfume of tropical flowers so saturated this suffocating atmosphere that the chevalier experienced a kind of intoxication, of faintness. He walked with a slower step, he felt his head become heavy, exterior objects became indifferent to him. He no longer admired the leafy colonades stretching out as far as the eye could see, into the shadows of the forest. He cast a careless glance at the sparkling and varied plumage of the parrots, birds of paradise and other birds joyfully crying out and pursuing the golden-winged insects or snapping in their beaks the aromatic woods of the Indies. The gambols of the monkeys, balancing themselves on the garlands of passion vines, or springing from tree to tree, did not even bring a smile to his lips. Completely absorbed, he had strength only to contemplate the end of his perilous journey. He thought only of Blue Beard and her treasures. After some hours' walk, he began to observe that his silk stockings were inconvenient for traversing a forest. A large branch of thorny wood had made a great hole in his coat; his breeches were not irreproachable by any means; and more than once, feeling his long sword embarrass him by catching in some plants which obstructed his path, he involuntarily turned to chastise the importunate object which took the liberty of interfering with his progress. Either by chance, or thanks to the frequent use of his staff, with which he beat the bushes continually, the chevalier had the good fortune not to encounter any serpents. Toward noon, worried and fatigued, he paused in order to pick some bananas, and climbed a tree in order to breakfast at his ease. To his joy and surprise he found that the leaves of this tree, rolled into cornucopias, held clear water, fresh and delicious to the taste; the chevalier drank several of those, put his remaining bananas into his pocket, and continued his journey. According to his calculation, he must have traveled nearly four leagues, and could not be very far from Devil's Cliff. Unhappily the chevalier's calculation was not exact, at least, as to the direction in which he believed himself to have gone; for he had estimated the distance traversed correctly enough, but he was, at midday, a little further from Devil's Cliff than he had been when he entered the forest. In order not to lose sight of the sun (which he could with difficulty discern through the treetops), he had necessarily been obliged to lift his eyes frequently to the heavens. Now, the road was almost impenetrable, and he was also obliged to be on the watch for serpents; thus, divided between the sky and the earth, the attention of the chevalier went somewhat astray. However, as it was impossible to believe that he could a second time be deceived in his calculations, he took fresh courage, certain of reaching the end of his journey. About three o'clock in the afternoon he commenced to suspect that Devil's Cliff receded in proportion to his approach. Croustillac became harassed; but the fear of passing the night in the forest spurred him on; by means of walking forward steadily he finally reached a kind of indentation between two large rocks. The chevalier drew his breath, expanding his lungs. "Faith!" cried he, removing his hat and fanning himself with it, "I am then at Devil's Cliff. I seem to recognize it, though I have never seen it. I cannot, however, lose myself. I have love for a compass; one can follow this in the antipodes without deviating a hair's breadth. It is very simple; my heart turns toward wealth and beauty, as the needle to the pole! for if Blue Beard is rich, she must be beautiful; and, further, a woman who can rid herself so quickly of three husbands must love change. I shall prove a new fruit to her--and what a fruit! After all, the three men who are dead got what they deserved, because they were in my path. What assures me of the physique of Blue Beard is that only a very pretty woman could permit herself such irregularities, such methods--a little offhand to be sure--of breaking the conjugal chain. Zounds! I shall see her, please her, seduce her. Poor woman! She does not dream that her conqueror is at hand! If--if--I wager that her little heart beats strongly this very moment. She feels my approach, she divines it, her presentiment does not deceive her. She will be overcome--happiness will arrive on the wings of love!" Thus saying, the chevalier threw a glance on his toilet. It did not escape his notice that it was slightly disordered; his stockings, originally purple, then pale pink, had become striped, zebra-fashion, with a number of green rays, since his journey in the forest; his coat was ornamented with various holes fancifully arranged, but the Gascon made this reflection aloud, if not very modest, at least very consoling: "Faith! Venus arose from the sea without any covering; Truth had no more on when she emerged from the well; and if beauty and truth appeared without a veil, I see not why--love--Beside, Blue Beard must be a woman who will understand me!" Completely reassured, the chevalier hastened his steps, climbed the face of the rocks, and found himself in an inclosure of the forest, even more somber and impenetrable than that which he had quitted. Others would have lost courage. Croustillac said to himself, on the contrary "Zounds! this is very clever. Hiding her habitation in the most dense forest is a woman's idea. I am sure the more I push on into these thickets the nearer I approach the house. I consider I have already arrived. Blue Beard, Blue Beard, finally I behold thee." The chevalier cherished this precious illusion while the daylight lasted, which was not long; there is little twilight in the tropics. Soon the chevalier saw, with astonishment, the summits of the trees little by little obscure themselves, and assume a fantastic appearance in the great mass of the forest. For some moments there remained a half-shade, here and there lighted by the bright reflection of the sun, which seemed as red as the fire of a furnace, for he was "making his couch in the wind," as they say in the Antilles. For a moment the vegetation, so brilliantly green, took on a purple tint; the chevalier believed that nature was painted a living red, what was perceived being a mingling with the tints of the heavens. "Zounds!" exclaimed the chevalier, "I did not deceive myself; I am near this infernal place, this illumination proves it. Lucifer is without doubt making a visit to Blue Beard, who, in order to receive him, is lighting the furnaces of her kitchen." Little by little these warm tints disappeared, they became pale red, then violet, and were swallowed up in the amethyst of the evening skies. As soon as the shadows wrapped the forest in their arms, the plaintive cries of the jackals, the sinister hooting of the owls, proclaimed the return of night. The sea breeze, which always rises after the setting of the sun, passed like a great sigh over the tops of the trees; the leaves shivered. The thousand nameless, vague and distant cries which one hears only at night, began to resound from all quarters. "Of a truth," said the chevalier, "this is a pretty figure to cut! To think I am not a hundred steps, perhaps, from Devil's Cliff, and that I am compelled to sleep under the stars!" Croustillac, fearing the serpents, directed himself toward an enormous mahogany tree which he had observed; by the aid of the vines which enveloped this tree on all sides, he succeeded in reaching a kind of fork, formed by two large branches; here he installed himself, comfortably, placed his sword between his knees, and commenced a supper of the bananas, which fortunately, he had kept in his pockets. He did not experience any of the fears which would have assailed many men, even the bravest, placed in such a critical situation. Beside, in extreme cases the chevalier had all kinds of reasoning for his use; he said: "Fate is implacable against me, it chooses well--it cannot mistake--instead of addressing itself to some rascal; to some wretch, what does it do? It bethinks itself of the Chevalier de Croustillac thus: 'Here is my man--he is worthy of struggling with me.'" In the situation in which he found himself the chevalier saw another providential circumstance no less flattering to him. "My good fortune is assured," he said: "the treasures of Blue Beard are mine; this is the final trial to which the aforesaid Fate subjects me; it would be bad grace in me to revolt. A brave man does not complain. I could not merit the inestimable recompense which awaits me." By means of these reflections the chevalier combated sleep with success; he feared if he yielded to it he would fall from the tree; he ended by being enchanted by the obstacles which he had surmounted in his course to Blue Beard. She would know how to value his courage, he thought, and be alive to his devotion. In this excess of chivalrous feeling, the chevalier regretted even that he has not had a serious enemy to combat and not to have had to struggle alone against pitfalls, thorns and the trunks of trees. At this moment a strange cry drew the adventurer's attention; he listened, and said, "What is that? One would think that the cats were holding their Sabbath. I know, now, because of these cats, that the house cannot be far distant." But Croustillac deceived himself. These were not domestic cats but wildcats, and never were tigers fiercer; they continued to make an infernal uproar. In order to quiet them, the chevalier took his staff and struck on the tree. The wildcats, instead of flying, approached him with furious and redoubled cries. For a long time these woods had been infested by these animals, who were not inferior to jaguars in size, strength and ferocity; they attacked and devoured young kids, goats, and even young mules. In order to explain the hostile assault of these carnivorous beasts which surrounded the chevalier, who had been discovered by their powerful sense of scent, we must return to the cavern in which Colonel Rutler was immured. We know that the corpse of the sailor John, dead from the sting of the serpent, completely obstructed the subterranean passage by which Rutler could alone leave the cavern. The wildcats had descended the precipice, scented the corpse of John, approached it first timidly, then, emboldened, had devoured it. The colonel heard and knew not what to think of these ferocious cries. At daybreak, thanks to the gluttony of these animals, the obstacle which prevented Rutler from leaving the cavern had entirely disappeared. There remained in the subterranean passage only the bones of the sailor, and these the colonel could easily remove. After this horrible feast, the wildcats, fed but not appeased by this new repast to them, felt a taste for human flesh; they abandoned the foot of the precipice, regained the wood, scented the chevalier, and their carnivorous ferocity was increased. For some time fear withheld them, but, encouraged by the immobility of Croustillac, one of the boldest and most famished slowly climbed the tree, and the Gascon saw, all at once, near him two large, brilliant, green eyes, which shone out of the midst of the obscurity. At the same instant he felt a vigorous bite at the calf of his leg. He drew back his leg abruptly, but the wildcat held on and fastened its claws in his flesh, and gave a deep, furious growl which was the signal of attack. The assailants climbed up from all sides and the chevalier saw about him flaming eyes and felt himself bitten in many places at once. This attack was so unexpected, the assailants were of such a singular kind, that Croustillac, in spite of his courage, remained for a moment stupefied; but the bites of the wildcats and, above all, his deep indignation at having to combat with such ignoble enemies, aroused his fury. He seized the most venturesome by the skin of his back, and in spite of several blows from his claws, threw him heavily against the trunk of the tree and broke his back. The cat gave some frightful cries. The chevalier treated in like manner another of these creatures which had leaped upon his back, and had undertaken to devour his cheek. The band hesitated. Croustillac seized his sword, and using it as a poignard, pierced several others, and thus put an end to this attack in a novel manner, saying, "Zounds! to think Blue Beard does not know that the brave Croustillac has been nearly devoured by wildcats, even as if he were but a chicken hanging on a hook of a larder!" The remainder of the night passed peacefully, the chevalier sleeping but little. At daybreak he descended from his tree, and saw extended at his feet five of his adversaries of the night. He hastened to quit the scene of his exploits, at which he blushed, and, convinced that Devil's Cliff could not be far off, he resumed his journey. After having walked thus vainly, after his vigil, the gnawing of his stomach, occasioned by a famished feeling, warned him that it was in the neighborhood of noon. His delight may be imagined when the breeze bore to him the delicious odor of roasted meat, so fine, so penetrating, and so appetizing that the chevalier could not prevent himself from passing his tongue across his lips. He redoubled his speed, not doubting, this time, that he had arrived at the end of his troubles. However, he saw no sign of habitation, and knew not how to reconcile this apparent solitude with the exquisite odor which grew more and more tantalizing. Unobserved himself, and without being heard, and walking rapidly, he arrived at a kind of clearing, where he stopped a moment. The sight which greeted his eyes was worthy his notice. CHAPTER X. A BUCCANEER. In the midst of a close thicket appeared a cleared space forming a long square; at one of its extremities was an ajoupa, a kind of hut made of branches attached to the trunk of a palm tree, covered with long polished leaves of balisier and of cachibou. Under this shelter, which guaranteed protection from the rays of the sun to whoever might retire therein, a man was stretched upon a bed of leaves; at his feet some twenty dogs lay sleeping. These dogs would have been white and orange if their original color had not disappeared, owing to the blood which covered them. Their heads and breasts were completely stained by reason of copious eating. The chevalier could but indistinctly see the face of the man, half hidden in his bed of fresh leaves. Not far from the hut was a covered fire where, cooking slowly, after the fashion of buccaneers, was a year-old boar. The stove or gridiron was formed by four forks driven into the earth, on which were hung cross-pieces, and on these were laid small poles, all of green wood. The boar, still with its hide on, was stretched on its back, the belly open and empty; strings attached to its four feet held it in this position, which the heat would otherwise have disturbed. This gridiron was raised above a hole four feet in length, three wide, and of great depth, filled with broken charcoal; the boar cooked by the equal heat of this steady and concentrated brazier. The cavity of the animal was half filled with lemon juice and cut spices, which, combined with the fat, which the heat caused to slowly ooze out, formed a kind of interior sauce which smelled very appetizing. This immense roast was nearly cooked; its skin began to frizzle and crack; what was visible of the flesh through the gravy was red and tempting. Finally, a dozen large yams, of yellow and savory pulp, were cooking in the ashes, and exhaled a fine odor. The chevalier could restrain himself no longer; carried away by his appetite, he entered the inclosure, and in so doing broke down some branches. One or two of the dogs awoke and ran at him with a menacing air. The man, who was dozing, arose abruptly, looked about him with an amazed air, while the entire pack of hounds manifested the most hostile objection to the entrance of the chevalier, bristling and showing their formidable teeth. Croustillac recalled the history of the assistant of Rend-your-Soul being devoured by his dogs, but he was not intimidated; he raised his staff with a menacing air, and said, "To heel, varlets; to heel, varlets!" This term, imported from the kennels of Europe, made no impression on the dogs; they assumed an attitude so menacing that the chevalier struck some blows at them with his staff. Their eyes burned with ferocity; they would have precipitated themselves upon Croustillac had not the buccaneer, coming out of the hut with a gun in his hand, cried in a species of dialect, part negro, part French, "Who touches my dogs? Who are you that come hither?" The chavalier bravely put his hand on his sword and replied, "Your dogs would devour me, my good fellow, and I foil them. They would employ their teeth upon me as I would mine if I had before me a morsel of that appetizing boar, for I am lost in the forest since yesterday morning and have a most infernal hunger." The buccaneer, instead of replying to the chevalier, remained stupefied at the odd appearance of this man, who, staff in hand, had traversed a forest in pink stockings and coat of taffeta and embroidered vest. On his side, Croustillac, in spite of his hunger, contemplated the buccaneer with no less curiosity. This hunter was of middle height, but agile and vigorous; his only clothing, short drawers and a shirt which was loose like a blouse. His clothing was so much stained with the blood of bulls or boars which the buccaneers skin in order to sell the hide and smoke the flesh (the principal branch of their traffic) that the linen appeared tarred, it was so black and stiff. A belt of bull's hide embellished with its hair confined the shirt about the buccaneer; from this belt hung, on one side, a sheath of compartments, revealing five or six knives of various lengths and divers shapes; from the other, a pouch. The hunter's legs were bare to the knees; his shoes were without fastening, and of a single piece, according to a custom there, and in use among buccaneers. After skinning a bull or some large boar, they carefully loosen the skin of one of the front extremities, from the breast to the knee, and turn it back like a stocking which one pulls off; after having completely detached it from the bones, they then put their feet into this supple and fresh skin, placing the large toe a little more toward the place which covered the knee of the animal. Once shod in this manner they tie up with a sinew that portion which extends beyond the end of the foot, and cut off the surplus. Then they raise and pull up the remainder of the skin halfway up their legs, where they fasten it with a leather strap. In drying, this species of boot assumes the shape of the foot, remaining perfectly soft, supple, and wearing a long time, it being impervious, and proof against the sting of serpents. The buccaneer looked curiously at Croustillac, leaning on his gun, a kind especially used by buccaneers; these guns were made at Dieppe and St. Malo. The figure of the hunter was rough and common; he wore a cap of boar's skin; his beard was long and bristling; his look ferocious. Croustillac said resolutely, "Ah, comrade, would you refuse a morsel of this roast to a gentleman who is famished?" "The roast is not mine," said the buccaneer. "How? to whom, then, does it belong?" "To Master Rend-your-Soul, who has his depot of skins and buccaneer supplies at Caiman's Point." "This roast belongs to Master Rend-your-Soul," cried the chevalier, surprised at the chance which had brought him in contact with one of the happy lovers of Blue Beard, if these slanderous stories were true. "This roast belongs to Rend-your-Soul," repeated Croustillac. "It belongs to him," said the man with the long gun, laconically. At this moment was heard a shot which echoed through the forest. "That is the master," said the man. The dogs recognized, doubtless, the approach of the hunter; for they began to bark joyfully, and dashed off through the undergrowth in order to reach the buccaneer. Warned of the return of the master, the man, whom we will call Peter, took out one of his largest knives, approached the wild boar, and in order the better to moisten the venison, stabbed the flesh several times, without injuring the skin, for the plentiful mixture of lemon juice, spice and fat which filled the belly of the boar was running out. Each of these incisions caused such appetizing odors to rise that the chevalier, inhaling this exquisite odor, almost forgot the approach of Rend-your-Soul. However, the latter appeared, followed by his dogs, jumping and pressing about him. Master Rend-your-Soul was large and robust. His skin, naturally white, was browned by the sun and by the wild life which he led; his thick black beard fell on his breast; his features were regular, but severe and hard. Although not so poor as that of his servant, his clothing was of much the same fashion. Like him, he wore at his waist a case filled with a number of knives; his legs, however, in place of being half naked, were incased, as far as the knee, by bands of boar-skins tied with sinews, and he wore large shoes of untanned leather. His large Spanish hat was ornamented with two or three red feathers; and the mountings of his buccaneer gun were of silver. Such was the difference between the costume and arms of Master Rend-your-Soul and that of his servant. When he entered the clearing, he held his gun under his arm and plucked carelessly a wood-pigeon which he had killed; three others were hung at his belt by a snare; he threw them to Peter, who immediately began to pluck and clean them with wonderful dexterity. These wood-pigeons, of the size of a partridge, were plump, fine and round as quails. As fast as Peter had one ready, he cut off its head and feet and put it to cook in the thick and abundant sauce which filled the boar's belly. When Master Rend-your-Soul had finished plucking his, he threw it in also. Peter said, "Master, shall I close the roast?" "Close it," replied the master. Then Peter cut the strings which held the boar; the cavity of the belly almost closed and the pigeons began to boil in this novel fashion. During all these culinary preparations the buccaneer had not appeared to perceive the chevalier, who, with foot advanced, nose in the air, and hand on the hilt of his sword, was prepared to answer proudly any interrogatories which might be made, and even to question in return Master Rend-your-Soul. The latter, having cut off the head and feet of the pigeon which he was plucking, wiped his knife quietly and replaced it in his case. To explain the indifference of the buccaneer, we must say to the reader that nothing was more common than that people should visit the buccaneers out of curiosity. The buccaneers were, in their customs, very like the Caribbeans. Like them they were proud to accord hospitality; like them they allowed any one to come who was hungry and thirsty and partake of their repasts; but, like the Caribbeans also, they regarded an invitation as a superfluous formality. The feast ready, let eat it who would. After disembarrassing himself of his belt and gun, Rend-your-Soul extended himself on the ground, drew a gourd hidden under the fresh leaves, and drank some brandy as a preparation for dinner. Croustillac was still in the same attitude, nose in the air, foot advanced, hand on his sword; the color rose to his forehead; nothing could have insulted him more than the absolute indifference of Rend-your-Soul to his presence. Had Blue Beard, by the intermediation of the filibustering captain, instructed the buccaneer to act in this manner if he should encounter the chevalier? Was this hunter's carelessness genuine or feigned? This is what we cannot yet tell the reader. The situation of Croustillac was none the less delicate and difficult; in spite of his audacity he did not know how to begin the conversation. Finally recovering himself, he said to the buccaneer, advancing toward him, "Are you blind, comrade?" "Answer, Peter, some one speaks to you," said Rend-your-Soul, carelessly. "No, it is to you I speak," said the Gascon impatiently. "No," said the buccaneer. "How so?" replied the chevalier. "You said 'comrade;' I am not your comrade; my servant is, perhaps." "Zounds!" "I am a master buccaneer; you are not; it is only my brother-hunters who are my comrades," said Rend-your-Soul, interrupting Croustillac. "And how is one to address you in order to have the honor of a reply?" said the chevalier, angrily. "If you come to purchase skins or buccaneer supplies, address me as you will; if you come to see the station, look about you; if you are hungry, when the boar is cooked, eat." "They are regular brutes, true savages," thought the chevalier; "it would be folly in me to resent their stupidities; I am dying with hunger, I am lost; the animal can give me a dinner, and if I carry myself wisely will point out to me the road to Devil's Cliff. Let us eat." Then, looking at the man, half barbarian that he was, with his garments stained with blood, Croustillac said to himself, shrugging his shoulders, "And it is to such a boor that they give the beautiful, the adorable Blue Beard. Zounds! she must be like him herself." Peter, finding the boar cooked to a turn, busied himself in removing the cover; he placed on the earth, under the trees, a number of large leaves, fresh and green, to serve as a tablecloth. He then picked a large leaf, made four holes at its edge, and passed a creeper through them, and thus formed a species of cup in which he squeezed the juice of a number of lemons which he had picked, and with which he mixed salt and spices crushed between two stones. The sauce was called pimentade, was extremely strong, and was used generally by buccaneers and filibusters. Opposite this sauce and in another leaf, he put yams cooked in the ashes; their skins, a little burned, had split open and showed a pulp yellow as amber. The chevalier was disturbed as to how he was to drink, for he had a burning thirst, but he quickly saw the servant returning with a large gourd filled with a pink and limpid liquor. It was the sugar of the maple tree, which flowed in abundance from the tree when it was pierced deeply. This was a fresh and healthy beverage and tasted like Bordeaux wine mixed with sugar and water. Finally, after placing this gourd on the leaves which served as a tablecloth, the servant broke off a large branch of apricots, covered with flowers and fruit, and stuck it into the earth in the midst of the leaves. These natives are not so stupid as they appear, thought the chevalier. Here is a repast which Dame Nature pays for and which would satisfy, I am sure, the greatest gourmand. Croustillac waited impatiently for the moment to begin. Finally the servant, having examined the boar with a critical eye, said to the buccaneer, "Master, it is cooked." "Let us eat," said the master. By means of a fork cut out of oak, the servant took one of the pigeons, put it on a fresh leaf, and offered it to the buccaneer; then, helping himself in turn, he left the fork in the venison. The chevalier, seeing that no one occupied himself with him, took a pigeon, a yam, seated himself near the master and servant buccaneers, and, like them, began to eat with the best of appetites. The pigeon was cooked so deliciously, the yams were perfect, and like the most delicious potatoes. The pigeons disposed of, Peter cut long and thick slices of the venison for his master. The chevalier followed his example and found the flesh exquisite, fat and succulent, of fine flavor enhanced the more by the pimentade. Croustillac frequently quenched his thirst, as did his companions, from the gourd of maple sugar, and he finished his repast by eating half a dozen apricots of wonderful fragrance and very superior to the European species. Peter brought, then, a gourd of brandy; the master drank and then passed it to his servant, who did likewise, then closed it carefully, to the great disappointment of the chevalier who had extended his hand for it. This was not stupidity on the part of the buccaneers; there is among the Caribbeans a great distinction between the natural gifts which cost nothing, belonging, so to speak, to everyone, and the articles purchased with money, which belong exclusively to those who possess them--brandy, powder, bullets, arms, skins, venison prepared after the fashion of the buccaneers for sale, being of this number; fruits, game, fish, were held, on the contrary, in common. Nevertheless, the chevalier frowned, rather from pride than gluttony. He was on the point of complaining of this lack of respect to the servant, but reflecting that, after all, he owed his excellent repast to Rend-your-Soul, and that the latter could alone put him on the road to Devil's Cliff, he restrained his ill humor, and said to the buccaneer with a jovial air, "Faith! sir, do you know you give great and good cheer?" "One eats what he finds; boars and bulls are not wanting in this island, and the sale of their skins is good," said the buccaneer, filling his pipe. CHAPTER XI. MASTER REND-YOUR-SOUL. The more closely the chevalier studied Master Rend-your-Soul, the less he was able to believe that this half barbarian was in the good graces of Blue Beard. The buccaneer, having lighted his pipe, lay down on his back, put his two hands under his head, and smoked, with his eyes fixed on the hut, with an appearance of profound beatitude, and said to the chevalier, "You have come here in a litter, with your pink stockings?" "No, my good friend, I have come on foot, and I would have come on my head in order to see the most famous buccaneer in all the Antilles, whose fame has even reached Europe." "If you are in need of skins," said the buccaneer in answer, "I have a dozen bulls' skins so fine and beautiful that you would suppose them to be buffalo. I have also a string of boar's hams such as are not cured in any station." "No, no, my brave friend, I tell you admiration, nothing but admiration has guided me. I arrived from France five days since in the Unicorn, and my first visit is to you, whose merit I am well aware of." "Truly?" "As true as I call myself the Chevalier de Croustillac, for you will not be displeased, perhaps, to know with whom you talk. My name is Croustillac." "All names are a matter of indifference to me, except that of _purchaser_." "And admirer, my brave friend, admirer, is that nothing? I, who have come from Europe expressly to see you?" "You knew, then, that you would find me here?" "Not exactly; but Providence has arranged it; and, thanks to Providence, I have met the famous Rend-your-Soul." "Decidedly he is stupid," thought the chevalier. "I have nothing to contend with in such a rival; if the others are no more dangerous, it will be very easy for me to make Blue Beard adore me; but I must find the road to Devil's Cliff. It will be truly racy to be conducted thither by this bear." He spoke: "But, my brave hunter, alas! all glory is bought; I wished to see you, I have seen you." "Very well, go your way, then," said the buccaneer, expelling a cloud of tobacco smoke. "I like your brusque frankness, worthy Nimrod; but in order to go, I must learn a road thence, and I know none." "From whence came you?" "From Macouba, where I lodged at the house of the Reverend Father Griffen." "You are only two leagues from Macouba; my servant will guide you there." "How! only two leagues!" cried the chevalier. "It is impossible! I have walked since daybreak yesterday, until night, and since early morn until noon, and have I gone but two leagues?" "One sometimes sees boars and above all young bulls deceived thus, and make many steps almost without changing the inclosure," said the buccaneer. "Your comparison smacks of the art of hunting, and, noble following as it is, cannot shock a gentleman; then, admit that I have dodged about, even like a young bull, as you say; it does not follow that I wish to return to Macouba; and I depend upon you to show me the road I should follow." "Where do you wish to go?" For a moment the chevalier hesitated, and knew not what reply to make. Should he avow frankly his intention of going to Devil's Cliff? Croustillac sought refuge in a subterfuge--"I wish to go by the road to Devil's Cliff." "The road to Devil's Cliff only leads to Devil's Cliff, and----" The buccaneer did not finish his sentence, but his face became menacing. "And--where does the road to Devil's Cliff lead?" "It leads sinners to hell, and saints to paradise." "So, a stranger, a traveler, who has a whim to visit Devil's Cliff----" "Would never return from thence." "At least, in that case, one does not risk getting lost on the return," said the chevalier coolly. "'Tis well, my good friend, then show me the way." "We have eaten under the same roof, we have drunk from the same cup; I would not willingly cause your death." "So, in conducting me to Devil's Cliff, you kill me?" "It will come to the same thing." "Although your dinner was perfect, and your company very agreeable, my brave Nimrod, you almost make me regret it, as this prevents you from satisfying my wish. But what danger threatens me, then?" "All the dangers of death that a man can brave." "All these dangers--make but one, seeing that one can but die once," said the Gascon carelessly. The buccaneer scanned the chevalier closely, and appeared impressed by his courage as much as by the air of frankness and good humor which showed through all his extravagance. The chevalier continued: "The Chevalier de Croustillac never knows fear while he has his sister at his side." "What sister?" "This, which, by heavens, is not virgin," cried the Gascon, drawing his sword and brandishing it. "The kisses she gives are sharp, and the bravest have regretted making her acquaintance." "Miaow! miaow!" said the servant, who was a witness of this scene. This cry made the Gascon start, and recalled to him the exploits of the preceding night. He colored with rage, advanced upon the servant with the sword's point, in order to chastise him with the flat of his steel; but Peter withdrew dexterously and got out of reach, while the buccaneer burst into laughter. This hilarity exasperated the chevalier, who said to Rend-your-Soul, "Zounds! if you dare attack a man as you would a bull, beware." "Look at your sword; the steel is stained with blood and covered with the hair of wildcats; it is that which made Peter cry out 'Miaow!'" "Defend yourself," repeated the chevalier furiously. "When I have four feet, claws and a tail, I will fight with you," said the buccaneer quietly. "I will mark your face, then," said the chevalier, advancing toward Rend-your-Soul. "Softly, velvet claws, pussy velvet claws," said the buccaneer, laughing, and parrying with the muzzle of his gun the furious thrusts which the exasperated chevalier bestowed upon him. The servant would have come to the rescue of his master, but the latter forbade. "Do not stir; I will answer for this redoubtable fellow. 'The burned cat dreads cold water,' as they say. I am going to give him a good lesson." These sarcasms increased the chevalier's rage; he forgot his adversary was defending himself with a gun, and he showered some desperate blows upon him, while the buccaneer, showing a marvelous address and a rare vigor, used his heavy gun like a stick. During this unequal combat, the buccaneer added to his insolence by imitating the cry which cats make when they are angry, when they disagree. This last outrage capped the climax; but against his attack he found, in the buccaneer, a gladiator of the greatest strength in fencing; and he had shortly the chagrin of seeing himself disarmed; his sword was struck off some ten paces. The buccaneer threw himself upon the Gascon; raised his gun like a club; he seized the chevalier by the collar and cried, "Your life is mine; I am going to break your head like an eggshell." Croustillac, looking at him without flinching, said, coldly, "And you are trebly right, for I am a triple traitor." The buccaneer recoiled a step. "I was hungry--you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; you were unarmed and I attacked you. Break my head--Zounds! break it, you are right. Croustillac is dishonored." This was not the language of an assassin or a spy; then, holding out his hand to the chevalier, the buccaneer said, with a rough voice, "Come, clasp hands; we have been seated under the same roof, we have fought together--we are brothers." The chevalier was about to put his hand in that of the buccaneer, but he paused and said gravely, "Frankness for frankness; before giving you my hand I must tell you one thing." "What?" "I am your rival." "Rival! how is that?" "I love Blue Beard, and I am resolved at all hazards to go to her and to please her." "Clasp hands, brother." "A moment--I must say to you that when Polyphème Croustillac wishes to please, he pleases; when he pleases, one loves him; and when one loves him, one loves him madly and unto death." "Clasp hands, brother." "I will not touch your hand until you tell me if you will accept me openly for your rival?" "And if not?" "If not, break my head; you will be right in so doing. We are alone; your servant will not betray you; but I will never renounce the hope, the certainty, of pleasing Blue Beard." "Ah, this is another matter." "A last question," continued the chevalier; "You go often to Devil's Cliff?" "I go often to Devil's Cliff." "You see Blue Beard?" "I see her." "You love her?" "I love her." "She loves you?" "She loves me." "You?" "Me." "She loves you?" "To madness----" "She has told you so?" "And--Blue Beard----" "Is my mistress." "On the word of a buccaneer?" "On the word of a buccaneer." "Then," said the chevalier to himself, "there is no more discretion among barbarians than among civilized people. Who would say at the sight of such a stupid fellow, that he was a coxcomb?" Then he said aloud, "Ah, well, then, I repeat to you, break my head, for if you spare my life I shall reach Devil's Cliff; I shall do all I can to please Blue Beard, and I _shall_ please her, I warn you. So, then, once more, break my head, or resign yourself to seeing in me a rival, shortly a happy rival!" "I say to you, clasp hands, brother." "How? in spite of what I say?" "Yes." "It does not alarm you?" "No." "It is all the same to you if I go to Devil's Cliff?" "I will conduct you there, myself." "Yourself?" "To-day." "And I shall see Blue Beard?" "You shall see her as often as you wish." The chevalier, moved by the confidence in him which the buccaneer testified, did not wish to abuse it; he said in a solemn tone, "Listen, buccaneer, you are as generous as a savage; this is not by way of offense; but, my worthy friend, my loyal enemy, you are as ignorant as a savage. Reared in the midst of the forest, you have no idea what a man is who has passed his life in pleasing, seducing; you do not know the marvelous resources which such a man finds in his natural attractions; you do not know the irresistible influence of a word, a gesture, a smile, a look! This poor Blue Beard does not know either; to judge from what they say of her three husbands. They were three worthless fellows, three vagabonds; she rid herself of them, rightly. Why has she rid herself of them? Because she sought an ideal, an unknown being, the dream of her dreams. Now, my brave friend, always be it said without offense, you cannot deceive yourself to such a degree as to think that you realize this dream of Blue Beard; you cannot really take yourself for a Celadon--for an Adonis----" The buccaneer looked at Croustillac with a stupid air and did not appear to understand him; he said, pointing to the sun, "The sun is setting; we have four leagues to make before we arrive at Devil's Cliff; let us start." "This unhappy man," thought the chevalier, "has not the slightest idea of the danger he runs; it is a pity to disabuse his blindness; it is like striking a child; it is snaring a sitting pheasant; it is killing a sleeping man; on the honor of De Croustillac, it gives me scruples." Then aloud, "You do not understand, then, my brave friend, that this man as seductive as irresistible of whom I speak is none other than myself?" "Ah, bah! it is impossible." "Your surprise is not flattering, brave hunter, but if I speak thus to you of myself, it is that honor compels me to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. You do not understand that, once having seen me, Blue Beard will love me; and she will not love you any more, my poor Rend-your-Soul. Understand, then, that it would be cowardly and treasonable on my part not to warn you in advance as to the position you hold with Blue Beard. I repeat, from the moment when I put foot in Devil's Cliff, from the moment she sees me, when she hears me, her love for you is at an end. Meantime, I have warned you, loyally warned you; consider if you are willing to risk it." "Clasp hands, brother," said the buccaneer, seemingly insensible to the danger that the chevalier pointed out to him. "Let us be going. We will arrive at night at Devil's Cliff; a fall from the precipice would not be pleasant at this hour." "Come on--you are mad--so be it, but I have warned you; it will be open war," said the chevalier. The buccaneer, without making any reply to the chevalier, said to his servant, "Shut up the dogs in the house, and have ready two dozen bulls' skins, which will be needed to-morrow at Basse-Terre; I shall not return to-night." "It falls aright," said the servant to himself, and with a shrewd air; "he sleeps away from the hut one night in every three." While the buccaneer attached his belt, the chevalier said to himself, looking at the hunter with a feeling of pity, "Faith! but he puts the rope gayly about his own throat; since he will not heed my warning, let him look out for himself. It appears that lovers are, in such cases, no wiser than husbands. But as regards Blue Beard--if she is pretty--it must be that she is--can she receive such a savage? Poor little thing. It is very simple. She does not know the compensation that is reserved for her. Hail to the gods. Croustillac, thy star has arisen!" continued the chevalier, after some minutes of reflection. "Come, brother, let us start," said the buccaneer; "but before doing so, Peter shall envelop your legs in a piece of skin which he has, for we are going to traverse a bad quarter for serpents." The chevalier thanked the buccaneer, not without shrugging his shoulders in pity for him, and said, "Unhappy man! he is shoeing me, but I shall put a cap on him!" This stupid joke was to be fatally punished in Croustillac, who followed his guide with renewed ardor, for was he not going to see Blue Beard? PART II. CHAPTER XII. THE MARRIAGE. After four hours' walk the chevalier and the buccaneer arrived close to Devil's Cliff. The road was so difficult and so much incumbered that the two companions could scarcely converse. Croustillac became more thoughtful the nearer his approach to the dwelling of Blue Beard; in spite of the good opinion he had of himself, in spite of his consoling reflections regarding the allegorical nudity of Venus and Truth, he regretted that his natural advantages were not set off by costly garments. He ventured, then, after some hesitation, to tell a falsehood to the buccaneer. "I assure you, my true and worthy rival, that my servants and trunks are at St. Pierre and I find myself, as you see, hardly clothed in a proper fashion to present myself before the queen of my thoughts." "What do you mean?" said the buccaneer. "What I would say, brave Nimrod, is that I have the appearance of a beggar, in that my coat and shoes, which yesterday were almost new, are to-day abominably tattered and appear at least six months old." "Six months? Oh! they are devilishly older than that to all appearances, my brother." "All which proves how torrid your devilish sun is; in one day it has faded my clothing which yesterday was the freshest sea-green, the most tender and coquettish of colors, until now----" "They are almost mould-green," said the buccaneer. "It is like your shoulder-strap--our devouring sun eats gold until he leave but a red thread." "What signifies the shoulder-strap if the sword is free and strong from the scabbard?" said Croustillac proudly. Then softening his tones, he continued, "It is just because I am momentarily in an outfit unworthy my rank, that I would inquire if I can find garments more suitable at Devil's Cliff?" "Ah, do you think that Blue Beard keeps a second-hand clothing establishment?" said the buccaneer. "Heaven forbid that I should accuse her of such an ignoble traffic! But, in fine, it would not be surprising if, as I say, by chance, there had been overlooked in some corner of a clothes-press some garments belonging to one of the deceased husbands of our charming friend?" "Ah!" said the buccaneer. "Well?" replied the chevalier imperturbably, "although it would cost me an effort to appear in what did not belong to me, and above all, in what could not fit me very well, I would reconcile myself to so doing, in default of my fine clothing now at St. Pierre, even at the risk of being abominably disfigured, perhaps, by the chance garments," continued he disdainfully. The buccaneer broke into peals of laughter at the singular notion of his companion. Croustillac colored with annoyance and said, "Zounds! you are very facetious, my friend." "I laugh because I see I am not alone in the traffic of skins," said Rend-your-Soul. "Truly we are brothers! If I despoil the bulls of their skins, you are not too proud to despoil one of the husbands of the widow. But we are now at the foot of the cliff. Take care, friend, one must have a sure foot and a true eye to climb this ascent unharmed! If you find it too rough, you need go no further; I will send you a guide to conduct you back to Macouba." "Remain here! at my journey's end, almost! after a thousand difficulties! at the moment when I shall see and captivate this enchantress, Blue Beard," cried the chevalier. "You have lost your wits. Come on, comrade, what you do, I will do," said the chevalier. Truth to say, thanks to his long legs, his natural agility and his coolness, Croustillac followed the buccaneer over the perilous road that led to the mansion, across the terrible precipice of Devil's Cliff. A signal from the buccaneer and the wall of the platform was scaled, and, with his companion, he entered the outer buildings. Reaching the covered passage which led to the widow's especial suite, the buccaneer whispered a word in the ear of the mulattress. She took the chevalier's hand and led him to a stairway in the passage. Croustillac hesitated a moment to follow the slave. The buccaneer said, "Go on, brother, you do not wish to present yourself thus before the widow; I have said a word to old Jennette, and she is going to provide you with the means to shine like the sun. As for me, I go to announce your arrival to Blue Beard." So saying, the buccaneer disappeared in the covered passage. Croustillac, guided by the mulattress, came to a room very elegantly and comfortably furnished. "Zounds!" cried the adventurer, rubbing his hands and taking long strides, "this begins well. Provided I can appear to advantage, provided that the deceased husbands of the widow had decent figures and that their clothes will not disfigure me too much, I shall please--I shall captivate the widow; and this animal of a buccaneer, ousted by me from the heart of Blue Beard, will return to-morrow--perhaps even to-night, to his forest." Croustillac soon saw a number of negroes enter the room. One of them staggered under an enormous parcel; the other carried on a chased silver tray a silver gilt dish, wherein smoked a soup of the most appetizing odor; two glass carafes, one filled with old Bordeaux, the color of rubies, the other with Madeira wine, color of topaz, flanked the dish and completed this light refreshment sent to the chevalier by the widow. While one of the slaves placed before him a little table of ebony inlaid with ivory, the negro bearing the parcel laid upon the bed a costume of black velvet ornamented by rich flowers embroidered in gold. What was singular about the coat was that the left sleeve was of cherry-colored satin; this sleeve closed above the wrist with a broad facing of buffalo skin. For the rest, with the exception of this peculiarity, the coat was elegantly cut; stockings of very fine silk, a rhinegrave, or cravat, of magnificent lace, a large felt hat adorned with beautiful white plumes and a heavy gold cord were to complete the transformation of the adventurer. While the chevalier endeavored to divine why the left sleeve of this black velvet coat was of cherry-colored silk, the two negroes prepared a bath in a neighboring dressing-room; another slave asked Croustillac in quite pure French if he would be shaved and have his hair dressed; Croustillac assented. Entirely refreshed and invigorated by an aromatic bath, wrapped in a dressing-gown of fine Holland linen which exhaled the most exquisite odors, the adventurer lounged on a soft divan while the slaves waved enormous fans. The chevalier, in spite of his blind faith in his destiny, which, according to him, was to become as beautiful as it had heretofore been miserable, believed himself at times in a dream. His wildest hopes were surpassed; in casting a complacent glance on the rich costume with which he was clothed, and which was to render him fatally irresistible, he was seized with a feeling akin to remorse, on account of the buccaneer, who had so unwisely given ingress to the wolf into this fold in which dwelt his love. The thought of this good fellow made Croustillac smile; he was prepared to bewilder Blue Beard by language in which he would be victorious over her barbarous adorers. Suddenly a horrible fear obscured the smiling prospect for the Gascon. He began to fear for the first time that Blue Beard might be repulsively plain; he had also the modesty to think that perhaps it would be too much of him to require of fate that Blue Beard be of an ideal beauty. Croustillac possessed good qualities. He said to himself with the conviction of a man who knew perfectly how to moderate and set bounds to his ambition--"Providing the widow be not more than from forty to fifty years; that she be not blind or outrageously lame; that she has some teeth and hair--faith! her wine is so good, her service so fine, her servants so attentive--if she is worth three or four millions, I consent to take the risk my predecessors did, and to make the widow happy, on the honor of De Croustillac! seeing that I prefer to take the consequences of my rôle as a husband rather than return on board the Unicorn and swallow lighted candles for the amusement of that amphibious animal, Captain Daniel. Well, then, should Blue Beard be plain, and of overripe age, she is still a millionaire, and I will take care of this good lady, and will be so very agreeable to her that, far from sending me to join the other dead husbands, she will have no desire but that of cherishing me dearly, and embellishing my life by all kinds of delicious cares. Come, come, Croustillac," said the adventurer, with increased exaltation, "I say truly, your star is in the ascendent, and shall shine more than in the past it has been overcast! Yes, it is in the ascendent." So saying, the chevalier called one of the blacks who was awaiting his orders in a neighboring room, and with his assistance put on the velvet dress with the cherry colored sleeve. The Gascon was tall, but bony and thin; the garment which he donned was made for a man of the same height, but broad-chested and small in the waist; so the vest formed some large folds about the body of Croustillac; and his cherry-colored stockings draped themselves no less majestically about his long, thin, and nervous legs. The chevalier did not concern himself about these slight imperfections of his costume; he threw a final glance at his reflection in the Venetian mirror which the slave held up to him, arranged his rough, black hair, caressed his long mustache, hung his formidable sword to a rich strap of buffalo skin which had been brought to him, proudly put on the felt hat with golden cord and white plumes, and, strutting up and down the room with a triumphant air, impatiently awaited the moment of presentation to the widow. This moment arrived shortly. The aged mulattress who had received the adventurer came to seek him, and begging him to follow her, ushered him into the retired building which we have already seen. The room in which Croustillac waited some moments was furnished with a luxury of which he had heretofore had no idea; superb old paintings, magnificent porcelains, curiosities in goldsmith's work, of the most costly nature, incumbered the furniture, as valuable on account of its material as for its workmanship; a lute and a theorbo, whose ornaments of ivory and gold were of a finish most uncommon in carving, attracted the attention of Croustillac, who was delighted to think that his future wife was a musician. "Zounds!" cried the chevalier, "is it possible that the mistress of so much wealth is as beautiful as the day? No, no, I should be too fortunate; although I deserve this happiness." We may judge of the surprise, not to say the shock, to the Gascon when Angela entered. The little widow was radiant in youth, grace, beauty and dress; robed in a costume of the fashion of Louis the Fourteenth, she wore a dress of sky blue, the long waist of which seemed to be embroidered with diamonds, pearls and rubies, though this profusion of gems was arranged with taste. Croustillac, in spite of his audacity, recoiled before such a vision. In all his life he had never encountered a woman so ravishingly pretty, so royally dressed; he could not believe his eyes; he looked at her with bewilderment. We must say, to the chevalier's credit, that he had a laudable attack of modesty, but unhappily as fleeting as sincere. He thought that so charming a creature might perhaps hesitate to marry an adventurer like himself; but he recalled his impertinent and vainglorious confidences to the buccaneer; he said to himself that, after all, one man was as good as another, and he recovered very rapidly his imperturbable assurance. Croustillac made, one after another, three of the most respectful bows; in order to resume his upright attitude and at the same time display the nobility of his figure, advancing on one of his long legs, and drawing the other a little behind it, he assumed a conquering air, holding his hat in the right hand and resting his left hand upon the handle of his sword. Doubtless he was about to make some gallant compliment to Blue Beard, for he had already placed his hand on his heart, and opened his large mouth, when the little widow, who could no longer repress an irresistible desire to laugh at the absurd appearance of the chevalier, gave free vent to her hilarity. This explosion of gayety shut Croustillac's mouth and he endeavored to smile, hoping thus to humor Blue Beard. This polite effort took the form of so grotesque a grimace that Angela fell on the sofa, forgetting all rules of politeness, all dignity, and abandoned herself to a mad fit of laughter; her beautiful blue eyes, always so brilliant, were veiled in tears of amusement; her cheeks became crimson and her charming dimples deepened to such an extent that the widow could have hidden in their depths the entire end of her rosy little finger. Croustillac, much embarrassed, remained motionless before the pretty widow, first contracting his eyebrows with an angry air, then, on the contrary, he endeavored to relax his thin long face into a forced smile. While these successive expressions did not tend to put an end to Blue Beard's mirth, the chevalier said to himself that for a murderess, the widow did not have such a gloomy and terrible appearance after all. Nevertheless, the vanity of our adventurer could not easily brook the singular effect which he had produced. For want of better conclusion he ended by saying to himself that above all things he always struck the imagination of women keenly; it was necessary at first to astonish them, upset them, and that, in this respect, his first interview with Blue Beard left nothing to be desired. When he saw that the widow had become a little calmer, he said resolutely, and with superbly bombastic manner, "I am sure you laugh, madame, at all the despairing efforts that I make to prevent my poor stolen heart from flying quickly to your feet. It is that which has brought me here; I could not but follow, in spite of myself; yes, madame, in spite of myself. I said to it, 'there, there, softly, softly, my heart, it does not suffice, in order to please a divine beauty, to be passionately loving,' but my little, or rather my great and rash, heart replied ever by drawing me to you with all its strength; as if it had been the steel and Devil's Cliff the magnet; my heart, I say, replied to me, 'Reassure yourself, master; tender and valiant as you are, the love that you feel shall cause the birth of a love which you shall share.' But pardon me madame, the language of my heart makes me outrageously impertinent--it is doubtless this impertinence which makes you laugh anew." "No, sir, no; your appearance diverts me to this great extent because you resemble--ha! ha! ha!--in a strange way, my second husband. You have positively the very same nose--ha! ha! ha!--and in seeing you enter, I believed I saw his spirit--ha! ha! ha!--coming to reproach me--ha! ha! ha!--with his cruel end--ha! ha!" The laughter of Angela redoubled. The chevalier was not ignorant of the antecedents with which Blue Beard might be reproached, but he could not conceal his great surprise at hearing this charming little creature acknowledge the crime of murder with such incredible audacity. Nevertheless, the chevalier recovered his customary coolness and replied gallantly, "I am too happy, madame, to recall to you one of your deceased husbands; and of reviving by my presence one of your memories, whatever it may be. But," continued Croustillac with a gallant manner, "there are other resemblances that I would wish to have to the deceased--whose memory diverts you so much." "That is to say, you desire to marry me?" said Blue Beard to him. The chevalier was stupefied for a moment by this abrupt question. Angela went on: "I expected it; Rend-your-Soul, whom I call by an abbreviation, my little Rendsoul, has informed me of your desires; perhaps he wishes to raise false hopes," added the widow, looking coquettishly at the chevalier. Croustillac experienced surprise after surprise. "How," he cried, "the buccaneer has told you, madame----" "That you have come from France for the express purpose of marrying me--is it true? See, speak frankly--do not deceive me. Oh, I do not like to be thwarted. I warn you, if I have taken it into my head that you shall be my husband, you shall be." "Madame, I beg of you, do not take me for a fool, for a jackanapes, for a stupid; if I am dumb, it is with emotion, surprise." And Croustillac looked about him uneasily, as if to assure himself he was not the sport of a dream. "May I be shot if I expected such a reception." "Well, there is no need to make so many words over it," replied the widow. "I have been told you wish to marry me--is it true?" "As true as that you are the most dazzling beauty that I have ever met," said the chevalier impetuously, placing his hand on his heart. "Truly? Truly? You have really decided to marry me?" cried the little widow, clapping her hands joyfully. "I am so decided, adorable widow, that my only fear now is of not seeing this desire realized; it is, I avow, an excessive desire, a great dream, and----" "Be quiet, then," said Blue Beard, interrupting the chevalier with childlike frankness. "What is the use of these big words? You ask my hand--why should I not give it to you?" "How, madame, can I believe it! Ah, wait, beautiful Islander. I have had many triumphs in my life; princesses have avowed their passion for me; queens have sighed when looking at me, but never, madame, never have I found such a one! Yes, madame, you can congratulate yourself, you can boast of having brought to its height my surprise, my joy and my gratitude. Repeat, then, I implore you, repeat those charming words--you consent to take me for your husband, me, Polyphème de Croustillac?" "I will repeat it as much as you desire; nothing is simpler; you can well understand that I have too much trouble in finding husbands not to seize eagerly the offer which you make me." "Ah, madame," replied the chevalier courteously, "at the risk of passing for an impertinent man, I must allow myself to contradict you. Never can I believe that you could find it difficult to find a husband. I will say more--I am convinced that you have had, since your widowhood only embarrassment of choice, but you have simply not wished to select. You have too good taste, madame," said Croustillac audaciously, "you waited----" "I might deceive you and allow you to think this, chevalier, but you are too brave and gallant a man to be abused--at present," continued Angela, with a gracious and confidential manner, "I will tell you all. Listen to me. The first time I married, I had but to choose, it is true. O, heavens! suitors presented themselves in swarms, and I chose--very well, too. Then my second marriage: it was even then not the same thing. People had commented on the singular death of my first husband, and suitors had already begun to reflect before declaring themselves. However, as I am not stupid, thanks to determination, cajolery and coquetry, I succeeded in getting a second husband. Alas! it was not without trouble. But the third. Oh, you have no idea all the trouble I had; truly I was in despair!" "Ah, madame, why was I not there!" "Doubtless, but, unhappily, you were not. If they talked about the death of my first husband; you can judge what they said about that of my second. People began to distrust me," said the widow, shaking her pretty little head with an expression of ingenuous melancholy. "What would you have? the world is so meddling, so slanderous; men are so strange!" "The world is stupid and egotistical, foolish," cried Croustillac, filled with pity for this victim of calumny. "Men are cowards and fools who believe all the gossip which is told them." "What you say is very true. You are not so, my friend?" "She calls me her friend," cried Croustillac, in a transport; and he answered, "No, certainly not, and I am not so." "Doubtless," said the widow, "you are very different; you spoil me by accepting my proposition so quickly." "Say, rather, that I am beyond bounds overjoyed at it, madame." "You spoil me," continued the widow, with an enchanting smile, and throwing a tender glance at the chevalier. "I assure you you spoil me; you are so easy, so accommodating. Ah! how shall I replace you?" "Replace me?" "Yes, after you, friend." "After me?" "Yes, certainly, after you." "Madame, I do not understand you. I do not wish to understand." "It is very simple; how can I hope to find another like you, who will marry me so willingly? Ah, no, such men are rare!" "How, madame, after me?" cried Croustillac, overcome by this idea. "You dream, then, of a successor to me?" "Yes, friend," replied the widow, with the most touchingly sentimental air imaginable; "yes, for when you are no more I must renew my quest, seek, ask, and find a fifth husband. Think, then, of the difficulties and obstacles to overcome. Perhaps I shall not succeed. Think, then, a widow for the fourth time. You forget that; it is a fact, however; my friend, after you, I shall be a widow for the fourth time." "I do not forget it at all, madame," said Croustillac, whose ardor became somewhat chilled, and began to ask himself if this affair was not madness. "I shall not forget, certainly, in case I have the honor of marrying you, that you will be for the fourth time a widow if you lose me; but it appears you place a rather short period to my love." "Alas! yes, my friend," said the widow, in a tender voice, "one year, and a year is very short. A year! it passes so quickly when one loves," continued she, casting the glance of a perfect assassin at him. "A year, madame," cried the chevalier. But then, believing that the words of Blue Beard hid perhaps a test, that she wished possibly to judge of his courage, he added in a chivalrous tone, "Ah, well, so be it, madame; whether my happiness last but a year, a day, an hour, a minute--it matters not; I will brave all, if only I can say that I have been fortunate enough to obtain your hand." "You are a true knight," said the widow, charmed. "I expected no less of you. That is agreed; only I must forewarn my little Rendsoul, for form's sake, understand, for married or not I shall always be to him what I have been." "But, madame," said Croustillac, "is it permitted me, will it be indiscreet to ask you what you are to this hunter of wild beasts, and what are his relations with you? Or, rather, will you explain to me what intimacy it is that you feel obliges you to speak to him of your plans?" "Certainly; and to whom would I make this statement if not to you, my friend? I will confess to you that Rendsoul is one of my lovers." Here Croustillac made such a singular grimace and coughed two or three times in such a manner, that Angela broke into a peal of laughter. Croustillac, for a moment dumfounded, came to this reflection full of wisdom: "I am a fool! Nothing is simpler. She had a kind of fancy for this stupid fellow. The sight of me has decided her to sacrifice him; unlucky buccaneer that he is! But why the devil does she tell me that at the end of a year she must find a successor to me?" "Wait--here comes my Rendsoul," said the widow. "We will tell him our plans, and we will sup together like three friends." "It matters not to me," said Croustillac, seeing the buccaneer enter. "Here is a little woman who wishes to show that she is an original." CHAPTER XIII THE SUPPER. When the buccaneer entered the chevalier hardly knew him. Rend-your-Soul had put off his hunter's costume; he wore a coat and nether garment of guinea cloth, thickly embroidered with alternate rays of white and deep red; his black beard fell upon a shirt of dazzling whiteness, which was close like a doublet by a row of small coral buttons; a scarf of red silk, hose of the same color, and shoes of doeskin with large ribbon-bows, completed a costume most elegant for a buccaneer, and showing to advantage his tall and robust figure; in the brilliant light of the candles his complexion seemed less brown than in the daytime; his black hair, curling naturally, fell carelessly on his shoulders; and finally, his hands were beautiful, in spite of his rough following as a hunter. At the sight of the buccaneer, so transformed and almost unrecognizable, in spite of the hard character which his thick beard always gave to his face, the chevalier said to himself, "I should prefer that this person had at least a civilized appearance; it would be too humiliating for Polyphème de Croustillac to triumph over a rival so plain as the one which he at first sight appeared to be. But, while I do not doubt this Nimrod, I must say that Blue Beard has a singular manner of acting. Could she not have given him his dismissal in some other way than in my presence? I hate to so cruelly use my advantage in crushing a poor rival; for, after all, a man is a man! This poor buccaneer is going to find himself in a pitiable position. But let me hold firm; and show Blue Beard that I am not the dupe of her confidence concerning her deceased husbands, and that I am not afraid to die like them." Croustillac ended this reflection when the pretty widow, indicating the adventurer by a triumphant nod of the head, said ingenuously to the buccaneer, "This gentleman asks for my hand in marriage. You see you were wrong in persisting to me that I would not find a fourth husband. So you can imagine I have very quickly accepted the chevalier's proposal; it was too good an opportunity to let slip." The buccaneer did not reply at once. Croustillac mechanically put his hand on the hilt of his sword, in order not to be without means of defense in case the hunter, exasperated by jealousy, should wish to do him an injury. What was his surprise when he heard Rend-your-Soul say, after seating himself in a large chair, "I have always said to you, my beautiful one, just what that comrade Hurricane said, 'Marry, a thousand devils marry! if you desire to, for husbands are rare, for one never knows what you will do; but one thing is certain, they never live long.' As for me, I do not approve your little proceedings. I have more than once seen your little white hands prepare certain beverages----" "Oh, fie! fie! bad man!" said Angela, shaking her finger at him. "Nevertheless, it is true," said the buccaneer. "What is the secret of that gray powder of which I had only given a pinch to my servant who was devoured by my dogs. What infernal concoction was it?" "Yes, madame, this gray powder--tell us its compounds," said Croustillac. "Oh, you indiscreet man!" said Angela, looking at the buccaneer, with an air of annoyance. "The chevalier will take me for a child; how shall I appear in his eyes if he thinks I occupy myself with such trifles?" "Have no fears on that score, madame," said Croustillac; "I am delighted, I assure you, to have these new evidences of your youthful candor! Well, worthy Nimrod, this gray powder?" "Truly, I am very much ashamed!" said Angela, hanging her head and lowering her eyes, and at the same time making a charming little grimace. "Imagine, then," said the buccaneer, "that I gave my servant just a little pinch of powder in a glass of brandy." "Well?" said Croustillac, with interest. "Well, for two days he was so gay that he laughed from night till morning and morning till night." "I do not see anything bad in that," said Croustillac. "But wait!" continued the hunter. "My servant did not do this from amusement, he suffered the torments of the damned; his eyes were bursting from their sockets, and he said, between his paroxysms of laughter, that such torture as he endured was beyond belief. The third day he suffered so that he fell as if in a fit, and remained thus a long time; all due to the pinch of madame's gray powder. It may not surprise you to learn that madame's second husband was as gay as a lark, and that he died very joyfully." "Oh! heavens, as if one could not commit a little mischief without being reproached by you," said Angela, like a capricious child. "Listen, comrade! she calls that a little mischief," said the hunter. "Just imagine! her second husband laughed so hard that the blood burst from his nose, eyes and ears. But whatever he laughed about, he did so as if he had seen the most amusing thing in the world. But that did not prevent him from saying, like my servant, that he would rather have been burned at a slow fire than suffer such gayety; he also died, laughing to the last, and swearing like a devil." "There! you go too fast," said Blue Beard, shrugging her shoulders. Then, whispering to the Gascon, "Friend, do not be afraid--I have lost the secret of the gray powder!" The chevalier, in an attempt to smile, made quite a grimace. He had left France at a time when the fearful practice in poisons was at its height, and people talked only of the heir's powder, the powder of the aged, and the widow's powder. The names, even, of certain poisons were cited with fear. Now Blue Beard's laughing powder could not but give rise to the most doleful reflections on the part of the chevalier. "So," he said to himself, glancing defiantly at Angela, "does this creature deal in chemistry and draughts--is this story true?" "What ails you, brother?" said the buccaneer, struck by Croustillac's silence. "You have made him afraid of me," said the widow. "No, my beautiful lady, no," said Croustillac, "I was thinking that it must be very pleasant to die thus of laughter!" "Faith, you are right, brother, one had better die so than as the last husband died." And the buccaneer shuddered with horror. "It appears that the death of the latter must have been more terrible than the former," said Croustillac, with affected carelessness. "As to that story, comrade, I will not tell you that, you would be afraid." "I? afraid?" and the Gascon shrugged his shoulders. Blue Beard leaned over and whispered again to the Gascon, "Let him tell it, friend; this tale, at least, is worth the trouble. I am going to trap Rendsoul." Then, addressing herself to the buccaneer, "Well, go on; speak! Why do you not speak? Do not pause in the middle of the road. You see the chevalier is listening with all his ears--go on, speak. I do not wish him to buy, as they say, a 'a cat in a bag.'" "You should say a tigress in a bag," replied, laughingly, the buccaneer. "Ah, well, sir," addressing Croustillac, "Fancy this third husband a man, handsome, of dark complexion, thirty-six years of age, a Spaniard by birth. We came across him at Havana." "Heavens! tell it quickly," said the widow, "the chevalier is impatient to hear." "It was not a gray powder that he tasted, this one," replied the buccaneer, "but a drop, one drop only, of a pretty green liquid contained in the smallest flask I ever saw in my life, for it was made of a single hollow ruby." "That is simple enough," said Angela, "the strength of this liquid was such that it would dissolve or break any flask which was not made of a ruby or a diamond." "You can judge, after that, chevalier," said the hunter, "of the pleasure which this liquid must have given our third husband. Certainly I am neither over-tender nor timid, but, after all, it is difficult to become accustomed to seeing a man who looks at you with green eyes, luminous, and set so deep in their orbit that they have the effect of a glowworm in the depths of a subterranean cave." "The fact is," said Croustillac, who could not prevent a slight shudder, "the fact is that at first this would appear strange." "That is not all; listen to the rest," said the widow with an air of perfect self-satisfaction. The buccaneer continued: "That was only his usual condition, poor man, having eyes like a glowworm, but what was most frightful was when madame gave a supper to Hurricane, myself and Youmäale. She dipped a camel's hair brush into the little ruby flask and compelled the unhappy Spaniard to approach, and passed this brush over his eyelashes. Then one would have said that from the eyelashes of this unhappy man there issued a thousand rays; his green eyes, sunken in his head, protruded and rolled in their orbit like two globes of fire, and threw such varied and continual light that they sufficed to light up our feast, while the wretched man stood immovable as a marble statue, saying in a piteous voice, 'My head furnishes fuel for the lamps of my eyes!' It was well that the poor man could not see the fire," said the buccaneer, bursting into laughter at this cruel jest. "And when the supply of oil in the lamp failed, the madame's husband went to join his predecessors, in order to leave his place open to you." "What Rendsoul tells you is correct," said Blue Beard. "He is very indiscreet, as you see, but he is truthful. And so am I. I have singular ideas and caprices, I know; my God! I do not wish to represent myself as better than I am. Above all, I would be frank with you and conceal nothing. You would ask why my husbands are the only victims of my playfulness? I have no power over others. And I always warn them what will be their fate. It is that which makes it so difficult for me to find a husband. It is on these conditions alone that Satan signs my contract, and then this contract, signed by him, acquires a virtue as wonderful as mysterious. Alas! my friend, may he soon sign ours. I have thought of two preparations which are entirely different from the others, and the effects of which are truly magical." All this time Croustillac experienced a strange sensation, which he attributed to the fatigue of the day and the evening; it was as if a lethargy possessed his brain and almost took from him the power of resisting by use of his reason the impression made by these strange tales of the widow and the buccaneer. Without believing these fabulous inventions, he was nevertheless frightened by them as one is by a bad dream. The chevalier hardly knew whether he was awake or asleep; he looked at the buccaneer and the widow by turn, with a stupefied air, almost terrified. Finally, being ashamed to show his credulity, he rose abruptly and paced up and down a few minutes in the hope that movement would dispel the torpor which he felt overwhelming him. Croustillac did not wish to be a butt for these two persons, and he almost regretted having embarked so imprudently in this mad adventure. He said to Blue Beard resolutely, "Come, come, you are jesting, madame; do not trouble yourself; I comprehend the joke. I do not believe you as ferocious or as much of a magician as you wish to appear; to-morrow, I am sure I shall learn the secret of this comedy, which to-night, I avow, gives me a kind of nightmare." These words of the chevalier, spoken from no motive but to show the dwellers of Devil's Cliff that he did not intend to be their dupe, produced on Blue Beard a singular effect. She cast a terrified glance at the buccaneer, and said haughtily to Croustillac, "I do not jest, sir; you came here with the intention of marrying me; I offer you my hand, and I will tell you upon what conditions; if these are agreeable to you, we will be married in eight days; there is a chapel here; the reverend Father Griffen, of the parish of Macouba, will come hither in order to unite us; if my conditions do not meet with your approval, you can quit this house, where you never ought to have come." As Blue Beard proceeded her face lost its look of wicked cajolery; she became sad, almost menacing. "A comedy!" she said; "if I thought you took all that has been said as such, you should not remain a moment longer in this house, sir," she continued, in a changed voice, betraying her deep feeling. "No, the chevalier must not take it all as a jest," said the buccaneer, looking steadily at the Gascon. Croustillac, naturally impatient and vivacious, experienced vexation at not being able to discover what was true and what feigned in this singular adventure. He cried then, "Well, zounds! madame, what do you wish me to think? I encounter a buccaneer in the forest; I impart to him my desire to meet you; he informs me abruptly that you will yourself tell me that he has the good fortune to be in your good graces." "And then, sir?" "Then, madame, though I have warned him, the buccaneer has brought me to you, by whom I have been received with the greatest hospitality, I must acknowledge; I am introduced to you; informed of my desires, you yourself offer me your hand, you inform your friend the bull-hunter of my wishes." "Well, sir?" "Madame, up to that time all went well; but now the buccaneer wishes to inform me, with your consent, that I am reserved for a fourth deceased husband, and to succeed a man who laughed himself to death, and one whose eyes served as lights for one of your orgies!" "It is the truth," said the buccaneer. "How, the truth?" continued Croustillac, recovering his lost vivacity. "Are we in the land of dreams? Do you take the Chevalier de Croustillac for a simpleton? Do you think I am one of those weak-minded creatures who believe in the devil? I am not a goose, and I also ask twenty-four hours in which to demolish all these ridiculous stories." Angela became very pale, and threw a look of agony and indescribable fear on the buccaneer, and replied to the chevalier with ill-concealed anger, "Ah, who told you, sir, that all that has taken place is natural? Do you know why I, young and rich, offer you my hand the first moment I see you? Do you know what this union will cost you? You believe yourself to have a strong mind; who told you that certain phenomena would not go beyond your comprehension? Do you know _who_ I am? Do you know _where_ you are? Do you know in consequence of what strange mystery I offer you my hand? A comedy?" repeated Blue Beard bitterly, regarding the buccaneer with an appearance almost of fear; "can you not be made to understand that all this is not a play, sir? It is hardly to be believed that your good angel brought you here, at least." "And then, after all, who told you that you would ever go out of this place?" said the buccaneer coldly. The chevalier recoiled a step, trembling, and said: "Zounds! no violence, at least--or if so----" "If so, what can you do?" said Blue Beard, with a smile which appeared to the Gascon implacably cruel. Croustillac thought, too late, of the doors he had shut behind him, of the difficult road he had had to traverse in order to reach this diabolical house; he saw himself at the mercy of the widow, of the buccaneer, and of their numerous slaves. He repented heartily and most earnestly of having so blindly entered upon such an enterprise. On the other hand, Croustillac, in contemplating the enchanting figure of Blue Beard, could not believe her capable of such bloodthirsty perfidy. Nevertheless, the strange avowals she had made him, the terrible reports concerning her, the threats of the buccaneer, began to make some impression upon the chevalier. Just then a mulattress came in to announce supper. During the gloomy reflections of the adventurer, Angela had a few minutes' conversation with the buccaneer, carried on in a low voice; she was, as a result, apparently satisfied and reassured, for, little by little, her brow cleared, and the smile again came to her lips. "Come, brave knight," said she gayly to the chevalier, "do not be afraid of me any more; do not take me for the devil; and do honor to the modest supper that a poor widow is only too happy to offer you." So saying, she graciously offered her hand to Croustillac. The supper was served with a sumptuousness, a refinement, which left no doubt in the chevalier's mind as to the enormous fortune of the widow. Only, we would say to the reader that the silver-gilt service was not engraved with the royal arms of England, as were the objects which were placed only before Blue Beard. In spite of the sprightliness and ideal grace of the widow, in spite of the witty sallies of the buccaneer, the supper was a gloomy one for Croustillac. His habitual assurance had given place to a kind of vague inquietude. The more charming Angela seemed to him, the more she exercised her fascinations, the greater the luxury which surrounded her, the more the adventurer found his distrust increased. In spite of their absurdity, the strange tales of the buccaneer kept returning to the remembrance of the chevalier--both the tale of the gray powder which caused one to die of laughter, and the liquid in the ruby flask which changed the eyes into brilliant lamps. While these recitals might not be more real than a bad dream past--the Gascon, from dread of some infernal dish, could not prevent himself from distrust of the viands and wines with which he was served. He observed the widow and the buccaneer closely; their manners were perfectly correct. Rendsoul bore himself toward Blue Beard with the proper degree of familiarity which a husband displays toward his wife before a stranger. "But then," the chevalier asked himself, "how does this reserve accord with the cynicism of the widow, who declared so cavalierly that the Caribbean and the filibuster shared her good graces with the buccaneer, without the latter being jealous in the slightest degree?" The Gascon asked himself still further what could be the object of Blue Beard in offering her hand to him, and what price she would put upon this union. He was too clear-sighted not to have noticed the lively emotion, sincere on the part of the widow, when she showed such indignation that the adventurer should believe her capable of playing a comedy in offering her hand. On this point Croustillac had not deceived himself. Blue Beard had been deeply moved; she had been in despair on seeing that the Gascon took for a jest or a comedy all that had passed at Devil's Cliff. She had been reassured on seeing the vague disquietude which the face of the chevalier showed in spite of himself. He was lost in vain conjectures. Never had he found himself in a situation so strange that the idea of a supernatural influence or power should present itself to his mind. In spite of himself, he asked himself if there was nothing unnatural in what he had seen and heard. The fact that he felt the first heavy agony of a superstitious terror struck him most disagreeably. He did not dare to acknowledge to himself that more determined men, wiser and more learned men than he, had, within the century, and even the latter part of it, testified a belief in the existence of a veritable devil. And then, finally, the adventurer had been until then much too indifferent in the matter of religion not to believe in the devil, sooner or later. This fear passed rapidly through the mind of the chevalier, but it would leave, for the future, an indelible mark; however, he reassured himself, little by little, at seeing the pretty widow do honor to the supper; she showed herself too fond of the pleasures of the table to be a spirit of darkness. The supper at an end, the three entered the drawing room, and Blue Beard said to the chevalier in a solemn voice, "To-morrow I will inform you on what conditions I will give you my hand; if you refuse them, you must leave Devil's Cliff. In order to give you a proof of my confidence in you I consent that you shall pass this night in the interior of this house, although I never accord this favor to strangers. Rendsoul will show you the rooms reserved for you." Saying this, the widow entered her own apartment. Croustillac remained absorbed in thought. "Ah, well, brother, how do you feel?" said the buccaneer. "What is your motive in addressing such a question to me? Is it sarcasm?" said the chevalier. "My motive is simply to know how you like our hostess." "Hum, hum--without wishing to detract from her, you must confess that she is a woman very difficult to estimate, at first sight," said Croustillac, with some bitterness. "You cannot be surprised if I consider the subject before I answer your question. To-morrow I will tell you my opinion, if I am able to answer, myself." "In your place I should not consider the subject," said the buccaneer. "I would accept, with eyes closed, all that she offered me, and I would wed her; for, by my faith, one cannot tell who will live or who die; tastes change with years. The days which succeed each other are dissimilar." "Ah, well, have done with your proverbs and parables," said the Gascon, exasperated. "Why do you not marry her yourself?" "I?" "Yes, you!" "Because I do not wish to die of laughter or have my eyes converted into lamps." "And do you think that I wish to do so?" "You?" "Yes; why should I more than you wish to see the devil sign my contract, as this woman playfully says?" "Then do not marry her; you are your own master; that is your lookout." "Certainly, it is my affair, and I will marry her if I choose! _Peste!_" exclaimed the chevalier, who began to fear that he was losing his wits by reason of this chaos of strange ideas. "Come, brother, be calm!" said the buccaneer; "do not worry yourself. Do you doubt I will keep my word? I have brought you to Devil's Cliff; the prettiest woman in the world offers you her hand, her heart and her treasures; what more would you have?" "I would understand all that has taken place, everything that has happened to me for the past two days, all that I have seen and heard to-night!" cried Croustillac, exasperated beyond bounds. "I would know if I am awake or dreaming." "You must not be too exacting, brother. Perhaps this night will bring you a dream which will explain and enlighten you upon these subjects. Come--it is late, the day has been hard; follow me." And, saying these words, the buccaneer took up a candle and made a sign to the chevalier to follow him. They passed through a number of sumptuously furnished rooms, and a little gallery, at the end of which they reached a very elegant bed-chamber, whose windows opened on the beautiful garden of which we have already spoken. "You have been a soldier or a sportsman, brother," said the buccaneer, "you will know, then, how to get along without a servant. No man, except myself, Hurricane, and the Caribbean has ever passed the first door of this place; our beautiful hostess has made an exception in your favor, but this exception must be the only one. Knowing this, brother, may God or the devil keep you in his care." The buccaneer went out, shutting Croustillac in by means of a double lock. The chevalier, much disturbed, opened a window which looked out on the little park. It was guarded by a trellis of steel netting which it was impossible to break, but which did not hide a view of the beautiful garden which the moon illumined with its soft light. Croustillac, ill at ease, examined the wainscoting and floor of his chamber, in order to assure himself that they did not cover any trap; he looked under his bed, sounded the ceiling with his sword, but failed to discover anything suspicious. Nevertheless, by way of further prudence and to make sure, the chevalier laid down in his clothing, after having placed his faithful sword at his side, within reach. In spite of his resolve not to go to sleep, the fatigue and emotions of his journey plunged him quickly into a profound slumber. * * * * * Angela, seated in the room of which we have spoken before, said to the buccaneer: "Unfortunately, this man is not so stupid and credulous as we had thought. Heaven grant he may not be dangerous!" "No, no; reassure yourself," said the buccaneer. "He has shown good stuff, but our two narratives have struck him; he will remember this night for a long time, and, what is better, he will talk about it. Believe me, all the exaggerations which he will use to embellish his recitals will only add to the strange stories afloat concerning Devil's Cliff." "Ah!" cried the widow, still alarmed at the remembrance of the adventurer saying that all was a comedy and that he would investigate it, "in spite of myself I am terrified." "There is nothing to be afraid of, I tell you, Madame Blue Beard," said the buccaneer gayly, kneeling before Angela, and looking at her tenderly. "Your diabolical reputation is too well established to suffer the slightest diminution; but acknowledge that I have an imagination, and that my gray powder and my green liquid accomplished wonders." "And my devil who witnesses my contract," said Angela, laughing merrily. "That is well; I love thus to see you laughing and merry," said the buccaneer. "When I see you sad and dreamy I am always afraid our retreat bores you." "Will you please hold your tongue, Monsieur Rendsoul? Have I the appearance of wearying near you? Are you jealous of your rivals? Ask them if I love them better than I do you. Have you not procured me this distraction and the sight of this Gascon, to whom I owe the most delightful amusement? I was unreasonable. Except for my stupid fears, this evening was charming, because you were here, your eyes on mine, my lover. Ah! the moonlight is superb, let us go for a walk in it outdoors." "Beyond the house?" "Yes; we will walk on the great cliff, you know, where one sees in the distance the ocean. On such a beautiful night it will be delicious." "Come, then, capricious child, take your mantle," said the buccaneer, rising. "Come, Sir Black Beard, take your Spanish sombrero and be ready to carry me in your arms, out of reach of stumbling, for I am lazy." "Come, Madame Blue Beard; but you do not wish to visit our guest?" "I am sure the poor devil has some horrible dream. Ah, well, to-morrow we will give him a guide and send him away." "No, keep him here another day. I will tell you what Father Griffen thinks of it; amusements are rare, he will amuse you." "Heavens! what a beautiful night," said Angela, opening the blinds of the window. "It will make me so happy to take a walk." Opening the outer doors of Devil's Cliff, the buccaneer and the widow left the house. * * * * * Contrary to his expectation, Croustillac passed an excellent night. When he awoke the following morning the sun was already high in the heavens; the blinds which were on his chamber windows had been lowered, fortunately, which softened the light. The chevalier had lain down with all his clothing on. He arose and went over to the window, and opened the blinds partially. What was his astonishment to see, at the end of a long walk bordered with tamarinds, that formed a screen almost impenetrable to the light, Blue Beard walking, negligently, leaning on the arm of a Caribbean of vigorous stature. This Caribbean was entirely dyed, according to custom, that is to say, painted with a kind of luminous composition of a reddish brown; his hair, black and glossy, parted in the center, fell on either side of his cheeks; his beard seemed carefully trimmed; his perfectly regular features partook of the character of calm severity peculiar to the savage; on his neck shone large crescents of carracolis (a kind of metal of which the West Indians alone knew the secret, and composed of gold, brass and silver). These ornaments, of a brilliant red, were curiously chased and incrusted with green stones, the color of malachite, and to these the Indians attribute all kinds of marvelous virtues. The Caribbean was clad in a loose white garment having a border of blue fringe; the large and sweeping folds of this costume would have served as a model for the drapery of a statue. With the exception of the neck, right arm naked to the shoulder, and the left leg, this cotton garment enveloped the Caribbean completely; on his wrist he had bracelets of carracolis also incrusted with green stones; his leg was half hidden by a kind of sandal made of bands of cotton stuff of a vivid color and very picturesque. Angela and Youmäale, for this was he, were walking slowly, and came directly toward the window from the shadow of which the Gascon watched them. A pink girdle about the beautiful figure of the widow confined a long robe of white muslin; her blond curls fell around her fresh and youthful face, which the adventurer had not seen before by day. He could not refrain from admiring her white and clear complexion, her rosy and transparent cheeks, her eyes so limpid and blue. The evening before, Angela had appeared to Croustillac in brilliant apparel, and disturbed by the strange confidences of Blue Beard and the buccaneer, the admiration of the chevalier was mixed with distrust, impatience and fear, and he had been more alarmed than touched by the beauty of Angela; but when he saw her in the morning so simply pretty, he experienced a profound emotion; he was moved; he forgot Devil's Cliff and the cannibal, and thought only of the beautiful creature before him. Love, yes, true love took possession suddenly of the chevalier's heart just before so little in love. Though the growth of this sudden passion was so rapid and instantaneous, it was none the less sincere. Doubtless the evening before, Croustillac had suffered from too much agitation, too sudden astonishment, too strange preoccupations, to really appreciate Blue Beard; refreshed by a night's sleep, the past seemed like a dream and Angela appeared as if for the first time to him; admiring the supple figure outlined by the perfect fit of her white muslin robe, he forgot the brocaded dress studded with precious stones with which he was so impressed the preceding evening. He sought vainly to discover, in the ingenuous and charming features which he now beheld the diabolical smiles of the singular woman who had made such sinister pleasantries concerning her three deceased husbands. In fact, poor Croustillac was in love. Perhaps it was he and not Blue Beard who had changed; but with his new love came all kinds of cruel jealousy. Seeing Angela and Youmäale walking together so familiarly, the adventurer experienced agony and new disquietude increased by an intense curiosity. Alas! what a sight for him. At times, Angela dropped the Caribbean's arm in order to pursue, with the ardent enjoyment of a child, the beautiful gold and blue insects, or to pick some lovely fragrant flower; then she would suddenly return to Youmäale, always calm, almost solemn, who seemed to have a feeling of grave and tender protection for the young woman. At times the Caribbean gave his hand to the widow to kiss. Angela, happy and proud at this favor, carried the hand to her lips with an air at once respectful and passionate; she seemed a Caribbean woman accustomed to live a submissive and devoted slave to her master. Youmäale held a magnificent flower which the widow had given him. He let it fall to the earth. Angela bent quickly, and picking it up, handed it to him, while the savage made no gesture to prevent her, or to thank her for this attention. "Stupid and gross animal!" cried Croustillac indignantly; "would one not think he was a sultan? How can that adorable creature bring herself to kiss the hand of a cannibal, who had no other way of sounding the praises of the good priest Simon than that he had eaten him! Yesterday a buccaneer, to-day a cannibal, to-morrow, without doubt, a filibuster. But she is a veritable Messalina!" continued Croustillac, at once despairing and feeling within himself a victim to a real passion. The widow and the Caribbean approached nearer and nearer the window where Croustillac stood watching them, and he could hear their conversation. Youmäale spoke French with the slight guttural accent natural to his race; his words were few and brief. Croustillac overheard these words of the conversation: "Youmäale," said the little widow, leaning on the arm of the Caribbean and looking tenderly at him, "Youmäale, you are my master, I will obey you; is it not my duty, my sweet duty, to obey you?" "It is thy duty," said the Caribbean, who used that form, but which Angela did not. His dignity as the man demanded this. "Youmäale, my life is your life, my thoughts are yours," returned Angela; "if you should tell me to put to my lips the deadly juice of this poisonous apple, I should do it, to show you that I belong to you, as your bow, your cabin, your canoe, belong to you." Saying these words Angela showed the silent Caribbean a yellow fruit which she held in her hand, and which contained the most deadly and subtle poison. Youmäale, after subjecting Angela to the most piercing scrutiny, made an imperative gesture holding up the forefinger of his right hand. At this sign, the widow quickly raised the deadly fruit to her lips, and, had it not been for a movement still more rapid on the part of the Caribbean she would perhaps have given this fatal proof of passive obedience to the slightest caprice of her master. A movement of affright as fugitive as lightning, contracted the impassive features of the Caribbean as the widow lifted the apple to her lips; but he quickly recovered his coolness, lowering the hand of Angela, kissing the young woman gravely on the forehead, and saying to her in a sweet and sonorous tone, "It is well." At this moment the two pedestrians were so close to the window of Croustillac that the latter, fearing to be discovered eavesdropping, withdrew suddenly into his chamber, and said "How she frightened me with her poison. And this savage animal, who looks like a lobster, as much from the color of his skin as from his movements, says to her, 'It is well,' when this adorable woman, at a sign from him, would have poisoned herself; for once in love, women are capable of anything." Then, after some moments of cruel reflection, the Gascon exclaimed, "It is inexplicable that a woman should be in love with a man such as this one appears to be; with two, for this is evident; although it is an enormity! But it is impossible that she should love three at the same time; this descends to monstrosity--it is worthy of the lower regions. How! Blue Beard, linked to a buccaneer, and a filibuster, also has a frightful fancy for this cannibal who eats missionaries, without taking into account in addition that she proposes to me to marry her! Zounds! this is enough to make one lose his head. Decidedly I will not remain here; no, no, a thousand times, no! What I have seen has made me ill. I will not become so stupid as to take this woman; I should lose all my advantages. Real love makes one as stupid as a goose; during this last hour I have already lost more resolution than since my arrival here. My heart has melted; I feel myself inclined to do the most ridiculous things. Fly, fly; this is madness, a dream. I was born poor; I have always been poor; I will die poor. I will leave this house, I will seek out the worthy captain of the Unicorn. After all," said Croustillac, with a discouragement singular in a man of his character, "there are worse things than swallowing lighted candles to amuse Captain Daniel." These sad reflections were interrupted by the entrance of the old mulattress, who knocked at his door and informed him that the negro who had waited upon him in the capacity of valet the previous day was waiting for him in the outer building. Croustillac followed the slave, was dressed, shaved and thus went to wait upon Blue Beard in the same room where he had waited the preceding night. The widow shortly appeared. CHAPTER XIV. TRUE LOVE. At sight of Blue Beard, in spite of himself, Croustillac blushed like a schoolboy. "I was very disagreeable yesterday, was I not?" said Angela to the chevalier, with an enchanting smile. "I gave you a bad opinion of me when I permitted Rendsoul to tell all kinds of tricks; but do not let us speak of them any more. By the way, Youmäale, the Caribbean, is here." "I saw you from my window, madame," said the chevalier bitterly, while he thought, "She has not the slightest shame. What a pity, with such an adorable face. There, Croustillac, be firm!" "Is Youmäale not very handsome?" asked the widow with a triumphant air. "Humph! he is handsome for a savage," returned the chevalier, unwillingly; "but, now that we are alone, madame, explain to me how you can in one day (do not be shocked by this question which circumstances compel me to ask you), how you can in one day change your lover?" "Oh, it is simple enough; one comes, the other goes; it is very simple." "One comes, the other goes--it is very simple from this standpoint, but, madame, nature and morality have laws!" "All three love me truly, why should I not love all three?" This answer was made with such perfect candor that the chevalier said to himself, "It seems as if this unhappy woman must have been raised in some desert or cavern. She has not the slightest idea of good and evil; one would have to absolutely educate her." He said aloud, with some embarrassment, "At the risk of being taken for an indiscreet and wearisome person, madame, I would say that this morning, during your walk with the Caribbean, I both saw and heard you. How is it that at a sign from him you would dare, at the risk of poisoning yourself, lift to your lips the deadly fruit of the poisonous apple?" "If Youmäale should say to me 'die' I should die," replied the widow. "But the buccaneer, the filibuster--what would they say if you should die for the Caribbean?" "They would say I had done right." "And if they demanded that you should die for them?" "I would die for them." "As you would for Youmäale?" "As for Youmäale." "Then you love the three equally?" "Yes, because all three love me equally." "She has a rooted idea and no one can dislodge it," thought the Gascon; "I lose my trouble. Her accent is too frank to be assumed. It may be that evil tongues have slandered a fraternal affection that this young woman bears for these three bandits. Though the buccaneer gave me to understand--after all, perhaps I misunderstood him and, as I am going to leave her, I would much rather believe her more innocent than culpable; although she does appear very hard to me to acquit." He went on: "A last question, madame. What was the object of the atrocious tales that you and the buccaneer related last night concerning two of your deceased husbands--that one had died of laughter and the other been used as a lamp, thanks to the intervention of Satan who always, according to the same story, signs your marriage contract? You must feel, madame, that, however polite I may be, it is extremely difficult for me to appear to believe such follies as these." "They are not follies." "How--you wish me to believe----" "Oh, you must believe them, and many other things, after you have evidence of them," said the widow, with a peculiar tone. "And when will you explain this mystery to me, madame?" "When I tell you the price I place upon my hand." "Ah, she is beginning to jest again," thought the Gascon. "I will appear to be duped, in order to see what she will do; I wish she was far away--that my stupid fancy were completely extinguished." Then aloud, "Was it not to-day that you were to say what price you place upon your hand, madame?" "Yes." "At what hour?" "This evening, when the moon rises." "Why not now, madame?" "That is a secret you will know like others." "And if I marry you, you will give me but one year to live?" "Alas! only a year." "Let me appear duped," said the Gascon to himself; and aloud, "Is it your desire that my days should be so few?" "No, no!" cried the widow. "Then, personally, you do not dislike me?" said Croustillac. At this question the face of Blue Beard changed entirely and her expression became grave and thoughtful; she raised her head proudly, and the chevalier was struck with the air of nobility and goodness which overspread her face. "Listen to me," she said, with an affectionate and protecting voice. "Because certain circumstances in my life oblige me to a conduct often strange; because I perhaps abuse my liberty you must not think I have a contempt for men of heart." Croustillac looked at the widow with surprise. She was not the same woman. She appeared like a woman of the world. He was so taken aback that he could not speak. Blue Beard continued: "You ask me if I hate you; we have not yet reached the point where such sentiments, good or bad, can attain such extremity; but I am far from hating you; you are certainly very vain, very boastful, very arrogant----" "Madame!" "But you are good, brave, and you would be capable, I am sure, of a generous devotion; you are poor, of obscure birth----" "Madame, the name of Croustillac is as good as any other," cried the chevalier, unable to vanquish the demon of pride. The widow continued as if she had not heard the chevalier. "If you had been born rich and powerful, you would have made a noble use of your power and your wealth. Want has counseled you to more evil than she has made you perform, for you have suffered and endured many privations----" "But, madame----" "Poverty finds you careless and resigned; fortune would have found you prodigal and generous; in a word, what is of rare occurrence, you have not been more hurt by poverty than you would have been by prosperity. If the amount of your good qualities has not brought you much more than the heedlessness of youth, this house would not have been open to you, be certain of that, sir. If the proposition that I shall make you to-night is not agreeable to you, I am sure, at least, that you will not carry away a disagreeable remembrance of Blue Beard. Will you await me here?" she said, smiling, "I am going to take a look at Youmäale's breakfast, for it is customary with the Caribbeans that the women alone take care of this, and I wish, in that respect at least, that Youmäale should feel as if in his own cabin." So saying, the widow left. This interview was, so to speak, a finishing touch to the unhappy chevalier. Although the widow had shrewdly summed up the character of Croustillac, she had expressed it in a manner full of kindness, grace and dignity. She had, in fact, shown herself in a new light, which overthrew all the Gascon's suppositions. The simple and affectionate words of Angela, the sweet and noble look which accompanied them, rendered Croustillac prouder and happier than he would have been at the most extravagant compliments. He felt, with a mixture of joy and fear, so completely and hopelessly in love with the widow that had she been poor and friendless he would have been truly and generously devoted to her--the most unmistakable symptom of true love. The astounding presumption of the chevalier deserted him. He understood how ridiculous the part he had played must appear; and, as the property of true sentiment is always to make us better, more intelligent and more sensible, in spite of the chaos of contradictions which surrounded Angela's conduct, the chevalier discerned that these appearances must hide a grave mystery; he also said to himself that the intimacy of Blue Beard with her lovers, as she called them, covered, without doubt, another secret, and that this young woman was, as a consequence, slandered in a most unjust manner. He said, further, that the apparent ease with which Angela assumed a frightful cynicism before a stranger was not without some very pressing reason. In consequence of this rehabilitation of Blue Beard in the mind of Croustillac, she became in his eyes, completely innocent of the murder of her three husbands. Finally, the adventurer began to believe, so much had love metamorphosed him, that the solitary inmate of Devil's Cliff wished to mock him; and he proposed to clear up his suspicions that same night, when the widow should tell him the price she placed upon her hand. One thing embarrassed Croustillac--how could the widow have informed herself of his life so completely? But he remembered, with some exceptions, that he had not made any mystery of the greater part of the antecedents of his life on board the Unicorn, and that the business manager of Blue Beard's affairs at St. Pierre might have discussed the passengers with Captain Daniel. Finally, with a wisdom and good sense which did credit to the new feeling which animated him, Croustillac put these two cases to himself: Either Blue Beard wished to amuse herself, and that night would say to him frankly, "Sir, you have been an impertinent meddler; blinded by vanity, urged on by cupidity, you have made a wager that you would become my husband in a month's time; I have wished to torment you a little, and to play the ferocious part accredited to me; the buccaneer, the filibuster, and the Caribbean are my three servants in whom I have entire confidence; and as I live alone in a very isolated locality, each of them comes by turn to watch at night. Knowing the absurd stories afloat, I wished to amuse myself at the expense of your credulity; this morning, even, I saw from the end of the walk that you were spying upon me, and the comedy of the poisonous apple was arranged with Youmäale; as for the kiss he placed upon my forehead"--here the chevalier was embarrassed for a moment as to how to excuse this part of the rôle which he supposed played by the widow; but he solved the question by saying to himself that, according to Caribbean customs, this familiarity was, doubtless, not considered strange. The chevalier felt that he must be satisfied with this explanation; and to do him justice (a little late, in truth) he would renounce his mad hopes, beg the widow to forget the conduct of which he had been guilty, kiss her hand and ask her to furnish him with a guide, resume his poor old garments, of faded green, and pink stockings, and return to a happier fate which awaited him in the cabin of the Unicorn's worthy captain. If, on the contrary, the widow had serious views in regard to the chevalier (which he found some difficulty in admitting to himself, although he was not blind to his own merit), he would repay her with the happiness of his life; he would charge himself personally with protecting his wife, and banish the buccaneer to his trading-station, the Caribbean to his hut, and the filibuster to his occupation; at least, if the widow did not prefer to return with him to France to live there. We must say to the honor of poor Croustillac that he hardly dwelt upon this last hope; he considered his first interpretation of the conduct of the widow as much more probable. Finally, by a natural reaction, of mind over matter, the triumphant boasting of the chevalier ceased at the same time with his conceit. His face was no longer distorted by grotesque vanity; for it expressed the better qualities of the chevalier--resolution, courage--we would add loyalty, for it was impossible to add more frankness to his conceit than was to be found in the Gascon. While the Chevalier de Croustillac waited with impatience the night of this day which promised to be so fertile in developments, because Blue Beard intended to signify her final intention, let us conduct the reader to Fort Royal, at Martinique, the principal port of the island, where the governor resided the greater portion of the time. There had transpired a new incident which demands our immediate notice. The shipyard at St. Pierre, where the Unicorn had touched, was intended for the anchorage of merchant vessels, just as the shipyard at Fort Royal was for ships-of-war. About the same time that Youmäale was walking with Blue Beard, the lookout above the governor's house (at Fort Royal) signaled a French frigate; the watch sent his assistant to inform the officer of artillery commanding the battery at the fort, in order that he might fire a salute (as was the custom) to the king's flag, (the custom being to fire a salute of ten guns from all the ships-of-war when they came to anchor). To the great surprise of the lookout who repented then of having dispatched his assistant to the sergeant, he saw the frigate heave to, outside the roadstead, and lower a boat; this boat was propelled through the waves to the entrance of the port, while the frigate rode at anchor and waited for it. This proceeding was so strange that the lookout reported to the captain of the Governor's Guards, and related to him what had occurred, to the end that he could countermand the salute from the fort. This order given, the captain went at once to inform the governor of this singular evolution on the frigate's part. An hour later, the boat belonging to the French ship arrived at Fort Royal, and landed a person dressed like a man of some rank, who was accompanied by the lieutenant of the frigate. They went at once to the house of the governor, Baron de Rupinelle. The officer gave a letter from the captain commanding the Fulminante to the baron. His vessel was under orders to wait the result of the mission with which Monsieur de Chemerant was charged, and to depart at once. They had hastily taken on some fresh victuals and fresh water for the men on board. The lieutenant went out to attend to matters pertaining to reprovisioning the frigate, and Monsieur de Chemerant and the governor were alone. Monsieur de Chemerant was a man of from forty-five to fifty years, of a dark olive complexion which gave to his sea-green eyes an added charm; he wore a black peruke and a brown coat trimmed with gold braid. His features were intellectual, his words few, his eye piercing; his mouth, or rather his lips, were altogether too thin and compressed to ever smile; if he occasionally gave vent to sarcasm upon what had happened, his face became still more serious than usual. He had also very polished manners and showed his familiarity with the best society. His courage, discretion and coolness were such that Monsieur de Louvois had already frequently employed him in missions of the greatest difficulty and danger. Monsieur de Chemerant afforded a striking contrast to the governor, Baron de Rupinelle, a large and indolent man, having but one care, that of keeping cool; his face was gross, purple and full; his eyes, unusually round, gave him a look of perpetual surprise. The baron, honest and brave, but a perfect nonentity, owed his position to the powerful influence of the Colbert family to which he was related through his mother. In order to receive the lieutenant of the frigate, and Monsieur de Chemerant with proper courtesy, the baron had removed, much to his regret, a white cotton coat and a hat of Caribbean straw to put on an enormous blond wig, squeeze into a coat of a kind of blue uniform embroidered with gold braid, and buckled on a heavy shoulder-belt and sword. The heat was intense, and the governor anathematized the etiquette of which he was the victim. "Sir," said De Chemerant, who seemed perfectly indifferent to this tropical temperature, "can we speak without fear of being overheard?" "There is no danger on that score, sir; this door opens into my study where there is no one, and that one into the gallery which is also unoccupied." Monsieur de Chemerant arose, looked into the two places, and carefully shut both doors. "Pardon, sir," said the governor, "if we remain here with only two windows open----" "You are right, baron," said De Chemerant, interrupting the governor and shutting the windows with equal care, "that is more prudent; we might be heard from the outside." "But, sir, if we remain without a current of air we shall suffocate here. It will become a perfect oven." "That which I have the honor to say to you, sir, will not take long; but it concerns a state secret of the greatest importance, and the slightest indiscretion may jeopardize the success of the mission which has been confided to me by the king's command. You must accord me, then, the privilege of shutting ourselves in here until the close of our interview." "If it is the king's orders, I must submit, sir," said De Rupinelle, with a heavy sigh and wiping his forehead. "I am entirely at your service." "Be so good as to cast your eye upon my credentials from his majesty," said De Chemerant; and he took a paper from a little box which he bore with great care and never intrusted to any one. CHAPTER XV. THE ENVOY FROM FRANCE. While the governor read his dispatch De Chemerant looked with a satisfied air at an object within his box and said to himself, "If I have occasion to use it, this will be perfect; my idea is excellent." "This order, sir, is regular; I must execute all the commands you give me," said the governor, looking at his visitor with profound astonishment. Then he continued, "It is so very warm, sir, that I must ask your permission to remove my wig, in spite of proprieties." "Make yourself comfortable, sir, make yourself comfortable, I beg of you." The governor threw his wig on the table and seemed to breathe more easily. "And now, baron, be so good as to reply to a number of questions which I have the honor to put to you." And De Chemerant took from his little box some notes wherein was stated, doubtless, what he wished to ask the governor. "There is, not far from the parish of Macouba, in the midst of woods and rocks, a kind of fortified mansion called Devil's Cliff?" "Yes, sir, and this same house does not bear a very good name. Chevalier de Crussol, my predecessor, made a visit to the place to learn what foundation there was for these rumors, but I have searched in vain for papers bearing upon this subject among his correspondence." Monsieur de Chemerant continued: "This house is occupied by a woman--a widow, baron?" "So thoroughly a widow, sir, that she has been surnamed in the country Blue Beard, because of the rapidity with which she has successively made way with the three husbands she has had. Might I venture to say that this cravat in stifling me, sir?" added the unhappy governor; "we do not usually wear them here, and if you will permit me----" "Take it off, sir, the service of the king will not suffer thereby. Chevalier de Crussol, your predecessor, you say, began an investigation on the subject of the disappearance of the three husbands of this Blue Beard?" "So they told me, sir, but I have never found any trace of this investigation." "Commander de Saint-Simon, who fulfilled the duties of governor after the death of De Crussol, and before your arrival here, did not deliver to you, baron, a confidential letter written by De Crussol?" "Yes--yes, sir," said the governor, looking at De Chemerant with profound astonishment. "This letter was written by De Crussol a short time previous to his death?" "Yes, sir." "This letter relates to the inhabitant of Devil's Cliff; is this not true, baron?" "Yes, sir," said the governor, more and more surprised to find De Chemerant so well informed. "Monsieur de Crussol assured you in this letter, upon his honor, that this woman called Blue Beard was innocent of the crimes imputed to her?" "Yes, sir, but how can you know?" Monsieur de Chemerant interrupted the governor and said, "Allow me to say, sir, that the king ordered me to make inquiries of you, and not replies. I have the honor to ask of you if, in this letter, the deceased, De Crussol, did not vouch for the entire innocence of the widow surnamed Blue Beard?" "Yes, sir." "He affirmed to you, on the faith of a Christian, and at the moment when he was about to appear before his God, also on his word as a gentleman, that you could, without prejudice to the service of the king, leave this woman at liberty and in peace?" "Yes, sir." "And that, finally, the Reverend Father Griffen, a man of well-known piety and the most honorable character, would be further surety for this woman, if you demanded it of him?" "Yes, sir, and, in truth, in a confidential interview, very special and very secret----" "Which you had with Father Griffen, baron, this religious man confirmed to you what De Crussol had stated in his last letter, and you made him, in form, a promise not to disturb the aforesaid widow?" The governor, unable to fathom his being so well informed, gazed at De Chemerant in bewilderment. The kind of emotion which this examination, joined to the oppressiveness of the air, occasioned, was choking the baron. After a short pause he said resolutely to De Chemerant, "Faith, sir, one must accommodate oneself to one's situation. I must ask permission to take off my coat. This trimming of gold and silver weighs a hundred pounds, I believe." "Take it off, take it off, baron; the coat does not make the governor," he said gravely, with a bow; then he continued: "Thanks to the advice of De Crussol and the Reverend Father Griffen, the dweller at Devil's Cliff has not been disturbed, baron? You have not visited the place, in spite of the strange stories about it?" "No, sir, I assure you, the recommendation of the persons so respectable as Father Griffen and the deceased De Crussol were sufficient. And then the road to Devil's Cliff is impassable; the rocks bare and rent; it takes two or three hours to climb them; and faith, I assure you, sir, to make such a journey under the sun of the tropics," said the baron, wiping his forehead, which was perspiring at the mere thought of such a climb, "appears to me entirely inadvisable, because, morally, I am convinced that the aforesaid stories have no foundation, and I think in that I am not wrong." "Allow me, baron, to ask you some further questions." "At your service, sir." "The woman called Blue Beard has a counting house at St. Pierre?" "Yes, sir." "Her business man is empowered to send out her vessels which are always destined for France?" "That, sir, is very easily verified in the clearing books of the captains. "And these registers?" "Are there in that case." "Will you take the trouble to look them over, baron, and to select from them some dates which I was going to ask of you?" The governor arose, mounted painfully on a chair, and took down a large volume bound in green leather, placing it on his desk; then, as if this exertion had redoubled the heat he was suffering from and exhausted his strength, he said to De Chemerant: "Sir, you have been, doubtless, a soldier; you can understand that we live a little carelessly; for, without further parley and asking pardon for the great liberty, I will remove my vest, if you please; it is embroidered in cloth and as heavy as a cuirass." "Take it off--take off everything that you wish to," replied De Chemerant with impervious gravity; "there is so little left for me to say to you that I trust you will not need to remove more of your apparel. Can you feel assured, other than from these facts, that the vessels loaded with cargoes by our widow have always been sent to France?" "Yes, sir," replied the governor, opening his register; then, following with the end of his finger the tables, he read, "'For Rochelle, for Rochelle, for Bordeaux, for Bordeaux, for Rochelle, for Rochelle, for Havre de Grace.' You see, sir, the vessels have always sailed for France." "That is well, baron. According to the direction, frequent enough, of vessels of commerce, which leave the counting-house wharves, it follows that Blue Beard (we will adopt the popular surname) can put a vessel to sea very quickly." "Doubtless, sir." "Has she not a brigantine always ready to put to sea, and which can in two hours be at the Creek of Caymans, not far from Devil's Cliff, where there is a little harbor," said De Chemerant, consulting his notes once more. "Yes, sir; this brigantine is called the Chameleon; Blue Beard recently placed it, very generously, at my service (through the mediation of Monsieur Morris, her man of business), to give chase to a Spanish pirate, and there is an old filibuster of a captain called Hurricane, who commands the vessel----" "We will speak of this filibuster later, sir, but this pirate----" "Was sunk in the Rivière des Saints." "To return to this filibuster, baron; he frequents the house of Blue Beard?" "Yes, sir." "As much so as another bad fellow, a buccaneer by trade?" "Yes, sir," said the baron in a dry tone, resolved to confine himself to the secondary rôle which De Chemerant imposed upon him. "A Caribbean also is often there?" "Yes, sir." "The presence of these men in the island is of how recent date?" "That I do not know, sir; they were established here at my arrival in Martinique. They say that the filibuster formerly pursued his calling on the north of the Antilles and the seas of the south. Like many captains who have made something by filibustering, he has bought here a little dwelling at the point of the island, where he lives alone." "And the buccaneer, baron?" "This kind of person is here to-day, gone to-morrow, according to whether the hunt is more or less abundant; sometimes he remains away a month, and it is the same with the Caribbean." "This information accords perfectly with that which was given me; beside, I do not speak of men of this sort other than by hearsay. They are far too unimportant, and too foreign to the mission which I am in charge of, to merit their occupying my attention for any length of time. They are, at most, passive instruments," continued De Chemerant to himself, "and they are probably very indirectly connected with this grave matter." Then, after a few minutes' reflection, he said aloud, "Now, baron, one more question: have not your secret police notified you that the English have tried to introduce themselves into this island since the war?" "Twice, lately, sir, our cruisers have given chase to a suspicious vessel coming from the Barbadoes seeking to approach from the windward, the only places where one can land in the island; elsewhere the coast is too rugged to permit landing." "Very good," said De Chemerant. After a moment's silence he said, "Tell me, baron, how long would it take to go to Devil's Cliff?" "About eleven hours; the roads are difficult, one could not reach there before nightfall." "Well, then, baron," said De Chemerant, taking out his watch, "in two hours from now, that is to say, at one o'clock in the afternoon, you will have the goodness to order thirty of your most reliable guards to arm themselves, to provide themselves with scaling ladders, one or two bombs, and to hold themselves in readiness to follow and obey me as they would yourself." "But, sir, if you wish to go to Devil's Cliff, you must start at once in order to arrive by daylight." "Doubtless baron; but as I desire to arrive in the middle of the night, you will see the wisdom of my not starting for two hours." "That is another thing, sir." "Can you procure for me a covered litter?" "Yes, sir, there is mine." "And can this go to Devil's Cliff?" "To the foot of the mountain only, not a step further, for they say it is impossible for a horse to climb the heaped-up and yawning rocks." "Very good; will you, then, be so good, baron, as to have this litter prepared, as well as a mount for me; I will leave it at the foot of the cliff." "Yes, sir." "I warn you, baron, that it is of the greatest importance that the object of this enterprise be perfectly concealed; all will be lost if they are warned of my visit to Devil's Cliff; we shall not inform the escort of our destination until outside Fort Royal, and we shall make, I hope, as much haste as the roads will permit. In a word, baron," continued the envoy, with a confidential air, which he had not assumed until then, "mystery is so much the more indispensable that it concerns a state secret and the future of two great nations." "Because of Blue Beard?" said the governor, questioning with a curious glance the cold and grave face of De Chemerant. "Because of Blue Beard." "How?" replied the baron. "Blue Beard, then, counts for something in a state secret, in the peace of two great nations?" Monsieur de Chemerant, who did not like repetition, made an affirmative sign and continued, "I also beg of you, baron, that you will see that the frigate's boat does not leave the wharf, so that I may return on board and put to sea without remaining here a second, if, as I hope, my mission be successful. Ah! I forgot; the litter must be such that it can be entirely closed." "But, sir, is it, then, a prisoner that you are in search of?" "Sir," said De Chemerant, rising, "a thousand pardons for repeating to you that the king ordered me to make inquiries of you instead of----" "Good, very good, sir," said the governor. "Then I may open the windows?" asked the baron, who was suffocated in this apartment. "I see nothing to prevent, baron." The governor arose. "So, baron," said De Chemerant, "it is understood that you do not inform the guide who is to conduct me of my destination, until the moment of our departure?" "But in the meantime, sir, if I send for him, what shall I say to him?" The visitor seemed astonished at the simplicity of the governor, and said to him, "Who is this guide, sir?" "One of my blacks, who works at the king's house, a good league from here. He is an oddity who has run away himself so often that he is more familiar with the inaccessible spots of the island than with the open roads." "Is this slave reliable, sir?" "Entirely, sir; he would have no object in leading you astray; beside, I will warn him that if he does, I will have his nose and ears out off." "It is impossible that he should resist such a consideration, baron. But to reply to your objection--how will this negro occupy himself until the moment of our departure?" "An idea!" cried the baron triumphantly; "he can be flogged; that will mislead him; he believes that no one summons him here other than for that reason." "That would be, certainly, an excellent means, baron, of working a diversion in his ideas, but it will suffice, I think, to keep him shut up until the moment of our departure. Ah! I had forgotten another thing, baron; I beg you will see that, during my absence, everything that can be found in the way of delicacies in fruit, vegetables, game, fine wines, confections, etc., etc., be sent on board ship. You need not consider expense, I will meet that." "I understand you, sir; I must collect, in the way of refreshments, all that it is possible to keep on board during the first days of the voyage, as much so as if it were for the entertainment of a person of the greatest distinction," said the governor curiously. "You understand me marvelously well, baron. But I fancy this black, our guide, has viewed, at least from the outside, the habitation at Devil's Cliff." "Yes, sir; and he tells very strange stories about that house and the solitudes where it is builded." "Ah, well, baron; here is a task for this slave; give orders that he be brought to me pending the time of our departure, and I will question him concerning what I wish to discover." "I will send in search of him at once," said the governor, going out. "May God or the devil convey this affair into safe harbor," said De Chemerant, when he was alone. "Fortunately, I have no need of the aid of this stupid governor; the greatest difficulty is still to be surmounted; but no matter, I have faith in my star. The affair of Fabrio-Chigi was a much more difficult matter, and then the hope, if not of a crown, at least almost of a throne, the ambition to direct the course of a great nation, the desire of recovering the good graces of the king, his relative, would not there be reasons sufficient to determine the most rebellious will? and, moreover, if these reasons were not enough," said De Chemerant, after some moments of silence, striking his little box, "here is another argument which will be, perhaps, more effectual." * * * * * Two hours later De Chemerant started for Devil's Cliff at the head of thirty of the Governor's Guards, armed to the teeth. A litter, drawn by two mules, followed this little detachment, preceded by the guide. This slave had had a long interview with De Chemerant, and, as a consequence, he had taken two scaling ladders and petards carried on a pack horse, a bundle of stout ropes with grapples of iron, and two axes. Moreover, De Chemerant had given orders to the lieutenant of the frigate to send him two good sailors chosen from among the fifteen sailors forming the crew of the boat which awaited, at the landing at Fort Royal, the result of the expedition. This little company set out, preceded by the guide, who, flanked by the two sailors, marched a little in advance of De Chemerant. After having followed the coast for a long time, the troop climbed a very high hill, and pressed on into the interior of the island. We will leave De Chemerant advancing slowly toward Devil's Cliff, and will rejoin Father Griffen at Macouba, and Colonel Rutler at the bottom of the precipice, where he had arrived by way of the subterranean passage, after the wildcats, by devouring the corpse of John, had removed the obstacle which before had held the English envoy in the cavern of the Caraibe. CHAPTER XVI. THE STORM. Monsieur De Chemerant had scarcely left Fort Royal at the head of his escort when a young mulatto of about fifteen, after having followed for some time, hiding in the ravines or the swamps, on seeing the troop take the road to Devil's Cliff, started with all haste for Macouba. Thanks to his perfect knowledge of the country and of certain roads not open, this slave reached Father Griffen's parish very soon. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon; the good priest was taking his afternoon nap, comfortably extended in one of the hammocks so ingeniously made of rushes by the Caribbeans. The young mulatto had the greatest difficulty in persuading one of the priest's two slaves to awaken his master; finally Monsieur concluded, after long hesitation, because of the deep and peaceful sleep of the priest, to do so. "What do you want?" said the priest. "Master, a young mulatto has come in haste from Fort Royal and wishes to speak to you at once." "A mulatto from Fort Royal," said Father Griffen, springing from his hammock. "Let him come in quickly. What do you want, my child?" continued he, addressing the young slave; "have you come by direction of Monsieur Morris?" "Yes, Father. Here is a letter from him. He told me to follow an escort of troops leaving Fort Royal this morning, and directed me, if they took the road to Devil's Cliff, to come and tell you, Father. His letter will explain the rest." "Very well, my child, the troop----" "Plunged into the Goyaviers valley, and took the road to the Black Rocks; that leads only to Devil's Cliff." Father Griffen, much disturbed, broke the seal of the letter and seemed overcome at its contents. He re-read it with evidence of the greatest surprise, and then said to the mulatto, "Go quickly and find Monsieur." The mulatto went at once. "An envoy from France has arrived; he had a long interview with the governor, and I fear he has started with armed men for Devil's Cliff, as Monsieur Morris believes," said the priest, walking up and down agitatedly. "Monsieur Morris does not know, cannot know more. But I--I--I tremble to think of the consequences of this visit. Doubtless the mystery has been unveiled. And how, how? Who can have put them on the scent? Did not the secret die with De Crussol? His letter is my guarantee. Did they not quiet the governor and cause him to give up all pursuit of this unhappy woman?" Then, referring to Monsieur Morris' letter, the priest continued: "'A French frigate which remains at anchor outside the roadstead, an envoy who confers for two hours with the governor, and who, after this interview, leaves for Devil's Cliff with an escort'--there is more than suspicion, there is certainty? They have come to carry her off. My God! can it be true? But, the secret--who but myself knew it? for I only knew it, oh, yes, I alone, at least unless a frightful sacrilege--but no, no!" said the priest, clasping his hands with terror. "Such a thought on my part is a crime. No, it is impossible. I would rather believe it was indiscretion on the part of the only person who has an interest for life or death in the mystery, than that it should be the most impious treachery. No, a thousand times no; it is impossible! but I must start at once for Devil's Cliff. Perhaps I can get the advance of this man who has left Fort Royal with an escort. Yes, by hurrying, I may do it. I will find that unlucky Gascon; they have nothing to fear there. His extraordinary appearance on board made me believe the poor devil, for a time, to be an emissary from London or Saint-Germain; but I have, as they say, turned him inside out, in every way. I mentioned before him abruptly certain names which, had he been in the secret, he would have found it impossible not to betray it, however guarded he might be, and he remained impassible. I understand men too well to have been deceived by him; the chevalier is nothing but a crazy adventurer, a spoiled child, in whom, after all, good qualities triumph over the bad ones." At this moment Monsieur appeared. "Saddle Grenadille at once." "Yes, master." "Unchain Colas." "Yes, master." "Do not forget to put my large traveling cloak behind my saddle." "Yes, master." The black went out, then returned almost immediately, saying, "Master, shall I arm Colas?" "Certainly, we go through the forest." While his mare was being saddled, the priest continued to pace up and down restlessly. All at once he cried, with fright, as if struck by a sudden thought, "But if I have been deceived; if this adventurer, under a guise of frivolity, concealed some plan coolly resolved upon--some sinister design? But no! no! cunning and dissimulation could not attain to such an odious perfection. But what if his errand coincides with that of this man who has started out with an escort? And I, I who have answered for this adventurer, I who in my letter of yesterday have almost approved their decision concerning him, thinking, as they did, that this Gascon by repeating the mysterious stories connected with Devil's Cliff, would only advance the ends of those who live there. But what if I have been deceived? if I have helped introduce a dangerous enemy there? But no! he would have taken action before this if he had known the secret. And still--no! no! perhaps he waited the arrival of this frigate and this emissary before acting? Perhaps he is working with him? Oh! I am in terrible uncertainty." So saying, Father Griffen went out quickly to hasten the preparations for his departure. Monsieur was saddling Grenadille and Jean was arming Colas. Some explanation is necessary in order to instruct the reader in regard to a new actor of which we have thus far had no occasion to speak. Colas was a boar, possessed of marvelous intelligence; this boar always accompanied him and went ahead on these excursions. Thanks to their long, rough hair, and to their thick coat of fat, which impedes and congeals, so to speak, the sting of serpents, boars and even domesticated pigs carry on in the colonies a desperate war with these reptiles; Colas was one of their most intrepid enemies. His armor consisted of a kind of muzzle of iron pierced with little holes, and ending in a kind of very sharp crescent. This protected the end of the boar's head, its only vulnerable part, and furnished him with a formidable weapon against serpents. Colas always preceded Grenadille some steps, clearing the road and putting to flight the serpents which would have stung the mare. Father Griffen, if he had known of the abrupt departure of Croustillac (the adventurer had, as we know, left the parsonage without any farewell to his host), would have offered Colas to the chevalier, when he became assured that Croustillac was absolutely determined to penetrate the forest. The priest thought that the boar would protect Croustillac from some of the dangers to which he would be exposed; but the early flight of the latter rendered the thoughtfulness of Father Griffen futile. After placing the house in charge of the two blacks, on whose faithfulness he knew he could count, the priest spurred Grenadille, whistled to Colas, who responded with a joyful grunt, and like another St. Antony, the good father took the road which would lead him to Devil's Cliff, fearful of arriving too late, and also of encountering on the way De Chemerant, whom he could with difficulty hope to head off. * * * * * The reader will remember that, thanks to the voracity of the wildcats which had devoured the corpse of the sailor John, Colonel Rutler had been enabled to emerge from the pearl-fisher's cave by way of the underground passage. In order to understand the extreme importance and difficulty of the expedition which Colonel Rutler had undertaken, we must recall to the reader that the park contiguous to Blue Beard's mansion ran from north to south, like a kind of isthmus surrounded by abysms. On the east and west these abysms were almost without bottom, for on these sides the furthermost trees of the garden overhung a peak of tremendous height, whose granite face was washed by the deep and rapid waters of two torrents. But on the north, the park jutted on a steep incline, accessible, though dangerous in the extreme. Nevertheless, this side of the garden was sheltered from attack, for in order to climb these rocks, less perpendicular than those on the east and west, it was necessary to first descend to the bottom of the abyss by the opposite side, an undertaking physically impossible to attempt, even with the aid of a rope of sufficient length, the face of the rock sometimes jutting out and sometimes broken by the angles of the rocks projecting or receding. Colonel Rutler, on the contrary, having passed through the underground passage, had at once reached the foot of the precipice; there remained for him only to essay the perilous ascent in order that he might gain entrance into Devil's Cliff. It would take about an hour to climb these rocks; he did not wish to enter the park surrounding the mansion until night had fallen; he waited before starting on his road, until the sun should be setting. The colonel had thrust the skeleton of John out of the passage. It was thus, near these human remains, in a profound and wild solitude, in the midst of a veritable chaos of enormous masses of granite thrown up by the convulsions of nature, that the emissary of William of Orange passed some hours, reclining in a cleft in the rocks in order to escape the heat of a tropical sun. The oppressive silence of this solitary place was now and then interrupted by the roar of the sea as it fell upon the beach. Soon the golden light of the sun became more rosy; great angles of light outlined the face of the rocks where one could discern the further trees of Blue Beard's park, becoming fainter, little by little; and dull mists began to envelop the bottom of the abyss where Rutler waited. The colonel judged it time to depart. Notwithstanding his rare energy, this man of iron felt himself seized, in spite of himself, with a kind of superstitious fear; the horrible death of his companion had affected him keenly, the enforced fast to which he had been subjected since the preceding evening (he could not bring himself to eat the serpent), mounted to his head, causing singular and sinister ideas; but, surmounting this weakness, he commenced the ascent. At first Rutler found the points of support allowed him to rapidly climb a third of the face of the cliff. Then serious obstacles began to present themselves; but with dogged courage he surmounted them. At the moment when the sun disappeared suddenly below the horizon, the colonel reached the summit of the cliff; broken by fatigue and pain, he fell half-fainting at the foot of the further trees of the park at Devil's Cliff; happily among these were several cocoanut trees; a large quantity of ripe nuts lay on the ground. Rutler opened one with the point of his dagger; the fresh liquid inclosed within appeased his thirst, and its nourishing pulp his hunger. This unexpected refreshment renewed his strength, and the colonel penetrated resolutely into the park; he walked with extreme caution, guiding himself by the instructions John had given him, in order that he might reach the white marble fountain not far from which he wished to conceal himself. After walking some time in this obscurity, under a tall forest of orange trees, Rutler heard in the distance a slight sound as of a stream of water falling into a basin; soon after he reached the border of the orange grove, and by the faint light of the stars--for the moon would not rise until later--he saw a large vase of white marble, situated in the midst of a circular space, on all sides surrounded with trees. The colonel, pushing aside some thick shrubs of Indian plants, enormous reeds which grow abundantly in that humid soil, hid himself some steps away from the fountain and quietly awaited events. * * * * * In order to sum up the chances of the safety or danger to which the mysterious dwellers at Devil's Cliff were exposed, we must remind the reader that De Chemerant had started from Fort Royal in the afternoon, and was advancing with all haste; that Father Griffen had hastily left Macouba in order to head off the French envoy; and that Colonel Rutler had secreted himself in the center of the garden. We must now relate all that since the morning had passed over the heads of Youmäale, Blue Beard and the Chevalier de Croustillac. CHAPTER XVII. THE SURPRISE. We left the adventurer under the unexpected attack of a passion as sudden as it was sincere, and waiting impatiently the explanation, possibly the hope, which Blue Beard was about to give him. After partaking of a repast respectfully served him by Angela, to the despair of the chevalier, the Caribbean gravely withdrew and seated himself on the border of a small lake, under the shadow of a mangrove tree which grew on its bank; then resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in the palms of his hands Youmäale gazed into space, and motionless maintained for a long time the contemplative idleness so dear to savage races. Angela had re-entered the house. The chevalier walked up and down in the park, throwing, at intervals, a jealous and angry glance at the Caribbean. Impatient at the silence and immobility of his rival, and hoping, perhaps, to draw from him some information, Croustillac placed himself near Youmäale, who, however, did not appear to notice him. Croustillac moved and coughed; no change on the part of the Caribbean. Finally the chevalier, with whom patience was not a favorite virtue, touched him lightly on the shoulder and said, "What the devil have you been looking at for the past two hours? The sun is nearly setting, and you have not moved." The Caribbean turned his head slowly toward the chevalier, looked fixedly at him, still resting his chin on his palms, and then resumed his former attitude, without replying. The adventurer colored angrily, and said, "Zounds! when I speak, I wish to be answered." The Caribbean maintained silence. "These grand airs do not impress me," cried Croustillac. "I am not one of those to be eaten alive!" No answer. "Zounds!" continued the chevalier; "do you not know, stupid cannibal that you are, I can make you take an involuntary bath in the lake as a means to teach you manners, and in order to civilize you, you savage?" Youmäale arose gravely, threw a disdainful glance at the chevalier, then pointed at an enormous trunk of a mahogany tree with gnarled roots which formed the rustic bench upon which he had been sitting. "Well, what of it?" said the chevalier. "I see that trunk, but I do not understand your gesture, unless it signifies that you are as deaf and dumb and as stupid as that tree." Without responding to this, the Caribbean stooped, took the trunk of the tree in his muscular arms, and threw it into the lake with a significant gesture, which seemed to say, "That is how I could treat you." Then he slowly withdrew, without having revealed in his features the slightest emotion. The chevalier was stupefied by this proof of extraordinary strength; for the block of mahogany tree appeared to him, and in fact was, so heavy that two men could with difficulty have accomplished what the Caribbean unaided had done. His surprise having passed, the chevalier hastened after the savage, exclaiming, "Do you mean to say that you would have thrown me into the lake as you threw that trunk?" The Caribbean, without pausing in his passage, bent his head affirmatively. "After all," thought Croustillac, halting, "this eater of missionaries is not lacking in good sense; I threatened him first with throwing him into the water, and after what I have seen I am obliged to confess that I should have found it hard to do so, and then it would have been rather a dishonorable way in which to dispose of a rival! Ah, the evening is slow in coming. Thank God! the sun is setting, the night will soon fall; the moon will rise and I shall know my fate; the widow will tell me everything, I shall unravel all the profound mystery which is hidden from me now. Let me think over the sonnet which I have reserved for a grand effect--it is intended to describe the beauty of her eyes. Perhaps she has never heard a sonnet--possibly she will be sensible of its beauty and spirit; but no, I cannot hope for that happiness." Pacing the path with long strides, Croustillac began to declaim his verses: "They are not eyes, they are two gods, Which are robed in power complete. Gods? nay, they are the heavens----" The adventurer was not to finish his verse, for Mirette came to inform him that her mistress was awaiting him at supper. The Caribbean never partook of this meal, and Croustillac was to be alone with the widow. She seemed dreamy and said little; she started involuntarily and frequently. "What troubles you, madame?" said Croustillac, also preoccupied. "I do not know; strange presentiments, but I am foolish. It is your gloomy face that gives me the blues," she added, with a forced smile. "Come, amuse me a little, chevalier. Youmäale is doubtless at this moment worshiping certain stars, and I am surprised at not seeing him; but it rests with you to make me forget his absence." "Here is an excellent opportunity to produce my sonnet," said the Gascon to himself. "If I dared, madame, I would recite some little verses which might, perhaps, interest you." "Verses--how? are you a poet, chevalier?" "All lovers are, madame." "That is an admission--you are in love, in order to be entitled to be a poet?" "No, madame," said Croustillac sadly. "I am in love by right of suffering." "And to chant your sad martyrdom--let us hear the verses." "The verses, madame, do all in their power to picture two blue eyes, blue and beautiful, like yours; it is a sonnet." "Let us have this sonnet." And Croustillac recited the following lines in a languorous and impassioned tone: "They are not eyes, rather gods are they, They are above kings in power true. Gods, no! they are the heavens of tender blue, And their radiant glance makes kings obey." "One must choose, chevalier," said Blue Beard; "are they eyes, or gods, or the heavens?" Croustillac's reply was a happy one: "The heavens, no! each a radiant sun Whose burning rays but blind the view. Suns? not so, but light so strong, so true, They predict the love but just begun!" "Really, chevalier, I am curious to know where you will stop. Suns, I own, please me; gods also." Croustillac continued with a languorous softness: "Ah! if gods, would they work me ill? If the heavens, would add more sorrow still? Two suns? 'tis false--that orb is one----" "Ah, heavens, chevalier, you delight me; among all these charming comparisons there remains nothing more for me but lightening----" Croustillac bowed his head: "Stars! no, the stars are too many, too clear, Always my meaning shineth still, Eyes, gods, suns, and stars appear." "How charming; at least, chevalier," said Angela, laughing, "you have given me a choice of comparisons, and I have but to select; therefore I shall keep them all--gods, heavens, suns and stars." The adventurer looked at Blue Beard a moment in silence; then he said, in a tone the sadness of which was so sincere that the little widow was struck by it, "You are right, madame; this sonnet is absurd; you do well to mock at it, but what would you have? I am unhappy, I am justly punished for my mad presumption, my stupidity." "Ah, chevalier, chevalier, you forget my request; I told you to divert me, to amuse me----" "And if, in so doing, I suffer? if, in spite of my absurd situation, I experience a cruel mortification; how can I play the buffoon?" The adventurer uttered these words quietly but in a penetrating tone, and with considerable emotion. Angela looked at him in astonishment, and was almost touched by the expression of the chevalier's face. She reproached herself for having played with this man's feelings; after all, he lacked neither heart, courage nor goodness; these reflections plunged the young woman into the midst of melancholy thoughts. In spite of the passing effort which she had made to be gay and to laugh at the sonnet of the Gascon, she was a prey to inexplicable forebodings, oppressed by vague fears, as if she felt instinctively the dangers that were gathering about her. Croustillac had fallen into a sad reverie. Angela's eyes fell upon him and she felt sorry for him; she would no longer prolong the mystery of which he was a victim. She rose abruptly from the table and said to him, with a serious air, "Come, we will walk in the garden and rejoin Youmäale. His absence worries me. I do not know why, but I am oppressed as if a violent tempest were about to break upon this house." The widow left the room, the chevalier offered her his arm, and they descended into the garden, where they sauntered through the different paths. The adventurer was so impressed by the anxious frame of mind in which he saw Angela that he retained little hope, and hardly dared to recall to her the promise which she had made him. Finally he said with some embarrassment, "You promised me, madame, to explain the mystery of----" Blue Beard interrupted the chevalier by saying, "Listen to me, sir; whether it is owing to timidity or to premonition, I grow more and more agitated--it seems to me that misfortune menaces us; on no account would I at this time, and in the condition of my spirits, prolong any further a jest which has already lasted too long." "A jest, madame?" "Yes, sir; but I beg of you, let us descend to the lower terrace. Do you see Youmäale there?" "No, madame; the night is very clear, but I see no one. You say, then, a jest only----" "Yes, sir; I learned through our friend, Father Griffen, that you intended to offer yourself to me; I sent the buccaneer to meet you, charging him to bring you here. I received you with the intention, I confess, and I beg your pardon, of amusing myself a little at your expense." "But, madame, this evening, even, you intended to explain to me the mystery of your triple widowhood--the death of your husbands and the presence successively, of the filibuster, the----" Angela interrupted the Gascon by saying, "Do you not hear a footfall? Is it Youmäale?" "I hear nothing," said Croustillac, overwhelmed in the view of his ruined hopes, though he held himself in readiness for anything, now that a true love had extinguished his stupid and foolish vanity. "Let us go further," said Blue Beard; "the Caribbean is among the orange trees by the fountain, perhaps." "But, madame, this mystery?" "The mystery," replied Angela, "if it is one, cannot, must not be solved by you. My promise to reveal this secret to you to-night was a jest of which I am now heartily ashamed, I tell you; and if I kept this foolish promise it would be to make you the object of another mystery more culpable still." "Ah, madame," said the chevalier quickly, "this is very cruel." "What more would you ask, sir? I accuse myself and beg your pardon," said Angela, in a sweet and sad voice. "Forget the folly of what I have said; think no longer of my hand, which can belong to no one; but sometimes remember the recluse of Devil's Cliff, who is, perhaps, at once very culpable and very innocent. And then," she continued hesitatingly, "as a remembrance of Blue Beard, you will permit me, will you not, to offer you some of the diamonds of which you were so enamored before you had seen me." The chevalier blushed with shame and anger; the pure feeling which he felt for Angela made him feel as derogatory an offer which at one time would, doubtless, have been accepted without the slightest scruple. "Madame," said he, with as much pride as bitterness, "you have accorded me hospitality for two days; to-morrow I shall leave; the only request I make of you is to give me a guide. As to your offer, it wounds me doubly----" "Sir!" "Yes, madame, that you should believe me low enough to accept payment for the humiliating circumstances----" "Sir, such was not my idea." "Madame, I am poor, I am ridiculous and vain; I am what is termed a man of expediencies; but even I have my point of honor." "But, sir----" "But, madame, that I should barter my pride and will as an exchange for the hospitality offered me, would be a bargain like another, worse than another, perhaps; so be it; when one places oneself in dependence upon another more fortunate than oneself, one must be content with anything. I entertained the captain of the Unicorn in exchange for my passage, which he gave me on board his vessel. We are quits. I have cut a contemptible figure, madame; I know it more fully than any one else, for I have known misfortune more fully." "Poor man!" said the widow, touched by his avowal. "I do not say this to be pitied, madame," said Croustillac proudly. "I only desire to make you understand that if, from necessity, I have been compelled to accept the part of a complacent guest, I have never received money as a compensation for an insult." Then he continued, in a tone of profound emotion, "Can you, madame, be ignorant of the wrong which has been done me by this proposition, not so much because it is humiliating, as because it was made by you? My God! you wished to amuse yourself with me: that I would have endured without complaint; but to offer me money to compensate for your raillery--ah! madame, you have made me acquainted with a misery of which I was heretofore ignorant." After a moment's silence he continued, with added bitterness, "After all, why should you have treated me otherwise? Who am I? Under what auspices did I come here? Even the clothes I wear are not my own! Why concern yourself with me?" These last words of the poor man had an accent of such sincere grief and mortification that the young woman, touched by them, regretted deeply the indiscreet proffer she had made him. With bent head she walked beside Croustillac. They arrived, thus, near the fountain of white marble of which they had spoken. The young widow still leaned on the adventurer's arm. After a few minutes of reflection she said, "You are right; I was wrong. I judged you wrongly. The compensation I offered you was almost an insult; but do not for a moment think that I wished to humiliate you. Recall what I said to you this morning of your courage and the generosity of your heart. Well, all this I still think. You say you love me; if this love is sincere it cannot offend me; it would be wrong in me to receive so flattering a feeling with contempt. So," she continued, with a charming air, "is peace declared? Are you still angry with me? Say no, that I may ask you to remain here some days as a friend, without fear of your refusal." "Ah, madame," cried Croustillac, with transport "order, dispose of me--I am your servant, your slave, your dog. These kind words which you have spoken will make me forget all! Your friend! you have called me your friend! Ah, madame, why am I only the poor younger son of a Gascon? I should be so happy to have it in my power to prove my devotion." "Who knows but that I have a reparation to make you? Await me here; I must go and look for Youmäale and find something, a present, yes, chevalier, a present which I defy you to refuse this time." "But, madame----" "You refuse? Ah, heavens! when I think that you desired to be my husband! Wait here, I will return." And so saying, Angela, who had reached the marble fountain, turned quickly into the path in the park on the side of the house. "What does she wish to say--to do?" asked Croustillac of himself, looking mechanically into the fountain. Then he exclaimed, with fervor, "It is all the same, I am hers for life and death; she has called me her friend. I shall perhaps never see her again, but all the same, I worship her; that cannot hurt any one; and I do not know but that it will make me a better man. Two days ago I would have accepted the diamonds; to-day I would be ashamed to do so. It is wonderful how love changes one." Croustillac was suddenly interrupted in the midst of his philosophical reflections. Colonel Rutler, by the uncertain light of the moon, had seen the adventurer walking arm in arm with Blue Beard; he had heard her last words--"my husband; wait for me here." Rutler had no doubt that the Gascon was the man for whom he was looking; he sprang suddenly from his hiding-place, hurled himself upon the chevalier threw a cloak over his face, and, profiting by Croustillac's surprise, felled him to the ground. Then he passed a rope around his hands and had quickly mastered his captive's resistance, thanks to great strength. The chevalier was thus overpowered, garroted and captured in less time than it has taken to write these words. This accomplished, the colonel held a dagger at Croustillac's throat, and said, "My lord duke, you are dead if you make a movement, or if you call Madame the Duchess to your aid. In the name of William of Orange, King of England, I arrest you for high treason, and you will follow me." CHAPTER XVIII. MY LORD DUKE. Suddenly attacked by an adversary of extraordinary strength, Croustillac did not even attempt to resist. The cloak which enveloped his head almost deprived him of breath. He could hardly utter a few inarticulate cries. Rutler leaned over him and said in English, with a strong Dutch accent, "My lord duke, I can remove this cloak, but beware, if you call for aid you are a dead man; can you feel the point of my dagger?" The unfortunate Croustillac did not understand English, but he understood the dagger's point, and exclaimed, "Speak French!" "I can understand that your grace, having been brought up in France, should prefer that language," replied Rutler, who believed that his Dutch accent made his words a little obscure, and he continued, "You must pardon me, my lord, if I do not express myself very well in French. I have the honor to inform your grace that at the slightest sound from you I shall be compelled to kill you. It depends upon you, my lord, to preserve your life or not, by preventing madame the duchess, your wife, from calling for aid if she returns." "It is evident that he takes me for some one else," thought the chevalier. "In what devil of a network am I entangled? What is this new mystery? and who is this brutal Dutchman with his eternal dagger and his 'my lord duke?' After all, it is gratifying not to be taken for an insignificant man. And Blue Beard is a duchess and passes for my wife!" "Listen, my lord," said Rutler after some moments of silence, "for your grace's greater convenience, I can free you from the cloak which enwraps you; but, I repeat, at the slightest cry from madame the duchess, the slightest indication of a rescue by your slaves, I shall be compelled to kill you. I have promised the king, my master, to bring you to him, dead or alive." "I stifle! take off the cloak at once, I will not make any outcry," murmured Croustillac, believing that the colonel would discover his error. Rutler removed the cloak which enveloped the face of the adventurer, who saw a man kneeling beside him and threatening him with a dagger. The night was clear; the chevalier could distinguish perfectly the features of the colonel; they were absolutely unknown to him. "My lord! remember your promise," said Rutler, who did not evince the slightest surprise when the face of the adventurer was seen. "How! he does not perceive his mistake," thought the astonished chevalier. "Meanwhile, my lord," replied the colonel, assisting Croustillac to seat himself as comfortably as he could near the fountain, "meanwhile, my lord, pardon the rudeness of my attack, but I was forced to this." Croustillac made no reply. Divided between fear and curiosity, he was burning to know to whom these words were addressed: 'My lord duke.' Naturally of an adventurous turn, he could not but be the gainer, doubtless by being taken for another, above all, for the husband of Blue Beard; and the chevalier resolved to play, as far as he could, the rôle which he had involuntarily assumed, hoping, possibly, to thus learn the secret of the dwellers of Devil's Cliff. He answered, however, "Are you sure, sir, that it is I whom you are seeking?" "Your grace need not attempt to deceive me," said Rutler. "It is true that I have not had the honor of seeing you before to-day, my lord; but I heard your conversation with madame the duchess. Who but you, my lord, would be walking with her at this hour? Who but you would be dressed in this coat with the red sleeve, as shown by James Syllon, who painted you in this costume?" "And I thought this costume so fantastic," reflected Croustillac. "It is not for me to express surprise at finding you wearing these garments which must often recall memories so cruel," continued Rutler, with a gloomy air. "Cruel memories!" repeated Croustillac. "My lord," said the colonel, "two years before the fatal day of Bridgewater, dressed in this coat, did you not render homage to your royal father, when hunting at Lancaster?" "To my royal father? a falcon?" said the chevalier, astounded. "I understand your grace's embarrassment, and that you do not wish to recall these sad disputes for which you have been so severely and, permit me to say it, my lord, so justly punished." "I will permit you to say anything to me, sir, in fact, I earnestly insist upon it without delay," replied the Gascon; and, aside, "perhaps I shall learn something in this way." "Time is precious," said Rutler. "I must hasten to inform your grace that I only await your submission to the commands of my master, William of Orange, King of England." "Speak, sir, and do not hesitate to enter into the most minute details." "In order to make you understand, your grace, what remains for me to exact from you, it is very necessary to establish clearly your position, my lord, however painful the duty may be." "Establish it, sir, speak frankly; hold back nothing. We are men and soldiers; we should know how to hear all things." "You acknowledge, then, that from this moment you cannot escape." "That is true." "That your life is in my hands." "That is also true." "But that, which must be a very great consideration, my lord, is that, in attempting to escape, or in refusing to obey the orders which I bear, you put me to the hard necessity of killing you." "A hard necessity for both of us, sir." "Then your grace will give strict attention to what I have to say," said the colonel, emphasizing the following words: "I can with the more impunity kill you, my lord, because _you are already dead_--and therefore it would not be necessary to render an account for shedding your blood." The chevalier looked at Rutler with a stupefied air, thinking he must have heard him wrong. "You say, sir, that you could with the more impunity kill me?" "Since your grace is already dead," said Rutler, with a sinister smile. Croustillac looked at him more closely, believing he was dealing with a madman; then he said, after a moment's silence, "If I understand you aright, sir, you wish to make me believe that you could kill me with impunity, under the pretext, specious enough, that I am already dead!" "Exactly, my lord; that is very simple." "You think that very simple, sir?" "I do not think you wish to deny, my lord, what is known to all the world," said Rutler impatiently. "It seems to me that, without wishing to pass for a man who has lost his head, and who is dominated with a desire to contradict the whole world, I must still to a certain extent deny that I am dead." "I would not have believed, my lord, that you could jest at such a moment, you who always carry with you such frightful memories," said the colonel, with gloomy surprise. "Certainly, sir, at such a moment one cannot forget himself. That which is more difficult is to retain memory," said Croustillac, smiling. The colonel could not prevent a gesture of indignation, and cried, "You smile! when it is at the price of the noblest blood that you are here! Ah, such then will always be the gratitude of princes!" "I must say to you, sir," impatiently replied Croustillac, "that it is not of gratitude or ingratitude that we speak in this matter, and that--but," he continued, fearing to make some blunder, "but it seems to me that we wander strangely from the question at issue. I prefer to speak of something else." "I can imagine that such a subject would be disagreeable to your grace." "It is not a lively one, sir, certainly; but return to the motive which has brought you hither--what do you wish of me?" "I am ordered, my lord, to conduct you to the Barbadoes; from there you will be transported and incarcerated in the Tower of London, of which your grace has retained remembrance." "Zounds! to prison!" said the Gascon to himself, to whom this prospect was not inviting; "to prison--in the Tower of London! I must inform this Dutch animal of his mistake; this mistaken identity no longer pleases me. The devil! to the Tower of London! this is paying for 'your grace' and 'my lord' rather too dearly!" "It is unnecessary for me to say to you, my lord, that you will be treated with the respect due to your misfortunes and your rank. Except for liberty, which can never be accorded you, you will be surrounded by care and consideration." "After all," thought Croustillac, "why should I hasten to dissuade this northern bear? I have no hope, alas, of interesting Blue Beard in my martyrdom. It seems to me that I perceive vaguely that the mistake of this Dutchman in my person may serve this adorable little creature. If that is so, I shall be delighted. Once having reached England, the mistake will be discovered and I set free; and, as it is best, after all, that I return to Europe, I should like better if it were possible, to return in the character of a great prince, a lord, than as a free passenger of Captain Daniel's. I shall not at least be compelled to balance forks on the end of my nose nor be reduced to swallowing lighted candles." The colonel, taking the Gascon's silence for despair, said to him, in a gentler tone, "I suppose your grace perceives with pain the future before you. There is enough occasion for it, it seems to me." "To be a prisoner always in the Tower of London?" "Yes, my lord; but you cannot enjoy much liberty here; perhaps this life of agony and continual unrest is not so much to be regretted?" "You wish to gild the pill, as they say, sir; your motive is praiseworthy; but you appear very certain of carrying me to Barbadoes, and from there to the Tower of London?" "To accomplish this, my lord, I had brought with me a most determined man. He is dead, however--a most frightful death." And Rutler trembled in spite of himself at the remembrance of John's death. "And so, sir, you were reduced to accomplish this expedition yourself?" "Yes, my lord." "And you flatter yourself that you can carry me off, unaided?" "Yes, my lord." "You are sure of that?" "Perfectly sure." "And by means of what miracle?" "There is no need of a miracle; the thing is very simple, my lord." "May I know it?" "You must be informed of it, my lord, because I count principally upon your assistance." "To enable you to carry me off?" "Yes, my lord." "The fact is, that, without vanity, I can, under these circumstances, if I mix myself in the matter, be of some help to you?" After a moment's reflection, Rutler said, "Your firmness has not been exaggerated, your grace; it would be impossible to show a more resolute spirit or more coolness under ill fortune." "I assure you, sir, that it would be difficult for me to bear it otherwise." "If I have spoken thus my lord, it is because you, being a man of coolness and resolution, can understand better than any one what must be accepted with coolness and resolution, for I have no choice but to carry you away from here." "Listen, sir; if the expedient is good, I will be the first to acknowledge it. One moment, however; you seem to forget that I am not here alone." "I know that, my lord; madame the duchess has but just quitted you, she may return any moment." "And not alone, I warn you of that." "Were she accompanied by a hundred armed men I should not fear." "Truly?" "No, my lord, I will go further; I rather count upon the return of the duchess to decide you to follow me in case you still hesitate." "Sir you speak in riddles." "I will tell you the word very soon my lord, but first I must inform you that almost all is known concerning you since your flight from London." "In denying this to him I shall force him to speak; and I shall perhaps learn something more," said the chevalier to himself. "As to that, sir I, cannot believe it; it is not possible." "Listen to me, my lord; it is now four years since you espoused in France the mistress of this house. Whether the marriage be legal or not, having been contracted after your execution, and consequently during the widowhood of your first wife, does not concern me--that is a matter for your conscience and the church." "Decidedly my friend the duke has placed himself in an exceptional position," said Croustillac to himself, "he can be murdered because he is dead; and he can remarry because his wife is his widow! I begin to have my ideas singularly mixed, for since yesterday very strange things have come to my knowledge." "You see, my lord, that my information is exact." "Exact--exact--to a certain point. You believe me capable of having remarried after my execution; that is rather risky. The devil! sir, one must be very sure of his facts, at least, to attribute to men such original proceedings." "Hold, my lord, you doubtless do not believe in my authority, and you jest; but your gayety does not surprise me; your grace has kept his freedom of spirit in circumstances more serious than this." "What would you wish, sir? gayety is the wealth of the poor." "My lord," cried the colonel, in a severe tone, "the king, my master, does not merit this reproach." "What reproach?" said the Gascon, stupefied. "Your grace said that gayety is the wealth of the poor." "Well, sir, I do not see what there is to insult your master, the king, in that." "Is it not equivalent to saying, my lord, that because you see yourself in the power of my master that you look upon yourself as despoiled of everything?" "You are sensitive, sir. Be assured this reflection was purely philosophical and did not have reference to my particular position." "That is different, my lord; but I am astonished to hear you speak of your poverty." "Zounds! that has often made me bitterly lament," said Croustillac, laughing. "Few fortunes equal yours, sir. The enormous sum you received from the sale of a portion of your precious stones will be secured to you and yours. William of Orange, my master, is not one of those who enrich themselves by confiscating the goods of their political enemies." "I did not know thou wast so rich, poor Croustillac," said the Gascon to himself. "If I had known this, how little would I have swallowed candles for the amusement of that brute of a sea captain." Then he continued, aloud, "I am aware of the generosity of your master, sir; also of my goods and treasures." And the Gascon said to himself, "It does me good to say this for once in my life--my goods, my treasures." "The king, my master, my lord, has directed me to say to you that you can charter a vessel to carry your wealth to England." "Oh, my old pink hose, my old green coat, my felt hat and my old sword!" said Croustillac to himself; "those are my real possessions, my real and personal estate! It would not take a merchant ship to transport them." Then he continued aloud, "But let us return to the motive, sir, which brought you here, and to the discoveries which you have made as to my past life." "For the past three years, my lord, you have lived on this island, remaining hidden to every one, and causing to be spread by a filibuster and others in your pay the strangest stories concerning your house, in order to keep the curious away." "I do not understand this at all," thought Croustillac. "Blue Beard--no, the widow, that is to say--no, the duchess or rather the wife of the man who is dead, who is a widower--in fact, the wife of no matter whom, is not, then, behind the best of them with her three oddities. For I have seen with my own eyes her strange familiarity with them. I have heard--come, come, if this lasts but a little longer I shall become mad; I am beginning to feel stupid and to see an endless succession of Roman candles in my head!" CHAPTER XIX. THE SURPRISE. Rutler continued: "The maneuvers of your emissaries were crowned with perfect success, my lord, and it was due to the merest chance that your existence was revealed to my master, some two months since, and in order to inform him that without your knowledge, or without your full consent, they would make, my lord, a dangerous instrument of you." "Of me? an instrument of me? and what kind of an instrument, sir?" "Your grace knows that as well as I do; the policy of the cabinet at Versailles and of the papal court at Saint-Germain recoils before no means; it matters little to them that civil war shall lay waste an unhappy country provided their plans succeed. I have no need to say more, my lord." "Yes, sir, yes. I desire that you tell me everything; I would see to what point your credulity has been abused. Explain, sir." "The proof that my credulity has not been abused, my lord, is that my mission has for its end the ruin of the projects of an emissary from France, who, with or without the co-operation of your grace, may arrive at any moment at this island." "I give you my word of honor, sir, that I am ignorant of the arrival of this French emissary." "I must believe you, my lord. However, certain rumors have caused the king to think that your grace, forgetting his old resentment against James Stuart, your uncle, had written to this dethroned king to offer him his services." "James Stuart, being dethroned," said Croustillac, with an accent full of dignity, "changes entirely the face of things, and I should have been able to condescend in regard to my uncle to proceedings which my pride would never have permitted me before." "Then, my lord, from your point of view, your resolve would not have lacked generosity." "Doubtless I could perfectly well, without compromitting myself, have been reconciled to a dethroned king," replied Croustillac courageously; "but I have not done so; I swear it on the honor of a gentleman." "I believe you, your grace." "Well, then, your mission has no further object." "You understand, my lord, that, in spite of this guarantee, circumstances may change, and your resolve change with circumstances. The hope of ascending the throne of England causes one to forget many promises and to evade many agreements. Far be it from me to wish to reproach you for the past, but your grace knows what must be sacrificed when one lays audacious hands upon the crown of three kingdoms." "Zounds!" said Croustillac to himself; "it seems that my hand is not dead, and that I am, clearly, a courageous fellow to be well caged. If I only knew how all this would end I should be very much amused." "The king can never forget, my lord, that you have your own aspirations to the throne." "Ah, well, that is true," cried Croustillac, with an expression of frankness--"it is true, I do not deny. But what would you have? ambition, glory, the vigor of youth! But believe me, sir," continued he with a sigh and speaking in a melancholy tone, "age robs us of all that and makes us wise; with added years, ambition is extinguished and one becomes content with very little in one's retreat. Once safely in port, we can cast a philosophical glance on the storms of passion and cultivate the paternal lands, if one has such, or at least look upon the tide of life placidly when about to be swallowed up in the ocean of eternity. In a word, you understand, sir, that if in our first youth we have let ourselves go at an audacious pace it does not follow that in our ripe age we should not realize that all is vanity. I live obscurely and peacefully in the bosom of my retreat, with a young and lovely wife; loved by those about me and doing some good. Ah, sir, this is the only life that I desire; I do not hesitate, then, in confirmation of these words, to swear to you that I will never raise the slightest pretension to the throne of England; on the word of a gentleman, I have not the slightest desire to." "Unhappily, my lord, I am not at liberty to take your oath; the king, alone, could receive it, and accept it if it seemed well to him, as a sufficient guarantee against fresh troubles. As for me, I have been ordered to conduct your grace to London, and I must fulfill my orders." "You are very persistent, sir. When you have an idea, you keep to it." "At whatever cost, my lord, I must carry out the orders given me. You can see by the perfectly calm interview between us that I do not doubt the success of my undertaking; your grace fully understands the motives that influence me; and I do not doubt that you will follow me without the slightest resistance." Croustillac had prolonged this interview as far as he could; he had decided either to follow the colonel or to tell him the whole truth. He then said to Rutler, "And suppose, sir, that I consent to follow you willingly, what will be the order of our march, as they say?" "Your grace, though your hands are tied, permit me to offer you my left arm; I shall hold my dagger in my right hand, ready at any moment to plunge it into you, in case of a surprise, and we will proceed to your house." "And then, sir?" "Once having reached your house, my lord, you will order one of your slaves at once to direct your negro fishermen to get their boat in readiness; it will suffice to transport us to Barbadoes. In that place we will find a man-of-war which awaits us, and on board which, my lord, you will be transported to London, and placed in the custody of the governor of the Tower." "And you seriously believe, sir, that I will myself give the order to prepare for my own abduction?" "Yes, my lord, and for a very simple reason; your grace will feel the point of this dagger." "Yes, doubtless; you always go back to that, you repeat it often, sir." "We Dutchmen have little imagination; what would you have? There is nothing more churlish than our manner of acting; but to resume, what is more to the point, this blade of steel will suffice, for if you refuse to obey my slightest injunction, my lord, I have already said by way of warning that I shall kill you without mercy." "I have also said to you, sir, that your manner of proceeding does not lack originality; but I have slaves--friends, sir--and you see that, in spite of your bravery----" "My God! your grace, if I kill you it is evident that I shall be killed in turn, either by your slaves or your familiars, the filibuster or the buccaneer, or by the French authorities, who would do perfectly right in shooting me because I come from England, and I have come to this island, which is considered as a stronghold in time of war." "You perceive, then, sir, that my death will not go unpunished?" "In accepting this charge I made, in advance, the offering of my life. All that I desire, my lord, is that you shall no longer be the source of fear to my master, a source of trouble for England. King William does not love bloodshed, but he hates civil war. Your perpetual imprisonment or your death alone can reassure him; choose, then, my lord, between the dagger or prison; it must be one; you must become my prisoner or my victim. Moreover, if you were not absolutely in my power I would not say to you, at the price of my life, what I will now say." "Speak, sir." "This confidence, while showing you the evil which you can do to England, my lord, also will show you what interest King William has that an enemy like yourself should be rendered powerless to act; the companions of your rebellion, who saw you beheaded before their own eyes, cherish still for you the dearest memories." "Truly? This does not surprise me in them, and it is the more disinterested in that they all believe that I can never thank them for it." Then Croustillac said to himself, "It must be that this Dutchman, who otherwise is reasonable enough, has a craze on this point--a fixed idea concerning my execution." The colonel continued, "Ah, my lord, you pay dearly for your influence." "Very dearly, too dearly, sir, if this be so." "Why do you wish to deny it, when your enemies remember? when it is known that your followers cherish portions of your clothing, stained with your blood, as if holy relics, and each day lament your death? What would be the result if you should suddenly appear before their eyes? What enthusiasm would you not arouse? I repeat to you, my lord, it is because your influence might be fatal in these troublous times, that it must be neutralized at any cost." "To stab a man or imprison him for life is what you call _neutralizing his influence_," said Croustillac. "Ah, well, this is probably a political view of it. After all, I understand the distrust that I inspire you with, for I am an incorrigible conspirator. They cut off my head before my partisans, believing that thus I will be reformed. Not at all! instead of taking warning by this paternal admonition, I conspire still further. It is evident that this ends by making your master impatient. Ah, well, sir, he is unnecessarily moved; for the last time, I solemnly declare, before heaven, that I shall conspire no more; he can rest in peace on his throne, and his crown does not excite in me the slightest covetousness. Is this plain enough, sir?" "Very plain, and well put, my lord; but I must carry out the commands of the king. When we shall have arrived at your house, I shall have the honor to transmit to you an autograph letter of His Majesty King William, which will leave you in no doubt as to the purpose and authority of the mission with which I am intrusted. Come, my lord, resign yourself; it is the fortune of war. Beside, if you hesitate, I can count upon a powerful ally." "And that is----" "Informed by me of the fate which menaces you, you proceed under the touch of my dagger." "Always his eternal dagger! he is insufferable with his dagger," thought Croustillac. "He has but one word on his tongue." "The duchess," continued Rutler, "would far rather see you a prisoner than killed; it is well known how she loves you, how devoted she is to you. She would give her life for you. She will aid, then, I am sure, in making you face your position wisely. Meanwhile, my lord, choose; either summon some of your people, if they can hear you, or show me to your house yourself, for your departure must be hastened." It must be said to Croustillac's credit, that, learning that Blue Beard was the wife of an invisible lord whom she loved passionately, and that he had been taken for this grand lord, he generously resolved to be of some use to this young wife by prolonging as far as possible the mistaken identity of which he was the victim, and to allow himself to be carried off in place of the unknown duke. Happy at the thought that Angela would be under a great obligation, the Gascon resigned himself courageously to submit to all the consequences of the position which he had accepted, only he did not know in what manner he could leave Devil's Cliff without the discovery of his stratagem. "My lord, I am at your service; it is absolutely imperative that we depart at once," said the colonel impatiently. "It is I who am at your service," replied the chevalier, who viewed with some disquiet the approach of the critical moment of this interview. A brilliant idea struck Croustillac; he saw a means of escaping from this danger and of saving the mysterious husband of Blue Beard. "Listen, sir," said the adventurer, assuming an impressive manner. "I give you my word as a gentleman that I will follow you willingly wherever you lead me, but I desire that my wife, the duchess, shall not be informed of my arrest until I have gone." "How, my lord, you are willing to thus abandon your wife without telling her of your sad situation?" "Yes, because of reasons known to me alone, and then I would spare myself farewells, which must always be distressing." "My orders concern you alone, my lord," said the colonel; "you are free to act as seems best to yourself, as far as the duchess is concerned. Nothing could be easier, it seems to me, than to do what you propose. If your wife is astonished at your departure, you can plead the imperative necessity of a journey of some days' duration to St. Pierre. As to my presence here, you can easily explain that. We will go, and your boat will take us to the Barbadoes." "Doubtless, doubtless," said the embarrassed Gascon, for he saw a number of dangers in the proposition which the colonel made. "Doubtless my departure might be easily explained so, but to give my orders to the negroes, to cause a commotion in the house, would attract my wife's attention. She is extremely timid and is alarmed at everything. Your presence here would arouse her suspicions, and they would necessarily lead up to the painful scene which I would avoid at all cost." "But, then, my lord, what shall we do?" "There is a sure way, sir; however dangerous may have been the road by which you have arrived, let us follow it; we will leave the island by the same method by which you reached it. Once at the Barbadoes I will inform my wife of my abduction--the cruel abduction which separates me forever from her; and you will swear to me that she shall not be disturbed after my departure." "Unfortunately, my lord, what you propose is impossible." "How is that?" "I came by way of the pearl diver's cavern, my lord." "Well, can we not leave by the pearl diver's cavern?" "Is it possible that you are ignorant, my lord, of the secret communication which exists between this cavern and the abyss which surrounds your park?" "I am entirely ignorant as to it, but if this communication exists, can we not use it to leave by?" "That is impossible, my lord; no one can enter the cavern except by allowing the waves to precipitate him to the bottom of a subterranean lake, after having descended a cataract." "And in order to get out of this cavern?" "You must ascend a waterfall twenty feet in height." "That is too much for me. So, the vessel that brought you to the outside of this cavern----" "Has already left for the Barbadoes, my lord. It could approach this island in spite of the French cruisers only because this coast is inaccessible." "I thought that this road was impenetrable," said the chevalier, overcome. "If you will believe me, my lord, you will limit yourself to announcing to madame the duchess that you will be absent for several days only. I have faith in your word as a gentleman that you will make no attempt to escape from my hands." "I have given you my word, sir." "I believe you, my lord, and my dagger answers to me for its fulfillment." "I should have been very much astonished if the dagger had not reappeared," thought Croustillac. "He trusts implicitly in my word; that does not prevent his trusting as much to his dagger. Zounds! what distrust! But that is not what concerns me. What shall I do? The duchess is not prepared; the slaves will not obey me if I give them orders. It is no use; behold me at the end of my falsehoods." Croustillac had forced himself to become resigned to his assumption. He regretted sincerely that he was not to be permitted to devote himself more efficaciously to the service of Blue Beard; for he did not doubt that his ruse would be discovered the moment he put foot in the house. He had shortly another apprehension. The Caribbean, seeing Croustillac return accompanied by a stranger armed to the teeth, would attack the colonel. Now, the latter had assured the adventurer that at the first attack he would be compelled to kill him without mercy. The chevalier began to find his rôle less diverting and to curse the stupid curiosity, the imprudent heedlessness which had thrown him into a position as complicated as it was dangerous. CHAPTER XX. THE DEPARTURE. The spirit of Croustillac was too mercurial and too adventurous to remain long under the weight of fear or sadness. He reasoned as follows: To-day, as heretofore, I have little or nothing to lose; if I decide to go out from this house, I continue to pass for the duke, and I am treated like a prince until some one discovers the imposition; then I shall become big John as heretofore, and I shall have rendered a great service to this pretty little Blue Beard, who has mocked at me, but who enchants me, for she interests me more than I wish, more than she merits perhaps, for, in spite of her love for this invisible husband, she appears to me madly tender with the buccaneer and that other brute, the cannibal. Well, what does it matter if it is my caprice to devote myself to this little woman? I am surely my own master; yes! but if, on the other hand, I do not leave this place? Suppose the Caribbean mixes himself in the affair, this would spoil all; it is clear that I shall be killed like a dog by this thick-headed Belgian. How, then, can I escape such a catastrophe? Say at once to the man with the dagger that I am not the duke? This might save me, perhaps, but no! this would be cowardice, and useless cowardice; for, to prevent my alarming the house, this beer-drinker would dispatch me at once. Yes, yes, in spite of my word as a gentleman not to seek to escape, he presses near me. Zounds! this man with his dagger is absurd! Bah! his dagger! he can only kill me once, after all. Come, then, courage! courage! Croustillac! and above all do not deliberate--this brings you sorrow; you never commit greater stupidities or more tremendous mistakes than when you deliberate. Commend yourself to your lucky star, shut your eyes, as usual, and go ahead. Reassured by this excellent logic, the chevalier said aloud, "Well, sir, as we must absolutely pass the house in order to get out of this, let us go on." "Sir," said the colonel, after a moment's reflection, "you have given me your word as a gentleman not to escape." "Yes, sir." "But your people will wish to free you?" "My life is in your hands, sir; you have my word; I can do no more." "That is true, my lord; but then, in your interest, warn your slaves that the slightest act against me, on their part, will cost your life, for I have sworn, also, that I will carry you away, dead or living." "It will not be my fault, sir, if you do not keep your word; come on." And the chevalier and the colonel advanced toward the house. Rutler held the arm of Croustillac under his left arm, and had his hand constantly on his dagger; not that he doubted the word of his prisoner, but the slaves at Devil's Cliff might wish to rescue their master. Croustillac and Rutler were not more than a few steps from the house when from an obscure path a woman advanced dressed in white. The colonel stopped, pressed firmly the arm of his prisoner, and said aloud, "Who is this? My lord, warn this woman not to cry out." "It is Blue Beard! I am lost; she will scream like a peacock, and all will be discovered," thought Croustillac. To his great astonishment the woman paused and did not speak. The Gascon said, "Who is it, then?" "Is it so dark that my lord cannot recognize Mirette?" said the well-known voice of Blue Beard. Croustillac was speechless with astonishment. Blue Beard also called him my lord, and assumed the name of Mirette! "Zounds!" he said to himself, "I understand nothing, nothing at all; all becomes more and more obscure; all the same, hold steady and play out the game." "Who is this woman?" said the colonel, in a low tone. "She is the confidential maid of my wife," responded the chevalier. Angela spoke: "My lord, I come to say to your grace that my lady retired not feeling very well; but she is asleep now." "All is in our favor, sir," said the colonel, in a low voice to Croustillac. "Madame the duchess is asleep; you can depart without her knowing anything about it." Angela, who had approached, said with a frightened manner, and retreating a few steps, "Heavens! your grace is not alone, then?" "My lord," said the colonel, "if she gives a cry it is all over with you." "Do not be afraid, Mirette," said the chevalier; "while you were with my wife this gentleman arrived; he came from Fort Royal on pressing business; it is necessary that I should accompany him back." "So late, my lord, but you must not think of it! I will go and inform madame." "No! no! I forbid it; but I shall have need at once of the negro fishermen and their canoe; go and notify them." "But, my lord----" "Obey." "That is not hard; to-morrow morning they fish in the open sea; the negroes must be nearly ready to go; in order to be before dawn at the Creek of Caymans, where their boat is moored." "My lord, all favors us; you see it; let us go," said the colonel in a low voice. "It is astonishing how Blue Beard anticipates my demands; and how she facilitates my departure," said Croustillac to himself; "there is something very strange under this. I was not, perhaps, altogether wrong in accusing her of magic or necromancy." Then he continued aloud, "You will go and open the outer gates, Mirette, and tell the blacks to prepare themselves at once. Well," said Croustillac, seeing the woman remain motionless, "did you not hear me?" "Certainly, my lord, but then your grace is determined----" "'My lord! your grace!' you have repeatedly called me this before a stranger," said the Gascon with a threatening manner, thinking thus to make a master stroke. "What would happen if this gentleman were not in the secret?" "Oh, I know well that if this stranger is here at this time, it follows that one may speak before him as before your grace and before madame. But is it possible, my lord, that you intend to go away?" "The little fox wishes to have the air of detaining me in order to better play her part," thought Croustillac. "But who has informed her? who has designed this rôle for her so well? Decidedly, there must be jugglery going on here." "But, my lord," continued Mirette, "what shall I say to madame?" "You may say to her," said poor Croustillac, with a tenderness which the colonel attributed to most natural regrets, "you may say to this dear and good woman not to be afraid, do you hear, Mirette? not to be afraid; assure her that the short journey I am going to take is absolutely in her interest; tell her to think sometimes of me." "Sometimes, my lord! why madame thinks of you and will think of you always," replied she, in an agitated voice, for she understood the hidden sense of Croustillac's words. "Be easy, my lord, madame knows how you love her, and she never forgets. But you will be here to-morrow, before she awakens, will you not?" "Yes," said Croustillac, "certainly, to-morrow morning. Come, Mirette, hurry and warn the negro fishermen and open the gates; it is necessary to leave without delay." "Yes, my lord, and at the same time I will bring your sword and your mantle in the _salon_, because the night is cold in the mountains. Ah! I had forgotten; here is your _bonbonière_ which you carry always with you, and which you left in madame's room." So saying, Angela gave Gascon the box, warmly pressed his hand and left. "Heaven be praised, my lord duke, that things are turning out better than I hoped," said the colonel. "Is the house very far off?" "No; after we have climbed this last terrace we shall arrive there." At the end of several minutes, Rutler and his captive entered the drawing room; the chevalier found Angela, who had put on a large veil and a long cloak which hid her figure; the young woman offered the chevalier a cloak which she had placed on a sofa. "Here are your cloak and sword, my lord," she said to Croustillac, giving him a magnificent sword. "Now I will go and see if the slaves are ready." So saying she left the room. The sword of which we have spoken was as rich in workmanship as curious in shape; the hilt was of massive gold; the scabbard enameled with the coat of arms of England; the hilt bore on it a rampant lion whose head, surmounted by a royal crown, served as a handle; the belt of great richness, although worn by frequent use, was of red velvet embroidered with fine pearls, in the midst of which the letters "C. S." were reproduced repeatedly. Before putting on his sword Croustillac said to the colonel, "I am your prisoner, sir; may I retain my sword? I repeat my word not to make any use of it against you." Doubtless this historic weapon was known to the colonel, for he replied, "I knew that this royal sword was in the hands of your grace; I have been ordered to respect it in case you followed me willingly." "I understand," said Croustillac to himself. "Blue Beard continues to act with consummate cunning. She has decorated me with a part of the outfit of this mysterious duke, in order to clinch the error of this Flemish bear. My only regret is not knowing my name. I know, it is true, that my head was cut off; that is something; but that is not sufficient to prove my identity, as the lawyers say. Finally this will last as long as God pleases; once I have turned my back, Blue Beard will, doubtless, put her husband in some safe place. That is the principal thing. Meanwhile, let me put on his cloak and my disguise will be complete." The mantle was of peculiar cut and was of blue with a kind of cape of red cloth trimmed with gold lace; it was easy to see that it had been in use a long time. The colonel said to the chevalier, "You are faithful to the memory of the day at Bridgewater, my lord!" "Hum, hum--faithful--here or there; that depends on the disposition in which I find myself." "Nevertheless, my lord," returned the colonel, "I recognize the mantle of the red troops who fought so gallantly under your orders on that fatal day." "That is what I tell you; whether I am cold or warm, I wear this mantle, but it is always in commemoration of that battle, when the red troops, as you say, fought so valiantly under me." The chevalier had placed the snuff box on the table. He took it up and looked at it mechanically; on the cover he recognized a very characteristic face which he had several times seen reproduced in engravings or paintings. After having searched his memory he remembered that the features were those of Charles II. of England. Rutler said, "My lord, may your grace pardon me for recalling you from thoughts it is easy to divine on seeing the portrait on that box--but time is precious." Angela entered at this moment and said to Croustillac: "My lord, the negroes are waiting with torches to light the way." "Let us go, sir," said the chevalier, taking his hat from the hands of the young woman, who said to him in a low voice, "Next to my husband, it is you whom I love most in the world, for you have saved him." The massive doors of Devil's Cliff closed on the chevalier and the colonel, and they at once started on their road, preceded by four blacks carrying torches to light the way. * * * * * While the adventurer left Devil's Cliff as Colonel Rutler's prisoner, we will introduce the reader into a secret apartment belonging to Blue Beard. This was a large room very simply furnished; here and there, hung on the walls, were costly arms. Above a couch was a beautiful portrait of King Charles II. of England; beyond this was a miniature representing a woman of most enchanting beauty. In an ebony frame were many studies in crayon, well designed, and representing always the same people. It was easy to see that they were drawn as portraits from memory. The frame was supported by a kind of stand in chased silver, representing funeral symbols, in the midst of which one might read the date, "July 15, 1685." This apartment was occupied by a young man in the prime of manhood--large, supple and robust. His noble proportions recalled vividly the height and figure of Captain Whirlwind, of the buccaneer Rend-your-Soul, or of the Caribbean Youmäale. By coloring the fine features of the man of whom we speak to the copper-colored tint of the mulatto, the ruddy color of the Caribbean, or by half-concealing them under the thick black beard of the buccaneer, one could almost see the three individuals in the same person. We will here say to the reader, who has doubtless penetrated this mystery, that the disguises of the buccaneer, the filibuster, and the Caribbean, had been successively assumed by the same man, who was none other than the natural son of Charles II., James, Duke of Monmouth, _executed_ at London, July 15, 1685, as guilty of high treason. All historians agree in saying that this prince was very brave, very affable, and of a very generous nature and a face beautiful and noble. "Such was the end of a prince," says Hume, in (speaking of Monmouth) "whose great qualities would have made him an ornament to the court, and who was capable of serving well his country. The tenderness which his father, the king, bore for him; the praises of a large faction and the blind devotion of the populace, drew him into an enterprise beyond his strength. The love of the people followed him in all the vicissitudes of fortune; even after his execution, his followers cherished the belief that they would some day see him at their head." We will explain later the cause of this singular hope of the prince's adherents, and how Monmouth had, in effect, survived his execution. Having removed his disguise as the Caribbean, and the dye which stained his features, Monmouth wore an ample gown of light blue covered with orange flowers, and read attentively a large number of papers spread before him. In order to explain the mistake of which the chevalier was the voluntary victim, we must explain that Croustillac, without really resembling Monmouth, was of the same age, the same height, brown as the other, as slender, and that the duke had, in common with the Gascon, a nose decidedly prominent, and a strong chin. Others beside Rutler, a Dutch officer arrived from the United Provinces in the suite of William of Orange, would have fallen into the same error, above all, seeing in the hands of Croustillac certain priceless objects known to have belonged to the son of Charles II. As to the choice of Rutler, one must understand that in order to fulfill such a mission with all its consequences, it needed a man careful, fearless, blindly devoted, and capable of pushing that devotion even to assassination. The choice of William of Orange was necessarily circumscribed by such exigencies; it would have been probably impossible for him to have found a man who knew Monmouth personally who would not have recoiled before such terrible extremities as were entailed in this perilous and cruel undertaking. Monmouth was deeply absorbed in reading several English journals. All at once the door of his room opened violently, and Angela threw herself on his neck, crying, "Saved! saved!" Then, bursting into tears, laughing and sobbing by turn, kissing his hands, his forehead, his eyes, she repeated, in a stifled voice, "Saved! my beloved James! Saved! there is no longer any danger for thee, my lover, my husband. God be praised, the danger is past! But what terror has been mine! Alas! I tremble still!" Startled by the transports of Angela, Monmouth said to her with infinite tenderness, "What is the matter, child? What do you say?" Without replying to him, Angela cried, "But this is not all; we must fly, do you understand? King William of England is on our track; to-morrow we must quit this island. All will be ready; I have given the order to one of our negro fishermen to go and say to Captain Ralph to have the Chameleon ready to set sail; it is anchored at Cayman's Creek; and in two hours we shall have left Martinique." CHAPTER XXI. THE BETRAYAL. The duke could hardly believe what he heard; he looked at his wife in agony. "What do you say?" cried he. "King William knows that I am on this island?" "He knows it. One of his emissaries has obtained entrance here this night. But be calm; he has gone; there is no danger," cried Angela, seeing Monmouth run to arm himself. "But this man--this man?" "He has gone, I tell you; the danger is past. Should I be here if not so? No; you have nothing to fear, at present, at least. But do you know who has aided me in overcoming this threatening cloud?" "No; for mercy's sake explain." "It was the poor adventurer whom we have made our butt." "Croustillac?" "Yes, his presence of mind saved us; God be praised, the danger is past." "Truly, Angela, I believe I am dreaming." "Listen to me, then. It was an hour ago, when you left me to read the papers arrived from England. I went into the garden with the chevalier. I had a presentiment of our danger and I was sad and thoughtful. I wished to get rid of our guest as soon as possible, not caring to amuse myself with him longer. I said to him that I could not explain the mystery of my three widowhoods; that my hand could belong to no one, and that he must leave the house at break of day. Our object was thus accomplished. The Gascon, by his exaggerated tales of what he had seen, will give more credence still to the stories which have been circulated during the past three years on the island, absurd stories but useful, and which until now alas! have been our safeguards by so confusing events that it has been impossible to separate the true from the false." "Doubtless, but through what fatality this mystery? Tell me!" "Having informed the chevalier that he could no longer remain here, I told him that we wished, nevertheless, to give him a valuable token of his sojourn at Devil's Cliff. To my great surprise he refused with a manner so painfully humiliated that I pitied him. Knowing how poor he was, and wishing, for the very reason that he showed some delicacy, to oblige him to accept a present, I came here to seek a medallion surrounded by diamonds on which was my monogram, hoping that the chevalier would not refuse that. I returned carrying this token, when in approaching the inclosure where I had left him, at the end of the park, near the fountain--Ah! my love, I tremble still!" And the young woman threw her two arms around James' neck, as if she would protect him against this past danger. "Angela, I beg of you, calm yourself," said Monmouth tenderly. "Finish your story." "Ah, well," she continued, "when I approached the fountain I heard voices; frightened, I listened." "It was this emissary, I presume?" "Yes, my beloved." "But how had he effected an entrance? How did he leave? How did he confide his designs to the Gascon?" "He mistook the chevalier for you!" "He mistook the chevalier for me?" cried Monmouth. "Yes, James. Doubtless he was deceived by the resemblance in figure, and by the suit that the Gascon wore, and which you had had made, in order to satisfy one of my caprices in dressing yourself like the portrait of which you have told me." "Oh," said Monmouth, passing his hand across his forehead, "Oh! you do not realize the terrible memories that all this awakens in me." Then, after having heaved a deep sigh and looking sadly at the ebony frame encrusted with silver containing the drawing of a portrait, the duke resumed: "But what was the result of this strange encounter? What did the chevalier say? What did _you_ do? Truly, if your presence and your words did not assure me, I should go myself----" Angela interrupted the duke. "Again, my beloved James, should I be so calm if there was anything to fear at this hour?" "Very well. I hear you, but you can understand my impatience." "You shall not be in doubt long. From the few words I overheard I divined that the chevalier, leaving our enemy in error, did not know how to get him out of the place, fearing he would not be obeyed by our servants. Counting, with reason, on the Gascon's intelligence, I presented myself to him at the moment when he approached the house, taking care to warn him, indirectly, that he must take me for Mirette. Having seen that the emissary of King William, believing he was addressing you, called him 'my lord duke' or 'my lord,' I called him so also; I caused the doors to be opened, and, in order to complete the illusion, I gave the Gascon your sword, your enameled snuff box, and the old cloak to which you are so attached." "Ah! What have you done, Angela?" cried the duke, "my father's sword, the snuff box my mother gave me, and the cloak which belonged to the most saintly, the most admirable martyr who ever sacrificed himself to friendship." "James, my love, pardon. I thought I was doing for the best," cried Angela, overcome by the expression of bitterness and chagrin which she read in the features of James. "Poor beloved angel," replied Monmouth, taking her hands in his, "I do not reproach you, but I have so great a respect for these holy relics that it grieves me to see them profaned by a falsehood, even of a few moments' duration. I repeat, you do not know the terrible memories which are attached to the cloak. Alas! I have not told you all!" "You have not told me all?" said Angela in surprise. "When you came to seek me in France in the name of my second father, my benefactor, dead on the field of battle," and Angela sighed sorrowfully, "did you not offer to share your life with me, poor orphan that I was, did you not say that you loved me? what matters the rest? If it did not concern your well-being, your life, should I ever have dreamed of speaking to you of your condition, of your birth? I married you proscribed, flying from the furious hate of your enemies. We have escaped many dangers, evaded many suspicions, thanks to my pretended marriages, and your various disguises. Then, what can you have hidden from me? If it is some new danger, James, my beloved husband, my lover, I will never forgive you, for I must partake all with you, good or bad fortune. Your life is my life; your enemies my enemies. Although this attempt happily failed, now that they know your retreat, they will continue to seek you with increased malignity. You must fly. In two hours the Chameleon will be ready to set sail." Deeply occupied with his thoughts, Monmouth had not heard Angela. He walked up and down with long strides, repeating to himself, "There is no doubt, they know I am living; but how has William of Orange penetrated this secret which was known only to Father Griffen and myself, because the holy martyr who carried this secret to the tomb, and De Crussol, last governor of this island, are dead. When I think that for greater safety I have concealed my real name from my devoted and adored wife, who then can have betrayed me? Father Griffen is incapable of such sacrilege; for it is under the seal of the confessional that the governor made the revelation to him." After some minutes of silent thought the duke said, "And what means did the chevalier employ to discover the designs of the emissary of William of Orange?" "His designs, my love, were not concealed; I heard them; he wished to carry you away, dead or alive, to the Tower of London." "Without doubt. Since the Revolution of 1688 they fear that I may become reconciled to the dethroned king; the public prints even announce that my old partisans are moving," said Monmouth, speaking to himself. "I recognize there the policy of my old friend William of Orange. But by what right does he suspect me capable of ambitious designs? Again, who has aroused in William these unjust suspicions, these ill-founded fears?" After another silence he said to Angela, "God be praised, my child, the storm is past; thanks to thee; thanks to this brave adventurer! Nevertheless I am not sure if, in spite of the devotion which he has shown on this occasion, I can confide to him a part of the truth; perhaps it would be wiser to have him in ignorance and to persuade him that the emissary had been misled by false information. What do you think, Angela? Dare I appear to the chevalier under any other form than that of Youmäale, or shall I charge you to-night to see and thank this brave man? As to recompense, we will find a way to do that without wounding his delicacy." Angela looked at her husband with growing astonishment. Monmouth had not understood her; he thought that the Gascon had succeeded in removing this emissary of William of Orange from Devil's Cliff; he did not know he had accompanied him as a prisoner. "I do not know when the chevalier will return. He will doubtless make this mistake last as long as possible in order to give us time to escape." "The chevalier is no longer here, then?" cried the duke. "No, he has gone as a prisoner, under your name, with this man. Our negro fishermen accompany them to the Cayman's Creek, where the emissary will embark for the Barbadoes in one of our boats with the chevalier." The duke could hardly believe what he heard. "Gone under my name!" cried he. "But this emissary, discovering his mistake, will be capable of killing the chevalier. By heavens! I cannot allow that! Too much blood, oh my God! has already been spilled for me." "Blood! oh, do not fear that; the chevalier will run no danger. In spite of my desire to avert the danger that threatened from ourselves, I would never have exposed this generous man to certain destruction." "But, unhappy woman," cried the duke, "you do not know the terrible importance of the secret of state which the chevalier is now possessed of?" "My God! what do you mean?" "They are capable of killing him." "Oh, what have I done? Where are you going?" cried the young wife, seeing the duke preparing to leave the room. "I am going to join them and save this unfortunate man. I will take some blacks with me. The Gascon has hardly an hour's advance of me." "James, I implore you, do not expose yourself." "What! cowardly abandon this man who has devoted himself to me? I give him up to the resentment of William's emissary? never! Ah, you do not know, unhappy child, that certain sacrifices impose on one gratitude as dolorous as remorse. Go, I pray you, tell Mirette to order some slaves to be in readiness to follow me at once. Thanks to the tide, the chevalier cannot put to sea before daybreak, I can then overtake him." "But this emissary is capable of anything! if he sees you come to the aid of the chevalier, he will understand, perhaps, and then----" "That it is not James of Monmouth, but the mulatto filibuster, who is on his track. Beside, I have faced other dangers than these, I believe." So saying, the duke entered a small room connected with his apartments. There he found all that was necessary for his disguise. Left alone, Angela gave herself up to the most cruel regrets. She had not supposed that the consequences of the mistake into which the Gascon had led Rutler could be so fatal. She feared also that Monmouth would be recognized in spite of his disguise. In the midst of her distress she heard a sudden violent knock at the outer door of the apartment where she was, apparently rigorously closed to all the servants in the house. Angela ran to this door and saw Mirette. The mulattress, with a frightened air, said to Angela that Father Griffen sent an imperative request to enter, having the most important matters to confide to her. The order was given to admit him at once into the reception hall on the ground floor. At the same moment Monmouth came out of his room completely disguised as the mulatto filibuster. "My love," said Angela, when the maid had gone, "Father Griffen has just arrived, he has things of the utmost importance to say to us. In the name of heaven, wait and speak to him." "Father Griffen!" exclaimed the duke. "You know he never comes here unless circumstances of the gravest importance brings him. I beg you see him," said Angela. "I must; but each minute of delay may risk the life of this unhappy chevalier," said the duke. He descended with Angela. Father Griffen, pale, agitated, broken with fatigue, was in the hall. "In fifteen minutes they will be here," he cried. "Who, then, Father," said Monmouth. "That miserable Gascon," said the priest. "Oh, James! everything is discovered; you are lost!" said Angela, uttering a cry of despair; and she threw herself into the arms of Monmouth. "Fly; there is still time." "Fly, and where? there is but one road to Devil's Cliff, and from it. I tell you that they follow me," said the priest; "but be calm, nothing is hopeless." "Explain yourself, Father, what is it? In mercy speak, speak!" said Angela. "Father, you alone knew my secret; I would rather believe the impossible than doubt your sacred word," said the duke gravely. "And you are right not to doubt it, my son. There is some unaccountable mystery, which will come to light some day, believe me; but the minutes are too precious to seek now for the cause of the misfortune which menaces you. I hurried to you, then I have not betrayed you. Let us think of what is most pressing. Under this disguise it is impossible that you should be recognized," said the priest. "But that is not all; your situation has become almost inextricable." "What do you say?" "This Gascon is a traitor; a scoundrel. May God pardon me for having been so deceived in him and having made you partake of my error. Cursed be the hypocrite." "On the contrary," said Angela, "he is the most generous of men; he has voluntarily devoted himself for my husband." "Yes, he has assumed your name," said the priest to the prince, "but do you know for what vile purpose?" "Tell me, oh, tell me! I am dying of fear," cried Angela. "Listen, then," said the priest, "for the moments fly and the danger approaches. This morning I received at Macouba a letter from Captain Morris, of Fort Royal, in compliance with the order he had received from you to warn me of all arrivals of vessels and of those whose appearance seemed unusual. He sent me a special message to inform me that a French frigate had dropped anchor in sight of the harbor, after having sent an unknown passenger ashore. This person, after a long conference with the governor, started at the head of an escort in the direction of Devil's Cliff. In fact, he comes here." "An agent of France," said Monmouth; "what have I to fear at present, even if my secret was known at Versailles? Is not France at war with England?" "My God! my God! have pity on us!" cried Angela. "Listen! I started with all haste," continued the priest, "in order to warn you, hoping to arrive before this man and his escort, in case he was really coming here, and, unfortunately, or fortunately perhaps, joined him at the foot of the cliff. He recognized my robe; he said to me that he was sent by the King of France; that he came to fulfill a mission of state, and he begged me to be his guide and to introduce him, because I knew the dwellers in this house. I could not refuse to do this without arousing suspicions. I remained near him. He told me his name was De Chemerant. He began to ask me some very embarrassing questions as to you and your wife, my lord, when all at once, at some distance, we heard a loud voice cry, 'Who goes there?' 'An agent of France,' replied De Chemerant. 'Treason!' continued the voice, and a dull groan reached us with these words, 'I am killed!' 'To arms!' cried De Chemerant, taking his sword in hand, and running after two of our sailors who served as guides. I followed him. We found the Gascon stretched on the side of the road, four blacks kneeling, petrified with fear, while our two sailors had thrown on the ground, and held there with difficulty, a strong man clothed like a mariner." "And the chevalier?" exclaimed Monmouth, "was he wounded?" "No, sir; and although this is a very wicked man, we must return thanks to heaven for the wonderful chance which saved him. The man dressed as a mariner, hearing the noise of our escort, and the words of De Chemerant, who had responded 'Agent of the King of France,' believed himself betrayed, and led into ambush; he had then given the Gascon such a furious blow with his dagger that the unhappy adventurer would have been killed if the blade had not broken on his shoulder-belt. Nevertheless, thrown down by the violence of the shock, he fell to the ground, exclaiming, 'I am killed,' and remained motionless. It was at this moment we reached the group. Seeing us the assassin of the Gascon cried with a ferocious laugh as he kicked the body of what he supposed his victim, 'Mr. Agent of France, your designs have been unmasked, they are frustrated. You have come to seek James, Duke of Monmouth, in order to raise a standard for sedition; the standard is broken; take up the corpse, sir. It is I, Rutler, colonel in the service of King William, whom God preserve, who has committed this murder.'" "'Unhappy man,' exclaimed De Chemerant. "'I glory in this murder,' replied the colonel. 'Thus have I foiled the odious projects of the enemies of my master, the king; thanks to me, the sword of Charles II., which James of Monmouth carried at his side, will no more be drawn against England.' "'Colonel, you will be shot in twenty-four hours,' said De Chemerant. 'I know my fate,' replied the colonel; 'a traitor is dead. Long live the King of England.'" "But the chevalier?" asked the duke. "When he heard these words of Rutler's he made a slight movement, and heaved a sigh; and while some of the escort held the colonel, who yelled with rage at seeing that his victim was not dead, De Chemerant hurried to reach the Gascon, to whom he said, 'My lord, are you dangerously wounded?' I understood at once, without knowing why, that the chevalier was playing a rôle and had assumed your name; this error would serve you--I held my tongue. 'The blow had struck the belt of my father's sword,' said the rascal, in a faint voice as they raised him. 'My lord duke, lean on me,' replied De Chemerant, 'I come to you in the name of the King of France, my master. Mystery is now unnecessary. In two words I will tell you, sir, the object of my mission, and you can then judge whether or not you will return as quickly as possible to Fort Royal to embark with us.' 'I hear you, sir,' said the chevalier, feigning a slight English accent, doubtless to better play his part. Then at the end of several moments of thought, the Gascon said in a loud voice, 'If this be so, sir, I cannot be separated from my wife, and I desire to go and seek her at Devil's Cliff. She will accompany me; such is the destiny which is reserved for me.'" "The wretch!" exclaimed Angela. "Then he continued," said the priest, "'I feel giddy from my fall; I will rest here a moment.' 'That shall be as you wish, my lord,' said De Chemerant. Then, turning to me, 'Will you be so good, Father, as to go and announce to Madame the Duchess of Monmouth that the duke will come to seek her to take her away; and request that she make hasty preparations, for we must be at Fort Royal at daybreak and set sail the same morning.' Now," said the priest to Monmouth, "do you understand the plan of this traitor? He abuses the name that he has taken in order to carry off your wife, and you will be compelled either to declare who you are, or to consent to the departure of madame the duchess." "Rather a thousand times death!" cried Angela. "Cursed be the Gascon!" said the priest; "I believed him but a sot and an adventurer, and he is a monster of hypocrisy." "Do not let us despair," said Angela suddenly. "Father, will you return to the outer buildings and order Mirette to open the door to the Gascon and the French agent when they come. I will take care of the rest." PART THIRD. CHAPTER XXII. THE VICEROY OF IRELAND AND SCOTLAND. While the Duke of Monmouth and his wife, informed by Father Griffen of the infamous treachery of Croustillac, were seeking to escape this new danger, we will return to the adventurer, who, carelessly leaning on the arm of De Chemerant, climbed the steep ascent of Devil's Cliff. Colonel Rutler, furious at having been thwarted in his attempt, was led away by a guard of two soldiers. Chemerant did not know Croustillac; not having the slightest doubt as to the identity of the Gascon with the Duke of Monmouth, the action and words of Rutler confirmed his error. In the colonel's possession was found an order from William of Orange for the capture of James, Duke of Monmouth. What doubt could he then have when the emissary of King William recognized Croustillac as the duke, so fully that he was ready to pay with his life for his attempt to assassinate this pretended prince. Seeing the new aspect this adventure was taking, Croustillac felt the necessity of being more guarded, so as to complete the illusion which he desired in order to accomplish his own ends. He at least knew, now, the name of the person whom he represented and to what country he belonged. These points, however, were not very useful to the adventurer as yet, for he was absolutely ignorant as to contemporaneous history; but at any rate, the knowledge that the man he personated was English led him to endeavor to modify his Gascon pronunciation, and he gave it an English accent so strange that De Chemerant was far from suspecting that he spoke with a Frenchman. Croustillac, in order not to compromise the part he was playing, deemed it wisest to maintain an extreme reserve; De Chemerant was not surprised; he knew the reserved character of the English. Some words which were exchanged by the two persons who walked at the head of the escort will give an idea of the new and embarrassing position of the chevalier. "When we arrive at your house, sir," said De Chemerant, "I shall communicate to you the full powers which his majesty has charged me to place before the eyes of your highness." "Highness--the devil!" thought Croustillac: "this man pleases me better than the other; beside subjecting me to the inconvenience of his everlasting dagger, he called me only my lord or your grace, while this one calls me highness. This is progressive. I go on. I touch the throne." Monsieur de Chemerant continued: "I shall also have the honor to hand to you, sir, a number of letters from England which will prove to you that the moment was never more favorable for an insurrection." "I know it," said the Gascon, with effrontery, remembering that this was what Rutler had said to him; "I know it, sir; my partisans are acting, and bestirring themselves greatly." "Your highness is better informed of affairs in Europe than I had thought." "I have never lost sight of them, sir, never." "Your highness fills me with joy in speaking thus. It depends on you to assure to yourself the brilliant position which is your due, and which you will acquire if you obtain a decisive advantage." "And how, sir?" "By putting yourself at the head of the partisans of your royal uncle, James Stuart; forgetting the dissensions which have heretofore separated you, for the king no longer desires to see in you other than his worthy nephew." "And, between us, he is right; it is always necessary to turn to one's family. My God, if each one puts in a little of his own, it will end by arranging itself." "Thus, your highness, King James gives you a mark of the highest confidence in intrusting to you the defense of his rights and those of his young son."[A] {[A] The Pretender, born in 1688.} "My uncle is dethroned; he is unhappy; this makes me overlook much," said Croustillac gravely. "I will not betray his hopes. I will devote myself to the defense of his rights and those of his young son, if the circumstances permit." "Your highness need not have the slightest doubt as to the opportunity to do so when you will have heard, in this respect, the large number of your old companions at arms; of your most enthusiastic followers." "In fact, they, better than any one, will be able to give certain information, but alas! before I can see them, these brave men, these loyal and faithful men, much time must, unhappily, elapse." "I am going to give your highness a very delightful surprise." "A surprise?" "Yes, your highness. Several of your partisans, having learned by what happy occurrence the life of your highness has been preserved, have asked permission of the king to accompany me here." "To accompany you?" cried the chevalier. "And where are they, then?" "They are here, aboard the frigate which brought me, your highness." "Aboard your frigate!" exclaimed Croustillac, with an expression of surprise that De Chemerant interpreted in a very favorable manner to affectionate memories of the chevalier. "Yes, your highness. I understand your astonishment, your happiness, your joy in the prospect of shortly seeing your old companions-in-arms." "You have not the slightest idea of the impatience with which I await the moment when I shall again see them, sir," said Croustillac. "And their conduct justifies your eagerness, your highness; they will bring you the loyalty of all your English friends; and they will very soon put you in touch with the affairs of that country. Who can better inform you on these subjects than Dudley and Rothsay?" "Ah! that dear Rothsay, has he also come?" said the Gascon with an easy manner. "Yes, your highness, but he is suffering so from his old wounds that he can hardly walk, still he said, 'It is no matter if I die--if I die at the feet of our duke,' for it is thus they speak of you in the familiarity of their devotion." "The poor Rothsay, always the same!" said Croustillac, passing his hand across his eyes, with a touching air. "The dear friends." "And Lord Mortimer, then, your highness; he is as if mad. If it were not for the king's orders, which were of the strictest, it would have been impossible to have prevented his coming on shore with me." "Mortimer also--brave Mortimer!" "And Lord Dudley, your highness." "Lord Dudley is as wild as the others, I wager?" "He threatened to swim ashore as the captain had refused to give him a boat." "Such a friend is a true spaniel for fidelity and love of the water!" thought Croustillac, very much embarrassed. "Ah, your highness, and to-morrow?" "Well, what of to-morrow?" "What a great day it will be for your highness." "Yes, superb." "Ah, your highness, what a touching scene! what a moment for you and for those who are so devoted to you. Happy indeed are the princes who find such friends in adversity." "Yes it will be a very touching interview," said Croustillac aloud; then he continued, inaudibly, "To the devil with this animal of a Mortimer and his companions! _Peste!_ these are very stupid friends; what fly is stinging them? They will recognize me, and I shall be lost, now that I know De Chemerant's state secret." "The presence of those valiant nobles," replied De Chemerant, "has yet another object. Your highness ought not to be ignorant of it?" "Speak, sir; they seem to me to have excellent ideas, these dear friends." "Knowing your courage, your resolution, sir, the king, my master, and the king, your uncle, have ordered me to make you an overture which you cannot fail to accept." "What is it, sir? this begins excellently." "Not only are your most courageous partisans on board the frigate, which is at anchor, sir, but the ship is filled with arms and ammunition. Sentinels have been stationed on the coast of Cornwall; the whole country awaits only a signal to rise in your favor. It but remains for your highness to disembark at the head of your partisans, and give the people the necessary arms. The movement will spread even to London, the usurper will be driven from the throne, and you will restore the crown to the king, your uncle." "I will do it, by the gods! I am capable of that. Of a surety here is a magnificent project, but there must be contrary chances, and above all, I must be careful, very careful of the lives of my partisans and of the safety of my uncle's subjects." "I recognize the habitual generosity of the character of your highness; but there are hardly any contrary chances to fear; all is ready, loyalty prevails. You will be received with enthusiasm. The remembrance of you is so lasting, they say, so ever present to the people of London, that they have never believed in your execution, sir, not even those who were present. Live, then, for this noble country which has so deeply mourned you, and which awaits your coming as they await the day of their deliverance." "Come! he also," thought Croustillac; "he thinks that I have been executed; but this man is more reasonable than the other, who wished to kill me in the name of the regrets that my death had caused; at least, this one desires me to live in the name of these same regrets, and I prefer this." "In a word, sir, set sail from Martinique for the coast of Cornwall, and if, as all believe, the English people rise at the sound of your name, my master, the king, will support this insurrection with his strong forces, and make the movement a success." "Ah! ah! I see, my good fellow, I see. Although I am not a political end," said the Gascon to himself, "in my humble opinion I understand that the king, your master and mine, wishes to make use of me as a forlorn hope. If I succeed, he will support me; if I do not, he will leave me to be captured. All the same this tempts me; my ambition awakens. To the devil with the Mortimers, the Rothsays, and my other mad friends! Without these rogues I shall be curious to see Polyphème de Croustillac revolutionizing Cornwall, driving William of Orange from the throne of England, and generously restoring this same throne to King James. Without being tempted to seat myself upon it--hum, perhaps I shall seat myself a little, to see--there, there, Polyphème, no more of that! give the throne to the old man, Polyphème, restore him his throne. So be it, I will give it to him, but decidedly, for some time, very strange things have happened to me, and the Unicorn which brought me here must be an enchanted vessel." The chevalier then spoke, with a thoughtful air: "This is a very serious thing, at least, sir; there is much to be said for, and also much against it. I am far from wishing to temporize too long, but it would be, I think, wisdom to consider more fully before giving the signal for this uprising." "Your highness, permit me to say to you that the conditions are pressing; action necessary; the secret projects of the king, my master, have been betrayed. William of Orange has deputed Colonel Rutler to carry you off, living or dead, so much does he fear to see you the leader of an insurrection. Sir, we must strike a quick, decisive blow, such as a sudden disembarkment on the coasts of Cornwall. I repeat, this expedition made in the name of King James will be received with enthusiasm and the all-powerful influence of Louis XIV., will consolidate the revolution you will have so gloriously begun; and, thanks to you, the rightful King of Great Britain will once more ascend his throne." "This seems to me assured, if my side has the advantage." "It will have, sir, it will have!" "Yes, unless it is defeated, and then if I am killed, this time it will be without pardon. It is not through unworthy egotism that I make this reflection, sir; you can understand that, after the antecedents which they attribute to me, I must be thoroughly accustomed to being dead, but I would not leave my party orphaned; and then, consider, sir!--to plunge this country once more into the horrors of civil war! Ah!" and Croustillac heaved a sigh. "Doubtless, sir, this is a sad thought; but to these passing troubles would succeed a most profound calm. Doubtless, war has fatal chances, but it has, also, happy ones; and then, what a future awaits you! The letters I bring you will show you that the viceroyship of Ireland and Scotland is reserved for you, without counting other favors which are likewise reserved for you and my master, and James Stuart, your uncle, when he is once more on the throne which he will owe to you." "_Peste!_ Viceroy of Scotland and Ireland!" said Croustillac to himself. "With this, husband of Blue Beard, and, in the bargain, son and nephew of a king, ah Croustillac, Croustillac, I have well said thy star is in the ascendent--it would be too bad that this should be for another. Come on, while it lasts!" Monsieur de Chemerant, seeing the chevalier's hesitation, made use of a more powerful means of forcing him to act conformably to the wishes of the two kings, and said to him, "There remains, your highness, a last communication to make you, and, painful as it is, I must obey my master's orders." "Speak, sir." "It is almost out of the question to refuse to put yourself at the head of the uprising, your highness; your ships are burned!" "My ships burned?" "Yes, your highness, that is, figuratively." "Very well, sir, I understand, the king would compel me to act as he desires?" "Your habitual keensightedness does not allow you to be deceived, your highness. In case you do not believe it your duty to follow the pressing counsel of my master, the king, in case you thus show his majesty King James that you are unwilling to make him forget these sad and annoying memories, in devoting yourself to his cause, as he had hoped----" "Well, sir," said the adventurer, becoming cautious, believing he was going to see, as is said, the reverse side of the medal. "Well, your highness, the king, my master, for pressing reasons of state, in such a case would see himself, with much regret, obliged to possess himself of your person. That is why I have an escort with me." "Sir! violence?" "Unfortunately, your highness, my orders are explicit. But I am sure your highness will not put me to the hard necessity of carrying them out." This menace caused Croustillac to reflect. Monsieur de Chemerant continued: "I must add, sir, that prudence demands (seeing your execution has taken place) that your features should be henceforth concealed, and your face must be covered with a mask that will never be removed. In fact, in compliance with the orders of his majesty, I shall have the honor of conducting you, sir, at once to the Saint Margaret Islands, where you will remain henceforth a prisoner. I leave to you to imagine the regrets of your partisans, who have come so far in the hope of seeing you once more at their head." After remaining for a long time in the attitude of a man who was thinking deeply and who struggled inwardly against many conflicting thoughts, Croustillac raised his head proudly, and said to De Chemerant, in a dignified manner, "Upon reflection, sir, I will accept the viceroyship of Ireland and Scotland, you have my word. However do not think that fear of a perpetual prison forces me thus to act. No, sir, no; but after mature reflection, I am convinced that I would be culpable not to yield to the wishes of an oppressed people, who are stretching out their arms to me, and not to draw my sword for their defense," said the adventurer with a heroic air. "If that is so, your highness," cried De Chemerant, "long live King James and his Royal Highness the Duke of Monmouth. Long live the Viceroy of Scotland and Ireland." "I accept the augury," gravely replied the chevalier, while he said to himself, "Devil of a man! with his sweet manner, I do not know if I do not like the other better in spite of his eternal dagger. This is a difficult choice. To go with the Dutchman a prisoner to London Tower, that was not difficult; while now my rôle is complicated and becomes diabolical, thanks to my mad friends who like vultures are awaiting me on board the frigate. To-morrow, I dare say, all will be discovered. And Blue Beard? But I who believed I had made a master stroke in coming to seek her at Devil's Cliff? What will happen from all this? Bah! after all, what can happen me? Taken prisoner? or hanged? Prisoner?--that gives me a future. Hanged?--it is a trifle, the dropping of an eyelid, a gasp. Come, come, Croustillac! no cowardice! console yourself by mocking at these men, and amuse yourself with the strange adventures the devil sends you! It is all the same, cursed be my partisans! except for them all would go well. Let us see if there is not some way of sending them to love me--elsewhere." "Tell me, sir," said he, aloud, "are my followers on board many?" "Your highness, there are eleven." "That must incommode you; they must be uncomfortable themselves." "They are soldiers, your highness, they are accustomed to the rough life of a camp; beside, the end which they propose to attain is so important, so glorious, that they do not dream of privations which the sight of your highness will make them quickly forget." "It is all the same--is there not a means of finding a place elsewhere? sending them to another vessel would be infinitely better, that I and my wife may accommodate ourselves on the frigate? And then, for reasons known to myself, I shall not discover myself to these dear and good friends until the moment arrives to disembark in England." "That is impossible! to be on the same vessel with you, your friends will sleep on deck in their clothes." "It is terrible to inspire such devotion," said Croustillac to himself. "Then think no more of it," said he aloud. "I shall be very sorry to thwart such faithful partisans. But what accommodations have you for myself and wife?" "They will be very plain, sir, but your highness will deign to be indulgent in recognizing the imperative necessity of the case. Beside, the well-known attachment of your highness for the duchess," replied De Chemerant, smiling, "will make you, I am sure, excuse the smallness of the apartment, which is none other than the captain's cabin." The adventurer could not prevent a smile in return, and answered, "The room, sir, will be sufficient." "Then, your highness, you have fully decided that you will bring madame with you?" "More than ever, sir; when I was the prisoner of Colonel Rutler, when I was destined to perish, perhaps, I left her ignorant of my peril, and abandoned her without warning her of the fate that awaited me." "So the duchess is ignorant----" "Of everything, sir; the poor woman is ignorant of everything. Surprised by Colonel Rutler, while she was asleep, I left word in quitting Devil's Cliff, that my absence would extend over but a day or two. But circumstances have suddenly changed. There are no more dangers that I am going to run. I know my wife, sir; glory and danger, she would partake all. In going to seek her, to carry her away with me, I am furthering her dearest wish." CHAPTER XXIII. THE ARREST. Monsieur de Chemerant and Croustillac walked on in silence for some little time toward Devil's Cliff. Meanwhile the guard reached the heights of the rocks. From this spot were discerned at a distance the platform and the wall of the park surrounding Blue Beard's home. At the sight of this species of fortification De Chemerant said to the chevalier, "This retreat is well chosen, your highness, to keep at a distance curious persons; to say nothing of the fact that the reports that you have caused to be made by the three fellows in your service, are not such as to encourage many visitors." "You allude, I presume, to the buccaneer, the filibuster and the Caribbean?" "Yes, your highness, it is said that they are devoted to you, for life and death." "They are singularly attached to me. Nevertheless," said Croustillac to himself, "I do not yet know what right these three miscreants have to an intimacy with the duchess, nor how, in fact, her husband, the Duke of Monmouth, can permit such bandits to be so very familiar with his wife--speaking tenderly to her and embracing her. The Caribbean, above all, with his grave air like a donkey that one has curried--he has above all the faculty of setting my nerves on edge. And then, how can the duke permit these familiarities? Doubtless it is to mislead people. It saves appearances. But, zounds! it seems to me that this misleads a little too much. Ah, Croustillac, Croustillac! you are becoming more and more in love, my friend; it is jealousy you feel for these bandits. Ah, well, I shall unravel this mystery shortly. Meanwhile, I must endeavor to learn how it was discovered that the prince was hidden at Devil's Cliff." "Sir," continued Croustillac aloud, "I desire to ask you a very important question." "I am all attention, your highness." "If you are permitted to answer this, tell me how it became known at Versailles that I was hidden in Martinique?" After a moment's silence De Chemerant replied, "In telling you what you wish to know, your highness, I do not in any way betray a state secret. Neither the king nor his ministers have confided to me anything on this point. It is entirely due to a circumstance which it would take too long to tell you now, that I had discovered that of which they thought I was in ignorance. I can, however, count upon your silence on this subject, your highness." "You may be sure of that, sir." "Then, I believe, your highness, that the late Governor of Martinique, the late Chevalier de Crussol, had known you in Holland, where he owed his life to you. At the battle of Saint Denis, where you commanded a Scotch regiment in the army of the stadtholder, while the Chevalier de Crussol served in the army of the Marshal Luxembourg----" "This is true in every particular," said Croustillac imperturbably. "Proceed." "I believe, also, your highness, that the late Chevalier de Crussol having been, by a combination of events, chosen governor of this colony, and, having believed it his duty to inquire into the mysterious existence of a young widow called Blue Beard, went to Devil's Cliff, entirely ignorant of the fact that you had found refuge there." "That also is true, sir; you see I am frank," said Croustillac, charmed at penetrating, little by little, this mystery. "Finally, it appears certain that Chevalier de Crussol, recognizing in you the prince who had saved his life, swore to you that he would guard your secret----" "He swore it, sir, and if anything surprises me on the part of so gallant a man, it is that he failed to keep his word," said the Gascon severely. "Do not be too hasty in accusing Chevalier de Crussol, your highness." "I will reserve my judgment, then." "You know, your highness, there were few men more religiously inclined than De Crussol?" "His piety was proverbial; it is that fact which so surprises me at his failure to keep his word." "When dying, your highness, Chevalier de Crussol felt it a point of conscience that he had not made known to his master, the king, a state secret of such importance. He therefore confessed the truth to Father Griffen." "I know all that, sir; go on," said Croustillac, who did not desire that the devouring curiosity with which he listened to De Chemerant should appear. "As for that, your highness, I speak of what occurred then only from memory. I shall touch upon certain particulars unknown, I think, to your highness. At the point of death, Chevalier de Crussol, wishing so far as possible, to continue to you the protection which had surrounded you during his life, and, fearing that his successor would begin a search against the mysterious residents at Devil's Cliff, he wrote a letter to the governor who would succeed him. In this letter he affirmed on his guarantee and on that of Father Griffen that the conduct of Blue Beard was in no wise to be suspected. It is believed, your highness, that the dying governor had warned you that scruples of conscience having compelled him to confess all to Father Griffen, under the seal of the confessional, he did not consider he had broken the promise that he had given you." "If this is so, sir, this poor man remained until the close of his life the pious and loyal gentleman that I always knew him to be," said Croustillac, deeply affected; "but must one then, accuse the good Father Griffen of a sacrilege? This would be cruel. I can with difficulty reconcile myself to that, sir." After a moment's silence, De Chemerant said to the adventurer: "Do you know, your highness, the game of the poisoned shoulder-knot?" The Gascon looked at the envoy with surprise. "Is this a pleasantry, sir?" "I would not take such a liberty, your highness," said De Chemerant, bending his head. "Then, sir, what connection----" "Permit me, your highness, to explain to you what this game is, and by the aid of this figure, I shall perhaps be able to also explain to your highness the fortunes of the state secret. "Explain this figure, sir." "Well, the game of the poisoned shoulder-knot consists in this: a circle of men and women is made; one man takes one of the shoulder-knots from his coat and seeks to slip it into his neighbor's pocket as secretly as possible, for the person who is found in possession of it is obliged to give a forfeit." "Very well, sir," said the Gascon, "the skill of the play resolves itself into getting rid as soon as possible of the shoulder-knot, by passing it, adroitly, on to another." "There you have it, your highness." "But I do not see what connection there is between the state secret which concerns me and this game." "Pardon me, sir, to some consciences, at once scrupulous and timid, certain confidences, or rather certain confessions, have the same effect as the poisoned shoulder-knot in the play of that name; the aforesaid consciences think only of getting rid of the secret to a neighboring conscience in order to protect themselves from all responsibility." "Well, sir, I see the analogy; it seems that the game of the poisoned shoulder-knot has been played with the confessor of this unhappy Chevalier de Crussol." "That is just what happened, your highness. Father Griffen, seeing himself the depository of such an important state secret, found himself terribly embarrassed; he feared to commit a culpable action toward his sovereign in keeping silent; he feared by speaking to violate the seal of the confessional and to ruin you. In this quandary, and desiring to quiet his conscience, he resolved to go to France, to confess all to the general of his order, and to thus free himself of all responsibility." "I understand, now, your comparison, sir; but as this secret has been noised abroad, it necessarily follows that, in order to carry out your comparison, some one has cheated." "I can assure your highness that it is many months since Father Griffen, after his resolution had been taken, arrived in France and confided all to the general of the order; he, in turn, took all the responsibility upon himself, and completely absolved Father Griffen, recommending to him the greatest secrecy." "And to whom the devil did the general of the order pass the shoulder-knot?" said the Gascon, who was much amused by this story. "Before answering your highness, I must say that the general of the order concealed beneath an austere exterior a most unbridled ambition; that few men possessed to so high a degree the genius for intrigue; or played more audaciously with what the world reveres. Once master of the important secret that Father Griffen had confided to him, as his spiritual superior, in order to quiet his conscience, the general of the order desired to use this secret for his own personal advancement. Intimately linked with the confessor of his majesty, King James, Father Briars, a cunning Jesuit, who understood perfectly the condition of affairs in England, he led the conversation one day to the location of this island, and the general of the order asked Father Briars if, in case you had been still living, your highness, you would not have many opportunities for rallying about you the partisans of the Stuarts, and thus placing yourself at the head of a movement against the Prince of Orange. Father Briars replied that if you had lived your influence would have been immense, if you were sincerely devoted to the cause of King James; that this prince had often regretted your death, when thinking of the services you could have rendered to the cause of the Stuarts. You can imagine, your highness, the joy of the general of the order. The secret of the confessional was betrayed, your highness, and your existence revealed. "But this is an abominable man, this general of the order," cried Croustillac. "Doubtless, sir; but he was ambitious to wear the cardinal's hat; and as the prime mover of the enterprise, he would be a prince of the church if King James, your uncle, ascended the throne of England. It is unnecessary to tell you, sir, that once Father Briars was master of this secret, he availed himself of it with his royal penitent, and that the remainder of the arrangements were converted between Louis XIV. and James Stuart." "All is clear now," said Croustillac to himself. "I am not surprised at the uneasiness of Father Griffen when I persisted in going to Devil's Cliff. Knowing the secret of the place, he doubtless, believed me to be a spy. I can now understand the questions with which he overwhelmed me during our journey, and which seemed so absurd." Monsieur de Chemerant attributed to astonishment the silence of Croustillac at this recital, and he said, "Now all should be clear to you. Without doubt, the preparations of this enterprise have not been so secret that William of Orange has not been kept posted by spies who gained entrance into the cabinet at Versailles, and even into the inner circle of the lesser court at Saint Germain. In order to baffle the projects which rest entirely upon your highness, the usurper has given to Colonel Rutler the mission which came so near being fatal to you, your highness. You see, then, in all this Father Griffen has been perfectly innocent. Some one has abused his confidence most sacrilegiously; but, after all, sir, you must exercise forbearance, for it is to this discovery that you will have the glory, some day, of re-establishing James Stuart upon the throne of England." Although this confidence had satisfied the adventurer's curiosity, he regretted having provoked it; if he was discovered, he would, no doubt, be made to pay dearly for his knowledge of this state secret, which he had involuntarily surprised; but Croustillac could not retrace his steps; he was to become more and more involved in the dangerous way wherein he walked. The escort arrived on the plain at the foot of the wall of the house. It was agreed that Rutler, still bound, should remain outside, and that six soldiers and two sailors should accompany Chemerant and Croustillac. On reaching the foot of the wall, the Gascon called, resolutely, "Ho, slaves!" After waiting some moments, the ladder was lowered. The adventurer and De Chemerant, followed by their men, entered the house; the arched door used exclusively by Blue Beard was opened by Mirette. Chemerant ordered the six soldiers to remain outside the arch. Mirette, instructed by her mistress, as to what she should do and say in response to questions, appeared struck with surprise at the sight of the Gascon, and exclaimed, "Ah, my lord!" "You did not expect me? and Father Griffen?" "What, my lord is it you?" "Certainly it is I; but where is Father Griffen?" "Learning that you were going away for some days, madame had ordered me to allow no one to enter." "But the reverend Father, who came here on my account--has he not seen your mistress?" "No, my lord; madame told me to allow no one to enter, so the reverend priest has been shown to a room in the outer building." "Then your mistress is not expecting my return?" "No, my lord; but----" "It is well; leave us." "But, my lord, I will go and inform Madame de----" "No, it is no matter; I will go myself," said the Gascon, passing before Mirette and walking toward the drawing room. "Your highness, you are about to give a pleasant surprise to the duchess, who does not expect you for some days, and will thus change her regrets to a very tender joy, since Father Griffen has not yet been able to see your wife," said De Chemerant. "She is always thus, poor dear child, she is very timid; when I am not here," said Croustillac, tenderly, "she will not see a human face, not even this good priest; my shortest absence causes her sadness, desolation and tears; this is what worries me; all this is very simple; since I have been condemned to this absolute retirement I have never left my wife, and this absence to-day, short as she believes it to be, is terribly hard for her, poor, dear soul." "But then, your highness, what a delightful surprise! If your highness will permit me to advise, I will promise to persuade the duchess to leave this night, for you know, our enterprise cannot succeed except it be by a very rapid move." "My wish also is to carry away my wife as soon as possible." "This hasty journey will unfortunately cause the duchess some inconveniences." "She will not think so, sir; it concerns following me," said Croustillac, with a triumphant manner. Monsieur de Chemerant and the adventurer reached the little gallery which gave entrance to the drawing room of Blue Beard. As we have said, this room was separated from the drawing room only by _portières_; a thick Turkish carpet covered the floor. Monsieur de Chemerant and Croustillac approached the inner room noiselessly, when they suddenly heard peals of laughter. The chevalier recognized the voice of Angela, and, seizing the hand of De Chemerant, he said in a low voice, "It is my wife--listen." "The duchess appears to me less overcome than your highness believed." "Perhaps, sir; there are sobs, you know, which in their violence have something of the sound of convulsive laughter. Do not move; I wish to surprise her in the abandon of her grief," said the Gascon, making a sign to his companion to remain motionless and to keep silent. CHAPTER XXIV. THE INTERVIEW. In order to explain the confidence of the Gascon, we must say that, having heard Mirette address him as master, he was fully persuaded that Blue Beard was on her guard, and that Monmouth was securely hidden. In spite of what the mulattress said, he was convinced, with reason, that Father Griffen had informed Angela that her supposed husband would come to see her. The situation was so grave that the priest, knowing all the mysteries of Devil's Cliff, could not but have insisted on warning Blue Beard of the fresh peril which menaced her. If Mirette had stated that Father Griffen had not seen Blue Beard, it was because it was in accord with her wishes that it should appear that he had not communicated with the inhabitants of Devil's Cliff. This explains at once what will seem contradictory in Croustillac's conduct, and will answer the question "if he wished to take advantage of the name he had assumed, to carry off Blue Beard, why had he warned Father Griffen of his intention?" Croustillac, having warned De Chemerant to be silent, advanced on tiptoe, to the half-drawn _portière_, and looked into the room, for the peals of laughter still continued. He had scarcely cast a glance into the room when he quickly turned toward De Chemerant; and with a distorted face and outraged manner said, "See and listen, sir! this is the reward of surprises. I had a presentiment when I sent Father Griffen here. By heavens! prudent husbands should be preceded by an escort of cymbals to announce their return!" In spite of these ironical words, the features of Croustillac were convulsed; his whole physiognomy expressed a singular mixture of sorrow, anger and hatred. Rapidly glancing into the room, De Chemerant, in spite of his assurance, lowered his eyes, colored, and for some moments remained perfectly overwhelmed with confusion. Let one judge of the spectacle which caused the confusion of De Chemerant, and the rage, not feigned but sincere, even cruel, of Croustillac, who, as we have said, passionately loved Blue Beard, devoted himself generously for her, and was not in the secret of the prince's different disguises. Monmouth, in the disguise of the mulatto filibuster, Whirlwind, was negligently extended on a sofa; he was smoking a long pipe, the bowl of which rested on a low stand. Angela, kneeling beside the latter, quickened the flame of the pipe with a long golden pin. "Good! that is all right," said Monmouth, whom we will call Whirlwind, during this scene. "My pipe is lighted, now for something to drink." Angela placed on a table a large Bohemian glass and a crystal _carafe_, and, going over to the divan, while the filibuster puffed several mouthfuls of tobacco, poured out a brimming glass of Muscatel wine and handed it to him with a charmingly graceful air. The filibuster emptied it at a single draught, after which he kissed her roughly, saying, "Wine is good, and the woman is pretty; to the devil with the husband!" Hearing these very significant words, De Chemerant wished to retire. Croustillac took hold of him and said, in a low tone, "Remain, sir, remain, I desire to surprise, to confound them, the miserable wretches!" The face of Croustillac clouded more and more. The warning which he had given in begging Father Griffen to go and prepare Blue Beard that he was about to seek her, concealed a very praiseworthy and generous purpose, which we will explain later. The sight of the filibuster exciting the adventurer's jealousy into rage quickly changed his good intentions. He could not understand the audacity of this young woman. He could not be blind to the evidence of these familiarities on the part of the mulatto whom he had not yet seen. He remembered those, no less shocking, of the Caribbean and the buccaneer. He believed himself to be the dupe of a frightfully depraved creature; he believed that Monmouth, her husband, no longer existed or no longer lived at Devil's Cliff; and if Angela had co-operated with himself (Croustillac) in his strategy, it was in order to rid herself of an awkward witness. Furious at being thus deceived and played with, deeply wounded in a true love, Croustillac resolved to avenge himself without pity, and, this time, to really abuse the power his assumed name and the situation which he assumed with such honorable motives had given him. He said to De Chemerant, in a stifled voice, but with an expression of concentrated wrath, which entered admirably into the spirit of his rôle, "Not a word, sir; I wish to hear all, because I wish to punish both without mercy." "But, your highness----" An imperious gesture from Croustillac closed De Chemerant's mouth; both of them gave an attentive ear to the conversation of Angela, and the filibuster, who, we must say, knew perfectly that they were overheard. "At last, my beautiful child," said Whirlwind, "you are free for a time at least." "If not forever," said Blue Beard, smiling. "Forever? what do you mean, you little demon," returned the filibuster. Angela arose and seated herself near the mulatto. While talking to him she passed her hand through his hair with a cajoling coquetry which put the unhappy Croustillac beside himself. "Your highness, one word, and my men shall rid you of this scoundrel," said De Chemerant, in an undertone, in pity for the Gascon. "I shall know well how to avenge myself," said the adventurer sullenly, who no longer desired to prolong the scene; and so, turning to De Chemerant, continued, "Sir, leave me alone with these two wretches." "But, your highness, this man appears strong and robust." "Be easy, I will give a good account of him." "If you will listen to me, your highness, we will leave at once; you will abandon to her remorse, a woman so unhappy as to thus forget her duty." "Leave her? No, my heavens! Willingly or otherwise, she shall follow me--that will be my revenge." "If your highness will permit me a remark: After a disclosure so scandalous, the sight of the duchess can only be forever odious to you. Let us go; forget such a guilty spouse; glory shall console you." "Sir, I desire to speak to my wife," said Croustillac impatiently. "But, your highness, this miserable----" "Once more, am I a man without courage and without force, that such a rascal should intimidate me? Some domestic scenes must be secret. Will you await me in the next room? In a quarter of an hour I will be with you." Croustillac said these words with an intonation so imperious, and with such an agonized manner, that De Chemerant bowed without persisting further. He went into a room the door of which the chevalier had opened, and which he immediately closed upon him. Crossing the drawing room with quick steps, the adventurer entered suddenly into the room where the mulatto and Blue Beard were. "Madame," said the Gascon with sorrowful indignation, "your conduct is abominable." The mulatto, who was extended on the divan, arose quickly; he was about to speak; Angela with a glance begged him to do nothing. As much as Monmouth had generously desired to prevent the sacrifice of the chevalier when he believed this sacrifice disinterested, he was as much resolved not to make himself known when he believed the adventurer capable of an unworthy betrayal. "Sir," said Angela coldly, to the Gascon, "the French emissary may still overhear us; let us go into another room." She opened the door of Monmouth's own room, and entered, followed by the filibuster and Croustillac. The door once closed, the adventurer cried: "I repeat that you have shamefully abused my trust in you." "I demand an explanation of your disloyal conduct," said Angela proudly. "Explain yourself at once." During this scene, Monmouth, gravely preoccupied, walked up and down the room with his arms folded, his eyes fixed on the carpet. "You desire that I explain myself, madame? Oh, that will not take long! First know that, right or wrong, I love you," cried Croustillac, in a burst of tenderness and anger. "That is to say, that you have boasted to your fellow-travelers that you would marry the rich widow of Devil's Cliff?" "So be it, madame; on board the Unicorn my language was impertinent, my pretensions absurd, madame; covetous, I admit. But when I spoke thus, when I thought thus, I had not seen you." "The sight of me, sir, has not inspired you with ideas much more honorable," said Angela severely, still convinced that Croustillac wished to cruelly abuse the position in which he found himself. "Hear me, madame; I love you truly; that is to say, that I was capable of anything to prove to you my love, absurd and stupid as it appears to you. Yes, I loved you, because my heart told me I did well to love you; because I felt myself better for loving you. You may laugh at this love; I was sufficiently repaid by the happiness it gave me. When you have said, 'Sir, I mock at you, I use you for a plaything, you are a poor devil, I have bestowed charity upon you, and you should be content therewith---- '" "Sir!" "When you have said all this, do not think that I was humiliated. No, that hurt me, hurt me much, but I quickly forgot this injury, when I saw that you understood that, poor as I am, I could be touched by something else than money. Then you said to me some kind words, you called me your friend--your friend! After this I would have thrown myself into the fire for you, and that for the sole pleasure of throwing myself into it, for I had nothing more to hope for from you; the time of my folly is past; I see too clearly into my heart not to recognize that I was a kind of mendicant buffoon; I can never have anything in common with a woman as beautiful and as young as you. My only ambition--and this can offend no one--would have been to devote myself to you. But how to have such happiness? I, a vagabond, with nothing but my old sword, my old hat, and my pink hose! Ah! well, by a chance which I at first blessed, Colonel Rutler to-night mistook me for him they call your husband; this mistake might be useful to you. Judge of my joy--I could save the man whom you so passionately loved. I should have preferred to save something else, but I had no time to choose. I risked all, including the everlasting dagger of the colonel. I augmented, by every means possible, his double mistake. You came to my assistance; that is, you buried me in the mud up to the neck, by means of the bagatelles with which you loaded me. It is all the same--I go with all my heart; I am satisfied to do so, and I leave this house without hope of ever seeing you again, with the gallows or prison in prospect, not to count the everlasting dagger of the Dutchman. Ah, well, in spite of all, I repeat, I was content: I said to myself, I know not what awaits me, rope or dungeon; but I am sure Blue Beard will say, 'It is fortunate, very fortunate for us at least, that this eccentric Gascon came here. Poor devil! what has happened to him?' There! that was my ambition. But I did not ask even a regret, a memory--a memory," said the Gascon, moved in spite of himself. "Sir," said Angela, "as long as I believed you really generous, my gratitude did not fail you." These words increased the Gascon's wrath; he exclaimed, "Your gratitude, madame! Zounds! it is beautiful. But to proceed. We started from this place with the Belgian. In descending the hill we met the French emissary. Rutler at once believed himself betrayed, and made a furious lunge at me with his everlasting dagger. These are the fruits of devotion. If the blade had not broken, I should have been killed. Nothing is simpler; when one sacrifices oneself for others, it is hardly with the expectation of being crowned with roses, or caressed by nymphs of the woods. Well, the dagger broke; one of the men throttled Rutler; I found myself face to face with the French emissary. I did not lose my head. It was a matter touching you and the unhappy exile whom you loved passionately. I would rather it had been your father or your uncle, but I had no choice. Beside, the idea of being useful to two young and interesting people threw my egotism into the background. The greater the complications the more my pride incited me to save you. I redoubled my audacity and coolness. The great but honest falsehoods I have uttered for you should absolve me from those which I have spoken for an unworthy cause. The good God took up the cause; I was inspired to the greatest falsehoods you can imagine; they were swallowed up as eagerly by the French envoy as if it had been manna from on high. I played my rôle with all my might. Monsieur De Chemerant told me in two words the object of his mission; an insurrection favored by the King of France was on foot in England; if the Duke of Monmouth were to put himself at the head of the affair its success was assured." Monmouth made a movement and stealthily exchanged glances with Angela. The Gascon continued: "When I was on the way to an English prison with the Belgian and his everlasting dagger I did not breathe a word. I was well protected from any wish to return here. But when De Chemerant confided to me a thing of possible advantage to the prince, I had no right to refuse it for him. I therefore accepted in his name all manner of viceroyalties. But, if he really desired to take part in this uprising, how was I to let him know? Monsieur De Chemerant desired to set sail at once. By what means could I return here with the envoy of France without exposing the duke, who was ignorant of my last adventure and believed me still to be the Belgian's prisoner, thinking, doubtless, that he was secure here? An idea seized me. I said to De Chemerant, 'Things have changed their aspect; I desire to take my wife with me. Come, let us return to Devil's Cliff.' Faith, it was the only way in which I could manage an interview with you, madame--of warning the prince of this proposal. If he accepted it, I would throw off the prince; if he refused, I would refuse as before, and he would be saved." "How, sir!" cried Angela. "Such was your generous intention? You would----" "Oh, wait, madame, wait; do not think me either more stupid or more generous than I am," said the Gascon bitterly. "I begged Father Griffen to come and prepare you, madame, that I desired to take you with me. Chemerant heard me; I could say no more to the priest, but this sufficed. One of two things would result: either you would understand the situation or you would believe me guilty of infamous intentions; in either case, you would be on your guard, and the prince saved; for it was my fixed idea----" "So, sir," cried Angela, looking at him with mingled surprise and gratitude, "you did not really intend to abuse----" The Gascon interrupted her shortly. "No, madame, no. I had then no such wicked intentions, though certain particulars of your life appear to me inexplicable. I believed you sincerely attached to an unhappy prince, and at any cost I would have saved the duke." "Ah! sir, how I have misjudged you? You are the most generous of men," cried Angela. The adventurer burst into a sardonic laugh, which stupefied the young woman; then he continued with a somber air: "Thank God, my eyes have been opened. I see now that generosity would be stupid, devotion foolish. I shall profit by this lesson. Polyphème de Croustillac rarely revenges himself, but when he does, he revenges himself well; above all, when the vengeance is as charming as that which awaits him." "You would be revenged, sir," said Angela, "and on whom?" "On whom, madame? You have the audacity to ask me that?" "Why, certainly, what have I done; why this hatred?" The adventurer stamped his foot so violently that the mulatto made a step toward him; but Croustillac curbed himself and said to Angela shortly, and with ironical bitterness, "Listen to me, madame. It seems to me, that without being possessed of colossal pride, I deserved something, when for you I threw myself into the midst of the most dangerous situations. It seems to me, madame," continued the Gascon, who could not contain his indignation, which increased in measure as he spoke, "It seems to me that it was not at the moment when, at the risk of my life, I was doing all I could to save the husband whom you love so passionately, as they say, that it was not at such a time that you should forget all modesty----" "Sir!" "Yes, madame, forget all modesty, all shame, by throwing yourself into the arms of this miserable mulatto, and go to the depth of lighting his pipe. Truly, I was very stupid," continued the Gascon with an increase of rage. "In my devotion to you I risked my skin for the husband of madame! while madame, outrageously mocking her husband and me, abandoned herself to orgies with a lot of scamps. I am beside myself! My mother's son does not merit having been born in my country and having played all manner of pranks, as they say, in the capital of the world, if he cannot find something, in his turn, to laugh at in this adventure. In a word, madame," he said, sullenly, "you can believe me to entertain the wickedest intention in the world, and you will not overstep the reality, for I am now as much your enemy as I was your friend. As for the rest, I am well pleased; nothing is more wearying than fine sentiments. I should have resumed my shepherd songs and my morning sonnets. I shall take good care not to do so. I prefer the fashion in which I love you now, rather than heretofore," said Croustillac, throwing a glittering look at Angela. CHAPTER XXV. REVELATIONS. The poor Gascon, carried away by anger and jealousy, appeared more furious than he was in reality. Unhappily, the Duchess of Monmouth did not know him well enough to understand the exaggeration of this ferocious appearance. Angela thought the adventurer seriously regretted having shown a generous spirit; in doubting him she naturally hesitated to calm the Gascon's jealousy by imparting the disguise of the duke; this avowal would ruin everything if the chevalier was not faithful. It was, then, prudent to hold this in reserve. "Sir," said Angela, "you deceive yourself; there is a certain mystery in my conduct which I cannot yet explain to you." These words redoubled Croustillac's irritation; for the past three days he had been surrounded by mysteries; therefore he exclaimed, "I have had enough mystery; I have had too many concerning yourself. I do not wish to be your dupe any longer, madame. I do not know what may await me; I do not know how all this will end, but I _swear_ you shall follow me!" "Sir!" "Yes, madame, I have all the inconveniences of the rôle of your well-beloved husband; I will at least have its pleasures; as to this unworthy scoundrel of a mulatto, who says nothing, but thinks evil and would do it, I will deliver him over to De Chemerant, who will give me a good account of him. If it was not for soiling the sword of a gentleman by dipping it in his slave blood, I myself would take this vengeance." Angela exchanged glances with Monmouth, whose imperturbability exasperated the Gascon. Both of them realized the necessity of calming the chevalier; his anger might prove dangerous; he must be quieted at once, without betraying the secret of the prince's disguise. The young woman said to the adventurer, "All will be explained, sir; my greatest, my only wrong toward you has been in doubting the generosity of your character, and the loyalty of your devotion. Father Griffen, although he answered for you, has been, like myself, deceived as to the real motive of your intentions; we have believed, and we have been wrong in so believing, that you were capable of abusing the name which you have taken. In order to escape a fresh danger with which you seemed to threaten us, it became necessary to attempt a means, very uncertain, doubtless, but which might succeed. I could not escape--that would be only to meet you. I gave the necessary orders, then, that you should be introduced here with De Chemerant, hoping that you would surprise me, suddenly, and thus become a witness of the tender intimacy which linked me with the captain----" "How! did you arrange this agreeable scene for me?" cried the Gascon furiously, "and you dare say it to my face? But this is the last degree of degradation and shame, madame. And for what purpose, if you please, did you wish to prove to me the abominable intimacy which binds you to this bandit?" "To the end that it should be impossible for you to take me with you. Monsieur De Chemerant being a witness to my culpable intimacy with Captain Whirlwind, you could not, you who are passing as the Duke of Monmouth, take with you a woman, who, in the eyes of the French envoy, is as culpable as I would appear to him--as culpable as I am." "You acknowledge it, then, madame?" "Yes, and again yes, sir! Do not be generous by halves; what does it matter to you whom I love--a slave, as you say?" "How, madame? What does it matter to me? have you then sworn to drive me mad? And what does it serve that I play the part of your husband? Does he really exist? Is he here, and do you not avail yourself of the mistakes of which I am a victim to get rid of me? Is he not already safely at a distance, this husband of yours? This is enough to drive one mad!" cried the Gascon wildly. "I believe my head is turned; am I or am I not for the past two days the sport of an abominable nightmare? Who are you? Where am I? Who am I? Am I Croustillac? Am I my lord? Am I the prince, am I a viceroy, or even a king? Have I had my throat cut or not? How is this to be explained? This thing must stop! If there _is_ a Duke of Monmouth, where is he? Show him to me," cried the unhappy adventurer, in a state of excitement impossible to describe, but easy to imagine. Angela, frightened and less ready than ever to tell the Gascon everything, said hesitatingly, "Sir, certain mysterious circumstances----" Croustillac did not give her time to go on, but cried, "Still more mysteries! I tell you I have had enough mystery. I do not believe my brain is weaker than any other, but one hour more of this and I shall be a lunatic!" "Sir, if you could understand----" "Madame, I do not wish to understand," cried the chevalier, stamping his foot in a rage. "It is just because I have wished to understand that my head is almost turned." "Sir," said Angela, "I beg you to be calm and reflect----" "I do not wish to reflect nor to comprehend," cried Croustillac, exasperated afresh. "Right or wrong, I have determined that you accompany me, and you _shall_ accompany me. I do not know where your husband is and I do not wish to know; what I do know is that you have not been obdurate either to Caribbeans, or buccaneers, or mulattoes; very well you shall not be obdurate to me. You see that clock--if in five minutes you do not consent to accompany me, I will tell De Chemerant everything, come of it what will. Decide, then; I shall speak no more; I shall be deaf, for my head will burst like a bombshell at the slightest word." Croustillac threw himself into a chair, put his hands over his ears in order to hear nothing, and fixed his eyes on the clock. Monmouth had walked up and down the room incessantly; he, as well as Angela, was in terrible perplexity. "James, perhaps he is an honest man," said Angela in a low tone, "but his excitement terrifies me; see how wild his manner is." "We must risk confiding to his loyalty, otherwise he will speak." "But if he deceives us--if he tells all?" "Angela! between two dangers we must choose the least." "Yes, if he consents to pass for you, you are saved, at least this time." "But in this case I cannot leave him in the power of De Chemerant." "Oh! it is frightful!" "Never will I consent to again plunge England into a civil war. I would a thousand times prefer prison and death; but to leave you, my God!" "What shall we do, James? What danger does this man run?" "Immense! the possessor of such a state secret." "But then, I must lose you or follow him. Ah, what shall I do? Time presses." After a moment's reflection, Monmouth said, "We must not hesitate. Tell him everything. If he then consents to play my rôle for some hours, I am safe, and will have the means to place him beyond the resentment of the French envoy." "James! if this man should be a traitor? Heavens! take care." At this moment the adventurer, seeing the hand of the clock reach the fifth minute, said to Angela, "Well, madame, what have you decided upon? Yes or no? For I am incapable of listening to or understanding anything beyond. Will you follow me or will you not? Speak." Monmouth approached him with a grave and imposing air. "I am going, sir, to give you a proof of the highest esteem and of----" "Your esteem, scoundrel," cried Croustillac indignantly, interrupting the duke. "Is it, indeed, to me that you dare speak thus? Your esteem----" "But, sir----" "Not another word," continued Croustillac, turning toward Angela. "Madame, will you follow me? Is it yes or no?" "But listen----" "Is it yes or no?" exclaimed he, walking toward the door; "answer, or I will call De Chemerant." "But by St. George!" cried Monmouth. The chevalier was about to open the door when the young woman seized him by the hands with such a beseeching air that he paused in spite of himself. "Yes, yes, I will go with you," she said, in a frightened manner. "At last!" said the Gascon, "so be it. Take my arm and let us go; De Chemerant has waited a long time." "But just a moment--you must know all," said the poor woman hastily. "The Caribbean is in reality the filibuster, or rather the buccaneer and the Caribbean are----" "Ah, there you go again; do you wish that I should retain my senses?" cried the Gascon, making a desperate effort and running toward the door in order to call De Chemerant. The prince flung himself upon Croustillac, and, seizing his two wrists in one hand, placed the other over his mouth at the moment Croustillac called "Help, De Chemerant!" then he said, "I am the Duke of Monmouth!" The prince thought the chevalier would understand everything the moment he spoke, but in the exasperation which Croustillac felt, he only saw in this statement a new artifice or a new provocation, and he redoubled his efforts to escape. Though much less strong than the duke, the chevalier was not without energy; he began to struggle violently, when Angela, terrified, ran and took up a flask, and, putting on her handkerchief a drop of the liquid, rubbed the hand of the prince, removing the stain upon it and showing the white skin. "Do you understand now, sir, that the three persons are one?" said the prince, releasing Croustillac and showing him his white hand. These words were a revelation to Croustillac, and he understood all. Unfortunately, at the moment when the prince took his hand from the mouth of the Gascon, the latter had uttered the words, "Help! De Chemerant!" The sound of the struggle had already attracted the attention of the French envoy, and, hearing the cry of Croustillac, he rushed into the room, sword in hand. It would be impossible to depict the stupefaction, the fright of the three when De Chemerant appeared. The duke put his hand upon his sword. Angela fell back into a chair and hid her face in her hands. Croustillac looked about him with an agonized air, regretting his imprudence, but too late. Nevertheless, the adventurer's presence of mind returned to him little by little; as it needs but a ray of the sun to dispel the thick mist, so the moment that the good chevalier had the key to the three disguises of the prince, everything became clear to him. His mind, until then so sadly agitated, became calm; his unworthy doubt of Blue Beard ceased; there only remained his regret at having accused her, and the desire to devote himself to her and the prince. With wonderful quickness of invention (we are familiar enough with the Gascon now to say with a marvelous facility for lying) Croustillac formed his plan of campaign against De Chemerant, who still, sword in hand, stood on the threshold and said for the second time, "What is it, your highness? what has happened? I thought I heard a cry and struggle, and an appeal for aid." "You were not deceived, sir," said Croustillac gloomily. Monmouth and his wife experienced a terrible anxiety. They were ignorant of the Gascon's intentions; knowing Monmouth's secret, he was now completely master of their fate. If Angela and her husband had had enough presence of mind to scrutinize Croustillac's face, they would have seen a kind of triumphant and malignant joy, which betrayed itself in spite of him in the menacing frown of his forehead. Monsieur De Chemerant asked him a third time why he had called. "I called you, sir," said the chevalier in a dismal voice, and with the air of coming out of a deep study, "I called you to my aid----" "Was it this wretch? your highness," said the envoy, pointing to Monmouth, who, standing with arms crossed, remained by the chair where Angela had seated herself, ready to defend her and to sell his life dearly, for, as we have said, he was ignorant of the adventurer's intention. "Speak the word, your highness," continued De Chemerant, "and I will hand him over to my guards." The Gascon shook his head, and answered, "I charge myself with this man; this is my affair. It is not against such a creature as this that I called you to my assistance, sir, it is against myself." "What do you say, your highness?" "I mean that I was afraid that I would allow myself to be softened by the tears of his woman, as dangerously hypocritical as she is audaciously culpable." "Your highness, it often takes courage--much courage--to be just." "You are right, sir; that is why I feared my weakness. I called you in order that the sight of you might keep alive my indignation and rekindle my wrath, for you have been a witness of my dishonor, sir. So, tell me that if I pardon I would be a coward, that I should merit my fate. Is it not so, sir?" "Your highness----" "I understand you--you are right--yes, by St. George!" Croustillac remembered having heard the prince use this oath; "by St. George, I will be revenged." Angela and the duke breathed again. They understood that the chevalier wished to save them. "Your highness," said De Chemerant severely, "I do not hesitate to repeat to your highness, before madame, what I had the honor to say to you some short time ago, that an insurmountable barrier now separates you from a guilty spouse," continued the envoy, with an effort, while Angela hid her confusion by covering her face with her handkerchief. Croustillac raised his head, and cried in a heartbroken tone, "Deceived by a mulatto; think of it, sir, a miserable mulatto, a mongrel, a copper-colored animal!" "Your highness----" "In a word, sir," said Croustillac, turning toward the envoy with an indignant and sorrowful manner, "you know why I returned, what my plans were; what I would have placed upon the brow of madame. Ah, well, is it not a frightful irony of fate that at this very moment a wife--a criminal----" "Your highness," cried De Chemerant, interrupting the Gascon, "at present these projects must be a secret from madame." "I know it; I know it! but then what a horrible surprise! I enter with a heart beating with joy, into the home circle, into my peaceful home, and what is it that I hear?" "Your highness----" "You have heard it as well as I. That is not all--what is it that I see?" "Your highness, calm yourself." "You have seen, as I have, a mulatto outlaw. But this shall not stop here, no, by St. George! Yes, I did well to call you. Now my anger boils; the most cruel plans crowd in upon my imagination. Yes, yes, that is it;" said Croustillac, with a meditative air. "I have it at last! I have found a revenge fitting the offence!" "Your highness, the contempt----" "The contempt--that is very easy for you to say, sir, contempt. No, sir, there remains another thing; I have found something better, and you shall assist me." "Your highness, anything that depends upon my zeal, without prejudice to the orders which I have received, and the success of my mission." "I renounce and cast off this unworthy woman. From this day, from this moment, all is forever at an end between her and me." "Thank God!" cried De Chemerant, delighted with this resolve; "you could not act more wisely." "To-morrow at daybreak," said the Gascon, in a curt tone, "she and her odious accomplice will embark on board of one of my vessels." CHAPTER XXVI. DEVOTION. "Yes, sir!" repeated the Gascon, "to-morrow my wife and this miserable wretch shall go aboard one of my vessels. That is all my vengeance," continued he, dwelling on these words with savage irony. "Oh, I know what I am doing. Yes, by heaven! She and her guilty accomplice, those two, as if they were really husband and wife, the miserable wretches! shall embark together. As to the destination of the vessel," said the chevalier, with a glance of such horrible ferocity that De Chemerant was struck by it, "as to the fate that awaits these guilty ones, I cannot tell you, sir; that concerns no one but myself." Then, taking Angela roughly by the arm, Croustillac exclaimed, "Ah, you desire a mulatto for a lover, duchess? very well, you shall have him. And you, scoundrel, you must have a white woman, a duchess? very well you shall have her. You shall never separate, tender lovers that you are, never again; but you do not know at what a terrible price you will be reunited." "Your highness, what do you intend to do?" "That is my affair; your responsibility will be at an end; the rest will take place on neutral ground," returned the Gascon with a smile at once mysterious and ferocious; "yes, on a desert island; and since this tender couple love one another, love each other to death, there will be time for them to prove it--until death." "I understand you, your highness; I see perfectly; but that will be terrible," said De Chemerant, who thought that Croustillac intended to starve his wife and the mulatto. "Terrible! you have said it, sir. All that I ask of you, and as a witness of my injury you cannot refuse me, is to give me the necessary assistance in order to conduct this guilty pair on board one of my ships. I will, myself, place them with the captain and give him his orders; orders which, perhaps he would not dare to obey if I did not give them in person." Monsieur de Chemerant, in spite of his cunning, was duped by the seeming rage of Croustillac; he said to him respectfully, "Your highness, justice is severe, but should not be cruel." "What do you say, sir?" cried Croustillac proudly, "am I not the sole judge of the punishment due this guilty pair? Do you refuse me your assistance when it only requires you to take this man and his accomplice on board a vessel belonging to me?" "No, sir, but I would say to your highness that it would be, perhaps, more generous----" Angela, seeing that she must no longer remain inactive, threw herself at the feet of Croustillac, crying, "Have mercy!" while Monmouth seemed to be wrapped in a deep and sad silence; then, addressing De Chemerant, the young woman continued, "Oh, sir, you seem to be sensible and good; intercede for me with my dear lord, that he condemn me to less cruel pain. I have merited it all, I will suffer all, but that my dear lord----" "I forbid your calling me your 'dear lord,' madame," said Croustillac. "I am no longer your dear lord." "Ah well, your highness, do not send me on board the vessel of which you speak." "And why not, madame?" "My God! because that the brigantine is the Chameleon, commanded by Captain Ralph; your highness, this man is cruel; he succeeded the filibuster Whirlwind in this command." "And that is just why I have chosen the Chameleon, madame; it is just because Captain Ralph is the most cruel enemy of your unworthy lover," said Croustillac, who understood perfectly Angela's meaning. "But, your highness, you know very well that this vessel will be anchored to-morrow morning very near here, almost at the foot of the cliff in the alligators' cave." "Yes, madame, I know it." "Oh, your highness, would you compel me to embark there when nothing in the world would make me even approach its banks? My God! have you forgotten the frightful memories that this place is connected with in my mind?" "Oh! the cunning creature," thought Croustillac; "she wishes to say, what I did not know, that there is a vessel of hers called the Chameleon, whose captain is devoted to her, and who will anchor to-morrow near here. I have it! This is just her own vessel she had prepared hastily to furnish her and the duke a means of escape, when she saw me carried off by Colonel Rutler; one of the negro fishermen was doubtless sent ahead to deliver her directions." The Gascon, after some little reflection, said aloud, "Yes, those memories are terrible to you, I know it, madame." "Then, your highness, have you the heart----" "Yes, yes," cried the chevalier, in an explosion of rage, "yes, no pity for the infamous creature who has so unworthily outraged me! All the better, my vengeance commences but the sooner. I will show you that you have no pity to look for from me; you shall see!" He struck a bell. "What are you going to do, your highness." "Your faithful Mirette will come; you shall yourself give her the order to send to Captain Ralph to prepare everything on board the Chameleon to set sail at daybreak." "Ah, your highness, it is barbarous to make me give the order, myself." "Obey, madame, obey." Mirette appeared. Angela gave the order in a broken voice. "I have obeyed you, and now your highness, in pity grant me a last favor in the name of our past love." "Oh, yes, by St. George!" cried Croustillac, "past? oh, past, decidedly." "Allow me one moment, your highness, the favor of an interview." "No, no, never!" "Do not refuse me; do not be so pitiless?" "Out of my sight, faithless woman!" "My lord!" said Angela, clasping her hands. "Your highness," said De Chemerant, "at the moment of quitting madame forever, do not refuse her this last consolation." "You also, De Chemerant, you also? and though you have been a witness?--Ah, well, I consent, madame, but upon one condition." "You have but to order." "That your paramour remain during our conversation." "Really, this is not so bad, I think," said Croustillac to himself; "I hope the duchess will understand me and at first refuse." "But, my dear lord," said Angela; "the last interview that you grant me should be between us alone." "Marvelous! oh, she comprehends a half word," said Croustillac to himself; then aloud, "And why, then, should our interview be private? Have you something you desire to hide from your best beloved--from the lover of your choice?" "But if I desire to beg your forgiveness, sir?" "You can do so before your accomplice. The more you accuse yourself, the more you depict your conduct as disloyal, infamous, unworthy, the more you affirm the lowness of your choice. This will be your punishment and this scoundrel's also." "But, my lord?" "That is my ultimatum," replied Croustillac. "Do you not fear the despair of this man?" said De Chemerant in a low tone. "No; traitors are always cowards. Behold this one--what a gloomy, downcast air. He does not dare as much as lift his eyes to me. In any case, sir, send, I beg, some men of yours to the gallery outside, instructed to enter at my first signal." Then, turning with an air of reconsidering, and desiring to make a master stroke, Croustillac said, "In fact, if you will be present at this interview, Monsieur De Chemerant, the punishment of this guilty couple will be complete." "Oh, sir, in pity do not condemn me to such a depth of shame and humiliation," cried Angela, in despairing tones. "And you, sir, have the generosity not to consent to this," she said to De Chemerant. Monsieur De Chemerant had the delicacy to excuse himself to the Gascon; he left the room, and left Monmouth, Angela, and the adventurer together. The envoy had hardly left the room before Monmouth, after assuring himself that he could not be overheard, held out his hand cordially to Croustillac, and said to him, feelingly, "Sir, you are a man of spirit, courage, and resolution; accept our thanks, and pardon us for having suspected you even for a moment." "Yes, yes, pardon our unjust suspicions," said Angela, on her part taking the Gascon's hand between her own. "We were so disturbed, and your manner was so furious, so wild!" "We all had reason, madame;" said the adventurer, "you had reason to be disturbed, because my return was not very reassuring. I had reason to be furious, because I supposed the duke to be a bandit. As to my wild manner, by heavens! it may be said without offense, you will acknowledge that enough strange things have occurred during the last two days, and I may be excused for being a little astounded. Fortunately, I recovered my self-possession when I saw I had been a fool and had risked everything." "Brave and excellent man," said Monmouth. "Bravery is in the blood of the Croustillacs, sir; as to being excellent, I do not know about that; if such be the case, it is not my fault; it is your wife's work, who has aroused in me the desire to be better that I really am. Ah, well, prince, time is precious; everything is in train to raise a county of England in your favor; Louis the XIV. will support this insurrection. There is offered you the viceroyship of Ireland and Scotland, and all kinds of other favors." "Never will I consent to profit by these offers. Civil wars have cost me too dear," cried Monmouth; "and"--looking at Angela, "I no longer have ambitions." "Your highness! reflect well! If your heart counsels remove the bronze color from your face, and say to De Chemerant that reasons known only to yourself obliged you to guard your secret until now. You will prove to him who you are; I will return your duchy to you, and ask your permission to go and fight at your side in Cornwall, or elsewhere, in order to serve you, as they say, as a living armor. I am sure this will please the duchess." "And we have suspected him," said Angela, looking at her husband. "He must forgive us," said the duke. "Men like him are so rare that it is not unnatural to doubt them when one encounters them." "Hold on, my lord, you embarrass me. Let us speak of other matters. Do you, or do you not, accept the viceroyship? After that, do not think I shall press you to speak in order to relieve me from your rôle; it pleases me, it amuses me. I have become quite accustomed to it. Nevertheless, it will be somewhat unpleasant to no longer hear myself addressed as 'my lord duke,' to say nothing of my laughing in my sleeve when I think of all the absurdities which I have made that good De Chemerant, with his important air, swallow. If I persist, your highness, in praying that you resume your rank, as it seems they are terribly in need of you in England in order to secure the happiness of the people in general and that of Cornwall in particular; you must know that better than I do----" "Ah! I know only too well the vain pretexts that one offers to ambition." "But, your highness, all appears to be perfectly prepared. The frigate which has brought the good De Chemerant is filled with arms and ammunition; there is in it enough to arm and revolutionize all the Cornishmen in the world; moreover, you can count on a dozen of your partisans." "Of my partisans! and where, then?" cried Monmouth. "On board Chemerant's frigate. These brave men are waiting for me, that is to say, waiting for you, your highness, with great impatience. There is above all a madman named Mortimer, whom De Chemerant had the greatest difficulty in the world to keep on board, so much was he possessed with the desire to embrace me--I would say embrace you, for I confound us all the time." Angela, seeing the troubled manner of her husband, said to him, "My God! what ails you?" "I can no longer hesitate," replied Monmouth, "I must tell De Chemerant the whole truth." "Heavens, James! what are you saying?" "You wish to be viceroy, your highness?" interposed Croustillac. "No, sir, I desire to prevent your ruining yourself on my account. My gratitude will be no less lasting for the service that you wished to do me." "How, your highness? Is it not, then, to become viceroy that you would dispossess me of my principality?" "My partisans are on board the frigate; if I should accept your generous offer, sir, to-morrow you would be known--lost." "But, your highness----" "Except for this circumstance which, I repeat, would cause your discovery in a moment, I would, perhaps, have excepted your generous devotion, the mistake of De Chemerant might have continued for a few days, and I could have put you beyond the reach of his resentment; but to accept your offer, sir, knowing the presence of my friends on board the frigate, would be to expose you to certain danger. I can never consent to do that." "Your highness forgets that it means perpetual imprisonment for you if you do not place yourself at the head of this movement?" "It is because it means for me the escape from a danger that I do not choose to sacrifice you, sir. When I learned that you were taken prisoner by Rutler I was going to rush to your assistance in order to release you." "My God, James! think of the prison! of eternal confinement! but it is not possible! and what will become of me, if I should be forbidden to accompany you? No, no! you will not reject the sacrifice which this generous man offers to make!" "Angela!" said the duke, in a tone of reproach; "Angela! and this generous man, shall we abandon him shamefully when he is devoted to us--to escape imprisonment, shall we condemn him to an eternal captivity?" "Him?" "Doubtless! is he not the possessor of a state secret? Will not De Chemerant be furious at seeing himself tricked. I tell you, he cannot escape prison when the trick shall be discovered." "Confound it! my duke, attend to your own affairs!" cried Croustillac, "and do not take the bread out of my mouth, as they say. Prisoner of state! that disgusts you, but do you not know that that would be an assured retreat for me, a refuge for my old days? To be frank, the life of an adventurer palls upon me; there must be an end to it. I would have something more sure; judge, then, if that would not suit me? Prisoner of state! can I not secure that? I beg of you not to take from me the last resource of my old age; do not destroy my future." "Listen to me, you brave and worthy man," responded Monmouth, affectionately pressing his hand. "I am not deceived by your ingenious pretenses." "Your highness, I swear----" "Listen, I beg of you; when you have heard me you will no longer be surprised at my refusal. You will see that I cannot accept your generous offer without being doubly culpable. You will understand the sad memories, not to say remorse, that your devoted offer and the present chain of circumstances awake in me. And you, Angela, my dearly beloved, you shall at last learn a secret that until this present moment I have hidden from you; it needed circumstances as grave as these in which I am now placed to force me to make this sad revelation." CHAPTER XXVII. THE MARTYR. "James! James! what are you saying? you terrify me!" exclaimed Angela, as she witnessed the duke's emotion. "You know," said the duke to Croustillac, "in consequence of what political events I was arrested and confined to the Tower of London in 1685?" "You will excuse me, your highness, if I know not a word of it; I am as ignorant as a fish of contemporaneous history, which, be it said in passing, and without boasting, rendered my part outrageously difficult to play; for I was always afraid I should make some ridiculous statement, and thus compromise, not my reputation as a scholar--I am no priest--but your fortune which I so imprudently assumed." "Very well then," said the duke; "after the death of my father; when the Duke of York, my uncle, ascended the throne under the title of James II., I entered into a conspiracy against him. I shall not seek to justify my conduct; years of reflection have made things clear to me. I know now that I was as culpable as I was insane; the young Duke of Argyle was the soul in this plot. All this was carried on under the very eyes of the Prince of Orange, then a stadtholder, now King of England. Argyle knew my views of the Protestant action, my ambition, my resentment against James II.; he had no trouble in associating me with his plans. At once, owing to my name and influence, I was at the head of the conspiracy. I had news from England which only waited my presence there to overthrow the throne of the papist king to proclaim me king in his place. I departed from the Texel with three vessels transporting soldiers whom I had recruited. Argyle, having preceded me in Scotland, had paid with his head for the audacity of his attempt. I landed in England at the head of a number of devoted partisans. I realized then how greatly I had been deceived. Three or four thousand men at the most joined the handful of brave men who were pledged to my cause, and among others were Mortimer, Rothsay and Dudley. The son of Monck, the young Duke of Albemarle, advanced against me at the head of a royal army; and I, desiring to bring fortune to the point, made a decisive move. I attacked the enemy at Sedgemore, near Bridgewater; I was beaten in spite of the prodigies of valor shown by my little army, and, above all, by my cavalry, commanded by the brave Lord George Sidney." In pronouncing this name, the voice of the prince failed him, and deep emotion was depicted upon his face. "George Sidney! my second father! my benefactor!" cried Angela. "It was in fighting for you he was killed! it was at that battle, then, that he was killed? This is the secret you have hidden from me?" The duke bent his head, and after a few minutes' silence, said, "You will know all, very soon, child! Our rout was complete. I wandered off at hazard; my head had a price upon it. I was seized the day after this fatal defeat and conducted to the Tower of London. My case was tried. Convicted of high treason, I was condemned to death." "Oh," cried Angela, throwing herself into the duke's arms; "you deceived me; I believed you to be only exiled." "Be calm, Angela; yet I have hidden this from you, as much that you should not be troubled as--." Then, after a moment's hesitation, Monmouth continued, "you shall know all; it requires much courage to make this revelation." "Why? What have you to fear?" said Angela. "Alas! poor child, when you have heard me, perhaps you will regard me with horror!" "You, James? do you believe that I can ever do that?" "Well," said Monmouth, "whatever the result, I must speak, at the risk, perhaps, of separating us forever." "Never, never!" cried Angela despairingly. "Zounds! I will sooner throw De Chemerant from these cliffs at the least pretense," cried Croustillac. "And, as for that, with your slaves, we could furnish him a fine escort. But I think--will you try this method? How many slaves can you arm, sir?" "You forget that De Chemerant's escort is considerable; the negro fishermen have gone--there are not more than four or five men here. Violent means are impossible. Providence doubtless wills that I shall expiate a great crime. I will be resigned." "A crime, James? guilty of a great crime? I will never believe it!" cried Angela. "If my crime was involuntary, it was none the less horrible. Angela, it is now my duty to tell you what I owe to Sidney, your noble relative who took such care of you in your infancy, poor orphan! While you were receiving your education in France, where he had himself taken you, Sidney, whom I had seen in Holland, attached himself to my fortunes; a singular similarity of tastes, of principles and thoughts, had drawn us together; but he was so proud that I was obliged to make the advances. How happy I was at having first pressed his hand! Never was there a living soul as beautiful as Sidney's. Never was there a nobler character or a more generous and ardent heart! Dreaming of the happiness of the people, deceived as I was myself as to the true end of my plans, he believed that he was serving the holy cause of humanity, when he was in reality only serving the fatal ambition of a man! While the conspiracy was organizing, he was my most active emissary and my most intimate confidant. To describe to you, my child, the profound, blind attachment of Sidney for myself would be impossible; one affection only struggled in his heart with that which he had vowed to me; it was his tenderness for you--you, his distant relative of whom he had assumed the care. Oh! how he cherished you! Through all the agitations, and the perils of his life as a soldier and conspirator, he always found some moments in which to visit his Angela. There were ever tears in his eyes when he spoke to me of you. Yes, this man, of intrepid courage and indomitable energy, wept like a child in speaking of your tender grace, the qualities of your heart, and your sad and studious youth, poor little abandoned one, for you had no one in the world but Sidney. On that fatal day at Bridgewater he commanded my cavalry. After prodigies of valor, he was left for dead on the battlefield; as for me, carried away in a rush of flying troops, grievously wounded, it was impossible for me to find him." "Was not that the day when he died?" said Angela, wiping her eyes. "Listen, Angela; oh, you do not know how these sad memories break my heart!" "And ours also," said Croustillac. "Brave Sidney! I do not know what it is that tells me that he did not die that day at Bridgewater, and that we shall hear of him again." Monmouth trembled, remained silent a moment, and then continued: "I must have courage. I will tell you all. Sidney was left for dead on the battlefield; I was arrested, condemned to death, and my execution fixed for the 15th of July, 1685. When they told me I was to be executed the following day, I was alone in my prison. "In the midst of the terrible thoughts to which I was a prey during those dreadful hours that preceded the moment of my execution, I swear to you, Angela, before the God that hears me, if I had any sweet and consoling thoughts to calm me, they were those I gave to Sidney, in recalling the beautiful days of our friendship. I believed him dead and I said, 'In a few hours I shall be united to him forever.' All at once the door of my cell opened and Sidney appeared!" "Zounds! so much the better! I was sure he was not dead," exclaimed Croustillac. "No, he was not dead," replied the duke with a sigh. "Would to God he had died as a soldier on the field of battle." Angela and Croustillac looked at Monmouth in astonishment. He continued: "At the sight of Sidney I believed myself the dupe of a fancy conjured up by my extreme agitation; but I soon felt his tears on my cheek, and myself pressed within his arms. 'Saved! you are saved!' he said, through his tears. 'Saved?' said I, gazing at him stupidly. 'Saved, yes; listen to me,' said he, and this was what he told me: My uncle the king could not openly show me mercy; policy forbade; but he did not wish his brother's son to perish on the scaffold. Informed by one of his courtiers who was, notwithstanding, one of my friends, of the resemblance between Sidney and myself, a resemblance which so struck you the first time you saw me," said Monmouth to Angela, "King James had secretly provided Sidney with means to get into my prison. This devoted friend was to assume my clothes, and I to put on his, and go out of the Tower by means of this strategy. The next day, learning of my escape and the devotion of Sidney remaining prisoner in my stead, the king would put him at liberty and give orders to seek me out; but these orders would only be in appearance. He favored, secretly, my departure for France. I was only to write to the king and give him my word to never return to England." "Ah, well," said Angela, interested to the last degree by this recital; "you accepted Sidney's offer, and he remained a prisoner in your stead?" "Alas! yes, I accepted it, for all that Sidney said to me seemed so probable; his presence at that hour in the prison, in spite of the severe watch to which I was subjected, made me believe that an all-powerful will aided mysteriously in my flight." "It was not so, then?" cried Angela. "Nothing could be more naturally arranged, it seems to me," said Croustillac. "In effect," said Monmouth, smiling bitterly, "nothing was more naturally arranged; it was only too easy for Sidney to persuade me, to turn aside my objections." "And what objections could you make?" said Angela. "What was there astonishing in that King James, not wishing to shed your blood on the scaffold, should connive at your escape?" "And how could Sidney succeed in getting into the prison, sir, without the assistance of some powerful influence?" said the adventurer. "Oh, is it not so?" said the duke with sad satisfaction, "was it not that all that Sidney said to me might seem probable, possible? Was I not justified in believing him?" "Undoubtedly," said Angela. "Was it not," continued Monmouth, "was it not possible to put faith in his words without being misled by the fear of death, without being influenced by a cowardly, horrible egotism? And still, I swear to you, I did not agree to what Sidney said to me. Before accepting life and liberty which he came to offer me in the name of my uncle, I asked myself what would happen to my friend if James did not keep his promise? I said to myself that the greatest punishment that could befall a man who was an accomplice in aiding another to escape, was imprisonment in turn; thus, admitting this hypothesis, once free, although compelled to hide myself, I had sufficient resources at my disposal not to quit England before having, in my turn, liberated Sidney. What more can I say to you? The instinct of life, the fear of death, doubtless obscured my judgment, troubled my discernment. I accepted, for I believed everything Sidney said to me. Alas! why was I so insane?" "Insane? Faith, you would have been insane had you not accepted!" cried Croustillac. "Who, indeed, would have hesitated in your place?" added Angela. "No, no, I tell you that I should not have accepted; my heart, if not my head, should have revolted at this deceptive thought. But what did I know. A strange fatality, perhaps a frightful egotism, pushed me on. I accepted. I pressed Sidney in my arms, I took his clothes, and I said to him, 'To-morrow!' with the conviction that I should see him the following day. I left my cell; the jailer escorted me to the gate; thanks to my resemblance to Sidney, he noticed nothing wrong, and led me in haste by a secret road as far as a door of the Tower. I was free! I forgot to tell you that Sidney had informed me of a house in the city where I could wait for him safely, for he would return, he said, to me the following day, in order to plan our departure. At last I found, at this house in the city, the precious stones I had confided to Sidney on my departure from Holland, the value of which was enormous. Wrapped up in his mantle, a mantle which you wear to-day, and which has remained sacred to me, I directed my steps toward the city. I rapped at the door; an old woman opened it, and leading me into a secluded chamber, she gave into my hands the iron casket, the key of which Sidney had handed me. I found there my precious stones. Broken with fatigue, for the sleepless hours I had passed were frightful, I fell into a slumber. For the first time since my sentence to death, I sought sleep without saying to myself that the scaffold awaited me on my awakening. When I arose the following day it was broad daylight; a bright sun penetrated between my curtains. I raised them; the sky was clear; it was a radiant summer day. Oh! I felt such rapturous joy and such inexpressible happiness. I had seen my open tomb, and I still lived. I breathed the air in every pore. Seized with gratitude, I threw myself upon my knees, and blessed God, the king, and Sidney. I waited to see this dear friend from one moment to another. I did not doubt, no, I could not doubt, the king's clemency. All at once I heard in the distance the criers announcing important events; it seemed to me that I heard my name. I thought it was an illusion, but, in fact, it was my name. Oh, then, a frightful presentiment seized me; my hair stood on end. I remained on my knees. I listened with my heart beating violently; the voices came nearer; I still heard my name mingled with other words. A ray of joy, as foolish as my presentiment had been horrible, changed my terror into hope. Madman! I believed they were crying the details of the _escape of the Duke of Monmouth_. In my impatience, I descended to the street; I bought the account; I mounted again with palpitating heart, holding the paper in my hands." Saying these words, Monmouth became frightfully pale, and could hardly support himself. A cold perspiration bathed his forehead. "Well?" cried Angela and Croustillac, who experienced a piercing agony. "Ah," cried the duke despairingly, "it was the details of the _execution of the Duke of Monmouth_."[B] "And Sidney?" cried Angela. "Sidney had died for me, died a martyr to friendship. His blood, his noble blood, had been shed upon the scaffold instead of mine. Now, Angela, you see, unhappy child, why I have always hidden this terrible secret." At these words the duke fell back on the sofa, hiding his face in his hands. Angela threw herself at his feet, sobbing bitterly. {[B] Hume says: "After his execution, his partisans held to the hope of yet seeing him at their head; they flattered themselves that the prisoner who had been beheaded was not the Duke of Monmouth, but one of his friends, who resembled him greatly, and who had had the courage to die in his stead." Sainte-Foix, in a letter on the Iron Mask (Amsterdam, 1768), says: "It is true that the report spread through London that an officer of Monmouth's army who greatly resembled the duke, having been taken prisoner, and knowing death to be inevitable, received a proposition to represent the duke with as much joy as if life had been offered him; and hearing this, that a great lady, having bribed those who could open his coffin, and having looked at the form, cried, 'Ah, that is not the Duke of Monmouth.'" Furthermore, Sainte-Foix, who sought to prove that the Iron Mask was no other than the Duke of Monmouth, cited a passage of another English work by Pyms, in which he says: "Count Landy sent to seek Colonel Skelton, who was the ex-lieutenant of the Tower, and whom the Prince of Orange had dismissed to give the place to Lord Lucas." "Skelton," said Count Landy to him the previous evening, in dining with Robert Johnston, "you say that the Duke of Monmouth is living and imprisoned in an English castle?" "I cannot vouch for this, because I do not really know," said Skelton, "but I affirm that the night after the pretended execution of the Duke of Monmouth, the king, accompanied by three men, came himself to the tower and carried the duke away." Sainte-Foix cites still another conversation with Father Tournemine, saying, "The Duchess of Portsmouth said to Father Tournemine and to the confessor of King James that she always imputed to that prince the execution of the Duke of Monmouth, because Charles II., at the moment of his death and when about to receive the last communion, had made King James (then Duke of York) promise on the Host, which Huldeston, a Catholic priest, secretly carried, that whatever revolt the Duke of Monmouth might attempt he (James) would never punish him with death; so King James did not put him to death," said Father Sanders. We will not multiply citations. We only desire to establish that the foundation of this story is not merely a romantic fiction, and that if it is not based upon a historic certainty, it is at least based upon a likely supposition.} CHAPTER XXVIII. THE DUKE RELATES THE SACRIFICE TO WHICH HE OWES HIS LIFE. The chevalier, profoundly moved by the recital of Monmouth, furtively brushed aside his tears, and said, "I understand now what that animal Rutler, with his everlasting dagger, meant by speaking to me of my execution." "Angela, Angela, my child," exclaimed the duke, lifting his noble countenance bathed in tears, and pressing the young woman to his heart, "how can you ever forgive me the murder of Sidney, my friend, my brother, your only relative, your only protector." "Alas! have you not replaced him to me, James? I have bewailed his death, believing him killed on the field of battle. Do you believe that my regrets will be greater, now that I know that he sacrificed his life for you--that he did what I would gladly do for you, James, my lover, my husband!" "Angela! best beloved guardian angel of my life!" cried the duke; "your words cannot assuage the violence of my remorse, but at least you know what religious gratitude I have always had for Sidney, this holy martyr to friendship. What more can I tell you? I passed two days in a state bordering on madness; when I returned to myself I found a letter of Sidney's. He had arranged that I should not receive it until the evening of the day on which he died for me. He explained his pious falsehood; he had not seen King James." "He had not seen him!" exclaimed Angela. "No; all that he had said to me was false. So you can understand that I had reason to forever curse the culpable facility with which I had allowed myself to be persuaded. Meanwhile he had died for me; the fable which I had believed in now seemed monstrous folly. No, he had not seen the king! From the depository of my precious stones, he had subtracted wherewith to procure a sum sufficient to gain over one of the officers of the Tower, whom he besought to allow him to see me for the last time. Was this officer in league with Sidney as to the substitution of some one who desired to save me? or was he deceived by the resemblance to such an extent that he suspected nothing. I do not know. The following day, when they went to seek Sidney, he followed the hangman, but he refused to speak for fear his voice would be recognized. The sacrifice was accomplished," said Monmouth, wiping his tears away, which had not ceased to fall during his recital. "I quitted London secretly and went to France under a false name, in order to seek you, Angela. Sidney had given me full power to take her away from the persons to whom he had confided her," said the duke, addressing Croustillac. "Struck by her beauty, her candor, and her other adorable traits, I, believing myself worthy and able to fulfill the last wishes of Sidney in making his adopted child happy, married this angel. We started for the Spanish colonies, where I believed we would be safe. We took the greatest precautions not to be recognized. By chance I encountered an English captain at Cuba whom I had seen at Amsterdam. I believed myself discovered. We left. After a journey of some months, we established ourselves here. In order to divert suspicion, to watch over my wife, and not wishing to be condemned to an imprisonment which would have been fatal to me, I assumed, by turns, the disguises which you are aware of, and I could, with impunity, traverse the island. Thanks to my precious stones, we were able to purchase a number of small vessels, through the good offices of Master Morris, a man of great probity, who knew, without being in the secret, what to think of the pretended widowhoods of my wife. Not only our commercial vessels increased little by little our fortune, which we shall bequeath to our children, but they afford us always a means of flight. The Chameleon was built for this very purpose, and I have sometimes commanded in the guise of a filibuster, and encountered a Spanish pirate, much to the fright of Angela. We were living here very happily, almost peacefully, when I learned that the Chevalier de Crussol, whose life I had once saved, had become the governor of the island. Although he was a man of honor, I feared to tell him who I was. My first idea was to quit Martinique with my wife; but I then learned of the declaration of war from France to England, Spain and Holland, and that certain rumors began to circulate in England as to the miraculous manner in which I had been saved. My partisans were bestirring themselves, it was said. I could expect no justice from William of Orange, and believed myself safer in this colony than anywhere else. I remained, therefore, in spite of the presence of De Crussol, but redoubled my precautions. The pretended widowhoods of my wife, the frequent visits of the filibuster, the Caribbean, and the buccaneer, furnished a collection of facts so incomprehensible that it was impossible to distinguish the truth, which was in our favor. We were, however, much troubled. "Monsieur de Crussol, curious to know the strange woman of whom such different tales were related, came to Devil's Cliff. Fate ordained that I should be there, also, in the disguise of the buccaneer. I could not avoid meeting the governor, whom we were far from expecting. In spite of the thick beard which disguised my features, De Crussol had preserved too clear a remembrance of me not to recognize me; but, in order to assure himself of the truth, he said to me abruptly, 'You are not what you appear.' Fearing that all would be disclosed to Angela, who knew that I was a fugitive, but who was ignorant of the dangers to which I would be exposed if my existence was known, I said to De Crussol, 'In memory of a past service, I ask silence, but I will tell you all;' and I did not hide anything from him. He swore on his honor to keep my secret and do everything in his power to prevent our being disturbed. He kept his promise, but in dying----" "He told Father Griffen everything from scruples of conscience," said Croustillac. "How do you know that?" said the duke. Croustillac then told Monmouth how the mystery of Devil's Cliff had been revealed to the confessor of King James, and how Father Griffen had unintentionally betrayed him. "Now, chevalier," said Monmouth, "you know at the price of what an admirable sacrifice I owe this life which I have sworn to consecrate to Angela. I have related to you the frightful remorse which the devotion of Sidney causes me. You understand, I hope, that I cannot expose myself to new and cruel regrets by causing your destruction." "Ah, you think, your highness, that what you have told me will take from me any desire to devote my life to you? Zounds! you are greatly mistaken." "How?" exclaimed the duke, "you persist?" "I persist? I persist more than ever, if you please, and for a very simple reason. Hold, sir! why should I hide it from you? A short time since it was more for the sake of the duchess that I wished to serve you, than for interest in you; this is no offense to you, for I did not know you; but now, that I see what you are; now, that I see how you regret your friends, and how gratefully you remember them, and what they do for you, your wife may be a real Blue Beard, she may be the devil in person, she may be in love with all the buccaneers and the cannibals of the Antilles, but I will do for you all that I would have done for the duchess, sir." "But, chevalier----" "But, your highness, all I can say to you is that you have inspired me with the desire to be a second Sidney to you; that is all. Zounds! it is very simple; one never inspires such devotion unless one merits it." "I wish to believe you, chevalier, but a person is unworthy such devotion when he accepts it willingly." "Zounds, sir; without offense, I must say you are as pig-headed in your generosity as that Flemish bear was insupportable with his everlasting dagger. Come, let us reason together. What you most desire, is it not, is to save me from prison?" "Doubtless." "Now I do not think you are very anxious to abandon the duchess. Well, by telling De Chemerant who you are, would you save me? I am not much of a lawyer but it seems to me that that is the question, is it not, madame?" "He is right, my love," said Angela, looking at her husband beseechingly. "To proceed," said Croustillac proudly. "Now, you say to this good Chemerant, 'Sir, I am the Duke of Monmouth, and the chevalier here is only a scapegoat.' So be it; so far all goes well. But at this stage the good Chemerant will reply, 'Your highness, do you or do you not consent to head this insurrection in England?" "Never! never!" cried the duke. "Very well, your highness, now I know what insurrection has cost you. Now I have the honor of knowing the duchess; like you I say, 'Never!' only what will the good Chemerant say to this? The good Chemerant will say, 'You are my prisoner,' is it not so?" "Unhappily it is very likely," said Monmouth. "Alas! it is only too true!" said Angela. "'As to this rascal, this schemer,' the good Chemerant will continue, addressing himself to me," said Croustillac, "'as to this imposter, this sharper, as he has impudently imposed upon me, so that I confided to him a half-dozen secrets of state, each more important than the other, particularly as to how the confessors of the great kings have played the game of the poisoned shoulder-knot with their penitents, he shall be treated as he deserved.' Now the said Chemerant, so much the more furious that I had caused him to make such a fool of himself, will not handle me very gently, and I may consider myself very lucky if he leaves me to perish in a dungeon, instead of hanging me quickly (seeing his full power), which would be another method of reducing me very effectually to silence." "Oh! do not speak so, the idea is frightful," cried Angela. "You see well, then, generous madman, the imminent danger to which you are exposed," said the duke to him tenderly. "Now, your highness," said the Gascon with imperturbable calm, "as I said a short time ago, to madame, as I believed her madly in love with a certain fellow of leathern tint, it is clear that one does not devote oneself to people to the sole end of being crowned with roses and caressed by sylvan nymphs. It is the danger that constitutes the sacrifice. But that is not the question. In delivering yourself up as prisoner to the good Chemerant, do you in any way spare me prison or scaffold, sir?" "But, chevalier----" "But, sir, I shall pursue you constantly with this argument _ad hominum_ (that is all my Latin), as the Belgian pursued me with his everlasting dagger." "You deceive yourself, my worthy and brave chevalier, in believing that your situation is so desperate, when I shall have delivered myself up to Chemerant." "Prove it to me, your highness." "Without insisting too much upon my rank and my position, they are such that one would be always obliged to account for with me. So, when I say to De Chemerant, that it is my desire that you be not punished for a trait which does you honor, I do not doubt that De Chemerant will be eager to please me and put you at liberty." "Your highness, allow me to say that you are entirely mistaken." "But what more could he ask? Should I not be in his power? What would your capture amount to to him?" "Your highness, you have been a statesman; you have been a conspirator; you are a great nobleman, consequently you must know men; you reason, pardon my bluntness, as if you did not know them at all, or rather, your generous desires in my behalf blind you." "No, indeed, sir----" "Listen to me, your highness. You concede, do you not, that the news that comes from England, and the part Louis XIV. has taken in this conspiracy, prove the importance of Chemerant's mission?" "Without doubt." "You will, therefore, concede, your highness, that Chemerant relies upon the success of this mission for his good fortune?" "That is true." "Well, your highness, by refusing to take part in this insurrection, you leave Chemerant only the part of a jailer; your capture cannot make a success of the enterprise in which these two kings have so lively an interest. Then, believe me, you will cut a very sorry figure asking clemency of Chemerant, above all, at a time when he will be furious at seeing his hopes destroyed; above all, when he knows that the man in whose favor you intercede has made him see numberless stars at full noon. Believe me, then, your highness, by accepting all Chemerant's propositions, by seconding the plans of these two kings, you could scarcely hope to secure my pardon." "James! what he says is full of wisdom," said Angela. "I would not counsel you to be cowardly or egotistical, but he is right, you cannot deny it." The duke bent his head without answering. "I indeed believe I am right," said Croustillac. "I am wrong often enough once, by chance, to have common sense." "But, for the love of heaven, at least look things in the face, if I accept," said the duke, taking both hands of Croustillac in his own. "You must conduct me and my wife on board the Chameleon; we will hoist sail and will be saved." "All right, your highness, that is how I like to hear you speak!" "Yes, we shall be saved, but you, unhappy man, you will return on the frigate with Chemerant, and when you are brought face to face with my friends, your ruse will be discovered and you will be lost!" "Zounds! sir, how you go on! Without offending you, you then look upon me as a pitiful fellow; you deprive me of all imagination, of all ingenuity. If I am not mistaken, it is some distance to the Cayman's Creek, at Fort Royal?" "About three leagues," said the duke. "Very well, your highness, in this country three leagues are three hours, and in three hours a man like myself has at least six chances of escaping. I have long legs and strong as a stag's. The companion of Rend-your-Soul has taught me how to walk," replied the Gascon, smiling with a malicious air. "Now I swear to you that it will make the good Chemerant's escort take some pretty lively strides to keep up with me." "And you desire that I should allow you to stake your life on a chance as doubtful as that of an escape, when thirty soldiers, used to the country, would instantly be on your track?" said the duke. "Never!" "And you desire, your highness, that I place my life, my salvation on a chance as uncertain as the clemency of the good Chemerant?" "At least I should not sacrifice you to a certainty, and the chances are equal," said the duke. "Equal!" cried the adventurer indignantly. "Equal, your highness? Do you dare compare yourself with me? Who am I? and what purpose do I serve here below if not to carry an old sword at my side, and to live here and there according to the whims of humankind? I am nothing, I do nothing, I have nothing to care for. To whom is my life of any use? Who interests himself about me? Who even knows if Polyphème de Croustillac exists or not?" "Chevalier, you are not right, and----" "Zounds! your highness, you belong to the duchess, the adopted child of Sidney. If he died for you, it is the least you can do to live for her whom he loved as his own child! If you reduce her to despair, she may die of grief, and you will have two victims instead of one to lament." "But once more, chevalier----" "But!" cried Croustillac, with a significant glance at Angela, and beginning to talk loudly enough to deafen one, thus drowning the voice of the duke, "But you are a miserable wretch! an insolent fellow! to speak so to me! Help! help! come to my assistance!" Then Croustillac said rapidly, and in a low tone, to the duke, "You force me to do this, your highness, for I have no alternative." And the adventurer began to shout at the top of his lungs. The duke, paralyzed with surprise, remained motionless and looked at him in stupefaction. At the cry of the Gascon, six men, forming a portion of the escort, which De Chemerant had stationed as sentinels in the gallery by the request of Croustillac, rushed into the room. "Gag this rascal! gag him instantly!" cried Croustillac, who trembled at the fear that Chemerant might enter at this juncture. The soldiers obeyed the chevalier's order; they threw themselves upon the duke, who cried, as he struggled with them, "I am the prince; I am Monmouth." Happily, these dangerous words were stifled by the loud cries of the chevalier, who, from the beginning of this scene, pretended to be a prey to the greatest anger, and stamped his foot with rage. One of the soldiers, with the aid of his scarf, succeeded in gagging the duke, who was thus prevented from speaking. Chemerant, attracted by the noise, entered quickly. He found Angela pale and greatly agitated. While she understood the reason of this struggle, she could not help being deeply moved. "What has he done, then? your highness," cried Chemerant. "That miserable wretch made such abominably insolent propositions to me that, in spite of my contempt for him, I was obliged to have him gagged." "Your highness, you were right; but I foresaw that this miserable wretch would break his ominous silence!" "This scene, however," cried Croustillac, "was not without its use. I was still hesitating, yes, I avow it, I was weak enough to. Now the die is cast; the guilty ones shall suffer for their crime. Let us start at once for the Cayman's Cove; I have sent my orders to Captain Ralph; I shall not be content until I have seen them embark, under my own eyes; then we will return to Fort Royal." "Do you really wish to be present at this sad scene, your highness?" "Do I wish to? I would not give up that precious moment for the throne of England! I shall go to the vessel, and see these two criminals set sail for their destination where the breath of my vengeance will take them!" "It is final, then, that you insist upon this?" said De Chemerant, still hesitating. "It is final," returned Croustillac, in a most imposing and threatening voice, all in admirable accord with the part he played; "I expect to be obeyed when my orders are just. Make all preparations for the departure, I beg of you; if this miserable wretch does not choose to walk, he shall be carried; but above all, see that he is securely gagged, for if he should offer any further insolence I do not desire to hear it at any price." One of the soldiers assured himself that the gag was securely tied; taking the duke, they tied his hands behind his back, and marched him off under guard. "Are you ready, De Chemerant?" said Croustillac. "Yes, your highness, I have only to give some orders to my men." "Go, then, I will await you; I also have some orders to give." The governor saluted and withdrew. CHAPTER XXIX. THE DEPARTURE. Angela and the chevalier were alone. "Saved! saved by you!" cried Angela. "I would have wished to use different means, madame, but, without reproach to the duke, he is as obstinate as I am. It was impossible to do differently. There only remain a few moments now in which we may act. Chemerant will return; let us think of what is most pressing. Your diamonds--where are they? Go quickly and get them, madame. Take them with you. Once all is discovered, beware of confiscation." "The stones are there, in a secret box, in the duke's apartment." "Go quickly and get them. I will ring for Mirette to get you some clothing." "Generous friend! But you! Oh God!" "Be quiet; when I have no longer need to protect you, I will look out for myself. But quick! get your diamonds. Chemerant will be here shortly; I will ring for Mirette." The chevalier touched the bell. Angela disappeared through the door leading to the duke's private apartments. Mirette appeared. "She is very pretty, this little duchess," mused Croustillac to himself, "very pretty. Oh, this time I am struck to the heart, I know it only too well. I shall never forget her. This is love; yes, this is true love. Happily this danger will distract me, or these emotions would make me dizzy. Ah! there she comes!" Angela entered carrying a small box. "We have always kept these stones in reserve, in case we should be suddenly compelled to fly," said she to Croustillac. "Our fortune is a thousand times assured. Alas! why is it that you----" The young woman paused, fearing to offend the Gascon; then she continued sadly, with tears in her eyes, "You must have thought me very ignoble, did you not, in accepting without hesitation your noble sacrifice? But you will be kind and indulgent. It was necessary in order to save the one who is the dearest object in the world to me--the man for whom I would give my own life a thousand times over. But wait, this is frightful egotism, to speak to you thus, to you whom I owe everything, and who are going, perhaps, to death for me. I am mad! Forgive me." "Not another word on this subject, madame, I beg of you. Here is the duke's sword, it was his father's; here also is this little box which his mother gave him. These are precious relics; put them all in this large basket." "Good and generous man!" exclaimed Angela, who was deeply moved; "you think of everything!" Croustillac made no reply; he turned his head away in order that the duchess should not see the great tears rolling down his cheeks. He extended his large, bony hands to the duchess, and said, in a stifled voice, "Adieu, forever adieu! You will forget that I am a poor devil of a fellow and you will remember me sometimes as----" "As our best friend, as our brother," said Angela, bursting into tears. Then she took from her pocket a small medallion containing her cipher, and said to Croustillac, "See what I returned to the house to seek this evening. I desired to offer you this token of our friendship; it was in bringing it to you that I overheard your conversation with Colonel Rutler. Accept it, it will be a double souvenir of our friendship and of your generosity." "Give it to me! oh, give it to me!" cried the Gascon, and then, pressing it to his lips, he said, "I am more than paid for what I have done for you, for the duke----" "We are not ingrates. As soon as the duke is safe, we shall not leave you in the power of Chemerant, and----" "Here is Mirette; let us resume our rôle," cried Croustillac, interrupting the duchess. Mirette entered, followed by the slave, carrying in her hand Croustillac's old sword; a soldier bore the basket containing the clothes. Angela placed the box of diamonds and Monmouth's sword in the basket. Chemerant entered the room, saying, "Your highness, all is in readiness." "Offer madame your arm, if you please," said the chevalier to Chemerant, with a gloomy manner. Angela appeared struck with a sudden thought and said to the chevalier, "Sir, I wish to say something, privately, to Father Griffen. Do you refuse me this last petition?" "Just now, your highness, the good Father, hearing the noise, came to ask if he might speak to madame." "He is here!" cried Angela, "God be praised!" "Let him enter," said the Gascon gloomily. Chemerant bowed and the guard withdrew. Father Griffen entered. He was grave and sad. "My Father," said Angela, "can you give me some moments' interview?" So saying, she entered a room near by, followed by the priest. "Your highness," said Chemerant, showing a paper to the Gascon, "here is a letter which was found on the person of Colonel Rutler; it leaves no doubts as to the plots of William of Orange against your highness. Rutler will be shot upon our arrival at Fort Royal." "We will speak of that later, sir, but I lean toward clemency in the colonel's case--not through weakness, but from policy. I will explain to you another time my reasons for this." The little bay in which the Chameleon lay at anchor was not very far from the residence of Blue Beard. When the escort arrived there the horizon was tinged with the first rays of the rising sun. The Chameleon was a brigantine, light and swift as a kingfisher, riding gracefully on the waves, at her mooring. Not far from the Chameleon was seen one of the coast guards who traversed in his rounds the only point of Cabesterre which was accessible. The launch of the Chameleon, commanded by Captain Ralph's first mate, waited at the landing; in it were four sailors seated, with oars raised, ready to row at the first signal. The Gascon's heart beat as if it would burst. At the moment of attaining the price of his sacrifice, he trembled lest an unlooked-for accident should upset the fragile scaffolding of so many stratagems. The litter in which Monmouth was shut up arrived on the bank, and was quickly followed by that containing Angela. The soldiers ranged themselves along the landing. The Gascon said to Angela, in an agitated tone, "Go on board ship, madame, with your accomplice; this package (and he put into the hands of the mate a paper) will inform Captain Ralph of my final orders. Meanwhile," said the chevalier all at once, "wait--I have an idea!" Chemerant and Angela gazed at Croustillac with surprise. The adventurer believed he had discovered a means of saving the duke, and of himself escaping from Chemerant; he had no doubt of the resolution and devotion of the five sailors in the boat; he thought of precipitating himself with Angela and Monmouth into the boat and ordering the sailors to make all speed over the waves in order to join the Chameleon, and to set sail with speed. The soldiers, though thirty in number, would be so surprised by this sudden flight that success would be possible. A new incident upset this project of the chevalier. A voice which, though distant, was very powerful, cried, "In the name of the king, stop; allow no one to embark!" Croustillac turned suddenly toward the direction from which the voice came, and he saw a marine officer who was coming out of a redoubt erected near Cayman's Cove. "In the name of the king, allow no one to embark," came the voice again. "Be easy, lieutenant," responded a subordinate, who until then had not been perceived, for he was hidden by the piles of the wharf, "I will not allow the tender to leave without your orders." "That is well, Thomas, and beside," replied the officer, firing a shot from his gun as a signal, "the coastguard will not permit the brigantine to sail." It would be impossible to paint the frightful agony of the actors in this scene. Croustillac saw that his plan for flight was out of the question, because the slightest signal from the coastguard would prevent the departure of the Chameleon. The officer who had just appeared stopped in front of Croustillac and Chemerant, and said to them, "In the name of the king, I order you to tell me who you are and where you are going, gentlemen; by the governor's orders no one can sail from here without a permit from him. "Sir," said Chemerant, "the soldiers who are with me are part of the governor's guard; you see, I am acting by his consent." "An escort, sir! you have an escort!" said the astonished officer. "There, near the mole, sir," said Croustillac. "Oh, that is another matter, sir; the light was so feeble that I had not noticed the soldiers. I hope you will pardon me, sir." This man, who seemed extremely talkative, approached the governor's guard, examined them a moment, and said with excessive volubility, "My orders are simply to prevent persons going toward the wharf, just now the Chameleon, and a fine vessel she is, belonging to Blue Beard, and which has bravely run down a Spanish pirate--came last night to the mooring." "Sir, I beg you to silence this insupportable babbler," said the chevalier to Chemerant, "you must see how painful this scene is to me." "You see, sir," said Chemerant to the lieutenant of marines, "the persons who are going to embark, do so under my personal responsibility. I am Chemerant, commissioner extraordinary to the king, and am furnished with full powers." "Sir," said the lieutenant, "it is unnecessary to cite your authority; this escort is sufficient guarantee, and----" "Then, sir, remove the order." "Nothing is easier, sir; the order being now useless, it is useless to maintain it." "Thomas," cried this irrepressible talker to his subordinate, "you know the order that I gave you?" "Which, lieutenant?" "How! brainless one!" "Sir, my time is valuable, I must return shortly to Fort Royal," said Chemerant. The lieutenant continued, recklessly, "How! you have forgotten the order I gave you?" "The last one? no, lieutenant." "No, lieutenant! well, repeat it, then; let us hear the order." Then, addressing Chemerant, he said to him, while pointing to his soldier, "He hasn't the memory of a gosling! I am not sorry to give him this lesson before you, it will profit him." "Confound it! I am not here to assist in educating your functionaries," said Chemerant. "Well, Thomas, this order?" "Lieutenant, it was to let no one embark on the vessel." "Very well, that is all right; now I remove the embargo." "Go on board at once, madame," said Croustillac, unable to moderate his impatience. Angela cast a last look at him. The duke made a despairing effort to break his fetters, but he was quickly carried off to the tender by the soldiers. At a sign from Blue Beard, the sailors dipped their oars into the sea and headed for the Chameleon. "Are you satisfied now, your highness," said Chemerant. "No, no; not yet, sir. I shall not be content until I see the vessel set sail," replied the Gascon in a changed voice. "The prince is implacable in his hate," thought Chemerant; "he trembles still with rage, although his revenge is assured." All at once the sky was irradiated by the rays of the sun which made more somber still the line of azure which the sea formed on the horizon; the sun rose majestically, pouring torrents of red upon the water, the rocks, and the bay. At this instant the Chameleon, which had been joined by the small boat, flung to the breeze its white sails, and began to draw in its cable, by which it was attached to the mooring. The brigantine, with a graceful movement, began to tack; during a few seconds it completely hid the disk of the sun, and appeared enveloped in a brilliant aureole. Then the swift vessel, turning its prow toward Cayman's Cove, began to make toward the open sea. Croustillac remained motionless in sorrowful reverie, with his eyes fixed upon the vessel, which was carrying away the woman whom he so suddenly and so madly loved. The adventurer, thanks to his keen sight, could perceive a white handkerchief which was waved from the stern of the vessel. It was the last farewell of Blue Beard. Shortly the breeze freshened. The little vessel, with swift movement, bent under her sails, and went so rapidly that it was, little by little, lost in the midst of the warm mist of the morning. Then it entered into a zone of torrid light which the sun threw on the waves. For some time Croustillac could not follow the Chameleon with his eyes; when he saw her again, the brigantine drew nearer and nearer to the horizon, appearing but a speck in space. Then, doubling the last point of the island, she disappeared all at once. When the poor chevalier could no longer see the vessel, he experienced a profound sorrow. His heart seemed as empty and as solitary as the ocean. "Now, sir," said Chemerant, "let us go and find the friends who are awaiting you so impatiently. In an hour we will be on board the frigate." PART IV. CHAPTER XXX. REGRETS. As long as Croustillac contemplated his sacrifice; as long as he had been exalted by its dangers and upheld by the presence of Angela and Monmouth; he had not realized the cruel consequences of his devotion; but when he was alone, his thoughts became very painful. Not that he feared the danger which menaced him, but he felt keenly the absence of Angela, for whom he had braved everything. Under the eye of Angela, he had gayly faced the greatest peril; but he would never see her again. This was the real reason of his gloomy dejection. With arms crossed upon his breast, bowed head, fixed gaze and somber manner, the adventurer remained silent and motionless. Twice De Chemerant addressed him: "Your highness, it is time to go." Croustillac did not hear him. Chemerant, realizing the uselessness of words, touched him lightly on the arm, repeating louder, "Your highness, there still remain more than four leagues to travel before arriving at Fort Royal." "Zounds! sir; what do you want?" cried the Gascon, turning impatiently toward De Chemerant. The face of the latter expressed so much surprise at hearing the man whom he believed to be the Duke of Monmouth give vent to such a peculiar exclamation, that the Gascon realized the imprudence of which he had been guilty. He quickly recovered his usual coolness, looked at De Chemerant in an abstracted manner; then, as if he had awakened from a profound meditation, he said, in a short tone, "Very well, sir, let us go." Again mounting his horse, the Gascon took the road to Fort Royal, still followed by the escort and accompanied by De Chemerant. Croustillac was not a man, in spite of his chagrin, to entirely despair of the present. Chemerant, recovering from his surprise, attributed the somber taciturnity of the Gascon to the painful thoughts which the criminal conduct of the Duchess of Monmouth must cause him; while the adventurer, summing up the chances of escape which remained to him, analyzed the state of his heart, reasoning as follows: "Blue Beard (I shall always call her that--it was thus I heard her name for the first time, when I thought of her without knowing her), Blue Beard is gone--forever gone; I shall never see her again, never, never, it is evident. It will be impossible to escape from the memory of her. It is absurd, stupid, not to be imagined, but so it is--this proves it that this little woman has completely subjugated me. I was gay, careless and loquacious as a bird on the bough, but little scrupulous as to delicacy, and now behold me, sad, morose, taciturn, and of a delicacy so inordinate that I had a horrible fear lest Blue Beard should offer me, in parting, some remuneration other than the medallion from which she had the generosity to remove the jewels. Alas! from this time forth, this memory will be all my happiness--sad happiness! What a change! I, who heretofore cared so much the more for bravery of attire since I was badly clothed; I, who would have found such happiness in wearing this velvet coat garnished with rich gold buttons--I wish for the moment to come when I can don my old green garments and my pink hose, proud to say 'I leave this Potosi, this Devil's Cliff, this diamond mine, as much of a beggar as when I entered into it.' Is it not, my faith, very plain that before knowing Blue Beard, I had never in my life had such thoughts? Now, what remains for me to hope?" said Croustillac, adopting, as was his wont, the interrogative form to make what he called his "examination of conscience." "Now, then, be frank, Polyphème, do you care much for life? "Eh! eh! "What say you to being hanged? "H--m, h--m. "Come, now, frankly? "Frankly? well, the gallows, strictly speaking, might please me if Blue Beard was there to see me hanged. And yet, no, it is an ignoble death, a ridiculous death; one's tongue hangs out, one kicks about---- "Polyphème, you are afraid--of being hanged? "No, faith! but hanged all alone, hanged by myself, hanged like a mad dog, hanged without two beautiful eyes looking at you, without a pretty mouth smiling at you---- "Polyphème, you are a stupid oaf; do you believe that Her Grace the Duchess of Monmouth would come to applaud your last dance? Once more, Polyphème, you are tricking, you seek all sorts of evasions. You are afraid of being hanged, I tell you." "So be it--yes, I am afraid of the gallows, I own it; let us speak no more of it. Put aside these probabilities, do not admit into our future this exaggerated fear. Zounds! one is not hanged for so little, while the prison is possible, not to say probable. Let us talk, then, of the prison. "Well, how does the prison seem to you, Polyphème? "Eh! eh! the prison is devilishly monotonous. I know well that I should have the resource of thinking of Blue Beard, but I shall think of her so much, I shall think of her even better in the peaceful solitude of the woods, in the calm of the paternal valley. The paternal valley! yes, decidedly, it is there that I would prefer to finish my days, dreaming of Blue Beard. Only, shall I ever find it again, this paternal valley? Alas! the mists of our Gavonne are so thick that I shall wander long, without doubt, before I find this dear valley again. "Polyphème, you purposely wander from the subject; you wish to escape the prison as well as the gallows, in spite of your philosophical bombast. "Well, yes, zounds! I do want to escape both; to whom should I avow it if not to myself? Who will comprehend me if not I, myself? "That admitted, Polyphème, how will you evade the fate that threatens you? "Just at present this road is hardly favorable for escape, I know; rocks on the right hand, on the left the sea, in front of and behind me the escort. My horse is not bad; if it was better than that of the good Chemerant, I might make a trial of swiftness with him. "And then, Polyphème? "And then I would leave good Chemerant on the road. "And then? "And then, abandoning my horse, I would conceal myself in some cavern; I would climb the rocks; I have long legs and muscles of steel. "But, Polyphème, you will be sure to find the maroons. You, who are not accustomed as they are to a nomadic life, you will be easily found by them, at least if you are not devoured by wildcats or killed by serpents. Such are your only two chances of escaping the efforts they will make to catch you again. "Yes, but at least I have some chance of escape, while in following the good Chemerant, as the sheep follows the butcher who leads it to the slaughter-house, I fall full into the hands of my partisans. Mortimer will fall on my neck, not to embrace me, but to strangle me, when he sees who I am, or rather, whom I am not; while in attempting to escape I may succeed, and, who knows? perhaps rejoin Blue Beard. Father Griffen is devoted to her; through him I shall learn where she is, if he knows. "But, Polyphème, you are mad! You love this woman without a ray of hope. She is passionately in love with her husband; and, although people have complacently taken you for him, he is as handsome, as much of a 'grand seigneur,' as interesting, as you are ugly, ridiculous, and insignificant, although of ancient race, Polyphème. "Eh? Zounds! what does it matter? In again beholding Blue Beard I shall not be happy, that is true, but I shall be content. Cannot one enjoy a beautiful sight, an admirable picture, a magnificent poem, an enchanting piece of music, although this sight, this picture, this poem, this music, are not one's own? Well, such will be the kind of my content in the presence of the divine Blue Beard. "A last observation, Polyphème. Your rhapsody, happy or not, will it not awaken the suspicions of De Chemerant? Will you not thus compromise the safety of those whom you have, I must avow, very skillfully rescued? "There is nothing to fear on that side. The Chameleon flies like an albatross--she is already the devil knows where. She will put to their wits' ends all the coastguards of the islands to know where she is. Thus, then, I see no inconvenience in trying whether my horse goes faster than that of the good Chemerant. The good man seems to me plunged in meditation just now; the strand is good and straight. If I should start---- "Come, then, try--start, Polyphème!" Scarcely had the adventurer mentally given himself this permission, when, giving some touches of his spur to the horse, he set off suddenly with great rapidity. Chemerant, surprised for a moment, gazed after the flying Croustillac; then, not comprehending this strange action on the part of the supposed duke, he started in pursuit. Chemerant had been in many wars, and was an excellent rider. His horse, without being superior to that of Croustillac, being much better managed and trained, immediately regained the distance the adventurer had covered. Chemerant closely followed the track of Croustillac, crying, "My lord, my lord, where are you going?" Croustillac, seeing himself so closely pursued, urged his horse forward with all his force. Very soon the adventurer was obliged to stop short; the strand formed an elbow in this place, and the Gascon found himself face to face with enormous blocks of rock leaving only a narrow and dangerous passage. Chemerant rejoined his companion. "By all the furies! my lord," he cried, "what gnat has bitten your highness? Why this sudden and furious gallop?" The Gascon responded, coolly and boldly, "I am in great haste, sir, to rejoin my partisans--this poor Mortimer especially, who awaits me with such lively impatience. And then, in spite of me, I am besieged with certain vexatious ideas concerning my wife, and I wish to fly from them, these ideas, to fly from them by any means," said the Gascon, with a dolorous sigh. "It appears to me, my lord, that morally and physically you fly from them with all your might; unfortunately the road forbids your escaping them any further." Chemerant called the guide. "At what distance are we from Fort Royal?" he asked him. "A league at most, sir." Chemerant pulled out his watch and said to Croustillac, "if the wind is good at eleven o'clock, we might be under sail and _en route_ for the coast of Cornwall, where glory awaits you, my lord." "I hope so, sir, without which it would be absurd in me to go there. But apropos of our enterprise, it seems to be a bad beginning to inaugurate it with a murder." "What do you mean, your highness?" "I should see with pain the shooting of Colonel Rutler. I am superstitious, sir; this death seems to me a bad omen. The crime was one entirely personal to me; I then formally demand from you his pardon." "Your highness, his crime was flagrant, and----" "But, sir, the crime has not been committed. I insist that the colonel shall not be shot." "He should, at least your highness, expiate by perpetual imprisonment his audacious attempt." "In prison? so be it; one can get out of it, thank God! or at least, one can hope so, which shortens the time infinitely. Beside, the colonel might noise abroad my approaching descent into Cornwall, which would be truly disastrous." "What you desire in this case shall be done, your highness?" "Another thing, sir. I am superstitious, as I have told you. I have remarked in my life certain lucky and unlucky days. Now, for nothing in this world would I choose to begin an enterprise so important as ours under the influence of an hour which I believe to be fatal to me. Beside, I am much fatigued; you ought to be able to understand that, in thinking of the emotions of all kinds which have beset me since yesterday." "What, then, are your designs, your highness?" "They will perhaps not agree with yours, but I will credit you with doing what I desire, which is not to set sail before to-morrow morning at sunrise." "Your highness!" "I know, sir, what you are going to say to me, but twenty-four hours, more or less, are not of much consequence, and, finally, I have decided not to put my foot on board to-day. I should bring upon you the most direful fate; I should draw upon your frigate all the tempests of the tropics. I will, then, pass the day with the governor, in absolute retirement. I have need of being alone," added Croustillac, in a melancholy tone; "alone, yes, always alone, and I ought to begin my apprenticeship to solitude." "Solitude? But, my lord, you will not find it among the agitations which await you." "Ah! sir," responded Croustillac philosophically, "the unfortunate finds solitude even in the midst of the crowd, when he isolates himself in his regrets. A wife whom I loved so much!" added he, with a profound sigh. "Ah! your highness," said De Chemerant, sighing in order to put himself in sympathy with Croustillac, "it is terrible; but time heals the deepest wounds." "You are right, sir, time heals the deepest wounds. I will have courage. Well rested, well recovered from my fatigue and my cruel agitations, to-morrow I will console myself, I will forget all in embracing my partisans." "Ah! your highness, to-morrow will be a blessed day for all." The position of the supposed duke demanded too much consideration from De Chemerant for him not to give in to the suggestions of his companion; he acquiesced, then, though with regret, in the will of Croustillac. The Gascon, in postponing the hour in which his deception should be discovered, hoped to find a chance to escape. He remembered that Blue Beard had said to him, "We will not be ungrateful; once the duke is in safety, we will not leave you in the power of De Chemerant; only seek to gain time." Although Croustillac did not count much on the promise of his friends, knowing all the difficulties which they would have to brave and to conquer before they could succor him, he wished in any case not to sacrifice this chance of safety, however uncertain it should be. Thus, as the guide had informed them, they arrived at Fort Royal at the end of an hour's march. The residence of the governor was situated at the extremity of the city, on the edge of the savannahs; it was easy to reach it without encountering any one. Chemerant sent one of the guards in all haste to warn the governor of the arrival of his two guests. The baron had replaced his long peruke, and resumed his heavy, tight-fitting coat, in order to receive De Chemerant and the supposed duke. He regarded the latter with eager curiosity, and was extremely puzzled by the black velvet coat with the red sleeve. But, remembering that De Chemerant had spoken to him of a state secret in which the inhabitants of Devil's Cliff found themselves mixed up, he did not dare to meet Croustillac without profound deference. The governor, profiting by a moment during which the adventurer cast a melancholy glance at the window, striving to see whether it would serve his purpose, said in a low tone to De Chemerant, "I expected to see a lady, sir. This litter that you brought with you----" "Well, baron, you unfortunately counted without your hostess." "You must have been much heated by this morning sun," added the baron with a careless air, although he was piqued by De Chemerant's answer. "Very much heated, sir, and your guest also. You should offer him some refreshment." "I have thought of that, sir," replied the baron, "and have ordered three covers laid." "I do not know, baron, whether my lord (indicating Croustillac) will deign to admit us to his table." The governor, stupefied with surprise, regarded Croustillac with a new and burning curiosity. "But, sir, is this, then, a great personage?" "Baron, I am again under the necessity of reminding you that it is my mission to ask questions of you and not----" "Sufficient, sufficient, sir. Will you ask the guest whom I have the honor to receive if he will do me the favor to accept this breakfast?" Chemerant transmitted the invitation of the baron to Croustillac, who, pretending fatigue, asked to breakfast alone in his apartment. Chemerant whispered a few words in the ear of the governor, who immediately offered his finest apartment to the supposed great personage. Croustillac prayed the baron to have the pannier, of which one of the two guards had taken charge, and which, as we know, contained only Croustillac's old garments, brought to his room. Chemerant was in the room of the Gascon when the pannier was brought in. "Who would think, to look at this modest pannier, that it contained more than three millions' worth of jewels?" said Croustillac negligently. "What imprudence! your highness!" cried De Chemerant. "These guards are trusty, but----" "They are ignorant of the treasure they carry; there is, then, nothing to fear." "Your highness, I ought to tell you that it is not the intention of the king that you should use your personal resources in order to bring this enterprise to a successful end. The purser of the frigate has a considerable sum destined to the payment of the recruits who are embarked, and for necessary expenses, once the debarkation is accomplished." "It does not matter," said Croustillac. "Money is the sinew of war. I had not foreseen this disposition of the 'great king,' and I wish to put at the service of my royal uncle that which remains to me of blood, fortune and influence." After this sounding peroration, De Chemerant went out. CHAPTER XXXI. CROUSTILLAC DEPARTS. Croustillac seated himself at the table which had been prepared for him, ate but little, and then lay down, hoping that sleep would calm him and perhaps bring to him some fortunate idea of how to escape. He had recognized with chagrin the impossibility of escaping by the window of the chamber he occupied; the two sentries of the governor's residence paced constantly at the foot of the building. Once alone, De Chemerant began to reflect on the singular events of which he had been the witness. Although he did not doubt that the Gascon was the veritable Duke of Monmouth, the conduct of the duchess seemed so strange to him, the manners and language of Croustillac, although very skillfully adapted to his rôle, were sometimes so redolent of the adventurer, that without the aid of the evident proofs which should demonstrate to him the identity of the person of the duke, De Chemerant would have conceived some suspicions. Nevertheless, he resolved to profit by his sojourn at Fort Royal to question the governor anew on the subject of Blue Beard, and Colonel Rutler on the subject of the Duke of Monmouth. The baron did no more than to repeat certain public rumors, viz., that the widow was on the best possible terms with the three bandits who haunted Devil's Cliff. Chemerant was reduced to deploring the depravity of the young woman, and the blindness of the unfortunate duke, a blindness which had, without doubt, endured till that very moment. As for Rutler, his arrest by De Chemerant, the arrival of the envoy from France at Devil's Cliff, far from shaking his conviction in respect to Croustillac, had confirmed it; thus, when De Chemerant came to question him, in announcing to him that he was not to be shot, the colonel, on his part unwittingly, concurred in giving still more authority to the false rôle of the adventurer. The sun was on the point of setting. Chemerant, completely reassured as to the very satisfactory result of his mission, was thinking over the advantages it must bring to him, while walking up and down the terrace of the governor's residence, when the baron, out of breath with having climbed so high, came to tear his guest away from the ambitious thoughts with which he was delighting himself. "Sir," said the governor to him, "a merchant captain called Master Daniel, and commanding the three-master the Unicorn has arrived from St. Pierre with his ship; he asks to talk with you for a moment on very pressing affairs." "May I receive him on this terrace, baron?" "Certainly, sir; it is much cooler here than below." Then advancing to the staircase by which he had ascended, the baron said to one of his guards, "Send Master Daniel up here." We have forgotten to say that as soon as the supposed duke had manifested a desire to pass the night on land the frigate had received orders to anchor at the extremity of the roads. After some minutes, Captain Daniel, our old acquaintance, appeared on the terrace. The physiognomy of the captain, ordinarily so frank and joyous, betrayed great embarrassment. The worthy captain of the Unicorn, so completely king on the deck of his vessel, seemed uncomfortable and ill at ease. His cheeks, always more than red, were slightly pale; the almost imperceptible quivering of his upper lip agitated his thick gray mustache--a physiological sign which indicated in Captain Daniel a grave preoccupation; he wore trousers and tunic of blue and white striped cloth; in his girdle of red cotton was thrust a long Flemish knife; an India handkerchief, knotted sailor fashion, surrounded his brick-colored throat; finally, he mechanically gave the most whimsical forms to the large and flexible straw hat which he twisted about with both hands. The worthy master, with many low bows, approached De Chemerant, whose dry, harsh face, with its piercing glance, seemed to intimidate him greatly. "I am sure that this poor man is all in a perspiration," said the governor to De Chemerant, in a pitying tone. In fact, great drops of perspiration covered the prominent veins on the bald and sunburned forehead of Captain Daniel. "What do you wish?" said De Chemerant to him brusquely. "Come, speak, explain yourself, Master Daniel," added the baron, in a gentler tone, seeing the merchant captain more and more intimidated. At last the captain ended by saying, in a voice strangled by emotion, and addressing himself to De Chemerant, "Your highness----" "I am not 'your highness' but 'sir,'" replied Chemerant; "speak, I am listening." "Well, then, my good sir, I arrived at St. Pierre with a cargo, a very rich cargo of sugar, coffee, pepper, cloves, tafia----" "I do not need to know the inventory of your cargo; what do you want?" "Come, Master Daniel, my boy, reassure yourself, explain yourself, and dry your forehead; you look as if you had come out of the water," said the baron. "Now, your high--now, good sir, although I have a dozen small guns, and a few swivel guns, my cargo is of such value that I come, good sir, in fear of corsairs and pirates----" "Well?" "Go on, Master Daniel, I have never seen you thus." "I come, good sir, to ask your permission to set sail in company with the frigate which has anchored just now in the roads." "Confound it! I can understand why you are embarrassed in making such a request, Master Daniel," said the baron. "They are to give you his majesty's frigates to serve as escort to your cargo!" Chemerant looked fixedly at the captain, shrugged his shoulders, and responded, "It is impossible! The frigate is a fast sailer; she could not diminish her speed to attend on your vessel--you are crazy!" "Oh, sir, if it is only that, fear nothing. Without decrying his majesty's frigate, since I do not know her, I can engage to follow her, no matter how much sail she carries, or whatever wind or sea is in her sails or ahead." "I tell you you are crazy. The Thunderer is the swiftest of ships." "My good sir, do not refuse me," said Master Daniel, in a supplicating tone. "If this proud frigate sails quicker than the Unicorn--well, this man-of-war will desert the poor merchant ship, but at least I shall have been a good part of the way under the shelter of the flag of the king, and the prowlers of the sea are only especially to be feared in the starting. Ah, sir, a cargo worth more than a million, by which the enemies of our good king will profit if they succeed in getting possession of the Unicorn----" "But I repeat to you that the frigate, although a man-of-war, would not have time to defend you if you were attacked; her mission is such that she ought not to be embarrassed with a convoy." "Oh, good sir," replied Captain Daniel, clasping his hands, "you will have no embarrassment because of me; there will be no risk of my being attacked if they see me under the protection of your guns. There is not a corsair who would dare even to approach me, seeing me so bravely accompanied. With all respect, sir, the wolves attack the lambs only when the dogs are absent." "Poor lamb of a Master Daniel!" said the governor. "Ah, good sir, let it not be said that a warship of the king, our master, refused a poor unfortunate merchant who asked only the protection of his flag, so long as he was able to follow it." Chemerant found it hard to refuse this request, which in nowise interfered with the maneuvers of the frigate, as Captain Daniel engaged to follow the course of the Thunderer or allow himself to be abandoned. Nevertheless, De Chemerant refused. "You know well," he said to the captain, "that if, in spite of our escort, a corsair attacked you, a king's ship could not leave you defenseless. Again, you will hinder the maneuvers of the frigate. It is impossible." "But, sir, my rich cargo----" "You have guns, defend it. I will not allow you the convoy. It is impossible." "Alas! my good God! I, who have come expressly from St. Pierre to ask this favor from you!" said Daniel, in a dolorous tone. "Well, you will wait for another chance. I cannot cover you with my flag." "However, good sir----" "Enough!" said Chemerant, in a harsh and peremptory tone. Captain Daniel made a last reverence, and, retreating slowly to the staircase, he disappeared. "To see these merchants! To hear them one would think there were no interests in the world but those of their cargoes," said De Chemerant. "There are, however, very few circumstances in which one refuses an escort," said the governor, with an air of astonishment. "There are very few, indeed, baron, but there are some," said Chemerant brusquely, while withdrawing. Croustillac had been conducted to the finest apartment in the house. When he awoke night had fallen, and the moon shone with so brilliant a light that it illuminated his chamber perfectly. Croustillac looked out of his window; the two sentinels paced peacefully at the foot of the wall. "The devil!" said the adventurer. "It is decidedly impossible to make my escape on this side; there are at least twenty feet to descend just to fall on the backs of these sentinels, and they would find this manner of quitting the governor's house very singular. Let us look at the other side, then." Croustillac approached the door with a light step; but a bright light thrown on the floor showed him that the neighboring room was lighted and probably occupied. By the aid of a tinder-box which he found on the mantel, he lighted a candle, and dressed himself in his old clothes, with a melancholy satisfaction. They exhaled the strong and aromatic odor of the plants and herbs of the surroundings through which Croustillac had so long walked in his wanderings in the forest around Devil's Cliff. "Zounds! Chance is devilishly well named Chance," said the Gascon to himself. "It has always had a particular affection for me. If it was canonized, I would make it my patron saint. Chance--Polyphème, Sire de Croustillac! When, on board the Unicorn, I made a bet that I would marry Blue Beard, who could have foreseen that this foolish wager was almost won; for, after all, in the eyes of the man with the dagger and of De Chemerant, I passed, I still pass, as the husband of the lady of Devil's Cliff. How all things hang together in fate! When I quitted the parsonage of Father Griffen, nose in air, shoulders squared, my switch in my hand to drive away the serpents, who the devil would have said that I left to go, not directly it is true, to incite the Cornwallers to revolt in favor of King James and Louis XIV! Zounds! One may well say that the ways of Providence are inscrutable. Who could have penetrated into this? Ah! now the critical moment approaches. I am sometimes tempted to disclose all to the good man Chemerant. Yes, but I think that each hour gained removes the duke and his wife three or four leagues further from Martinique. I think that here, on land, my trial might be carried out immediately and my gallows raised in the wink of an eye, while on the open sea there would perhaps be no persons present competent to judge me. I think, after all, that if Blue Beard has begged (as I suppose) Father Griffen to endeavor to withdraw me from the claws of Chemerant, that a sudden and imprudent revelation on my part would spoil all. Much better, then, to keep silence. Yes, all well considered," resumed Croustillac after a moment of reflection, "to let De Chemerant's mistake last as long as possible, that is the better part for me to take." During these reflections Croustillac had dressed himself. "Now," he said, "let me see if there are any means of getting out of here secretly." So saying, he softly opened the door and beheld with disappointment the lackeys of the governor, who rose respectfully on seeing him. One went to seek the baron; the other said to Croustillac, "Monsieur the governor forbade us to enter the chamber of your highness until called; he will come on the instant." "No matter, my boy, only show me the door to the garden. It is very warm; I wish to take the air for awhile--but no, there are undoubtedly trees in the garden; I prefer the open space, the field----" "That is very simple, your highness; in descending from the gallery you will find yourself in the garden, from which a gate opens into the fields." "Very well, then, my boy, conduct me there quickly. I long for the fields like a bird in a cage." "Ah, it is not necessary, your highness; here is monsieur the baron, he will conduct you himself," said the lackey. "To the devil with the baron!" thought Croustillac. The governor was not alone; Chemerant accompanied him. "Faith, your highness," said the latter, "fortunately we see you risen. We came to wake you." "To wake me--and why?" "Wind and tide wait for no one. The tide goes out at three o'clock; it is now half-past two. It will take us a half hour to reach the mole, where the boat awaits us. We have just time to get there, your highness." "Now, then, the die is cast," said Croustillac. "Let us try only to gain a few hours before being presented to my partisans. Sir, I am at your orders," added the adventurer, draping himself in a brown mantle which he had found with his clothes. The governor felt it his duty to accompany, as escort, De Chemerant and the mysterious unknown to the mole; the flight of the Gascon was thus rendered absolutely impossible. At the moment of quitting the governor, Chemerant said to him, "Sir, I will render to the king a full account of the efficient aid you have given me. I can now say it to you, the secret has been perfectly kept." "But, sir, may I know what were these indications?" cried the baron, so poorly informed on what he was burning to know. "You may be certain, baron," said Chemerant, cordially pressing his hand, "that the king will know all--and it will not be my fault if you are not rewarded as you deserve." Thus saying, Chemerant gave the order to put off. "If the king is to know all he will be much ahead of me," said the baron, slowly returning to his house. "What I have learned from the guards of the escort has only augmented my curiosity. It was hardly worth the trouble to toil and moil, and stay on one's feet all night, to be so badly informed of things of the greatest importance, taking place in my own government!" CHAPTER XXXII. THE FRIGATE. The moon threw a brilliant light over the waters of Fort Royal. The long boat which bore Croustillac and his fortunes advanced rapidly toward the Thunderer, which was anchored at the entrance of the bay. The Gascon, enveloped in his mantle, occupied the place of honor in the boat, which seemed to fly over the water. "Sir," said he to Chemerant, "I wish to reflect ripely on the discourse which it is my intention to address to my partisans; you comprehend--it is necessary that I pronounce a sort of manifesto in which I disclose my political principles; that I tell them my hopes in order to make them partakers in them; that, in fine, I give them, in a manner, a plan of campaign; now all this needs long elaboration. These are the bases of our undertaking. It is necessary to disclose all to them--the consequences of the alliance, or rather the moral, that is to say material support which England lends us, or rather France--In short," said Croustillac, who began to be singularly mixed up in his politics, "I do not wish to receive my partisans till to-morrow, in the morning. I wish, even, that my arrival on board should be conducted as quietly as possible." "It is very probable, my lord, that all these brave gentlemen are asleep, for they did not know at what hour your highness was to arrive." "This mad--this brave Mortimer is capable of waiting up all night for me," said Croustillac, with disquietude. "That is not to be doubted, your highness, by one who knows the ardent impatience with which he desires your return." "Hold, sir," said the Gascon, "between you and me, I know my Mortimer; he is very nervous, very impressionable. I should fear for him--a shock, a too sudden effect of joy, should I appear abruptly before him. Thus, in going aboard I shall take the precaution of well wrapping myself up in order to escape his eyes--and even if he asks you if I shall soon arrive, oblige me by answering him in an evasive manner. In this way we can prepare him for an interview, which without these precautions might prove fatal to this devoted friend." "Ah! fear nothing, your highness; excess of joy can never be fatal." "Indeed, you deceive yourself, sir; without taking account of a thousand general facts with which I might corroborate my opinion, I will cite on this subject a fact quite personal and particular to the very man of whom we are now talking." "To Lord Mortimer?" "To him, sir. I shall never forget that once I saw him seized with frightful convulsions under circumstances almost similar. There were nervous starts--swoons----" "However, your highness, Lord Mortimer has an athletic constitution." "An athletic constitution? Come, then, it only remained that I should encounter a Hercules in this run-mad Pylades," thought Croustillac. He spoke aloud: "You don't know, sir, that it is these very men of great strength who are just the ones who most keenly feel such shocks. I will even tell you--but this is entirely between ourselves--at least----" "Your highness may be sure of my discretion." "You will understand my reserve, sir. I will tell you then that, on the occasion of which I speak--this unfortunate Mortimer was so stupefied--(if it were not for our intimate friendship, I should say rendered stupid) by seeing too suddenly some one he had not met for a long time--that his head--you comprehend----" "What, your highness, his reason----" "Alas! yes, in this instance only--. You now comprehend why I demand secrecy of you?" "Yes, yes, your highness." "But that was not all; the shock suffered by poor Mortimer was such that, after having remained several moments stupefied with surprise, he no longer recognized this person; no, sir, he did not recognize him, though he had seen him a thousand times!" "Is it possible, your highness?" said De Chemerant, in a tone of respectful doubt. "It is, alas! only too true, sir, for you have no idea of the excitability of this good fellow. So I, who am his friend, should watch carefully that no trouble come to him. Think, then, if I should expose him to the risk of not knowing me. Mortimer is now the one whom I love most in the world, and you know, alas! sir, if the consolations of friendship are necessary to me." "Still these unhappy memories, your highness?" "Yes, I am weak, I own it--it is stronger than I." "What is this ship anchored not far from the frigate?" demanded De Chemerant of the master of the long boat, in order to change the conversation, out of regard for the feelings of the supposed duke. "That, sir, is a merchantman, which arrived last night from St. Pierre," said the sailor, respectfully removing his cap. "Ah! I know," said De Chemerant; "it is probably the ship of that fool of a merchant-captain who demanded our escort. But here we are, your highness--the lights are all out--you are not expected." "So much the better, so much the better; provided Mortimer is not there." "It seems to me that I see him on the bridge, your highness." Croustillac raised his mantle almost to his eyes. "Ah! there is the officer of the watch on the ladder. What a pity to arrive so late, your highness. It is to the beat of drums, the flourish of trumpets, that your highness should have been received, with the ship's crew presenting arms." "Honors to-morrow--honors to-morrow," said Croustillac; "the hour of these frivolities always comes soon enough." Chemerant drew aside to allow the Gascon to mount the ladder first. The latter breathed freely again on seeing on deck only an officer of marines, who received him with bared head and a profoundly respectful air. Croustillac responded with great dignity, and above all, very briefly, enveloping himself in his mantle with the utmost care, and casting uneasy glances around him, fearing to see the terrible Mortimer. Fortunately he saw only the sailors talking together or reclining by the side of the guns. The officer, who was speaking in a low tone to De Chemerant, saluting Croustillac again, said to him: "Your highness, since you command it, I will not awaken the captain, and I shall have the honor of conducting you to your cabin." Croustillac inclined his head. "Till to-morrow, your highness," said De Chemerant. "Till to-morrow," responded the adventurer. The officer descended by the hatchway to the gun-deck, opened the door of a large, wide cabin perfectly lighted by a skylight, and said to the Gascon: "Your highness, there is your cabin; there are two other small rooms to the right and left." "This is admirable, sir; do me the favor, I pray you, to give the strictest orders that no one enters my cabin to-morrow until I call. No one, sir, you understand--absolutely no one!--this is of the last importance." "Very well, my lord. Your highness does not wish that I should send one of the people to assist you to disrobe?" "I am a soldier, sir," said Croustillac proudly, "and I disrobe without assistance." The young officer bowed, taking this response for a lesson in stoicism; he went out, ordering one of the orderlies to allow no one to enter the cabin of the duke, and again ascended on deck to rejoin De Chemerant. "Your duke is a veritable Spartan, my dear De Chemerant," said he to him. "Why! he has not brought even a lackey." "That is true," responded De Chemerant; "such strange things have taken place on land that neither he nor I thought of it; but I will give him one of my people. Just now the important thing is to set sail." "That is also the opinion of the captain. He gave me orders to wake him if you judged it necessary to depart at once." "We will start on the instant, for both wind and tide are in our favor, I think," answered De Chemerant. "So favorable," said the officer, "that if this wind holds, to-morrow by sunrise we shall no longer be able to see the shores of Martinique." A half-hour after the arrival of the Gascon on board, the Thunderer got under sail with an excellent breeze from the southwest. When De Chemerant saw the frigate leaving the roads, he could not refrain from rubbing his hands, saying to himself, "Faith it is not that I am vain and boastful, but I would only have given this mission in a hundred to the most skillful of men--to unravel the projects of the English envoy, to conquer the scruples of the duke, to aid him to revenge himself on a guilty wife, to tear him by force of eloquence from the overwhelming feelings this conjugal accident has roused in his soul, to bring him back to England at the head of his partisans--by my faith, Chemerant, my friend, that was left to you to do! Your fortune, already on the road to success, behold it forever assured; this good success delights me the more that the king regards this affair as important. Once more, bravo!" Chemerant with a light and joyful heart slept, cradled by the most pleasing and ambitious thoughts. It was half-past ten in the morning; the wind was fresh, the sea a little rough, but very beautiful; the Thunderer left behind her a shining wake. The land was no longer to be seen. The ship was in mid-ocean. The officer of the watch, armed with a glass, examined with attention a three-masted vessel about two cannon shots distant, which kept precisely the same route as the frigate and sailed as quickly as she did, although carrying a few light sails the less. On the extreme horizon the officer remarked also another ship which he as yet distinguished vaguely, but which seemed to follow the same direction as the three-master, whose maneuver we have just pointed out. Wishing to find out if this latter ship would persist in imitating the movements of the Thunderer, the officer ordered the man at the wheel to bear away a little more to the north. The three-master bore away a little more to the north. The officer gave orders to bear away to the west. The three-master bore away to the west. More annoyed than startled at this persistence, because the three-master was not capable of a struggle with a frigate, the officer, by the order of the captain, tacked about and sailed straight down upon the importunate vessel. The importunate three-master tacked about also, and continued to scrupulously imitate the evolutions of the frigate, and sailed in concert with her, but always beyond reach of her guns. The captain, irritated by this, veered about and ran straight down upon the three-master. The three-master proved that she was, if not a better sailer, at least as good a one as the frigate, which was never able to shorten the distance between them. The captain, not wishing to lose precious time in this useless chase, resumed his course. The vexatious three-master also resumed its course. This mysterious ship was no other than the peaceable Unicorn. Captain Daniel, in spite of the refusal of De Chemerant, had judged it proper to attach himself obstinately to the Thunderer until they reached the open sea. A new personage appeared on the deck of the frigate. This was a man of about fifty years of age, large, stout, wearing a buff coat with wide scarlet breeches, and boots of sheepskin. His hair and mustache were red, his eyes light blue, the eyeballs veined with little vessels which the slightest emotion injected with blood, showing a violent and passionate temper. We hasten to inform the reader that this athletic personage was the most fanatical of all the fanatical partisans of Monmouth, and he would have thought himself a thousand times blessed to have shared the fate of Sidney; in a word, this man was Lord Percy Mortimer. His disquietude, his agitation, his impatience, were inexpressible; he could not stay in one place a moment. Twenty times had Lord Mortimer descended to the door of Croustillac's cabin to know if "my lord the duke" had not asked for him. In vain had he implored the officer to send word to the duke that Mortimer, his best friend, his old companion in arms, wished to throw himself at his feet; his wishes were vain, the orders of the unhappy Croustillac, who regarded each minute gained as a precious conquest, were rigorously carried out. Chemerant also went upon deck, clothed in a magnificent dress, his air radiant and triumphant; he seemed to say to all: "If the prince is here, that is thanks to my ability, to my courage." Seeing him, Mortimer approached him quickly. "Well, sir," he said to him, "may we know at last at what hour the duke will receive us?" "The duke has forbidden any one to enter his apartment without his order." "I am on red-hot coals," replied Mortimer; "I shall never forgive myself for having gone to bed this night, and not to have been the first to press our James in my arms, to throw myself at his feet--to kiss his royal hand." "Ah, Lord Mortimer, you love our brave duke well?" said De Chemerant; "partisans such as you are rare!" "_If_ I love our James!" cried Mortimer, turning a deep and apoplectic red, "_if_ I love him! Hold! I and Dick Dudley, my best friend, who loves the duke, not as much as I (we fought once because he made this absurd claim)--I and Dudley, I tell you, asked each other just now if we should have the strength to again see our James without giving way--like silly women." "The duke was right," thought De Chemerant. "What enthusiasm! It is not attachment, it is frenzy." Mortimer resumed with vehemence: "This morning on rising we embraced each other; we committed a thousand extravagances on thinking we should see him again to-day. We could not believe it, and even yet I doubt it. Ah! what a day! what a day! To see again in flesh and blood a friend, a companion in arms whom we had believed dead, whom we had wept for for five years! Ah! you do not know how he was cherished and regretted, our James! How we recalled his bravery, his courage, his gayety! What happiness to say, not _it was_, but _it is_ the heart of a king, a true heart of a king, that of our duke." "It must be that this is true, my lord, since with the exception of yourself, of Lord Dudley, and this poor Lord Rothsay who, ill as he is from his old wounds, has chosen to accompany you, the other gentlemen who came to offer their arms, their lives and their fortunes to our duke, knew him only by reputation." "And I should like well to see if, on his renown alone, and on our guarantee, they would not love him as much as we love him. This recalls to me that once I fought my friend Dick Dudley because he vowed he loved me a little more than our James!" "The fact is, my lord," said De Chemerant, "that few princes are capable of inspiring such enthusiasm simply by their renown." "Few princes, sir!" cried Lord Mortimer in a formidable voice, "few princes! Say, then, no other prince--ask Dudley!" Lord Dudley appeared at this moment on the deck. The hair and mustache of this nobleman were black and beginning to turn gray; in stature, strength, and stoutness there was a great conformity between him and Mortimer; true types (physically speaking) of what are called gentlemen-farmers. "What's the matter, Percy?" said Lord Dudley familiarly to his friend. "Is it not true, Dick, that no prince can be compared with our James?" "Excepting our worthy friends and allies on this vessel, any dog who dares maintain that James is not the best of men I will beat him till the blood comes, and cut him in quarters," said this robust personage, striking with one of his fists the gunwale of the ship. Then, addressing De Chemerant: "But now you know him as well as we--you, the chosen you, the happy man who saw him first! Your hand, De Chemerant, your brave and loyal hand--more brave and more loyal, if it is possible, since it has touched that of our duke!" Dudley violently shook the right hand of De Chemerant, while Mortimer shook no less violently the left hand. There is nothing more contagious than enthusiasm. The partisans of Monmouth had one by one come up on deck and grouped themselves around the two noblemen--all wishing in their turn to press the hand which had touched that of the prince. "Ah! gentlemen, I suspect that his grace puts off the honor of seeing you. He fears the emotion inseparable from such a moment." "And we, then!" cried Dudley. "It is now about forty days since we left Rochelle, is it not? Well, may I die if I have slept more than three or four hours any night, and then the sleep, at once agitated and pleasant, that one sleeps on the eve of a duel--when one is sure of killing one's man. At least, that is the effect of this impatience on me. And you, Percy?" said the robust gladiator to Mortimer. "On me, Dick?" responded the latter; "it has a contrary effect on me; every moment I wake with a start. It seems to me that I should sleep thus the eve of the day that I was going to be shot." "As for me," said another gentleman, "I know the duke only from his portrait." "I only from his renown." "I, as soon as I knew that it concerned marching against the Orange faction--I quitted all, friends, wife, child." "So did we----" "Ah, sir, it is also for James of Monmouth," said another, "that is a name which is like the sound of a trumpet." "It suffices to pronounce this name in Old England," said another, "to drive all these Holland rats into their marshes." "Beginning with this William----" "On my honor, gentlemen," said De Chemerant, "you make me almost proud of having succeeded so well in an enterprise which, I dare to say, is a very delicate one. I do not wish to attribute to my reasoning, to my influence, the resolution of the prince--but believe, at least, gentlemen, that I have known how to make good use with him of the enthusiasm with which his memory has inspired you." "And so, our friend, we will never forget what you have done! You have brought him here to us--our duke!" cried Mortimer cordially. "For that alone we owe you eternal gratitude," added Dudley. "To see him! to see him," cried Mortimer in a new access of feeling, "to see him again whom we believed to be dead--to see him indeed face to face--to again find before our eyes this proud and noble figure--to see it again in the midst of the fire--the--the--ah, well--yes, I weep--I weep," cried the brave Mortimer, no longer restraining his emotion; "yes, I weep like a child, and a thousand thunderbolts crush those who do not comprehend that an old soldier thus can weep." Emotion is as contagious as enthusiasm. Dick, followed the example of his friend Percy, and the others did as Dick and his friend Percy did. CHAPTER XXXIII. THE JUDGMENT. A new personage came to augment the number of the passionate admirers of Monmouth. There was seen advancing, supported by two servants, a man still young, but condemned to premature infirmity by numerous wounds. Lord Jocelyn Rothsay, in spite of his sufferings, had wished to join himself to the partisans of the prince, and if not to fight for the cause that Monmouth was going to defend, at least to come before the duke and to be one of the first to felicitate him on his resurrection. Lord Rothsay's hair was white, although his pale face was still young and his mustache was as black as his bold and brilliant eyes. Enveloped in a long dressing-gown, he advanced with difficulty, supported on the shoulders of the two servants. "Here is the brave Rothsay who has as many wounds as hairs in his mustache," cried Lord Dudley. "By the devil, who will not carry me away before I have seen our duke, at least," said Rothsay, "I will be, like you, one of the first to press his hand. Have I not, in my fresh youth, risked my life to hasten by a quarter of an hour a love tryst? Why should I not risk it in order to see our duke a quarter of an hour sooner?" A man with troubled face appeared on deck shortly after Rothsay. "My lord," said he entreatingly, "my lord, you expose your life by this imprudence! The least violent movement may renew the hemorrhage from this old wound which----" "The devil! doctor, could my blood flow better or more nobly than at the feet of James of Monmouth?" cried Rothsay with enthusiasm. "But, my lord, the danger----" "But, doctor, it would be to his everlasting shame if Jocelyn Rothsay should be one of the last to embrace our duke. I made this voyage for no other purpose. Dick will lend me one shoulder, Percy another, and it is sustained by these two brave champions that I shall come to say to James: Here are three of your faithful soldiers of Bridgewater." So saying, the young man abandoned his two servants, and supported himself on the shoulders of the two robust noblemen. The roll of drums, to which was added the flourish of trumpets, the shrill noise of the boatswain's whistle, announced that the marines and infantry belonging to the frigate were assembling; very soon they were drawn up on deck, with their officers at their head. "Why this show of arms?" asked Mortimer of Chemerant. "To render homage to the duke and to receive him with the honors of war when he comes directly to review the troops." The captain of the frigate advanced toward the group of gentlemen: "Gentlemen, I have just received the orders of his grace." "Well?" all said with one voice. "His highness will receive you at eleven o'clock precisely; that is to say, in exactly five minutes." It is impossible to give any idea of the exclamations of profound joy which escaped from every breast. "Hold! now, Dick, I feel myself growing faint," said Mortimer. "The devil! pay attention, Percy," said Rothsay; "do not fall; you are one of my legs." "I," said Dudley, "I have a sort of vertigo----" "Listen, Dick; listen, Jocelyn," said Mortimer; "these worthy companions have never seen our duke; be generous, let them go first; we shall see him first from a distance; that will give us time to place ourselves in his sight. Is it done?" "Yes, yes," said Dick and Jocelyn. Eleven o'clock sounded. For some moments the deck of the frigate offered a spectacle truly grand. The soldiers and marines in arms covered the gangways. The officers, bareheaded, preceding the gentlemen, slowly descended the narrow stairway which led to the apartment appropriated to the Duke of Monmouth. Last, behind this first group advanced Mortimer and Dudley, sustaining between them the young Lord Rothsay, whose bowed figure and trembling steps contrasted with the tall stature and manly bearing of his two supports. While the other gentlemen incumbered the narrow stairway, the three lords--these three noble types of chivalrous fidelity--remained on the deck. "Listen, listen," said Dudley, "perhaps we shall hear the voice of James----" In fact, the most profound silence reigned at first, but it was soon interrupted by exclamations of joy with which mingled lively and tender protestations. At last the stairway was free. Scarcely moderating their impatience from regard for Lord Rothsay, who descended with difficulty, the two lords reached the gun-deck and entered in their turn the great cabin of the frigate, where Croustillac gave audience to his partisans. For some moments the three noblemen were stupefied by the tableau presented to their eyes. At the back of the great cabin, which was lighted by five portholes, Croustillac, clothed in his old green coat and pink stockings, stood proudly beside De Chemerant; the latter, swelling with pride, seemed to triumphantly present the chevalier to the English gentlemen. A little back of De Chemerant stood the captain of the frigate and his staff. The partisans of Monmouth, picturesquely grouped, surrounded the Gascon. The adventurer, although a little pale, retained his audacity; seeing that he was not recognized, he resumed little by little his accustomed assurance, and said to himself: "Mortimer must have boasted of knowing me intimately in order to give himself airs of familiarity with a nobleman of my degree. Come then, zounds! let that last which can!" The force of illusion is such that among the gentlemen who pressed around the adventurer some discovered a very decided "family look" to Charles II.; others, a striking resemblance to his portraits. "My lords and gentlemen," said Croustillac, with a gesture toward De Chemerant, "this gentleman, in reporting to me your wishes, has decided me to return to your midst." "My lord duke, with us it is to the death!" cried the most enthusiastic. "I count on that, my lords; as for me, my motto shall be: 'All for England and'----" "This is too much impudence! blood and murder!" thundered Lord Mortimer, interrupting the chevalier and springing toward him with blazing eyes and clinched fists, while Dudley upheld Lord Jocelyn. The apostrophe of Mortimer had an astounding effect on the spectators and the actors in this scene. The English gentlemen turned quickly toward Mortimer. De Chemerant and the officers looked at each other with astonishment, as yet comprehending none of his words. "Zounds! here we are," thought Croustillac; "only to see this tipsy brute; I should smell the Mortimer a league off." The nobleman stepped into the empty space that the gentlemen had left between the Gascon and themselves, in recoiling; he planted himself before him, his arms crossed, his eyes flashing, looking him straight in the face, exclaiming in a voice trembling with rage: "Ah! you are James of Monmouth--you!--it is to me--Mortimer--that you say that?" Croustillac was sublime in his impudence and coolness; he answered Mortimer with an accent of melancholy reproach: "Exile and adversity must indeed have changed me much if my best friend no longer recognizes me!" Then, half-turning toward De Chemerant, the chevalier added in a low tone: "You see, it is as I told you; the emotion has been too violent; his poor head is completely upset. Alas, this unhappy man does not know me!" Croustillac expressed himself so naturally and with so much assurance, that De Chemerant still hesitated to believe himself the dupe of so enormous an imposition; he did not long retain any doubts on this subject. Lord Dudley and Lord Rothsay joined Mortimer and the other gentlemen in showering upon the unfortunate Gascon the most furious apostrophes and insults. "This miserable vagabond dares to call himself James of Monmouth!" "The infamous impostor!" "The scoundrel must have murdered him in order to pass himself off for him!" "He is an emissary of William!" "That beggar, James, our duke!" "What audacity!" "To dare to tell such a lie!" "He ought to have his tongue torn out!" "To deceive us so impudently--we who had never seen the duke!" "This cries for vengeance!" "Since he takes his name he must know where he is!" "Yes, he shall answer for our duke!" "We will throw him into the sea if he does not give our James back to us!" "We will tear out his nails to make him speak!" "To play thus with what is most sacred!" "How could De Chemerant have fallen into a trap so gross!" "This miserable wretch has deceived me most outrageously, gentlemen!" cried De Chemerant, striving in vain to make himself heard. "Come, then; explain yourself, sir." "He shall pay dearly for his audacity, gentlemen." "First, chain up this traitor." "He abused my confidence by the most execrable lies. Gentlemen, any one would have been deceived as much as I was." "One cannot mock thus the faith of brave gentlemen who sacrifice themselves to the good cause." "De Chemerant, you are as culpable as this miserable scoundrel." "But, my lords, the English envoy was deceived as well as I." "It is impossible; you are his accomplice." "My lords, you insult me!" "A man of your experience, sir, does not allow himself to be made ridiculous in this way." "We must avenge ourselves!" "Yes, vengeance! vengeance!" These accusations, these reproaches bandied about so rapidly, caused such a tumult that it was impossible for De Chemerant to make himself heard among so many furious cries. The attitude of the English gentlemen became so threatening toward him, their recriminations so violent, that he placed himself alongside the officers of the frigate, and all carried their hands to their swords. Croustillac, alone between the two groups, was a butt for the invectives, the attacks, and the maledictions of both parties. Intrepid, audacious, his arms crossed, his head high, his eye unblenching, the adventurer heard the muttering and bursting forth of this formidable storm with impassible phlegm, saying to himself: "This ruins all; they may throw me overboard--that is to say, into the open sea; the leap is perilous, though I can swim like a Triton, but I can do no more; this was sure to happen sooner or later; and beside, as I said this morning, one does not sacrifice oneself for people in order to be crowned with flowers and caressed by woodland nymphs." Although at its height, the tumult was dominated by the voice of Mortimer who cried: "Monsieur De Chemerant, have this wretch hanged first; you owe us this satisfaction." "Yes, yes, hang him to the yardarm," said the English gentlemen; "we will have our explanations afterward." "You will oblige me much by explaining yourselves beforehand!" cried Croustillac. "He speaks! he dares to speak!" cried one. "Eh! who, then, will speak in my favor, if not myself?" replied the Gascon. "Would it be you, by chance, my gentleman?" "Gentlemen," cried De Chemerant, "Lord Mortimer is right in proposing that justice be done to this abominable impostor." "He is wrong; I maintain that he is wrong, a hundred thousand times wrong!" cried Croustillac; "it is an obsolete, tame, vulgar means----" "Be silent, unhappy wretch!" cried the athletic Mortimer, seizing the hands of the Gascon. "Do not lay your hands on a gentleman, or, Sdeath! you shall pay dear for this outrage!" cried Croustillac angrily. "Your sword, scoundrel!" said De Chemerant, while twenty raised arms threatened the adventurer. "In fact, the lion can do nothing against an hundred wolves," said the Gascon majestically, giving up his rapier. "Now, gentlemen," resumed De Chemerant, "I continue. Yes, the honorable Lord Mortimer is right in wishing to have this rascal hanged." "He is wrong! as long as I can raise my voice I will protest that he is wrong! it is a preposterous, an unheard-of idea; it is the reasoning of a horse. A fine argument is the gallows!" cried Croustillac, struggling between two gentlemen who held him by the collar. "But before administering justice, it is necessary to oblige him to reveal to us the abominable plot which he has concocted. It is necessary that he should unveil to us the mysterious circumstances by the aid of which he has shamelessly betrayed my good faith." "To what good? 'Dead the beast, dead the venom,'" cried Mortimer roughly. "I tell you that you reason as ingeniously as a bulldog which leaps at the throat of a bull," cried Croustillac. "Patience, patience; it is a cravat of good hemp which will stop your preaching very soon," responded Mortimer. "Believe me, my lords," replied De Chemerant, "a council will be formed; they will interrogate this rascal; if he does not answer, we shall have plenty of means to force him to it; there is more than one kind of torture." "Ah, so far I am of your mind," said Mortimer; "I consent that he shall not be hanged before being put to the rack; this will be to do two things instead of one." "You are generous, my lord," said the Gascon. In thinking of the fury which must have possessed the soul of De Chemerant, who saw the enterprise which he thought he had so skillfully conducted a complete failure, one understands, without excusing it, the cruelty of his resolution in regard to Croustillac. Their minds were so excited, the disappointment had been so irritating, so distressing even, for the greater part of the adherents of Monmouth, that these gentlemen, humane enough otherwise, allowed themselves on this occasion to be carried away by blind anger, and but little more was needed to bring it about that the unfortunate Croustillac should not even be cited before a species of council of war, whose meeting might at least give an appearance of legality to the violence of which he was the victim. Five noblemen and five officers assembled immediately under the presidency of the captain of the frigate. De Chemerant placed himself on the right, the chevalier stood on the left. The session commenced. De Chemerant said briefly, and with a voice still trembling with anger: "I accuse the man here present with having falsely and wickedly taken the names and titles of his grace the Duke of Monmouth, and with having thus, by his odious imposture, ruined the designs of the king, my master, and under such circumstances the crime of this man should be considered as an attack upon the safety of the state. In consequence, I demand that the accused here present be declared guilty of high treason, and be condemned to death." "'Sdeath, sir, you draw your conclusions quickly and well; here is something clear and brief," said Croustillac, whose natural courage rose to the occasion. "Yes, yes, this impostor merits death; but before that, it is necessary that he should speak, and that he should at once be put to the question," said the English lords. The captain of the frigate, who presided over the council, was not, like De Chemerant, under the influence of personal resentment; he said to the Englishmen: "My lords, we have not yet voted a punishment; it is necessary before interrogating him to listen to his defense, if he can defend himself; after which we will consult as to the punishment which should be inflicted upon him. Let us not forget that we are judges and that he has not yet been declared guilty." These cool, wise words pleased the five lords less than the angry excitement of De Chemerant; nevertheless, not being able to raise any objection, they were silent. "Accused," said the captain to the chevalier, "what are your names?" "Polyphème, Chevalier de Croustillac." "A Gascon!" said De Chemerant, between his teeth; "I might have known it from his impudence. To have been the sport of such a miserable scoundrel!" "Your profession?" continued the captain. "For the moment, that of an accused person before a tribunal over which you worthily preside, captain; for you do not choose, and with reason, that men should be hanged without a hearing." "You are accused of having knowingly and wickedly deceived Monsieur de Chemerant, who is charged with a mission of state for the king, our master." "It is De Chemerant who deceived himself; he called me 'your highness,' and I innocently answered to the name." "Innocently!" cried De Chemerant furiously; "how, scoundrel! have you not abused my confidence by the most atrocious lies? have you not surprised from me the most important secrets of state by your impudent treachery?" "You have spoken, I have listened. I may even declare, for my justification, that you have appeared to me singularly dull. If it is a crime to have listened to you, you have rendered this crime enormous----" The captain made a sign to De Chemerant to restrain his indignation; he said to the Gascon: "Will you reveal what you know relative to James, Duke of Monmouth? Will you tell us through what chain of events you came to take his names and titles?" Croustillac saw that his position was becoming very dangerous; he had a mind to reveal all; he could address himself to the devoted partisans of the prince, assure himself of their support in announcing to them that the duke had been saved, thanks to him. But an honorable scruple withheld him; this secret was not his own; it did not belong to him to betray the mysteries which had concealed and protected the existence of the duke, and might still protect him. CHAPTER XXXIV. THE CHASE. When the captain intimated anew to Croustillac the order to reveal all he knew about the duke, the adventurer responded, this time with a firmness full of dignity: "I have nothing to say on this subject, captain; this secret is not mine." "Thunder and blood!" cried Mortimer, "the torture shall make you speak. Light two bunches of tow dipped in sulphur. I will myself place them under his chin; that will loosen his tongue--and we shall know where our James is. Ah! I had indeed a presentiment that I should never see him again." "I ought to say to you," said the captain to the Gascon, "that if you obstinately maintain a culpable silence, you will thus compromite in the gravest manner the interests of the king and of the state, and we shall be forced to have recourse to the harshest means in order to make you speak." These quiet words, calmly pronounced by a man with a venerable countenance, who since the beginning of the scene had endeavored to moderate the violence of the adversaries of Croustillac, made on the latter a lively impression; he shivered slightly, but his resolution was not shaken; he answered with a steady voice: "Excuse me, captain, I have nothing to say, I will say nothing." "Captain," cried De Chemerant, "in the name of the king, by whom I am empowered, I formally declare that the silence of this criminal may be the occasion of grave prejudice to the interests of his majesty and the state. I found this man in the very domain of my lord the Duke of Monmouth, provided even with precious objects belonging to that nobleman, such as the sword of Charles II., a box with a portrait, etc. All concurs, in fine, to prove that he has the most precise information concerning the existence of his grace the Duke of Monmouth. Now this information is of the highest importance relative to the mission with which the king has charged me. I demand therefore that the accused should immediately be constrained to speak by all the means possible." "Yes! yes! the torture," cried the noblemen. "Reflect well, accused," said the captain, again. "Do not expose yourself to terrible suffering; you may hope everything from our indulgence if you tell the truth. If not, take care!" "I have nothing to say," replied Croustillac; "this secret is not mine." "This means a cruel torture," said the captain. "Do not force us to these extremities." The Gascon made a gesture of resignation and repeated: "I have nothing to say." The captain could not conceal his chagrin at being obliged to employ such measures. He rang a bell. An orderly appeared. "Order the provost to come here, four men to remain on the gun-deck near the forward signal light, and tell the cannoneer to prepare bunches of tow dipped in sulphur." The orderly went out. The orders were frightfully positive. In spite of his courage, Croustillac felt his determination waver; the punishment with which they threatened him was fearful. Monmouth was then undoubtedly in safety; the adventurer thought that he had already done much for the duke and for the duchess. He was about to yield to the fear of torture, when his courage returned to him at this reflection, grotesque, without doubt, but which, under the circumstances in which it presented itself to his mind, became almost heroic, "One does not sacrifice oneself for others with the sole aim of being crowned with flowers." The provost entered the council room. Croustillac shuddered, but his looks betrayed no emotion. Suddenly, three reports of a gun, in succession resounded long over the solitude of the ocean. The members of the improvised council started from their seats. The captain ran to the portholes of the great cabin, declaring the session suspended. Partisans and officers, forgetting the accused, ascended in haste to the deck. Croustillac, no less curious than his judges, followed them. The frigate had received the order to lay to until the issue of the council which was to decide the fate of the chevalier. We have said that the Unicorn had obstinately followed the Thunderer since the evening before; we have also said that the officer of the watch had discovered on the horizon a ship, at first almost imperceptible, but which very soon approached the frigate with a rapidity almost marvelous. When the Thunderer lay to, this ship, a light brigantine, was at the most only half a league from her; in proportion as she approached, they distinguished her extraordinarily high masts, her very large sails, her black hull, narrow and slender, which scarcely rose out of the water; in one word, they recognized in this small ship all the appearance of a pirate. At the apparition of the brigantine the Unicorn at once proceeded to place herself in her wake, at a signal which she made to her. It was in time of war; the preparations for combat began in a moment on board the frigate. The captain, observing the singular maneuver of the two ships, did not wish to expose himself to a hostile surprise. The brigantine approached, her sails half reefed, having at her prow a flag of truce. "Monsieur de Sainval," said the captain to one of his officers, "order the gunners to stand by their guns with lighted matches. If this flag of truce conceals a ruse, this ship will be sunk." De Chemerant and Croustillac felt the same astonishment in recognizing the Chameleon on board of which the mulatto and Blue Beard had embarked. Croustillac's heart beat as if it would burst; his friends had not abandoned him, they were coming to succor him--but by what means? Very soon the Chameleon was within speaking distance of the frigate and crossed her stern. A man of tall stature, magnificently dressed, was standing in the stern of the brigantine. "James!--our duke! there he is!" cried enthusiastically the three peers, who, leaning over the taffrail of the frigate, at once recognized the duke. The brigantine then lay to; the two ships remained immovable. Lord Mortimer, Lord Dudley and Lord Rothsay gave vent to cries of the wildest joy at the sight of the Duke of Monmouth. "James! our brave duke!--to see you--to see you again at last!" "Is it possible? you are the Duke of Monmouth, my lord?" cried De Chemerant. "Yes, I am James of Monmouth," said the duke, "as is proved by the joyful acclamations of my friends." "Yes, there is our James!" "It is he indeed, this time!" "It is indeed our duke, our veritable duke!" cried the noblemen. "Your highness, I have been most unworthily deceived since day before yesterday, by a miserable wretch who has taken your name." "Yes, and we are going to hang him in honor of you!" cried Dudley. "Be careful how you do that," said Monmouth; "the one whom you call a miserable wretch has saved me with the most generous devotion, and I come, De Chemerant, to take his place on board your ship, if he is in any danger for having taken mine." "Surely, your highness," said De Chemerant, seizing this occasion of assuring himself of the person of the prince, "it is necessary that you should come on board; it is the only means by which you can save this vile impostor." "That is, if this 'vile impostor' does not save himself, however," said Croustillac, springing upon the taffrail and leaping into the sea. The movement was so sudden that no one could oppose it. The Gascon plunged under the waves, and reappeared at a short distance from the brigantine, toward which he directed his course. There was but a short distance between the two vessels; the Chameleon was almost level with the sea; the chevalier, aided by the Duke of Monmouth and some of the sailors, found himself on the deck of the little ship before the passengers on the frigate had recovered from their surprise. "Here is my savior, the most generous of men!" said Monmouth, embracing Croustillac. Then James said a few words in the ear of Croustillac, who disappeared with Captain Ralph. The duke, advancing to the edge of the stern of the brigantine, addressed himself to De Chemerant: "I know, sir, the projects of the king, my uncle, James Stuart, and those of the king, your master; I know that these brave gentlemen come to offer me their arms to aid me in driving William of Orange from the throne of England." "Yes, yes, when you shall be at our head we will drive away these Dutch rats," cried Mortimer. "Come, come, our duke, with you we will go to the end of the world," said Dudley. "My lord, you may count on the support of the king, my master. Once on board, I will communicate to you my full powers," cried De Chemerant, ravished to see that his mission, which he had believed desperate, revived with every chance of success. "Your highness, do you wish the long boat sent for you, or will you come in one of your own boats?" added De Chemerant; "and since your highness is interested in this miserable rascal, his pardon is assured." "Make haste, noble duke----" "Come as you wish, James--our James--but come at once!" "Yes, come," said Mortimer, "or we will do as this rascal in green cassock and pink stockings; we will leap into the water like a band of wild ducks, to be the sooner with you." "No imprudence, no imprudence, my old friends," said Monmouth, who sought to gain time since the Gascon disappeared. At last Captain Ralph came to say a word in the ear of the prince; the latter gave a new order in a low voice and with a radiant air. "Your highness, they are about launching the long boat," said De Chemerant, who was burning with impatience to see the duke on board. "It is useless, sir," said the duke. Then, addressing himself formally to the noblemen with an accent of profound emotion: "My old friends, my faithful companions, farewell, and forever farewell, I have sworn by the memory of the most admirable martyr to friendship, never to take part in civil troubles which might deluge England with blood; I will not break my oath. Farewell, brave Mortimer, farewell good Dudley, farewell valiant Rothsay; it breaks my heart not to embrace you for a last time. Forget this my appearance. Henceforth let James of Monmouth--be dead to you as he has been to all the world for five years! Again farewell, and forever farewell!" Then turning toward his captain, the duke cried quickly in a sonorous voice: "Set all sails, Ralph!" At these words Ralph seized the helm; the sails of the brigantine, already prepared, were hoisted and trimmed with marvelous rapidity. Thanks to the breeze and her galley oars, the Chameleon was under way before the passengers of the frigate had recovered from their surprise. The brigantine, in moving off, kept in the direction of the stern of the frigate in order not to be exposed to her guns. It is impossible to paint the rage of De Chemerant, the despair of the noblemen, in seeing the light vessel rapidly increasing the distance between them. "Captain," cried De Chemerant, "set all sail; we will overhaul this brigantine; there is no better sailer than the Thunderer." "Yes, yes," cried the peers, "board her!" "Let us capture our duke!" "When we have him we will force him to place himself at our head!" "He will not refuse his old companions!" "My boys, two hundred louis to drink the health of James of Monmouth if we overtake this waterfly," cried Mortimer, addressing the sailors, and pointing to the little vessel. The Chameleon soon found herself beyond reach of the guns of the frigate. She quitted the direction she had first taken, and in place of keeping close to the wind, altered her course. This maneuver exposed the Unicorn, which during the conference of the duke and De Chemerant had remained behind in the wake of the Chameleon and absolutely in a line with her. It is on board the latter ship that we shall conduct the reader; he can thus assist at the chase which the frigate is about to give to the brigantine. Polyphème de Croustillac was on the deck of the Unicorn in company with his old host, Captain Daniel, and Father Griffen, who embarked the evening before on this vessel. The reader recalls the plunge that Croustillac made in leaping from the taffrail of the frigate into the sea in order to rejoin Monmouth. While the Gascon shook himself, rubbed his eyes, and allowed himself to be cordially embraced by the duke, the latter had said to him: "Go quickly and await me on board the Unicorn; Ralph will conduct you there." Croustillac, still dizzy from his leap, enraptured at having escaped from De Chemerant, followed Captain Ralph. The latter made him embark in a little yawl rowed by a single sailor. It was thus that the adventurer boarded the Unicorn. In order not to lose time, Ralph had ordered the sailor to follow the chevalier and abandon the yawl; the transfer of the Gascon was then executed very rapidly. The duke had not given the order to hoist the sails of the frigate until he knew Croustillac to be in safety, for he foresaw that De Chemerant would inevitably abandon the shadow for the substance, the false Monmouth for the true, the Unicorn for the Chameleon. Master Daniel, at sight of the Gascon, cried out: "It is written that I never shall see you come aboard my ship but by strange means! In leaving France you fell from the clouds; in quitting the Antilles, you come to me from out of the sea like a marine god; like Neptune in person." Very much surprised at this encounter, and especially at seeing Father Griffen, who, standing on the poop, attentively observed the maneuvers of the two ships, the chevalier said to the captain: "But how the devil do you find yourself here at a given point to receive me, coming out of that nutshell down there, floating away at hazard?" "Faith, to tell the truth, I know almost nothing about it." "How is that, captain?" "Yesterday morning my shipowner at Rochelle asked me if my cargo was complete. I told him it was; he then ordered me to go to Fort Royal, where a frigate was just leaving, and earnestly demand her escort; if she refused it, I was to _make_ myself escorted all the same, always keeping in sight of the said frigate, whatever she might do to prevent me. Finally, I was to conduct myself toward her almost as a mongrel cur toward a passer-by to whom he attaches himself. The man in vain drives the dog away; the dog always keeps just beyond reach of foot or stone; runs when he runs, walks when he walks, gets out of the way when he pursues him, stops when he stops, and finishes by keeping at his heels in spite of him. That is how I have maneuvered with the frigate. That is not all; my correspondent also said to me: 'You will follow the frigate until you are joined by a brigantine; then you will remain just behind her; it may be that this brigantine will send you a passenger (this passenger I now see was yourself); then you will take him and set sail at once for France without troubling yourself about either the brigantine or the frigate; if not, the brigantine will send you other orders, and you will execute them.' I know only the will of my shipowners; I have followed the frigate from Fort Royal. This morning the brigantine joined me, just now I fished you out of the water; now I set sail for France." "The duke will not come on board, then?" asked Croustillac. "The duke? what duke? I know no other duke than my shipowner or his correspondent, which is all the same as--ah! look there! there goes the frigate, giving tremendous chase to the little ship." "Will you abandon the Chameleon thus?" cried Croustillac. "If the frigate overhauls her will you not go to her aid?" "Not I, by the Lord, although I have a dozen little guns which can say their word as well as others, and the twenty-four good fellows who form my crew are a match for the marines of the king--but that is not the point. I know only the orders of my shipowners. Ah, now the brigantine cuts out some work for the frigate," said Daniel. CHAPTER XXXV. THE RETURN. The Thunderer pursued the Chameleon furiously. Whether from calculation, or from an enforced slackening in her course, several times the brigantine seemed on the point of being overtaken by the frigate; but then, taking a turn better suited to her construction, she regained the advantage she had lost. Suddenly, by a brisk evolution, the brigantine tacked about, came straight toward the Unicorn, and in a few minutes came within reach of the voice. One may judge of the joy of the adventurer when on the deck of the Chameleon, which passed astern of the three-master, he saw Blue Beard leaning on the arm of Monmouth, and heard the young woman cry to him in a voice full of emotion: "Adieu, our savior--adieu--may Heaven protect you! We will never forget you!" "Adieu, our best friend," said Monmouth. "Adieu, brave and worthy chevalier!" And the Chameleon moved off, while Angela with her handkerchief, and Monmouth with a gesture of the hand, made a last sign of farewell to the adventurer. Alas! this apparition was as short as it was ravishing. The brigantine, after having for a moment grazed the stern of the Unicorn, turned back on her way and made straight toward the frigate, with incredible boldness, keeping almost within range of her guns. The Thunderer in her turn tacked about; without doubt the captain, furious at this useless chase, wished to end it at any price. A sudden flash, a dull and prolonged report was heard a long distance, and the frigate left behind her a cloud of bluish smoke. At this significant demonstration, no longer amusing herself with doubling before the frigate, the Chameleon came close up to the wind--a movement particularly favorable to her--and then took flight seriously. The Thunderer pursued her, both ships directing themselves to the south. The Unicorn had the cape on the northeast. She sailed splendidly. One thus comprehends that she would leave very soon and very far behind the two ships which sank more and more below the horizon. Croustillac remained with his eyes riveted on the ship which bore Blue Beard away. He followed it with yearning and desolate eyes until the brigantine had entirely disappeared in space. Then two great tears rolled down the cheeks of the adventurer. He let his head fall into his two hands with which he covered his face. Captain Daniel came to suddenly interrupt the sad reverie of the chevalier; he slapped him joyously on the shoulder and cried out: "Ah, ha, our guest, the Unicorn, is well on her way; suppose we go below and drink a madeira sangaree while waiting for supper? I hope you are going to show me again some of your funny tricks which made me laugh so much, you know? when you held forks straight on the end of your nose. Come, let us drink a glass." "I am not thirsty, Master Daniel," said the Gascon, sadly. "So much the better; you will only drink with the more pleasure; to drink without thirst--that is what distinguishes the man from the brute, as they say." "Thanks, Master Daniel, but I cannot." "Ah! the devil! what is the matter with you then? You have a very queer air; is it because you have not been lucky, you who boasted you were going to marry Blue Beard before a month had passed? Say then, do you remember? You must have lost your bet completely; you have not dared only to go to Devil's Cliff, I am sure." "You are right, Master Daniel, I have lost my bet." "As you bet nothing at all it will not ruin you to pay it, fortunately. Ah! say then, I have had several questions on my tongue for a quarter of an hour: how did you come to be on board the frigate? how did the captain of the brigantine pick you up? did you know him? and then, this woman and this lord who said adieu to you just now--what does all this mean? Oh, as to that, if it bothers you, do not answer me; I ask you that, only to know it. If it is a secret, _motus_, let us speak no more of it." "I can tell you nothing on that subject, Master Daniel.'' "Let it be understood, then, that I have asked no questions about it, and long live joy! Come, laugh then, laugh then! what makes you sad? Is it because here you are still with your old green coat and the very pink hose so prettily stained with seawater, be it said without offending you? I will lend you a change, although it is as hot as a furnace, because it is not healthy to let one's clothes dry on one's body. Come, come, quit that gloomy air! See, are you not my guest, since you are here by order of my shipowner? And, whatever comes, have I not told you that you can stay on board the Unicorn as much as you please? for, by the Lord, I adore your conversation, your stories, and especially your tricks. Ah! say, I have a species of tow made with a thread of the bark of the palm tree, that will burn like priming; that will be famous, you will swallow that, and you will spit flame and fire like a real demon; is it not true?" "The chevalier appears not disposed to amuse you very much, Master Daniel," said a grave voice. Croustillac and the captain turned; it was Father Griffen who, from the poop, had watched the pursuit of the brigantine, and who now was descending to the deck. "It is true, Father, I feel somewhat sad," said Croustillac. "Bah! bah! if my guest is not in the mood, he will be, very soon, for he is not naturally a melancholy man. I will go to prepare the sangaree," said Daniel. And he quitted the deck. After some moments of silence, the priest said to Croustillac: "Here you are, again, the guest of Captain Daniel; here you are, as poor as you were ten days ago." "Why should I be richer to-day than I was ten days ago, Father," asked the Gascon. It must be said to the praise of Croustillac, that his bitter regrets were pure from all covetous thoughts; although poor, he was happy to think that, apart from the little medallion Blue Beard had given him, his devotion had been entirely disinterested. "I believe," said Father Griffen, "that the Duke of Monmouth will be annoyed at not being able to requite your devotion as he ought. But it is not altogether his fault; events have so pressed upon one another----" "You do not speak seriously, Father. Why should the duke have wished to humiliate a man who has done what he could to serve him?" "You have done for the duke what a brother might have done; and why, knowing you to be poor, should he not, as a brother, come to your aid?" "For a thousand reasons, I should be disturbed beyond measure, Father. I even count on the events of the life, more adventurous than ever, that I am about to lead, to distract my mind, and I hope----" The Gascon did not finish his sentence, and again concealed his face in his hands. The priest respected his silence and left him. * * * * * Thanks to trade winds and a fine passage, the Unicorn was in sight of the coast of France about forty days after her departure from Martinique. Little by little the gloomy sadness of the chevalier softened. With an instinct of great delicacy--an instinct as new to him as the sentiment which, without doubt, had developed it--the chevalier reserved for solitude the tender and melancholy thoughts awakened in him by the remembrance of Blue Beard, for he did not wish to expose these precious memories to the rude pleasantries of Captain Daniel, or to the interpretations of Father Griffen. At the end of eight days the chevalier had again become in the eyes of the passengers of the Unicorn what he had been during the first voyage. Knowing that he was to pay his passage by his good companionship, he put that kind of probity which was natural to him into his efforts to amuse Captain Daniel; he showed himself so good a companion that the worthy captain saw with despair the end of the voyage approach. Croustillac had formally declared that he was going to take service in Moscow where the Czar Peter then received soldiers of fortune gladly. The sun was on the point of setting when the Unicorn found herself in sight of the shores of France. Captain Daniel, from motives of prudence, preferred waiting for the morning before proceeding to the anchorage. Shortly before the moment of sitting down to the table, Father Griffen prayed the Gascon to come with him to his room. The grave, almost solemn, air of the priest appeared strange to Croustillac. The door closed, Father Griffen, his eyes filled with tears, extended his arms to the Gascon, and said: "Come, come, excellent and noble creature; come, my good and dear son." The chevalier, at once moved and astonished, cordially pressed the priest in his arms and said to him: "What is it, then, my father?" "What is it? what is it? How, you, a poor adventurer, you, whose past life should have rendered less scrupulous than others, you save the life of the son of a king, you devote yourself to his interests with as much abnegation as intelligence; and then, that done and your friends in safety, you return to your obscure and miserable life, not knowing even at this hour, on the eve of reentering France, where you will lay your head to-morrow! and that without one word, one single word of complaint, of the ingratitude, or at least, of the forgetfulness of those who owe you so much!" "But, my Father----" "Oh, I have observed you well during this voyage! Never a bitter word, never even the shadow of a reproach; as in the past, you have become gay and thoughtless again. And yet--no--no--I have well seen that your gayety was assumed; you have lost in this voyage your one possession, your only resource--the careless gayety which has aided you to bear misfortune." "My Father, I assure you, no." "Oh, I do not deceive myself, I tell you. At night I have surprised you alone, apart, on the deck, sadly dreaming. Of old, did you ever dream thus?" "Have I not, on the contrary, during the voyage, diverted Captain Daniel by my pleasantries, good Father?" "Oh, I have observed you well; if you have consented to amuse Master Daniel, it was in order to recompense him as you could for the hospitality he has given you. Listen, my son--I am old--I can say all to you without offending you; well, conduct such as yours would be very worthy, very fine on the part of a man whose antecedents, whose principles rendered him naturally delicate; but on your part, whom an idle, perhaps culpable youth, should seem to have robbed of all elevation of thought, it is doubly noble and beautiful; it is at once the expiation of the past and the glorification of the present. Thus, such sentiments cannot remain without their recompense--the trial has endured too long. Yes, I almost blame myself for having imposed it on you." "What trial, my Father?" "Yet, no; this trial has permitted you to show a delicacy as noble as touching----" A knock at the door of Father Griffen's room. "What is it?" "Supper, Father." "Come, let us go, my son," said Father Griffen, regarding Croustillac with a peculiar air; "I do not know why it seems to me that the journey will terminate fortunately for you." The chevalier, very much surprised that the Reverend Father should have brought him to his room in order to hold the discourse we have reported, followed Father Griffen on deck. To the great astonishment of Croustillac, he saw the crew in gala attire; lighted torches were suspended to the shrouds and the masts. When the adventurer appeared on deck, the twelve guns of the three-master resounded in salute. "Zounds! Father, what is all this?" said Croustillac; "are we attacked?" Father Griffen had no leisure to respond to the adventurer; Captain Daniel, in his holiday clothes, followed by his lieutenant, his officer and the masters and mates of the Unicorn, came to respectfully salute Croustillac, and said to him with ill-concealed embarrassment: "Chevalier, you are my shipowner; this ship and its cargo belong to you." "To the devil with you, comrade Daniel!" responded Croustillac; "if you are as crazy as this before supper, what will you be when you have been drinking, our host?" "I ask no end of pardons, chevalier, for having made you balance things on your nose, and for having led you to chew oakum in order to spit fire during the voyage. But as true as we are in sight of the coast of France, I did not know that you were the proprietor of the Unicorn." "Ah, Father, explain to me," said Croustillac. "The Reverend Father will explain to you many things--so much the better, chevalier," continued Daniel, "that it is he who brought me just now the letter of my correspondent of Fort Royal, which announces to me that in view of the power of attorney he has always had from my shipowner in Rochelle, he has sold the Unicorn and her cargo as attorney to Chevalier Polyphème de Croustillac; thus then the Unicorn and her cargo belong to you, chevalier; you will give me a receipt and discharge of the said Unicorn and of the said cargo when we reach a port of France, or foreign land which it shall suit you to designate; which receipt and discharge I will send to my shipowner for my entire discharge of the said ship and said cargo." Having pronounced this legal formula all in a breath, Captain Daniel, seeing Croustillac abstracted and anxious, thought that the chevalier bore him some grudge; he replied with new embarrassment: "Father Griffen, who has known me for many years, will affirm to you, and you will believe it, chevalier, I swear to you that in asking you to swallow oakum and spit out flame, I did not know that I had to do with my owner, and the master of the Unicorn. No, no, chevalier, it is not for one who possesses a ship, which, all loaded, might be worth at least two hundred thousand crowns----" "This ship and her cargo is worth that price?" said the adventurer. "At the lowest price, sir; at the lowest price, sold in a lump and at once; but, by not hurrying, one would have fifty thousand crowns more." "Do you now comprehend, my son?" said Father Griffen, "our friends of Devil's Cliff, learning that grave interests recalled me suddenly to France, have charged me with making you accept this gift on their parts. Pardon me, or rather felicitate me for having so well proved the elevation of your character, in revealing to you only at this late hour, the bounty of the prince." "Ah, Father," said Croustillac bitterly, drawing from his breast the medallion that the duchess had given him, and which he wore suspended by a leathern cord, "with that, I was recompensed as a gentleman, why now do they treat me as a vagabond in giving me this splendid alms?" The next day the Unicorn entered port, Croustillac, making use of his new rights, borrowed twenty-five louis of Captain Daniel, on the value of the cargo, and forbade him to land for twenty-four hours. Father Griffen was to lodge at the seminary. Croustillac appointed a meeting with him for the next day at noon. At noon the chevalier did not appear, but sent the priest the following note by a messenger of La Rochelle: * * * * * "My good Father I cannot accept the gift which you have offered me. I send you a deed drawn up according to rule, which substitutes you in all my rights over this ship and her cargo. You will employ it all in good works, as you understand how to do. The notary who will send you this note will consult with you as to formalities; he has my power of attorney. "Adieu, my good Father; sometimes remember the Gascon, and do not forget him in your prayers. "CHEVALIER DE CROUSTILLAC." * * * * * It was years before Father Griffen heard of the adventurer again. EPILOGUE. CHAPTER XXXVI. THE ABBEY. The abbey of St. Quentin, situated not far from Abbeville and almost at the mouth of the Somme, possessed the finest farms in the province of Picardy; each week its numerous tenants paid in kind a part of their rents. In order to represent abundance, a painter might have chosen the moment when this enormous tithe was carried to the convent. At the end of the month of November, 1708, about eighteen years after the events of which we have spoken, the tenants were met together on a misty, cold autumn morning, in a little court situated outside the buildings of the abbey and not far from the lodge of the porter. Outside one saw the horses, the asses, and the carts which had served for the transportation of the immense quantity of produce destined for the provisioning of the convent. A bell rang, all the peasants pressed to the foot of a small staircase of a few steps, situated under a shed which occupied the back part of the court. The flight of steps was surmounted by a vault through which one came out from the interior of the convent. The cellarer, accompanied by two lay brethren, appeared under this vault. The fat, rubicund, animated face of the Father, detached itself like a Rembrandt on the obscure depth of the passage at the extremity of which he had stopped; from fear of the cold, the monk had drawn over his head the warm hood of his black cloak. A soft _soutane_ of white wool draped itself in large folds about his enormous obesity. One of the brothers carried an ink bottle at his girdle, a pen behind his ear, and a big register under his arm; he seated himself on one of the steps of the staircase, in order to enter the rents brought by the farmers. The other brothers classified the goods under the shed as they were placed there; while the cellarer, from the top of the flight of steps, presided solemnly over their admission, his hands concealed in his large cuffs. It is impossible to number and describe this mass of comestibles placed at the foot of the staircase. Here were enormous fish from the sea, the lake, or the river, which still wriggled on the slabs of the court; there magnificent capons, monstrous geese, large ducks coupled by their feet, fluttered convulsively in the midst of mountains of fresh butter and immense baskets of eggs, vegetables, and winter fruits. Further on were tethered two of these sheep fattened on the salt meadows, which give such fine flavor to their succulent flesh. Fishers rolled along small barrels of oysters; further on were shellfish of every kind, lobsters, eels and shrimps, which shook the wicker baskets in which they were inclosed. One of the porters of the abbey was on his knees before a buck a year old, in full flesh, and killed the day before; he weighed with his hand a quarter, to make the cellarer admire its weight; near the buck lay two kids, a good number of hares and partridges; while another porter opened hampers filled with every species of marsh fowl and birds of passage, such as wild duck, woodcock, teal, plovers, etc. Finally, in another corner of the court, were spread out the more modest, but no less useful offerings, such as sacks of the purest flour, dried vegetables, strings of perfumed hams, etc. At one time these gastronomics were so heaped up that they reached the level of the staircase where the cellarer stood. Seeing this rotund monk with his shining face, his vast abdomen, standing on this pedestal of comestibles which he watched with the eye of a gormand, one would have called him the genius of good cheer. According to the quantity or quality of his tribute, each tenant, after having received a word of blame or praise from the cellarer, withdrew with a slight genuflection. The Reverend Father even deigned at times to withdraw from his long sleeves his fat, red hand, to give it to the most favored to kiss. The roll-call of the lay brother was almost at an end. There was brought to the cellarer a savory caudle in a silver bowl borne on a tray of the same metal. The Reverend Father swallowed this consommé, a perfect specific against the morning cold and fog. At this moment the lay brother complained of having in vain twice called James, the tenant of the farm of Blaville, who owed ten hens, three sacks of wheat and one hundred crowns for the rent of his farm. "Ah, well!" said the cellarer, "where then is James? He is ordinarily exact. For fifteen years that he has held the farm of Blaville, he has never failed in his rent." The peasants still called for James. James did not appear. From out the crowd of farmers came two children, a young boy and a young girl from thirteen to fourteen years of age; trembling with confusion, they advanced to the foot of the staircase--redoubtable tribunal!--holding each other by the hand, their eyes downcast and full of tears. The little girl fingered the corner of the apron of coarse cloth covering her petticoat of whitish cloth rayed with wide black stripes; the young boy convulsively grasped his cap of brown wool. They stopped at the foot of the staircase. "These are the children of the farmer James," said a voice. "Very well! and the ten hens, and the three sacks of wheat, and the one hundred crowns from your father?" said the reverend man severely. The two poor children pressed against each other, nudging one another with the elbow, as an encouragement to answer. Finally the young boy, having more resolution, raised his noble, handsome face, which his coarse garments rendered still more remarkable, and sadly said to the monk: "Our father has been very ill for two months; our mother is taking care of him--there is no money in the house; we have been obliged to take the wheat and the rent to support the day laborer and his wife who takes my father's place in the farm work, and then it has been necessary to sell the hens to pay the doctor." "It is always the same story when tenants fail in their rents," said the monk roughly. "James was a good and punctual farmer; this is how he spoils all, just like the others; but in the interests of the abbey as well as in his own, we will not let him wander into the bad way." Then, addressing himself to the children, he added severely: "The father-treasurer will consider this--wait there." The two children withdrew into an obscure corner of the shed. The young girl seated herself, weeping, on a bench; her brother stood near her, looking at his sister with gloomy sadness. The roll-call finished, the monks re-entered the abbey, the peasants regained the horses and carts which had brought them, the two children remained alone in the court, waiting with sad disquietude the decision of the treasurer with regard to their father. A new personage appeared at the gate of the little court. This was a tall old man with large, white mustache and neglected beard; he walked with difficulty with the help of a wooden leg, and wore a uniform-coat of green with an orange-colored collar; a wallet of leather slung on his back carried his modest baggage; he supported himself on a thick cane made from the dogwood tree, and on his head was a big Hungarian cap of black worn fur, which descending to his eyebrows, gave him the most savage air in the world; his hair, as white as his mustache, tied with a leathern string, formed a long queue which fell to his shoulders; his skin was tanned, his eyes were bright and lively, though age had bowed his tall stature. This old man entered the court without seeing the children; he looked about him like a man seeking to find his way; perceiving the two little peasants, he went straight to them. The young girl, startled by this strange figure, or rather, by this enormous cap of bristling fur, gave a cry of affright; her brother took her hand to reassure her, and although the poor child wished to withdraw it, he advanced resolutely toward the old man. The latter stopped, struck with the beauty of these two children, and especially the delicate features of the young girl, whose face of perfect regularity was crowned with two bands of blond hair half concealed under a poor little child's cap of a brown color; she wore, like her brother, rude wooden shoes and wool stockings. "You are afraid of me then! Zounds! you will not tell me, then, where the Abbey of St. Quentin is?" said the old soldier. Although he was far from wishing to intimidate the children, the tone of his voice frightened the young girl still more, who, pressing closely to her brother, said to him in a low tone: "Answer him, James, answer him; see what a wicked air he has." "Have no fear, Angela, have no fear," answered the boy. Then he said to the soldier: "Yes, sir, this is the Abbey of St. Quentin; but if you wish to enter the porter's lodge is on the other side, outside of this court." The boy might have spoken a long time without the soldier paying attention to his words. When the young girl called her brother "James" the old man made a movement of surprise; but when James, in his turn, called his sister "Angela" the old man started, let his stick fall, and was obliged to support himself against the wall, so violent was his agitation. "You call yourselves 'James' and 'Angela,' my children?" said he, in a trembling voice. "Yes, sir," answered the young boy entirely reassured, but astonished at this question. "And your parents?" "Our parents are tenants of the abbey, sir." "Come," said the soldier, whom the reader has doubtless already recognized, "I am an old fool--but--the union of these two names--James--Angela. Come, come, Polyphème, you lose your head, my friend; because you encounter two little peasants you imagine--" he shrugged his shoulders; "it is hardly worth while to have this big white beard at one's chin only to give way to such visions! If it is to make such discoveries that you return from Moscow, Polyphème, you might just as well--have done----" While speaking thus to himself, Croustillac had examined the young girl with the greatest curiosity; more and more struck with a resemblance which seemed incomprehensible, he fastened eager eyes on Angela. The young girl again frightened, said to her brother, hiding her face behind his shoulder: "Heavens! how he frightens me, again!" "However, these features," said Croustillac, feeling his heart beat with doubt, anxiety, fear and despair all at once, "these charming features recall to me--but no--it is impossible--impossible. By what probability? Decidedly, I am an old fool. Farmers? Come, that sabre cut I got on the head at the siege of Azof has deranged my brain. After all, there are chances so strange (and surely, more than any one else, I should believe in the oddities of chance; I should be an ingrate to deny it); yes, chance might occasion peasants to give their children certain names rather than others, but chance does not make these resemblances--come, it is impossible. After all, I can ask them, and in asking them I shall laugh at myself; it is stupid. My children, tell me, what is your father's name?" "James, sir." "Yes, James--but James--what?" "James, sir." "James? nothing more?" "Yes, sir," answered the boy, regarding Croustillac with surprise. "This is more and more strange," said Croustillac, reflecting. "Has he been long in France?" "He has always been here, sir." "Come, I was mad; decidedly, I was mad. Has your father ever been a soldier, my children?" Angela and James looked at each other with astonishment. The young boy answered: "No, sir, he has always been a farmer." At this moment the door which communicated with the abbey opened and one of the lay brothers appeared at the top of the stairway. This brother was the type of an ignoble monk, gross and sensual. He made a sign to the children, who tremblingly approached. "Come here, little one," said he to the girl. The poor child, after casting a doubtful look at her brother, whom she could not make up her mind to leave, timidly mounted the steps. The monk took her insolently by the chin with his coarse hand, turned up her face which she held down, and said to her: "Pretty one, you will warn your father that if he does not pay eight days from now his rent in kind and the hundred crowns which he owes, there is a farmer who is more solvent than he who wants the farm and who will obtain it. As your father is a good fellow, they will give him eight days--but for that, they would have turned him out to-day." "My God! my God!" said the children, weeping and clasping their hands, "there is no money at home. Our poor father is sick. Alas! what shall we do?" "You will do what you can," said the monk, "that is the order of the prior;" and he made a sign to the young girl to go. The two children threw themselves into each other's arms, sobbing, and saying: "Our father will die of this--he will die!" Croustillac, half-hidden by a post of the shed, had been at once touched and angered by this scene. At the moment the monk was about to close the door, the Gascon said to him: "Reverend Father, a word--is this the Abbey of St. Quentin?" "Yes, and what of it?" said the monk rudely. "You will willingly give me a lodging till to-morrow, will you not?" "Hum--always beggars," said the monk. "Very well; go and ring at the porter's gate. They will give you a bundle of straw and give you bread and soup." Then he added: "These vagabonds are the plague of religious houses." The adventurer became crimson, drew up his tall form, thrust, with a blow of his fist, his fur cap over his eyes, struck the earth with his stick, and cried in a threatening tone: "Zounds! Reverend Father, know your company a little better, at least." "Who is this old wallet-bearer?" said the irritated monk. "Because I carry a wallet it does not follow that I ask alms of you, Reverend Father," said Croustillac. "What dost thou want, then?" "I ask a supper and a shelter because your rich convent can well afford to give bread and shelter to poor travelers. Charity commands this from your abbot. And beside, in sheltering Christians, you do not give, you restore. Your abbey grows very fat from its tithes." "Wilt thou be quiet, thou old heretic, thou insolent old fellow!" "You call me an insolent old fellow. Very well; learn, Don Surly, that I have still a crown in my wallet, and that I can do without your straw and your soup, Don Ribald." "What dost thou mean by Don Ribald, rascal that thou art?" said the lay brother, advancing to the top of the steps. "Take care lest I give thy old rags a good shaking." "Since we thee-and-thou each other, Don Drinker, take care in thy turn, Don Greedy, that I do not make thee taste of my stick, Don Big Paunch, infirm as I am, Don Brutal." The vigorous monk for a moment made as though he was about to descend to chastise the Gascon, but he shrugged his shoulders and said to Croustillac: "If thou hast ever the impudence to present thyself at the porter's lodge, thou wilt be thrashed to some purpose. That is the kind of hospitality thou wilt receive henceforth from the Abbey of St. Quentin." Then addressing himself to the children: "And you be sure to tell your father that in eight days he pays or quits the farm, for, I repeat to you, that there is a farmer more solvent than he who wants it." The monk shut the door brusquely. "I cannot tell it to the children," said the adventurer, speaking to himself; "that would be a bad example for youth; but I had something like a feeling of remorse for having aided in the burning of a convent in the Moravian War--well, it pleases me to imagine that the roasted ones resembled this fat, big-bellied animal, and it makes me feel quite cheerful. The scoundrel! to treat those poor children so harshly! It is strange how I interest myself in them--if I had at least some reason for it, I should let myself hope. After all, why not clear up my doubts? What do I risk by it? I have plenty of money. Ah, then, my children," said he to the young peasants, "your father is sick and poor? He will not be vexed to gain a little windfall; although I carry a wallet, I have a purse. Well, instead of going to dine and sleep at the inn (may the lightning strike me if I ever set foot in this abbey, the Lord confound it!) I will go and dine and sleep at your place. I will not be any trouble to you. I have been a soldier, I am not hard to suit; a stool in the chimney corner, a morsel of lard, a glass of cider, and for the night a bundle of fresh straw, the gentle warmth of the stable--that is all I need; and that means a piece of twenty-four sous which will come into your house. What do you say to that?" "My father is not an innkeeper, sir," answered the young boy. "Bah! bah! my boy, if the good man has sense; if the good mother is a housekeeper, as she ought to be, they will not regret my coming; this piece of good luck will make your pot boil for a whole day. Come, conduct me to your farm, my children; your father would scold you for not bringing him an old soldier." In spite of his apparent roughness and his uncouth figure, the chevalier inspired James and Angela with confidence; the children took each other by the hand and walked before the invalid soldier, who followed them absorbed in a profound reverie. At the end of an hour's walk, they arrived at the entrance of a long avenue of apple trees, which led to the farm. CHAPTER XXXVII. REUNION. James and Angela entered the farm in order to learn if their father would consent to give the old soldier hospitality. While waiting the return of the children, the adventurer closely scanned the outbuildings of the farm. Everything appeared to be carried on with care and neatness; at the side of the working buildings was the farmer's house; two immense walnut trees shaded the door and its thatched roof of velvety green moss; a light smoke escaped from the brick chimney; the sound of the ocean was heard in the distance, as the farm lay almost on the cliffs of the coast. The rain began to fall; the wind moaned; a shepherd boy was bringing home from the fields two beautiful brown cows which turned toward their warm stable, causing their little bells to give forth a melancholy sound. The adventurer was touched by this peaceful scene. He envied the lot of the people of this farm, even though he knew their momentary embarrassment. He saw approaching him a woman pale and small in figure, and of middle-age. She was dressed like the peasants of Picardy, but with extreme neatness. Her son accompanied her; her daughter remained in the doorway. "We are very much grieved, sir." Hardly had the woman said these words, when Croustillac became as pale as a ghost, extended his arms toward her without saying a word, let his cane escape, lost his equilibrium and fell suddenly his full length on a heap of dry leaves which was, happily, behind him. The adventurer had fainted. The Duchess of Monmouth (for it was she) not at once recognizing the chevalier, attributed his weakness to fatigue or need, and hastened, with the assistance of her two children, to resuscitate the stranger. James, a strong boy for his age, supported the old man to the trunk of one of the walnut trees, while his mother and sister hurried off to seek a cordial. In opening the chevalier's coat in order to facilitate his respiration, James saw, attached by a leathern braid, the rich medallion which the adventurer carried on his breast. "Mother! see this beautiful reliquary," said the young lad. The duchess approached and was in turn stupefied at recognizing the medallion she had once given Croustillac. Then, regarding the chevalier with closer attention, she cried: "It is he! it is the generous man who saved us!" The chevalier began to revive. When he opened his eyes they were filled with tears. It would be impossible to paint the happiness, the transports of the good Croustillac. "You in this dress, madame! you whom I see after so many years! When I heard these children just now call each other James and Angela, my heart beat so strong! But I could not believe--hope--And the duke?" The Duchess of Monmouth put one finger on her lips, shook her head sadly, and said: "You are going to see him! Alas! why should the pleasure of seeing you again be saddened by the sickness of James? Had it not been for this, to-day would have been beautiful for us." "I can hardly recognize you again, madame; you, in this costume--in this sad condition." "Silence! my children may hear you. But wait a moment here; I will go and prepare my husband to receive you." After some minutes the adventurer entered Monmouth's room; the latter was extended on one of those green serge canopied beds such as may still be seen in the houses of some of the peasants. Although he was emaciated by suffering, and was at that time more than fifty years old, the physiognomy of the duke showed the same gracious and high character. Monmouth held out his hands affectionately to Croustillac, and indicating a chair at his bed, said to him: "Seat yourself there, my good friend. To what miraculous chance do we owe this happy meeting? I cannot believe my eyes! So, chevalier, we are reunited after more than eighteen years of separation. Ah! how often Angela and I have spoken of you and of your devoted generosity. Our regret was not being able to tell our children the debt of gratitude that we owe you, and which they also owe you." "Ah, well, my duke, consider what is most pressing," said the Gascon, "each in his turn." So saying, he took his knife from his pocket, unfastened his coat, and gravely made a large incision in the lining. "What are you doing?" asked the duke. The chevalier drew from his secret pocket a kind of leathern purse, and said to the duke: "There is in this one hundred double-louis, your highness; on the other side there is as much. This is the first of my savings on my pay, and the price of the leg which I left the past year at the battle of Mohiloff, after the passage of Beresina; for he was first, Peter the Great--well-named--in paying generously the soldiers of fortune who enrolled themselves in his service and who gave, many of them, the sacrifice of some one of their limbs." "But, my friend, I do not understand you," said Monmouth, gently pushing away the purse which the adventurer tendered him. "I will be explicit, my lord; you are in arrears to the amount of one hundred crowns of rent, and you are threatened with being turned out of this farm in eight days. It is a pot-bellied animal, bearded and corpulent, robed in the garb of a monk, who has made this threat to your poor, dear children but a short time since at the convent door." "Alas, James! this is only too probable," said Angela, sadly, to her husband. "I fear it," said Monmouth, "but this is not a reason, my friend, to accept----" "But, my lord, it seems to me that you made me such a fine gift, it is now eighteen years ago, that we might well share it to-day; and when we speak of the past, in order to disembarrass yourself at once of what concerns me, and to speak henceforth of your affairs at our ease, my lord, in two words, this is my history. Upon my arrival at Rochelle, Father Griffen told me that you had presented me the Unicorn and its cargo!" "My God! my friend, this was such a small thing after all that you had done for us," said James. "May we not at least recognize all that you have done for us?" said Angela. "Without doubt, it was little--it was nothing at all--a cup of coffee well sugared, with rum to soften it, was it not? Only the cup was a ship, and to fill it there was coffee and sugar and rum, the cargo of a vessel of eight hundred tons--the whole worth two hundred thousand crowns. You are right--it was less than nothing--but in order to put aside useless discussion and to be frank, Zounds! this gift wounded me----" "My friend----" "I was paid by this medallion--speak no more of it. Besides, I have no longer the right to resent it; I made deed of gift of the whole to Father Griffen in order that he might in his turn give it to the poor, or to the convent, or to the devil if he chose to." "Can it be possible that you refused it?" exclaimed both husband and wife. "Yes, I did refuse it, and I am sure, my lord, although you pretend surprise, that you would have acted as I did. I was not already so rich in good works as not to keep the memory of Devil's Cliff pure and without stain. It was a costly luxury, perhaps, but I had been James of Monmouth twenty-four hours, and somewhat of my rôle of grand seigneur still clung to me." "Noble and excellent heart!" exclaimed Angela. "But," said Monmouth, "you were so poor!" "It is just because I am used to poverty and an adventurous life that that cost me nothing--I said to myself: 'Polyphème--consider! thou hast dreamed this night that thou wast worth two hundred thousand crowns.' I dreamed this dream--all has been said--and that did me good. Yes, often in Russia, when I was in misery--in distress--or when I was nailed to my pallet by a wound, I said to myself, to comfort and to rejoice me: 'After all, Polyphème, for once in thy life thou hast done something noble and generous.' Well, you may believe me, that restored my courage. But this is boasting, and what is worse, it unmans me--let us return to my departure from Rochelle. I avow it to you and I thank you for it; nevertheless, I have profited a little by your generosity. As nothing remained to me of my three unlucky crowns, and that was a small sum to travel to Moscow on, I borrowed twenty-five louis from Master Daniel on the cargo; I paid my passage on a Hamburg ship from Hamburg to Fallo; I embarked for Revel on a Swedish vessel; from Revel I went to Moscow; I arrived there like seafish in Lent; Admiral Lefort was recruiting a forlorn hope to reinforce the _polichnie_ of the czar; in other words, the first company of infantry equipped and maneuvering after the German mode which had existed in Russia. I had made the campaign in Flanders with the '_reiters_;' I knew the service; I was then enrolled in the _polichnie_ of the czar, and I had the honor of having this great man for file closer, for he served in this company as a simple soldier, seeing he had the habit of thinking that in order to know a trade it is necessary to learn it. "Once incorporated in the Muscovite army, I served in all the wars. Do not think, my lord, that I am going to recount to you my campaigns, to speak to you of the siege of Azof, where I received a saber cut on my head; the taking of Astrakhan under Scheremetoff, where I received a lance thrust in my loins; of the siege of Narva, where I had the honor of aiming at his majesty, Charles XII., and the good fortune to miss him; and finally, the great battle of Dorpat. "No, no, do not fear, my lord; I keep these fine stories to put your children to sleep with during the winter nights, in the chimney corner, when the seawinds rage in the branches of your old walnut trees. All that remains for me to say to you, my lord, is that I have made war ever since I left you, first as a noncommissioned officer, and then as lieutenant. I might have done it still, perhaps, if last year I had not forgotten one of my legs at Mohiloff. The czar generously gave me the capital of my pension, and I returned to France because, after all, it is there that one dies best--when one is born there; I went on foot, lounging along, regaining my paternal valley, lodging and sleeping in the abbeys to spare my purse, when chance--this time, no," said the chevalier, in a grave and penetrating tone which contrasted greatly with his ordinary language, "oh, this time, no--it was not chance, but the providence of the good God which caused me to meet with your children, my lord; they have brought me here; I fell back in a swoon on a heap of dry leaves on recognizing the duchess, and here I am. "Now, here is my plan--at least, if you consent to it, my lord. My paternal valley is very empty--my father and my mother are long since dead; I should wish, of all things, to establish myself near you. Although lame, I am still good for something, if only to serve as a scarecrow to hinder the birds from eating your apples and cherries. I will forget that you are 'my lord:' I will call you 'Master James,' I will call the duchess, 'Dame James,' your children shall call me Father Polyphème; I will tell them of my battles, and it will go on like that, _vitam æternam_." "Yes! yes! we accept; you shall never leave us," said James and Angela together, their eyes filled with tears. "But on one condition," said the chevalier, drying his eyes also, "that is, that I, who am as proud as a peacock, shall pay you, in advance, my board; and that you will accept from me these two hundred louis that you refused; total, six thousand livres; at five hundred francs a year, twelve of board. In twelve years we will make another lease." "But, my friend----" "But, my lord, it is yes or no. If it is yes, I remain, and I am more happy than I deserve to be. If it is no, I take again my stick, my wallet, and I start for the paternal valley, where I shall die, in a corner sadly and all alone, like an old dog who has lost his master." Grotesque as were these words, they were spoken in a tone so full of emotion and so touching that the duke and his wife could not refuse the offer of the chevalier: "Well then, I accept." "Hurrah!" cried Croustillac, in the voice of a stentor, and he accompanied this Muscovite exclamation by throwing into the air his old fur cap. "Yes, I accept with all my heart, my old friend," said Monmouth, "and--why conceal it from you?--this unexpected succor which you offer us so generously, saves, perhaps, my life--saves, perhaps, my wife and children from misery, for this sum sets us afloat again, and we can brave two years as bad as those which have been the cause of our first embarrassment. Fatigue, chagrin, fear for the future, have made me ill; now, tranquil as to the fate of my dear ones, assured of a friend like you--I am sure that my health will return to me." "Zounds! my lord, how did it happen that, with the enormous amount of jewels that you had, you are reduced?" "Angela will tell you that, my friend; emotion at once so keen and so sweet as I feel has fatigued me." "After having left you on board of the Unicorn," said Angela "we set sail for Brazil; we sojourned there some time, but from prudence, we resolved to depart for India on board a Portuguese vessel. We had lived three years in this little-known country, very happy and very tranquil, when I fell seriously ill. One of the best physicians in Bombay declared that the climate of India would become fatal to me; my native air alone could save me. You know how James loves me; it was impossible for me to alter his resolution; he chose at all hazards to return to Europe, to France, in spite of the dangers that threatened him. We started from the Cape in a Dutch ship, making sail for the Texel. We possessed a very considerable sum coming from the sale of our jewels. Our voyage was very fortunate as far as the coast of France, but there a terrible tempest assailed us. After losing her masts, and being beaten about by the waves for three days, our ship went ashore on the coast a quarter of a league from here; by a miracle of Heaven, James and I alone escaped an almost certain death. Several of the passengers were, like us, cast on the beach during this horrible night--all perished. I repeat to you, my friend, that a miracle from Heaven was necessary to save us, James and me--to save me especially, ill as I was. The tenants whom we replaced on this farm found us almost dying on the shore; they brought us here. The ship was swallowed up with all our riches; James, occupied solely with me, had forgotten all; we no longer possessed anything; I was an orphan with no fortune; James could not apply to any one without being recognized. "What remained to us in Martinique had, without doubt, been confiscated--and then, how could we claim this property? For all resource there remained to us a ring which I wore on my finger at the time of the ship-wreck; we intrusted it to the tenants of this farm, who had received us, to sell the diamond at Abbeville; they got for it about four thousand livres--that was all our store. My health was so affected that we were obliged to stop here; this measure, besides reconciled both prudence and economy; the farmers were good, full of cares for us. "Little by little my health became re-established. Almost without resources we thought of the future with terror; however, we were young, misfortune had redoubled our love; the simple, obscure, peaceable life of our hosts impressed us; they were old, without children; we proposed to them to take the half of their farm, and to make our apprenticeship under their direction, avowing to them that we had no other resources than the four thousand livres that we would share with them. Touched with our position, these good people wished at first to dissuade us from this project, representing to us how hard and laborious this life was. I insisted; I felt myself full of courage and strength; James had lived a hard life too long not to accustom himself to that of the fields. We accomplished our design; I was tranquil about James. Who would seek the Duke of Monmouth in an obscure farm in Picardy? At the end of two years we had finished our apprenticeship, thanks to the lessons and teaching of our good forerunners; their little fortune, augmented by our four thousand livres, was sufficient. They made an agreement with the treasurer of the abbey that we should succeed them and we take the entire farm." "Ah, madame, what resignation! what energy!" cried the chevalier. "Ah, if you knew, my friend," said Monmouth, "with what admirable serenity of soul, with what gentle gayety Angela endured his rough life--she, accustomed to a life of luxury!--if you knew how she always knew how to be gracious, elegant, and charming, all the while superintending the affairs of the household with admirable activity!--if you knew in fine, what strength I drew from this brave and devoted heart; from this gentle regard always fixed upon me with an admirable expression of happiness and content precarious as was our position! Ah, who will ever recompense this beautiful conduct?" "My friend," said Angela tenderly, "has not God blessed our laborious and peaceful life? Has He not sent us two little angels to change our duties into pleasures? What shall I say to you?" resumed Angela, addressing the chevalier; "for the almost sixteen years that this uniform life has lasted, of which each day has brought its bread, as the good folks say, never a chagrin had come to trouble it, when, in the past year, a bad harvest hampered us very much. We were obliged to discharge two of our farm hands for economy's sake. James redoubled his efforts and his work, his strength gave out; he took to his bed; our small resources were exhausted. A bad year, you see, for poor farmers," said Angela, smiling softly, "is terrible. In short, without you, I do not know how we could have escaped the fate which threatened us, for the Abbot of St. Quentin is inflexible toward tenants in arrears, and yet it was our pride to pay him always a term in advance. One hundred crowns--as much as that--and a hundred crowns, chevalier, are not easily gotten together." "A hundred crowns? That does not pay for the embroidery on a baldric," said James with a melancholy smile. "Ah, how many times, in experiencing what misfortune is, have I regretted the good I might have done." "Listen, my lord," said Croustillac gravely, "I am no devotee. Just now I came near shaking a monk out of his robes; I committed irregularities during my campaign in Moravia, but I am sure there is One above Who does not lose sight of honest people. Now, it is impossible that after nineteen years of work and resignation, now when you grow old, with two beautiful children, you should dream of remaining at the mercy of an avaricious monk or a year of frost. In listening to you, an idea has come to me. If I was the boaster of old, I should say that it was an idea from above; but I wholly believe that it is a fortunate idea. What has become of Father Griffen?" "We do not know; we did not return to Martinique." "He belongs to the order of Preaching Friars; he must be at the end of the world," said Monmouth. "I, who have had no news of France for eighteen years, I know no more than you, my lord, but this is why I concern myself. I left to him the price of the Unicorn; he is a good and honest priest; if he still lives, there must remain to him some of it, for he would have been prudent and careful in his almsgiving. My advice would be to seek to know where the Reverend Father is, for if the good God has willed that he should have kept some good morsel from the Unicorn, own, my lord, that this would not be bad eating at this moment; if not for you, at least, for these two beautiful children, for my heart bleeds to see them with their wooden shoes and their woolen hose, although they may keep their feet warmer than boots of leather and gilded spurs, or shoes of satin with silken hose, should they be red, these hose! red like those I wore in 1690," added the chevalier, with a sigh. Then he resumed: "Ah, well! my lord, what say you to my Griffen idea?" "I say, my friend, that it is an idle hope. Father Griffen is without doubt dead; he will doubtless have left your fortune to some religious community." "To the Abbey of St. Quentin, perhaps," said Angela. "Zounds! it wants but that! I would instantly set fire to the monastery!" "Ah--fie! fie! chevalier!" said Angela. "It is also because I am raging at having done what I did with your two hundred thousand crowns; but could I then imagine that I should find again, as a farmer, the son of a king who handled his diamonds by the shovelful? Ah, it is no use to philosophize here; but to find Father Griffen again if he is still living!" "And how to find him again?" said Monmouth. "By seeking him, my lord. I who have no reason for concealing myself, to-morrow I will take up this quest, hobbling around. Nothing is more simple; in truth, I am stupid not to have thought of it sooner. I will direct myself at once to the Superior of Foreign Missions, thus we shall know what we have to look to. The Superior will at least inform me if the good Father is alive or not; and even, on this account, I will to-morrow make a visit to your neighbor, the abbot of St. Quentin. He will tell me what to do about it--how to get this information. I will carry him your hundred crowns; that will be a good way to contrive the interview." The three friends passed the day together. We leave the reader to imagine the stories, the reminiscences, gay, touching, or sad, which were recalled. On the morrow Croustillac, who had already made friends with young James, started for the abbey. The amount of the rent, in bright _louis d'or_, was an excellent passport to the presence of the treasurer. "Father," said Croustillac, "I have a very important letter to place in the hands of a good priest of the order of Preaching Brothers; I do not know if he is alive or dead; if he is in Europe, or at the end of the world; to whom should I address myself for information on this subject?" "To one of our canons, my son, who has had much to do with missions, and who, after long and painful apostolic labors, came six months since to repose in a canonicate of our abbey." "And when can I see this venerable canon, Father?" "This very morning. In descending to the court of the cloister, ask a lay brother to conduct you to Father Griffen." Croustillac gave so tremendous a blow of his staff on the floor, shouting three times his Muscovite exclamation, "hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" that the reverend treasurer was startled by it, and rang the bell precipitately, thinking he had to do with a madman. A friar entered. "Pardon, good Father," said Croustillac; "these savage cries, and this no less savage blow of the stick, paint to you the state of my soul, my astonishment, my joy! It is Father Griffen, himself, that I seek." "Then conduct this gentleman to Father Griffen," said the treasurer. We will not attempt to depict this new recognition, so important in the results the Gascon expected from it. We will only say that the good priest, charged with the trust of Croustillac, and fearing lest the chevalier should one day come to regret his disinterestedness, but wishing, however, to execute till then his charitable intentions, and not to deprive the unfortunate of this rich alms, had each year distributed to the poor the revenue of the capital, which he reserved for a pious foundation if the Gascon should not reappear. The sale of the Unicorn, prudently managed, had brought about seven hundred thousand livres. The Father, finding by chance an advantageous sale of property in the environs of Abbeville, not far from the abbey of St. Quentin, had profited by it. He had thus become proprietor of a very fine estate called Chateauvieux. On his return from his long voyages, six months before the time of which we speak, Father Griffen had asked by preference, a canonicate in Picardy, in order to be more within reach of the property which he managed, always ignorant whether the Gascon was dead or alive, but inclining rather to the former supposition, after a silence of eighteen years. Father Griffen, very old, very infirm, quitted the abbey only to visit the estate of Chateauvieux. During the six months he lodged at St. Quentin, he had never gone to the side of the farm of which James of Monmouth was the farmer. The reunion of Father Griffen, the duke and his wife, was as touching as that of the adventurer. After much discussion it was decided that one-half of the estate belonged to James; the other half to Croustillac, in whose name it remained. The Gascon immediately made his will in favor of the two children of Monmouth on condition that the son should take the name of Jacques de Chateauvieux. In order to explain this sudden change of fortune to the eyes of the people of the abbey and the environs, it was agreed that Croustillac should pass as an uncle from America, who had come incognito to test his nephew and his wife, poor cultivators of the soil. James gave up his farm to the tenant who had been destined to replace him, and departed with his wife, his children and his uncle Croustillac for Chateauvieux. The three friends lived long and happily in their domain, and their children and grandchildren lived there after them. The chevalier never left Monmouth and his wife. Once a year Father Griffen came to pass some weeks at Chateauvieux. One single day yearly cast a gloom over this peaceful and happy life; this was the anniversary of the 15th of July, 1685, the anniversary of the sacrifice of the courageous Sidney. Never did the son of James of Monmouth know that his father descended from a royal race. The secret was always kept by James, by his wife, by Croustillac, and by Father Griffen. Age had so changed the duke; so many years, beside, had passed over the event of Martinique, that he was no longer disquieted by it. Only sometimes, the children and grandchildren of James of Monmouth opened astonished eyes when their good and old friend, the Chevalier de Croustillac, addressing himself to the Duchess of Monmouth with an air of understanding, said to her, while striving to hide a tear of emotion, the following apparently truly cabalistic words: _Blue Beard, Whirlwind, Rend-your-Soul, Youmäale, Devil's Cliff_. THE END. * * * * * OMEGA BY "A REPORTER" Neely's Prismatic Library Cloth, 50 Cents This is a love story of a negative character, which, however, occasionally approaches positiveness. Suppressed passion manifests a tendency to explode, especially when it is confined by a vow of celibacy. But when an author steps into the prophetic department of the religious field, and mixes a little of this variety into a love story, making the lover and the lovees act their respective parts as if so foreordained, it is really curious what antics they indulge in, but not surprising that the theater of action reaches from ancient Chaldea to Salt Lake City, the actors variate from Mohammedanism to Mormonism, and the time limit stretches into the centuries. It is a fitting climax that the sublime heights of the second part are culminated in the third's last chapters by a description of the end of national destiny, the _Armageddon_ of capitalist and socialist, the beginning of the world period, in short, Millennium. For sale everywhere, or sent post-paid on receipt of price. F. TENNYSON NEELY, Publisher, 96 Queen Street, London. 114 Fifth Avenue, New York. THE SECRET OF THE EARTH BY CHARLES WILLING BEALE Cloth, $1.00 A story of thrilling adventure from cover to cover which embodies a theory of our planet so tremendous and appalling that the most conservative mind can hardly fail to be impressed with the startling array of facts adduced in support of it. Two young men set out upon a voyage of discovery under very peculiar circumstances and with exceptional facilities for accomplishing their purpose. The result of their enterprise is something so astounding, and yet so entirely probable when judged from the realm of the known, that the climax appears inevitable. The story bears the imprint of experience. There is no padding, and one is carried along with a rush from marvel to marvel and venture to venture through vast areas of undreamed civilizations, magnificent cities, and a people whose existence has been entirely unsuspected by denizens of the known world, and yet which is shown to be more than a mere conjecture as the story unfolds. The mode of travel is entirely unique, no similar method having ever been employed, though it is one which seems likely to become popular in the near future. The book is worth reading, and will furnish food for the thoughtful. For sale everywhere, or sent post-paid on receipt of price. F. TENNYSON NEELY, Publisher, 96 Queen Street, London. 114 Fifth Avenue, New York. THE LITTLE BLIND GOD A-WHEEL BY SIDNEY HOWARD Cloth, $1.00; Paper, 50 Cents Surely the name of this author is not familiar, and yet it seems as though we must have met it before. No one but an experienced writer could have given us such a charming combination of incident and description. Perhaps some well-known author is testing his real merit by a little masquerade. We will wait, in confidence that such an excellent production will be traced to its rightful source. Briefly, it is a bicycling novel. A jolly party make a tour through northern New England with all the amusing happenings incident to such a trip, not excepting the experiences of the chaperon, who learns to ride that she may better perform her duties. And then--there is a boy. And besides the boy there is the little blind god who shoots his arrows so industriously that the whole party return engaged save the boy, the chaperon, and the poor odd man; and even he makes a determined effort to join the majority; but in his case the Fates are stronger even than the Little Blind God. For sale everywhere, or sent post-paid on receipt of price. F. TENNYSON NEELY, Publisher, 96 Queen Street, London. 114 Fifth Avenue, New York. TWO WASHINGTON BELLES by LESTER M. DEL GARCIA Neely's Primatic Library Cloth, 50 Cents "This is a modern, up-to-date "society" novel with considerable local coloring and many pictures of life in the "hupper suckles." It describes the career and love experiences of one who eventually becomes Viscountess Landale. The frou-frou and fripperies of nineteenth-century social gatherings and drawing-rooms are here described in analytical detail, while much plot and counterplot go toward the making of a book that is a departure from the usual run of what is ordinarily written under the _genre_ of "novel" literature. For sale everywhere, or sent post-paid on receipt of price. F. TENNYSON NEELY, Publisher, 96 Queen Street, London. 114 Fifth Avenue, New York. ALLIQUIPPA AND DR. POFFENBURGH'S CHARM BY W. A. HOLLAND Cloth, $1.00; Paper, 50 Cents Are tales that deal with life in Pennsylvania, within whose rich valleys and sequestered byways are hidden many phases of quaint and charming life of which the world knows all too little. "Alliquippa" is the story of an Indian prince of the Alleghanies, and deals with pioneer life in that wild region. There is an air of freshness and novelty to these tales which, combined with the interest of the plots, commends the volume to the attention of book-buyers. In "Dr. Poffenburgh's Charm" Mr. Holland has told a romantic tale, which he has located in the historic locality of eastern Pennsylvania originally settled by the Germans, whose descendants are now known as Pennsylvania Dutch. For sale everywhere, or sent post-paid on receipt of price. F. TENNYSON NEELY, Publisher, 96 Queen Street, London. 114 Fifth Avenue, New York. AMONG THE DUNES BY MRS. D. L. RHONE Cloth, $1.25; Paper, 50 Cents 'Among the Dunes' reads like some of the best work of the new school of Scandinavian writers; but it is in fact an American book, the production of a Pennsylvania lady. The scene is laid in Jutland, and the story, which is quite out of the common, is full of an intense romantic interest and charm."--_Review of Reviews._ "Excellent entertainment for a fireside audience."--_Richard Henry Stoddard._ "It is a pleasure of the simplest and purest sort to turn from the high-pressure novels of the day and read a tender and touching romance like this story of the Far North."--_New York Independent._ "Readers who are old-fashioned enough, in these days of so much somber, realistic writing, to enjoy a romance pure and simple, full of variety, adventure, and mystery, will be pleased with 'Among the Dunes.'"--_New York Christian Advocate._ "The narrative has a wonderful, fresh, salt-sea flavor, and the strange series of events culminate in a most dramatic situation."--_Boston Advertiser._ "Exuberant fancy is shown by the author, and there is a plenty of adventure in her volume. It fills one of the main wants of the novel reader--it is always interesting and sometimes strikingly so."--_New York Times._ "There is all the weird fascination that belongs to the Danish country and the Oriental race contained in the plot."--_Baltimore Telegram._ For sale everywhere, or sent post-paid on receipt of price. F. TENNYSON NEELY, Publisher, 96 Queen Street, London. 114 Fifth Avenue, New York. THE CHILD WITNESS BY HELEN NORWOOD HALSEY Cloth, $1.00 This is a story within a story, and will appeal to all; childhood and youth will devour it with a keen interest, and the maturer mind will detect in the simple, light, fantastic wording a portrayal of the deepest passion to which the human heart is susceptible. Thus it is a story for all, and will be read by all with a zest and interest which will neither flag nor grow dim from the title to the finale. There are few characters, and the story is simply told, and while the reader is following with an unflagging interest the tragic events which present themselves so rapidly and vividly before the mind's eye, there lies hidden beneath the startling drama the germ of the story, the pitiful picture of the little Child Witness, Danny, whose life is sacrificed to the greed and cunning of a nature far below his own; but so lightly has the author touched upon this phase of the story, so daintily is it handled, that the heart of the reader goes out in a deep and mighty compassion to the helpless child, the victim of the brute negro Barney, and there is no feeling of revolt even to the most sensitive mind; and while, in some of the situations of the story, the reader is carried into the center of the slums, among the fallen and degraded, and while there are scenes and circumstances from which the delicate mind may shrink in horror, let the reader remember that it is wholesome at times that those in the higher walks of life should realize that such a condition of life actually exists and has grown too common even to command a passing notice from those who pass by on the other side. The story has, too, a touch of fine humor from which the mind may find a relaxation and relief from the almost oppressing tragedy with which every page is replete, and is an offset to that portion of the story which presents, like a living, moving panorama, the torturous suffering of the helpless child in the grasp of the negro. It is a story which will be read and re-read from Maine to California--a story which will linger in the memory and be eagerly devoured while one word remains--a story which will be laid aside, stored away, and turned to again with a fresh and reviving interest. For sale everywhere, or sent post-paid on receipt of price. F. TENNYSON NEELY, Publisher, 96 Queen Street, London. 114 Fifth Avenue, New York. NEW YORKERS OF THE XIX CENTURY BY MRS. JOHN KING VAN RENSSELAER Cloth $10.00 _This work is issued in a limited edition of two hundred copies only_ and contains Charts of prominent families, who have lived in New York for the past one hundred years, and they will show at a glance, and in detail, all the members of each branch of the family. These Charts have been prepared by the aid of lists, papers, and other data, accessible to Mrs. Van Rensselaer only, and have been added to and corrected by members of the different families to whom they have been submitted, and the information thus gained has been verified by comparing it with marriage and death notices that have been published in the daily papers, of which this lady has kept a faithful record. 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26960	----	Famous Privateersmen AND ADVENTURERS OF THE SEA Their rovings, cruises, escapades, and fierce battling upon the ocean for patriotism and for treasure By CHARLES H. L. JOHNSTON Author of "Famous Cavalry Leaders," "Famous Indian Chiefs," "Famous Scouts," etc. Illustrated [Decoration] BOSTON THE PAGE COMPANY PUBLISHERS FAMOUS LEADERS SERIES BY CHARLES H. L. JOHNSTON Each one volume, large 12mo, illustrated, $1.50 [Decoration] FAMOUS CAVALRY LEADERS FAMOUS INDIAN CHIEFS FAMOUS SCOUTS FAMOUS PRIVATEERSMEN FAMOUS FRONTIERSMEN [Decoration] THE PAGE COMPANY 53 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. [Illustration: From "The Army and Navy of the United States." "AGAIN THE CANNON MADE THE SPLINTERS FLY." (_See page 273._)] _Copyright, 1911,_ BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY (INCORPORATED) _All rights reserved_ First Impression, November, 1911 Second Impression, November, 1914 THE COLONIAL PRESS C. H. SIMONDS CO., BOSTON, U. S. A. I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO THE HAPPY MEMORY OF George Alfred Henty THE MOST STIMULATING AUTHOR OF BOOKS FOR BOYS THAT THE PAST HALF CENTURY HAS PRODUCED, AND A WRITER WHO HAS KEPT ALIVE THE SPIRIT OF MANLY SPORT AND ADVENTURE WHICH HAS MADE THE ANGLO-SAXON PEOPLE A RACE OF WORLD CONQUERORS. MAY THEY NEVER RETROGRADE! _Thanks are due the Librarian of Congress, and particularly to Mr. Roberts of the Department of Prints, for numerous courtesies extended to the author during the compilation of this volume._ PREFACE MY DEAR BOYS:--The sea stretches away from the land,--a vast sheet of unknown possibilities. Now gray, now blue, now slate colored, whipped into a thousand windrows by the storm, churned into a seething mass of frothing spume and careening bubbles, it pleases, lulls, then terrorizes and dismays. Perpetually intervening as a barrier between peoples and their countries, the wild, sobbing ocean rises, falls and roars in agony. It is a stoppage to progress and contact between races of men and warring nations. In the breasts of all souls slumbers the fire of adventure. To penetrate the unknown, to there find excitement, battle, treasure, so that one's future life can be one of ease and indolence--for this men have sacrificed the more stable occupations on land in order to push recklessly across the death-dealing billows. They have battled with the elements; they have suffered dread diseases; they have been tormented with thirst; with a torrid sun and with strange weather; they have sorrowed and they have sinned in order to gain fame, fortune, and renown. On the wide sweep of the ocean, even as on the rolling plateau of the once uninhabited prairie, many a harrowing tragedy has been enacted. These dramas have often had no chronicler,--the battle was fought out in the silence of the watery waste, and there has been no tongue to tell of the solitary conflict and the unseen strife. Of sea fighters there have been many: the pirate, the fillibusterer, the man-of-warsman, and the privateer. The first was primarily a ruffian and, secondarily, a brute, although now and again there were pirates who shone by contrast only. The fillibusterer was also engaged in lawless fighting on the sea and to this service were attracted the more daring and adventurous souls who swarmed about the shipping ports in search of employment and pelf. The man-of-warsman was the legitimate defender of his country's interests and fought in the open, without fear of death or imprisonment from his own people. The privateersman--a combination of all three--was the harpy of the rolling ocean, a vulture preying upon the merchant marine of the enemy to his country, attacking only those weaker than himself, scudding off at the advent of men-of-warsmen, and hovering where the guileless merchantman passed by. The privateersman was a gentleman adventurer, a protected pirate, a social highwayman of the waters. He throve, grew lusty, and prospered,--a robber legitimized by the laws of his own people. So these hardy men went out upon the water, sailed forth beneath the white spread of new-made canvas, and, midst the creaking of spars, the slapping of ropes, the scream of the hawser, the groan of the windlass, and the ruck and roar of wave-beaten wood, carved out their destinies. They fought. They bled. They conquered and were defeated. In the hot struggle and the desperate attack they played their parts even as the old Vikings of Norway and the sea rovers of the Mediterranean. Hark to the stories of those wild sea robbers! Listen to the tales of the adventurous pillagers of the rolling ocean! And--as your blood is red and you, yourself, are fond of adventure--ponder upon these histories with satisfaction, for these stalwart seamen "Fought and sailed and took a prize Even as it was their right, Drank a glass and kissed a maid Between the volleys of a fight. _Don't_ begrudge their lives of danger, _You_ are better off by far, But, if war again comes,--stranger, Hitch _your_ wagon to their star." CHARLES H. L. JOHNSTON. The bugle calls to quarters, The roar of guns is clear, Now--ram your charges home, Lads! And cheer, Boys! Cheer! CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE vii CARLO ZENO: HERO OF THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 1 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE: ROVER AND SEA RANGER 23 SIR WALTER RALEIGH: PERSECUTOR OF THE SPANIARDS 53 JEAN BART: THE SCOURGE OF THE DUTCH 83 DU GUAY-TROUIN: THE GREAT FRENCH "BLUE" 113 EDWARD ENGLAND: TERROR OF THE SOUTH SEAS 137 WOODES ROGERS: THE BRISTOL MARINER 153 FORTUNATUS WRIGHT: THE MOST HATED PRIVATEERSMAN OF THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA 173 GEORGE WALKER: WINNER OF THE GAMEST SEA FIGHT OF THE ENGLISH CHANNEL 199 JOHN PAUL JONES: THE FOUNDER OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 239 CAPTAIN SILAS TALBOT: STAUNCH PRIVATEERSMAN OF NEW ENGLAND 283 CAPTAIN "JOSH" BARNEY: THE IRREPRESSIBLE YANKEE 299 ROBERT SURCOUF: THE "SEA HOUND" FROM ST. MALO 319 LAFITTE: PRIVATEER, PIRATE, AND TERROR OF THE GULF OF MEXICO 341 RAPHAEL SEMMES: DESPOILER OF AMERICAN COMMERCE 373 EL CAPITAN 393 RETROSPECT 397 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE "AGAIN THE CANNON MADE THE SPLINTERS FLY" (_See page 273_) _Frontispiece_ ZENO'S FLEET 18 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE 28 DRAKE'S GREATEST VICTORY ON THE SPANISH MAIN 44 YOUNG RALEIGH AND A COMPANION LISTENING TO TALES OF THE SPANISH MAIN 55 SIR WALTER RALEIGH 60 JEAN BART 86 "JEAN BART LED HIS BOARDERS OVER THE SIDE OF THE DUTCH VESSEL" 108 COMBAT BETWEEN DU GUAY-TROUIN AND VAN WASSENAER 135 "'LEFT US ENGAGED WITH BARBAROUS AND INHUMAN ENEMIES'" 146 "THE BOARDERS WERE REPULSED WITH GREAT SLAUGHTER" 193 ACTION BETWEEN THE "GLORIOSO" AND THE "KING GEORGE" AND "PRINCE FREDERICK" UNDER GEORGE WALKER 231 AMERICAN PRIVATEER TAKING POSSESSION OF A PRIZE 239 "BEGAN TO HULL THE 'DRAKE' BELOW THE WATER-LINE" 261 "THEY SWARMED INTO THE FORECASTLE AMIDST FIERCE CHEERS" 277 "TALBOT, HIMSELF, AT THE HEAD OF HIS ENTIRE CREW, CAME LEAPING ACROSS THE SIDE" 289 AMERICAN PRIVATEER CAPTURING TWO ENGLISH SHIPS 298 "SURCOUF SCANNED HER CAREFULLY THROUGH HIS GLASS" 336 RAPHAEL SEMMES 376 "THE MEN WERE SHOUTING WILDLY, AS EACH PROJECTILE TOOK EFFECT" 386 CARLO ZENO HERO OF THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC (1344-1418) "Paradise is under the shadow of swords."--MAHOMET. CARLO ZENO HERO OF THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC (1344-1418) Zeno, noble Zeno, with your curious canine name, You shall never lack for plaudits in the golden hall of fame, For you fought as well with galleys as you did with burly men, And your deeds of daring seamanship are writ by many a pen. From sodden, gray Chioggia the singing Gondoliers, Repeat in silvery cadence the story of your years, The valor of your comrades and the courage of your foe, When Venice strove with Genoa, full many a year ago. The torches fluttered from the walls of a burial vault in ancient Venice. Two shrouded figures leaned over the body of a dead warrior, and, as they gazed upon the wax-like features, their eyes were filled with tears. "See," said the taller fellow. "He has indeed led the stalwart life. Here are five and thirty wounds upon the body of our most renowned compatriot. He was a true hero." "You speak correctly, O Knight," answered the other. "Carlo Zeno was the real warrior without fear and without reproach. He has fared badly at the hands of the Republic. But then,--is this not life? Those most worthy seem never to receive their just compensation during their living hours. It is only when they are dead that a tardy public gives them some recognition of the great deeds which they have done, the battles which they have fought, and the honor which they have brought to their native land. Alas! poor Zeno! He--the true patriot--has had but scant and petty praise." So saying the two noble Venetians covered the prostrate form of the dead warrior--for they had lifted the brown robe which enshrouded him--and, with slow faltering steps, they left the gloomy chamber of death. Who was this Venetian soldier, who, covered with the marks of battle, lay in his last sleep? Who--this hero of war's alarms? This patriotic leader of the rough-and-ready rovers of the sea? It was Carlo Zeno,--a man of the best blood of Venice,--who, commanding fighting men and fighting ships, had battled strenuously and well for his native country. The son of Pietro Zeno and Agnese Dandolo, this famous Venetian had been well bred to the shock of battle, for his father was for some time Governor of Padua, and had won a great struggle against the Turks, when the careening galleys of the Venetian Squadron grappled blindly with the aggressive men of the Ottoman Empire. There were ten children in the family and little Carlo was named after the Emperor Charles IV, who sent a retainer to the baptism of the future seaman, saying, "I wish the child well. He has a brave and noble father and I trust that his future will be auspicious." Little Carlo was destined for the Church, and, with a Latin eulogium in his pocket (which his Venetian school-master had written out for him) was sent to the court of the Pope at Avignon. The sweet-faced boy was but seven years of age. He knelt before the prelate and his retainers, reciting the piece of prose with such precision, grace, and charm, that all were moved by his beauty, his memory, his spirit, and his liveliness of person. "You are indeed a noble youth," cried the Pope. "You shall come into my household. There you shall receive an education and shall be a canon of the cathedral of Patras, with a rich benefice." But little Carlo did not remain. Although dressed like a mimic priest and taught with great care, the hot blood of youth welled in his veins and made him long for a life more active and more dangerous. So he looked about for adventure so thoroughly that he was soon able to have his first narrow escape, and a part in one of those many brawls which were to come to him during his career of war and adventure. Sent by his relations to the University of Padua, he was returning to Venice from the country, one day, when a man leaped upon him as he walked down a narrow road. "Who are you?" cried Carlo fearfully. But the fellow did not answer. Instead,--he struck him suddenly with a stout cudgel--knocked him senseless on the turf, took all the valuables which he had, and ran silently away into the gloom. Little Carlo came to his senses after many hours, and, staggering forward with weakened steps, reached Mestre, where kind friends dressed his wounds. "I shall catch this assailant," cried he, when he had revived. "He shall rue the day that he ever touched the person of Carlo Zeno." And forthwith he secured a number of bloodhounds with which to track the cowardly ruffian of the highway. Luck was with the future commander of the galleons and fighting men. He ran the scurvy assailant to earth, like a fox. He captured him, bound him and handed him over to the justice of Padua,--where--for the heinousness of the offense--the man was executed. So ended the first conflict in which the renowned Carlo Zeno was engaged,--successfully--as did most of his later battles. Not long afterwards young Zeno returned to his studies at the University, but here--as a lover of excitement--he fell into bad company. Alas! he took to gambling, and frittered away all of his ready money, so that he had to sell his books in order to play. The profit from these was soon gone. He was bankrupt at the early age of seventeen. Ashamed to go home, the future sea rover disappeared from Padua and joined a fighting band of mercenaries (paid soldiers) who were in the employ of a wealthy Italian Prince. He was not heard of for full five years. Thus, his relatives gave him up for dead, and, when--one day--he suddenly stalked into the house of his parents, his brothers and sisters set up a great shout of wonder and amazement. "Hurrah!" cried they, "the dead has returned to his own. This is no ghost, for he speaks our own native tongue. Carlo Zeno, you shall be given the best that we have, for we believed that you had gone to another world." Pleased and overwhelmed with affection, young Carlo stayed for a time with his family, and then--thinking that, as he had been trained for the priesthood, he had best take charge of his canonry of Patras--he went to Greece. "Hah! my fine fellow," said the Governor, when he first saw him, "I hear that you are fond of fighting. It is well. The Turks are very troublesome, just now, and they need some stout Venetian blood to hold them in check. You must assist us." "I'll do my best," cried Zeno with spirit, and, he had not been there a week before the Ottomans swooped down upon the city, bent upon its demolition. The young Venetian sallied forth--with numerous fighting men--to meet them, and, in the first clash of arms, received such a gaping wound that he was given up for dead. In fact, when carried to the city, he was considered to be without life, was stretched upon a long settee, was clothed in a white sheet, and prepared for interment. But in the early morning he suddenly opened his eyes, gazed wonderingly at the white shroud which covered him, and cried, with no ill humor, "Not yet, my friends. Carlo Zeno will disappoint all your fondest hopes. Once more I am of the world." And, so saying, he scrambled to his feet, much to the dismay of the sorrowing Venetians, who had been carefully spreading a number of flowers upon the prostrate form of the supposedly dead warrior. But so weak was the youthful hero that he had to be taken to Venice in order to recover. When strong again he resumed his studies for the ministry and was sent to Patras, a city that was soon threatened by an army of twelve thousand Cypriotes and Frenchmen. "Here, Zeno," cried the Bishop of Patras to the virile young stripling. "We have seven hundred riders in our city. With this mere handful, you must defend us against our enemies. The odds are fifteen to one against you. But you must struggle valiantly to save our beautiful capital." "Aye! Sire!" cried the youthful student of church history. "I shall do my best to free your capital from these invaders. May the God of Hosts be with us! My men salute you." So saying the valiant youth led his small and ill drilled company against the besiegers, and, so greatly did he harass his adversaries, that they abandoned the enterprise, at the end of six months; made peace; and retired. "Hail to Zeno!" cried many of the soldiers. "He is a leader well worth our respect. Without him the great city would have surely fallen. Yea! Hail to young Zeno." These words of praise reached the ears of a certain Greek Knight named Simon, and so roused his envy, that he audaciously accused Carlo of treachery, which was soon told to the hot-headed young warrior. He acted as one would well expect of him. "I challenge you to single combat," cried he. "The duel shall be fought in Naples under the eye of Queen Johanna." In vain Carlo's friends besought him to forgive the loose-tongued Simon--his patron, the Bishop, exhausted his eloquence in the endeavor to reconcile the two. The hot blood of youth would out. It was fight and no compromise. But before the trial, the bold and unyielding soldier threw up his position with the Church and married a rich and noble lady of Clarenta, whose fortune well supplanted the large income which he had forfeited by his resignation. Now honor called for deeds. Almost immediately he was obliged to leave for Naples in order to meet the detractor of his valor, and, to his surprise, the Queen spoke lightly of the quarrel. "It is a question of law," said she. "An inquiry shall be had. There must be no bloodshed." An inquiry was therefore in order, and it was a thorough one. "Simon is in the wrong," said the fellow acting as clerk for those sitting upon the case. "He must pay all the expenses to which Zeno has been put, and there shall be no duel." "My honor has been cleared," cried Zeno. "I must return to Greece." There--strange as it might seem--he was at once named Governor of a province, though not yet twenty-three. Events were going well with him. But his wife died, he was cheated of his dowry by her relations, and so he turned once more to Venice,--saddened, older and nearly penniless. The wheel of fortune had turned badly for this leader of fighting men and future general of white-winged galleons of the sea. But now there was a really good fight--such a fight as all true sailors love--a fight which tested the grit and courage of Zeno to the full. It was the first of those heroic deeds of arms which shed undying lustre on his name, and marked him as a seaman of the first rank,--a captain of true courage, resources and ambition. The Genoese (or inhabitants of Genoa) and the Venetians, were continually at war in these days, and when--in patriotic zeal--Carlo Zeno seized the island of Tenedos, the Venetian Senate, fearing lest the Genoese would seek to recover the lost possession, sent a fleet of fifteen ships to guard it, under one Pietro Mocenigo. There were also two other vessels, one commanded by Carlo Zeno himself. The mass of galleys floated on to Constantinople, for the Greeks had allied themselves with the Genoese, had seized a Venetian man-of-war, which had been captured, and had then retired. Three lumbering hulks were left to protect the fair isle of Tenedos,--under Zeno, the war-like Venetian. "Aha," said a Genoese seaman. "There are but three galleys left to save our isle of Tenedos. We shall soon take it with our superior force. Forward, O sailors! We'll have revenge for the attack of the wild men from Venice." "On! on!" cried the Genoese seamen, and without further ado, twenty-two galleys careened forward, their white sails bellying in the wind, their hawsers groaning, spars creaking, and sailors chattering like magpies on a May morning. Carlo Zeno had only three hundred regular soldiers and a few archers, but he occupied the suburbs of the town and waited for the attackers to land. This they did in goodly numbers, for the sea was calm and motionless, although it was the month of November. "Men!" cried the intrepid Zeno, "you are few. The enemy are as numerous as blades of grass. Do your duty! Fight like Trojans, and, if you win, your grateful countrymen will treat you as heroes should be respected. Never say die, and let every arrow find an opening in the armor of the enemy." The Genoese came on with shouts of expectancy, but they were met with a far warmer reception than they had anticipated. The air was filled with flying arrows, as, crouching low behind quickly constructed redoubts, the followers of the stout-souled Zeno busily stretched their bowstrings, and shot their feathered barbs into the mass of crowding seamen. Savage shouts and hoarse cries of anguish, rose from both attackers and attacked, while the voice of Zeno, shrilled high above the battle's din, crying: "Shoot carefully, my men, do not let them defeat us, for the eyes of Venice are upon you." So they struggled and bled, until the shadows began to fall, when--realizing that they were unable to take the courageous Venetians--the Genoese withdrew to their ships. There was laughter and song around the camp fires of Zeno's little band, that night, but their leader spoke critically of the morrow. "Sleep well, my men," said he, "for I know that our foes are well angered at the beating we have given them. Next morn we shall again be at war. Let us keep our courage and have as a battle cry, 'Venice! No retreat and no quarter!'" When morning dawned the Genoese were seen to land engines of war, with the apparent intention of laying siege to the town. Their preparations showed that they meant to attack upon the side farthest from the castle, so Carlo Zeno--the quick-witted--placed a number of his men in ambush, among a collection of half-ruined and empty houses which stood in that quarter. "Stay here, my men," said he, "and when the enemy has advanced, charge them with fury. We must win to-day, or we will be disgraced." Meanwhile the rest of the Venetians had retreated inland, and, crouching low behind a screen of brush, waited patiently for the Genoese to come up. "Be cautious," cried Zeno, "and when the enemy is within striking distance, charge with all the fury which you possess." "Aye! Aye! Good master," cried the stubborn soldiers. "We mark well what you tell us." Not long afterwards the attacking party came in view, and, without suspecting what lay in front, advanced with quick gait towards the supposedly defenseless town. But suddenly, with a wild yell, the followers of Zeno leaped from behind the screening bushes, and dashed towards them. At the same instant, the soldiers who had been placed in hiding, attacked suddenly from the rear. Arrows poured into the ranks of the Genoese, and they fell like wheat before the scythe of the reaper. Hoarse shouts, groans, and cries of victory and death, welled above the battle's din. In the midst of this affair Carlo Zeno gave a cry of pain. An arrow (poisoned 'tis said) had entered his leg and struck him to the ground. But, nothing daunted, he rose to cry shrilly to his men, "On! On! Drive them to the ocean." And, so well did his soldiers follow these commands, that the Genoese fled in confusion and disorder to their ships. The day was won. As was natural, Zeno paid no attention to his wound, and, when the enemy hurried to shore the next day for another attack, they were greeted with such a terrific discharge of artillery that they gave up their idea of capturing the island and sailed away amidst cries of derision from the delighted Venetians. "Hurrah!" cried they. "Hurrah for Zeno!" But so exhausted was the intrepid leader by reason of his wound that he fell into a spasm as if about to die. His iron constitution pulled him through, however, and soon he and the faithful band returned to Venice, covered with glory, and full satisfied with their hard won victory. The daring Zeno was well deserving of praise, for he had beaten a fleet and an army by sheer genius, with three ships and a handful of men. To Venice had been preserved the valuable island which guards the entrance to the Dardanelles, and to her it was to remain for years, although the Genoese tried many times and oft to wrest it from her grasp. Now came another struggle--the war of Chioggia--a struggle in which Carlo Zeno played a great and noble part,--a part, in fact, that has made his name a byword among the grateful Venetians: a part in which he displayed a leadership quite equal to that of a Drake, or a Hawkins, and led his fighting galleons with all the courage of a lion. Hark, then, to the story of this unfortunate affair! Hark! and let your sympathy be stirred for Carlo Zeno, the indefatigable navigator of the clumsy shipping of the Italian peninsula! For years the Republics of Genoa and Venice remained at peace, but, for years the merchants of the two countries had endeavored to outwit each other in trade; and, thus, when the Genoese seized several Venetian ships with rich cargoes, in 1350, and refused to give them up, war broke out between the rival Republics. In two engagements at sea, the Venetians were defeated; but in a third they were victorious, and forever sullied the banner of St. Mark, which flew from their Admiral's mast-head, by causing nearly five thousand prisoners of war to be drowned. Fired by a desire for immediate revenge upon their foe, the Genoese hurried a mighty fleet to sea, and ravaged the Italian coast up to the very doors of Venice itself. Several other engagements followed, in most of which the Venetians were defeated; and then there were twenty years of peace before another conflict. Finally war broke out afresh. Angry and vindictive, the Genoese bore down upon the Venetian coast in numerous lumbering galleys, determined--this time--to reach Venice itself, and to sack this rich and populous city. With little difficulty they captured Chioggia, a seaport, a populous city and the key to the lagoons which led to the heart of the capital. They advanced to the very outskirts of Venice, and their cries of joyous vindictiveness sounded strangely near to the now terrified inhabitants, who, rallying around their old generals and city fathers, were determined to fight to the last ditch. As winter came, the victoriously aggressive Genoese retreated to Chioggia, withdrawing their fleet into the safe harbor to await the spring; leaving only two or three galleys to cruise before the entrance, in case the now angered Venetians should attack. But they were to be rudely awakened from their fancied seclusion. "Lead us on, O Pisani," the Venetians had cried in the broad market space of their beloved city. "We must and will drive these invaders into their own country. Never have we received before such insults. On! On! to Chioggia." So, silent and vengeful, the Venetian fleet stole out to sea on the evening of December twenty-first. There were thirty-four galleys, sixty smaller armed vessels, and hundreds of flat-bottomed boats. Pisani was in the rear, towing two heavy, old hulks, laden with stones, to sink in the entrance of the harbor and bottle up the fleet, even as the Americans were to sink the _Merrimac_ in the Harbor of Santiago, many years afterwards. The Genoese were unready. The cruisers, on duty as sentinels, were not where they should have been, and so the gallant Pisani scuttled the hulks across the harbor entrance and caught the bold marauders like rats in a trap. The fleet of the enemy was paralyzed, particularly as another river's mouth, some two miles southward, was also blockaded. Smiles of satisfaction shone upon the faces of the outraged Venetians. Carlo Zeno was hurrying up with a strong fleet manned by veteran seamen, but the now victorious followers of Pisani wished to return to Venice. "It is the Christmas season," cried many. "We have fought like lions. We have shut up our enemy. We have averted the extreme danger. Let us return to our wives and our children!" "You cannot go," said Pisani, sternly. "You are the entire male population of Venice. Without you the great expedition will come to naught, and all of our toil will have been thrown away. Only be calm. Carlo Zeno will soon be here, and we can then take Chioggia!" Alas! Like Columbus, he saw himself upon the verge of losing the result of all his labor for lack of confidence in him upon the part of his men. He could not keep them by force, so wearily and anxiously he scanned the horizon for signs of an approaching sail. The days went slowly by for the lion-hearted Pisani. Carlo Zeno did not come. Day after day the valiant leader fearfully looked for the white-winged canvas of a Venetian galleon, but none came to view. On the thirtieth day of December his men were very mutinous. "We will seize the ships and return to-morrow to Venice," cried several. "We have had enough of war. Our wives and daughters cry to us to return." Pisani was desperate. "If Carlo Zeno does not come in forty-eight hours, the fleet may return to Lido," said he. "Meanwhile, keep your guns shooting at the enemy. We must make these Genoese feel that we shall soon attack in force." But Pisani's heart was leaden. Where, yes, where was Zeno? New Year's Day came, and, by his promise, he must let the Venetians go. What did this mean for him? It meant the fall of Venice, the end of the Republic, the destruction of the population with all that they possessed. He--their idol, their leader for ten days--could no longer lead, for the Venetians could not bear a little cold and hardship for his sake. Sad--yes, sad, indeed--was the face of the stout seaman as he gave one last despairing glance at the horizon. Ha! What was that? A thin, white mark against the distant blue! It grew larger and clearer. It was the sail of a galley. Another, and another, and another hove in sight,--eighteen in all, and driving along swiftly before a heavy wind. But, were they hostile, or friendly? That was the question. Was it Zeno, or were these more galleons of the Genoese? Then, joy shone in the keen eyes of Pisani, for the banner of St. Mark fluttered from the peak of the foremost ship, and floated fair upon the morning breeze. Hurrah! It was Carlo Zeno, the lion-hearted. God speed brave Zeno! He had been twice wounded in fights along the coast, en route, but nothing could diminish his energy, or dampen his ardor. He had laid waste the Genoese coast; he had intercepted convoys of grain; he had harassed the enemy's commerce in the East, and he had captured a huge vessel of theirs with five hundred thousand pieces of gold. Marvellous Zeno! Brave, courageous Venetian sea-dog, you are just in the nick of time! "Thanks be to Heaven that you have come," cried Pisani, tears welling to his eyes. "Now we will go in and take Chioggia. It means the end of the war for us. Again, I say, thanks be to Heaven." With renewed hope and confidence the Venetians now pushed the siege. Seeing that their fleet could never escape, the Genoese started to dig a canal to the open sea, by which the boats could be brought off during the night. The work was begun, but Carlo Zeno discovered it in time. Volunteers were called for, a force was soon landed, and, under the leadership of Zeno, marched to intercept the diggers of this, the only means of escape. "The Venetians are going towards 'Little Chioggia,'" cried many of the Genoese. "We must hasten there to stop them." [Illustration: From an old print. ZENO'S FLEET.] But Zeno had only made a feint in this direction. Throwing his main force in the rear of the Genoese, he soon began to cut them up badly. They were seized with a panic. They fled towards the bridge of Chioggia, trampling upon each other as they ran, pursued and slashed to ribbons by Zeno's men. The bridge broke beneath the weight of the fugitives and hundreds were drowned in the canal, while thousands perished near the head of this fateful causeway. It was a great and signal victory for Zeno; the intrepid sea-dog and campaigner on land. This was a death blow. That night some of the garrison hastened to desert, and, as the siege progressed, the drinking water began to fail, the food gave out, and starvation stared the holders of Chioggia in the face. On the twenty-fourth of June the city surrendered; and four thousand one hundred and seventy Genoese, with two hundred Paduans--ghastly and emaciated--more like moving corpses than living beings--marched out to lay down their arms. Seventeen galleys, also, were handed over to the Venetians: the war-worn relics of the once powerful fleet which had menaced Venice itself. As a feat of generalship, Pisani's blockade of the Genoese fleet is rivalled by Sampson's blockade of Cervera's squadron at Santiago in 1898, and the military operation by which Carlo Zeno tempted the garrison of Brondolo into the trap which he had set for them, and drove them, like a flock of sheep into Chioggia, by sunset, is surely a splendid feat of arms. All honor to this intrepid sea-dog of old Venice! How fickle is Dame Fortune! Jealous of the reputation of this noble Venetian, the patricians, whose advice, during the war, he had consistently declined to follow; refused to make him a Doge of the City. It was thought that the election of the bravest captain of the day might be dangerous to the Republic. Instead of doing him honor, they imprisoned him; and was he not the noblest patriot of them all? When over seventy years of age,--the greatest and truest Venetian--loaned a small sum of money to the Prince Carrara, once a power in Venetian politics. He had saved his country from destruction. He had served her with the most perfect integrity. Yet, he reaped the reward which fell to the share of nearly every distinguished Venetian; he was feared by the government; hated by the nobles whom he had out-stripped in honor, and was condemned to prison by men who were not worthy to loose the latchet of his shoes. Although he had often paid the mercenary soldiers to fight for Venice, in the War of Chioggia, from his own pocket, he was sent to jail for loaning money to an unfortunate political refugee. When called before the Council of Ten on the night of the twentieth of January, 1406, the warrant for his examination authorized the use of torture. But even the Ten hesitated at this. "He is a brave man," said one. "Pray allow him to go untouched." The prisoner admitted that he had loaned the money. His explanation was both honorable and clear. But the Ten were obdurate that night. "He shall go to the Pozzi prison for a year," said they. "Besides this, he shall suffer the perpetual loss of all offices which he has held." Like a brave man, Carlo Zeno accepted the sentence without a murmur, and his sturdy frame did not suffer from the confinement. For twelve years longer he lived in perfect health; made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; commanded the troops of the Republic once again; defeated the Cypriotes, and died peacefully,--a warrior with a name of undiminished lustre, most foully tarnished by his own compatriots. His is a reputation of undying glory, that of his judges is that of eternal shame. All honor to Carlo Zeno, the valorous Venetian, who could fight a ship as well as a squadron of foot soldiers on land! _Salve, Venetia!_ "Dip the banner of St. Mark, Dip--and let the lions roar. Zeno's soul has gone above, Bow--a warrior's life is o'er." HARKEE, BOYS! Harkee, Boys! I'll tell you of the torrid, Spanish Main, Where the tarpons leap and tumble in the silvery ocean plain, Where the wheeling condors circle; where the long-nosed ant-bears sniff At the food the Jackie "caches" in the Aztec warrior's cliff. _Oh! Hurray for the deck of a galleon stout,_ _Hurray for the life on the sea,_ _Hurray! for the cutlass; the dirk; an' th' pike;_ _Wild rovers we will be._ Harkee, Boys! I'll tell you of the men of Morgan's band, Of Drake and England--rascals--in the palm-tree, tropic land. I'll tell you of bold Hawkins, how he sailed around the Horn. And the Manatees went _chuck! chuck! chuck!_ in the sun-baked, lazy morn. _Oh! Hurray for the deck of a galleon stout,_ _Hurray for the life on the sea,_ _Hurray! for the cutlass; the dirk; an' th' pike;_ _Wild rovers we will be._ Harkee, Boys! You're English, and you come of roving blood, Now, when you're three years older, you must don a sea-man's hood, You must turn your good ship westward,--you must plough towards the land Where the mule-train bells go _tink! tink! tink!_ and the bending cocoas stand. _Oh! You will be off on a galleon stout,_ _Oh! You will be men of the sea,_ _Hurray! for the cutlass; the dirk; an' th' pike;_ _Wild rovers you will be._ SIR FRANCIS DRAKE ROVER AND SEA RANGER (1540-1596) "The man who frets at worldly strife Grows sallow, sour, and thin; Give us the lad whose happy life Is one perpetual grin: He, Midas-like, turns all to gold,-- He smiles, when others sigh, Enjoys alike the hot and cold, And laughs through wet and dry." --DRAKE. SIR FRANCIS DRAKE ROVER AND SEA RANGER (1540-1596) Sing a song of stout dubloons, Of gold and jingling brass, A song of Spanish galleons, Foul-bottomed as they pass. Of roaring blades and stumbling mules, Of casks of malmsey wine, Of red, rip-roaring ruffians, In a thin, meandering line. _They're with Drake, Drake, Drake,_ _He can make the sword hilt's shake,_ _He's a rattling, battling Captain of the Main._ _You can see the Spaniards shiver,_ _As he nears their shelt'ring river,_ _While his eyelids never quiver_ _At the slain._ So,-- Here's to Drake, Drake, Drake, Come--make the welkin shake, And raise your frothing glasses up on high. If you love a man and devil, Who can treat you on the level, Then, clink your goblet's bevel, To Captain Drake. "Take care, boy, you will fall overboard. Take care and do not play with your brother near the edge of our good ship, for the water here is deep, and I know that you can swim but ill." The man who spoke was a rough, grizzled sea-dog, clad in an old jersey and tarpaulins. He stood upon the deck of an aged, dismantled warship, which--anchored in the shallow water near Chatham, England,--swung to and fro in the eddying currents. Around him, upon the unwashed deck, scampered a swarm of little children, twelve in all, and all of them his own. "Very good, Father," spoke the curly-haired youngster. "I'll mind what you tell me. You're wrong, though, when you say that I cannot swim, for I can, even to yonder shore. Do you want to see me do it?" "Nay, nay," chuckled the stout seaman. "You're a boy of courage, Francis. That I can well see. But do not try the water. It is cold and you will have a cramp and go under. Stick to the quarter-deck." And laughing softly to himself, he went below, where a strong smell of cooking showed that there was something upon the galley stove to feed his hungry crew of youthful Englishmen. It was surely a strange house to bring up a troop of merry children in. The sound of wind and waves was familiar to them at night and they grew to be strong and fearless. But is not this the proper way to rear a sea-dog? These little ducklings, descended from a Drake, must have early set their hearts upon adventure and a seafaring life. In fact, one of them, young Francis, was to be one of the best known seamen of the centuries and knighted for his services to the Crown. Reared in a ship, he, by nature, loved the sea as only a child of the ocean could have done. The brine ran in his blood. Being the son of a poor man, he was apprenticed to a master of a small vessel which used to coast along the shore and carry merchandise to France and the Netherlands. He learned his business well. So well, indeed, that at the death of the master of the vessel it was bequeathed "to Francis Drake, because he was diligent and painstaking and pleased the old man, his master, by his industry." But the gallant, young sea-dog grew weary of the tiny barque. "It only creeps along the shore," he said. "I want to get out upon the ocean and see the world. I will therefore enlist with my stout kinsmen, the Hawkins brothers, rich merchants both, who build and sail their own ships." This he did, and thus began the roving life of Francis Drake: dare-devil and scourge of the West Indian waters. About fifty years before this lusty mariner had been born, America was discovered by Christopher Columbus--an Italian sailor in the service of Spain--and this powerful country had seized a great part of the new found land. There was no love lost between the Spaniards and the men from the cold, northern British Isles and thus Francis Drake spent his entire career battling with the black-haired, rapacious, and avaricious adventurers who flew the banner of King Philip of Arragon. Sometimes he was defeated, more often he was successful. Hark, then, to the tale of his many desperate encounters upon the wide waters of the surging Atlantic. Drake had said, "I'm going to sea with the Hawkins and view the world," and, as John Hawkins was just about to sail for the West Indies in six ships, the youthful and eager mariner was given an opportunity to command a vessel called the _Judith_. The fleet at first had good success. Slaves were captured upon the African coast and were sold in the West Indies, though with difficulty, because the Spaniards had been forbidden by their king to trade with the English. Laden with treasure and spices, the ships were about to start for home, when fearful storms beset them. Their beams were badly shattered. "We must seek a haven," cried Hawkins. "Ready about and steer for Vera Cruz, the port of the City of Mexico! There we can buy food and repair our fleet!" "'Tis well," cried his men, and, aiming for the sheltering harbor, they soon ploughed into the smooth water of the bay. But there was consternation among the Spaniards of the town. "We have treasure here," they whispered to each other. "See, those English dogs have come to rob us! We must fight, brothers, and fight hard to keep the cruel Islanders away." And they oiled their pistols and sharpened their cutlasses upon their grindstones. [Illustration: SIR FRANCIS DRAKE.] But luck was with the inhabitants of Vera Cruz. Next morning thirteen careening galleys swept into the quiet waters of the bay and joy shone in the black eyes of the Spaniards. "It is a Mexican fleet," cried they. "It returns with a new Viceroy or Governor, from good King Philip of Spain." And they laughed derisively. But in the breasts of Drake and Hawkins there was doubt and suspicion. "They are sure to attack us," said Hawkins, moving among his men. "Let every fellow be upon his guard." The Spanish were full of bowings and scrapings. They protested their deep friendship for the English and wished to be moored alongside. "We are very glad to see you, English brothers," said one. "We welcome you to the traffic and trade of the far East." So they peacefully dropped anchor near the suspicious men of England, still smiling, singing, and cheerfully waving a welcome to the none-too-happy sailors. "Avast," cried Francis Drake, "and sleep on your arms, my Hearties, for to-morrow there'll be trouble, or else my blood's not British." He was but a young man, yet he had guessed correctly. As the first glimmer of day shone in the dim horizon, a shot awoke the stillness of the morn. Another and another followed in rapid succession. Then _boom!_ a cannon roared, and a great iron ball buried itself in the decking of the _Jesus_; the flagship of gallant Hawkins. "We're attacked," cried Drake. "Man the decks! Up sails and steer to sea! Fight as you never fought before! Strike and strike hard for dear old England!" But his warning almost came too late, for two Spanish galleons ranged alongside and swung grappling irons into his rigging in order to close with the moving vessel. The Englishmen struck at them with oars and hand-spikes, knocking the tentacles of the on-coming octopus aside, and, with sails flying and shots rattling, the _Judith_ bore towards the open sea. The fight was now furious. Two of the English ships were sunk and the _Jesus_, Hawkins' own boat, was so badly damaged that she lay apparently helpless in the trough of the surging ocean. "Back, my Hearties," cried Drake, "and we'll see what we can do to save our gallant captain." So back they sailed, and, firing their little cannon with rapidity, soon held off the Spanish ship which threatened Hawkins himself with capture. Some of the English sailors jumped into their boats and rowed away, some gave in to the Spaniards, and some fought relentlessly. Thus raged the battle until the evening. As night fell, Drake ordered the _Judith_ to put to sea, Hawkins followed, and wandering about in these unknown parts, with little water and a scarcity of food, hunger forced the weary sailors to eat hides, cats, dogs, mice, rats, parrots and monkeys. "It was the troublesome voyage," wrote Hawkins, and such, indeed, it had proved to be. Some of the sailors asked to be placed on land rather than risk shipwreck and starvation in the overcrowded boat. Some of them reached England after years of suffering and weary journeying to and fro. Some were captured by the Spaniards and were put to death as heretics. A few were sent to the galleys as slaves. Others, more fortunate, were rowed ashore to serve in monasteries, where the monks made kind and gentle masters. And what of the youthful and danger-loving Drake? Five days before the wind-swept _Jesus_ struggled into Plymouth harbor with Hawkins and a famine-driven crew, Drake and his own adventurous Englishmen steered the little _Judith_ to the rocky headland which hides this sheltering refuge from the fury of the sea. "I am indeed right glad to reach Merrie England again," said he, "for we have had a rough and dangerous voyage. The Spaniards are treacherous dogs. They betrayed us, and henceforth I, for one, shall show them no quarter." So saying he journeyed to London to see the good Queen Elizabeth. "It is impossible for me to wage war upon Philip of Spain," said the valiant Mistress of England's destinies, when she heard his story of loss of kinsmen, friends and goods of great value. "I have a poor country. The navy of my fathers has been ruined. I have no proper army with which to avenge the treachery of Spain, and I have trouble with both France and Scotland. If you would have revenge, take matters into your own hands." "Philip is the mightiest monarch in the world to-day," answered the well-bronzed mariner, bowing low. "I am only a humble seafarer without either ships or money, but, most gracious Majesty, I am going to help myself in my quarrel with the King of Spain. From henceforth there will be war to the death between myself and the men of the south." The good Queen smiled, for she truly loved a valiant man. "May God be with you," said she. It was not long before the danger-loving mariner was again headed for the West Indies and the Spanish Main, with a crew of seventy-three men and boys. "We believe in our leader," said one. "He will take us on to fortune and to fame." And this was the sentiment of all, for who does not love a voyage after gold and treasure? Ploughing relentlessly across the deep, the two ships which carried these roving blades, reached the palm-clad West Indies in twenty-five days. All were cheerful and gay, for before them was danger, excitement, battle, and Spanish gold. "Lead on, Captain Drake," cried one of the men. "We wish to land at Plymouth with our pockets stuffed with Spanish dubloons." "I'll take you to the seaport of Nombre de Dios," said the bluff sea ranger. "There is gold and silver in this spot, and by the hogshead. Furthermore," he added chuckling, "most of it will be in the hold of our stout ships, the _Pascha_ and the _Swan_, before another moon." So the sailors were drilled in attack and sword play, while arms were distributed, which, up to now, had been kept "very fair and safe in good casks." All were in a cheerful mood, for the excitement of battle had begun to stir the hot blood in their veins. Late in the afternoon, the pinnaces (which had been carried on deck) were launched, and climbing aboard, the men of Merrie England set sail for the Spanish town. They lay under the shore, out of sight, until dark. Then they rowed with muffled oars to the shadows of the precipitous cliffs which here jutted into the rolling ocean, and quietly awaited the dawn. At three in the morning, while the silvery light of a half moon was just reddened with the first flush of dawn, the eager buccaneers landed upon the sandy beach. "Hark!" cried a youth, "We are already discovered." As he spoke, the noise of bells, drums, and shouting, came to the startled ears of the invaders. "Twelve men will remain behind to guard the pinnaces," cried Drake. "The rest must follow me and fight even to the last ditch. Forward!" Splitting into two bands, the Englishmen rushed through the narrow streets with a wild cheer ringing in the silent air. Drake's brother--with a certain John Oxenham and sixteen others--hurried around behind the King's treasure-house, and entered the eastern side of the market-place; while Drake, himself, marched up the main street with bugles blowing, drums rolling, and balls of lighted tow blazing from the end of long pikes carried by his stout retainers. The townsfolk were terrified with the din and blaze of fire. "An army is upon us," cried many. "We must flee for our lives." In spite of this, a goodly number rallied at the market-place, where there was a sharp fight. But nothing could withstand the onset of the men from the fog-swept island, and soon the Spaniards fled, leaving two behind who had been captured and held. "You must show us the Governor's house," cried Drake. "All the treasure is there." The two captives obeyed unwillingly, and great was the disappointment of the English when they found only bars of silver in the spacious mansion. "On! To the King's treasure-house!" again shouted the bold mariner. "There, at least, must be gold and jewels." In fact the English were furious with disappointment, for, as they reached the Governor's mansion (strongly built of lime and stone for the safe keeping of treasure) the eager pillagers rushed through the wide-open doorway. A candle stood lighted upon the top of the stairs. Before the threshold a horse stood champing his bit, as if recently saddled for the Governor, himself, while, by the flickering gleam of the taper, a huge glittering mass of silver bars was seen piled from floor to ceiling. That was all,--no caskets of gold or precious stones were to be seen. "Stand to your weapons, men!" cried Drake. "The town is full of people. Move carefully to the King's treasure-house which is near the waterside. There are more gold and jewels in that spot than all our pinnaces can carry." As the soldiers hurried where he led, a negro called Diego, rushed panting from the direction of the shore. "Marse Drake! Marse Drake!" he wailed. "De boats am surrounded by de Spanish. Dey will sholy be captured if you do not hurry back. Fo' de Lohd's sake, Massa, come down to de sho'." "My brother and John Oxenham will hasten to the shore," cried Drake. "Meanwhile, my Hearties, come batter down the doorway to this noble mansion. You are at the mouth of the greatest treasure-chest in the world." As the valiant captain spoke these words, he stepped forward to deal a blow, himself, at the stout door which shut him from the glittering riches. But suddenly he reeled and almost fell. Blood flowed in great quantities upon the sand, from a wound in his leg which he had received in the furious struggle within the market-place. "Come, Captain," cried one of his retainers, seizing him in his arms. "You must hasten to our pinnaces. What brooks this treasure to us when we lose you, for, if you live we can secure gold and silver enough at any time, but if you die we can find no more." "I fear me that I am grievously hurt," sadly spake the Captain. "Give me but a drink and then I think that I can reach our boats." A soldier stooped and bound his scarf about the wounded leg of the now weakened leader, and, bearing him aloft, the little band of adventurers turned toward the ocean side. They soon embarked, with many wounded besides the Captain, though none were slain save one trumpeter. Although the surgeons were kept busy in providing remedies and salves for the hurts of the soldiers, their main care was for the bold Francis Drake,--leader of this desperate expedition in quest of treasure. "If we lose you," cried a sailor, "we can scarce get home again. But while we enjoy your presence and have you in command of us, we can recover enough of wealth." "Before we left the harbor we took, with little trouble, a ship of wine for the greater comfort of our company," writes one of the stout soldiers in this brave affair. "And though they shot at us from the town we carried our prize to the Isle of Victuals. Here we cured our wounded men and refreshed ourselves in the goodly gardens which we found there abounding with great store of dainty roots and fruit. There were also great plenty of poultry and other fowls, no less strange and delicate." Although unsuccessful--as you see--the brave mariners were not daunted, and, after the wounded had recovered, a new expedition was determined upon, with the purpose of capturing one of the trains of mules which carried gold from Vera Cruz to Panama. Drake had been joined by numerous Maroons--negroes who had escaped from the Spaniards and had turned bandits--and these were quite willing and ready to aid him in the pursuit of treasure. But before the English marauders moved towards the interior, they attempted to attack Cartagena, the capital of the Spanish Main. Sailing into the harbor in front of this prosperous town, one evening, they found that the townsfolk had been well warned of their coming; they rang their bells and fired their cannon, while all of the soldiers ranged themselves before the ramparts. "Egad," cried Drake, with strange cheerfulness, in spite of his disappointment. "They're far too ready to receive us. We've got to withdraw." So they prowled around the mouth of the harbor, captured two ships, outward bound, and roared with laughter as they read a letter, written to warn all nearby citizens of "that terrible marauder, pirate, and butcher, Captain Drake." "The Spaniards carry no treasure by land during the rainy months," said one of the natives. "You must wait for five full moons, if you wish to catch a mule train." "All right," said Captain Drake. "We'll fortify a place of refuge--explore--and await the propitious moment when we can hope for success." Thus they tarried patiently until they heard from the Maroons (who ranged the country up and down) that a large fleet had arrived from Spain at Nombre de Dios. This was glad news. Drake smiled as he heard it, and prepared immediately to make a land journey to Panama with forty-eight followers, carrying provisions, arms, and many pairs of shoes, because they were to cross several rivers of stone and gravel. The way lay between great palm trees and through cool and pleasant woods where the sturdy Englishmen were much encouraged when they heard that there stood a great tree, not far from where they were, from which one could see both the North Sea (Atlantic) from which they were journeying, and the South Sea (Pacific) towards which they were going. Finally--upon the fourth day--they came to a very steep hill, lying east and west like a ridge, and, at this point, Pedro--chief of the Maroons--took Drake by the hand, saying, "Follow me, O Captain, and I will show you two seas at once, for you are in the very centre of this country. Behold you stand in the heart of this fertile land." Looking before him, the lion-hearted adventurer saw a high tree in which had been cut many steps, so that one could climb to the top. Here was a convenient bower large enough for ten or twelve men to seat themselves. Then--without further ado--he and the chief Maroon clambered into the spreading branches and gazed across the nodding palm tops into the dim distance. It was a fair day, and, as the Maroons had felled certain trees so that the prospect might be more clear, upon the delighted vision of the Englishman burst the vista of the blue Atlantic and shimmering Pacific. "I pray Almighty God in all his goodness," cried out the adventurous Drake in loud tones of appreciation, "that I may have life and leave to sail but once an English ship in this mighty ocean of the West!" Then he called up the rest of the voyagers, and told them of his prayer and purpose. "I will follow you by God's grace!" cried John Oxenham, "unless you do not wish my company." Drake smiled good-humoredly, and, with a wave of his arm in the direction of the glistening waters, descended to the ground. "On, my hearties!" cried he, "and we'll soon bag a mule train with its panniers filled with gold." The men started forward, singing an old English ballad. As they walked through the high pampas grass, they began to get glimpses of Panama and the low-lying ships in the harbor. They kept silence and at length hid themselves in a grove near the high road from Panama to Nombre de Dios, while a negro was sent into the city as a spy. In the afternoon the faithful henchman returned. "A certain great man intends to go to Spain by the first ship," he said. "He is travelling towards Nombre de Dios this very night with his daughter and his family. He has fourteen mules, eight of which are laden with gold and one with jewelry. Two other trains of fifty mules each--burdened with food and little silver--will also come up this night." The English smiled, and, without more ado, marched to within two miles of Vera Cruz, where half of them lay down upon one side of the road, and half upon the other. They were screened by the tall grass; so well, indeed, that no eye could see them, and in an hour's time, to their eager ears came the sound of mule trains passing to and fro near Vera Cruz, where trade was lively because of the presence of the Spanish fleet. All was propitious for a successful attack. But misfortune seemed always to follow the bold and adventurous Drake. As mischance would have it, one of his men called Robert Pike, who had "drunk too much brandy without water," was lying close to the roadway by the side of a grinning Maroon, and, when a well-mounted cavalier from Vera Cruz rode by--with his page running at his stirrup--he rose up to peer at him, even though his companion pulled him down in the endeavor to hide his burly form. "Sacre Nom de Dieu," cried the traveller. "It is a white man! An Englishman!" and, putting spurs to his horse, he rode away at a furious gallop in order to warn others of the highwayman's position. The ground was hard and the night was still. As Captain Drake heard the gentleman's trot change into a gallop, he uttered a round British oath. "Discovered," he muttered, "but by whose fault I know not. We'll await the other trains and mayhap we'll have some booty yet." The gentleman, in fact, warned the Treasurer, who, fearing that Captain Drake had wandered to this hidden thicket, turned his train of mules aside and let the others--who were behind him--pass on. Thus, by recklessness of one of the company, a rich booty was lost, but--as an Englishman has well said, "We thought that God would not let it be taken, for likely it was well gotten by that Treasurer." There was no use repining, for soon a tinkling of bells and tread of hoofs came to the eager ears of the adventurers, and, through the long pampas grass ambled the other two mule trains--their drivers snapping the whips with little thought of the lurking danger. In a moment they were between the English and hidden Maroons, who--with a wild cheer--dashed upon them, surrounded them, and easily held them in their power. Two horse loads of silver was the prize for all this trouble and hard travel. "I never grieve over things past," cried Drake. "We must now march home by the shortest route. It is certainly provoking that we lost the mule train of gold, particularly as we were betrayed by one of our own men. Come, soldiers, turn about and retreat to our good ships." Half satisfied but cheerful, the soldiers and Maroons turned towards the coast, and, as they neared Vera Cruz, the infantrymen of the town swarmed outside to attack the hated men of Merrie England, with cries of, "Surrender! Surrender!" Drake looked at them scornfully, replying, "An Englishman never surrenders!" At this a volley rang out and one of the intrepid adventurers was "so powdered with hail-shot that he could not recover his life, although he continued all that day with Drake's men." But stout Francis blew his whistle--the signal for attack--and, with a wild cry, the Maroons and English rushed for the black-haired and sallow-skinned defenders of the town. "Yo Peho! Yo Peho!" wailed the half-crazed natives as they leaped high in the air, and encouraged by the presence of the English, they broke through the thickets at the town's end and forced the enemy to fly, while the now terrified Spanish scurried pell mell down the coast. Several of Drake's followers were wounded, and one Maroon was run through with a pike, but his courage was so great that he revenged his own death ere he died, by slaying a Spaniard who opposed him. At sunrise the land pirates continued their journey, carrying some plunder from Vera Cruz. Some of the men fainted with weakness, but two Maroons would carry them along until they could again walk, and thus--struggling, cursing and singing--the party of weary and disappointed marauders neared the place where they had left their ship. A messenger was sent forward with a golden toothpick to those left behind upon the vessel and a request that the ship be brought into the narrow channel of a certain river. It was done, and when at last the weary plunderers reached the shore, they gave a mighty cheer as they saw the white, bellying sails of their staunch, English vessel. Their journey for pelf and jewels had been a failure. This did not discourage the lion-hearted Drake, who declared, with a smile, "We'll yet catch a mule train, boys, and one in which the panniers are filled with sufficient gold to sink our good ship. Keep your hearts bright and I'll gain you enough of treasure to house you in peace and comfort in your old age. Remember--'Fortune favors the brave!'" He had spoken with truth. Not long afterwards a French captain appeared, whose men were only too eager for a little journey ashore after golden mule trains and battle. So a party was made up of twenty Frenchmen, fifteen Englishmen, and some Maroons, who sailed with a frigate and two pinnaces, towards a river called Rio Francisco--to the west of Nombre de Dios. They landed, struck inland, and were soon near the high road from Panama to Nombre de Dios, where mule trains passed daily--some with food and merchandise--a few with golden ingots and bars of silver. In silence they marched along and spent the night about a mile from the road, where they could plainly hear the carpenters working on their ships--which they did at night because of the fierce, torrid sun during the day. Next morning--the first of April, but not an April Fool's day by any means--they heard such a number of bells that the Maroons began to chuckle and say, "You will have much gold. Yo Peho! Yo Peho! This time we will all be rich!" Suddenly three mule trains came to view, one of fifty long-eared beasts of burden; two of seventy each, with every animal carrying three hundred pounds weight of silver, amounting to nearly thirty tons. The sight seemed almost too good to be true. With a wild shout the ambuscaders leaped from their hiding places to rush frantically upon the startled drivers. In a few moments the train was in possession of Drake and his French and half-negro associates, who chuckled and grunted like peccaries. The leading mules were taken by the heads and all the rest lay down, as they always do when stopped. The fifteen soldiers who guarded each train were routed, but not before they had wounded the French captain most severely and had slain one of the Maroons. Silver bars and gold ingots were there aplenty. They were seized and carried off, while, what was not transported, was buried in the earthen burrows made by the great land crabs under fallen trees, and in the sand and gravel of a shallow river. "And now for home," cried a valorous sea farer, after a party had returned with a portion of the buried treasure, which was divided equally between the French and the English. Much of that left in the sand crab holes had been discovered by the Spaniards--but not all. Thirteen bars of silver and a few quoits of gold had rewarded the search of the expectant voyageurs. "Yes," cried all. "Sails aloft for Merrie England!" So, spreading canvas, the bold adventurers were soon headed for the foggy and misty isle from which they had come. On Sunday, August ninth, 1573--just about sermon time--they dropped anchor in the peaceful harbor of Plymouth. "And the news of the Captain's return brought unto his people, did so speedily pass over all the church, and fill the minds of the congregation with delight and desire to see him, that very few, or none, remained with the preacher. All hastened to see the evidence of God's love and blessing towards the gracious Queen and country, by the fruit of the gallant mariner's labor and success." "To God alone," spake an humble citizen of Plymouth, "be the Glory." [Illustration: DRAKE'S GREATEST VICTORY ON THE SPANISH MAIN. (The surrender of Don Anton to Sir Francis Drake, March 1, 1579.)] And all echoed these pious sentiments, in spite of the fact that Drake was a robber, a pirate, and a buccaneer. But was he not their own countryman? * * * * * The scene now changes. It is a gray day at Plymouth and anxious faces peer into the street from the windows of the low, tiled houses. A crowd has collected upon the jutting cliffs and all gaze with eager eyes towards the ocean. Men speak in hushed and subdued voices, for there is trouble in the air. Among the knots of keen-eyed English there is one small party which seems to be as joyous as a lot of school-boys. Five men are playing at bowls, and one of them is stout, and well knit, and swarthy visaged with long exposure to the elements. He is laughing uproariously, when a lean fellow comes running from the very edge of those beetling cliffs which jut far out into the gray, green Atlantic. "Hark'ee, Captain Drake!" he cries. "Ships are in the offing, and many of them too! It must be the fleet of Philip of Spain come to ravage our beauteous country!" "Ah, indeed," answers the staunch-figured captain, without looking up. "Then let me have one last shot, I pray thee, before I go to meet them." And so saying, he calmly tosses another ball upon the greensward, knocks aside the wooden pins, then smiling, turns and strides towards the waterside. Thus Drake--the lion-hearted--goes out to battle with the great Armada of Philip of Spain, with a smile upon his lips, and full confidence in his ability to defeat the Spaniards at home as well as on the Spanish Main. Let us see how he fared? Smarting with keen anger at Drake and his successful attacks upon his western possessions, Philip--the powerful monarch of Spain--determined to gather a great fleet together and to invade England with a mighty army. "That rascally pirate has beaten me at Cadiz, at Cartagena, and at Lisbon," the irate king had roared, with no show of composure. "Now I will sail against him and crush this buccaneer, so that he and his kind can never rise again." A mighty fleet of heavy ships--the Armada--was not ready to sail until July, 1588, and the months before this had been well spent by the English in preparation for defense, for they knew of the full intention of their southern enemy. Shipwrights worked day and night. The clamoring dockyards hummed with excitement, while Good Queen Bess and her Ministers of State wrote defiant letters to the missives from the Spanish crown. The cold blood of the English--always quite lukewarm in their misty, moisty isle--had begun to boil with vigor. The Britons would fight valiantly. As the lumbering galleons neared the English coast, a heavy mist which hid them, blew away, and the men of England saw the glimmering water fairly black with the wooden vultures of old Spain. The Spaniards had come ready to fight in the way in which they had won many a brilliant victory; with a horde of towering hulks, of double-deckers and store-ships manned by slaves and yellow-skinned retainers, who despised big guns and loved a close encounter with hand thrusts and push of pike. Like a huge, wooden octopus this arrogant fleet of Arragon moved its tentacles around the saucy, new-made pinnaces of the tight little isle. "The boats of the English were very nimble and of good steerage," writes a Spaniard, "so that the English did with them as they desired. And our ships being very heavy compared with the lightness of those of the enemy, it was impossible to come to hand-stroke with them." This tells the whole story. With a light wind astern--the war ships of the English bore down easily upon the heavy-bottomed Spanish galleons and fired their guns at the hulls of the enemy. "Don't waste your balls upon the rigging," cried Drake through a trumpet. "Sight low and sink 'em if you can. But keep away from the grappling hooks so's not to let 'em get hold of you. If they once do--you're lost!" Now was the sound of splitting of boards, as the solid shot pumped great holes in the sides of the high rocking galleons. Dense clouds of vapor hung over the struggling combatants--partly from a sea fog which the July sun had not thoroughly burned away, and partly from the spitting mouths of the cannon. Fire burst from the decks, the roar of the guns was intermingled with the shrill wails of the slaves, the guttural cries of the seamen, the screams of the wounded and the derisive howls of those maddened by battle. The decks were crimson with blood; sails split and tore as the chain-shot hummed through the rigging, and the sharp twang of the arquebusques was mingled with the crash of long-barrelled muskets. No men can fight like those who are defending their own homes. At Gettysburg, the Army of the Potomac--twice beaten in an attack upon the South in the enemy's country--struggled as it had never done before,--and won. It had nowhere battled as when the foe was pushing it back upon its own soil and cities. So here--no fighters ever bled as did the English when the greedy hands of Spain were clutching at their shores. The light ships hung near the Spaniards at a distance and did not board until spars were down and the great rakish hulls were part helpless. Then--with a wild cheer--the little galleons--often two at a time--would grapple with the enemy and board--cutlasses swinging, pistols spitting, and hand-spikes hewing a way through the struggling, yellow-faced ruffians of Philip of Arragon. While the awful battle raged, fire ships were prepared on shore and sent down upon the Spanish fleet, burning fiercely and painting the skyline with red. Some of the large vessels had anchored, and, as these terrors approached, they slipped their cables in order to escape. Confusion beset the ranks of the boastful foe and cheered on the British bull-dogs to renewed exertions. At six in the evening a mighty cry welled from the British boats. "They fly! They fly!" sounded above the ruck and roar of battle. Yes--it was the truth. Beaten and dismayed, the Spanish fleet bore away to the North, while the English--in spite of the fact that their powder was wet, and nearly all spent--"gave them chase as if they lacked nothing, until they had cleared their own coast and some part of Scotland of them." The Armada--split, part helpless--drifted away from Plymouth, and wild cheers of joy came from the deck of the vessel which carried bold Sir Francis Drake. The great battle had been won. So crippled were many of the Spanish hulks that they were wrecked in stormy weather, off the coast of Scotland and Ireland. Not half of those who put to sea ever reached Spain again. Many sailors were drowned, or perished miserably by the hands of the natives of the coast, and some who escaped were put to death by the Queen's orders. Fever and sickness broke out in the English ships and the followers of bold Drake died by hundreds, "sickening one day and perishing the next." The English vessels, themselves, were in a bad way--they had to be disinfected and the men put ashore--where the report of the many wrecks and the massacre of Spanish soldiers, eased the anxiety of the once terrified inhabitants of the tight little isle, and made it certain that the Armada would never return. Drake and his bold seamen had saved the people of Merrie England. Again hats off to this pirate of the Spanish Main! Safely settled in Buckland Abbey, knighted, honored, respected--the hero of the defense of England--one would think that Drake would have remained peacefully at home to die "with his boots on." But not so. The spirit of adventure called to him with irresistible force, and again he set out for the Spanish Main. He had sailed around the world before his grapple with the Armada; he had harassed the Spaniard in an expedition to Lisbon; he was the idol of the English. He had done enough--you say. Yes, he had done enough--but--like all men who love the game of life he wished to have just one more expedition in search of gold and adventure, for--by nature he was a gambler, and he was throwing the dice with Fate. So a goodly crew sailed with him again, hoping for another raid upon mule trains and cities of treasure. But alas! There was to be a different story from the others. All the towns and hamlets of the Spanish Main had been warned to "be careful and look well to themselves, for that Drake and Hawkins were making ready in England to come upon them." And when the English arrived they found stout defense and valiant men, nor was a sail seen "worth giving chase unto." Hawkins died, many grew ill of fever, and finally Drake, himself, succumbed to the malarial atmosphere of Panama. He was to remain where gold and adventure had first lured him. On January the twenty-eighth, 1596, the great captain yielded up his spirit "like a Christian, quietly in his cabin." And a league from the shore of Porto Rico, the mighty rover of the seas was placed in a weighted hammock and tossed into the sobbing ocean. The spume frothed above the eddying current, sucked downward by the emaciated form of the famous mariner, and a solitary gull shrieked cruelly above the bubbles, below which--upon beads of coral and clean sand--rested the body of Sir Francis Drake, rover, rogue, and rattling sea ranger. It was his last journey. "Weep for this soul, who, in fathoms of azure, Lies where the wild tarpon breaks through the foam, Where the sea otter mews to its brood in the ripples, As the pelican wings near the palm-forest gloom. Ghosts of the buccaneers flit through the branches, Dusky and dim in the shadows of eve, While shrill screams the parrot,--the lord of Potanches, 'Drake, Captain Drake, you've had your last leave.'" SEA IRONY One day I saw a ship upon the sands Careened upon beam ends, her tilted deck Swept clear of rubbish of her long-past wreck; Her colors struck, but not by human hands; Her masts the driftwood of what distant strands! Her frowning ports, where, at the Admiral's beck, Grim-visaged cannon held the foe in check, Gaped for the frolic of the minnow bands. The seaweed banners in her fo'ks'le waved, A turtle basked upon her capstan head; Her cabin's pomp the clownish sculpin braved, And, on her prow, where the lost figure-head Once turned the brine, a name forgot was graved, It was "The Irresistible" I read. --HEATON. SIR WALTER RALEIGH PERSECUTOR OF THE SPANIARDS (1552-1618) "All great men have lived by hope."--JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE. [Illustration: YOUNG RALEIGH AND A COMPANION LISTENING TO TALES OF THE SPANISH MAIN.] SIR WALTER RALEIGH PERSECUTOR OF THE SPANIARDS (1552-1618) "When the sobbing sea is squally, Then,--look out for Walter Raleigh! He's the fellow whom Queen Bess is said to love. He's a reckless, handsome sailor, With a 'Vandyke' like a tailor, He can coo fond words of loving like a dove. Faith! I like this gallant rover, Who has ploughed the wild seas over, Who has passed the grim and wild equator's ring. And I cheer, whene'er I view him, For--my Boy--off Spain I knew him When he trimmed the Spanish cruisers, like a King." --_Chant of the Plymouth Dock-Hand._ Boys! You have all heard about the _Square Deal_. Well--Here is the story of a man who didn't get one. Walter Raleigh was a brave man; he was an able seafarer; his younger manhood was spent in the midst of the most brilliant Royal Court which England has known. He proved his courage and military prowess in more than one bitterly contested battle-field and naval conflict. His love of his own land and his hatred of his enemies was ardent. He was also a fellow of wit, and, as an author, took rank with the great literary lights of the Elizabethan Age. He was an adventurer, and, in middle life, as well as in old age, braved the great deep and perils of savage lands in the magnificent attempt to make discoveries and to settle English colonies in the New World. Chivalrous in actions and feeling; of handsome person; graceful manners and courtly address; it is no wonder that he had a host of enemies: those fellows who couldn't do anything worth while themselves, and wanted to "pull the other fellow down." There are plenty of them around, to-day, doing the same thing in the same, old way. As an Englishman he loved England to such an extent, that--upon the return from one of his numerous voyages--he dropped upon one knee and kissed the sand. "My men," said he to his followers, "I love this land as nothing else on earth!" The hostility of his rivals subjected him to harsh ill treatment. It did not dampen his love for England. The silly caprices of Queen Elizabeth, who--like most women--was swayed, not by her reason, but by her sentiments, made him suffer imprisonment. Yet, it did not dampen his love for England. The terrible and bitter dislike of King James--who succeeded the Virgin Queen--finally led to his trial for treason; his execution; and his death. Yet, it did not dampen his love for England. If England can produce men of such a mold, nowadays, she will continue to be a mighty world power. Do you think that _you_ could be as patriotic as Sir Walter Raleigh? Particularly if _you_ were treated as _he_ was treated? Think it over! * * * * * One day, the ancient palace of Greenwich, which stood on the banks of the Thames--a few miles below London--presented a lively and brilliant scene. Courtiers, arrayed in gorgeous colors and glittering ornaments, walked about, chattering gaily,--like a flock of sparrows. Fine, young cavaliers were there, attired in rich velvets, sparkling with gems, armed with gold-hilted swords. Grave statesmen wandered around,--with beards as white as their ruffles. Stately dames, with heavy and gaily trimmed trains, peered at the beautiful belles, and said: "My, isn't she a fright!" or "Goodness, what _dreadful_ manners the Duchess so-and-so has!" Just as they do to-day. Times do not change. Trumpets blared a fan-fa-rade and lines of soldiers gave forth inspiriting sounds, with many musical instruments. There was a stir and flutter in the crowd; and some one called out: "She's coming! Hats off to the Queen!" So all the men took off their hats,--for they were courtiers, and it was their business to do so, whenever Her Royal Highness came around. Many of them didn't like to do it but if they hadn't done so, some spy would have cried out "Treason!" And they would have been hustled off to the Tower. You _just bet_ they took off their hats! Descending the broad flight of steps, with proud and majestic mien, the tall and slender figure of Elizabeth--the maiden Queen of England--was seen approaching. She was then in the mature ripeness of middle age, but she still preserved not a few remnants of the beauty of her youth. Her form was straight and well proportioned. Her large, blue eyes were yet bright and expressive; her complexion was still wonderfully fair and smooth. Her well arranged hair was luxuriant and was of a light red. A large, fan-like collar of richest lace rose from her slender neck, above her head behind; and her tresses were combed high from her forehead. Jewels blazed from her dress. Her attire was far more splendid than that of any of the ladies of her court. As it happened, a heavy shower had just passed over, and little puddles of water stood all around upon the gravelled paths. Bursting through the fast-vanishing clouds, the sun cast its rays upon the trees still dripping with glittering drops; and upon the smiling Queen, who--surrounded by a gay group of courtiers--set forth upon a promenade through the park. She chatted affably with all. They tried to make themselves as agreeable as possible, for he who was most agreeable received the best plums from the Royal Tree. Politics haven't changed any since that day. The Queen walked on, playing with a beautiful, white greyhound, and, pretty soon she came to a muddy spot in the path. "Zounds!" said she (or it may have been something stronger, for historians say that she could "swear valiantly"). "Zounds! Now I will spoil my pretty shoes!" "And also your pretty feet," interjected a courtier. He received a smile for this compliment and the Queen mentally made a note of it,--for future use in the distribution of Court Favors. She hesitated, looked around aimlessly, and stood still. At this instant a young noble--six feet tall and elegantly attired--stepped forward; and, throwing aside his richly embroidered cloak, spread it over the muddy pool. "Prithee, pass onward!" said he, bowing low. Elizabeth was delighted. "Good Walter Raleigh," said she, smiling. "You are truly a gallant knight!" And she tripped gaily across the embroidered mantlet. "I will reward you right well for this!" But the courtiers, the Ladies, and the Statesmen glanced with undisguised envy at the young gallant who had so readily pleased their Mistress; and they scowled at him as Elizabeth kept him at her side during the rest of her promenade. "The Beggar's outdone us all!" said one. "Down with him!" But they could not down Sir Walter just then. After awhile they had "their innings." Rough, vain, whimsical Queen Bess was fond of handsome, and especially of witty and eloquent young men. She grew more attached to Sir Walter Raleigh every day. He rapidly rose in power and influence, and, as a poet, became well known. His verses were read in the luxurious halls of the palace with exclamations of delight, while the tales of his military exploits were eagerly repeated from mouth to mouth; for Raleigh had fought valiantly in France and had helped to suppress an insurrection in Ireland. And still the jealous courtiers murmured among themselves. Raleigh was appointed "Warden of the Stanneries," or mines, in Cornwall and Devonshire, from which he derived, each year, a large income. He was made Captain of the Queen's Guard. He was created Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall and Vice-Admiral of Devon. He received vast estates in Ireland and many privileges and licenses, so that he was fast becoming a rich man. He was splendid and extravagant in his dress. He grew arrogant. He had, in fact, "too much Ego in his Cosmos." So, the jealous courtiers continued to murmur among themselves. Elizabeth was fickle as well as sentimental. Her fancy passed lightly from one gallant to another. For some time Leicester (who had once been her sole favorite, and who desired to regain his position) had been growing jealous of Raleigh's ascendency; and he had been delighted to see that Queen Bess had taken a violent fancy to the impetuous Earl of Essex. A quarrel took place between Raleigh and the Ruler of England. He was affronted before the whole court and retired to his chambers, overwhelmed with grief. [Illustration: SIR WALTER RALEIGH.] And all the jealous courtiers punched each other beneath the ribs, and laughed "Ha! Ha! Ha! What did we tell you?" It took the "Ego" out of Raleigh's "Cosmos." But the gallant courtier had a half-brother--Sir Humphrey Gilbert--who had just returned from a voyage around the world in the good ship _Golden Hind_. "Let's fit out a small fleet," said he to Raleigh, "and establish an English colony in Newfoundland." "I'm with you," cried Sir Walter. "We'll found another England in far distant America! On with it!" Thus, an expedition of five ships sailed from Plymouth, in the early summer of 1583. Sir Humphrey boarded the _Squirrel_, and bade his kinsman an affectionate adieu. "You must remain behind," said he, "and regain our position at court!" "That I will endeavor to do," answered Raleigh. "Good luck and God speed." The expedition was a failure from the start. Scarcely had the shallops gone to sea, than one of them--the _Raleigh_--deserted its companions and put back. The rest reached Newfoundland, but the men were lawless and insubordinate. "This is the Deuce of a cold place for a colony," they said. "Home to Merrie England!" Gilbert was forced to yield to their angry demands, and re-embarked. "Don't sail in that rattle-trap of a _Squirrel_," said his officers to him. "She'll founder!" But Sir Humphrey had that obstinacy which characterized General Braddock. "No: I will not forsake the little company, going homeward," said he. "I'll stick to my ship." He stuck--and--when they hailed him one stormy night, he said: "Be of good cheer, my friends: we are as near to Heaven by sea as by land!" That night the _Squirrel_ was sailing a little in advance of the other ships, and, as those on board the _Golden Hind_ watched the frail barque, they saw her lurch, heave, and then sink from view. Thus the soul of brave Raleigh's kinsman found a watery grave. He had paid for his obstinacy with his life. Raleigh was overwhelmed with grief when he learned of the death of his heroic half-brother. "I'll yet found my Colony," said he. "And I'll go myself." This pleased the jealous courtiers more than ever, for they would now have him out of the way for all time. With his ample wealth, the indefatigable adventurer found no difficulty in fitting out an expedition, and, in the year after the death of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, he sent forth two vessels to explore the coast of the Carolinas. "I'm going to stay at home and face my enemies!" said the gay blade. "Again good luck and God Speed!" They had a fortunate voyage, and, when they returned, the Captains told of the beautiful harbors, fine rivers, magnificent forests and abundance of game. The Queen was delighted, and at once named the fair country for herself, with characteristic egotism. That men might know that this fruitful land was explored in the time of the Virgin Queen, it was called "Virginia." Raleigh was wild with delight. And the jealous courtiers looked dejected and sad. A fleet of seven vessels--with one hundred colonists--was now sent to Virginia, under the command of one Grenville, who was eager to become suddenly rich: a disease as common now as in those venturous days. No sooner had the people landed, than they began to treat the savages with such harshness and rapacity--that they had to gain their own food, as the natives would have nothing to do with them. Dissensions tore the little community into shreds. So they were only too glad to return with the gallant old sea-dog, Sir Francis Drake, when he happened that way, with a large amount of booty which he had just taken from the Spaniards in the southern seas. Another expedition was sent over by Raleigh; and yet another. They were failures. But there was one, single thing which was not a failure. This was the discovery of a herb called "Yppowoc," or tobacco, the leaves of which--when dried--were smoked by the natives in long pipes. Curious Sir Walter had a jeweller in London make him a silver pipe, after the fashion of those used by the native Virginians. In this he began to smoke the tobacco, and soon grew to like it very much; so much, indeed, that he was scarcely ever without this comforter, when enjoying the quiet of his home. One day he was sitting cosily by his fire with his Long Nine in his mouth, and the smoke was curling gracefully over his head. Just as he was puffing out a particularly thick cloud, one of his servants happened to enter the room with a tankard of ale, for the luncheon table. "Ye Gods!" cried he. "My Master's on fire!" _Swash!!_ Over Sir Walter's head went the ale, and the frightened lackey dashed down the steps. "H-e-l-p! H-e-l-p!" cried he. "My Master is burning up! H-e-l-p!" But Sir Walter did not burn up this time. Instead he near split his gallant sides with laughing. Now, Boys, don't smile! 'Tis said that good old Queen Bess tried, herself, to smoke a Long Nine. But--hush--"she became so dizzy and ill from the effects that she never ventured upon the experiment again!" (Keep this quiet! Very quiet! Will you!) On one occasion she was watching Sir Walter blowing circles of smoke over his head, and said to him-- "Zounds! (or something stronger) Sir Walter! You are a witty man; but I will wager that you cannot tell me the weight of the smoke which comes from your pipe!" "I can, indeed," was the confident reply of the gallant courtier. "Watch me closely!" At once he took as much tobacco as would fill his pipe and exactly weighed it. Having then smoked it up, he--in like manner--weighed the ashes. "Now, Your Majesty," said he, smiling. "The difference between these two weights is the weight of the smoke." And again Queen Bess remarked "Zounds!" (or Eftsoons!). At any rate, she paid the wager, for--with all her frailties--she was a Good Loser. Raleigh, in fact, shortly became reinstated in Royal favor, and, when he aided Drake and Hawkins--soon afterwards--in dispersing the Invincible Armada, he was again in the good graces of his sovereign. There was, however, a pretty, young Maid-of-Honor at court, called Elizabeth Throgmorton, and no sooner had the bright eyes of Sir Walter fallen upon her, than he fell in love. In paying court to this amiable lady he was compelled to use great caution and secrecy, for jealous Queen Bess watched him narrowly, and with suspicion. In spite of her preference for Essex, Elizabeth was quite unwilling that Raleigh--her less favored lover--should transfer his affections to another. So, in making love to Elizabeth Throgmorton, the gay courtier was compelled to use the utmost care. But Murder (or Love) will out! It chanced one day, that the Queen discovered what was going on between her Maid-of-Honor and the cavalier. Her rage knew no bounds. She berated Raleigh before her ladies, and forbade him to come to court. She fiercely commanded the Maid-of-Honor to remain a prisoner in her room, and, on no account to see Raleigh again. So the venturous Knight turned his attention once more to wild roving upon the sea. Now the jealous courtiers fairly chuckled with glee. "Ha! Ha! Ha!" laughed they. "Ho! Ho! Ho! He! He! He!" But Sir Walter engaged very actively in fitting out some squadrons to attack the Spanish ships. "Egad! I hate a Spaniard!" he said. "They are my country's special enemies and I intend to do them all the harm that I can!" The Queen was glad enough to separate him from his lady love and not only consented to his project, but promised to aid him in it. Ere long fifteen vessels were anchored in the Thames--all ready to sail--but, before he set out, the gallant commander made up his mind that he would marry his beloved Maid-of-Honor. It was not difficult to find a clergyman who would splice him tighter than he ever spliced a rope aboard ship. The deed was done. He set sail. All was going propitiously. "I'll attack the Spanish ships in the harbor of Seville," said Raleigh. "Then--off to the Spanish Main and sack the town of Panama." He laughed,--but what was that? Rapidly approaching from the coast of England came a swift pinnace. It gained upon the squadron in spite of the fact that all sail was hoisted, and, at last came near enough to give Raleigh a signal to "Heave to." In a few moments her commander climbed aboard. "The Queen has changed her mind about your expedition," said he. "She has sent me--Sir Martin Frobisher--to tell you to come home." Raleigh said things which made the air as blue as the sea, but he put back--for he could not disobey the Royal command. He was soon at court. The Queen was furious with anger. "You have disobeyed my commands," said she. "I find you have secretly married my Maid-of-Honor. To the Tower with you! To the dungeons of the Tower!" And all the jealous courtiers were so happy that they danced a can-can in the ante chamber. What do you think of this? Thrown into prison because he loved a Maid and married her! Nowadays "all the World loves a Lover." In those times all the world _might_ have "loved a Lover" except Queen Bess,--and a number of courtiers hanging around within easy call: _They_ kicked a Lover. And then they all got together and said: "Fine! Fine! Now we've got him where he ought to be. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho! Ho!" But women relent; that is one of their chief characteristics. Queen Bess softened, grew lukewarm, finally became molten. "Sir Walter Raleigh can go free," said she. The gallant courtier returned to his country estate, where--with his wife and children he enjoyed the luxuries and comforts of country life. And the jealous courtiers began to look strangely sober. Still the sea called. The sea sang its old song, and, fired with the spirit of adventure, Sir Walter decided upon another expedition: this time to the coast of Guiana, in South America, where, it was said, "billets of gold lay about in heaps, as if they were logs of wood marked out to burn." With a large fleet at his command he soon started upon this expedition for plunder and for fame. This time no Sir Martin Frobisher sailed after him to bring him back to a dungeon in the Tower and he was able to reach his destination. The expedition was a howling success. Whenever and wherever Sir Walter could inflict injury on the Spaniards, whom he so bitterly detested, he did so with eagerness. A Spanish ship was soon seen, chased, and--after a brief, hot fight--surrendered and was boarded. "Egad!" cried Raleigh. "Here's luck, for the cargo's of fire arms. I'll stow them away in my own vessel and let the captive go!" Proceeding on his voyage, he not long afterwards encountered and captured another prize; a Flemish ship sailing homeward with a cargo of fine wine. Twenty hogsheads were transferred to the hold of Raleigh's ship and the captured craft was allowed to sail on,--empty. Things continued to go well. The Island of Trinidad (off Venezuela) was reached at last. The natives were friendly and told of vast deposits of gold far up the river Orinoco. "But would Raleigh not please besiege the Spanish town of St. Joseph?" said they, "and rescue some of their chiefs whom the Spaniards held prisoners--in chains." "I always strike a Spaniard when I can," said Raleigh. "On, men, we'll sack this proud city!" St. Joseph speedily fell into his hands. The chiefs were released. They were so gratified, that they paddled him far up the river, where they found glittering gold, which they tore out of rocks with their daggers. The Englishmen were delighted, and, collecting a mass of nuggets to show to those at home, they put back to the ships, set sail, and were soon in England again. The people were astonished at this exploit, but the jealous courtiers did all they could to deprive Raleigh of the renown which was justly his due. "What this fellow has told is a lie," whispered they into the ears of good Queen Bess. "There is no such place as Guiana. Raleigh has been down upon the coast of Spain and hidden himself. He has not crossed the Atlantic at all." Which proves that no one can ever do anything adventurous without stirring up the hammers of the Envious: the Little Men. Is it not so to-day? Look around! You can hear the carping critic at any time that you may wish! _Do_ something _big_, sometime. Then put your ear to the ground and listen! But the sea called for the fifth time. A vast English fleet was hurled against the Spanish at Cadiz,--a great English fleet, accompanied by an army. England was bound to get even with the Spaniards for daring to launch the supposedly invincible Armada against them--and Sir Walter eagerly sailed for the coast of Spain. The harbor of Cadiz was seen to be fairly jammed full of stately galleons and men-of-war. Arranged in compact rows, close to shore, just below the towering and frowning castle of Cadiz; they were protected, on either side, by fortresses, whence heavy guns peeped forth to defend them. There were nearly sixty large vessels in all, four of which were galleons, and twenty of which were galleys: well-manned and well-armed with small cannon. There were many more ships than in the attacking fleet. It was the evening of June the 20th, 1596. The British vessels rapidly sailed into the harbor, Raleigh leading, in the flagship, the _Water Sprite_; behind him the _Mary Rose_, commanded by his cousin, Sir George Carew; and the _Rainbow_ under Sir Francis Vere. All were eager for the fray, and it was not long before their approach was observed by the Spanish fleet. Instantly a huge galleon, the _Saint Philip_--the largest in the Spanish Navy--swung out of her position, followed by the _Saint Andrew_, second only to her in size. "They're coming to meet me!" cried Raleigh--joyously. Instead of that, the galleons sailed for a narrow strait in the harbor--followed by the rest of the Spanish fleet--and cast anchor just under the stout fortress of Puntal. They arranged themselves in close array and awaited the attack of the English. The English fleet anchored, but at daybreak, the impetuous Raleigh bore down upon the formidable mass of hulking galleons. The sun rays streamed over the old, Spanish town, gilding the pinnaces and spires of the churches, shining brightly upon the flapping pennons of Britisher and Don. The white sails flapped, spars creaked and groaned, the sailors cheered, and--in a moment--the cannon began to bark, like wolf hounds. The fight had begun. Raleigh was the incarnation of battle. Passing rapidly from point to point upon the deck of his vessel, he encouraged and urged on his men, exposed himself as freely as the rest; and whenever a man faltered, there he appeared to urge the faint heart on with words of inspiration and hope. _Roar! Roar! Roar! Zoom! Zoom! Crash!_ The arquebusses spittled and spat; cannon growled; and iron crashed into solid oak planking. The orders were not to board until the fly-boats (long, flat-bottomed vessels with high sterns) came up, which were manned by Dutch allies. For three hours the battle raged, but the fly-boats did not arrive. The Earl of Essex--the commander of this expedition--now ordered his flagship to pass through the advance line of vessels, and make the way to the front. Raleigh was chafing with rage because the fly-boats did not come, yet, in spite of the danger of being shot, he jumped into a light skiff, and was rowed over to the galleon of Essex. "I'll board the _Saint Philip_," cried he, "if the fly-boats do not soon arrive. Even though it be against the orders of the Admiral. For it is the same loss to burn, or to sink, and I must soon endure one or the other." "Go ahead!" yelled Essex, over the bow. "I'll second you, upon my honor!" Raleigh hastened with all speed to the deck of the _Water Sprite_, where his men were pounding away at the Spanish galleons with all their might and main. No sooner had he mounted the poop, than he saw, with anger, that two vessels of his own squadron had forced themselves into a position in front of his own; for their commanders wanted to win first honors in this battle at sea. Raleigh, himself, wished to have the honor, just like other sea captains in later battles. But,--that's another story. So, the gallant seaman ran the _Water Sprite_ between the two other ships and took up his position as leader. Sir Francis Vere of the _Rainbow_ was resolved to keep in front as well as Raleigh. As the _Water Sprite_ passed him he slyly cast a rope to a sailor, who tied it to her stern, and his own vessel thus kept abreast of the lumbering galley of his chief. "But," writes Sir Walter, "some of my company advising me thereof, I caused the rope to be cast off, and so Vere fell back in his place, where I guarded him--all but his very prow--from the sight of the enemy. I was very sure that none would outstart me again for that day." The guns of the fort appeared to be silent and the big galleons lay apparently helpless in the face of the valiant enemy. Raleigh moved on, but, as he was about to clutch his splendid prize, it escaped him, for the Spaniards--finding that they would be captured--made haste to run the _Saint Philip_, and several of her sister ships, aground on the sand. "Blow them up!" came the order. The Spanish sailors and soldiers came tumbling out of the ships into the sea in heaps--"as thick as if coals had been poured out of a sack into many pots at once." Then a terrific roar boomed forth. The air was filled with flying splinters, canvas, iron, and lead. The portions of the galleons were now floating upon the waves and the water was alive with the struggling bodies of the Spaniards as they desperately endeavored to save themselves. The spectacle was lamentable. Many drowned themselves. Many, half burned, leaped into the water; while others hung by the ropes' ends; by the ships' sides; under the sea, even to their lips. "If any man had a desire to see Hell, itself," wrote Sir Walter, "it was there most lively figured!" Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! The English sailors were cheering, for victory was theirs, and of all the gallant warriors of that day, Raleigh had been the most persistently daring and heroic. "The _Saint Andrew_'s still afloat, good Sire!" cried one of his sailors at this moment. "Then we'll take her!" cried Raleigh. She was boarded and captured with little difficulty, while yet another galleon--the _Saint Matthew_--fell into his hands. These were the only vessels of all that proud Spanish fleet which had escaped the flames. Raleigh, himself, had been severely wounded in the leg, but he refused to release the command of his ship. He gave orders that all lives should be spared, and although these mandates were rigidly obeyed by the English soldiers, the Dutch cruelly slaughtered many of their hapless prisoners, for their hatred of the Spaniards was bitter and savage. Cadiz had not yet fallen and Raleigh was determined to go on shore with the troops and witness the taking of the town, in spite of his wound. A litter was prepared for him--he was lowered into one of the boats--rowed ashore, carried upon the shoulders of some of his faithful soldiers, and witnessed the furious struggle which now ensued. Cadiz fell. Although the lives of the people were spared; the castle, fortifications and the greater part of the town itself, were burned and demolished. If you go there, to-day, you will still find the marks of this great and stirring strife. There was nothing left but to put the Spanish prisoners aboard the galleons, collect the plunder, and set sail for England. When the fleet again swung into the little harbor of Plymouth it was received by the people with wildest enthusiasm and delight. All England rang with the praise of the valor and courage of her heroes, for Spain had been stripped of her ability to injure her English rival and England's power was supreme upon the sea. Raleigh and his comrades had done this,--and the descendants of Raleigh and his comrades have continued to uphold the supremacy. Hurrah for Raleigh! But how about those jealous courtiers? They were still around--Oh, yes!--And Raleigh was greeted at court as coldly as when he had departed with the fleet. He had been deprived of his office of Captain of the Queen's Guard, and even his bravery at Cadiz did not win this back for him. Nor did he receive any of the spoil which had been won by himself and his comrades. Even Queen Bess was angry because her share of the booty taken from Cadiz was not as great as she had hoped for. "What the Generals have got," wrote Sir Walter, "I know least. For my own part, I have got a game leg, and am deformed. I have received many good words and exceedingly kind and regardful usage; but I have possession of naught but poverty and pain." Not long afterwards the old Queen was persuaded to write Sir Walter to come to court, and thus he and his wife, whom Elizabeth had also forgiven, appeared daily in the brilliant throng which clustered in the halls and corridors of the Royal Palace. He was restored to his old office of Captain of the Queen's Guard and rode forth again in all the splendor of his uniform, at the side of the sovereign. The rest of Sir Walter's life can be briefly narrated. With Essex he took part in a successful expedition to the Azores, where they captured many ships, and with him divided much booty and fame. But Essex became too ambitious and started a conspiracy to place himself upon the throne of England. It was a failure. He was captured by the Queen's soldiers--a part under Sir Walter himself--was tried, and executed for High Treason. Queen Bess soon died and was succeeded by a man who disliked Sir Walter from the start. This was James the First of Scotland--a "dour" fellow--who charged the valorous knight with treason, for it was alleged that he had conspired, with Lord Cobham, to place the youthful Arabella Stuart upon the throne. He was tried, convicted, and thrown into the Tower, where he lived for twelve long, tedious years. Think of it! A fellow of his venturesome and restless spirit forced to remain in a dungeon-keep for such a time! Weep for brave Sir Walter! This was fine treatment for a patriot! But the jealous courtiers did not weep. Oh no! _They_ laughed. When gallant Sir Walter was thrown into the Tower (for he had not plotted against the King) he was a hale and stalwart cavalier of fifty-two. He was released--after twelve years--when his hair and beard were grizzled, his face worn and wrinkled, his body somewhat bent, and his features grave and sorrowful. With what tearful joy he clasped to his breast his ever faithful wife and his two sons! At sixty-four his brave spirit was still unshaken; his ardent and restless ambition was as keen as ever. He went forth with the sentence of death still hanging over his head; for King James, although giving a grudging consent to his release, had refused to pardon him. And he went forth with the understanding that he should lead an expedition to the coast of Guiana in South America; there to attack the Spaniards and gain plunder, gold, and jewels. If successful he was to go free. If non-successful, he was to suffer punishment--perhaps death! The expedition was a failure. The Spaniards and natives were well aware of his coming, for 'tis said that King James, himself, sent them news of the expedition. "If I go home it's off with my head," said Sir Walter. "But I'll risk it." Don't you think if you had been Sir Walter, instead of sailing to England where you knew that a headsman's axe awaited you, you would have coasted by the shores of the Chesapeake Bay and dropped off quietly where is the home of the canvas-back and the terrapin! Just stepped into one of the jolly-boats and peacefully drifted ashore on a dark night? I think that you would have been strongly inclined to do so,--but _you_ are not Sir Walter Raleigh. _He_ was a lion-hearted adventurer. Opportunity after opportunity came to him to escape to the shores of France. He let them go by, but, when he found that his enemies demanded his trial for treason, he thought it high time to get away. He learned that a French envoy had arranged to get him to France and had a barque for this purpose. A certain Captain King had found a small boat commanded by one of Sir Walter's old boatmen, which lay at Tilbury awaiting his orders. It was arranged by Raleigh's guard--one Stukeley--that he should be rowed to the little lugger on the evening of Sunday, August the 9th, 1618. The latter was sent up the Thames river to Gravesend. At the hour designated, Raleigh, Captain King, Stukeley and his son Hart, with a page, jumped into two small wherries in order to row to the lugger. They had just shoved off, when keen Sir Walter saw another boat push out from the bank and follow them. "How's this?" said he to Stukeley. But silent Stukeley did not answer. The boat rowed fast, but the pursuing craft moved with equal speed. The tide was singing and gurgling in a mad flow, and it became doubtful whether the wherries could reach Gravesend under the protection of darkness, for day was breaking, and the whirling water made progress very slow. At last--seeing that they could not get away--the shallops were forced to turn about and retrace their passage. The pursuing boat swung, also--like a shadow of the first. Sir Walter's heart beat tumultuously. When the fugitives reached Greenwich--Stukeley stood up and appeared in his true colors. Laying a hand upon the shoulder of faithful Captain King, he cried-- "I arrest you in the name of our Monarch, James First!" Raleigh looked around in anger and dismay. "Stukeley," he said with heat, "you are a trait'rous cur. These actions will not turn out to your credit!" But the knave laughed derisively,--so derisively that the common people dubbed him "Sir Judas Stukeley." And it well suited him. Didn't it? The boatmen rowed directly to the Tower and the boat which had pursued the wherries--which contained a courtier named Herbert (to whom Stukeley had betrayed the projected escape)--followed them close. The soldiers in her (for they had been well hidden) escorted the dejected Sir Walter to the grim walls of the dungeon. There was now no hope for that gallant adventurer: the man had brought honor and renown to England. He was tried for Treason: condemned: executed. As he stood waiting for the axe to fall, he said: "I have many sins for which to beseech God's pardon. For a long time my course was a course of vanity. I have been a seafaring man, a soldier, and a courtier; and, in the temptations of the least of these there is enough to overthrow a good mind and a good man. I die in the faith professed by the Church of England. I hope to be saved, and to have my sins washed away by the precious blood and merits of our Saviour, Jesus Christ." A quick shudder ran through the multitude when Sir Walter had ceased to live, and many groaned aloud at the horrible sight. One stout yeoman cried out angrily, "We have not had such another head to be cut off." The crowd separated slowly, muttering and crying out against the enemies of the valiant man; while his friends, who were present, parted with tears coursing down their cheeks. And the jealous courtiers said: "Magnificent!" It was now their turn to shout. And they did it, too. * * * * * So, you see, Sir Walter Raleigh's patriotism was paid for by death. The trouble with him was, he was too much of a man. _Nowadays_--when a soldier or sailor does something for England--they give him a Hip! Hip! Hurray! He is appreciated. He is presented with titles, honors, and a warm reception. _Then_, when a man did something for England, those in power gave him the cold shoulder; the icy stare. That's the reason why England's sons will do something for her now. If she had kept treating them as she did Sir Walter Raleigh she wouldn't have many of them around when it came to a fight. _And, some day, she'll need them all!_ So when a fellow does something really great, don't greet him with frozen silence. _Cheer! He needs it! Besides,--it won't hurt you!_ _Give a tiger and three times three!_ THE VANISHED SAILORS Say, sailors, what's happened to young Bill Jones? Jones of Yarmouth; the bright-cheeked boy? Jones who could handle a boat like a man, Jones, who would grapple a smack like a toy? "_Fell o'er the sea-end with Raleigh. Ahoy!_" Well, sea-dogs, where's Thompson of Yarmouthport dock? The chap who could outwit old Hawkins, they say, The man with th' knowledge of charts and of reefs, There wasn't his equal from Prawle to Torquay. "_Fell o'er the sea-end with Raleigh, to-day!_" Where's Rixey of Hampton; Smith of Rexhill? Who'd coasted and traded from London to Ryde, Huggins and Muggins, all seamen of worth, Who could jibe and could sail, sir, when combers were wide? "_Fell o'er the sea-end with Raleigh. Last tide!_" Well, seamen, when that day shall come near, When the salt sea is moved from its bed, Some will there be, who can give us the news, Of all that brave band, whom Adventure has led To "_Fall o'er the sea-end with Raleigh, 'tis said!_" "Such is the man, Whom neither shape nor danger can dismay, Nor thought of tender happiness betray; Who, not content that worth stands fast, Looks forward, persevering to the last, From good to better, daily self-surpassed." --_Ballads of the Day._ JEAN BART THE SCOURGE OF THE DUTCH (1650-1702) As long as selfishness remains a Human Passion,--Warfare will continue. JEAN BART THE SCOURGE OF THE DUTCH (1650-1702) "'What means that canvas, Skipper? It's bearing down to port, And it drives a blackish barquentine, with every topsail taut, There're guns upon her poop deck. There're cannon near her bow, And the bugler's bloomin' clarion, it shrills a how-de-row?' The skipper took a peep at her, his face turned ashen pale, His jaw began to tremble, and his knees began to fail, As the flag of France swung to the breeze and fluttered without check, 'Jean Bart!' he gurgled weakly, and fainted on the deck." --_Rhymes of The Dutch Channel Fleet._--1676. The good ship _Cochon Gras_ boiled along off the coast of Normandy under a full spread of canvas, for the breeze was light, and was from the southward. A boy of sixteen stood at the helm. He was well bronzed by exposure to the elements; was sturdy and strong. His dark hair waved luxuriantly about a face in which keenness and shrewdness were easily to be seen. His name was Jean Bart and he had been born at Dunkirk in France. The Captain of the _Cochon Gras_ strode about upon the deck below. He was in an evil mood and his voice showed his ill feeling. "Put the helm over!" he shouted to the steersman. "Don't you see that your sails aren't half full! Boy, will you never learn!" Jean Bart obeyed. "Very good, my Captain!" said he. "Very good, my Monsieur Valbué." And, at this, the captain scowled, for he was in a beastly temper. "I am glad that you act quickly," said he. "You know nothing. By acting quickly you will learn a thing or two. _Tiens!_ Be speedy! Be very quick! Be like the Bishop of Oléron!" He smiled and lurched against the rail. "Ah, this good prelate was a true seaman," said he. "He knew the tides like a mackerel. He knew as much as I do, myself, and that is saying a good deal." Jean Bart chuckled at the vanity of Monsieur Valbué. "The good Bishop was standing on the rocks upon a stormy evening," continued the captain, "when he saw some fisher boats making for the harbor. One of them was bearing too close to the shore. One of them was going to go upon the rocks. One of them was steered by a poor fellow who knew neither the reefs nor the shoals. 'Voilà!' cried the good bishop. 'Voilà! I will save this dull-witted sailor.' And, forthwith, what do you think that he did,--?" A small knot of seamen had, by this time, collected around the talkative captain. They all shook their heads. [Illustration: JEAN BART.] "Fools," cried Captain Valbué. "Fools! Why, he strode into the sea, of course. Being a pure man of God and a member of the true church, he walked upon the surface of the water. The boat coming in was manned by Huguenots, by unbelievers, mark you! By fellows who had neither the sense nor the grace to be members of the true church. _They_ could not walk upon the water. Oh! No! But the good Bishop _he_ walked as easily as a stormy petrel, for he was a man of God. And, as he reached the boat he made the sign of the cross, saying, 'Beware of the rocks which you sail down upon! Bear off to the left! When you see the red buoy, bear to the right, and then come home by keeping your bow pointed for the spire of the big church!' And they did so. They were saved by the good Bishop, whom I know well. As for me. I would have let the foolish Huguenots get their just deserts. It would have been one heretic less and good riddance." At this one of the seamen was plainly angered. "Piff!" said he. "Piff!" That was all. But Monsieur Valbué had noticed it and Monsieur Valbué grew angry in a moment. Seizing a half-empty cider mug, from which he had been drinking, he hurled it at the head of the fellow who had made the remark. "You dog of a Huguenot!" he roared. The seaman dodged, and the cider mug spun into the planks of a jolly boat. Then he stepped forward and said, "Captain Valbué, the Laws of Oléron, under which we sail, say that you cannot and must not strike a seaman with any missile. I, Lanoix, will strike back if you hit me." But Monsieur Valbué was like a bubbling tea-pot. Seizing a hand-spike, he shot it out at the man who knew the law. "The Laws of Oléron allow me just one blow," blubbered Captain Valbué. "Just as the laws of England allow each dog one bite." As luck would have it, he missed his shot. Lanoix leaped over the iron rail which separated the forecastle from the after part of the vessel. Then he turned around. "Follow me here, you coward!" he shouted to the captain, "and I will have the right to crack you through the middle. Consult the Laws of Oléron under which we sail and see if they do not back me up!" "The laws be blowed!" yelled Monsieur Valbué, now beside himself with rage. And, leaping across the rail he struck the Huguenot two sturdy blows in the face. Jean Bart, meanwhile, steered the ship: looked on; and said nothing. R-i-i-p! There was a flash, a blow, and a cry of pain. A large, keen knife was clenched in the strong right hand of Lanoix, and the captain was running red, with a deep gash in his shoulder. "Down with the Mutineer! Down with the dog!" came from the throats of the members of the crew who had clustered about the two enraged men, smiling at the little affair. With a rush they were upon the Huguenot; had forced him to the deck; and wrested the knife from his hand. But, before it was wrenched from his fist, the blade had pierced the body of a seaman and had felled him to the boarding. "Bring up the Laws of Oléron," cried Captain Valbué, when the Huguenot had been secured. "Bring up the Laws of Oléron from my cabin, and let us see whether or no I was right, when I struck this prating Lanoix!" The cabin-boy dove below and was soon again upon the deck. "The law shall be read," cried the captain. "Out with it!" Now, aboard the vessel was one Antoine Sauret--a good, old boatswain--a friend of the father of Jean Bart, and a courageous man. "The law shows you to be in the wrong," said he. "Yes," cried Jean Bart from the wheel, which he had not left. "You were, and are, in the wrong." Monsieur Valbué glowered at them. "I am the law," said he. "Is this not my vessel?" "But the right is on his side," interrupted the good Antoine Sauret. "You wait and see what I do to this cur of a Huguenot," snarled Captain Valbué. "And no more talk from either you or Jean Bart. Hear! Six out of eight of the crew agree that this Lanoix has wounded me and has slain one of his ship-mates--without proper provocation--I will now fix him." And this he did in the most approved manner. Lashing his victim's arm to a sharp sword tied to the windlass, he knocked the unfortunate Lanoix upon the deck with a hand-spike. Then, tying him--still alive--to the dead sailor whom the Huguenot had killed when the crew rushed upon him,--he cried out: "Throw 'em both to the fishes!" They were seized. "One! Two! Three! Heave Away!" sounded from the throats of the Frenchmen. Lanoix and the dead sailor spun out above the blue water. A splash. A gurgle of white foam, and the Atlantic closed above them. Seamen--you witness--were brutes, in these merry days of privateering. But hear the sequel of the gruesome story! Jean Bart and the good boatswain Sauret had, from that moment, no high opinion of the Laws of Oléron. So, when the vessel touched at Calais, upon the coast of France, they walked up to the captain, saying: "Sir. We wish to leave you! We cannot sail any longer beneath your orders." The brutal Valbué scowled. "Go!" said he. "And good riddance." But when the circumstances of the death of the two men were reported to the authorities, the captain was tried. "The Law of Oléron," said the Judge to him, "acquits you, for the Huguenot sailor was in the wrong to draw his knife, when you struck him only with your fists. But it is a bad law and must be changed." Here he turned to young Jean Bart and the good Sauret. "As for you two," said he, "I most highly commend you for protesting against the brutality of this captain. Would that all the sailors of France were as good as both of you. If they were, there would be less trouble aboard ship. Again I commend you!" So--feeling very happy, indeed--young Jean Bart went out into the street. Though only sixteen he had been right in his attempt to save the life of poor Lanoix. Good for young Bart! Hats off to the sailor lad of sixteen who was more merciful than the cruel Law of Oléron! And this brutal set of rules was soon changed to the Maritime Code of France, which gave seamen some right to defend themselves against the attacks of rough and overbearing captains. Thus Jean Bart had started the ball rolling in the right direction. Again hats off to the doughty, young Frenchman! Not long after this event the Dutch fell out with the English and began a smart little war. Jean Bart hastened to the scene of action, enrolled in the Dutch cause, and fought with them for five full years. Then the Dutch began to make war upon the French (in 1672), but this was too much for the patriotic sentiments of the youthful volunteer. "Ah!" said he. "When my own people are attacked, I must hasten to their assistance. The Dutch have paid me well 'tis true, but now I scorn their gold. Vive la France!" So saying, he returned to Dunkirk, speedily found employment, and went to sea again--not in a man-of-war, but in a privateer. He was now four-and-twenty; was wiry, tough, and well used to battling both with men and with the elements. The boat he sailed in mounted only two guns and had a crew of thirty-six. She was named after a famous personage of Biblical history: _King David_, and she conducted herself as skilfully as did that ancient monarch, for was not Jean Bart at the helm? Cruising out upon the treacherous waters of the North Sea, it was not long before a vessel was sighted that was of such small tonnage that Bart was not afraid to give chase. He slapped on all canvas, put his helm hard over, and steered for the dancing bit of canvas. The _King David_ was a swift sailer, and soon the bow-gun spoke from the deck of the French privateer, sending a challenging shot whistling close to the stern of the stranger, who flew the flag of the States General (the Dutch Republic) with which the French were now at war. The stranger did not relish the challenge, and came to in a hurry, while her flag fluttered weakly to the deck. "She's ours!" cried Jean Bart, gleefully. "And without a fight. Hurray for the life of a privateer!" Quickly ranging alongside, the stranger was seen to be a valuable prize, laden with tea, spices, and cotton. She was manned by a small crew and sent to port. "Now off for other luck!" cried Jean Bart. Luck was with him, too. In four months cruising in the English Channel, near the Belgian coast, he captured six prizes; all without any fighting. The Dutch trading vessels of those days must have been without guns and poorly manned, for it should have been easy to stand off a crew of but thirty-six, with only two cannon aboard. Jean Bart--you may be sure--was well satisfied. He was now rich, quite famous, and keen for further adventure. So well did the owners of the privateer _King David_ think of him, that they now put him in charge of a larger vessel named _La Royale_, carrying about eighty men and ten guns. "Go out and win!" cried the chief owner of this privateer. "Jean Bart, you are followed by the best blood of France. Your men are all from Dunkirk!" And Jean Bart smiled. "Watch me!" said he. Cruising near the coast of Holland in company with a small French gun-boat, he fell in with a man-of-war--the _Esperance_--carrying twelve guns and about one hundred and twenty men. "Now we'll have a real fight!" cried the youthful French commander as he cleared decks for action. "Men, see to it that your swords are sharpened for there may be some boarding!" Then he signalled to the little French gun-boat to follow him and give battle. This ally carried about a hundred men and six cannon. "Poof! Poof!" The heavy guns of the Dutchman were the first to speak and they barked away like fat Newfoundland watch-dogs. "Poof! Poof! B-o-o-m!" Jean Bart reserved his fire until within about seventy-five yards and then he gave the command, "Fire away! Aim low! And try to hull her!" A sheet of flame sprang from the ten guns of _La Royale_ and a splitting of boards and crackling of splinters showed that the iron missiles had punctured the stout sides of the _Esperance_. "Pop! Pop! Crash!" The other French vessel now threw her lead into the stern of the defender of the flag of the States General and her mizzen-mast was seen to rock like an unfastened May pole. "Whow!" The _Esperance_ was not slow in answering back and her twelve guns spat like leopards in the brush. She filled away and bore towards the land, but the French gun-boat saw this move and checkmated it. Sailing across her bow, the Frenchman raked her fore and aft, while the rub-a-dub-dub of Jean Bart's guns went drumming against her starboard side. Crash! Crash! Crash! Her boards were split, her mizzen-mast was swaying, and her rigging was near cut in two. Men were falling fast and two of her guns had blown up and were rendered useless. "Surrender!" came a sharp hail from the lusty throat of Jean Bart, and, as he spoke, a perfect hail of grape came from his French ally, now creeping up to port for a chance to grapple and board. "What can I do?" sighed the stout, Dutch commander, turning to one of his lieutenants. "Boy, haul down our flag!" So down came the emblem of the States General amidst ringing cheers from the throats of the followers of Jean Bart. They had won a notable victory. When the _Esperance_ was towed and half-sailed into Dunkirk harbor, old Antoine Sauret was there. "Ah, my friends," said he, "I always told you that my boy, Jean Bart, would make a great name for himself. Three times three for the great privateer of Dunkirk!" And all the bystanders joined in right willingly. Not long after this event, our hero's ship was lying in the harbor of Bergen in Sweden. The captain of an English vessel met him on shore, and, after having a chat with him, remarked: "I hear that you have quite a reputation for fighting your ship. I, too, am a sea warrior and would like to have a little affair with you. My own vessel is of about the same tonnage as yours, so that we could meet upon even terms. Will you join me?" "I would be delighted," answered the war-like Jean Bart. "If you wait two days I will be ready for you and will fight you three miles off the coast. Meanwhile I must lie here and take on some stores which are much needed by both men and guns." The Englishman smiled. "You are a man after my own heart," said he. "Good-by until we meet in battle." Three days after this, Jean Bart sent a boy to the English vessel with a note for the captain. It ran: "I am ready to fight you to-morrow. Meet me three miles beyond the breakwater and may the best man win. Until then--good luck. "Yours for battle, "JEAN BART." The boy came back bearing a return missive from the Englishman, who wrote: "MONSIEUR BART: I am delighted to learn that you want to fight me, and will do so. You are indeed a brave man. But--before we go for each other's throats--pray let us breakfast together. Will you therefore take your morning meal with me, to-morrow, in my own cabin, aboard my ship? I shall expect you. "Yours to count on, "MIDDLETON." "I do not want to accept, but I will," mused Captain Bart. "These English fellows are far too polite." So, next morning, he was rowed to the British vessel and was soon breakfasting with his red-faced opponent. After the meal the Frenchman lighted his pipe, took a few puffs, and said: "Monsieur, I have greatly enjoyed this peaceful repast. But it is now time for me to go and sharpen my boarding-pike. I must bid you adieu." The Englishman smiled. "No," said he. "You cannot go. You are my prisoner!" Jean Bart still smoked. "You are too quick!" he answered, slowly. "There you are wrong. I am not your prisoner, for I see a barrel of gunpowder on the deck, and, if you do not release me immediately, I will blow up your ship!" The Englishman turned pale. "Watch me!" cried Jean Bart. Leaping from his seat, he rushed to the deck, lighted a match from his pipe, and held it directly over the mouth of a barrel of gunpowder, from which someone had pried the head. "Lay on! You cowards!" he yelled. "Lay on, and we'll all go to the Land of the Hereafter together." His cry was heard upon his own vessel, which--with sails up--lay waiting for him. In a moment her bow was turned towards the British ship which was still at anchor, with sails unhoisted. In a moment she dropped down alongside--and--in less time than it takes to tell--the Frenchmen had brought her upon the port quarter, and were swarming across the deck to rescue their bold captain. Taken by surprise, the English put up a plucky fight, but they were no match for the infuriated men of Dunkirk. They were soon overpowered. The captain was taken prisoner, and the vessel was considered a legitimate prize of war, because of the trick which Middleton had attempted to play upon Jean Bart. When--in a few days--the prize was sailed into Dunkirk harbor--the Englishman well wished that he had not attempted to capture the most able privateersman of all France. The fame of this exploit spread over the land, and gave rise to a ditty, which ran: "If you want to catch Jean Bart, sir, A slippery, slimy chap, Don't bait him with gunpowder, For he's sure to miss the trap. You must splice him down with chains, sir; You must nail him to the deck. Put a belt around his middle, And a collar 'round his neck. Even then you cannot hold him, For he's certain to get through, While his sailors sing a song, sir, With a Cock- a- doodle- doo!" In July, 1675, Jean Bart was married, but he did not remain long on shore. Three weeks after this auspicious event he once more put to sea and captured a number of Dutch fishing boats, which he allowed the captains to ransom for large sums of money. This was a very convenient arrangement, for it saved him the trouble of putting part of his own crew on board and sending the boats to port. But the owners of _La Royale_, upon which he sailed, did not care for his methods of procedure. "You cannot do this in future!" said they. "And you must forfeit half of what you took to us!" Jean Bart obeyed, but he was very angry. It is even said that he uttered "a round seaman's oath." So successful was he, in fact, that he was given a much larger vessel in 1676. This was a frigate--the _Palme_--with twenty-four guns and a crew of one hundred and fifty men. Sailing into the North Sea with two small French gun-boats, he soon fell in with three Dutch privateers and eight armed whaling vessels. He attacked, and the battle raged for three long, bloody hours. When the smoke and the fumes of sulphur burned away, Bart had boarded the largest privateer, while his two consorts had taken the eight whalers. The other Dutch privateers found it too hot for their liking and scudded for the coast, firing their stern-guns derisively as they disappeared. It was a great victory, and again the French coast rung with salvos for Jean Bart, while the old sea-dogs shrugged their shoulders, saying: "Ah! Ha! Did we not tell you that Dunkirk bred men of bone and marrow. Ah! Ha!" But Jean Bart was not happy. "Would that I could meet a foe of my own force," he used to say. "Either a man-of-war or a privateer, I don't care which. I want to try it on with one of my own size and strength." His wish was soon to be gratified. On September 7th, 1676, he was pointing the _Palme_ towards the Belgian coast-line, when he sighted a number of sail on the starboard quarter. He headed for them; scanned the white dots through a glass, and saw that this was a fishing fleet of small, unarmed luggers. But a big, hulking Dutch frigate hovered in their rear, and thirty-two guns pointed their brown muzzles menacingly from her open port-holes. She was the _Neptune_ and she lazed along like a huge whale: omnipotent and self-satisfied. "Ah ha!" cried the delighted Jean Bart. "Now I have met an enemy that is worthy of my steel. Up with the flag and sail into yonder Dutchman. We have but twenty-four guns to her thirty-two, but are we to be awed by this show of force? Be ready, my boys, to have the stiffest fight in your careers!" The Dutchman was equally well pleased when he saw who was coming for him. "Here is Jean Bart, the pirate and privateer," he cried. "For three years I've been hoping to have a fight with him and now my chance has come at last. I am fortunate, for I can pay him back for all the damage that he has done to Dutch commerce. Shoot low, my hearties, and do not fail to hull our enemy. Let your war-cry be: 'Down with Jean Bart and his pirate crew!'" "Hurrah!" shouted his men. And an answering "Hurray!" came from the _Palme_. These opponents were as eager to get at each other as two prize-fighters of modern days. _Crash!_ roared a broadside from the Dutch frigate as her flag went aloft, and splash, splash, splash, went her shells around the sides of the privateer. "Sail in close!" yelled Jean Bart. "Hug her to leeward for awhile, then cross her bows, rake her, get her wind, and board." "Hurray!" shouted the men of Dunkirk, and a rattle, rattle, roar came from the port guns of the _Palme_. Around and around swung the sea gladiators and the little fishing boats luffed and tittered on the waves like inquisitive sparrows. "Bart cannot win!" said several of their skippers. "For he's outweighted and outnumbered!" But Bart was fighting like John Paul Jones. Around and around went the two opponents, guns growling, men cheering, sails slapping and ripping with the chain and solid shot. Again and again Jean Bart endeavored to get a favorable position for boarding and again and again he was forced to tack away by the quick manoeuvres of the Dutchman. "Fire into her rigging!" he now thundered. "Cripple those topsails and I can bring my boat alongside." "_Crash! Crash! Crash!_" Volley after volley puffed from the side of the rolling _Palme_. Volley after volley poured its lead and iron into the swaying rigging of the Dutchman, and, with a great roaring, ripping, and smashing, the mizzen topmast came toppling over the lee rail. A lusty cheer sounded from the deck of the _Palme_. "She's ours!" cried Jean Bart, smiling. Instantly he spun over the wheel, luffed, and brought his boat upon the starboard quarter of the Dutchman, who was now part helpless. It took but a moment to run alongside, and, in a moment more, the _Palme_ was lashed to the _Neptune_ in a deadly embrace. Smoke rolled from the sides of both contestants and the roar of the guns drowned the shrill cries of the wounded. The Dutchmen were now desperate and their guns were spitting fire in rapid, successive volleys; but many of them were silenced, as the great, brown side of the _Palme_ rubbed its planking against the splintered railing of the shattered _Neptune_. As the vessels were securely bound together, Jean Bart seized a boarding-pike, a brace of pistols, and, giving the helm to a sailor, leaped into the waist of his ship. "Board! Board!" he shouted. A wild yelp greeted these welcome sounds. As he vaulted over the rail of his own ship to the deck of the stranger, a motley crew of half-wild sea-savages swarmed behind him. They had cutlasses and boarding-pikes, and their faces were blackened with powder. Their eyes were reddened with sulphurous fumes and their clothes torn with splintered planking. They rolled over the gunwales like a huge wave of irresistible fire: pistols spitting, pikes gleaming, cutlasses glistening in the rays of the sun. The captain of the _Neptune_ lay near his own wheel, grievously wounded. "Lay on, men!" he shouted. "Don't let this French privateer beat us. We will be disgraced." But his sailors were no match for the onrush of these fiends from Dunkirk. They fell back like foam before a sea squall. "Then down with our flag," cried the captain of the Dutchman. "But, ye gods, how it hurts me to give the order." A sailor seized the halyards and pulled the ensign to the deck, and, as it fell upon the reddened planking, a wild, frenzied cheer came from the French privateers. "Jean Bart, forever! France forever! Jean Bart forever!" they cried. "Up with the French flag!" yelled Jean Bart, laughing like a boy. "Up with the white lilies of France." And, as a spare ensign ran aloft, the little fishing luggers scudded for the shore. "After them, men!" cried Captain Bart. "Our work is not yet over. We must have the lambs as well as the old wolf." So, sail was soon clapped on the _Palme_, she headed for the fleeing boats, and, with a few well directed shots, hove them to. Then they were told to follow behind and head for France, which they did--but, oh! how it did hurt! It was a proud moment for Jean Bart, and his eyes danced with pleasure when he sailed into Dunkirk with the captured _Neptune_ and the fleet of fishing boats. "Voilà!" cried the townspeople. "Jean Bart is a true hero. Voilà! He shall have the freedom of the city. Voilà!" The fame of this gallant exploit soon spread abroad and the king showed some desire to see this courageous privateersman. "I would have him at court," said he to his minister Colbert. "For I would reward him." When news of this was brought to the privateersman he was naturally delighted, and, travelling to Versailles, was ushered into the presence of his Majesty. "Here is a gold chain for you," said the king. "I trust that you will keep it in recognition of my appreciation of your gallant conduct. I would be glad, indeed, to have you in the Royal Service. Would you not take a commission?" "You overwhelm me," answered the valiant sea-fighter, blushing. "I--I--I--am quite disconcerted. But--if it would please your Majesty, I believe that I would prefer to remain a simple privateer. It is a free life and it suits my roving nature." The king chuckled. "So be it," said he. "But my good sir, keep yourself in readiness for a commission. I may need you in the Royal Marine!" "Very good, Sire!" said Jean Bart, and, bowing low, he withdrew. But he did not get away without an adventure,--quite as exciting as any he had had aboard the rocking decks of one of his privateer ships. The fame of Jean Bart had stirred up a number of enemies, for, when a man is successful in life, are there not always a hundred unsuccessful fellows who stand about and scoff? Among these were a few followers of the sea who had determined to make way with this too fortunate privateer. One--Jules Blanc by name--even decided upon murder, if Jean Bart would not agree to leave the privateering business to himself and his companions. As the sailor from Dunkirk left the presence of the king he was accosted by one of his old acquaintances. "Ha, Jean Bart," said he. "Come with me to the Inn. Have a glass with me, my boy, for I see that the king has richly rewarded you. You deserve it, for you have done well, and you must be tired from your journey. Come, let us dine together?" Suspecting nothing, the gallant privateer followed his companion quite willingly, and, when he arrived at the Inn, was not surprised to find several other seamen from Dunkirk and the neighboring seaports of France. They greeted him warmly. "To your health!" cried they, raising their glasses of wine. "To the health of the bravest privateer in all of France." Jean Bart was delighted. He smiled like a child, seated himself at their table, and began to drink with these jovial men of the sea. As he sat there, suddenly a paper was mysteriously shoved into his hand. He did not see from whence it came, and, as he scanned its contents, his face grew strangely pale. "Beware of these fellows," he read. "They mean to kill you if you do not do what they wish. Beware!" Jean Bart soon regained his composure. "Come! Let us go to the dining-room up-stairs," said the friend who had first accosted him. "Come, my boys! We will there have far more quiet!" All moved for the door. Jean Bart moved, also, but before he went up-stairs, he loosened his sword-belt and cocked two pistols which he carried at his waist. He was not surprised when he saw them lock the stout door as they entered the room upon the second floor. When they were all seated Jules Blanc arose. His face well exhibited his dislike for the successful privateersman, Jean Bart. "Now, my friend," said he, facing the man from Dunkirk, "we have you here with a purpose. We wish you to know that we are determined that you shall no longer go to sea and spoil our own business for us. You have had enough success. We want you to withdraw and give some one else a chance." Jean Bart smiled. "We think that you should retire for we want some pickings for ourselves." "And if I refuse?" queried Jean Bart. Jules Blanc placed his hand instantly upon his sword-hilt. "Then--there will be trouble!" "Poof!" said Jean Bart. As he spoke, all drew their rapiers. "Again Poof!" said Jean Bart. As he spoke, a thrust came from his right. He parried it, leaped upon a chair, and stood there smiling. Crack! There was the sound of a pistol and a bullet whizzed by his ear. Then there was a sudden and awful _Crash!_ The room was filled with dust. When the startled sea-dogs looked about them Jean Bart no longer stood upon the table. He had disappeared through the window. And broken glass with splintered fastenings was all that remained of the once perfect glazing. "He has gone," said Jules Blanc. "Fellow seamen, we are outdone." But Jean Bart was a quarter of a mile away, laughing softly to himself, as he sped along the highway which led to quiet Dunkirk. Things went well with him, also, for his employers--appreciating his past services--now gave him command of a larger ship than the _Palme_: the _Dauphin_, with thirty guns and two hundred eager and adventurous sailors from the northern coast of France. Sailing forth from Dunkirk harbor, on June 18th, 1678, Jean Bart eagerly scanned the horizon with his glass. With him were two smaller privateers, so that he felt well able to cope with any adversary from Holland. His keen glance was soon to be rewarded, for when but two days from port he spied a sail upon the starboard bow. It was a Dutch frigate--the _Sherdam_--of forty guns and manned by many stout dogs of the sea. Her captain--André Ranc--was a keen fighter and a man of well-tried courage. "Bear off to leeward!" signalled Jean Bart to his privateer companion. "Then we will get the stranger between us, fasten to her, and board her from either side." The flag of the French privateer dipped back an answering, "All right!" and, as she was nearest to the Dutchman, she attacked at once. "_Poom! Poom!_" went the Dutch cannon, like the beating of a churn in that land of canals and cheese-making. And _piff! piff!_ answered the little howitzers of the privateer. But Jean Bart meant to have a quick fight, so he bore down to starboard, wore ship, and ran so close to the enemy, that his grappling irons soon held her fast. In a moment more his own vessel was hauled alongside. Meanwhile the smaller French privateer had spanked over to larboard; had run up upon the opposite side of the lumbering Dutchman; and had also gripped her. A wild, nerve-wracking cheer went up, as--sword in hand--Jean Bart led his boarders over the side of the Dutch vessel. Ranc was badly wounded but he led his men to a counter assault with courage born of desperation. Cutlasses crashed together, boarding-pikes smashed and hacked, and pistols growled and spattered in one discordant roar. Back went the Dutch sailors fighting savagely and bluntly with all the stubbornness of their natures, then back they pushed the followers of Jean Bart, while Ranc called to them: "Drive these French curs into the sea!" [Illustration: "JEAN BART LED HIS BOARDERS OVER THE SIDE OF THE DUTCH VESSEL."] But now the other privateer had made fast, and her men came clambering over the rail, with cutlass, dirk, and pistols. "We're outnumbered," Ranc shouted, his face showing extreme suffering. "Haul down the flag! Had Jean Bart been here alone I could have trounced him well." Thus reluctantly and sadly the flag of the _Sherdam_ came down. But the French had paid well for their victory. Jean Bart was badly wounded in the leg; his face was burned by the discharge of a gun, which went off--almost in his eyes--just as he leaped on board the _Sherdam_. Six of his men were killed and thirty-one were wounded, while the little privateer that had fastened to the other flank of the huge _Sherdam_, was a total wreck. So well, indeed, had the Dutch fighters plied their cannon as she approached, that she was shattered almost beyond repair. With great difficulty she was finally towed to shore. Of course all France again rang with the fame of Jean Bart, while the crafty sea-dogs who had endeavored to capture the slippery privateersman were furious with envious rage. But Jean Bart hummed a little tune to himself, which ran, "You'll have to get up early if you want to catch Jean Bart, You'll have to get up early, and have a goodly start, For the early bird can catch the worm, if the worm is fast asleep, But not if it's a privateer, who can through a window leap." This invincible corsair was also not idle, for in two weeks' time he was again at sea in the _Mars_ of thirty-two guns, and a fast sailer. Eagerly looking for prizes, he cruised far up the coast of Holland and was keenly hunting for either merchantman or frigate, when a small vessel neared him, upon which was flying a white flag. "A truce!" cried Jean Bart. "The war must be over." When the little boat drew nearer, a fat Dutchman called out something which sounded like, "Amsterdam yam Goslam!" which meant, "Peace has been declared," in Dutch. So Jean Bart sailed back into the sheltering harbor of Dunkirk with tears of sorrow in his eyes, for he loved his exciting life. "Helas!" said he. "It is all over!" Thus, indeed, ended the career of Jean Bart as a privateer captain. In January, 1679, he was given the commission of lieutenant in the French navy, but, although he accepted, he was never happy in this service. From captain to lieutenant was a decided come down, and besides this, the aristocratic officers of the Crown made life very unpleasant for one who had entered their ranks from privateering. "Bah!" said they. "He is only a commoner!" And they would turn up their titled noses. But--mark you this! Several hundred years have passed since those days, and Jean Bart's name is still remembered. Who remembers the names of any of these titled nobles who held commissions from his Majesty, the King of France? I do not think that any of you do. Certainly I do not. Therefore, there is a little lesson to be learned, and it is this: Never sneer at the fellow who accomplishes things, if he be of humble birth. _His_ name may go down to history. _Yours_ probably will not. So, the next time that you are tempted to do this, think it over. If you do, you will not say, "Pish,--the Commoner!" But you will say, "Well done! The Hero!" So, good-by, Jean Bart, and may France produce your like again, if she can! "Keep these legends, gray with age, Saved from the crumbling wrecks of yore, When cheerful conquerors moored their barques Along the Saxon shore." --THOMPSON. DU GUAY-TROUIN THE GREAT FRENCH "BLUE" (1673-1736) "Self trust is the essence of Heroism."--PLUTARCH. DU GUAY-TROUIN THE GREAT FRENCH "BLUE" (1673-1736) "He's only a scurvy Democrat, his blood is hardly blue, Oh, Sacre Nom de Dieu! Sapristi! Eet is true! Yet, he fights like the Maid of Orleans, with dirk and halberd, too, Oh, Sacre Nom de Dieu! Sapristi! Eet is true! Then--what'll you think, good gentlemen, you men of the kingly pack, Ye sons of Armand the Terrible, ye whelps of Catouriac, Shall _he_ gain the royal purple? Shall _he_ sit in the ranks with us? Shall _he_ quaff of our golden vintage, shall _he_ ride in the royal bus? Nay! Nay! For that would be te-r-r-ible! Nay! Nay! _That ill-born cuss?_ Par donc! but that is unbearable! 'Twould result in a shameful fuss! Pray, let him remain a Democrat--The cream of the fleet for us." --_Song of the French Royal Marine._--1695. "You _must_ be a churchman, Rénee," said the good Luc Trouin, turning to his little son. "I have always had a great ambition to have a child of mine in the church, and I feel that you are in every way qualified for the position of a prelate." But little Rénee hung his head. "Look up, boy," continued the amiable Frenchman. "I know that you are not now pleased with the idea, but--later on--after you have had more experience, I feel sure that you can thank Heaven that your good father started you in the right and proper direction." Still, little Rénee hung his head. "Tut! Tut!" continued the old man. "You will leave, to-morrow, for the college at Rheims, and, after you have been there but a short time, I feel sure that you will like it. Tut! Tut!" But still little Rénee hung his head. Again came the amiable "Tut! Tut!" and the chuckling Luc Trouin wandered off into the garden to see how well the potatoes were growing. But little Rénee still hung his head. And--in spite of the fact that little Rénee went to the Divinity school at Rheims, he continued to hang his head. He hung his head for three years. Then, news was brought to him, one day, that the good Luc Trouin was dead, and, instead of holding his handkerchief to his eyes to wipe away the tears, as one would expect of him, little Rénee burst into loud laughter. "At last," cried he, "I can get away from the church and go to sea. At last my freedom has come!" And it was not many hours before little Rénee was scudding away from the school of Divinity, like a clipper-ship under a full spread of canvas, before a rousing sou'west breeze. For at least two hundred years before the birth of bad, little Rénee, the Trouin family had been well known and prosperous in the Breton seaport of St. Malo. For many years a Trouin had been consul at Malaga, Spain; and other members of the house had held excellent positions with the King, so little Rénee had no reason to be ashamed of his forebears, in spite of the fact that his people were of the "bourgeoisie:" ship-owners, traders, smugglers, privateers, and merchants. And, as they were of the "bourgeoisie," they were somewhat looked down upon by the proud and haughty aristocrats who fawned about the weak and dissipated King. Little Rénee was the son of Luc Trouin and Marguerite Boscher but he was called Du Guay-Trouin, in later years, and the reason for this is plain. For--in accordance with the custom of the time--he was sent to be nursed by a foster mother who resided in the little village of Le Gué. So he was called Trouin du Gué; which shortly became Du Guay-Trouin. "I've come home, mother," shouted little Rénee, when he had plodded his weary way which lay between his temporary prison and the house of his parents. "I've come home, mother, and I'm going to sea!" But his mother did not take any too kindly to this bold and valiant idea. "You must study law," said she, with great firmness. And--in spite of the fact that little Rénee begged and pleaded--he was forced to give up his idea of seafaring life for the dry drudgery and routine of a clerk at law. He was now about sixteen years of age. "The law is dry and my spirits are high," youthful Rénee is said to have carolled as he spent his first few hours at a lecture, "and whatever may be I'm going to sea." At any rate, he soon got into trouble and engaged in three duels in his sixteenth year, in one of which his assailant gave him a serious wound. This was too much for even his stern mother to bear, so, summoning a family council, she gave forth the following opinion: "Rénee has failed as a student of Divinity. Rénee has failed as a student of law. Rénee has entirely too high spirits. Rénee shall, therefore, be placed in one of the family ships and sent to sea." And to this decree Rénee is said to have cried: "At last! Hurray!" for he longed for action. In a very short time little Rénee had a taste of that war and adventure which he craved, for a historian writes that: "During the first three months of this cruise his courage was tried by a violent tempest, an imminent shipwreck, the boarding of an English ship, and the threatened destruction of his own vessel by fire. The following year, still as a volunteer, he displayed the greatest personal courage and won much fame in an engagement which his ship had with five merchant vessels." "Ah ha," said little Rénee, "this is indeed life. I am having a good time." So well did those higher in command feel towards the youthful sailor, that, at the age of eighteen, he was actually put in charge of the ship _Danycan_ of fourteen guns,--for France was at war with England, Holland, and Spain, and to him who could strike a quick and well-aimed blow there were "nice pickings" to be had. And the reckless young sea-dog found some "nice pickings" in Ireland, for, he landed an armed party upon the coast of County Clare, where he pillaged a village, burned two ships at anchor, and escaped to his own vessel with considerable booty and family heirlooms of the peasants, who said, "Och, Begorra! We'll be afther that wild bhoy before many suns, and spank him for his unseemly whork." But the French cried "Voilà! Here, indeed, is a brave young Bourgeois," and promptly raised him to the command of the _Coetquen_ of eighteen guns, in which he soon went cruising, accompanied by a sister-ship, the _St. Aaron_. Prowling around the English channel, the skulking sea-hounds soon came across two small English men-of-war with five valuable merchantmen under their sheltering wings. "All ready for the attack!" shouted Du Guay-Trouin. "We'll make mince-meat of those foreign hulks, in spite of the fact that they are protected by two men-of-war." And, crowding on all sail, his own vessel and the _St. Aaron_ quickly bore down upon the Englishmen, who, seeing them approach, hove-to for action. The engagement was short. After a few broadsides had been delivered, the English struck, the prizes were taken over, and all started for the coast of France. But suddenly a cry went up, "Sail ho! Sail ho! off the starboard bow!" "Ta Donc," cried the surprised Du Guay-Trouin. "It is a big man-of-warsman and a Britisher too. We must give up our prizes, I fear. Clap on all canvas and we'll hie us to shore." So all sail was hoisted, and, steering for the shoals and rocks off Lundy Island--where he knew that the heavy Englishman could not follow--Du Guay-Trouin soon outdistanced and outwitted the _Centurion_: a line-of-battle ship and a formidable opponent. The rich prizes had to be left behind. Honorable appointments crowded upon the daring, young sea-dog, after this affair, and we find him successively in command of the _Profond_, of thirty-two guns; the _Hercule_, of twenty-eight guns, and the _Diligente_ of thirty-six guns and two hundred and fifty sailors, which was a King's ship borrowed for privateering and run on shares,--the monarch to have a certain part of the winnings. Like partners in business the _Diligente_ and _Hercule_ now went cruising, and it was not long before the two harpies swooped down upon their prey in the shape of two Dutch East Indiamen, armed with twenty-five guns each, and manned by rotund-bodied Dutchmen. There was rich treasure aboard, and, with eagerness and zeal, the Frenchmen slapped on all canvas in pursuit. Now was a hot chase. Mile after mile was passed, and slowly but surely the Frenchmen gained upon the lumbering foe. Then suddenly,-- _Crash!_ A ball screamed above the head of Du Guay-Trouin, and a Dutchman hove-to for battle. "Crawl in close," cried the valiant Frenchman, "and don't let go a broadside until you can hit 'em below the water line. Try to scuttle the Dutch lumber merchant!" His men obeyed him willingly and soon there was a muffled roar as the first broadside spoke in the still air. Another and another followed, and the Dutchman trembled like an aspen leaf. "Hah," shouted the enthusiastic Rénee, "up goes the white flag!" Sure enough, the vessel struck, and aboard of her was the Dutch commodore. But the _Hercule_ was beaten off by the second Dutchman, and, as the privateers boarded the captured vessel, the East Indiaman showed a clean pair of heels, under a cloud of bellying canvas. Du Guay-Trouin was delighted. "On we go, Boys," he cried, "for we'll sail these waters until we strike another prize." And this is what soon happened. On May the 12th, the _Diligente_ was cruising alone, when, suddenly six white dots appeared upon the horizon, and six British ships-of-the-line were soon closing in upon the venturous French navigator and his crew. "Ye Gods," cried the doughty Frenchman, "we're in for it now, but we will give them a lively bout even though we'll get the worst of it." And here is how he has described the battle: "One of the English ships named _Adventure_ first overtook me, and we maintained a running fight for nearly four hours, before any other of their ships could come up.... "At length my two topmasts were shot away; on which the _Adventure_ ranged up alongside me, a short pistol-shot off, and hauled up her courses. Seeing her so near, it occurred to me to run foul of her and board her with my whole crew. Forthwith I ordered such of the officers as were near to send the people on deck, got ready the grapnels, and put the helm over. "We were just on the point of hooking on to her, when unfortunately, one of my Lieutenants, looking out through a port and seeing the two ships so close together, took it into his head that there was some mistake, as he could not think that--under the circumstances--I had any intention of boarding; and so, of himself, ordered the helm to be reversed. "I had no idea of what had been done, and was impatiently waiting for the two ships to clash together, ready to throw myself on board the enemy; but seeing that my ship did not obey her helm, I ran to the wheel, and found it had been changed without my order. "I had it again jammed hard on; but perceived, with the keenest vexation, that the captain of the _Adventure_, having guessed by the expression of my face what I had meant to do, had let fall his courses, and was sheering off. We had been so near that my bowsprit had broken his taffrail; but the mistake of my Lieutenant made me lose the opportunity of one of the most surprising adventures ever heard tell of. "In the determination I was in to perish or to capture this ship, which was much the fastest sailor of the squadron, it was more than probable that I should have succeeded, and should thus have taken back to France a much stronger ship than that which I abandoned. And, not to speak of the credit which would have attached to the execution of such a plan, it is quite certain that--being dismasted--there was absolutely no other way for me to escape from forces so superior." But closer--always closer--crowded the British war-dogs, and the valorous French seamen became panic stricken. "We are outnumbered and outfought," cried many, and, deserting their guns, they fled below to the holds, in spite of the vigorous protests of Du Guay-Trouin. "I was busy trying to put a stop to the panic," says he. "I had cut down one and pistolled another, when, to crown my misfortune, fire broke out in the gun-room. The fear of being blown up made it necessary for me to go below; but, having got the fire put out, I had a tub full of grenades brought me, and began throwing them down into the hold. "By this means I compelled the deserters to come up and to man some of the lower deck guns; but, when I went up on the poop, I found, to my astonishment and vexation, that some cowardly rascal had taken advantage of my absence to haul down the colors. "I ordered them to be hoisted again; but my officers represented that to do so would be simply giving up the remnant of my ship's company to be butchered by the English, who would give no quarter if the flag were hoisted again, after being struck for so long, and that further resistance was hopeless as the ship was dismasted." "Never give in, for"--cried Du Guay-Trouin, whose democratic blood was now up, but he did not finish the sentence as a spent shot then knocked him senseless. And--as he fell--the white flag went aloft, for his officers had not his fighting spirit. "Ah ha," laughed the English jack-tars. "We've got the French rascal at last, and we'll hold him too." So little Rénee was imprisoned in a nice, dark dungeon,--the kind which the English used to put their poor debtors in. But--like a true man of courage--little Rénee escaped, took to a smuggler's skiff, and made off to the coast of France, where he arrived on the 18th of June, 1694, and was received right boisterously by the Trouin family. "My son," spoke his aged mother, "you were indeed not intended for the law, for lawlessness seems to be your particular fancy." So the delighted Trouins put him in charge of a splendid privateersman mounting forty-eight guns, sailing under the simple name of _Francois_, and, as she forged valiantly into the English channel, her skipper chanted an old French song, which ran,-- "Sons of St. Malo, hark to my lay, With a Heave! Ho! Blow the man down. For we'll capture a lugger ere close of the day, With a Heave! Ho! Blow the man down. "She's filled with gold nuggets, her crew is asleep, Then board her, and take her, for dead men are cheap, We'll spike them and pike them, like so many sheep. With a Heave! Ho! Blow the man down." It was not long before a sail was sighted, and, on the 12th day of January, 1695, the stout, little _Francois_ overhauled a solitary timber ship, loaded with huge trees, bound to England from the good town of Boston in New England. She was an easy capture, and, Du Guay-Trouin smiled with joy when her skipper said: "Three other lumber ships are in the offing. But they are under convoy of the frigate _Nonsuch_ with forty-eight guns, and the _Falcon_ with thirty-eight cannon. Look out my bold sea-dog, there'll be trouble." But the French mariner laughed. "It's just what I'm searching for," said he, and forthwith he swung the stout _Francois_ in wide circles, with look-outs at every mast-head. "Sail ho!" shouted the watch, next morn, and there, off the port bow, were the three merchantmen strung out in a line, with the two protecting gun-boats to windward. Like a greyhound the _Francois_ swept down upon them, and with the audacity of despair, the privateersman of St. Malo ranged alongside of the _Falcon_ and opened fire. The engagement was short. In an hour's time the guns of the Englishman were silent and a white pennon fluttered from the mizzen-mast. The _Nonsuch_, meanwhile, had been ranging to windward in a vain endeavor to bring her guns to bear upon the Frenchman without crippling her own mate, and--as the _Francois_ drifted away from the lurching _Falcon_--she bore down to within twenty yards, luffed, and spanked a rakish broadside into the privateer. "Board her!" shouted Du Guay-Trouin. "Board her!" and, bringing the wheel close around, he swung the bow of the _Francois_ into the side of the Englishman. But, as the sailors scampered to the bulwarks with cutlass and with dirk, a sheet of flame burst from the port-holes of the drifting _Nonsuch_. She was afire. "Luff! Luff!" cried the keen-eyed French mariner, and the _Francois_ drew away as the red flames curled upward with a cruel hiss. With a swift turn the helm again spun over, under the quick hand of Du Guay-Trouin, and the _Francois_ was jibed about in order to run under the port bow of the Englishman. "Hold, Captain!" cried a French Lieutenant. "We, ourselves, are afire!" As he spoke--a direful cloud of vapor rolled from the starboard quarter. "Alack!" answered the now furious Rénee. "This puts an end to the fighting of this day, and we'd soon have had the second Britisher. All hands below and bucket out this fire!" So, as night fell upon the rolling ocean, the _Falcon_ lay drifting helplessly, while the _Nonsuch_ and the _Francois_ were burning like two beacons upon a jutting headland. As day broke, the _Francois_ filled away (for the fire had been extinguished after an hour's toil) and ranged within striking distance of the _Nonsuch_. A broadside belched from her starboard guns and an answering roar came back from the cannon of the Englishman. The fore and main masts of the _Nonsuch_ trembled for a moment--then tottered and fell--while the gallant Captain, struck in the chest by a flying piece of shell, fell dying upon the deck. Du Guay-Trouin again attempted to board, at this moment, but the third mast was shaking and he was forced to sheer off lest the tangle of yards and rigging should fall and crush his vessel. He hung within hailing distance of the crippled sea-warrior, and, seeing that his antagonist was now helpless, cried out through his trumpet: "Run up the white flag, or I'll give you a broadside that will sink you." No answering hail came from the deck of the battered _Nonsuch_, but the piece of a torn, white shirt was soon fluttering from the tangled rigging of the foremast. Thus the gallant Rénee had defeated two warships of equal strength, and had captured vessels with a rich and valuable cargo. Now, don't you think that this fellow was a doughty sea rover? And, although the English made many excuses, the fact still remains that a single privateer had conquered double her own force in a fair and open fight upon the high seas. The sturdy _Francois_ could just barely drift into St. Malo--so badly crippled was she--but the rest came safely to port, in spite of a hard gale which blew down the masts of two of the lumber boats. And doughty Rénee refitted the _Nonsuch_, transferred his flag to her, called her the _Sans-Pareil_, and flung his flag defiantly from her mast-head in spite of the fact that she was "made in England." All France was agog over his exploit. Now, know you, that doughty Rénee was a "Blue;" a "Blue" being a man of the people (the bourgeoisie) who were not of aristocratic birth. And, as the French Royal Marine was the most exclusive body of officers in the world, birth and station being necessary for admittance therein, the titled office-holders threw up their hands when Du Guay-Trouin's name was mentioned for a place of command, saying,-- "Why, he's only a beastly Democrat. Pooh! Bah! We do not care to have such a fellow among us." And they shrugged their shoulders. The officers of the French Royal Marine wore red breeches, and, if by chance a democrat were given a commission, he had to appear in blue small-clothes throughout his entire career. Very few of the "Blues" ever came to be an Admiral, for the odds were too great against them. But Rénee had done so bravely and well that a sword was sent him by the King, who wrote,-- "Should you wish a commission in the Royal Navy, good sir, it shall be yours." And to this, Du Guay-Trouin replied,-- "I feel that I can do better where I am, Most Gracious Majesty. I will remain a Privateer." For Du Guay-Trouin wished to accumulate riches, as his forebears had done. So, cruising down the coast of Ireland, he fell in with three East Indiamen, whom he captured with ease, and, piloting them to St. Malo, declared a dividend of two thousand pounds ($10,000) a share, to the stockholders in his staunch vessel. And the value of the shares was but one hundred pounds ($500) each. Would not the men of Wall Street love such a fellow in these piping times of peace? A month later we find him cruising in the Bay of Biscay, where--in the dead of night--he ran into a great English fleet, roving about for just such vessels as the _Sans-Pareil_ and eager for a broadside at the French privateer. But young Rénee--for he was now twenty-three--had not lost his nerve. "There was no time," he wrote, "for hesitation. I had two valuable prizes with me and ordered them to hoist Dutch colors and to run away to leeward, saluting me with seven guns each as they went. "Trusting to the goodness and soundness of the _Sans-Pareil_ I stood towards the fleet, as boldly and as peaceably as if I had really been one of their number, rejoining them after having spoken the Dutchmen. Two capital ships and a thirty-six gun frigate had at first left the fleet to overhaul me; but, on seeing what I was doing, the ships returned to their stations; the frigate--impelled by her unlucky fate--persisted in endeavoring to speak the two prizes, and I saw that she was rapidly coming up with them. "I had by this time joined the fleet, tranquil enough in appearance, though inwardly I was fuming at the prospect of my two prizes being taken by the frigate; and, as I perceived that my ship sailed much better than those of the enemy who were near me, I kept away little by little, at the same time forereaching on them. Suddenly, bearing up, I ran down to place myself between the prizes and the frigate. "I should have liked to lay aboard of her and carry her in sight of the whole fleet; but her captain, being suspicious, would not let me get within musket-shot of him, and sent his boat to help me. But, when the boat was half way, her people made out that we were French, and turned to go back; on which, seeing that we were discovered, I hoisted my white flag and poured my broadside into the frigate. "She answered with hers; but, not being able to sustain my fire, she hauled her wind, and with a signal of distress flying, stood to meet the captain's ship, which hastily ran down towards us. As they stopped to render her assistance, and to pick up her boat, I was able to rejoin my prizes, and, without misadventure, to take them to Port Louis." Again France rang with acclaim for the hero of this bold exploit, and again the King offered a commission to the gallant sea-dog. But Du Guay-Trouin shook his head. "Perhaps I will become an officer in the Royal Marine later on," said he. "But not now. I am too happy and successful as a Privateer." He was quite right, for in March, 1697, was his greatest exploit. While busily scanning the horizon for sail in the _St. Jacques des Victoires_, upon the thirteenth day of that auspicious month, he saw upon the horizon, a cluster of vessels. They drew near and proved to be the Dutch East India fleet convoyed by two fifty-gun ships and a thirty-gun sloop-of-war. With him was the _Sans-Pareil_ of forty-eight guns, and the little sloop-of-war _Lenore_, mounting fourteen. The hostile squadron was formidable, and Du Guay-Trouin hesitated to attack. In command of the Dutch vessels was Baron van Wassenaer, one of a family of famous sea-fighters from Holland, and he manoeuvred his ships with consummate skill; always interposing his own vessel between the French privateer and his fleet of merchantmen. "Ah-ha," cried gallant Rénee, at this moment. "Here come some of my own boys." And--sure enough--from the direction of France, and boiling along under full canvas, rolled two privateersmen of St. Malo. Cheer after cheer went up from the deck of the _St. Jacques des Victoires_, as they pounded through the spray, for this made the contending parties about equal, although the Dutch boats were larger, heavier, and they had more guns aboard. The Dutchmen now formed in line. In front was the flagship--the _Delft_--with her fifty guns glowering ominously from the port-holes; second was the thirty-gun frigate; and third, the other war-hound of fifty guns: the _Hondslaardjiik_. Through a trumpet Du Guay-Trouin shrilled his orders. "The _Sans-Pareil_ will attack the _Hondslaardjiik_," cried he. "The two privateers will hammer the frigate, while I and the _St. Jacques des Victoires_ will attend to the _Delft_. The _Lenore_ will sail in among the convoy. Fight, and fight to win!" A fine breeze rippled the waves. The two squadrons were soon at each others' throats, and there upon the sobbing ocean a sea-fight took place which was one of the most stubborn of the ages. As the Frenchmen closed in upon the Dutch, the _Hondslaardjiik_ suddenly left the line and crashed a broadside into the _St. Jacques des Victoires_. It staggered her, but she kept on, and--heading straight for her lumbering antagonist--ran her down. A splitting of timber, a crunch of boards, a growl of musketry, and, with a wild cheer, the Frenchmen leaped upon the deck of the Dutch warship; Du Guay-Trouin in the lead, a cutlass in his right hand, a spitting pistol in the left. _Crash! Crackle! Crash!_ An irregular fire of muskets and pistols sputtered at the on-coming boarders. But they were not to be stopped. With fierce, vindictive cheers the privateers of St. Malo hewed a passage of blood across the decking, driving the Dutchmen below, felling them upon the deck in windrows, and seizing the commander himself by the coat collar, after his cutlass had been knocked from his stalwart hand. The Dutchman was soon a prize, and her proud ensign came fluttering to the decking. But things were not going so well in other quarters. Disaster had attended the dash of the _Sans-Pareil_ upon the _Delft_. An exploding shell had set her afire and she lay derelict with a cloud of drifting smoke above, when suddenly, _Crash!_ A terrible explosion shook the staunch, little vessel, her sides belched outward, and a number of sailors came shooting through the air, for a dozen loose cartridge boxes had been caught by the roaring flames. Helplessly she lolled in the sweep of the gray, lurching billows. "Hah!" shouted Van Wassenaer, as he saw his work. "Now for the saucy Du Guay-Trouin," and, twisting the helm of the _Sans-Pareil_, he soon neared the _St. Jacques des Victoires_, which was hanging to the _Delft_ like a leech, firing broadside after broadside with clock-like precision, her sea-dogs cheering as the spars crackled, the rigging tore; and splinters ricochetted from her sides. "Ready about!" cried Rénee, wiping the sweat from his brow, "and board the _Hondslaardjiik_. Now for Van Wassenaer and let us show the Dutchman how a privateer from St. Malo can battle." So, luffing around in the steady breeze, the privateersman rolled ominously towards the lolling _Delft_. A crash, a sputter of pistols, a crushing of timber, and grappling hooks had pinioned the two war-dogs in a sinister embrace. And--with a wild yell--the Frenchmen plunged upon the reddened decking of the flagship of the courageous Van Wassenaer, who cried, "Never give in, Lads! What will they think of this in Holland!" There was a different reception than when the privateers rushed the _Hondslaardjiik_. The Dutch fought like wildcats. Three times the cheering, bleeding Frenchmen stormed the planking, and three times they were hurled back upon the slippery deck of their own ship; maddened, cursing, furious at their inability to take the foreigner. "The conflict was very bloody both by the very heavy fire on both sides, of guns, muskets, and grenades," says Du Guay-Trouin, "and by the splendid courage of the Baron Van Wassenaer, who received me with astonishing boldness." "Bear away," ordered the courageous Dutchman, at this juncture. "We must have time to recover and refit our ship." And--suiting the action to his words--the badly battered _Delft_ filled, and crept well to leeward. Meanwhile the two privateers of St. Malo had captured the frigate as she lay helpless; a white flag beckoning for a prize crew. "The _Faluere_ will attack the _Delft_," shouted Du Guay-Trouin, running near the largest of these; a ship of thirty-eight guns. "I must have time to breathe and to refit." But stubborn Van Wassenaer was ready for his new antagonist. He received the privateer with such a furious fire that she turned tail and fled to leeward; her captain bleeding upon the poop, her crew cursing the blood which ran in the veins of the valorous Hollander. [Illustration: COMBAT BETWEEN DU GUAY-TROUIN AND VAN WASSENAER.] Du Guay-Trouin had now recovered his breath. Again the bellying canvas of the _St. Jacques des Victoires_ bore her down upon the _Delft_, and again the two war-dogs wrapped in deadly embrace. Hear the invincible Frenchman's own account of the final assault: "With head down," he writes, "I rushed against the redoubtable Baron, resolved to conquer or to perish. The last action was so sharp and so bloody that every one of the Dutch officers was killed or wounded. Wassenaer, himself, received four dangerous wounds and fell on his quarterdeck, where he was seized by my own brave fellows, his sword still in his hand. "The _Faluere_ had her share in the engagement, running alongside of me, and sending me forty men on board for reinforcement. More than half of my own crew perished in this action. I lost in it one of my cousins, first Lieutenant of my own ship, and two other kinsmen on board the _Sans-Pareil_, with many other officers killed or wounded. It was an awful butchery." But at last he had won, and the victorious pennon of the Privateer fluttered triumphant over the battered hulks which barely floated upon the spar-strewn water. "The horrors of the night," he writes, "the dead and dying below, the ship scarcely floating, the swelling waves threatening each moment to engulf her, the wild howling of the storm, and the iron-bound coast of Bretagne to leeward, were all together such as to try severely the courage of the few remaining officers and men. "At daybreak, however, the wind went down; we found ourselves near the Breton coast; and, upon our firing guns and making signals of distress, a number of boats came to our assistance. In this manner was the _St. Jacques_ taken into Port Louis, followed in the course of the day by the three Dutch ships-of-war, twelve of the merchant ships, the _Lenore_, and the two St. Malo privateers. The _Sans-Pareil_ did not get in till the next day, after having been twenty times upon the point of perishing by fire and tempest." Thus ended the great fight of Rénee Du Guay-Trouin, whose blood, you see, was quite as blue as his breeches. * * * * * "Again," wrote His Majesty the King, "do I offer you a commission in the Royal Navy, Du Guay-Trouin. Will you accept? This time it is a Captaincy." "I do," replied little Rénee,--quite simply--and, at the next dinner of the officers of the Royal Marines, they sang a chorus, which ran: "Oh, yes, he's only a Democrat, his blood is hardly blue, Oh, Sacre Nom de Dieu! Sapristi! Eet is true! But he's a jolly tar dog, with dirk and pistol, too, He fights like William the Conqueror, he fights! Egad! that's true! A health to Rénee the terrible; soldier and sailor too." EDWARD ENGLAND TERROR OF THE SOUTH SEAS (1690?-_about_ 1725) "A Privateer's not a Buccaneer, but they're pretty chummy friends, One flies a reg'lar ensign, there's nothing that offends. One sails 'neath Letters Legal, t'other 'neath Cross-Bones, But, both will sink you, Sailor, or my name's not Davy Jones." --_Old Ballad._ EDWARD ENGLAND TERROR OF THE SOUTH SEAS (1690?-_about_ 1725) "If England wuz but wind an' paint, How we'd hate him. But he ain't." --_Log of the Royal James._ "Hit him with a bottle, he deserves it, th' brute!" The man who spoke was a thick-set sailor of some forty-five summers, with a swarthy skin, a brownish mat of hair, a hard visage, and a cut across one eye. He stood upon the deck of a good-sized brig, which was drowsily lolling along the coast of Africa. "Yes, he treated us like dogs aboard th' _Cuttlefish_. Here, give me a shot at 'im." Thus cried another sailor--a toughish customer also--and, as his voice rang out, a dozen more came running to the spot. Cringing before the evil gaze of the seamen stood the Captain of a Bristol merchantman--the _Cadogan_--which lay a boat's length away, upon the glassy surface of a rocking sea. Again rang out the harsh tones of him who had first spoken. "Ah, Captain Skinner, it is you, eh? You are the very person I wished to see. I am much in your debt, and I shall pay you in your own coin." The poor Captain trembled in every joint, and said, with a curious chattering of his teeth, "Yes, Edward England, you've got me now. But go easy like, will yer? I always was a friend o' yourn." "Yer didn't look like a friend on th' old _Jamaica_, when you refused to pay me my wages," interrupted the first speaker. "Yer didn't remove me to 'er cursed man-o'-warsman, did yer? Yer didn't see that I got th' cat-o'-nine-tails on my back, did yer? Now, Mr. Skinner, it's my chance ter get even. Tie him ter th' windlass, boys, and we'll fix th' feller's hash." With a jeering laugh the sailors seized the frightened man, roped him tightly to the desired prop, and, procuring a lot of glass bottles, pelted him with them until their arms were tired. "You wuz a good master to me, Captain Skinner," cried one. "Now you're gettin' a dose of your own medicine. Overboard with him, Boys." And, suiting the action to the words, he seized him by the collar. The ropes were unwound. The poor wretch was dragged to the rail, and, as his body spun out into the oily sea, a shot ended the life of poor Thomas Skinner of the _Cadogan_ from Bristol. Captain Edward England and his men had had a sweet and sure revenge. Where this reckless mariner was born, it is difficult to ascertain. We know that he started life honestly enough, for he was mate of a sloop that sailed from Jamaica, about the year 1715, and was taken by a pirate called Captain Winter. The youthful sailor soon took up the careless ways of his captors, and it was not many years before he became Captain of his own vessel: a sloop flying the black flag with a skull and cross-bones. Off the east coast of Africa he soon took a ship called the _Pearl_, for which he exchanged his own sloop, fitting the new vessel up for piratical service, after rechristening her the _Royal James_. Cruising about in this staunch craft, he captured several ships of different sizes and flying the flags of many nations. He was rich and prosperous. "Captain," said one of his reckless followers, at this time, "man-o'-warsmen are gettin' too thick in these parts for an honest sailor. Let's get across th' pond to th' Brazilian coast." "You're quite right," answered England. "We've got to look for other pickings. After we provision-up, we'll sail towards th' setting sun. That's a fresh field and we can have it to ourselves." So all made ready for a trans-Atlantic voyage. But Captain England was in error when he said that he was sailing for fields which had never before been touched. Two other piratical vessels: the _Revenge_ and the _Flying King_, had been cruising off the coast of Brazil, just before his advent. Fighting in partnership, they had taken two Portuguese schooners, and were making off with them, when a Portuguese man-o'-warsman came booming along under full canvas. She was an unwelcome guest. Setting all sail the two pirates had attempted to get away and the _Revenge_ succeeded in doing so. Two days later a typhoon struck her and she was soon swinging bottom upwards, with the kittiwakes shrieking over her barnacled keel. But the revengeful man-o'-warsman ploughed relentlessly after the _Flying King_, which could not fly quite fast enough, this time, and--in despair--was run, bows on, upon the shore, where the crew scrambled to the sand in a desperate endeavor to get away. The sailors from the man-o'-warsman were speedy; they shot twelve of the buccaneers, took the rest prisoners (there were seventy in all) and hanged thirty-eight to the yard-arm. News of this came to Captain England when he neared the tropic coast of Brazil. "It's all in a life-time," said he. "If I'm captured, of course I'll swing. But, meanwhile, I hope to have a good life." Not many days afterwards he heard the welcome sound of: "Sail ho! Off the port bow!" And raising the glass to his eye discovered two fat, prosperous-looking merchant ships, slipping quietly along like an old maid fresh from market. "Slap on all sail and give chase!" was bellowed out in stentorian tones, and the _Royal James_ was soon fairly boiling along with every stitch aloft, which she could carry. As she neared the merchantmen, the names came plainly to view: the _Peterborough_ of Bristol, and the _Victory_ of Liverpool, but a shot screamed across the bowsprit of the latter and victory was turned into defeat. A white flag was fluttering at her mainmast in a moment, for the Captain had no stomach for a fight. "Egad, it's a pirate," said the good seaman in despair, as the black flag with the skull and cross-bones fluttered from the rigging of his capturer. "I thought she was a privateersman under Letters of Marque. It's all up with us." As the boat-load of boarders came bobbing alongside he cried out, "Mercy! Have mercy upon the souls of these poor wretches who sail with me." The pirates guffawed, helped themselves to everything of value, and took the merchantmen with them to the coast of Brazil, where the crew were allowed to escape to the shore. The _Peterborough_ was re-christened the _Victory_ and was manned by half of England's crew, while the other vessel was burned at night; the pirates dancing on the beach to the light of the flames and singing the weird songs of the sea. Now there was a scene of wild revel upon the Brazilian coast; but the natives grew angry at the conduct of these rough men of the ocean. "Ugh!" spoke a chief, "we must drive them away, else they will burn our own villages as they did their houses upon the water." One peaceful evening the followers of Captain England were hard beset by fully a thousand black-skinned warriors from the Brazilian jungle. There was a fierce battle. The negroes were pressed back upon their principal town and were driven through it on the run, for their arrows and spears were not as effective as the guns and pistols of the English, Dutch, Spaniards and Portuguese, who had adopted a piratical career. Their thatched huts were set on fire, and, satisfied with the day's work, the pirates retired to their ships, where a vote was cast where was to be their next venture. It fell to the East Indies and the Island of Madagascar. So they set sail, singing an old ballad which ran, "Heave the lead and splice th' topsail, Tie her down, and let her fill, We're agoin' to Madagascar, Where th' little tom-tits trill, "Bill an' coo, an' sing so sweetly, In th' dronin' hours of noon, That you want to die there, neatly, Just drop off into 'er swoon." The voyage across was a good one and the pirates captured two East Indiamen and a Dutchman, bound to Bombay. These they exchanged for one of their own vessels, and then set out for Madagascar Island, where several of their hands were set ashore with tents and ammunition, to kill such beasts and venison as the place afforded. Then they sailed for the Isle of Juanna,--not a great distance from Madagascar,--and here had as keen a little engagement as ever employed a piratical crew. Hear the story of this fight in the words of Captain Mackra, an English sea-captain who happened at that time to be in the harbor. "BOMBAY, November 16th, 1720. "We arrived on the 25th of July last, in company with the _Greenwich_, at Juanna, an island not far from Madagascar. Putting in there to refresh our men, we found fourteen pirates who came in their canoes from the Mayotta (island) where the pirate ship to which they belonged, the _Indian Queen_--two hundred and fifty tons, twenty-eight guns, commanded by Captain Oliver de la Bouche, bound from the Guinea coast to the East Indies--had been bulged (run ashore) and lost. They said they left the Captain and forty men building a new vessel, to proceed upon their wicked designs. "Captain Kirby and I concluding that it might be of great service to the East India Company to destroy such a nest of rogues, were ready to sail for this purpose on the 17th of August, about eight o'clock in the morning, when we discovered two pirates standing into the Bay of Juanna, one of thirty-four and the other of thirty-six guns. "I immediately went on board the _Greenwich_ where they seemed very diligent in preparation for an engagement, and I left Captain Kirby with mutual understanding of standing by each other. I then unmoored, got under sail, and brought two boats ahead to row me close to the _Greenwich_; but he being open to a breeze, made the best of his way from me; which an Ostender in our company of twenty-two guns, seeing, did the same, though the Captain had promised heartily to engage with us, and, I believe would have been as good as his word, if Captain Kirby had kept his. "About half an hour after twelve, I called several times to the _Greenwich_ to bear down to our assistance, and fired a shot at him, but to no purpose; for, though we did not doubt but he would join us, because, when he got about a league from us he brought his ship to and looked on; yet both he and the Ostender basely deserted us, and left us engaged with barbarous and inhuman enemies, with their black and bloody flags hanging over us, without the least appearance of ever escaping, but to be cut to pieces. "But God in his good providence, determined otherwise; for, notwithstanding their superiority, we engaged them both about three hours, during which time the biggest of them received some shot betwixt wind and water, which made her keep a little off, to stop her leaks. The other endeavored all she could to board us, by rowing with her oars, being within half a ship's length of us about an hour; but, by good fortune, we shot all her oars to pieces, which prevented them from getting in close, and consequently saved our lives. [Illustration: "'LEFT US ENGAGED WITH BARBAROUS AND INHUMAN ENEMIES.'"] "About four o'clock most of the officers and men posted on the quarter-deck being killed and wounded, the largest ship made up to us with diligence, after giving us a broadside. There now being no hopes of Captain Kirby's coming to our assistance, we endeavored to run ashore; and though we drew four feet of water more than the pirate, it pleased God that he stuck fast on a higher ground than happily we fell in with; so was disappointed a second time from boarding us. "Here we had a more violent engagement than before. All of my officers and most of my men behaved with unexpected courage; and, as we had a considerable advantage by having a chance to hurl a broadside into his bow, we did him great damage. Had Captain Kirby come in then, I believe we should have taken both the vessels, for we had one of them, sure. "The other pirate (who was still firing at us) seeing the _Greenwich_ did not offer to assist us, supplied his consort with three boats full of fresh men. About five in the evening the _Greenwich_ stood clear away to sea, leaving us struggling hard for life, in the very jaws of death; which the other pirate that was afloat, seeing, got a hawser out, and began to haul under our stern. "By this time many of my men were being killed and wounded, and no hopes left us of escaping being all murdered by enraged barbarous conquerors, I ordered all that could to get into the long-boat, under the cover of the smoke from our guns; so that, with what some did in boats, and others by swimming, most of us that were able got ashore by seven o'clock. "When the pirates came aboard, they cut three of our wounded men to pieces. I, with some of my people, made what haste I could to Kings-town, twenty-five miles from us; where I arrived next day, almost dead with the fatigue and loss of blood, having been sorely wounded in the head by a musket-ball. "At this town I heard that the pirates had offered ten thousand dollars to the country people to bring me in, which many of them would have accepted, only they knew that the king and all his chief people were in my interest. Meanwhile I caused a report to be circulated that I was dead of my wounds, which much abated their fury. "We had, in all, thirteen killed and twenty-four wounded; and we were told that we destroyed about ninety, or a hundred, of the pirates. I am persuaded that, had our consort the _Greenwich_ done her duty, we could have destroyed both of them, and got two hundred thousand pounds ($1,000,000.00) for our owners and ourselves." What say you to this fight? And to think that our own good friend Captain Mackra just missed being a millionaire! Weep for the gallant sea warrior! At any rate he got safely away, for, at length going aboard one of the piratical vessels,--under a flag of truce--he discovered that several of the wild sea-robbers knew him; some of them--even--had sailed with him in earlier years. "I found this to be of great advantage," he writes. "For, notwithstanding their promise not to harm me, some of them would have cut me to pieces, had it not been for their chief, Captain Edward England, and some others whom I knew." And he used his powers of persuasion to such effect that: "They made me a present of the shattered ship--which was Dutch built--called the _Fancy_, her burden being about three hundred tons. "With jury-masts, and such other old sails as they left me, I set sail on September 8th, with forty-three of my ship's crew, including two passengers and twelve soldiers. After a passage of forty-eight days I arrived at Bombay on the 26th of October, almost naked and starved, having been reduced to a pint of water a day, and almost in despair of ever seeing land, by reason of the calms we met with between the coast of Arabia and Malabar." The gallant writer of this interesting description was certainly in imminent danger of his life, when he trusted himself upon the pirate ship, and unquestionably nothing could have justified such a hazardous step but the desperate circumstances in which he was placed. The honor and influence of Captain England, however, protected him and his men from the wrath of the crew, who would willingly have wreaked their vengeance upon those who had dealt them such heavy blows in the recent fight. But the generosity of Captain England toward the unfortunate Mackra proved to be calamitous to himself. "You are no true pirate," cried one of his crew. "For a buccaneer never allows his foes to get away." "No! No!" shouted others. "This fighting Mackra will soon come against us with a strong force. You did wrong in letting him escape." "To the yard-arm with the traitor!" sounded from the throat of many a ruffianly seaman. Thus grew the feeling of mutiny--and the result of these murmurs of discontent--was that Captain England was put ashore by the cruel villains; and, with three others was marooned upon the island of Mauritius. Had they not been destitute of every necessity they might have been able to live in comfort, for the island abounds in deer, hogs, and other animals. Dissatisfied, however, with this solitary situation, Captain England and his three men exerted their industry and ingenuity, built a small boat, and sailed to Madagascar, where they lived upon the generosity of some more fortunate piratical companions. But can a pirate remain happy when not pirating? "Away with this life," cried Captain England. "I pine for more treasure and for battle. Let's out and to sea!" "Good! Good!" said his mates. "Let's ship aboard another vessel and get away from here." So, they again took to the ocean, but what became of Edward England is not known. Some say that he was killed in a brawl; some that he was again marooned and was adopted by a savage tribe; some that he perished in a fight upon the Indian Ocean. At any rate that rough and valiant soul is lost to history, and--somewhere--in the vast solitude of the Southern Hemisphere, lie the bleaching bones of him who had flaunted the skull-and-cross-bones upon the wide highway of the gleaming wastes of salty brine. His was a rough and careless life. Do not emulate the career of Edward England! Near the straits of Madagascar; near the sobbing oceans' roar, A ghostly shape glides nightly, by the beady, kelp-strewn shore.-- As the Cubic monkeys chatter; as the Bulbul lizards hiss, Comes a clear and quiet murmur, like a Zulu lover's kiss. The flying-fishes scatter; the chattering magpies scream, The topaz hummers dart and dip; their jewelled feathers gleam. The mud-grimed hippos bellow; the dove-eyed elands bleat, When the clank of steel disturbs them, and the beat of sandalled feet. The pirate crew is out to-night, no rest is for their souls, The blood of martyrs moves them; they charge a million tolls. On! On! Their souls must hasten. On! On! Their shapes must go, While the limpid rushes quiver, and the beast-lapped waters glow. No rest for Captain England. No rest, for King or pawn, On! On! Their feet must wander. On! On! Forever on! SONG OF THE PIRATE "To the mast nail our flag! it is dark as the grave, Or the death which it bears while it sweeps o'er the wave; Let our decks clear for action, our guns be prepared; Be the boarding-axe sharpened, the scimetar bared: Set the canisters ready, and then bring to me, For the last of my duties, the powder-room key. It shall never be lowered, the black flag we bear, If the sea be denied us, we sweep through the air. Unshared have we left our last victory's prey; It is mine to divide it, and yours to obey: There are shawls that might suit a Sultana's white neck, And pearls that are fair as the arms they will deck; There are flasks which, unseal them, the air will disclose Diametta's fair summers, the home of the rose. I claim not a portion: I ask but as mine-- But to drink to our victory--one cup of red wine. Some fight, 'tis for riches--some fight, 'tis for fame: The first I despise, and the last is a name. I fight 'tis for vengeance! I love to see flow, At the stroke of my sabre, the life of my foe. I strike for the memory of long-vanished years; I only shed blood where another sheds tears, I come, as the lightning comes red from above, O'er the race that I loathe, to the battle I love." WOODES ROGERS THE BRISTOL MARINER (?-1736) "If you want to win a lass, or a sea fight; don't cajole. Sail in!"--_Old Proverb._ WOODES ROGERS THE BRISTOL MARINER (?-1736) For he can fight a Spaniard, like a Tipperary cat, For he can sack a city, like a _blawsted_, rangy rat; Woodes Rogers was a Gentleman, from Bristol-town he sailed, An' his crew came from th' prisons, an' were Bailed, Bailed, Bailed. "Yes, you can have the _Duke_ and the _Duchess_. They are both staunch craft and we expect to get a good return for our investment in them." The fellow who spoke--a stout-bodied Quaker--looked quizzically at a bronzed sea-captain, who, cap in hand, stood before him. By his side were seated a number of merchants, fat, sleek, contented-looking. They were giving instructions to Captain Woodes Rogers: their privateersman, who was about to make a voyage of adventure in their behalf. "My good friends," said the mariner, "I shall do my very best for you all. The French and Spaniards have been having it all their own way in the South seas. It is about time that the English had a share in the rich spoils of that treasure highway. I shall work my hardest for you." The merchants, ship-owners and Quakers nodded. "May Providence guide your course aright," said they. And--as Captain Woodes Rogers went off to inspect his privateersmen--all indulged in a glass of Madeira to pledge "good luck and good health" to the staunch seaman from Bristol. It was not many weeks before the _Duke_ (of three hundred and twenty tons) with thirty guns and one hundred and seventeen men, and the _Duchess_ (of two hundred and sixty tons) with twenty-six guns and one hundred and eight men, sailed from King Road for Cork, in Ireland. "Egad!" cried Captain Rogers, as they passed out to sea. "Our rigging is slack. Our decks are lumbered up. Our stores are badly stowed. Our crew is so very mixed that I must stop in Ireland to get more able sea-dogs. Was ever captain in a worse fix?" His Lieutenants grinned, for they saw that things were in a sorry mess, indeed. "Most of us have embraced this trip around the world in order to retrieve our fortunes," continued the captain. "Did you ever see a harder crew than this? There are tinkers, tailors, haymakers, peddlers, fiddlers, a negro and ten boys. None know how to use the cutlass and they haven't got any sea-legs. Well, well; I'll make the best of it, but it's hard goin', I assure you." And still the Lieutenants grinned. They grinned still more when they had lain a few days at Cork, for the crew were continually marrying, although they expected to sail immediately. However, as the two privateers got under way on September 1st,--with the _Hastings_, a man-of-war--the majority of the crew drank a health to their spouses; waved their hands to them over the rail; and "parted unconcerned." Truly, a sailor has a lass in every port. Not many days after their out-going, a sail was sighted and all speed was made to capture her. The Swedish colors fluttered from her mast-head, and she hove to at the first gun. Rogers boarded. "No contraband goods are here," said he, after looking into the hold. "We must let her off." Then--turning to her captain--he said, "You can go. I am not a pirate--but a privateer--sailing under Letters of Marque. I only seize goods that are contraband." Bobbing and courtesying on the waves, the little Swede soon drifted from view. But the crew grew mutinous,--for had they not come out for plunder? The boatswain even called Rogers a traitor. "Seize the fellow and flog him," cried the sturdy captain. "Put ten of these talkative hounds in irons. We'll do the talking on this boat, and the sailors must do theirs in the fo'castle." This was done immediately. Next day a seaman came aft, with near half the ship's company in his rear, and cried: "I demand the boatswain out of his irons, Captain Rogers. He's done nothing to deserve such a severe punishment." "Speak with me privately, on the quarter-deck," said the bluff commander. "I cannot discuss this matter with you in such a crowd." And he moved aft. The grumbler followed, but, no sooner was he alone with stout Woodes, than the captain sprang upon him with the agility of a leopard. He was thrown to the ground, held, and bound by two officers. Then he was stripped and whipped until the blood ran. "This method," writes the doughty Woodes, "I deemed best for breaking any unlawful friendship among the mutinous crew. It allayed the tumult, so that they began to submit quietly and those in irons begged my pardon, and promised amendment." Thus the captain had won the first round with the mutineers. Now, know you, that the War of the Spanish Succession was then in progress; a war in which one party was endeavoring to put the Archduke Charles of Austria upon the Spanish throne; another to place Philip, grandson of Louis XIV of France, in the chair of the rulers. And when--a few days later--the two privateers captured a small Spanish vessel, they found that their possession of it was disputed, when they sailed into the Canaries. "It has been agreed between Queen Anne of England and the Kings of Spain and France," said the Vice-Consul of that place--an Englishman--"that all vessels trading to the Canary Isles shall be exempt from interference by men-o'-war, or privateers. The prize must be released. If you do not do so, we will keep your agent, Mr. Vanbrugh, who has come ashore, and will throw him into irons." But the Vice-Consul had reckoned without his host. "We are apprehensive that you are obliged to give us this advice in order to gratify the Spaniards," wrote Captain Rogers. "If you do not allow my agent to come on board my ship, you may expect a visit from my guns at eight o'clock to-morrow morn." To this there was no reply. Next day the two English privateers stood in close to shore, and, just as the shot was rammed home, a boat put off, in the stern of which sat Mr. Vanbrugh with a present of wine, grapes, hogs and jelly. The prize which had been captured was sent back to Bristol with a picked crew. The two sea-rovers bore towards the South--soon crossed the Tropic of Cancer--and there had appropriate ceremonies for the occasion. The tinkers, peddlers, fiddlers, and tailors who made up the crew, were each and all hoisted overboard by a rope. A stick was placed between their legs and they were ducked again and again in the brine. "If any man wants to get off," spoke Captain Rogers, "he can do so by paying me a half-a-sovereign ($2.50) which must be expended on an entertainment for the rest of the company when England shall be reached. Every man that is ducked is paid in proportion to the number of times that he goes under." Several accepted this offer. At which a sailor cried out: "Duck me twelve times, Captain. I want to have a regular orgy when I get back home." And the sailors did it, laughing uproariously. Sailing to the Cape Verde Islands, the _Duke_ and the _Duchess_ anchored in the harbor of St. Vincent, where one of the crew, who was a good linguist (Joseph Alexander) was sent in a boat to the Governor, at San Antonio, in order to negotiate for supplies. He seemed to prefer Cape Verde to privateering. "On October 6th," writes the gallant Rogers, "our boat went to San Antonio to get our linguist, according to appointment. No news of him." "On October 6th, our boat returned with nothing but limes and tobacco. No news of our linguist." "On October 7th, no news of our linguist." "On the 8th, boat sent ashore, but no news of our linguist." "On the 9th, as the trade-winds are blowing fresh, concluded to leave our good Alexander to practice his linguistic and other accomplishments ashore. Adieu to our linguist." Thus disappeared the sleek and crafty Joseph. There was still trouble from insubordination, for Mr. Page--second mate of the _Duchess_--refused to accompany Mr. Cook (second in command on the _Duke_). Whereupon the hot-tempered Captain Cook--being the superior officer on board--struck him, and several blows were interchanged. At last Page was forced into the boat and brought to the _Duke_, where he was ordered to the forecastle in the bilboes (leg irons sliding upon a long, iron bar). But he jumped overboard--despising the chance of being gobbled up by a shark--and started to swim to his own ship. He was brought back, flogged, and put in irons; and he evidently found a week of this kind of thing sufficient; for he submitted himself humbly to future orders. Thus Woodes Rogers had already learned that the life of a privateer commander was not a happy one. Steering southwest, a large French ship was seen and chased, but she got away from the two consorts with surprising ease. On March 6th, when off the coast of Peru, a sail was sighted. "Let the _Duchess_ bear down on her port and the _Duke_ to starboard," cried Captain Rogers. "Heave a solid shot across her bow, and, if she refuses to capitulate, let her have your broadsides." Dipping, tossing, rolling; the two privateers swooped down upon their prey, like hawks. She flew the yellow flag of Spain--and--as the first ball of lead cut across her bowsprit, it fluttered to the deck. Up went a white shirt, tied to a rat-line, and the crew from the _Duke_ was soon in charge, and steering her for Lobas: a harbor on the coast. "She's a tight little barque," said Rogers, when he had landed. "I'll make her into a privateer." So she was hauled up, cleaned, launched, and christened the _Beginning_; with a spare topmast from the _Duke_ as a mast, and an odd mizzen-topsail altered for a sail. Four swivel-guns were mounted upon her deck, and, as she pounded out of the bay, loud cheers greeted her from the decks of the _Duchess_, which was loafing outside, watching for a merchantman to capture and pillage. Next morn two sails were sighted, and both _Duke_ and _Duchess_ hastened to make another haul. As they neared them, one was seen to be a stout cruiser from Lima; the other a French-built barque from Panama; richly laden, it was thought. "Broadsides for both," ordered Woodes Rogers. "Broadsides and good treatment when the white flag flutters aloft." As the _Duchess_ chased the Lima boat, the _Duke_ neared the Frenchman and spanked a shot at her from a bow-gun. The sea ran high and she did not wish to get too close and board, because it would be easier to send her men in pinnaces. "They're afraid!" cried the Captain of the _Duke_. "We can take 'em with no exertion." But he was like many an Englishman: despised his foe only to find him a valiant one. Piling into four boats, the men from the _Duke_, fully armed, rowed swiftly towards the rolling Frenchman. They approached to within twenty yards. Then _Crash! Crash! Rattle! Crash!_ A sheet of flame burst from her sides; muskets and pistols spoke; cannon spat grape and cannister; the Englishmen were frightfully cut up. "On! On!" shouted young John Rogers--a brother of Woodes--as he waved his cutlass aloft to enliven the sailors. But it was his last cry. A bullet struck him in the forehead, and he fell into the sea without a murmur. _Crash! Crash!_ Again roared out a volley. Oars were splintered. One boat was pierced below the water line. She sank, and her men floundered about upon the surface of the oily sea. "Bear off, and rescue our comrades!" cried the leaders of this futile attack, and, as the French barque drifted away, the remaining boats busied themselves with the swimming sailors. The assault had been a complete failure. "Curses upon the Frenchman!" cried Captain Rogers when he saw the saucy fighter drawing off. "We'll go after her to-morrow, and catch her, or my blood's not English. What say you, men?" "Yes. After her and board her amid-ships!" cried all. "Run our own vessel alongside." "And that I will do," answered Rogers, watching the lumbering merchantman through his glass. "She's entirely too well armed for a trader." When morning dawned, the Frenchman was still ploughing along the coast in the light breeze, with all sail set. But there was not wind enough to force her ahead of her pursuer. The _Duchess_ now returned from her chase of the Lima boat, and, joining her _Duke_, bore in upon the able fighter from the open sea. "Egad! We'll have her yet," shouted Captain Rogers, rubbing his hands. "She luffs!" cried a lieutenant. "She's coming to!" Sure enough the Frenchman saw that resistance now was useless. She staggered into the wind, and a white flag beckoned for a prize-crew to come and take her. "And," writes Captain Rogers, "I found that a Bishop who had been aboard of her, had been put ashore, which gave me much grief. For I always love to catch fat prelates, as they give up a stout sum as their ransom. In truth they are nice pickings." Things were going well with the wild rovers from Bristol. Plunder there was aplenty and the holds of the _Duke_ and the _Duchess_ bulged with treasure. Yet Woodes Rogers was not satisfied. "On! On to Guayaquil!" cried he. "We'll capture this wealthy city; demand a great ransom; and sail to England, richer than the Spanish conquerors of the Incas." "Hurrah!" shouted his staunch followers. "On! On! to Guayaquil!" So--steering for the coast of Ecuador--the privateers drew near this rich Spanish-American town. A gulf lay before their eyes in which was a small island; with a little, white-housed village (called Puna) on its Eastern shore. "Take the place!" cried Rogers, as the two ships forged into the sleepy shallows, and rounded to before the peaceful habitation. With a cheer, the sailors piled into the boats, rowed ashore, and--with cutlass and dirk in hand--pressed through the narrow streets. Shots rang out from a few of the thatched houses; two seamen fell to the ground with mortal wounds; but, cheering wildly, the privateers rushed through the narrow highway; pressed into the court-house; and seized upon the Lieutenant-Governor of the town of Guayaquil, as he was attempting to hide behind an old clothes-press. "Let no man get away in order to warn the large town of our approach!" shouted Captain Rogers. "Catch all who dash for the canoes upon the beach!" "Crush the bloomin' canoes!" yelled Cook, as he saw some of the natives running towards them on the sandy shore. "Crush the canoes before the devils can get there!" "All right!" answered several of his men, as they ran for the clusters of boats. "We'll put holes in them!" As they hurried forward, several of the natives were ahead. Two jumped into the bark boats and paddled furiously for Guayaquil. The _zip_, _zip_ of bullets nipped the water around them, but,--with desperate sweeps--they dug their blades into the sea and got safely off. As a result, the city was all ready and prepared for the invaders. "Ho! Ho!" laughed Rogers, as he thumbed the papers of the Lieutenant-Governor. "What is this?" "A warning to the townsfolk of Guayaquil," said one of his men, as he peered over his shoulder. Rogers chuckled. "Beware, all you people"--he read--"of a squadron from the faraway isles of Great Britain which is coming shortly upon you. There will be full ten great ships, heavily manned and well armed for attack. The arch rogue, William Dampier, will be in control,--he who has plundered Puna before. Be on your guard, citizens! Be prepared! Arm yourselves!" "Hah! Hah!" laughed the free-booting captain. "They think I'm Dampier. That's good. But we'll have a tough time with them, for they know that we mean to assault their pretty little town." His followers looked solemn. "Let's attack, right away," cried several, "before the Spaniards have time to prepare for our charge!" Rogers, however, would not hear of it. "We must rest. Equip ourselves. Place cannon in the bows of our boats, and then we will be ready." His men murmured, but they knew that when Rogers had made up his mind upon a thing, there was no use in endeavoring to dissuade him. So they collected what plunder was to be had and awaited his further orders. Two days later all was ready for the advance. It was near midnight--upon April 22nd,--when the command was passed around: "Muffle your oars and take the town!" With one hundred and ten men in the jolly boats, the privateers neared the sleepy, little seaport. Not a sound broke the silence, save the drip, drip of the sweeps, yet, as they approached the white-washed walls of the lower town,--a bonfire was touched off upon the shore. "'Tis well," whispered a stout sailor. "Now we can see to shoot!" As he said this, many lights appeared in the houses of Guayaquil. The townspeople were wide awake. "What means this, sirrah?" thundered Rogers at a native guide, who was piloting him to the shore. The fellow had a ready answer. "'Tis the celebration of All Saints Day," he answered smiling. "The people here are good Christians." "They know that we are coming," growled the English captain, for, as the native spoke, a Spaniard upon the shore was heard to shout: "Puna has been captured! The enemy is advancing! Arm! Arm!" Bells clanged from the steeples of the little churches. Muskets and guns went off. Black masses could be seen surging into the streets. Cannon roared, and a screeching shot spun ahead of the on-coming boats. "'Tis nothing," said Rogers. "The alarm has only just been given. Preparations are not complete and we can rush them, easily." But Captain Cook had his own opinion upon the affair. "The Buccaneers," said he, "never attack any large place after it is alarmed. My advice is to keep away." "Don't go in," cried several. "Wait and rush them when they are not so well prepared." Even the men seemed disinclined to advance. Thus cautious counsel prevailed: the boats dropped down-stream again--about three miles below the town--and were joined by two small barques. They were prizes which had been recently captured. Here the flotilla lay while the cries in the city grew inaudible,--for the inhabitants saw that the attack had been avoided. When flood-tide came, Captain Rogers once more ordered an advance upon the town. "No! No!" argued Dover. "They are too well prepared. Night will cloak our movements, so we should then go on. I, myself, advise the sending of a trumpeter with a flag of truce. He shall propose that we make some trades with the people of this place." "Your measure is half-hearted," said Rogers, with heat. "You are a craven knave. Let's rush the town like Englishmen and heroes!" Again cautious counsel prevailed. Two prisoners--a Lieutenant from Puna, and the Captain of the Frenchman of recent capture--were sent to parley with the Spaniards. "The English are afraid!" whispered the inhabitants. "Let us keep them off with braggadocio, and mayhap reinforcements will come to us." So they bickered and delayed. "These dogs would palaver forever," said Captain Rogers, when negotiations had proceeded for full two days without result. "I, for one, am for attacking the city right now!" "Yes! On! On!" cried his men. Even the cautious Dover was ready to advance; so, landing upon the beach, the one hundred and ten ran towards the town with a wild, exultant whoop! _Zip! Zip!_ came the bullets from the nearer houses, as the privateers advanced. _Boom! Boom!_ sounded the guns from the _Duchess_ and the _Duke_, which had edged up near the wharves and anchored. Shells shrieked and burst; guns roared; and, with a hoarse cheer, the English beat down two lines of Spaniards who opposed them. Back, back, they crushed the defenders of Guayaquil to the market-place in the centre of the town, where four cannon were drawn up behind a barricade which was flanked by cavalry. _Crash! Crash!_ they roared at the on-coming privateers, and many a man went down before the exploding grape and cannister. But the blood of the English was now up. "Take the guns!" shouted Woodes Rogers. "Scale the barricade and spike the pieces!" With a mighty roar the jack-tars ran for the engines of death; leaping over the wall of the defenses; bayonetting the gunners; turning the spitting war-engines upon the cavalry, which, in confusion and dismay, was driven down a crooked lane. It was the last stand. The English standard soon waved from the flag-pole of the House of Justice. "And now," cried Captain Rogers, gleefully, "I'll meet the worthy _Padres_ and treat with them for a ransom. We'll make them pay full well to get back the neat little town of Guayaquil." Crestfallen and abashed, the city fathers were soon brought before the privateer. "Señor," said they, "your men can fight like devils. Señor, you are the first man to have taken our town, and many a Buccaneer has endeavored to do so!" Captain Rogers smiled. "Tut! Tut!" said he. "The English can always battle. But--Fathers--you must pay me well for this affair. I demand thirty thousand pieces of eight ($35,000 or about £6,750) as ransom for your fair city. I will give you two days in which to collect it." The worthy _Padres_ hung their heads. "You English," said they, "are cruel extortioners." Yet--in two day's time--the British marched to their boats with colors flying, bugles blowing, and drums beating a rollicking tattoo. Captain Rogers brought up the rear with a few men. He had secured the ransom and fairly smiled with exuberant joy. "Our sailors," says he, "kept continually dropping their pistols, cutlasses, and pole-axes; which shows they had grown careless and very weak--weary of being soldiers--and it was high time that we should be gone from hence to the shores of Merrie England." Thus, on April 28th, when the _Duke_ and the _Duchess_ weighed anchor and stood out to sea: guns roared: trumpets blew: the men cheered. "And so," writes the gallant Rogers, "we took leave of the Spaniards very cheerfully, but not half so well pleased as we should have been if we had taken 'em by surprise; for I was well assured from all hands, that at least we should then have got about two hundred thousand pieces of eight in money (£45,000 or $225,000); and in jewels, diamonds, and wrought and unwrought gold and silver." * * * * * The owners of the two privateers: the _Duke_ and the _Duchess_, sat in solemn meeting at the good town of Bristol. It was the month of October, 1711. The fat Quakers were smiling, for Captain Rogers had brought them back equally fat moneys. The rugged merchants laughed, for the venture had been a howling success. "And you were wounded?" said a stockholder, turning to the bronzed sea-rover who stood before them, giving account and reckoning of his journey to the Spanish Main. "A scratch," replied the stout sea-dog, smiling. "When we tackled a Manila ship on the way home from Guayaquil, I got a ball through the jaw, and a splinter in the left foot. It laid me up for full three weeks, but, gentlemen, a cat and Woodes Rogers both have nine lives." And even the sober Quaker fathers laughed at this sally. "You have done well," they said. "We will reward you with money and a good berth. How would you care to be Governor of the Bahamas?" "Fine!" said Woodes Rogers, chuckling. And that is the way the old sea-barnacle spent his declining years, dying at the tropic isle on July 16th, 1732. Hail to this Prince of Privateers! TWILIGHT AT SEA The twilight hours like birds flew by, As lightly and as free; Ten thousand stars were in the sky, Ten thousand on the sea; For every wave with dimpled face, That leaped up in the air, Had caught a star in its embrace, And held it trembling there. FORTUNATUS WRIGHT THE MOST HATED PRIVATEERSMAN OF THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA (1715-1765) "It was a high counsel which I once heard given to a young person: 'Always do what you are afraid to do.'"--EMERSON. FORTUNATUS WRIGHT THE MOST HATED PRIVATEERSMAN OF THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA (1715-1765) "'_Be sure you're right, then go ahead!_' was coined by Andrew Jackson, Who was a fighter, tough as nails, and loved to lay the whacks on, He followed out this sage advice, in spite of opposition, While everybody winked and said,--'_A Fellow with a Mission!_' In other days, in other climes, there lived a seaman daring, Who loved a fight, as well as he,--was just as good at swearing; His name was Wright, and thus in spite of all his foemen said, Old _Fortune_ Wright, was surely right, whene'er he went ahead!" --_Chants of the Eastern Clipper Ships._--1846. In the year 1744 war was declared between England and France. French privateers harried the coast of her rival, caught her merchantmen whenever they ventured away from stout men-o'-warsmen, and chased them in the blue, shimmering waters of the Mediterranean. It seemed as if there were never gun-boats enough to protect the British shipping, and thus many of the English merchants grew choleric and angry. Englishmen carried on quite a trade with Italy, Greece, and the countries of Asia Minor, and at Leghorn--upon the Italian coast--they had numerous trading shops and docks for their own vessels. They began to suffer, not only great annoyance, but also great loss, from the depredations of the French privateers which swarmed about the harbor mouth and scurried into every corner of the ragged coast-line. Their trade was hampered, their ships compelled to remain in port, or--if they ventured out--they were inevitably captured. The situation was unbearable. "My! My!" said one of the red-faced merchants. "My! My! We must have a remedy for this. My! My! We must have our own privateers!" "Well spoken," cried another. "And I know the very man to help us out. He is living here, now, and his name is Fortunatus Wright. Gentlemen! I tell you he is a true sea-dog! He is the fellow to cripple these saucy, French bushwhackers of the sea." "Hear! Hear!" cried others. And thus Mr. Fortunatus Wright was sought for, and was asked: "Will you take charge of a privateer for the British merchants of Leghorn? Will you chase these rascally Frenchmen? Will you cripple their operations? Will you chastise these sea-robbers?" To this Mr. Fortunatus Wright, being a true seaman with the love of the salt water tugging at his heart strings, is said to have remarked, "Whoop-ee!" Which being interpreted means: "Gentlemen, I'm dee-lighted!" As luck would have it, there was a vessel lying in the harbor which was directly available. She was a brigantine called the _Fame_, and, although we know little about her tonnage and the number of stout sea-dogs whom she could carry, it is apparent that Fortunatus Wright considered her most admirably suited for his venture. At any rate he soon boarded her, swore in a crew of stalwart seamen, and saw that plenty of gunpowder, cutlasses, boarding-pikes and muskets were aboard. It was September, 1746, and, before the close of the month of December, the _Fame_ had captured eighteen prizes, one of which was a hulking, French privateer with twenty guns and one hundred and fifty men, especially fitted out to put an end to the career of the vessel of Fortunatus Wright. They had met off the port of Messina and had had a roaring, little scrimmage, but--seeing that matters were going ill with him--the French captain had cried: "Run for the shore! Run our ship aground! We will fix her so that this English hound cannot make a prize of us!" "Voilà! Voilà!" his men had shouted. "Oui! We will f-e-e-x th-e-es Eengleesh chien! Oui! Au revoir, Monsieur Wright!" So saying, the privateer had been run upon the sandy beach, bows on, where her crew took to the brush, yelling derisively at the _Fame_ as she came up within hail,--sails snug down so as to move cautiously. The Frenchmen had counted without their host. "We'll float her, my hearties!" cried Wright. "All hands ashore in the small boats. Tie hawsers to her stern and pull her off!" This they did, while the French captain, far back in the brush, saw it and fairly boiled with disappointment and rage. "Zees Wright," he blustered. "One cannot outweet heem." So the privateer was towed into the harbor of Leghorn, where all the English merchants cried: "Good! Good! Now we have a true man to fight our battles! Huzzah for Fortunatus Wright!" The French were furious, while at the island of Malta (where were numerous French, Spanish, Austrian and English traders) the feeling grew intense. Here the Austrians sided with the English and several duels were fought by angry officers, as crafty Fortunatus Wright continued to send in his prizes. Finally the French merchants forwarded a missive to Marseilles, in France, which ran: "Can the French be further humiliated by this corsair--this robber--Fortunatus Wright? Let our people fit out a privateer sufficiently large to cope with him, and let her defeat and cripple this fellow. Make haste, for he is doing much damage!" An answer came back. "Before a month is gone, Monsieur Wright will no more harass your privateers. What we have determined to do, we shall do!" Word of this was brought to Captain Fortunatus Wright and he only smiled broadly. "There'll be another ship to bring into Malta, care of F. Wright, Esq.," said he. "And it will be labelled Collect on Delivery." Not three weeks later the French vessel came jauntily into the harbor of Malta. The captain was a man of considerable repute as a seaman and fighter, and he was warmly received by the French. They invited him to many dinners. "Voilà!" said they. "Here is the fellow to do the tr-e-e-k. Tenez! There will soon be one b-e-eg mince pie we-eth Captain Wright eenside. Ha! Ha!" It is never well to count your chickens before they hatch or to pat a man upon the back before he has won a victory. Eagerly the French captain cruised outside, continually upon the watch for slippery Skipper Wright. His vessel was superior to the _Fame_ in numbers of both guns and men. He was sure of victory. "If only the hated Englishman would appear!" he grumbled. Meanwhile the excitement and expectation at Malta became intense. Finally it was noised abroad that the terrible privateer had been sighted about five miles off the harbor. All factions were aroused: the Austrians and English slapping the French and Spaniards upon the back, and saying, "Now there will be a chance to sink bold Captain Wright, Messieurs!" To which the irritable Frenchmen would answer, "Ah! Yes! He will be gobbled up like Jonah by the whale. Pouff!" The French privateer sailed out to meet the foe, and soon her white canvas had disappeared from view around a jutting headland. The stranger ran off. The Frenchman pursued, and soon both were lost to the eager gaze of the population of Malta, which crowded every headland, eager and expectant for the bloody battle. The shore was black with people. Hours passed. Another day came and with it the news that two vessels had been sighted off the entrance to the harbor. Hundreds rushed to the headlands and cliffs in order to see the victor and the vanquished, for two cruisers were approaching, the one towing the other. "Huzzah!" shouted an enthusiastic Frenchman. "We have won! See--up go the French colors upon the first vessel. The other--poof--eet ees a jelly. Eet ees pounded to ze shreds." "Huzzah!" shouted all of his compatriots, and they danced about, shaking hands, embracing, and waving their hats and their handkerchiefs. "Ce cher Wright!" cried they. "He ees een the soup, eh?" And what of the Englishmen? They--of course--said nothing, but bit their lips, looked at their Austrian friends, and hung their heads dejectedly. Here is the most beautiful part of all this story, for Fortunatus Wright, my boys, was a joker--a real, true end man in a minstrel show--and he was having his fun with "the Frenchies." His vessel--indeed--had come off victorious, in spite of the fact that she had been much more shattered than the other contestant. Therefore, Wright had put her in tow of the captured Frenchman, which he, himself, was steering, with the crew of his opponent down in the hold, as prisoners of war. Seeing the crowded headlands and swarming ramparts in the harbor, he could not resist the temptation of hoisting the flag of France. He chuckled as he saw the effect it produced upon the crowd, then--as the vessels rounded a fort at the entrance to the harbor--down came the colors of France and up went the English flag to the peak, with the French flag below. And then--well, you can imagine how the Englishmen and Austrians yelled, and how the poor Frenchmen beat a hasty flight for their homes. Fortunatus Wright had had a sweet revenge. He laughed long and hard, while the Frenchmen said, "Curse heem! He ees a devil! A thousand curses upon the head of thees Wright! Sapristi!" And they did not open any more bottles of wine for their supposedly great captain from Marseilles. As for Fortunatus Wright, he continued to harass the French and get into trouble, as the following anecdote well shows. Not long after his famous battle, he was travelling in Italy with introductions to many of the nobility, and arrived--one day--before the city gates of Lucca. Here was stationed a guard, and a sentinel scrutinized him with great care and deliberation. Fortunatus Wright grew impatient. "Can I not go by?" said he. "My passports are correct!" "No! No!" answered the soldier. "I no likea zose peestols in your belta. You must deeliver them to me before you can go to ze ceety." The English sea-captain said nothing, but the color rose in his cheeks. In an instant he raised one of his pistols and pointed it at the head of the astonished sentry. "The first man that endeavors to take my weapons from me," he yelled, "does so at the cost of his life!" The guardsman was flabbergasted. "Corporal of the Guard! Post Number Two!" he shouted, presenting his musket at the same instant, and pointing it at the head of the irascible Captain Wright. Immediately a dozen soldiers came running to the spot. They surrounded the irate English traveller. He was ordered to "Throw up your hands!" "You air one mad Englishmana!" said the Officer of the Guard. "Here. Comea weeth usa! We weel feexa youa!" Seeing that the odds were too much against him, Captain Wright allowed himself to be taken to the guard house, while a soldier was dispatched to the British Ambassador in order to explain that "they had captured an Englishman as mad as a mad dog!" Things looked bad for the great privateersman. But was his name not Fortunatus? And was not good fortune always with him? A nobleman to whom the bold mariner had a letter now intervened in his favor, and secured the release of the high-tempered man-of-the-sea. On the morning of the fourth day of his captivity, and at the early hour of four, a soldier waked Captain Fortunatus Wright, who was peacefully sleeping at a military prison. A missive was handed him, and he read: "SEIGNEUR WRIGHT:--Since you have been so daring as to attempt to enter the town of Lucca by force, it is therefore ordered that you shall now leave the State and never presume to enter it again, without leave from the Republic. Post-horses, with a guard to see you over the border, are now ready for you. We trust that you shall have a safe journey. "By order of the "GOVERNOR OF LUCCA." "These Italians are the most unreasonable people alive," growled Captain Wright. But he pocketed both his pride and his pistols, entered the post-chaise at the door, and was soon rolling forth for other parts. In spite of this order--he continued to reside in Italy, with the true independence of a privateersman. In December, 1746, the bold seafarer made an exceptionally good capture: a French vessel on a voyage from Marseilles to Naples, with a rich cargo and the servants and luggage of a real potentate,--the Prince of Campo Florida. When valorous Wright stepped aboard of her, her captain was scraping and bowing near the rail. "Ah, Seigneur!" said he, "you have taken me, that is true. But you cannot touch my cargo or my men. See,--here is a pass from King George the Second of England. It says, 'All of the cargo, passengers, and crew of _La Belle Florence_ shall be exempt from molestation by English cruisers and privateers.' What say you to that?" Captain Wright looked sad, but he seized the paper and read it with care. His smile broadened as he perused the document. "How am I to know that this particular ship is to go free?" said he. "For although you told me that the name of your vessel (_La Belle Florence_) was mentioned in this document, I do not find that it is mentioned. The paper merely states that 'the vessel' shall not be molested, and, my boy, you may have stolen this from some other skipper. Ah! Ha! You are my prize and shall go with me into Leghorn." You should have seen the face of the Frenchman! "I vill haf revenge!" said he. And he had it. For, when the matter was referred to the British Minister, he turned it over to the Admiral who commanded the English ships at this station, and this high official made Captain Wright give up both vessel and cargo. He did so with the same unwillingness that he had shown when asked to leave the quaint, little town of Lucca. Captain Wright, you see, had that bull-dog stubbornness which is characteristic of men of the British Isles. He believed in hanging on to everything which he took. A bit later, this trait got him into serious difficulties and into prison. A number of English merchants were trading with the people of Turkey under the name of "The Company of English Merchants trading to the Levant Sea," and, finding it impossible to ship all of their goods in British vessels, they often sent them in the holds of French ships. True it was that France was at war with England at this time, but, as these were English cargoes, the British naturally thought that they should be allowed to come through, unmolested, even though the French vessels might be captured by English privateers. But they had not reckoned with Fortunatus Wright. Two French clipper ships were scudding quietly along off the Italian coast, one bright day in June of 1747, when a rakish vessel appeared upon the horizon and speedily bore down upon them. They crowded on sail, but they could not outdistance their pursuer, who was soon near enough to fire a gun across the bow of the foremost, and flaunt the English colors in her face. "Helas!" growled the French skipper. "Eet ees that devil, ze Captain Wright. Eet is all up with me! Helas!" So he came to and surrendered; but the other fellow pounded away at the British privateer with a couple of swivel guns and put up a smart, little skirmish before a well-directed shot from the deck of the Englishman, knocked a topmast crashing over the port side. Crippled, she surrendered. It did not take Captain Wright long to sail into Leghorn harbor with his prizes. The holds were filled with bales of rich goods, marked: "The property of the Company of English Merchants trading to the Levant Sea." "I'll sell the bloomin' cargoes," cried Wright. "For the vessels were under the French flag and we're at war with that nation. Besides this, one of them put up a fight against me." Thus--the cargoes were sold--Captain Fortunatus pocketed the money, and went upon his way, rejoicing. But he did not rejoice very long, for the British merchants were furious with anger, and procured--through some means or other--an order from the English Government to the effect that English cargoes in French vessels were not to be touched--when captured by British privateers. Word was sent to Captain Wright to refund the money which he had secured by the sale of the cargoes captured in the French ships, and the property of "The Company of English Merchants trading to the Levant Sea." To this Captain Wright answered, "Bah! I have the money. I intend to keep it!" Orders were sent from England to have this fellow arrested and shipped home; so the Italian police obligingly captured the old sea-dog, locked him up, and kept him in jail for six months, while the attorneys fought over the legality of the affair. At length the bluff privateersman was allowed to go free, and--he never paid back the money. "These fellows attacked me at law," he wrote, "but I have not acted contrary to it. I am an Englishman. I am acting under a commission from the King of England, and, when we are at war with France, I intend to hold and keep all the cargoes which I capture in French vessels. As for this 'English Company trading to the Levant Sea!' let them learn a lesson and pack their goods in future in English vessels. English oak should be good enough for English cargoes." The "English Company trading to the Levant Sea" had certainly learned that Fortunatus Wright was as stubborn as a mule, and--in the future--they employed no French vessels to carry their bales of commerce. _A wise dog only allows himself to be bitten once._ France and England now came to a peaceable settlement of their difficulties, but in 1755 war broke out afresh. Fortunatus Wright chuckled, for he itched for another brush upon the wide sweep of the ocean, and a chance to take a prize or two. So the _Fame_ not being available, he had a small vessel constructed at Leghorn, and called her the _Saint George_. She was a fast sailer and was as graceful as a sea-gull. "In this fair ship," said he, as he gazed upon her admiringly, "I shall take many a prize and shall have, I trust, many a sharp adventure. _Saint George_, I salute you! May you bring me only the best of luck!" Trouble was in store for the well-hated mariner even before he turned his vessel's prow into the Mediterranean, for--in spite of the fact that the Italians were neutral--their sympathies were strongly with France, and they looked with decided disfavor upon the graceful hull of the _Saint George_, as she bobbed serenely upon the surface of the bay. Knowing full well the reputation of this famous seaman, they paid particular attention to his little craft, and sent a number of officials to inspect her. In a few days the intrepid Fortunatus received the information that, as his was a merchant vessel, he must carry a crew of only five-and-twenty men, and an armament of four small guns. At this the old sea-dog only laughed, and exhibited the greatest anxiety to comply with the requirements of the law. "I would suggest," said he to one of the officials of the town, "that you keep guard-boats rowing around my ship in order to be sure that I do not take on more guns and men than the law permits, before I set sail." The officer smiled. "We are watching you closely," said he. "For Monsieur Wright, it is said that you are as crafty as a cat!" The mariner grinned, and, before going to sea, obtained from the Governor, a certificate to the effect that he had complied with all the requirements of the law. Armed with this, on July 28th, 1756, he put to sea, in company with four merchant vessels laden with valuable cargoes, and bound for the shores of England. Carefully the _Saint George_ had been watched, so carefully, in fact, that the authorities had overlooked the lading of the other vessels, aboard which numerous guns, howitzers, and hand-spikes had been smuggled, besides a number of seamen who were well-experienced in fighting upon the ocean. It is true that Fortunatus Wright was as crafty as a cat, or--as they say in Maine--"You'd have to git up early if yer wanted ter lick him." Not only had the officials at Leghorn watched every move of this well-known privateersman, but they had sent word to the French that Wright had only a feeble force, that he was accompanying several rich prizes, and that he could be easily beaten and captured by a vessel of any size. So much hated was he, that it is said the French king had promised Knighthood and a handsome life pension to the sailor who could bring Wright to the shores of France _dead or alive_. The merchants of Marseilles were particularly bitter against him, for he had captured many of their ships, and in the market-place (where all could see it) had been posted a placard, which ran: "ALL SAILORS AND SEAMEN ATTENTION! To the person, or persons, who will capture and bring to France, the body of the arch-villain Captain Fortunatus Wright, shall be given A SUM DOUBLE THE VALUE OF WRIGHT'S VESSEL. Frenchmen! Catch this Thief! Bring him in Dead or Alive! Do your Duty! This sum is guaranteed by the Merchants and Ship-owners of Marseilles, and the Chamber of Commerce." Wright had heard of this, and it sent a grim look into his eyes. He also heard that a vessel was cruising outside the harbor in wait for him, and thus he was not surprised, as he saw a large boat upon his port bow, when only a few hours' sail from the snug harbor of Leghorn. This vessel--a zebeque--had been waiting for the well-hated privateersman for several days, as her captain had been warned by the Italians that Wright was about to set sail. She had three masts, each carrying a huge, three-cornered sail, sixteen guns of considerable size, and several swivels. Her crew numbered two hundred and eighty men, well armed and eager for a brush with the famous Fortunatus, whose proverbial good fortune seemed now to have deserted him. Rounding to, Wright signalled to his merchantmen to draw near and hurriedly transported some of the cannon, which he had smuggled, to his own vessel. He also added to his small crew, so that--when the zebeque came pounding down within shooting distance--he had increased his sailors from twenty-five to seventy-five, and his guns, from four to twelve. "Now let the Frenchie come on!" he cried. "I'm half prepared, but I'll give her a warmer welcome than she ever had in all her career!" "Huzzah! Huzzah!" shouted his men, who were a motley collection of all nationalities: Italians, English, Portuguese, Dutch, Germans, and a few Arabs. "Huzzah! Huzzah! Wright forever!" The Arabs, of course, didn't say this, but they tried to. The French were very confident, and, as they came within range of the guns of the little _Saint George_ they began to sing a hymn of victory, while their captain already saw, in his hands, the rich reward offered by the good citizens of Marseilles. "Poof!" he chuckled. "Monsieur Wright, he soon take dinnaire in my cabin. Poof!" But Monsieur Wright was a different fellow than he imagined, and his men--although of all nationalities--were so animated by his stirring and martial spirit, that they fought better than they had ever fought in their lives before. You all know how necessary to success "Spirit" is in a foot-ball team, or a base-ball nine. The team which has the do-or-dare spirit, the never-give-up-until-the-last-gun-is-fired determination, is usually the team that wins. And the spirit of the captain is the controlling factor in any contest. If he be no desperate fighter, his followers will not be desperate fighters. If he is weak-kneed in a crisis, his followers will be weak-kneed. So this motley crew, under Fortunatus Wright, cheered onward by the dauntless navigator, fought as they had never fought before. Arab and German strove as well as Englishman and Italian to battle strenuously beneath the eye of the famous privateersman. They had never been together before, but, animated by the presence of this fearless "cock-of-the-Mediterranean," they now sailed into the Frenchman as if the zebeque were a vessel of equal strength and armament. Cheer after cheer welled into the air as the two antagonists drew near each other, while the puff of white smoke from the sides of the French vessel was followed by the _chug! chug!_ of solid shot, as it cut up the waves near the body of the staunch, little _Saint George_. "It's three to one against us, Boys!" shouted the battle-scarred Captain Wright. "Fire for the enemy's rigging and bring down one of her masts, if you can. If you fight hard we can lick her!" The screech of a shell cut his words short, for a piece of iron passed dangerously near his lips, striking a stout Italian in the neck, and rendering him useless for further conflict. Around and around in a wide circle floated the two sea-warriors, for the wind was light and just drove them along at the rate of a snail's pace. The rag-tag-and-bob-tail crew on the _Saint George_ stood to their guns like veterans and poured in such a hot fire that the French captain speedily realized that his only chance for victory was to board and overwhelm the English by superior numbers. "Bring the vessel up on her starboard side!" he commanded. "And get out the boarding-pikes! Now we'll finish Captain Wright!" The zebeque soon ranged alongside the battered _Saint George_, threw her grappling hooks into the rigging, and her men were in a hand-to-hand struggle with the motley crew who battled for the veteran Fortunatus. _Slash! Slash! Crack!_ The cutlasses cut and parried, the pistols spat, and the boarding-pikes thrust and struck. Cheering wildly the Frenchmen attempted to climb upon the deck of the privateer, but the followers of old Wright fought like demons. They parried and thrust like fiends; and such was the ferocity of their struggle that the boarders were repulsed with great slaughter. [Illustration: "THE BOARDERS WERE REPULSED WITH GREAT SLAUGHTER."] "Thees Wright ees a very hornet for a fight!" sighed the French captain, as he ordered the grappling hooks cast off, and floated his vessel away. _Poom! Poom!_ There was still some fight left in the little _Saint George_ and her dauntless crew kept pounding iron at the sullen zebeque, which, shattered and torn, filled away and made for the open sea. Her captain had been struck by a piece of shell just as the battle closed; two lieutenants were killed, seventy men were wounded, and eighty-eight had been killed by the accurate shooting of the "Never-Say-Dies" under Captain Fortunatus Wright: the invincible. It had been a gallant battle, gallantly fought by both sides, and gallantly won. Bold navigator Wright followed his crippled adversary for several miles, then--seeing another French gun-boat threatening his convoy--he returned to the merchant-ships which had accompanied him; sent them back into Leghorn harbor; and followed, next day, with the proud, but battered _Saint George_. It had been a glorious victory. No sooner had the war-scarred Captain Wright let go his anchor chains in the harbor of Leghorn than he realized that he had only just begun to fight. "Sapristi!" said an Italian official. "This pirate has deceived us! This fellow was allowed but four guns upon his ship and he had twelve. To the jail with this dog! To the prison with this cut-throat! Sapristi!" A boat soon rowed to the _Saint George_ and an order was delivered to Captain Wright to the effect that he must bring his vessel into the inner harbor, and, if he did not obey, she would be brought in by Italian gun-boats. Wright--of course--refused. So two big Italian warships sailed up upon either side of the _Saint George_, ran out their guns, and cast anchor. "I will not move for the entire Italian Government!" roared Captain Fortunatus. "I will appeal to the British consul for protection, as England is at war with France, not with Italy." Now was a pretty how-de-do. The Italians were furious with the stubborn privateersman for refusing to obey their orders, but, in truth, the way that he had deceived them in smuggling the extra cannon aboard--when under their own eyes--is what had roused their quick, Tuscan tempers. They thought that they had been sharp--well--here was a man who was even sharper than they, themselves. "Sapristi!" they cried. "To the jail weeth heem!" There was a terrific war of words between the British consul and the officials of that snug, little town. Then, the problem was suddenly solved, for, two powerful, English men-of-war dropped into the harbor: the _Jersey_ of sixty guns, and the _Isis_ mounting fifty. The authorities of Leghorn were told that they had orders from the Admiral of the British, Mediterranean fleet, to convoy any English merchantmen which might be there, and _to release the Saint George immediately_. Wright threw up his cap and cheered, but the officials of Leghorn said things which cannot be printed. Thus the _Saint George_ sailed upon her way, unmolested, and was soon taking more prizes upon the broad waters of the Mediterranean. The path of the privateer is not strewn with roses. Captain Fortunatus found that his reputation had gone abroad and it had not been to his credit, for, when he put in at Malta he was not allowed to buy provisions for his ship. "You are a beastly pirate!" said an official. "You cannot purchase anything here for your nefarious business." "I am a privateer!" answered Wright, with anger. "A privateer looks just the same to me as a pirate," sarcastically sneered the official. And Captain Fortunatus had to look elsewhere for provisions. As he cruised along, a big, French cruiser of thirty-eight guns chased the little _Saint George_ as if to gobble her up alive. "Boys! We shall now have some fun!" said Captain Wright. "I can sail faster than this Frenchy. Just watch me!" So, when the great beast of a French vessel came lumbering by, Wright played with her like a cat with a mouse; sailed around her in circles; shot guns at her rigging--just to aggravate the men from the sunny land--and then dipped his ensign and went careening away as if nothing had happened. No wonder that the French hated and despised this valiant mariner! Wouldn't you have done so if you had been a Frenchman? Thus Captain Fortunatus Wright continued upon his privateering, his fighting, and his cruising; bearing terror to his enemies but satisfaction to his friends. His name was as well known among those who sailed the Mediterranean as was that of the great Napoleon in later years, and it was just as cordially hated by those who opposed him. "The Ogre from Leghorn" was one of his titles, while some applied to him the choice epithet of "The Red Demon from Italy." At any rate this did not seem to worry the veteran sea-dog, who continued to take prizes and make money until the year 1757. Then he disappears from history, for the body of brave, resolute, stubborn, and valiant Captain Fortunatus Wright mysteriously and suddenly vanished from this earth. What was his end? Perhaps he perished while boarding the deck of some craft which was manned by men as gallant as his own. Perhaps he fell while stemming the advance of a crew of wild Frenchmen, eager for his blood and remembering the many victories which he had won over their countrymen. Perhaps, in the wild, wind-tossed wastes of the Mediterranean, his vessel--unable to cope with the elements--was hurled upon some jagged rock and sunk in the sobbing waters of the frothing sea. Perhaps he was captured, hurried to some dark prison, and died in one of those many dungeons which disgrace the cities of the Italian coast. Perhaps he was hanged for privateering. At any rate, nothing is known of the last days of this dauntless navigator save what can be gathered from an old grave in St. Peter's churchyard, in Liverpool. Here is the tombstone of the father of Fortunatus Wright, an inscription upon which, tells us that he was a master-mariner of Liverpool; that he defended his ship--on one occasion--most gallantly against two vessels of superior force; and that he died, not by the stroke of a boarding-pike, but safely in his own home. To this is added the information that: "Fortunatus Wright, his son, was always victorious, and humane to the vanquished. He was a constant terror to the enemies of his king and his country." That is all. THE DEEP There's beauty in the deep: The wave is bluer than the sky; And though the lights shine bright on high, More softly do the sea-gems glow That sparkle in the depths below; The rainbow tints are only made When on the waters they are laid. And sea and moon most sweetly shine Upon the ocean's level brine. There's beauty in the deep. There's quiet in the deep. Above, let tide and tempest rave, And earth-born whirlwinds wake the wave; Above, let care and fear contend With sin and sorrow to the end: Here, far beneath the tainted foam That frets above our peaceful home, We dream in joy, and walk in love, Nor know the rage that yells above. There's quiet in the deep. GEORGE WALKER WINNER OF THE GAMEST SEA FIGHT OF THE ENGLISH CHANNEL (1727-1777) "'War is Hell,' said General William T. Sherman. But,--better have war than bow to an inferior nation."--_Doctrines of the Strenuous Life._ GEORGE WALKER WINNER OF THE GAMEST SEA FIGHT OF THE ENGLISH CHANNEL (1727-1777) "If Britain can but breed th' men, Who are like Walker made, She'll have no fear of danger, When th' foe starts to invade. When th' foe starts to invade, my boys, An' creep along th' shore, Where th' curling breakers wash th' cliffs, Where th' breeching combers roar. Then, lift a glass to Walker, Of _Glorioso_ fame, _May we ne'er forget his deed lads,_ _May we ne'er forget his name_." --_Chants from The Channel._--1769. It was the year 1739, and the good people of Charleston, South Carolina, were in a great state of agitation. Little knots of merchants, sailors, clerks, and dock-hands clustered about each other in the narrow streets. And, above the hub-bub of many voices, could be heard the solemn sentence, oft repeated: "The pirate is off the narrows! The pirate will soon be here!" Then all would gaze seaward with startled faces, and would murmur: "The pirate--the Spanish pirate will be here." As they thus stood irresolutely, a strongly-knit fellow came walking towards the dock-end. He was clad in gray; his face was deeply seamed by long exposure to the elements; and high top-boots of leather encased his lower limbs. "What ho! Good citizens," said he. "Do I understand that a Spaniard has frightened you all? Why, where's your courage?" "Courage?" answered a rotund-bodied merchant. "Of that we have a plenty. But we have no ship with which to combat this fellow--or fellows--for some of my skippers tell me that there are two of them off the coast, and that they've captured twenty trading vessels." The newcomer smiled. "I've got a staunch craft here," said he. "My name is Walker, and I hail from Bristol, England. My ship--the _Duke William_--mounts but twenty guns, and my crew is but of thirty-two, yet, I know that many of you gentlemen will volunteer your services, particularly if there is to be a nice little battle." "Hear! Hear!" came from all sides. "You're the boy for us! You're the chap we've been looking for! Hear! Hear!" It did not take long to increase the crew of the _Duke William_. Several of the wealthy colonists volunteered their services; many sailors were there who had been fighting on the Spanish Main. They were eager and anxious to join. So, before three days were out, the _Duke William_ spread her canvas for the open sea, carrying one hundred men and an additional twenty guns. Now--you see--she could put up an excellent fight with the average pirate-ship which cruised about the low-lying and sandy coast. Out into the broad expanse of the Atlantic glided the little barque and eagerly the mariners scanned the horizon for some signs of the pirate. "She's been hereabouts!" cried one stout seaman. "For several of my mess-mates saw her sails down near the channel islands. And her flag was surely black with th' skull an' cross-bones." "Must have heard that we were coming, then," growled Captain Walker, "for there's nothing in view." In an hour's time he thought differently, for, "Sail ho!" sounded from the forward deck, and there, far off to leeward, was the outline of a long, blackish vessel, bearing no flag at her mizzen or stern. Crowding on all canvas--for the breeze was light--the _Duke William_ bore away towards her. "It must be the pirate!" said all, for, also crowding on all sail, the vessel headed up the coast, and did her utmost to get away. On, on, went pursuer and pursued; on, on, and the _Duke William_ began to draw dangerously close to the fleeing vessel, which now could be easily seen. She was a brigantine, carrying about eighteen guns, with a high stern and graceful lines. No flags waved from her mast-heads. Suddenly the scudding sea-warrior pointed her nose in-shore, ran around the corner of a sandy island, and bore away into a seemingly large lagoon upon the other side. The _Duke William_ followed, and, as she rounded a jutting sand-spit, there before her lay a little schooner, on the deck of which were seen several sailors, waving and gesticulating frantically. Behind, and on the shore, was an earth-work, from which several cannon pointed their black muzzles. On a flag-pole in the centre, waved a Spanish flag, and, beneath it, a black ensign upon which was the skull-and-cross-bones. "It's the pirate stronghold!" cried several, at once. "We're in for a tight skirmish!" But Captain Walker only smiled. The brigantine, which he had been following, now rounded-to, opened her port-holes, and fired a couple of shots toward the pursuing craft. At the same time an English flag was hoisted on the schooner, and a fellow on her deck sang out through a speaking trumpet. "Thank Heaven you have come! We were only captured two days ago! Hurrah for the English flag!" The _Duke William_ kept on after the brigantine, her mixed crew yelling with joy, now that they were to have an action. _Bang! Bang!_ Her two forward guns spoke, and a shot went ripping through one of the foresails of the pirate. This was enough for the fighting spirit of those who sailed the Spanish Main. For, putting about, the brigantine scudded through a narrow channel, known only to her skipper (for no one else could have followed without grounding upon a sand-spit), and was soon running away upon the opposite side of a low-lying island, now flaunting the pirate-flag from her halyards. "She's gone!" sadly remarked the gallant Captain Walker, "but we can capture the gun-battery. Make ready to go ashore, if needed!" Steering for the coast, the guns of the _Duke William_ opened upon the sandy barricade, and shot after shot was soon making the dirt and gravel fly in every direction: _Poom! Poom! Cu-poom!_ The cannon in the earth-work next began to speak, and, it was apparent, from the strange noises which some of them made, that they were full of rust. _Cu-Poom! Cu-Pow! Chuck-chuck-cu-swash!_ they roared, and a few balls began to whistle about the spars of the _Duke William_. There were some accurate marksmen upon the deck of the British vessel, and, as she lay broadside to the fortification, one well-aimed shot struck a cannon and dismounted it; while another shattered the flag-pole and brought down the flag with a crash. "Hurrah!" shouted the men from Charleston. "Now we'll even up with these cursed pirates for all the damage that they've done us. Now, we'll teach them not to ravage our coasts and catch our merchant ships!" _Cu-whow!_ barked the rust-caked guns of the barricade. "_Go-slow! Go-back! Go-home!_" To this a full broadside roared, and the balls tore the top of the earth-work to shreds. "Now let thirty men take to the boats!" commanded Captain Walker. "Steer for the beach and rush the barricade with pistols and cutlasses. I don't believe that there are more than a dozen men inside the earth-work." "Huzzah!" was the cheerful answer to this order, and, in a few moments, several boats were racing for the beach, each eager to be the first ashore. As they approached, the antiquated guns on the sand-spit became strangely silent, and, as the eager raiders rushed valiantly upon the pirate fortress, no shots were fired at them to impede their progress. With a wild yell they leaped over the side of the barricade, only to find it deserted; for whatever had been the force that had fired these cannon, it had taken to the brush as the English seamen drew near. Only a few charges of ammunition were there, so it was plainly evident that the pirates (whatever their strength might have been) could only have held out for a few more rounds. "Hurrah! Hurrah!" shouted the raiders. "The fort is ours!" "And it's a sorry victory," said one of the crew, "for there's nothing here worth the having, except the cannon, and they couldn't stand more than two more shots without blowing up. I call it a pretty hollow success." In spite of this the men of Charleston were well pleased. They had dispersed the pirates; taken their fort; and had re-captured a schooner which had recently been taken only a few miles from the harbor-mouth of that fair, southern city. When they sailed into their home port they received a tremendous ovation. The bells were rung in all the churches; shots were fired; trumpets were blown. "We could fall in with nothing that would stay for us upon the seas," said Captain Walker, modestly; but, in spite of this, he was treated like a great hero. All the influential persons in the Colony offered to sign a request that he might be given the command of a king's ship; but this he declined. So they tendered him an immense tract of land if he would remain in that country and drive off the pirates when next they became too bold and daring; but this he also declined, and stuck to his ship. In a few weeks he sailed for the Barbadoes, and then to England, in company with three unarmed trading-vessels which placed themselves under his convoy. The good people of Charleston bade him a sad and affectionate farewell. George Walker sailed forth smiling, but he was now to have far more trouble than his little affair with the pirates. When half way to England, a terrific gale struck the _Duke William_ and her convoys, which separated them by many miles, and made this good vessel (which had dispersed the pirates) leak like a sieve. The gale continued in its violence, while Captain Walker was so ill that the ship's surgeon despaired of his life. But note how grit and nerve pulled him through! On the second day of the tempest, a sailor rushed into his cabin, crying: "Captain! Captain! We'll founder, for the water is pouring into our bottom by the hogshead. We're gone for unless we take to the boats!" Captain Walker was not the man to leave his ship in such a crisis. "Throw all of the guns overboard, but two!" he ordered. "We need those in order to signal for help if a vessel comes near us. That will lighten us so that we can still float awhile." This was done, but, as the last cannon shot into the waves, a sailor burst into his cabin with the intelligence that the men had prepared to desert in the tenders. "Carry me on deck!" roared the resolute captain. "I'll give these cowards a piece of my mind." Three sailors seized him and bore him aloft, where he remonstrated with his men in the strongest language possible. In spite of this, many clustered about one of the boats. "The ship's a-sinking," cried one. "She won't stand up for an hour." As he spoke, the welcome sound of, "Sail ho!" arose, above the wash and roar of the angry water. Sure enough, a ship was bearing down upon them, but, to the dismay of all, she hastily hauled off again. Captain Walker was astonished. "She thinks us an armed enemy," said he. "Fire a gun, men, and cut the mizzen-mast in two, so that it falls overboard. That will show the stranger that we're a friend in distress." His orders were immediately obeyed and the mast came ripping and tearing over the side. A gun also roared, and the stranger, now convinced that the ship was a friend, and not a foe, came bearing down upon the crippled _Duke William_, to the rescue. "She's one of our own convoy!" shouted a seaman, waving his hand joyfully. And such she proved to be. Captain Walker had saved his crew by his foresight and quickness of decision. Had he thrown all of his cannon overboard he would have had no gun with which to hail the stranger, and, had he not cut away his own mast, she would have gone away, fearful that he was an enemy. Three cheers for the brave and thoughtful Captain Walker! He reached England, at last, but he and his men were in a sorry plight, for the vessel which had rescued them was almost as unseaworthy as their own, which sank in a great whirl of eddying foam, not half an hour after they had left her. Thus ended the career of the good ship which had chased all of the pirates away from the harbor of Charleston. A sad fate, indeed, for such a gallant craft. Captain Walker was not long idle, for he soon took charge of a brigantine trading to the Baltic Sea, in spite of the fact that war had been declared with France, and the privateers and gun-boats of that nation hovered in his path, eager and anxious to secure some English merchant vessel, as a prize. "I see that these fellows mean to catch me, if they can," said the keen-witted mariner. "So I intend to be ready for them if I do not happen to be near an English man-of-warsman when they come sailing by." He therefore shipped a number of wooden guns, which were painted black, so that, at a distance, they looked exactly like the real thing. Upon his vessel were only six cannon, so when--a short time afterwards--he was chased by a French privateer off the coast of Scotland--he had an excellent opportunity to "bluff" the bold marauder. As the Frenchman drew near, the vessel which Captain Walker was on kept steadily upon her way, and, through his glass, the cautious mariner saw that his pursuer carried fully twenty guns. "Run out our dummy cannon!" he ordered. Out were thrust the black, wooden muzzles, twenty-five in number, and--as the Frenchman was now within shooting distance--the English boat was luffed into the wind. In a second the British jack, ensign, and man-of-war's pendant were hoisted, and a gun was fired across the bow of the arrogant privateer. "Come on!" shouted bold Walker. "I am waiting for you!" But the enemy did not come on. Instead of this, she turned tail in a hurry, filled away, and made off as fast as a freshening breeze would drive her. "Ha! Ha! Ha!" laughed the genial, English skipper. "Bluffed by a lot of wooden guns. Ha! Ha! Ha!" And all of his sailors gave a rousing cheer. This was indeed good fortune, but Captain Walker was soon to meet with some fortune which was quite the reverse. It was the year 1744 and the doughty sailor had accepted the command of the privateer _Mars_, of twenty-six guns and one hundred and thirty men, which sailed from London for a cruise in the English channel. With her was the _Boscawen_, another privateer with about the same number of guns, but with a crew of fully one hundred and eighty. They soon had an adventure which was not all to the liking of bold George Walker. At midnight, late in December, the two privateers were running near the coast of France. There was a heavy mist and rain, also a fresh breeze, so the steersmen could not well see what way they were going. Suddenly the hulls of two large vessels loomed up in the blackness, and the twinkling lights from their port-holes shone upon the dripping sides of the British privateers. Voices came through the mist--French voices--so it was apparent that the ships were not friends. "Those fellows are showing much alarm," said Captain Walker, a few moments later. "I therefore believe that the vessels are full of treasure. We'll hang on until daylight, at any rate, and see whether or no we cannot capture a rich cargo." Next morning, at eight o'clock, the fog suddenly lifted, disclosing--not two treasure ships--but two French men-of-war; one bearing seventy-four guns, the other sixty-four. "Egad!" ejaculated the startled Walker. "We're in a hornet's nest! I guess we'd better run for it!" The Frenchmen, however, were both treasure-ships, as well as men-of-war; both bound from the West Indies, with cargoes worth about four millions sterling ($20,000,000), which they were carrying into the harbor of Brest. They were not in good fighting trim, as their heavy cargoes made them low in the water, and very unwieldy. It is probable that they would not have attacked the two Englishmen, had not the captain of the _Boscawen_ turned tail and fled, leaving the _Mars_ all alone. "Did you ever see such a coward?" cried Captain Walker, with heat. "Boys! We're in for it now!" Sure enough, they were: for the Frenchmen saw that only one enemy was left, and immediately sent the sixty-four gun ship--the _Fleuron_--in pursuit. Walker turned his vessel about and clapped on all sail, but the large gun-boat quickly overhauled him. "Gentlemen!" said Captain Walker, as she rapidly approached. "I do not mean to be so rash as to attempt a regular engagement with so superior a force; all I ask of you is to confide in me and my orders, to get away--if possible--without striking our flag; and, be assured, I shall not call upon you to fight unless there is excellent opportunity for success. The ship which pursues us is certainly the better sailer of the two French men-of-war; yet, if we have good fortune with our shots, we may bring down a topmast or yard; or hurt her rigging so as to retard her pursuit. We may yet get entirely clear. So, my hearties, do not lose your nerve!" These wise remarks were greeted with a "Hip! Hip! Hooray!" Now was a lively chase. The _Mars_ hoisted the English flag, opened with her stern guns, and put on all available canvas. But she was not a fast sailer, and gradually but surely, the _Fleuron_ crept up on one side, and the other French man-of-war upon the other. She, too, had entered the chase. Finally the French vessels had the British privateer directly between them. "The jig is up!" cried Captain Walker, sadly. "Gentlemen, we do not strike to one ship only. Haul down the colors!" Down came the proud ensign, the sails were lowered, and the gallant Walker entered a boat, in order that he might be put aboard the _Fleuron_ and give up his sword. When he arrived on the deck he found the French captain by no means in the politest of humors. After receiving the weapon of the vanquished privateersman, the Frenchman thundered in very good English: "How dare you fire against a force like mine in so small a ship? Sirrah, you must be stark mad. I compliment you upon your lack of judgment." Captain Walker was nettled. "Sir," he replied, with warmth, "if you will look at my commission you will find that I had as good a right to fight as you, yourself, had. Furthermore, if my force had not been so inferior to yours, I would have shown you more civil treatment on board my own ship, after I had captured you." The Frenchman winced. "How many of your bushwhackers have I killed?" said he. "None at all, sir!" replied the Englishman. "Then, sir, you should be well ashamed of your scurvy fighting. For you have killed six of my brave men and have wounded several with pieces of glass. Pray, when, sir, did the rules of war allow glass to be used as ammunition?" "You lie," cried Captain Walker. "No glass was used by my men." The Frenchman curbed his anger. "Then what was it?" said he. Here a British seaman interrupted. "If it would please your French Majesty," he said, with a bow, "I reckon I know what it was that you took for glass. The captain of one of our stern guns, when he found out that we must surrender, sir, took about sixteen shillings from his pocket, saying: 'Sooner than let these French rascals plunder me of all I've got in the world, I'll see what a bribe can do!' So he wrapped the money up in a bag, sir, crammed it into a gun, and let fly at your deck. Faith, your men were lucky to be struck by good, British coin!" At this all had a good laugh, and the unpleasantness between the French captain and George Walker was at an end. The privateersman was treated with the greatest courtesy and was made as comfortable as could be. The action took place on Friday and the ships were headed for Brest, about three days' sail away. At daybreak on Sunday morning, four large boats were sighted astern, and it did not take long to realize that they were coming up pretty fast _and were flying the English colors_. "Hurray!" shouted Captain Walker. "No French prison for me. Hurray!" The English squadron gained steadily. The boats grew nearer and nearer, while Walker's hopes soared higher and higher. Finally, the French officer, who was in charge of his own boat--the _Mars_--put his helm up and ran to leeward, hoping to draw one of the British vessels after him. He was successful, for a seventy-gun ship made after him, chased him for several miles, and finally re-captured the English privateer. The other ships kept on and drew closer and closer. Seeing that an action would soon take place, the French captain politely requested Walker and his officers to go below. "Messieurs!" said he. "There will soon be a leetle affair in which the balls will fly. You will be better off in the hold, where they cannot reach you so easily as up here." "Sir!" replied the English privateer-captain. "I go below with the greatest of pleasure, for I am now certain of my liberty. Au revoir!" "Do not count your chickens before they hatch!" cried the Frenchman, after his retreating form. The British vessels were the _Hampton Court_ of seventy guns, and the _Sunderland_ and _Dreadnought_ of sixty each; so, being three to two, they should have had a fairly easy victory over the Frenchmen. But the _Sunderland_ lost a spar overboard, and dropped astern; so it left but two to two: an even affair. Alas for gallant Captain Walker! Although the Englishmen came near the two French men-of-war, they hung about without firing a shot; allowed the Frenchmen to sail on unmolested, and thus carry their astonishingly rich treasure into Brest, amid wild and enthusiastic cheering of their crews, and groans of disappointment from the English prisoners. Yet these same prisoners had little cause to complain of their treatment when they arrived at Brest; for they were landed at once, and the captain and officers were liberated on parole. The French also treated them very well and invited the valorous George Walker to many a repast, where they laughed at the narrow shave that he had had from death,--for they had left the _Fleuron_ none too soon. On the day following the landing, Captain Walker was seated in the office of a counting-house, near the dock-end, and was writing a letter to the captain of the _Fleuron_, requesting him to send him his letter-of-credit, which was in a tin box in a cabin of the French man-of-war, when a terrible _Boom!_ sounded upon his ears. A sailor came running past the open window. "The _Fleuron_ has blown up!" he cried. "The _Fleuron_ is a total loss!" Captain Walker dashed into the street; to the end of the quay; and there a sad spectacle greeted his eager gaze. Strewn about upon the surface of the water were broken spars; pieces of sail; and the débris of a once gallant man-of-war. The remnants of the _Fleuron_ were burning brightly. The captain of the French ship came running by. "Helas!" he wailed. "A careless gunner has destroyed my gallant vessel. Helas! Helas!" It was too true. Four or five powder barrels had been left in the magazine for saluting purposes, and quite a little loose powder had been allowed to lie upon the floor. Some careless seamen had gone down into the hold with a decrepit, old lantern. The handle broke, the flame set fire to the loose powder,--and that was the end of the gallant ship _Fleuron_. She burned to the water's edge and then went down to the bottom with a dull, sizzling hiss; while the treasure also disappeared. Later on, divers secured a part of it, but much that was of value was never recovered. Captain Walker did not long grieve over the loss of his letter-of-credit, left on board the ill-starred _Fleuron_, for he was exchanged, after a few weeks, and was sent back to England with his crew. This was in 1745. He lost no time in reporting to the owners of the _Mars_, and so well did they think of him, that in a short while they sent him upon another privateering venture aboard the _Boscawen_, which, as you remember, had run away from the _Mars_, after she had fallen in with the two French men-of-war. Now occurred his greatest sea-fight. The _Boscawen_ had been built in France and had been a prize, taken at sea. She mounted twenty-eight guns (nine-pounders), but Walker added two more, and shipped a crew of three hundred and fourteen men. Without waiting for the _Mars_, the stout sea-dog put out to sea on April 19th, 1745, steering for the shores of France where cruised the prize-laden clipper ships, and the unwelcome men-of-warsmen. The British privateersman cruised about for a whole month without any luck, and, falling in with the privateer _Sheerness_, joined with her in a little run in search of inoffensive merchantmen. At daybreak a cry came from the forward watch,-- "Sails ho! Sails ho! Off the starboard quarter! There're eight o' them an' heading no' east." Both the privateers started in pursuit, but the _Sheerness_ was left far astern, as the _Boscawen_ was a speedy sailer. The latter drew near the eight scudding sail, which suddenly veered about and formed a line, awaiting an attack. The _Sheerness_ was way astern. Would Captain Walker advance? It was eight against one, and there was no certainty what was the armament of the vessels now standing in a row, all ready for action. The faces of the officers on the _Boscawen_ showed anxiety and suspense, but there was no shadow of fear upon the countenance of Captain Walker, who now addressed them in the following words: "Gentlemen, I hope that you do not think the number of prizes before us too many. Be assured, my good friends, that by their being armed, they have something on board of them that is worth defending. I take them to be merchantmen with letters of marque (privateers), and homeward bound. Without doubt we shall meet with some opposition, in which I know that you will exhibit your usual courage. We must conquer these superior numbers by superior skill. Be cool. Be careful that you aim correctly, for, as we shall be pressed on all sides, let every man do his best to engage the enemy that he sees before him. "In a word, Gentlemen, if you will put full confidence in me for leading you on, I will pawn my life upon the fact that I will bring you off victorious." "Hurray! Hurray for Walker!" came the reassuring response. "Then go to your quarters, my hearties! Fight like Britishers of old, and all will be well!" cried the brave mariner. Like a hornet among a group of snap-dragons, the _Boscawen_ now sailed into the centre of the enemy's line. "Do not fire until I give the word!" cried Captain Walker, as the salt spray kicked and splashed about the bow of the on-coming _Boscawen_. "Then hammer away like anvils on a sledge!" Sixty men were ill on board the stout little English privateer, but all save three crawled on deck in order to render what assistance they could in pointing and handling the guns. Now was a glorious fight. _Bang! Crash! Z-i-i-p!_ The French privateers were hammering away as the Englishman approached and their balls cut and tore through the rigging, damaging the mizzen topsail, and splitting a topmast. Steering straight for the largest vessel, Walker waited until he was within close range and then gave the order: "Fire, and hull her if you can." _Poof! Cr-a-a-sh!_ A blinding broadside rolled from the port of the _Boscawen_, and the solid shot bit and tore the stranger like a terrier mouthing a rat. The valiant little privateer was now in the midst of the enemy. Two were to right of her; two to the left of her; one across her bow; and one across her stern. Two of the eight decamped, at this juncture; making the odds six, instead of eight, to one. "_Pow! Pow! Cu-boom!_" The vessel astern was banging away like a Banshee, but a sudden _crash_ from the stern guns so badly damaged her that she hauled off. It was now five to one. "Keep it up, boys!" cried Walker, above the roar and rattle of the fray. "You're doing splendidly. You all deserve statues in the temple of fame." "Huzzah!" shouted his men. "Hurray for the _Boscawen_. Down with the Frenchmen!" "_Cu-pow! Boom! Boom!_" roared the cannon, while the broadsides from the _Boscawen_ were delivered without either confusion or disorder. The five were sparring gamely, but they were lightly armed, with only a few guns to each, so the thirty nine-pounders on board the English privateer were about an equal match for the greater numbers of the foe. Thus the fight raged for an hour, when, suddenly, the ensign upon the mast of the French flagship was seen to flutter to the deck. Ten minutes later a cry arose from a sailor aboard the _Boscawen_: "Look, Captain, she's sinking!" Sure enough, the accurate fire from the British privateer had so riddled the hull of the Frenchman, that she fast filled with water, and sank, stern first, her men escaping in their small boats. "That's one less, anyway," mused Captain Walker. The remaining four continued the fight, but the little privateer was too much for them. Around and around she veered, broadsiding with astonishing accuracy, and knocking the spars about like a foot-ball team kicking a ball. "_Pow! Pow!_" the guns roared, and the men cried, "Remember the oath of our captain! Let's take 'em all!" It began to look as if they would do it, too; for, now upon the starboard quarter appeared the white sails of a vessel, and, as she approached, a joyous cheer arose from the deck of the _Boscawen_, for it was the _Sheerness_. "Now we'll get 'em! Now we'll get 'em!" yelled the British sailors, and they plied their guns with renewed activity and care. Down came the flag upon one of the Frenchmen, and--in a few moments--down came another. Then, as the _Sheerness_ rolled closer, two more ensigns fluttered to the deck. There was but one Frenchman left, and she made off, with the newcomer hot in pursuit. "Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!" The sailors on board the _Boscawen_ were fairly jumping for joy. "Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!" they yelled. And well might they cheer, for had they not won one of the pluckiest sea-fights of all history? The enemy is said to have had one hundred and thirteen killed and drowned, while the casualties of the _Boscawen_ amounted to but one killed and seven wounded. "And this," says an old chronicler of the spirited affair, "was due to the fact that the British privateer had a bulwark of elm-planking, man-high, around her deck. It was so fashioned that there was a step on which the marines could mount and fire, and then come down in order to load. Furthermore, this elm-wood did not splinter; but kept out the bullets, and closed up around the holes made by shot." At any rate, it was a glorious victory, and when--a few hours later--the _Sheerness_ came back with the other French vessel a prize, the total capture amounted to six vessels: homeward bound traders from Martinique, provided with letters of marque, and with about six guns each. Their crews were undoubtedly undisciplined and ill-used to shooting, else how could they have done so badly with the _Boscawen_? The prizes were headed for the English coast and arrived at King's Road, Bristol, in a few days, where a swarm of eager sight-seers crowded about the shattered craft. "My! My!" said many. "This Walker is another Drake. He is a valiant soul!" And so thought the British Admiralty, for they sent him a letter (upon his reporting to them) which read: "We cannot too highly congratulate and commend you upon the seamanship and courage which you have displayed in the capture of these French vessels. Your daring and ability should always make your name one to be revered by those Britishers who follow the sea. May your future career upon the ocean but add to the laurels which you have already won!" And were they not right? Seldom has such a feat been accomplished, and seldom has one vessel come off victorious against such odds. If you love a game warrior, cheer for George Walker, for he deserves it. If you are an admirer of the fighting quality in a man, give three times three for the privateersman who had the nerve to sail into eight vessels,--and won out. So much, indeed, did the British owners of the privateer vessels think of Captain Walker, that he was now placed in command of four ships, known as "The Royal Family of Privateers," for each was named after some member of the English royal family. These were the _Princess Amelia_, of twenty-four guns and one hundred and fifty men: the _Prince Frederick_ of twenty-six guns and two hundred and sixty men: the _Duke_ of twenty guns and two hundred and sixty men; and the _King George_, of thirty-two guns and three hundred men. This last boat was commanded by Walker, himself; the _Duke_ by Edward Dottin, a staunch sailor; the _Prince Frederick_ by Hugh Bromedge; and the _Princess Amelia_ by Robert Denham. The entire squadron carried nearly a thousand men and one hundred and two guns, so, you see, that it could do quite a little damage to the enemies of Merrie England. Sailing in May, 1746, the squadron soon met with hard luck, for the _Prince Frederick_ ran upon a rock in Bristol Channel, and had to be left behind; for she was badly punctured below the water-line. The three others sailed for the coast of France, and--a week later--had a startling little adventure. A heavy fog lay over the sobbing water, and the three English sea-robbers were gliding along within easy gun-shot of each other, when it was evident that they were near some other vessels. Voices came out of the mist, lights flashed (for it was near the close of day), and the wash of water could be heard, as the waves beat against solid oak planking. "Egad!" whispered Captain Walker to one of his lieutenants. "Listen, my boy, and tell me whether these voices are French, Spanish, or English." The lieutenant held a speaking-trumpet to his ear. The _swish_, _swish_ of water came to the eager senses of the anxious privateersman. That was all! Captain Walker passed the word around among his men to be absolutely silent, and, as he strained his hearing, in order to catch the faintest sound from the strangers, suddenly he heard the sentence, "Pressy! Chantez une chanson. Je vais me coucher." (Sing a song, Pressy. I am going to bed.) In a second the gallant Walker knew that, as once before, he was in the midst of some French vessels. "Caught!" he whispered. "And I believe that they're men-of-warsmen! Now we're in a pretty pickle!" His officers scowled. "I know that they're men-o'-warsmen," said one, "for, just now, the fog lifted for a second, and I could make out--by their lights--that they were large gun-ships." Captain Walker looked dejected. "The deuce," said he. But he soon regained his composure. "Put every light out on board," he ordered. "These fellows see us, for I hear them bearing over our way." Sure enough, from the swashing of water and glimmer of lights in the fog, it could be seen that the great lumbering men-of-war were closing in upon the privateer. But the Frenchmen had a human eel to capture and he was equal to the occasion. "Bring up a couple of casks from below!" cried Captain Walker. They were soon on deck. "Now put a lantern in one and lash them together," he continued. "We'll alter our course and skip, while the Frenchies will follow this light." The ruse worked magnificently, and, when morning dawned and the bright sun burned off the fog, the French men-of-war found themselves hovering around a couple of old casks with a lantern tied to the top; while Captain Walker in the _King George_ was scudding along the French coast, many miles away. At which the French captain remarked, "Sapristi! L'oiseau s'est envolé." (Egad! The bird has flown!) Not long after this "The Royal Family of Privateers" took some valuable prizes, and, having chased a small, French merchantman into the bay of Safia, in Morocco, Captain Walker determined to capture her at night, by sending a party against her in the long-boats. A second lieutenant was put in charge of this venture, and, at dark three tenders, crowded with armed seamen and propelled by muffled oars, started after the prize. As they neared the merchantman a hail came through the blackness: "Qui est la?" (Who is there?) No answer was made to this, but the boats kept straight on. _Crash! Bang!_ A gun roared in the faces of the privateers, and shots came falling around them like hail-stones,--but still they kept on. Again _Crash! Crash! Crash!_ The Frenchmen were plying their guns right willingly, but the English sailors could not be stopped, and they neared the vessel under vigorous sweeps of the oars. The lieutenant in command was badly wounded, and was forced to lie in the bottom of his boat, but--in a few moments--the tenders were alongside the merchantman, and the sailors, with a wild yell, were clambering to her deck. There was a fierce hand-to-hand struggle, but nothing would gainsay the rush of the British tars. In twenty minutes the fight was all over and the vessel was towed out of the bay, in triumph, next morning. As she was a smart, little craft she was turned into a privateer in place of the _Prince Frederick_ (which had run aground) and was christened the _Prince George_. The "Royal Family" continued upon its way, made many captures, and--after eight months--put into the harbor of Lisbon with prizes and prize-money amounting to £220,000 (about $1,100,000). So you can see that privateering was a very lucrative trade in those days, when successfully pursued. Not a single man had been killed aboard the little fleet, but many had been severely wounded. The ships were overhauled, refitted, and, being joined by the _Prince Frederick_, amounted to six in number, for the vessel captured in the harbor of Safia had been converted into a full-fledged privateer. Now was to be one of the most gruelling sea-fights in which George Walker ever engaged. In the month of October the squadron was cruising off of Lagos Bay, on the coast of Portugal, when a large sail was sighted at about five in the morning. The _Princess Amelia_ was at anchor in the harbor of Lagos, so Captain Walker sent a small sloop (a recent capture) after her to tell her to "Hurry up and get under way," while he gave signal to the other vessels to chase the stranger at once. All started after the foreigner, who stood to the northward and could be seen to be crowding on all possible canvas. There were four ships in this merry little chase, but two of them--the _Duke_ and the _Prince George_--dropped out, after about an hour's run. They either could not get up, or else their captains grew tired of the affair. On, on, went the other privateers, and--at about noon--Walker drew near the fugitive, in the _King George_. The _Prince Frederick_, with her twenty-six guns, was still some distance away, but Walker kept after the stranger, although he now saw that she was a large vessel,--much more powerful than the _King George_, with her thirty-two guns and three hundred men. He was rapidly nearing the big fellow, when it grew suddenly calm, so that neither could move. At this moment an ejaculation of astonishment burst from the lips of some of the officers aboard the saucy _King George_. "She's a seventy-four!" cried several. "We're in a tight hole!" Sure enough, the pursued hoisted her colors, ran out her guns, and showed herself to be a man-of-warsman carrying seventy-four cannon: over double the amount of armament aboard the plucky _King George_. "I can't make out whether she's Spanish or Portuguese," said Captain Walker, gazing carefully at her drooping flag. The colors hung down in the dead calm, and it was impossible to tell whether they were Spanish or Portuguese; for the two ensigns--at that period--were very similar. The sea-warriors drifted along, eyeing each other, for about an hour, when the stranger ran in her lower deck-guns and closed her port-holes. "She's a treasure ship," cried a sailor. "And she won't fight if she can avoid it!" Walker turned to his officers and asked, "Gentlemen, shall we fight her?" "Aye! Aye!" came from all. "She's afraid of us!" The vessel, in fact, was a treasure ship which had been recently chased by some English men-of-war and had already landed her treasure, to the value of about one million sterling (about $5,000,000). A slight breeze sprang up, at about five in the afternoon, and the big ship kept on her course; the gamey _King George_ following, while the white sails of the _Prince Frederick_ were far astern, as the breeze had not yet struck her. So they swashed along, the Englishmen anxious for a fight, and a chance to overhaul the supposed treasure which the stranger was carrying. At eight o'clock the _King George_ was struck by a favorable puff of wind, and came quite close to the seventy-four. It was time for battle. "What ship is that?" hailed Captain Walker, in the Portuguese tongue. He was cleared for action and his men were all lying down at their quarters. There was no answer to his challenge. "What ship is that?" he asked again; this time in English. A voice came back,--also in English, "And what ship may you be?" "The _King George_." _Crash! B-oo-m!_ A thundering broadside belched from the side of the seventy-four, dismounting two guns on the port side of the _King George_, and bringing the main topsail yard crashing to the deck. It was now bright moonlight, and in its radiance the flag of the stranger was seen to blow straight out, disclosing her nationality to be Spanish. She was the _Glorioso_: a strong and powerful vessel, ably officered and ably manned. She towered above the little _King George_ like a church-spire, and her broadsides now sputtered with great regularity. _Crash! Crash! Crash!_ The sprightly little _King George_ kept after the big warship like a sword-fish chasing a whale. She drew so close that some burning wads from the Spanish guns set fire to her mainsail. Continually hoping that the _Prince Frederick_ would come up, the gallant Walker hammered away at the _Glorioso_ with furious precision, and drove her so near the rocks off Cape Vincent that the castle guns began to play upon the two grappling warriors of the sea. The British sea-captain fought and commanded with "a calmness peculiar to himself" and his example secured order and discipline even in the thickest of the fight, when the mainsail was set on fire. He was magnificent in action. So the unequal struggle kept on. By half-past ten the _King George_ had been so severely damaged aloft that she could not have escaped if she had tried. All the braces were shot away; the foremast was quite disabled; and the mainmast was badly splintered. Battered, torn, and distressed she kept banging away at the great, towering Spaniard; while the big fellow ceased her fire somewhat, and ever now and again let go a broadside, like the blow from the mouth of a huge whale. It sounded like, _Chu-spow!_ [Illustration: ACTION BETWEEN THE "GLORIOSO" AND THE "KING GEORGE" AND "PRINCE FREDERICK" UNDER GEORGE WALKER.] But hurrah! hurrah! The _Prince Frederick_ had at last caught the breeze, and came bouncing by, her little pennons fluttering like so many silk stockings on a clothes-line. "Are you all well?" shouted her commander, as he neared the splintered _King George_. "You look as if you're sinking." Captain Walker came to the rail with the speaking-trumpet in his hand. "One killed and fifteen wounded," he answered. "Now sail after that Spanish villain and take her, in revenge for all the damage that she has done me. She's a treasure ship." "All right," Captain Dottin called back, and he kept on after the _Glorioso_, which was now rapidly drawing away. By the bright moonlight it could be seen that the _Duke_ and the _Prince George_ were also approaching. And, when they came close enough to the maimed and battered _King George_, her captain called to them, "to keep on after the Spaniard, and catch the rascal." They continued on their way, and, at daybreak the three vessels could be seen, through the glass, as they closed in upon the Spanish game-cock from three sides. "She'll be ours before nightfall," said Captain Walker, chuckling. The headmost ship, apparently the _Duke_ under Captain Dottin, could now be seen to hotly engage the _Glorioso_, which greatly displeased the captain of the dismantled _King George_. "Dottin will fire away all of his cartridges," said he, turning to a few of his officers, who clustered around him. "He will shoot them all off at too great a distance, and will afterwards be obliged to load with loose powder, by which some fatal accident is sure to occur. He's a brave fellow, but a rash one!" He had scarcely spoken, when a broadside rang out. Simultaneously, with the discharge of the guns, a pillar of smoke and flame shot high into the air. "Good Heavens, the _Duke_ has blown up!" cried Captain Walker. "Dottin and his brave followers have found a watery grave!" "It is merely the smoke of a broadside," one of the officers interrupted. "No! No!" answered Walker, dejectedly. "It's the last that will ever be seen of noble Dottin and his men!" The smoke now cleared away and no ship was to be seen upon the surface of the water. The _Glorioso_ was still-belching both smoke and flame, and near her were three sails, indistinctly seen through a haze of smoke and fog. Could it not have been the _Duke_, after all? "Vain thought," cried bold Walker, aloud. "Our bravest and best ship has gone to the bottom." This terrible incident had such an effect upon the seamen of the _King George_ that Captain Walker called the officers aside into the companionway, and there made them a speech. "My brave men," said he, "you must keep up an air of cheerfulness before these fellows of ours, for, otherwise they will be backward in fighting, and will not have the courage which we desire. Go among them and show no sign that you are lacking in pleasantry." As he ceased speaking there was a series of sudden explosions, mingled with cries of alarm. "Gad zooks! What's happened!" cried all, rushing to the deck. They found matters in a sorry state, for the crew was in a panic; some clinging outside the ship; some climbing out upon the bowsprit, all ready to jump overboard should the vessel blow up. Captain Walker was astonished. "Why, men!" said he. "What means this confusion?" It was easily explained, for the alarm had been caused by a seaman who stepped upon a number of loaded muskets, which had been covered by a sail. One was fired off accidentally, and this exploded some spare ammunition, set the sail on fire, and completely demoralized the crew; who still were thinking of the sad tragedy which they had just witnessed. Order was quickly restored, the blazing sail was torn down and bucketed, and the terrified sailors came back to their posts. When men have their nerves shattered, it is easy to startle them. But how about the _Glorioso_? The fair-fighting Spaniard was far out of sight, by now, still whanging away at her many enemies, and still proudly flaunting the flag of Arragon in the faces of the British war-dogs, who were snapping and snarling at her like a wolf pack. What became of her was not known for several days, when the poor, battered _King George_ staggered into a sheltering harbor, there to meet with the _Duke_ herself, which was Dottin's good ship,--the one which all had thought to have exploded and sunk. "Hurray!" shouted many. "She's afloat after all!" Eager questioning brought out the fact that it had been the frigate _Dartmouth_ which had exploded; a vessel which had run near the fight in order to see the fun. Some loose powder had set fire to her magazine, and thus she had suffered the same fate as the _Fleuron_, which, as you remember, had blown up, when at anchor in the harbor of Brest. _It's a wise ship that keeps away from a sea battle._ Only seventeen of the crew of this unfortunate craft had been picked up by the boats of the _Prince Frederick_; one of whom was an Irish lieutenant named O'Brien, who was hauled aboard Dottin's vessel, clad only in a night shirt. "Sirrah!" said he, bowing politely. "You must excuse the unfitness of my dress to come aboard a strange ship, but really I left my own in such a hurry that I had no time to stay for a change." He had been blown out of a port-hole! An additional vessel, the _Russel_, had aided in the capture of the powerful _Glorioso_, so it had taken four privateers to down the proud Castilian: the _Duke_, the _Prince George_, the _Prince Frederick_, and the _Russel_. Certainly she had put up a magnificent battle and she had completely crippled the stout little craft sailed by Captain Walker, who was now filled with chagrin and mortification, when he found that the treasure (which he had been sure was in the hold) had been safely landed at Ferrol, before he had sighted this valorous man-of-warsman. It was a great blow both to him and to his men, and, upon arriving at Lisbon he was met by one of the owners of his own vessel, who severely reprimanded him for fighting with such a powerful boat. "Captain Walker," said he, "I fear that your fighting blood is superior to your prudence!" But to this, the game old sea-dog replied, with considerable heat: "Had the treasure been aboard the _Glorioso_, as I expected, my dear sir, your compliment would have been far different. Or had we let her escape from us with the treasure aboard, what would you have said then?" To these sage reflections the owner did not reply. The honesty and courage of this able seaman were never questioned, and the following incident bears good witness to the first quality. Upon one occasion he was sailing for Lisbon in a well-armed privateer, when a couple of East India trading ships offered him £1,000 ($5,000) if he would act as their guard and protect them from the enemy. "Gentlemen," said he to the captain of these vessels, "I shall never take a reward for what I consider it my duty to do without one. I consider it my bounden duty to conduct you both safely into port, for you are both British ships, and I am engaged to fight the enemies of our King." So he convoyed them safely into port and would not take even the smallest present, in recompense for his services. As a fighter he had no superior. War is simply glorified sport and those who are best trained athletically can usually win upon the battle-field. Did not Wellington say, "The battle of Waterloo was won upon the foot-ball grounds of Eton and Harrow?" Which was another way of saying that the boys who had learned to stand punishment upon the athletic field, could take it manfully and well upon the field of battle. Walker believed in athletic exercise and made his sailors continually practice both gunnery and work with the cutlass. They were always in training and always prepared. That is the reason why they won. As you know, if you want to win in athletics you have to train hard and practice daily. If you want to win at warfare you have to do likewise. The most athletic nation is the nation which will win in the long fight, providing that it has sufficient resources and money to carry out a war, once that it has placed its men in the field. It takes a great deal of money to fight a war, but it takes trained men also, and those who are the most fit will win every time. The English are an athletic nation, an island nation, and great numbers of her people have had to follow the sea as a matter of course. Hence England has always had a vast quantity of well-trained seamen at her beck and call. For this reason she has been more successful upon the ocean than many of her neighbors. Will she continue to be? _If she continues to breed men like George Walker there is little reason to doubt that she will always be a winner in sea fighting._ As for this famous mariner, little is known of his later life save that he was once imprisoned for debt, but this was no disgrace in those times and I am sure that he was soon liberated. He died September 20th, 1777, but where he was buried is not known, nor is there any record of his marriage. At any rate he has left the reputation of a brave and valiant seaman who was beloved by his men, feared by his enemies, and appreciated by his contemporaries. "Britannia's glory first from ships arose; To shipping still her power and wealth she owes. Let each experienced Briton then impart, His naval skill to perfect naval art." BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD Their silvered swords are red with rust, Their pluméd heads are bowed; Their haughty banner, trailed in dust, Is now their martial shroud. And plenteous funeral tears have washed The red stains from each brow, And the proud forms, by battle gashed, Are free from anguish now. Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone In deathless song shall tell, When many a vanished age hath flown, The story how ye fell: Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight, Nor Time's remorseless gloom, Shall dim one ray of glory's light That gilds your deathless tomb. [Illustration: From "The Army and Navy of the United States." AMERICAN PRIVATEER TAKING POSSESSION OF A PRIZE.] JOHN PAUL JONES THE FOUNDER OF THE AMERICAN NAVY (1747-1792) "Every generation has its own war. To forget the disagreeable is a characteristic of the human mind."--_The Philosopher._ JOHN PAUL JONES THE FOUNDER OF THE AMERICAN NAVY (1747-1792) "Why! Shiver my bones! It's John Paul Jones! Johnny the Pirate! Johnny should swing! Johnny who hails from Old Scotlant y' know, Johnny who's tryin' to fight our good King. Shiver my Timbers! We'll catch the old fox! _Clew up those top-sails! Ware o' th' shoals!_ _Fire 'cross his bow-lines! Steer for th' rocks!_ _Ease away on the jib-boom; shoot as she rolls!_ "Oh! Johnny, my Johnny, you're slick as can be, But, Johnny, My John, you'll be nipped present-ly." --_Song of the English Privateers._--1794. A French frigate lay in the silvery water off Norfolk, Virginia, and, as she swung quietly upon her anchor chains, a small sloop came bobbing alongside. A hail arose from her stern, where sat a man of about twenty-eight years; of medium stature, strongly built and swarthy. He was dressed in the gray clothing of a Virginian planter. "Hallo," he shouted in very good French. "May I come aboard?" "_Certainement! Certainement!_" cried a French officer, as he neared the rail. "Welcome, Monsieur Jones!" And, as the Virginian farmer scrambled upon the deck, he was greeted most effusively by a handsome nobleman. It was Louis Philippe Joseph, Duke de Chartres; known as "the Sailor Prince of France." The Virginian was John Paul Jones, of "Whitehaven" upon the river Rappahannock. "I bring you delicacies of the season from my garden," said the planter, smiling. "Some for you, and some for the commander--the Commodore de Kersaint. I trust that you will accept them, with my kindest regards. Meanwhile, I beg that you will give me leave to inspect your vessel and obtain information in regard to her plan, construction of the hull, arrangement of the batteries, her spars, her rig and other technical particulars. For, know you, Gentlemen, that war has just commenced between Great Britain and her Colonies and the newly-formed Marine Department of the Government will require a knowledge of ships and their construction. Partly for this I have visited you." Kersaint's face grew sober. "Monsieur Jones," said he, "I have just heard the news from Lexington and I am the senior officer upon this coast. France is at peace with England. The situation for me is a delicate one. I must refuse to allow you to sketch any plans of my vessel." But the young Duke de Chartres looked upon the matter in a different light. "You shall have all the assistance from me that you wish," he cried. "I do not fear the displeasure of England." So the Virginian planter was allowed to obtain the most complete data of the new frigate, even to copies of deck plans and sail spread, which he caused his carpenter to make. John Paul Jones was the guest of the Frenchman for two or three days. "And now you will visit my plantation," said he, when the time came for him to leave. "Is it not so? For there I can repay some of the kindnesses which you have shown me." "That we cannot do," replied the French commander. "It would be most impolitic for us to accept entertainment ashore from persons known to be hostile to King George. But we thank you, exceedingly, for your kind offer." So John Paul Jones proceeded alone to his plantation, and the French warship sailed for Corunna, Spain, after firing one gun as a salute to the new-born nation. The son of a Scotch gardener of Arbigland, Parish of Kirkbean, the youthful farmer had emigrated to America, where his brother owned the large plantation upon which he now resided. He found his kinsman dying of what was then called lung fever--in our time pneumonia--and, as he willed him his Virginian possessions, Jones was soon residing upon "3,000 acres of prime land, on the right bank of the Rappahannock; 1,000 acres cleared and under plough, or grass; with 2,000 acres of strong, first-growth timber." He had a grist-mill; a mansion; overseer's houses; negro quarters; stables; tobacco houses; threshing floors; thirty negroes of all ages; twenty horses and colts; eighty neat cattle and calves; and many sheep and swine. Thus lived the future sea-captain; in peace, plenty, and seclusion, at the outbreak of the American Revolution. John Paul Jones had gone to sea at the early age of twelve. As a master's apprentice upon the stout brig _Friendship_, he had sailed from Scotland to the North American Colonies, the West Indies, and back again. He had kept to his seaman's life, and--so improved in knowledge of his profession--that he became second mate; then first mate; then Captain. At twenty-one he had amassed a fortune of about one thousand guineas ($5,000) in gold,--then equal, in purchasing power, to three times this sum. Besides this he had studied French and Spanish assiduously, so that he could speak the first like a native. It was to be of great help to the ambitious mariner. And he had plenty of nerve, as the following incident bears full witness: Upon one of his many voyages, the crew was reduced, by fever, to five or six hands. One of them was a huge mulatto named Munro--or "Mungo"--Maxwell. They became mutinous, and, as Captain Jones was the only officer who could keep the deck, it was found necessary to subdue the refractory seaman. "Will you obey my orders?" cried Jones, picking up a belaying pin. "You go sit down," cried Maxwell. "I no like you. _Pish!_ I could kill you with one crack." John Paul Jones did not answer, but walking towards the big black, he struck him just one blow with his pin. "Mungo" dropped to the deck and lay there. He never rose again. Upon arriving at port, Captain Jones surrendered to the authorities, and asked for a trial. It was given him. "Captain Paul," asked the Judge, "are you, in conscience, satisfied that you used no more force than was necessary to preserve discipline on your ship?" "May it please the most Honorable Court, Sir," answered the doughty seaman, "it became imperative to strike the mutinous sailor, Maxwell. Whenever it becomes necessary for a commanding officer to hit a seaman, it is also necessary to strike with a weapon. I may say that the necessity to strike carries with it the necessity to kill, or to completely disable the mutineer. I had two brace of loaded pistols in my belt, and could easily have shot him. I struck with a belaying pin in preference, because I hoped that I might subdue him without killing him. But the result proved otherwise. I trust that the Honorable Court and the jury will take due account of the fact that, though amply provided with pistols throwing ounce balls, necessarily fatal weapons, I used a belaying pin, which, though dangerous, is not necessarily a fatal weapon." The judge smiled and Captain Paul was acquitted. The famous Lord Nelson once said: "A naval officer, unlike a military commander, can have no fixed plans. He must always be ready for _the_ chance. It may come to-morrow, or next week, or next year, or never; but he must be _always ready_!" Nunquam non Paratus. (Never unprepared.) Paul Jones kept a copy of this maxim in his head. He was always in training; always on the _qui vive_; always prepared. And--because he was always prepared--he accomplished what would seem to be the impossible. Shortly placed in command of a sloop-of-war, the _Alfred_ (one of the four vessels which constituted the American Navy), Lieutenant Jones assisted in an expedition against Fort Nassau, New Providence Island, in the Bahamas, which was a complete and absolute failure. On the way home, and when passing the end of Long Island, his boat was chased by the twenty-gun sloop-of-war _Glasgow_. The long shot kicked up a lot of spray around the fleet American vessel, but it was of no use. Jones got away and sailed into Newport Harbor, Rhode Island, with sails full of holes and stern-posts peppered with lead. But he was created a Captain; placed in command of the _Providence_--sloop-of-war, fourteen guns and one hundred and seven men--and soon harried the seas in search of fighting and adventure. With him were two faithful negro boys--Cato and Scipio--who followed him through the many vicissitudes of the Revolutionary War. The seas traversed by the _Providence_ were full of English cruisers--superior in size to the saucy American--but inferior in alertness and resources of her commander and her crew. She captured sixteen vessels--of which eight were sent to port and eight were destroyed at sea. Twice she was chased by British frigates, and, on one of these occasions, narrowly escaped capture. As the little sloop was running into one of the many harbors of the coast, a fast-sailing frigate bore down upon her from the starboard quarter. _Whang!_ Her bow-guns spoke and said "Heave to!" But Captain Jones had heard this call before, and kept on upon his course. "She's got me," said he. "But, as the breeze is fresh I may run away. Stand ready, Boys, and let go your tackle immediate, when I give the command!" The helm was now put hard-up and the _Providence_ crept into the wind. Closer and closer came the brig--now her bow-guns sputtered--and a shot ricochetted near the lean prow of the _Providence_. But the sloop kept on. Suddenly--just as the brig drew alongside--Paul Jones swung his rudder over, wore around in the wind, and ran dead to leeward. "Watch her sniffle!" cried the gallant Captain, as the brig _chug-chugged_ on the dancing waves, and, endeavoring to box short about, came up into the wind. But fortune favored the American skipper. Just then a squall struck the Englishman; she lost steering way; and hung upon the waves like a huge rubber ball, while her Captain said things that cannot be printed. When in this condition, Jones ran his boat within half gun-shot, gave her a dose of iron from one of his stern-guns, and--before the frigate could get squared away--was pounding off before the wind, which was the sloop's best point of sailing. "Well," said the crafty John Paul, his face wreathed in smiles. "If the frigate had simply followed my manoeuver of wearing around under easy helm and trimming her sails as the wind bore, I could not have distanced her much in the alteration of the course, and she must have come off the wind very nearly with me, and before I could get out of range. "I do not take to myself too great credit for getting away. I did the best that I could, but there was more luck than sense to it. A good or bad puff of wind foils all kinds of skill one way or the other--and this time when I saw the little squall cat's-pawing to windward--I thought that I would ware ship and see if the Britisher wouldn't get taken aback. The old saying that 'Discretion is the better part of valor' may, I think, be changed to 'Impudence is--or may be, sometimes--the better part of discretion.'" Two kinds of news greeted the slippery sailor when he arrived in port. One was a letter from Thomas Jefferson, enclosing his commission as Captain in the Continental Navy, by Act of Congress. The other--an epistle from his agents in Virginia, informing him that, during the month of July previous, his plantation had been utterly ravaged by an expedition of British and Tories (Virginians who sided with England in the war) under Lord Dunmore. His buildings had all been burned; his wharf demolished; his livestock killed; and every one of his able-bodied slaves of both sexes had been carried off to Jamaica to be sold. The enemy had also destroyed his growing crops; cut down his fruit trees; in short, nothing was left of his once prosperous and valuable plantation but the bare ground. "This is part of the fortunes of war," said Jones. "I accept the extreme animosity displayed by Lord Dunmore as a compliment to the sincerity of my attachment to the cause of liberty." Bold words, well spoken by a bold man! "But," continued the able sailor, "I most sadly deplore the fate of my poor negroes. The plantation was to them a home, not a place of bondage. Their existence was a species of grown-up childhood, not slavery. Now they are torn away and carried off to die under the pestilence and lash of Jamaica cane-fields; and the price of their poor bodies will swell the pockets of English slave-traders. For this cruelty to those innocent, harmless people, I hope sometime, somehow, to find an opportunity to exact a reckoning." Again bold sentiments,--and the reckoning, too, was forthcoming. "I have no fortune left but my sword, and no prospect except that of getting alongside of the enemy," wrote the impoverished sea-captain to a Mr. Hewes. This prospect also was to soon have ample fulfilment. Ordered to take command of the _Alfred_, Captain Jones made a short cruise eastward, in 1776, accompanied by the staunch little _Providence_. The journey lasted only thirty-three days, but, during that time, seven ships of the enemy fell into the clutches of the two American vessels. "Aha!" cried Captain Jones, as he rubbed his hands. "This looks more propitious for our cause. We have taken the _Mellish_ and the _Biddeford_. Let us break into them and see how much of the King's treasure has been secured." And it was indeed good treasure! The _Mellish_ was found to contain ten thousand complete uniforms, including cloaks, boots, socks and woollen shirts, for the winter supply of General Howe's army; seven thousand pairs of blankets; one thousand four hundred tents; six hundred saddles and complete cavalry equipments; one million seven hundred thousand rounds of fixed ammunition (musket cartridges); a large quantity of medical stores; forty cases of surgical instruments; and forty-six soldiers who were recruits sent out to join the various British regiments then serving in the Colonies. The larger prize--the _Biddeford_--carried one thousand seven hundred fur overcoats for the use of the Canadian troops; eleven thousand pairs of blankets, intended partly for the British troops in Canada, and partly for the Indians then in British pay along the northern frontier; one thousand small-bore guns of the type then known as the "Indian-trade smooth-bore," with hatchets, knives, and boxes of flint in proportion, to arm the redskins. There were eight light six-pounder field guns and complete harness and other equipage for the two four-gun batteries of horse-artillery. Also some wines and table supplies for Sir Guy Carleton and a case of fine Galway duelling pistols for a British officer then serving in Canada. "These I will appropriate as mine own portion," cried Captain Jones. "And also a share of the wines, for I must have something to drink the health of mine enemy in." And--so saying--he chuckled gleefully. It had been a rich haul. But the Captain was not happy. His pet project was to cruise in European waters, and he wanted to get near the British coast with a ship--or better--a squadron of some force. "Cruises along the American coast," said he, "will annoy the enemy and result in capture of small ships and consorts from time to time. But who--forsooth--will hear of this in Europe? We will add nothing to our prestige as a new nation if we win victories upon this side of the ocean." All who heard him were much impressed by the vehement earnestness of his arguments. "You have had so much success, Mr. Jones," said they, "that we feel you will have still greater good fortune in future years." And Jones said to himself: "Oh, if I only could get the chance!" It soon came, for on June the 14th, 1777, the Continental Congress passed the following resolution: "_Resolved:_ That Captain John Paul Jones be appointed to command the ship _Ranger_" (a brand-new sloop-of-war which had just been launched at Portsmouth, N. H.). This boat was designed to carry a battery of twenty long six-pounders and was planned expressly for speed. She was one hundred and sixteen feet long, twenty-eight feet in breadth, and her bottom was covered with copper: the first American ship to be thus protected. Captain Jones put fourteen long nine-pounders in her and only four six-pounders, but even then she was top-heavy. In spite of the fact that it was not quite safe to carry full sail, if clearing to windward, close-hauled in squally weather; when running free--before the wind--she could course through the water like a jack-rabbit. In outward appearance she was a perfect beauty, and, as she was rather low in the water for her length, and her masts raked two or three degrees more than any other ship of the day, she was--on the whole--the sauciest craft afloat. Jones was delighted. "I have the best crew I have ever seen," said he. "I believe it is the best in the world. They are nearly all native Americans, and the proportion of able seamen to the total is much beyond the average. I'm going to make one or two short runs off the coast--a day or two at a time--to shake down the sails and find the best trim of the ship. Then away to the shores of England and France!" He waited impatiently for orders to proceed across the blue Atlantic. On October the 18th, 1777, a courier raced frantically into Portsmouth, crying, "Burgoyne has surrendered! Burgoyne has surrendered!" And Jones' impatience to be off increased ten-fold. There were no details of the American victory, for the courier had reached the sleepy New England town from the field of Stillwater, in about thirty hours, and it was one hundred and forty-seven miles--as the crow flies--or, about one hundred and seventy-five by the shortest road. He had stopped only long enough to saddle a fresh horse and shift his saddle, eating his meals in the stirrups, and never thinking of rest until he had shouted his tidings for three full days. The patriot country was wild with enthusiasm. "I will spread the news in France in thirty days," said Jones, when his dispatches were placed in his hands, about midnight of October the thirty-first. And, running by the whirling eddies of "Pull-and-be-damned" Point, he soon had the _Ranger_ clear of the low-lying Isle of Shoals: the sea cross and choppy, but the good ship bowling along before a fresh gale of wind. "I had sailed with many Captains," writes Elijah Hall, second Lieutenant of the staunch, little vessel, "but I never had seen a ship crowded as Captain Jones drove the _Ranger_. The wind held northeasterly and fresh 'til we cleared Sable Island and began to draw on to the Banks. Then it came northeast and east-northeast with many snow squalls, and thick of nights." Imagine the situation of the _Ranger_'s crew, with a top-heavy, cranky ship under their feet, and a Commander who day and night insisted on every rag she could stagger under, without laying clear down! As it was, she came close to beam-ends more than once, and on one occasion righted only by letting-fly her sheets cut with hatchets. During all this trying work Captain Jones was his own navigating officer, keeping the deck eighteen or twenty hours out of the twenty-four; often serving extra grog to the men with his own hands; and, by his example, silencing all disposition to grumble. In the worst of it, the watch and watch was lap-watched, so that the men would be eight hours on to four off; but no one complained. It speaks well alike for commander and crew that not a man was punished or even severely reprimanded during the terrific voyage. But Captain Jones made good his boast. He actually did land at Nantes--upon the coast of France--early in the morning of December second, 1777, thirty-two days out from Portsmouth. His crew were jubilant, and sang a song which ran: "So now we had him hard and fast, Burgoyne laid down his arms at last, And that is why we brave the blast, To carry the news to London! Heigh-ho! Carry the News! Go! Go! Carry the News! Tell old King George that he's undone! He's licked by the Yankee squirrel gun. Go! Go! Carry the news to London!" And Captain John made haste to proceed to Paris, placing the dispatches in the hands of Dr. Franklin early upon the fifth day of December,--travelling two hundred and twenty miles in sixty hours. He returned to his ship about the middle of the month, to find that several of the crew were mutinous. "See here, Captain," said one--a seaman from Portsmouth, New Hampshire--"Me and my pals enlisted at home after readin' a hand-bill which said that we wuz to get $40.00 apiece extra, for this cruise. Now, your young Lieutenant tells us that the reg'lations of Congress say that we are to only get th' reg'lar salary allotted by those old pals, who make our laws. We came with you thinkin' that we wuz ter git this money, and, by gum, we intend to git it!" "Calm yourself, my good fellow," said Jones soothingly. "If the hand-bill said that you were to receive $40.00 you shall have it. You shall get this sum even if I have to pay it myself." And this he did. "I would not deceive any man who has entered or may enter, to serve in my command," remarked John Paul Jones. "I consider myself as being under a personal obligation to these brave men, who have cheerfully enlisted to serve with me, and I accept their act as a proof of their good opinion of me, which I value so highly, that I cannot permit it to be dampened in the least degree, by misunderstanding, or failure to perform engagements. I wish all my men to be happy and contented. The conditions of the hand-bills will be strictly complied with." Accordingly he disbursed one hundred and forty-seven guineas (about $800.00) out of his own pocket, in making good the terms of the hand-bill. Is it any wonder that the gallant seaman was popular with his followers? But the _Ranger_ lay at Brest--eager for action--her light sails furled; her spars shining with new varnish; her polished guns winking in the rays of the sun. "Come, my Hearties!" cried Captain Jones on April the 10th, "we'll hie us out to the west coast of Ireland and see if our new ship cannot make a good name for herself." Sails were hoisted upon the staunch, little vessel. Her bow was turned toward the ocean--and--with the new flag of the infant republic fluttering from her masts, the _Ranger_ went forth for battle, for plunder, and for glory. She was to get a little of each. Arriving off the coast of Cumberland, and, learning from fishermen decoyed on board, that there was a large amount of shipping in the harbor of Whitehaven, with no warship of superior force in the neighborhood to protect it, the bold American skipper resolved to make a dash into this quiet cove, with a view of destroying the ships there in port. The British authorities had no suspicion of his presence in the Irish Sea. As the _Ranger_ drew near to Whitehaven, the wind blew such a gale from the southwest, that it was impossible to land a boat. "We must hold off until the breeze slackens!" cried bold Captain Jones. "This cannot last forever, and our opportunity will soon be here." Sure enough--the wind died out about midnight of April 22nd--and the _Ranger_ beat up towards the town. When about five hundred yards from the shore, the vessel was hove to--two boats were lowered--and twenty-nine seamen, with third Lieutenant Wallingford, Midshipmen Arthur Green and Charles Hill, jumped into them. With Jones in command they hastened toward the coast. The surprise was complete. Two small forts lay at the mouth of the harbor, but, as the seamen scrambled ashore, they were precipitately abandoned by the garrison of "coast-guards." Captain Jones, Midshipman Green, and six men rushed shouting upon one of these, capturing it without an effort; the other was taken by Lieutenant Wallingford and eight sailors,--while four were left behind as a boat-guard. A few pistols spattered, a few muskets rang; but, when the stout sea-dogs reached the tidal basin, where the shipping lay, the townsfolk were thoroughly aroused. Burning cotton was thrown on board of the ships lying at anchor, but only one took fire. It was full daylight, and the insignificance of Jones' force became evident to the townsfolk, who were rallying from all directions. "Retreat to the ships," shouted the Yankee Captain, "there is no time to lose!" The landing party--small as it was--had become separated into two groups; one commanded by Jones, the other by Wallingford. Thinking that Wallingford's party was, for the moment, more seriously menaced than his own, Jones attacked and dispersed--with his dozen men--a force of about one hundred of the local militia who were endeavoring to retake the lower fort, or battery, whose guns had been spiked by the Americans. The townsfolk and coast-guards had joined and were making a vigorous assault upon Wallingford. But shots flew thick and fast from the muskets of the followers of the daring Paul Jones--as they retreated to their own boats. The whole landing party--with the exception of one man--finally leaped safely into the boat, and were on board the _Ranger_ before the sun was an hour over the horizon. Jones was delighted. "The actual results of this affair," said he, "are of little moment, as we destroyed but one ship. The moral effect--however--is very great, as it has taught the English that the fancied security of their coasts is a Myth." In fact this little raid of the valiant John Paul made the Government take expensive measures for the defense of numerous ports hitherto relying for protection upon the vigilance and supposed omnipotence of the navy. It also doubled the rates of marine insurance; which was the most grievous damage of all. "Now to attack a castle!" cried Jones, "and bag an Earl, too, if he is around!" The _Ranger_ was headed for Solway Firth--not more than three hours' sail away--where, upon St. Mary's Isle, was the castle of the Earl of Selkirk. "If we can catch the noble owner of this keep," said John Paul, "we will hold him as hostage for the better treatment of American prisoners in England." As luck would have it, the Earl was away at this particular time, and, although the wild sea-dogs of the _Ranger_ carried off several pieces of silverware from the castle, this was all that was captured. Lucky Earl! But, had he fallen into the clutches of John Paul, he would have been treated with the greatest consideration, for the Captain of the _Ranger_ was the most chivalrous of conquerors. The _Ranger_ stood across the Irish Channel and next day ran into some fisher boats. "Ah! Ha!" laughed one of the sons of Ireland. "The _Drake_--the guard-ship at Carrickfergus--is after you, and she's a twenty-gun sloop-of-war." John Paul smiled. "To lessen trouble," said he, "I'll heave-to off the mouth of Belfast Lough and wait for her to work out. This will save her the pains of coming after me." So he luffed his ship, lay to, and waited for the _Drake_ to sail on. Her white sails could be seen more clearly as she neared the adventurous American. A boat was sent out to reconnoitre--but--as it approached, it was surrounded by tenders from the _Ranger_; a midshipman and five men in her, were made prisoners. Tide and wind were both against the _Drake_; she came on slowly; and, at an hour before sundown, was just within hail. The sea was fairly smooth, the wind southerly and very light. "What ship is that?" sounded from the deck of the _Drake_. "The American Continental ship _Ranger_," rang the clear reply. "Lay on! We are waiting for you!" Both ships bore away before the wind and neared each other to within striking distance. _Boom!_ a broadside roared from the side of the _Drake_, and the fight had begun. _Crash! Crash!_ Muskets spoke from the rigging of the _Ranger_, where several seamen had climbed in the endeavor to pick off the gunners on the deck of the British warship. There were one hundred and fifty-seven men upon the _Drake_; Paul Jones had one hundred and twenty-six. The _Drake_'s battery was sixteen nine-pounders and four sixes. Thus--you see--the advantage was clearly with the Britishers. Both boats swung along under full canvas, pounding away at each other like prize-fighters. Spars were shattered; sails ripped; masts splintered in the hail of iron. And--as the fight progressed--it could be plainly seen that the marksmanship of those upon the _Drake_ was infinitely less accurate than that of the Americans. "Every shot of our men told," said Jones--not long afterwards. "They gave the _Drake_ three broadsides for two, right along, at that. The behavior of my crew in this engagement more than justifies the representations I have often made, of what American sailors would do, if given a chance at the enemy in his own waters. We have seen that they fight with courage on our own coast--but fought here, almost in hail of the enemy's shore." [Illustration: From "The Army and Navy of the United States." "BEGAN TO HULL THE 'DRAKE' BELOW THE WATER-LINE."] As the two ships were going off the wind, which was light, they both rolled considerably, and together; that is, when the _Ranger_ went down to port, the _Drake_ came up to starboard. The gunners upon the quarter-deck of the _Ranger_ timed their guns, so that they were fired as their muzzles went down and the enemy's side arose. By this practice they began to hull the _Drake_ below the water-line. "Sink the English! Sink the English!" cried the powder-blackened fighters. But Captain Jones thought differently. "Don't sink her!" he yelled to gunner Starbuck, above the din of battle. "I want to take her alive, instead of destroying her; for it will be much more to our advantage if we carry her as a visible prize into a French port." "All right, Cap'n!" shouted his men. "We'll cripple her aloft!" They now fired as the muzzles rose, and, so terrific were their broadsides, that the fore and main topsail-yards came tumbling across the starboard quarter, in a tangle of ropes, sails, and rigging. "Rake her! Rake her!" shouted Jones to his men. The _Ranger_ luffed and crossed the stern of the _Drake_ with the purpose of spanking a full broadside down her decks. The British boat was badly crippled and had lost steering way. But, before the well-aimed guns belched another destructive volley into the shattered Englishman, a white flag went aloft, and a voice came: "Hold your fire. We surrender!" The _Drake_ was a prisoner-of-war. Thus Paul Jones had won a notable victory, and thus he had proved that the British were not invincible, and could be defeated, upon the sea, by their own cousins, as readily as upon the land. When the _Ranger_ lay in the harbor of Brest, a few days later, with the _Drake_ alongside, boats crowded about in order to view the vessel which had captured another,--larger than herself. And, as the _Ranger_ had taken three merchant ships on the way to the coast of France, the black eyes of the natives shone with beady lustre as they gazed upon the graceful hull of the victorious sloop-of-war from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. "See Monsieur Jones," said they, as they nudged each other. "Voilà! Here is a man who is better than our own sailors. Look at this American sea-devil!" And the chest of John Paul Jones swelled with pride. Eager and active, the gallant Commodore was most unhappy during the next few months, for the _Ranger_ was ordered back to America--under his Lieutenant Simpson. Twenty-seven of his crew, however, elected to remain and fight with him, when he should get another command,--among them a little Narragansett Indian called Antony Jeremiah. "Me like to see big gun shoot," said he. "Me like to walk on deck of enemy's big boat when you take it! Byme-by we take bigger ship than _Drake_ and kill heap more enemy! Ugh! Ugh!" At this John Paul laughed. "Antony Jeremiah," said he, "you shall witness one big fight if you stay with John Paul. You wait and see!" And what John Paul had said soon came to pass. "The French," writes the doughty warrior, "have little conception of an expedition such as I propose; to harry the coast and destroy the commerce of the enemy. Their idea is to leave all of that to privateers, of which I have already been offered a dozen commands. Some of the ships they fit out as privateers are really respectable frigates in size, and I have seen one, called the _Monsieur_, that mounts thirty-eight or forty guns. But I do not wish to engage in privateering. My object is not that of private gain, but to serve the public in a way that may reflect credit on our infant navy and give prestige to our country over the sea." Noble sentiments--nobly expressed! In spite of the gloomy outlook he at last secured a vessel from the King himself, called the _Duras_, which he re-christened "_Le Bon Homme Richard_"--"_The Good Richard_"--the name assumed by Dr. Benjamin Franklin when writing his famous "Almanack," except that he called him "Poor Richard." This was a well-merited compliment to the great and good man, who was then Commissioner from the United States to France, and a firm friend to the ardent John Paul. The vessel had forty guns, "and," writes the Minister of Marine, "as you may find too much difficulty in enlisting a sufficient number of Americans, the King permits you to levy French volunteers, until you obtain a full crew." John Paul hastened to get her ready for a cruise. "I mounted twenty-eight long twelve-pounders on the gun-deck," he says, "put eight of the long nines on the quarter-deck, and discarded the six-pounders of her old battery. This gave her a battery of forty-two guns, throwing two hundred and fifty-eight pounds of metal in a single broadside. She was the fair equivalent of a thirty-six gun frigate." From February to June she was worked over; refitted; resparred. On June 19th, 1779, the gallant John Paul Jones swung out into the English Channel; he, himself, in command of the _Good Richard_, which carried a crew of three hundred and seventy-five, not more than fifty of whom were Americans. Four other vessels were with him: the _Alliance_, a thirty-two gun frigate; the _Pallas_, a twenty-eight gun frigate; the _Vengeance_, a twelve gun brig; and the _Cerf_, a cutter. On the second day out the _Alliance_ fouled the _Richard_, causing so much damage to both, that the squadron was compelled to return to port for repairs, which--with other transactions--consumed six weeks. But the accident was a lucky one, for numerous American sailors, who were in English prisons, were shortly exchanged with English seamen in French dungeons; and thus Paul Jones was able to man the _Good Richard_ with one hundred and fourteen native Americans, who were anxious to have a crack at those who had captured them but a short time before. Finally, with refitted ships and reorganized crews, Paul Jones was ready to sail from the roadstead of Isle de Groaix, in the early part of August, 1779, bound upon his cruise around the British Islands. There were four ships in this squadron: the _Good Richard_; the _Alliance_, under Pierre Landais (a depraved and dishonest Frenchman); the _Pallas_, under Cottineau (an honest Frenchman); and the _Vengeance_, a sloop-of-war. The prevailing winds were light and baffling, so the squadron moved slowly. War had been declared between France and England, and thus the English Channel was thronged with privateers from both countries. The _Richard_ and a French privateer, in company, re-captured a large ship belonging to Holland, but bound from Barcelona to Dunkirk, France, which had been taken some days before by an English vessel off Cape Ortegal and ordered into Falmouth, England. England and Holland were still at peace, at this time, but the English claimed the right to intercept and send into their own port for examination, all neutral vessels bound to French ports, as England and France were then at war. Commodore Jones took the English prize-crew out of the Dutch ship, as prisoners of war, and then ordered the ship into l'Orient in charge of her own crew, but under the command of one of his midshipmen, until she could come under the protection of a French port. "Things are going well with us!" cried Captain Jones, rubbing his hands gleefully. He soon felt much happier. For, on the morning of August 23rd, when in the vicinity of Cape Clear, the _Richard_ sent three boats, and afterwards a fourth, to take a brig that was becalmed in the northwest quarter--just out of gun-shot. It proved to be the _Fortune_, of Bristol, bound from Newfoundland for her home-port with whale-oil, salt fish, and barrel staves. Manned by a prize-crew of two warrant officers and six men, she was sent to Nantes. All were happy. All were looking forward to a good fight. It was to come to them. The little fleet of war-dogs sailed northward, and, on September 1st, about ten o'clock in the morning, the northwest promontory of Scotland was sighted. At the same instant, two large ships bore in sight on the same quarter, and another vessel appeared to windward. "Bear up! Bear up!" cried Jones. The _Richard_ held over toward the first two ships until he saw that it was the _Alliance_ and a prize she had taken about daylight,--a vessel bound for Jamaica, from London. "Now chase the other fellow!" he cried, turning the wheel with his own hands, and soon the _Good Richard_ was bounding over the waves in hard pursuit of the second sail. Slowly but surely she was overhauled. Heavily armed, she did not surrender until after the exchange of several shots, which the _Richard_ pumped into her, after running up close enough to show her broadside. A boat soon carried a number of seamen to take possession of her, and she proved to be the British privateer, the _Union_, mounting twenty-two six-pounders, and bound northward from London to Quebec, in Canada, laden with a cargo of naval and military stores for the British troops and flotillas on the Lakes. The _Union_ also carried a valuable mail, including dispatches for Sir William Howe, in New York, and Sir Guy Carleton, in Canada. "These were lost," writes John Paul to good Doctor Franklin, at Paris, for the _Alliance_ imprudently showed American colors, though English colors were still flying on the _Bon Homme Richard_; "the enemy thereby being induced to throw his papers of importance overboard before we could take possession of him." The prizes were manned from the _Alliance_ and sent (by Landais) into the seaport of Bergen, in Norway. The squadron now beat down the east coast of Scotland, and, after capturing five or six small prizes, rounded-to off the Firth of Forth. "I intend to attack the port of Leith!" cried Jones, "as I understand that it is defended only by a small guard-ship of twenty-two guns, and an old fortification (old Leith Fort) garrisoned by a detachment of Militia." The wind was adverse, blowing off shore, with frequent heavy squalls, but about noon of the 17th of September, the _Richard_ and the _Pallas_ beat up within gun-shot of Leith Fort and were lowering away their tenders in order to land, when a heavy Northwest gale sprang up, compelling them to hoist their boats, and put to sea. The gale lasted about twenty-four hours, but, on the morning of the 19th, the wind took another turn, the sea grew calm, and Jones proposed to renew the attack upon Leith. The Commander of the _Pallas_ made strong objection to this. "I do not believe that we should stay here," cried he. "If we persist in the attempt to remain on this station three days longer, we shall have a squadron of heavy frigates, if not a ship of line, to deal with. Convinced of this, I offer it as my judgment that we had better work along the shore to-day and to-morrow, as far as Spurn Head, and then, if we do not fall in with the Baltic merchant fleet, stand off the coast and make the best of our way to Dunkirk." Commodore Jones spent a few moments in reflection. "You are probably right, Cottineau," said he. "I only wish that another man like you were in command of the _Alliance_. However, we cannot help what is and must make the best of it. Go aboard your ship and make sail to the south-southwest. Speak the _Vengeance_ as you run down, and tell Ricot--her commander--to rendezvous off Spurn Head. I will bring up the rear with this ship. We may fall in with the Baltic fleet between here and Scarboro', which is usually their first English port of destination at this time of the year. Should you happen to sight the _Alliance_, inform Captain Landais of our destination, but do not communicate it to him as an order, because that would be likely to expose you only to insult." The two ships turned South, and the next three days were without events of importance. At length they neared the harbor of Scarboro', and, as they hovered about twelve miles off the land, they saw some vessels making for the shore, and protecting a fleet of merchantmen. "They're a heavy man-of-war--either a fifty-gun frigate, or a fifty-four--with a large ship-of-war in company," cried one of his Lieutenants, who had been watching them through a glass. "The Captain of the larger one has cleverly manoeuvered to protect his merchant ship." Commodore Jones seemed to be much pleased. "At last we'll have a little fight," cried he. "Bear hard for the land, and get between the larger vessel and the shore!" Captain Cottineau was signalled to and requested to go after the sloop-of-war. About sundown the _Richard_ succeeded in weathering the large frigate and manoeuvered between her and the land. The ships neared each other very gradually, for the breeze was slight. They were on opposite tacks and Commodore Jones readily made out the force and rate of his antagonist. By the light of the dying day--for it was about seven P. M.--he saw that she was a new forty-four; a perfect beauty. It was the _Serapis_--Captain Richard Pearson commanding--but six months off the stocks and on her first cruise as a convoy to the Baltic fleet of merchantmen: consisting of about forty vessels laden with timber and other naval stores for the use of the British dockyards. Jones had hoped to have an opportunity to attack this flotilla, but his plans had been frustrated by the vigilance and skill of the commander of the men-of-war in convoy. Even now Landais might have got among the merchantmen in the fast-sailing _Alliance_, while Jones and Cottineau occupied the attention of the two men-of-war; but the French officer did not have sufficient courage to tackle them, and kept well beyond striking distance. The Captain of the _Serapis_ stood upon the deck, intently gazing at the on-coming vessel. "Gad Zooks!" he uttered. "From the size of her spars and her height out of water I take her to be a French fifty of the time of the last war. It's too dark for me to see whether she has any lower ports or not." He raised his night glasses to his eyes, and, in the light of the full moon which was now flooding the sea with a silvery haze, saw that his opponent was intent upon a fight. "It is probably Paul Jones," said he, lowering the glasses. "If so--there's tight work ahead. What ship is that?" he cried out in loud tones. No answer came from the dark hull of the _Good Richard_, but, as she swung nearer upon the rolling waves, suddenly a flash, a roar, and a sheet of flame belched from her side. The battle was on! It was a struggle which has been talked of for years. It was a battle about which the world never seems to tire of reading. It was _the_ battle which has made the name of John Paul Jones nautically immortal. The two warriors of the deep were on the same tack, headed northwest, driven by a slight wind which veered to the westward. The sea was smooth, the sky was clear, the full moon was rising--the conditions for a night struggle were ideal. _Crash! Crash! Crash!_ Broadside after broadside rolled and shrieked from ship to ship, as the air was filled with flying bits of iron. _Crash! Crash! Crash!_ Travelling very slowly, for the wind was little more than sufficient to give them steering-way in the tide, the two antagonists drifted along for twenty minutes, at cable length (600 to 900 feet--about the distance of the 220 yard dash). But suddenly--_Boom!_ an explosion sounded in the gun-room of the _Good Richard_. Two of her eighteen-pounders had blown up back of the trunnions; many of the crew lay dead and dying, the after part of the main gun-deck was shattered like a reed: Senior Midshipman and Acting Lieutenant John Mayrant--who had command of this battery--was severely wounded in the head by a fragment of one of the exploded shells, and was scorched by the blast of flame. "Abandon your guns!" shouted First Lieutenant Dale, "and report with your remaining men to the main-deck battery!" "All right!" answered Mayrant, as he bound a white kerchief around his bleeding head. "I'll be with you just as soon as I give them one more shot." This he endeavored to do, but not a gun could be touched off. "The old sixteen-pounders that formed the battery of the lower gun-deck, did no service whatever, except firing eight shots in all," writes John Paul Jones. "Two out of three of them burst at the first fire, killing almost all the men who were stationed to manage them." The gunnery of the _Good Richard_ was excellent. Though her battery was one-third lighter than that of the _Serapis_; though her gun-crews were composed--to a great extent--of French volunteers, who had never been at sea before--in quickness and rapidity of fire, the shells from the American fell just as accurately as did those from the Britisher; pointed and gauged by regular, trained English men-of-war seamen. The roar of belching cannon was deafening. The superior weight and energy of the British shot began to tell decisively against the sputtering twelve-pounders of the _Richard_, in spite of the fact that they were being served with quickness and precision. As the two battling sea-monsters drifted slowly along, a pall of sulphurous smoke hung over their black hulls, like a sheet of escaping steam. They were drawing nearer and nearer to each other. It was now about a quarter to eight. Wounded and dying littered the decks of both Britisher and American, but the fight was to the death. "Luff! Luff!" cried Captain Pearson, as the _Richard_ began to forge near him. "Luff! Luff! and let fly with all guns at the water-line. Sink the Yankee Pirate!" But Paul Jones was intent upon grappling with his adversary. Quickly jerking the tiller to one side, he shoved the _Richard_ into the wind and endeavored to run her--bows on--into the side of his opponent. The _Serapis_ paid off, her stern swung to, and, before she could gather way, the _Richard_'s jib-boom shot over her larboard quarter and into the mizzen rigging. Jones was delighted. "Throw out the grappling hooks!" cried he, in shrill tones. "Hold tight to the Britisher and be prepared to board!" In an instant, many clawing irons spun out into the mizzen stays of the _Serapis_; but, though they caught, the lines holding them soon parted. The _Serapis_ fell off and the _Richard_ lurched ahead. Neither had been able to bring her broadsides to bear. "We can't beat her by broadsiding," cried Jones. "We've _got_ to board!" _Crash! Crash! Crash!_ Again the cannon made the splinters fly. Again the two game-cocks spat at each other like angry cats, but, the fire from the _Richard_ was far weaker than before. Commodore Jones walked hastily to the gun-deck. "Dick," said he to Lieutenant Dale, "this fellow's metal is too heavy for us at this business. He is hammering us all to pieces. We must close with him! We must get hold of him! Be prepared at any moment to abandon this place and bring what men you have left on the spar-deck--and give them the small arms for boarding when you come up." Lieutenant Dale saluted. "All right!" cried he. "I'll be with you in a jiffy, Commodore." As Jones walked hastily to the main deck--the Lieutenant ran to the store-room and dealt out cutlasses, pistols and pikes, to the eager men. The deck was red with blood. The worst carnage of all was at "number two" gun of the forward, starboard division. From the first broadside until the quarter-deck was abandoned, nineteen different men were on this gun, and, at this time, only one of the original crew remained. It was the little Indian, Antony Jeremiah; or, as his mates called him, "Red Cherry." "Let me join you," he cried, as he saw Mayrant's boarding party. Seizing a cutlass and dirk, he stood beside the cluster of men, eager and keen to have a chance at the enemy. A soul of fire was that of the little savage--and now he had a splendid opportunity to indulge in the natural blood-thirst of his race, for an Indian loves a good fight, particularly when he is upon the winning side. The vessels swung on slowly--the fire from the _Serapis_ still strong and accurate; the sputtering volleys from the _Richard_ growing weaker and weaker. Only three of the nine-pounders on the starboard quarter-deck were serviceable; the entire gun-deck battery was silent and abandoned. "We have him," cheerfully cried Captain Pearson to one of his aides. "But, hello"--he continued, "what sail is that?" As he spoke the _Alliance_ came bounding across the waves, headed for the two combatants, and looking as if she were to speedily close the struggle. "The fight is at an end," said Jones, jubilantly. Imagine his astonishment, chagrin, and mortification! Instead of pounding the English vessel, the French ally discharged a broadside full into the stern of the _Richard_, ran off to the northward, close hauled, and soon was beyond gun-shot. "Coward!" shouted John Paul, shaking his fist at the retreating ally. "I'll get even with you for this if it takes me twenty years!" No wonder he was angered, for, with his main battery completely silenced, his ship beginning to sink, nearly half his crew disabled, his wheel shot away, and his consort firing into him, there remained but one chance of victory for John Paul Jones: to foul the enemy and board her. Luckily a spare tiller had been fitted to the rudder stem of the _Richard_ below the main tiller--before leaving port--because of the fear that the wheel would be disabled. The foresight of the Commodore had effected this; and now--by means of this extra steering-gear--the battered warrior-ship was enabled to make one, last, desperate lunge for victory. It was touch and go with John Paul Jones. "I could distinctly hear his voice amid the crashing of musketry," says a seaman. "He was cheering on the French marines in their own tongue, uttering such imprecations upon the enemy as I have never before or since heard in French, or any other language. He exhorted them to take good aim, pointed out the object of their fire, and frequently took their loaded muskets from their hands in order to shoot them himself. In fact, towards the very last, he had about him a group of half a dozen marines who did nothing but load their firelocks and hand them to the Commodore; who fired them from his own shoulder, standing on the quarter-deck rail by the main topmast backstay." Luck now came to the disabled _Richard_. A fortunate puff of wind struck and filled her sails, shooting her alongside of the growling _Serapis_, and to windward. The canvas of the Britisher flapped uselessly against her spars. She was blanketed and lost steering-way. In a moment the jib-boom of the English vessel ran over the poop-deck of the American ship. It was seized, grappled by a turn of small hawsers, and made fast to the mizzen-mast. "She's ours!" cried John Paul Jones. "Seize that anchor and splice it down hard!" As he spoke, the fluke of the starboard anchor of the _Serapis_ hooked in the mizzen chains. It was lashed fast, and the _Richard_ had been saved. _Rattle! Rattle! Crash!_ sounded the muskets of the French marines. The English tried to cut their anchor chains and get free, but all who attempted to sever these hawsers were struck dead by the accurate balls from the marksmen on the poop-deck and round-house of the _Richard_. "I demand your surrender!" shouted Pearson. [Illustration: From an old print. "THEY SWARMED INTO THE FORECASTLE AMIDST FIERCE CHEERS."] "Surrender?" cried John Paul Jones. "Why, I am just beginning to fight!" Then he turned to John Mayrant, who stood ready to rush across the hammock-nettings into the waist of the enemy's ship. Twenty-seven sailors were nearby, each with a cutlass and two ship's pistols. "Board 'em!" he cried. Over the rail went the seamen--monkey-wise--over the rail, John Mayrant leading with a dirk in his teeth, like a Bermuda pirate. They swarmed into the forecastle amidst fierce cheers, the rattle of musketry, and the hiss of flames. Just at the moment that John Mayrant's feet struck the enemy's deck, a sailor thrust a boarding-pike through the fleshy part of his right thigh. _Crack!_ a pistol spat at him, and he fell prostrate. "Remember Portsea jail! Remember Portsea jail!" cried the dauntless raider, rushing down into the forecastle with his wild, yelping sailors. Pearson stood there; crest-fallen--abashed. Seizing the ensign-halyards of the _Serapis_, as the raging torrent of seamen rolled towards him, the brave English sea-captain hauled the flag of his ship to the deck. The _Richard_ had won! "He has struck; stop firing! Come on board and take possession!" yelled Mayrant, running to the rail. Lieutenant Dale heard him, and, swinging himself on the side of the _Serapis_, made his way to the quarter-deck, where Captain Pearson was standing. "I have the honor, sir, to be the first Lieutenant of the vessel alongside," said he saluting. "It is the American Continental ship _Bon Homme Richard_, under command of Commodore Paul Jones. What vessel is this?" "His Britannic Majesty's late man-of-war the _Serapis_, sir," was the sad response, "and I am Captain Richard Pearson." "Pardon me, sir," said the American officer, "in the haste of the moment I forgot to inform you that my name is Richard Dale and I must request you to pass on board the vessel alongside." Pearson nodded dejectedly. As he did so, the first Lieutenant of the _Serapis_ came up from below, and, looking at Captain Pearson, asked, "Has the enemy struck, sir?" "No, sir! _I_ have struck!" was the sad reply. "Then, I will go below and order our men to cease firing," continued the English Lieutenant. But Lieutenant Dale interrupted. "Pardon me, sir," said he, "I will attend to that; and, as for yourself, please accompany Captain Pearson on board the ship alongside." With reluctant steps the two officers clambered aboard the battered _Good Richard_, where Commodore Jones received them with much courtesy. Bowing low, Captain Pearson offered him his sword. His first Lieutenant did likewise. "Captain Pearson," said the victorious John Paul, "you have fought heroically. You have worn this weapon to your own credit and to the honor of your service. I hope that your sovereign will suitably reward you." The British commander was the image of chagrin and despair. He bowed again, and then walked slowly into the cabin, followed by his crest-fallen Lieutenant. It was nearly midnight. The full moon above--in a cloudless sky--made it almost as light as day. Seven feet of water were in the hold of the _Richard_; she had sunk so much that many shot-holes were below the water-line and could not be plugged. Nearly sixty of her crew lay dead upon her decks; more than a hundred and twenty were desperately wounded. Every twelve-pounder of the starboard broadside was either dismounted, or disabled. The starboard side, which had been opposite the _Serapis_'s eighteen-pounders, was driven so far in, that, but for a few frames and stanchions which remained, the whole gun-deck would have fallen through. She was afire, and the flames licked upward with an eager hiss. "Take the wounded aboard the _Serapis_!" commanded Captain Jones. "We must desert our good ship!" In an hour's time all were upon the deck of the vanquished Britisher. No one was left on the _Richard_ but the dead. The torn and tattered flag was still flying from the gaff, and, as the battered sea-warrior gradually settled in the long swell, the unconquered ensign fluttered defiantly in the slight breeze. At length the _Bon Homme Richard_ plunged downward by the head; her taffrail rose momentarily on high, and, with a hoarse roar of eddying bubbles and sucking air, the conqueror disappeared from view. To her immortal dead was bequeathed the flag which they had so desperately defended. * * * * * So ended the great battle. Thus Paul Jones had made his name immortal. And by it he was to be known for all time. This was not the end of his career, by any means. He never again fought for the infant Republic of the United States. But he became an Admiral in the Russian Navy: battled valorously for the great Empress Catherine against the Turks, and died in Paris, July 18th, 1792. Buried at the French capital, his body was disinterred in the year 1905, and brought to the United States, to be entombed with military honors, at Annapolis, Maryland. Paul Jones loved brave men. The braver they were the more he loved them. When he went ashore and happened to meet his old sailors--every one of whom he knew and called by his first name--they seldom failed to strip his pockets of the last shilling. He was generous to a fault and faithful to his friends. His time, his purse, his influence were always at the call of those who had served under him. A typical sea-dog: a brave fighter,-- Then, why not give three times three for John Paul Jones? Are you ready? THE ESCAPE 'Tis of a gallant, Yankee ship that flew the Stripes and Stars, And the whistling wind from the west-nor'-west blew through her pitch-pine spars: With her starboard tacks aboard, my Boys, she hung upon the gale; On the Autumn night, that we passed the light, on the old Head of Kinsale. It was a clear and cloudless eve, and the wind blew steady and strong, As gayly, o'er the sparkling deep, our good ship bowled along; With the foaming seas beneath her bow, the fiery waves she spread, And, bending low her bosom of snow, she buried her lee cat-head. There was no talk of short'ning sail, by him who walked the poop, And, under the press of her pounding jib, the boom bent like a hoop! And the groaning, moaning water-ways, told the strain that held the tack, But, he only laughed, as he glanced aloft, at the white and silvery track. The mid-tide met in the Channel waves that flow from shore to shore, And the mist hung heavy upon the land, from Featherstone to Dunmore, And that sterling light in Tusker Rock, where the old bell tolls each hour, And the beacon light, that shone so bright, was quenched on Waterford tower. What looms upon our starboard bow? What hangs upon the breeze? 'Tis time that our good ship hauled her wind, abreast the old Saltees, For, by her pond'rous press of sail, and by her consorts four, We saw that our morning visitor, was a British Man-of-War. Up spoke our noble Captain--then--as a shot ahead of us passed,-- "Haul snug your flowing courses! Lay your topsail to the mast!" Those Englishmen gave three loud cheers, from the deck of their covered ark, And, we answered back by a solid broad-side, from the side of our patriot barque. "_Out booms! Out booms!_" our skipper cried, "_Out booms! and give her sheet!_" And the swiftest keel that e'er was launched, shot ahead of the British fleet, 'Midst a thundering shower of shot,--and with stern-sails hoisting away, Down the North Race _Paul Jones_ did steer, just at the break of day. --_Old Ballad._ CAPTAIN SILAS TALBOT STAUNCH PRIVATEERSMAN OF NEW ENGLAND (1751-1813) "If you want ter learn how ter fight, why jest fight."--_Dock-end Philosophy._ CAPTAIN SILAS TALBOT STAUNCH PRIVATEERSMAN OF NEW ENGLAND (1751-1813) "Talk about your clipper ships, chipper ships, ripper ships, Talk about your barquentines, with all their spars so fancy, I'll just take a sloop-o'-war with Talbot, with Talbot, An' whip 'em all into 'er chip, an' just to suit my fancy. "So, heave away for Talbot, for Talbot, for Talbot, So, heave away for Talbot, an' let th' Capting steer, For, he's the boy to smack them, to crack them, to whack them, For he's th' boy to ship with, if you want to privateer." --_Ballads of Rhode Island._--1782. A trading vessel, laden with wheat, from Cardigan in Wales, was lying to in the English Channel. Nearby rolled a long-bodied American Privateer, while a boat neared the trader, in the stern of which sat a staunch, weather-beaten officer in a faded pea-jacket. It was the year 1813 and war was on between England and the United States. When the blustering captain entered the cabin to survey his prize, he spied a small box with a hole in the top, on which was inscribed the words, "Missionary Box." He drew back, astonished. "Pray, my bold seaman," said he, turning to the Welsh captain, "what is this?" "Oh," replied the honest, old sailor, heaving a sigh, "'tis all over now." "What?" asked the American privateersman. "Why, the truth is," said the Welshman, "that I and my poor fellows have been accustomed, every Monday morning, to drop a penny each into that box for the purpose of sending out missionaries to preach the Gospel to the heathen; but it's all over now." The American seemed to be much abashed. "Indeed," said he, "that is very good of you." And, pausing a few moments, he looked abstractedly into the air, humming a tune beneath his breath. "Captain," said he, at length, "I'll not hurt a hair of your head, nor touch your vessel." So saying, he turned on his heel, took to his boat, and left the Welshman to pursue its even course. And--as the privateer filled away to starboard--a voice came from the deck of the helpless merchantman, "God bless Captain Silas Talbot and his crew!" But we do not know what the owners of the privateer said to the humane skipper about this little affair when he returned to New York. They might have uttered hard words about a Welshman who scored upon him by means of a pious fraud. At any rate Silas Talbot had done a good deed. This valorous privateer was born at Dighton, Massachusetts, on the Sakonet River about the year 1752; beginning his career at sea as a cabin-boy. At twenty-four he was a captain in the United States army and fought in the Revolutionary war, for a time, on land. But--by reason of his nautical training--he was placed in command of a fireship at New York, and was soon promoted to be Major--but still with duties upon the water and not the shore. While here, a soldier came to him, one day, with his eyes alight in excitement. "Major," said he, "there's a chance for a splendid little enterprise. Just off the coast of Rhode Island, near Newport, lies a British vessel, moored to a kedge. She mounts fifteen guns and around her is stretched a stout netting to keep off a party of boarders. But we can cut it and get through, I'll warrant. And the game is worth the candle." Young Talbot was delighted at the thought of a little expedition. "I'll tell you how we'll cut through," said he. "We'll fix a small anchor at the bowsprit of our sloop. Then, we'll ram her into the netting at night, and--if our vessel can punch hard enough--we'll have forty Americans upon the deck before you can say 'Jack Robinson.'" The soldier laughed. "Major Talbot," said he, "you are a true fighting man. I'll have a crew for you within twenty-four hours and we'll take the good sloop _Jasamine_, lying off of Hell Gate. Ahoy for the capture of the Englishman!" In two days' time, all was ready for the expedition. The sloop _Jasamine_ slowly drifted into the harbor of New York, an anchor spliced to her bowsprit, a crew of sturdy adventurers aboard; and, filling away in a stout sou'wester, rolled down the coast in the direction of Rhode Island. Reaching the vicinity of Newport, she lay to behind a sheltering peninsula, waiting for the night to come, so that she could drop down upon the Englishman under the cloak of darkness. Blackness settled upon the still and waveless water. With muffled oars the sloop now glided towards the dark hull of the British gun-boat; her men armed to the teeth, with fuses alight, and ready to touch off the cannon at the slightest sign of discovery. All was still upon the towering deck of the war-vessel and the little lights twinkled at her bow. But what was that? Suddenly a voice came through the darkness. "Who goes there?" No answer came but the dip of the oars in unison. "Who goes there? Answer, or I fire!" Again the slow beat of the oars and nothing more. _Crash!_ A musket spoke from the jutting bow in front of the sloop and a bullet struck in the foremast of the staunch attacker, with a resounding z-i-n-n-g! "We're discovered," whispered Talbot. "Pull for your lives, men, and punch her like a battering-ram. When we've cut through the netting, let every fellow dash upon her decks, and fight for every inch you can." As he ceased speaking, the bow of the sloop struck the roping stretched around the man-o'-warsman, and a ripping and tearing was plainly heard above the crash of small arms, the shouts of men, and the rumble of hawsers. Two cannon spoke from the side of the Englishman, and, as their roar echoed across the still ocean, the guns of the _Jasamine_ belched forth their answer. [Illustration: "TALBOT, HIMSELF, AT THE HEAD OF HIS ENTIRE CREW, CAME LEAPING ACROSS THE SIDE."] The anchor attached to the bowsprit had done what was desired. It tore a great hole in the stout netting, ripped open a breach sufficiently wide for entrance to the deck, and, as the cannon grumbled and spat at the sloop,--the bowsprit was black with jack-tars scrambling for an opportunity to board the Britisher. "Now, men," shouted Major Talbot, above the din. "Swing our craft sideways! Let go the port guns, and then let every mother's son rush the foe! And your cry must be, 'Death and no quarter!'" As he ceased, the good _Jasamine_ was forced sideways into the man-o'-warsman, and, propelled by the current, drifted against her with tremendous force, crushing the remaining nets as she did so. A few of the Americans were already on the deck in a terrific struggle with the half-sleepy English seamen, but--in a moment--Talbot, himself, at the head of his entire crew, came leaping across the side. Now was a scene of carnage. The cutlasses of both Yankee tar and British, were doing awful execution, and pistols were cracking like hail upon the roof. Back, back, went the English before the vigorous assault of the stormers, and, as the deck was now piled with the dead and dying, the commander of the man-o'-warsman cried out, "I surrender! Cease, you Yankee sea-dogs. You're too smart for me!" So saying, he held up a handkerchief tied to his cutlass, and the battle ceased. The story of the fight of Silas Talbot's was now on every lip, and all praised the daring and courage of this valorous Major, who was as bold as a lion, and as courageous as any seaman who sailed upon the sea. Promotion came rapidly to the soldier-sailor. In 1779 he became a colonel and was placed in command of the _Argo_, a sloop of about one hundred tons, armed with twelve six-pounders, and carrying but sixty men. 'Tis said that she looked like a "clumsy Albany trader," with one great, rakish mast, an immense mainsail, and a lean boom. Her tiller was very lengthy, she had high bulwarks and a wide stern--but, in spite of her raw appearance, she could sail fast and could show a clean pair of heels to most vessels of twice her size. Shortly after taking charge of this privateer, word was brought that Captain Hazard of the privateer _King George_ was off the coast of Rhode Island. "That's what I want," cried Captain Talbot, slapping his knee. "This fellow Hazard is an American. He was born in Rhode Island, and, instead of joining in our righteous cause against the Mother Country, he has elected to fight against us. For the base purpose of plundering his old neighbors and friends, he has fitted out the _King George_ and has already done great damage on the coast. Let me but catch the old fox and I'll give him a taste of American lead. I'll put a stop to the depredations of this renegade." The _King George_ had fourteen guns and eighty men, but this did not worry staunch and nervy Silas Talbot. He started in pursuit of her, as soon as he learned of her whereabouts, and, before many days, sighted a sail just off the New York coast, which was hoped to be the vessel of the renegade. Mile after mile was passed. Hour by hour the _Argo_ ploughed after the silvery sails, until, late in the afternoon, the stranger hovered near a shallow harbor on the coast, and seemed to await the on-coming privateer with full confidence. The _Argo_ boomed along under a spanking sou'wester and, sailing near the stranger, to the keen eyes of Talbot came the welcome sight of _King George_ painted upon the stern of the rakish privateer. "All hands man the guns," cried he. "We'll sink th' rascally Hazard with all his crew, unless he strikes. She's got more men and guns, but what care we for that. Take hold, my Hearties, and we'll soon make her know her master." The _King George_ seemed to welcome the coming fight; she luffed; lay to; and her men could be seen standing ready at the polished cannon. Now was one of the strangest battles of American sea history. The _King George_ cruised along under a full spread of canvas, jibbed, came about upon the port quarter of the stranger, and ran up to within shooting distance, when a broadside was poured into the deck of the rolling _Argo_. She replied with her own fourteen guns, and, before they could be reloaded, the _King George_ struck her alongside; the American seaman swarmed across the rail; and--if we are to believe a historian of the period--"drove the crew of _King George_ from their quarters, taking possession of her, without a man on either side being killed." Hats off to the doughty Silas Talbot for this brave adventure! Did you ever hear of such a fight with no man ever being slaughtered? Again rang the fame of Silas Talbot, but he was not to rest long upon laurels won. The British privateer _Dragon_--of three hundred tons and eighty men--was hovering near Providence, Rhode Island, hungry and eager for unprotected merchantmen. "I'll have to strike her," said Captain Talbot. It was a beautiful day in June. As the _Dragon_ drowsed along listlessly a dozen miles off the shore, her topsails barely filling in the gentle southerly breeze, the watch suddenly stirred, and sang out in no gentle tones, "Sail ho, off the starboard! Looks like Captain Talbot of the _Argo_!" The captain came bounding from his cabin, glass in hand. "Sure enough," said he, scanning the white sails upon the horizon. "It's Talbot and we're in for a tight affair. All hands prepare for action!" There was noise and confusion upon the deck of the privateer as the guns were sponged, charges were rammed home, and all prepared for battle. Meanwhile, the stranger came nearer, and rounding to within striking distance, crashed a broadside into the slumbering _Dragon_, who had not yet shown her fangs. _Crackle! Crackle! Boom!_ The small arms from the Britisher began to spit at the advancing privateer, and seven of her fourteen guns rang out a welcome to the sailors of Rhode Island. The solid shot ploughed through the rigging, cutting ropes and spars with knife-like precision. "Round her to on the port quarter!" shouted Captain Talbot, "and get near enough for boarding!" But, as the _Argo_ swung near her antagonist, the _Dragon_ dropped away--keeping just at pistol-shot distance. "Run her down!" yelled the stout Rhode Islander, as he saw this manoeuvre of his wily foe. Then he uttered an exclamation of disgust, for, as he spoke, a bullet struck his speaking trumpet; knocking it to the deck, and piercing it with a jagged hole. "Never mind!" cried he, little disconcerted at the mishap. "Give it to her, boys!" Then he again uttered an exclamation, for a bounding cannon ball--ricochetting from the deck--took off the end of his coat-tail.[1] [1] A true incident vouched for by two historians. "I'll settle with you for that," yelled the old sea-dog, leaping to a cannon, and, pointing it himself, he touched the fuse to the vent. A puff of smoke, a roar, and a ball ploughed into the mainmast of the rocking _Dragon_. Talbot smiled with good humor. "Play for that, my brave fellows," he called out, above the din of battle. "Once get the mainmast overside, and we can board her." With a cheer, his sailors redoubled their efforts to sink the _Dragon_, and solid shot fairly rained into her hull, as the two antagonists bobbed around the rolling ocean in this death grapple. Thus they sparred and clashed for four and a half hours, when, with a great splitting of sails and wreck of rigging, the mainmast of the _Dragon_ trembled, wavered, and fell to leeward with a sickening thud. "She's ours!" yelled Captain Talbot, through his dented speaking trumpet. Sure enough, the _Dragon_ had had enough. Her wings had been clipped, and, in a moment more, a white flag flew from her rigging. "The _Argo_ is sinking! The _Argo_ is sinking!" came a cry, at this moment. "Inspect the sides of our sloop," cried Talbot. This was done, immediately, and it was found that there were numerous shot-holes between wind and water, which were speedily plugged up. Then, bearing down upon the crippled _Dragon_, she was boarded; a prize-crew was put aboard; and the _Argo_ steered for home, her men singing, "Talk about your gay, old cocks, Yankee, Doodle, Dandy, 'Si' Talbot he can heave the blocks, And stick like pepp'mint candy. "Yankee--Doodle--Shoot and kill, Yankee--Doodle--Dandy, Yankee--Doodle--Back an' fill, Yankee--Doodle--Dandy." Silas Talbot, in fact, had done extremely well, but, not content with his laurels already won, he soon put out again upon the _Argo_, in company with another privateer from Providence, Rhode Island, called the _Saratoga_; which sailed under a Captain Munro. They were not off the coast more than two days when they came across the _Dublin_; a smart, English privateer-cutter of fourteen guns, coming out of Sandy Hook. Instead of running away, she ploughed onward, and cleared for action. The _Argo_ and the _Saratoga_ ran in upon the windward quarter and banged away with audacity. The fight lasted for an hour. Then--as the _Argo_ tacked in closer in order to grapple and board--the _Saratoga_ was headed for the privateer. But--instead of coming in--she began to run off in the wind. "Hard a-weather! Hard up there with the helm!" cried Captain Munro. "It is hard up!" cried the steersman. "You lie, you blackguard!" cried Munro. "She goes away lasking! Hard a-weather I say again!" "It is hard a-weather, I say again, captain," cried the fellow at the tiller. "Captain Talbot thinks that I am running away when I want to join him," cried Munro. "What the deuce is the matter anyway?" "Why, I can tell you," cried a young Lieutenant. "You've got an iron tiller in place of the wooden one, and she's loose in the rudder head, so your boat won't steer correctly." "Egad, you're right," said Munro, as he examined the top of the tiller. "Now, jam her over and we'll catch this _Dublin_ of old Ireland, or else I'm no sailor. We'll give her a broadside, too, when we come up." The _Argo_, meanwhile, was hammering the Englishman in good fashion, and, as the _Saratoga_ pumped a broadside into her--raking her from bow to stern--the _Dublin_ struck her colors. "Two to one, is too much odds," cried the English captain, as a boat neared the side of his vessel. "I could have licked either of you, alone." And, at this, both of the American privateersmen chuckled. Old "Si" Talbot was soon in another fight. Three days later he chased another sail, and coming up with her, found his antagonist to be the _Betsy_: an English privateer of twelve guns and fifty-eight men, commanded by an honest Scotchman. The _Argo_ ranged up alongside and Talbot hailed the stranger. After a bit of talk he hoisted the Stars and Stripes, crying, "You must haul down those British colors, my friend!" To which the Scot replied: "Notwithstanding I find you an enemy, as I suspected, yet, sir, I believe that I shall let them hang a little longer, with your permission. So fire away, Flanagan!" "And that I'll do," yelled Talbot. "Flanagan will be O'Toole and O'Grady before the morning's over. For I'll beat you like an Irish constable from Cork." So it turned out. Before an hour was past, the _Betsy_ had struck, the captain was killed, and all of his officers were wounded. "Old Si"--you see--had had good luck. So well, indeed, had he fought, that in 1780 he was put in command of a good-sized vessel, the _General Washington_. In her he cruised about Sandy Hook in search of spoil. One hazy day in August, the watch sang out, "Several sail astern, Sir! Looks like a whole squadron!" Talbot seized the glass and gazed intently at the specks of white. "Egad! It _is_ a squadron," said he, at length. "And they're after me. Crowd on every stitch of canvas and we'll run for it." So all sail was hoisted, and the _General Washington_ stood out to sea. But the sails of the pursuers grew strangely clear. They came closer, ever closer, and Talbot paced the deck impatiently. "Gad Zooks!" cried he, "I wish that I could fly like a bird." He could not fly, and, in two hours' time the red flag on the foremast of a British brig was clear to the eyes of the crew of the privateer. When--an hour later--a solid shot spun across his bow, "Old Si" Talbot hove to, and ran up the white flag. He was surrounded by six vessels of the English and he felt, for once, that discretion was the better part of valor. * * * * * "Old Si" was now thrown into a prison ship off Long Island and then was taken to England aboard the _Yarmouth_. Imprisoned at Dartmoor, he made four desperate attempts to escape. All failed. In the summer of 1781 he was liberated; found his way home to Rhode Island; and died "with his boots on" in New York, June 30th, 1813. The old sea-dogs of his native state still cherish the memory of "Capting Si;" singing a little song, which runs: "He could take 'er brig or sloop, my boy, An' fight her like 'er man. He could steer 'er barque or barquentine, An' make her act jest gran! 'Ole Si' wuz 'er rip-dazzler, His flag wuz never struck, Until 'er British squadroon, Jest catched him in th' ruck. "So drink 'er drop ter 'Ole Si,' Sky-high, Oh my! Drink 'er glass ter 'Ole Si,' th' skipper from our kentry. Give three cheers fer 'Ole Si,' Sky-high, Oh my! Give three cheers fer 'Ole Si,' th' pride o' Newport's gentry." [Illustration: From "The Army and Navy of the United States." AMERICAN PRIVATEER CAPTURING TWO ENGLISH SHIPS.] CAPTAIN "JOSH" BARNEY THE IRREPRESSIBLE YANKEE (1759-1818) "Never strike your flag until you have to. And if you have to, why let it come down easy-like, with one, last gun,--fer luck."--_Maxims of 1812._ CAPTAIN "JOSH" BARNEY THE IRREPRESSIBLE YANKEE (1759-1818) If you would hear of fighting brave, Of war's alarms and prisons dark, Then, listen to the tale I tell, Of Yankee pluck--and cruising barque, Which, battling on the rolling sea, There fought and won,--Can such things be? It was about eight o'clock in the evening. The moon was bright, and as the privateer _Pomona_ swung along in the fresh breeze, her Captain, Isaiah Robinson of New York, laid his hand softly upon the shoulder of his first officer, Joshua Barney, saying, "A ship off the lee-quarter, Barney, she's an Englishman, or else my name's not Robinson." Barney raised his glass. "A British brig, and after us, too. She's a fast sailer and is overhauling us. But we'll let her have a broadside from our twelve guns and I believe that we can stop her." The _Pomona_ carried thirty-five men. Laden with tobacco for Bordeaux, France, she was headed for that sunny land,--but all ready for a fight, if one should come to her. And for this she carried twelve guns, as her first officer had said. The British boat came nearer and nearer. Finally she was close enough for a voice to be heard from her deck, and she ran up her colors. A cry came from the black body, "What ship is that?" There was no reply, but the Stars and Stripes were soon floating from the mainmast of the American. "Haul down those colors!" came from the Britisher. There was no answer, but the _Pomona_ swung around so that her port guns could bear, and a clashing broadside plunged into the pursuer. Down came her fore-topsail, the rigging cut and torn in many places, and, as the American again showed her heels, the British captain cried out, "All sail aloft and catch the saucy and insolent privateer!" Then commenced one of the most interesting running actions of American naval history. "The cursed American has no stern-gun ports," said the British sea-captain. "So keep the ship abaft, and on th' port quarter, where we can let loose our bow-guns and get little in return." This was done, but--if we are to believe an old chronicler of the period--"The British crew had been thrown into such confusion by the _Pomona_'s first broadside that _they were able to fire only one or two shots every half hour_." "By Gad," cried Joshua Barney to Captain Robinson, about this time, "let's cut a hole in our stern, shove a cannon through it, and whale the British landlubber as he nears us for another shot with her bow-chasers." The captain grinned. "A good idea, Barney, a good idea," he chuckled. "Now we can teach her to keep clear of us." So a three-pounder soon poked her nose through the stern, and, when the proud Britisher again came up for one of her leisurely discharges, she received a dose of grape which made her captain haul off precipitously. Nor did he venture near again for another shot at the saucy fugitive. When daylight came, sixteen guns were counted upon the British brig. "By George!" shouted Barney. "See those officers in the rigging. She's a gun-ship--a regular ship-of-war." But Captain Robinson laughed. "That's an old game," said he. "They're tryin' to fool us into the belief that she's a real gun-boat, so's we'll surrender immediately. But see--she's drawin' near again--and seems as if she's about to board us from the looks of her crew." Barney gazed intently at the stranger. "You're right," said he. "Load the three-pounder with grape-shot." "And here's a crow-bar as'll top it off nice," put in a sailor. Captain Robinson laughed. "Yes, spike her in, too. She'll plunk a hole clear through th' rascal," he cried. "I'll touch her off myself." The British gun-boat drew nearer and nearer. Just as she was within striking distance--about ten yards--the three-pounder was touched off with a deaf'ning roar. "So accurate was the aim," says an old historian, "that the British were completely baffled in their attempt; their foresails and all their weather foreshrouds being cut away." "Give her a broadside!" called out Captain Robinson, as the brig sheered off in order to support its foremast, which tottered with its own weight; the rigging which supported it, being half cut away. And, as he spoke--the crew let drive a shower of balls and grape-shot. It was the last volley. The _Pomona_ kept upon her course, while the white sails of the attacker grew fainter and fainter upon the horizon. "I saw her name as she ranged in close to us," said Joshua Barney, slapping Captain Robinson on the back. "And it was the _Rosebud_." "I reckon that _Rosebud_ has no thorns left," chuckled Captain Robinson, and he was still chuckling when the little _Pomona_ safely sailed into the harbor of Bordeaux in France. The voyage had been a success. Here a store of guns, powder and shot was purchased, and, having shipped a cargo of brandy, and raised the crew to seventy men, the staunch, little vessel set sail for America. Not three days from the coast of France the cry of "Sail ho!" startled all on board, and, upon the starboard quarter--loomed a British privateer. Upon nearer view she was seen to have sixteen guns and seventy men. "All hands for a fight!" cried Robinson. "Don't let th' fellow escape." Now was a hard battle. It lasted for full two hours, and--in the end--the Britisher struck, with twelve killed and a number wounded, while the American loss was but one killed and two wounded. The _Pomona_ kept upon her course, jubilantly. But the saucy ship was not to have all smooth sailing. She was soon captured--by whom it is not known--and stout "Josh" Barney became a prisoner of war. In December, 1780, with about seventy American officers, he was placed on board the _Yarmouth_--a sixty-four-gun brig--and was shipped to England. Now listen to the treatment given him according to a contemporaneous historian. Did you ever hear of anything more atrocious? Peace--indeed--had more horrors than war in the year 1780. "From the time these Americans stepped aboard the _Yarmouth_ their captors gave it to be understood, by hints and innuendos, that they were being taken to England 'to be hanged as rebels;' and, indeed the treatment they received aboard the _Yarmouth_ on the passage over, led them to believe that the British officers intended to cheat the gallows of their prey, by causing the prisoners to die before they reached port. "On coming aboard the ship-of-the-line, these officers were stowed away in the lower hold, next to the keel, under five decks, and many feet below the water-line. Here, in a twelve-by-twenty-foot room, with upcurving floor, and only three feet high, the seventy-one men were kept for fifty-three days, like so much merchandise--without light or good air--unable to stand upright, with no means to get away. "Their food was of the poorest quality, and was supplied in such insufficient quantities, that, whenever one of the prisoners died, the survivors concealed the fact, in order that the dead man's allowance might be added to theirs. The water which they were served to drink was atrocious. "From the time the _Yarmouth_ left New York till she reached Plymouth, in a most tempestuous winter passage, these men were kept in this loathsome dungeon. Eleven died in delirium; their wild ravings and piercing shrieks appalling their comrades, and giving them a foretaste of what they, themselves, might expect. Not even a surgeon was permitted to visit them. "Arriving at Plymouth, the pale, emaciated men were ordered to come on deck. Not one obeyed, for they were unable to stand upright. Consequently they were hoisted up, the ceremony being grimly suggestive of the manner in which they had been treated,--like merchandise. And what were they to do, now that they had been placed on deck? "The light of the sun, which they had scarcely seen for fifty-three days, fell upon their weak, dilated pupils with blinding force; their limbs were unable to uphold them, their frames wasted by disease and want. Seeking for support, they fell in a helpless mass, one upon the other, waiting and almost hoping for the blow that was to fall upon them next. Captain Silas Talbot was one of these unfortunate prisoners. "To send them ashore in this condition was 'impracticable,' so the British officers said, and we readily discover that this 'impracticable' served the purpose of diverting the indignation of the land's folk, which sure would be aroused, if they knew that such brutality had been practiced under the cross of St. George (the cross upon the British flag). "Waiting, then, until the captives could, at least, endure the light of day, and could walk without leaning on one another, or clutching at every object for support, the officers had them removed to the old Mill Prison." This story has been denied, for the reason that the log of the _Yarmouth_ shows that she was forty-four and not fifty-three days at sea, and the captain writes: "We had the prisoners 'watched' (divided into port and starboard watch) and set them to the pumps. I found it necessary so to employ them, the ship's company, from their weak and sickly state, being unequal to that duty, and, on that account to order them whole allowance of provisions." It would have been impossible for men to be in the condition which the first historian describes if they had to man the pumps. It would have been impossible for them to have done an hour's work. Therefore, I, myself, believe the second story. Don't you? But to return to stout "Josh" Barney, now meditating thoughts of escape in old Mill Prison. Bold and resourceful he was always, and he was now determined to face the difficulties of an exit and the chances of detection. "I must and can get away," he said. The prisoners were accustomed to play leap-frog, and one day the crafty "Josh" pretended that he had sprained his ankle. Constructing two crutches--out of pieces of boards--he limped around the prison-yard and completely deceived all but a few of his most intimate friends. One day--it was May the eighteenth, 1781--he passed a sentry near the inner gate. The fellow's name was Sprokett and he had served in the British army in America, where he had received many kindnesses from the country people. For this reason his heart warmed to the stout, young "Josh," who had often engaged him in conversation. Hopping to the gate upon his crutches, the youthful American whispered, "Give me a British uniform and I will get away. Can you do it?" Sprokett smiled. "Sure," said he. "To-day?" "Dinner." And this meant one o'clock, when the warders dined. "All right," whispered "Josh," smiling broadly, and he again hobbled around the yard. After awhile the sentry motioned for him to come nearer. He did so--and as he approached--a large bundle was stealthily shoved into his arms. He hastened to his cell and there put on the undress uniform of an officer of the British army. Drawing on his great-coat, he went into the yard and hobbled about upon his two sticks until the time drew near for the mid-day mess. Then he drew close to the gate. One o'clock tolled from the iron bell upon the prison rampart, and, as its deep-toned echoes sounded from its tower, several of Barney's friends engaged the half-dozen sentries in conversation. It was the time for action. The astute "Josh" suddenly dropped his crutches. Then--walking across the enclosure towards the gate,--he winked to the sentry. A companion was at hand. With a spring he leaped upon his shoulders. One boost--and he was on top of the walk. Another spring, and he had dropped to the other side as softly as a cat. But the second gate and sentry had to be passed. Walking up to this red-coated individual he placed four guineas (about $20.00) into his outstretched palm. The soldier smiled grimly, as the great-coat was tossed aside, and the shrewdest privateer in the American Navy walked towards the opening through the outer wall, which was usually left ajar for the convenience of the prison officials. Another sentry stood upon duty at this point. Barney nodded. The sentry had been "squared" (told of the coming escape) and so he turned his back. Thus--with his heart beating like a trip-hammer--"Josh," the nervy one--walked down the cobbled street outside of the "Old Mill." He was free. Dodging into a lane, he soon met a friend who had been told of his attempt, and who took him to the house of an old clergyman in Plymouth. In the morning, with two fellow-countrymen, who were also in hiding (for they had been captured as passengers in a merchant vessel), he secured a fishing-smack. "Josh" now covered his uniform. Putting on an old coat with a tarred rope tied around his waist, a pair of torn trousers, and a tarpaulin hat, the disguised Jack-tar ran the little vessel down the River Plym, just as day was dawning. The forts and men-of-war were safely passed, and the little shallop tossed upon the gleaming wavelets of the English channel. We are told that his escape was not noticed for some time because "a slender youth who was capable of creeping through the window-bars at pleasure crawled into Barney's cell (in the Old Mill Prison) and answered for him." I doubt this, for--if you have ever seen the bars of a prison--it would take a Jack Spratt to get through them, and Jack Spratts are not common. At any rate someone answered to the daily roll-call for Joshua B., so that it was full two weeks before the authorities knew of his escape. Perhaps there was a ventriloquist in the jail. The tiny boat in which the adventurous American hoped to reach the welcome shores of France, bobbed up and down, as she ambled towards the low-lying coast, under a gentle southerly breeze. But there was trouble in this self-same wind, for the white wings of a British privateer grew nearer and nearer, and a hail soon came: "What's your name, and where are you bound?" Barney and his partners in distress did not answer at all. They scowled as a boat was lowered from the side of their pursuer, and quickly splashed towards them. In not many moments, a swearing sea-captain swung himself upon their deck. "Who are you, you lubbers?" said he. "Where' yer papers, and where' yer bound to?" "I'm a British officer," replied the astute Joshua, opening his coat and disclosing the uniform of the service. "I am bound for France upon official business." The Captain snickered. "An' with two others in er' launch? Aw go tell that to th' marines!" "It's God's truth. I'm in a state secret." "Wall--be that as it may be--you must come aboard of my vessel and tell yer state secret to th' authorities in England. Meanwhile, I'll put a skipper of my own aboard yer vessel and we'll travel together--bein' friends." Barney swore beneath his breath. Thus the two boats beat towards the coast of Merrie England in company, and upon the day following, came to anchor in a small harbor, six miles from Plymouth. The captain of the privateer went ashore in order to report to Admiral Digby at Plymouth, while most of the crew also hastened to the beach in order to avoid the chance of being seized by the press-gang, which harried incoming vessels for recruits for His Majesty's service. "Can't I go, too?" asked the cautious "Josh." "No, you must remain on board until we come for you," said the captain, as he jumped into his boat en route for the shore. "Mister Officer, I want to search your record." Then he laughed brutishly. But Barney's thinking cap was working like a mill race. There was a jolly-boat tied to the stern of the privateer, and, when all were safe ashore, he gently slipped into this, purposely skinning his leg as he did so. Then he sculled to the beach; where a group of idlers stood looking out to sea. "Here," he cried, as he neared them. "Help me haul up this boat, will yer? She's awful heavy." A custom's officer was among these loiterers and he was inquisitive. "Who are you?" said he. "What regiment and where stationed, pray?" "That I cannot answer, my friend," calmly replied the acute "Josh," pointing to the blood as it trickled through his stocking. "I am badly injured, you see, and must go away in order to get my leg tied up. Prithee, kind sir, can you tell me where the crew from my vessel have gone to?" "They are at the Red Lion at the end of the village," replied the official of the law. "You are, indeed, badly hurt." "Wall, I reckon," replied the American, and, stumbling up the beach, he was soon headed for the end of the little village. But things were not to go too well with him. He found that he was obliged to pass the Red Lion, and he had almost succeeded in doing so unmolested, when one of the sailors who was loitering outside, cried out after him, "Ho, friend! I would speak with you!" "Josh" had to stop although sorely tempted to run for it. "I've got some idee of shippin' in th' Navy," said the fellow, as he approached. "Now, friend, you can tell me somethin' of th' pay an' service, as you're an officer of th' army." Barney's eyes shone with pleasure, as he saw that his disguise had deceived the fellow. "Walk along with me towards Plymouth," said he, "and I'll explain everything to you. I have business there which will not wait and I must get on to it." So they jogged along together, talking vigorously about the Navy, but, in the course of half an hour the jack-tar seemed to think better of his plan for entering "a service noted for its cruelty to seamen," and turned back, saying, "Thank'ee my fine friend. Thank'ee. I'll stick to privateerin'. It's easier an' there's less cat-o'-nine-tails to it." As soon as his burly form disappeared down the winding road, Barney began to grow anxious about his safety. Perhaps a guard would be sent after him? Perhaps--even now--men had discovered his absence and were hurrying to intercept him? So--with these thoughts upon his mind--he jumped over a stiff hedge into the grounds of Lord Mount-Edgecumbe. "Egad! it's touch and go with me," said he, as he walked down one of the gravelled paths. "I'm in for it now for here comes the gardener." Sure enough, towards him ambled a middle-aged fellow, smiling as he pushed along a wheel-barrow filled with bulbs. Joshua walked up to him, extending his right hand. "My friend," said he, "I am an officer escaping from some seamen who wish my life because of a duel in which I recently engaged over the hand of a fair lady. Here is a guinea. It is all that I possess. And--if you could but pilot me to the waterside and will not tell of my whereabouts--I will bless you to my dying day." The good-humored man-of-the-soil smiled benignly. "Prithee, but follow me," said he, "and we'll soon see that you pass by the way of the water gate. Your money is most welcome, sir, for my wife is just now ill and doctors must be paid, sir. That you know right well." Barney breathed easier as they walked towards the sea; for out of the corner of his eye he saw a guard--sent to capture him--tramping along the other side of the hedge over which he had leaped. "Good-bye and good luck!" cried the kind-hearted servant as he closed the private gate which led to the waterside. And, with a wave of the hand, the fleeing American was soon hastening to the winding river, over which he must cross in order to get on to Plymouth. Luck was still with him. A butcher who was ferrying some beeves by water, took him in his boat, and, as night fell, the keen-witted privateersman crept through the back door of the old clergyman's house at Plymouth--from which he had started. For the time being, he was safe. Strange to relate, the two friends of the fishing-smack adventure here joined him once more, for they, also, had run away from the crew of the privateer, and--as they sat around the supper-table--the town-crier went by the house, bawling in harsh and discordant tones: "Five guineas reward for the capture of Joshua Barney; a rebel deserter from Mill Prison! Five guineas reward for this deserter! Five guineas! Five guineas!" But Barney stuffed his napkin into his mouth in order to stop his laughter. Three days later a clean-shaven, bright-cheeked, young dandy stepped into a post chaise, at midnight, and drove off to Exeter. At Plymouth gate the conveyance was stopped; a lantern was thrust into the black interior; and the keen eyes of the guard scanned the visages of those within: "He's not here," growled the watchman, lowering the light. "Drive on!" Thus Joshua Barney rolled on to home and freedom, while the stout-bodied soldier little guessed that the artful privateersman had slipped through his fingers like water through a sieve. Two months later--in the autumn of 1781--Joshua Barney: fighter, privateer, liar and fugitive, walked down the quiet streets of Beverly, Massachusetts, and a little fish-monger's son whispered to his companions, "Say, Boys! That feller is a Jim Dandy. He's been through more'n we'll ever see. Say! He's a regular Scorcher!" * * * * * Many months later--when the Revolutionary War had ended--the good ship _General Washington_ lay in Plymouth Harbor on the south coast of England. Her commander--Captain Joshua Barney--gazed contentedly at the Stars and Stripes as they flew jauntily from the mizzen-mast, and then walked to the rail, as a group of British officers came over the side. But there was one among these guests who was not an officer. He was bent, old, weather-beaten; and his dress showed him to be a tiller and worker of the soil. It was the aged and faithful gardener of Lord Mount-Edgecumbe. "You remember me?" cried the genial American, grasping the honest servant by the hand. The gardener's eyes were alight with pleasure. "You are the feller who jumped over the hedge--many years ago--when the sea-dogs were hot upon your trail." Joshua Barney chuckled. "The same," said he. "And here is a purse of gold to reward my kind and worthy helpmeet." So saying, he placed a heavy, chamois bag of glittering eagles into the trembling hands of the ancient retainer. THE DERELICT Unmoored, unmanned, unheeded on the deep-- Tossed by the restless billow and the breeze, It drifts o'er sultry leagues of tropic seas. Where long Pacific surges swell and sweep, When pale-faced stars their silent watches keep, From their far rhythmic spheres, the Pleiades, In calm beatitude and tranquil ease, Smile sweetly down upon its cradled sleep. Erewhile, with anchor housed and sails unfurled, We saw the stout ship breast the open main, To round the stormy Cape, and span the World, In search of ventures which betoken gain. To-day, somewhere, on some far sea we know Her battered hulk is heaving to and fro. ROBERT SURCOUF THE "SEA HOUND" FROM ST. MALO (1773-1827) "If you would be known never to have done anything, never do it."--EMERSON. ROBERT SURCOUF THE "SEA HOUND" FROM ST. MALO (1773-1827) _Parlez-vous Français?_ Yes, Monsieur, I can speak like a native,--sure. Then, take off your cap to the lilies of France, Throw it up high, and hasten the dance. For "Bobbie" Surcouf has just come to town, _Tenez!_ He's worthy of wearing a crown. It was a sweltering, hot day in July and the good ship _Aurora_ swung lazily in the torpid waters of the Indian Ocean. Her decks fairly sizzled in the sun, and her sails flopped like huge planks of wood. She was becalmed on a sheet of molten brass. "I can't stand this any longer," said a young fellow with black hair and swarthy skin. "I'm going overboard." From his voice it was easy to see he was a Frenchman. Hastily stripping himself, he went to the gangway, and standing upon the steps, took a header into the oily brine. He did not come up. "Sacre nom de Dieu!" cried a sailor. "Young Surcouf be no risen. Ah! He has been down ze long time. Ah! Let us lower ze boat and find heem." "Voilà! Voilà!" cried another. "He ees drowned!" _Plunkety, plunk, splash!_ went a boat over the side, and in a moment more, a half dozen sailors were eagerly looking into the deep, blue wash of the ocean. "He no there. I will dive for heem," cried out the fellow who had first spoken, and, leaping from the boat, he disappeared from view. In a few moments he re-appeared, drawing the body of the first diver with him. It was apparently helpless. The prostrate sailor was lifted to the deck; rubbed, worked over, scrubbed,--but no signs of life were there. Meanwhile, a Portuguese Lieutenant, who was pacing the poop, appeared to be much pleased at what took place. "The fellow's dead! The beggar's done for,--sure. Overboard with the rascal! To the waves with the dead 'un!" "Give us a few more moments," cried the sailors. "He will come to!" But the Lieutenant smiled satirically. "To the waves with the corpse! To the sharks with the man from St. Malo!" cried he. And all of this the senseless seaman heard--for--he was in a cataleptic fit, where he could hear, but could not move. The Portuguese Lieutenant and he were bitter enemies. "Oh, I tell you, Boys, the fellow's dead!" again cried the Portuguese. "Over with him!" So saying, he seized the inert body with his hands; dragged it to the ship's side; and started to lift it to the rail. Conscious of all that went on around him, the paralyzed Surcouf realized that, unless he could make some sign, he had only a few seconds to live. So, with a tremendous effort--he made a movement of his limbs. It was noticed. "Voilà! Voilà!" cried a French sailor. "He ees alife. No! No! You cannot kill heem!" Running forward, he grabbed the prostrate form of Robert Surcouf, pulled it back upon the deck, and--as the Portuguese Lieutenant went off cursing--he rubbed the cold hands of the half-senseless man. In a moment the supposed corpse had opened its eyes. "Ah!" he whispered. "I had a close call. A thousand thanks to all!" In five more moments he could stand upon the deck, and--believe me--he did not forget the Portuguese Lieutenant! Robert Surcouf was born at St. Malo--just one hundred years after Du Guay-Trouin, to whom he was related. And like his famous relative he had been intended for the Church,--but he was always fighting; was insubordinate, and could not be made to study. In fact, he was what is known as a "holy terror." Finally good Mamma Surcouf sent him to the Seminary of St. Dinan, saying: "Now, Robert, be a good boy and study hard thy lessons!" And Robert said, "Oui, Madame!" But he would not work. One day the master in arithmetic did not like the method in which young "Bobbie" answered him, and raising a cane, he ran towards the youthful scholar. But Robert had learned a kind of "Jiu-Jitsu" practiced by the youths of France, and he tackled his irate master like an end-rush upon the foot-ball team, when he dives for a runner. Both fell to the ground with a thud. And all the other boys yelled "Fine!" in unison. Now was a fierce battle, but weight told, and "Bobbie" was soon underneath, with his teeth in the leg of his tutor. They scratched and rolled until "Bobbie" freed himself, and, running to the window, jumped outside--for he was on the ground floor--scaled the garden fence, and made off. Home was twenty miles away. "I must get there, somehow," said young "Bobbie." "I can never go back. I will be spanked so that I cannot seat myself." So little "Bob" trudged onward in the snow, for it was winter. It grew dark. It was bitterly cold, and he had no hat. At length--worn out with cold and hunger--he sank senseless to the roadside. Luck pursues those destined for greatness. Some fish-merchants happened that way, and, seeing the poor, helpless, little boy, they picked him up; placed him upon a tiny dog-cart; and carried him to St. Malo, where he had a severe attack of pneumonia. But his good mother nursed him through, saying: "Ta donc! He will never be a scholar. Ta donc! Young Robbie must go to sea!" So when "Bobbie" was well he was shipped aboard the brig _Heron_, bound for Cadiz, Spain--and he was only just thirteen. But he threw up his cap crying, "This is just what I've always wanted. Hurrah for the salty brine!" At about twenty years of age we find him upon the good ship _Aurora_ from which his dive into the Indian Ocean came near being his last splash. And the Portuguese Lieutenant did not forget. Upon the next visit of the cruiser _Aurora_ to the coast of Africa an epidemic of malarial fever struck the crew. Among those who succumbed to the disease was the Portuguese Lieutenant. He was dangerously ill. The ship arrived at the island of Mauritius, and, Lieutenant Robert Surcouf was just going ashore, when he received a message which said: "Come and see me. I am very ill." It was from his enemy,--the Portuguese. Surcouf did not like the idea, but after thinking the matter over, he went. But note this,--he had a pair of loaded pistols in his pocket. Dead men--you know--tell no tales. As he entered the sick man's cabin, a servant was there. The Portuguese made a sign to him to retire. "I wish to speak to you with a sincere heart," said he, turning his face to young Surcouf. "Before I pass from this world I want to relieve my conscience, and ask your forgiveness for all the evil which I have wished you during our voyages together." "I bear you no malice," said Surcouf. "Let by-gones be by-gones." As he spoke a spasm seemed to contort the body of the dying man. One arm stretched out towards a pillow nearby, and Robert had a sudden, but excellent thought. Stepping forward, he seized the hand of his old enemy, lifted the pillow, and, then started back with an exclamation of astonishment. "Ye Gods!" cried he. "You would murder me!" There, before him, were two cocked and loaded pistols. Leaping forward he grabbed the weapons, pointing one at the forehead of the rascally sailor. "You miserable beast!" cried he. "I can now shoot you like a dog, or squash you like an insect; but I despise you too much. I will leave you to die like a coward." "And," says a historian, "this is what the wretched man did,--blaspheming in despairing rage." In October, 1794, Lieutenant Surcouf saw his first big battle, for, the English being at war with the French, two British men-of-war hovered off the island of Mauritius, blockading the port of St. Thomas. They were the _Centurion_ of fifty-four guns, and the _Diomede_, also of fifty-four cannon, but with fewer tars. The French had four ships of war: the _Prudente_, forty guns; the _Cybele_, forty-four guns; the _Jean Bart_, twenty guns; and the _Courier_, fourteen guns. Surcouf was junior Lieutenant aboard the _Cybele_. It was a beautiful, clear day, as the French vessels ploughed out to battle; their sails aquiver with the soft breeze; their pennons fluttering; guns flashing; and eager sailors crowding to the rails with cutlasses newly sharpened and pistols in their sashes. _Boom!_ The first gun spoke. The first shell spun across the bow of the British bull-dog _Diomede_, and the battle was on. Have you ever seen a school of pollock chasing a school of smaller fry? Have you ever seen them jump and splash, and thud upon the surface of the water? Well--that is the way that the shells looked and sounded--as they plumped and slushed into the surface of the southern sea; and every now and then there was a _punk_, and a _crash_, and a _chug_, as a big, iron ball bit into the side of a man-of-war. Around and around sailed the sparring assailants, each looking for a chance to board. _Crash! Roar! Crash!_ growled the broadsides. Shrill screams sounded from the wounded; the harsh voices of the officers echoed above the din of the conflict; and, the whining bugle squealed ominously between the roaring crush of grape and chain-shot. But the French got nearer and nearer. Great gaps showed in the bulwarks of the _Diomede_; one mast was tottering. Beaten and outnumbered she stood out to sea, her sailors crowding into the rigging like monkeys, and spreading every stitch of white canvas. "She runs! Egad, she runs!" cried the Commander of the other British vessel. "Faith, I cannot stand off four Frenchmen alone. I must after her to save my scalp." So--putting his helm hard over--he threw his vessel before the wind, and she spun off, pursued by bouncing shells and shrieking grapnel. "Voilà!" cried the French. "Ze great battaile, eet belongs to us!" But there were many dead and wounded upon the decks of the proud French warships. Soon after this smart, little affair the soldiers and sailors who had been in this fight were discharged,--and--looking about for employment, young Robert took the first position that presented itself: the command of the brig _Creole_,--engaged in the slave trade. He made several successful voyages, but orders were issued to-- "Arrest the Slave Hunter and all his crew, When they arrive at the Mauritius." One of those little birds which sometimes carry needed information, both on sea and land, whispered this ill news to the gallant, young sea-dog. So he steered for the isle of Bourbon, and there landed his human freight in a small bay. At daybreak he lay at anchor in the Harbor of St. Paul in that self-same island. About eight in the morning a boat was seen approaching, and to the hail,--"Who goes there?" came the reply-- "Public Health Committee from St. Denis. We wish to come on board and to inspect your ship." Surcouf was much annoyed. "You can climb aboard," said he, stifling an exclamation of disgust. "I am at your service." In a few moments the commissioners were upon the deck, and, in a few moments more, they had discovered that the ship was a slaver. Turning to the youthful captain, one of the committee said: "You, sir, are engaged in illegal traffic. You must suffer for this, and must come with us at once to the city to answer an indictment drawn up against you." Surcouf smiled benignly. "I am at your service," said he, with a polite bow. "But do not go--I pray thee--until you have given me the great pleasure of partaking of the breakfast which my cook has hastily prepared." The Committee-men smiled. "You are very kind," said one. "We accept with pleasure." The hasty efforts of the cook proved to be most attractive. And, as the Commissioners smacked their lips over the good Madeira wine, the mate of the _Creole_ dismissed the boat which had brought the stolid Commissioners to the side. "The tender of our brig will take your people ashore," said he to the coxswain. No sooner had this tender neared the shore, than the cable of the _Creole_ was slipped; she left her anchorage; and quickly drew out to sea in a fresh sou'westerly breeze. The unaccustomed rallying soon warned the Commissioners that the vessel was no longer at anchor, and, rushing to the deck, they saw--with dismay--that a full half mile of foam-flecked ocean lay between them and the island. "Ye Gods!" cried one, turning to Surcouf. "What mean you by this, sir?" The crafty Captain was smiling like the Cheshire cat. "You are now in my power," said he--very slowly and deliberately. "I am going to take you to the coast of Africa among your friends--the negroes. You seem to prefer them to the whites, so why not, pray? Meanwhile,--my kind sirs,--come below and take my orders." The Commissioners were flabbergasted. "Pirate!" cried one. "Thief!" cried another. "Scamp!" shouted the third. But they went below,--mumbling many an imprecation upon the head of the crafty Robert Surcouf. That night the wind freshened, the waves rose, and the good ship _Creole_ pitched and tossed upon them, like a leaf. The Committee-men were very ill, for they were landsmen, and Surcouf's smile expanded. "Take us ashore! Take us ashore!" cried one. "We _must_ get upon land." Surcouf even laughed. Everything was as he wished. "I will land you upon one condition only," said he. "Destroy the indictment against me and my ship. Write a document to the effect that you have found no traces of slaves upon my staunch craft. Say that my boat was driven from her anchor by a tidal wave--and you can put your feet upon solid ground." The three Commissioners scowled, but he had them. Besides they were sea-sick. In an hour's time, the desired paper had been drawn up. The _Creole_ was headed for the Mauritius,--and, in eight days, the sad but wiser Commissioners were brooding over the smartness of Robert Surcouf when seated in their own snug little homes. "He is a rascal," said one. "He's a slick and wily cur." So much reputation came to the young mariner--at this exploit--that he was soon offered the command of the _Emilie_: a privateer of one hundred and eighty tons and four guns. He accepted with glee, but when about to go to sea, the Governor refused him Letters of Marque. "What shall I do?" asked the crest-fallen Robert, approaching the owners of the trim and able craft. "Sail for the Seychelles (Islands off the east coast of Africa) for a cargo of turtles," said they. "If you fail to find these; fill up with corn, cotton and fruit. Fight shy of all English cruisers, and battle if you have to." Surcouf bowed. "I am not a regular privateer," he answered. "For I have no Letters of Marque. But I can defend myself if fired upon, and am an armed vessel in war-time. I may yet see some fighting." He was not to be disappointed. While at anchor at the Seychelles, two large and fat English men-of-war appeared in the offing. Surcouf had to run for it. Steering in among the many little islets, which here abound, he navigated the dangerous channels and got safely off, his men crying, "Voilà! Here is a genius. We did well to ship with such a master!" But the gallant Surcouf soon turned from privateer to pirate. South of the Bay of Bengal, a cyclone struck the _Emilie_ and she was steered for Rangoon, where-- "The flying fishes play, An' the dawn comes up like thunder, Outer China across the Bay." And here a British vessel steered for her: white-winged, saucy, vindictive-looking. She came on valiantly, and, when within a hundred yards, pumped a shot across the bow of the drowsing _Emilie_. It meant "Show your colors." Hoisting the red, white and blue of France, Surcouf replied with three scorching shots. One struck the Britisher amid-ships, and pumped a hole in her black boarding. Like a timid girl, the Englishman veered off, hoisted her topsail, and tried to get away. She saw that she had caught a tartar. The blood was up of the "Man from St. Malo." "I consider the shot across my bows as an attack," said he, and he slapped on every stitch of canvas, so that the _Emilie_ was soon abreast of the Britisher. _Boom!_ A broadside roared into her and she struck her colors. Bold Robert Surcouf had passed the Rubicon,--he had seen the English flag lowered to him, for the first time; and his heart swelled with patriotic pride, in spite of the fact that this was an act of piracy, for which he could be hanged to the yard-arm. "On! On!" cried Surcouf. "More captures! More prizes!" Three days later three vessels carrying rice fell into his hands,--one of which,--a pilot-brig--was appropriated in place of the _Emilie_, which had a foul, barnacled bottom and had lost her speed. The _Diana_, another rice-carrier--was also captured--and Robert Surcouf headed for the Mauritius: pleased and happy. A few days later, as the vessels pottered along off the river Hooghly, the cry came: "A large sail standing into Balasore Roads!" In a moment Surcouf had clapped his glass to his keen and searching eye. "An East Indiaman," said he. "And rich, I'll warrant. Ready about and make after her. She's too strong for us,--that I see--but we may outwit her." The vessel, in fact, was the _Triton_, with six-and-twenty guns and a strong crew. Surcouf had but nineteen men aboard, including the surgeon and himself, and a few Lascars,--natives. The odds were heavily against him, but his nerve was as adamant. "My own boat has been a pilot-brig. Up with the pilot flag!" he cried. As the little piece of bunting fluttered in the breeze, the _Triton_ hove to, and waited for him, as unsuspecting as could be. Surcouf chuckled. Nearer and nearer came his own vessel to the lolling Indiaman, and, as she rolled within hailing distance, the bold French sea-dog saw "_beaucoup de monde_"--a great crowd of people--upon the deck of the Englishman. "My lads!" cried he, turning to his crew. "This _Triton_ is very strong. We are only nineteen. Shall we try to take her by surprise and thus acquire both gain and glory? Or, do you prefer to rot in a beastly English prison-ship?" "Death or victory!" cried the Frenchmen. Surcouf smiled. "This ship shall either be our tomb, or the cradle of our glory," said he. "It is well!" The crew and passengers of the _Triton_ saw only a pilot-brig approaching, as these did habitually (to within twenty or thirty feet) in order to transfer the pilot. Suddenly a few uttered exclamations of surprise and dismay. The French colors rose to the mast of the sorrowful-looking pilot-boat, and with a flash and a roar, a heavy dose of canister and grape ploughed into the unsuspecting persons upon the deck of the Indiaman. Many sought shelter from the hail of iron. A moment more, and the brig was alongside. A crunching: a splitting of timber as the privateer struck and ground into the bulwarks of the _Triton_, and, with a wild yell--Surcouf leaped upon the deck of his adversary--followed by his eighteen men, with cutlass, dirks and pistols. There was but little resistance. The Captain of the _Triton_ seized a sword and made a vain attempt to stem the onslaught of the boarders, but he was immediately cut down. The rest were driven below, and the hatches clapped tight above them. In five minutes the affair was over, with five killed and six wounded upon the side of the English: one killed and one wounded among the French. Surcouf had made a master stroke. The _Triton_ was his own. The many prisoners were placed on board the _Diana_ and allowed to make their way to Calcutta, but the _Triton_ was triumphantly steered to the Mauritius, where Surcouf received a tremendous ovation. "Hurrah for Robert Surcouf: the sea-hound from St. Malo!" shrieked the townsfolk. "Your captures are all condemned," said the Governor of the island, a few days after his triumphant arrival. "For you sailed and fought not under a Letter of Marque, so you are a pirate and not a privateer. Those who go a-pirating must pay the piper. Your prizes belong to the Government of France, and its representative. I hereby seize them." Surcouf was nonplussed. "We will take this matter to France, itself," cried he. "And we shall see whether or no all my exertions shall go for nought." So the case was referred to the French courts, where Robert appeared in person to plead his cause. And the verdict was: "The captures of Captain Robert Surcouf of St. Malo are all declared 'good prize' and belong to him and the owners of his vessel." So the wild man from St. Malo was very happy, and he and his owners pocketed a good, round sum of money. But he really was a pirate and not a privateer. _Tenez!_ He had the money, at any rate, so why should he care? The remaining days of Robert's life were full of battle, and, just a little love, for he returned to his native town during the progress of the law-suit--in order to see his family and his friends, and there became engaged to Mlle. Marie Blaize, who was as good as she was pretty. But the sea sang a song which ran: "For men must work and women must weep, The home of a hero is on the deep." which the stout sea-dog could not resist. So he left the charming demoiselle without being married, and 'tis said that she wept bitterly. Now came his greatest exploit. On October 7th, 1800, the hardy mariner--in command of the _Confiance_; a new vessel with one hundred and thirty souls aboard--was cruising off the Indian coast. He had a Letter of Marque this time, so all would go well with him if he took a prize. The opportunity soon came. A sail was sighted early that day, and Surcouf scanned her carefully through his glass. [Illustration: "SURCOUF SCANNED HER CAREFULLY THROUGH HIS GLASS."] "She's a rich prize," said he. "An Indiaman. All hands on deck. Make sail! Drinks all round for the men! Clear for action!" He spoke this to himself, for he was aloft, and, climbing to the deck, ordered everybody aft to listen to a speech. When they had collected there, he said, with feeling: "I suppose each one of you is more than equal to one Englishman? Very good--be armed and ready for boarding--and, as it is going to be hot work, I'll give you one hour for pillage. You can fight, and, behind me, you should be invincible! Strike, and strike hard; and you will be rich." The _Kent_ had four hundred and thirty-seven souls aboard, says an old chronicler, for she had picked up a great part of the crew of the _Queen_: an East Indiaman which had been destroyed off the coast of Brazil. Her Captain's name was Rivington and he was a fellow of heroic courage. As the _Confiance_ drew near, the crew of the Englishman gave her a fair broadside and pumped gun after gun into her hull. But the Frenchman held her fire, and bore in close, in order to grapple. Hoarse shouts sounded above the roar of the guns and the splitting of timber, as the two war-dogs closed for action. The crew of the _Kent_ were poorly armed and undisciplined: they had never fought together. With Surcouf it was far different. His sailors were veterans--they had boarded many a merchantman and privateer before--and, they were well used to this gallant pastime. Besides, each had a boarding-axe, a cutlass,--pistol and a dagger--to say nothing of a blunderbuss loaded with six bullets, pikes fifteen feet long, and enormous clubs--all of this with "drinks all round" and the promise of pillage. No wonder they could fight! With a wild, ear-splitting whoop the wild men of the French privateer finally leaped over the rail--upon the deck of the Englishman--and there was fierce struggling for possession of her. At the head of his men, Rivington fought like a true Briton,--cutlass in hand, teeth clinched, eyes to the front. He was magnificent. But what could one man do against many? Back, back, the French forced the valiant lion, while his crew fell all about in tiers, and, at length, they drove him to the poop. He was bleeding from many a wound. He was fast sinking. "Don't give up the ship!" he cried, casting his eye aloft at the red ensign of his country. Then he fell upon his face, and the maddened followers of Surcouf swept over the decking like followers of Attila, the terrible Hun. "Spare the women!" shouted the French Captain above the din--and roar of battle. "Pillage; but spare the women!" It was well that he had spoken, for his cut-throats were wild with the heat of battle. In twenty minutes the _Kent_ was helpless; her crew were prisoners; and the saucy pennon of France fluttered where once had waved the proud ensign of Great Britain. Surcouf was happy. Landing the English prisoners in an Arab vessel, he arrived at the Mauritius with his prize in November, and soon took his doughty _Confiance_ to the low shores of France, catching a Portuguese merchant en route, and anchoring at La Rochelle, on April 13th, 1801. Rich, famous, respected; he now married the good Mlle. Marie Blaize, and became the owner of privateers and a respected citizen of the Fatherland. Fortune had favored this brave fellow. As a prosperous ship-owner and ship-builder of his native village--"the Sea-Hound of St. Malo"--closed his adventurous life in the year 1827. And when he quietly passed away, the good housewives used to mutter: "Look you! Here was a man who fought the English as well as they themselves could fight. He was a true son of William the Conqueror. Look you! This was a King of the Ocean!" And the gulls wheeled over the grave of the doughty sea-warrior, shrieking, "He-did-it! He-did-it! He-did-it!" THE CRY FROM THE SHORE Come down, ye greyhound mariners, Unto the wasting shore! The morning winds are up,--the Gods Bid me to dream no more. Come, tell me whither I must sail, What peril there may be, Before I take my life in hand And venture out to sea! _We may not tell thee where to sail,_ _Nor what the dangers are;_ _Each sailor soundeth for himself,_ _Each hath a separate star;_ _Each sailor soundeth for himself,_ _And on the awful sea,_ _What we have learned is ours alone;_ _We may not tell it thee._ Come back, O ghostly mariners, Ye who have gone before! I dread the dark, tempestuous tides; I dread the farthest shore. Tell me the secret of the waves; Say what my fate shall be,-- Quick! for the mighty winds are up, And will not wait for me. _Hail and farewell, O voyager!_ _Thyself must read the waves;_ _What we have learned of sun and storm_ _Lies with us in our graves;_ _What we have learned of sun and storm_ _Is ours alone to know._ _The winds are blowing out to sea,_ _Take up thy life and go!_ LAFITTE PRIVATEER, PIRATE, AND TERROR OF THE GULF OF MEXICO (1780-1826) "For it's fourteen men on a dead man's chest, Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum." --STEVENSON. LAFITTE PRIVATEER, PIRATE, AND TERROR OF THE GULF OF MEXICO (1780-1826) "He was the mildest mannered man, That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat; With such true breeding of a gentleman, That you could ne'er discern his proper thought. Pity he loved an adventurous life's variety, He was _so_ great a loss to good society." --_Old Ballad._--1810. "Captain, we can't live much longer unless we have food. We've got enough to last us for two weeks' time, and then--if we do not get fresh provisions--we'll have to eat the sails." The fellow who spoke was a rough-looking sea-dog, with a yellow face--parched and wrinkled by many years of exposure--a square figure; a red handkerchief tied about his black hair; a sash about his waist in which was stuck a brace of evil-barrelled pistols. He looked grimly at the big-boned man before him. "Yes. You are right, as usual, Gascon. We've got to strike a foreign sail before the week is out, and capture her. And I, Lafitte, must turn from privateer to pirate. May my good mother at St. Malo have mercy on my soul." And, so saying, he turned to pace restlessly upon the sloping deck of the two-hundred-ton barque which boiled along under a spread of bellying canvas, and was guided by the keen eye of this youthful mariner. He came from the same little town in France which sheltered the good mother of Du Guay-Trouin, the great French "blue." His name was Jean Lafitte. This sea-rover had been born in 1781, and had taken to the ocean at the age of thirteen, when most boys are going to boarding-school. After several voyages in Europe, and to the coast of Africa, he was appointed mate of a French East Indiaman, bound to Madras in India. But things did not go any too well with the sturdy ship; a heavy gale struck her off the Cape of Good Hope; she sprung her mainmast, and--flopping along like a huge sea-turtle--staggered into the port of St. Thomas in the island of Mauritius, off the east coast of Africa. "Here," said young Lafitte to his Captain, "is where I leave you, for you are a bully, a braggart, and a knave." And, so saying, he cut for shore in the jolly-boat, but--if the truth must be known--Lafitte and the Captain were too much alike to get on together. They both wished to "be boss." Like magnets do not attract, but repel. Luck was with the young deserter. Several privateers were being fitted out at the safe port of St. Thomas and he was appointed Captain of one of them. Letters of Marque were granted by the Governor of the Mauritius. "Ah ha!" cried the youthful adventurer. "Now I can run things to suit myself. And I'll grow rich." This he speedily succeeded in doing, for, in the course of his cruise, he robbed several vessels which came in his path, and, stopping at the Seychelles (Islands off the eastern coast of Africa), took on a load of slaves for the port of St. Thomas. Thus he had descended--not only to piracy--but also to slave catching; the lowest depths to which a seaman could come down. When four days out from the curiously named islands, a cry went up from the watch, "Sail ho! Off the port bow! A British frigate, by much that's good, and she's after us with all speed!" To which bold Lafitte answered, "Then, we must run for it!" But he hoisted every bit of canvas which he had about and headed for the Bay of Bengal. "And," said he, "if she does not catch us and we get away, we'll take an English merchantman and burn her." Then he laughed satirically. The British frigate plodded along after the lighter vessel of Lafitte's until the Equator was reached, and then she disappeared,--disgruntled at not being able to catch the saucy tartar. But the privateersman headed for the blue Bay of Bengal; there fell in with an English armed schooner with a numerous crew; and--although he only had two guns and twenty-six men aboard his own vessel--he tackled the sailors from the chilly isle like a terrier shaking a rat. There was a stiff little fight upon the shimmering waves of the Indian Ocean. When night descended the Britisher had struck and nineteen blood-stained ruffians from the privateer took possession of the battered hulk, singing a song which ran: "For it's fourteen men on a dead man's chest, Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum." Lafitte was now feeling better; his men had been fed; he had good plunder; and he possessed two staunch, little craft. "Let's bear away for India, my Hearties," cried he, "and we'll hit another Englishman and take her." What he had said soon came to pass, for, when off the hazy, low-lying coast of Bengal, a rakish East Indiaman came lolling by, armed with twenty-six twelve-pounders and manned with one hundred and fifty men. A bright boarding upon her stern-posts flaunted the truly Eastern name: the _Pagoda_. The dull-witted Britishers had no suspicions of the weak, Puritan-looking, little two-'undred tonner of Lafitte's, as she glided in close; luffed; and bobbed about, as a voice came: "Sa-a-y! Want a pilot fer the Ganges?" There was no reply for a while. Then a voice shrilled back, "Come up on th' port quarter. That's just what we've been lookin' for." The fat _Pagoda_ ploughed listlessly onward, as the unsuspicious-looking pilot plodded up on the port side; in fact, most of the crew were dozing comfortably under awnings on the deck, when a shot rang out. Another and another followed, and, with a wild, ear-splitting whoop, the followers of Lafitte clambered across the rail; dirks in their mouths; pistols in their right hands, and cutlasses in their left. Now was a short and bloodless fight. Taken completely by surprise, the Englishmen threw up their hands and gave in only too willingly. With smiles of satisfaction upon their faces, the seamen of the bad man from St. Malo soon hauled two kegs of spirits upon the decks, and held high revel upon the clean boarding of the rich and valuable prize. The _Pagoda_ was re-christened _The Pride of St. Malo_, and soon went off privateering upon her own hook; while Lafitte headed back for St. Thomas: well-fed--even sleek with good living--and loaded down with the treasure which he had taken. "Ah-ha!" cried the black-haired navigator. "I am going to be King of the Indian waters." Now came the most bloody and successful of his battles upon the broad highway of the gleaming, southern ocean. Taking command of the _La Confidence_ of twenty-six guns and two hundred and fifty men, whom he found at the port of St. Thomas, he again headed for the coast of British India; keen in the expectation of striking a valuable prize. And his expectations were well fulfilled. In October, 1807, the welcome cry of "Sail Ho!" sounded from the forward watch, when off the Sand Heads, and there upon the starboard bow was a spot of white, which proved to be a Queen's East Indiaman, with a crew of near four hundred. She carried forty guns. There were double the number of cannon, there were double the number of men, but Lafitte cried out: "I came out to fight and I'm going to do it, comrades! You see before you a vessel which is stronger than our own, but, with courage and nerve, we can beat her. I will run our own ship close to the enemy. You must lie down behind the protecting sides of our vessel until we touch the stranger. Then--when I give the signal to board--let each man seize a cutlass, a dirk, and two pistols, and strike down all that oppose him. We _must_ and _can_ win!" These stirring words were greeted by a wild and hilarious cheer. Now, running upon the port tack, the _La Confidence_ bore down upon the Britisher with the water boiling under her bows; while the stranger luffed, and prepared for action. Shrill cries sounded from her huge carcass as her guns were loaded and trained upon the on-coming foe, while her masts began to swarm with sharpshooters eager to pick off the ravenous sea-dogs from the Mauritius. Suddenly a terrific roar sounded above the rattle of ropes and creak of hawsers--and a broadside cut into the _La Confidence_ with keen accuracy. "Lie flat upon the deck," cried Lafitte, "and dodge the iron boys if you can see 'em." His men obeyed, and, as the missiles pounded into the broad sides of their ship, the steersman ran her afoul of the Queen's East Indiaman. When he did so, many sailors swarmed into the rigging, and from the yards and tops threw bombs and grenades into the forecastle of the enemy, so that death and terror made the Britishers abandon the portion of their vessel near the mizzen-mast. "Forty of the crew will now board," cried Lafitte. "And let every mother's son strike home!" With pistols in their hands and daggers held between their teeth, the wild sea-rovers rollicked across the gunwales like a swarm of rats. Dancing up the deck of the Britisher they beat back all who opposed them, driving them below into the steerage. Shots rang out like spitting cats; dirks gleamed; and cutlasses did awful execution. But the Captain of the Indiaman was rallying his men about him on the poop, and, with a wild cheer, these precipitated themselves upon the victorious privateers. "Board! Board!" cried Lafitte, at this propitious moment, and, cutlass in hand, he leaped from his own vessel upon the deck of the East Indiaman. His crew followed with a yelp of defiant hatred, and beat the Captain's party back again upon the poop, where they stood stolidly, cursing at the rough sea-riders from St. Thomas. But Lafitte was a general not to be outdone by such a show of force. He ordered a gun to be loaded with grape-shot; had it pointed towards the place where the crowd was assembled; and cried-- "If you don't give in now, I'll exterminate all of you at one discharge of my piece." It was the last blow. Seeing that it was useless to continue the unequal struggle, the British Captain held up his long cutlass, to which was bound a white handkerchief, and the great sea battle was over. Lafitte and his terrible crew had captured a boat of double the size of his own, and with twice his numbers. Says an old chronicler of the period: "This exploit, hitherto unparalleled, resounded through India, and the name of Lafitte became the terror of English commerce in these latitudes. The British vessels now traversed the Indian Ocean under strong convoys, in order to beat off this harpy of South Africa." "Egad," said Lafitte about this time, "these fellows are too smart for me. I'll have to look for other pickings. I'm off for France." So he doubled the Cape of Good Hope, coasted up the Gulf of Guinea, and, in the Bight of Benin, took two valuable prizes loaded down with gold dust, ivory, and palm oil. With these he ran to St. Malo, where the people said: "Tenez! Here is a brave fellow, but would you care to have his reputation, Monsieur?" And they shook their heads, shrugged their shoulders, and looked the other way when they saw him coming. The privateersman, slaver, and pirate was not going to be long with them, however, for he soon fitted out a brigantine, mounted twenty guns on her, and with one hundred and fifty men, sailed for Guadaloupe, among the West Indies. He took several valuable prizes, but, during his absence upon a cruise, the island was captured by the British, so he started for a more congenial clime. He roved about for some months, to settle at last at Barrataria, near New Orleans, Louisiana. He was rich; he had amassed great quantities of booty; and he was a man of property. Lafitte, in fact, was a potentate. "Now," said the privateer and pirate, "I will settle down and found a colony." But can a man of action keep still? It is true that Lafitte was not as bold and audacious as before, for he was now obliged to have dealings with merchants of the United States and the West Indies who frequently owed him large sums of money, and the cautious transactions necessary to found and to conduct a colony of pirates and smugglers in the very teeth of civilization, made the black-haired Frenchman cloak his real character under a veneer of supposed gentility. Hundreds of privateers, pirates, and smugglers gathered around the banner of this robber of the high seas. But what is Barrataria? Part of the coast of Louisiana is called by that name: that part lying between Bastien Bay on the east, and the mouth of the wide river, or bayou of La Fourche, on the west. Not far from the rolling, sun-baked Atlantic are the lakes of Barrataria, connecting with one another by several large bayous and a great number of branches. In one of these is the Island of Barrataria, while this sweet-sounding name is also given to a large basin which extends the entire length of the cypress swamps, from the Gulf of Mexico, to a point three miles above New Orleans. The waters from this lake slowly empty into the Gulf by two passages through the Bayou Barrataria, between which lies an island called Grand Terre: six miles in length, and three in breadth, running parallel with the coast. To the West of this is the great pass of Barrataria, where is about nine to ten feet of water: enough to float the ordinary pirate or privateersman's vessel. Within this pass--about two miles from the open sea--lies the only safe harbor upon the coast, and this is where the cut-throats, pirates, and smugglers gathered under Lafitte. They called themselves _Barratarians_, and they were a godless crew. At a place called Grand Terre, the privateers would often make public sale of their cargoes and prizes by auction. And the most respectable inhabitants of the State were accustomed to journey there in order to purchase the goods which the _Barratarians_ had to offer. They would smile, and say, "We are going to get some of the treasure of Captain Kidd." But the Government of the United States did not take so kindly to the idea of a privateer and pirate colony within its borders. And--with malice aforethought--one Commodore Patterson was sent to disperse these marauders at Barrataria, who, confident of their strength and fighting ability, defiantly flaunted their flag in the faces of the officers of the Government. "We can lick the whole earth," chuckled the piratical followers of Lafitte. Patterson was a good fighter. On June the eleventh he departed from New Orleans with seventy members of the 44th regiment of infantry. On the sixteenth he made for the Island of Barrataria, with some six gun-boats, a launch mounting one twelve pound carronade; the _Sea Horse_ (a tender carrying one six-pounder) and the schooner _Carolina_. "We must fight, Boys," cried Lafitte to his ill-assorted mates. "Come, take to our schooners and show these officers that the followers of Lafitte can battle like Trojans." A cheer greeted these noble sentiments. "Lead on!" yelled his cut-throats. "Lead on and we'll sink these cocky soldiers as we've done to many an East Indiaman!" So, about two o'clock in the afternoon, the privateers and pirates formed their vessels, ten in number (including their prizes) near the entrance of the harbor. _Crash!_ A shell from the forward gun of the leading gun-boat spun across the bows of Lafitte's flagship and buried itself in the gray water with a dull sob. Up went a huge white flag upon the foremost mast-head of the king pirate and these words could be plainly seen: "Pardon for all Deserters." "Ah, ha," chuckled Patterson. "The arch ruffian has heard that some of my men are ashore and this is the way he would hire them." _Crash!_ Another shell ricochetted across the still surface of the harbor and sunk itself in the side of a piratical brig. "Hello!" cried a Lieutenant, running up to the United States Commander. "They're giving up already. See! The beggars are hastening ashore in order to skip into the woods." "I'm afraid so," answered the disappointed Commodore. "All my pains for nothing. The fellows are getting away." Sure enough--afraid to remain and fight it out--the craven followers of Lafitte now turned their schooners to the shore--ran their bows into the sand, and, leaping overboard, made into the forest as fast as their legs could carry them. Thus--without firing a shot--the cowardly pirates of Barrataria "took to the bush." "The enemy had mounted on their vessels, twenty pieces of cannon of different calibre," wrote Patterson, after this tame affair. "And, as I have since learnt, they had from eight hundred to one thousand men of all nations and colors. When I perceived the pirates forming their vessels into a line of battle I felt confident, from their fleet and very advantageous position, and their number of men, that they would have fought me. Their not doing so I regret; for had they, I should have been enabled more effectually to destroy or make prisoners of them and their leaders; but it is a subject of great satisfaction to me, to have effected the object of my enterprise, without the loss of a man. On the afternoon of the 23rd, I got under way with my whole squadron, in all seventeen vessels, but during the night one escaped and the next day I arrived at New Orleans with my entire command." Thus ended the magnificent (?) attempt of the vainglorious Lafitte to stem the advance of the Government of the United States. In the parlance of the camp, "He was a fust-class quitter." But he did not show himself to be a "quitter" in the battle of New Orleans. The English and Americans, in fact, were soon at each other's throats in the ungentle game of war. At different times the British had sought to attack the pirates of Barrataria, in the hope of taking their prizes and armed vessels. On June 23rd, 1813, while two of Lafitte's privateers were lying to off of Cat Island, an English sloop-of-war came to anchor at the entrance of the pass, and sent out two boats in the endeavor to capture the rakish sea-robbers. But they were repulsed with severe and galling loss. On the 2nd of September, 1814, an armed brig appeared on the coast, opposite the famous pass to the home of the rangers of the sea. She fired a gun at a smuggler, about to enter, and forced her to poke her nose into a sand-bar; she then jibed over and came to anchor at the entrance to the shallows. "That vessel means business, sure," said one of the pirates to Lafitte. "She has spouted one gun, but now she's lyin' to. Better see what's up." "You're right," answered the famous sea-rover. "We'll go off in a boat and look out for what's going to happen." So, starting from the shore, he was soon on his way to the brig, from which a pinnace was lowered, in which could be seen two officers, one of whom had a flag of truce. The two boats rapidly neared each other. "Where is Mr. Lafitte?" cried one of the Britishers, as the pinnace neared the shore. "I would speak with the Laird of Barrataria." But Lafitte was not anxious to make himself known. "He's ashore," said he. "But, if you have communications for him, these I can deliver." "Pray, give him these packages, my good man," spoke the English tar, handing him a bundle of letters, tied up in tarpaulin. Lafitte smiled. "I would be delighted to do so," he replied. "But, pray come ashore and there I will return you your answer after I have seen the great Captain, who is camping about a league inland." The Britishers readily assented, and both rowed towards the sandy beach, where a great number of pirates of Barrataria had collected. As soon as the boats were in shallow water, Lafitte made himself known to the English, saying: "Do not let my men know upon what business you come, for it will go ill with you. My followers know that war is now on between Great Britain and the United States, and, if they hear you are making overtures with me, they will wish to hang you." It was as he had said. When the Englishmen landed, a great cry went up amongst the privateers, pirates and smugglers: "Hang the spies! Kill the dirty dogs! To the yard-arm with the rascally Englishmen! Send the hounds to New Orleans and to jail!" But Lafitte dissuaded the multitude from their intent and led the officers in safety to his dwelling, where he opened the package, finding a proclamation addressed to the inhabitants of Louisiana, by Col. Edward Nichalls--British commander of the land forces in this state--requesting them to come under the sheltering arm of the British Government. There were also two letters to himself, asking him to join and fight with the English. "If you will but battle with us," said Captain Lockyer--one of the British officers--"we will give you command of a forty-four gun frigate, and will make you a Post Captain. You will also receive thirty thousand dollars,--payable at Pensacola." Lafitte looked dubiously at him. "I will give answer in a few days," he replied, with courtesy. "You are a Frenchman," continued the British Captain. "You are not in the service of the United States, nor likely to be. Come--man--give us a reply at once." Captain Lafitte was obdurate, for--strange as it may seem--he wished to inform the officers of the State Government of this project of the English. So he withdrew to his own hut. As he did this, the pirates seized the British officers, dragged them to a cabin, and thrust them inside. A guard was stationed at the door, while cries went up from every quarter: "To New Orleans with the scoundrels! A yard-arm for the butchers! A rope's end for the scurvy tars!" Lafitte was furious when he learned of this, and, after haranguing the crowd, had the Britishers released. "If you treat men under a flag of truce as prisoners," he cried, "you break one of the first rules of warfare. You will get the same treatment if you, yourselves, are captured, and you will lose the opportunity of discovering what are the projects of the British upon Louisiana." His men saw the good sense of these words of advice, and acted accordingly. Early the next morning the officers were escorted to their pinnace with many apologies from Lafitte, who now wrote a letter to Captain Lockyer, which shows him to have been a man of considerable cultivation, and not a mere "rough and tumble" pirate--without education or refinement. He said: "BARRATARIA, 4th Sept., 1814. "TO CAPTAIN LOCKYER, "SIR:--The confusion which prevailed in our camp yesterday and this morning, and of which you have a complete knowledge, has prevented me from answering in a precise manner to the object of your mission; nor even at this moment can I give you all the satisfaction that you desire. However, if you could grant me a fortnight, I would be entirely at your disposal at the end of that time. "This delay is indispensable to enable me to put my affairs in order. You may communicate with me by sending a boat to the Eastern point of the pass, where I will be found. You have inspired me with more confidence than the Admiral--your superior officer--could have done, himself. With you alone I wish to deal, and from you, also, I will claim in due time, the reward of the services which I may render you. "Your very respectful servant, "J. LAFITTE." His object in writing this letter--you see--was, by appearing to accede to the proposals, to give time to communicate the affair to the officers of the State Government of Louisiana and to receive from them instructions how to act, under circumstances so critical and important to his own country: that is, the country of his adoption. He, therefore, addressed the following epistle to the Governor of Louisiana. Do you think that you, yourself, could write as well as did this pirate? "BARRATARIA, Sept. 4th, 1814. "TO GOVERNOR CLAIBORNE: "SIR:--In the firm persuasion that the choice made of you to fill the office of first magistrate of this State, was dictated by the esteem of your fellow citizens, and was conferred on merit, I confidently address you on an affair on which may depend the safety of this country. "I offer to you to restore to this State several citizens, who perhaps, in your eyes, have lost that sacred title. I offer you them, however, such as you could wish to find them, ready to exert their utmost efforts in the defence of the country. "This point of Louisiana, which I occupy, is of great importance in the present crisis. I tender my services to defend it; and the only reward I ask is that a stop be put to the proscription against me and my adherents, by an act of oblivion, for all that has been done heretofore. "I am the stray sheep wishing to return to the fold. "If you are thoroughly acquainted with the nature of my offences, I should appear to you much less guilty, and still worthy to discharge the duties of a good citizen. I have never sailed under any flag but the republic of Carthagena, and my vessels were perfectly regular in that respect. "If I could have brought my lawful prizes into the ports of this State, I should not have employed illicit means that have caused me to be proscribed (hounded by the State authorities). "I decline to say more upon this subject until I have your Excellency's answer, which I am persuaded can be dictated only by wisdom. Should your answer not be favorable to my ardent desire, I declare to you that I will instantly leave the country, to avoid the imputation of having coöperated towards an invasion on this point, which cannot fail to take place, and to rest secure in the acquittal of my conscience. "I have the honor to be, "Your Excellency's Most Humble Servant, "J. LAFITTE." Now how is that for a swashbuckling privateer? Anyone would be proud of such a letter and it does honor to the judgment of this sand-spit king, giving clear evidence of a strange but sincere attachment to the American cause. Hurrah for the Frenchman! This missive, in fact, made such an impression upon the Governor that he had an interview with Lafitte, who was ushered into his presence only to find General Andrew Jackson (Old Hickory) closeted with the chief executive. "My dear sir," said the effusive Governor. "Your praiseworthy wishes shall be laid before the council of the State, and I will confer with my august friend, here present, upon this important affair, and send you an answer." Bowing low, the courteous privateersman withdrew. "Farewell," cried Old Hickory after his retreating form. "When we meet again I trust that it will be in the ranks of the American Army." And in two days' time appeared the following proclamation: "The Governor of Louisiana, informed that many individuals implicated in the offences hitherto committed against the United States at Barrataria, express a willingness at the present crisis to enroll themselves and march against the enemy. "He does hereby invite them to join the standard of the United States, and is authorized to say, should their conduct in the field meet the approbation of the Major General, that that officer will unite with the Governor in a request to the President of the United States, to extend to each and every individual, so marching and acting, a free and full pardon." When Lafitte saw these words, he fairly yelled with delight, and it is said that he jumped into the air, cracking his heels three times together before he struck the ground. The orders were circulated among his followers and most of them readily embraced the pardon which they held out. Thus--in a few days--many brave men and skillful artillerists flocked to the red-white-and-blue standard of the United States. And when--a few months afterwards--Old Hickory and his men were crouched behind a line of cotton bales, awaiting the attack of a British army (heroes, in fact, of Sargossa), there, upon the left flank, was the sand-spit King and his evil crew. Lafitte's eyes were sparkling like an electric bulb, and the language of his followers does not bear repetition. It was the morning of January eighth. The British were about to attack the American Army defending New Orleans, which--under the leadership of stout Andrew Jackson--now crouched behind the earthworks and cotton bales, some miles from the city. Rockets shot into the air with a sizzling snap. The roar of cannon shook the thin palmettos, and wild British cheers came from the lusty throats of the British veterans of Spain, as they advanced to the assault in close order--sixty men in front--with fascines and ladders for scaling the defences. Now a veritable storm of rockets hissed and sizzed into the American lines, while a light battery of artillery pom-pomed and growled upon the left flank. All was silence in the dun-colored embankments. But look! Suddenly a sheet of flame burst from the earthworks where lay the buck-skin-clad rangers from Tennessee and Kentucky: men who had fought Indians; had cleared the forest for their rude log huts, and were able to hit the eye of a squirrel at one hundred yards. _Crash! Crash! Crash!_ A flame of fire burst through the pall of sulphurous smoke, a storm of leaden missiles swept into the red coats of the advancing British, and down they fell in windrows, like wheat before the reaper. _Boom! Boom! Boom!_ The cannon growled and spat from the cotton bales, and one of these--a twenty-four pounder--placed upon the third embrasure from the river, from the fatal skill and activity with which it was managed (even in the best of battle),--drew the admiration of both Americans and British. It became one of the points most dreaded by the advancing foe. _Boom! Boom!_ It grumbled and roared its thunder, while Lafitte and his corsairs of Barrataria rammed home the iron charges, and--stripped to the waist--fought like wolves at bay. Two other batteries were manned by the Barratarians, who served their pieces with the steadiness and precision of veteran gunners. The enemy crept closer, ever closer, and a column pushed forward between the levee and the river so precipitously that the outposts were forced to retire, closely pressed by the coats of red. On, on, they came, and, clearing the ditch before the earthworks, gained the redoubt through the embrasures, leaped over the parapet and quickly bayonetted the small force of backwoodsmen who held this point. "To the rescue, men," cried Lafitte, at this juncture. "Out and at 'em!" Cutlass in hand, the privateer called a few of his best followers to his side; men who had often boarded the decks of an East Indiaman and were well used to hand-to-hand engagements. With a wild cheer they leaped over the breastworks and rushed upon the enemy. The British were absolutely astonished at the intrepidity of this advance. Pistols spat, cutlasses swung, and one after another, the English officers fell before the snapping blade of the King of Barrataria, as they bravely cheered on their men. The practiced boarders struck the red-coated columns with the same fierceness with which they had often bounded upon the deck of an enemy, and cheer after cheer welled above the rattle of arms as the advancing guardsmen were beaten back. All the energies of the British were concentrated upon scaling the breastworks, which one daring officer had already mounted. But Lafitte and his followers, seconding a gallant band of volunteer riflemen, formed a phalanx which it was impossible to penetrate. They fought desperately. It was now late in the day. The field was strewn with the dead and dying. Still spat the unerring rifles of the pioneers and still crashed the unswerving volleys from their practiced rifles. "We cannot take the works," cried the British. "We must give up." And--turning about--they beat a sad and solemn retreat to their vessels. The great battle of New Orleans was over, and Lafitte had done a Trojan's share. In a few days peace was declared between the United States and Great Britain, and General Jackson--in his correspondence with the Secretary of War--did not fail to speak in the most flattering terms of the conduct of the "Corsairs of Barrataria." They had fought like tigers, and they had been sadly misjudged by the English, who wished to enlist them in their own cause. Their zeal, their courage, and their skill, were noticed by the whole American Army, who could no longer stigmatize such desperate fighters as "criminals." Many had been sabred and wounded in defence of New Orleans, and many had given up their lives before the sluggish bayous of the Mississippi. And now, Mr. Lafitte, it is high time that you led a decent life, for are you not a hero? But "murder will out," and once a privateer always a privateer, and sometimes a pirate. Securing some fast sailing vessels, the King of Barrataria sailed to Galveston Bay, in 1819, where he received a commission from General Long as a "privateer." Not content with living an honest and peaceful life, he proceeded to do a little smuggling and illicit trading upon his own account, so it was not long before a United States cruiser was at anchor off the port to watch his movements. He was now Governor of Galveston, and considered himself to be a personage of great moment. Five vessels were generally cruising under his orders, while three hundred men obeyed his word. Texas was then a Republic. "Sir"--wrote Lafitte to the Commander of the American cruiser off the port of Galveston--"I am convinced that you are a cruiser of the navy, ordered here by your Government. I have, therefore, deemed it proper to inquire into the cause of your lying before this port without communicating your intention. I wish to inform you that the port of Galveston belongs to and is in the possession of the Republic of Texas, and was made a port of entry the 9th day of October, last. And, whereas the Supreme Congress of the said Republic have thought proper to appoint me as Governor of this place, in consequence of which, if you have any demands on said Government, you will please to send an officer with such demands, who will be treated with the greatest politeness. But, if you are ordered, or should attempt, to enter this port in a hostile manner, my oath and duty to the Government compel me to rebut your intentions at the expense of my life. "Yours very respectfully, "J. LAFITTE." But to this the American officer paid no attention. Instead, he attacked a band of Lafitte's followers, who had stationed themselves on an island near Barrataria with several cannon, swearing that they would perish rather than surrender to any man. As they had committed piracy, they were open to assault. Twenty were taken, tried at New Orleans, and hung,--the rest escaped into the cypress swamps, where it was impossible to arrest them. When Lafitte heard of this, he said with much feeling: "A war of extermination is to be waged against me. I, who have fought and bled for the United States. I who helped them to win the battle of New Orleans. My cruisers are to be swept from the sea. I must turn from Governor of Galveston, and privateer to pirate. Then--away--and let them catch me if they can." Now comes the last phase of his career. Too bad that he could not have died honestly! Procuring a large and fast-sailing brigantine, mounting sixteen guns, and having selected a crew of one hundred and sixty men, the desperate and dangerous Governor of Galveston set sail upon the sparkling waters of the Gulf, determined to rob all nations and neither to give quarter nor to receive it. But luck was against him. A British sloop-of-war was cruising in the Mexican Gulf, and, hearing that Lafitte, himself, was at sea, kept a sharp lookout at the mast-head for the sails of the pirate. One morning as an officer was sweeping the horizon with his glass he discovered a long, dark-looking vessel, low in the water: her sails as white as snow. "Sail off the port bow," cried he. "It's the Pirate, or else I'm a landlubber." As the sloop-of-war could out-sail the corsair, before the wind, she set her studding-sails and crowded every inch of canvas in chase. Lafitte soon ascertained the character of his pursuer, and, ordering the awnings to be furled, set his big square-sail and shot rapidly through the water. But the breeze freshened and the sloop-of-war rapidly overhauled the scudding brigantine. In an hour's time she was within hailing distance and Lafitte was in a fight for his very life. _Crash!_ A cannon belched from the stern of the pirate and a ball came dangerously near the bowsprit of the Englishman. _Crash! Crash!_ Other guns roared out their challenge and the iron fairly hailed upon the decks of the sloop-of-war; killing and wounding many of the crew. But--silently and surely--she kept on until within twenty yards of the racing outlaw. Now was a deafening roar. A broadside howled above the dancing spray--it rumbled from the port-holes of the Englishman--cutting the foremast of the pirate in two; severing the jaws of the main-gaff; and sending great clods of rigging to the deck. Ten followers of Lafitte fell prostrate, but the great Frenchman was uninjured. A crash, a rattle, a rush, and the Englishman ran afoul of the foe--while--with a wild cheer, her sailors clambered across the starboard rails; cutlasses in the right hand, pistols in the left, dirks between their teeth. "Never give in, men!" cried the King of Barrataria. "You are now with Lafitte, who, as you have learned, does not know how to surrender." But the Britishers were in far superior numbers. Backwards--ever backwards--they drove the desperate crew of the pirate ship. Two pistol balls struck Lafitte in the side which knocked him to the planking; a grape-shot broke the bone of his right leg; he was desperate, dying, and fighting like a tiger. He groaned in the agony of despair. The deck was slippery with blood as the Captain of the boarders rushed upon the prostrate corsair to put him forever out of his way. While he aimed a blow a musket struck him in the temple, stretching him beside the bleeding Lafitte, who, raising himself upon one elbow, thrust a dagger at the throat of his assailant. But the tide of his existence was ebbing like a torrent; his brain was giddy; his aim faltered; the point of the weapon descended upon the right thigh of the bleeding Englishman. Again the reeking steel was upheld; again the weakened French sea-dog plunged a stroke at this half-fainting assailant. The dizziness of death spread over the sight of the Monarch of the Gulf of Mexico. Down came the dagger into the left thigh of the Captain; listlessly; helplessly; aimlessly; and Lafitte--the robber of St. Malo--fell lifeless upon the rocking deck. His spirit went out amidst the hoarse and hollow cheers of the victorious Jack-tars of the clinging sloop-of-war. "The palmetto leaves are whispering, while the gentle trade-winds blow, And the soothing, Southern zephyrs, are sighing soft and low, As a silvery moonlight glistens, and the droning fire-flies glow, Comes a voice from out the Cypress, 'Lights out! Lafitte! Heave ho!'" THE PIRATE'S LAMENT I've been ploughin' down in Devonshire, My folks would have me stay, Where the wheat grows on th' dune side, Where th' scamperin' rabbits play. But th' smells come from th' ocean, An' th' twitterin' swallows wheel, As th' little sails bob landwards, To th' scurryin' sea-gulls' squeal. _Oh, it's gold, gold, gold,_ _That's temptin' me from here._ _An' it's rum, rum, rum,_ _That makes me know no fear._ _When th' man-o-war is growlin',_ _As her for'ard swivels roar,_ _As th' decks are black with wounded,_ _An' are runnin' red with gore._ I've been goin' to church o' Sundays, An' th' Parson sure can talk, He's been pleadin' for my soul, Sir, In Paradise to walk. An' I kind o' have th' shivers, Come creepin' down my spine, When th' choir breaks into music, While th' organ beats th' time. _But it's gold, gold, gold,_ _That glitters in my eye,_ _An' it's rum, rum, rum,_ _That makes me cheat an' lie,_ _When th' slaver's in th' doldrums,_ _Th' fleet is closin' round,_ _An' th' Captain calls out, furious,_ _"Now, run th' hound aground!"_ No matter how I farm, Sir, No matter how I hoe, Th' breezes from th' blue, Sir, Just kind uv make me glow. When th' clipper ships are racin', An' their bellyin' sails go past, I just leave my team an' swear, Sir, I'll ship before th' mast. _For it's gold, gold, gold,_ _That makes me shiver, like,_ _An' it's rum, rum, rum,_ _That makes me cut an' strike,_ _When th' boarders creep across th' rail,_ _Their soljers all in line,_ _An' their pistols spittin' lead, Sir,_ _Like er bloomin' steam engine._ So I'll kiss my plough good-bye, Sir, I'll throw my scythe away, An' I'm goin' to th' dock, Sir, Where th' ships are side th' quay. Shake out th' skull an' cross-bones, Take out th' signs of Marque, An' let's cut loose an' forage, In a rakish ten-gun barque. THE MEN BEHIND THE GUNS A cheer and salute for the Admiral, and here's to the Captain bold, And never forget the Commodore's debt, when the deeds of might are told! They stand to the deck through the battle's wreck, when the great shells roar and screech-- And never they fear; when the foe is near, to practice what they preach: But, off with your hat, and three times three, for the war-ship's true-blue sons, The men who batter the foe--my Boys--the men behind the guns. Oh, light and merry of heart are they, when they swing into port, once more, When, with more than enough of the "green-backed stuff," they start for their leave-o'-shore; And you'd think, perhaps, that these blue-bloused chaps who loll along the street, Are a tender bit, with salt on it, for some fierce chap to eat-- Some warrior bold, with straps of gold, who dazzles and fairly stuns The modest worth of the sailor boys,--the lads who serve the guns. But, say not a word, till the shot is heard, that tells of the peace-blood's ebb, Till the long, low roar grows more and more, from the ships of the "Yank" and "Reb." Till over the deep the tempests sweep, of fire and bursting shell, And the very air is a mad Despair, in the throes of a living Hell: Then, down, deep down, in the mighty ship, unseen by the mid-day suns, You'll find the chaps who are giving the raps--the men behind the guns. --ROONEY (_Adapted_). RAPHAEL SEMMES DESPOILER OF AMERICAN COMMERCE (1809-1877) "Sit apart, write; let them hear or let them forbear; the written word abides, until, slowly and unexpectedly, and in widely sundered places, it has created its own church."--RALPH WALDO EMERSON. RAPHAEL SEMMES DESPOILER OF AMERICAN COMMERCE (1809-1877) "We started from Ole England fer to cripple up our foes, We started from Ole England fer to strike some rapid blows, So we coasted to the Azores where we ran a packet down, And then to the Bermudas, where we burned the _Royal Crown_, Then we scampered to Bahia, fer to sink the gay _Tycoon_, And to scuttle the _Justina_, before the Harvest Moon. We hit across the ocean to race by Cape Good Hope And in Madagascar channel towed _Johanna_ with a rope. Away off at Sumatra, we had lots an' lots uv fun, When we winged the _Pulo Condor_; but say,--we had a run, An' a pretty bit uv fightin', when we took the _Emma Jane_ Off th' heated coast uv India, near th' bendin' sugar cane. Yes, we did some privateerin', as wuz privateerin', sure, An' we scuttled many a schooner, it wuz risky business pure. But--stranger--we'd be laughin', jest filled with persiflage, If we hadn't had a seance with that bloomin' _Kearsarge_." --_Song of the Chief Mate of the Alabama._--1864. It was off the east coast of South America. The year was 1864, and a little schooner--the _Justina_--bobbed along, with the flag of the United States Government flying jauntily from her gaff. Suddenly there was a movement on deck. Men rushed hither and thither with some show of excitement. Glasses were brought out and raised,--smothered cries of excitement were mingled with orders to trim sails. All eyes looked with suspicion and dismay at a long, graceful vessel which was seen approaching from the northward. "The _Alabama_!" cried one. "Yes, the cursed _Alabama_!" answered another. "We are lost!" On, on came the pursuing vessel; a cloud of black smoke rolling from her smoke-stack; her white sails bellying in the fresh breeze; for she was rigged like a barquentine, with a lean body, single smoke-stack, and a polished rifle-gun winking in the sun-rays upon her bow. On, on, she came, and then--_puff! boom!_--a single shot came dancing in front of the slow-moving schooner. "Pull down the colors!" shouted the Captain of the _Justina_. "We're done for!" Down came the ensign of the United States, and the little schooner was luffed so that she stood still. The _Alabama_ ranged up alongside, a boat soon brought a crew of boarders, and, before many moments, she was in the hands of Captain Raphael Semmes and his men. That evening the _Alabama_ steamed southward, the crew of the _Justina_ was on board, her rich cargo filled the hold, and a black curl of smoke and hissing flames marked where the proud, little merchantman had once bobbed upon the rolling water. Raphael Semmes was happy, for his work of destroying the commerce of the United States Navy had progressed far better than he had hoped. [Illustration: RAPHAEL SEMMES.] "Men!" cried he, "The cause of the Confederate States of America was never brighter upon the ocean than now. Give three times three for Jeff. Davis--his soldiers and his sailors!" A rousing cheer rose above the waves, and the proud privateer bounded onward upon her career of destruction and death. The _Alabama_ was in the zenith of her power. * * * * * The scene now shifts to the harbor of Cherbourg, upon the western coast of France. The _Alabama_ lay there,--safely swinging at her anchor-chains within the break-water. She had come in to refit, for her bottom was much befouled by a long cruise, which had been successful. Built at Birkenhead, England, for the Confederate States Government, she set sail in August, 1862; and had been down the coast of North and South America; around the Cape of Good Hope to India, and back to the shores of France. Sixty-six vessels had fallen into her clutches, and of these fifty-two had been burned; ten had been released on bond; one had been sold, and one set free. Truly she had had a marvellous trip. As she slumbered on--like a huge sea-turtle--a black cloud of smoke appeared above the break-water, and a low-bodied United States cruiser slowly steamed into the harbor. She nosed about, as if looking for safe anchorage, and kept upon the opposite side of the little bay. Immediately all hands clambered to the side of the Confederate cruiser, and glasses were levelled at this vessel which carried the flag of opposition. "She's stronger than we are," said one of the crew. Another grinned. "Look at her eleven-pounders," said he. "I see her name, now. She's the _Kearsarge_, and about our tonnage, but I reckon that she carries more men." Captain Semmes, himself, had come up from below, and was examining the intruder with his glass. "Boys!" said he, "we've got to fight that ship." And, as he withdrew into the cabin, all seemed to be well pleased with this announcement. The _Kearsarge_, commanded by Captain John A. Winslow, had been lying at anchor in the Scheldt, off Flushing, Holland, when a gun roared from the forward part of the ship, warning those officers who had gone ashore, to come on board. Steam was raised, and, as soon as all were collected on deck, the Captain read a telegram from Mr. Dayton, the Minister to France from the United States. It said: "The _Alabama_ has arrived at Cherbourg. Come at once or she will escape you!" "I believe that we'll have an opportunity to fight her," said Captain Winslow. "So be prepared." At this, all of his sailors cheered wildly. The _Kearsarge_ was a staunch craft; she was two hundred and thirty-two feet over all, with thirty-three feet of beam, and carried seven guns; two eleven inch pivots, smooth bore; one thirty-pound rifle, and four light thirty-two pounders. Her crew numbered one hundred and sixty-three men. The sleeping _Alabama_ had but one hundred and forty-nine souls on board, and eight guns: one sixty-eight pounder pivot rifle, smooth bore; one one hundred-pounder pivot, and six heavy thirty-two pounders. So, you see, that the two antagonists were evenly matched, with the superior advantage of the numbers of men on the _Kearsarge_ offset by the extra guns of her opponent. Most of the officers upon the _Kearsarge_ were from the merchant service, and, of the crew, only eleven were of foreign birth. Most of the officers upon the _Alabama_ had served in the navy of the United States; while nearly all of her crew were either English, Irish, or Welsh. A few of the gunners had been trained aboard the _Excellent_: a British training ship in Portsmouth Harbor. Her Captain--Raphael Semmes--was once an officer in the navy of the United States. He had served in the Mexican War, but had joined the Southern cause, as he was a Marylander. He was an able navigator and seaman. The _Kearsarge_ cruised about the port of Cherbourg, poked her bows nearly into the break-water, and then withdrew. The French neutrality law would only allow a foreign vessel to remain in a harbor for twenty-four hours. "Will she come out?" was the question now upon every lip aboard the _Kearsarge_. "Will she come out and fight? Oh, just for one crack at this destroyer of our commerce!" But she did not come out, and the _Kearsarge_ beat around the English Channel in anxious suspense. Several days later Captain Winslow went ashore and paid a visit to the United States Commercial Agent. "That beastly pirate will not fight," he thought. "All she wants to do is to run away." Imagine how his eyes shone when he was handed the following epistle! "C.S.S. _Alabama_, CHERBOURG, June 14th, 1864. "To A. BONFILS, Esqr., Cherbourg; "SIR:--I hear that you were informed by the United States Consul that the _Kearsarge_ was to come to this port solely for the prisoners landed by me, and that she was to depart in twenty-four hours. I desire you to say to the U. S. Consul that my intention is to fight the _Kearsarge_ as soon as I can make the necessary arrangements. I hope these will not detain me more than until to-morrow evening, or after the morrow morning at furthest. I beg she will not depart before I am ready to go out. "I have the honor to be, very respectfully, "Your obedient servant, "R. SEMMES, Captain." "Ha! Ha!" chuckled Winslow. "We're in for it, now. Hurray!" and he hastened back to his ship to spread the glad tidings. "My boys!" said he to his crew. "It is probable that the two ships will engage on parallel lines, and, if defeated, the _Alabama_ will seek for neutral waters. It is necessary, therefore, that we begin this action several miles from the break-water. The _Alabama_ must believe that she can win, or she would not fight us, for, if we sink her, she cannot be replaced by the Confederate Government. As for ourselves, let us never give up, and--if we sink--let us go down with the flag flying!" "Hear! Hear!" cried all. "We're with you, Captain. Never give up the ship!" "Clean decks, boys!" continued brave Winslow. "Get everything ship-shape for the coming affair, for we're in for as tight a little fight as e'er you entered upon." Preparations were immediately made for battle, but no _Alabama_ appeared. Thursday passed; Friday came; the _Kearsarge_ waited in the channel with ports down; guns pivoted to starboard; the whole battery loaded; and shell, grape, and canister ready to use in any method of attack or defence,--but no _Alabama_ appeared. A French pilot-boat drifted near, and the black-eyed skipper cried out, "You fellers look out for ze _Alabama_. She take in much coal. Whew! She take much of ze captured stuff ashore. Whew! She scrub ze deck. Whew! She put ze sailors to ze business of sharpening ze cutlass and ze dirk. Whew! You look out for ze great privateer! Whew!" Captain Winslow only smiled. "Zey have ze big feast," continued the Frenchman. "Zey dr-e-e-nk ze wine. Zey stan' on ze chairs and zey say, 'We will seenk ze Yankee dog.' Ta donc! Zey call you ze dog!" And still Captain Winslow smiled. But, next day, his smile turned to a frown. It was Sunday, the nineteenth day of June. The weather was beautiful; the atmosphere was somewhat hazy; the wind was light; and there was little sea. At ten o'clock the _Kearsarge_ was drifting near a buoy about three miles eastward from the entrance of Cherbourg break-water. Her decks had been newly holy-stoned; the brass work had been cleaned; the guns polished, and the crew had on their Sunday clothes. They had been inspected, and dismissed--in order to attend divine service. At 1.20 a cry rang out: "She comes!" The bell was tolling for prayers. "The _Alabama_! The _Alabama_! She's moving, and heading straight for us!" All rushed to the deck; the drum beat to quarters. Captain Winslow laid aside his prayer-book, seized his trumpet, ordered the boat about, and headed seaward. The ship was cleared for action and the battery was pivoted to starboard. Yes, she was coming! From the western entrance of the safe, little French seaport steamed the long-bodied, low-hulled privateer: her rakish masts bending beneath the spread of canvas: her tall funnel belching sepia smoke. A French iron-clad frigate--the _Couronne_--accompanied her, flying the pennant of the Commander-of-the-Port. In her wake plodded a tiny fore-and-aft-rigged steamer-yacht: the _Deerhound_, showing the flag of the Royal Mersey (British) Yacht Club. The frigate--having convoyed the Confederate privateer to the limit of the French waters (three marine miles from the coast)--put down her helm and ploughed back into port. The steam yacht continued on, and remained near the scene of action. As the _Alabama_ had started upon her dash into the open, Captain Semmes had mounted a gun-carriage, and had cried, "Officers and Seamen of the _Alabama_: "You have at length another opportunity of meeting the enemy--the first that has been presented to you since you sank the _Hatteras_! In the meantime you have been all over the world, and it is not too much to say that you have destroyed, and driven for protection under neutral flags, one-half of the enemy's commerce, which, at the beginning of the war, covered every sea. This is an achievement of which you may well be proud, and a grateful country will not be unmindful of it. The name of your ship has become a household word wherever civilization extends! Shall that name be tarnished by defeat? The thing is impossible! Remember that you are in the English Channel, the theatre of so much of the naval glory of our race, and that the eyes of all Europe are, at this moment, upon you. The flag that floats over you is that of a young Republic, which bids defiance to her enemies whenever and wherever found! Show the world that you know how to uphold it! Go to your quarters!" A wild yell had greeted these stirring expressions. The shore was black with people, for the word had been passed around that the two sea-warriors were to grapple in deadly embrace. Even a special train had come from Paris to bring the sober townsfolk to Cherbourg, where they could view the contest. They were chattering among themselves, like a flock of magpies. "Voilà!" said a fair damsel, whose eyes were fairly shining with excitement. "Oh, I hope zat ze beeg gray fellow weel win." She meant the _Alabama_, for the Confederates dressed in that sober color. "Zis ees ze naval Waterloo!" whispered a veteran of the Crimean War. It was 10.50 o'clock. The _Kearsarge_ had been steaming out to sea, but now she wheeled. She was seven miles from shore and one and one-quarter miles from her opponent. She steered directly for her, as if to ram her and crush through her side. The _Alabama_ sheered off and presented her starboard battery. The _Kearsarge_ came on, rapidly, and--at 10.57 was about eighteen hundred yards from her enemy--then--_Crash! Roar!_ A broadside thundered from the Confederate privateer, while the solid shot screamed through the rigging of the Yankee man-of-war. On! On! came Captain Winslow's gallant craft, while a second and a third broadside crashed into her. The rigging tore and swayed, but she was little injured. She was now within nine hundred yards. "Sheer! Sheer!" cried the Union Commander. The _Kearsarge_ spun off and broke her long silence with the starboard battery. _Crash! Roar!_ the shells pounded around the great privateer, and, with a full head of steam, the corsair of the Southern Confederacy swept onward. _Crash! Roar!_ she answered with shell, and the bursting iron shivered the foremast of her doughty opponent. Captain Winslow was fearful that the enemy would make for the shore, so he spun over his helm to port in the endeavor to run under the _Alabama_'s stern and rake her. But she sheered off, kept her broadside to him, and pounded away like a pugilist. The ships were a quarter of a mile (440 yards) away from each other. They were circling around in a wide arc, plugging away as fast as they could load. The spectators cheered, for it was as good a show as they had ever witnessed. "Eet ees fine!" said the veteran of the Crimea. "Eet remin' me of ze battaile at Balaklava!" Suddenly a wild cheer rose from the deck of the United States cruiser. A shot had struck the spanker-gaff on the enemy and her ensign had come down on the run. "Hurray!" shouted the seamen. "That means we'll win, sure!" The fallen ensign re-appeared at the mizzen, while firing from the _Alabama_ became rapid and wild. The gunners of the _Kearsarge_ had been cautioned against shooting without direct aim, and had been told to point their heavy guns below, rather than above the water-line. Captain Winslow was busy with his orders. "Clear the enemy's deck with the light guns!" he shouted. "Sink the Confederate with the heavy iron!" Cheer succeeded cheer from his sailors. Caps were thrown into the air, or overboard. Jackets were tossed aside. Now, certain of victory, the men were shouting wildly, as each projectile took effect. "That's a good one!" "Down, boys, down!" "Give her another like the last!" "Now--we have her!" The vessels continued to swing around each other in wide circles, and--at this moment--a sixty-eight pound Blakely shell passed through the starboard bulwarks of the _Kearsarge_ below the main rigging, exploded on the quarter-deck, and wounded three of the crew of the after pivot-gun. The three unfortunate men were speedily taken below, but the act was done so quietly, that--at the termination of the fight--a large number of the crew were unaware that any of their comrades were injured. Two shots now crashed through the port-holes occupied by the thirty-two pounders; one exploded in the hammock-netting; the other shrieked through the opposite port; yet no one was hurt. Fire blazed from the deck; the alarm calling for fire-quarters was sounded, and the men who had been detailed for this emergency put it out. The rest stayed at the guns. [Illustration: "THE MEN WERE SHOUTING WILDLY, AS EACH PROJECTILE TOOK EFFECT."] The eleven-inch shells were doing terrible execution upon the quarter-deck of the _Alabama_. Three of them crashed into the eight-inch pivot-gun port; the first swept off the forward part of the gun's crew; the second killed one man and wounded several others; the third struck the breast of the gun-carriage and spun around on the deck until one of the men picked it up and threw it overboard. The ship was careening heavily to starboard, while the decks were covered with the dead and dying. A shell plunged into the coal bunker and a dense cloud of coal dust arose. Crippled and torn, the hulking privateer began to settle by the stern. Her guns still spat and growled, and her broadsides were going wild. She was fast weakening. "Any one who silences that after pivot-gun will get one hundred dollars!" cried Captain Semmes, as he saw the fearful accuracy of its fire. _Crash!_ a whole broadside from the privateer spat at this particular piece. It was in vain. Around and around circled the belching _Kearsarge_. Seven times she had swooped about the weakening gladiator of the sea, and her fire was more and more accurate. She was like a great eagle closing in for a deaththrust. Captain Semmes was in a desperate situation. "Hoist the fore-trysail and jibs!" he called out above the din of cannon. "Head for the French coast!" As the sailors scrambled to obey, the _Alabama_ presented her port battery to the _Kearsarge_. She showed gaping sides and only two guns were bearing. At this moment the chief engineer came up on the deck of the privateer. "The fires are all out and the engines will not work!" he reported to Captain Semmes. The doughty seaman turned to his chief executive officer, Mr. Kell. "Go below, sir," he shouted, "and see how long the ship can float!" In a few moments the sailor had returned from his inspection. "Captain!" cried he, saluting. "She will not stay on the sea for ten minutes." The face of the Confederate was ashen, as he answered, "Then, sir, cease firing, shorten sail, and haul down the colors. It will never do in this Nineteenth Century for us to go down with the decks covered with our gallant wounded!" As he ceased speaking, a broadside roared from the side of his sinking vessel. The ensign of the _Kearsarge_ had been stopped (rolled up and tied with a piece of twine) and, as a shell crashed through her rigging, a piece hit the flag-halyards--parted them--and unstopped the flag. It unfurled itself gallantly in the breeze, and, as its beautiful striping waved aloft, the sailors upon the deck gave a loud cheer, for this was the omen of Victory. At this moment, two of the junior officers upon the _Alabama_ swore that they would never surrender, and, in a spirit of mutiny, rushed to the two port guns and opened fire upon the Union vessel. "He is playing us a trick!" shouted Winslow. "Give him another broadside!" Again the shot and shell went crashing through the sides of the Confederate cruiser. The _Kearsarge_ was laid across her bows for raking, and, in a position to use grape and canister. A white flag was then shown over the stern of the _Alabama_ and her ensign was half-masted; Union down. "Cease firing!" shouted Captain Winslow. The great fight was over. It had lasted one hour and two minutes. _Chugety, plug, splash!_ The boats were lowered from the _Alabama_, and her Master's mate rowed to the _Kearsarge_, with a few of his wounded. "We are sinking," said he. "You must come and help us!" "Does Captain Semmes surrender his ship?" asked Winslow. "Yes!" "All right. Then I'll help you!" Fullam grinned. "May I return with this boat and crew in order to rescue the drowning?" he asked. "I pledge you my word of honor that I will then come on board and surrender." Captain Winslow granted his request. With less generosity, the victorious Commander could have detained the officers and men, supplied their places with his own sailors, and offered equal aid to the distressed. His generosity was abused. Fullam pulled to the midst of the drowning; rescued several officers; went to the yacht _Deerhound_, and cast his boat adrift; leaving a number of men struggling in the water. The _Alabama_ was settling fast. "All hands overboard!" cried Mr. Kell. "Let every man grab a life-preserver, or a spar." As the sailors plunged into the sea, Captain Semmes dropped his sword into the waves and leaped outward, with a life-preserver around his waist. Kell followed, while the _Alabama_ launched her bows high in the air, and--graceful, even in her death throes--plunged stern-foremost into the deep. A sucking eddy of foam, spars, and wreckage marked where once had floated the gallant ship. Thus sank the terror of the merchantmen--riddled through and through--and no cheer arose as her battered hulk went down in forty-five fathoms of water. Her star had set. The _Deerhound_ had kept about a mile to windward of the two contestants, but she now steamed towards the mass of living heads, which dotted the surface of the sea. Her two boats were lowered, and Captain Semmes was picked up and taken aboard, with forty others. She then edged to the leeward and steamed rapidly away. An officer quickly approached Captain Winslow. "Better fire a shot at the yacht," he said, saluting. "She's got Captain Semmes aboard and will run off with him." Winslow smiled. "It's impossible," said he. "She's simply coming around!" But the _Deerhound_ kept on. Another officer approached the commander of the _Kearsarge_. "That beastly yacht is carrying off our men," said he. "Better bring her to, Captain!" "No Englishman who carries the flag of the Royal Yacht Squadron can so act!" Winslow replied,--somewhat pettishly. "She's simply coming around." But she never "came around," and Captain Raphael Semmes was soon safe upon British soil. He had fought a game fight. The superior gunnery of the sailors of the _Kearsarge_ had been too much for him. Nine of his crew were dead and twenty-one wounded, while the _Kearsarge_ had no one killed and but three wounded; one of whom died shortly afterwards. Thus,--the lesson is: If you want to win: Learn how to shoot straight! * * * * * Captain Raphael Semmes died quietly at Mobile, Alabama, August 30th, 1877. His ill-fated _Alabama_ had inflicted a loss of over seven million dollars upon the commerce of the United States. A number of wise men met, many years afterwards, in Geneva, Switzerland, and decided, that, as the British Government had allowed this vessel to leave their shores, when warned by the American minister of her character and intention to go privateering, it should therefore pay for all the vessels which the graceful cruiser had destroyed. England had broken the neutrality laws. John Bull paid up. But, --Boys-- it hurt! EL CAPITAN "There was a Captain-General who ruled in Vera Cruz, And what we used to hear of him was always evil news: He was a pirate on the sea--a robber on the shore, The Señor Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador. "There was a Yankee skipper who round about did roam; His name was Stephen Folger,--Nantucket was his home: And having sailed to Vera Cruz, he had been _skinned_ full sore By the Señor Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador. "But having got away alive, though all his cash was gone, He said, 'If there is vengeance, I will surely try it on! And I do wish that I may be hung,--if I don't clear the score With Señor Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador.' "He shipped a crew of seventy men--well-arméd men were they, And sixty of them in the hold he darkly stowed away; And, sailing back to Vera Cruz, was sighted from the shore By the Señor Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador. "With twenty-five soldados, he came on board, so pleased, And said '_Maldito_, Yankee,--again your ship is seized. How many sailors have you got?' Said Folger, 'Ten--no more,' To the Captain Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador. "'But come into my cabin and take a glass of wine, I do suppose, as usual, I'll have to pay a fine: I've got some old Madeira, and we'll talk the matter o'er-- My Captain Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador.' "And, as over the Madeira the Captain-General boozed, It seemed to him as if his head were getting quite confused; For, it happened that some morphine had travelled from 'the Store' To the glass of Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador. "'What is it makes the vessel roll? What sounds are these I hear? It seems as if the rising waves were beating on my ear!' 'Oh, it is the breaking of the surf--just that, and nothing more, My Captain Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador!' "The Governor was in a sleep, which muddled up his brains; The seventy men had caught his 'gang' and put them all in chains; And, when he woke the following day, he could not see the shore, For he was away out on the sea--the Don San Salvador. "'Now do you see the yard-arm--and understand the thing?' Said rough, old Folger, viciously--'for this is where you'll swing, Or forty thousand dollars you shall pay me from your store, My Captain Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador!' "The Captain he took up a pen--the order he did sign-- 'O my, but Señor Yankee! You charge great guns for wine!' Yet it was not until the draft was paid, they let him go ashore, El Señor Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador. * * * * * "The greater sharp will some day find another sharper wit; It always makes the Devil laugh to see a biter bit; It takes two Spaniards, any day, to comb a Yankee o'er-- Even two like Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador." RETROSPECT The curtain falls, the plays are done, To roar of shell and shock of gun; The scuttled shipping bobs and sways, In grime and muck of shallow bays. The tattered ensigns mould'ring lie, As diving otters bark and cry; While--in the lee of crumbling piers, The rotting hulk its decking rears. Gray, screaming kestrels wheel and sheer, Above the wasted steering gear. In moulding kelp and mackerel's sheen, The blighted log-book hides unseen. Red flash the beams of northern blaze. Through beaded clouds of Elmo's haze; While dim, unkempt, the ghostly crew Float by, and chant the lesson true! Sons of the fog-bound Northland; sons of the blinding seas, If ye would cherish the trust which your fathers left, Ye must strive--ye must work--without ease. Strong have your good sires battled, oft have your fathers bled, If ye would hold up the flag which they've never let sag, Ye must plod--ye must creep where they've led. The shimmering icebergs call you; the plunging screw-drums scream, By shallowing shoals they haul you, to the beat of the walking beam. The twisting petrels chatter, as ye drift by the waiting fleet, In your towering grim, gray Dreadnought,--a king who sneers at defeat. While the silken pennons flutter; as the frozen halyards strain; Comes the growling old-world mutter, the voice of the million slain: _Keep to your manly war games; keep to your warrior's play._ _Though the dove of peace is dancing to the sounding truce harp's lay._ _Arbitrate if you have to; smooth it o'er if you must,_ _But, be prepared for battle, to parry the war king's thrust._ _Don't foster the chip on the shoulder; don't hasten the slap in the face._ _But, burnish your sword, ere you're older,--the blade of the ancient race._ _Hark to the deeds of your fathers; cherish the stories I've told,_ _Then--go and do like, if you have to--and die--like a Hero of Old._ Transcriber's Note Punctuation errors have been repaired. Hyphenation has been made consistent within the main text. There is some archaic and variable spelling, which has been preserved as printed. The following amendments have also been made: Page 3--repeated book title deleted. Page 77--omitted word 'to' added after row--"... jumped into two small wherries in order to row to the lugger." Page 156--pedlers amended to peddlers--"There are tinkers, tailors, haymakers, peddlers, fiddlers, ..." Page 178--Huzza amended to Huzzah--""... Huzzah for Fortunatus Wright!"" Page 226--envollé amended to envolé--""Sapristi! L'oiseau s'est envolé."" Page 248--manoever amended to manoeuver--"... had simply followed my manoeuver of wearing around under easy helm ..." Illustrations have been moved slightly where necessary so that they are not in the middle of a paragraph. The frontispiece and advertising matter have been moved to follow the title page. 
21576	----	The Privateersman, by Captain Marryat. ________________________________________________________________________ Captain Frederick Marryat was born July 10 1792, and died August 8 1848. He retired from the British navy in 1828 in order to devote himself to writing. In the following 20 years he wrote 26 books, many of which are among the very best of English literature, and some of which are still in print. Marryat had an extraordinary gift for the invention of episodes in his stories. He says somewhere that when he sat down for the day's work, he never knew what he was going to write. He certainly was a literary genius. "The Privateersman" was published in 1846, the twenty-third book to flow from Marryat's pen. Privateering is legalised piracy at sea. This e-text was transcribed in 1998 by Nick Hodson, and was reformatted in 2003. ________________________________________________________________________ THE PRIVATEERSMAN, BY CAPTAIN FREDERICK MARRYAT. CHAPTER ONE. WE CRUISE OFF HISPANIOLA--CAPTURE OF A FRENCH SHIP--CONTINUE OUR CRUISE--MAKE A NOCTURNAL ATTACK UPON A RICH PLANTER'S DWELLING--ARE REPULSED WITH LOSS. _To Mistress_ ---. _Respected Madam_, In compliance with your request I shall now transcribe from the journal of my younger days some portions of my adventurous life. When I wrote, I painted the feelings of my heart without reserve, and I shall not alter one word, as I know you wish to learn what my feelings were then, and not what my thoughts may be now. They say that in every man's life, however obscure his position may be, there would be a moral found, were it truly told. I think, Madam, when you have perused what I am about to write, you will agree with me, that from my history both old and young may gather profit, and I trust, if ever it should be made public, that, by Divine permission, such may be the result. Without further preface I shall commence with a narrative of my cruise off Hispaniola, in the Revenge privateer. The Revenge mounted fourteen guns, and was commanded by Captain Weatherall, a very noted privateer's-man. One morning at daybreak we discovered a vessel from the masthead, and immediately made all sail in chase, crowding every stitch of canvass. As we neared, we made her out to be a large ship, deeply laden, and we imagined that she would be an easy prize; but as we saw her hull more out of the water, she proved to be well armed, having a full tier of guns fore and aft. As it afterwards proved, she was a vessel of 600 tons burden, and mounted twenty-four guns, having sailed from Saint Domingo, and being bound to France. She had been chartered by a French gentleman (and a most gallant fellow we found him), who had acquired a large fortune in the West Indies, and was then going home, having embarked on board his whole property, as well as his wife and his only son, a youth of about seventeen. As soon as he discovered what we were, and the impossibility of escape from so fast a sailing vessel as the Revenge, he resolved to fight us to the last. Indeed he had everything to fight for; his whole property, his wife and his only child, his own liberty, and perhaps life, were all at stake, and he had every motive that could stimulate a man. As we subsequently learnt, he had great difficulty in inspiring the crew with an equal resolution, and it was not until he had engaged to pay them the value of half the cargo, provided they succeeded in beating us off and forcing their way in safety to France, that he could rouse them to their duty. Won by his example, for he told them that he did not desire any man to do more than he would do himself, and perhaps more induced by his generous offer, the French crew declared they would support him to the last, went cheerfully to their guns, and prepared for action. When we were pretty near to him, he shortened sail ready for the combat, having tenderly forced his wife down below to await in agony the issue of a battle on which depended everything so dear to her. The resolute bearing of the vessel, and the cool intrepidity with which they had hove-to to await us, made us also prepare on our side for a combat which we knew would be severe. Although she was superior to us in guns, yet, the Revenge being wholly fitted for war, we had many advantages, independent of our being very superior in men. Some few chase-guns were fired during our approach, when, having ranged up within a cable's length of her, we exchanged broadsides for half an hour, after which our captain determined upon boarding. We ran our vessel alongside, and attempted to throw our men on board, but met with a stout resistance. The French gentleman, who was at the head of his men, with his own hand killed two of our stoutest seamen, and mortally wounded a third, and, encouraged by his example, his people fought with such resolution that after a severe struggle we were obliged to retreat precipitately into our own vessel, leaving eight or ten of our shipmates weltering in their blood. Our captain, who had not boarded with us, was much enraged at our defeat, stigmatising us as cowards for allowing ourselves to be driven from a deck upon which we had obtained a footing; he called upon us to renew the combat, and leading the way he was the first on board of the vessel, and was engaged hand to hand with the brave French gentleman who had already made such slaughter among our men. Brave and expert with his weapon as Captain Weatherall undoubtedly was, he for once found rather more than a match in his antagonist; he was slightly wounded, and would, I suspect, have had the worst of this hand-to-hand conflict, had not the whole of our crew, who had now gained the deck, and were rushing forward, separated him from his opponent. Out-numbered and over-matched, the French crew fought most resolutely, but notwithstanding their exertions, and the gallant conduct of their leader, we succeeded in driving them back to the quarter-deck of the vessel. Here the combat was renewed with the greatest obstinacy, they striving to maintain this their last hold, and we exerting ourselves to complete our conquest. The Frenchmen could retreat no further, and our foremost men were impelled against them by those behind them crowding on to share in the combat. Retreat being cut off, the French struggled with all the animosity and rage of mingled hate and despair; while we, infuriated at the obstinate resistance, were filled with vengeance and a thirst for blood. Wedged into one mass, we grappled together, for there was no room for fair fighting, seeking each other's hearts with shortened weapons, struggling and falling together on the deck, rolling among the dead and the dying, or trodden underfoot by the others who still maintained the combat with unabated fury. Numbers at last prevailed; we had gained a dear-bought victory--we were masters of the deck, we had struck the colours, and were recovering our lost breaths after this very severe contest, and thought ourselves in full possession of the ship; but it proved otherwise. The first-lieutenant of the privateer and six of us had dashed down the companion, and were entering the cabin in search of plunder, when we found opposed to our entrance the gallant French gentleman, supported by his son, the captain of the vessel, and five of the French sailors; behind them was the French gentleman's wife, to whose protection they had devoted themselves. The lieutenant, who headed us, offered them quarter, but, stung to madness at the prospect of the ruin and of the captivity which awaited him, the gentleman treated the offer with contempt, and rushing forward attacked our lieutenant, beating down his guard, and was just about to pierce him with the lunge which he made, when I fired my pistol at him to save the life of my officer. The ball entered his heart, and thus died one of the bravest men I ever encountered. His son at the same time was felled to the deck with a pole-axe, when the remainder threw themselves down on the deck and cried for quarter. So enraged were our men at this renewal of the combat that it required all the efforts and authority of the lieutenant to prevent them from completing the massacre by taking the lives of those who no longer resisted. But who could paint the condition of that unhappy lady who had stood a witness of the horrid scene--her eyes blasted with the sight of her husband slain before her face, her only son groaning on the deck and weltering in his blood; and she left alone, bereft of all that was dear to her; stripped of the wealth she was that morning mistress of, now a widow, perhaps childless, a prisoner, a beggar, and in the hands of lawless ruffians, whose hands were reeking with her husband's and offspring's blood, at their mercy, and exposed to every evil which must befall a beautiful and unprotected female from those who were devoid of all principle, all pity, and all fear! Well might the frantic creature rush as she did upon our weapons, and seek that death which would have been a mercy and a blessing. With difficulty we prevented her from injuring herself, and, after a violent struggle, nature yielded, and she sank down in a swoon on the body of her husband, dabbling her clothes and hair in the gore which floated on the cabin-deck. This scene of misery shocked even the actors in it. Our sailors, accustomed as they were to blood and rapine, remained silent and immoveable, resting upon their weapons, their eyes fixed upon the unconscious form of that unhappy lady. The rage of battle was now over, our passions had subsided, and we felt ashamed of a conquest purchased with such unutterable anguish. The noise of this renewed combat had brought down the captain; he ordered the lady to be taken away from this scene of horror, and to be carefully tended in his own cabin; the wound of the son, who was found still alive, was immediately dressed, and the prisoners were secured. I returned on deck, still oppressed with the scene I had witnessed, and when I looked round me, and beheld the deck strewed with the dead and dying--victors and vanquished indiscriminately mixed up together--the blood of both nations meeting on the deck and joining their streams, I could not help putting the question to myself, "Can this be right and lawful--all this carnage to obtain the property of others, and made legal by the quarrels of kings?" Reason, religion, and humanity answered, "No." I remained uneasy and dissatisfied, and felt as if I were a murderer; and then I reflected how this property, thus wrested from its former possessor, who might, if he had retained it, have done much good with it, would now be squandered away in riot and dissipation, in purchasing crime and administering to debauchery. I was young then, and felt so disgusted and so angry with myself and everybody else, that if I had been in England I probably should never again have put my foot on board of a privateer. But employment prevented my thinking; the decks had to be cleaned, the bodies thrown overboard, the blood washed from the white planks, the wounded to be removed and their hurts dressed, the rigging and other damages to be repaired, and when all this had been done we made sail for Jamaica with our prize. Our captain, who was as kind and gentle to the vanquished as he was brave and resolute in action, endeavoured by all the means he could think of to soften the captivity and sufferings of the lady. Her clothes, jewels, and everything belonging to her, were preserved untouched; he would not even allow her trunks to be searched, and would have secured for her even all her husband's personal effects, but the crew had seized upon them as plunder, and refused to deliver them up. I am almost ashamed to say that the sword and watch of her husband fell to my lot, and, whether from my wearing the sword, or from having seen me fire the pistol which had killed him, the lady always expressed her abhorrence of me whenever I entered her presence. Her son recovered slowly from his wound, and on our arrival at Port Royal was permitted by the admiral to be sent to the King's Hospital, and the lady, who was most tenderly attached to him, went on shore and remained at the Hospital to attend upon him. I was glad when she was gone, for I knew how much cause she had for her hatred of me, and I could not see her without remorse. As soon, as we had completed our repairs, filled up our provisions and water, we sailed upon another cruise, which was not so successful, as you will presently perceive. For five or six weeks we cruised without success, and our people began to grumble, when one morning our boats in shore off Hispaniola surprised a small schooner. A negro who was among the prisoners offered to conduct us through the woods by night to the house of a very rich planter, which was situated about three miles from a small bay, and at some distance from the other plantations. He asserted that we might there get very valuable plunder, and, moreover, obtain a large ransom for the planter and his family, besides bringing away as many of the negro slaves as we pleased. Our captain, who was tired of his ill-success, and who hoped also to procure provisions, which we very much wanted, consented to the negro's proposal, and standing down abreast of the bay, which was in the Bight of Lugan, he ran in at dark, and anchoring close to the shore we landed with forty men, and, guided by the negro, we proceeded through the woods to the house. The negro was tied fast to one of our stoutest and best men, for fear he should give us the slip. It was a bright moonlight; we soon arrived, and surrounding the house forced our way in without opposition. Having secured the negroes in the out-houses, and placed guards over them, and videttes on the look-out to give timely notice of any surprise, we proceeded to our work of plunder. The family, consisting of the old planter and his wife and his three daughters, two of them very beautiful, was secured in one room. No words can express their terror at thus finding themselves so suddenly in the power of a set of ruffians, from whose brutality they anticipated every evil. Indeed, the horrid excesses committed by the privateersmen when they landed on the coast fully justified their fears; for as this system of marauding is considered the basest of all modern warfare, no quarter is ever given to those who are taken in the attempt. In return, the privateersmen hesitate at no barbarity when engaged in such enterprises. Dumb with astonishment and terror, the old couple sat in silent agony, while the poor girls, who had more evils than death to fear, drowned in their tears fell at the captain's feet and embraced his knees, conjuring him to spare and protect them from his men. Captain Weatherall, who was, as I have before stated, a generous and humane man, raised them up, assuring them, on his word, that they should receive no insult; and as his presence was necessary to direct the motions of his people, he selected me, as younger and less brutal than most of his crew, as a guard over them, menacing me with death if I allowed any man to enter the room until he returned, and ordering me to defend them with my life from all insults. I was then young and full of enthusiasm; my heart was kind, and I was pure in comparison with the major portion of those with whom I was associated. I was delighted with the office confided to me, and my heart leaped at having so honourable an employment. I endeavoured by every means in my power to dissipate their terrors and soothe their anxious minds; but while I was thus employed, an Irish seaman, distinguished even amongst our crew for his atrocities, came to the door, and would have forced his entrance. I instantly opposed him, urging the captain's most positive commands; but, having obtained a sight of the young females, he swore with a vile oath that he would soon find out whether a boy like me was able to oppose him, and finding that I would not give way he attacked me fiercely. Fortunately I had the advantage of position, and, supported by the justice of my cause, I repelled him with success. But he renewed the attack, while the poor young women awaited the issue of the combat with trembling anxiety--a combat on which depended, in all probability, their honour and their lives. At last I found myself very hard pushed, for I had received a wound on my sword arm, and I drew a pistol from my belt with my left hand, and fired it, wounding him in the shoulder. Thus disabled, and fearing at the same time that the report would bring back the captain, who he well knew would not be trifled with, he retired from the door vowing vengeance. I then turned to the young women, who had witnessed the conflict in breathless suspense, encircled in the arms of the poor old couple, who had rushed towards them at the commencement of the fray, offering them their useless shelter. Privateersman as I was, I could not refrain from tears at the scene. I again attempted to re-assure them, pledged myself in the most solemn manner to forfeit my life if necessary for their protection, and they in some degree regained their confidence. They observed the blood trickling down my fingers from the wound which I had received, and the poor girls stained their handkerchiefs with it in the attempts to staunch the flow. But this scene was soon interrupted by an alarm. It appeared that a negro had contrived to escape and to rouse the country. They had collected together from the other plantations, and our party being, as is usually the case when plunder is going on, very negligent, the videttes were surprised, and had hardly time to escape and apprise us of our danger. There was not a moment to be lost; our safety depended upon an immediate retreat. The captain collected all hands; and while he was getting them together, that the retreat might be made in good order, the old planter, who, by the report of the fire-arms and the bustle and confusion without, guessed what had taken place, pressed me to remain with them, urging the certainty of our men being overpowered, and the merciless consequences which would ensue. He pledged himself, with his fingers crossed in the form of the crucifix, that he would procure me safe quarter, and that I should ever enjoy his protection and friendship. I refused him kindly but firmly, and he sighed and said no more. The old lady put a ring on my finger, which she took from her own hand, and kissing my forehead told me to look at that ring and continue to do good and act nobly as I had just done. I waved my hand, for I had no time even to take the proffered hands of the young ones, and hastened to join my shipmates, already on the retreat, and exchanging shots with our pursuers. We were harassed by a multitude, but they were a mixed company of planters, mulattoes, and slaves, and not half of them armed, and we easily repelled their attacks whenever they came to close quarters. Their violent animosity, however, against us and our evil doings induced them to follow close at our heels, keeping up a galling irregular fire, and endeavouring to detain us until we might be overpowered by their numbers, every minute increasing, for the whole country had been raised, and were flocking in. This our captain was well aware of, and therefore made all the haste that he could, without disturbing the regularity of his retreat, to where our boats were lying, as should they be surprised and cut off our escape would have been impossible. Notwithstanding all his care, several of our men were separated from us by the intricacies of the wood, or from wounds which they had received, and which prevented them from keeping up with us. At last, after repelling many attacks, each time more formidable than the preceding, we gained our boats, and embarking with the greatest precipitation we put off for the schooner. The enemy, emboldened by our flight, flocked down in great numbers to the water's edge, and we had the mortification to hear our stragglers who had been captured imploring for mercy; but groans and then silence too plainly informed us that mercy had been denied. Captain Weatherall was so enraged at the loss of his men that he ordered us to pull back and attack the enemy on the beach, but we continued to pull for the schooner, regardless of his threats and entreaties. A panic had seized us all, as well it might. We even dreaded the ill-aimed and irregular fire which they poured upon us, which under other circumstances would have occasioned only laughter. The schooner had been anchored only two hundred yards from the beach, and we were soon on board. They continued to fire from the shore, and the balls passed over us. We put a spring upon our cable, warped our broadside to the beach, and loading every gun with grape and cannister we poured a whole broadside upon our assailants. From the shrieks and cries, the carnage must have been very great. The men would have reloaded and fired again, but the captain forbade them, saying, "We have done too much already." I thought so too. He then ordered the anchor to be weighed, and with a fresh land breeze we were soon far away from this unlucky spot. CHAPTER TWO. WE ARE PURSUED BY TWO SCHOONER-PRIVATEERS, AND FAILING TO ESCAPE THEM A TERRIBLE CONTEST ENSUES--THREE ACTS OF A MURDEROUS NAVAL DRAMA--WE ARE WORSTED--CAPTAIN WEATHERALL IS KILLED--I AM PLUNDERED AND WOUNDED. About six weeks after the unlucky affair before described we met with a still greater disaster. We had cruised off the Spanish main, and taken several prizes; shortly after we had manned the last and had parted company, the Revenge being then close in shore, a fresh gale sprung up, which compelled us to make all sail to clear the land. We beat off shore during the whole of the night, when the weather moderated, and at daybreak we found out that we had not gained much offing, in consequence of the current; but, what was more important, the man who went to the look-out at the masthead hailed the deck, saying there were two sails in the offing. The hands were turned up to make sail in chase, but we found that they were resolutely bearing down upon us; and as we neared each other fast we soon made them out to be vessels of force. One we knew well--she was the Esperance, a French schooner-privateer, of sixteen guns and one hundred and twenty men; the other proved to be a Spanish schooner-privateer, cruising in company with her, of eighteen guns, and full manned. Now our original complement of men had been something more than one hundred; but by deaths, severe wounds in action, and manning our prizes, our actual number on board was reduced to fifty-five effective men. Finding the force so very superior, we made every attempt with sails and sweeps to escape, but the land to leeward of us, and their position to windward, rendered it impossible. Making, therefore, a virtue of necessity, we put a good face upon it, and prepared to combat against such desperate odds. Captain Weatherall, who was the life and soul of his crew, was not found wanting on such an emergency. With the greatest coolness and intrepidity he gave orders to take in all the small sails, and awaited the coming down of the enemy. When everything was ready for the unequal conflict, he ordered all hands aft, and endeavoured to inspire us with the same ardour which animated himself. He reminded us that we had often fought and triumphed over vessels of much greater force than our own; that we had already beaten off the French privateer on a former occasion; that the Spaniard was not worth talking about, except to swell the merits of the double victory, and that if once we came hand to hand our cutlasses would soon prove our superiority. He reminded us that our only safety depended upon our own manhood; for we had done such mischief on the coast, and our recent descent upon the plantation was considered in such a light, that we must not expect to receive quarter if we were overcome. Exhorting us to behave well and to fight stoutly, he promised us the victory. The men had such confidence in the captain that we returned him three cheers, when, dismissing us to our quarters, he ordered Saint George's ensign to be hoisted at the main-masthead, and hove-to for the enemy. The French schooner was the first which ranged up alongside; the wind was light and she came slowly down to us. The captain of her hailed, saying that his vessel was the Esperance, and our captain replied that he knew it, and that they also knew that his was the Revenge. The French captain, who had hove-to, replied very courteously that he was well aware what vessel it was, and also of the valour and distinguished reputation of Captain Weatherall, upon which Captain Weatherall, who stood on the gunnel, took off his hat in acknowledgment of the compliment. Now Captain Weatherall was well-known, and it was also well-known that the two vessels would meet with a severe resistance, which it would be as well to avoid, as even if they gained the victory it would not be without great loss of men. The French captain therefore addressed Captain Weatherall again, and said he hoped, now that he was opposed to so very superior a force, he would not make a useless resistance, but, as it would be no disgrace to him, and would save the lives of many of his brave men, his well-known humanity would induce him to strike his colours. To this request our commander gave a gallant and positive refusal. The vessels lay now close to each other, so that a biscuit might have been thrown on board of either. A generous expostulation ensued, which continued till the Spanish vessel was a short distance astern of us. "You now see our force," said the French captain. "Do not fight against impossible odds, but spare your brave and devoted men." "In return for your kind feeling towards me," replied Captain Weatherall, "I offer you both quarter, and respect to private property, upon hauling down your colours." "You are mad, Captain Weatherall," said the French captain. "You allow that I have lived bravely," replied Captain Weatherall; "you shall find that I will conquer you, and if necessary I will also die bravely. We will now fight. In courtesy, I offer you the first broadside." "Impossible," said the French captain, taking off his hat. Our captain returned the salute, and then, slipping down from the gunwale, ordered the sails to be filled, and after a minute, to give the Frenchman time to prepare, he fired off in the air the fusee which he held in his hand, as a signal for the action to begin. We instantly commenced the work of death by pouring in a broadside. It was returned with equal spirit, and a furious cannonading ensued for several minutes, when the Spaniard ranged up on our lee quarter with his rigging full of men to board us. Clapping our helm a-weather, and hauling our fore-sheets to windward, we fell off athwart his hawse, and raked him with several broadsides fore and aft; our guns having been loaded with langridge and lead bullets, and his men being crowded together forward, ready to leap on board of us, her deck became a slaughter-house. The officers endeavoured in vain to animate their men, who, instead of gaining our decks, were so intimidated by the carnage that they forsook their own. The Frenchman, perceiving the consternation and distress of his consort, to give her an opportunity of extricating herself from her perilous condition, now put his helm a-weather, ran us on board, and poured in his men; but we were well prepared, and soon cleared our decks of the intruders. In the mean time the Spaniard, by cutting away our rigging, in which his bowsprit was entangled, swung clear of us, and fell away to leeward. The Frenchman perceiving this sheered off, and springing his luff, shot ahead clear of us. Such was the first act of this terrible drama. We had as yet sustained little damage, the enemy's want of skill, and our good fortune combined, having enabled us to take them at such a disadvantage. But, although inspirited by such a prosperous beginning, our inferiority in men was so great that our captain considered it his duty to make all sail in hopes of being able to avoid such an unequal combat. This our enemies attempted to prevent by a most furious cannonade, which we received and returned without flinching, making a running fight of it, till at last, our fore-yard and foretop-mast being shot away, we had no longer command of the vessel. Finding that, although we were crippled and could not escape, our fire continued unabated, both the vessels again made preparations for boarding us, while we on our part prepared to give them a warm reception. As we knew that the Frenchman, who was our most serious opponent, must board us on our weather-bow, we traversed over four of our guns, loaded to the muzzle with musket-balls, to receive him, and being all ready with our pateraroes and hand grenades we waited for the attack. As he bore down for our bows, with all his men clinging like bees, ready for the spring, our guns were discharged and the carnage was terrible. The men staggered back, falling down over those who had been killed or wounded, and it required all the bravery and example of the French captain, who was really a noble fellow, to rally the remainder of his men, which at last he succeeded in doing, and about forty of them gained our forecastle, from which they forced our weak crew, and retained possession, not following up the success, but apparently waiting till they were seconded by the Spaniard's boarding us on our lee quarter, which would have placed us between two fires, and compelled us to divide our small force. By this time the wind, which had been light, left us, and it was nearly a calm, with a swell on the sea which separated the two vessels; the Spaniard, who was ranging up under our lee, having but little way, and not luffing enough, could not fetch us, but fell off and drifted to leeward. The Frenchmen who had been thrown on board, and who retained possession of our forecastle, being thus left without support from their own vessel, which had been separated from us by the swell, or from the Spaniard, which had fallen to leeward, we gave three cheers, and throwing a number of hand grenades in among them we rushed forward with our half-pikes, and killed or drove every soul of them overboard, one only, and he wounded in the thigh, escaped by swimming back to his own vessel. Here, then, was a pause in the conflict, and thus ended, I may say, the second act. Hitherto the battle had been fought with generous resolution; but after this hand-to-hand conflict, and the massacre with which it ended, both sides appeared to have been roused to ferocity. A most infernal cannonade was now renewed by both our antagonists, and returned by us with equal fury; but it was now a dead calm, and the vessels rolled so much with the swell that the shot were not so effective. By degrees we separated more and more from our enemies, and the firing was now reduced to single guns. During this partial cessation our antagonists had drawn near to each other, although at a considerable distance from us. We perceived that the Spaniard was sending two of his boats full of men to supply the heavy loss sustained by his comrade. Captain Weatherall ordered the sweeps out, and we swept our broadside to them, trying by single guns to sink the boats as they went from one vessel to the other. After two or three attempts, a gun was successful; the shot shattered the first of the boats, which instantly filled and went down. The second boat pulled up and endeavoured to save the men, but we now poured our broadside upon them, and, daunted by the shot flying about them, they sought their own safety by pulling back to the vessel, leaving their sinking companions to their fate. Failing in this attempt, both vessels recommenced their fire upon us, but the distance and the swell of the sea prevented any execution, and at last they ceased firing, waiting till a breeze should spring up, which might enable them to renew the contest with better success. At this time it was about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, and the combat had lasted about five hours. We refreshed ourselves after the fatigue and exertion which we had undergone, and made every preparation for a renewal of the fight. During the engagement we were so excited that we had no time to think; but now that we were cool again and unoccupied we had time to reflect upon our position, and we began to feel dejected and apprehensive. Fatigued with exertion, we were weak and dispirited. We knew that our best men were slain or groaning under their severe wounds, that the enemy were still numerous, and, as they persevered after so dreadful a slaughter, that they were of unquestionable bravery and resolution. Good fortune, and our captain's superior seamanship, had, up to the present, enabled us to make a good fight, but fortune might desert us, and our numbers were so reduced that if the enemy continued resolute we must be overpowered. Our gallant captain perceived the despondency that prevailed, and endeavoured to remove it by his own example and by persuasion. After praising us for the resolution and courage we had already shown, he pointed out to us that, whatever might be the gallantry of the officers, it was clear that the men on board of the opposing vessels were awed by their heavy loss and want of success, and that if they made one more attempt to take us by the board and failed, which he trusted they would do, no persuasion would ever induce them to try it again, and the captains of the vessels would give over such an unprofitable combat. He solemnly averred that the colours should never be struck while he survived, and demanded who amongst us were base enough to refuse to stand by them. Again we gave him three cheers, but our numbers were few, and the cheers were faint compared with the first which had been given, but still we were resolute, and determined to support our captain and the honour of our flag. Captain Weatherall took care that this feeling should not subside--he distributed the grog plentifully; at our desire he nailed the colours to the mast, and we waited for a renewal of the combat with impatience. At four o'clock in the afternoon a breeze sprang up, and both vessels trimmed their sails and neared us fast--not quite in such gallant trim as in the morning, it is true--but they appeared now to have summoned up a determined resolution. Silently they came up, forcing their way slowly through the water; not a gun was fired, but the gaping mouths of the cannon, and their men motionless at their quarters, portended the severity of the struggle which was now to decide this hitherto well-contested trial for victory. When within half a cable's length, we saluted them with three cheers, they returned our defiance, and running up on each side of us, the combat was renewed with bitterness. The Frenchman would not this time lay us on board until he was certain that the Spaniard had boarded us to leeward; he continued luffing to windward and plying us with broadsides until we were grappled with the Spaniard, and then he bore down and laid his gunwale on our bow. The Spaniard had already boarded us on the quarter, and we were repelling this attack when the Frenchman laid us on the bow. We fought with desperation, and our pikes gave us such an advantage over the swords and knives of the Spaniards that they gave ground, and, appalled by the desperate resistance they encountered, quitted our decks, strewed with their dead and dying shipmates, and retreated in confusion to their own vessel. But before this repulse had been effected, the French had boarded us on the weather-bow, and driving before them the few men who had been sent forward to resist them, had gained our main deck, and forced their way to the rise of the quarter-deck, where all our remaining men were now collected. The combat was now desperate, but after a time our pikes, and the advantage of our position, appeared to prevail over numbers. We drove them before us--we had regained the main deck, when our brave commander, who was at our head, and who had infused spirit into us all, received a bullet through his right wrist; shifting his sword into his left hand, he still pressed forward encouraging us, when a ball entered his breast and he dropped dead. With his fall fell the courage and fortitude of his crew, so long sustained--and to complete the mischief, the lieutenant and two remaining officers also fell a few seconds after him. Astonished and terrified, the men stopped short in their career of success, and wildly looked round for a leader. The French, who had retreated to the forecastle, perceiving our confusion I renewed the attack, our few remaining men were seized with a panic, and throwing down our arms, we asked for quarter where a moment before victory was in our hands;--such was the finale of our bloody drama. Out of fifty-five men twenty-two had been killed in this murderous conflict, and almost all the survivors desperately or severely wounded. Most of the remaining crew after we had cried for quarter jumped down the hatchway, to avoid the cutlasses of their enraged victors. I and about eight others, having been driven past the hatchway, threw down our arms and begged for quarter, which we had little reason to expect would be shown to us. At first no quarter was given by our savage enemies, who cut down several of our disarmed men and hacked them to pieces. Perceiving this, I got on the gunwale ready to jump overboard, in the hopes of being taken up after the slaughter had ceased, when a French lieutenant coming up protected us, and saved the poor remains of our crew from the fury of his men. Our lives, however, were all he counted upon preserving--we were instantly stripped and plundered without mercy. I lost everything I possessed; the watch, ring, and sword I had taken from the gallant Frenchman were soon forced from me, and, not stripping off my apparel fast enough to please a Mulatto sailor, I received a blow with the butt-end of a pistol under the left ear, which precipitated me down the hatchway, near which I was standing, and I fell senseless into the hold. CHAPTER THREE. WE ARE SENT IN, ON BOARD THE REVENGE, AND TREATED WITH GREAT CRUELTY-- ARE AFTERWARDS RECAPTURED BY THE HERO PRIVATEER, AND RETALIATE ON THE FRENCH--I AM TAKEN TO THE HOSPITAL AT PORT ROYAL, WHERE I MEET THE FRENCH LADY--HER SAVAGE EXULTATION AT MY CONDITION--SHE IS PUNISHED BY ONE OF MY COMRADES. On coming to my senses, I found myself stripped naked and suffering acute pain. I found that my right arm was broken, my shoulder severely injured by my fall; and, as I had received three severe cutlass-wounds during the action, I had lost so much blood that I had not strength to rise or do anything for myself. There I lay, groaning and naked, upon the ballast of the vessel, at times ruminating upon the events of the action, upon the death of our gallant commander, upon the loss of our vessel, of so many of our comrades, and of our liberty. After some time, the surgeon, by order of the French commander, came down to dress my wounds. He treated me with the greatest barbarity. As he twisted about my broken limb I could not help crying at the anguish which he caused me. He compelled me to silence by blows and maledictions, wishing I had broken my rascally neck rather than he should have been put to the trouble of coming down to dress me. However, dress me he did, out of fear of his captain, who, he knew well, would send round to see if he had executed his orders, and then he left me, with a kick in the ribs by way of remembrance. Shortly afterwards the vessels separated. Fourteen of us, who were the most severely hurt, were left in the Revenge, which was manned by an officer and twenty Frenchmen, with orders to take her into Port-au-Paix. The rest of our men were put on board of the French privateer, who sailed away in search of a more profitable adventure. About an hour after they had made sail on the vessel, the officer who had charge of her, looking down the hatchway, and perceiving my naked and forlorn condition, threw me a pair of trousers, which had been rejected by the French seamen as not worth having; and a check shirt, in an equally ragged condition, I picked up in the hold; this, with a piece of old rope to tie round my neck as a sling for my broken arm, was my whole wardrobe. In the evening I gained the deck, that I might be refreshed by the breeze, which cooled my feverish body and somewhat restored me. We remained in this condition for several days, tortured with pain, but more tortured, perhaps, by the insolence and bragging of the Frenchmen, who set no bounds to their triumph and self-applause. Among those who had charge of the prize were two, one of whom had my watch and the other my ring; the first would hold it to me grinning and asking if Monsieur would like to know what o'clock it was; and the other would display the ring, and tell me that his sweetheart would value it when she knew it was taken from a conquered Englishman. This was their practice every day, and I was compelled to receive their gibes without venturing a retort. On the eleventh day after our capture, when close to Port-au-Paix, and expecting we should be at anchor before nightfall, we perceived a great hurry and confusion on deck; they were evidently making all the sail that they could upon the vessel; and then, hearing them fire off their stern-chasers, we knew for certain that they were pursued. Overjoyed at the prospect of being released, we gave three cheers. The French from the deck threatened to fire down upon us, but we knew that they dared not, for the Revenge was so crippled in the fight that they could not put sail upon her so as to escape, and their force on board was too small to enable them to resist if overtaken--we therefore continued our exulting clamours. At last we heard guns fired and the shot whizzing over the vessel--a shot or two struck our bull, and soon afterwards, a broadside being poured into us, the Frenchmen struck their colours, and we had the satisfaction of seeing all these Gasconaders driven down into the hold to take our places. It was now their turn to be dejected and downcast, and for us to be merry; and now also the tables had to be turned, and we took the liberty of regaining possession of our clothes and other property which they carried on their backs and in their pockets. I must say we showed them no mercy. "What o'clock is it, Monsieur?" said I to the fellow who had my watch. "At your service, Sir," he replied, humbly taking out my watch, and presenting it to me. "Thank you," said I, taking the watch, and saluting him with a kick in the stomach, which made him double up and turn round from me, upon which I gave him another kick in the rear to straighten him again. "That ring, Monsieur, that your sweetheart will prize." "Here it is," replied the fellow, abjectly. "Thank you, Sir," I replied, saluting him with the double kick which I had given to the former. "Tell your sweetheart I sent her those," cried I, "that is, when you get back to her." "Hark ye, brother," cries one of our men, "I'll trouble you for that jacket which you borrowed of me the other day, and in return here are a pair of iron garters (holding out the shackles), which you must wear for my sake--I think they will fit you well." "Mounseer," cries another, "that wig of mine don't suit your complexion, I'll trouble you for it. It's a pity such a face as yours should be disfigured in those curls. And while you are about it, I'll thank you to strip altogether, as I think your clothes will fit me, and are much too gay for a prisoner." "I was left naked through your kindness the other day," said I to another, who was well and smartly dressed, "I'll thank you to strip to your skin, or you shall have no skin left." And I commenced with my knife cutting his ears as if I would skin them. It was a lucky hit of mine, for in his sash I found about twenty doubloons. He would have saved them, and held them tight, but after my knife had entered his side about half an inch he surrendered the prize. After we had plundered and stripped them of everything, we set to to kick them, and we did it for half an hour so effectually that they were all left groaning in a heap on the ballast, and we then found our way on deck. The privateer which had recaptured us proved to be the Hero, of New Providence; the Frenchmen were taken out, and some of her own men put in to take us to Port Royal; we, being wounded, and not willing to join her, remained on board. On our arrival at Port Royal, we obtained permission to go to the King's Hospital to be cured. As I went up-stairs to the ward allotted to me, I met the French lady whose husband had been killed, and who was still nursing her son at the hospital, his wounds not having been yet cured. Notwithstanding my altered appearance, she knew me again immediately, and seeing me pale and emaciated, with my arm in a sling, she dropped down on her knees, and thanked God for returning upon our heads a portion of the miseries we had brought upon her. She was delighted when she heard how many of us had been slain in the murderous conflict, and even rejoiced at the death of poor Captain Weatherall, which, considering how very kind and considerate he had been to her, I thought to be very unchristian. It so happened that I was not only in the same ward, but in the cradle next to her son; and the excitement I had been under when we were recaptured, and my exertion in kicking the Frenchmen, had done me no good. A fever was the consequence, and I suffered dreadfully, and she would look at me, exulting in my agony, and mocking my groans; till at last the surgeon told her it was by extreme favour that her son had been admitted into the hospital instead of being sent to prison, and that if she did not behave herself in a proper manner he would order her to be denied admittance altogether; and that if she dared to torment suffering men in that way, on the first complaint on my part, her son should go to the gaol and finish his cure there. This brought her to her senses, and she begged pardon, and promised to offend no more; but she did not keep her word for more than a day or two, but laughed out loud when the surgeon was dressing my arm, for a piece of bone had to be taken out, and I shrieked with anguish. This exasperated one of my messmates so much that, not choosing to strike her, and knowing how to wound her still worse, he drove his fist into the head of her son as he lay in his cradle, and by so doing reopened the wound that had been nearly healed. "There's pain for you to laugh at, you French devil," he cried. And sure enough it cost the poor young man his life. The surgeon was very angry with the man, but told the French lady, as she kneeled sobbing by the side of her son, that she had brought it upon herself and him by her own folly and cruelty. I know not whether she felt so, or whether she dreaded a repetition, but this is certain, she tormented me no more. On the contrary, I think she suffered very severely, as she perceived that I rapidly mended and that her poor son got on but slowly. At last my hurts were all healed, and I left the hospital, hoping never to see her more. CHAPTER FOUR. SAIL FOR LIVERPOOL IN THE SALLY AND KITTY--FALL IN WITH A GALE--BOY OVERBOARD--NEARLY DROWNED IN ATTEMPTING TO SAVE HIM--SEE THE OWNERS AT LIVERPOOL--EMBARK IN THE DALRYMPLE FOR THE COAST OF AFRICA--ARRIVE OFF SENEGAL. A great deal of prize-money being due to us, I called upon the agent at Port Royal to obtain an advance. I found him in a puzzle. Owing to the death of Captain Weatherall and so many of the officers, he hardly knew whether those who applied to him were entitled to prize-money or not. Whether he thought I appeared more honest than the others, or from what cause I know not, he requested me, as I knew everything that had passed, to remain with him for a short time: and, finding that I could read and write well, he obtained from me correct lists of the privateer's crew, with those who were killed, and on what occasion. All this information I was able to give him, as well as the ratings of the parties; for on more than one occasion the privateer's-men had come to him representing themselves as petty officers when they were only common seamen on board, and had in consequence received from him a larger advance than they were entitled to. As soon as his accounts were pretty well made up, he asked me whether I intended to go to England, as if so he would send me home with all the papers and documents to the owner at Liverpool, who would require my assistance to arrange the accounts; and, as I had had quite enough of privateering for a time, I consented to go. About two months after leaving the hospital, during which I had passed a very pleasant life, and quite recovered from my wounds and injuries, I sailed for Liverpool in the Sally and Kitty West-Indiaman, commanded by Captain Clarke, a very violent man. We had not sailed twelve hours before we fell in with a gale, which lasted several days, and we kept under close-reef-topsails and storm-staysails. The gale lasting a week raised a mountainous swell, but it was very long and regular. On the seventh day the wind abated, but the swell continued, and at evening there was very little wind, when a circumstance occurred which had nearly cost me my life, as you will acknowledge, Madam, when I relate the story to you. During the dog-watch, between six and eight, some hands being employed in the foretop, the other watch below at supper, and the captain and all the officers in the cabin, I being at the helm heard a voice, apparently rising out of the sea, calling me by name. Surprised, I ran to the side of the ship, and saw a youth named Richard Pallant in the water going astern. He had fallen out of the forechains, and, knowing that I was at the helm, had shouted to me for help. I immediately called all hands, crying, "A man overboard." The captain hastened on deck with all the others, and ordered the helm a-lee. The ship went about, and then fell round off, driving fast before the swell, till at last we brought her to. The captain, although a resolute man, was much confused and perplexed at the boy's danger--for his friends were people of property at Ipswich, and had confided the boy to his particular care. He ran backwards and forwards, crying out that the boy must perish, as the swell was so high that he dared not send a boat, for the boat could not live in such a sea, and if the boat were lost with the crew there would not be hands enow left on board to take the vessel home. As the youth was not a hundred yards from the vessel, I stated the possibility of swimming to him with the deep-sea line, which would be strong enough to haul both him and the man who swam to him on board. Captain Clarke, in a great rage, swore that it was impossible, and asked me who the devil would go. Piqued at his answer, and anxious to preserve the life of the youth, I offered to try it myself. I stripped, and, making the line fast round my body, plunged from the ship's side into the sea. It was a new deep-sea line, and stiff in the coil, so that, not drawing close round me, it slipped, and I swam through it, but catching it as it slipped over my feet, I made it secure by putting my head and one arm through the noose. I swam direct for the boy, and found that I swam with ease, owing to the strength and buoyant nature of the water in those latitudes. I had not swum more than half-way before the line got foul on the coil on board, and, checking me suddenly, it pulled me backwards and under water. I recovered myself and struck out again. During this time, to clear the line on board, they had cut some of the entangled parts, and in the confusion and hurry severed the wrong part, so that the end went overboard, and I had half the coil of line hanging to me, and at the same time was adrift from the ship. They immediately hailed me to return, but from the booming of the waves I could not hear what they said, and thought that they were encouraging me to proceed. I shouted in return to show the confidence which I had in myself. I easily mounted the waves as they breasted me, but still I made my way very slowly against such a swell, and saw the boy only at intervals when I was on the top of the wave. He could swim very little, and did not make for the ship, but, with his eyes fixed upon the sky, paddled like a dog to keep himself above water. I now began to feel the weight of the line upon me, and to fear that I should never hold out. I began to repent of my rashness, and thought I had only sacrificed myself without any chance of saving him. I persevered, nevertheless, and having, as I guessed, come to the spot where the boy was, I looked round, and not seeing him was afraid that he had gone down, but on mounting the next wave I saw him in the hollow, struggling hard to keep above water, and almost spent with his long exertion. I swam down to him, and, hailing him, found he was still sensible, but utterly exhausted. I desired him to hold on by my hand but not to touch my body, as we should both sink. He promised to obey me, and I held out my right hand to him, and made a signal for them to haul in on board, for I had no idea that the line had been cut. I was frightened when I perceived the distance that the ship was from me--at least a quarter of a mile. I knew that the deep-sea line was but a hundred fathoms in length, and therefore that I must be adrift, and my heart sunk within me. All the horrors of my situation came upon me, and I felt that I was lost; but although death appeared inevitable, I still struggled for life--but the rope now weighed me down more and more. While swimming forward it trailed behind, and although it impeded my way, I did not feel half its weight. Now, however, that I was stationary, it sank deep, and pulled me down with it. The waves, too, which, while I breasted them and saw them approach, I easily rose over, being now behind us, broke over our heads, burying us under them, or rolling us over by their force. I tried to disengage myself from the line, but the noose being jammed, and having the boy in one hand, I could not possibly effect it. But what gave me courage in my difficulties was, that I perceived that the people on board were getting out the boat; for although the captain would not run the risk for one person, now that two were overboard, and one of them risking his life for the other, the men insisted that the boat should be hoisted out. It was an anxious time to me, but at last I had the satisfaction of seeing her clear of the ship, and pulling round her bow. The danger was, however, considered so great, that when they came to man the boat only three men could be found who would go in her, and in the confusion they came away with but two oars and no rudder. Under these disadvantages they of course pulled very slowly against a mountainous sea, as they were obliged to steer with the oars to meet it, that the boat might not be swamped. But the sight of the boat was sufficient to keep me up. My exertions were certainly incredible; but what will not a man do when in fear of death! As it approached--slowly and slowly did my powers decrease. I was now often under water with the boy, and rose again to fresh exertion, when at last a crested wave broke over us, and down we went several feet under the water. The force of the sea drove the boy against me, and he seized me by the loins with my head downwards. I struggled to disengage myself! It was impossible. I gave myself up for lost--and what a crowd of thoughts and memories passed through my brain in a few moments, for it could not have been longer! At last, being head downwards, I dived deeper, although I was bursting from so long holding my breath under water. This had the desired effect. Finding me sinking instead of rising with him, the boy let go his hold that he might gain the surface. I turned and followed him, and drew breath once more. Another moment had sealed our fates. I no longer thought of saving the boy, but struck out for the boat which was now near me. Perceiving this, the boy cried out to me for pity's sake not to leave him. I felt myself so far recovered from my exhaustion, that I thought I could save him as well as myself, and compassion induced me to turn back. I again gave him my hand, charging him on his life not to attempt to grapple with me, and again resumed the arduous struggle of keeping him as well as myself above water. My strength was nearly gone, the boat approached but slowly, and we now sunk constantly under the water, rising every few seconds to draw breath. Merciful God! How slow appeared the approach of the boat. Struggle after struggle--fainter and fainter still--still I floated. At last my senses almost left me, I took in water in quantities. I felt I was in green fields, when I was seized by the men and thrown into the bottom of the boat, where I lay senseless alongside of the boy. There was great danger and difficulty in getting again to the ship. More than once the boat was half filled by the following seas, and when they gained the ship it was impossible to get us out, as, had they approached the side, the boat would have been dashed to atoms. They lowered the tackles from the yard-arms. The three men clambered up them, leaving us to take our chance of the boat being got in, or her being stove to pieces, in which latter case we should have been lost. They did get us in, with great damage to the boat, but we were saved. The line was still round me, and it was found that I had been supporting the weight of seventy yards. So sore was I with such exertion, that I kept my hammock for many days, during which I reviewed my past life, and vowed amendment. We arrived at Liverpool without any further adventure worth recording, and I immediately called upon the owner with the papers intrusted to me. I gave him all the information he required, and he asked me whether I should like to return to privateering, or to go as mate of a vessel bound to the coast of Africa. I inquired what her destination was to be, and, as I found that she was to go to Senegal for ivory, wax, gold-dust, and other articles, in exchange for English prints and cutlery, I consented. I mention this, as, had she been employed in the slave-trade, as were most of the vessels from Liverpool to the Coast, I would not have joined her. A few days afterwards I went on board of the Dalrymple, Captain Jones, as mate; we had a very quick passage to Senegal, and brought our vessel to an anchor off the bar. CHAPTER FIVE. IN CROSSING THE BAR AT SENEGAL THE BOAT IS UPSET BY A TORNADO--WE ESCAPE BEING DEVOURED BY SHARKS ONLY TO BE CAPTURED BY THE NATIVES--ARE TAKEN INTO THE INTERIOR OF THE COUNTRY, AND BROUGHT BEFORE THE NEGRO KING, FROM WHOSE WRATH WE ARE SAVED BY THE INTERCESSION OF HIS FEMALE ATTENDANTS. A day or two after we had arrived, the master of another vessel that was at anchor near to us came on board and borrowed our long-boat and some hands that he might go in it to Senegal. The captain, who was an old friend of the party who made the request, agreed to lend it to him, and as accidents are very frequent with boats crossing the bar, on account of the heavy breakers, the best swimmers were selected for the purpose, and the charge of the boat was given to me. We set off, five men rowing and I at the helm. When we approached the bar, a tornado, which had been for some time threatening, came upon us. The impetuosity of these blasts is to be matched in no part of the world, and as it came at once in its full force, we endeavoured, by putting the boat before it, to escape its fury. This compelled us to run to the southward along the coast. We managed to keep the boat up for a long while, and hoped to have weathered it, when, being on the bar, and in broken water, a large wave curled over us, filled the boat, and it went down in an instant. Our only chance now was to reach the shore by swimming, but it was at a distance, with broken water the whole way; and our great terror was from the sharks, which abound on the coast and are extremely ravenous--nor were we without reason for our alarm. Scarcely had the boat gone down, and we were all stretching out for the shore, when one of our men shrieked, having been seized by the sharks, and instantly torn to pieces. His blood stained the water all around, and this attracting all the sharks proved the means of our escape. Never shall I forget the horrible sensation which I felt as I struggled through the broken water, expecting every minute a limb to be taken off by one of those voracious animals. If one foot touched the other, my heart sunk, thinking it was the nose of a shark, and that its bite would immediately follow. Agonised with these terrors, we struggled on--now a large wave curling over us and burying us under water, or now forced by the waves towards the beach, rolling us over and over. So battered were we by the surf, that we dived under the waves to escape the blows which we received, and then rose and struck out again. At last, worn out with exertion, we gained the shore, but our toil was not over. The beach was of a sand so light that it crumbled beneath us, and at the return of the wave which threw us on shore we were dragged back again and buried in sand and water. We rose to renew our endeavours, but several times without success, for we could not obtain a firm footing. At last the Negroes, who had witnessed our accident, and who now came down in great numbers on the beach, laid hold of us as the sea threw us up, and dragged us beyond the reach of the waves. Worn out with fatigue we lay on the sand, waiting to ascertain what the savages would do with us; they were not long in letting us know, for they soon began to strip us of every article of clothing on our backs. One of our men attempted to resist, upon which a Negro drove a spear through his thigh. Having divided our apparel, after some consultation, they tied our hands, and placing us in the midst of a large force, armed with spears and bows and arrows, they went off with us for the inland part of the country. We set off with heavy hearts; taking, as we thought, a last farewell of the ocean, and going forwards in great apprehension of the fate that awaited us. The sand was very deep, and the heat of the sun excessive, for it was then about noon. Without any garments, we were soon scorched and blistered all over, and in intolerable anguish, as well as fatigued; but the Negroes compelled us to move on, goading us with their spears if we slackened our pace, and threatening to run us through if we made a halt. We longed for the night, as it would afford a temporary relief to our sufferings. It came at last, and the Negroes collected wood and lighted a fire to keep off the wild beasts, lying round it in a circle, and placing us in the midst of them. We hoped to have some rest after what we had gone through, but it was impossible-- the night proved even worse than the day. The mosquitoes came down upon us in such swarms, and their bites were so intolerable, that we were almost frantic. Our hands being tied, we could not beat them off and we rolled over and over to get rid of them. This made matters worse, for our whole bodies being covered with raised blisters, from the rays of the sun, our rolling over and over broke the blisters, and the sand getting into the wounds, added to the bites of the mosquitoes, made our sufferings intolerable. We had before prayed for night, we now prayed for day. Some prayed for death. When the sun rose, we set off again, our conductors utterly disregarding our anguish, and goading us on as before. In the forenoon we arrived at a village, where our guards refreshed themselves; a very small quantity of boiled corn was given to each of us, and we continued our journey, passing by several small towns, consisting, as they all do in that country, of huts built of reeds, round in form, and gathered to a point at top. This day was the same as the preceding. We were pricked with spears if we stumbled or lagged, threatened with death if we had not strength to go on. At last the evening arrived, and the fires were lighted. The fires were much larger than before, I presume because the wild beasts were more numerous, for we heard them howling in every direction round us, which we had not done on the night before. The mosquitoes did not annoy us so much, and we obtained some intervals of broken rest. At daylight we resumed our journey, as near as we could judge by the sun, in a more easterly direction. During the first two days we were badly received by the inhabitants of the towns, whose people had been kidnapped so often for the slave-trade; they hated the sight of our white faces, for they presumed that we had come for that purpose; but as we advanced in the interior, we were better treated, and the natives looked upon us with surprise and wonder, considering us as a new race of beings. Some of the women, seeing how utterly exhausted we were with fatigue and hunger, looked with compassion on us, and brought us plenty of boiled corn and goats' milk to drink. This refreshed us greatly, and we continued our journey in anxious expectation of the fate for which we were reserved. On crossing a small river, which appeared to be the boundary of two different states, a multitude of Negroes approached, and seemed disposed to take us from our present masters, but after a conference, they agreed among themselves, and a party of them joined with those who had previously conducted us. We soon came to the edge of a desert, and there we halted till the Negroes had filled several calabashes and gourds full of water, and collected a quantity of boiled corn. As soon as this was done, we set off again, and entered the desert. We were astonished and terrified when we looked around us, not a single vestige of herbage, not a blade of grass was to be seen--all was one wide waste of barren sand, so light as to rise in clouds at the least wind, and we sank so deep in walking through it that at last we could hardly drag one foot after the other. But we were repaid for our fatigue, for when we halted at night, no fires were lighted, and to our great delight we found that there were no mosquitoes to annoy us. We fell into a sound sleep, which lasted till morning, and were much refreshed; indeed, so much so as to enable us to pursue our journey with alacrity. In our passage over the desert we saw numbers of elephants' teeth, but no animals. How the teeth came there, unless it were that the elephants were lost in attempting to cross the desert, I cannot pretend to say. Before we had crossed the desert, our water was expended, and we suffered dreadfully from thirst, walking as we did during the whole day under a vertical sun. The night was equally painful, as we were so tortured with the want of water; but on the following day, when our strength was nearly exhausted, and we were debating whether we should not lie down and allow the spears of our conductors to put an end to our miseries, we came to the banks of a river which the Negroes had evidently been anxiously looking for. Here we drank plentifully, and remained all the day to recruit ourselves, for the Negroes were almost as exhausted as we were. The next morning we crossed the river, and plunged into a deep wood: the ground being high, the mosquitoes did not annoy us so much as they did down on the low marshy land near the sea-coast. During our traverse through the wood we subsisted solely upon the birds and animals which the Negroes killed with their bows and arrows. When we had forced our way through the forest, we found the country, as before, interspersed with wicker villages or small hamlets at a few miles' distance from each other. Round each village there were small patches of Guinea corn, and we frequently came to clusters of huts which had been deserted. Between the sea-coast and the desert we had traversed we observed that many of the inhabitants had European fire-arms, but now the only weapons to be seen were spears and bows and arrows. As we advanced we were surrounded at every village by the natives, who looked upon us with surprise and astonishment, examining us, and evidently considering us a new species. One morning we arrived at a very large Negro town, and as we approached, our guards began to swell with pride and exultation, and drove us before them among the crowds of inhabitants, singing songs of triumph, and brandishing their weapons. Having been driven through a great part of the town, we arrived at a number of huts separated by a high palisade from the rest, and appropriated, as we afterwards found, to the use of the king of the country, his wives and attendants. Here we waited outside some time, while our guards went in and acquainted this royal personage with the present which they had brought for him. We had reason to think that our captors were not his subjects, but had been at variance with him, and had brought us as a present, that they might make peace with an enemy too strong for them. We were at last ordered to go inside the enclosure, and found ourselves in a large open building, constructed like the others, of reeds and boughs. In the centre was squatted a ferocious-looking old Negro, attended by four young Negro women. He was raw-boned and lean, and of a very large frame. A diabolical ferocity was imprinted on his grim countenance, and as he moved his arms and legs he showed that under his loose skin there was a muscle of extraordinary power. I never had before seen such a living type of brutal strength and barbarity. On a mat before him were provisions of different kinds. Behind him stood several grim savages who held his weapons, and on each side, at a greater distance, were rows of Negroes, with their heads bent down and their arms crossed, awaiting his orders. The chief or king, as well as the four women, had clothes of the blue cotton cloth of the country, that is, one piece wrapped round the loins and descending to the ankles, and another worn over their shoulders; but, with few exceptions, all the rest, as well as the inhabitants generally, were quite naked. So were we, as the reader may recollect. Round the necks of the women were rows of gold beads, longer by degrees, until the last of the rows hung lower than their bosoms, and both the king and they had large bracelets of gold round their arms, wrists, and legs. The women, who were young and well-looking, stared at us with eager astonishment, while the old king scowled upon us so as to freeze our blood. At last, rising from the ground, he took his sabre from the man who held it behind him, and walked up among us, who with our heads bowed, and breathless with fear, awaited our impending fate. I happened to be standing the foremost, and grasping my arm with a gripe which made my heart sink, with his hand which held the sword he bent down my head still lower than it was. I made sure that he was about to cut off my head, when the women, who had risen from the ground, ran crowding round him, and with mingled entreaties and caresses strove to induce him not to put his intentions, if such he really had, into execution. They prevailed at last; the youngest took away his sword, and then they led him back to his seat, after which the women came to us to gratify their curiosity. They felt our arms and breasts, putting innumerable questions to those who brought us thither. They appeared very much amazed at the length of my hair, for I had worn it tied in a long cue. Taking hold of it, they gave it two or three severe pulls, to ascertain if it really grew to my head, and finding that it did so, they expressed much wonder. When their curiosity was satisfied, they then appeared to consider our condition, and having obtained the old king's permission, they brought us a calabash full of cush-cush, that is, Guinea corn boiled into a thick paste. Our hands being still tied, we could only by shaking our heads express our inability to profit by their kindness. Understanding what we meant, they immediately cut our thongs, and the youngest of the four perceiving that my arms were benumbed from having been confined so many days, and that I could not use them, showed the most lively commiseration for my sufferings. She gently chafed my wrists with her hands, and showed every sign of pity in her countenance, as indeed did all the other three. But I was by far the youngest of the whole party who had been captured, and seemed most to excite their pity and good-will. Shortly afterwards we were all taken into an adjoining tent or hut, and our bodies were rubbed all over with an oil, which after a few days' application left us perfectly healed, and as smooth as silk. So altered was our condition, that those very people who had guarded us with their spears and threatened us with death, were now ordered to wait upon us, and as the king's wives frequently came to see how we were treated, we were served with the utmost humility and attention. CHAPTER SIX. I AM GIVEN AS A SLAVE TO THE OLD KING'S FAVOURITE, WHYNA--ASSIST MY YOUNG MISTRESS TO MAKE HER TOILET--HOLD FREQUENT CONVERSATIONS WITH HER, AND BECOME STRONGLY ATTACHED TO HER--MY HATRED AND DREAD OF THE OLD KING INCREASE--HE SHOOTS A MAN WITH BIRD-ARROWS. One morning, after we had been about three weeks in these comfortable quarters, I was summoned away from my companions into the presence of the king. When I came before him a small manacle was fixed round my left ankle, and another round my left wrist, with a light chain connecting the two. A circle of feathers was put round my head, and a loose cloth wrapped round my loins. I was then led forward to him with my arms crossed over my breast, and my head bowed. By his orders I was then placed behind the youngest of the four women, the one who had chafed my wrists, and I was given to understand that I was her slave, and was to attend upon her, to which, I must say, I gave a joyful assent in my heart, although I did not at that time show any signs of gladness. There I remained, with my arms folded, and bowed as before, until dinner was brought in, and a calabash full of cush-cush was put into my hands to place before the king and his wives. My first attempt at service was not very adroit, for, in my eagerness to do my duty, I tripped over the corner of the mat which served them for a table, and tumbling headlong forward, emptied the calabash of cush-cush which I held in my hand upon the legs of the old king, who sat opposite to where I was advancing. He jumped up roaring out with anger, while I in my fear sprung on my legs, and rushed to the side of the apartment, expecting immediate death. Fortunately the victuals in this country are always served up cool, and my new mistress easily obtained my pardon, laughing heartily at the scene, and at my apprehension. The repast being over, I was ordered to follow my mistress, who retired to another hut, according to their custom, to sleep during the heat of the day. I was placed before the door to prevent her being disturbed. My only duty now was to attend upon my young mistress. She was the king's favourite wife, and as she was uniformly kind and gentle, I should have almost ceased to lament my loss of liberty had it not been from the fear I had of the old monarch. I knew that my preservation depended entirely upon my mistress's favour, and I endeavoured all I could to conciliate her by the most sedulous attentions to please. Young and generous in disposition, she was easily satisfied by my ready obedience and careful service. I do not think that she was more than seventeen years of age; but they are women at fourteen in that country, and even earlier. She was a Negress as to colour, but not a real Negress; for her hair, although short and very wavy, was not woolly, and her nose was straight. Her mouth was small, and her teeth beautiful. Her figure was perfect, her limbs being very elegantly formed. When she first rose in the morning, I attended her to the brow of a hill just without the palisades, where with devout but mistaken piety she adored the rising sun--at least it appeared to me that she did so. She then went down to the river to bathe, and as soon as her hair was dry she had it dressed. This office, after a short time, devolved upon me, and I became very expert, having to rub her hair with a sweet oil, and then roll it up in its natural curls with a quill, so as to dispose them to the most fanciful advantage as to form. After her toilet was complete, she went to feed her poultry, and some antelopes and other beasts, and then she practised at a mark with her bow and arrows and javelin till about ten o'clock, when she went to the king's hut, and they all sat down to eat together. After the repast, which lasted some time, if she did not repose with the king, she retired to her own hut, where she usually refreshed herself till about four o'clock, when she returned to the king, or ranged the woods, or otherwise amused herself during the rest of the evening. I will say for the old savage that he did not confine his wives. Such was our general course of life, and wherever she went I attended her. The attachment I showed and really felt for her secured her confidence, and she always treated me in a kind and familiar manner. Their language consists of few words compared to our own, and in a short time, by help of signs, we understood each other tolerably well. She appeared to have a most ardent curiosity to know who we were, and from whence we came, and all the time that we passed alone was employed in putting questions, and my endeavouring to find out her meaning and answer them. This, although very difficult at first, I was eventually enabled to accomplish indifferently well. She was most zealous in her mistaken religion, and one morning when I was following her to her devotions on the hill, she asked me where my God was? I pointed upwards, upon which she told me with great joy and innocency, that hers was there too, and that, therefore, they must be the same God, or if not they must be friends. Convinced that she was right, she made me worship with her, bowing my head down to the sand, and going through the same forms, which of course I did not understand the meaning of; but I prayed to my God, and therefore made no objection, as it was pleasing to her. This apparent conformity in religion recommended me more strongly to her, and we became more intimate, and I was certainly attached to her by every tie of gratitude. I was quite happy in the friendship and kindness she showed towards me; the only drawback was my fear of the proud old king, and the recollection of him often made me cheek myself, and suddenly assume a more distant and respectful demeanour towards her. I soon found out that she dreaded the old savage as much as I did, and hated him even more. In his presence she treated me very sternly, and ordered me about in a very dictatorial manner; but when we were alone, and had no fear of being seen, she would then be very familiar, sometimes even locking her arm into mine, and laughing as she pointed out the contrast of the colours, and in the full gaiety of her young heart rejoicing that we were alone, and could converse freely together. As she was very intelligent, she soon perceived that I possessed much knowledge that she did not, and that she could not comprehend what I wanted to teach her. This induced her to look upon me with respect as well as kindness. One day I purposely left her bow behind in the hut where my companions resided; and on her asking me for it, I told her that I had done so, but that I would make my companions send it without my going back. I tore off a piece of the bark of a tree, and with the point of an arrow I wrote to one of them, desiring him to send it by bearer; and calling a young Negro boy, told him in her presence to give that piece of bark to the white man, and come back again to the queen. Whyna, for such was the name of my mistress queen, stood in suspense, waiting the result; in a few minutes the boy returned, bringing the bow. Astonished at this, she made me write again and again for her arrows, her lance, and many other things. Finding by these being immediately sent that we had a method of communicating with each other at a distance, she earnestly insisted upon being taught so surprising an art. Going at a distance from me, she ordered me to talk to her when out of hearing, and finding that I could not, or, as she seemed to suppose, that I would not, she became discontented and out of humour. I could by no means make her comprehend how it was performed, but I made her understand that as soon as I was fully acquainted with her language, I should be able to teach her. She was satisfied with this, but made me promise that I would teach nobody else. By the canoes in the river, I easily made her comprehend that I came in a vast boat from a distant land, over a great expanse of water, and also how it was that we fell into the Negroes' power. I then found out from her that the Negroes had pretended that we had invaded their land to procure slaves, and that they had vanquished us in battle; hence their songs of triumph on bringing us to the king. I pointed out the heavenly bodies to her in the evenings, trying to make her comprehend something of their nature and motions, but in vain. This had, however, one good effect; she looked up to me with more respect, hoping that some day, when I could fully explain myself, she might be herself taught all these wonders. With these feelings towards me, added to my sedulous endeavours to please her, and obey her slightest wishes, it is not surprising that she treated me as a companion, and not as a slave, and gave me every innocent proof of her attachment. More I never wished, and almost dreaded that our intimacy would be too great. Happy when alone with her, I ever returned with reluctance to the presence of the old king, whose sight and company I dreaded. The boundless cruelty of this monster was a continual check to all my happiness. Accustomed to blood from his childhood, he appeared wholly insensible to human feelings, and derided the agonies of the wretches who daily fell by his hands. One day he amused himself by shooting small bird-arrows at a man who was bound to a post before the tent, which was placed there for the punishment of those who were his victims. He continued for hours fixing the arrows in different parts of his body, mimicking and deriding his cries. At last, contrary to his intentions, one of the arrows hit the man in the throat, and his head drooped. As the old savage saw that the poor man was dying, he drew another arrow and sent it through his heart, very much annoyed at his disappointment in not prolonging the poor creature's sufferings. I was witness to this scene with silent horror, and many more of a similar nature. I hardly need say, that I felt what my punishment would be if I had by any means roused the jealousy of this monster; and I knew that, without giving him real cause, a moment of bare suspicion would be sufficient to sacrifice my mistress as well as me. CHAPTER SEVEN. I ATTEND THE KING ON A HUNTING EXPEDITION--CHASE OF WILD ANIMALS--WHYNA AND I IN GREAT DANGER FROM A TIGER--BARBARITY OF THE KING TO MY YOUNG MISTRESS--I TRY TO SOOTHE HER--I AND MY COMPANIONS ARE RANSOMED--SAD PARTING WITH WHYNA--AFTER AN ENCOUNTER WITH A HOSTILE PEOPLE, WE REACH SENEGAL--RETURN TO ENGLAND. I had been about three months in captivity, when the old king, with his four wives and a large party of Negroes, left the town, and went into the woods to hunt. My companions were left in the town, but I was ordered to attend my mistress, and I went with the hopes of being able by some means to make my escape, for my fear of the old monarch was much greater than my regard for my mistress. As I had not become a proficient with the bows and arrows, or in hurling the javelin, I was equipped with a strong spear. My mistress was skilful to admiration with the arrow and javelin; she never missed her aim that I knew, and she certainly never appeared to such advantage as she did at this hunting-party. Her activity, her symmetry of limb, and her courage, her skill with her weapons, all won the heart of the old king; and I believe that his strong attachment to her arose more from her possession of the above qualities than from any other cause. Certain it is, that the old savage doted on her--she was the only being who could bend his stubborn will. As his age prevented him from joining in the chase, he always appeared to part with her with regret, and to caution her not to run into useless danger; and when we returned at night, the old man's eyes sparkled with the rapture of dotage as he welcomed her return. The method of our chase was to beat the country, with a number of men, in a vast circle, until we had gathered all the game into one thicket; then the strongest warriors with their large spears went in and drove out the game, which was killed by the hunters who hovered about within the circle. The animals which we had to encounter were large fierce black pigs, leopards, jackals, tigers, mountain cats, and others which I have no name for;--and in spite of the ferocity of many of these animals when they bounded out, they were met with such a shower of javelins, or transfixed by the strong stabbing-spears of the warriors, that few escaped, and they rarely did any mischief. One day, however, the beaters having just entered a thicket, Whyna, who was eager for the sport, and plied within the circle with the other hunters, hearing a rustling in the jungle, went to the verge of it, to be the first to strike the animal which came out. As usual, I was close to her, when a large tiger burst out, and she pierced him with her javelin, but not sufficient to wound the animal so severely as to disable him. The tiger turned, and I drove my spear into his throat. This checked him, as it remained in, but in a spring which he gave the handle broke short off, and although the iron went further in, our danger was imminent. Whyna ran, and so did I, to escape from the beast's fury; for although, after I had wounded it with my spear, we had both retreated, we were not so far, but that in two or three bounds he would have been upon us. My mistress was as fleet as the wind, and soon passed me, but as she passed me she caught me by the hand, and dragged me along at a pace that with difficulty I could keep my legs. The surrounding hunters, alarmed at her danger, and knowing what they had to expect from the mercy of the old king if she was destroyed by the animal, closed in between us and the tiger, and after a fierce combat, in which some were killed and many wounded, they despatched him with their spears. The head of the animal, which was of unusual size, was cut off and carried home to the old king in triumph; and when he heard of the danger that Whyna had been in, he caressed her with tears, and I could not help saying that the old wretch had some heart after all. Whyna told the king that if I had not pierced the animal with my spear, and prevented his taking his first spring, she should have lost her life, and the monster grinned a ghastly smile at me, which I presume he meant for either approbation or gratitude. At other times the chase would be that of the multitude of birds which were to be found in the woods. The bow and arrow only were used, and all I had to do now was to pick up all my mistress had killed, and return her arrows--she would constantly kill on the wing with her arrow, which not many could do besides her. By degrees I imbibed a strong passion for the sport, attended as it was with considerable danger, and was never so happy as when engaged in it. We remained about two months in the woods, when the king was tired, and we returned to the town, where I continued for some time to pass the same kind of life as I had done before. I should have been quite happy in my slavery, from my affection to my mistress, had not a fresh instance of the unbounded cruelty of the old monarch occurred a few days after our return from the chase, which filled us all with consternation and horror, for we discovered that not even my mistress, Whyna, could always prevail with the savage monster. One morning I perceived that one of the king's guards, who had always treated me with great kindness, and with whom I was very intimate, was tied up to the executioner's post before the hut. Aware of the fate which awaited him, I ran to the hut of Whyna, and so great was my distress that I could not speak; all I could do was to clasp her knees and repeat the man's name, pointing to the post to which he was tied. She understood me, and eager to save the man, or to oblige me, she ran to the large hut, and attempted to intercede with the old barbarian for the man's life but he was in an agony of rage and passion; he refused her, lifting up his sabre to despatch the man; Whyna was rash enough to seize the king's arm, and prevent the blow; at this his rage redoubled,--his eyes glowed like live coals, and turning to her with the look of a demon, he caught her by the hair, and dragging her across his feet, lifted up his scimitar in the act to strike off her head. I sickened with horror at the danger she was in, but I thought he would not strike. I had no weapon, but if he had done so, I would have revenged her death, even if I had lost my life. At last the old monster let go her hair, spurning her away with his foot, so that she rolled over on the sand, and then turning to the unhappy man, with an upward slanting blow of his sabre, he ripped him up from the flank to the chest, so that his bowels fell down at his feet; he then looked round at us all with an aspect which froze our blood, and turned away sulkily to his hut, leaving us to recover our spirits how we might. Poor Whyna, terrified and enraged at the same time, as soon as I had led her to her hut, and we were by ourselves, gave way to the storm of passion which swelled her bosom, execrating her husband with the utmost loathing and abhorrence, and lamenting in the most passionate manner her having ever been connected with him. Trembling alike at the danger to which I had exposed her, and moved by her condition, I could not help mingling my tears with hers, and endeavoured by caresses and condoling with her to reduce her excitement. Had the old king seen me, I know what both our fates would have been, but at that time I cared not. I was very young, very impetuous, and I was resolved that I would not permit either her or myself to die unavenged. At last she sobbed herself to sleep, and I took my usual station outside of the hut. It was well that I did so, for not five minutes afterwards the old wretch, having got over his temper, came out of his tent and bent his steps towards the hut, that he might make friends with her, for she was too necessary to his happiness, he soon treated her with his accustomed kindness, but I perceived that after the scene I have described her aversion for him was doubled. There were some scores of women in the various huts within the palisade, all of whom I understood were wives to the old monarch, but none but the four we found with him when we were first brought into his presence were ever to be seen in his company. I had, by means of my kind mistress, the opportunity of constantly supplying my companions with fowls and venison, which was left from the king's table, and through her care, they always met with kind and gentle usage. For another two months did I thus remain happy in the company of Whyna, and miserable when in the presence of the king, whose eye it was impossible to meet without quailing; when one morning we were all ordered out, and were surrounded by a large party armed with spears, javelins, and bird-arrows--I say bird-arrows, as those that they use in war are much larger. We soon discovered that we were to be sent to some other place, but where or why, we could not find out. Shortly afterwards the crowd opened, and Whyna made her appearance. She took the feather circle off my head, and the manacles off my wrist and leg, and went and laid them at the king's feet. She then returned, and told me that I was free as well as my companions, but that I only, if I chose, had permission to remain with her. I did not at first reply. She then, in the most earnest manner, begged me to remain with her as her slave; and as she did not dare to say what she felt, or use caresses to prevail upon me, she stamped her little feet with eagerness and impatience. The struggle in my own heart was excessive. I presumed that we were about to be made a present to some other king, and I felt that I never could expect so easy and so pleasant a servitude as I then enjoyed. I was sincerely attached, and indeed latterly I was more than attached, to Whyna; I felt that it was dangerous. Had the old king been dead, I would have been content to pass my life with her; and I was still hesitating, notwithstanding the remonstrances of my companions, when the crowd opened a little, and I beheld the old king looking at me, and I felt convinced that his jealousy was at last aroused, and that if I consented to remain, my life would not be worth a day's purchase. Whyna also turned, and met the look of the old king. Whether she read in his countenance what I did, I know not; but this is certain, she made no more attempts to persuade me, but waving her hand for us to set off on our journey, she slowly retired, and when arrived at the hut turned round towards us. We all prostrated ourselves before her, and then set off on our journey. She retired to the door of her own hut, and two or three times waved her hand to us, at which our guards made us every time again prostrate ourselves. She then walked out to the little hill where she always went up to pray, and for the last time waved her hand, and then I perceived her sink down on the ground, and turn her head in the direction which she always did when she prayed. We now proceeded on our journey in a north-west direction, our guards treating us with the greatest kindness. We rested every day from ten till four o'clock in the afternoon, and then walked till late at night. Corn was supplied us from the scattered hamlets as we passed along, and our escort procured us flesh and fowl with their bows and arrows; but we were in a state of great anxiety to know where we were going, and nobody appeared able or willing to tell us. I often thought of Whyna, and at times repented that I had not remained with her, as I feared falling into a worse slavery, but the recollection of the old king's diabolical parting look was sufficient to make me think that it was best as it was. Now that I had left my mistress, I thought of her kindness and amiable qualities and her affection for me; and although it may appear strange that I should feel myself in love with a black woman, I will not deny but that I was so. I could not help being so, and that is all the excuse I can offer. Our guards now informed us that we were about to pass for a few miles through the territory of another king, and that they were not sure what our reception might be; but this was soon made evident, for we observed a party behind us, which moved as we moved, although they did not attack us; and soon afterwards a larger body in front were blocking up our passage, and we found that we were beset. The commander of our party, therefore, gave orders for battle, and he put into our hands strong spears, they being the only weapons we could use, and entreated us to fight. Our party was greatly out-numbered by the enemy, but ours were chosen warriors. As for us white men, we kept together, agreeing among ourselves, that we would defend ourselves if attacked, but would not offend either party by taking an unnecessary part in the fray, as it was immaterial to us to whom we belonged. The battle, or rather skirmish, soon began. They dispersed, and shot their arrows from behind the trees, and this warfare continued some time without damage to either party, till at last they attacked us closely; then, our commander killing that of the enemy, they gave way, just as another party was coming forward to attack us white men; but finding us resolute in our defence, and our own warriors coming to our assistance, the rout was general. They could not, however, prevent some prisoners from being taken; most of them wounded with the bird-arrows, which, having their barbs twisted in the form of an S, gave great pain in their extraction. I observed that a particular herb chewed, and bound up with the bleeding wound, was their only remedy, and that when the bone was injured, they considered the wound mortal. We now turned to the eastward to get back into our own territory; we left the prisoners and wounded at a village, and receiving a reinforcement, we took a circuit to avoid this hostile people, and continued our route. On the eighth morning, just as we were stopping to repose, one of the warriors, who had mounted a hill before us, shouted and waved his hand. We ran up to him, and as soon as we gained the summit, were transported with the sight of the British flag flying on Senegal fort, on the other side of the river. We now understood that by some means or another we had been ransomed, and so it proved to be; for the governor hearing that we were prisoners up the country, had sent messengers offering the old king a handsome present for our liberation. I afterwards found out that the price paid in goods amounted to about fifty-six shillings a head. The governor received us kindly, clothed us, and sent us down to the ship, which was with a full cargo in the road, and intending to sail the next day, and we were received and welcomed by our messmates as men risen from the dead. We sailed two days afterwards, and had a fortunate voyage home to Liverpool. CHAPTER EIGHT. THE LIVERPOOL LADIES ARE VERY CIVIL TO ME--I AM ADMITTED INTO GOOD SOCIETY--INTRODUCED TO CAPTAIN LEVEE--AGAIN SAIL TO SENEGAL--OVERHEAR A CONSPIRACY TO SEIZE THE SHIP BY THE CREW OF A SLAVER, BUT AM ENABLED TO DEFEAT IT--AM THANKED AND REWARDED BY THE OWNER--TAKE A TRIP TO LONDON WITH CAPTAIN LEVEE--STOPPED BY HIGHWAYMEN ON THE ROAD--PUT UP AT A TAVERN--DISSIPATED TOWN LIFE--REMOVE TO A GENTEEL BOARDING-HOUSE--MEET WITH A GOVERNMENT SPY--RETURN TO LIVERPOOL. As the captain reported me to be a very attentive and good officer, although I was then but twenty-three years of age, and as I had been previously on good terms and useful to the owner, I was kindly received by him, and paid much more attention to than my situation on board might warrant. My captivity among the Negroes, and the narrative I gave of my adventures, were also a source of much interest. I was at first questioned by the gentlemen of Liverpool, and afterwards one of the merchant's ladies, who had heard something of my adventures, and found out that I was a young and personable man, with better manners than are usually to be found before the mast, invited me one evening to a tea-party, that I might amuse her friends with my adventures. They were most curious about the Negro queen, Whyna, inquiring into every particular as to her personal appearance and dress, and trying to find out, as women always do, if there was anything of an intrigue between us. They shook their little fingers at me, when I solemnly declared that there was not, and one or two of them cajoled me aside to obtain my acknowledgment of what they really believed to be the truth, although I would not confess it. When they had tired themselves with asking questions about the Negro queen, they then began to ask about myself, and how it happened I was not such a bear, and coarse in my manners and address, as the other seamen. To this I could give no other reply but that I had been educated when a child. They would fain know who were my father and mother, and in what station of life it had pleased God to place them; but I hardly need say, my dear Madam, to you who are so well acquainted with my birth and parentage, that I would not disgrace my family by acknowledging that one of their sons was in a situation so unworthy; not that I thought at that time, nor do I think now, that I was so much to blame in preferring independence in a humble position, to the life that induced me to take the step which I did; but as I could not state who my family were without also stating why I had quitted them, I preserved silence, as I did not think that I had any right to communicate family secrets to strangers. The consequences of my first introduction to genteel society were very agreeable; I received many more invitations from the company assembled, notwithstanding that my sailor's attire but ill corresponded with the powdered wigs and silk waistcoats of the gentlemen, or the hoops and furbelows of satin, which set off the charms of the ladies. At first I did not care so much, but as I grew more at my ease, I felt ashamed of my dress, and the more so as the young foplings would put their glasses to their eyes, and look at me as if I were a monster. But supported as I was by the fair sex, I cared little for them. The ladies vowed that I was charming, and paid me much courtesy; indeed my vanity more than once made me suspect that I was something more than a mere favourite with one or two of them, one especially, a buxom young person, and very coquettish, who told me, as we were looking out of the bay-window of the withdrawing-room, that since I could be so secret with respect to what took place between the Negress queen and myself, I must be sure to command the good-will and favour of the ladies, who always admired discretion in so young and so handsome a man. But I was not to be seduced by this flattery, for somehow or another I had ever before me the French lady, and her conduct to me; and I had almost a dislike, or I should rather say I had imbibed an indifference, for the sex. This admission into good society did, however, have one effect upon me; it made me more particular in my dress, and all my wages were employed in the decoration of my person. At that time you may recollect, Madam, there were but two styles of dress among the seamen; one was that worn by those who sailed in the northern seas, and the other by those who navigated in the tropical countries, both suitable to the climates. The first was the jacket, woollen frock, breeches, and petticoat of canvass over all, with worsted stockings, shoes, and buckles, and usually a cap of skin upon the head; the other a light short jacket, with hanging buttons, red sash, trowsers, and neat shoes and buckles, with a small embroidered cap with falling crown, or a hat and feather. It was this last which I had always worn, having been continually in warm climates, and my hair was dressed in its natural ringlets instead of a wig, which I was never partial to, although very common among seamen; my ears were pierced, and I wore long gold earrings, as well as gilt buckles in my shoes; and, by degrees, I not only improved my dress so as to make it very handsome in materials, but my manners were also very much altered for the better. I had been at Liverpool about two months, waiting for the ship to unload and take in cargo for another voyage, when a privateer belonging to the same owner came into port with four prizes of considerable value; and the day afterwards I was invited by the owner to meet the captain who commanded the privateer. He was a very different looking person from Captain Weatherall, who was a stout, strong-limbed man, with a weather-beaten countenance. He, on the contrary, was a young man of about twenty-six, very slight in person, with a dark complexion, hair and eyes jet black. I should have called him a very handsome Jew--for he bore that cast of countenance, and I afterwards discovered that he was of that origin, although I cannot say that he ever followed the observances of that remarkable people. He was handsomely dressed, wearing his hair slightly powdered, a laced coat and waistcoat, blue sash and trowsers, with silver-mounted pistols and dagger in his belt, and a smart hanger by his side. He had several diamond rings on his finger, and carried a small clouded cane. Altogether, I had never fallen in with so smart and prepossessing a personage, and should have taken him for one of the gentlemen commanding the king's ships, rather than the captain of a Liverpool privateer. He talked well and fluently, and with an air of command and decision, taking the lead in the company, although it might have been considered that he was not by any means the principal person in it. The owner, during the evening, informed me that he was a first-rate officer, of great personal courage, and that he had made a great deal of money, which he had squandered away almost as fast as he received it. With this person, whose name was Captain Levee, (an alteration, I suspect, from Levi,) I was much pleased; and as I found that he did not appear to despise my acquaintance, I took much pains to please him, and we were becoming very intimate, when my ship was ready to sail. I now found that I was promoted to the office of first mate, which gave me great satisfaction. We sailed with an assorted cargo, but very light, and nothing of consequence occurred during our passage out. We made good traffic on the coast as we ran down it, receiving ivory, gold-dust, and wax, in exchange for our printed cottons and hardware. After being six weeks on the coast, we put into Senegal to dispose of the remainder of our cargo; which we soon did to the governor, who gave us a fair exchange, although by no means so profitable a barter as what we had made on the coast; but that we did not expect for what might be called the refuse of our cargo. The captain was much pleased, as he knew the owner would be satisfied with him, and, moreover, he had himself a venture in the cargo; and we had just received the remainder of the ivory from the governor's stores, and had only to get on board a sufficiency of provisions and water for our homeward voyage, when a circumstance took place which I must now relate. Our crew consisted of the captain, and myself, as first mate, the second mate, and twelve seamen, four of which were those who had been taken prisoners with me, and had been released, as I have related, in our previous voyage. These four men were very much attached to me, I believe chiefly from my kindness to them when I was a slave to the queen Whyna, as I always procured for them everything which I could, and, through the exertions of my mistress, had them plentifully supplied with provisions from the king's table. The second mate and other eight men we had shipped at Liverpool. They were fine, stout fellows, but appeared to be loose characters, but that we did not discover till after we had sailed. There was anchored with us at Senegal a low black brig, employed in the slave-trade, which had made the bay at the same time that we did; and to their great surprise--for she was considered a very fast sailer--she was beaten at all points by our ship, which was considered the fastest vessel out of Liverpool. The crew of the slaver were numerous, and as bloodthirsty a set of looking fellows as ever I fell in with. Their boat was continually alongside of our vessel, and I perceived that their visits were made to the eight men whom we had shipped at Liverpool, and that they did not appear inclined to be at all intimate with the rest of the crew. This roused my suspicions, although I said nothing; but I watched them very closely. One forenoon, as I was standing at the foot of the companion-ladder, concealed by the booby-hatch from the sight of those on deck, I heard our men talking over the side, and at last, as I remained concealed, that I might overhear the conversation, one of the slaver's men from the boat said, "To-night, at eight o'clock, we will come to arrange the whole business." The boat then shoved off, and pulled for the brig. Now, it was the custom of the captain to go on shore every evening to drink sangaree and smoke with the governor, and very often I went with him, leaving the ship in charge of the second mate. It had been my intention, and I had stated as much to the second mate, to go this evening, as it was the last but one that we should remain at Senegal; but from what I overheard I made up my mind that I would not go. About an hour before sunset, I complained of headache and sickness, and sat down under the awning over the after part of the quarter-deck. When the captain came up to go on shore, he asked me if I was ready, but I made no answer, only put my hand to my head. The captain, supposing that I was about to be attacked by the fever of the country, was much concerned, and desired the second mate to help him to take me down to the state-room, and then went on shore; the boat was, as usual, pulled by the four men who were prisoners with me, and whom the captain found he could trust on shore better than the others belonging to the crew, who would indulge in liquor whenever they had an opportunity. I remained in my bed-place till it was nearly eight o'clock, and then crept softly up the companion-hatch to ascertain who was on deck. The men were all below in the fore-peak at their suppers, and as I had before observed that their conferences were held on the forecastle, I went forward, and covered myself up with a part of the main-topsail, which the men had been repairing during the day. From this position I could hear all that passed, whether they went down into the fore-peak, or remained to converse on the forecastle. About ten minutes afterwards I heard the boat grate against the ship's side, and the men of the slaver mount on the deck. "All right?" inquired one of the slavers. "Yes," replied our second mate; "skipper and his men are on shore, and the first mate taken with the fever." "All the better," replied another; "one less to handle. And now, my lads, let's to business, and have everything settled to-night, so that we may not be seen together any more till the work is done." They then commenced a consultation, by which I found it was arranged that our ship was to be boarded and taken possession of as soon as she was a few miles out of the bay, for they dared not attack us while we were at anchor close to the fort; but the second mate and eight men belonging to us were to pretend to make resistance until beaten down below, and when the vessel was in their power, the captain, I, and the other four men who were ashore in the boat, were to be silenced for ever. After which there came on a discussion as to what was to be done with the cargo, which was very valuable, and how the money was to be shared out when the cargo was sold. Then they settled who were to be officers on board of the ship, which there is no doubt they intended to make a pirate vessel. I also discovered that, if they succeeded, it was their intention to kill their own captain and such men of the slaver who would not join them, and scuttle their own vessel, which was a very old one. The consultation ended by a solemn and most villainous oath being administered to every man as to secrecy and fidelity, after which the men of the slaver went into their boat, and pulled to their own vessel. The second mate and our men remained on deck about a quarter of an hour, and then all descended by the ladder to the fore-peak, and turned into their hammocks. As soon as I thought I could do so with safety, I came out of my lurking-place, and retreated to the state-room. It was fortunate that I did, for a minute afterwards I heard a man on deck, and the second mate came down the companion-hatch, and inquired whether I wanted anything. I told him no; that I was very ill, and only hoped to be able to go to sleep, and asked him if the captain had returned. He replied that he had not, and then went away. As soon as I was left to myself, I began to consider what would be best to be done. I knew the captain to be a very timorous man, and I was afraid to trust him with the secret, as I thought he would be certain to let the men know by his conduct that they were discovered and their plans known. The four men who were prisoners with me I knew that I could confide in. This was the Tuesday night, and we proposed sailing on the Thursday. Now we had no means of defence on board, except one small gun, which was honey-combed and nearly useless. It did very well to make a signal with, but had it been loaded with ball, I believe it would have burst immediately. It is true that we had muskets and cutlasses, but what use would they have been against such a force as would be opposed, and two-thirds of our men mutineers. Of course we must have been immediately overpowered. That the slavers intended to take possession of their own vessel before they took ours, I had no doubt. It is true that we outsailed them when we had a breeze, but the bay was usually becalmed, and it was not till a vessel had got well into the offing that she obtained a breeze, and there was no doubt but that they would take the opportunity of boarding us when we were moving slowly through the water, and a boat might easily come up with us. The slaver had stated his intention of sailing immediately to procure her cargo elsewhere, and if she got under weigh at the same time that we did, no suspicion would be created. To apply for protection to the governor would be useless--he could not protect us after we were clear of the bay. Indeed, if it were known that we had so done, it would probably only precipitate the affair, and we should be taken possession of while at anchor, for the shot from the fort would hardly reach us. It was, therefore, only by stratagem that we could escape from the clutches of these miscreants. Again, allowing that we were to get clear of the slavers, we were still in an awkward position, for, supposing the captain to be of any use, we should still only be six men against nine, and we might be overpowered by our own crew, who were determined and powerful men. All night I lay on my bed reflecting upon what ought to be done, and at last I made up my mind. The next morning I went on deck, complaining very much, but stating that the fever had left me. The long-boat was sent on shore for more water, and I took care that the second mate and eight men should be those selected for the service. As soon as they had shoved off I called the other four men on the forecastle, and told them what I had overheard. They were very much astonished, for they had had no idea that there was anything of the kind going forward. I imparted to them all my plans, and they agreed to support me in everything--indeed, they were all brave men, and would have, if I had acceded to it, attempted to master and overpower the second mate and the others, and make sail in the night; but this I would not permit, as there was a great risk. They perfectly agreed with me that, it was no use acquainting the captain, and that all we had to do was to get rid of these men, and carry the vessel borne how we could. How that was to be done was the point at issue. One thing was certain, that it was necessary to leave the bay that night, or it would be too late. Fortunately, there was always a light breeze during the night, and the nights were dark, for there was no moon till three o'clock in the morning, by which time we could have gained the offing, and then we might laugh at the slaver, as we were lighter in our heels. The boat came off with the water about noon, and the men went to dinner. The captain had agreed to dine with the governor, and I had been asked to accompany him. It was to be our farewell dinner, as we were to sail the next morning. I had been cogitating a long while to find out how to get rid of these fellows, when at last I determined that I would go on shore with the captain, and propose a plan to the governor. His knowledge of what was about to be attempted could do no harm, and I thought he would help us; so I went into the boat, and when we landed I told the men what I intended to do. As soon as I arrived at the governor's, I took an opportunity, while the captain was reading a book, to request a few moments' conversation, and I then informed the governor of the conspiracy which was afloat, and when I had so done, I pointed out to him the propriety of saying nothing to the captain until all was safe, and proposed my plan to him, which he immediately acceded to. When he returned to where the captain was still reading, he told him that he had a quantity of gold-dust and other valuables, which he wished to send to England by his ship; but that he did not wish to do it openly, as it was supposed that he did not traffic, and that if the captain would send his long-boat on shore after dark, he would send all the articles on board, with instructions to whom they were to be consigned on our arrival. The captain of course consented. We bade the governor farewell about half an hour before dark, and returned on board. After I had been a few minutes on deck, I sent for the second mate, and told him as a secret what the governor proposed to do, and that he would be required to land after dark for the goods, telling him that there was a very large quantity of gold-dust, and that he must be very careful. I knew that this intelligence would please him, as it would add to their plunder when they seized the vessel; and I told him that as we sailed at daylight, he must lose no time, but be on board again as soon as he could, that we might hoist in the long-boat. About eight o'clock in the evening, the boat, with him and the eight men, went on shore. The governor had promised to detain them, and ply them with liquor, till we had time to get safe off. As soon as they were out of sight and hearing, we prepared everything for getting under weigh. The captain had gone to his cabin, but was not in bed. I went down to him, and told him I should remain up till the boat returned, and see that all was right; and that in the mean time I would get everything ready for weighing the next morning, and that he might just as well go to bed now, and I would call him to relieve me at daylight. To this arrangement he consented; and in half an hour I perceived that his candle was out, and that he had retired. Being now so dark that we could not perceive the slaver, which lay about three cables' length from us, it was fairly to be argued that she could not see us; I therefore went forward and slipped the cable without noise, and sent men up aloft to loose the sails. There was a light breeze, sufficient to carry us about two knots through the water, and we knew that it would rather increase than diminish. In half an hour, weak-handed as we were, we were under sail, everything being done without a word being spoken, and with the utmost precaution. You may imagine how rejoiced we all were when we found that we had manoeuvred so well; notwithstanding, we kept a sharp look-out, to see if the slaver had perceived our motions, and had followed us; and the fear of such being the case kept us under alarm till near daylight, when the breeze blew strong, and we felt that we had nothing more to dread. As the day broke, we found that we were four or five leagues from the anchorage, and could not see the lower masts of the slaver, which still remained where we had left her. Satisfied that we were secure, I then went down to the captain, and, as he lay in bed, made him acquainted with all that had passed. He appeared as if awakened from a dream, rose without making any reply, and hastened on deck. When he found out that we were under weigh, and so far from the land, he exclaimed: "It must all be true; but how shall we be able to take the ship home with so few hands?" I replied, that I had no fears on that score, and that I would answer for bringing the vessel safe to Liverpool. "But," he said at last, "how is it that I was not informed of all this? I might have made some arrangements with the men." "Yes, Sir," I replied, "but if you had attempted to do so, the vessel would have been taken immediately." "But why was I not acquainted with it, I want to know?" he said again. I had by this time made up my mind to the answer I should give him; so I said, "Because it would have placed a serious responsibility on your shoulders, if, as captain of this vessel, you had sailed to England with such a valuable cargo and so few hands. The governor and I, therefore, thought it better that you should not be placed in such an awkward position, and therefore we considered it right not to say a word to you about it. Now, if anything goes wrong, it will be my fault, and not yours, and the owner cannot blame you." When I had said this, the captain was silent for a minute or two, and then said: "Well, I believe it is all for the best, and I thank you and the governor too." Having got over this little difficulty, I did not care. We made all sail, and steered homewards; and, after a rapid passage, during which we were on deck day and night, we arrived, very much fatigued, at Liverpool. Of course the captain communicated what had occurred to the owner, who immediately sent for me, and having heard my version of the story, expressed his acknowledgment for the preservation of the vessel; and to prove his sincerity, he presented me with fifty guineas for myself, and ten for each of the men. The cargo was soon landed, and I was again at liberty. I found Captain Levee in port; he had just returned from another cruise, and had taken a rich prize. He met me with the same cordiality as before; and having asked me for a recital of what had occurred at Senegal, of which he had heard something from the owner, as soon as I had finished, he said: "You are a lad after my own heart, and I wish we were sailing together. I want a first-lieutenant like you, and if you will go with me, say the word, and it will be hard but I will have you." I replied that I was not very anxious to be in a privateer again; and this brought on a discourse upon what occurred when I was in the Revenge with Captain Weatherall. "Well," he said at last, "all this makes me more anxious to have you. I like fair fighting, and hate buccaneering like yourself; however, we will talk of it another time. I am about to start for London. What do you say, will you join me, and we will have some sport? With plenty of money, you may do anything in London." "Yes," I replied, "but I have not plenty of money." "That shall make no difference; money is of no use but to spend it, that I know of," replied Captain Levee. "I have plenty for both of us, and my purse is at your service; help yourself as you please, without counting, for I shall be your enemy if you offer to return it. That's settled; the horses are all ready, and we will start on Wednesday. How will you dress? I think it might be better to alter your costume, now you are going to London. You'll make a pretty fellow, dress how you will." "Before I give you an answer to all your kind proposals, I must speak to the owner, Captain Levee." "Of course you must; shall we go there now?" "Willingly," I replied. And we accordingly set off. Captain Levee introduced the subject as soon as we arrived at the counting-house, stating that he wanted me to be first-lieutenant of the privateer, and that I was going to London with him, if he had no objection. "As for going to London with you for five or six weeks, Captain Levee, there can be no objection to that," replied the owner; "but as for being your first-lieutenant, that is another question. I have a vessel now fitting out, and intended to offer the command of it to Mr Elrington. I do so now at once, and he must decide whether he prefers being under your orders to commanding a vessel of his own." "I will decide that for him," replied Captain Levee. "He must command his own vessel; it would be no friendship on my part to stand in the way of his advancement. I only hope, if she is a privateer, that we may cruise together." "I cannot reply to that latter question," replied the owner. "Her destination is uncertain; but the command of her is now offered to Mr Elrington, if he will accept of it before his trip to the metropolis." I replied that I should with pleasure, and returned the owner many thanks for his kindness; and, after a few minutes' more conversation, we took our leave. "Now I should advise you," said Captain Levee, as we walked towards his lodgings, "to dress as a captain of a vessel of war, much in the style that I do. You are a captain, and have a right so to do. Come with me, and let me fit you out." I agreed with Captain Levee that I could not do better; so we went and ordered my suits of clothes, and purchased the other articles which I required. Captain Levee would have paid for them, but I had money sufficient, and would not permit him; indeed with my pay and present of fifty guineas I had upwards of seventy guineas in my purse, and did not disburse more than fifty in my accoutrements, although my pistols and hanger were very handsome. We did not start until three days after the time proposed, when I found at daylight two stout well-bred horses at the door; one for Captain Levee, and the other for me. We were attended by two serving-men belonging to the crew of the privateer commanded by Captain Levee-- powerful, fierce-looking, and determined men, armed to the teeth, and mounted upon strong jades. One carried the valise of Captain Levee, which was heavy with gold. The other had charge of mine, which was much lighter, as you may suppose. We travelled for three days without any interruption, making about thirty miles a day, and stopping at the hostelries to sleep every night. On the fourth day we had a slight affair, for as we were mounting a hill towards the evening, we found our passage barred by five fellows with crape masks, who told us to stand and deliver. "We will," replied Captain Levee, firing his pistol, and reining up his horse at the same time. The ball struck the man, who fell back on the crupper, while the others rushed forward. My pistols were all ready, and I fired at the one who spurred his horse upon me, but the horse rearing up saved his master, the ball passing through the head of the animal, who fell dead, holding his rider a prisoner by the thigh, which was underneath his body. Our two men had come forward and ranged alongside of us at the first attack, but now that two had fallen, the others finding themselves in a minority, after exchanging shots, turned their horses' heads and galloped away. We would have pursued them, but Captain Levee said it was better not, as there might be more of the gang near, and by pursuing them we might separate and be cut off in detail. "What shall we do with these fellows?" asked our men of Captain Levee. "Leave them to get off how they can," replied Captain Levee. "I will not be stopped on my journey by such a matter as this. I dare say they don't deserve hanging more than half the people we meet. Let us push on and get into quarters for the night. After all, Mr Elrington," said Captain Levee to me, as we were setting off, "it's only a little land privateering, and we must not be too hard upon them." I confess, Madam, when I recalled all that I had witnessed on board of the Revenge, that I agreed with Captain Levee, that these highwaymen were not worse than ourselves. No other adventure occurred during our journey, and when we arrived in London we directed our horses' steps to a fashionable tavern in Saint Paul's, and took possession of apartments, and as Captain Levee was well-known, we were cordially greeted and well attended. The tavern was in great repute, and resorted to by all the wits and gay men of the day, and I soon found myself on intimate terms with a numerous set of dashing blades full of life and jollity, and spending their money like princes; but it was a life of sad intemperance, and my head ached every morning from the excess of the night before, and in our excursions in the evenings we were continually in broils and disturbances, and many a broken head, nay, sometimes a severe wound, was given and received. After the first fortnight, I felt weary of this continual dissipation, and as I was dressing a sword-cut which Captain Levee had received in an affray, I one morning told him so. "I agree with you," he replied, "that it is all very foolish and discreditable, but if we live with the gay and pretty fellows, we must do as they do. Besides, how could I get rid of my money, which burns in my pocket, if I did not spend as much in one day as would suffice for three weeks?" "Still I would rather dress a wound gained in an honourable contest with the enemy than one received in a night brawl, and I would rather see you commanding your men in action than reeling with other drunkards in search of a quarrel in the streets." "I feel that it is beneath me, and I'm sure that it's beneath you. You are a Mentor without a beard," replied Captain Levee. "But still it requires no beard to discover that I have made an ass of myself. Now, what do you say, shall we take lodgings and live more reputably, for while in this tavern we never shall be able to do so?" "I should prefer it, to tell you the honest truth," I replied, "for I have no pleasure in our present life." "Be it so, then," he replied. "I will tell them that I take lodgings, that I may be near to a fair lady. That will be a good and sufficient excuse." The next day we secured lodgings to our satisfaction, and removed into them, leaving our horses and men at the tavern. We boarded with the family, and as there were others who did the same, we had a very pleasant society, especially as there were many of the other sex among the boarders. The first day that we sat down to dinner, I found myself by the side of a young man of pleasing manners, although with much of the coxcomb in his apparel. His dress was very gay and very expensive, and he wore a diamond-hilted sword and diamond buckles--at least so they appeared to me, as I was not sufficient connoisseur to distinguish the brilliant from the paste. He was very affable and talkative, and before dinner was over gave me the history of many of the people present. "Who is the dame in the blue stomacher?" I inquired. "You mean the prettiest of the two, I suppose," he replied, "that one with the patches under the eye? She is a widow, having just buried an old man of sixty, to whom she was sacrificed by her mother. But although the old fellow was as rich as a Jew, he found such fault with the lady's conduct that he left all his money away from her. This is not generally known, and she takes care to conceal it, for she is anxious to make another match, and she will succeed if her funds, which are not _very_ great, enable her to carry on the game a little longer. I was nearly taken in myself, but an intimacy with her cousin, who hates her, gave me a knowledge of the truth. She still keeps her carriage, and appears to be rolling in wealth, but she has sold her diamonds and wears paste. And that plain young person on the other side of her has money, and knows the value of it. She requires rent-roll for rent-roll, and instead of referring you to her father and mother, the little minx refers you to her lawyer and man of business. Ugly as she is, I would have sacrificed myself; but she treated me in that way, and upon my soul I was not very sorry for it, for she is dear at any price, and I have since rejoiced at my want of success." "Who is that elderly gentleman with such snow-white hair?" I inquired. "That," replied my companion, "nobody exactly knows, but I have my idea. I think," said he, lowering his voice to a whisper, "that he is a Catholic priest, or a Jesuit, perhaps, and a partisan of the house of Stuart. I have my reasons for supposing so, and this I am sure of, which is, that he is closely watched by the emissaries of government." You may remember, Madam, how at that time the country was disturbed by the landing of the Pretender in the summer of the year before, and the great successes which he had met with, and that the Duke of Cumberland had returned from the army in the Low Countries, and had marched to Scotland. "Has there been any intelligence from Scotland relative to the movements of the armies?" I inquired. "We have heard that the Pretender had abandoned the siege of Fort William, but nothing more; and how far the report is true, it is hard to say. You military men must naturally have a war one way or the other," said my companion, in a careless manner. "As to the fighting part of the question," I replied, "I should feel it a matter of great indifference which side I fought for, as the claim of both parties is a matter of mere opinion." "Indeed," he said; "and what may be your opinion?" "I have none. I think the claims of both parties equal. The house of Stuart lost the throne of England on account of its religion--that of Hanover has been called to the throne for the same cause. The adherents of both are numerous at the present moment; and it does not follow, because the house of Hanover has the strongest party, that the house of Stuart should not uphold its cause while there is a chance of success." "That is true; but if you were to be obliged to take one side or the other, which would it be by preference?" "Certainly I would support the Protestant religion in preference to the Catholic. I am a Protestant, and that is reason enough." "I agree with you," replied my companion. "Is your brave friend of the same opinion?" "I really never put the question to him, but I think I may safely answer that he is." It was fortunate, Madam, that I replied as I did, for I afterwards discovered that this precious gossiping young man, with his rings and ribbons, was no other than a government spy, on the look-out for malcontents. Certainly his disguise was good, for I never should have imagined it from his foppish exterior and mincing manners. We passed our time much more to my satisfaction now than we did before, escorting the ladies to the theatre and to Ranelagh, and the freedom with which Captain Levee (and I may say I also) spent his money, soon gave us a passport to good society. About a fortnight afterwards, the news arrived of the battle of Culloden, and great rejoicings were made. My foppish friend remarked to me:-- "Yes, now that the hopes of the Pretender are blasted, and the Hanoverian succession secured, there are plenty who pretend to rejoice, and be excessively loyal, who, if the truth were known, ought to be quartered as traitors." And I must observe, that the day before the news of the battle, the old gentleman with the snow-white hair was arrested and sent to the Tower, and he afterwards suffered for high treason. But letters from the owner, saying that the presence of both of us was immediately required, broke off this pleasant London party. Indeed, the bag of gold was running very low, and this, combined with the owner's letter, occasioned our breaking up three days afterwards. We took leave of the company at the lodgings, and there was a tender parting with one or two buxom young women; after which we again mounted our steeds and set off for Liverpool, where we arrived without any adventure worthy of narration. CHAPTER NINE. I AM PUT IN COMMAND OF THE SPARROW-HAWK--AM DIRECTED TO TAKE FOUR JACOBITE GENTLEMEN SECRETLY ON BOARD--RUN WITH THEM TO BORDEAUX--LAND THEM IN SAFETY--DINE WITH THE GOVERNOR--MEET WITH THE WIDOW OF THE FRENCH GENTLEMAN I HAD UNFORTUNATELY KILLED--AM INSULTED BY HER SECOND HUSBAND--AGREE TO FIGHT WITH HIM--SAIL DOWN THE RIVER AND PREPARE FOR ACTION. On our arrival, Captain Levee and I, as soon as we had got rid of the dust of travel, called upon the owner, who informed us that all the alterations in Captain Levee's vessel, which was a large lugger of fourteen guns and a hundred and twenty men, were complete, and that my vessel was also ready for me, and manned; but that I had better go on board and see if anything else was required, or if there was any alteration that I would propose. Captain Levee and I immediately went down to the wharf, alongside of which my vessel lay, that we might examine her now that she was fitted out as a vessel of war. She had been a schooner in the Spanish trade, and had been captured by Captain Levee, who had taken her out from under a battery as she lay at anchor, having just made her port from a voyage from South America, being at that time laden with copper and cochineal,--a most valuable prize she had proved,--and as she was found to be a surprising fast sailer, the owner had resolved to fit her out as a privateer. She was not a large vessel, being of about a hundred and sixty tons, but she was very beautifully built. She was now armed with eight brass guns, of a calibre of six pounds each, four howitzers aft, and two cohorns on the taffrail. "You have a very sweet little craft here, Elrington," said Captain Levee, after he had walked all over her, and examined her below and aloft. "She will sail better than before, I should think, for she then had a very full cargo, and now her top hamper is a mere nothing. Did the owner say how many men you had?" "Fifty-four is, I believe, to be our full complement," I replied, "and I should think quite enough." "Yes, if they are good men and true. You may do a great deal with this vessel, for you see she draws so little water, that you may run in where I dare not venture. Come, we will now return to our lodgings, pack up, and each go on board of our vessels. We have had play enough, now to work again, and in good earnest." "I was about to propose it myself;" I replied, "for with a new vessel, officers and men not known to me, the sooner I am on board and with them the better. It will take some time to get everything and everybody in their places." "Spoken like a man who understands his business," replied Captain Levee. "I wonder whether we shall be sent out together?" "I can only say that I hope so," I replied, "as I should profit much by your experience, and hope to prove to you that, if necessary, I shall not be a bad second." And as I made this reply, we arrived at the house where we had lodged. Captain Levee was a man who, when once he had decided, was as rapid as lightning in execution. He sent for a dealer in horses, concluded a bargain with him in five minutes, paid his lodgings and all demands upon him, and before noon we were both on board of our respective vessels. But, previous to the seamen coming up for our boxes, I observed to him, "I should wish, Levee, that you would let me know, if it is only at a rough guess, what sum I may be indebted to you; as I may be fortunate, and if so, it will be but fair to repay you the money, although your kindness I cannot so easily return." "I'll tell you exactly," said Levee. "If I take no prizes this cruise, and you do make money, why then we will, on our return, have another frolic somewhere, and you shall stand treat. That will make us all square, if I am not fortunate; but if I am, I consider your pleasant company to have more than repaid me for any little expense I may have incurred." "You are very kind to say that," I replied; "but I hope you will be fortunate, and not have to depend upon me." "I hope so too," he replied, laughing. "If we come back safe and sound, we will take a trip to Bath--I am anxious to see the place." I mention this conversation, Madam, that I may make you acquainted with the character of Captain Levee, and prove to you how worthy a man I had as a companion. It required about ten days to complete my little schooner with everything that I considered requisite, and the politeness of the owner was extremely gratifying. We were, however, but just complete, when the owner sent for me in a great hurry, and having taken me into a back room next to the counting-house, he locked the door, and said-- "Captain Elrington, I have been offered a large sum to do a service to some unfortunate people; but it is an affair which, for our own sakes, will demand the utmost secrecy: indeed, you will risk more than I shall; but at the same time I trust you will not refuse to perform the service, as I shall lose a considerable advantage. If you will undertake it, I shall not be ungrateful." I replied that I was bound to him by many acts of kindness, and that he might confide in my gratitude. "Well, then," he replied, lowering his voice, "the fact is this; four of the Jacobite party, who are hotly pursued, and for whose heads a large reward is offered, have contrived to escape to this port, and are here concealed by their friends, who have applied to me to land them at some port in France." "I understand," I replied; "I will cheerfully execute the commission." "I thank you, Captain Elrington; I expected no other answer from you. I would not put them on board Captain Levee's vessel for many reasons; but, at the same time, he knows that he is to sail to-morrow, and he shall wait for you and keep company with you till you have landed them; after which you may concert your own measures with him, and decide whether you cruise together or separate." "Captain Levee will of course know that I have them on board?" "Certainly; but it is to conceal these people from others in his ship, and not from him, that they are put on board of your vessel. At the same time, I confess I have my private reasons as well, which I do not wish to make known. You can sail to-morrow?" "I can sail to-night, if you wish," I replied. "No; to-morrow night will be the time that I have fixed." "At what time will they come on board?" "I cannot reply to that till to-morrow. The fact is, that the government people are on a hot scent; and there is a vessel of war in the offing, I am told, ready to board anything and everything which comes out. Captain Levee will sail to-morrow morning, and will in all probability be examined by the government vessel, which is, I understand, a most rapid sailer." "Will he submit to it?" "Yes, he must; and I have given him positive orders not to make the least attempt to evade her or prevent a search. He will then run to Holyhead, and lay-to there for you to join him, and you will proceed together to the port which the people taken on board shall direct, for that is a part of the agreement they have made with me." "Then of course I am to evade the king's vessel?" "Certainly; and I have no doubt but that you will be able so to do. Your vessel is so fleet, that there will be little difficulty: at all events, you will do your best: but recollect, that although you must make every attempt to escape, you must not make any attempt at resistance--indeed, that would be useless against a vessel of such force. Should you be in a position which might enable them to board you, you must find some safe hiding-place for your passengers; for I hardly need say, that if taken with them on board, the vessel will be confiscated, and you will run some danger of your life. I have nothing more to say to you just now, except that you may give out that Captain Levee sails to-morrow, and that you are to follow him in ten days. Your powder is on board?" "Yes; I got it on board as soon as we hauled out in the stream." "Well, then, you will call here to-morrow morning about eleven o'clock, not before, and (I hardly need repeat it), but I again say--secrecy,--as you value your life." As soon as I had left the owner, I went down to the wharf, stepped into the boat, and went on board Captain Levee's vessel, which, I have omitted to state, was named the Arrow. I found him on board, and very busy getting ready for sea. "So you are off to-morrow, Levee?" said I, before all the people on the deck. "Yes," he replied. "I wish I was, too; but I am to remain ten days longer, I find." "I was in hopes we should have cruised together," replied Captain Levee; "but we must do as our owner wishes. What detains you?--I thought you were ready." "I thought so too," I replied; "but we find that the head of the mainmast is sprung, and we must have a new one. I have just come from the owner's, and must set to work at once, and get ready for shifting our mast. So, fare you well, if I do not see you before you sail." "I am to see the owner to-night," replied Levee. "Shall we not meet then, and take a parting glass?" "I fear not, but I will come if I can," I replied; "if not, success to the Arrow!" "And success to the Sparrow-Hawk!" replied Levee, "and God bless you, my good fellow." I shook hands with my kind friend, and went over the side of the lugger into my boat, and then pulled for my own vessel. As soon as I got on board, I sent for officers and men, and said to them-- "We are to shift our mainmast for one that is three feet longer, and must work hard, that we may be able to sail as soon as possible. I cannot allow any of you to go on shore till the work is finished; when it is done, you will have leave as before till we sail." That afternoon I sent down the topsail-yard and topmast, unbent the mainsail, main-topsail, and gaff--sent down the topmast and running-rigging on deck--cast loose the lanyards of the lower rigging, and quite dismantled the mainmast, so as to make it appear as if we were about to haul to the wharf and take it out. The men all remained on board, expecting that we should shift our berth the next day. On the following morning I laid out a warp to the wharf; as if intending to haul in; and at the time appointed, I went on shore to the owner, and told him what I had done. "But," he said, "I find that you will have to sail this night as soon as it is dark. How will you get ready?" I replied that at nightfall I would immediately replace everything, and in an hour would be ready for sea. "If such be the case, you have done well, Mr Elrington, and I thank you for your zeal on my behalf, which I shall not forget. Everything has been arranged, and you must come up here with some of your seamen as soon as you are ready to sail. Your men, or rather four of them, must remain in the house. The four gentlemen who are to be embarked will be dressed in seamen's attire, and will carry down their boxes and trunks as if they were your men taking your things on board. You will then remain a little distance from the wharf in the boat till your own men come down, and if there is no discovery you will take them on board with you; if, on the contrary, there is any suspicion, and the officers of the government are on the watch, and stop your men, you will then push off with the passengers, slip your cable if it is necessary, and make all sail for Holyhead, where you will fall in with the Arrow, which will be waiting there for you. Is the Arrow still in sight?" "No," I replied; "she was out of sight more than an hour ago, and from our masthead we could see the topgallant sails of the vessel of war bearing N.N.W." "Keep a look-out upon her, and see how she bears at dark," replied the owner, "for you must not fall in with her if possible. I think you had better return on board now, that you may keep your people quiet." When I arrived on board the schooner, I told my officers that I did not think that we should shift the mast as proposed, and that everything must be got ready for refitting. I did not choose to say more, but I added that I was to go on shore in the evening to smoke a pipe with the owner, and then I should know for certain. I employed the men during the whole of the day in doing everything in preparation which could be done without exciting suspicion; and as soon as it was dark I called the men aft, and told them that I thought it was very likely, from the Arrow not having made her appearance, that we might be sent to join her immediately, and that I wished them to rig the mainmast, and make everything ready for an immediate start, promising them to serve out some liquor if they worked well. This was sufficient, and in little more than an hour the mast was secured, the rigging all complete, and the sails ready for bending. I then ordered the boat to be manned, and telling the officers that they were to bend the sails, and have everything ready for weighing on my return on board, which would be in an hour, or thereabouts, I pulled on shore, and went up to the owner's, taking four men with me, and leaving three men in the boat. I ordered these three men to remain till the others came down with my trunks and effects, and not, to leave the boat on any consideration. When I arrived at the owner's, I told him what I had done, and he commended my arrangements. In the back room I found four gentlemen dressed in seamen's clothing, and as there was no time to be lost, they immediately shouldered the trunks and valises; desiring my own men to remain with the owner to bring down anything that he might wish to send on board, I left them in the counting-house. The gentlemen followed me with their loads down to the boat, and when I got there the men told me that some people had come down and asked whose boat it was, and why they were lying there, and that they had told the people that the captain had taken four men with him to bring down his things, and that they were waiting for him; so it was lucky that I said to my men what I did. We hastened to put the trunks into the boat, and to get in ourselves after we had received this intelligence, and then I shoved off from the wharf, and laid about a stone's throw distant for my other men. At last we heard them coming down, and shortly afterwards we perceived that they were stopped by other people, and in altercation with them. I knew then that the officers were on the alert, and would discover the stratagem, and therefore desired my men and the gentlemen, who had each taken an oar in readiness, to give way and pull for the schooner. As we did so, the king's officers on search who had stopped my four men came down to the wharf and ordered us to come back, but we made no reply. As soon as we were alongside, we hoisted the things out of the boat, veered her astern by a tow-rope, slipped the cable, and made sail. Fortunately it was very dark, and we were very alert in our movements. We could perceive lights at the wharf as we sailed out of the river, and it was clear that we had had a narrow escape; but I felt no alarm on account of the owner, as I knew that although they might suspect, they could prove nothing. When about three miles out we hove-to, hoisted in the boat, and shaped our course. All I had now to fear was the falling in with the ship of war in the offing, and I placed men to keep a sharp look-out in every direction, and told the officers that it was necessary that we should avoid her. When last seen, about an hour before dark, she was well to windward, and as the wind was from the northward, she would probably sail faster than we could, as a schooner does not sail so well free as on a wind. We had run out about four hours, and were steering our course for Holyhead, when suddenly we perceived the ship of war close to us, and to leeward. She had been lying with her mainsail to the mast, but she evidently had made us out, for she filled and set top-gallant sails. I immediately hauled my wind, and as soon as she had way, she tacked and followed in pursuit, being then right astern of us, about half a mile off. It was very dark, and I knew that as our sails were set, and we bore from her, it would be difficult for her to keep us in sight, as we only presented what we call the feather-edge of our sails to her. I therefore steered on under all sail, and, finding that the schooner weathered on her, I kept her away a little, so as to retain the same bearings, and to leave her faster. In an hour we could not make out the ship, and were therefore certain that she could not see us; so as I wanted to get clear of her, and be at Holyhead as soon as possible, I lowered down all the sails and put my helm up, so as to cross her and run to leeward under bare poles, while she continued her windward chase. This stratagem answered, and we saw no more of her; for, two hours afterwards, we fell in with the Arrow, and, hailing her, we both made sail down the Bristol Channel as fast as we could, and at daybreak there was no vessel in sight, and of course we had nothing more to fear from the Liverpool cruiser. As we now sailed rapidly along in company, with the wind on our quarter, it was high time for me to look to my passengers, who had remained on deck in perfect silence from the time that they had come on board. I therefore went up to them, and apologised for not having as yet paid them that attention that I should have wished to have done under other circumstances. "Captain," replied the oldest of them, with a courteous salute, "you have paid us every attention; you have been extremely active in saving our lives, and we return you our sincere thanks." "Yes, indeed," replied a young and handsome man who stood next him, "Mr Elrington has saved us from the toils of our enemies; but now that we are in no fear from that quarter, I must tell him that we have hardly had a mouthful of food for twenty-four hours, and if he wishes to save our lives a second time, it will be by ordering a good breakfast to be prepared for us." "Campbell speaks the truth, my dear Sir," said the one who had first spoken. "We have lately gained the knowledge of what it is to hunger and thirst; and we all join in his request." "You shall not wait long," I replied; "I will be up again in a moment or two." I went down into the cabin, and, ordering my servant to put on the table a large piece of pressed Hamburg beef; a cold pie of various flesh and fowl combined, some bread and cheese, and some bottles of brandy and usquebaugh, I then went up again, and requested them all to descend. Hungry they certainly were, and it was incredible the quantity that they devoured. I should have imagined that they had not been fed for a week and I thought that if they were to consume at that rate, my stock would never last out, and the sooner they were landed the better. As soon as they left off eating, and had finished two bottles of usquebaugh, I said to them, "Gentlemen, my orders are to land you at any port of France that you should prefer. Have you made up your minds as to which it shall be, for it will be necessary that we shape a course according to your decision?" "Mr Elrington, on that point we would wish to advise with you. I hardly need say that our object is to escape, and that falling in with and being captured by a ship of war, and there are many out in pursuit of us and other unfortunate adherents to the house of Stuart, would be extremely disagreeable, as our heads and our bodies would certainly part company, if we were taken. Now, which port do you think we should be most likely to reach with least chance of interruption?" "I think," I replied, "as you pay me the compliment to ask my opinion, that it would be better to run down the Bay of Biscay, and then put in the port of Bordeaux, or any other, where you could be landed in safety; and my reason is this: the Channel is full of cruisers looking after those of your party who are attempting to escape; and my vessel will be chased and searched. Now, although we might sail faster than any one vessel in the Channel, yet it is very possible that in running away from one, we may fall into the jaws of another. And besides, we are two privateers, and cruising off Bordeaux will excite no suspicion, as it is a favourite cruising-ground; so that, if we were boarded, there would be little danger of discovery; but, of course, as long as I can prevent that, by taking to my heels, I shall not be boarded by any one. The only objection to what I propose is, that you will be confined longer in a vessel than you may like, or than you would be if you were to gain a nearer port." "I agree with the captain of the vessel," said a grave-looking personage, who had not yet spoken, and whom I afterwards discovered to be a Catholic priest, "the staunchest adherent to the cause could not have given better advice, and I should recommend that it be followed." The others were of the same opinion; and, in consequence, I edged the schooner down to the Arrow, and hailed Captain Levee, stating that we were to run to Bordeaux. After that I prepared for them sleeping accommodations as well as I could, and on my making apologies, they laughed, and told me such stories of their hardships during their escape, that I was not surprised at their not being difficult. I found out their names by their addressing one another, to be Campbell, McIntyre, Ferguson, and McDonald; all of them very refined gentlemen, and of excellent discourse. They were very merry, and laughed at all that they had suffered; sang Jacobite songs, as they were termed, and certainly did not spare my locker of wine. The wind continued fair, and we met with no interruption, and on the fourth evening, at dusk, we made the mouth of the Garonne, and hove-to, with our heads off shore, for the night. Captain Levee then came on board, and I introduced him to my passengers. To my surprise, after some conversation, he said--"I have now escorted Captain Elrington, according to the orders I received, and shall return to Liverpool as soon as possible; if, therefore, gentlemen, you have any letters to send to your friends announcing your safety, I shall be most happy to present them in any way you may suggest as most advisable." That Captain Levee had some object in saying this, I was quite certain; and therefore I made no remark. The passengers thanked him for his proposal; and, being provided with writing materials, they all wrote to their friends, and put their letters into Captain Levee's hands, who then bade them farewell, and went on deck with me. "Of course, you were not serious in what you said, Captain Levee?" I inquired, as we walked forward. "No," he replied; "but I considered it prudent to make them believe so. Although Englishmen, they are enemies to our country, so far as they are enemies to our government, and, of course, wish no harm to the French, who have so warmly supported them. Now, if they knew that I remained here waiting for your coming out of the river, they would say so, and I might lose the chance of a good prize, as nothing would sail, if they knew that the coast was not clear. Now, I shall part company with you in an hour, and make all sail for England, as they may suppose, but, without fail, to-morrow night I shall be off here again, about five leagues from the port, with my sails furled; therefore, stay in the river as long as they will let you, as, while you are in port with the flag of truce, vessels may sail out." "I understand you, and will do all I can to assist your views, Captain Levee. Now, we will go down again. I will give you a receipt for a coil of rope, which you will send your boat for, and write a letter to the owners, after which you will wish me good bye, and make sail." "Exactly," Captain Levee replied, who then ordered his boat to go for a coil of three-inch, and bring it on board. We then descended to the cabin, and I wrote a letter to the owner, and also a receipt for the coil of rope, which I delivered to Captain Levee. The boat soon returned from the lugger, the rope was taken on board, and then Captain Levee wished me farewell, and made his polite adieus to the gentlemen, who followed him on deck, and waited there till he had hoisted in his boat, and made all sail. "How long will she be before she arrives at Liverpool with this wind?" inquired Mr Campbell. "She will carry her canvass night and day," I replied; "and, therefore, as she sails so fast, I should say in five or six days." "Well, I am grateful that we have such an early and safe opportunity of communicating with our friends in England; we might have waited two months otherwise." "Very true," replied the priest, "but Heaven has assisted our anxious wishes. Let us be grateful for all things." My passengers watched the lugger until she was nearly out of sight. I dare say that their thoughts were, that those on board of her were going to the country of their birth, from which they were exiles, probably for ever: they did not speak, but went down below, and retired to their beds. At daylight the next morning I ran the schooner in; and as soon as I was within three miles of the coast, I hoisted the white flag of truce, and stood for the mouth of the river Garonne. I perceived that the batteries were manned, but not a shot was fired, and we entered the river. When we were a mile up the river, we were boarded by the French authorities, and my passengers, who had dressed themselves in their proper costume, informed the officer in the boat who they were, upon which he was very polite, and, calling a pilot out of the boat, the schooner was taken charge of by him, and we very soon afterwards, having wind and tide in our favour, were anchored alongside of two large merchant vessels and a French privateer of sixteen guns, which I instantly recognised as our old antagonist off Hispaniola, in the action in which the Revenge was captured, and Captain Weatherall lost his life. However, I kept my knowledge to myself, as the French officer and the Jacobite gentlemen were present. As soon as we had anchored, the passengers were requested to go into the boat, and the French officer and I to accompany them, that I might report myself to the governor, and we pulled away to the town, one of my boats following with the passengers' luggage. On our landing, there was a great crowd assembled, and they looked very hard at me, as I was dressed in my lace coat and a cocked-up hat, also bound with broad gold lace. On our arrival in the presence of the governor, we were received with much urbanity; and as I had brought the Jacobite gentlemen in my schooner, it was presumed that I was favourable to the cause, and I was very politely treated. The governor invited us all to dine with him on that day. I made some excuse, saying, that I was anxious to return to Liverpool, that I might fit out for the coast of Africa, in which service I was to be employed by my owners; but the passengers insisted upon my staying a day or two, and the governor added to their solicitations his own. I therefore accepted, not only because I was glad to have an opportunity to see so celebrated a town, but because it would meet the views of Captain Levee. We took leave of the governor, and went to an hotel, and I then sent my boat on board for necessaries, and hired a handsome apartment in the hotel. I had not been there half an hour, when the priest came to me and said, "Captain, you are not aware of the rank and consequence of the three gentlemen whom you have been so successful in escorting to a place of safety. I am requested by them to make you a handsome remuneration for your kindness and skilful conduct on this occasion." "Sir," I replied, "this must not be. I am most happy in having assisted in the escape of unfortunate gentlemen; and all the pleasure I feel at having so done would be destroyed if I were to accept of what you offer. It is useless to repeat it; and if you do, I shall consider it an insult, and immediately repair on board of my vessel. You will therefore tender my best thanks and my refusal, with ardent wishes for their future welfare." "After what you have said, Captain Elrington, I will, of course, not resume the offer. I will tell my fellow-passengers what you have said, and I am sure that they will, as I do, admire your high sense of honour."--The priest shook me by the hand, and then quitted my apartment. I did not see the other passengers till it was the hour to go to dine at the governor's, when they embraced me cordially, and the one calling himself Campbell said, "Should you ever be in distress or a prisoner in this country, recollect you have a friend who is ready to serve you. Here is an address to a lady, to whom you must write, and say that you wish the assistance of your passenger to Bordeaux--that will be sufficient--I trust you may never require it." We had a pleasant dinner at the governor's, and among the people invited to meet us, I perceived the French captain of the privateer. I knew him immediately, although he did not recognise me. We had some conversation together, and he spoke about his cruises in the West Indies, and asked me whether I knew Captain Weatherall. I said there was a Captain Weatherall who commanded the Revenge privateer, and who was killed when his vessel was taken. "Exactly," said the captain; "he was a brave man, and fought nobly, and so did all his people--they fought like devils." "Yes," I replied, "they fought as long as they could, but Captain Weatherall was very short-handed. He had but fifty-five men on board at the commencement of the action." "More than that, I'm sure," replied the French captain. "He had not, I assure you," I replied; "he had lost so many in an attack on shore, and had so many away in prizes." Our conversation had attracted general notice, and a French army officer observed, "Monsieur speaks so positively, that one would imagine that he was actually on board." "And so I was, Sir," replied I, "and have my wounds to show for it. I knew this officer immediately I saw him, for I was close to Captain Weatherall at the time that this officer expostulated with him before the action; and I crossed my sword with him during the combat." "You have convinced me that you were on board," replied the captain of the privateer, "by your mentioning the expostulations previous to the combat taking place. I am delighted to have met with so brave an enemy, for every man on board that vessel was a hero." The conversation was then general, and many particulars were asked; and I will do, the French captain the justice to say, that he was very correct in all his statements, and neither vaunted his own success, nor did us less than justice. The party then broke up to go to the theatre, and afterwards we repaired to the hotel. I remained there two days more, and on the last of these two days I had promised to sup with the French captain of the privateer, who had called upon me, and behaved very politely. The following day, after noon, when the tide served, I was to sail. Accordingly, after the theatre was over, I went with the French captain to his house, in company with two or three more. Supper was on the table when we arrived there, and we went into the room, waiting for the presence of the captain's lady, who had not gone to the theatre, and to whom I had not been introduced. After a few minutes she made her appearance, and as she entered the room, I was struck with her extreme beauty, although she was past the meridian of life. I thought I had seen her face before, and as she came forward with her husband, it at once rushed into my mind that she was the widow of the French gentleman who had so gallantly fought his vessel, and who fell by my hand--the lady who was nursing her son at the King's Hospital at Jamaica, and who had been so inveterate against me. Our eyes met, and her cheeks flushed; she recognised me, and I coloured deeply as I bowed to her. She was taken with a faintness, and fell back. Fortunately her husband received her in his arms. "What is the matter, my love?" he said. "Nothing; but I am taken with a vertigo," replied she; "it will go off directly. Make my excuses to the company, while I retire for a few minutes." Her husband went out of the room, and after a minute or two came back, saying that Madam was not well enough to return to the room, and begged that they would admit her excuse, and sit down to supper without her. Whether his wife had informed him of who I was, I know not; but nothing could exceed the civility of the French captain towards me during the supper. We did not, however, remain very late, as the lady of the house was indisposed. I found out, as I walked home with another French officer, that the captain of the privateer had fallen in with the French lady on her return from Jamaica, where her son died in the hospital, and had married her; and that, moreover, unlike most French husbands, he was most ardently attached to her. I had breakfasted the next morning, and packed up my clothes preparatory to going on board, and had just returned from a visit of leave-taking with the governor, when who should walk up into my apartment but the French captain of the privateer, accompanied by three or four French officers of the army. I perceived by his looks when he entered that he was a little excited, but I met him cordially. He began a conversation about his action with Captain Weatherall, and instead of speaking handsomely as he had done before, he used expressions which I considered offensive, and I at once took him up by observing that, being under a flag of truce, it was impossible for me to notice what he said. "No," he replied; "but I wish we were once more on the high seas together, for I have a little debt of gratitude to pay off." "Well," I replied, "you may have; and I should not be sorry to give you an opportunity, if it were possible." "May I inquire whether you intend to go home as a cartel, and carry your flag of truce to Liverpool?" "No, Sir," I replied; "I shall haul down my flag of truce as soon as I am out of gun-shot of your batteries I understand what you mean, Sir. It is very true that your vessel carries nearly double the number of guns that mine does, but nevertheless I shall haul down my flag of truce, as I say I will." "Not if I follow you down the river, I presume?" he said with a sort of sneer. "Follow me if you dare," I cried; "you will meet with your master, depend upon it." "Sacre!" replied he, in a passion, "I will blow you out of the water; and if I take you I will hang you for a pirate." "Not the last, certainly," I said coolly. "Look you, Sir," he cried, shutting his fist upon the palm of his other hand, "if I take you I will hang you; and if you take me, you may serve me in the same way. Is it a bargain, or are you a coward?" "Gentlemen," I said to the officers present, "you must feel that your countryman is not behaving well. He has insulted me grossly. I will, however, consent to his terms on one condition, which is, that he will permit one of you, after he has sailed, to make known the conditions upon which we fight to his wife; and that one of you will pledge me his honour that he will impart these conditions as soon as we are gone." "Agree to do so--pledge yourself to do so, Xavier," cried the French captain to one of the officers present. "Since you wish it, certainly," he said. "You pledge yourself to make the conditions known to Madam, as soon as we have sailed?" "I do, upon the honour of an officer and a gentleman," replied he, "painful as it will be to me." "Then, captain," I replied, "I agree to your conditions, and one or the other of us shall hang." You may suppose, Madam, that I must have been in a state of great irritation to have consented to such terms. I was so, and could not brook such insult in the presence of the French officers. Moreover, as you will observe, in my conversation I did not commit myself in any way. There was nothing dishonourable. I told him that I should haul down my flag of truce, and I also told him that he would meet with his master, which was true enough, as he would meet with the Arrow, commanded by Captain Levee, as well as with my vessel; while he thought that he would have to fight with my inferior vessel alone, and, making sure of conquest, he purposely insulted me, to make me accept such conditions as would administer to the revenge of his wife, who had evidently worked him up to act in such a manner; and I accepted them, because I hoped the fate would be his if Captain Levee joined me, and if not, I was determined that I never would be taken alive. After I had agreed to his conditions, they all took a very ceremonious leave, and I bowed them out with great mock humility. I then bade farewell to my passengers, who lodged in the same hotel, and went down to my boat, and pulled on board. As soon as the tide served, the pilot came on board, and we got under weigh. I observed a great bustle, and a hurrying to and fro of boats on board of the French privateer, and we had not gone above two miles down the river, before I perceived the men were aloft and lowering her sails. I told my officers that I had received a challenge from the French privateer, and had accepted it, and that we must get everything ready for action. They were much astonished at this, as the disparity of force was so great, but they went cheerfully to their duty, as did the men, among whom the news was soon spread. CHAPTER TEN. CAPTAIN LEVEE AND I ENGAGE WITH THE FRENCH PRIVATEER--WE COME OFF VICTORIOUS--MY REVENGE AGAINST THE FRENCH LADY--WE TAKE OUR PRIZE TO LIVERPOOL. The wind was light, and we did not gain the mouth of the river till near sun-down, when the pilot left us; and as soon as we were three miles in the offing, I hauled down the flag of truce in the sight of the French privateer, who was following us close, and was not more than four miles from us. To avoid mistake, I had agreed with Captain Levee that should I be coming out after dark, I would carry a light at the peak, and this light I now hoisted. It enabled the French privateer to follow me, and appeared only as a mark of contempt towards him. I stood on in the direction where I was to find Captain Levee, and could make out the Frenchman following me, and gradually nearing me. As it became dark, I made more sail to keep him further off till I had joined the Arrow, but the light at my peak pointed out to him where I was. All this seemed a mystery to my officers and men, until, having run out about four leagues, I desired them to keep a sharp look-out for the Arrow. About half-past eight o'clock we perceived her lying-to; she had furled her sails after dark, as usual. The light I bore told her who I was, and I ran close to her, and, hailing Captain Levee, desired him to prepare for action, and that I would come on board to speak to him. This, of course, created a great bustle on board of the Arrow, and I hastened on board that they might not show any lights. I then informed Captain Levee of all that had passed, and that the Frenchman was not more than five miles from us. We agreed that I should still keep up the light, and bear away a little to draw the Frenchman to leeward of the port, and also to leeward of the Arrow;--that the Arrow should lower her sails again, so as not to be perceived until I had drawn the Frenchman past him, and that then I should commence the action under sail, and fight till the Arrow came up to my assistance. This being arranged, I hastened on board of my schooner, and, keeping away four points, I waited for the coming up of my antagonist. In half an hour we could perceive him through the gloom, not more than a mile from us, under all sail, standing steadily for the light which we carried at our peak. As I had already discovered that my little schooner sailed faster than my opponent, I allowed her to come up within a quarter of a mile of me, when I rounded-to; and, desiring my men to aim at his rigging, so as to dismantle him, poured in my broadside of grape and langridge, and then shifted my helm and resumed my course, putting more sail on, so as to increase my distance to what it was before. This manoeuvre I executed three times with success, and I had the satisfaction of perceiving that his foretop-mast was shot away; but when I rounded-to the fourth time, he did the same, and we exchanged broadsides. The effect of his superior artillery was evident, for my rigging and sails were much damaged; happily nothing so serious as to impede our speed, and I again put before the breeze as before, and increased my distance previous to again rounding-to; for, as the water was very smooth, I knew that if I was crippled she would lay me by the board immediately, and I might be taken and hanged before the Arrow could come up to my assistance. I therefore continued a running fight at such a distance as rendered me less liable to suffer from his guns. It is true that this distance made my guns even more ineffective, but I was decoying my Frenchman off from the land, and placing the Arrow between him and his port, so that his return would be intercepted. This continued for about an hour, when I perceived that the Frenchman had got up a new foretop-mast, and had set the sail upon it. He now ran out his bow-chasers, and continued to fire upon me with them alone, not choosing to lose ground by rounding-to, to give me a broadside; and as his canvass was all out, and I was occasionally rounding-to to dismantle him, we retained much the same distance from one another. At last a shot from his bow-chaser struck off the head of my mainmast, and my gaff came down. This was serious. We hastened to reef the mainsail and hoist it up again upon the remainder of the mast, but having no gaff-topsail our speed was necessarily decreased, and the enemy appeared to be gradually closing with us. I looked out for the Arrow, but could perceive no signs of her; indeed it was too dark to see farther than half a mile. Finding that on the point of sailing we were on I had no chance, I determined to alter my course, and put my schooner right before the wind so that I might set the square mainsail, which would give time for the Arrow to arrive; indeed at this time I was in a state of great anxiety. However, I had made up my mind not to be taken alive, and to sell my life as dearly as I could. When the enemy perceived that we had put before the wind, he did the same, and, as we were about half a mile from each other, we continued to exchange broadsides as we ran, she gradually nearing us so as to make her heavy artillery more effective. This portion of the contest continued for an hour, during which my little schooner had received much injury, and we were constantly repairing damages. At last, much to my delight, the day began to dawn, and I then discovered the Arrow about a mile and a half from us, right astern, under a press of sail. I pointed her out to my officers and men, who were inspired with fresh courage at the sight. The enemy also perceived her, and appeared determined to bring the combat to an issue previous to her coming up, and I feared that, at all events, I might swing at the yard-arm, let the issue of the coming combat be what it might. She neared, steering a course so as to cut me off, and I continued to pour in my broadsides to cripple her if possible, as she did not now fire, but ran steadily for me, and my chances were bad. Anxious that the Arrow should close as soon as possible, I hauled down my square mainsail, that we might not run from her, and prepared for an obstinate resistance if boarded. At last the Frenchman was within a cable's length, and at this critical moment the Arrow was about a mile to windward. We poured in our last broadside, and hastened to seize our pikes and cutlasses to repel the boarders, when to my satisfaction I found that one of our shot had cut his gaff in two. I immediately rounded to the wind; and as my antagonist was within pistol-shot of me, with her men all ready for the leap on board, I put my helm down, went round in stays, and crossed her so near to windward that you might have thrown a biscuit on board. This manoeuvre prevented his boarding, and I may say saved my life, for his gaff being shot away he could not heave in stays to follow me, but was obliged to wear round after me, which increased his distance at least a cable's length to leeward. A furious broadside, however, which he poured in, crippled me altogether. Everything came running down upon the decks, and I was left a complete wreck; but I was to windward of him, and although he might sink me, he could not board or take possession until he had refitted his after-sail. But now his time was come. A fresh antagonist, with equal weight of metal, was close to him, and he had to decide whether he would fight or run. Whether he conceived that running was useless, which it certainly was, or was determined to take us both or die, I know not; certain it is that he did not put his vessel before the wind, but waited with determination the coming up of the Arrow. Captain Levee passed under the Frenchman's stern, raking him with a broadside that almost unrigged him, and then engaged him to leeward, so as to cut off all chance of his escape. The Frenchman returned the fire with spirit, and I took my men from my guns that we might set some sail upon the vessel, for after the Arrow commenced her fire no further notice was taken of me by the Frenchman. After a contest well maintained for half an hour, the mainmast of the Frenchman went by the board, and this almost settled the question, as he could not keep his vessel to the wind, and consequently she fell off; and received a raking fire from the Arrow. At last her bowsprit was between the main and fore rigging of the Arrow, and her decks were swept by the Arrow's raking fire. I had got some sail up forward, and was anxious to be at the close of the action. I perceived that the Frenchman was attempting to board the lugger, and was pouring all his people on the forecastle, and I therefore edged down to him that I might, with my people, board him on the quarter, which would place him, as we say, between two fires. The conflict was at its highest, the French attempting and the Arrow's crew repelling them, when I laid my schooner on her quarter, and leaped on board of her with my few remaining men. The Frenchmen turned to repel my attack, and thus weakened their party opposed to the Arrow's men; the consequence was, that they were first beaten back, and then boarded by Captain Levee and his crew. As soon as I had gained the deck of the Frenchman, I thought of nothing but to single out the French captain. At first I could not see him, but as his crew retreated from Captain Levee and his men, I perceived him, pale and exhausted, but still attempting to rally them. As my object was to take him alive, I rushed in advance at him, wrestled, and threw him on his back on the deck. There I held him, while the combatants, fighting and retreating, tumbled over us one after another, and bruised us severely with their weight. At last the French were beaten below, and I had time to breathe; calling to two of my men, I desired them to take charge of the French captain, and, as they valued their lives, not to let him escape, or destroy himself but to take him into our vessel and guard him carefully in my cabin. Having done this, I went to Captain Levee, and we embraced. "You did not come a minute too soon," I said, wiping the blood from my face. "No, indeed; and, but for your clever manoeuvre you would have been beaten. Your vessel is a mere nutshell compared to this;--you did well, more than well, to maintain the combat so long. Have you lost many men?" "We had ten sent below before we boarded; what may have followed since I do not know: I have the French captain safe in my cabin." "I saw the men hand him over:--well, now to repair damages, and then I will tell you what you shall do. I must send on board and help you; the Arrow has not suffered much considering, and I can spare the men. As soon as we have cleared up the decks a little, we will breakfast together, and talk the matter over." It required two hours before we could clear the decks of our vessels, for we had separated, and the Arrow had taken charge of the prize. Before I took the boat to go on board the Arrow, I went down into my cabin, where the French captain lay bound and watched by two of the men. "You are prepared to pay the penalty agreed upon, Monsieur?" said I. "I am, Sir," he replied. "I now understand what you meant when you said that I should meet with my match. I have no one to blame but myself. I urge you to the conditions, expecting an easy and certain conquest with my superior vessel. I have fallen into my own net, and there's an end of the matter--except that when things go wrong, a woman is certain to be at the bottom of it." "I am aware, Sir," I replied, "that your wife instigated you to act as you did, or you would never have so behaved. In attempting to revenge the death of one husband she has lost two." "_C'est vrai_," replied the Frenchman, composedly, and I then quitted the cabin, and went on board of the Arrow. "Well, Elrington," said Captain Levee, "what do you intend to do with the French captain? Is he to pay the forfeit, and awing at the yard-arm?" "I don't like hanging a man, especially a brave man, in cold blood," I replied. "It was all his wife's doing, and he has confessed as much." "He would certainly have hanged you," replied Levee. "Yes, that I believe; but it would have been that he might have a quiet life at home--not from any resentment against me. Now I have no feeling of that kind to actuate me." "What will you do, then?" "Not hang him, certainly; and yet I should like to punish her." "She deserves it," replied Captain Levee. "Now, Elrington, will you approve of my suggestion?" "Let me hear it." "It is this: they do not know that I have assisted in taking the privateer, as they have no idea that I am here. As soon as we have refitted her and your vessel, I will remain where I am. You shall run into the mouth of the Garonne, with your colours flying, and the English Jack over the French flag on board of the prize. This will lead them to suppose that you have taken the vessel without assistance. When just out of gun-shot, heave-to, fire a gun, and then swing an effigy to the yard-arm, and remain there, to make them suppose that you have hung the French captain. At nightfall you can make sail and rejoin me. That will punish her, and annoy them generally." "I will do so; it is an excellent device, and she will never know the truth for a long time to come." We remained all that day refitting; in the evening I made sail, in company with the French schooner, which was manned by Captain Levee, and stood in shore. At break of the following day I ran in, standing for the harbour, without my colours being hoisted, and then it occurred to me that I would make their disappointment greater, by allowing them first to imagine that the victory was theirs; so, when about six miles off, I hoisted French colours on the French schooner, and French colours over English on board of my own. I continued to stand on till within two miles and a half of the batteries, and could see crowds flocking down to witness the supposed triumphant arrival of their privateer into port; when of a sudden I hauled my wind, hove-to, brailed up my sails, and changed the colours, firing a gun in bravado. Allowing them half an hour to comment upon this disappointment, I then fired another gun, and hoisted up to the yard-arm the figure of a man, composed of clothes stuffed with hay, made to represent the French captain; and having so done, I remained during the whole forenoon, with my sails brailed up, that they might have a clear view of the hanging figure. At last we perceived a large boat, with a flag of truce, coming out of the river. I remained where I was, and, allowing it to come alongside, I perceived in it the French officer who had pledged himself to give the conditions of the combat to the lady; and seated by him was the French captain's wife, with her head sunk down on her knees, and her face buried in her handkerchief. I saluted the officer as he came on deck. He returned my bow, and then said, "Sir, the fortune of war has proved in your favour, and I perceive that the conditions of the issue of the combat have been adhered to on your side. Against that I have not a word to say, as my friend would have as rigidly adhered to them. But, Sir, we war not with the dead, and I have come off at the request of his miserable wife, to beg that you will, now that your revenge is satisfied, deliver up to her her husband's body, that it may receive the rites of the Church, and Christian burial. You surely, as a brave man, will not deny this small favour to a woman whom you have twice deprived of her husband?" "Sir," I replied, "on condition that his lady will step on board and make the request herself, I will comply with it, but on no other terms." "It will be most painful, and her feelings might well have been spared such a trial as to meet your face again, and make the request in person; but, as you insist upon it, I will make known your terms." As he went into his boat I ran down into the cabin, and desired them to cast loose the French captain, saying to him, "Sir, your wife is here requesting your body, which she believes to be swinging at the yard-arm, for I have put that trick into execution to punish her. I never intended to take your life, and I shall now do more, I shall give you not only life but liberty--such shall be my revenge." The French captain stared as if confounded, but made no reply. I then went on deck, where I found the lady had been lifted up the side. They led her to me, and she fell on her knees, but the effort was too much for her, and she fainted away. I ordered her to be taken down into the cabin, and, without any explanation, desired the French officer to accompany her, not wishing to be present at the unexpected meeting. I therefore remained on deck, and ordering the men to lower down the effigy they did so, laughing at the French seamen in the boat, who for the first time perceived, for they had not looked up before, that it was only a sham captain. I looked over the side, and told them that the captain was alive and well, and would be in the boat very soon, at which they were greatly rejoiced. In the mean time the explanation took place in the cabin, and after a few minutes the French officer came up, and expressed his satisfaction at what I had done. "You have given a lesson, Sir, without being guilty of barbarity. Your conduct has been noble." He was soon followed by the French captain and his lady, who was now all gratitude, and would have kissed my hands, but I prevented her, and said, "Madam, at least now you have no occasion to hate me. If I was so unfortunate, in self-defence, as to slay your first husband, I have restored to you your second. Let us, then, part in amity." The French captain squeezed my hand, but said nothing. I begged they would take some refreshment, but they were too anxious to return and undeceive their friends, and requested permission to go into the boat. Of course I consented, and as the boat pulled away the crew gave three huzzas, as a compliment to us. When they were a mile in shore, I hauled down the colours of both vessels, and made sail out to rejoin Captain Levee, which I did in the evening, and then related all that had passed. He was much pleased with the result of the affair, and we then, having consulted, considered it advisable to run back to Liverpool with the prize, for she required so many hands to man her as to render us by no means efficient vessels. Moreover, I have omitted to state that, while I was in the Garonne, the Arrow had taken two good prizes, which she had manned and sent to Liverpool. We therefore made sail to the northward, and in a week were again in port, with our prize. We found that the other vessels had arrived safe, and the owner was much pleased with the result of this short and eventful cruise. CHAPTER ELEVEN. I CAUSE MYSELF TO BE DISMISSED FROM MY OWNER'S SERVICE--AM ARRESTED-- CONVEYED TO LONDON, AND CONFINED IN THE TOWER--AM VISITED BY A ROMISH PRIEST, AND THROUGH HIS INTERFERENCE OBTAIN MY LIBERATION--SET OFF TO LIVERPOOL, AND FIND MY OWNER AND CAPTAIN LEVEE--THEIR SURPRISE--MISS TREVANNION. When I called upon our owner, which I did as soon as I had dropped my anchor and furled sails, he embraced me, and then led me into the back room next to his counting-house. "My dear Elrington," said he, "well as you managed to get off the Jacobite gentlemen, there is a strong suspicion on the part of the government that they were on board of your vessel, and that I was a party to their escape. Whether they will take any measures now that you have returned I know not; they may have gained some intelligence, or they may worm out something, by their emissaries, from those who compose your crew, and if so we must expect their vengeance. Now tell me where you landed them, and all the events of your cruise, for I have heard but little from those who brought in the prizes taken by the Arrow. Captain Levee is too busy with his own vessel and the prize to come on shore for these two hours, and I wish to talk with you alone upon this affair." After I had narrated all that had passed, and the manner in which the French privateer had been captured, the owner said-- "If the government spies, and there are plenty of them about, find out from your crew that you landed passengers at Bordeaux, depend upon it you will be arrested and examined, without you get out of the way till the affair has blown over. Now the men will narrate in the taverns the curious history of this French privateer, and in so doing cannot fail to state that you were on shore in France. Now, Elrington, you have run the risk to oblige me, and I must keep you out of difficulty; and, if you feel inclined to hide yourself for a time, I will of course pay all your expenses." "No," I replied; "if they find out what has taken place, and wish to get hold of me in consequence, I think it will be better to brave it out. If I hide away, it will make them more anxious to have me, and will confirm their suspicions that I am what they are pleased to call a traitor; a reward will be offered for my apprehension, and at any time that I do appear the reward will cause me to be taken up. If, on the contrary, I brave it out, and, if I am asked, say at once that I did land passengers, at all events they will not make it high treason; so, with your leave, I will stay. I hardly need say that I shall take the whole responsibility on myself, and declare that I took them on board without your knowledge; that you may rest assured of." "On consideration, I think that your plan is the best," replied my owner. "I am grateful for your offer of screening me, which I would not permit, were it not that I shall be useful to you if any mischance takes place, and, if in prison, could be of no service." "Then, Sir," I replied, "the wisest course will be for you at once to dismiss me from the command of the privateer, in consequence of your having been informed that I carried passengers and landed them in France. That step will prove you a friend to the government, and will enable you, after a time, to get me out of my scrape more effectually." "You are sacrificing yourself; Elrington, and all for me." "Not so, Sir. I am only securing a friend in case of need." "That you certainly are," replied my owner, squeezing my hand. "Well, it will be the best plan even for you, and so let it be." "Then I will now return on board, and tell the officers that I am dismissed. There is no time to be lost; and here comes Captain Levee; so for the present, Sir, farewell." On my return on board, I called up the officers and men, and told them that I had offended the owner, and that he had dismissed me from the command of the privateer. One of the officers inquired what I had done: and I said, before the men, that it was for landing the passengers in France. They all condoled with me, and expressed their sorrow at my leaving them, and I believe they were sincere. It was fortunate that I did as I had done, for I found that the government emissaries were on board at the time that I made the communication, and had already gained the information from some of my crew. I ordered my chest and bedding to be put into the boat, and, as soon as they were ready, I gave up the command to the first officer, and bidding them all farewell went down the side, and pulled on shore, repairing to my former lodgings. I had not been there two hours before I was arrested and taken to prison. I was, however, very comfortably lodged, because I was a state-prisoner, and I presume that more respect is paid to a man when he is to be drawn and quartered, and his head set above the Tower gates, than a petty malefactor. The next day I was summoned before what was called the Commission, and asked whether I had not landed some people in France? I replied immediately that I had done so. "Who were they?" was the next inquiry. "They stated themselves to be Roman Catholic priests," replied I, "and such I believed them to be." "Why did I do so?" "Because, in the first place, they paid me one hundred guineas each; and, in the second, because I considered them mischievous, dangerous men, conspiring against the government, and that the sooner they were out of the country the better." "How did I know that they were traitors?" "All Roman priests were traitors in my opinion, and I hated them as bad as I did the French; but it is difficult to deal with a priest, and I thought that I was performing a good service in ridding the country of them." "Who else was privy to the affair?" "No one; I had made the arrangement with them myself; and not an officer or man on board knew anything about it." "But my owner, Mr Trevannion, was he a party to it?" "No, he was not; and on my return he dismissed me from the command of the privateer, as soon as he found out that I had landed the priests in France." A great many more questions were put to me, all of which I answered very cautiously, yet without apparent hesitation; and, after an examination of four hours, the president of the Commission told me that I had been, by my own acknowledgment, aiding and abetting the escape of malignant traitors, and prevented them meeting their just fate on the scaffold. That, in so doing, I had been guilty of treason, and must abide the sentence of the supreme Commission in London, whither I should be sent the following day. I replied that I was a loyal subject; that I hated the French and Romish plotters, and that I had done what I considered was best; that if I had done wrong, it was only an error in judgment; and any one that said I was a traitor lied in his throat. My reply was taken down, and I was sent back to prison. The following afternoon the gaoler came into my room, accompanied by two persons, one of whom informed me that I was delivered over to their custody to be taken to London. I was led out, and at the door I found three horses, upon one of which I was desired to mount. As soon as I was in the saddle, a rope was passed from one leg to the other under the horse's belly, so as to prevent my escape; and my horse was led between the other two, upon which my keepers rode, each having a hand-rein made fast from my horse's bridle to his own. A crowd was assembled round the entrance of the gaol, and among the lookers-on I perceived Captain Levee and my owner; but of course I thought it imprudent to take any notice of them, and they did not make any recognition of me. I hardly need say, my dear Madam, how very revolting it was to my feelings to be thus led away like a felon; but at the same time I must acknowledge the courtesy of my conductors, who apologised for being compelled to take such measures of security, and on the way showed great kindness and good-feeling. Everything being arranged, we proceeded on our journey: but it was late when we set off, owing to one of my conductors being sent for by the commissioner, and having to wait for letters for nearly three hours. As it may be supposed, we could not travel at speed, and we seldom went faster than a walk, which I was sorry for, as I was anxious that the journey should be over and my fate decided as soon as possible. Almost an hour after dark, a party of men rushed from the side of the road, and some seizing the bridles of the horses the others threw the two conductors off their saddles by taking them by the leg and heaving them over on the other side. This was done so quickly, that the two men, who were well armed, had not time to draw out a pistol or any other weapon of defence; and as soon as they were on the ground they were immediately seized and overpowered. The faces of the men who had thus assailed the king's officers were blackened so as to disguise them, but from their voices I knew them to be the men and officers of the privateer. "Now then, Captain Elrington," said one of them, "be off with you as fast as possible, and we will take care of these fellows." I still remained in my saddle, and, although somewhat flurried with the surprise of the attack, I had had time to recover myself; and had decided upon my mode of behaviour. I felt, as I had said to the owner when we consulted together, that an escape now would be only putting off the evil day, and that it was better to meet the case boldly at once; so I rose in my stirrups, and said to the men in a loud voice, "My good fellows, I am much obliged to you for your exertions in my behalf; as it proves your good-will, but I cannot and will not take advantage of them. By some mistake I am accused of being a traitor, when I feel that I am a true and loyal subject, which I have no doubt will be fully established upon my arrival in London. I cannot, therefore, take advantage of this opportunity to escape. I respect the laws of my country, and I beg you to do the same. Oblige me by releasing the two gentlemen whom you have made your prisoners, and assist them to remount their horses, for I am resolved that I will go to London and be honourably acquitted. Once more, my lads, many thanks for your kind intentions; and now I wish you farewell; and if you would do me a great favour, you will disperse peaceably, and leave us to proceed on our journey." The men perceived that I was in earnest, and therefore did as I requested, and in another minute I was again alone with my two keepers. "You have behaved honourably, Sir, and perhaps wisely," observed one of my conductors, as he was about to remount his horse. "I will not ask you who those people were, although I have no doubt but you recognised them yourself." "No," I replied, "I did not. I guessed from whence they came, but I did not recognise any one individual." I gave this cautious answer, although I had recognised Captain Levee and one of my own officers. "Well, Captain Elrington, you have proved to us that you may be trusted, and therefore, on your pledging your word that you will not escape, we shall have a great pleasure in removing all unpleasant precautions." "I certainly have proved that I would not escape, and will readily give you my assurance that I will not alter my mind." "That is sufficient, Sir," replied the officer; and he then cut away the rope which bound my legs, and also took off the two leading reins attached to the other horses. "We shall now," he said, "proceed not only more pleasantly, but more rapidly." My conductors then mounted their horses, and we set off at a good trot, and in an hour arrived at the place where we were to put up for the night. We found supper prepared for us, and good beds. My conductors now left me free of all restraint, and we retired to our beds. The next day we continued our journey in the same manner. My companions were pleasant and gentlemanlike men, and we discoursed freely upon every topic; no one could have imagined that I was a state-prisoner. We arrived, at London on the fifth day, and I was then delivered over to the keeper of the Tower, according to the instructions that my conductors had received. They bade me farewell, and promised that they would not fail to represent my conduct to the authorities, and gave me hopes of a speedy release. I had the same idea, and took possession of the apartments prepared for me (which were airy and well ventilated) with almost cheerfulness. On the third day of my arrival a Commission was sent to the Tower to examine me, and I gave the same replies as before. They were very particular in obtaining the descriptions of the persons of those whom I had landed in France, and I answered without disguise. I afterwards found out that I had done a very foolish thing. Had I misrepresented their persons, it would have been supposed that they really were four Catholic priests, but from my exact description they discovered that I had rescued the four traitors (as they termed them) that they were the most anxious to secure and make an example of; and their annoyance at this discovery had so angered them against me that my subsequent conduct could not create any feeling favourable towards me. Three weeks elapsed, and I was wearied of confinement. My gaoler told me that he feared my case was a bad one; and, after another week had passed, he said that I was condemned as aiding and abetting treason. I must say that I little expected this result, and it quite overthrew me. I asked my gaoler what was his authority. He said that so many people had assisted and effected the escape of the rebels without one having been convicted of having so done except myself on my own avowal, that they deemed it absolutely necessary that an example should be made to deter others from aiding those who were still secreted in the country; and that in consequence it had been decided by the Privy Council that I should be made an example of. He told me much more which I need not repeat, except that it proved the malignant feeling that was indulged by the powers in authority against those who had assisted their defeated opponents, and I felt that I had no chance, and prepared my mind to meet my fate. Alas, my dear Madam, I was but ill prepared to die,--not that I feared death, but I feared what must be my condition after death. I had lived a reckless, lawless life, without fear of God or man; all the religious feelings which had been instilled into me by my good tutor (you know my family history, and I need say no more) during my youth had been gradually sapped away by the loose companionship which I had held since the time that I quitted my father's house; and when I heard that I was to die my mind was in a state of great disquiet and uncomfortable feeling. I wished to review my life, and examine myself; but I hardly knew where to begin. All was chaos and confusion. I could remember many bad actions, but few good ones. I felt that I was like a vessel without a rudder, and without a pilot; and after hours and hours of deep thought I would give up the task of examination in stern despair, saying to myself, "Well, if it must be so, it must." I felt an inclination to defy that Heaven which I felt would never be opened to me. This was the case for more than a week after I heard of my condemnation, until I began to reflect upon the nature of our creed, and the terms of salvation which were offered; and as I thought over them I felt a dawn of hope, and I requested the gaoler to furnish me with a Bible. I read it day and night, for I expected every morning to be summoned to execution. I felt almost agony at times lest such should be the case; but time passed on, and another fortnight elapsed, during which I had profited by my reading, and felt some contrition for my many offences and my life of guilt, and I also felt that I could be saved through the merits of Him who died for the whole world. Day after day my faith became more lively, and my mind more at ease. One morning the gaoler came to me, and said that there was a priest who wished to see me. As I understood he was a Roman, I was about to refuse; but on consideration I thought otherwise, and he was admitted. He was a tall, spare man, with a dark Spanish countenance. "You are, I believe," said he, "Captain Elrington, who effected the escape of some of our poor friends, and who are now condemned for your kind act?" "I am, Sir," replied I. "I am aware," said he, "that your profession of faith is not mine, and do not, therefore, come to talk with you on serious points, without you should wish it yourself; my object is, being indebted as we are to you for saving our friends, to offer to be of any use that I can to you, in executing any wishes, or delivering any messages, which you may wish to give, should you suffer for your generous conduct, and you may trust anything to me with safety, that I swear to you;" and he took a crucifix from the folds of his garment, and kissed it, as he said so. "I thank you for your kind offer, Sir," replied I, "but I have nothing to trouble you with. I have long quitted my family, who know not whether I am alive or dead, for reasons that I need not explain. I am under an assumed name, and it is my intention to suffer under that name, that my family may not be disgraced by my ignominious death, or be aware that I have perished on the scaffold." "Perhaps you are right," replied the priest; "but let us talk upon another point; have you no friends that could exert themselves in your favour so as to procure your pardon and release?" "None," replied I, "except those who, I am sure, are exerting themselves to the utmost of their power, and to whom no message from me is necessary." "Do you know nobody at court," said the priest, "no person of rank in the government--or I may say opposed to the government--for people now-a-days are not what they seem or pretend to be?" "I have no knowledge of any titled person," replied I; "when I parted with one of the gentlemen whom I landed at Bordeaux he gave me the name of a lady of quality at Paris, desiring me, if in difficulty, to apply to him through her; but that was if in difficulty in France; of course she could do nothing for me in this country." "Have you the name of the lady?" "Yes," replied I; "it is on the first leaf of my pocket-book. Here it is." The priest read the name, and then said-- "You must write immediately a few words, acquainting her with your position. I will see the letter safely delivered before the week is over." "What good can she possibly do me?" replied I. "I cannot say; but this I know, that if anything is to be done, it will be. Write immediately." The priest called the gaoler and requested writing materials, which were brought, and in a few minutes I had done as he requested. "There, Sir, I have written to please you; but I candidly state that I consider it a useless attempt." "Were I of your opinion, I should not have advised you to write," replied he. "There are wheels within wheels that you have no conception of; in these troubled times. What I most fear is that it may arrive too late." The priest took his leave of me, and I was left to my own thoughts. When I considered that the address of this lady had been given to me by the very man whom they were so anxious to secure as a traitor, I at once decided that no benefit could arrive from any interference on her part; and I therefore, after a quarter of an hour, dismissed the whole subject from my thoughts, and commenced my reading of the sacred writings. The following morning, when the gaoler came in, I could not help observing to him, that as I had been condemned so many days I felt much surprise at the delay of my execution. His reply was, that he heard that others were in custody upon the same charge, and that they waited for their convictions, that we might all suffer at the same time; for the order for my execution had come on the Friday last, but had been countermanded on the afternoon of the same day. Although this satisfied me that I had no hopes of escape, yet I was pleased that I had obtained more time for preparation, and I renewed my reading with ardour. Another week passed, when the gaoler, with a solemn face, and much apparent concern, came in, and informed me that the other parties arrested had been tried before the Commission, and had been condemned, and that it was expected that the execution would take place either on the morrow or the day after. The announcement did not affect me much. I had made up my mind that I should suffer, and had to a degree weaned myself from life. I considered how all hopes of my ever enjoying the delight of my family and kindred ties had flown away, and I looked with disgust upon my career as a privateersman--a career of recklessness and blood, so denounced by the sacred writings which I had before me. I reflected, that if I were to leave the prison I should have no other means of sustenance, and should probably return to my former life, and load my soul with a still heavier weight of crime; and, although I felt an occasional bitter pang at the idea of leaving the world so young--a world which I could not hate--still I was, after a few hours' communing and reflection, resigned to my fate, and exclaimed with sincerity, "Thy will be done." I think, Madam, you may have observed that, sinful as I was, my whole career proved that I was not a hardened sinner. Good was not driven entirely out of me, but was latent, notwithstanding all my excesses, and the bad company which had influenced me. I now prayed, and prayed earnestly, and I thought that my prayers were heard. Such was my state of mind on the day before the one appointed for my execution, when the gaoler and one of the sheriff's officers came into my cell, accompanied by the Roman Catholic priest whom I have before mentioned. I perceived by the countenance of the gaoler, who was a humane man, that he had no unpleasant news. The sheriff's officer delivered to him an order for my liberation, and to my astonishment I was told by the gaoler that my pardon was signed, and that I was free. I was stupified with the intelligence, and I stood without making any reply. The priest waved his hand to them as a hint to leave the room, which they both did. As they left, my eyes followed them, and then I cast them down upon the Bible which lay before me on the table, and, slipping down from the bench upon my knees, I covered up my face and prayed. My prayers were confused--I hardly knew what I said--but I knew that they were intended to be grateful to Heaven for my unexpected preservation from an ignominious death. After a time, I rose up, and perceived the priest, whose presence I had till then forgotten. He had been kneeling at the other side of the table praying with me, and I am sure for me--and he was rising up just after I had. "I trust, Captain Elrington," said he, after a pause, "that the peril you have been in will influence your future life; and that this severe trial will not be thrown away upon you." "I trust not, Sir," replied I. "I feel that it has been good for me to have been afflicted, I believe that I have been indebted to your exertions for my deliverance." "No further than having seen your letter duly and speedily delivered. I could do no more, for with all will I have no power; and that was little to do for one who so generously assisted our friends in their distress." "Am I then to believe that I am indebted to the interest of a French lady, residing at the court of Versailles, for my deliverance?" "Even so--this may appear strange to you, Captain Elrington, but such is the case. Understand, that in these troubled times the ruling monarch of this country cannot distinguish his friends from his enemies. He can only trust to professions, and they are not always sincere. There are many in the council at this time who, if the Pretender, as he is called, had succeeded, would long before this have joined him, and who had wished him success, although they dared not venture to assist him. The interest of the lady in question with these people has prevailed over the true adherents of the Hanoverian king, and thus through this lady have you obtained your release. I state this to you in confidence; to publish what I have told you would be to betray your friends. Can I be of any further service to you? For you can leave your prison as soon as you please." "None, I thank you, good Sir," replied I; "I have money more than sufficient to reward my gaoler, and to defray my expenses to Liverpool." "You have my best thanks and sincere wishes for your happiness. Then I will not intrude upon you any more, except to give you my address in case of need. You have made warm friends by your conduct, and if ever you require their assistance it will not be withheld." The priest gave his address upon a piece of paper and then came to me. "Our creeds are not exactly the same, but you will not, my son, refuse my blessing?" said he, putting his hand upon my head. "Oh, no," said I, dropping on my knees, "I receive it all in thankfulness." "May God bless you, my son," said he; with emotion--and he then quitted the cell. What with the previous excitement when my liberation was announced, and the parting with the kind priest, my feelings were so powerful, that, as soon as I was alone, I gave vent to them in a flood of tears. As soon as I was more composed, I rose from the bench, put my necessaries into my valise, and summoned the gaoler, to whom I made a handsome present, thanking him for his kindness during my incarceration. I then shook hands with him, feed the turnkey who had attended upon me, and in a minute more I was clear of the Tower gates. How my heart heaved when I was once more in the open air. I looked around me, and perceived that many men were busy in erecting a scaffolding. My heart sank as I beheld them, as I felt certain what it was for; but, to verify my opinion, I turned to an old woman who had a sort of stall from which she dispensed mead to the populace, and inquired of her for what the scaffold was being erected. "It's for the men who are to be executed to-morrow for aiding the Jacobites to escape," said she. "Won't your worship take a glass of mead this morning?" "I am not thirsty," I replied, as I walked hastily away with my valise upon my shoulders. A stranger to this part of London, I hardly knew where to direct my steps; I walked past the square before the Tower, until I came into a street called Catherine Street, where a tavern met my view, and into it I entered immediately,--glad, as it were, to hide myself; for I felt as if all the world looked upon me as a person just discharged from prison. I obtained good entertainment there, and slept there that night. The next morning, the host having provided me two good horses, and a youngster to take them back, I set off for Liverpool, and after five days' travel without adventure I arrived at the town, and proceeded direct to the house of Mr Trevannion, my owner. I took my valise off the boy's horse, and having paid him for his attendance I knocked at the door, for it was late in the evening, and dark, when I arrived. The door (for it was at his private house door, which was next to the counting-house door, that I knocked) was opened; and the woman who opened it shrieked, and let drop the candle, exclaiming, "Help, O God--a ghost, a ghost!" for it appeared that the news had arrived at Liverpool from a messenger who had been sent express after I had been condemned, stating that there was no hope, and that I was to suffer on the Monday previous; and this was the Saturday evening on which I had arrived. Mr Trevannion's clerk, hearing a noise in the passage, came out with another candle, and, seeing me, and the woman lying on the floor in a swoon, stared, staggered to the door of the room where his master was sitting, and the door being ajar he fell back with great force into the room, dropping under the table between Mr Trevannion and Captain Levee, who was sitting with him, smoking, as was very often their wont. This brought out Captain Levee with one of the table-candlesticks, who, upon seeing me, ran to me, and embracing me warmly, cried out, as the clerk made his escape-- "Here is Elrington alive and well, Sir!" At this announcement Mr Trevannion came out, and threw himself into my arms, saying-- "I thank God for all his mercies, but, above all, that I have not been the cause of your death, my dear Elrington. Come in," he exclaimed, in a faltering voice; and as soon as he gained his seat he laid his head down and sobbed with excitement and joy. I followed Captain Levee into the room, and was taking a chair, when I perceived there was another person present besides Captain Levee and Mr Trevannion, which was the daughter of the latter; that is, I presumed as much, for I knew that he was a widower, and had one daughter living, out of a family of three children. She appeared to be about seventeen years of age, and had just come from a Protestant convent, as they called establishments where young women were educated at Chester. Mr Trevannion was still with his face covered, and not yet recovered from his burst of feeling, when this young gentlewoman came up to me, and said-- "Captain Elrington, you have behaved nobly to my father; accept my hand and my friendship." I was so dazzled from coming out of the dark, and so excited from what had just passed, that I was almost bewildered; but I accepted the offered hand, and bowed over it, although I declare that at the time I could not distinguish her features, although I perceived that her person was slight and elegant. As she retreated to her seat, Mr Trevannion, who had recovered from his emotion, said-- "I thought that at this moment your head was exhibited over the gates of Temple-bar. The idea, as Captain Levee will tell you, has haunted me; for I felt, and should always have felt, that I was the cause of your death. God bless you, my dear Sir, and may I have an opportunity of showing you my gratitude and regard for your noble conduct towards me, and the sacrifice which you would have made. You need not tell me, for I know too well, that you took all the onus and blame of the affair upon your own shoulders, and preferred death to impeaching me." "My dear Elrington," said Captain Levee, "I told our crew, and you have proved me a true prophet, that you never would peach, but die game. We were talking of you, supposing you dead, when you came in. I must tell you, that more than once Mr Trevannion had made up his mind to deliver himself up, and acknowledge the truth, but I prevented him, as it would have been a useless sacrifice." "You did; but, nevertheless, it was so heavy on my conscience, that had it not been for your perseverance, and the thoughts of leaving my poor girl here an orphan in the world, I certainly should have so done, for I felt life to be a burden." "I am very glad that you did not, Sir," I replied; "my life is of little value; I have no one to support, no one to love, and no one to lament me if I fall. A shot from the enemy may soon send me out of the world, and there will only be a man the less in it, as far as people are interested about me." "That is not the case now, at all events," replied Mr Trevannion; "but pray tell us how it is that you have escaped." "I have not escaped," I replied; "here is my pardon, with the sign-manual." "And how was it obtained?" exclaimed Captain Levee; "all intercession made through some of the strongest friends of the government was in vain,--that I can assert; for you must not suppose that we have been idle down here. We did not leave London till after you were condemned, and every entreaty to see you, or to communicate by letter, was denied to us." "I had better, then, begin at the beginning, and state all that occurred. I will first thank you, my dear Levee, for your kind assistance, which I would not avail myself of; as I calculated (wrongly, I own) that it would be wiser to remain a prisoner; and I considered that my very refusal to escape would be admitted by the government as a proof of my innocence. I did not know that I had to deal with such malignant people." I then commenced my narrative, which occupied the remainder of the evening, and, having received their congratulations, we had a pipe or two, and, as I was fatigued, we retired to bed. I slept little on this, I may say, first night of rest and quiet, after my liberation. I was happy, and yet perplexed. During the time of my imprisonment, it had occurred to me that the life of a privateersman was not one which I could follow up with a good conscience; and I had, on my journey down to Liverpool, made up my mind that I would give it up. I knew this might annoy Mr Trevannion, and that I should have to meet with the ridicule of Captain Levee, and I was thinking whether it were possible, in the first place, that I could give some well-grounded excuse; and, in the next, what other means of gaining my livelihood I could substitute in its stead. My restlessness induced me to get up earlier than usual, and I went out for an hour's walk upon the wharfs. I saw my little schooner riding on the stream, and, as she gently rose and dipped to the swell which ran in with the tide, she looked so beautiful that my resolutions were already giving way. I would look at her no longer; so I turned from the river, and walked back to the owner's house. It was still early when I went into the eating-hall, where I found Miss Trevannion alone. CHAPTER TWELVE. I STATE MY NEWLY-AWAKENED SCRUPLES AS TO THE LAWFULNESS OF A PRIVATEERSMAN'S LIFE TO MR. TREVANNION, BUT NEVERTHELESS UNDERTAKE ANOTHER CRUISE--SAVE A YOUTH FROM DROWNING, WHO HE PROVES TO BE-- CONFLICT WITH A FRENCH PRIVATEER--TAKE HER AND DELIVER A PRIZE--RETURN TO LIVERPOOL--RESIGN THE COMMAND OF THE SPARROW-HAWK, AND AGREE TO SUPERINTEND MR. TREVANNION'S BUSINESS. Miss Trevannion, my dear Madam, was taller than your sex usually are, her figure slight, and still unformed to a certain degree, but promising perfection. Her hair was very dark, her features regular and handsome, her complexion very pale, and her skin fair as the snow. As she stood in silence, she reminded you of a classical antique statue, and hardly appeared to breathe through her delicate lips; but when she was animated with conversation, it almost reminded you of the Promethean fire which poets state was stolen from Heaven to animate a piece of marble. Then the colour came in her cheeks, intelligence played on her countenance, and everything which at first sight appeared wanting, was, like magic, found to light up her face. Her smiles were the sweetest I ever beheld, and one of those smiles she bestowed upon me as I entered the room and paid her my obeisance. The night before, I had not observed her much;-- I was too busy with her father and Captain Levee, and she sat remote from the table and distant from the light, and she never spoke but when she took my hand and thanked me, as I mentioned before. I thought then that her voice was like a silver bell, but made no other remark upon her. We had, however, exchanged but few words before her father came in, accompanied by Captain Levee, and we sat down to our morning's repast of chocolate. After we had broken our fast, Captain Levee hastened away, on board of his vessel. My imprisonment had detained him from sailing, and Mr Trevannion was anxious that he should be off as soon as possible to make up for lost time, as the expenses of the vessel were heavy. "Farewell, Elrington, for the present," said he; "I shall come to you on board of your schooner some time during the day." When Captain Levee was gone--for, to tell the truth, I was afraid of his ridicule--I thought it a good opportunity to give my thoughts to my owner, and as I had nothing to say which his daughter might not hear, I began as follows: "Mr Trevannion, I think it right to state to you that during my imprisonment a great change has come over my feelings upon certain points. I am not ashamed to acknowledge that it has been occasioned by the death which stared me in the face, and from my having seriously communed with myself, and examined, more than I perhaps have done during the whole of my former life, the sacred writings which are given us as our guide. The point to which I refer is, that I have come to a conviction that privateering is not a lawful or honourable profession, and with these feelings I should wish to resign the command of the schooner which you have had the kindness to give me." "Indeed, Elrington," replied Mr Trevannion. "Well, I should not have thought to have heard this from you, I confess. Much as I respect your scruples, you are too scrupulous. I can hardly imagine that you have turned to the sect of the Quakers, and think fighting is contrary to the Scriptures." "No, Sir, not so far as that. I consider war, as a profession, both necessary and honourable, and a nation is bound to be prepared for any foreign attack, and to act upon the defensive, or on the offensive, if it is necessary. It is not that. I do not consider the soldier who fights for his country is not doing his duty, nor the seamen who are employed by the state are not equally justified in their profession. What I refer to is privateering. That is, vessels fitted out for the purpose of aggression by private merchants, and merely for the sake of profit. They are not fitted out with any patriotic motives, but merely for gain. They are speculations in which the lives of people on both sides are sacrificed for the sake of lucre--and had you witnessed such scenes of bloodshed and cruelty as I have, during my career, such dreadful passions let loose, and defying all restraint, you would agree with me that he who leads such miscreants to their quarry has much to answer for. Were it possible to control the men on board of a privateer as the men are controlled in the king's service it might be more excusable; but manned, as privateers always will be, with the most reckless characters, when once they are roused by opposition, stimulated by the sight of plunder, or drunken with victory, no power on earth can restrain their barbarity and vengeance, and a captain of a privateer who attempted would, in most cases, if he stood between them and their will, unless he were supported, fall a victim to his rashness. All this I have seen; and all I now express I have long felt, even when younger and more thoughtless. You know that I did give up privateering at one time, because I was shocked at the excesses to which I was a party. Since that I have accepted the command of a vessel, for the idea of being captain was too flattering to my vanity to permit me to refuse; but reflection has again decided me not to engage in it further. I hope this communication will not displease you, Mr Trevannion. If I am wrong in my opinion at all events I am sincere, for I am giving up my only source of livelihood from a sense of duty." "I know that you are sincere, Elrington," replied Mr Trevannion, "but at the same time I think that you are much too strait-laced in your opinions. When nations are at war, they mutually do all the mischief that they can to each other, and I cannot see what difference there is between my fitting out a privateer under the king's authority, or the king having vessels and men for the national service. The government fit out all the vessels that they can, and when their own funds are exhausted they encourage individuals to employ their capital in adding to the means of distressing the enemy. If I had property on the high seas, would it be respected any more than other English property by the enemy? Certainly not; and, therefore, I am not bound to respect theirs. The end of war is to obtain an honourable peace; and the more the enemy is distressed, the sooner are you likely to obtain one. I do not, therefore, consider that privateering is worse than any other species of warfare, or that the privateersman is a whit more reckless or brutal than soldiers or men-of-war's men in the hour of victory in the king's service." "There is this difference, Sir," replied I; "first, in the officers commanding; although glad to obtain prize-money, they are stimulated by nobler feelings as well. They look to honour and distinction; they have the feeling that they are defending their king and country, to support them and throw a halo on their exertions; and they have such control over their men, that, although I admit they are equally inclined to excess as the privateersman, they are held in check by the authority which they dare not resist. Now, Mr Trevannion, privateersmen seek not honour, and are not stimulated by a desire to serve the country; all they look to is how to obtain the property of others under sanction; and could they without any risk do so, they would care little whether it was English property or not, provided that they put the money into their pockets. If I held this opinion as a seaman on board of a privateer, what must I feel now, when I am the leader of such people, and the responsibility of their acts is thrown upon my shoulders, for such I feel is the case!" "I think," replied Mr Trevannion, "that we had better not discuss this question any further just now. Of course you must decide for yourself; but I have this favour to ask of you. Trusting to your resuming the command of the vessel, I have no one to replace you at present, and I hope you will not refuse to take the command of her for one more cruise: should you on your return and on mature reflection be of the same opinion as you are now, I certainly shall no longer press you to remain, and will do all I can to assist you in any other views you may have." "To that, Sir, I can have no objection," replied I; "it would be unfair of me to leave you without a captain to the vessel, and I am therefore ready to sail in her as soon as you please, upon the understanding that I may quit her, if I am of the same opinion as I am now, upon my return to port." "I thank you, my dear Sir," said Mr Trevannion, rising; "that is all I request. I must now go to the counting-house." So saying, he left the room, but his countenance showed that he was far from pleased. Miss Trevannion, who had been a silent listener to the conversation, as soon as her father had closed, the door after him, thus spoke: "Captain Elrington, the opinion of a young maiden like me can be of little value, but you know not how much pleasure you have given me by the sentiments you have expressed. Alas! That a man so good, so generous, and so feeling in every other respect, should be led away by the desire of gain, to be the owner of such a description of property. But in this town wealth is everything; the way by which it is obtained is not thought of. My father's father left him a large property in vessels employed wholly in the slave-trade, and it was through the persuasions of my poor mother that my father was induced to give up that nefarious traffic. Since that his capital has been chiefly employed in privateering, which, if not so brutal and disgraceful, is certainly nearly as demoralising. I have been home but a short time, and I have already ventured to express my opinion, certainly not so forcibly and so well as you have, upon the subject; but I was laughed at as a tender-hearted girl, who could not be a fit judge of such matters. But now that you, a captain of one of his vessels, have expressed your dislike to the profession, I think some good may arise. If my father were a poor man, it would be more excusable, if excuse there can be; but such is not the case. He is wealthy, and to whom has he to leave his wealth but to me, his only child? Captain Elrington, you are right--be firm--my father's obligations to you are very great and your opinion will have its influence. I am his daughter--his only daughter--his love for me is great, I know, and I also have my power over him. Supported as I have been by you, I will now exert it to the utmost to persuade him to retire from further employment of his means in such a speculation. "I thanked you yesterday, when I first saw you, for your noble behaviour; I little thought that I should have again, in so short a time, to express my thanks." Miss Trevannion did not wait for any reply from me, but then quitted the room. I must say, that, although so young a person, I was much pleased at Miss Trevannion's approval of my sentiments. She appeared, from the very short acquaintance I had had with her, to be a person of a firm and decided disposition, and very different from the insipid class of females generally met with. Her approval strengthened my resolution; still, as I had promised her father that I would go another cruise in the privateer, I left the house and went on board to resume the command. My return was joyfully hailed by the officers and men, which is not always the case. I found her, as may be supposed, ready for sea at a minute's warning, so that I had nothing to do but embark my effects, which I did before the noon was passed, and then went on shore to Mr Trevannion, to receive his orders. I found him with Captain Levee in the back room; and I told Mr Trevannion that I had resumed the command, and was ready to sail as soon as he pleased. "We must make up for lost time, Elrington," replied he; "I have ordered Captain Levee to cruise to the northward of the Western Isles, occasionally working up as far as the Scilly Isles. Now I think you had better take your ground in the Channel, between Dunkirk and Calais. There is as much to be made by salvage in recapturing English vessels in that quarter as there is in taking the enemy's vessels; and I am sure," added Mr Trevannion, smiling, "you will think that legitimate warfare." At this Captain Levee laughed, and said, "I have been told what you said to Mr Trevannion, Elrington. I said that it was the effects of being condemned for high treason, and would wear off in a three-months' cruise." "Good impressions do wear off very soon, I fear," replied I; "but I hope that it will not be the case in this instance." "We shall see, my good fellow," replied Captain Levee; "for my part I hope they will, for otherwise we shall lose the best privateersman I ever fell in with. However, it's no use bringing up the question now; let us wait till our cruises are over, and we meet again. Good bye, Elrington, and may you be fortunate. My anchor is short stay apeak, and I shall be under sail in half an hour." Captain Levee sailed at the time that he mentioned; I remained at anchor till the next morning, and then once more was running down the Irish Channel before a stiff breeze. I forgot to mention that while at Mr Trevannion's I had looked at the address of the Catholic priest who had announced to me my release from prison, and had left copies of it, as well as of that of the lady at Paris, in the care of Mr Trevannion. It was now cold, autumnal weather, and the Channel was but rough sailing-ground. During the first fortnight we were fortunate enough to make two recaptures of considerable value, which arrived safely in the Thames, after which we had a succession of gales from the southward, it being the time of the equinox, which drove us close to the sands of Yarmouth, and we even had difficulty in clearing them and getting into sea-room by standing to the eastward. The weather still continued very bad, and we were lying-to under storm sails for several days, and at last found ourselves a degree and a half to the northward, off the coast of Norfolk, when the weather moderated, and the wind changed to the northward. It was a fine clear night, but with no moon, and we were running before the wind to regain our cruising-ground; but the wind again shifted and baffled us, and at last it fell light, and, being on a wind, we did not make more than four miles an hour, although there was very little sea. About one o'clock in the morning I had gone on deck, and was walking to and fro with the first officer, Mr James, when I thought that I heard a faint halloo from to windward. "Stop," said I; "silence there forward." I listened, and thought that I heard the cry again. "Mr James," said I, "did you not hear some one shout?" "No, Sir," replied he. "Wait, then, and listen." We did so, but I could not hear it repeated. "I am certain that I heard a voice as if on the waters," said I. "Perhaps some one has fallen overboard. Turn the hands up to muster, and haul the fore-sheet to windward." The men were mustered, but no one was missing. "It was your fancy, Sir," observed the first officer. "It may have been," replied I; "but I am still in my own mind persuaded that such was the case. Perhaps I was mistaken." "Shall we let draw the fore-sheet, Sir?" said Mr James. "Yes, we may as well; but the wind is lighter than it was. I think we shall have a calm." "It will be as much as she can do to stem the tide and hold her own," observed Mr James. "Let draw the fore-sheet, my lads." Somehow or another I had a feeling which I could not surmount, that I certainly had heard a faint shout; and although, admitting such to be the case, there was little chance of being of service to any one, I felt a reluctance to leave the spot, and as I walked the deck silent and alone this feeling became insurmountable. I remained on deck till the tide turned, and then, instead of taking advantage of it so as to gain to the southward, I put the schooner's head the other way, so as to keep as near as I could to the spot where I heard the voice, reducing her sail so as just to stem the tide. I cannot now account for my anxiety, which, under the circumstances, I most certainly never should have felt, unless it was that Providence was pleased to interpose on this occasion more directly than usual. I could not leave the deck; I waited for daylight with great impatience, and as the day dawned I had my telescope in my hand looking round the compass. At last, as the sun rose from the fog on the horizon, something attracted my eye, and I made it out to be the two masts of a vessel which had sunk in about six fathoms of water. Still I could see nothing except the masts. However, to make sure, I made sail on the schooner, and stood towards them. A short tack enabled us to fetch, and in half an hour we passed the wreck about a half-musket-shot to windward, when we perceived an arm lifted up out of the water, and waved to us. "There is somebody there," said I, "and I was right. Quickly, my lads; fore-sheet to windward, and lower down the stern-boat." This was done in a minute, and in a short time the boat returned, bringing with them a lad about sixteen years old, whom they had found in the water, clinging to the masts of the vessel. He was too much exhausted to speak or move. He was put into bed, covered up with blankets, and some warm spirits and water poured down his throat. We then hoisted up the boat, and made sail upon the schooner, and I went down below to breakfast, rejoicing that I had acted upon the impulse which I had felt, and had thus been instrumental in saving the life of a fellow-creature. A few minutes after he was put into bed the lad fell into a sound sleep, which continued during the whole of the day. The next morning he awoke greatly recovered, and very hungry, and as soon as he had eaten he rose and dressed himself. I then sent for him, as I was impatient to see him and learn his history. When he entered the cabin, it struck me I had seen his features before, but where I could not say. To my inquiries he stated that the brig was the Jane and Mary, of Hull, laden with coals; that they had started a wooden end during the gale, and that she had filled so rapidly that they got the boat from off the boom to save their lives, but from the heavy sea running, and the confusion, the boat had been bilged against the bulwarks, and went down as they were shoving off; that he had supported himself by one of the oars, and was soon separated from his companions who floated around him; that during this time the brig had sunk, and he, clinging to the oar, had been drawn towards her as she sank, and carried some feet under water. On his rising he perceived the top-gallant masts above water, and had made for them, and on looking round he could not see any of the rest of the crew, who must have all perished; that he had been two days on the mast, and was perished with cold. Finding that his feet, which hung down on the water, were much warmer than the other portions of his body exposed to the wind, he had sunk himself down in the water, and remained there, and had he not done so he must have perished. I asked him how long he had been at sea, and he said he had only gone one voyage, and had been but three months on board. There was something in his manner so superior to the condition of apprentice (which he stated himself to be) on board of such a vessel, and I felt such an interest, which I could not account for, towards the lad, that I then asked who were his friends. He replied, stammering, that he had not a friend in the world except a brother older than himself by many years, and he did not know where he was. "But your father's name? Is he alive, and who is he? You must tell me that, or I shall not know where to send you." The youth was very confused, and would not give me any answer. "Come, my lad," I said, "I think as I have saved your life I deserve a little confidence, and it shall not be misplaced. I perceive that you have not been brought up as a lad for the sea, and you must therefore trust me." "I will, Sir," he replied, "if you will not send me back to my father and mother." "Certainly not against your will, my good lad," I replied, "although I shall probably persuade you all I can to return to them. I presume you ran away from your home?" "Yes, Sir, I did," replied he; "for I could not possibly stay there any longer, and my brother did so before me, for the same reason that I did." "Well, I promise you, if you will confide in me, that I will not force your inclinations; so now tell me who are your father and mother, and why you left home. You want a friend now, and without confidence you cannot expect friendship." "I will tell you all, Sir," he replied, "for I see by your face that you will not take advantage of me." He then commenced, and you may imagine my surprise, my dear Madam, when I found that it was my own brother Philip, whom I had left a child of ten years old, who was addressing me. He had, as he had asserted, left his home and thrown himself on the wide world for the same reason which I had; for his spirit, like mine, could not brook the treatment which he received. I allowed him to finish his narrative, and then made myself known to him. You may imagine the scene, and the delight of the poor fellow, who, as he encircled me in his arms, clinging to me with the tears of joy on his cheeks, told me that his great object had been to find me out, and that, although he had no idea what had become of me, he thought it most likely that I had taken to a seafaring life. I now felt certain that Providence had specially interposed in this business, and had, for its own good reasons, created those unusual feelings of interest which I described to you, that I might be the saviour of my brother; and most grateful was I, I can assure you. I had now a companion and friend, one to love and to cherish. I was no longer alone in the world and I do not know when I had felt so happy for a long while. I left my brother below in the cabin, and went on deck to acquaint the officers with this strange meeting. The intelligence soon ran through the vessel, and of course the poor shipwrecked boy became an object of unusual interest. That whole day I was interrogating and receiving intelligence from him relative to our family. I made him describe his sisters and every member of it, even the servants and our neighbours were not forgotten, and for the first time since I had quitted home, I knew what had occurred during the six years of my absence. From the accounts he gave me, I certainly had no inclination ever to return as long as certain parties were in existence; and my brother declared that nothing but force should ever induce him. The more I talked with him, the more I was pleased with him. He appeared of a frank, noble disposition, full of honour and high sentiments, winning in his manners, and mirthful to excess. Indeed, his handsome countenance implied and expressed as much, and it did not deceive. I hardly need say that he took up his quarters in my cabin, and, having procured for him more suitable apparel, he looked what he was,--the perfect young gentleman. He was soon a general favourite on board, not only with the officers but with the men. One would have thought that the danger and distress we had found him in would have sickened him for the sea for ever; but it was quite the contrary. He delighted in his profession, and was certainly born to be a sailor. I asked him what he felt when he had remained so long clinging to the mast; if he had not given up all hopes of being saved? And he replied no, that he had not; that he did not know how long he might have had to remain there, but that he had never abandoned the idea of being taken off by some vessel or another, and that he thought that he might have continued there for twenty-four hours longer without being exhausted, as after he had sunk himself into the water he felt warm, and no exertion was necessary. It is of such buoyant spirits as these, Madam, that seamen should be made. You cannot have an idea of the pleasure which I experienced at this falling in with my brother Philip. It appeared to have given a new stimulus to my existence; even privateering did not appear so hateful to me, after I had heard him express his delight at being likely to be so employed, for such he stated had long been his ardent wish. Two days afterwards we had regained our cruising-ground, and perceived a French privateer steering for the port of Calais, in company with a large merchant vessel which she had captured. The wind was light, and we discovered her at daybreak, just as the fog cleared away, she being then about mid-channel, and not more than five miles distant. We made all sail, and soon were within gun-shot. The Frenchman appeared determined not to part with his prize without a trial of strength, but as the captured vessel was the nearest to us, I decided to retake her first, and then fight him if he wished. I therefore steered to lay the prize by the board. The Frenchman, a lugger of twelve guns, perceiving our intention, made also for the prize to defend her, he steering up for her close-hauled, we running down to her free, the prize lying between us, and sheltering each of us from the other's guns. It is difficult to say whether the Frenchman or we were the first to touch her sides with our respective vessels; I rather think that the Frenchman was a second or two before us. At all events they were quicker than we were, and were on the deck first, besides having the advantage of the assistance of their men already on board, so that we were taken at a great disadvantage. However, we did gain the deck by boarding at two points, forward and aft, and a fierce contest ensued. The French were more numerous than we were, but my men were better selected, being all very powerful, athletic fellows. Philip had boarded with the other party forward, which was led by my chief officer. My party, who were abaft, not being so numerous, were beaten back to the taffrail of the vessel, where we stood at bay, defending ourselves against the furious assaults of the Frenchmen. But if we lost, the other party gained, for the whole body of the Frenchmen were between us and them, and those who faced Philip's party were driven back to abaft the mainmast. It so happened that Philip was thrown down on the deck, and his men passed over him; and while in that position, and unable to rise from the pressure upon him, he heard a calling out from below: this told him that the English prisoners were in the hold; and as soon as he could rise he threw off the hatches, and they rushed up, to the number of twenty-three stout fellows, to our support, cheering most manfully, and by their cheers announcing to the French that we had received assistance. This gave fresh courage to my men, who were hard pressed and faint with their great exertion. We cheered, and rushed upon the enemy, who were already weakened by many of them having turned round to resist the increased impetus from forward. Our cheers were replied to by Philip's party and the prisoners, and the French were losing the day. They made another desperate rush upon Philip's men, and succeeded in driving them back to before the main-hatches; but what they gained forward, they lost abaft, as we pushed on with vigour. This was their last attempt. The main-hatch being open, several of them in the confusion fell into it, others followed them of their own accord, and at last every one of them was beaten down from the deck, and the hatches were put over them, with three cheers. "Now for the privateer--she is our own," cried Philip; "follow me, my men," continued he, as he sprang upon the bulwarks of the prize, and from thence into the main rigging of the lugger alongside. Most of my men followed him; and as there were but few men left on board of the lugger, she was soon in our possession, and thus we had both the enemy and the prize without firing a cannon-shot. It was strange that this combat between two privateers should thus be decided upon the deck of another vessel, but such was the fact. We had several men badly wounded, but not one killed. The French were not quite so fortunate, as seven of their men lay dead upon the decks. The prize proved to be the Antelope West-Indiaman, laden with sugar and rum, and of considerable value. We gave her up to the captain and crew, who had at afforded us such timely assistance, and they were not a little pleased at being thus rescued from a French prison. The privateer was named the Jean Bart, of twelve guns, and one hundred and fifteen men, some away in prizes. She was a new vessel, and this her first cruise. As it required many men to man her, and we had the prisoners to encumber us, I resolved that I would take her to Liverpool at once; and six days afterwards we arrived there without further adventure. Philip's gallant conduct had won him great favour with my officers and men, and I must say that I felt very proud of him. As soon as we had anchored both vessels, I went on shore with Philip to Mr Trevannion's to give him an account of what had occurred during the short cruise, and I hardly need say that he was satisfied with the results, as we had made three recaptures of value besides a privateer. I introduced Philip to him, acquainting him with his miraculous preservation, and Mr Trevannion very kindly invited him for the present to remain in his house. We then took our leave, promising to be back by dinner-time, and I went with Philip to fit him out in a more creditable way; and having made my purchases and given my orders, (it being then almost two o'clock _post meridiem_,) we hastened to Mr Trevannion's, that we might be in time for dinner. I was, I must confess, anxious to see Miss Trevannion, for she had often occupied my thoughts during the cruise. She met me with great friendliness and welcomed me back. Our dinner was very agreeable, and Philip's sallies were much approved of. He was, indeed, a mirthful, witty lad, full of jest and humour, and with a good presence withal. Mr Trevannion being called out just as dinner was finished, Miss Trevannion observed--"I presume, Mr Elrington, that your good fortune and the reputation you have acquired in so short a time, have put an end to all your misgivings as to a privateersman's life?" "I am not quite so light and inconstant, Miss Trevannion," replied I; "I rejoice that in this cruise I have really nothing to lament or blush for, and trust at the same time we have been serviceable to our country; but my opinion is the same, and I certainly wish that I had fought under the king's pennant instead of on board of a privateer." "You are, then, of the same mind, and intend to resign the command?" "I do, Miss Trevannion, although I admit that this lad's welfare makes it more important than ever that I should have some means of livelihood." "I rejoice to hear you speak thus, Mr Elrington, and I think my father's obligations to you are such, that if he does not assist you, I should feel ashamed of him--but such I am certain will not be the case. He will forward your views, whatever they may be, to the utmost of his power--at the same time, I admit, from conversations I have had with him, that he will be mortified at your resigning the command." "And so shall I," said Philip, "for I do not agree with you or my brother: I see no more harm in privateering than in any other fighting: I suppose, Miss Trevannion, you have been the cause of my brother's scruples, and I tell you candidly to your face, that I do not thank you for it." Miss Trevannion coloured up at this remark, and then replied, "I do not think, Mr Philip, that I have had the pleasure of seeing your brother more than three times in my life, and that within this last six weeks, and sure I am that we have not had a quarter of an hour's conversation altogether. It is, therefore, assuredly, too much to say that I am the cause, and your brother will tell you that he expressed these opinions before I ever had had any conversation with him." "That may be," replied Philip, "but you approved of his sentiments, and that concluded the business, I am sure, and I don't wonder at it. I only hope that you won't ask me to do anything I do not wish to do; for I am sure that I could never refuse you anything." "I am glad to hear you say so, Mr Philip; for if I see you do that which I think wrong, I shall certainly try my influence over you," replied Miss Trevannion, smiling. "I really was not aware that I had such power." Here Mr Trevannion came in again, and the conversation was changed; and shortly afterwards Miss Trevannion left the room. Philip, who was tired of sitting while Mr Trevannion and I took our pipes, and who was anxious to see the town, also left us; and I then stated to Mr Trevannion that having now completed the cruise which I had agreed that I would, I wished to know whether he had provided himself with another captain. "As you appear so determined, my dear Elrington, I will only say that I am very sorry, and will not urge the matter any longer. My daughter told me since your absence that she was certain you would adhere to your resolution; and, although I hoped the contrary, yet I have been considering in which way I can serve you. It is not only my pleasure but my duty so to do; I have not forgotten, and never will forget, that you in all probability saved my life by your self-devotion in the affair of the Jacobites. When you first came to me, you were recommended as a good accountant, and, to a certain degree, a man of business; and, at all events, you proved yourself well acquainted and apt at figures. Do you think that a situation on shore would suit you?" "I should endeavour to give satisfaction, Sir," I replied; "but I fear that I should have much to learn." "Of course you would; but I reply that you would soon learn. Now, Elrington, what I have to say to you is this: I am getting old, and in a few years shall be past work; and I think I should like you as an assistant for the present, and a successor hereafter. If you would like to join me, you shall superintend the more active portion of the business; and I have no doubt but that in a year or two you will be master of the whole. As you know, I have privateers and I have merchant vessels, and I keep my storehouses. I have done well up to the present; not so well, perhaps, now, as I did when I had slave-vessels, which were most profitable; but my deceased wife persuaded me to give up that traffic, and I have not resumed it, in honour of her memory. These foolish women should never interfere in such matters; but let that pass. What I have to say is, that if you choose after a year to join me as a partner, I will give you an eighth of the business, and as we continue I will make over a further share in proportion to the profits; and I will make such arrangements as to enable you at my death to take the whole concern upon favourable terms." Mr Trevannion knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and, as he concluded,--"I am," I replied, "as you may imagine, Sir, much gratified and honoured at your proposal, which I hardly need say that I willingly accept. I only hope you will make allowance for my ignorance at first setting off, and not ascribe to any other cause my imperfections. You may assure yourself that good-will shall never be wanting on my part, and I shall work day and night, if required, to prove my gratitude for so kind an offer." "Then, it is settled," said Mr Trevannion; "but what are we to do with your brother Philip?" "He thinks for himself, Sir, and does not agree with me on the question in point. Of course, I have no right to insist that my scruples should be his; indeed, I fear that I should have little chance in persuading him, as he is so fond of a life of adventure. It is natural in one so young. Age will sober him." "Then you have no objection to his going on board of a privateer?" "I would rather that he was in any other service, Sir; but as I cannot control him I must submit, if he insist upon following that profession. He is a gallant, clever boy, and as soon as I can, I will try to procure him a situation in a king's ship. At present he must go to sea in some way or the other, and it were, perhaps, better that he should be in good hands (such as Captain Levee's for instance) on board of a privateer, than mix up with those who might demoralise him more." "Well, then, he shall have his choice," replied Mr Trevannion. "He is a smart lad, and will do you credit wherever he may be." "If I may take the liberty to advise, Sir," replied I, "I think you could not do better than to give the command of the Sparrow-hawk to the chief officer, Mr James; he is a good seaman and a brave man, and I have no doubt will acquit himself to your satisfaction." "I was thinking the same; and as you recommend him he shall take your place. Now, as all this is settled, you may as well go on board and make known that you have resigned the command. Tell Mr James that he is to take your place. Bring your clothes on shore, and you will find apartments ready for you on your return, for in future you will of course consider this house as your residence. I assure you that, now that you do not leave me, I am almost glad that the affair is arranged as it is. I wanted assistance, that is the fact, and I hold myself fortunate that you are the party who has been selected. We shall meet in the evening." Mr Trevannion then went away in the direction of his daughter's room instead of the counting-house as usual, and I quitted the house. I did not go immediately down to the wharf to embark. I wanted to have a short time for reflection, for I was much overpowered with Mr Trevannion's kindness, and the happy prospects before me. I walked out into the country for some distance, deep in my own reflections, and I must say that Miss Trevannion was too often interfering with my train of thought. I had of course no fixed ideas, but I more than once was weighing in my mind whether I should not make known to them who I was, and how superior in birth to what they imagined. After an hour passed in building castles, I retraced my steps, passed through the town, and, going down to the wharf, waved my handkerchief for a boat, and was soon on board. I then summoned the officers and men, told them that I had resigned the command of the vessel, and that in future they were to consider Mr James as their captain. I packed up my clothes, leaving many articles for my successor which were no longer of any use to me, but which he would have been compelled to replace. Philip I found was down in the cabin, and with him I had a long conversation, he stated his wish to remain at sea, saying that he preferred a privateer to a merchant vessel, and a king's ship to a privateer. Not being old enough, or sufficient time at sea to be eligible for a king's ship, I agreed that he should sail with Captain Levee, as soon as he came back from his cruise. He had already sent in a good prize. As soon as my clothes and other articles were put into the boat, I wished them all farewell, and was cheered by the men as I pulled on shore. My effects were taken up to Mr Trevannion's house by the seamen, to whom I gave a gratuity, and I was met by Mr Trevannion, who showed me into a large and well-furnished bed-room, which he told me was in future to be considered as my own. I passed away the afternoon in arranging my clothes, and did not go down to the parlour till supper-time, where I found Miss Trevannion, who congratulated me upon my having changed my occupation to one more worthy of me. I made a suitable reply, and we sat down to supper. Having described this first great event in my life, I shall for the present conclude. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. AFTER STAYING A YEAR WITH HIM, MR. TREVANNION PROPOSES TO TAKE ME INTO PARTNERSHIP, BUT I DECLINE THE OFFER FROM CONSCIENTIOUS MOTIVES--MISS TREVANNION TREATS ME WITH UNMERITED COLDNESS--THIS AND HER FATHER'S ANGER MAKE ME RESOLVE TO QUIT THE HOUSE--WHAT I OVERHEAR AND SEE BEFORE MY DEPARTURE--THE RING. You may now behold me in a very different position, my dear Madam; instead of the laced hat and hanger at my side, imagine me in a plain suit of grey with black buttons, and a pen behind my ear; instead of walking the deck and balancing to the motion of the vessel, I am now perched immoveably upon a high stool; instead of sweeping the horizon with my telescope, or watching the straining and bending of the spars aloft, I am now with my eyes incessantly fixed upon the ledger or day-book, absorbed in calculation. You may inquire how I liked the change. At first, I must confess, not over-much, and, notwithstanding my dislike to the life of a privateersman, I often sighed heavily, and wished that I were an officer in the king's service. The change from a life of activity to one of sedentary habits was too sudden, and I often found myself, with my eyes still fixed upon the figures before me, absorbed in a sort of castle-building reverie, in which I was boarding or chasing the enemy, handling my cutlass, and sometimes so moved by my imagination as to brandish my arm over my head, when an exclamation of surprise from one of the clerks would remind me of my folly, and, angry with myself; I would once more resume my pen. But after a time I had more command over myself; and could sit steadily at my work. Mr Trevannion had often observed how absent I was, and it was a source of amusement to him; when we met at dinner, his daughter would say, "So I hear you had another sea-fight this morning, Mr Elrington;" and her father would laugh heartily as he gave a description of my ridiculous conduct. I very soon, with the kind assistance of Mr Trevannion, became master of my work, and gave him satisfaction. My chief employment consisted in writing the letters to correspondents. At first I only copied Mr Trevannion's letters in his private letter-book; but as I became aware of the nature of the correspondence, and what was necessary to be detailed, I then made a rough copy of the letters, and submitted them to Mr Trevannion for his approval. At first there were a few alterations made, afterwards I wrote them fairly out, and almost invariably they gave satisfaction, or, if anything was added, it was in a postscript. Mr Trevannion's affairs, I found, were much more extensive than I had imagined. He had the two privateers, two vessels on the coast of Africa trading for ivory and gold-dust and other articles, two or three vessels employed in trading to Virginia for tobacco and other produce, and some smaller vessels engaged in the Newfoundland fisheries, which, when they had taken in their cargo, ran to the Mediterranean to dispose of it, and returned with Mediterranean produce to Liverpool. That he was a very wealthy man, independent of his large stakes upon the seas, was certain. He had lent much money to the guild of Liverpool, and had some tenanted properties in the county; but of them I knew nothing, except from the payment of the rents. What surprised me much was, that a man of Mr Trevannion's wealth, having but one child to provide for, should not retire from business--and I once made the remark to his daughter. Her reply was: "I thought as you do once, but now I think differently. When I have been on a visit with my father, and he has stayed away for several weeks, you have no idea how restless and uneasy he has become from want of occupation. It has become his habit, and habit is second nature. It is not from a wish to accumulate that he continues at the counting-house, but because he cannot be happy without employment. I, therefore, do not any longer persuade him to leave off, as I am convinced that it would be persuading him to be unhappy. Until you came, I think the fatigue was too great for him; but you have, as he apprises me, relieved him of the heaviest portion of the labour, and I hardly need say that I am rejoiced that you have so done." "It certainly is not that he requires to make money, Miss Trevannion; and, as he is so liberal in everything, I must credit what you assert, that it is the dislike to having no employment which induces him to continue in business. It has not yet become such a habit in me," continued I, smiling; "I think I could leave it off with great pleasure." "But is not that because you have not yet recovered from your former habits, which were so at variance with a quiet and a sedentary life?" replied she. "I fear it is so," said I, "and I believe, of all habits, those of a vagrant are the most difficult to overcome. You used to laugh at me the first few months that I was here. I presume that I am a little improved, as I have not been attacked lately?" "My father says so, and is much pleased with you, Mr Elrington, if my telling you so gives you any satisfaction." "Certainly it does, because I wish to please him." "And me, too, I hope?" "Yes, most truly, Miss Trevannion; I only wish I had it in my power to show how much I study your good opinion." "Will you risk my father's displeasure for it?" replied she, looking at me fixedly. "Yes, I will, provided--" "Oh! There is a proviso already." "I grant that there should not have been any, as I am sure that you would not ask me to do anything which is wrong. And my proviso was, that I did not undertake what my conscience did not approve." "Your proviso was good, Mr Elrington, for when a woman would persuade, a man should be particularly guarded that he is not led into error by a rash promise. I think, however, that we are both agreed upon the point. I will therefore come at once to what I wish you to do. It is the intention of my father, in the course of a few days, when you shall have accomplished your year of service, to offer to take you into partnership; and I am certain it will be on liberal terms. Now I wish you to refuse his offer unless he gives up privateering." "I will do so at all risks, and I am truly glad that I have your encouragement for taking such a bold step." "I tell you frankly that he will be very indignant. There is an excitement about the privateering which has become almost necessary to him, and he cares little about the remainder of his speculations. He is so blind to the immorality to which it leads, that he does not think it is an unlawful pursuit; if he did, I am sure that he would abandon it. All my persuasion has been useless." "And if a favourite and only daughter cannot prevail, what chance have I, Miss Trevannion?" "A better chance, Mr Elrington; he is partial to me, but I am a woman, and he looks upon my observations as a woman's weakness. The objections raised by a man, a young man, and one who has so long been actively engaged in the service, will, therefore, carry more weight; besides, he has now become so accustomed to you, and has had so much trouble taken off his hands, and, at the same time, has such implicit confidence in you, that I do not think, if he finds that he has to choose between your leaving him and his leaving off privateering, he will hesitate in relinquishing the latter. You have, moreover, great weight with him, Mr Elrington; my father is fully aware of the deep obligation he is under to your courage and self-devotion in the affair of the Jacobite refugees. You will, therefore, succeed, if you are firm; and, if you do succeed, you will have my gratitude, if that is of any importance to you; my friendship you know you have already." The entrance of Mr Trevannion prevented my reply. We had been waiting for his return from a walk, and dinner had been ready some time. "I have just seen some of the men of the Arrow," said Mr Trevannion, taking off his hat and spencer, "and that detained me." "Has Captain Levee arrived, then, Sir?" said I. "No; but he has sent in a prize--of no great value--laden with light wares. The men in charge tell me he has had a rough affair with a vessel armed _en flute_, and that he has lost some men. Your brother Philip, as usual, is wounded." I should here observe, that during the year which had passed away the two privateers had been several times in port--they had met with moderate success, barely sufficient to pay their expenses; my brother Philip had always conducted himself very gallantly, and had been twice wounded in different engagements. "Well, Sir," replied I, "I do not think that the loss of a little blood will do any harm to such a hot-headed youth as Master Philip; but I hope in a short time to give him an opportunity of shedding it in the service of the king, instead of in the pursuit of money. Indeed," continued I, as I sat down to table, "the enemy are now so cautious, or have so few vessels on the high seas, that I fear your privateering account current will not be very favourable, when balanced, as it will be in a few days, notwithstanding this cargo of wares just arrived." "Then we must hope better for next year," replied Mr Trevannion. "Amy, my dear, have you been out to-day?" "Yes, Sir; I was riding for two hours." "Have they altered your pillion yet?" "Yes, Sir; it came home last night, and it is now very comfortable." "I called at Mrs Carleton's, who is much better. What a fop that Mr Carleton is--I don't know what scented powder he uses, but it perfumed the whole room. Had not Mrs Carleton been such an invalid, I should have opened the window." Mr Trevannion then turned the conversation to some political intelligence which he had just received, and this engaged us till the dinner was over, and I returned to the counting-house, where I found the men who had brought in the prize, and who gave me a letter from Philip, stating that his wound was of no consequence. The communication of Mr Trevannion took place, as his daughter had assured me it would, on the anniversary of my entering into Mr Trevannion's counting-house. After dinner, as we, as usual, were smoking our pipes, Mr Trevannion said: "Elrington, you have been with me now one year, and during that time you have made yourself fully master of your business;--much to my surprise, I acknowledge, but still more to my satisfaction. That I have every reason to be satisfied with you, you may imagine, when I tell you that it is now my intention to take you into partnership, and I trust by my so doing that you will soon be an independent man. You know the capital in the business as well as I do. I did say an eighth, but I now propose to make ever to you one-fourth, and to allow your profits of every year (deducting your necessary expenses) to be invested in the business, until you have acquired a right to one half. Of future arrangements we will speak hereafter." "Mr Trevannion," replied it, "that I am truly grateful for such unexpected liberality I hardly need say, and you have my best thanks for your noble offer; but I have scruples which, I must confess, I cannot get over." "Scruples!" exclaimed Mr Trevannion, laying down his pipe on the table. "Oh! I see now," continued he, after a pause; "you think I am robbing my daughter. No, no, the labourer is worthy of his hire, and she will have more than sufficient. You carry your conscientiousness too far, my dear fellow; I have more than enough for Amy, out of the business altogether." "I am aware of that, Sir," added I, "and I did not, therefore, refer to your daughter when I said that I had scruples. I must be candid with you, Sir. How is it that I am now in your employ?" "Why, because you had a dislike to privateering, and I had a debt of gratitude to pay." "Exactly, Sir; but whether you had been pleased to employ me or not, I had made up my mind, as you well know, from conscientious motives, not to continue on board of a privateer." "Well, I grant that." "The same motives, Sir, will not allow me to be a sharer in the profits arising from such sources. I should consider myself equally wrong if I did so, as if I remained on board. Do not be angry with me, Sir," continued I; "if I, with many thanks, decline your offer of being your partner, I will faithfully serve you upon any salary which you may consider I may merit, and trust to your liberality in everything." Mr Trevannion made no reply; he had resumed his pipe, and continued to smoke it, with his eyes fixed upon the mantel-piece. As soon as his pipe was out, he rose, put on his hat, and walked out of the room, without making any further observation. I waited a few minutes, and then went back to the counting-house. That Mr Trevannion was seriously offended I was convinced; but I valued the good opinion of his daughter more than I did that of Mr Trevannion; indeed, my feelings towards her had, during the year that I had been in the house, gradually become of that nature that they threatened much my peace of mind. I cannot say that I loved her in the usual acceptation of the term,--adoration would better express what I felt. She was so pure, so perfect, such a model of female perfection, that I looked up to her with a reverence which almost quelled any feeling of love. I felt that she was above me, and that, with her wealth, it would be madness for one in my present position to aspire to her. Yet with this feeling I would have sacrificed all my hopes and present advantages to have obtained her approving smiles. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that I risked Mr Trevannion's displeasure to gain her approbation; and when I resumed my seat at my desk, and thought of what had passed, I made up my mind to be once more an outcast in the world rather than swerve from the promise which I had made to her. I knew Mr Trevannion to be a very decided man, and hasty when offended. That he was seriously offended with me there was no doubt. I found that he had quitted the house immediately after he had left the room. I had hoped that he had gone to his daughter's apartments, and that a conversation with her might have produced a good effect; but such was not the case. In about half an hour Mr Trevannion returned, and as he walked into the back room adjoining the counting-house, he desired me to follow him. I did so. "Mr Elrington," said he, sitting down, and leaving me standing at the table, "I fear, after what has passed, that we shall not continue on good terms. You have reproached me, an old man, with carrying on an unlawful business; in short, in raising your own scruples and talking of your own conscience, you have implied that I am acting contrary to what conscience should dictate. In short, you have told me, by implication, that I am not an honest man. You have thrown back in my face my liberal offer. My wish to oblige you has been treated not only with indifference, but I may add with contumely;--and that merely because you have formed some absurd notions of right and wrong in which you will find no one to agree with you, except, perhaps, priests and women. I wish you well, Mr Elrington, nevertheless. I am truly sorry for your infatuation, and wished to have served you, but you will not be assisted by me." Here Mr Trevannion paused, but I made no reply. After a time, wiping the perspiration from his forehead with his handkerchief, for he evidently was in a state of great excitement, he continued: "As you do not choose to join me from conscientious scruples, I cannot but imagine that you do not like to serve me from similar motives, for I see little difference between the two (and here, Madam, there was some force in his observation, but it never occurred to me before); at all events, without weighing your scruples so exactly as to know how far they may or may not extend, I feel that we are not likely to get on pleasantly together. I shall always think that I am reproached by you when anything is said connected with the privateers, and you may have twinges of conscience which may be disagreeable to you. Let us, therefore, part quietly. For your services up to the present, and to assist you in any other engagements you may enter on, take this--" Mr Trevannion opened a lower drawer of the table, and put before me a bag containing, as I afterwards discovered, 250 gold jacobuses. "I wish you well, Mr Elrington, but I sincerely wish that we had never met." Mr Trevannion then rose abruptly, and, before I could make my reply, brushed past me, went out at the door, and again walked away at a rapid pace down the street. I remained where I stood; my eyes had followed him as he went away. I was completely surprised. I anticipated much anger, much altercation; but I never had an idea that he would be so unjust as to throw off in this way one who for his sake had gone through a heavy trial and come out with honour. My heart was full of bitterness. I felt that Mr Trevannion had treated me with harshness and ingratitude. "Alas!" thought I, "such is the world, and such will ever be the case with such imperfect beings as we are. How vain to expect anything like consistency, much less perfection, in our erring natures! Hurt but the self-love of a man, wound his vanity, and all obligations are forgotten." I turned away from the bag of money, which I was resolved not to accept, although I had not at the time twenty guineas at my own disposal. It was now within half an hour of dark; I collected all my books, put some in the iron safe, others as usual in my desk, and having arranged everything as completely as I could, I locked the safe, and enclosed the keys in a parcel, which I sealed. Putting Mr Trevannion's name on the outside, I laid the parcel on the table in the room where we had had our conference, by the side of the bag of money. It was now dark, or nearly so, and leaving the confidential porter, as usual, to shut up the house, I went up to the sitting-room with the expectation of seeing Miss Trevannion, and bidding her farewell. I was not disappointed; I found her at her netting, having just lighted the lamp which hung over the table. "Miss Trevannion," said I, advancing respectfully towards her, "I have fulfilled my promise, and I have received my reward,"--she looked up at me--"which is, I am dismissed from this house and your presence for ever." "I trust," said she, after a pause, "that you have not exceeded my wishes. It appears to me so strange, that I must think that such is the case. My father never could have dismissed you in this way for merely expressing an opinion, Mr Elrington. You must have gone too far." "Miss Trevannion, when you meet your father, you can then ascertain whether I have been guilty of intemperance or rudeness, or a proper want of respect in making the communication,--which I did in exactly the manner you yourself proposed, and my reward has been such as I state." "You have a better reward, Mr Elrington, if what you assert is really correct; you have the reward of having done your duty; but I cannot imagine that your dismissal has arisen from the mere expression of an opinion. You'll excuse me, Mr Elrington, that, as a daughter, I cannot, in justice to a much-respected father, believe that such is the case." This was said in so cold a manner, that I was nettled to the highest degree. Miss Trevannion had promised me her gratitude, instead of which I felt that she was doubting my word, and, as it were, taking the side of her father against me. And this was the return from her. I could have upbraided her, and told her what I felt; namely, that she had taken advantage of my feelings towards her to make me a cat's-paw to obtain her end with her father; and that now, having failed, I was left to my fate, without even commiseration; but she looked so calm, so grave, and so beautiful, that I could not do it. I commanded my wounded feelings, and replied: "Since I have the misfortune to meet the displeasure of the daughter as well as of the father, Miss Trevannion, I have not another word to say, but farewell, and may you prosper." My voice faltered as I said the last words, and, bowing to her, I quitted the room. Miss Trevannion did not even say farewell to me, but I thought that her lips appeared to move, as quitting the room I took my last look upon her beautiful face. I shut the door after me, and, overpowered by my feelings, I sank upon a settee in the ante-room, in a state of giddy stupor. I know not how long I remained there, for my head turned and my senses reeled; but I was aroused from it by the heavy tread of Mr Trevannion, who came along the corridor without a light, and not perceiving me opened the door of the sitting-room where his daughter still remained. He threw the door to after he had entered, but it did not quite close, leaving a narrow stream of light through the ante-room. "Father," said Miss Trevannion in my hearing, "you look warm and excited." "I have reason so to be," replied Mr Trevannion, abruptly. "I have heard from Mr Elrington the cause of it," replied Miss Trevannion; "that is, I have heard his version of it. I am glad that you have come back, as I am most anxious to hear yours. What has Mr Elrington said or done to cause such irritation and his dismissal?" "He has behaved with insolence and ingratitude," replied Mr Trevannion; "I offered him partnership, and he refused, unless I would give up privateering." "So he stated; but in what manner was he insolent to you?" "Insolent!--told me that he acted from conscientious motives, which was as much as to say that I did not." "Was his language very offensive?" "No, not his language--that was respectful enough; but it was the very respect which made it insolent. So I told him that as he could not, from scruples of conscience, join me in privateering, of course his scruples of conscience could not allow him to keep the books, and I dismissed him." "Do you mean to say, my dear father, that he, in a respectful manner, declined entering into partnership from these scruples which you mention; that he gave you no other offence than expressing his opinion, and declining your offer?" "And what would you have more?" replied Mr Trevannion. "I wish to know where was the insult, the ingratitude, on his part which you complain of?" "Simply in refusing the offer. He ought to have felt grateful, and he was not; and he had no right to give such reasons as he did; for the reasons were condemning my actions. But you women cannot understand these things." "I rather think, my dear father, that we cannot; for I cannot perceive either the insult or the ingratitude which you complain of, and such I think will be your own opinion when you have had time to reflect, and are more cool. Mr Elrington expressed nothing more to-day, when he stated his dislike to privateering from conscientious motives, than he did after his return from his confinement in the Tower, when he gave up the command of the privateer on those very grounds; and then, when still warm with gratitude to him for his self-devotion, you did not consider it an insult, but, on the contrary, took him still nearer to you into your own house. Why, then, should you consider it an insult now? Neither can I see any ingratitude. You made him an offer, the value of which, in a worldly point of view, he could not but appreciate, and he declined it from conscientious motives; declined it, as you acknowledge, respectfully; proving that he was ready to sacrifice his worldly interests to what he considered his duty as a Christian. When Mr Elrington told me that you had dismissed him, I felt so certain that he must have been guilty of some unpardonable conduct towards you to have induced you to have resorted to such a step, that I did not credit him when he asserted the contrary. I could not believe, as a daughter, anything so much to the prejudice of my own father, and so much at variance with his general conduct. I now feel that I have been most unjust to Mr Elrington, and conducted myself towards him in a way which I bitterly regret, and hope by some means to be able to express my contrition for--" "Amy--Amy," said Mr Trevannion, severely, "are you blinded by regard for this young man, that you side against your own father? Am I to understand that you have given your affections without my sanction or approval?" "No, Sir," replied Miss Trevannion; "that I do respect and regard Mr Elrington is true, and I cannot do otherwise for his many good qualities and his devotion towards you; but if you would ask me if I love him, I reply that such a thought has not yet entered my head. Without a knowledge of who he is, or his family, and without your approval, I should never think of yielding up my affections in so hasty a manner; but I may say more: these affections have never been solicited by Mr Elrington. He has always behaved towards me with that respect, which, as the daughter of his patron, I have had a right to expect; but in no instance has he ever signified to me that he had any preference in my favour. Having assured you of this, my dear father, I cannot but say that I consider that he has, in this instance, not only been treated with injustice by you, but also by me." "Say no more," replied Mr Trevannion. As he said this, I heard footsteps in the passage, and was about to retreat to my own room; but, as the party came without a light, I remained. It was the porter, who knocked at the sitting-room door, and was requested to come in by Mr Trevannion. "If you please, Sir, Mr Elrington is gone out, I believe, and I found this packet directed to you on the table of the inner room, and also this bag of money, which I suppose you forgot to put away before you left." "Very well, Humphrey, leave them on the table." The man did so, and quitted the room, not perceiving me in the dark as he passed through the ante-room. "He has not taken the money," observed Mr Trevannion. "He might have done so, as he ought to be paid for his services." "I presume, my dear father, that his feelings were too much hurt by what passed," said Miss Trevannion. "There are obligations which cannot be repaid with gold." "These, I perceive, are the keys of the safe; I did not think that he would have gone away this night." I now considered it high time to quit the ante-room, where I had been irresistibly detained by the conversation which took place. I hastened to my own chamber, determined that I would leave the house the next morning before any one was stirring. I gained it in the dark, but, having the means of striking a light, I did so, and packed up all my clothes ready for my departure. I had just fastened down my valise, when I perceived a light on the further end of the long corridor which led to my apartment. Thinking it might be Mr Trevannion, and not wishing to see him, I blew out my own light and retreated to a small dressing-room, within my chamber, communicating by a glass door. The light evidently approached, and at last I perceived the party was entering my room, the door of which was wide open. It was Miss Trevannion who entered, and, turning round with her chamber-light in her hand, appeared to survey the apartment with a mournful air. She perceived my valise, and her eyes were fixed upon it for some time; at last she walked up to the dressing-table, and, sitting on the stool before it, leant down her head upon her hands and wept. "Alas!" thought I, "if those tears were but for me; but it is not so-- she has been excited, and her tears have come to her relief." After a time she raised her head from the table, and said, "How unjust have I been--and I shall see him no more!--if I could but beg his pardon, I should be more happy. Poor fellow!--what must he have felt at my harsh bearing. Oh! My father, I could not have believed it. And what did I say?--that I had no feeling for--well, I thought so at the time, but now--I am not quite sure that I was correct, though he--well, it's better that he's gone--but I cannot bear that he should have gone as he has done. How his opinion of me must have changed! That is what vexes me--" and again she bent her head down on the table and wept. In a moment she again rose, and took her candle in her hand. Perceiving on the dressing-table a small gold ring which I had taken off my finger the day before, and had forgotten, she took it up and examined it. After a little while she laid her light down on the table, and put the ring upon her finger. "I will keep it till I see him again," murmured she; and then taking her light she walked slowly out of the room. The knowledge I had gained by this unintentional eaves-dropping on my part, was the source of much reflection; and as I lay on the bed without taking off my clothes, it occupied my thoughts till the day began to break. That I still retained the good opinion of Miss Trevannion was certain, and the mortification I had endured at our final interview was now wholly removed. It was her duty to suppose her parent not in fault till the contrary was proved. She had known her father for years--me she had only known for a short time--and never before had she known him guilty of injustice. But her expressions and her behaviour in my room-- was it possible that she was partial to me, more partial than she had asserted to her father when she was questioned?--and her taking away the ring! CHAPTER FOURTEEN. A CONSPIRACY, WHICH ENDS SATISFACTORILY TO ALL PARTIES--PRIVATEERING IS ABANDONED, AND CAPTAIN LEVEE AND PHILIP SERVE THE KING. The night passed away in attempts at analysing the real feelings of Miss Trevannion, and also my own towards her; and now that I was to be separated from her, I discovered what I really had not before imagined, that my future happiness was seriously endangered by my sentiments towards her; in short, dear Madam, that I was most seriously in love. "And now," thought I, "of what avail is it to have made this discovery now, except it were to convince me, as Miss Trevannion had said, that it were better that I were gone." I did not fail to call to mind her observation about my unknown parentage and family, and this I reflected upon with pleasure, as it was the chief objection raised by her, and, at the same time, one that I could proudly remove, from my birth being really more distinguished than her own. Should I make it known? How could I?--we should, probably, never meet again. All this, and much more, was canvassed in my mind during the night, and also another question of more real importance, which was, what I was to do, and where I was to go? On this last point I could not make up my mind, but I determined that I would not leave Liverpool for a day or two, but would take up my quarters at my old lodgings, where I had lived with Captain Levee. As the day dawned, I rose from the bed, and, taking my valise on my shoulder, I went softly down-stairs, opened the street-door, and, shutting it again carefully, I hastened down the street as fast as I could. I met nobody, for it was still early, and arrived at the lodging-house, where I had some trouble to obtain admittance; the old lady at last opening the door in great dishabille. "Captain Elrington! Is it possible," exclaimed she, "why, what's the matter?" "Nothing, Madam," replied I, "but that I have come to take possession of your lodgings for a few days." "And welcome, Sir," replied she; "will you walk up-stairs while I make myself more fit to be seen. I was in bed and fast asleep when you knocked; I do believe I was dreaming of my good friend, Captain Levee." I went up-stairs and threw myself on the old settee which was so familiar to me, and somehow or another, in a few minutes I was in a sound sleep. How long I might have slept on I cannot tell, but in less than an hour I was waked up by loud talking and laughter, and a few seconds afterwards found myself embraced by my brother Philip and Captain Levee. The Arrow had anchored at break of day, and they had just come on shore. I was delighted to see them, as every one is when he meets with friends when he is in distress. I briefly stated how it was that they found me there, and when breakfast was on the table, I entered into full details of what had passed, with the exception of Miss Trevannion having entered my room--that I considered too sacred to repeat to any one. "You know, my dear Elrington," said Captain Levee, "that I have not the scruples which you have relative to privateering, but still I respect the conscientious scruples of others. There is no excuse for Mr Trevannion's conduct, and I cannot think but there is something else at the bottom of all this. You haven't been making love to his daughter, or, what would amount to the same thing, she has not been making advances to you?" "I have not dared the first, Levee, and you do not know her, to suppose her capable of the latter." "Well, if she had done so, there would have been no harm done," replied he; "but I will say no more as you look so grave. Philip and I will now call upon Mr Trevannion; and while I engage the old gentleman, Philip shall run alongside of the young maiden, and between the two we shall get our bearings and distance, and know how the land lies--and I will tell you more, Elrington, although I have no objection to be captain of a privateer, I certainly consider the command of a king's ship more reputable; and if I could manage to get the Arrow hired into the king's service (I still remaining in command of her), I should prefer it being so. At all events, I'll side with you, and that will drive the old gentleman on a dead lee-shore. Come along, Philip--we shall be with you in two hours, Elrington." With these words Captain Levee left the room, followed by my brother. It was nearly three hours before they returned, and then I received the following narratives: Captain Levee, as he sat down, said, "Now, Philip, we'll hear your account first." "Well, mine is soon told," replied Philip; "I had made up my mind how to act, and did not tell Captain Levee what I intended to do. When Mr Trevannion met us in the room behind the counting-house he appeared very much flurried: he shook hands with Captain Levee, and offered me his hand, which I refused, saying, `Mr Trevannion, I have just seen my brother, and I hardly need say that nothing will induce me to remain in your employ. I will, therefore, thank you for my wages at your convenience.' "`Hey-day, young man,' cried he, `you give yourself strange airs. Well, Sir, you shall have your discharge; I can do without such snip-jacks as you are.' "`Snip-jacks! Mr Trevannion,' replied I; `if I must say it, we are better born and better bred than you or any of your connexions, and you were honoured by our service.'" "You said that, Philip?--then you were wrong!" "I told the truth." "Still, you should not have said it; we took his service, and therefore--" "We are not snip-jacks," interrupted Philip, "and his calling names brought on the reply." "You must admit the provocation, Elrington," said Captain Levee. "Well, go on, Philip." "`Indeed,' said Mr Trevannion, in a great passion; `well, then, I will soon rid myself of the obligation. Call this afternoon, Master Philip, and you shall receive your wages. You may now quit the room.' "I did so, and put my hat a-cock to annoy him." "So far his narrative is quite correct," said Captain Levee;--"now go on." "Well," said Philip, "instead of turning out of the house, I turned into it, and went to the young lady's sitting-room. I opened the door softly, and found her with her hand up to her head, looking very sedate and sorrowful. `Master Philip,' said she, `you startled me; I am glad to see you--when did you arrive?' "`This morning, Miss Trevannion.' "`Well, sit down and bear me company for a time. Have you seen your brother?' "`I have, Miss Trevannion,' replied I, still remaining on my feet, `and I have just seen your father. I come now to bid you farewell. I have left the privateer, and shall never join her again; perhaps I may never see you again either, which, believe me, I am truly sorry for.' "She covered her eyes with her hand, as she leant on the table, and I saw a tear fall as she said--`It is a sad business altogether, and has distressed me very much. I hope your brother does not think that I blame him; tell him that I do not in the least, and that he must forget my behaviour to him when we parted. I did him injustice, and I beg his pardon. Tell him so, Philip.'" "Did she say those words, Philip?" "Yes, word for word, and looked like an angel when he said so. I replied that I would certainly deliver her message, but that I must not remain, for fear of Mr Trevannion finding me with her, as he ordered me to quit the house." "`Indeed,' said she; `what can be the matter with my poor father?' "`Why, Miss Trevannion,' said I, `he was very angry, and he had reason, for I was very saucy, and that's the truth.' "`Why, Philip, what did you say to him?' "`Oh, I hardly know,' replied I, `but I know that I said more than I ought; for I was very angry at my brother's dismissal. Good bye, Miss Trevannion.' "Miss Trevannion was taking a ring off her finger as I said good bye, and I thought she was going to give it me as a keepsake; but, after a little hesitation, she put it on again, and then held out her hand, saying, `Good bye, Master Philip, let us not part in anger, at all events.' I took her hand, bowed, and turned away to quit the room; when I was at the door I looked round, and she was sitting with her face in her hands and I think she was weeping. I went out into the street, and waited for Captain Levee, and there's an end of my story." "Well, now I'll give you my portion, Elrington.--As soon as Philip went out of the room, Mr Trevannion said, `That's a most impudent boy, and I am glad that he is gone. You are of course aware that his brother has left me, and the cause of our disagreement?' "`Yes, Sir,' replied I, drily, `I have heard the whole particulars.' "`Did you ever hear of such ridiculous scruples?' said he. "`Yes, Sir, I heard them before, and so did you, when he gave up the command of the privateer, and I respected them, because I knew that Mr Elrington was sincere. Indeed, his observations on that head are undeniably true, and have had great weight with me; so much so, that I intend to enter into the king's service as soon as I possibly can.' "I wish you had seen the look of Mr Trevannion when I said this--he was stupefied. That I, Captain Levee, who had commanded his vessels so long--I, the very _beau ideal_ of a privateersman, a reckless, extravagant dare-devil, should also presume to have scruples, was too much for him. `Et tu, Brute,' he might have exclaimed, but he did not; but he stared at me without speaking for some time; at last he said, `Is the golden age arrived, or is this a conspiracy?' "`Neither one nor the other, Sir,' I replied; `I follow privateering because I can do no better; but as soon as I can do better, I shall leave it off.' "`Perhaps,' said Mr Trevannion, `you would wish to resign the command at once. If so, I beg you will not make any ceremony.' "`I have not wished to put you to any inconvenience, Mr Trevannion,' replied I, `but as you kindly beg me to use no ceremony, I will take advantage of your offer, and resign the command of the Arrow this day.'" "Surely, Levee, you have not done so?" "Yes, I have," replied Captain Levee, "and I have done so, in the first place, out of friendship to you, and, in the second, because I wish to be employed in the king's service, and my only chance of obtaining that wish is doing what I have done." "How will that effect your purpose?" "Because the men have sailed so long with me, that they will not sail under any other person, if I tell them not. Mr Trevannion will find himself in an awkward position, and I think we can force him to hire his vessel to government, who will gladly accept such a one as the Arrow." "That I believe, if from her reputation alone," replied I. "Well, Levee, I thank you very much for this proof of sincere friendship. The plot thickens, and a few days will decide the question." "Very true, and now let me finish my story. `I am afraid,' said Mr Trevannion, in a very sarcastic tone, `that I shall not be able to find any one to replace you in this moral age, Captain Levee; but I will try.' "`Sir,' I replied, `I will now answer your sarcasm. There is some excuse for ignorant seamen before the mast, who enter on board of privateers; they are indifferent to blood and carnage, and their feelings are blunted: there is some excuse even for decayed gentlemen like me, Mr Trevannion (for I am a gentleman born), who, to obtain a maintenance without labour, risk their lives and shed their blood; but there is no excuse for those who, having already as much wealth and more than they can require, still furnish the means and equip vessels of this description to commit the destruction which they do, for the sake of gain. There is a sermon, Sir, for you from a captain of a privateer, and I now wish you good morning.' I then got up, and, making a profound bow, I quitted the room before Mr Trevannion made any reply, and here I am. Now all we have to do is to wait quietly, and see what takes place; but first, I shall go on board the Arrow, and let them know that I have quarrelled with the owner. The men are not very well pleased as it is with their want of success these two last voyages, and it will require but little to blow up the discontent into a mutiny. Come, Philip, I shall want you to assist me. We shall be back to dinner, Elrington." When I was again alone, I had time to consider what had passed. What I chiefly dwelt upon was the interview, between Philip and Miss Trevannion--her message to me--her hesitation--and keeping the ring. I could not help surmising that our feelings towards each other were reciprocal, and this idea gave me infinite delight, and repaid me for all that had passed. Then my brother's hasty declaration to her father, that we were better born and bred than he was, would certainly be repeated by him to his daughter, and must make an impression. And what would Mr Trevannion do? Would he give way to the unanimous opinion against him? I feared not, at least without another struggle. All these questions occupied my thoughts till the return of Captain Levee and Philip from the privateer. They had well managed their business. The crew of the Arrow had come to an unanimous resolution that they would not sail with any other captain but Captain Levee; and that if he did resign the command of the vessel, as soon as their wages were paid, and they received their share of prize-money, they would leave, and enter into the king's service. That afternoon Mr Trevannion sent for the officer next in command, to give him the command of the vessel; but as he went over the side, the men, expecting that he was sent for for that purpose, told him that they would serve under no one but Captain Levee, and that he might acquaint the owner with their determination. This put the finishing blow to Mr Trevannion. As soon as this was communicated to him, he was wild with rage in being thus thwarted in every way. As I afterwards was informed, he went even to his daughter, acquainted her with all that had passed, and gave vent to his indignation, accusing her of being a party in the conspiracy. But this was to be his last effort: the excitement had been too great, and after dinner he felt so unwell that he went to bed. The next morning he was in a raging fever, and at times delirious. The fever was so violent that the doctors had much to do to reduce it, and for ten days Mr Trevannion was in great danger. At last it was got under, leaving him in a state of great weakness and exhaustion, and his recovery was anything but rapid. Humphrey, the porter, had brought us this intelligence; as now there was no one to transact the business of the house, and the poor fellow did not know what to do, I desired him to apply to Miss Trevannion for directions, and told him that, although I would not enter the house, I would, if she wished it, see to the more important concerns which could not be neglected. She was then attending her father, and sent me a message, requesting, as a favour to her, that I would assist all I could in the dilemma. I consequently sent for the books, and gave orders, and made the necessary arrangements, as I had done before I had been dismissed by Mr Trevannion. It was nearly five weeks before Mr Trevannion had sufficiently recovered to mention anything about business to him, and then it was that he learnt from his daughter that I had carried it on for him during his illness, and that everything had gone on as well as if he had acted for himself. Although Miss Trevannion had not expressed a wish that I should call, she had sent Humphrey for my brother Philip, to let us know the dangerous state in which her father was, and after that Philip called every day, and was the bearer of messages to me. As her father recovered, she told Philip that he had expressed himself very strongly as to his conduct towards me, and had acknowledged that I was right in my scruples, and that he was astonished that he had not viewed privateering in the same light that I did. That he felt very grateful for my considerate and kind conduct in conducting the business during his illness, and that as soon as he was well enough he would call upon me, to beg my pardon for his conduct towards me. Miss Trevannion also told him that her father had said that he considered his illness a judgment upon him, and a warning to open his eyes to his sacrifice of principle to the desire of gain, and that he received it accordingly with humility and thankfulness; that it was his intention to offer the privateer vessels to government, and if they did not hire them, he should dispose of them in some other way. This was very agreeable intelligence, and was the source of much conversation between Captain Levee and me. About a fortnight afterwards, Mr Trevannion, who was still weak, sent me a billet, in which he said that he was afraid that his anxiety to see me and his being still confined to his room, rather retarded his recovery, and begged as a favour that I would accept his acknowledgment in writing, and come to see him. That I consented to do, and repaired to his house accordingly. I found him in his room, sitting in his dressing-gown, and he had evidently suffered much. "Mr Elrington," said he, "I trust to your excellent nature to accept my apologies for the very unjust treatment you have received at my hands. I am ashamed of myself and I can say no more." "I beg, Mr Trevannion, that you will say no more; I accept the return of your friendship with pleasure," replied I; "I am sorry that you have been so ill." "I am not," replied he; "it is good for us to be chastised at times. My sickness has opened my eyes, and made me, I trust, a better man. May I ask a favour of you?" "Most certainly, Sir," replied I. "It is that you will execute a commission for me, which is to go to London on my account, see the government people who control the naval affairs, and offer the Arrow as a hired vessel. You know all her qualifies so well, and have kept her accounts so long, that you will be able to furnish them with all necessary information. I should wish Captain Levee to go with you, and, if you possibly can, make it a condition that he is taken into the king's service, and appointed the captain of her." "I will do so with pleasure," replied I. "One more favour I have to beg, Mr Elrington. When I so foolishly quarrelled with you, you left a bag of money, to which you were fully entitled from your good services, upon the table in the inner room. I trust now that you will not mortify me by refusing it, or I shall think that you have not really forgiven me." I bowed assent. "I thank you, Mr Elrington--thank you very much. Now I shall soon get well. To-morrow, perhaps, you will have the kindness to come and see me again. I feel rather overcome at present. Remember me kindly to Philip. Good-bye for to-day," said Mr Trevannion holding out his emaciated hand. "God bless you." I took his hand and quitted the room, shutting the door softly. Mr Trevannion was quite alone when I was with him. Humphrey, the porter, had shown me up-stairs to the room. Anxious as I was to see Miss Trevannion, I did not venture into the sitting-room, but passed the door and went down-stairs; when I was going out of the street-door, Humphrey followed me, and said Miss Trevannion wished to see me. I went back again with a beating heart, a sensation I had not felt before, when about to go into her presence. She was standing by the table. "Mr Elrington," said she, as I bowed upon entering, "I did not think that you could carry your resentment against me so far as to leave the house without asking to see me; but if you do not wish to see me, 'tis a duty I owe to myself to wish to see you, if only for a moment, that I may beg your pardon for my conduct towards you when we last parted. I have suffered much since that, Mr Elrington; do not make me suffer more by continuing your resentment. Recollect I am but a weak woman, and must not be judged so severely as one of your own sex." "I have nothing to pardon that I am aware of, Miss Trevannion," replied I; "I did not intrude upon you just now, because being no longer an inmate of the house, and not having parted with you in complete amity, I thought it would be presumptuous in me so to do." "You are very generous, Mr Elrington," replied she; "now take my hand, and I promise never to be so hasty again." I took the proffered hand, and raised it respectfully to my lips. I had never done so before; but Miss Trevannion showed no signs of displeasure, or attempted to withdraw it. "Do you think my father looks very ill, Mr Elrington?" said she. "From his appearance, I think that he must have suffered much." "I am most thankful that you have come to see him, Mr Elrington. You have no idea how his mind was troubled, and how he longed to be reconciled to you. I trust he has made his peace." "I have always had too much respect for your father, and gratitude for his kindness to me, to have made that a work of difficulty." "You rejoice me much--make me very happy, Mr Elrington," replied Miss Trevannion, as the tears dropped fast from her eyes. "You must excuse me," said she; "I have become very weak and nervous during my father's illness--and sitting up with him so much,--but it is over now." "You have had much anxiety, I see, Miss Trevannion; you are pale and thin to what you were." "Did my father--? But I have no right to ask such questions." "You would inquire, Miss Trevannion, whether anything was said as to future arrangements?" Miss Trevannion made a sign of assent. "I have promised to execute a commission for him, and am going to London, accompanied by Captain Levee." "To get rid of those wretched privateers, is it not?" "Yes it is, and I am to come to-morrow to arrange further: but I think you want to return to your father's room, so I will now take my leave." "You are considerate, Mr Elrington; I did want to go up-stairs; but before I go I have some property of yours to place in your hands." I bowed, thinking that she referred to the ring, which I perceived on her finger, and was annoyed that she was in such haste to return it. But, on the contrary, she went to the buffet and brought out the bag of gold jacobuses, which she laid on the table. "You are very proud, Mr Elrington, not to take what was fairly your due," said Miss Trevannion, smiling. "It is much more than I have ever earned," replied I; "but your father made me promise not to refuse it a second time, and of course I shall now take it." My heart was much lightened when I found that it was the gold, and not the ring. "Then good-bye, Mr Elrington; to-morrow I shall see you, of course." Miss Trevannion then left the room and hastened up-stairs to her father, and I went home to my lodgings. I narrated the substance of what had passed between Mr Trevannion and me to Captain Levee and Philip, and also that I had been kindly received by Miss Trevannion. "Well, I like the reconciliation and arrangement very much," said Captain Levee; "and as you have such a bag of gold, and I have not fifty guineas in the world, you shall stand treat in London, Elrington." "That I will with pleasure; it will only be discharging an old debt, Levee. Philip shall go with us." "But," said Captain Levee, "do you not think they will recognise their state-prisoner, and be cautious of a Jacobite?" "They may remember the name," said I, "but my person was seen but by few. I do, however, think it would be advisable, as I shall have to sign papers, to take another." "I think so, too," replied Captain Levee; "what shall we call you?" "Let me see; I'll have a good name. I had a relative of the name of Musgrave; I think I will borrow his name. What say you, Philip? Will you be, for the future, Philip Musgrave?" "Yes, brother, with all my heart. The name appears to fit me better than that of Elrington." Thus, Madam, did I resume my real name without any suspicion on the part of Captain Levee; but I could not well sign government papers with an assumed one. On the following day I called upon Mr Trevannion, who received me with great affection, and it was arranged that I should set off in three days, which time would be required for preparation, and to make the necessary purchases. To supply funds for the journey, Mr Trevannion gave me another bag of jacobuses, of the same amount as the former, saying that he wished us to appear bravely when we arrived in London, and that he should require no account of the expenditure, only that if the contents of the bag were not sufficient, he would supply more. This was nothing more but an excuse on his part to be generous; for one quarter of the money would have been sufficient for all needful expenses. I told him that I had taken the name of Musgrave, as that of Elrington might be remembered to the injury of the proposal, and he said that it was well thought of by me. Miss Trevannion had entered the room when I mentioned that to her father, and afterwards had quitted it. After I had taken leave of Mr Trevannion, I went down to the sitting-room, where I found his daughter waiting for me. We had much friendly discourse, and at one time she said, "I heard you say that you had taken the name of Musgrave for your intended journey. Do you intend to retain that name when you return?" "Why should I?" replied I. "Because," replied she, "perhaps it is your real name. Excuse a lady's curiosity, but is not that the fact?" "Miss Trevannion," replied I, "my real name must at present remain a secret." "That is to say, it will no longer be a secret if intrusted to me? I thank you, Sir, for the compliment." "I do not intend to imply that, Miss Trevannion; I fully believe that you can keep a secret." "If you fully believe so, you might, then, reply to my question; the more so, as I now pledge myself to keep your secret most faithfully." "Then, Miss Trevannion, my real name is Musgrave," replied I. "I thank you for your confidence, Mr Musgrave, which shall not be misplaced. I might now follow up my inquiries as to why you changed your name, with many other queries; but I am too discreet for that--the time may come when I shall know all; but I am content with your proof of confidence, and thank you for it." Miss Trevannion never was so lively and communicative with me before, as she was this morning; there was a friendliness without any of her usual reserve, and I left her more full of admiration and devotion than ever. In three days more our preparations were made, and, taking leave of Miss Trevannion and her father, who was recovering, and had admitted company to his room, we set off on horseback, as we had done before, and attended by the same two men of Captain Levee's who had served us on a former journey to London. We had no adventure whatever on this journey which could be worth narrating, and I shall therefore say that we arrived in good health and spirits, and took up our abode at once at our former lodging-house, instead of going to the inn. We were welcomed by the hostess, who had her house almost empty. The following day I made inquiries, and, in consequence, went to the Navy Office, and, requesting to see one of the head clerks, informed him of the occasion of my coming up to London. He was very civil, and replied that the government were in want of vessels, and he had no doubt but they would have the Arrow, as she was well-known as a strong privateer. I then inquired whether they thought it likely that Captain Levee might be taken into the service, stating what an excellent crew the Arrow had, and that they would not remain in her, unless they were commanded by him, in whom they had great confidence. The clerk replied that it might be done certainly,--"but," added he--"Sir, you cannot expect people to do such kind offices without they are rewarded." I perfectly understood him, and replied, that, of course, I did not expect it; but I was so ignorant as to what ought to be done, that I begged that he would give me his advice, for which I should be most grateful. "Well, well, you understand me, Mr Musgrave, and that is sufficient. I will be plain with you. It will cost 100 guineas to obtain what you want for Captain Levee, and of that money I shall not receive a doit." "I shall be most happy to give that sum and half as much more to obtain my wish, Sir, and shall feel much obliged to you in the bargain; and while I am negotiating, I may as well state that I have a brother who sails with Captain Levee, who is most anxious to be with him, and sail as his lieutenant." "That will cost another fifty guineas, Mr Musgrave." "I am most willing," replied I. "Well, we must first get the vessel hired into the service. You have your tonnage and equipment all on paper?" "Everything that is requisite; and, moreover, every cruise she has made, the actions she has fought, and the prizes she has taken under the command of Captain Levee, and with the crew now on board." "Furnish all these documents, Mr Musgrave, and leave it to me. I am to understand that you perfectly agree to the terms I have proposed?" "Perfectly, Sir; and, if you please, I will sign a memorandum to that effect." "No, no," replied he, "we never put such things down on paper. It is an affair of honour and good faith. You say your money is all ready." "At a minute's warning." "That is sufficient, Mr Musgrave. I will now wish you good morning. Send me the documents." "I have them in my pocket, Sir." "Better still; then the affair may be arranged this afternoon, and you may call to-morrow at about two in the afternoon; and you may as well bring the money with you, as you can but take it away again if everything is not to your satisfaction." I returned to the lodgings quite delighted with the prospect of such a fortunate issue to my mission, and was in good time for dinner. I did not tell Captain Levee or Philip of what had passed, but merely that I considered that there was a good chance of success, and that I was to call on the following day. That night we went to the theatre, and saw a play performed, written by Shakespeare, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and called the "Merry Wives of Windsor." We were much pleased with the character of _Falstaff_, a fat knight, full of humour. The next day, at the time appointed, I called upon the head clerk, who told me that everything was arranged according to my wishes; that the hiring of the vessel was according to her tonnage; and he considered that the price offered by the government was fair and liberal; so did I, and immediately accepted it. He then drew from his desk the articles of agreement between the government and the owner of the vessel, and, at the same time, the warrants for Captain Levee and Philip, to act as commander and lieutenant. "Now, Mr Musgrave, all you have to do is to sign the first paper, and fulfil the other portion of our agreement." I immediately pulled out the bag of money which I had brought with me, and, after counting it over, the clerk gave me his pen to sign the document, and handed to me the warrants for Philip and Captain Levee. "You have behaved liberally in this affair, Mr Musgrave," said the gentleman, as he locked up the bag of money in his desk: "if at any time I can be of use to you, you may command me." "I thank you, Sir," replied I; "I may by-and-by have to ask you to exert your influence in behalf of my brother, that he may obtain the command of one of the king's ships, and if you can help me, I shall be most grateful." "Depend upon it I will," replied he, "and I beg you will use no ceremony on making the application." He then shook hands with me, and I went home. Dinner was over when I came back, but the hostess had put away some victuals for me, and while I was eating them I gave them an account of my success, handing their warrants to Captain Levee and Philip. They could hardly credit me, even when the documents were in their hands, but, pledging them to secrecy, I told them by what means I had been so successful. Whereupon they thanked me, and we then went out to procure the uniforms suitable to their respective ranks, and this occupied us till the evening, when we agreed to go to the cockpit and see the fights between the various animals, with which Philip particularly was much delighted. As we had nothing to detain us in London, and it was necessary that the Arrow should immediately run round to the Nore, we determined, as the uniforms were to be ready on the following day, that the day after that we would return to Liverpool. CHAPTER FIFTEEN. WE RETURN TO LIVERPOOL--I HAVE AN INTERVIEW WITH MISS TREVANNION--PLUTUS INTERFERES WITH CUPID, AND I SAIL AGAIN FOR THE COAST OF AFRICA. We set off, and arrived at Liverpool, without accident, late on the sixth night, when we repaired to our usual lodgings. The next day I called to tell Mr Trevannion that I had returned, and was informed by Humphrey that he was quite strong again, and very anxious to see me, although he had no idea that I should return so soon. Humphrey went up to announce my arrival, and Mr Trevannion admitted me immediately, although he was not yet out of bed. "I fear that you have not been successful," said he as he took my hand. "On the contrary, Sir, I have succeeded in everything," and I then gave him an account of what had happened. "Well," replied he, "I am glad of it, and recollect I must be at the expense, as, without you had incurred it, the schooner would not, in all probability, have been hired. And now I want to consult with you about something else. Here is a letter from Captain Irving, of the Amy, brought home by the Chester Lass." These were two vessels employed on the Gold Coast, which belonged to Mr Trevannion. "Read it," said Mr Trevannion, "and give me your opinion." I did so: Captain Irving stated that he had pushed the two vessels up a small river on the coast, which he had not known of before, and had fallen in with a black ruler, who had never yet treated with the English; but only with the Spaniards, for slaves. That his English commodities were quite new to the natives, and that, in consequence, he had made a most fortunate traffic with them, and had loaded a vessel with ivory, wax, and gold-dust to the amount of 1000 pounds, and that he had sent the Chester Lass, remaining himself to continue the barter before it was known to the other ships on the coast, which it would soon be. He continued, that he had not sufficient of the articles which were most valued by the natives, and requested that Mr Trevannion would immediately despatch another vessel with various goods enumerated, and that then he should be able to fill his own vessel as well as the one that he had despatched home; that the river was in such a latitude, and the mouth difficult to discover; that he sent a little sketch of the coast, which would facilitate the discovery--but that no time was to be lost, as the sickly season was coming on, and it was very unhealthy at that time. As I folded up the letter, Mr Trevannion said: "Now, here is an invoice of the whole cargo sent home by the Chester Lass. I reckon it worth about 7000 pounds." I looked over the invoice, and agreed with Mr Trevannion that it was well worth that, if not more. "This is most important, you will acknowledge, Musgrave," said Mr Trevannion; "but before I go any further, I trust that, now the only difficulty is got over, you will not refuse to be my partner; the only difference I intend to make, is, that I now offer you one-fourth instead of one-eighth. Silence gives consent," continued Mr Trevannion, as I did not immediately reply. "I was so astonished at your munificent offer, Sir, that I could not well speak." "Then it's agreed; so say no more about it," said Mr Trevannion, taking me by the hand, and pressing it warmly--"and now to business. My idea is, to send out the Sparrow-Hawk, being so fast a sailer. Of course, as a privateer, she has done her work; and as the government wish the complement of the Arrow to be increased, I think we cannot do better than to fill her up with some of the Sparrow-Hawk's men, leaving about twenty-five on board of her, and sending her out as soon as possible to the coast, with the articles which Captain Irving requests." "I agree with you, Sir, that it will be the best plan." "But whom to send is the difficulty," said Mr Trevannion. "Captain Paul, of the Chester Lass, is very ill, and not likely to be out of bed for some time; and even if he were well, I have no opinion of him in an affair of this moment. If, as Captain Irving says, he can fill the Amy, her cargo will be worth three times that of the Chester Lass; but, of course, the destination of the Sparrow-Hawk must be a secret, and I do not know whom to intrust her to. We require some one in whom we can put confidence." "I agree with you, Sir," replied I; "and, if you have no objection, I think that the best plan will be for me to go myself; I shall be back again in ten weeks at the furthest." "Well, as you will now have a strong interest in it, I really think so too. In fact, I don't know whom else we can trust." "I agree with you, Sir, and I will go myself, and I think the sooner the better; but I do not know whether we can obtain all the goods requisite immediately." "We can have them in five or six days," replied Mr Trevannion; "I sent Humphrey out to make inquiry." "At all events, I must look to them myself; and there are many other things to manage, so I had better wish you a good morning now, Mr Trevannion, and in the evening I will call again, and let you know what I have done." "Do so," said he, and I then took my leave. I certainly was very much astonished as well as much pleased at Mr Trevannion's liberality relative to the partnership, and I could now look forward to competency in a few years at the furthest. Certainly, if Mr Trevannion had been hasty in his conduct towards me he had made most noble reparation. I first returned to the lodgings and told Captain Levee and Philip what had passed; they immediately proposed that we should all go together on board the Sparrow-Hawk, that I might make my arrangements, and that they might persuade some of the men to join the Arrow. I first picked out the men I wished to sail with me; and then they talked over the rest, who that evening went on shore for their wages, and the next morning joined the Arrow, as Captain Levee was anxious to get round to the Nore. The day after the men joined, the Arrow sailed, which I was not sorry for, as it left me more at leisure to expedite my own affairs. Philip promised to be my correspondent, and I bade them both farewell with regret. I called in the evening, as I had promised, upon Mr Trevannion, and he then gave me the deed of partnership, signed and dated the day when he first made the offer, and we had quarrelled; but I did not see Miss Trevannion; much to my regret, her father said that she was ailing. The business I had to transact, and fitting out the Sparrow-Hawk, so completely occupied me, that it was now three days that I had been at Liverpool without having seen her, and I was much annoyed at it, as I had called every day. My feelings towards her were now stronger than before. She was never out of my thoughts, and I hardly know how it was that I transacted business as I did. This evening I was determined, if possible, that I would see her, and find out why she avoided me, as it appeared to me that she did. When I called, therefore, I did not ask to see her father, but told Humphrey to find out where Miss Trevannion was, and say that I requested to speak with her. Humphrey returned, and said that she was in the sitting-room, to which I instantly repaired. "I am fearful that I have given you some unintentional cause of displeasure, Miss Trevannion," said I, as I entered, "for you have appeared to avoid me since my return." "Indeed, Mr Musgrave, I have not," replied she; "I was most anxious to see you, and have thought it very unpolite, I may add, unkind, on your part not to have come to me." "I have been in the house every day, and sometimes twice a day, with your father, Miss Trevannion, and have never met you. Once I inquired for you, and your father told me you were unwell, whereas Humphrey had but five minutes before told me that you were well and in good spirits." "Humphrey told the truth, and so did my father. I was in good health and spirits, and in five minutes afterwards I was ill and unhappy." "I trust I was no party to it, Miss Trevannion." "You were a party to it, but not the great offender, who was my father. He had told me that upon your return he had installed you as his partner, and had done you the justice you had deserved; and then he told me that you were going out to the coast of Africa in the Sparrow-Hawk." "It is very true, Miss Trevannion; but where is the offence?" "The offence is this: my father no sooner does you justice than he wants more ivory and gold-dust, having more than enough already; but I told him it was as bad as privateering, for in either case he sends people out to sacrifice their lives, that he may gain more money. I have no patience with this foolish pursuit of wealth." "After all your father's kindness to me, Miss Trevannion, I could do no less than accept the offer." "You would have been more wise and more just to yourself to have refused it, Mr Musgrave. I read the letters to my father when they arrived, and you know what Captain Irving says about the unhealthiness of the climate. You have been my father's best friend, and he should not have treated you thus." "I never did value life, Miss Trevannion; but really the kind interest you have expressed on this occasion makes me feel as if my poor life was of some value. To one who has been such a football of fortune as I have been, and who has hardly known a kind feeling towards him ever expressed, it is a gratification that I really appreciate, and, coming from one whom I respect and esteem more than any other person in the world, it quite overpowers me. Indeed, Miss Trevannion, I am truly grateful." I was correct when I said that it overpowered me, for it did completely, and I was so oppressed by my feelings, that I reeled to a chair, and covered up my face with my hands. What would I have given to have dared to state what I felt! "You are ill, Mr Musgrave," said Miss Trevannion, coming to me. "Can I offer you anything?" I made no reply; I could not speak. "Mr Musgrave," said Miss Trevannion, taking my hand, "you frighten me. What is the matter? Shall I call Humphrey?" I felt her hand tremble in mine, and, uncertain what to think, I came to the resolution to make the avowal. "Miss Trevannion," said I, after a pause, and rising from my chair, "I feel that this internal conflict is too great for me, and if it last it must kill me. I give you my honour that I have for months tried everything in my power to curb my desires and to persuade myself of my folly and rash ambition, but I cannot do so any longer. It were better that I knew my fate at once, even if my sentence should be my death. You will ridicule my folly, be surprised at my presumption, and, in all probability, spurn me for the avowal, but make it I must. Miss Trevannion, I have dared--to love you; I have but one excuse to offer, which is, that I have been more than a year in your company, and it is impossible for any one not to love one so pure, so beautiful, and so good. I would have postponed this avowal till I was able to resume my position in society, by the means which industry might have afforded me; but my departure upon this business, and the kind of presentiment which I have, that I may not see you again, has forced it from me. In a few days I leave you--be gentle with me for my involuntary offence--pity me while you condemn, and I will return no more." Miss Trevannion did not reply; she breathed quick, and stood motionless. I gathered courage; I looked in her face, there was no displeasure--I approached her, she was half fainting, and put her hand upon my shoulder to steady herself. I put my arm round her waist, and led her to the sofa, and knelt at her feet, watching every change in her beautiful countenance. I took her hand and pressed it to my lips; by degrees I became more bold, and got by her side, and pressed her to my heart. She burst into tears, and wept with her head on my bosom. "Do not be angry with me," said I, after a time. "Do I appear as if I was angry with you?" replied she, raising her head. "Oh, no; but I cannot believe my happiness to be real. It must be a dream." "What is life but a dream?" replied she mournfully. "Oh, the coast of Africa! How I dread it!" And so I confess did I from that moment; I had a presentiment, as I had told her, that something would go wrong, and I could not get over the feeling. I shall no longer dwell upon what took place on that delightful evening, Madam; suffice to say, that Miss Trevannion and I were mutually pledged, and, after an exchange of thought and feeling, we parted, and when we did part I pressed those dear lips to mine. I went home reeling with excitement, and hastened to bed, that I might have unrestrained freedom of thought. I enacted the scene of the evening over and over again; recalled each motion, each look, every word which had passed, and, defying fever and presentiment of evil, imagined also our happy meeting to part no more. It was long before I could compose myself to sleep, and when I did, I need not say who it was that occupied my dreams. I called as soon as I could venture so to do on the following day, and had a long interview with my dear Amy. Before I went up to her father, I tried to soothe her anxiety upon my approaching voyage, and to persuade her that there was little or no danger to be apprehended in so short a stay. Willingly would I have given it up, but Mr Trevannion had so set his mind upon it, and I had, by my consent, rendered it so impossible for him to find a substitute in time, that I could not do so, and I persuaded Miss Trevannion that I was right in acting to my promise line question that came forward was, whether we should make known our engagement to her father at once, and this was decided in the negative. Much as he liked me, he was not yet prepared to receive me so suddenly as a son-in-law, and Amy was of opinion that the communication had better be postponed. To this, of course, I gave a willing assent. I was satisfied with the knowledge of her affection, which I felt would never change. As I was talking with her father, after my interview with Amy, he said: "Really, Elrington, or Musgrave, I hardly know which to call you." "Musgrave is my real name, Sir," replied I. "Musgrave--Musgrave--where did I know a Musgrave?" "We are from the north," replied I. "Well," said he, "I was going to say, that I really wish I could find some one else to take your place in this voyage, for I do not much like your going." "Do, my dear father," said Miss Trevannion, who was standing by him. "Hey! Miss Amy, what have you to do with it, I should like to know, and how can it concern you whether Mr Musgrave goes or not?" "I said so, Sir, because I know how you will feel his loss for so long a period. You know how you did feel his loss before, and I do not wish to see you working so hard, as you will have to do it without his assistance." "Well, that's kindly thought, Amy, at all events; but still I fear that Mr Musgrave must go, and I must work by myself till he comes back; so it's no use saying any more about it." Amy sighed and made no reply. On the third day after this interview, everything was ready, and on the following morning I was to sail. Mr Trevannion had so many directions to give, and kept me so wholly with him, that I could hardly find time to speak to his daughter. However, it was agreed that as I was to sail at daylight, that she would see me after her father had gone to bed. Our meeting took place--need I say that it was a tender one. We renewed our vows over and over again, and it was not till past midnight that I tore myself away. Old Humphrey looked very knowingly at me when he let me out of the street-door. I slipped a guinea in his hand and wished him good-bye. I hastened on board of the Sparrow-Hawk, and, desiring to be called before daylight, went down into the cabin. There I remained sitting at the table and thinking of Amy so long, that when the mate came down to wake me he found that I was still sitting there, having never been to bed during the whole of the night. I started from my reverie and hastened on deck to get the schooner under weigh. It was soon done, although we were, comparatively speaking, short-handed. There was a fine breeze, and lightened as she now was, the little vessel flew through the water. Liverpool was soon out of sight, and we were dashing down the Irish Channel. "She sails well now," said I to the second mate, a very clever man, and much hotter educated than most seamen, for he could navigate, as well as being a first-rate seaman. "Yes, Sir," replied Olivarez, "she walks fast. She is not too deep now," replied he; "what a slaver she would make." This man was not an Englishman, but a Brazilian Portuguese by birth, although he had long been out of his country. Having set her course, I went down below, that I might indulge in my castle-building more at my ease. The wind increased to a gale, but as it was from the northward, and bore us to our destination, it was welcomed. We soon crossed the Bay of Biscay, and were in more genial latitudes; and, after a rapid run of about four weeks, I found myself nearly in the latitude given to us of the river where the Amy was at anchor. I then hauled in for the shore, which was very low, and required being approached with caution. We saw some towering palm-trees at sunset, and then we hove-to; the next day we again stood in, and having ascertained our exact latitude at noon, we found ourselves about four miles to the northward of the river's mouth. We shaped a course, and in two hours I made out the marks given for our guidance in the rough sketch of Captain Irving, and thus satisfied that I was right, ran directly for the mouth of the river. Captain Irving was correct in saying it was difficult, for it was not until we were within a mile that we could find any opening; but at last we did, and at the same time perceived the masts of two vessels at some distance up the river. We stood in, and found that there was no bar at the river mouth, which was a very unusual circumstance on this coast. The soundings were gradual, and in an hour afterwards we anchored between the Amy and a fine schooner under British colours. Captain Irving recognised the Sparrow-Hawk, and immediately came on board. After the usual salutations, he told me that his vessel was half-laden, but that he waited for the articles he had sent for to enable him to complete his cargo. I told him that I had them on board, and he should have them as soon as he sent his boats. He stated that no vessels, except those engaged in the slave-trade, had ever come into this river, and that they only brought the cloth and other articles usual in the trade; but that his assorted cargo had astonished the people, and they were wild to possess things which they had never before seen. They had offered slaves in quantities, but finding that he would not take them in exchange, they had now brought down ivory and gold-dust. He told me how glad he was that I had come, as the river was very sickly, and was becoming more and more so every day; that out of twelve men he had already four down with fever. I inquired of him what that vessel was on the other side of us. He replied it was a Liverpool slave-trader, and that the captain appeared to be a very good sort of man; that he never indulged in liquor, nor was given to profane language. A few minutes afterwards the captain of the slaver came on board to pay his respects, and I asked him down in the cabin, and gave him beer and cheese, the two greatest luxuries in those climes. He appeared, as Captain Irving stated, a very quiet, well-behaved, serious person, which I was rather surprised at. When we repaired on deck, I observed, as the vessel was close to us, that there were two very large dogs on board, who, at the sight of the captain, bayed furiously. He told me that they were Cuba bloodhounds and that he never went on shore without them, as they were the most faithful and courageous animals, and he considered that he was safer with them than with half a dozen armed men. Shortly afterwards Captain Irving and he both took leave. As there were still some hours of daylight, Captain Irving sent his boats for the goods, and after that, as the evening fell, I went down below, as Captain Irving requested I would do, and by no means remain on deck after sun-down, as it was extremely unhealthy. On the following day Captain Irving went on shore with his goods and trafficked most favourably. Indeed, as we afterwards found out, he had procured in exchange more ivory than his vessel would hold, besides much gold-dust. The day after, I went on shore with Captain Irving to call upon the king, as he called himself. He was seated in front of a hut made of palmetto leaves, with a lace coat on, but no other garment whatever, so that he made a curious appearance. After a little conversation, I went away, and, hearing that the slaver was taking her cargo on board, about a hundred yards further up, I walked in that direction. The slaves were brought down in about twenty at a time, all of them fastened by the neck to a long bamboo pole, which confined them all together. One string of them had been sent down and put into the boat, and another was standing ready for embarkation; when, as I cast my eyes over them and commiserated their misery, I observed a female whom I thought I had seen before. I looked again, and behold! It was Whyna, the princess who had been so kind to me in my captivity. I went up to her and touched her on the shoulder. She turned round, as well as the lashing to the pole would permit her, and on seeing me gave a faint scream. Without ceremony I took out my knife and released her, and led her away. She fell down at my feet and kissed them. The black man who had charge of the delivery of the slaves was very angry, and ran up to me, brandishing his long stick; but the captain of the schooner, who was on shore, and who had witnessed what I had done, saluted him with a kick in the stomach, which made him quiet enough. In few words I told the captain of the slaver that I was once in captivity, and this woman had befriended me, requesting him to name his price and I would willingly pay it. "It's not worth mentioning, Sir," replied he; "women are as cheap as dirt; take her and welcome." "Not so," replied I; "I must pay for her ransom." "Well then, Sir," said he, "I am in great want of a telescope; you have one on board, will you let me have it?" "Most certainly," replied I, "and many thanks into the bargain." I lifted up the poor creature, who was badly emaciated and weak, and led her to the boat of the Amy and put her in. Captain Irving came down, and we returned on board. It was with great difficulty that, after I had given the poor creature some refreshment, which she was really in need of, I could recollect sufficient of her language to make myself understood by her; but by degrees words came to my memory, and as she spoke I recovered more. As well as I could make her out, the warriors had risen against the king on account of his barbarity, and had cut him to pieces; and that all his wives and servants had been sold as slaves. I promised her that she should not be a slave, but should come to my country and be taken care of. She kissed my hands, and as she smiled her thanks, she reminded me of the Whyna of former times. I did not, however, think it advisable that she should come on board of the schooner, and I requested Captain Irving to take charge of her, and let her want for nothing, telling him that I intended that she should go home in his vessel. He willingly consented, and I hailed the schooner for a boat and went on deck. Whyna followed, but I told her I was obliged to go on board of the schooner, and that she had better go and lie down. As she probably thought that the Amy was my vessel, and that I was going away on a visit, she complied with my request, and went down with Captain Irving, who led her into a state-room which was not occupied. As soon as I arrived on board the schooner, I sent the telescope which the captain of the slaver had begged for. Whyna had said to me, "I shall be your slave now," evidently expecting that she was to remain with me, but that I could not consent to. Miss Trevannion had heard from me my adventures when in captivity, and I would not on that account allow Whyna to be in the same vessel with me. The next day Captain Irving came on board to tell me that he had two more men down with the fever, and that he wished I could give them some assistance in getting his cargo on board, which I did, and before night the Amy was loaded up to the hatchways, and there still remained a considerable number of elephants' teeth on shore in the hut where he received them. I therefore determined, as his crew were evidently sickening fast, that he should sail immediately, and that I would take the remainder of the ivory on board of the schooner and follow him, giving him a rendezvous to wait at until I joined him, that we might proceed home in company. That night three of my men were ill. I was on board of the Amy, and had been talking with Whyna, who wanted to know why I did not sleep on board of the vessel. I told her that I could not, but that we were to go to England directly, and that I was living on board of the schooner. Captain Irving weighed at daybreak, and in an hour was out of the river, and as I was as anxious to be clear of such an unhealthy spot, I manned my boats and went on shore for the ivory that was left. I found that it would take the whole of the day to embark it, as we had to go two miles further up the river than the depth of water would permit the vessel to do; for the ivory was in a hut close to the king's house. I had sent off four boat-loads, and it being then noon, I went off with the fifth myself, that I might get my dinner, leaving the second mate to attend on shore, and taking with me the first mate who messed in the cabin. As we were in the middle of the stream, the boat struck against a stump of a tree, as we supposed, and knocked so large a hole in the bow that she began to fill. I immediately ordered the men to pull for the nearest point, which was on the opposite side of the river, that we might ground the boat to prevent her sinking. The first mate, who was a very active man, finding that the elephants' teeth prevented his reaching the bow of the boat, and stuffing into it some oakum which he had found in the stern sheets, sounded with the boat-hook, and finding that there was not more than three feet of water where we were pulling, jumped over the bows to push the oakum into the hole; but the poor fellow had not been a few seconds in the water, when he gave a shriek, and we perceived that a large shark had snapped him in two. This was a sad mishap, and the men, terrified, pulled as hard as they could, while two of them baled out the boat, to gain the shore, for we knew what fate awaited us if we sunk in the river. With great exertion we succeeded, running her up among the canes, which grew on that side of the river so thick that it was difficult to force your way through them. We landed up to our knees in mud, and, throwing out the ivory, we found that a whole plank was rent out, and that it was impossible to repair our boat; and we were hidden by the canes from those who could have assisted us, had they known that we required their assistance, and we had no possible means of communication. At last I thought that if I could force my way through the canes to the point down the river, I could hail and make signals for assistance; and desiring the men to remain by the boat, I set of upon my expedition. At first I got on pretty well, as there were little paths through the canes, made, as I imagined, by the natives; and, although I was often up to my knees in thick black mud, I continued to get on pretty fast; but at last the canes grew so thick that I could hardly force my way through them, and it was a work of excessive labour. Still I persevered, expecting each second that I should arrive at the banks of the river, and be rewarded for my fatigue; but the more I laboured the worse it appeared to be, and at last I became worn out with fatigue, and quite bewildered. I then tried to find my way back, and was equally unsuccessful, and I sat down with anything but pleasant thoughts in my mind. I calculated that I had been two hours in making this attempt, and was now, quite puzzled how to proceed. I bitterly lamented my rashness, now that it was too late. Having reposed a little, I resumed my toil, and was again, after an hour's exertion, compelled, from fatigues to sit down in the deep black mud. Another respite from toil, and another hour or more of exertion, and I gave myself up for lost. The day was evidently fast closing in-- the light overhead was not near so bright as it had been; and I knew that a night passed in the miasma of the cane was death. At last it became darker and darker. There could not be an hour of daylight remaining. I determined upon one more struggle, and, reeking as I was with perspiration and faint with fatigue, I rose again, and was forcing my way through the thickest of the canes, when I heard a deep growl, and perceived a large panther not twenty yards from me. It was on the move as well as I was, attempting to force his way through the canes, so as to come to me. I retreated from him as fast as I could, but he gained slowly on me, and my strength was fast exhausting. I thought I heard sounds at a distance, and they became more and more distinct, but what they were my fear and my struggles probably prevented me from making out. My eyes were fixed upon the fierce animal which was in pursuit of me, and I now thanked God that the canes were so thick and impassable; still the animal evidently gained ground--until it was not more than five yards from me, dashing and springing at the canes, and tearing them aside with his teeth. The sounds were now nearer, and I made them out to be the howling of other animals. A moment's pause, and I thought it was the baying of dogs; and I then thought that I must have arrived close to where the schooner was, and that I heard the baying of the bloodhounds. At last I could do no more, and I dropped, exhausted and almost senseless, in the mud. I recollect hearing the crushing of the canes, and then a savage roar, and then yells, and growls, and struggles, and fierce contentions--but I had fainted. I must now inform the reader that about an hour after I had left the boat the captain of the slaver was pulling up the river, and was hailed by our men in our long-boat. Perceiving them on shore on that side of the river, and that they were in distress, he pulled towards them, and they told him what had happened, and that an hour previous I had left the boat to force my way through the cane-brakes, and they had heard nothing of me since. "Madness!" cried he. "He is a lost man. Stay till I come back from the schooner." He went back to the schooner, and taking two of his crew who were negroes, and his two bloodhounds, into the boat, he returned immediately, and as soon as he landed he put the bloodhounds on my track, and sent the negroes on with them. They had followed me in all my windings, for it appeared that I had travelled in every direction, and had come up with me just as I had sunk with exhaustion, and the panther was so close upon me. The bloodhounds had attacked the panther, and this was the noise which sounded in my ears, as I lay stupified and at the mercy of the wild beast. The panther was not easily, although eventually, overcome, and the black men coming up had found me and borne me in a state of insensibility on board the Sparrow-Hawk. The fever had come on me, and it was not till three weeks afterwards that I recovered my senses, when I learnt what I have now told the reader, and much more, with which I am about to make him acquainted. When I recovered my senses, I found myself in the cabin of the Sparrow-Hawk. For some hours I was confused and wandering, but I rallied from time to time, till I could at last recognise the beams and carlines over my head. I was too weak to move, and I continued to lie on my back till I again fell asleep; how long I do not know, but it must have been for many hours, and then when I awoke I found myself much stronger. I could now turn on my bed, and doing so I perceived a young man of the name of Ingram by my side in a doze, with his eyes shut. I called him in a faint voice, and he started up. "I have been very ill," said I, "have I not?" "Yes, Sir, indeed you have." "I have been trying to recollect all about it, but I cannot as yet." "It's not worth remembering, Sir," replied he. "Do you wish anything to drink?" "No," replied I. "Then you had better go to sleep again." "I cannot do that. I feel as if I should like to get up. Where is Mr Thompson? I must see him." "Mr Thompson, Sir," replied he; "don't you recollect?" "What?" "Why, Sir, he was bitten in two by a shark." "Shark!" this was the key-note required, and my memory returned. "Yes, yes, I recollect now all, all. I recollect the panther and the cane-brakes. How was I preserved?" "The bloodhounds killed the panther, and you were brought on board insensible, and have been in a raging fever ever since." "It must be so," replied I, collecting my senses after a few moments of thought. "It must be so. How long have I been ill?" "This is the twenty-first day." "The twenty-first day!" cried I. "Is it possible? Are none of the men ill?" "No, Sir, they are all well." "But I hear the water against the bends. Are we not still at anchor?" "No, Sir, the second mate got the schooner under weigh as he found you were so ill." "And I have been ill twenty-one days! Why we must be near home?" "We expect to make the land in a few days, Sir," replied Ingram. "Thank Heaven for all its mercies," said I. "I never expected to see old England again. But what a bad smell there is. What can it be?" "I suppose it is the bilge-water, Sir," replied Ingram. "People who are ill and weak always are annoyed by it; but I think, Sir, if you would take a little gruel, and then go to sleep again, it would be better." "Well, I fear I am not very strong, and talking so much has done me no good. I think I could take a little gruel." "Then, Sir, I'll go and get some made, and be back very soon." "Do, Ingram, and tell Mr Olivarez, the second mate, that I would speak to him." "Yes, I will," replied the man, and he left the state-room. I waited some time listening for the arrival of the second mate, and then I thought that I heard odd noises in the hold before the bulk-head of the state-room in which I was lying, but I was still very weak, and my head swam. After a time Ingram came down with the gruel, into which he put some sugar and a spoonful of rum, to flavour it, as he said. He offered it to me, and I drank it all, for I had an appetite; but whether it was that I was very weak, or the rum he put in was more than he said, it is certain that I had hardly given him back the basin than I felt so drowsy that I turned away from him, and was soon again in forgetfulness. This Ingram was a young man who had been apprenticed to an apothecary, and had taken to the sea. He was well educated, and a very merry fellow, and I had chosen him as one who could attend upon me in the cabin, and at the same time be otherwise useful if required, as he was a very good seaman, and very active. When I awoke again I felt convinced that I must have slept through the night, as it was broad daylight, as before, but Ingram was not by my bedside. There was no bell in the state-room, and I was obliged to await his coming. I felt much stronger than the day before, and now proposed getting out of bed as soon as Ingram should come down into the cabin. I now remembered that the second mate had not come down to me, and heard noises and murmurings in the hold as I had the day previous, which surprised me, and I became more anxious for the return of Ingram. At last he came, and I told him that I had been awake more than an hour. "How do you feel yourself, Sir?" said he. "Quite strong. I should like to get up and dress. Perhaps I may be able to get on deck for a quarter of an hour." "I think," replied he, "that you had better wait, and hear what I have to tell you, Sir. I would not tell you yesterday, because I thought it would be too much for you; but as I see you are really better to-day, I must say that I have strange things to tell you." "Indeed!" cried I, with surprise. "Strange things. By the bye, why did not Olivarez come to me yesterday?" "I will explain all to you, Sir, if you will lie down and listen to what I have to say, and take the news quietly." "Very well, Ingram, I will do so. Now pray go on." "You were brought on board in a state of fever and insensibility by the captain of the slaver. He said, as he lifted you over the side, that you were a dead man. We all thought the same, and you were taken down into the cabin with that persuasion on the part of the whole crew. Your delirium and fever increased, and every hour it was expected that you would give up the ghost. Now, Sir, two days afterwards the slaver sailed with his cargo, and we were left alone in the river. Olivarez, who of course commanded, talked to the men. He said that you were as good as dead already, and that he thought that this was a fair opportunity for their making money. He proposed that the ivory still on shore should be changed for slaves, which he said the negroes would gladly do, and that we should run with our cargo to the Brazils. He said that it would be useless our remaining in the river, as we should all lose our lives in the same way that you had done, and that he thought, as commanding the schooner, he knew what would best please the owner, who had long employed vessels in the slave-trade, and would not be sorry to find that we had run a cargo, and would reward them all liberally. That this would be an excuse to leave the river immediately, whereas otherwise they would have to wait till you recovered or died, and by that time they might half of them be dead themselves. Do you understand me, Sir?" "Yes, perfectly. Go on, Ingram." "Well, Sir, the men did not perceive what he was about, and replied that so long as they left the river they did not care how soon, and that it was better that we should take a cargo of slaves at all events, for Olivarez was in command now, and they should do as he ordered them. I made no reply, indeed Olivarez never put the question to me. Well, Sir, the ivory was soon exchanged for slaves, who are now on board, and it is the slaves whom you have smelt and complained of. We received on board 140, and provisions sufficient with what we had, and, having taken in all the water we could, below and on deck, we made sail out of the river, and have since steered for the Brazils." "But Olivarez has taken a most unwarrantable responsibility," said I; "and one that he shall answer for." "Stop, Sir," replied Ingram, "you have only heard the first part of the story. When we had been three days at sea, Olivarez, who had been talking to the men, one by one and apart, called them together, and said, it was an opportunity not to be lost, that they had possession of the vessel, and the owner would never have a clue to where she had gone, and that now was the time to take possession of her for themselves, and employ her in the slave-trade on their own account. That, sailing so fast, nothing could overhaul her or board her, and, therefore, they were free from danger. He then proposed that he should command and navigate, and receive one-half of the profits, and that the other half should be divided among the crew--the expense of the provisions, etcetera, being paid out of it previous to their sharing and making a calculation; he showed them that every voyage would be worth about 100 pounds a man after all expenses were paid. The crew consented at once to the terms-- all but me; and when he asked me, my answer was, that I would consent to nothing while you were yet alive. I said that, because I was afraid that they would murder me, or throw me overboard." "Go on, Ingram; go on, and let me hear it all at once." "`Then you will soon be freed from your difficulty,' said Olivarez. "`I do not know that, Sir,' I replied, `for I think Mr Musgrave may get over it.' "`Indeed,' he returned, `well, then, so much the worse for him.' "As he, Olivarez, said this, the whole of the crew, to do them justice, cried out, that there should be no murder, for if there was, they not only would have nothing to do with the affair, but would make it known at the first port to which they came. That you had always been a kind, good officer, and were too brave a man to die in that way." "`Well, my men,' said Olivarez, `I never had an idea of the kind, and I promise you, if he lives through it, there shall be no murder; I will put him on shore at the first port we arrive at, but in such a way as to secure our safety--that we must look to.' "The men said that that was all right, and then they all agreed to join him." "`And you, Ingram,' said Olivarez, `what do you say?' "`What I said before,' I replied; `that as long as Mr Musgrave lives I will come to no agreement whatever.' "`Well,' said Olivarez, `it is but postponing your decision; I know that you will join us. So now, my lads, as we're all agreed, we may as well go to dinner.'" "The scoundrel shall pay for this," cried I. "Hush, Sir, hush, I pray; say nothing, but wait patiently and see what turns up. We are not yet at Rio, and when we are, we may be able to do something, but everything depends upon keeping quiet, for if the men become alarmed, they may be persuaded to kill you to save themselves." "That is very true, Ingram," replied I. "Leave me now for half an hour, I wish to be alone." You may imagine, my dear Madam, my agitation at hearing this intelligence. I, who had thought that I was within a few days' sail of Liverpool, to be there received by my cherished Amy, to find myself in the hands of pirates, and close to the Brazils with a cargo of slaves; which they, or rather Olivarez, had taken in the vessel to Rio that he might not be discovered; for he might have found a better mart for his live cargo. And then what would be the anxiety of Amy and her father when I was not heard of? It would be supposed that the schooner was upset in a squall, and all hands had perished. Excited and angry as I was, I felt the truth of what Ingram said, and that it was necessary to be quiet. Perhaps I might by that means not only preserve my life, but again find myself in my own country. When Ingram returned, I asked him if Olivarez knew that I was better, and had recovered my reason. He replied that he did, but that he had told him I was so weak that I could hardly recover. "That is well," said I; "keep him in that belief as long as you can." He now offered me more gruel, which I took, and I believe that he put an opiate in it, for shortly after I had taken it I again felt drowsy, and was soon fast asleep. I awoke sooner than before, for it was night, and I heard the voice of Olivarez on deck; from what I gathered, land was in sight, and I heard him order the schooner to be hove-to. In the morning Ingram came down in the cabin, bringing me some breakfast, which I ate heartily, for I was recovering fast, and had become quite ravenous. "Land is in sight," said I. "Yes, Sir, it is; but we are many miles to the northward of Rio, I understand, for Olivarez knows the coast well. We shall not be in to-day, if we are to-morrow." "I feel quite strong now," replied I, "and I want to get up." "Do so, Sir," said he; "but if you hear any one coming down the ladder get into bed again." With Ingram's assistance I dressed myself, and went into the cabin. I reeled as I walked, but as soon as I felt the cool breeze from the stern-ports, I was revived, and in an hour I could walk quite strong. "Have you heard any more?" inquired I of Ingram. "Olivarez asked me this morning how you were. I replied that you were recovering fast." "`Very well,' said he, `you will share his fate, whatever it may be, since you have been so careful of him, and have put us in such a dilemma; but I'll contrive to dispose of you both.' "I made no reply, Sir, as I knew that would only irritate him." "You did right, Ingram; a few days will decide our fate. I do not think that he dares to murder us." "Nor do I think he wishes it, if he can be clear of us with safety to himself," replied Ingram. Two days more passed away, and then Ingram told me that we were a few miles from the town, and should soon be at anchor. "Go softly," replied I, "and tell me what is going on." He went up the ladder, but soon came down again, saying, "We are locked in, Sir." I was very much annoyed at this, but it could not be helped--our only remedy was patience; but I must confess that I was in a state of great anxiety. We heard the anchor let go, and boats came on board, after which all was silent for the night. The next morning we heard them open the hatches, and the slaves were ordered upon deck. The day was passed in landing them. I was ravenously hungry, and asked Ingram whether they intended to starve us. He went up the ladder to call for victuals, when he found on the upper step of the ladder a large vessel full of water and some cooked provisions, which had probably been put there during the night. There was enough to last two or three days. The next day passed and no one came near us, and I had some thoughts of dropping out of the stern-ports and attempting to swim on shore; but Ingram, who had put his head out of them as far as he could, told me that we must be at some distance from the shore, and there were several sharks playing round the stern, as is always the case with vessels laden with slaves. The next morning, however, put an end to our suspense; for the companion was unlocked, and Olivarez, accompanied by four Portuguese, came down into the cabin, he spoke to them in Portuguese, and they advanced, and, seizing Ingram and me by the collar, led us up the ladder. I would have expostulated, but of course could not make myself understood. Olivarez, however, said: "Resistance is useless, Mr Musgrave; all you have to do is to go quietly with these men. As soon as the schooner has sailed, you will be released." "Well," replied I, "it may be so, Olivarez; but mark my words, you will repent this, and I shall see you on a gibbet." "I trust the wood is not yet out of the ground," replied he; "but I cannot waste any more words with you." He then spoke to the Portuguese, who appeared to be government officers of some kind, and they led us to the gangway; we went into the boat, and they pulled us to the shore. "Where can they be taking us, Ingram?" said I. "Heaven knows, Sir, but we shall find out." I attempted to speak to the officers, but they cried "_Silentio_," which word I fully understood to mean "silence," and, finding that I could not induce them to hear me, I said no more. We landed at a jetty, and were then led through the streets to a large square. On one side of it was a heavy building, to which they directed their steps. The door was opened for us, and we were led in. A paper was produced by our conductors, and was apparently copied into a book, after which they went away, leaving us with the people who had received us, and who, by their appearance, I knew to be gaolers. "Of what crime am I accused?" inquired I. No reply was given, but two of the subordinates took us away, unlocked a massive door, and thrust us into a large court-yard, full of men of every colour. "Well," said I, as the door closed upon us, "we are in gaol at all events; but the question now is, shall we be released as Olivarez had stated?" "It is hard to say," replied Ingram. "The question is, what gaol is this? Could we find any one who could speak English, we might discover." Several of those around us had come towards us to examine us, and then left us, when, as we were conversing, a negro came up, and, hearing what we said, addressed us in English. "Massa want one to speak English--I speak English--some long while on board English vessel." "Well, then, my good fellow," said I, "can you tell us what this gaol is, and what prisoners are confined here for?" "Yes, massa, everybody know that, suppose he live at Rio. This gaol for people that go dig diamonds." "How do you mean?" "Mean! Massa--people sent here to work in diamond-mines all life long till they die. Keep 'em here till hab plenty to send up all at one time. Then guard take them up the country, and they go dig and wash for diamond. Suppose you find very big diamond, you go free. Suppose not, den you die there." "Merciful Heavens!" cried I to Ingram, "then we are condemned as slaves to the mines." "Yes," replied Ingram with a sigh. "Well, it's better than working in the quicksilver-mines. At all events, we shall have fresh air." "Fresh air, without liberty," cried I, clasping my hands. "Come, Sir, courage, we do not yet know our fate. Perhaps we may, as Olivarez said, be allowed to go free after the schooner sails." I shook my head, for I was convinced otherwise. CHAPTER SIXTEEN. THE DIAMOND-MINES, AND WHAT OCCURRED THERE--I LOSE MY FRIEND INGRAM, AND ANOTHER ACQUAINTANCE, BUT THEY BOTH LEAVE ME VALUABLE LEGACIES. After remaining in the court about two hours, it being then near to nightfall, the gaolers came out into the yard, and we were all driven into a large apartment, the walls of which were of such solid materials, and the floor of large flag-stones, as to prevent any possibility of escape. I was never in such a scene of filth and wretchedness. There was not a spot where one could be driven without being defiled in some way or another; and so many human beings--one half of whom were negroes--being crowded into so small a space, with only one barred window, so high up as only to serve as a ventilator, created an atmosphere worse than any slave-vessel's hold. I leaned with my back against the wall, and, I must say, never was so miserable in my life. I thought of Amy, and my sanguine hopes and anticipations of happiness, now all wrecked. I thought of Captain Levee and my brother Philip careering over the seas, free as the wind. I thought of poor Whyna, and the distress she must feel at finding I did not rejoin her. I planned a hundred schemes to make known my situation, but every scheme, as soon as I weighed it, I found was hopeless. Still weak from previous disease, I felt as if I should be suffocated if I remained long in this pestiferous abode, and I wept like a child. Daylight came at last, and soon afterwards the door was opened; we were admitted into the yard, and all hastened to the large tub of water, which was soon emptied. The fighting and scrambling to obtain first possession was really revolting. An hour afterwards some coarse provisions were served out, and then we learnt, to our great delight, that we were immediately to set out for the mines. It would be thought that this could be no great cause for exultation; we were about to go to pass the rest of our lives in bondage; but all misery is comparative, and sooner than have remained another night in that dreadful hole, I would have welcomed any change. About an hour afterwards a guard of dirty-looking soldiers came in; we were all handcuffed to a long chain, at about two feet apart, one on each side, so that we walked in pairs, and as soon as the first chain was full--and I was handcuffed to it--we were ordered out into the square to wait for the others. My superior dress and appearance as an Englishman excited much curiosity; people pointed to me and made remarks, but I had no opportunity of communicating with any of the authorities, nor would it have been of any use if I had had. We remained there more than an hour, as the other chains of prisoners came out one by one; we were five chains in all, about forty on a chain. We were then ordered to move on, walking between a guard of about twenty or thirty soldiers, who marched, on each side of us, with their muskets and bayonets fixed, about three yards from each other. In another hour we were clear of the town, and threading our way through a lane bounded on each side by prickly pears and other shrubs. There was no want of merriment among the party; they talked and laughed with one another and the soldiers who guarded them, and appeared to care little for their fate. As for me, I was broken-hearted with the disgrace and the villainous manner in which I had been thus sacrificed. My heart was full of bitterness, and I could gladly have lain down and died, had I not been still buoyed up with some faint hope that I should have an opportunity of making my position known, and obtain my release. I will pass over the journey, as one day was but the forerunner of the other. We halted at noon, and were supplied with fruit and maize, but we were never unchained, day or night. In a short time I was like all the rest--covered with vermin, and disgusting to myself. It was, I think, between four and five weeks before we arrived at our destination, which was in the district of Tejuco, and the locality of the diamond-mines was called the Sierra de Espinhaco. This sierra, or mountain, was a ridge of inaccessible precipices on each side of a narrow valley, traversed by a small river called the Tequetinhonha, and in this valley, and in the bed of the river, were the diamonds found, for which we were condemned to toil for the remainder of our days. As we entered the ravine, I perceived how impossible it would be to escape, even if a person could find his way back, after having succeeded in his escape. For many miles the road was a narrow path cut on the side of the mountain, a yawning precipice below and inaccessible rocks above, and this narrow way was at every two miles blocked up by a guard-house built upon it, and through the portcullis of which it would be necessary to force a way. And here we were, thousands of miles away from civilised life, in the heart of a country uninhabited except by occasional bands of Indians. At last we filed through the last of the guard-houses, and found ourselves in a wider part of the ravine, which was crowded with buildings of various descriptions. We were led up to the director's house, and our names, persons, and descriptions were taken down by a clerk. When my turn came, and I was asked in Portuguese who I was, I shook my head, and replied "Ingles." An interpreter was called, and I then stated my name and begged the director would hear what I had to say. He shook his head, and, after they had taken my description, desired me to go away. "Why did you not explain for me?" said I to the interpreter. "Because he won't hear what you have to say; if he would, every man on the chain would attempt to prove that he was sent here by mistake. You may by-and-by find an opportunity to speak to him, that is, after you have learnt Portuguese, and have been here a year or two; but it will do no good." During the whole of the journey I had been separated from Ingram, and now, for the first time since we left prison, I had an opportunity of shaking him by the hand. I need not say how glad I was to meet again my companion in misfortune, and our only fear was now, that we should be again separated; but such was not the case. There were regular lodgings or barracks for the slaves, which were certainly not bad but as all escape was considered impossible, any one who chose to raise a little hut for himself out of the bushes which grew on the rocks was permitted so to do. The hours of work were regular; we were allotted out in gangs, which took up a certain square of the river, or river's side; we worked from daylight till near dusk, with only an hour allowed for repose in the heat of the day. There was a superintendent over each gang of twenty, who watched them and made them work. These superintendents were controlled by inspectors, who had the charge of four or five gangs, and who brought unto the director the produce of the day's toil. The work was simple. The sand and alluvial soil were thrown into troughs with small sieve bottoms, out of which escaped all the smaller matter, when it was washed with the water from the river. The stones and larger particles were then carefully examined, and any diamonds found were taken out and delivered to the superintendents, who then made them over to the inspectors, when they came round. The inspectors carried them to their houses, (for they had houses from government,) and in the evening delivered every diamond found to the director. After a short time, I found that the office of superintendent, and also of inspector, was open to any of the slaves who conducted themselves well; and that the whole of those now employed in the offices were slaves for life, as well as ourselves. What puzzled me was, how so many people, for in all we amounted to seven hundred or more, were to be found in food; but I afterwards discovered that the government had farms and herds of cattle at a few miles' distance, cultivated by slaves and Indians expressly for the purpose. Our rations were scanty, but we were permitted to cultivate, as well as we could, any spot we could find on the arid side of the mountain as a garden; and some of them, who had been there for many years, had, in course of time, produced a good soil, and reared plenty of vegetables. To my surprise, I found at least twenty Englishmen among the whole mass of slaves; and one or two of them were inspectors, and several of them superintendents--saying much in favour of my countrymen. Their conversation and their advice tended much to soothe the hardships of my captivity, but I found from them that any hopes of ever leaving the mines were useless, and that our bones must all be laid by the side of the mountain. Of course, Ingram and I were inseparable; we worked in the same gang, and we very soon built a hut for ourselves; and Ingram, who was a light-hearted young man, set to work to make a garden. He moved heavy stones on the sides of the mountain, and scraped up all the mould he could find; sometimes he would get his handkerchief full, but not often; but, as he said, every little helped. He killed lizards for manure, and with them and leaves he made a little dung-heap, which he watered, to assist putrefaction. Everything that would assist, he carefully collected; and by degrees he had sufficient for a patch of four or five yards square. This he planted; and with the refuse made more manure; and in the course of a few months, by incessant activity and assisted by me, he had a very tolerable patch of ground covered with this manure and the alluvial soil washed out by the diamond-seeking, mixed up together. We then obtained seeds, and grew vegetables like the rest, and this proved a great increase to our comforts--that is, our bodily wants; but my mind was far away. Amy Trevannion was never out of my thoughts, and I fell into a deep melancholy. I worked hard at my vocation, and was fortunate enough to find some good diamonds, long before I had been a year at the mines. Having acquired the Portuguese language, I was soon after raised to the office of superintendent. I now no longer worked, but overlooked others, with a cane in my hand to administer punishment to those who neglected their business. I cannot say that I liked the change; I was not so miserable when I was employed, but I did my duty with diligence. Ingram was in my gang, and another Englishman, an old man,--I should think not less than seventy years old. He told me that he belonged to a merchant vessel, and in a drunken brawl a Portuguese had been killed; he and two others had been condemned to the mines, but the others were dead long ago. About a month after my elevation, this old man, who was very feeble, and whom I treated with great kindness on account of his age--exacting no more than I thought he could well perform--fell sick. I reported him as being really ill, and Ingram, who was by no means a bad doctor, told me that he would die. A few hours before his death he sent for me to his hut, and, after thanking me for my kindness to him, he said that he knew he was dying, and that he wished to leave me all his property, (which the slaves are permitted to do,) that is, he left me his garden, which was the best on the Sierra, his hut, which also was a very good one, and then, putting his hand under the leaves which formed his bed, he pulled out a tattered, thumbed book, which he told me was a Bible. "At first I read," said he, "to pass away time in this melancholy place, but of late I have read it I hope to a better purpose." I thanked the poor man for his present, and wished him good-bye. A few hours afterwards he was dead, and Ingram and I buried him by the side of the mountain. Shortly afterwards our inspector died, and, to my astonishment, I was put into his place. I could not imagine why I was thus so fortunate in being promoted, but I afterwards found out that, although I had never but casually seen her, I was indebted for my good fortune to a fancy which the director's eldest daughter (for he had his family with him) had taken for me. This was singular, for I had never spoken to her, and, what is more strange, I never did speak to her, nor did she ever attempt to speak to me, so that it was wholly disinterested on her part. I had now still less to do, and was in constant communication with the director, and one day stated to him how it was that I had been brought there. He told me that he believed me, but could not help me, and after that the subject was never again mentioned between us. Having little to do, I now took up the Bible given me by the old Englishman, as I had time to read it, which I had not before, when I was employed the whole day; but now I had a convenient cottage, as I may call it, of my own I and plenty of leisure and retirement. I studied the Bible carefully and found much comfort in it. Not that I was content with my lot--that I never could be while I was separated from Amy--but still I found much consolation, and I became, to a certain degree, resigned. I thought of my former life with disgust, and this second reading of the Bible, for the reader may recollect that the first took place when I was first confined in the Tower, was certainly of great advantage to me. I had more time to dwell upon it--more time for reflection and self-examination--and every day I reaped more advantage and became more worthy of the name of Christian. I now prayed fervently, and I think my prayers were heard, as you, my dear Madam, will also think as I continue my narrative. About three months after I had been appointed an inspector, Ingram was taken ill. At first he complained of disordered bowels, but in a few days inflammation came on, which ended in mortification. He was in great agony until the mortification took place, when he obtained comparative relief. "My dear Mr Musgrave," he said, as I was at his bedside, "in a few hours I shall have escaped from the mines, and be no more in bondage. I shall follow the poor old Englishman, who left you his executor. I am about to do the same. I shall now make my will verbally, as we have no writing materials here, and leave you all I possess." "Why are you not more serious, Ingram," I said; "at such a moment as this?" "I am most serious," he replied. "I know that in a few hours I shall be no more, and I trust in the mercy of Him who died for kings and for slaves; but, Musgrave, I have a secret to tell you. Do you recollect the story in the fairy tales of the little white cat whose head was obliged to be cut off, and who then turned into the most beautiful princess in the world? Well, my secret is something like hers." I thought, by his continuing in this strain, that his head was wandering. I was about to speak to him, when he continued: "Do you know what has occasioned my death? I will tell you the secret. I was washing for diamonds, when I found one of a size which astonished me. I knew it was of great value, and I did not choose that the King of Portugal should receive such a benefit from my hands. I put it into my mouth to secrete it, hardly knowing what I should do afterwards, but I was thinking how I should act, when one of the superintendents passing (that crabbed old Portuguese belonging to the next gang), and seeing me idle and in deep thought, he struck me with his cane such a smart rap on the shoulders, that he not only made me jump out of my reverie, but the diamond went down my throat. I'm sure if I had tried to swallow it I could not have done so, but the shock forced it down. Well, this has occasioned my death, for it has remained in my stomach and occasioned the stoppage, which has ended in inflammation and mortification. I feel it here even now; give me your finger, don't you feel it? Well, now you understand why I talked of the little white cat. Don't cut off my head, but when I am dead, just put your knife down there and take out the diamond and bury it, for I tell you--and they say dying men see clearer than others--but that I am certain you will be released from these mines, and then the diamond will be a fortune to you, and you will find that being my executor was of some value to you. Now, pray--no scruple--I entreat it as a last favour, promise me that you will do as I wish--pray promise me, or I shall die unhappy." I could not help promising him to execute his wishes, he appeared so earnest and asked it as a last favour, but I felt very repugnant at the idea. In another hour poor Ingram breathed his last, and I was most melancholy at the loss of so worthy a friend, who had by serving me been subjected to the same slavery as myself. I left the hut and went to my own house, thinking over the strange communication that had been made to me. And why, thought I, should I obtain this diamond? I have no chance of leaving this; yet, who knows, Ingram prophesied in his dying moments that I should--well, at all events, I will keep my promise to the poor fellow. I reported his death to the director, and, about an hour afterwards, went to the hut where he lay. His countenance was placid, and I looked at him for a long while, and queried whether he was not happier than I was or ever could be. But, to comply with his request--I could not bear the idea. I did not want the diamond, and I, who in my early career had thought nothing of cutting and maiming the living man, now shuddered at the idea of making an incision in a dead body. But there was no time to be lost, the burials always took place at sunset, and it was near the hour. I bent a piece of bamboo cane double, like a pair of sugar-tongs, and then putting my finger to the part of his stomach which he had pointed out, I felt that there was a hard substance, and I made an incision with my knife--probing with the blade. I touched the diamond and then, using the piece of cane as a pair of pincers, I contrived, after one or two attempts, to extract it. I threw the diamond without examination into a pan of water which stood by the bed, and, covering up the body, I made a hole in the floor of the hut and buried the knife, which I felt I never could use again. I looked out of the hut and perceived two of the slaves, who performed that office, coming towards me to take away the body. I desired them to carry it leaving the clothes on, followed them, and saw it deposited in the earth; after which I read prayers over the grave, and could not refrain from shedding many tears to the memory of my faithful associate. I then returned to the hut, and taking the pan of water in my hand went to my abode. I could not bear to touch the diamond, but I dared not leave it where it was; so I poured all the water out of the pan, and then rolled the diamond out on the floor, which was of hardened clay. I saw at once that it was one of great value, weighing, I should think, thirteen or fourteen _grammes_, and of a very pure water. It was in the form of an obtuse octahedron, and on one side was quite smooth and transparent. Having made this examination, I picked up some of the clay with a piece of iron, and, rolling the diamond into the hole, I jammed the clay down over it. "There," said I, "you may remain till doomsday, or till some one finds you; you will be of no use to me;" and I thought of the cock in the fable. My tattered Bible caught my eye, and I said to it, "You are of more value than all the diamonds in the world;" and I only uttered what I felt. For a long time I mourned for Ingram, and thought nothing of the diamond. Three months more passed away, and I had been eighteen months in the mines, when some visitors made their appearance--no less than one of the principals of the Jesuit order, who had been sent by the king of Portugal out to the Brazils, on a tour of inspection, as it was called, but in fact to examine into the state of affairs, and the way in which the government revenue was collected. There had lately been so much peculation on the part of the various officers, that it was considered necessary to make minute inquiry. A Portuguese nobleman had been sent out the year before, but had died shortly after his arrival, and there was every reason to suppose that he had been poisoned, that the inquiry might be got rid of. Now this Jesuit priest had been sent out, probably because a Portuguese, who thought little of poisoning and stabbing a layman, would not dare to attempt the life of so sacred a character. Having full and extraordinary powers, he had made a short inquiry into the different departments of government, and now come to the mines to ascertain how far the delivery of the diamonds at the treasury agreed with the collection at the mines; for these mines had usually produced from a million to a million and a half of revenue. The director was in a great fuss when he heard of this arrival at the further barrier; although immediately announced to him, he had scarcely an hour to prepare before the superior of the Jesuits arrived with his suite, consisting of about twenty people, and fifty or sixty sumpter mules and riding-horses. We were all called out to receive him, that is, all the inspectors. I went to attend the parade, and awaited with much indifference; but my feelings were soon changed, when in this superior of the Jesuits I beheld the Catholic priest who had visited me in the Tower and obtained my release. The superior bowed to the director and to all around him, and as he then looked at us all, he recognised me immediately. "You here, my son?" said he. "Yes, holy father," replied I, "and I thank Heaven that your arrival will enable me to prove my innocence." "Pray how is this?" said he. In a few words I narrated my story. "And you were thrown into prison without being permitted to defend yourself?" "Even so, good father, and sent to the mines to slave for life." "Did you not make known your case to the director of the mines?" "I did, Sir, but he stated that he pitied me, but could not help me." "Is this the case, Mr Director?" said the Jesuit, severely. "It is, Sir," replied the director; "I have more than once reported cases of what appeared to me great hardship, if what those condemned have said was true, and have been told that I was too officious, and that there could be no reversal of sentence. I can prove to you, Sir, by my journals and letter-books, how many cases I did formerly attempt to bring before the government; but I at last received such replies, which I can show you, as will prove that there has been no fault of mine." "Allow me to add, holy father," said I, "that the kindness and consideration of the director have been very great to all those under his charge, and I think it very fortunate that such a person has been appointed to this situation, as he has done everything that has been in his power to alleviate the miseries of bondage." "I am glad to hear you say so, Mr Elrington. Mr Director, this gentleman is a dear friend of mine; let him instantly be released. My orders are not to be disputed by the viceroy himself." The superior then embraced me cordially, and told me that I was free, and should return with him to Rio. Imagine, my dear Madam, my joy and gratitude. I fell on my knees before him, and kissed his hands. He gave me his blessing, and raised me up. "Where is your companion in misfortune?" said he. "Alas! Sir, he is dead," replied I. The superior shook his head and turned away, saying, "I will search into this affair to the bottom, depend upon it, when I get back to Rio." He then desired the director to bring out his books, and his own secretary to follow him, leaving his servants in the court-yard with me and the other inspectors. I received the congratulations of all parties present, and as soon as possible I escaped from them, and returned to my own room, where I knelt and fervently thanked God for my unexpected deliverance; and, having paid my duty to the Most High, I sat down, and fell into a most delightful reverie of anticipations. In the evening, after the superior had dismissed him, the director sent for me, and said: "Allow me to return you many thanks for your kindness in speaking so favourably of me as you have done. You have, indeed, been of service to me, and I am most grateful." "I only did you justice, director," replied I. "Yes, but how few have justice done them in this world!" replied he. "The superior desired me to tell you, that you are to live with the gentlemen of his suite. Of course, you know, it is not etiquette for him to admit anybody to his table. At all events you must allow me one pleasure, which is to supply you with clothes proper to your appearance, which I can easily do without inconvenience to myself." The director then led me into his room, and opened a wardrobe full of rich suits, selected two of the handsomest, with linen and every other article requisite, a handsome sword and hat, all of which he begged me to accept. Calling one of his servants, he ordered him to put them into a valise, and take them to my apartment. "Is there anything else that I can do?--speak freely." "No, director," replied I, "I will accept these things from you, as I cannot procure them here, but when at Rio, I have means to obtain everything that I require. I return you many thanks." "I will send my servant to arrange your hair," said he; "and I pray you to consider him at your disposal during the few days which the superior may remain here." "Do you think it will take him so long?" "Yes," replied the director, "I will tell you in confidence, that he has brought with him the produce of the mines accounted for to the government at home, and on his first inspection has found such defalcation from that which has been transmitted by me to Rio, that I expect there will be serious business. They never imagined at Rio that he would have undertaken such a tedious journey as he has done, and they are in much alarm about it; but I will leave you now, that you may go home and make your toilet. Allow me to congratulate you, with all my heart, at the fortunate termination to your unjust bondage." Having again thanked him for his kindness, I went to my lodging, where I found his servant waiting for me; and having had my hair arranged in a very tolerable manner, and a little powder thrown in, I put on one of the suits, which fitted me pretty well, requiring but a slight alteration, from being rather full, which the servant soon managed. Thus did I once more appear as a gentleman--contrary to all my expectations--and I then went and joined the suite of the superior, who, when they perceived the difference which dress made in my appearance, congratulated me, and warmly welcomed me to join the meal which had just been prepared for them. On the following day, the superior sent for me, and ordering me to sit down requested that I would enter into full detail of what had happened to me since we last parted. I did so, and my narrative occupied the whole afternoon. "Your life has been full of vicissitude," replied he; "I trust, however, that your adventures are now over, and that you will be restored to your friends: the service you performed for our cause will never be forgotten." I ventured to ask him how it was that he was now in the employ of the King of Portugal. He replied: "I am an Irishman by birth, and educated at Saint Omers. I was first sent to Spain by the order when I was young, and have since been employed all over the world in the advancement of our holy church. Country with our order is of no consequence. We all serve the holy church, and go wherever our services are required. I would you were a Catholic, I could advance you beyond all your hopes; but you are engaged to be married, and that puts an end to the question." As I thought the holy father must be tired with our long conference, I rose and took my leave. Three days afterwards I was informed by him that he intended to set off on his return to Rio, and now I thought of the diamond, which I resolved to carry with me. I had no fear of being searched while under this excellent superior's protection, and therefore I went to my lodging, dug up the diamond, and, having washed it, for the first time gave it the examination which it deserved. It certainly was a stone of great value, but of what value I could not exactly say. From what I had learnt from the director, who usually put his idea of the value upon any diamond of size which was brought to him, I considered that 20,000 pounds was the least which could be put upon the stone. I took the precaution not to carry it loose in my pocket, but to sew it within the lining of my clothes. Glad I was, indeed, when the orders to start the next morning were given out. I found that a horse was appointed for me, and, having made up my valise, not forgetting my tattered Bible, I went to my bed thanking God that this was to be the last night that I was to pass in the accursed Sierra de Espinhaco. At daylight the superior took his leave, mounted his mule, and we set forth, passing the guard-house in the narrow road, which I never expected to pass again. Before noon we were clear of the Sierra, and once more in the open country. The attendants, with a portion of the sumpter mules, went in advance, to prepare for the superior's arrival at the spot where we were to halt. The weather was excessively sultry, and the glare of the sun was very distressing. At noon we stopped to take our dinner, and the usual siesta after it. The attendants in advance had raised a sort of palanquin for the superior, and everything was ready. The superior alighted, and sat down under the palanquin, which protected him from the rays of the sun; we all sat round at a respectful distance. The heat was so intense, that, to relieve himself, the superior had, when he sat down, thrown off his long black robe, such as is worn by the priests of his order. Dinner was served up, and we had a merry party, notwithstanding the great heat. After our meal, we all shaded ourselves as well as we could, and took our siesta for about two hours, when the superior rose up, and gave the signal for resuming our journey. The horses were soon ready, and the superior's mule being brought up to the palanquin, he rose up, and one of his attendants was lifting up his robe for the superior to resume it, when my eye detected the head of a snake just showing itself out of the side-pocket of the robe in which he carried his breviary and his handkerchief. I knew the snake well, for we often found them in the Sierra de Espinhaco, and some two or three of the slaves had lost their lives by their bite, which was so fatal, that they died in less than five minutes afterwards. The superior had his handkerchief in his hand, and would have undoubtedly put it in his pocket before he mounted his mule, and if so would certainly have been bitten, and lost his life. As the superior was fastening his robe at the throat, I darted forward, seized it, threw it on the ground, and commenced stamping upon it with all my force, much to the surprise of the whole party. Some of them thought me mad, and others, who were horrified at such treatment of the holy garment, called out, "Heretico maldetto!" which, Madam, you must know, means, accursed heretic. Having felt the snake (which is very short, but very thick in the body, with a head like a toad) several times moving under my feet, and then moving no more, I then stepped off the garment, and turning it over I lifted it up by the skirt, so that the dead snake rolled out of the pocket. "I thank the God whom we all worship, and the Son of God, who died for us all, whether Catholic or Heretic," cried I, "that I have been the means of preserving the holy father." I had knelt down as I thus prayed, and the superior, perceiving the danger that he had been in, did the same, and silently returned his thanks; at his example all the rest went down on their knees. "Yes," said the superior; "would to God that instead of reviling each other all denominations of Christians would join in thus bruising the head of the serpent which seeks our spiritual death." He then rose and said: "My son, I thank thee for the kind service thou hast performed." I then explained to the superior the deadly nature of the animal, and my fear that he would have put his handkerchief in the pocket of his robe before I had time to prevent him, and begged him to excuse my seeming abruptness. "There needs no apology for saving a man's life," replied he, smiling.--"Come, let us go forward." I hardly need say that we were not quite so long in returning to Rio as we were in going to the mines. We accomplished our journey, without using extreme haste, in about half of the time. On our arrival, we took up our quarters at a magnificent palace, which had been appropriated to the superior during his residence at Rio, and I found myself sumptuously lodged. For some days, during which the superior had frequent interviews with the viceroy, I did not see him, but one day I was summoned to his presence. "My son," said he, "I have lost no time in investigating your affair, and I find that all you have said is quite correct. To the disgrace of the government here, and the manner in which justice is administered, it appears that this man, Olivarez, on his arrival, went to the secretary of the judge of that court in which such offences are tried, and stated that he had two English mutineers on board, who had attempted to take the vessel, and wounded several of his men dangerously; that he wished, of course, to deliver them up to justice, but that the immediate departure of his vessel would be prevented by so doing, as his crew would be required as evidence; that the delay would be very disadvantageous; and he inquired whether it could not be managed that these men might be punished without the appearance of himself and his men, as he would pay a good sum rather than be detained. The secretary perfectly understood the trick, and, upon the receipt of five hundred cruzados, he accepted the deposition of Olivarez, sworn to by him, as sufficient evidence, and you were consigned to the mines upon this deposition by a warrant from the judge. We have had some trouble to obtain all the facts, but the question has been severely applied, and has elicited them. Now, first, as to the judge and his secretary, they have gone to the gaol, and will take your place in the mines for life. Next as to Olivarez. It appears that, on his arrival, he sold his cargo of slaves very advantageously; that having received the money he gave a small portion to each of his men, and that they went on shore, and, like all English seamen, were soon in a state of intoxication; that Olivarez took such steps with the police, as to have them all thrown into prison when in that state; and, on the following morning, he went to them, persuaded them that they had committed themselves during their intoxication, and that it required a large sum to free them. This he pretended to have paid for them, and, having purchased a cargo for his voyage, he got them all on board, and again ran for the coast of Africa. In three months he returned with another cargo, which he sold. He had found out his mother, and now he expended the money he had made, in purchasing a good property about seven miles from Rio, where he placed his mother and some slaves to take care of it, and cultivate it. He contrived to defraud his crew as much as he could, and before he went to the coast again he married an amiable young person, the daughter of a neighbour. He made a third and a fourth voyage with equal success, but on the third voyage he contrived to get rid of a portion of his English crew, who were now becoming troublesome, by taking some Portuguese sailors out with him, and leaving the English on the coast, as if by mistake. Previous to the fourth voyage, it appears that he satisfied the remainder of the English crew by producing accounts, and sharing out to them several hundred dollars previous to their departure for the coast. He made a slight addition to his Portuguese sailors, not putting too many on board, to avoid suspicion, and when on the coast of Africa, a portion of the English crew died, whether by poison or not is not known, and the others he put on shore, seizing all their property, and the dollars with which he had satisfied them. On his return from his fourth voyage, having now nothing to fear from the partners in his atrocious deed, having realised a large sum, he determined to remain on shore altogether, and live on his property with his mother and wife. He did so, and sent out the schooner under a Portuguese captain and crew, to be employed for him as owner in the slave traffic, and she has made two voyages since, and is expected back again every day. Now, my son, retribution has fallen heavily upon this bad man. Had he been discovered and punished when he first did the deed, it would have been as nothing compared to what it has been now; he then had no property--no ties--in fact, nothing or little to regret; but now, with a wife and child, with a valuable property, living in independence, and increasing that wealth daily--now, when he is at the very summit of his ambition, restored to his own country, respected and considered as being a man of wealth, he has been seized, thrown into a dungeon, put to the question, and now lies in a state of misery, awaiting the sentence of death which has been pronounced against him. Neither has he the consolation of knowing that he leaves those whom he loves in a state of affluence, for all his property, having been gained by making use of your property, necessarily is your property, and not his, and it has been confiscated accordingly for your use and benefit. As soon as everything is collected, it will be paid into your hands. Thus, my son, I have at last attained justice for you." I was, as you may imagine, my dear Madam, profuse in my acknowledgments, but he stopped me, saying: "I was sent here to see that justice was done to everybody, if I possibly could--no easy task, when all are amassing money, not caring how they obtain it; but, surely, if any one has peculiar claims upon me, it is you." The superior then asked me many questions relative to my parentage, and I did not conceal anything from him. I told who I was, and why, at an early age, I had left my father's house. He asked me many questions, and, after about two hours' conversation, he dismissed me, saying: "You may always depend upon my protection and gratitude." Before he dismissed me, he told me that he was about to send a despatch-boat to Lisbon, and as I might wish to inform my friends of my safety, if I would write letters, he would insure their being safely delivered to my friends in England. I gladly availed myself of this offer, and indeed would have begged a passage for myself, if it had not been that I considered Olivarez's money to be the property of Mr Trevannion, and was determined to remit it to him before I left Rio. This detained me about six weeks longer, during which interval Olivarez had suffered the penalty due to his crimes, having been strangled in the market place. The money received was 28,000 cruzados, and not knowing how to dispose of it, I applied to the superior, who gave me orders for it in duplicates upon the treasury at Lisbon, one of which I had very soon an opportunity of sending home to Mr Trevannion, with a duplicate of my first letter, and a second to him and Amy, stating my intention of returning as soon as possible. But this was by a Portuguese frigate, which made a very circuitous route home, and I did not choose to go by that conveyance, as her detention at the different ports was so uncertain. At last I became very impatient for my departure, and anxiously awaited the sailing of some vessel to any port of Europe. I had reserved 1000 cruzados for my own expenses, which I considered as quite sufficient, but they were gradually wasting away, for I was everywhere received, and in the best company of Rio. At last one day the superior sent for me, and told me that he was about to send an advice-boat to Lisbon, and I might take a passage if I wished; that it was a very small one, but a very fast sailer. I thanked him heartily, accepted the proposal, and went to my room to pack up my clothes. In the afternoon the captain of the xebeque called upon me, and told me that he would start on the following morning if I would be ready. I replied that I should be, put some dollars into his hands, requesting that he would procure for me anything that he considered would be necessary and agreeable, and if the sum I had given him was not enough, I would repay him the remainder as soon as we were out of harbour. I took my leave of the superior, who parted with me with many protestations of regard on his side, and tears of gratitude on mine, and early the next morning I was on board of the xebeque. In light winds she was extremely fast, but she certainly was too small to cross the Atlantic Ocean; nevertheless, as the captain said, she had crossed it several times, and he hoped that she often would again. The passage, however, that he usually made, was to run up to the northward of the Antilles, and then cross over, making the Bahama Isles, and from thence taking a fresh departure for Lisbon. Our crew consisted of only eight men, besides the captain; but, as the vessel was not more than thirty tons, they were sufficient. We made a good run, until we were in about twenty-four degrees of north latitude, when, as we stretched to the eastward to cross the Atlantic, we met with a most violent gale, which lasted several days, and I fully expected every hour that the vessel would go down, buried as she was by the heavy sea. At last we had no chance but to scud before the wind, which we did for two days before a raging and following sea, that appeared determined upon our destruction. On the second night, as I was on deck, watching the breaking and tossing of the billows, and the swift career of the little bark, which enabled her to avoid them, the water suddenly appeared of one white foam, and, as we rose upon the next sea, we were hurled along on its crest, reeling on the foam until it had passed us, and then we struck heavily upon a rock. Fortunately, it was a soft coral rock, or we had all perished. The next wave lifted us up again, and threw us further on, and, on its receding, the little xebeque laid high and dry, and careened over on her bilge. The waters rose and fell, and roared and foamed about us, but they lifted us no more, neither did they wash us off the decks as we clung to the rigging; for the stout short mast, upon which the lateen sail was hoisted, had not been carried away. We remained where we were till morning, every one holding on, and not communicating with each other. As the night wore away, so did the gale decrease and the sea subside. The waters now gradually left us; at intervals, when the waves receded, we could walk on shore; but we remained on the vessel till noon, by which time we found our vessel high and dry, having been carried over a coral reef, which appeared to extend one or two miles into the offing. The men, who had been much buffeted by the waves, and who were exhausted by clinging so long to the rigging, now that they found themselves safe, and were warmed by the heat of the sun, rallied, and began to move about. We had a long consultation as to how we should act. There was no chance of getting the vessel off again, and we did not exactly know where we were; but the captain and I agreed that it must be upon one of the small islands of the Bahama group that we had been cast away, and our conjecture was right. After some consultation, the captain and I called the men together, and told them that it was very probable that we might be some time before we could find the means of getting off the island, and that, therefore, we must all do our best; that we would land and erect a tent with the sails, and obtain provisions; after that we would consider the vessel and her stores as public property, but that every man's private property should be secured to him as if we were still on board of the xebeque; that the captain should retain the command as before, and his orders should be obeyed by everybody, as long as they were reasonable and just. The men, who were well-behaved, quiet fellows,--and not, like English seamen, given to liquor,--readily agreed, and it was arranged that the following morning we should commence our labours. This was a sad blow to me, who was anticipating a speedy meeting with Amy. I knew how doubtful was the chance of our being seen by any vessel, and that I must remain here for months, if not longer; but I had been schooled, and could now say with fervency, "Thy will, O Lord, and not mine, be done." We remained on board of the vessel that night, and the next morning the gale had ceased, and the waters, to our astonishment, had receded, so as to leave us at least sixty yards from the sea, which was now almost calm. We first took a survey of the island, to ascertain if there was any water, and, as the island was not more than two miles in circumference, this did not take us long. Fortunately, in the centre we found a deep hole sunk in the soft coral rock by some other people who had been wrecked here, and in the hole the water was, although a little brackish, somewhat palatable. It evidently was the sea-water filtered through the soft rock. The whole of the island was surrounded with coral reefs, with lanes of deep water running between them, and the fish were sporting in thousands after the storm, but there was not a tree or vestige of vegetation upon the whole island. We soon, however, discovered that it was frequented by turtle, for we found some eggs, fresh-buried, in the sand. Having made this survey, we then went back to the vessel, and with spars and sails rigged a tent upon the highest point of the island, which might be ten or fifteen feet above the level of the sea. The tent was large enough to hold fifty men, if required, so we brought our bedding and chests and all our cooking apparatus on shore, made a fire-place outside the tent with the little caboose we had on board of the vessel, sent a man to obtain water from the hole, and put on some meat to boil for our dinners. In the evening we all went out to turn turtle, and succeeded in turning three, when we decided that we would not capture any more until we had made a turtle-pond to put them in, for we had not more than two months' provisions on board of the vessel, and did not know how long we might be detained. The men behaved very well, and indeed seemed determined to make themselves as comfortable as they could under existing circumstances. The next day we put out some lines in deep water, and caught several large fish, and then we went to find a proper spot for a turtle-pond. We selected a hole in the reef which we thought would answer, as we had only one end of it to fill up, and we commenced breaking away the rock with crowbars, and worked hard the whole of the day, some breaking and others carrying the masses broken off. By degrees they rose to the surface of the water, and in two days more we calculated that the pond would be ready to receive the turtle. We had killed one turtle in the morning, and we now lived upon it altogether, as we wished to save our salt provisions. The captain and I had many consultations as to what we should do, and what attempts we should make to get off from this spot. Build a boat we could not, as we had not a carpenter among us, or the means of making the iron-work necessary. We had some tools, such as are usually used on board of vessels, and several pounds of large nails, but none fit for boat-building. I proposed that we should examine the bottom of the xebeque, and see what damage was done to it. We did so, and found that the garboard strake was broken and two of her timbers, but they were easy to repair; in every other respect she was sound. I then proposed that we should cut down the xebeque to a large boat, which we could easily do by ripping off her planks and decks, and sawing down her timbers to the height we required. It would be a heavy boat, it was true, but we should be able to launch her with rollers, and the draught of water would be so small that we could get her over the reefs, which we could not possibly do the xebeque. The captain approved of the idea, and we agreed that as soon as the turtle-pond was finished we would make the attempt. In two days more we had finished the pond, and had turned thirty turtle, which we put into it. The men, now that they found that they had plenty to eat, began to show signs of laziness, and did not very readily commence the work upon the xebeque. They ate and slept, ate and slept again, on the mattresses spread in the tent. At times they would fish, but it was with difficulty that the captain and I could persuade them to work, and if they did work half an hour, they then threw down their axes and crowbars, and went back to the tent. They had plenty of tobacco, and they smoked half the day, ate turtle, and then slept again. Nevertheless, as the captain and I worked hard, the work progressed; in about ten days after we began the work, we had ripped off her decks and her side-planks as as low as we thought right, and we were now sawing through the timbers, when the quiet of our party was disturbed by what may be considered a very strange quarrel. One of the men asserted in conversation that Saint Antony was born in Padua; one or two of the other seamen denied it, and this difference of opinion, which at first was a mere nothing, from sullenness, I presume, and something being required to excite them, in the course of a day or two ended in a serious feud; the Paduans terming the anti-Paduans heretics and Jews. The epithet of Jew was what irritated so much, and the parties being exactly even, four on each side, on the third day, after an angry altercation, they all rushed out of the tent to decide the affair with their knives. The conflict was very fierce, and took place when the captain and I were at the xebeque, and before we could separate them four of them had fallen; two were killed, and the other two badly wounded. It may appear ridiculous that people should take each other's lives for such a trifle; but, after all, nations declare war against each other, and thousands are killed on both sides, for causes almost as slight. With great difficulty we separated the remaining combatants, and such was their rage and excitement, that every now and then they would attempt to break from us and attack each other again; but at last we disarmed them. This was a sad business; and it was melancholy to think that companions in misfortune should take each other's lives, instead of feeling grateful to the Almighty for their preservation. We buried the two men who had fallen, and dressed the wounds of the hurt; but after this quarrel the four others came to their work, and continued steady at it. We had now removed the upper portion of the xebeque, and commenced fixing beams and carlines on the lower part, so as to make a decked boat of it, and in another week we had decked her over. But we had a great deal more to do: we had to reduce the mast and yard to a proper size, to alter the sail and rigging, to make a small rudder, and rollers to launch her upon. All this, with our reduced force, occupied us another month; for the two wounded men, although recovering, could but just crawl about. We turned many more turtle at night, that we might have a sufficient supply. We now looked out for a channel of deep water through the reef, to get our boat out, and made one out to a certain extent, but could not survey further without getting off the reef, and the sharks were so numerous that we dared not venture. However, we took it for granted, as we had found deep water in shore, that we should be sure to do so in the offing; and we now got our boat upon the rollers which we had made, by digging away the sand from beneath her, and a trench to the water's edge. We had been two months on the island when all was ready for launching. Anxious as I was to return to England, I cannot say that I was unhappy when on this island: there was always a fine sea-breeze, which cooled the air, and enabled us to work without exhaustion. With the exception of the unfortunate quarrel I have referred to, everything went on quietly. After work was over, I resorted as usual to my Bible, and read for hours; and this calmed and allayed any impatient feelings which might at times arise. I felt that I had great cause to be grateful to the Almighty for preserving me as he had done, and that it would be folly and wickedness on my part to repine because I could not obtain all that I wished. I waited, therefore, for His own good time, without murmuring, and in full confidence that all was for the best. At last we contrived to get our boat into the water, and she floated much lighter than we thought she would have done, considering the weight of wood that was in her. As soon as she was anchored about ten feet from the beach, we made a gangway to her with planks, and commenced getting all our salt provisions, water, and stores, which we had selected as most necessary, on board of her. The stowage of these occupied us two days; we then got the yard up, and bent the sail, and, having fitted oars, we determined that the next day we would embark. As she still swam light, we got on board of her as many turtle as we could conveniently carry, and then, for the last time, went on shore to sleep. As there was no room for our chests, it was agreed that we each should have a bundle on board, selecting those things which we most required and most valued. This proposal, which was made by the captain, put me in mind of the diamond, which had scarcely once entered my thoughts since I had been on the island. When I took it out of my chest, I thought that I might as well make it more convenient to carry, as there was no saying what might be the result of our new expedition; so, when the other men were all busy about their own effects, or asleep, I first took the precaution to roll it up in a covering of pitch, so that, if taken from me or lost, it might not be known to be a diamond, and then I sewed it up in a piece of leather, which I cut from an old glove, putting a strong leather lanyard to it, so that I might wear it round my neck. Having done this without any one taking notice, and having nothing else to do, I took some fine twine and worked it over, like the mousing of a stay, in a way peculiar to sailors, so that, when finished, it was very much in the shape of a miniature buoy to an anchor, and reminded me of a _fend-off_ or fender, such as they use to prevent any injury to the sides of a vessel when coming in contact with another. Having finished my work, I put the leather lanyard round my neck, inside of my shirt, so that my diamond was concealed from sight; I then put up my remaining pieces-of-eight--which were nearly 500, the best of my clothes, (for during my stay at Rio I had very much increased my stock,) and I hardly need say that the old Bible was not left behind. It was a beautiful calm morning when we embarked, and, lifting the anchor, took to our oars, and pulled out through the deep channel, the captain standing at the bow and conning us through, while I took the helm. The boat pulled well and steered well; we had yet to see what she could do under canvass. After a pull of two hours we were clear of the reef, and out in the open sea. We then laid in the oars, and commenced our preparations for hoisting the sail to a breeze, which then blew from the southward. When all was ready, the men hoisted the sail, but in so doing, a rope being foul, as I was attempting to clear it, I was tripped up, and fell with my right knee on a spike, which entered deep, putting me to excruciating pain, and laming me completely. I was obliged to sit down abaft, for I nearly fainted away. In the mean time the sail was set, and the boat stood well up to it. She proved to be very stiff under canvass, which was a source of great congratulation. My knee became so painful and stiff that I could not move it; I took one of my shirts out of my bundle, tore it up into bandages, and put them on. We had resolved to attempt to make New Providence, the largest of the Bahama group, where we knew that there was a town called Nassau, and from whence we hoped to obtain some conveyance to Europe; but we knew nothing of the port, or the inhabitants, or what trade was carried on with them. For several hours our little bark went gaily over the water, but towards nightfall the wind shifted, and the weather looked threatening. We hardly knew how to steer, as we did not know the position of the island which we had left, and now the wind heading us, we hauled up on the larboard tack, with our head to the northward and eastward. As the sun went down, the wind increased, and the sea ran fast. Our boat behaved well, till it began to blow very hard, and then it took in so much water, that we were forced to bale. We had reefed our sail, and made everything as snug as we could, but the sea rising fast, and the boat taking in more water, we considered it prudent to lighten her, which we did by throwing overboard all the turtle. This we did without regret, as we were tired of eating them for so long a while. The day broke, and there appeared every sign of bad weather, and the waves now tossed and foamed too much for such a small craft as we were in. About noon we saw a vessel on a wind to leeward of us, which was a source of great delight to us all, and we bore down to her. We soon made her out to be an hermaphrodite brig, under her close-reefed topsails and trysails. We ran under her counter and hailed. We perceived several men standing abaft, and apparently they suspected us for a rover, for they had muskets and other weapons in their hands. We told them that we had been shipwrecked, and the boat was sinking in the gale, and then we rounded-to under her lee. There we remained for four or five hours, during which the wind and the sea went down very fast, and the boat no longer took in water; but we had been all too much alarmed with the danger in which we had been, to like to continue our voyage in her, and as we thought that we could now go alongside with safety, we hailed again, and asked permission. After some parleying they threw us a rope, which we made fast to the boat, and lowered our sail, keeping off on a broad sheer, as there still was a great deal of sea. They then entered into conversation with us. I told them all that had happened, and inquired where the brig was bound to. They replied, to James Town, Virginia. I asked them if they could give us a passage there, as we were afraid to proceed in our boat; or if not, would they see us safe into New Providence. The captain then came forward. He was a very dark man, dark as a mulatto, with keen small eyes, and a hooked nose. I never beheld a more deformed and repulsive countenance. He said that he could not go to New Providence, as it was out of his way, and that we might easily get there ourselves if we thought proper. I replied, that the boat was not sufficiently large and seaworthy, and that we had already nearly gone down, and if another gale should come on, we certainly should founder, and again requested that he would take us on board. "Have you any money to pay for your passage?" inquired he. "Why," said I, "common charity and the feelings of a seaman towards sailors in distress should be sufficient to induce you to take us on board, and not leave us to perish; but if you require money," I replied, "we have more than sufficient to satisfy you." "How much?" screamed out a lad of about fourteen, who was the very image of the captain in miniature. I did not reply to this question, and the captain then said, "What do you propose to do with the boat?" "Let her go adrift, to be sure," replied I. "What have you got on board of her?" said he. I enumerated, as well as I could recollect, the provisions and stores that we had. "Well," replied he, "I will wait till it is a little smoother, and then we will clear the boat and take you on board." He then left the gangway, where he had been standing, and we continued to be towed by the brig. "I do not like that fellow," said I to the Portuguese captain; "he appears, or pretends, to take us for pirates, but he is more like a pirate himself." "He looks like the devil himself," replied the captain, "and to ask people in our condition to pay for their passage! He is a monster! However, we all have a few doubloons, thank Heaven." About an hour afterwards, it being much more moderate, the captain of the brig told us to sheer alongside, and that four of us might come out and the others remain in the boat till she was cleared. "I think you had better go," said I to the captain, "for with so much motion I never shall be able to get up the side with my bad knee." We then sheered the boat alongside, and the captain and three of our men got on board, but not without difficulty. I saw them go aft and down below with the captain of the brig, but I never saw them on deck again, much to my surprise, although we were more than half an hour before they again hailed us, and told us to come alongside again. During this half-hour my mind misgave me sadly that all was not right, from not seeing the Portuguese captain, or either of the three men, and I took it into my head that the vessel was a pirate; and I knew if such was the case, we should instantly be rifled, if not murdered. I took the precaution of taking off the bandage from my knee, and, having removed the diamond from my neck, I put it under my ham in the cavity, which held it with ease, and then put the bandage on again over it, as I thought they would hardly take a bandage off a bad knee to see if there was anything concealed beneath it. It was with difficulty that I contrived to get on board the brig, and as soon as I had gained the deck, I was ordered to go down into the cabin: as I went aft, I looked round for the Portuguese captain and the men, but could not see them. I contrived, with difficulty, to get down into the cabin, and as soon as I was there I was seized by the arms and held fast by two of the men, while others bound me with seizings. As the captain was looking on, I inquired into the cause of this outrage. He replied, that we were a parcel of rascally pirates, who would have taken his vessel if he had not been too deep for us; I told him it was false, and that I could easily prove it, as we still had the despatches on board with which we had been charged, and that I could show good proof that I was the same person that I stated myself to be; that I very much feared that we had fallen into the hands of pirates ourselves, but that I would have justice done as soon as we arrived at James Town, without he intended to murder us all before we arrived. His answer was, that he was too old a bird to be caught with such chaff, and that he would secure us and deliver us up to the authorities as soon as he arrived. I replied, in great anger, that he would then be convinced of his error, if it was an error, on his part; that his conduct was infamous, and he looked like a scoundrel, and I believed him to be one. "You call me a scoundrel, do you," said he, levelling a pistol at my head. "You call us scoundrels, do you," cried the boy I have made mention of, and who was evidently the son of the captain, taking up another pistol in his hand. "Shall I shoot him, father?" "No, Peleg, not yet; we will pay them all when we get in. Take him away, and put him in irons with the rest," said the captain; and I was immediately dragged forward between decks through a door in the bulkheads, where I found the Portuguese captain and three seamen already in irons. "This is pretty treatment," said he to me. "Yes, it is, indeed," replied I; "but I will make him smart for it when we arrive." "Shall we ever arrive?" said the Portuguese captain, looking at me and compressing his lips. "I say, my man," said I to the seaman who stood over us with a pistol and a cutlass, "who are you, and what are you? Tell us the truth: are you pirates?" "I never was yet," replied he, "nor do I mean to be; but our skipper says that you are, and that he knew you as soon as you came alongside. That's all I can say about it." "Why, if we are pirates, as he says, and he recognises us, he must have been in pirates' company,--that is clear." "Well, he may have been, for all I know," replied the man. "I don't consider him any very great things; but he is our captain, and we must obey orders." The man now brought forward the other three men who had been left in the boat. They told us that the boat had been cleared; all the provisions, stores, sails, etcetera, had been taken out of her;--a proof that she had been gutted and then cut adrift;--that all our bundles were down in the captain's cabin, and that the ill-looking urchin, his son, had overhauled them, one after another, and handed to his father all the money that he had found; that they had been searched very carefully; and that they had heard the captain say that we were all to be sent up, one by one, and searched in the same manner;--and so it proved. I was first taken aft to have my pockets rummaged by the little villain, and as soon as I had been led forward and again put into irons, the Portuguese captain and three other seamen were sent for and treated in the same way. We inquired of the men what money they had in their bundles and about their persons. They had each man four doubloons at Rio for wages, and the captain had about forty doubloons. I had five hundred pieces-of-eight: so that, altogether, we had been robbed to the tune of about four hundred pounds sterling, independent of our clothes, which were of some value to us; that is, mine were at all events. The seamen who guarded us, and who relieved each other every watch, were not at all surly or ill-natured. I asked one of them during the night-watch whether he thought the captain would take our lives. "No," said he; "we will not allow that. You may be pirates, as he says, although we do not think you are; but if pirates, you shall have fair play; that we have all made up our minds to. No hanging first, and trying afterwards." I had a long conversation with this man, who appeared very much inclined to be sociable. He told me that the vessel was named the _Transcendant_; that she sailed from Virginia to the West Indies, and that some times she went to England; that the captain of her was also the owner, but where he came from, or what he was, they did not know, except that he was a Virginian,--they believed so, for that he had a tobacco estate there, which was carried on by his eldest son. He called the captain a stingy, miserly fellow, who would sacrifice any man's life to save a shilling, and that there were odd stories about him at James Town. I was well satisfied with my conversation with this man, as it assured me that our lives would not be taken, and I had no fear of the result upon my arrival at James Town, for, as I have mentioned before, Mr Trevannion had vessels which sailed to that port, and I well recollected the names of the parties to whom the vessel and cargo were consigned. On the following day the captain of the brig, followed by his ill-favoured son, came forward and looked at us as we sat in irons, upon which I addressed him: "You have put me in irons, Sir, when I threw myself upon your protection. You have robbed us of our money to the amount of nearly 400 pounds, and you detain our other property. I now again desire that I may be released. I offered to convince you that I was a person of property, but you refused to listen to me. Now, Sir, I will tell you that I am a partner in the house of Trevannion, at Liverpool, and that we have vessels that trade between James Town and that port. Our vessels are consigned to Messrs. Fairbrother and Wilcocks, of James Town, and on my arrival I will soon prove that to you; and also not only make you surrender the property you have robbed us of, but I will make you smart pretty handsomely for your treatment of us; that you may depend upon." "Fairbrother and Wilcocks," muttered he; "confound the fellow. Oh," said he, turning to me, "you got the name of that firm from some ship you have plundered and sunk, I suppose. No, no, that won't do,--old birds are not to be caught with chaff." "I believe you to have been a pirate yourself, if you are not one now," replied I; "at all events you are a thief and a paltry villain--but our time will come." "Yes, it will," said the captain of the xebeque; "and remember, you scoundrel, if you can escape and buy off justice, you shall not escape seven Portuguese knives,--mind you that." "No, no," cried the Portuguese sailors; "stop till we are on shore, and then come on shore if you dare." "I say, father," said young Hopeful, "this looks like mischief; better hang them, I reckon, than to be stuck like pigs. They look as if they'd do it, don't they?" I shall never forget the diabolical expression of the captain of the brig after the Portuguese sailors had done speaking. He had a pistol at his belt, which he drew out. "That's right, shoot 'em, father; dead men tell no tales, as you have always said." "No, no," said the seaman who was on guard, motioning them back with his cutlass, "there will be no shooting nor hanging either; we are all sworn to that. If so be they be pirates, there's the law of the country to condemn them; and if they be not pirates, why then that's another story." The captain looked at the seaman as if he could have shot him if he dared. Then turned round hastily and went back to the cabin, followed by his worthy offspring. For seven days we remained in irons, when we heard land announced by the sailors on deck, and the brig's head was put towards it. At night she was hove-to, and the next morning again stood in, and we perceived that we were in smooth water. Towards night the anchor was let go, and we asked the guard if we had arrived at James Town. He replied, "No, but we were in a river on the coast, but he did not know what river it was nor did any of the crew, nor could they tell why the captain had anchored there. But they had seen several canoes with Indians cross the river, but that there appeared to be no white settlement that they could discover." The mystery was, however, cleared up on the following morning. A small boat, which could barely hold eight people, was lowered from the stern, and hauled up alongside. We were taken up, one by one, the scoundrel of a captain having first stripped each of us to our trousers, not even allowing us a shirt. We were ordered to get into the boat. As soon as we were all in, and our weight brought the boat down to her gunnel, two oars were handed to us, and then the captain of the brig said: "Now, you rascally pirates, I might have hanged you all, and I would have done so, for I know you well. I recollect your faces when you plundered the `Eliza,' when I was off Porto Rico; but if I put you in prison at James Town, I shall have to wait two or three months until the court sits, and I cannot be detained for such scoundrels as you; so now you may pull on shore, and get on how you can. Shove off, directly, or I'll put a bullet through your brains." "Hold fast," cried I, "and let him fire if he dares. You men belonging to the _Transcendant_, I call you to witness this treatment. Your captain has robbed us of a large sum of money, and now turns us adrift, so as to compel us to land among savages, who may kill us immediately. I appeal to you, will you permit this cruelty and injustice? If you are English, I conceive you will not." There was some talk and expostulation with the captain of the brig, in consequence of what I said; but while it was going on, the captain's son leaned over the side, and with his knife cut the painter, or rope which held the boat, and as the tide was running on very strong, in less than half a minute we were a long way astern of the brig, and drifting fast up the river. We got our oars, and attempted to pull for the brig, for we knew that the seamen were taking our parts; but it was in vain; the tide ran several miles an hour, and in another minute or two, with all our exertions, we were nearly a quarter of a mile astern of her, and the boat was so loaded that we hardly dared move lest we should upset it. We had, therefore, no option but to go on shore and take our chance; but when the men were pulling round for the shore, on reflection I thought that we had better not land so soon, as the sailors had told us that they had seen the Indians in their canoes. I therefore recommended that we should allow the boat to drift up the river with the tide, and then drift down again when the tide turned, remaining in the middle of the stream till it was dark, when we would land and make our way into the woods. My advice was followed; we sat still in the boat, just keeping her head to the stream with the oars, and, being without our shirts, the sun scorching and blistering our backs, till past noon, during which time we must have drifted nearly twenty miles up the river, which was as broad as the arm of a sea at the entrance; then the tide turned, and we drifted back again till it was dusk, when it was again slack water. All this while we kept a sharp look-out to see if we could perceive any Indians, but not one was to be seen. I now proposed that we should take our oars and pull out of the river, as if we had only gone up on a survey, for the brig had got under weigh, and had anchored, for want of wind, about four miles off, and the Indians, if there were any, would suppose that we were returning to the ship. We did so, and pulled till it was dark, and were within two miles of the brig, where the flood-tide again made strong, when we turned the boat's head up the river, and pulled with the oars to get up as far as we could before we landed. This we did, suffering much from hunger and thirst, as well as being confined so long in one position. As my knee was quite well, I now took off the bandage, and hung my diamond round my neck as before. I could not help feeling a satisfaction, when I thought that the thief of a captain little imagined what a mine of wealth he was losing when he turned me adrift. It was about midnight when the tide ceased to flow, and we then agreed to land, and the question then was, whether we should separate or keep together. After some discussion, we agreed to separate in twos, and the Portuguese captain and I agreed to keep each other company. We first pushed the boat into the stream, that she might drift away, and then, shaking each other by the hand and bidding adieu, we all started in different directions. For some time the captain and I threaded the woods in silence, when we were stopped by a stream of deep water, with such high banks, that in the dark we did not know how to cross it. We walked by the side of it for some time to discover a passage, and in so doing we at last found ourselves again on the banks of the river, and our boat lying close to us, having grounded not far from where we had shoved her off. We tasted the water in the creek, and found it quite fresh: we had several times tried it on the river, and found it quite salt from the tide running in. We drank plentifully, and sat down to recover ourselves, for although we had not walked more than half an hour, the pushing through the brush-wood was very fatiguing. "I think," said I, "that this boat will certainly betray us, and would it not be better to take possession of it again? It will hold two comfortably, and I think we shall get on as well, if not better, in a boat than in the woods without compass and without guide." "I agree with you," said the captain; "but what shall we do?" "Let us retrace our steps; let us pull again, with the ebb-tide, for the mouth of the river, and then coast it along shore; we may arrive at some settlement, if we do not starve by the way." "I agree with you," he said, "it will be the best plan; we must conceal ourselves in the day, and coast along at night." We waded into the river, got into the boat, and again pulled out. The boat being light now pulled well, and we made good speed; and at daylight we were clear of the river, and close to a small island near the mouth of it. Upon this we agreed to land, to try if we could procure food, for we were much exhausted, and also to conceal ourselves from the natives. We ran our little boat on shore, and concealed her among some bushes which grew down at the water's edge. We looked well round, but could see nothing, and we then walked out in search of food; we found some wild plums, which we eagerly devoured; and going down again to the beach, where there were some rocks, we found shell-fish, of which we broke the shells between two stones, and made a meal of. After our hunger was satisfied, we lay down under the shelter of the boat, and fell fast asleep. We were so tired that we did not wake up till it was nearly dark, when we agreed to start again, and pull along the coast to the northward. We were just launching our boat, when we perceived a canoe about three miles off, steering for the mouth of the river to the island. This stopped us, and we remained in our hiding-place. The canoe approached, steering directly for the spot where we lay concealed, and we imagined that they had discovered us. Such, however, proved not to be the case, for they ran on shore about fifty yards from us, and, hauling up the canoe, they got out and walked away on land. There were four men, but it was now too dark to distinguish any more. We remained quiet for a quarter of an hour, when I proposed that we should embark. "Have you ever managed a canoe?" said the Portuguese captain to me. "I have been in one in Africa very often," I said, "but they are dug-outs, as we call them." "So have I, and I do not think there is so difference between them and these canoes. Can you paddle?" "Yes," I replied. "So can I," he said. "Now observe, the best thing we can do is to take possession of that canoe; and then we shall get on better, for our boat will always attract notice, whereas a canoe will not; besides, it will prevent these Indians, if they are come to look for us, which I suspect they have, from following us." "I think you are right," I said; "but how shall we manage?" "In this way. You shall shove off our boat and walk by its side, dragging it up to where the canoe lies; I will go to the canoe, launch it, and then we will make off with both till we are too far out to be taken; then, when we have got into the canoe, we will turn our boat adrift." I agreed to the proposals. We launched our boat very quietly, and I walked in the water up to my knees, drawing it after me till I arrived opposite to the canoe. The Portuguese crept on his hands and knees till he had gained the canoe, pushed her off, and joined me. We made her fast to the tow-rope of our own boat, then got into the boat, and pulled away from the island. We had not gained more than a hundred yards when the whiz of an arrow met our ears. The Indians had discovered us, it was evident. Two or three more arrows came flying by us, but we had now got well out, and they fell harmless. We continued to pull till we were half a mile from the island, and then we laid on our oars. The stars shone bright; there was a young moon, so as to enable us to see pretty well. We found the paddles of the canoe lying on the cross-pieces. We had nothing to take from the boat but our tow-rope and the two small oars; these we put into the canoe, and then, getting in ourselves, we let the boat go adrift. We put her head to the northward, between the island and the main, and paddled away as fast as we could. The captain was a much better hand than I was, and he therefore took the office of steersman. The water was as smooth as glass, and we made rapid progress, and did not discontinue our exertions, except now and then resting for a few moments, till the morning dawned, when we could hardly distinguish the island we had left, and found ourselves about five miles from the mainland. We had now time to examine the contents of the canoe, and had much reason to be gratified with our acquisition. It had three bear-skins at the bottom, several pounds of yams, cooked and uncooked, two calabashes full of water, bows and arrows, three spears, a tomahawk, three fishing-lines and hooks, and some little gourds full of black, white, and red paint; and, what we prized more than all, some flints and a large rusty nail, with rotten wood to serve as tinder. "We are fortunate," said the captain; "now, before we pull in for the shore we must paint ourselves like Indians; at all events, you must black yourself, as you have no shirt, and I must do the same, although I do not require it so much as you do." "Let us have something to eat and drink first," replied I, "and we will proceed to our toilet afterwards." CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. MY ADVENTURES WITH THE INDIANS, WITH WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PORTUGUESE CAPTAIN, MY COMPANION. Having eaten some venison, and drunk out of the calabash, the captain painted me black, with here and there a line of red and white on the face and shoulders. I performed the same duty towards him, and we then resumed our paddles, and pushed in a slanting direction for the shore. The tide now ran down against us, and we could hardly stem it, and finding ourselves opposite a beach clear of trees for a quarter of a mile, we agreed to run on shore to look for a large stone. We soon found one which answered our purpose, and, paddling off again to three or four hundred yards, we made the stone fast to the bow-rope of our boat, and anchored the canoe with it. Having succeeded in this, we got out the fishing-lines, and, with a piece of raw meat as a bait, we soon had several fish in the canoe; after which we put on no more baits, but pretended to fish till the tide slacked, when we lifted our anchor and recommenced our paddling to the northward. At night we landed on a rock, close to the beach, having well reconnoitred before it was dark, to see if there were any canoes or Indians to be seen on the shore; and thus we continued for five days, during which we passed the mouths of one or two rivers, and had gained, as we supposed, more that 150 miles along the coast, but how much to the northward we could not tell, as we followed the windings of the shore. We were twice obliged to land to obtain water, but we always did so in the daytime, having taken the precaution to black the whole of our bodies and take off our trousers before we landed. Our deer's flesh was all gone, and we continued to live on fish, cooking as much as we could at one time. The collecting fire-wood was the great risk which we ran; for we were then obliged to land where there was wood. It was on the sixth day that we were first in danger. As we rounded a point, we fell in with another canoe with six or seven people in it. They were not more than 800 yards off when we first saw them. The Indians stood up in the canoe, looked at us very earnestly, and then, perceiving that we were not of their tribe, I presume, pulled towards us. We immediately turned and pulled away. They had been fishing, and two of them were pulling up the lines, while the others paddled, which gave us a little advantage; but they had three paddles and we had only two. They shouted and paddled with all their might, but they gained little, as they were seven in the canoe, five men and two women, and deep in consequence. As they gained slowly upon us, notwithstanding all our exertions, the Portuguese said to me, "They have no weapons in the boat, I should think; if they had, they would use them, for we are within bow-shot. Can you use a bow and arrow?" "I could once," replied I, "use it very fairly;" for when I was captive with Whyna, she would often practise the bow and arrow with me, and I became somewhat expert before I left her. "Well, then," said he, "let me paddle on, and do you put an arrow in the bow and threaten them, at all events." I did so, and stood up, taking aim as if about to shoot, at which they ceased paddling, and after talking a little they turned the head of their canoe round, and made for the shore. We proceeded, as may be imagined, with all diligence. I laid down my bow and arrows and resumed my paddle, and in an hour we could no longer see our late pursuers. We continued our voyage, and for three days met with no further adventures, when about noon, on the fourth day, the sky became overcast, and there was every prospect of rough weather. Before night the wind and sea rose, and it was no longer possible for us to keep along the coast, which already was covered with breakers. We had therefore no remedy but to make for the shore and haul up the canoe, for we could not perceive any inlet which might shelter us. It was quite dark when we dashed the canoe through the breakers and landed. We hauled her up some distance, as there was every appearance of worse weather, and sheltered ourselves under the lee of a high rock. The wind now blew fiercely, and rain descended in torrents. We tried to light a fire to warm ourselves, but could not succeed, so we lay down on one bear-skin, and covered ourselves with the others, waiting impatiently for daylight. When the day dawned the weather was worse than ever. We now looked out for a better place of concealment for ourselves and our canoe, and found one at about fifty yards' distance: between two high rocks there was a narrow cleft or passage, which was large enough for us and for the canoe, and this hid us both from the storm and from the sea. Into this cleft we hauled our canoe and withdrew ourselves, making a meal off some fish we roasted on the embers. We remained there for two days, when the weather moderated, but the sea was still too rough for us to launch the canoe; so we decided upon remaining one day more, although our provisions were all gone and our calabashes quite empty. On the third day, to our great surprise and alarm, we heard the report of a musket not far from us. From this we knew that we could not be very far from the English settlements, for it was only the Indians near to the settlements who had obtained muskets. But whether it was an Indian or a white man who fired we could not, of course, tell. I recollected that, in the last advices we had had from James Town, our factors had stated that there was a cruel war carried on between the Indians and the settlers, and that the Indians had ravaged the plantations; but that was two years ago, and how it might be now it was impossible to tell. A second report of a musket still nearer induced me to creep along by the side of the rock, and look out to see if any one was near. To my great alarm, I perceived five Indians with muskets not a hundred yards off. I drew back, as I hoped, unperceived, but the eye of an Indian was too keen. They had discovered me; and whilst I was relating to the Portuguese captain what I had seen, they were suddenly upon us. We had no time to make resistance, even if we were inclined so to do; we therefore sat still. They came up and looked at us. The wet had washed off a great portion of the paint upon my back and shoulders. One of the Indians touched me on the shoulder, and said, "Ugh!--white man paint like Indian." They then examined the canoe and its contents, and, having spoken a few words to each other, apparently relating to the canoe, they put a thong of leather round each of our arms, and, making a motion for us to follow them, they led us away. "We've done our best, and could do no more," said the Portuguese; "I feel that it's all over with me now, and I shall soon sleep in the bosom of Jesus." My heart was too full to make any reply. The Indians led on, and I followed in silence. We passed through the woods, which appeared to be interminable, till the night closed in, and then the Indians halted, and while one remained as guard over us the others collected wood for a fire. They had some provisions, but offered none to us. After an hour they lay down to sleep round the fire, placing me and the Portuguese captain next to the fire, and lying outside of us. They were soon fast asleep, or appeared to be, when I said to the captain, "Have you your knife? For if they remain asleep, let us wait an hour or so, and if you can cut the leather thong which the Indian holds in his hand, and then watch your opportunity, I will do the same, and we may escape." "I have my knife, but my Indian is not asleep," replied he; "I will wait till he is." "What signal shall we make if we succeed?" said I. "When you are ready, lift your arm up,--I shall understand,--and if I am ready I will do the same. Agreed; and now let us be quiet, for depend upon it our conversation has roused them all." We then composed ourselves, as if to sleep, and remained in that way for more than an hour, by which time we were convinced that our captors were slumbering. I then drew out my knife, for the Indians had not attempted to rifle us, and cut the thong which was round my arm, without awaking the Indian who had the other end in his hand. I remained quiet for a quarter of an hour, when the Portuguese lifted up his arm as a signal that he was free. I listened attentively, and, being certain that the Indians were asleep, I lifted up my arm also. The Portuguese then rose up carefully, and without noise, stepping past the bodies of the Indians, till he was clear of the circle. I did the same, and pointed to the muskets, which lay on the grass by the Indians. He took one up and I another and we retreated to a short distance. "We must have the other muskets," said I; "stay where you are." I advanced cautiously and took up the other three muskets, and was retreating with them, when one of the Indians turned round as if awaking. I ran past, the Portuguese, and making a sign for him to follow me we retreated a few yards into the wood, where we could watch the Indians without being seen ourselves. The Portuguese motioned to be off but I detained him, and I was right. The Indian roused up and sat upon his haunches; perceiving that we had escaped, he waked up the others. They started on their feet, and looking round found that the muskets were all gone; and then they held a consultation. At last they appeared to have made up their minds to follow, and, if possible, recapture us, for they went back in the direction of the sea. "Now, then, we must hide three of the muskets," said I, in a whisper, "and keep the others to defend ourselves." We examined and found that they were all loaded, and the Portuguese then said to me, "There are five of them. If they meet with us, and we discharge two muskets and we do not kill, we shall be at their mercy. If we do kill, still there will be three against two; we had better carry all the muskets. Do you take two, and I will take three." As I thought he was right, I consented, and we now went the same path towards the sea which the Indians had done before us in pursuit of us. We walked fast, as we knew the Indians would do the same, and they had the start of us, so that we were not likely to come up with them. It was severe work, but we did not slacken our pace, and before dawn the sea was quite visible through the branches of the trees, for we had arrived at the outskirts of the wood. As soon as we had gained the beach, which was 500 yards wide, we looked round to see if we could perceive the Indians, but we could observe nobody. "Let us, while it is yet dark, go round so as to get on the opposite side of the rocks where we were concealed," said the Portuguese. "If they are there, we shall take them by surprise." Keeping just within the wood, we walked half a mile to the southward, and then emerged just as the day was breaking, and made for the rocks. As soon as we arrived, we examined very cautiously before we entered the cleft, but there was nobody there, and the canoe was safe. "They are not here," said I; "where can they be?" "They cannot be far off," said the Portuguese; "I suspect they are hidden somewhere, and intend to surprise us while we are launching our canoe, and when our muskets will be out of our hands." "I agree with you; let us now wait at some little distance from the rocks till broad daylight,--we shall then be secure from surprise." We did so, and when the sun rose we looked well round, but could see nobody. We entered the cleft, and were about to lay down the muskets, and lay hold of the canoe, when I perceived a small piece of rock to drop down. This caused me immediately to suspect the truth, and I cried to the Portuguese to come back with me. He did so, and I told him that I was certain that the Indians had climbed the rock, and were lying down on the top of it, ready to pounce upon us. "Depend upon it they must be there," said he, when I mentioned the falling piece of rock; "let us walk round and see if we can discover them." We did so, but they were too well concealed. "But what must be done now?" said he. "It is useless our attempting to clamber to the top of the rock, for no one could do it with a musket in his hand." "No," replied I, "that is certain; and if we attempt to bring the canoe out of the cleft, they may drop down upon us." "I think," said he, "that if we were to go in and take the tow-rope in our hands, which is several yards long, we might haul out the canoe by it, and when once it is clear of the cleft they cannot move without our seeing them." "We will try, at all events," replied I. "Do you stay on the watch while I get hold of the tow-rope and bring it out." The Indians did not expect this manoeuvre, it was clear. Still keeping the muskets in our possession, the butts on the sand, and the muzzles resting on our shoulders, we laid hold of the tow-rope, and by great exertion hauled the canoe several yards away from between the two rocks. We then paused for breath after a minute or two, with our eyes fixed upon the top of the rock to see if they moved, and then we hauled it at least a hundred yards further on, when for the first time I perceived that the bow and arrows were not in the canoe, and that they must have been taken by the Indians. "Then we must haul again," said the Portuguese, when I stated this to him, "till we are out of bow-shot. Let us put the muskets into the canoe, and drag it as fast as we can." We did so, and gained another hundred yards before we stopped, when an arrow was discharged from the summit of the rock, and buried itself in the sand close to my feet. "Haul again," said the Portuguese, "we are not out of shot yet." Again we exerted ourselves, and gained another hundred yards, during which two more arrows were discharged, and one of them went through the left arm of my comrade; but as it was through the fleshy part, and did not touch the bone, it did not disable him. A third arrow was sent after us, but did not reach us, and we knew that we were out of distance. "Cut the shaft of the arrow, and draw it through the arm," said the Portuguese. "Not now," said I; "they will perceive me doing so, and will think that you are disabled. That may induce them to rush upon us, thinking they have only one man to deal with." "Well, it's no great matter," replied he; "we must now drag our canoe down to the water and launch her, if they will let us. We have outwitted them so far." We now turned the head of the canoe towards the sea, and slowly dragged her down; our eyes, as may be supposed, constantly kept upon the rock, to see if the Indians would move, but they did not. They perhaps felt that they had no chance with us, having all the fire-arms and an open beach in our favour. We launched our canoe without further interruption on their part, and in a few minutes, taking care to be out of arrow distance, we passed the rock with our head to the northward. When about two miles off, we perceived the Indians to descend from the rock and walk away into the woods. "Let us praise God for this miraculous escape," said I to the Portuguese. "I do; and the holy patron saint who has preserved me," replied the Portuguese captain; "but I am still heavy at heart. I feel that we have escaped only to come into more strange and fresh calamity. I shall never get back to Lisbon,--that I feel convinced of." I tried all I could to encourage him, but it was of no avail, he told me that the presentiment was too strong, and could not be overcome by any argument. Indeed, he appeared to have allowed the idea so to have taken possession of his mind, that his reason became enervated; and, having heard how the Indians burnt their prisoners, he talked about martyrdom at the stake, and rising up to heaven in great glory, there to be received by the whole body of saints and legions of angels. "What is the use of our thus labouring at the paddle?" said he; "why not at once let us go ashore and receive the crown of martyrdom? I am ready; for I long for the hour, and shall rejoice." I said all I could to keep him quiet, but it was useless; and such was his insanity, that he gradually neared the shore by steering against me with his paddle, so that I could not prevent it. I had drawn the shaft of the arrow through his arm, and he appeared to feel no pain. I expostulated with him at his keeping the canoe so near the shore, but he smiled and gave no reply. We had the stream against us and made but little way, and it vexed me very much to hear him talk so loud as he did, as the Indians must have heard him, and I thought would follow us along the coast; but he ransacked the whole book of martyrs, telling me how one had his body sawn in two, another was pinched to death; this one burnt, that tortured; every variety of death he entered upon during the whole of that day without ceasing. I ascribed much of this to the pain arising from the wounded arm, notwithstanding which he paddled with as much vigour as ever. As the night came on I entreated him to hold his tongue, but it was in vain, and I felt assured that his reason was quite gone. He continued to talk loud and rave without intermission, and I now considered our fate as sealed. We had no water in the boat or provisions of any kind, and I proposed that we should heave-to and catch some fish, telling him that if he talked we should scare them away. This made him quiet for a time, but as soon as we had hooked four or five fish, he again commenced his history of the glorious martyrs. I prayed him to be silent, for a short time at least, and he was so for about four or five minutes, when he would break out into some ejaculation, which I immediately stopped. At last he could talk no more for want of water; his lips were glued together, and so were mine. Nevertheless, I continued paddling for two hours more, when I found by the canoe grounding that he had steered her on the beach. There was no help for it. We landed and went in search of water, which we found about half of a mile from where our canoe was beached. We drank heartily, filled the calabash, and were returning to the canoe, when he again commenced talking as loud as ever. I was in great anger, but I put my hand before his mouth, beseeching him in a whisper to be quiet. As we were doing this, we were suddenly sprung upon and seized by several Indians, and in a minute were bound hands and feet. "I knew it," cried the Portuguese; "I knew it would be so. Well, I am prepared; are not you, my good friend?" I made no reply. I felt that in his madness he had sacrificed his own life and mine also; but it was the will of Heaven. The Indians left two to guard us, and went down to the canoe, returning with their muskets. I soon perceived that they were the same whom we had escaped from the night before, and the one who had spoken a little English when we were first captured, now came to me and said, "White man paint like Indian, steal gun--ugh." When the Indians had returned from the canoe, our feet were unbound, and we were again led away by the leather thong which was fast to our arms. The Portuguese now began to find his tongue again, and talked incessantly, the Indians not checking him; from which it was evident that they were on their own domains. After four hours' walking they kindled a fire, and went to repose as before: but this time they took our knives from us, and bound our legs so tight that they gave us much pain. I did not expostulate as I knew it was useless. My companion, as the thong entered into his flesh, seemed pleased, saying, "Now my martyrdom is commencing." Alas! Poor man--but I will not anticipate. We travelled three days, during which we were supplied with a small portion of parched Indian corn every day, just sufficient for our sustenance, and no more. On the fourth morning the Indians, after an hour's travelling, set up some shrill and barbarous cries which I afterwards discovered was their war-whoop. These cries were replied to by others at a distance, and in about a quarter of an hour afterwards we found ourselves close to a number of wigwams, as they are termed, (the Indian houses,) and soon surrounded by a large party of men, women, and children, who greeted us with taunts and menaces. We were led into a larger wigwam than the others, where we found several Indians of grave aspect assembled, and a man who could speak English was ordered in as interpreter, he asked us where we came from in the canoe. I replied, that we came from the south, but we had been wrecked in a big ship, and had taken the canoe, which we found on the beach. They asked no more questions. We were led out, and in about an hour afterwards the Indians who had spoken English to us when we were captured, came up with two others and painted us black, saying, "The white men like paint. Black paint good." I did not know till afterwards that this painting black was a sign that we were condemned to death, but so it was. They took off our trousers, the only garment we had on, and left us naked. To my surprise, they did not take the diamond which was sewed up in leather from off my neck; but, as I learnt subsequently, the Indians are much given to conjurors and charms, wearing many round their own necks and about their persons, and they respect the charms that their enemies wear, indeed are afraid of them, lest they should be harmed by having them in their possession. We remained in a wigwam during that day, with guards over us. The following day we were led out and cast loose, and we found all the Indians, women and children, ranged in two lines, each holding in their hands a club or stick, or rod of some description or another. We were led to the end of the row, and looked about us in amazement. They made signs to us which we did not understand, and while we were remaining in doubt as to what was to be our fate, an old woman, who had been menacing and grinning at me for some time, and who was the most hideous animal that I ever beheld in the shape of a woman, thrust a straw into my eye, giving me most excruciating agony. I was so carried away by rage and pain, that I saluted her with a kick in the stomach, which laid her doubled up on the ground, expecting to be scalped for so doing the next moment. On the contrary, the Indians laughed, while some of the other women dragged her away. At last the interpreter came, and from him we learnt that we had to run the gauntlet, and that, as soon as we gained the large lodge where we had been examined by the old Indians on the day previous, we were safe, and that we must run for that as fast as we could. The Portuguese, who was still as mad as ever, was then pushed on; he would not run, but walked glorying in the blows, which showered down upon him like hail; and, moreover, he prevented me from running for some time, till I got past him. I had been cruelly punished, and was mad with pain, when I perceived a tall, gaunt Indian waiting for me with a heavy club. Careless of life or consequences, I rushed past him, and as I passed I threw out my fist with such impetus, that, hitting him under the right ear, he fell senseless, and it appears that he never rose again, for the blow killed him; after which I at last gained the council-house, and was soon afterwards followed by my companion, who was streaming with blood. We were then led away, and tied by our necks to two stakes about twenty yards apart, and there we remained for the night. The Portuguese passed the night in singing; I passed it in silence and prayer. I felt convinced that we were to die, and I feared that it would be by fire or torture, for I had heard something of the manners and customs of these Indians. I made my peace with God as well as a poor sinner could, prayed for mercy through Jesus Christ, sighed my adieu to Amy, and made up my mind to die. Early the next morning the Indians brought fire-wood, and placed it in bundles round the stakes, at a distance of about fourteen yards from the centre. They then went to the Portuguese, tied his hands behind him, and exchanged the rope by which he had been fastened for a much stronger one, one end of which they fastened to his wrists behind him, and the other to the stake. As they left me as I was before, it was plain that the Portuguese was to suffer first. They then set fire to the piles of wood which were round the stake, which were too far from him to burn him, and I could not imagine what they intended to do, but you may conceive that I was in a state of awful suspense and anxiety, as I was well convinced that his fate, whatever it might be, would be my own. During these appalling preparations, the Portuguese appeared as if he really enjoyed the scene. "Now, my good friend," said he to me, "you shall see how I can suffer for the true faith. Even a heretic like you shall be converted by my example, and I shall ascend to heaven with you in my arms. Come on, ye fiends; come on, ye heathens, and see how a Christian can suffer." Much as I felt for him and for myself, I could not lament that his reason had left him, as I thought his sufferings would be less; but his exclamations were soon drowned by a loud yell from the Indians, who all rushed upon my unfortunate companion. For a moment or two they were crowded so thick round him that I could not perceive what they were doing, but after that they separated, and I beheld him bleeding profusely, his ears and nose having been cut off and a broken iron ramrod passed through both cheeks. And now a scene took place, at the remembrance of which, even now, my blood curdles. Some caught up the burning sticks and applied them to his flesh, others stuck him full of small splints, the ends of which they lighted. The Indian warriors shot at him with muskets loaded with powder only, so as to burn him terribly on every part of the body. The women took up handfuls of lighted ashes and showered them down on him, so that the ground he trod upon was a mass of burning embers, and he walked upon fire. Red-hot irons were now brought forward, and his body seared in all parts, his tormentors seeking out where they could give him the most pain. At last one applied the hot iron to his eyes, and burnt them out. Imagine my feelings at this horrid scene--imagine the knowledge that this was to be also my fate in a short time, but what is more strange to tell, imagine, Madam, my companion not only deriding his torturers, but not flinching from the torture; on the contrary, praising God for his goodness in thus allowing him to be a martyr for the true faith, offering his body to their inflictions, and shouting manfully; but such was the behaviour of my insane friend, and this behaviour appeared to give great satisfaction to the Indians. For nearly two hours did this torture continue, his body was black and bloody all over, and the smell of the burning flesh was horrible; but by this time it appeared as if he was much exhausted, and, indeed, appeared to be almost insensible to pain. He walked round the stake as before upon the burning coals, but appeared not to know when further torture was applied to him or not. He now sang hymns in Portuguese in a low voice, for he was much exhausted. Soon afterwards he staggered and fell down with his face upon the burning embers; but even the flesh of his face grilling, as it were, appeared to have no effect upon him. An Indian then went up to him, and with his knife cut a circle round his head, and tore off the whole scalp, flesh and hair together, and when he had done this the old woman whom I had saluted with a kick before I ran the gauntlet, and who had his ears hanging on her neck to a string, lifted up a handful of burning coals, and put them upon his bleeding head. This seemed to rouse him. He lifted up his head, but his features were no longer to be distinguished, as his face was burnt to a black coal, and he said, "Take me, ye holy saints,--Angels, receive me," and, to my great astonishment, he again rose on his legs, and tottered round and round for a few minutes. At last he sank down, with his back against the stake, and one of the Indians cleaved his brain with his tomahawk; and thus ended the life and the misery of my unfortunate companion--and it was now my turn. "Well," thought I, "it is but two hours of suffering, and then I shall be beyond their malice. May God have mercy upon my soul." The same preparations were now made for me. I was fastened with the stout rope, and my arms tied behind me, the wood was fired, and one of the chiefs was haranguing the Indians. He finished, the low yell was given, when the old woman whom I had before mentioned, ran up to me, and, saying something which I could not understand, put her hand upon me. When she did this the other Indians, who were about to rush on me, drew back with signs of disappointment on many of their wild countenances. The chiefs then went into the council-house, leaving me tied where I was, and the wood burning around me, the mass of Indians standing about as if waiting the decision of the chiefs. After a time three Indians, one of whom was the interpreter, came up to me, and, kicking aside the burning poles, cast me loose. I asked the interpreter what he was about to do. He replied, "You kill Indian here, (pointing to his own ear,) you kill him dead. Squaw lose husband--want another--take you--stead of him." They led me to the council-house before the chiefs. The old woman whom I had kicked was there. It was her husband that I had killed by the blow behind the ear, and she had claimed me in his stead, and, according to the custom of the country, her claim was allowed, and I was made over to her, and received into the tribe. Strange custom for a woman to marry the murderer of her husband, but still such it was, and thus did I find myself freed from the stake when I least expected it. The principal chief made me a speech, which was interpreted, in which he told me that I was now the husband of Manou, and was one of their own tribe; that I must be strong in war, and must hunt and procure venison for my family. They then washed off the black paint, and after a few more speeches and ceremonies I was handed over to the hideous old hag, whose neck was still decorated with the two ears of my companion. To say that I would have preferred the torture would be saying too much, but that I loathed the creature to excess was certain. However, I said nothing, but allowed her to take me by the hand and lead me to her wigwam. As soon as we were in she brought me some venison, which I ate greedily, for I had had nothing for thirty-six hours. She then offered me the leggings, as they call them, which the Indians wear, and the other portions of the Indian dress, which probably belonged to her late husband. I put them on, as I was glad to cover my nakedness, and, worn out with walking and exertion, I first thanked God for my miraculous preservation, and then lay down and fell into a deep sleep. It was not until the next day that I awoke, and I then perceived the old woman rubbing oil upon the deep cuts made in my wrists and shoulders by the leather thongs. She again set meat before me, and I ate heartily, but I looked upon her with abhorrence, and when she attempted to fondle me I turned away and spit with disgust, at which she retired, grumbling. I now had leisure to reflect. I passed over with a shudder the scenes that had passed, and again returned thanks to God for my deliverance. I called to mind how often I had been preserved and delivered. From my bondage in Africa, from my imprisonment in the Tower, from my hopeless slavery in the mines, from our wreck on the island, and now, after passing through such dangers, from an almost certain cruel death by torture! Truly did I feel how grateful I ought to be for that Providence which had often preserved me, and that my only reliance in future must be in its gracious protection. But here I was, married to a woman I detested, and living with barbarians; and I said to myself, "That kind Heaven which has already done so much for me will, in its own good time, also release me from this thraldom. In the mean while let me not murmur, but be thankful." My squaw, as they call their wives among the Indians, now came up to me and offered to paint me, and I thought it advisable that she should, as I felt that the sooner I conformed myself to their customs the more chance I had of making my escape, which I was resolved to do the first opportunity. As soon as she had completed my toilet I walked out of the wigwam, that I might look about me and be seen. The Indians, who were sauntering about, met me with a friendly "Ugh," which appeared a favourite monosyllable with them. At last I met with the interpreter, and began to converse with him. I asked what nation I was now belonging to, and he said the Massowomicks. I asked how large their country was, and he told me much which I could not understand, except that it appeared to me a very powerful nation. I was very careful of mentioning the English, or anything about their settlement, although I was anxious to know where it was; but I asked him whether they were at war with any other nation. He said, "No, they had been at war with other tribes, but that they had all made peace that they might join against the white man, who had taken their land." "I am an Indian now," said I. "Yes, and you will forget the white man," said he. "You have now red blood in your veins. You marry Indian wife, you all the same as one Indian." I said, "War Indian beat his wife, suppose she talk too much?" "Plenty talk, plenty beat," said he. "Suppose my wife talk too much and I beat her, what Indian people say?" "Say good. Suppose wife too old, you take two wife, one more young." I was very much pleased with this conversation; not that I had the slightest idea of profiting by his information by taking another wife, but I felt such a disgust at my present one, and had already seen what a fury she could be, that I was resolved, if necessary, to show her that I was master, for I felt certain that if I did not, she would soon attempt to master me and so it turned out. On the third day she took down a bow and arrows and made a sign to me to go out, and, I presumed, bring back food; and as there was nothing in the house I thought the request reasonable. I therefore went out of the wigwam and found that many of the young men were going out on a hunting-party, and that I was to join them. We set off and travelled for six hours before we came to the hunting-ground, and as the deer passed me I thought of Whyna and my hunting excursions with her. I was, however, fortunate, and killed two deer, much to the surprise of the Indians, who thought a white man could not use a bow and arrows, and I rose very much in their estimation in consequence. The deer was cut up, and we hung upon branches what we could not carry. We did not go home that night, but feasted over a large fire. The next morning we all carried home our loads, and mine was as large as any of the others, if not larger; neither did I flag on the way, for I was naturally very strong and active, and had lately been inured to fatigue. When we arrived, the squaws and men among the others were despatched for the remainder of the venison. I now went out every day by myself and practised with my bow, till I had become more expert, for I wanted practice. I had no musket, but I had a tomahawk and a long knife. I began to pick up a few words of the language, and by means of the interpreter I gained them very fast. Before I had been three months with the Indians I had acquired their confidence and respect. They found that I was expert, and able to gain my own livelihood, and I may add that before I had been three months I had also mastered my wife. When she found that I would not submit to her caresses, she was very indignant and very violent, but I immediately knocked her down, and beat her unmercifully. This brought her to her senses, and after that I treated her as my slave with great rigour, and as she was a notorious scold the Indians liked me all the better for it. You may think that this was not fair treatment towards a woman who had saved my life; but she only saved it for her own purposes, and would have worn my ears, as well as my companion's, if I had not killed her husband. The fact is, I had no alternative; I must have either treated her kindly and submitted to her nauseous endearments, or have kept her at a respectful distance by severity, and I hardly need say that I preferred the latter. So far as her choice of a husband was concerned, she made a bad one, for she received nothing but blows and bad usage. I had one day driven my wife out of the wigwam in consequence of her presuming to "talk too much," as the Indian said, when the interpreter told me that one of the chiefs was willing that I should marry his daughter, polygamy being one of their customs. I was very much annoyed at this, for I knew the young girl very well: she was very graceful and very pretty; and I felt that my fidelity to Amy would be in great danger if the marriage was to take place; and if proposed, I dared not refuse so great a distinction. I replied that I was fortunate, but that I feared my present wife would make her very unhappy, as she wanted to be the chief woman of the wigwam, and when I was away I could not tell what the old woman might do to her, and the conversation was dropped. This little Indian had, before this, shown me as much favour as an Indian girl ever ventures to show, sufficient, at all events, to satisfy me that I was not disagreeable to her, and what the interpreter had said made me very uncomfortable. However, I consoled myself with the recollection that if I were compelled to marry this girl, it would be an involuntary infidelity on my part, and on that account might well be excused; for the hope of again rejoining Amy never left me at any time. One day I went out in search of deer, and was led away from my companions after a buck which I had wounded and attempted to overtake. They saw me in chase of my quarry, and left me in pursuit. I followed for several hours, continually coming up with it and as continually losing it again. At last, I heard the report of a musket close to where the deer was last seen by me, and I thought that some Indian had shot it. I walked forward, however, very cautiously, and perceived a white man standing by the animal, which lay at his feet. I started back, for I did not know whether I had fallen in with a friend or a foe; but as I knew that he had not had time to reload his musket, I hallooed to him, concealing myself at the same time behind a tree. "Is that you, Evans?" said the man in reply. "No," said I, "it is an Englishman." "Well, show yourself, then," said he. "I am dressed as an Indian," replied I; "I was taken by the Indians." "Well, come along," said the man, who was attired as a seafaring man. I came from behind the tree, and when he saw me he snatched up his musket. "Don't be afraid," said I. "Afraid!" said he; "I should like to see what I am afraid of; but I'll be on my guard." "That's right," I replied. I then told him that I had been taken by the Indians, and they saved my life because one of their women chose me as her husband, and that I was anxious to escape from them. "Well," said he, "I am on board of a schooner at anchor down below in the river. There are a few of us come on shore to get some venison, and I have lost my comrades; but I had no idea that the Indians were down here so close to the English settlements." "How close are we, then?" said I; "for I know not where I am. This is certainly not our usual hunting-ground, for I have been led many miles from it, in pursuit of the animal you have just shot." "Well, I thought so; for I have been on shore here more than once, and I have never met with an Indian. You ask how far you are from the settlement; that I can hardly tell you, because the settlers have spread out so far; but you are about forty or fifty miles from James Town." "And what river, then, is your schooner at anchor in?" "I don't know the name," replied the man; "I'm not sure that it has a name. We come here for wood and water, because it is quiet, not inhabited, and no questions asked." "What are you, then?" inquired I. "Why, to tell you the truth, we are what are called `Jolly Rovers;' and if you have a mind to come on board, we can find a berth for you, I dare say." "Many thanks," replied I; "but I am not sufficiently fond of the sea, and I should be of no use," (for by this term of Jolly Rover I knew that they were pirates). "That's as you please," replied he; "no harm's done." "No," replied I; "and I thank you for your kind offer, but I cannot live long on board of a vessel. Will you now tell me which is the right track to the English plantations?" "Why," said he, "they bear right out in that direction; and I dare say, if you travel five or six leagues, you will fall aboard of some plantation or another--right in that quarter; follow your nose, old fellow, and you can't go wrong." "Many thanks," I replied; "am I likely to meet your companions?--they may take me for an Indian." "Not in that direction," replied he; "they were astern of me a long way." "Farewell, then, and many thanks," I replied. "Good-bye, old fellow; and the sooner you rub off that paint, the sooner you'll look like a Christian," said the careless rover, as I walked away. "No bad advice," I thought, for I was now determined to make for the English settlements as fast as I could, "and I will do so when I once see an English habitation, but not before; I may fall in with Indians yet." I then set off as fast as I could, and being now inured to running for a long time without stopping, I left the rover a long way behind me in a very short time. I continued my speed till it was dark, when I heard the barking of a dog, which I knew was English, for the Indian dogs do not bark. I then proceeded cautiously and in the direction where I heard the dog bark, and arrived in a quarter of an hour to a cleared ground, with a rail fence round it. "Thank God!" I cried, "that I am at last among my own countrymen." I considered, however, that it would not be prudent to show myself, especially in my Indian paint, at such a time of night, and I therefore sat down under the lee-side of a large tree, and remained there till morning. I then looked about for water, and having found a running stream I washed off my paint, and appeared what I really was, a white man in an Indian dress. I then went up again to the clearing, and looked for the habitation, which I discovered on the top of a hill, about four hundred yards off. The trees were cleared away for about three hundred yards all round it. It was built of heavy logs, let into one another, with one window only, and that very small. The door was still shut. I walked up to it, and tapped at the door. "Who's there?" replied a hoarse voice. "An Englishman, and a stranger," I replied. "I have just escaped from the Indians." "We'll see what you are in a very short time," replied the voice. "James, get me my gun." In a minute the door opened, and I beheld a woman more than six feet high, of gaunt appearance and large dimensions: I thought that I had never seen such a masculine creature before. It was her voice which I had heard. Two men were seated by the fire-place. "Who are you?" said she, with the musket ready for the present. I told her in a few words. "Show me the palm of your hand--turn it up at once." I did so, without the least idea of the reason for the demand; but I afterwards discovered that it was to ascertain whether I was one of those who had been transported to the settlement, as they all had the letter R branded on them. "Oh, you're not a gaol-bird, then, I see: you may come in; but you'll give me that bow and arrows if you please." "Certainly," replied I, "if you wish it." "Why, there's nothing like making sure in this world; and although you look a very peaceable, good-looking sort of personage, notwithstanding your Indian set-out, still I've known just as amiable people as you, in appearance, very mischievous at times. Now come in, and let us hear what you have to say for yourself. Jeykell, get some more wood." One man went out to obey her orders; the other sat by the fire with his musket between his knees. I sat down by the fire, at the request of the woman, who had seated herself by the side of the man, and then, on her repeating her question, I gave her a narrative of my adventures, from the time that I left Rio. "Well," says she, "we seldom hear stories like them; it's all the world like a book; and pray what's that thing (pointing to the diamond in its case) you have hanging to your neck there? You have left that out in your history." "That's a charm given me by my Indian wife, to preserve me from disasters from wild animals; no panther, wolf, or bear will ever attack me." "Well," said she, "if so be it has that power, all I can say is, it's not a bad charm to wear in these parts, for there are animals enough in the woods in summer, and round the house all night in winter; but I don't believe a bit in the charm, and that's the truth; however, if it does no good, it can't do no harm, so you may keep it on, and welcome." "May I ask how far it is to James Town?" said I. "What, going to James Town already? I suppose you expect to be there to-night?" "Not exactly, my good woman," replied I. "I must trespass upon your kindness to give me something to eat, for I am hungry." "Good woman! Bah! And pray how dare you call me good woman? Call me mistress, if you want anything." "I beg your pardon," said I. "Well, then, mistress; will you give me something to eat?" "Yes, I will. James, fetch the meal-cake and a bit of salt pork, and give him to eat, while I call the cows from the bush." The mistress, as I shall in future call her, then put down her musket and left the cabin. During her absence I entered into conversation with the man called James, for the other had gone out. To my inquiry how far it was to James Town, he replied that he really did not know; that he was sent out a convict, and sold for ten years to the husband of the mistress, who had died two years ago; that this man had a small vessel, in which he went to James Town by water, and that he had returned with him in his vessel; that the distance by water he considered about one hundred and fifty miles, but by land it was not half that distance; that he did not know the way, nor did he believe that there was any road as yet made to James Town, as this plantation was quite by itself, and a long way from any other. He understood that the nearest plantation was twenty miles off, and he knew there was no road to it, as no one ever went or came except by water. "But," said I, "are not the settlers at war with the Indian tribes that surround them?" "Yes; and have been now for three or four years; and the Indians have done great mischief to the plantations, and killed a great many people, but the settlers have punished them severely." "Then how is it that this plantation, which is so solitary, has not been attacked?" "Because the mistress's husband was a great friend of the Indians, and, it is said, used to bring them cargoes of muskets and ammunition from James Town, contrary to all law and regulation. But if he was friendly with them, the mistress is not; for she has quarrelled with the principal chief, and I should not be surprised if we were attacked some day, and all scalped." "And what does the mistress say to that?" "Oh, she don't care; she'd fight a hundred Indians, or white men either. I never saw such a creature--she's afraid of nothing." "Who is the other man I saw here?" "Oh, he's another like myself. There were three of us, but one was drowned by falling overboard from the sloop." "Well, but my good fellow, how shall I get to James Town?" "I'm sure I can't tell; but my idea is that you will never get there unless mistress chooses." "Why, surely she won't detain me by force?" "Won't she?--you don't know her. Why she'd stop an army," replied the man. "I don't think that she will let you go--I don't know; but that's my opinion. She wants another hand." "What, do you mean to say that she'll make me work?" "I mean to say that, according to the laws of the settlement, she has a right to detain you. Any person found roving here, who cannot give a satisfactory account of himself, may be detained till something is heard about him; for he may be a runaway convict, or a runaway apprentice, which is much the same, after all. Now, she may say that your account of yourself is not satisfactory, and therefore she detained you; and if you won't work, she won't give you to eat; so there you are." "Well, we will see if she is able." "Able! If you mean strong enough, why she'd take you up with one hand; and she is as resolute and severe as she is strong. I had rather have to deal with three men, and that's the truth." "What's the truth, James?" cried the mistress, coming in at the door. "Let's hear the truth from your lips, it will be something new." "I said that I was sent here for finding a pocket-book, mistress; that's all." "Yes; but you did not tell him where you found it--at the bottom of a gentleman's coat-pocket, you know. You can only tell the truth by halves yet, I see." Wishing to ascertain how far the man's suspicions were correct, I said to her: "I have good friends in James Town: if I were once there I could procure money and anything else to any amount that I required." "Well," says she, "you may have; but I'm afraid that the post don't go out to-day. One would think, after all your wanderings and difficulties, that you'd be glad to be quiet a little, and remain here; so we'll talk about James Town some time about next spring." "Indeed, mistress, I hope you will not detain me here. I can pay you handsomely, on my arrival at James Town, for your kind treatment and any trouble you may take for me." "Pay me! What do I want with money?--there's no shops here with ribbons, and calicoes, and muslims; and if there were, I'm not a fine madam. Money! Why I've no child to leave what I have to--no husband to spend it for me. I have bags and bags of dollars, young man, which my husband heaped up, and they are of as much use to me as they are now to him." "I am glad that you are so rich, mistress, and more glad that your money is so little cared for and so little wanted; but if you do not want money, I do very much want to get back to my friends, who think I am dead, and mourn for me." "Well, if they have mourned, their sorrow is over by this time, and therefore your staying here will not distress them more. I may as well tell you at once that you shall not go; so make up your mind to be contented, and you'll fare none the worse for it." This was said in so decided a tone, that, bearing in mind what I had heard from the convict servant, I thought it advisable to push the question no further for the present, making up my mind that I would wait a short time, and then make my escape, if she still persisted in detaining me by force; but this I could not venture upon until I was in possession of fire-arms, and I could not obtain them while she had any suspicion. I therefore replied--"Well, since you are determined I shall not go, I have nothing more to say, except that I will wait your pleasure, and, in the mean time, let me make myself as useful as I can, for I don't want to eat the bread of idleness." "You're a very sensible young man," replied she; "and now you shall have a shirt to put on, which will improve your appearance a great deal." She then went into the inner room, which I presumed was her bed-room, as there were but two rooms in the cabin. As she went out, I could not help wondering at her. On examination, I felt assured that she was more than six feet high, and her shoulders as broad and her arms as nervous as a man's of that stature. Her chest was very expanded, but bosom she had none. In fact, she was a man in woman's clothing, and I began to doubt her sex. Her features were not bad, had they been of smaller dimensions, but her nose was too large, although it was straight; her eyes were grand, but they were surmounted with such coarse eyebrows; her mouth was well shaped, and her teeth were good and regular, but it was the mouth of an ogress; her walk was commanding and firm; every action denoted energy and muscle; and certainly, from the conversation I have already made known, her mind was quite as masculine as her body--she was a splendid monster. In a minute she returned, bringing me a good check shirt and a pair of duck trousers, which I thankfully accepted. "I've plenty more for those who please me," said she, carelessly; "when you've put them on, come out to me, and I'll show you the plantation." In a minute or two I joined her, and she led me round the tobacco-fields, then to the maize or Indian corn grounds, pointing out and explaining everything. She also showed me the cows, store pigs, and poultry. Wishing to please her, I asked many questions, and pretended to take an interest in all I saw. This pleased her much, and once or twice she smiled--but such a smile! After an hour's ramble we returned, and found the two servants very busy, one husking maize, and the other in the shed where the tobacco was dried. I asked some questions of her about the tobacco--how many casks or bales she made a year? She replied that she made it in bales, and sold it by weight. "It must be heavy carriage from here to James Town?" said I. "Yes, indeed, if it went that way it never would arrive, I imagine," replied she; "but I have a sloop in the river below, which carries it round." "When is the time it is harvested and fit to be carried round?" inquired I. "It is now turning fast," said she; "all that you see hanging in the drying sheds has been already drawn; in three or four weeks it will be housed, and then we begin to pack: in about two months from this the sloop will take it round." "But is it not expensive keeping a sloop on purpose, with men to have her in charge?" inquired I, to hear what she would say. "The sloop lies at anchor, without a soul on board," said she. "No one ever comes up this river. I believe Captain Smith, who made the settlement, did so once. There is another river, about twenty miles further down, which is occasionally frequented by buccaneers, I am told--indeed, I know it, for my husband had more to do with them than perhaps was good for his soul, but this little river is never visited." "Then your servants take her round?" "Yes; I leave one in charge, and take two with me." "But you have but two." "Not till you came--one died; but now I have three," and she smiled at me again. If I had not been so afraid of affronting her, I certainly would have said to her, "Do anything, I beg, but smile." I said no more on that point. She called Jeykell, who was in the tobacco-shed, and desired him to kill a couple of chickens, and bring them in. We then entered the cabin, and she observed--"I don't doubt but you are tired with so much fatigue; you look so; go and sleep on one of their beds; you shall have one for yourself by night." I was not sorry to do as she proposed, for I was tired out. I lay down, and I did not wake till she called me and told me that dinner was ready. I was quite ready for that also, and I sat down with her, but the two convict servants did not. She ate in proportion to her size, and that is saying enough. After dinner she left me, and went with her two men on her farming avocations, and I was for a long while cogitating on what had passed. I perceived that I was completely in her power, and that it was only by obtaining her good-will that I had any chance of getting away, and I made up my mind to act accordingly. I found a comfortable bed, of the husks of Indian corn, prepared for me at night, in an ante-room where the two servant-men slept. It was a luxury that I had not enjoyed for a long while. For several days I remained very quiet, and apparently very contented. My mistress gave me no hard work, chiefly sending me on messages or taking me out with her. She made the distinction between me and the convicts that I always took my meals with her and they did not. In short, I was treated as a friend and visitor more than anything else, and had I not been so anxious about going to England, I certainly had no reason to complain except of my detention, and this, it was evident, it was not in her power to prevent, as, until the sloop went away with the tobacco, she had no means of sending me away. One day, however, as I was walking past the tobacco-shed, I heard my name mentioned by the two convicts, and stopping I heard James say: "Depend upon it, that's what she's after, Jeykell; and he is to be our master, whether he likes it or not." "Well, I shouldn't wonder," replied the other; "she does make pure love to him, that's certain." "Very true; everything's fierce with her--even love--and so he'll find it if he don't fancy her." "Yes, indeed:--well, I'd rather serve another ten years than she should fall in love with me." "And if I had my choice, whether to be her husband or to swing, I should take the cord in preference." "Well, I pity him from my heart; for he is a good youth and a fair-spoken and a handsome, too; and I'm sure that he has no idea of his unfortunate situation." "No idea, indeed," said I to myself, as I walked away. "Merciful Heaven! Is it possible!" And when I thought over her conduct, and what had passed between us, I perceived not only that the convicts were right in their supposition, but that I had, by wishing to make myself agreeable to her, even assisted in bringing affairs to this crisis. That very day she had said to me: "I was very young when I married, only fourteen, and I lived with my husband nine years. He is dead more than a year now." When she said that, which she did at dinner, while she was clawing the flesh off a wild turkey, there was something so ridiculous in that feminine confession, coming from such a masculine mouth, that I felt very much inclined to laugh, but I replied: "You are a young widow, and ought to think of another husband." Again, when she said, "If ever I marry again, it shall not be a man who has been burnt on the hand. No, no, my husband shall be able to open both hands and show them." I replied, "You are right there. I would never disgrace myself by marrying a convict." When I thought of these and many other conversations which had passed between us, I had no doubt, in my own mind, but that the convicts were correct in their suppositions, and I was disgusted at my own blindness. "At all events," said I to myself, after a long cogitation, "if she wants to marry me, she must go to James Town for a parson, and if I once get there, I will contrive, as soon as extra constables are sworn in, to break off the match." But, seriously, I was in an awkward plight. There was something in that woman that was awful, and I could imagine her revenge to be most deadly. I thought the old Indian squaw to be bad enough, but this new mistress was a thousand times worse. What a hard fate, I thought, was mine, that I should be thus forced to marry against my will, and be separated from her whom I adored. I was a long while turning over the matter in my mind, and at last I resolved that I would make no alteration in my behaviour, but behave to her as before, and that if the affair was precipitated by my mistress, that I would be off to the woods, and take my chance of wild beasts and wild Indians, rather than consent to her wishes. I then went into the cabin, where I found her alone. "Alexander," said she (she would know my Christian name, and called me by it), "they say widows court the men, and that they are privileged to do so," (I turned pale, for I little thought that there was to be an explanation so soon;) "at all events, whether they are or not, I know that a woman in my position cannot well expect a young man in yours to venture without encouragement. Now, Alexander, I have long perceived your feelings and your wishes, and I have only to say that mine are such as yours," (oh, I wish they were, thought I), "and therefore you have but to ask and to have." I was mute with fear and despair, and could not find a reply to make to her. "Why do you not answer, Alexander? Do you think me too forward?" "No," stammered I; "you are very kind, but this is so unexpected--so unlooked for--so unhoped for--I am so overcome." Observe, Madam, how strangely the sexes were changed. I was the woman in this instance. "I should like to consult my friends." "Consult your fiddlesticks," replied she, quickly. "Who have you got to consult? I hope, Alexander," said she, setting her broad teeth together, "that you are not trifling with me?" "Indeed, I never should think of trifling with your mistress," replied I. "I feel much obliged to you for showing such a preference for me." "I think, Alexander, that you ought; so now then, if you please, give me your answer," replied she. "Had I been prepared for your kindness, I would have done so at once, but I have many serious questions to put to myself, and, if you please, we will renew the subject to-morrow morning. I will then tell you candidly how I am situated; and if after that you do not withdraw your proposal, I shall be most happy to be yours as soon as we can go to James Town to be married." "If," replied she, "you mean to insinuate, Alexander, that you have a wife in England, that is of no consequence in this settlement; for those who live here are free from all English marriages; and as for going to James Town, that is quite unnecessary. If the people in the settlement were to wait for a parson when they married, they would never be married at all. All that is necessary is, that we shall draw up an agreement of marriage on paper, sign it, and have it witnessed. However, as I perceive that you are flurried, I will wait till to-morrow morning for your decision." My mistress then rose from her stool, and went into her chamber, shutting to the door with more emphasis than was at all agreeable to my nerves. I walked out into the open air to recover myself, and to reflect upon what course I should take in this awkward and dangerous dilemma. Marrying was out of the question--but how to avoid it? It was almost like being stopped by a highwayman. He says, "Your money or your life." My mistress's demand was, "Marriage or your life." There was but one hope, which was to escape that very night, and take my chance in the woods, and so I resolved to do. I did not go in till dark; my mistress was in her own room; the two convicts were sitting by the fire. I took my seat by them, but did not speak, except in a whisper, telling them that their mistress was not well, and that we had better go to bed, and not talk. They stared at me at the idea of the mistress being ill; they had never known her to complain of anything since they resided with her; but the hint was sufficient. They went to bed, and so did I with my clothes on, watching the crevices of the door of her room to see if her lamp was out. In about half an hour the little thin beams through the chinks of her door disappeared, and then I knew that she had gone to bed. I watched two hours more before I ventured to stir. The convicts were both snoring loud, and effectually drowned any slight noise I might make in moving about. I went to the locker, secured all the cold meat for provision, took down one of the muskets and ammunition-belts, and, having put the latter over my shoulders, I then took the musket in my hand and crept softly to the door of the cabin. Here was the only difficulty; once out, but five yards off, and I was clear. I removed the heavy wooden bar, without noise, and had now only to draw the bolt. I put my finger to it, and was sliding it gently and successfully back, when my throat was seized, and I was hurled back on the floor of the cabin. I was so stunned by the violence of the fall, that for a short time I was insensible. When I recovered, I felt a great weight upon my chest, and opening my eyes found my mistress sitting upon me, and giving orders to the convicts, one of whom had already lighted the lamp. "For mercy's sake, get off my chest," said I, in a faint voice. "Yes, I will, but not yet," replied my mistress. "Now, James, hand them to me." James handed some chains to his mistress, who, turning round as she sat on my body, made the manacle at the end of the chain fast round my ankle. This went with a snap-spring, which could not be opened without a key belonging to it. At last she rose off my body, and I could breathe free. She then called to the convicts, saying: "Go both of you into the tobacco-shed, and wait there till I call you out. If I find you one foot nearer to us, I'll flay you alive." The servants ran off as fast as they could. When they were gone, my mistress said: "So you were about to escape, were you? You would avoid the chances of matrimony, and now you have other chances which you little dreamt of." "I thought it was the wisest thing that I could do," replied I. "Since I must be plain, I am sacredly betrothed to another person, and I could not even for you break my faith. I meant to have told you so to-morrow morning, but I was afraid it would annoy you, and therefore I wished to go away without giving you any answer." "Well, Sir, I offered to be your wife, which would have made you my lord and master. You refuse it, and now I make you my slave. I give you your option; you shall either consent to be my husband, or you shall remain as you are, and toil hard; but any time that you think better of it, and are willing to embrace my offer, you will be free, and I will be as a wife in subjection." "So you say," replied I; "but suppose I was to make you angry after I married you, you would do to me as you have done now. I may, perhaps, one day get free from this chain, but, once married to you, I am a slave for ever." "You may think otherwise before long," replied she; "in the mean time, you may walk out and cool yourself." She then returned to her room, and I rose, having determined to walk out and cool myself, as she proposed; but when I was on my legs, I found that to the other end of the chain, which was very heavy and about two yards long, was riveted an iron ball of about thirty pounds weight, so that I could not walk without carrying this heavy weight in my hands, for it could not be dragged. I lifted up the iron ball, and went out of the house. I was no longer afraid of her. I was in too great a rage to fear anything. As I calmed, I considered my case, and found it to be hopeless; as I thought of Amy, and the many months of hope deferred, I wept bitterly; and I had no consolation, for the reader may recollect that I lost my Bible when I was sent on shore, naked almost, by the rascally captain of the Transcendant. I had now been twenty months away from Liverpool, and I felt as if my chance of seeing her that I loved was indeed hopeless. I might remain chained in such a solitude for years, or I might expire under her barbarous treatment, for I fully knew what I had to expect. However, I was resolved. I prayed fervently for support and succour in my time of trouble, and became more composed. I remained out the whole of the night, and watched the rising sun. The two convicts came out to their work, and shrugged their shoulders as they passed me, but they dared not speak to me. My mistress at last came out. She commenced with abuse, but I gave no answer. She tried soothing, but I was mute. At last she became frantic in her passion, hurled me away from her, and after being dreadfully beaten I fell to the ground. She put her foot upon my neck, and she stood there, looking like a fury. She loaded me with epithets, and then of a sudden went down on her knees by me, and begged my pardon, calling me her dear Alexander--her life--entreating me to accede to her wishes. Never was there such a tigress in love before, I really believe. "Hear me," replied I; "as long as I am chained, I never will give any answer upon the present subject, that I swear." She rose from my side, and walked away. It is impossible, my dear Madam, for me to describe what I suffered from this woman for more than six weeks, during which she kept me chained in this way--at one time entreating me, the next moment kicking me, and throwing me down. I had no peace--my life became a burden to me, and I often entreated her, in mercy, to put an end to my sufferings. I also had my paroxysms of rage, and then would spurn her, spit at her, and do everything I could, and say all that I could imagine, to show my hatred and contempt. At other times I was sullen, and that always annoyed her. She would bear my reproaches patiently--bear any thing, so long as I would talk; but if I remained obstinately silent, then, in a short time, her fury would break forth. I pitied her, notwithstanding her ill-treatment, for the woman did love me (after her own fashion) most intensely. It was on the seventh week of my confinement on the chain, that one morning very early, as I was lying in the tobacco-shed, for she had turned me out of the cabin, I perceived among the trees, which were about three hundred yards from the cabin, two Indians, in what is called their war-paint, which is a sign that they were on a hostile excursion. I remained perfectly quiet, and well concealed, that I might watch them. The convicts had more than once told me that the Indians would attack us, in consequence of an insult which my mistress had offered to their chief, with whom her husband had been so friendly; and when they stated what had passed, I agreed with them that they would not fail to resent the insult as soon as they could. I had therefore always been on the look-out, but had never seen any Indians before. My mistress, to whom I had, in our days of sweet converse, spoken about them, always laughed at the idea of their attacking her, and said that they might come if they liked. She had made every preparation for them, as she had loop-holes stuffed up with moss just below the roof of the cabin, from which you could fire down upon them till they were within four yards of the cabin, and other loop-holes, from which you might shoot them when close to; the window and door were impregnable, and, provided that we were once in the cabin, there was no doubt but that a serious, if not effectual, resistance might be made. That the Indians were reconnoitring the cabin was evident, and that they did not do so for nothing was equally certain. After a while, during which I made out six of them, they fell back in the wood, and disappeared. The dog at that moment came out to me, and it was probably the sight of the dog which made them retreat, as they feared that he would have given notice of their being so close to us. I waited till the convicts came out, and then I went into the cabin, and said: "You drove me out of the house last night, and I come to return good for evil. As I lay in the tobacco-shed, I saw six Indians in the wood, to the east of the cabin, reconnoitring, and I have no doubt but that you will be attacked this night, so I give you notice." "And you hope that, by this fear of their attack, you will be set free, is it not?" "It is perfectly indifferent to me whether I am or not. I have often asked you to put an end to my misery, and as you have not done it, I shall bless those Indians for the friendly act; a blow of a tomahawk will release me, if you will not." "Well, then, let them come with their tomahawks," replied she, "and I will protect you from them, for no one shall release you but myself." "As you please," replied I; "I have done my duty in telling you what I have seen, and you may take precautions or not; for myself I care nothing." So saying, I lifted up my ball of iron and went away out of the door. I remained out of doors the whole of the day, and therefore did not know whether my mistress took any precautions or not, but I told the two convicts what I had seen, and advised them not to go far from the cabin, as they would run great danger. They inquired of me where I had seen the Indians and I pointed out the spot in the wood, after which they went away. I was certain that the attack would be on this night, as there was no moon till three hours before daybreak; and as it was very dark it would probably take place in the early part of the night. I had made up my mind what I would do, which was not in any way to defend the cabin while chained, but, when I was freed, I would fight to the last, so that I might be killed where I stood, and not be taken alive and tortured. I did not go out from home all that day, and, to my surprise, I was not molested by my mistress. At dark she called the convicts, but they did not answer; she came out to look for them, and asked me whether I had seen them. I told her that I had not seen them for two hours, and I had thought that they were in the house. "Did you tell them about the Indians?" "Yes, I did," I replied, "and stated my opinion that they would attack us this night, and I advised them not to go far from the cabin, or they might be cut off." "Then the cowardly sneaks have run off to the woods, and left us to defend ourselves how we can." "I shall not defend myself," replied I. "I shall stay here where I am. I wait for death, and will not avoid it." "Come into the house," said she, abruptly. "No," replied I, "I will not." "You will not," said she, and, catching up the chain and ball in one hand, with her other arm she caught me round the waist, and carried me into the house. "Well," replied I, "it is only deferring it a little longer; they will force their way in it at last, and I will die here." "Wait until they arrive," replied my mistress. "But do you mean to say that you will not defend the house?" "Certainly not, as long as I am chained as a slave," replied I. My mistress made no reply, but busied herself with barring the door and window. She then placed the table and stools so that she might stand upon them and fire out of the upper loop-holes; pulled the moss out of the loop-holes; took down the muskets--of which there were six--from their rests; examined the priming of those which were loaded, and loaded those which were not. She then got out a supply of powder and ball, which she put ready on the table, brought the axes out, that they might be at hand, examined the water-jars to ascertain whether the convicts had filled them as she had ordered, and then, when all was prepared for defence, she removed the lamp into the inner room, leaving the one we were in so dark, that the Indians could not, by looking through the chinks or loop-holes, discover where the occupants of the cabin might be. All these arrangements she made with the greatest coolness, and I could not help admiring her courage and self-possession. "Is there any more to be done, Alexander?" said she, in a mild voice. "Where is the dog?" replied I. "Tied up in the tobacco-shed," said she. "Then there is no more to be done," replied I; "the dog will give you notice of their coming, as they will first occupy the tobacco-shed as an advanced post." "Alexander, will you promise not to escape if I set you free?" "Certainly not," replied I. "You set me free for your own purposes, because you wish me to help to defend your property; and then, forsooth, when the Indians are beat off, you will chain me again." "No, no; that was not my feeling, as I sit here alive," replied she; "but I was thinking that, if forced to retreat from the cabin, you would never be able to escape, and I never could save you; but they should hack me to pieces first." "Answer me one question," said I. "In a time of peril like this, would you, as a conscientious person, think that you were justified in retaining in such fetters even a convict who had robbed you? And if you feel that you would not, on what grounds do you act in this way to a man whom you profess to love?--I leave it to your conscience." She remained silent for some time: when the dog barked, and she started up. "I believe I am mad, or a fool," said she, sweeping back her hair from her forehead. She then took the key of the manacle out of her dress, and released me. "Alexander--" "Silence!" said I, putting my hand to her mouth, "this is no time to be heard speaking. Silence!" repeated I in a whisper, "I hear them, they are round the house." I stood upon one of the stools and looked through a loop-hole. It was very dark, but as the Indians stood on the hill, there was clear sky behind them as low down as their waists, and I could perceive their motions, as they appeared to be receiving orders from their chief; and they advanced to the door of the cabin with axes and tomahawks. My mistress had mounted on the table at the same time that I had got on the stool. We now got down again without speaking, and, each taking a musket, we kneeled down at the lower loop-holes which I have described. On second thoughts I mounted the stool, whispering to her, "Don't fire till I do." The Indians came to the door and tapped, one asking in English to be let in. No reply was given, and they commenced their attack upon the door with their axes. As soon as this aggression took place, I took good aim at their chief, as I presumed him to be, who was now standing alone on the hill. I fired. He fell immediately. As I leaped from the stool my mistress discharged her musket, and we both caught up others and returned to the loop-holes below. By this time the blows of the axes were incessant, and made the cabin-door tremble and the dust to fly down in showers from the roof; but the door was of double oak with iron braces, and not easily to be cut through; and the bars which held it were of great size and strength. It was some time before we could get another shot at an Indian, but at last I succeeded, and as his comrades were taking the body away my mistress shot another. After this the blows of the axes ceased, and they evidently had retreated. I then went into the inner room and extinguished the lamp, that they might not be able to see us--for the lamp gave a faint light. We returned to the table, and loaded the muskets in the dark. As I put my musket on the table, my mistress said, "Will they come again?" "Yes;" replied I, "I think they will; but if you wish to talk, we had better retreat to the fire-place: there we shall be safe from any shot." We retreated to the fire-place, and sat down on the ashes; it just held us both, and my mistress took this opportunity of embracing me, saying--"Dear Alexander, if I had a thousand lives, I would sacrifice them for you." "We have but one," replied I, "and that one I will devote for your defence; I can do no more." "Who did you fire at?" said she. "The chief, as I believe, who was on the hill giving orders. He fell; and I think that he fell dead." "Then depend upon it they will retreat," said she. "I think not; they will be revenged, if they possibly can; and we must expect a hard fight for it." "Why, what can they do? They never can break through the door, and when daylight comes we can shoot them by dozens." "Depend upon it," said I, "they will try to burn us out. The wind is high, which is all in their favour, and I suspect they are now gone to collect fire-wood." "And if they do fire the cabin, what shall we do? I never thought of that." "We must remain in it as long as we can, and then sally out and fight to the last; but everything depends on circumstances. Be guided by me, and I will save you if I can." "Be guided by you!" "Yes! Recollect I am not in chains now, and that although you have the courage of a man, still you have not been so accustomed to warfare as I have been. I have long been accustomed to command, to plan, and to execute, in times of peril like this." "You have great strength and courage; I little thought what a lion I had chained up," replied she. "Well, I love you all the better for it, and I will be guided by you, for I perceive already that you have the best head of the two. Hark! What is that?" "It is what I said," replied I; "they are laying fire-wood against the logs of the cabin on the windward side--(this was on the side opposite to the door). Now we must try if we cannot pick off some more of them," said I, rising and taking a musket. "Bring the stools over to this side, for we must fire from the upper loop-holes." We remained at our posts for some time without seeing an Indian. They had gone back to the wood for more combustibles. At last we perceived them coming back with the wood. I should imagine there were at least twenty of them. "Now, take good aim," said I. We both fired almost at the same moment, and three Indians fell. "Get down, and give me another musket," said I to my mistress. She handed me one, and, taking another for herself, resumed her station. We fired several times; sometimes with and sometimes without success; for the Indians went away twice for fire-wood before they had collected what they considered sufficient. By this time it was piled up to the eaves of the cabin, and our loop-holes were shut up; we therefore went over to the other side, where the door was, to see if there were any Indians there, but could not see one. We had been on the look-out for about five minutes, when the crackling of the wood, and the smoke forcing itself though the crevices between the logs, told us that the fire had been applied, and the wind soon fanned it up so that the flame poured through every chink and loop-hole, and lighted up the cabin. "We must retreat to the fire-place," said I. "Come quickly, or we shall be shot." "Why so?" said she, as she did as I requested. "They will peep through the loop-holes on the side of the cabin where the door is and see us plainly, until the cabin is filled with smoke, which it soon will be." "But tell me what we are to do now, for I feel if this smoke increases we shall not be able to speak to one another." This she said about five minutes after we had remained standing in the fire-place, with our heads up the chimney. "Perhaps it will be as well," replied I, "that I do speak so. This fierce wind drives the smoke to leeward in volumes, but the great burst of smoke will be when the roof is well on fire. It is now burning fiercely on the windward side, but we must wait till the lee-side has caught, and then the volume of smoke will be greater. The great point is to hit the precise time of opening the door, and escaping shrouded in a volume of smoke. If too soon, they will perceive us, and we shall be shot down; if too late, the roof will fall upon us, and we shall be smothered or burnt. We had better now, I think, leave this, and be all ready. Our best weapon, if we had to fight our way, will be an axe. Let us each take one; and, by now going near to the door, and putting our mouths to one of the loop-holes, we shall breathe freer, and unbar the door at the right time. Do you agree with me?" "You are right," said she; "you are a _man_, and I am a _woman_." We left the fire-place, and, having felt for and found the axes, we went near the door, and put our mouths to the loop-holes below; and the smoke passing above them enabled us to breathe freer. I looked out and perceived that, with the exception of about six yards to leeward of the cabin, there was a dense volume of smoke rolling along the ground for a long distance; and that if we could only once gain it without being perceived, we should probably be saved. I therefore unbarred the door, drew the bolt, and held it in my hand, all ready for a start. The cabin was now in flames in every part as well as the roof. I touched my mistress, and then took her hand in mine, watching at the loop-hole. At last, when the heat was almost unbearable, an eddy of the wind drove back the smoke close to the lee-side of the cabin, and all was dark. I jumped up, opened the door, and dragged my mistress after me; we walked out into the black mass completely hid from our enemies, and then running hand-in-hand as fast as we could to leeward in the centre of the smoke, we found ourselves at least one hundred yards from the cabin without the Indians having any idea that we were not still inside. As we retreated, the density of the smoke became less, and I then told her to run for her life, as the Indians would discover that the door of the cabin was open and that we had escaped--and so it proved. We were still a hundred yards from the wood when a yell was given which proved that they had discovered our escape and were in pursuit. We gained the wood; I turned round a moment to look behind me, and perceived at least forty or fifty Indians in full pursuit of us--the foremost about two hundred yards distant. "Now we must run for it, mistress," said I, "and we must no longer take hands. We shall have to thread the wood. Away! We have no time to lose." So saying, I snatched my hand from her and sprang forward; she following me as fast as she could, more fearful, evidently, of my making my escape from her than of her own escape from the Indians. As soon as I was a hundred yards in the wood, I turned short to the right, and fled with all my speed in that direction, because I hoped by this means to deceive the Indians, and it was easier to run where the wood was not so thick. My mistress followed me close; she would have hallooed to me, but she had not breath after the first half-mile. I found out that I was more fleet than she was. Whether encumbered with her clothes, or perhaps not so much used to exercise, I heard her panting after me. I could easily have left her, but my fear was that she would have called to me, and if she had, the Indians would have heard her, and have known the direction I had taken, and, when once on my trail, they would, as soon as daylight came, have followed me by it to any distance; I therefore slackened my speed so as just to enable my mistress to keep up with me at about ten yards' distance; when we had run about three miles I felt certain that she could not proceed much further: speak she could not, and as I ran without once looking behind me, she could make no sign. I continued at a less rapid pace for about a mile further. I did this to enable her to keep up with me, and to recover my own breath as much as possible previous to a start. The voices of the Indians had long been out of hearing, and it was clear that they had not discovered the direction which we had taken. I knew, therefore, that they could not hear her now if she did cry out as loud as she could, and I gradually increased my speed, till I could no longer hear her panting behind me; I then went off at my full speed, and after a few minutes I heard her voice at some distance faintly calling out my name. "Yes," thought I, "but I have not forgotten the ball and chain; and if you thought that you had let loose a lion while we were in the cabin, you shall find that you have loosed a deer in the woods." I then stopped for a few moments to recover my breath; I did not, however, wait long; I was afraid that my mistress might recover her breath as well as myself, and I again set off as fast as I could. The idea of torture from the Indians, or again being kept confined by my mistress, gave me endurance which I thought myself incapable of. Before morning I calculated that I had run at least twenty miles, if not more. With the perspiration running down me in streams, and hardly able to drag one leg before the other, I at last, just about daybreak, gave it up, when I threw myself on the ground, and dropped out of my hand my axe, which I had carried the whole way. I lay there for more than half an hour, tormented with thirst, but quite unable to move. At last I recovered; and, as I well knew that the Indians would divide in parties of three or four, and hunt every part of the woods, and by daylight probably discover my track, I rose and prepared to resume my toil, when, looking round me, I perceived that I was exactly on the spot where I had followed the deer, and had fallen in with the Jolly Rover, as he termed himself, who had pointed out the way to the plantations. I turned and saw the river below, and as he had told me that the Indians never came there, I resolved to go to the river, where, at least, I should find shell-fish and water. I did so; and in half an hour arrived at the skirts of the wood, and found that the river was about four hundred yards from me and clear of trees at the mouth for some distance. I went down to the river, which ran swiftly cut, and I drank till I was ready to burst. I then rose on my feet, and walked along its banks towards the mouth, thinking what I should do. To get to James Town appeared to me to be an impossibility, unless by water, and I was not likely to meet with any other vessel here but a pirate. Should I, then, go aboard of a pirate? It appeared to me to be my only resource, and that I should be happy if I could find one. By this time I had arrived at the mouth of the river, and, looking out to seaward, I saw a schooner at anchor. She was about three miles off. That she was a pirate vessel, I presumed. Should I go on board of her or not? And if so, how was I to get on board? All her boats were up; and I surmised that she had just left the river with the intention of sailing as soon as there was any wind, for now it was calm. The river ran out swiftly, and I thought I should be able to swim the distance with the assistance I should obtain from the current, which swept down right for her, and she was riding to its strength. I was demurring. I had been perhaps two hours on the beach, waiting to see if she might send a boat on shore, when, as I stood at the river-side, still hesitating, I happened to turn round and perceived three Indians coming down upon me as fast as they could. I hesitated no longer, but plunged into the stream, and was swept out two hundred yards before they arrived at the beach. I made for the schooner; and the current ran out so fast, that in half an hour I was close to her. I swam for her cable, which I clung to, and then shouted loudly. This induced some of the crew to look over the bows, and they handed me a bowling knot, into which I fixed myself, and was hauled on board. I was dragged aft to give an account of myself, and I stated in few words that I had been pursued by the Indians, and swam off to save my life. "Hav'n't we met before?" said a rough voice. I looked, and saw the Jolly Rover whom I had fallen in with on shore. I said, "Yes; I was escaping from the Indians when I met you, and you showed me the direction of the plantations." "All's right," said he. "It's a true bill; and were those Indians after you that we saw on the beach just now?" "Yes," I replied; and then I stated how it was that they had attacked our cabin, and how we had escaped. "That was well done, and so you swam off three miles. Fire and water won't hurt you; that's clear. You're just the man for us. What thing-um-bob is this that you have hung round your neck?" said he, taking up the leathern bag with the diamond in it. "That," replied I--a sudden thought having struck me--"is my caul; I was born with a caul, and I have always worn it, as it saves a man from drowning." "No wonder that you swam three miles, then," replied the man. You must know, Madam, that some people are born with a membrane over the face, which is termed a caul, and there has been a vulgar error that such people can never be drowned, especially if they wear this caul about their person in after-life. Sailors are superstitious in many things, but particularly in this, and my caul was therefore as much-respected by them as it hung round my neck, as it was by the Indians when they thought it was what they call "magic" or "medicine." "Well," said the Jolly Rover, "as you had so much fire, so much water, and so much running, I think you won't be sorry to have a biscuit and glass of grog, and then turn in; to-morrow we will talk to you." I went down below, very glad to accept the offer, and as I was regaling myself, who should come up to me but two of the Portuguese who had been wrecked in the xebeque, and put on shore with me in the little boat by the captain of the Transcendant. I was very glad to see them. They told me that, after great hardship and suffering, they had arrived famished at the banks of this river, and had been taken on board by the pirates, and had remained with them ever since; that they were very anxious to get away, but never had an opportunity. I begged them not to say who I was, but merely that I was once a shipmate of theirs. They promised, and being very tired, I then lay down and fell asleep. I was so worn out, that I did not wake till the next morning, when I found that we were under all sail running down to the southward. I saw the Jolly Rover, as I had termed him, on deck, (his real or assumed name, I don't know which, I found out to be Toplift,) sitting on a gun abaft. He called me to him. I said: "Are you the captain?" "Yes," he replied, "for want of a better. I told you months ago what we were, so it's no use repeating it. Do you intend to join us?" "Then," replied I, "I will be very candid with you. I have been driven, as it were, on board of your vessel, but certainly without knowing exactly what she was. Now, captain, I have to ask you one question:-- Would you, if you could go on shore in England, with plenty of money at your command, and plenty of good friends,--would you be here?" "No; certainly not," replied he. "Well; I am in that position. If once in England, I have money enough to live upon, and plenty of friends; I therefore naturally want to get back to England, and not to run the risk of my neck on board of this vessel." "That's very true," replied he, "but there are other considerations; my men won't have a man on board who will not swear fidelity, and if you will not, I cannot protect you,--they will throw you overboard. We don't carry passengers." "That's very true, also; and I will swear fidelity so far as this, that you never shall be betrayed by me, and I never will appear as a witness against one of you; it were most ungrateful if I did. While I am on board, I will do any duty you please to put me to, for I cannot expect to eat my bread for nothing." "And suppose we come to action?" "There's the difficulty," replied I; "against an English ship I never will fight." "But if we are opposed to any other nation, and there is a chance of our being overpowered?" "Why, then, if you are overpowered, as I shall be flung along with the rest, I think I must do all I can to save my own life; but, overpowered or not, I will not fire a shot or draw a cutlass against my own countrymen." "Well, I cannot deny but that's all very fair." "I think," replied I, "it is as much as you can expect; especially as I never will share any prize-money." "Well; I will talk to the men, and hear what they say; but, now, answer me one question--Are you not a seaman?" "I will answer the truth to everything; I am a seaman, and I have commanded a privateer. I have served many years in privateers, and have seen a great deal of hard fighting." "So I thought," replied he; "and now answer me another question,--Was it not you that played that trick to that French privateer captain at Bordeaux?" "Yes it was," replied I; "but how came you to know that?" "Because I was the mate of a merchant vessel that had been captured, and I saw you three or four times as you passed the vessel I was on board of; for, being put in quarantine, we were not sent to prison till the pratique was given. I thought that I knew you again." "I have no concealment to make." "No: but I will tell you candidly, my men, if they knew all this, would not allow you to leave the vessel. Indeed, you might be captain if you pleased, for I do not suit them. Our captain--for I was his officer-- was killed about six months ago; and I really am not fit for the office--I am too tender-hearted." "Well; you don't look so," replied I, laughing. "Can't judge of outsides," replied he; "but it's a fact. They say that they will be all condemned if taken, from my not destroying the crews of the vessels we take; that they will be so many witnesses against them; and I cannot make up my mind to cold-blooded murder. I am bad enough; I rob on the high seas; I kill on the high seas--for we must kill when we fight; but I cannot commit deliberate murder either at sea or on shore, and so I tell them. If any one else could navigate the vessel, I should be superseded immediately." "I am glad to hear you say what you have, captain; it makes me less dissatisfied at finding myself here. Well; I have said all I can, and I must trust to you to manage with your ship's company." "It will be a difficult job," said he, musing. "Tell them," replied I, "that I was once a captain of a vessel like this (after all, there is not so much difference between a pirate and a privateer as you may think)--and that I will not be under the command of any one." "If they hear that, they will give you the command of this vessel." "I will refuse to take it; and give my reasons." "Well; I'll tell them that: I leave you to settle with them how you can; but," added he, in a low tone, "there are some desperate villains among them." "That I take for granted," replied I; "so now I leave you to speak to them." Toplift did so. He told them that I was a pirate captain, who had lost his vessel and been thrown on shore, but I refused to join any ship except as captain of her; that I would not serve as first officer, and would obey no one. He told them that he knew me before, and he narrated the business at Bordeaux when I commanded a privateer, extolling me, as I afterwards found, beyond all measure. The crew, having heard what he had to say, went forward, and, after consultation, came to Toplift and said that I must take the oath. Toplift replied that he had desired me so to do, and that I had answered that I would not. "But," said he, "you had better speak to him yourselves. Call all hands aft and hear what he has to say." This was done, and I was sent for. "I have told them what you said, Sir. I don't know your name." "I have no name," replied I, proudly, "except `Captain,'--that's my name." The fact is, Madam, I was determined to carry it out bravely; knowing that it is the best way to deal with such people as I now had in hand. "Well, then, Captain, I have told the men that you will not take the oath." "Take the oath!" replied I, with scorn; "no; I administer the oath to others. I make them take it. I make them swear fidelity to me. Such has been my conduct, and I shall not depart from it." "Well, but, Captain Toplift, you don't mean to say that he is to remain on board with us and not take the oath," said a surly-looking ruffian. "In spite of you, he shall take the oath, Captain Toplift." "Captain Toplift," said I, calmly, "do you allow one of your crew to use such language as this? Had I been captain of this ship, I would have blown his brains out as he stood. You don't know how to deal with these rascals. I do." Captain Toplift, who appeared much pleased at being supported in this way by me--(strange that a single individual, whom they might have thrown overboard in a minute, should have gained such an ascendency, but so it was)--and who perceived that the men fell back, as if taken by surprise, then said, "Captain, you have taught me a good lesson, which I will take advantage of. Seize that fellow and put him in irons." "Hah!" cried the man, seeing that no man touched him; "who is to bell the cat! Hah!" and drew his cutlass. "I will, then," said I to Captain Toplift, "if you desire it;" and stepping forward I went up to the man, saying, "Come, come, my good fellow, this won't do here; I am used to deal with such chaps as you, and I can manage worse than you, a good deal." I advanced till I was within the stroke of his cutlass before he was aware of it, and, seizing him by the waist, I threw him flat on his back and put my foot on his neck. "Now," cried I, in an authoritative voice, "put this man in irons immediately--refuse who dares. Here, you Sirs, lay hold of this fellow," continued I, looking to the Portuguese; who accordingly came forward and led him away, assisted by others, who now joined them. "Are there any more mutineers here?" inquired I; "if so let them step forward." No one stirred. "My lads," said I, "it is very true that I have refused to take the oath, for the oath is not given to those who command, but to those who obey; but at the same time I am not one to betray you. You know who I am; and is it likely?" "No, no," replied the men. "Sir," asked one of them, who had been most forward and insolent, "will you be our captain?--say but the word,--you are the sort of man we want." "You have a captain already," replied I, "and in a few weeks I shall command a vessel of my own; I cannot, therefore, accept your offer; but while I am on board I will do all in my power to assist Captain Toplift in any way, and you can desire no more. And now, my men, as an old hand, I have but this advice to give you, which is--to return to your duty; for everything in a vessel of this description depends upon obedience; and to you, Captain Toplift, I have also advice to give, which is--to shoot the first man who behaves as that scoundrel did who is now in irons. Boatswain! Pipe down." I hardly knew whether this latter order would be obeyed by the boatswain, or, if obeyed by the boatswain, whether it would be obeyed by the men; but, to my great satisfaction, it was; and the men retired peaceably. "Well, Captain Toplift," said I, "I have done you no harm, and myself some good." "You have indeed," replied he; "come down into the cabin." When we were in the cabin he said, "You have unarmed and subdued the most mutinous rascal in the vessel, and you have strengthened my authority. They fully believe you are what you assert from your behaviour, and I feel, with you at my side, I shall get on better with these fellows than I have done. But now, to keep up the idea, you must, of course, mess in the cabin with me, and I can offer you clothes, not my own, but those of the former captain, which will suit your shape and make." I readily agreed with him; and, having equipped myself in the clothes he offered me, which were handsome, I soon afterwards went on deck with him, and received the greatest respect from the men as I passed them. A cot was slung for me in the cabin, and I lived altogether with Captain Toplift, who was a good-hearted, rough sort of a man, certainly wholly unfit for the command of a vessel manned by such a set of miscreants, and employed on such a service. He told me that he had been taken three years before by a pirate vessel, and finding that he could navigate, they had detained him by force, and that at last he had become accustomed to his position. "We all must live," said he, "and I had no other means of livelihood left me; but it's sorely against my conscience, and that's the truth. However, I am used to it now, and that reconciles you to anything, except murder in cold blood, and that I never will consent to." On my inquiring where they were about to cruise, he said, on the Spanish Main. "But," said I, "it is peace with the Spaniards just now." "I hardly knew," said he, "it was peace. Not that peace makes any difference to us, for we take everything; but you refer to myself, I know, and I tell you frankly that I have preferred this cruise merely that we may not fall in with English vessels, which we are not likely to do there. I wish I was out of her with all my heart and soul." "No doubt of it, Captain Toplift, I think you are sincere. Suppose you put into one of the inlets of Jamaica, they won't know where we are; let us take a boat on shore and leave her. I will provide for you, and you shall gain your living in an honest way." "God bless you, Sir," said he; "I will try what I can do. We must talk the matter over, for they may suspect something, and then it would be all over with us." We continued to run down till we were in the latitude of the Virgin Isles, and then we altered her course for Jamaica. The first and second mates generally received information of Captain Toplift as to his movements and intentions, which they communicated to the crew. If the crew disapproved of them, they said so, and they were considered to have some voice in the matter. Now, although no navigators, these men knew enough of a chart and a course to find that there must be some reason for its being altered as it was, instead of running down by the Spanish Main, and they inquired why the cruise was altered. Captain Toplift replied that he had taken my advice, and that I had assured him that at the back of the island of Jamaica we should certainly fall in with some rich Spanish vessels, if we lay there quiet in some nook or another for a short time, as this was their time for coming up from the south to the Havannah, where they rendezvoused for a convoy. This reply appeared very satisfactory to the crew, for they were all cheerful and obedient, and we ran down to Jamaica, and when we were close in shore we shortened sail and hove-to. We remained three or four days in the offing, that we might not cause any suspicion by our leaving too soon. Captain Toplift then told the mates that I proposed anchoring in some secret bay or inlet, as we were certain to see the Spanish ships if we could send any one ashore on the hills to look out for them. This was agreed to, and we made sail and ran along the coast, looking out for some convenient anchorage. As we were so doing, a vessel hove in sight, and we immediately made all sail in chase. As she did not attempt to avoid us, we hauled off as she came near, to see what she might be. She then hoisted a yellow flag at her peak (for she was an hermaphrodite brig); this puzzled us not a little, and we edged down towards her, for she was very rakish-looking, except in her sails. As we neared, finding, I suppose, that we did not answer her signals, and we were not the vessel she expected us to be, she suddenly altered her course before the wind, setting all the sail that she possibly could. We immediately crowded canvass in chase, and came up with her fast. As we ran, the mate and I looked at her through the glass, and I made her out to be the Transcendant, the captain of which had treated us so cruelly when we were in the boat, and who had robbed us of our money and clothes. I called the Portuguese and desired them to look at the vessel through the glass, and give me their opinion. They directly said that it was the vessel I supposed. "Let us only catch the rascal," said I, "and we will pay him in his own coin;" and I immediately gave directions for the better trimming of the sails, so anxious was I to come up with him. The men of the schooner were much pleased at the anxiety I displayed to come up with the chase, and by the alacrity with which they obeyed me I saw how anxious they were that I should be their captain. In two hours we were within gun-shot, and sent one of our bow-chasers after him. Perceiving that it was useless to run, the fellow hove-to, and as we came alongside he was all ready with his boat to come on board. He did so, and at first I kept out of sight to hear what he would say. He was followed up the side by his amiable son. Captain Toplift received him on deck, and he looked around him, saying, "I believe I am right. I was afraid I had made more mistakes than one. I believe you are in the free trade?" "Yes," replied Toplift, "we are." "Yes, I thought so, captain, but I expected to meet another schooner which is very like to yours, and is also in the trade. I made my signal to her, as, when she has anything to get rid of, why I take it off her hands. Perhaps you may have something of the kind which is not exactly safe to show,--church-plate and the like. I pay ready money--that's my plan." As it afterwards appeared, Madam, this scoundrel had been in the free trade, or pirating, himself for many years, but he had taken an opportunity of walking off with a large sum of money belonging to the pirate crew, and with this money he had purchased his property in Virginia and the brig which he now commanded. Although he did not follow up the free trade any more, he had made arrangements with a pirate captain whom he met at Port Royal to meet them at the back of the island and receive such articles as the pirate might want to turn into cash, by which he, of course, took care to secure large profits. This he had done several times, and as he sold his cargo at Port Royal for dollars, he had always cash to pay for what the pirate wished to get rid of. But he had now run into the lion's jaws, for not only were I and the Portuguese on board to denounce him as a robber, but, what was still more unfortunate for him, three of the pirate's crew, whom had he swindled out of their property, were also on board of us, and recognised him immediately. As Captain Toplift knew how I had been treated by him, he thought it was time he should be confronted with me, and to his question as to whether there was anything to dispose of, he replied to him, "You must put that question to the captain. There he is." The fellow turned to me; he looked at me, stared, and was mute, when his cub of a boy cried out, "As sure as a gun it's he, father, and no mistake." "Oh, you imp of Satan, you know me, do you?" replied I. "Yes, it is he. Send all the men aft." The men came fast enough. They were only waiting till I had spoken to them to come and give information against him. "Now, my lads," said I, "this is a scoundrel who fell in with some of us when we were in distress, after we had lost our vessel. Instead of behaving as one seaman does to another, he robbed us of all we had, and turned us adrift naked to be killed by the Indians. Of all, I and the two Portuguese you took on board about four months back are the only three left: the others perished. The one who was with me was burnt to death by the Indians, and I narrowly escaped. I leave you to decide what this scoundrel merits." "But there is more against him, captain," said the men, and then four of them stepped out and declared that he had run away with the money belonging to the crew of which they were a part, and that the sum he had stolen amounted to 25,000 dollars. "What have you to say for yourself?" said I to him. "That I've been a cursed fool to be caught as I have been." "What will they do, father?" "Hang us, I suppose," replied he. "Captain Toplift," said I, "I do not command this vessel, and I shall therefore leave you to decide upon the fate of this miscreant;" and, having said that, I was going below to the cabin, when the captain of the Transcendant's son ran to me, and said, "I want to speak to you, Sir, when you are alone." "What are you after, Peleg?" cried his father. "I'm going to save your life, father, if I can," replied he. "You'll be clever if you do that, boy," said the man, sneeringly. I allowed the boy to follow me down into the cabin, and then asked him what he had to say. "I have that to tell you which is of more value than the lives of a hundred boys like me." "Boys like you? Why I thought it was to save your father's life that you came down, Sir?" "Pooh!" said he, "let him hang; he was born for a halter. I am come to save my own life. I only said that to gammon him." "You're a hopeful youth," said I; "and pray what is that you can tell me that will save your own neck from the halter?" "That which will save your own, most likely," replied the boy, "and tit-for-tat's all fair." "Well, let's hear it then," replied I. "No, not unless you promise. I can swing, if need be, as well as father, but I'd rather not, 'cause I know where all his money is hidden." "I can't make any promise," replied I. "Then I can't tell," replied he, "so I may e'en go on deck and tell father that I cannot manage it;" and as he said the latter part of this speech, the undaunted little villain actually laughed at the idea of gammoning his father, as he termed it. Train up a child in the way he should go, and he will not depart from it, is mostly true; but it is more certain that if you train a child up in the way that he should not go, he will be a more true disciple. Could there be a more decided proof of the above than the behaviour of this young villain? But his father had made him so, and thus was he rewarded. "Stop," said I, for I had reflected whether, after all, there were any grounds for hanging the boy, and come to a conclusion that a jury would have probably acquitted him. "Stop," said I; "you say that what you can tell is of the greatest consequence." "And becomes of more consequence every minute that passes," replied he. "I will tell you everything, and let you into father's secrets. I peach upon father altogether." "Well, then," replied I, "if what you have to disclose proves important, I will do all I can to save your life, and I have no doubt that I shall be able so to do." "No more have I," replied he, "or I would not have come to you. Now then, father came to the back of the island to do a little business with a pirate schooner, as he said just now; and he has very often done it before, as he said just now; but father did not tell you all. When we were in Port Royal, father went to the captain of a king's vessel who is there, having been sent to put down the pirates if possible, and he offered this captain of the king's ship, for a certain sum, to put our friends that we exchange with into his hands." "What, betray his friend the pirate?" "Yes, father agreed that he would come round as he has done this day, and would contrive to chaffer and bargain with him and keep him so late in the bay that the king's ship should come upon him all of a sudden and take him, and this was father's intention, only you have pinned him. The king's ship will be round that point in two hours or thereabouts, so if you are found here you will be taken and handed as sure as I ain't hanged yet. Now ain't this important news, and worth all I asked for it?" "It certainly is, if it is true, boy." "Oh, I'll prove it, for I always goes with father, and he trusts me with everything. I saw the paper signed. The king's ship is called the Vestal, and the captain who signed the paper signed it Philip Musgrave." "Indeed," said I, turning away, for I did not wish the boy to perceive my emotion at this announcement. I recovered myself as soon as I could, and said to him, "Boy, I will keep my promise. Do you stay below, and I will go on deck and plead for your life." "Mayn't I go on deck for a bit?" said he. "What to wish your father good-bye? No, no, you had better spare yourself and him that painful meeting." "No, I don't want to wish him good-bye,--I'll wait till it's over, only I never did see a man hanged, and I have a curiosity to have just a peep." "Out, you little monster," cried I, running up on deck, for the information I had received was too important not to be immediately taken advantage of. "Well, captain, has the boy saved his father's life?" "No," replied I, in a loud voice. "Then, up he goes," said the men, for the halter had been round his neck and run out to the yard-arm for some time, and the men had manned the rope, only awaiting my return on deck. In a second, the captain of the Transcendant was swinging in the air, and certainly if ever a scoundrel merited his fate it was that man. Shortly afterwards I turned round, and there was the young hopeful looking at his father's body swinging to and fro with the motion of the vessel. I looked in vain for a tear in his eye; there was not a symptom of emotion. Seeing me look sternly at him, he hastened down below again. "My lads," said I to the men, who were all on deck, "I have received intelligence of that importance that I recommend that we should cut that vessel adrift, and make sail without a moment's loss of time." "What, not plunder?" cried the men, looking at the Transcendant. "No, not think of it, if you are wise." At this reply all of the men exclaimed that "that would not do"--"that plunder they would"--that "I was not the captain of the vessel,"--and many more expressions, showing how soon a man may lose popularity on board of a pirate vessel. "I gave my opinion, my men, and if you will hear why I said so--" "No, no, out boats," cried they all, and simultaneously ran to lower down the boats, for it was now calm, that they might tow the schooner alongside of the Transcendant. "You might as well talk to the wind as talk to them when there is plunder to be obtained," said Toplift to me in a low tone. "Come down with me," said I, "and I will tell you what I have heard." "Ain't they going to plunder the brig?" said Master Peleg, when we came down; "I know where father's dollars are," and up he ran on deck. I made a short remark upon the depravity of the boy, and then informed Captain Toplift of what he had told me. "If you had told them, they would not have paid attention to you. The boat's crew who came with the captain have told them that there is money on board, and all authority is now at an end." "Well," replied I, "I believe that the boy has told the truth." "And what do you mean to do?" "Remain below quietly, if I am allowed," replied I. "But I cannot," said he; "they would throw me overboard." "Make as bad a fight of it as you can," replied I. "That I will," said Captain Toplift, "and with so superior a force opposed, we cannot stand long. But I must tell you where you must be." "Where?" replied I. "At the entrance of the magazine, for as sure as we stand here they will blow up the vessel rather than be taken. Not all of them, but two or three I know are determined so to do, and resolute enough to do it. My pistols are there. You have only to open this door, and you are in the magazine passage. See," said he, opening the door, "there is the scuttle where they hand the powder up." "I will be on the watch, depend upon it; and, Captain Toplift, if the schooner is taken, and I am alive, you may have no fear for yourself." "Now let us go on deck again." "I will follow you," replied I. "I am alone at last, thank Heaven!" said I to myself. "What a position am I in, and how much will be in suspense before twenty-four hours are over! My own brother here, not ten miles perhaps from me, commanding the vessel which will attack this on which I am on board. That they will take us I have no doubt; but what risk do I run--of death by shot, or by their blowing up the vessel in spite of me, or of no quarter being given. Well, I wish it were decided. At all events, I am long supposed dead, and I shall not be recognised among the heaps of the bodies." I then went to the locker and took out my duck frock and trousers, determining that I would, if I were killed, be killed in those clothes, and be thrown overboard as a common seaman. I then went on deck, for I heard the grating of the sides of the two vessels, and knew that they were in contact. All was uproar and confusion on board of the Transcendant, but there was nobody on board the schooner except Toplift and myself. I cannot say that I never saw such a scene, for I had seen quite as bad on board of a privateer. The common seamen, as well as the soldiers, when let loose to plunder, are like maniacs. In half an hour they had broken open everything, cut the crew to pieces, and found out the hoard of dollars, which was shown them by young Peleg, who tried for his share, but for so doing received a chop with a cutlass, which cut off his right ear, and wounded him severely on the shoulder; but his right arm was not disabled, and while the man that out him down was bending over a heap of dollars, which took both hands to lift them, the boy ran his knife deep into the man's side, who fell mortally wounded. The rush for the dollars thus at the mercy of the rest was so great, that Peleg was not minded, and he crept away and came on board the schooner. We saw that he was bleeding profusely, but we asked no questions, and he went down the ladder forward. "What has that young villain been after?" said Toplift. "I presume he has been quarrelling for plunder, and considered that he had a greater right to his father's money than anybody else." Among other plunder the people had not forgotten to look for liquor, and an hour had not passed before three-fourths of the men were more or less intoxicated. They had found plenty of good clothes, and were strutting about with gold-laced waistcoats and embroidered coats over their dirty frocks. The uproar increased every minute, when Toplift, who had been looking out with the glass, exclaimed, "There she is, by all that's sacred!" I caught the glass out of his hand, and found it was the king's ship. She was a large flush vessel, apparently of eighteen or twenty guns, just opening from the point, and not seven miles from us. We were still becalmed, and she was bringing the wind down with her, so that to escape appeared impossible. "Now, what shall we do?" said Captain Toplift; "shall we allow her to come down upon us and say nothing to the men, or shall we point out the danger and persuade them to come on board and prepare?" "You must do as you please," replied I, "I am indifferent which. It will be dark in another hour, and she will not be down by that time. I would rather avoid fighting, and get away from the schooner quietly if I could, but that I fear is impossible now." "Well, I must go on board of the brig and let them know, for if they find it out themselves they will throw us overboard." Captain Toplift then went on board of the brig, and railing to the men who were still sober, told them that there was a king's ship coming down upon them not seven miles off. This had the effect of putting an end to the confusion and noise of a great portion of the men, who hastened on board of the schooner, but others, who were intoxicated, were with difficulty persuaded to return. At last they were all got on board, and the schooner, clear from the brig, was made ready for action; but Toplift was obliged to make some alteration in the stationing of the men, as those who were to hand up the powder were all of them tipsy. By the time that the schooner was ready, and the breeze had come down to her, the corvette was not more than three miles from us; but it was quite dark, for there is no twilight in those parts. We consulted what course we should take to avoid her, if possible, and agreed that we would stand in shore and pass her if we possibly could. We knew that, if seen, we were then certain to be obliged to fight; but if not seen, we might escape. We then shifted the helm and bore up across her bows, but we had not steered in this direction more than a quarter of an hour, when the Transcendant was perceived to be on fire, having been fired by the drunken men before they left her, and soon afterwards she burst out into flames that threw a strong light to a great distance, discovering the corvette to us at two miles' distance, and of course exposing us to the corvette, who immediately altered her course for us. We had therefore only to fight, and the crew, being most of them in liquor, declared that they would fight till the schooner sunk under them. In a quarter of an hour, the corvette being close to us, and standing stem on, we opened our fire, raking her masts and yards, and then I went down below. I had changed my clothes for the duck trousers and shirt which I had swum on board in, and I now remained quietly in the cabin. A few minutes afterwards the corvette opened her fire, and the shot did great execution. The cries of the wounded and the shouts of the tipsy men were mingled together, but the crew of the schooner fired with great rapidity, and sustained the unequal conflict most gallantly. After a time some men darted down into the cabin. I was then at the door which led to the magazine passage, and busied myself handing up the powder, as it secured me from observation, and it was supposed that I was one of the crew sent down for that duty. The men roared out, "Where is the captain? We want him to fight the ship. Toplift is an old fool, and don't know what he is about." I made no reply, but with my back towards them continued to hand up the powder, and, having changed my dress, they did not recognise me, so they rushed upon deck again. The corvette was now alongside of the schooner, pouring in her broadsides with fatal execution, the shot passing in every direction through her, so that there was as much danger below as on deck, and it was evident that the schooner could not oppose them much longer. Still they continued to fire with great resolution, being now sobered into more steadiness than at first. But by this time more than half the men were killed and wounded, and our guns were encumbered with the wreck and bodies. I heard them, at the very time that a crashing broadside was poured in by the corvette, cry out, "Avast firing for a moment and clear the decks." They did so, and, having thrown the bodies overboard and cut away the spars and rigging which had fallen, so as to enable them to work their guns, during which time three broadsides were poured in, they remanned their guns, and fought with as much spirit as before. I could not help admiring the courage of the scoundrels, for nothing could exceed it; but resistance was useless, further than they preferred dying at their guns to being hanged on the gibbet. But the shouts of the pirates and the reports of the guns gradually decreased. The men were swept away by the enemy's fire, and the guns were one by one disabled. The schooner's sides were torn out, and the water poured in so fast that it was rising to the magazine. I heard a cry of boarders, and the striking of the two vessels together, and then there was a rush down below, when a man came aft to the magazine passage. It was the fellow whom I had struck down on the quarter-deck and had put into irons. "Come along," said he, to the others; "we'll send the corvette and ourselves all to the devil together. Out of the way there." "Stand back," said I. "Stand back," replied he, pointing his pistol down to the magazine. I threw up his arm, and the pistol went off, striking the beams above. "Blast you," cried he, "whoever you are; but I've another," and he attempted to draw it out of his belt; but before he could effect it I blew out his brains with the pistol which I had ready cocked in my hand. His companions started back, and I pointed my second pistol at them, saying, "The man who comes forward this way dies." As I said this the crew of the corvette, who had cleared the decks, charged down below, and the pirates ran away and secreted themselves. Perceiving them coming forward, I said to them, "Put a guard over the magazine; they have attempted to blow up the vessel already." "Who are you?" said an officer. "A prisoner," replied I. "Well, then, lead him on deck, and stay here, two of you; shut down the magazine scuttle and keep guard." "Thank Heaven," thought I, "that this affair is over," as a seaman led me by the collar on deck, and handed me to others, who took me on board of the corvette. We were all put down below that remained out of the schooner's crew, about eighteen or nineteen, not more, and I was glad to find Captain Toplift, although badly wounded with a splinter, was among the number. We remained there huddled together with a guard of ten men over us for more than an hour, when we heard, from the conversation on deck, that the schooner had sunk. After that the guns of the corvette were secured, and the men had an allowance of liquor served out to them, the watch was called, and all was quiet during the remainder of the night. For some time I was in a state of excitement from the events of the last twenty-four hours crowding so rapidly, but by degrees I became calm. I asked one of the guard who was the captain of the corvette. "What's that to you, you gallows-bird?" replied he. "A civil question might receive a civil reply," answered I. "So it might with any one else; but if you don't want the hilt of my cutlass down your throat, you will hold your tongue." But I did not require to repeat the question, as I heard one of the officers on deck say, "It's Captain Musgrave's orders." This satisfied me, and I lay down with the rest of the prisoners, waiting for daybreak, when I trusted my troubles would soon be over. They were all sound asleep. Strange that men who knew that they would be hanged in a few days, if not the next morning, should sleep so sound--but so it was--while I, who had every reason to believe that my sufferings were over, could not sleep one wink. I was, however, fully satisfied with my own castle-buildings during the night, and more satisfied when it was again broad daylight. After the men had had their breakfast, an order came down for all the prisoners to be brought on deck. We were led up under guard, and made to stand all in a row. I looked round for my brother, but he was not on deck. It was the first-lieutenant who was there, with several other officers, and the clerk, with pen and ink, to take down the names of the prisoners. "Who was the captain of this vessel?" said the first-lieutenant. "I was, Sir," replied Toplift; "but much against my will." "Oh, of course; every man was on board of her against his will. What is your name? Put him down, Mr Pearson. Any other officers alive?" "No, Sir," replied Toplift. The name of every man was then asked and put down, and it so happened that I was the last; for, anxious to see my brother, I had walked up the foremost, and they had commenced their interrogation at the other end of the line. "What is your name?" "I do not belong to the schooner," replied I. "Of course not: you dropped on board her from the clouds." "No, Sir, I did not; I swam on board of her to save my life." "Then you went out of the frying-pan into the fire, I reckon, my good fellow, for your life is forfeited now." "I rather think not, Sir," replied I. "On the contrary, I feel it is quite safe." "Give us none of your jaw, my good fellow, but give us your name." "Certainly, Sir, if you require it. My name is Alexander Musgrave, Sir," replied I; "I am the elder brother of your captain, Philip Musgrave, and I will thank you to go into his cabin and inform him that I am here." The first-lieutenant and officers started back in astonishment, and so did Captain Toplift and the pirates. The first-lieutenant hardly knew whether to consider it as a pretence on my part or not, and was undecided how to act, when Captain Toplift said, "I do not know whether the gentleman is as he says, but this is certain, and all the men can prove it as well as myself, that he did swim on board, as he said, to escape from the Indians, and that he has never joined the crew. They offered to make him captain in my stead, and he positively refused it." "Yes," said all the pirates; "that's true enough." "Well, Sir," replied the first-lieutenant, "I will certainly carry your message." "To make all certain," replied I, "I will write my name on a slip of paper for you to take in to the captain. He knows my signature." I did so, and the first-lieutenant took the paper, and went into the cabin. In a minute he returned, and requested me to follow him. I did so, and in another minute I was in the arms of my brother. For some time we neither of us could speak. At last Philip said, "That you are alive and well let me thank Heaven. I have considered you as dead, and so have others; and to find you on board of a pirate--on board of a vessel which I have been riddling with shot, any one of which might have caused your death! Thank God I was ignorant that you were on board, or I never could have done my duty. I will not ask how you came on board of this vessel, for that must be the end of your narrative, which I must have from the time that you first left Rio, and afterwards in detail the whole from the time that you left the Coast." "Then they received my letters from Rio?" "Yes, after imagining you were dead, they were rejoiced by those letters; but I will not anticipate my story, nor will I now ask for yours; it is sufficient at present that you are alive, my dear Alexander, and once more in my arms." "Let me ask one question," replied I. "I know what it will be. She was in good health, but suffering much in mind from having no account of you. Her father and others have reasoned with her, and painted the impossibility of your being in existence, as the xebeque you sailed in had never been heard of. She still adheres to the opinion that you are alive, and will not abandon the hope of seeing you again; but hope deferred has paled her cheek even more pale than it usually is, and she evidently suffers much, for her life is wrapped in yours. Now, having told you this, you must come into my state-room, and allow me to enable you to appear as my brother ought to do. I do not think that there is any difference in our size now although there was when we last parted." "Many thanks, Philip, but before I adonise my outward man I should wish to satisfy my inward cravings; and, to tell you the truth, I'm so hungry from not having broken my fast for nearly twenty-four hours, that if you could order something to eat while you are looking out the clothes, I should feel in no small degree grateful." Philip rang the bell and ordered the steward to bring something to eat and drink, and after eating I occupied a quarter of an hour more in getting rid of the pirate smoke and dirt, and putting on one of his uniforms, for he had no other clothes on board, when I came out looking not at all like a pirate. "Now, then," said Philip, "before we have our _tete-a-tete_, come out with me, and let me introduce you to the officers as my brother." I went out with him, and was formally introduced. The first-lieutenant apologised for his rough speech, but I told him that there was no occasion for any apology, as I had no doubt that I looked very much like a pirate at the time. "More than you do now, Sir, at all events," replied he. "By the bye, brother," said I, "there is one man among the prisoners who, although compelled to act as captain by the men, is no pirate. His conduct I will explain to you. May I request him to be kindly treated? His name is Toplift--and also two Portuguese, my former companions." "Certainly," replied Philip, "your word is sufficient. Let those persons be released and taken care of," said he to the first-lieutenant. "We will wait for the particulars by-and-by." I remained on deck about ten minutes, and then returned to the cabin with my brother. "What is this which you have left on my dressing-table?" said Philip, surveying the leather bag which contained the diamond. "That, Philip," said I, "is a portion of my narrative, and eventually may prove a very important one. I don't think that I can afford to make you a present of it, but I shall see." "It does not look very valuable," replied he. "At all events, do me the favour to lock it up carefully," replied I. "Well, if you are in earnest I will," he said, and having put it in a drawer and locked it up, he said, "Now, Alexander, let me have your history." I commenced, and told him all that the reader is now acquainted with. Dinner broke off my narrative, and as soon as it was over I resumed it. When I had finished, he expressed his astonishment, and asked many questions. Among others he said, "And that little wretch Peleg, the captain of the Transcendant's son, is he on board?" "I have not seen him," replied I, "and therefore presume that he was not able to move, and went down in the schooner." Which was the case. "You have indeed told me a strange tale," said Philip, "and you have had some extraordinary escapes. You must have a charmed life, and you appear to have been preserved to prove that Amy's persuasion of your being still alive was just and well-founded; and now it is my turn to talk, and yours to listen. When I left you as lieutenant of Captain Levee's schooner, we very shortly afterwards had an action with a Spanish vessel of very superior force, for she mounted thirty guns. Having no chance with her, from her superior weight of metal, we threw ourselves on her bow and boarded. The Spaniards did not relish this kind of close fighting, and gave us immediate possession of their deck. Captain Levee, when he brought in his prize, was appointed to a frigate of thirty-six guns, and I followed him as his first-lieutenant. We had another combat with a vessel of equal force, in which we were the victors, and I was sent in the prize. Captain Levee wrote very kindly in my behalf and I was made a captain, and given the command of a small brig. But let me first finish with Captain Levee. He captured a galleon, which gave him a large fortune, and he then gave up the command of his ship, and went on shore, telling me in a letter that he had hitherto squandered away all his money, but now that he had got so much, he intended to keep it. He has done so, for he has purchased a large landed property, is married, and, I believe, is very happy." "He deserves it," replied I; "and long may he be so." "Well, to continue. I was sent out on this station, and, having information that the vessel which you are now on board of was at anchor in a bay close to the Havannah, I ran in and reconnoitred. She hoisted Spanish colours, and I did the same. It fell calm, and I lay about four miles outside. I was mistaken for another Spanish vessel, and the captain of this vessel, or, to speak correctly, the Spanish captain of the Spanish brig, came out to see me, and did not discover his mistake till he was on board. I detained him and his boat's crew. It continued calm till the evening, when the breeze sprung up, and I put the head of the brig right for the bay, as if I were going to anchor. The breeze being light, it was dark before I got in and alongside this vessel. They were completely surprised, for they imagined that their captain was dining with his old friend, and, having no idea that we were anything but Spanish, had not the least preparation for resistance. We had possession of her decks before they could seize their arms, and I brought her out without any one knowing that she had been captured. On my arrival, the admiral gave me the command of her, which I have held for nine months; but she is very defective, and I was ordered home, and should have sailed, had it not been that that scoundrel, the captain of the Transcendant, gave me the information which induced me to come round to the back of the island. Little did I think what happiness awaited me. So much for myself. Do not think me an egotist for speaking of myself, I am only clearing away the less important information to arrive at that which most interests you. The Amy arrived safe with her valuable cargo. The captain reported that he had remained at the rendezvous until blown off by a sort of hurricane, and that, finding himself a long way off, he considered, when the gale had ceased, that he was not justified in remaining with so valuable a cargo, but was bound to make the best of his way to Liverpool. He was right, and his conduct was approved of by Mr Trevannion, who looked for your arrival every hour. At last a week passed away and you did not make your appearance, and great alarm was entertained for your safety. The weeks grew into months, and it was supposed that you had been upset in the same hurricane which had driven the Amy so far off from her rendezvous. The poor girl Whyna was, as you may suppose, kindly received by Mr Trevannion and his daughter, and soon gained their affection; but she pined for your return, and when she was told that you were dead she never recovered it. The climate certainly did not agree with her, and she contracted a very bad cough during the winter, but I believe from my heart that it was your loss which affected her the most severely. After she had been about eighteen months in England, she fell into a consumption and died." "Poor Whyna!" said I, with a sigh. "Alexander," said Philip, "perhaps it was all for the best, for that poor girl loved you sincerely, and, supposing that she was now still alive and living with Miss Trevannion, and on your return your marriage should (which, of course, unless Heaven decrees otherwise, it will) take place, that poor creature would have been very unhappy; and although the idea of her being a rival to Miss Trevannion is something which may appear absurd to us, yet she had the same feelings, and must have endured the same pangs, as any other woman, let her colour be what it may. I think, therefore, that her removal was a blessing and a happy dispensation. I saw Mr Trevannion and his daughter but once previous to their receiving your letters from Rio, acquainting them with your misfortunes and happy deliverance from slavery. They were both very dejected, and Mr Trevannion talked of retiring from business, and living upon his property near Liverpool. As I corresponded regularly with Amy, I learnt that he had done so, and had just wound up his affairs when your letters arrived from Rio with an order on the Portuguese Exchequer for a considerable sum. I hardly need say that the joy occasioned by this intelligence was great. Amy recovered her good looks, and her father bitterly lamented his having retired from business, as he had wished to have made the whole over to you. The money you remitted from Rio he considered as your own, and he also set apart your share of the business from the time that you were admitted as a partner. He was not aware that you could carry a diamond of such immense value about your person, exposed to the view of every one; among Indians, settlers, and pirates. That my delight was equal to theirs you will, I am sure, give me credit to believe; and although I was obliged to sail for the West Indies, every day I anticipated receiving a letter informing me of your arrival in England. Judge then my distress at first receiving letters stating that you had not been heard of for three months after your leaving Rio, and expressions of fear that some accident had happened, and then month after month many more and more desponding letters, in which Mr Trevannion plainly stated that the xebeque must have foundered; and only Amy clinging to the hope that you were still alive. I acknowledge that I considered you dead, and you may therefore imagine my surprise and delight when your signature on the slip of paper proved that you were not only in existence, but on board of the same vessel with me." Such was the narrative of my brother Philip in return for mine, and it was late at night when we parted. Oh! How sincerely did I pray that night, thanking heaven for all its mercies, and entreating that the cup might not be again dashed from my lips. When I arose next morning I found that Philip was on deck, and I followed him. "We shall soon be in Port Royal with this wind," said he, "and I hope to find the admiral still there." I had some conversation with the officers, and then went below to see Toplift. He was in his hammock, for he had much fever and suffered from his wound, but the surgeon said that he would do well. "Toplift," said I, "you must keep your mind at ease, for my brother has promised me that you shall not be tried with the others, and has no doubt that when he explains the whole to the admiral you will be thanked for your service." "Thanked!" said Toplift, "if I am not hanged, I shall be fortunate enough." "No fear of that," replied I, "so keep your mind easy and get well as fast as you can." "Well then, Sir, you have saved my life, at all events, for had you not come on board, no one would have ever spoken for me, or believed that I was not a pirate in heart like all the others, except the two Portuguese." "If necessary, they will be evidence in your favour, but I do not think any evidence will be required except mine, and that will be sufficient with the admiral. I promised you that you should never want the means of getting your livelihood, and I repeat that promise now." "Thank you, Sir," replied he, and I then left him and went up to the cabin to breakfast. The following day we were at anchor at Port Royal; my brother reported what had occurred, and the admiral sent for all the pirate prisoners except Toplift, whose case was so fully represented by me and my brother, that he was permitted to go at large, and to take a passage home to England free of expense if he wished it. It is hardly necessary to say that Toplift accepted this offer, and remained in the vessel with me. The two Portuguese were also liberated. Three days after our arrival we sailed for England, and after a quick run of between five and six weeks, we anchored at Spithead. My brother could not leave his ship, and I therefore requested him to write to Liverpool, stating that he had intelligence of me, and that I was alive; that I had been wrecked and had fallen into the hands of the Indians near the English settlements in Virginia, and that I had escaped and was, he believed, at James Town. I considered it wise to make a communication like this at first, as too sudden an announcement might be dangerous to one in so weak a state of health as Philip stated my Amy to be from the letter he had received from her father. I remained with him at Portsmouth until the reply came. Mr Trevannion wrote and told Philip that his communication had, as it were, raised his daughter from the grave--as she had fallen into a state of profound melancholy, which nothing could remove--that he had very cautiously introduced the subject, and by degrees told her what was reported, and eventually, when he found that she was more composed, that he had put Philip's letter into her hand. He concluded that he trusted that I would arrive, and soon, for if any accident was now to happen to me it would be the death of his daughter, who had not strength enough left to bear another reverse. At my request Philip then wrote that he had received a letter from a brother officer stating that I was well and safe on board, and that they would be in England a few days after the receipt of the letter. Leaving directions to Philip how to proceed, I now went off to London, and, having fitted myself out with every requisite of dress and toilet, I called upon a celebrated Jew diamond merchant and showed him my diamond, requesting that he would weigh it and then estimate its value. He was much astonished at the sight of such a stone, as well he might be, and after weighing it and examining it he pronounced it worth 47,000 pounds, provided a purchaser could be found for an article of such value. I told him that I was not a merchant, and could not be travelling about to show the diamond to crowned heads; but if he would give me a liberal price for it, I would abate a great deal, that he might dispose of it to his own advantage, he requested that he might call upon me with two of his friends, that they might see the diamond and consult with him; and then he would give me an answer. We fixed the time for twelve o'clock on the following day, and I took my leave. The next day he called at the time appointed, accompanied by two gentlemen of his own persuasion. They weighed the stone again very carefully, examined it in the light of a powerful lamp to ascertain its water, and to see if there were any flaws in it, calculated the reduction of weight which would take place in cutting it, and, after a consultation, I was offered 38,000 pounds. I considered this an offer that I ought not to refuse, and I closed with them. The next day the affair was settled. I received money and bills on government to the amount, and wrote to Philip telling him what had taken place. Strange that from two slaves in the mines I should have received such valuable legacies; from poor Ingram a diamond worth so much money, and from the other Englishman a tattered Bible which made me a sincere Christian--a legacy in comparison of which the diamond was as dross. Philip replied to my letter congratulating me on the sale of the diamond, and informing me that to his letter he had received a reply containing so satisfactory an account of Amy's restored health, that he had written to tell them that I had arrived safe in England, and would be very soon with them. He recommended my going immediately, as the anxiety and suspense would be very injurious to Amy's health. I therefore made every arrangement for my departure, purchased horses, and procured four stout serving-men, well armed, to accompany me, and wrote a letter, which I sent by an express courier, stating the exact day which I expected to arrive at Mr Trevannion's country-seat. I waited in London two days to wind up all my affairs, and to give time for the express to arrive before me, as I intended to travel very fast. My stay in London was the occasion of an important discovery. I was at the coffee-house at Saint Paul's, and was talking with one of Captain Levee's officers, with whom I had picked up an acquaintance, when, on his calling me by the name of Musgrave, a pinched-up sort of looking personage, in a black suit, who was standing at the bay-window, turned round, and coming up to me said, "Sir, as a stranger I must apologise, but hearing your friend call you by the name of Musgrave, may I venture to ask if you are any relative to Sir Richard Musgrave, Baronet, who lived in Cumberland?" "Lived, did you say, Sir? Is he then dead?" "Yes, Sir; he has been dead these last seven months, and we are looking out for his heir and cannot find him." "I knew the family very well," replied I, "for I am connected with it. His eldest son, Richard, of course, must be his heir, as all the estates are entailed." "His eldest son, Richard, Sir, is dead. We have authenticated documents to prove that; and, moreover, his second son, Charles, is also dead. He came home very ill and died, not at his father's house, but at the house of one of his tenants on the estate. It is his third son, Alexander Musgrave, whom we seek, and seek in vain. He is now the heir to the baronetcy and estates, but we have lost all clue to him. We understand that a Captain Philip Musgrave is just arrived from the West Indies. He is, we presume, the fourth son. But until we can find out what has become of Alexander Musgrave, and whether he is dead or alive, we cannot act. I have written this day to Captain Musgrave, requesting any information he can give, but have received no answer. I presume, Sir, it is useless to inquire of you?" "Not exactly, Sir, for I am the Alexander Musgrave you seek." "Indeed, Sir, but what proof have you of your identity to offer to us?" "The evidence of my brother, Captain Philip Musgrave, in whose ship I have just arrived from the West Indies; that his answer to your letter will be satisfactory enough, I have no doubt. Here is a letter from him to me, in which you see he addresses me `dear Alexander,' and concludes with `your affectionate brother, Philip Musgrave.'" "This is indeed satisfactory, Sir," replied the gentleman, "and I have only to receive an answer from your brother to make all right and clear. Allow me, Sir, to congratulate you upon your accession to the title and property. I presume you will have no objection, as soon as the necessary proofs are obtained, to accompany me down to Cumberland, where I doubt not, you will be recognised by many." "Of that, Sir, I have not the slightest doubt," replied I, "but I cannot go down with you to Cumberland at present. I leave London for Liverpool the day after to-morrow on important business, and cannot disappoint the parties." "Well, Sir, it must indeed be an important business which will prevent you from taking possession of a title and 4000 pounds per annum," replied he; "but here is my address, and I hope I shall hear from you as soon as possible, as I shall remain in town till I can bring the heir down with me." The man now looked as if he doubted me. He could not imagine that I could neglect the taking possession of the estate for any other business, and it did appear singular, so I said to him, "Sir, I have been long out of England, and am affianced to a young lady who lives near Liverpool. She has been waiting to hear from me for some time, and I have sent an express to say that I will be with her on such a day. I cannot disappoint her, and I tell you more, that, without I possess her, the possession of the title and estates will give me very little pleasure." "Sir," replied he, making a bow, "I honour your sentiments, and she must be a worthy lady who can inspire such feelings. I only hope that you will not remain too long at Liverpool, as London is expensive, and I am anxious to return to Cumberland." I then wished the gentleman farewell, and went home to my lodgings. I had given him my address in case he wanted to see me before my departure. The next day I received a letter from Philip enclosing the one written to him by this gentleman, whose name was Campbell, and who was a lawyer. Philip told me what reply he had made to him, and congratulated me on my accession to the title and estates. Almost an hour afterwards Mr Campbell called upon me with Philip's letter, which he declared to be highly satisfactory, and sufficient in any court of justice. "But," said he, "I would wish to ask you a few particulars." "And I also would wish to make a few inquiries, Mr Campbell. I have heard your name in my youth, although I cannot recollect ever having seen you." "I was the confidential adviser of your father at one time, Sir," replied he, "but latterly all intercourse had ceased; it was not until he was on his death-bed, and fully repented the foolish step which he had taken, and the injustice he had been guilty of, that he sent for me,--much to the annoyance of Lady Musgrave, who would have prevented me from coming into the house even when I arrived, had it not been for the servants, who disobeyed her." "And my sisters, Sir, Janet and Mabel?" "Are both well, and have grown up very fine girls. Your father destroyed the deed by which Lady Musgrave was to have had a large jointure upon the estate, and she is now entirely dependent upon you for what she may receive. When do you expect to be able to come up from Liverpool?" "I can hardly say, but of course as soon as I can." "Well, Sir, my own affairs will require my presence in the metropolis for a month. In the mean time, although I should have preferred to have gone down with you to Faristone Hall, and have at once put you in possession, yet affairs may remain as they are (for everything is under seal, and Lady Musgrave has been compelled to remove) till it suits your convenience. I shall, however, write to let them know that you have been found and will soon come down and take possession." Mr Campbell then asked me a few questions, to which I replied satisfactorily, and then for the first time he saluted me with my title, saying, "Sir Alexander, I will now take my leave." The next morning I set off on my journey, and travelled with as much speed as the horses would permit. I arrived on the fifth day at Mr Trevannion's seat, about nine miles from Liverpool. As I rode up the avenue of chestnut trees, I perceived a female form looking out from an upper window, which soon afterwards made a precipitate retreat. I alighted, and was received at the door in the embrace of Mr Trevannion, who welcomed me with tears, and taking me by the hand he led me into an apartment where I found my adored Amy, who threw herself into my arms and wept as if her heart would break; but her sobs were the sobs of joy, and when she did raise her head and look at me, it was with eyes beaming with pleasure, and with smiles upon her beautiful lips. I clasped her to my bosom, and felt that I was more than repaid for all I had suffered, and my heart was throbbing with gratitude and love. It was some time before we could sufficiently compose ourselves to enter into lengthened conversation, and then Amy inquired what had occurred to me to occasion such lengthened absence. We sat down on a sofa, and with Amy on one side of me and her father on the other I entered into my narrative. "And so you have been married since we last heard from you?" said Amy, smiling, when I had finished my history. "Yes," replied I, "I have been; but I hope I shall treat my second wife a little better than I did my first." "I hope so too," replied Amy; "but I have great fear that your Virginian mistress may come over and claim you." "I do not think that likely. From the Indians having followed me to the beach, they must have fallen in with her." "And what do you think became of her?" "Of course I cannot exactly say; but I presume she died gallantly, and fought with her axe to the last." That evening I had a long conversation with Mr Trevannion. He told me what he had done with the money, which he considered as mine, and I put into his care the sum I had received for the diamond. I then spoke to him about our marriage, and requested that it might not be postponed. "My dear Musgrave," said he, "my daughter's happiness so depends upon her union with you, that I can only say I am willing that it should take place to-morrow. For yourself you know that I have the highest esteem, and that you must be convinced of when I have consented to the match without even making inquiry as to your family and connexions. Now, however, is the time that I should wish to have some information about them." "My dear Sir, if you will only make inquiries, you will find that the family of Musgrave is one of the most highly connected in the north, and that the head of it is, or was, a Sir Richard Musgrave, Baronet, of Faristone Hall, in Cumberland. I am a near relative of his, as I can satisfactorily prove." "That is sufficient," replied Mr Trevannion. "I shall leave you to plead your cause with Amy to-morrow; so now, good night." The following day I told Amy that, since my arrival in England, I had heard of the death of my father, and that it was necessary that I should go to the north, as family affairs required my presence. "Are you serious?" replied she. "Never more so in my life. My presence is absolutely necessary, and I made arrangements with the legal adviser of our family that I would be there in less than a month." "It is a long journey," said Mr Trevannion, "and how long do you stay?" "That I cannot possibly say," replied I; "but not longer than I can help." "I do not think that I shall let you go," said Amy; "you are not to be trusted out of sight. You are so born for adventure that you will not be heard of again for another two years." "Such is my misfortune, I grant," replied I; "but, Amy, you look pale and thin; change of air would do you much service. Suppose you and your father were to come with me. Indeed, Mr Trevannion, I am in earnest. At this delightful time of the year nothing would prove so beneficial to her health; and, Amy, then, you know, that I shall not be out of your sight." "I should like the tour very much," replied she, "but--" "I know what you would say. You do not like the idea of travelling with me as Amy Trevannion. You are right. Then let me propose that you travel with me as Amy Musgrave." "I second that proposal," said Mr Trevannion. "Consent, Amy; let our marriage be quite private. I know you will prefer that it should be so, and so will your father. You will then travel with me as my wife, and we never shall part again." Amy did not reply till her father said, "Amy, it is my wish that it should be so. Recollect it will be the last time that you have to obey your father, so do not annoy me by a refusal." "I will not, my dear father," replied Amy, kissing him. "Your last command I obey with pleasure. And oh! If I have sometimes been a wilful girl, forgive me everything at this moment." "My dear child, I have nothing to forgive. May God bless you; and, Mr Musgrave," said he, putting her hand in mine, "if she proves as good a wife as she has been a daughter, you now receive a treasure," and I felt that the old man stated what was true. It was arranged that the marriage should take place on that day week, and that it should be quite private. There was no parade of bridal clothes; in fact, no one was invited, and it was, at my request, quite a secret marriage. A clergyman had been engaged to perform the ceremony, and, on the day appointed, I received the hand of my Amy in the drawing-room, and in the presence only of Humphrey and two other confidential servants. After the ceremony was over, the clergyman requested me to come with him into the adjoining room, and said, "it was necessary that he should give a certificate of the marriage, which must be inserted in the parish register." He had called me aside for that purpose, that I might give him my exact name, profession, etcetera. "My name is Alexander Musgrave, as you have heard when you married us." "Yes, I know that, but I must be particular. Have you no other name? Is that the name that you have been and will be in future known by?" "Not exactly," replied I; "I have been known by that name, but in future shall not be." "Then what am I to say?" "You must say, Sir Alexander Musgrave, Baronet, of Faristone Hall, Cumberland." "Good," said he, "that is what I required; and the lady your wife, has she any other name but Amy?" "None, I believe." The clergyman then wrote out the marriage certificate and signed it, taking a copy for registry, and we returned into the drawing-room. "Here is the certificate of marriage, Madam," said he; "it ought to be in the care of the lady, and therefore, my lady, I hand it over to you." "My lady is much obliged to you for your kindness," replied Amy, for she thought that the clergymen was only facetious. She held the certificate in her hand folded as it had been given her for some time. At last curiosity, or, perhaps, having nothing else to do, induced her to open it and read it. I was at this time talking with the clergyman, and presenting him with a handsome douceur for his trouble; but, perceiving her to open the certificate, I watched her countenance. She read and started. I turned away as if not observing her. She then went up to her father and desired him to read it. The old gentleman took out his glasses, and it was amusing to see the way in which he looked at his daughter with his spectacles falling off his nose. He then came up, and pointing to the certificate said, "Pray how am I in future to address my daughter?" "As Amy, I trust, Sir, unless you wish to scold her, and then you must call her Lady Musgrave. I am, my dear Sir, as the certificate states, Sir Alexander Musgrave, of Faristone, with a handsome property descended to me. I did not know it till I arrived in London; and if I concealed it from you till now, it was only that; my Amy should have the satisfaction of proving to me that she wedded me in pure disinterestedness of affection." "It was very, very kind of you, Alexander, to do as you have done, and I thank you sincerely for it." "And now, my dear Amy, you understand why I wished you to come with me to Cumberland, that you may take possession of your future abode, and assume that position in society which you will so much grace. I trust, Sir," continued I, "that you will not part from us, and that one roof will always cover us, as long as Heaven thinks fit to spare our lives." "May God bless you both," replied Mr Trevannion, "I cannot part with you, and must follow." About half an hour after this, I requested Amy and Mr Trevannion to sit by me, as I had now another narrative to give them, which was an explanation why and how it was that they found me in the position that they had done; in short, what were the causes that induced me, and afterwards my brother Philip, to quit our parental roof, and to come to the resolution of fighting our own way in the world. It was as follows: "Sir Richard Musgrave, my father, married a young lady of high connexion, a Miss Arabella Johnson, and with her lived, I have every reason to believe, a very happy life for nearly twenty-five years, when it pleased God to summon her away. I have a good recollection of my mother; for although I lived with my brother at a private tutor's, about six miles off, I was continually at home, and she did not die till I was nearly sixteen; and I can only say that a more elegant, amiable, and truly virtuous woman, as I believe, never existed. By this marriage my father had four sons and two daughters; Richard, the eldest; Charles, the second; myself, the third; and Philip, the fourth; and my sisters, who came last, were named Janet and Mabel. At the time of my mother's death, my eldest brother was serving with the army, which he had entered from a love of the profession, although, as heir to the baronetcy and estates, which are a clear 4000 pounds per annum, he of course had no occasion for a profession. My second brother, Charles, being of an adventurous turn, had gone out to the East Indies in a high position, as servant to the Company. I was still at home, as well as Philip, who is four years my junior, and my sisters were of course at home. I pass over my regrets at my mother's death, and will now speak more of my father. He was a good-tempered, weak man, easily led, and although, during my mother's lifetime, he was so well led that it was of little consequence, the case proved very different at her death. For a year my father remained quiet in the house, content with superintending his improvements on his property, and he had lately become infirm, and had given up the hounds and rural sports in general. The dairy was one of his principal hobbies; and it so happened that a young girl, the daughter of a labourer, was one of the females employed in that part of the establishment. She was certainly remarkably good-looking; her features were very small, and she did not show that robust frame which people in her class of life generally do. She was about seventeen years old, slight in figure, and certainly a person that you would not pass without making some commendatory remark upon her good looks and modest appearance. She was not, however, what she appeared; she was beyond measure cunning and astute, and, as it proved, inordinately ambitious. My father, who was naturally of an amorous disposition, was attracted by her, and very soon was constantly in the dairy, and his attentions were so marked, that the other servants used to call her `my lady.' A few months after my father had shown a preference for this girl, he was seized with his first attack of gout. It did not last him long, and in six weeks he was about again, and resumed his attentions to her. Philip and I, who were at our tutor's, when we came home, heard from others what was going on, and very foolishly played the girl many tricks, and annoyed her as much as we could. After we returned, my father had another fit of gout, and when he was confined to his room, he desired this girl to be sent for to attend upon him. I cannot say what took place, but this is certain, that my father's unfortunate passion became so great, and I presume the girl's ambition rose in proportion, that about six months afterwards this daughter of a menial was raised to the dignity of Lady Musgrave--she being at that time about eighteen, and my father verging on seventy. "When this ill-assorted and disgraceful connexion was known, the gentry and aristocracy of the country refused any longer to visit my father, and all communication was broken off. In a short time the ascendency which this artful girl gained over the old man was most wonderful. He lived but in her sight, and knew no will but hers. Her father and family were removed to a good house in the neighbourhood, and gave themselves all the airs of gentlepeople. The good old steward was dismissed, and her father established in his room, although the man could not read or write, and was wholly unfit for the office. The expense which she launched out into, by his permission, was excessive. New liveries, new coaches, diamonds, and dresses fit for the court-- indeed, every kind of luxury that could be conceived, and much greater than my father could afford. She now showed herself in her true colours; vindictive and tyrannical to excess, she dismissed all the old servants, and oppressed all those to whom she owed a grudge; yet my poor father could see nothing but perfection in her. It was not till four months after the marriage that Philip and I came home, and our new step-mother had not forgotten our treatment of her. She treated us with great harshness, refused our taking meals at my father's table, and ordered us the coarsest fare; and when we complained to my father, denied everything that we said. As we found that we could not induce our father to listen to us or to believe us, we tried all we could, and retaliated and annoyed her as much, if not more, than she annoyed us, by talking of her mean origin and her former occupation; we defied her, and, in so doing, we ruined ourselves; for, after a useless struggle on my father's part, he gave way to her imperious commands, and sending for me told me that I had become such a reprobate that I was no longer a son of his. He threw me a purse, telling me that it was all I might expect from him, and that I was instantly to leave the house, and never show my face in it any more. I replied, with more spirit than respect, that it was high time that the son of a gentleman and lady should leave the house, when such low-born creatures were installed in it as the mistress. My father, in a rage, flung his crutch at my head, and I left the room. "As I went out I met her in the passage; she had evidently been listening to what had passed, and she was full of exultation. "`It is your turn now, you she-devil,' said I, in my rage; `but wait till my father dies. You shall go a-milking again.' "I do not mean to defend my conduct, but I was then not seventeen, and that must be my excuse. I little thought, when I said so, that it would be from my hands that she would have to receive bounty; but so it is, as Mr Campbell informs me that my father destroyed, previous to his death, the papers which he had signed to secure her a large jointure on the estate. I set off with my wardrobe and the purse of twenty guineas, which my father had given me, and, having a desire to see the world, I went on board of a merchant vessel. Six months afterwards, when we were at Liverpool, I went on board of a privateer. The remainder of my history you are already acquainted with. "As soon as she had wreaked her vengeance upon me, my brother Philip was the next; but he was too young at that time to be turned adrift, so she put it off till the time should come, irritating and weaning my father from him by every means in her power. Three years afterwards she succeeded in having him dismissed, also, and you know how I found him out. All these circumstances were very well-known in the neighbourhood and to our own relations; and one only, my aunt, called upon my father, and, after a long conversation, my father consented that my sisters should go away, and remain under her charge. My step-mother's violent temper, her exactions, her imperious conduct, which was now shown even towards him, with what my aunt had advanced, had to a certain extent opened my father's eyes. He perceived that she had no other view but her own aggrandisement, and that she cared little for him. Her repeated attempts, however, to make him sign in her favour, in case of his death, were successful, and it was not till after her conduct had alienated him from her, and he deplored the loss of his children, that he committed the deed to the flames. About three years after I had quitted the house, my eldest brother, who had information of all that had passed, and who remained in the army because he declared that he never would go home till after his father's death, was killed by a cannon-ball; and my second brother died of a fever about a year ago, when resident at the court of a native prince. I had heard nothing of these deaths, or of my father's, until my arrival in London; of course, I was most anxious to go down to Cumberland, if it were only to undo the wickedness which this woman had done, and to make amends to those whom she had so cruelly treated. I do not feel any spirit of revenge, but I feel that justice demands it of me." "And I shall go with you with pleasure, to help you in your good work," said Amy, "and also because I want to see how she will now behave to one whom she has so persecuted, and who has become the arbiter of her fate." "Well, Amy, I will not trust myself on this question. You shall be the arbitress of her fate, and what you decide shall be irrevocable." "I fully appreciate the compliment you pay me," said she, "but I prefer that it should be decided in council, and we will call in my father to our assistance." A fortnight after our marriage, we set off for London, in a coach with six handsome black horses, and eight armed servants in liveries on horseback. We arrived safely on the seventh day, and there we reposed for a time previous to setting out for Cumberland. My aunt was in London and attending the court, which I was not aware of, and with her were my two sisters, Janet and Mabel, whom I had not seen for years, and who warmly embraced me, promising that they would soon come down and take up their abode at the hall. They expressed their admiration of Amy, but, in so doing, they only followed the general opinion, for it was impossible to see and not admire her elegance and beauty. My aunt showed us every attention, and we were presented to his Majesty, who was pleased to compliment Lady Musgrave in very flattering terms. We were joined in London by my brother Philip, who had paid off his ship, and the day after he joined us I said: "Philip, there are only you and I left. Do you recollect when you inquired about the diamond, the day we met on board of your ship, what reply I made to you?" "Yes; you said that you were afraid that you could not afford to make me a present of it." "At that time I did not think so, Philip, but now I know that I can, and I have desired Mr Trevannion to put out to good security the 38,000 pounds that the diamond was sold for, in your name, and for your use. You'll not hesitate to accept it, Philip, for you know that I can afford it." "I do not hesitate, my dear Alexander, because I would do the same to you, and you would not refuse me. At the same time, that is no reason that I should not thank you kindly for your generous behaviour." Philip accompanied us on our journey to Cumberland. It was tedious, for the roads were anything but good, but the beauty of the scenery compensated for the ruggedness of the way. In six days we arrived at the Hall, where Mr Campbell, who had called upon me on my arrival in London, had preceded me to make preparations for our reception, which was enthusiastic to the highest degree. We were called upon and congratulated by all the county, who were delighted to find that such a personage as Amy was to be the future mistress. As soon as all this bustle and excitement was over, I sat down with Mr Campbell to look over the state of affairs, and to set things to rights. After having done justice to many claimants, engaged again the old servants that had been discharged, promised farms to the tenants who had been unfairly turned out, etcetera, we then proceeded to decide upon what was to be done to the Dowager Lady Musgrave. It appears that at my father's death, when she found that the deed had been destroyed by his own hands in presence of others, she became frantic with rage, and immediately hastened to secure the family jewels, and every article of value that she could lay her hands upon, but Mr Campbell, having due notice of what she was about, came in time to prevent her taking them away, and, putting seals upon everything and leaving careful guards in the Hall, my lady had gone to her father's house, where she still remained. She had, on my arrival, sent me a message, imploring my mercy, and reminding me that whatever might be her errors, she was still the lawful wife of my father, and she trusted that respect to his memory would induce me to allow her sufficient to maintain her as Lady Musgrave should be. We had the consultation that Amy proposed, and called in Mr Campbell as a fourth, and it was at last decided, that, on consideration that she removed with her family to a distance of fifty miles from Faristone, she should have an income of 300 pounds per annum, as long as she conducted herself with propriety and did not marry again. The last clause was the only one which she complained of. Mr Campbell had, at the request of my father, discharged Lady Musgrave's parent from the office of steward and called in the old steward to resume his situation, and before dismissal he had to refund certain sums of money not accounted for. I have now told my eventful tale; I have only to add, that after all that I have passed through I have been rewarded by many years of unalloyed happiness. My two sisters are well married, and my three children are all that a father could wish. Such, my dear Madam, have been the vicissitudes of a "Privateersman" and I now subscribe myself, Your most obedient, ALEXANDER MUSGRAVE. THE END. 
26045	----	THE LIGHT OF SCARTHEY A Romance by EGERTON CASTLE Author of "The Pride of Jennico," "Young April," etc. "Take whichsoever way thou wilt--the ways are all alike; But do thou only come--I bade my threshold wait thy coming. From out my window one can see the graves, and on my life The graves keep watch." _Luteplayer's Song._ New York Frederick A. Stokes Company MCM Copyright, 1899, by Frederick A. Stokes Company. All rights reserved. Fourth Edition. I Dedicate THIS BOOK TO THE MEMORY OF FREDERICK ANDREWS LARKING OF THE ROCKS, EAST MALLING, KENT THAT, SO LONG AS ANYTHING OF MINE SHALL ENDURE, THERE MAY ENDURE ALSO A RECORD OF OUR FRIENDSHIP AND OF MY SORROW PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. _Among the works of every writer of Fiction there are generally one or two that owe their being to some_ haunting _thought, long communed with--a thought which has at last found a living shape in some story of deed and passion._ _I say one or two advisedly: for the span of man's active life is short and such haunting fancies are, of their essence, solitary. As a matter of fact, indeed, the majority of a novelist's creations belong to another class, must of necessity (if he be a prolific creator) find their conception in more sudden impulses. The great family of the "children of his brain" must be born of inspirations ever new, and in alluring freshness go forth into the world surrounded by the atmosphere of their author's present mood, decked in the colours of his latest imaginings, strengthened by his latest passional impressions and philosophical conclusions._ _In the latter category the lack of long intimate acquaintance between the author and the friends or foes he depicts, is amply compensated for by the enthusiasm appertaining to new discoveries, as each character reveals itself, often in quite unforeseen manner, and the consequences of each event shape themselves inevitably and sometimes indeed almost against his will._ _Although dissimilar in their genesis, both kinds of stories can, in the telling, be equally life-like and equally alluring to the reader. But what of the writer? Among his literary family is there not one nearer his heart than all the rest--his_ dream-child? _It may be the stoutest of the breed or it may be the weakling; it may be the first-born, it often is the Benjamin. Fathers in the flesh know this secret tenderness. Many a child and many a book is brooded over with a special love even before its birth.--Loved thus, for no grace or merit of its own, this book is my dream-child._ * * * * * _Here, by the way, I should like to say my word in honour of _Fiction_--"fiction" contradistinguished from what is popularly termed "serious" writing._ _If, in a story, the characters and the events are truly convincing; if the former are appealingly human and the latter are so carefully devised and described as never to evoke the idea of improbability, then it can make no difference in the_ intellectual pleasure _of the reader whether what he is made to realise so vividly is a record of fact or of mere fancy. Facts we read of are of necessity past: what is past, what is beyond the immediate ken of our senses, can only be realised in imagination; and the picture we are able to make of it for ourselves depends altogether on the sympathetic skill of the recorder. Is not Diana Vernon, born and bred in Scott's imagination, to the full as living now before us as Rob Roy Macgregor whose existence was so undeniably tangible to the men of his days? Do we not see, in our mind's eye, and know as clearly the lovable "girt John Ridd" of_ Lorna Doone _the romance as his contemporaries, Mr. Samuel Pepys of the hard and uncompromising_ Diary _or King James of_ English Annals? _Pictures, alike of the plainest facts or of the veriest imaginings, are but pictures: it matters very little therefore whether the man or the woman we read of but never can see in the flesh has really lived or not, if what we do read raises an emotion in our hearts. To the novelist, every character, each in his own degree, is almost as living as a personal acquaintance; every event is as clear as a personal experience. And if this be true of the story written_ à la grâce de la plume, _where both events and characters unfold themselves like the buds of some unknown plant, how much more strongly is it the case of the story that has so long been mused over that one day it had to be told! Then the marking events of the actors' lives, their adventures, whether of sorrow or of joy, their sayings and doings, noble or bright or mistaken, recorded in the book, are but a tithe of the adventures, sayings and doings with which the writer seems to be familiar. He might write or talk about them, in praise or vindictiveness as he loves or dreads them, for many a longer day--but he has one main theme to make clear to his hearers and must respect the modern canons of the Story-telling Art. Among the many things therefore he could tell, an he would, he selects that only which will unravel a particular thread of fate in the tangle of endless consequences; which will render plausible the growth of passions on which, in a continuous life-drama, is based one particular episode._ _Of such a kind is the story of Adrian Landale._ _The haunting thought round which the tale of the sorely tempest-tossed dreamer is gathered is one which, I think, must at one time or other have occurred to many a man as he neared the maturity of middle-life:--What form of turmoil would come into his heart if, when still in the strength of his age but after long years of hopeless separation, he were again brought face to face with the woman who had been the one passion of his life, the first and only love of his youth? And what if she were still then exactly as he had last seen her--she, untouched by years even as she had so long lived in his thoughts: he, with his soul scarred and seamed by many encounters bravely sustained in the Battle of Life?_ _The problem thus propounded is not solvable, even in fiction, unless it be by "fantastic" treatment. But perhaps the more so on this account did it haunt me. And out of the travail of my mind around it, out of the changing shadows of restless speculation, gradually emerged, clear and alive, the being of Adrian Landale and his two loves._ _Here then was a man, whose mind, moulded by nature for grace and contemplation, was cast by fate amid all the turmoils of_ Romance _and action. Here was one of those whose warm heart and idealising enthusiasm must wreathe the beauty of love into all the beauties of the world; whose ideals are spent on one adored object; who, having lost it, seems to have lost the very sense of love; to whom love never could return, save by some miracle. But fortune, that had been so cruelly hard on him, one day in her blind way brings back to his door the miraculous restitution--and there leaves him to struggle along the new path of his fate! It is there also that I take up the thread of the speculation, and watch through its vicissitudes the working of the problem raised by such a strange circumstance._ _The surroundings in a story of this kind are, of the nature of things, all those of_ Romance. _And by_ Romance, _I would point out, is not necessarily meant in tale-telling, a chain of events fraught with greater improbability than those of so-called real life. (Indeed where is now the writer who will for a moment admit, even tacitly, that his records are not of reality?) It simply betokens, a specialisation of the wider genus_ Novel; _a narrative of strong action and moving incident, in addition to the necessary analysis of character; a story in which the uncertain violence of the outside world turns the course of the actors' lives from the more obvious channels. It connotes also, as a rule, more poignant emotions--emotions born of strife or peril, even of horror; it tells of the shock of arms in life, rather than of the mere diplomacy of life._ _Above all_ Romance _depends upon picturesque and varied setting; upon the scenery of the drama, so to speak. On the other hand it is not essentially (though this has sometimes been advanced) a narrative of mere adventures as contrasted to the observation and dissection of character and manners we find in the true "novel." Rather be it said that it is one in which the hidden soul is made patent under the touchstone of blood-stirring incidents, of hairbreadth risks, of recklessness or fierceness. There are soaring passions, secrets of the innermost heart, that can only be set free in desperate situations--and those situations are not found in the tenor in every-day, well-ordered life: they belong to Romance._ _Spirit-fathers have this advantage that they can bring forth their dream-children in what age and place they list: it is no times of now-a-days, no ordinary scenery, that would have suited such adventures as befell Adrian Landale, or Captain Jack, or "Murthering Moll the Second."_ _Romantic enough is the scene, which, in a manner, framed the display of a most human drama; and fraught it is, even to this day, in the eyes of any but the least imaginative, with potentialities for strange happenings.[A] It is that great bight of Morecambe; that vast of brown and white shallows, deserted, silent, mysterious, and treacherous with its dreaded shifting sands; fringed in the inland distance by the Cumbrian hills, blue and misty; bordered outwards by the Irish sea, cold and grey. And in a corner of that waste, the islet, small and green and secure, with its ancient Peel, ruinous even as the noble abbey of which it was once the dependant stronghold; with its still sturdy keep, and the beacon, whose light-keeper was once a Dreamer of Beautiful Things._ [Footnote A: _Those who like to associate fiction with definite places may be interested to know that the prototype of Scarthey is the_ Piel of Foudrey, _on the North Lancashire coast, near the edge of Morecambe Bay, and that Pulwick was suggested by Furness Abbey. Barrow-in-Furness was then but a straggling village. A floating light, facing the mouth of the Wyre, now fulfils the duties devolving on the beacon of Scarthey at the time of this story._] _And romantic the times, if by that word is implied a freer scope than can be found in modern years for elemental passions, for fighting and loving in despite of every-day conventions; for enterprise, risks, temptations unknown in the atmosphere of humdrum peace and order. They are the early days of the century, days when easy and rapid means of communication had not yet destroyed all the glamour of distance, when a county like Lancashire was as a far-off country, with a spirit, a language, customs and ideas unknown to the Metropolis; days when, if there were no lifeboat crews, there could still be found rather experienced "wreckers," and when the keeping of a beacon, to light a dangerous piece of sea, was still within the province of a public-spirited landlord. They are the days when the spread of education had not even yet begun (for weal or for woe) its levelling work; days of cruel monopolies and inane prohibitions, and ferocious penal laws, inept in the working, baleful in the result; days of keel-hauling and flogging; when the "free-trader" still swung, tarred and in chains, on conspicuous points of the coast--even as the highwayman rattled at the cross-road--for the encouragement of the brotherhood; when it was naturally considered more logical (since hang you must for almost any misdeed) to hang for a sheep than a lamb, and human life on the whole was held rather cheap in consequence. They are the days when in Liverpool the privateers were daily fitting out or bringing in the "prizes," and when, in Lord Street Offices, distant cargoes of "living ebony" were put to auction by steady, intensely respectable, Church-going merchants. But especially they are the days of war and the fortunes of war; days of pressgangs, to kidnap unwilling rulers of the waves; of hulks and prisons filled to overflowing, even in a mere commercial port like Liverpool, with French prisoners of war._ _A long course of relentless hostilities, lasting the span of a full-grown generation, had cultivated the predatory instinct of all men with the temperament of action, and seemed to justify it. Venturesome, hot-spirited youths, with their way to make in the world (who in a former age might have been reduced to "the road") took up privateering on a systematic scale. In such an atmosphere there could not fail to return a belief in the good old_ border rule, _"the simple plan: that they should take who have the power, and they should keep who can." And it must be remembered that an island country's border is the enemy's coast! On that ethical understanding many privateer owners built up large fortunes, still enjoyed by descendants who in these days would look upon high-sea looting of non-combatants with definite horror._ _The years of the great French war, however, fostered a species of nautical enterprise more venturesome even than privateering, raiding, blockade-running and all the ordinary forms of smuggling that are usual when two coast lines are at enmity. I mean that smuggling of gold specie and bullion which incidentally was destined to affect the course of Sir Adrian's life so powerfully._ * * * * * _As Captain Jack's last venture may, at this distance of time, appear a little improbable, it is well to state here some little-known facts concerning the now rather incomprehensible pursuit of gold smuggling--a romantic subject if ever there was one._ _The existence at one time of this form of "free-trade" is all but forgotten. Indeed very little was ever heard of it in the world, except among parties directly interested, even at the time when it played an important part in the machinery of governments. Its rise during the years of Napoleonic tyranny on the continent of Europe, and its continuance during the factitious calm of the First Restoration in France, were due to circumstances that never existed before and are little likely to occur again._ _The accumulation of a fund of_ gold _coin, reserved against sudden contingency, was one of Bonaparte's imperial ideas. In a modified and more modern form, this notion of a "war-chest," untouched and unproductive in peace-time, is still adhered to by the Germans: they have kept to heart many of their former conqueror's lessons, lessons forgotten by the French themselves--and the enormous treasure of gold bags guarded at Spandau is a matter of common knowledge. Napoleon, however, in his triumphant days never, and for obvious reasons, lacked money. It was less an actual treasure that he required and valued so highly for political and military purposes, than an ever ready reserve of wealth easily portable, of paramount value at all times; "concentrated," so to speak. And nothing could come nearer to that description than rolls of English guineas. Indeed the vast numbers of these coins which fitfully appeared in circulation throughout Europe justified the many weird legends concerning the power of "British Gold"_--l'or Anglais! _There is every reason to believe that, in days when the national currency consisted chiefly of lumbering silver_ écus, _the Bourbon government also appreciated to the full the value of a_ private _gold reserve. At any rate it was at the time of the first Restoration that the golden guinea of England found in France its highest premium._ _Without going into the vexed and dreary question of single or double standard, it will suffice to say that during the early years of the century now about to close, gold coin was leaving England at a rate which not only appeared phenomenal but was held to be injurious to the community._ _As a matter of fact most of it was finding its way to France, whilst Great Britain was flooded with silver. It was then made illegal to export gold coin or bullion. The prohibition was stringently, indeed at one time, ruthlessly, enforced. In this manner the new and highly profitable traffic in English guineas entered the province of the "free-trader"; the difference introduced in his practice being merely one of degree. Whereas, in the case of prohibited imports, the chief task lay in running the illicit goods and distributing them, in the case of guinea-smuggling its arduousness was further increased by the danger of collecting the gold inland and clearing from home harbours._ _Very little, as I said, has ever been heard of this singular trade, and for obvious reasons. In the first place it obtained only for a comparatively small number of years, the latter part of the Great War: the last of it belonging to the period of the_ Hundred Days. _And in the second it was, at all times, of necessity confined to a very small number of free-trading skippers. Of adventurous men, in stirring days, there were of course a multitude. But few, naturally, were the men to whose honour the custody of so much ready wealth could safely be intrusted. "That is where," as Captain Jack says sometimes in this book, "the 'likes of me' come in."_ _The exchange was enormously profitable. As much as thirty-two shillings in silver value could, at one time, be obtained on the other side of the water for an English guinea. But the shipper and broker, in an illegal venture where contract could not be enforced, had to be a man whose simple word was warranty--and indeed, in the case of large consignments, this blind trust had to be extended to almost every man of his crew. What a romance could be written upon this theme alone!_ _In the story of Adrian Landale, however, it plays but a subsidiary part. Brave, joyous-hearted Captain Jack and his bold venture for a fortune appear only in the drama to turn its previous course to unforeseen channels; just as in most of our lives, the sudden intrusion of a new strong personality--transient though it may be, a tempest or a meteor--changes their seemingly inevitable trend to altogether new issues._ * * * * * _It was urged by my English publishers that, in_ "The Light of Scarthey," _I relate two distinct love-stories and two distinct phases of one man's life; and that it were wiser (by which word I presume was meant more profitable) to distribute the tale between two books, one to be a sequel to the other. Happily I would not be persuaded to cut a fully composed canvas in two for the sake of the frames. "It is the fate of sequels," as Stevenson said in his dedication of _Catriona_, "to disappoint those who have waited for them." Besides, life is essentially continuous.--It may not be inept to state a truism of this kind in a world of novels where the climax of life, if not indeed its very conclusion, is held to be reached on the day of marriage! There is often, of course, more than one true passion of love in a man's life; and even if the second does not really kill the memory of the first, their course (should they be worth the telling) may well be told separately. But if, in the story of a man's love for two women, the past and the present are so closely interwoven as were the reality and the "might-have-been" in the mind of Adrian Landale, any separation of the two phases, youth and maturity, would surely have stultified the whole scheme of the story._ _I have also been taken to task by some critics for having, the tale once opened at a given time and place, harked back to other days and other scenes: an inartistic and confusing method, I was told. I am still of contrary opinion. There are certain stories which_ belong, _by their very essence, to certain places. All ancient buildings have, if we only knew them, their human dramas: this is the very soul of the hidden but irresistible attraction they retain for us even when deserted and dismantled as now the Peel of Scarthey. For the sake of harmonious proportions, and in order to give it its proper atmosphere, it was imperative that in this drama--wherever the intermediate scenes might be placed, whether on the banks of the Vilaine, on the open sea, or in Lancaster Castle--the Prologue should be witnessed on the green islet in the wilderness of sands, even as the Crisis and the Closing Scene of rest and tenderness._ _E. C., 49, Sloane Gardens, London, S. W. October 1899._ TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I SIR ADRIAN LANDALE, LIGHT-KEEPER OF SCARTHEY CHAP. PAGE I. The Peel of Scarthey 1 II. The Light-Keeper 6 III. Day Dreams: A Philosopher's Fate 16 IV. Day Dreams: A Fair Emissary 32 V. The Awakening 43 VI. The Wheel of Time 53 VII. Forebodings of Gladness 63 VIII. The Path of Wasted Years 70 IX. A Genealogical Epistle 85 PART II "MURTHERING MOLL THE SECOND" X. The Threshold of Womanhood 97 XI. A Masterful Old Maid 113 XII. A Record and a Presentment 122 XIII. The Distant Light 136 XIV. The Tower of Liverpool: Master and Man 144 XV. Under the Light 156 XVI. The Recluse and the Squire 174 PART III "CAPTAIN JACK," THE GOLD SMUGGLER XVII. Gold Smuggler and the Philosopher 191 XVIII. "Love Gilds the Scene and Woman Guides the Plot" 211 XIX. A Junior's Opinion 224 XX. The Quick and the Dead 244 XXI. The Dawn of an Eventful Day 252 XXII. The Day: Morning 262 XXIII. The Day: Noon 276 XXIV. The Night 294 XXV. The Fight for the Open 309 XXVI. The Three Colours 323 XXVII. Under the Light Again: The Lady and the Cargo 335 XXVIII. The End of the Thread 349 XXIX. The Light Goes Out 364 XXX. Husband and Wife 375 XXXI. In Lancaster Castle 382 XXXII. The One He Loved and the One Who Loved Him 393 XXXIII. Launched on the Great Wave 406 XXXIV. The Gibbet on the Sands 413 XXXV. The Light Rekindled 430 PART I SIR ADRIAN LANDALE, LIGHT-KEEPER OF SCARTHEY _We all were sea-swallowed, though some cast again; And by that destiny to perform an act, Whereof what's past is Prologue._ THE TEMPEST THE LIGHT OF SCARTHEY CHAPTER I THE PEEL OF SCARTHEY He makes a solitude and calls it peace. BYRON. Alone in the south and seaward corner of the great bight on the Lancastrian coast--mournfully alone some say, gloriously alone to my thinking--rises in singular unexpected fashion the islet of Scarthey; a green oasis secure on its white rocky seat amidst the breezy wilderness of sands and waters. There is, in truth, more sand than water at most times round Scarthey. For miles northward the wet strand stretches its silent expanse, tawny at first, then merging into silver grey as in the dim distance it meets the shallow advance of briny ripple. Wet sand, brown and dull, with here and there a brighter trail as of some undecided river seeking an aimless way, spreads westward, deep inland, until stopped in a jagged line by bluffs that spring up abruptly in successions of white rocky steps and green terraces. Turn you seaward, at low tide there lies sand again and shingle (albeit but a narrow beach, for here a depth of water sinks rapidly) laved with relentless obstinacy by long, furling, growling rollers that are grey at their sluggish base and emerald-lighted at their curvetting crest. Sand yet again to the south, towards the nearer coast line, for a mile or perhaps less, dotted, along an irregular path, with grey rocks that look as though the advance guard of a giant army had attempted to ford its insecure footing, had sunk into its treacherous shifting pits, and left their blanching skull-tops half emerging to record the disaster. On the land side of the bight, far away beyond the grandly desolate, silent, yellow tract, a misty blue fringe on the horizon heralds the presence of the North Country; whilst beyond the nearer beach a sprinkling of greenly ensconced homesteads cluster round some peaceful and paternal looking church tower. Near the salty shore a fishing village scatters its greystone cabins along the first terrace of the bluffs. Outwards, ever changing in colour and temper roll and fret the grey waters of the Irish Sea, turbulent at times, but generally lenient enough to the brown-sailed ketches that break the regular sweep of the western horizon as they toil at the perpetual harvest of the deep. Thus stands Scarthey. Although appearing as an island on the charts, at low tides it becomes accessible dry-foot from the land by a narrow causeway along the line of the white shallow reefs, which connect the main pile to the rocky steps and terraces of the coast. But woe betide man or beast that diverges many feet from the one secure path! The sands of the great bay have already but too well earned their sinister reputation. During the greater part of the day, however, Scarthey justifies its name--Skard- or Scarth-ey, the Knoll Island in the language of the old Scandinavian masters of the land. In fair weather, or in foul, whether rising out of sunny sands when the ebbing waters have retired, or assailed on all sides by ramping breakers, Scarthey in its isolation, with its well-preserved ruins and its turret, from which for the last hundred years a light has been burning to warn the seafarer, has a comfortable look of security and privacy. The low thick wall which in warlike times encompassed the bailey (now surrounding and sheltering a wide paddock and neat kitchen gardens) almost disappears under a growth of stunted, but sturdy trees; dwarf alders and squat firs that shake their white-backed leaves, and swing their needle clusters, merrily if the breeze is mild, obstinately if the gale is rousing and seem to proclaim: "Here are we, well and secure. Ruffle and toss, and lash, O winds, the faithless waters, _we_ shall ever cling to this hospitable footing, the only kindly soil amid this dreariness; here you once wafted our seed; here shall we live and perpetuate our life." On the sea front of the bailey walls rise, sheer from the steep rock, the main body and the keep of the Peel. They are ruinous and shorn of their whilom great height, humbled more by the wilful destruction of man than by the decay of time. But although from a distance the castle on the green island seems utterly dismantled, it is not, even now, all ruin. And, at the time when Sir Adrian Landale, of Pulwick, eighth baronet, adopted it as his residence, it was far from being such. True, the greater portion of that mediæval building, half monastic, half military, exposed even then to the searching winds many bare and roofless chambers; broken vaults filled with driven sands; more than one spiral stair with hanging steps leading into space. But the massive square keep had been substantially restored. Although roofless its upper platform was as firm as when it was first built; and in a corner, solidly ensconced, rose the more modern turret that sheltered the honest warning light. The wide chambers of the two remaining floors, which in old warlike days were maintained bare and free, and lighted only by narrow watching loopholes on all sides, had been, for purposes of peaceful tenanncy, divided into sundry small apartments. New windows had been pierced into the enormous thickness of stone and cement; the bare coldness of walls was also hidden under more home-like panellings. Close-fitting casements and solid doors insured peace within; the wind in stormy hours might moan or rage outside this rocky pile, might hiss and shriek and tear its wings among the jagged ruins, bellow and thunder in and out of opened vaults, but it might not rattle a window of the modern castellan's quarters or shake a latch of his chamber door. There, for reasons understood then only by himself, had Sir Adrian elected, about the "year seven" of this century and in the prime of his age, to transplant his lares and penates. The while, this Adrian Landale's ancestral home stood, in its placid and double pride of ancient and settled wealth, only some few miles away as the bee flies, in the midst of its noble park, slightly retired from the coast-line; and from its upper casements could be descried by day the little green patch of Scarthey and the jagged outline of its ruins on the yellow or glimmering face of the great bay, and by night the light of its turret. And there he was still living, in some kind of happiness, in the "year fourteen," when, out of the eternal store of events, began to shape themselves the latter episodes of a life in which storm and peace followed each other as abruptly as in the very atmosphere that he then breathed. For some eight years he had nested on that rock with no other companions but a dog, a very ancient housekeeper who cooked and washed for "t' young mester" as she obstinately persisted in calling the man whom she had once nursed upon her knee, and a singular sturdy foreign man (René L'Apôtre in the language of his own land, but known as Renny Potter to the land of his adoption); which latter was more than suspected of having escaped from the Liverpool Tower, at that time the lawful place of custody of French war prisoners. His own voluntary captivity, however, had nothing really dismal for Adrian Landale. And the inhabited portions of Scarthey ruins had certainly nothing prison-like about them, nothing even that recalled the wilful contrition of a hermitage. On the second floor of the tower (the first being allotted to the use, official and private, of the small household), clear of the surrounding walls and dismantled battlements, the rooms were laid out much as they might have been up at Pulwick Priory itself, yonder within the verdant grounds on the distant rise. His sleeping quarters plainly, though by no means ascetically furnished, opened into a large chamber, where the philosophic light-keeper spent the best part of his days. Here were broad and deep windows, one to the south with a wide view of the bay and the nearer coast, the other to the west where the open sea displayed her changeable moods. On three sides of this room, the high walls, from the white stone floor to the time-blackened beams that bore the ceiling, almost disappeared under the irregular rows of many thousand of volumes. Two wooden arm-chairs, bespeaking little aversion to an occasional guest, flanked the hearth. The hearth is the chief refuge of the lone thinker; this was a cosy recess, deep cut in the mediæval stone and mortar; within which, on chilly days, a generous heap of sea-cast timber and dried turf shot forth dancing blue flames over a mound of white ash and glowing cinders; but which, in warmer times, when the casements were unlatched to let in with spring or summer breeze the cries of circling sea-fowls and the distant plash of billows, offered shelter to such green plants as the briny air would favour. At the far end of the room rose in systematical clusters the pipes of a small organ, built against the walls where it bevelled off a corner. And in the middle of the otherwise bare apartment stood a broad and heavy table, giving support to a miscellaneous array of books, open or closed, sundry philosophical instruments, and papers in orderly disorder; some still in their virginal freshness, most, however, bearing marks of notemaking in various stages. Here, in short, was the study and general keeping-room of the master of Scarthey, and here, for the greater part, daily sat Sir Adrian Landale, placidly reading, writing, or thinking at his table; or at his organ, lost in soaring melody; or yet, by the fireside, in his wooden arm-chair musing over the events of that strange world of thought he had made his own; whilst the aging black retriever with muzzle stretched between his paws slept his light, lazy sleep, ever and anon opening an eye of inquiry upon his master when the latter spoke aloud his thoughts (as solitary men are wont to do), and then with a deep, comfortable sigh, resuming dog-life dreams. CHAPTER II THE LIGHT-KEEPER He who sits by the fire doth dream, Doth dream that his heart is warm. But when he awakes his heart is afraid for the bitter cold. _Luteplayer's Song._ The year 1814 was eventful in the annals of the political world. Little, however, of the world's din reached the little northern island; and what there came of it was not willingly hearkened to. There was too much of wars past and present, too many rumours of wars future about it, for the ear of the recluse. Late in the autumn of that red-letter year which brought a short respite of peace to war-ridden Europe--a fine, but rather tumultuous day round Scarthey--the light-keeper, having completed the morning's menial task in the light-turret (during a temporary absence of his factotum) sat, according to custom, at his long table, reading. With head resting on his right hand whilst the left held a page ready to turn, he solaced himself, pending the appearance of the mid-day meal, with a few hundred lines of a favourite work--the didactic poems, I believe, of a certain Doctor Erasmus Darwin, on the analogies of the outer world. There was quite as little of the ascetic in Adrian Landale's physical man as of the hermitage in his chosen abode. With the exception of the hair, which he wore long and free, and of which the fair brown had begun to fade to silver-grey, the master of Scarthey was still the living presentment of the portrait which, even at that moment, presided among the assembly of canvas Landales in the gallery of Pulwick Priory. Eight years had passed over the model since the likeness had been fixed. But in their present repose, the features clear cut and pronounced, the kindly thoughtful eyes looked, if anything, younger than their counterfeit; indeed, almost incongruously young under the flow of fading hair. Clean shaven, with hands of refinement, still fastidious, his long years of solitude notwithstanding, as to general neatness of attire, he might at any moment of the day have walked up the great stair of honour at Pulwick without by his appearance eliciting other remarks than that his clothes, in cut and colour, belonged to fashions now some years lapsed. The high clock on the mantelshelf hummed and gurgled, and with much deliberation struck one. Only an instant later, lagging footsteps ascended the wooden, echoing stairs without, and the door was pushed open by the attendant, an old dame. She was very dingy as to garb, very wrinkled and feeble as to face, yet with a conscious achievement of respectability, both in appearance and manner, befitting her post as housekeeper to the "young master." The young master, be it stated at once, was at that time fast approaching the end of his second score years. "Margery," said Adrian, rising to take the heavy tray from the knotted, trembling hands; "you know that I will not allow you to carry those heavy things upstairs yourself." He raised his voice to sing-song pitch near the withered old ear. "I have already told you that when Renny is not at home, I can take my food in your kitchen." Margery paused, after her wont, to wait till the sounds had filtered as far as her intellect, then proceeded to give a few angry headshakes. "Eh! Eh! It would become Sir Adrian Landale o' Pulwick--Barrownite--to have 's meat i' the kitchen--it would that. Nay, nay, Mester Adrian, I'm none so old but I can do my day's work yet. Ah! an' it 'ud be well if that gomerl, Renny Potter, 'ud do his'n. See here, now, Mester Adrian, nowt but a pint of wine left; and it the last," pointing her withered finger, erratically as the palsy shook it, at a cut-glass decanter where a modicum of port wine sparkled richly under the facets. "And he not back yet, whatever mischief's agate wi' him, though he kens yo like your meat at one." And then circumstances obliged her to add: "He is landing now, but it's ower late i' the day." "So--there, Margery," sang the "Squire," giving his old nurse affectionate little taps on the back. "Never fash yourself; tides cannot always fit in with dinner-hours, you know. And as for poor Renny, I believe after all you are as fond of him, at the bottom of your heart, as I am. Now what good fare have you got for me to-day?" bending from his great height to inspect the refection, "Ah--hum, excellent." The old woman, after another pause for comprehension, retired battling with dignity against the obvious pleasure caused by her master's affectionate familiarity, and the latter sat down at a small table in front of the south window. Through this deep, port-hole-like aperture he could, whilst disposing of his simple meal, watch the arrival of the yawl which did ferrying duty between Scarthey and the mainland. The sturdy little craft, heavily laden with packages, was being hauled up to its usual place of safety high on the shingle bank, under cover of a remnant of walling which in the days of the castle's strength had been a secure landing-place for the garrison's boats, but which now was almost filled by the cast-up sands and stone of the beach. This was done under the superintendence of René, man of all work, and with the mechanical intermediary of rollers and capstan, by a small white horse shackled to a lever, and patiently grinding his steady rounds on the sand. His preliminary task achieved, the man, after a few friendly smacks, set the beast free to trot back to his loose pasture: proceeding himself to unship his cargo. Through the narrow frame of his window, the master, with eyes of approval, could see the servant dexterously load himself with a well-balanced pile of parcels, disappearing to return after intervals empty-handed, within the field of view, and select another burden, now heavier now more bulky. In due course René came up and reported himself in person, and as he stopped on the threshold the dark doorway framed a not unstriking presentment; a young-looking man for his years (he was a trifle junior to his master), short and sturdy in build, on whose very broad shoulders sat a phenomenally fair head--the hair short, crisp, and curly, in colour like faded tow--and who, in smilingly respectful silence, gazed into the room out of small, light-blue eyes, brimful of alertness and intelligence, waiting to be addressed. "Renny," said Adrian Landale, returning the glance with one of comfortable friendliness, "you will have to make your peace with Margery; she considers that you neglect me shamefully. Why, you are actually twenty minutes late after three days' journeying, and perils by land and sea!" The Frenchman answered the pleasantry by a broader smile and a scrape. "And, your honour," he said, "if what is now arriving on us had come half an hour sooner, I should have rested planted there" (with a jerk of the flaxen head towards the mainland), "turning my thumbs, till to-morrow, at the least. We shall have a grain, number one, soon." He spoke English fluently, though with the guttural accent of Brittany, and an unconquerable tendency to translate his own jargon almost word for word. In their daily intercourse master and man had come for many years past to eschew French almost entirely; René had let it be understood that he considered his proficiency in the vernacular quite undeniable, and with characteristic readiness Sir Adrian had fallen in with the little vanity. In former days the dependant's form of address had been _Monseigneur_ (considering, and shrewdly so, an English landowner to stand in that relation to a simple individual like himself); in later days "Monseigneur" having demurred at the appellation, "My lord," in his own tongue, the devoted servant had discovered "Your honour" as a happy substitute, and adhered to this discovery with satisfaction. "Oh, we are going to have a squall, say you," interpreted the master, rising to inspect the weather-glass, which in truth had fallen deep with much suddenness. "More than a squall, I think; this looks like a hurricane coming. But since you are safe home, all's well; we are secure and sound here, and the fishing fleet are drawing in, I see," peering through the seaward window. "And now," continued Adrian, laying down his napkin, and brushing away a few crumbs from the folds of a faultless silk stock, "what have you for me there--and what news?" "News, your honour! Oh, for that I have news this time," said Mr. Renny Potter, with an emphatic nod, "but if your honour will permit, I shall say them last. I have brought the clothes and the linen, the wine, the brandy, and the books. Brandy and wine, your honour, I heard, out of the last prize brought into Liverpool, and a Nantes ship it was, too"--this in a pathetically philosophical tone. Then after a pause: "Also provisions and bulbs for the devil's pot, as Margery will call it. But there is no saying, your honour eats more when I have brought him back onions, eschalot, and _ail_; now do I lie, your honour? May I?" added the speaker, and forthwith took his answer from his master's smile; "may I respectfully see what the old one has kitchened for you when I was not there?" And Adrian Landale with some amusement watched the Frenchman rise from the package he was then uncording to examine the platters on the table and loudly sniff his disdain. "Ah, ah, boiled escallops again. Perfectly--boiled cabbage seasoned with salt. Not a taste in the whole affair. Prison food--oh, yes, old woman! Why, we nourished ourselves better in the Tower, when we could have meat at all. Ah, your honour," sighed the man returning to his talk; "you others, English, are big and strong, but you waste great things in small enjoyment!" "Oho, Renny," said the light-keeper squire, as he leant against the fireplace leisurely filling a long clay pipe, "this is one of your epigrams; I must make a note of it anon; but let me see now what you really have in those parcels of books--for books they are, are they not? so carefully and neatly packed." "Books," assented the man, undoing the final fold of paper. "Mr. Young in the High Street of Liverpool had the packets ready. He says you must have them all; and all printed this year. What so many people can want to say, I for my count cannot comprehend. Three more parcels on the stairs, your honour. Mr. Young says you must have them. But it took two porters to carry them to the Preston diligence." Not without eagerness did the recluse of Scarthey bend over and finger the unequal rows of volumes arrayed on the table, and with a smile of expectation examine the labels. "The Corsair" and "Lara" he read aloud, lifting a small tome more daintily printed than the rest. "Lord Byron. What's this? Jane Austen, a novel. 'Roderick, last of the Goths.' Dear, dear," his smile fading into blankness; "tiresome man, I never gave him orders for any such things." René, battling with his second parcel, shrugged his shoulders. "The librarian," he explained, "said that all the world read these books, and your honour must have them." "Well, well," continued the hermit, "what else? 'Jeremy Bentham,' a new work; Ricardo, another book on economy; Southey the Laureate, 'Life of Nelson.' Really, Mr. Young might have known that naval deeds have no joy for me, hardly more than for you, Renny," smiling grimly on his servant. "'Edinburgh Review,' a London magazine for the last six months; 'Rees's Cyclopædia,' vols. 24-27; Wordsworth, 'The Recluse.' Ah, old Willie Wordsworth! Now I am anxious to see what he has to say on such a topic." "Dear Willie Wordsworth," mused Sir Adrian, sitting down to turn over the pages of the 'Excursion,' "how widely have our lives drifted apart since those college days of ours, when we both believed in the coming millennium and the noble future of mankind--noble mankind!" He read a few lines and became absorbed, whilst René noiselessly busied himself in and out of the chamber. Presently he got up, book in hand, slowly walked to the north window, and passively gazed at the misty distance where rose the blue outline of the lake hills. "So my old friend, almost forgotten," he murmured, "that is where you indite such worthy lines. It were enough to tempt me out into men's world again to think that there would be many readers and lovers abroad of these words of yours. So, that is what five and twenty years have done for you--what would you say to what they have done for me...?" It was a long retrospect. Sir Adrian was deeply immersed in thought when he became aware that his servant had come to a standstill, as if waiting for a return of attention. And in answer to the mute appeal he turned his head once more in René's direction. "Your honour, everything is in its place," began the latter, with a fitting sense of his own method. "I have now to report that I saw your man of business in Lancaster, and he has attended to the matter of the brothers Shearman's boat that was lost. I saw the young men themselves this morning. They are as grateful to Sir Adrian as people in this country can express." This last with a certain superiority. Sir Adrian received the announcement of the working of one of his usual bounties with a quiet smile of gratification. "They also told me to say that they would bring the firewood and the turf to-morrow. But they won't be able to do that because we shall have dirty weather. Then they told me that when your honour wants fish they begged your honour to run up a white flag over the lantern--they thought that a beautiful idea--and they would bring some as soon as possible. I took on myself to assure them that I could catch what fish your honour requires; and the prawns, too ... but that is what they asked me to say." "Well, well, and so you can," said the master, amused by the show of sub-acute jealousy. "What else?" "The books of the man of business and the banker are on the table. I have also brought gazettes from Liverpool." Here the fellow's countenance brimmed with the sense of his news' importance. "I know your honour cares little for them. But this time I think you will read them. Peace, your honour, it is the peace! It is all explained in these journals--the 'Liverpool Mercury.'" Renny lifted the folded sheets from the table and handed them with contained glee. "There has been peace these six months, and we never knew it. I read about it the whole way back from the town. The Emperor is shut up on an island--but not so willingly as your Honour, ah, no!--and there is an end of citizen Bonaparte. Peace, France and England no longer fighting, it is hard to believe--and our old kings are coming back, and everything to be again as in the old days." Sir Adrian took the papers, not without eagerness, and glanced over the narrative of events, already months old, with all the surprise of one who, having wilfully shut himself out from the affairs of the world, ignored the series of disasters that had brought about the tyrant's downfall. "As you say, my friend, it is almost incredible," he said, at length. Then thoughtfully: "And now you will be wanting to return home?" said he. René, who had been scanning his master's face with high expectation, felt his heart leap as he thought he perceived a hidden tone of regret in the question. He drew himself up to his short height, and with a very decided voice made answer straightway: "I shall go away from your honour the day when your honour dismisses me. If your honour decides to live on this rock till my hour, or his, strikes--on this rock with him I remain. I am not conceited, I hope, but what, pray, will become of your honour here without me?" There was force in this last remark, simply as it was pronounced. Through the mist of interlacing thoughts suggested by the word Peace! (the end of the Revolution, that distant event which, nevertheless, had had such sweeping influence over the course of his whole life), it brought a faint smile to Sir Adrian's lips. He took two steps forward and laid his hand familiarly on the man's broad shoulder, and, in a musing way, he said at intervals: "Yes, yes, indeed, good Renny, what would become of me?--what would have become of me?--how long ago it seems!--without you? And yet it might have been as well if two skeletons, closely locked in embrace, blanched by the grinding of the waters and the greed of the crabs, now reposed somewhere deep in the sands of that Vilaine estuary.... This score of years, she has had rest from the nightmare that men have made of life on God's beautiful earth. I have been through more of it, my good Renny." René's brain was never equal to coping with his master's periodic fits of pessimism, though he well knew their first and ever-present cause. In a troubled way he looked about the room, so peaceful, so retired and studious; and Sir Adrian understood. "Yes, yes, you are right; I have cut off the old life," he made answer to the unspoken expostulation, "and that I can live in my own small world without foregoing all my duties, I owe to you, my good friend; but startling news like this brings back the past very livingly, dead though it be--dead." René hesitated; he was pondering over the advisability of disburdening himself of yet another strange item of information he had in reserve; but, as his master, rousing himself with an effort as if to dismiss some haunting thought, turned round again to the table, he decided that the moment was not propitious. "So you have seen to all these things," said Sir Adrian wearily. "Good; I will look over them." He touched the neat pile of books and papers, listlessly, as he spoke, yet, instead of sitting down, remained as he was, with eyes that had grown wondering, staring out across the sea. "Look," he said presently, in a low voice, and René noticed a rare flush of colour rise to the thin cheeks. "Look--is not this day just like--one we both remember well...? Listen, the wind is coming up as it did then. And look at yonder sky!" And taking the man by the arm, he advanced slowly with him towards the window. In the west the heavens on the horizon had grown threateningly dark; but under the awe-inspiring slate-coloured canopy of clouds there opened a broad archway filled with primrose light--the luminous arch, well known to seafarers, through which charge the furious southwestern squalls. The rushing of the storm was already visible in the distance over the grey waters, which having been swayed for days by a steady Aquilon were now lashed in flank by the sudden change of wind. The two men looked out for a while in silence at the spectacle of the coming storm. In the servant's mind ran various trivial thoughts bearing on the present--what a lucky matter it was that he should have returned in time; only just in time it was; from the angry look of the outer world the island would now, for many a day be besieged by seas impassable to such small craft as alone could reach the reef. Had he tarried but to the next tide (and how sorely he had been tempted to remain an hour more in the gatekeeper's lodge within sight and hearing of buxom Moggie, Margery's grand-daughter), had he missed the tide, for days, maybe for weeks, would the master have had to watch and tend, alone, the beacon fire. But here he was, and all was well; and he had still the marvellous news to tell. Should he tell them now? No, the master was in one of his trances--lost far away in the past no doubt, that past that terminated on such a day as this. And Sir Adrian, with eyes fixed on the widening arch of yellow light, was looking inwards on the far-away distance of time. Men, who have been snatched back to life from death in the deep, recall how, before seeming to yield the ghost, the picture of their whole existence passed in vivid light before the eye of their mind. Swift beyond the power of understanding are such revelations; in one flash the events of a good or an evil life leap before the seeing soul--moment of anguish intolerable or of sublime peace! On such a boisterous day as this, some nineteen years before, by the sandy mouth of the river Vilaine, on the confines of Brittany and Vendée had Adrian Landale been drowned; under such a sky, and under the buffets of such an angry wind had he been recalled to life, and in the interval, he had seen the same pictures which now, coursing back many years in a few seconds, passed before his inward vision. CHAPTER III DAY DREAMS: A PHILOSOPHER'S FATE Le beau temps de ma jeunesse ... quand j'étais si malheureux. The borderland between adolescence and manhood, in the life of men of refined aspirations and enthusiastic mettle, is oftener than not an unconsciously miserable period--one which more mature years recall as hollow, deceiving, bitterly unprofitable. Yet there is always that about the memories of those far-off young days, their lofty dreams long since scattered, their virgin delights long since lost in the drudgery of earthly experience, which ever and anon seizes the heart unawares and fills it with that infinite weakness: that mourning for the dead and gone past, which yet is not regret. In the high days of the Revolutionary movement across the water, Adrian Landale was a dreamy student living in one of those venerable Colleges on the Cam, the very atmosphere of which would seem sufficient to glorify the merits of past ages and past institutions. Amidst such peaceful surroundings this eldest scion of an ancient, north-country race--which had produced many a hardy fighter, though never yet a thinker nor even a scholar--amid a society as prejudiced and narrow-minded as all privileged communities are bound to become, had nevertheless drifted resistlessly towards that unfathomable sea whither a love for the abstract beautiful, a yearning for super-earthly harmony and justice, must inevitably waft a young intelligence. As the academical years glided over him, he accumulated much classical lore, withal read much latter-day philosophy and developed a fine youthful, theoretical love for the new humanitarianism. He dipped æsthetically into science, wherein he found a dim kind of help towards a more recondite appreciation of the beauties of nature. His was not a mind to delight in profound knowledge, but rather in "intellectual cream." He solaced himself with essays that would have been voted brilliant had they dealt with things less extravagant than Universal Harmony and Fraternal Happiness; with verses that all admitted to be highly polished and melodious, but something too mystical in meaning for the understanding of an every-day world; with music, whereof he was conceded an interpreter of no mean order. In fact the worship of his soul might have been said to be the Beautiful in the abstract--the Beautiful in all its manifestations which include Justice, Harmony, Truth, and Kindliness--the one indispensable element of his physical happiness, the Beautiful in the concrete. This is saying that Adrian Landale, for all his array of definite accomplishments, which might have been a never-failing source of interest in an easy existence, was fitted in a singularly unfortunate manner for the life into which one sudden turn of fortune's wheel unexpectedly launched him. During the short halcyon days of his opening independence, however, he was able to make himself the centre of such a world as he would have loved to live in. He was not, of course, generally popular, either at college or at home; nor yet in town, except among that small set in whose midst he inevitably found his way wherever he went; his inferiors in social status perhaps, these chosen friends of his; but their lofty enthusiasms were both appreciative of and congenial to his own. Most of them, indeed, came in after-life to add their names to England's roll of intellectual fame, partly because they had that in them which Adrian loathed as unlovely--the instinct and will of strife, partly; it must be added, because they remained free in their circumstances to follow the lead of their nature. Which freedom was not allotted to him. * * * * * On one magnificent frosty afternoon, early in the year 1794, the London coach deposited Adrian Landale in front of the best hostelry in Lancaster, after more than a year's separation from his family. This separation was not due to estrangement, but rather to the instigation of his own sire, Sir Thomas--a gentleman of the "fine old school"--who, exasperated by the, to him, incomprehensible and insupportable turn of mind developed by his heir (whom he loved well enough, notwithstanding, in his own way), had hoped, in good utilitarian fashion, that a prolonged period of contact with the world, lubricated by a plentiful supply of money, might shake his "big sawney of a son" out of his sickly-sentimental views; that it would show him that _gentlemen's_ society--and, "by gad, ladies' too"--was not a thing to be shunned for the sake of "wild-haired poets, dirty firebrands, and such cattle." The downright old baronet was even prepared, in an unformed sort of way, to see his successor that was to be return to the paternal hearth the richer for a few gentlemanly vices, provided he left his nonsense behind him. As the great lumbering vehicle, upon the box seat of which sat the young traveller, lost in dreamy speculation according to his wont, drew clattering to a halt, he failed at first to notice the central figure in the midst of the usual expectant crowd of inn guests and inn retainers, called forward by the triumphant trumpeting which heralds the approach of the mail. There, however, stood the Squire of Pulwick, "Sir Tummus" himself, in portly and jovial importance. The father's eyes, bright and piercing under his bushy white brows, had already detected his boy from a distance; and they twinkled as he took note, with all the pride of an author in his work, of the symmetry of limb and shoulders set forth by the youth's faultless attire--and the dress of men in the old years of the century was indeed calculated to display a figure to advantage--of the lightness and grace of his frame as he dismounted from his perch; in short of the increased manliness of his looks and bearing. But a transient frown soon came to overshade Sir Thomas's ruddy content as he descried the deep flush (an old weakness) which mantled the young cheeks under the spur of unexpected recognition. And when, later, the pair emerged from the inn after an hour's conversation over a bottle of burnt sherry--conversation which, upon the father's side, had borne, in truth, much the character of cross-examination--to mount the phaeton with which a pair of high-mettled bays were impatiently waiting the return homewards, there was a very definite look of mutual dissatisfaction to be read upon their countenances. Whiling away the time in fitful constrained talk, parcelled out by long silences, they drove again through the gorgeous, frost-speckled scenery of rocky lands until the sheen of the great bay suddenly peered between two distant scars, proclaiming the approach to the Pulwick estate. The father then broke a long spell of muteness, and thus to his son, in his ringing country tones, as if pursuing aloud the tenor of his thoughts: "Hark'ee, Master Adrian," said he, "that you are now a man of parts, as they say, I can quite see. You seem to have read a powerful lot of things that do not come our way up here. But let us understand each other. I cannot make head or tail of these far-fetched new-fangle notions you, somehow or other, have fallen in love with--your James Fox, your Wilberforce, your Adam Smith, they may be very fine fellows, but to my humble thinking they're but a pack of traitors to king and country, when all is said and done. All this does not suit an English gentleman. You think differently; or perhaps you do not care whether it does or not. I admit I can't hold forth as you do; nor string a lot of fine words together. I am only an old nincompoop compared to a clever young spark like you. But I request you to keep off these topics in the company I like to see round my table. They don't like Jacobins, you know, no more do I!" "Nor do I," said Adrian fervently. "Nor do you? Don't you, sir, don't you? Why, then what the devil have you been driving at?" "I am afraid, sir, you do not understand my views." "Well, never mind; I don't like 'em, that's short, and if you bring them out before your cousin, little Madame Savenaye, you will come off second best, my lad, great man as you are, and so I warn you!" In tones as unconcerned as he could render them the young man sought to turn the intercourse to less personal topics, by inquiring further anent this unknown cousin whose very name was strange to him. Sir Thomas, easily placable if easily roused, started willingly enough on a congenial topic. And thus Adrian conceived his first impression of that romantic being whose deeds have remained legendary in the French west country, and who was destined to exercise so strong an influence upon his own life. "Who is she?" quoth the old gentleman, with evident zest. "Ay. All this is news to you, of course. Well: she _was_ Cécile de Kermelégan. You know your mother's sister Mary Donoghue (murthering Moll, they called her on account of her killing eyes) married a M. de Kermelégan, a gentleman of Brittany. Madame de Savenaye is her daughter (first cousin of yours), that means that she has good old English blood in her veins and Irish to boot. She speaks English as well as you or I, her mother's teaching of course, but she is French all the same; and, by gad, of the sort which would reconcile even an Englishman with the breed!" Sir Thomas's eyes sparkled with enthusiasm; his son examined him with grave wonder. "The very sight of her, my boy, is enough to make a man's heart warm. Wait till you see her and she begins to talk of what the red-caps are doing over there--those friends of yours, who are putting in practice all your fine theories! And, bookworm as you are, I'll warrant she'll warm your sluggish blood for you. Ha! she's a rare little lady. She married last year the Count of Savenaye." Adrian assumed a look of polite interest. "Emigré, I presume?" he said, quietly. "Emigré? No, sir. He is even now fighting the republican rapscallions, d--n them, and thrashing them, too, yonder in his country. She stuck by his side; ay, like a good plucked one she did, until it became palpable that, if there was to be a son and heir to the name, she had better go and attend to its coming somewhere else, in peace. Ho, ho, ho! Well, England was the safest place, of course, and, for her, the natural one. She came and offered herself to us on the plea of relationship. I was rather taken aback at first, I own; but, gad, boy, when I saw the woman, after hearing what she had had to go through to reach us at all, I sang another song. Well, she is a fine creature--finer than ever now that the progeny has been satisfactorily hatched; a brace of girls instead of the son and heir, after all! Two of them; no less. Ho, ho, ho! And she was furious, the pretty dear! However, you'll soon see for yourself. You will see a woman, sir, who has loaded and fired cannon with her own hands, when the last man to serve it had been shot. Ay, and more than that, my lad--she's brained a hulking sans-culotte that was about to pin her servant to the floor. The lad has told me so himself, and I daresay he can tell you more if you care to practise your French with master René L'Apôtre, that's the fellow! A woman who sticks to her lord and master in mud and powder-smoke until there is precious little time to spare, when she makes straight for a strange land, in a fishing-smack, with no other protector than a peasant; and now, with an imp of a black-eyed infant to her breast (Sally Mearson's got the other; you remember Sally, your own nurse's daughter?), looks like a chit of seventeen. That's what you'll see, sir. And when she sails downstairs for dinner, dressed up, powdered and high-heeled, she might be a princess, a queen who has never felt a crumpled roseleaf in her life. Gad! I'm getting poetical, I declare." In this strain did the Squire, guiding his horses with strong, dexterous hand, expatiate to his son; the crisp air rushing past them, making their faces glow with the tingling blood until, burning the ground, they dashed up the avenue that leads to the white mansion of Pulwick, and halted amidst a cloud of steam before its Palladian portico. What happened to Adrian the moment after happens, as a rule, only once in a man's lifetime. Through the opening portals the guest, whose condensed biography the Squire had been imparting to his son (all unconsciously eliciting thereby more repulsion than admiration in the breast of that fastidious young misogynist), appeared herself to welcome the return of her host. Adrian, as he retired a pace to let his father ascend the steps, first caught a glimpse of a miraculously small and arched foot, clad in pink silk, and, looking suddenly up, met fully the flash of great dark eyes, set in a small white face, more brilliant in their immense blackness than even the glinting icicles pendant over the lintel that now shot back the sun's sinking glory. The spell was of the kind that the reason of man can never sanction, and yet that have been ever and will be while man is. This youth, virgin of heart, dreamy of head who had drifted to his twentieth year, all unscathed by passion or desire, because he had never met aught in flesh and blood answering to his unconscious ideal, was struck to the depth of his soul by the presence of one, as unlike this same ideal as any living creature could be; struck with fantastic suddenness, and in that all-encompassing manner which seizes the innermost fibres of the being. It was a pang of pain, but a revelation of glory. He stood for some moments, with paling cheeks and hotly-beating heart, gazing back into the wondrous eyes. She, yielding her cheek carelessly to the Squire's hearty kiss, examined the new-comer curiously the while: "Why--how now, tut, tut, what's this?" thundered the father, who, following the direction of her eyes, wheeled round suddenly to discover his son's strange bearing, "Have you lost all the manners as well as the notions of a gentleman, these last two years? Speak to Madame de Savenaye, sir!--Cécile, this is my son; pray forgive him, my dear; the fellow's shyness before ladies is inconceivable. It makes a perfect fool of him, as you see." But Madame de Savenaye's finer wits had already perceived something different from the ordinary display of English shyness in the young man, whose eyes remained fixed on her face with an intentness that savoured in no way, of awkwardness. She now broke the spell with a broader smile and a word of greeting. "You are surprised," said she in tripping words, tinged with a distinct foreign intonation, "to see a strange face here, Mr. Adrian--or, shall I say cousin? for that is the style I should adopt in my Brittany. Yes, you see in me a poor foreign cousin, fleeing for protection to your noble country. How do you do, my cousin?" She extended a slender, white hand, one rosy nail of which, bending low, Adrian gravely kissed. "_Mais, comment donc!_" exclaimed the lady, "my dear uncle did you chide your son just now? Why, but these are Versailles manners--so gallant, so courtly!" And she gave the boy's fingers, as they lingered under hers, first a discreet little pressure, and then a swift flip aside. "Ah! how cold you are!" she exclaimed; and then, laughing, added sweetly: "Cold hands, warm heart, of course." And with rapping heels she turned into the great hall and into the drawing-room whither the two men--the father all chuckles, and the son still struck with wonder--followed her. She was standing by the hearth holding each foot alternately to the great logs flaming on the tiles, ever and anon looking over her shoulder at Adrian, who had advanced closer, without self-consciousness, but still in silence. "Now, cousin," she remarked gaily, "there is room for you here, big as you are, to warm yourself. You must be cold. I know already all about your family, and I must know all about you, too! I am very curious, I find them all such good, kind, handsome people here, and I am told to expect in you something quite different from any of them. Now, where does the difference come in? You are as tall as your father, but in face--no, I believe it is your pretty sisters you are like in face." Here the Squire interrupted with his loud laugh, and, clapping his hand on his stalwart son's head: "You have just hit it, Cécile, it's here the difference lies. Adrian, I really believe, is a little mistake of Dame Nature; his brain was meant for a girl and was tacked on to that big body by accident, ho, ho, ho! He is quite lady-like in his accomplishments--loves music, and plays, by gad, better than our organist. Writes poetry, too. I found some devilish queer things on his writing-table once, which were not _all_ Latin verses, though he would fain I thought so. And as for deportment, Madame Cécile, why there is more propriety, in that hobbedehoy, at least, more blushing in him, than in all the bread-and-butter misses in the county!" Adrian said nothing; but, when not turned towards the ground, his gaze still sought the Countess, who now returned the look with a ripening smile open to any interpretation. "Surely," she remarked, glancing then at the elder for an instant with some archness, "surely you English gentlemen, who have so much propriety, would not rather ... there was young Mr. Bradbury, we heard talked of yesterday, whom every farmer with a red-cheeked lass of his own--" "No, no!" hastily interrupted the baronet, with a blush himself, while Adrian's cheek in spite of the recent indictment preserved its smooth pallor--in truth, the boy, lost in his first love-dream, had not understood the allusion. "No, I don't want a Landale to be a blackguard, you know, but--" And the father, unable to split this ethical hair, to logical satisfaction, stopped and entered another channel of grumbling vituperation, whilst the Countess, very much amused by her private thoughts, gave a little rippling laugh, and resumed her indulgent contemplation of the accused. "What a pity, now, school-boy Rupert is not the eldest; there would be a country gentleman for you! Whereas, this successor that is to be of mine is a man of books and a philosopher. Forsooth, a first-class bookworm; by gad, I believe the first of our race! And he might make a name for himself, I've been told, among that lot, though the pack o' nonsense he treats us to at times cannot, I'm thinking, really go down even among those college fuzzle-heads. But I am confounded if that chap will ever be of any use as a landlord whenever he steps into my shoes. He hates a gun, and takes more pleasure--what was it he said last time he was here?--oh, yes, more pleasure in watching a bird dart in the blue than bringing it down, be it never so neat a shot. Ho, ho! did ye ever hear such a thing? And though he can sit a horse--I will say that for him (I should like to see a Landale that could not!)--I have seen this big boy of mine positively sicken, ay! and scandalise the hunt by riding away from the death. Moreover, I believe that, when I am gone, he will always let off any poaching scoundrel on the plea that the vermin only take for their necessity what we preserve for sport." The little foreign lady, smiling no longer, eyed her big cousin with wondering looks. "Strange, indeed," she remarked, "that a man should fail to appreciate the boon of man's existence, the strength and freedom to dominate, to be up and doing, to _live_ in fact. How I should long to be a man myself, if I ever allowed myself to long for anything; but I am a woman, as you see," she added, rising to the full height of her exquisite figure, "and must submit to woman's lot--and that is just now to the point, for I must leave you to go and see to the wants of that _mioche_ of mine which I hear whining upstairs. But I do not believe my uncle's account of you is a complete picture after all, cousin Adrian. I shall get it out of you anon, catechise you in my own way, and, if needs be, convert you to a proper sense of the glorious privileges of your sex." And she ran out of the room. "Well, my lad," said Sir Thomas, that evening, when the ladies had left the two men to their decanter, "I thought my Frenchwoman would wake you up, but, by George, I hardly expected she would knock you all of a heap so quick. Hey! you're winged, Adrian, winged, or this is not port." "I cannot say, sir," answered Adrian, musing. The old man caught up the unsatisfactory reply in an exasperated burlesque of mimicry: "I cannot say, sir--you cannot say? Pooh, pooh, there is no shame in being in love with her. We all are more or less; pass the bottle. As for you, since you clapped eyes on her you have been like a man in the moon, not a word to throw to a dog, no eyes, no ears but for your own thoughts, so long as madam is not there. Enter madam, you're alive again, by George, and pretty lively, too! Gad, I never thought I'd ever see _you_ do the lady's man, all in your own queer way, of course; but, hang it all, she seems to like it, the little minx! Ay, and if she has plenty of smiles for the old man she's ready to give her earnest to you--I saw her, I saw her. But don't you forget she's married, sir, very much married, too. She don't forget it either, I can tell you, though you may think she does. Now, what sort of game is she making of you? What were you talking about in the picture gallery for an hour before dinner, eh?" "To say the truth," answered the son, simply, "it was about myself almost the whole time." "And she flattered you finely, I'll be bound, of course," said his elder, with a knowing look. "Oh, these women, these women!" "On the contrary, sir, she thinks even less of me than you do. That woman has the soul of a savage; we have not one thought in common." The father burst into a loud laugh. "A pretty savage to look at, anyhow; a well-polished one in the bargain, ho, ho, ho! Well, well, I must make up my mind, I suppose, that my eldest son is a lunatic in love with a savage." Adrian remained silent for a while, toying with his glass, his young brow contracted under a painful frown. At length, checking a sigh, he answered with deliberation: "Since it is so palpable to others, I suppose it must be love, as you say. I had thought hitherto that love of which people talk so much was a feeling of sweetness. What I feel in this lady's presence is much more kin to anguish; for all that, as you have noticed, I appear to live only when she is nigh." The father looked at his son and gaped. The latter went on, after another pause: "I suppose it is so, and may as well own it to myself and to you, though nothing can come of it, good or bad. She is married, and she is your guest; and even if any thought concerning me could enter her heart, the merest show of love on my part would be an insult to her and treason to you. But trust me, I shall now be on my guard, since my behaviour has already appeared strange." "Tut, tut," said the Baronet, turning to his wine in some dudgeon, his rubicund face clouding as he looked with disfavour at this strange heir of his, who could not even fall in love like the rest of his race. "What are you talking about? Come, get out of that and see what the little lady's about, and let me hear no more of this. She'll not compromise herself with a zany like you, anyhow, that I'll warrant." But Adrian with all the earnestness of his nature and his very young fears was strenuously resolved to watch himself narrowly in his intercourse with his too fascinating relative; little recking how infinitesimal is the power of a man's free-will upon the conduct of his life. The next morning found the little Countess in the highest spirits. Particularly good news had arrived from her land with the early courier. True, the news were more than ten days old, but she had that insuperable buoyancy of hopefulness which attends active and healthy natures. The Breton peasants (she explained to the company round the breakfast table), headed by their lords (among whom was her own _Seigneur et Maître_) had again crushed the swarms of ragged brigands that called themselves soldiers. From all accounts there was no hope for the latter, their atrocities had been such that the whole land, from Normandy to Guyenne, was now in arms against them. And in Paris, the hot pit whence had issued the storm of foulness that blasted the fair kingdom of France after laying low the hallowed heads of a good king and a beautiful queen, in Paris, leaders and led were now chopping each other's heads off, _à qui mieux mieux_. "Those thinkers, those lofty patriots, _hein, beau cousin_, for whom, it seems, you have an admiration," commented the lady, interrupting her account to sip her cup of cream and chocolate, with a little finger daintily cocked, and shoot a mocking shaft at the young philosopher from the depth of her black eyes. "Like demented wolves they are destroying each other--Pray the God of Justice," quoted she from her husband's letter, "that it may only last; in a few months, then, there will be none of them left, and the people, relieved from this rule of blood, will all clamour for the true order of things, and the poor country may again know peace and happiness. Meanwhile, all has yet to be won, by much devotion and self-sacrifice in the cause of God and King; and afterwards will come the reward!... "And the revenge," added Madame de Savenaye, with a little, fierce laugh, folding the sanguine budget of news. "Oh! they must leave us a few for revenge! How we shall make the hounds smart when the King returns to his own! And then for pleasures and for life again. And we may yet meet at the mansion of Savenaye, in Paris," she went on gaily, "my good uncle and fair cousins, for the King cannot fail to recall his faithful supporter. And there will be feasts and balls. And there, maybe, we shall be able to repay in part some of your kindness and hospitality. And you, cousin Adrian, you will have to take me through pavanne and gavotte and minuet; and I shall be proud of my northern cavalier. What! not know how one dances the gavotte? _Fi donc!_ what ignorance! I shall have to teach you. Your hand, monsieur," slipping the missive from the seat of war into her fair bosom. "La! not that way; with a _grace_, if you please," making a profound curtsey. "Ah, still that cold hand; your great English heart must be a very furnace. Come, point your right foot--so. And look round at your partner with--what shall I say--_admiration sérieuse_!" That she saw admiration, serious enough in all conscience in Adrian's eyes, there was little doubt. With sombre heart he failed not to mark every point of this all-human grace, but to him goddess-like beauty, the triumph and glory of youth. The coy, dainty poise of the adorable foot--pointed _so_--and treading the ground with the softness of a kitten at play; the maddening curve of her waist, which a sacque, depending from an exquisite nape, partly concealed, only to enhance its lithe suppleness; the divinely young throat and bust; and above all the dazzling black rays from eyes alternately mocking, fierce or caressing. Well might his hand be cold with all his young untried blood, biting at his heart, singing in his head. Why did God place such creatures on His earth to take all savour from aught else under the sun? "Fair cousin, fair cousin, though I said serious admiration, I did not mean you to look as if you were taking me to a funeral. You are supposed to be enjoying yourself, you know!" The youth struggled with a ghastly smile; and the father laughed outright. But Madame de Savenaye checked herself into gravity once more. "Alas! _Nous n'en sommes pas encore là_," she said, and relinquished her adorer's hand. "We have still to fight for it.... Oh! that I were free to be up and doing!" The impatient exclamation was wrung out of her, apparently, by the appearance of two nurses, each bearing an infant in long, white robes for the mother's inspection; a preliminary to the daily outing. The elder of these matrons was Adrian's own old nurse who, much occupied with her new duties of attendant to Madame de Savenaye and one of her babies, now beheld her foster-son again for the first time since his return. "Eh--but you've grown a gradely mon, Mester Adrian!" she cried, in her long-drawn Lancastrian, dandling her bundle energetically from side to side in the excess of her admiration, and added with a laugh of tender delight: "Eh, but you're my own lad still, as how 'tis!" when, blushing, the young man crossed the room and stooped to kiss her, glancing shyly the while at the white bundle in her arms. "Well, and how are the little ones?" quoth Madame de Savenaye, swinging her dainty person up to the group and halting by beaming Sally--the second nurse, who proudly held forth her charge--merely to lay a finger lightly on the infant's little cheek. "Ah, my good Sally, your child does you credit!--Now Margery, when you have done embracing that fine young man, perhaps you will give me my child, _hein_?" Both the nurses blushed; Margery at the soft impeachment as she delivered over the minute burden; her daughter in honest indignation at the insulting want of interest shown for her foster-babe. "No, I was not made to play with puppets like you, mademoiselle," said the comtesse, addressing herself to the unconscious little being as she took it in her arms, but belying her words by the grace and instinctive maternal expertness with which she handled and soothed the infant. "Yes, you can go, Sarah--_au revoir_, Mademoiselle Madeleine. Fie the little wretch, what faces she pulls! And you, Margery, you need not wait either; I shall keep this creature for a while. Poor little one!" sang the mother, walking up and down, and patting the small back with her jewelled hand as she held the wee thing against her shoulder, "indeed I shall have soon to leave you----" "What's this--what's this?" exclaimed the master of the house with sudden sharpness. He had been surveying the scene from the hearthrug, chuckling in benevolent amusement at little Madam's ways. Yes, it was her intention to return to her place by the side of her lord, she explained, halting in her walk to face him gravely; she had come to that resolution. No doubt her uncle would take the children under his care until better times--those good times that were so fast approaching. Buxom Sally could manage them both--and to spare, too! Adrian felt his heart contract at the unexpected announcement; a look of dismay overspread Sir Thomas's face. "Why--what? what nonsense, child!" cried he again in rueful tones. "_You_, return to that place now ... what good do you think you could do--eh?" But here recollecting himself, he hesitated and started upon a more plausible line of expostulation. "Pooh, pooh! You can't leave the little ones, your husband does not ask you to come back and leave them, does he? In any case," with assumed authority, "I shall not let you go." She looked up with a smile. "Would _you_ allow your friends to continue fighting alone for all you love, because you happened to be in safe and pleasant circumstances yourself?" she asked. Then she added ingenuously: "I have heard you say of one that was strong of will and staunch to his purpose, that he was a regular Briton. I thought that flattering: I am a Briton, of Brittany, you know, myself, uncle: would you have _me_ be a worthless Briton? As to what a woman can do there--ah, you have no idea what it means for all these poor peasants of ours to see their lords remain among them, sharing their hardship in defence of their cause. Concerning the children," kissing the one she held and gazing into its face with wistful look, "they can better afford to do without me than my husband and our men. A strong woman to tend them till we come back, is all that is wanted, since a good relative is willing to give them shelter. René cannot be long in returning now, with the last news. Indeed, M. de Savenaye says that he will only keep him a few days longer, and, according to the tidings he brings must I fix the date for my departure." Sir Thomas, with an inarticulate growl, relapsed into silence; and she resumed her walk with bent head, lost in thought, up and down the great room, out of the pale winter sunshine into the shadow, and back again, to the tune of "Malbrook s'en va t'en guerre," which she hummed beneath her breath, while the baby's foolish little head, in its white cap from which protruded one tiny straight wisp of brown hair, with its beady, unseeing black eyes and its round mouth dribbling peacefully, bobbed over her shoulder as she went. Adrian stood in silence too, following her with his eyes, while the picture, so sweet to see, so strange to one who knew all that was brewing in the young mother's head and heart, stamped itself upon his brain. At the door, at length, she halted a moment, and looked at them both. "Yes, my friends," she said, and her eyes shot flame; "I must go soon." The baby bobbed its head against her cheek as if in affirmative; then the great door closed upon the pair. CHAPTER IV DAY DREAMS: A FAIR EMISSARY Many guests had been convened to the hospitable board of Pulwick upon the evening which followed Adrian's return home; and as, besides the fact that the fame of the French lady had spread enthusiasm in most of the male breasts of the district and anxious curiosity in gentler bosoms, there was a natural neighbourly desire to criticise the young heir of the house after his year's absence, the county had responded in a body to the invitation. It was a goodly company therefore that was assembled in the great withdrawing rooms, when the Countess herself came tripping down the shallow oaken stairs, and found Adrian waiting for her in the hall. He glanced up as she descended towards him to cover her with an ardent look and feast his eyes despairingly on her beauty; and she halted a moment to return his gaze with a light but meaning air of chiding. "Cousin!" she said, "you have very singular manners for one supposed to be so shy with ladies. Do you know that if my husband were here to notice them you might be taken to task?" Adrian ran up the steps to meet her. The man in him was growing apace with the growth of a man's passion, and by the boldness of his answer belying all his recent wise resolutions, he now astonished himself even more than her. "You are going back to him," he said, with halting voice. "All is well--for him; perhaps for you. For us, who remain behind there is nothing left but the bitterness of regret--and envy." Then in silence they descended together. As they were crossing the hall there entered suddenly to them, stumbling as he went, René, the young Breton retainer, whom the lord of Savenaye had appointed as squire to his lady upon her travels, and who, since her establishment at Pulwick, had been sent to carry news and money back to Brittany. No sooner had the boy--for such he was, though in intelligence and blind devotion beyond his years--passed into the light, than on his haggard countenance was read news of disastrous import. Recent tears had blurred his sunburnt cheek, and the hand that tore the hat from his head at the unexpected sight of his mistress, partly in instinctive humility, partly, it seemed, to conceal some papers he held against his breast, twitched with nervous anguish. "René!" cried the Countess, eagerly, in French. "What hast thou brought? Sweet Jesu! Bad news--bad news? Give!" For an instant the courier looked around like a hunted animal seeking a retreat, and then up at her in dumb pleading; but she stamped her foot and held him to the spot by the imperiousness of her eye. "Give, I tell thee," she repeated; and, striking the hat away, snatched the papers from his hand. "Dost thou think I cannot bear ill news--My husband?" She drew nearer to a candelabra, and the little white hands impatiently broke the seals and shook the sheets asunder. Sir Thomas, attracted by his favourite's raised tones and uneasy at her non-appearance, opened the drawing-room door and came forward anxiously, whilst his assembled guests, among whom a sense that something of importance was passing had rapidly spread, now gathered curiously about the open doorway. The Countess read on, unnoticing, with compressed lips and knitted brows--those brows that looked so black on the fair skin, under the powdered hair. "My husband! ah, I knew it, my André ... the common fate of the loyal!" A sigh lifted the fair young bosom, but she showed no other sign of weakness. Indeed those who watched this unexpected scene were struck by the contrast between the bearing of this young, almost girlish creature, who, holding the written sheets with firm hands to the light, read their terrible contents with dry eyes, and that of the man who had sunk, kneeling, at her feet, all undone, to have had the bringing of the news. The silence was profound, save for the crackling of the pages as she turned them over, and an occasional long-drawn sob from the messenger. When she came to the end the young widow--for such she was now--remained some moments absorbed in thought, absently refolding the letter into its original neatness. Then her eyes fell on René's prostrate figure and she stooped to lay a kind hand for an instant on his shoulder. "Bear up, my good René," she said. At her voice and touch he dragged his limbs together and stood humbly before her. "We must be brave," she went on; "your master's task is done--ours, yours and mine, is not." He lifted his bloodshot eyes to her with the gaze of a faithful dog in distress, scraped an uncouth bow and abruptly turned away, brushing the tears from his cheek with his sleeve, and hurrying, to relieve his choking grief in solitude. She stood a while, again absorbed in her own reflection, and of those who would have rushed to speak gentle words to her, and uphold her with tender hands, had she wept or swooned, there was none who dared approach this grief that gave no sign. In a short time, however, she seemed to recollect herself and awaken to the consciousness of the many watching eyes. "Good uncle," she said, going up to the old man and kissing his cheek, after sweeping the assembled company with dark, thoughtful gaze. "Here are news that I should have expected sooner--but that I would not entertain the thought. It has come upon us at last, the fate of the others ... André has paid his debt to the king, like many hundreds of true people before--though none better. He has now his reward. I glory in his noble death," she said with a gleam of exaltation in her eyes, then added after a pause, between clenched teeth, almost in a whisper: "And my sister too--she too is with him--but I will tell you of it later; they are at rest now." Jovial Sir Thomas, greatly discomposed and fairly at a loss how to deal with the stricken woman, who was so unlike any womankind he had ever yet come across, patted her hand in silence, placed it within his arm and quietly led her into the drawing-room, rolling, as he did so, uneasy eyes upon his guests. But she followed the current of her thoughts as her little feet kept pace beside him. "That is bad--but worse--the worst of all, the cause of God and king is again crushed; everything to begin afresh. But, for the present, we"--here she looked round the room, and her eyes rested an instant upon a group of young men, who were surveying her from a corner with mingled admiration and awe--"we, that is René and I, have work to do in this country before we return. For you will keep us a little longer?" she added with an attempt at a smile. "Will I keep you a little longer?" exclaimed the squire hotly, "will I ever let you go, now!" She shook her head at him, with something of her natural archness. Then, turning to make a grave curtsey to the circle of ladies around her: "I and my misfortune," she said, "have kept your company and your dinner waiting, I hardly know how long. No doubt, in their kindness they will forgive me." And accepting again her uncle's arm which, delighted at the solution of the present difficulty, and nodding to Adrian to start the other guests, he hastened to offer her, she preceded the rest into the dining-hall with her usual alert bearing. The behaviour of the Countess of Savenaye, had affected the various spectators in various ways. The male sex, to a man, extolled her fortitude; the ladies, however, condemned such unfeminine strength of mind, while the more charitable prophesied that she would pay dearly for this unnatural repression. And the whispered remark of one of the prettier and younger damsels, that the loss of a husband did not seem to crush her, at any rate, met, on the whole, with covert approval. As for Adrian, who shall describe the tumult of his soul--the regret, the hungering over her in her sorrow, the wild unbidden hopes and his shame of them? Careful of what his burning eyes might reveal, he hardly dared raise them from the ground; and yet to keep them long from her face was an utter impossibility. The whispered comments of the young men behind him, their admiration, and astonishment drove him to desperation. And the high-nosed dowager, whom it was his privilege to escort to his father's table, arose from it convinced that Sir Thomas's heir had lost in his travels the few poor wits he ever possessed. The dinner that evening was without doubt the most dismal meal the neighbourhood had ever sat down to at the hospitable board of Pulwick, past funeral refections not excepted. The host, quite taken up with his little foreign relative, had words only for her; and these, indeed, consisted merely in fruitless attempts to induce her to partake largely of every course--removes, relieves, side-dishes, joints, as their separate turn came round. Long spells of silence fell upon him meantime, which he emphasised by lugubriously clearing his throat. Except for the pretty courtesy with which she would answer him, she remained lost in her own thoughts--ever and anon consulting the letter which lay beside her to fall again, it seemed, into a deeper muse; but never a tear glinted between her black lashes. More than once Adrian from his distant end of the table, met her eyes, fixed on him for a moment, and the look, so full of mysterious meanings made his heart beat in anguish, expecting he knew not what. Among the rest of the assembly, part deference to a calamity so stoutly borne, part amazement at such strange ways, part discomfort at their positions as feasters in the midst of mourning, had reduced conversation to the merest pretence. The ladies were glad enough when the time came for them to withdraw; nor did most of the men view with reluctance a moment which would send the decanters gliding freely over the mahogany, and relieve them from this unwonted restraint. Madame de Savenaye had, however, other interests in store for these latter. She rose with the rest of the ladies, but halted at the door, and laying her hand upon her uncle's arm, said an earnest word in his ear, in obedience to which he bundled out his daughters, as they hung back politely, closed the door upon the last skirt, and reconducted the Countess to the head of the table, scratching his chin in some perplexity, but ready to humour her slightest whim. She stood at her former place and looked for a moment in silence from one to another of the faces turned with different expressions of astonishment and anticipation towards her--ruddy faces most of them, young, or old, handsome or homely, the honest English stamp upon each; and distinct from them all, Adrian's pallid, thoughtful features and his ardent eyes. Upon him her gaze rested the longest. Then with a little wave of her hand she prayed them to be seated, and waited to begin her say until the wine had passed round. "Gentlemen," then quoth she, "with my good uncle's permission I shall read you the letter which I have this night received, so that English gentlemen may learn how those who are faithful to their God and their King are being dealt with in my country. This letter is from Monsieur de Puisaye, one of the most active partisans of the Royal cause, a connection of the ancient house of Savenaye. And he begins by telling me of the unexpected reverses sustained by our men so close upon their successes at Chateau-Gonthier, successes that had raised our loyal hopes so high. 'The most crushing defeat,' he writes, 'has taken place near the town of Savenaye itself, on your own estate, and your historic house is now, alas! in ruins.... During the last obstinate fight your husband had been wounded, but after performing prodigies of valour--such as, it was hoped or trusted, the king should in time hear of--he escaped from the hands of his enemies. For many weeks with a few hundred followers he held the fields in the Marais, but he was at last hemmed in and captured by one of the monster Thureau's _Colonnes Infernales_, those hellish legions with an account of whose deeds,' so says this gallant gentleman our friend, 'I will not defile my pen, but whose boasts are like those of Attila the Hun, and who in their malice have invented obscene tortures worthy of Iroquois savages for all who fall into their clutches, be they men, women, or children.... But, by Heaven's mercy, dear Madame,' says M. de Puisaye to me, 'your noble husband was too weak to afford sport to those demons, and so he has escaped torment. He was hanged with all speed indeed, for fear he might die first of his toils and his wounds, and so defeat them at the last.'" A rustling murmur of horror and indignation went round the table; but the little woman faced the audience proudly. "He died," she said, "as beseems a brave man. But this is not all. I had a sister, she was very fair--like me some people said, in looks--she used to be the merry one at home in the days of peace," she gave a little smile, far more piteous than tears would be--"She chose to remain among her people when they were fighting, to help the wounded, the sick." Here Madame de Savenaye paused a moment and put down the letter from which she had been reading; for the first time since she had begun to speak she grew pale; knitting her black brows and with downcast eyes she went on: "Monsieur de Puisaye says he asks my pardon humbly on his knees for writing such tidings to me, bereaved as I am of all I hold dear, but 'it is meet,' he says, 'that the civilised world should know the deeds these followers of _liberty_ and _enlightenment_ have wrought upon gallant men and highborn ladies,' and I hold that he says well." She flashed once more her black gaze round upon the men, who with heads all turned towards her and forgetting their wine, hung upon her words. "It is right that I should know, and you too! It is meet that such deeds should be made known to the world: my sister was taken by these men, but less fortunate than my husband she had life enough left for torture--she too is dead now; M. de Puisaye adds: Thank God! And that is all that I can say too--Thank God!" There was a dead silence in the room as she ceased speaking, broken at last, here and there, along the table by exclamations and groans and a deep execration from Sir Thomas, which was echoed deep-mouthed by his guests. Adrian himself, the pacific, the philosopher, with both arms, stretched out on the table, clenched his hands, and set his teeth and gazed into space with murderous looks. Then the clear young voice went on again: "You, who have honoured mothers and wives of your own, and have young sweethearts, or sisters or daughters--you English gentlemen who love to see justice, how long will you allow such things to be done while you have arms to strike? We are not beaten yet; there are French hearts still left that will be up and doing so long as they have a drop of blood to shed. Our gallant Bretons and Vendéens are uniting once more, our émigrés are collecting, but we want aid, brave English friends, we want arms, money, soldiers. My task lies to my hand; the sacred legacy of my dead I have accepted; is there any of you here who will help the widow to maintain the fight?" She had risen to her feet; the blood glowed on her cheek as she concluded her appeal; a thousand stars danced in her eyes. Old men and young they leapt up, with a roar; pressing round her, pouring forth acclamations, asseverations and oaths--Would they help her? By God--they would die for her--Never had the old rafters of Pulwick rung to such enthusiasm. And when with proud smiles and crimsoned face she withdraws at last from so much ardour, the door has scarcely fallen behind her before Sir Thomas proposes her health in a bellow, that trembles upon tears: "Gentlemen, this lady's courage is such as might put most men's strength to shame. Here is, gentlemen, to Madame de Savenaye!" And she, halting on the stairs for a moment, to still her high-beating heart, before she lay her babe against it, hears the toast honoured with three times three. * * * * * When the Lancastrian ladies had succeeded at length in collecting and carrying off such among the hiccupping husbands, and maudlin sons, who were able to move, Sir Thomas re-entering the hall, after speeding the last departing chariot, and prudently leaning upon his tall son--for though he had a seasoned head the night's potations had been deep and fiery--was startled well-nigh into soberness, at the sight of his niece waiting for him at the foot of the stairs. "Why, Cis, my love, we thought you had been in bed this long while! why--where have you been then since you ran away from the dining-room? By George!" chuckling, "the fellows were mad to get another glimpse of you!" His bloodshot eye hung over her fondly. There was not a trace of fatigue upon that delicate, pretty face. "I wanted to think--I have much to think on now. I have had to read and ponder upon my instructions here,"--tapping her teeth with the letter, she still carried, "Good uncle, I would speak with you--yes, even now," quick to notice Adrian's slight frown of disapproval (poor fellow, he was sober enough at any rate!), "there is no time like the present. I have my work to do, and I shall not rest to-night, till I have planned it in my head." Surely the brilliancy of those eyes was feverish; the little hands she laid upon them to draw them into the dim-lit library were hot as fire. "Why, yes, my pretty," quoth the good uncle, stifling a portentous yawn, and striving to look wondrous wise, "Adrian, she wants to consult me, sir, hic!" He fell into an arm-chair as he spoke, and she sank on her knees beside him, the firelight playing upon her eager face, while Adrian, in the shadow, watched. "Do you think," she asked of the old man, eagerly, "that these gentlemen, who spoke so kindly to me a few hours ago, will be as much in earnest in the morning?" "Why d--n them! if they go back on their word, I'll call them out!" thundered Sir Thomas, in a great rage all of a sudden. She surveyed him inquiringly, and shot a swift keen glance from the placid, bulky figure in the chair, to Adrian pale and erect, behind it, then rose to her feet and stood a few paces off, as it were pondering. "What is now required of me--I have been thinking it well over," she said at last, "can hardly be achieved by a woman alone. And yet, with proper help and support, I think I could do more than any man by himself. There is that in a woman's entreaties which will win, when a man may fail. But I must have a knight at my side; a protector, at the same time as a faithful servant. These are not the times to stand on conventional scruples. Do you think, among these gentlemen, any could be found with sufficient enthusiasm, for the Royal cause, here represented by me, to attend, and support me through all the fatigues, the endless errands, the interviews--ay, also the rebuffs, the ridicule at times, perhaps the danger of the conjuration, which must be set on foot in this country--to do all that, without hope of other reward than the consciousness of helping a good cause, and--and the gratitude of one, who may have nothing else to give?" She stopped with a little nervous laugh: "No, it is absurd! no man, on reflection would enter into such a service unless it were for his own country." As the last words fell from her lips, she suddenly turned to Adrian and met his earnest gaze. "Or for his kindred," said the young man, coming up to her with grave simplicity, "if his kindred required it." A gleam of satisfaction passed across her face. The father, who had caught her meaning--sharp enough, as some men can be in their cups--nodded his head with great vigour. "Yes, why should you think first of strangers," he grumbled, "when you have your own blood, to stand by you--blood is thicker than water, ain't it? Am I too old, or is he too young, to wait on you--hey, madam?" She extended her hand, allowing it to linger in Adrian's grasp, whilst she laid the other tenderly on the old man's shoulder. "My good uncle! my kind cousin! Have I the choice already between two such cavaliers? I am fortunate indeed in my misfortune. In other circumstances to decide would be difficult between two men, each so good; but," she added, after a moment's hesitation, and looking at Adrian in a manner that made the young man's heart beat thickly, "in this case it is obvious I must have some one whom I need not fear to direct." "Ay, ay," muttered the baronet, "I'd go with you, my darling, to the world's end; but there's that young philosopher of mine breaking his heart for you. And when all's said and done, it's the young fellow that'll be the most use to you, I reckon. Ay, you've chosen already, I'll be bound. The gouty old man had best stop at home. Ho, ho, ho! You've the luck, Adrian; more luck than you deserve." "It is I who have more luck than I deserve," answered Madame de Savenaye, smiling upon her young knight as, taking heart of grace, he stooped to seal the treaty upon her hand. "To say the truth, I had hoped for this, yet hardly dared to allow myself to count upon it. And really, uncle, you give your own son to my cause?--and you, cousin, you are willing to work for me? I am indeed strengthened at the outset of my undertaking. I shall pray that you may never have cause to regret your chivalrous goodness." She dropped Adrian's hand with a faint pressure, and moved sighing towards the door. "Do you wonder that I have no tears, cousin?" she said, a little wistfully; "they must gather in my heart till I have time to sit down and shed them." Thus it was that a letter penned by this unknown M. de Puisaye from some hidden fastness in the Bocage of Brittany came to divert the course of Adrian Landale's existence into a channel where neither he, nor any of those who knew him, would ever have dreamed to see it drift. CHAPTER V THE AWAKENING Oh, what hadst thou to do with cruel Death, Who wast so full of life, or Death with thee? LONGFELLOW. Sir Adrian Landale, in his sea-girt fastness, still absorbed in dreams of bygone days, loosed his grasp of faithful René's shoulder and fell to pacing the chamber with sombre mien; while René, to whom these fits of abstraction in his master were not unfamiliar, but yet to his superstitious peasant soul, eerie and awe-inspiring visitations, slipped unnoticed from his presence. The light-keeper sate down by his lonely hearth and buried his gaze in the glowing wood-embers, over which, with each fitful thundering rush of wind round the chimney, fluttered little eddies of silvery ash. So, that long strife was over, which had wrought such havoc to the world, had shaped so dismally the course of his own life! The monster of selfish ambition, the tyrannic, insatiable conqueror whose very existence had so long made peaceable pursuits unprofitable to mankind, the final outcome of that Revolution that, at the starting point, had boded so nobly for human welfare--he was at last laid low, and all the misery of the protracted struggle now belonged to the annals of the past. It was all over--but the waste! The waste of life and happiness, far and wide away among innocent and uninterested beings, the waste remained. And, looking back on it, the most bitter portion of his own wrecked life was the short time he had yet thought happy; three months, spent as knight-errant. How far they seemed, far as irrevocable youth, those days when, in the wake of that love-compelling emissary, he moved from intrigue to intrigue among the émigrés in London, and their English sympathisers, to bustling yet secret activity in seafaring parts! The mechanical instrument directed by the ingenious mind of Cécile de Savenaye; the discreet minister who, for all his young years, secured the help of some important political sympathiser one day, scoured the country for arms and clothing, powder and _assignats_ another; who treated with smuggling captains and chartered vessels that were to run the gauntlet on the Norman and Breton coast, and supply the means of war to struggling and undaunted loyalists. All this relentless work, little suited, on the whole, to an Englishman, and in a cause the rights of which he himself had, up to then, refused to admit, was then repaid a hundredfold by a look of gratitude, of pleasure even, a few sweet moments of his lady's company, before being sent hence again upon some fresh enterprise. Ah, how he loved her! He, the youth on the threshold of manhood, who had never known passion before, how he loved this young widowed mother who used him as a man to deal for her with men, yet so loftily treated him as a boy when she dealt with him herself. And if he loved her in the earlier period of his thraldom, when scarce would he see her one hour in the twenty-four, to what all-encompassing fervour did the bootless passion rise when, the day of departure having dawned and sunk, he found himself on board the privateer, sailing away with her towards unknown warlike ventures, her knight to protect her, her servant to obey! On all these things mused the recluse of Scarthey, sinking deeper and deeper into the past: the spell of haunting recollection closing on him as he sat by his hearthside, whilst the increasing fury of the gale toiled and troubled outside fighting the impassable walls of his tower. Could it have been possible that she--the only woman that had ever existed for him, the love for whom had so distorted his mind from its natural sympathies, had killed in him the spring of youth and the savour of life--never really learnt to love him in return till the last? And yet there was a woman's soul in that delicious woman's body--it showed itself at least once, though until that supreme moment of union and parting, it seemed as if a man's mind alone governed it, becoming sterner, more unbendable, as hardships and difficulties multiplied. In the melancholy phantasm passing before his mind's eye, of a period of unprecedented bloodshed and savagery, when on the one side Chouans, Vendéens, and such guerillas of which Madame de Savenaye was the moving spirit, and on the other the _colonnes infernales_ of the revolutionary leaders, vied with each other in ferocity and cunning, she stood ever foremost, ever the central point of thought, with a vividness that almost a score of years had failed to dim. When the mood was upon him, he could unfold the roll of that story buried now in the lonely graves of the many, or in the fickle memories of the few, but upon his soul printed in letters of fire and blood--to endure for ever. Round this goddess of his young and only love clustered the sole impressions of the outer world that had ever stirred his heart: the grandeur of the ocean, of the storm, the glory of sunrise over a dishevelled sea, the ineffable melancholy of twilight rising from an unknown strand; then the solemn coldness of moonlight watches, the scent of the burnt land under the fierce sun, when all nature was hushed save the dreamy buzz of insect-life: the green coolness of underwood or forest, the unutterable harmony of the sighing breeze, and the song of wild birds during the long patient ambushes of partisan war; the taste of bread in hunger, of the stream in the fever of thirst, of approaching sleep in exhaustion--and, mixed with these, the acrid emotions of fight and carnage, anguish of suspense, savage exultation of victory--all the doings of a life which he, bred to intellectual pleasures and high moral ideas, would have deemed a nightmare, but which, lived as it was in the atmosphere of his longing and devotion, yet held for him a strange and pungent joy: a cup of cruel memories, yet one to be lingered over luxuriously till the savour of each cherished drop of bitterness be gathered to the uttermost. Now, in the brightness of the embers, between the fitful flames of crumbling wood, spreads before his eyes the dreary strand near Quiberon, immense in the gathering darkness of a boisterous evening. Well hidden under the stone table of a Druidical men-hir glows a small camp-fire sedulously kept alive by René for the service of The Lady. She, wrapped up in a coarse peasant-cloak, pensively gazes into the cheerless smoke and holds her worn and muddy boots to the smouldering wood in the vain hope of warmth. And Adrian stands silently behind her, brooding on many things--on the vicissitudes of that desultory war which has left them not a roof whereunder they can lay their heads, during which the little English contingent has melted from them one by one; on the critical action of the morrow when the republican columns, now hastening to oppose the landing of the great royalist expedition to Quiberon (that supreme effort upon which all their hopes centre) must be surprised and cut off at whatever cost; on the mighty doings to follow, which are to complete the result of the recent sea fight off Ushant and crown their devoted toil with victory at last.... And through his thoughts he watches the pretty foot, in its hideous disguise of patched, worn, ill-fitting leather, and he sees it as on the first day of their meeting, in its gleaming slipper and dainty silken stocking. Now and then an owl-cry, repeated from point to point, tells of unremitting guard, but for which, in the vast silence, none could suspect that a thousand men and more are lying stretched upon the plain all around them, fireless, well-nigh without food, yet patiently waiting for the morrow when their chiefs shall lead them to death; nor that, in a closer circle, within call, are some fifty _gars_, remnant of the indomitable "Savenaye band," and tacitly sworn bodyguard to The Lady who came back from ease and safety over seas to share their peril. No sound besides, but the wind as it whistles and moans over the heath--and the two are together in the mist which comes closing in upon them as if to shroud them from all the rest, for even René has crept away, to sleep perhaps. She turns at last towards him, her small face in the dying light of this sullen evening, how wan and weather-beaten! "Pensive, as usual, cousin?" she says in English, and extends her hand, browned and scratched, that was once so exquisite, and she smiles, the smile of a dauntless soul from a weary body. Poor little hands, poor little feet, so cold, so battered, so ill-used! He, who would have warmed them in his bosom, given his heart for them to tread upon, breaks down now, for the first time; and falling on his knees covers the cold fingers with kisses, and then lays his lips against those pitiful torn boots. But she spurns him from her--even from her feet: "Shame on you!" she says angrily; and adds, more gently, yet with some contempt: "_Enfant, va!_--is this the time for such follies?" And, suddenly recalled to honour and grim actuality, he realises with dismay his breach of trust--he, who in their earlier days in London had called out that sprightly little émigré merely for the vulgar flippancy (aimed in compliment, too, at the grave aide-de-camp), "that the fate of the late Count weighed somewhat lightly upon Madame de Savenaye;" he, who had struck that too literary countryman of his own across the face--ay, and shot him in the shoulder, all in the secret early dawn of the day they left England--for daring to remark within his hearing: "By George, the handsome Frenchwoman and her cousin may be a little less than kin, but they are a little more than kind." But yet, as the rage of love contending in his heart with self-reproach, he rises to his feet in shame, she gives him her hand once more, and in a different voice: "Courage, cousin," says she, "perhaps some day we may both have our reward. But will not my knight continue to fight for my bidding, even without hope of such?" Pondering on this enigmatic sentence he leaves her to her rest. * * * * * When next he finds himself by her side the anticipated action has begun; and it is to be the last day that those beautiful burning eyes shall see the glory of the rising sun. The Chouans are fighting like demons, extended in long skirmishing lines, picking out the cluster of gunners, making right deadly use of their English powder; imperceptibly but unflinchingly closing their scattered groups until the signal comes and with ringing cries: "_Notre Dame d'Auray!_" and "_Vive le roi!_" they charge, undismayed by odds, the serried ranks of the Republicans. She, from the top of the druidical stone, watches the progress of the day. Her red, parted mouth twitches as she follows the efforts of the men. Behind her, the _gars_ of Savenaye, grasping with angry clutch, some a new musket, others an ancient straightened scythe, gaze fiercely on the scene from under their broad felts. Now and then a flight of republican bullets hum about their ears, and they look anxiously to Their Lady, but that fearless head never bends. Then the moment arrives, and with a fervent, "God be with you, brave people," she hurls, by a stirring gesture, the last reserve on to the fight. And now he finds himself in the midst of the furious medley, striking mechanically, his soul away behind on that stone, with her. Presently, as the frenzy waxes wilder, he is conscious that victory is not with them, but that they are pressed back and encompassed, and that for each blue coat cast down amidst the yells and oaths, two more seem to come out of the rain and smoke; whilst the bare feet and wooden shoes and the long hair of his peasants are seen in ever-lessening ranks. And, in time, they find themselves thrown back to the men-hir; she is there, still calm but ghastly white, a pistol in each hand. Around her, through the wet smoke, rise and fall with sickening thuds the clubbed muskets of three or four men, and then one by one these sink to the ground too. With a wailing groan like a man in a nightmare, he sees the inevitable end and rushes to place his body before hers. A bullet shatters his sword-blade; now none are left around them but the begrimed and sinister faces of their enemies. As they stand prisoners, and unheeding the hideous clamour, he, with despair thinking of her inevitable fate at the hands of such victors, and scarcely daring to look at her, suddenly sees _that_ in her eyes which fills his soul to overflowing. "All is lost," she whispers, "and I shall never repay you for all you have done, cousin!" The words are uttered falteringly, almost plaintively. "We are not long now for this world, friend," she adds more firmly. "Give me your forgiveness." How often has Adrian heard this dead voice during the strange vicissitudes of these long, long years! And, hearing it whisper in the vivid world of his brain, how often has he not passionately longed that he also had been able to yield his poor spark of life on the last day of her existence. For the usual fate of Chouan prisoners swiftly overtakes the surviving leaders of the Savenaye "band of brigands," as that doughty knot of loyalists was termed by their arch-enemy, Thureau. A long journey towards the nearest town, in an open cart, under the pitiless rain, amidst a crowd of evil-smelling, blaspheming, wounded republicans, who, when a more cruel jolt than usual awakens their wounds, curse the woman in words that should have drawn avenging bolts from heaven. She sits silent, lofty, tearless; but her eyes, when they are not lost in the grey distance, ever wistfully seek his face. The day is drawing to a close; they reach their goal, a miserable, grey, draggled town at the mouth of the Vilaine, and are roughly brought before the arbiter of their lives--Thureau himself, the monstrous excrescence of the times, who, like Marat and Carrier, sees nothing in the new freedom but a free opening for the lowest instincts of ferocity. And before this monstrous beast, bedizened in his general's frippery, in a reeking tavern-room, stand the noble lady of Savenaye and the young heir of Pulwick. The ruffian's voice rings with laughter as he gazes on the silent youthful pair. "Aha, what have we here; a couple of drowned rats? or have we trapped you at last, the ci-devant Savenaye and her _godam_ from England? I ought really to send you as a present to the Convention, but I am too soft-hearted, you see, my pigeons; and so, to save time and make sure, we will marry you to-day." One of the officers whispers some words in his ear, which Thureau, suddenly growing purple with rage, denies with a foul oath and an emphatic thump of his huge fist on the table. "Hoche has forbidden it, has he? Hoche does not command here. Hoche has not had to hunt down the brigands these last two years. Dead the beast, dead the venom, I say. And here is the order," scribbling hurriedly on a page torn from a pocket-book. "It shall not be said that I have had the bitch of Savenaye in my hands and trusted her on the road again. Hoche has forbidden it! Call the cantineer and hop: the marriage and quick--the soup waits." Unable to understand the hidden meaning of the order, Adrian looks at his lady askance, to find that, with eyes closed upon the sight of the grinning faces, she is whispering prayers and fervently crossing herself. When she turns to him again her face is almost serene. "They are going to drown us together; that is their republican marriage of aristocrats," she says in soft English. "I had feared worse. Thank heaven there is no time now for worse. We shall be firm to the last, shall we not, cousin?" There is a pathetic smile on her worn weather-stained face, as the cantineer and a corporal enter with ropes and proceed to pinion the prisoners. But, as they are marched away once more under the slanting rain, are forced into a worn-out boat and lashed face to face, her fortitude melts apace. "There, my turtle-doves," sneers the truculent corporal, "another kindness of the general. The Nantes way is back to back, but he thought it would amuse you to see each other's grimaces." On the strand resounds the muffled roll of wet drums, announcing the execution of national justice; with one blow of an axe the craft is scuttled; a push from a gaff sends it spinning on the swift swollen waters into the estuary. Adrian's lips are on her forehead, but she lifts her face; her eyes now are haggard. "Adrian," she sobs, "you have forgiven me? I have your death on my soul! Oh, Adrian, ... I could have loved you!" Helpless and palsied by the merciless ropes, she tries passionately to reach her little mouth to his. A stream of fire rushes through his brain--maddening frenzy of regret, furious clinging to escaping life!--Their lips have met, but the sinking craft is full, and, with a sudden lurch, falls beneath the eddies.... A last roll of the drums, and the pinioned bodies of these lovers of a few seconds are silently swirling under the waters of the Vilaine. And now the end of this poor life has come--with heart-breaking sorrow of mind and struggle of body, overpowering horror at the writhings of torture in the limbs lashed against his--and vainly he strives to force his last breath into her hard-clenched mouth. Such was the end of Adrian Landale, aged twenty--the end that should have been--The pity that it was not permitted! After the pangs of unwelcome death, the misery of unwelcome return to life. Oh, René, René, too faithful follower; thou and the other true men who, heedless of danger, hanging on the flanks of the victorious enemy, never ceased to watch your lady from afar. You would have saved her, could courage and faithfulness and cunning have availed! But, since she was dead, René, would thou hadst left us to drift on to the endless sea! How often have I cursed thee, good friend, who staked thy life in the angry bore to snatch two spent bodies from its merciless tossing. It was not to be endured, said you, that the remains of the Lady of Savenaye should drift away unheeded, to be devoured by the beasts of the sea! They now repose in sacred ground, and I live on! Oh, hadst thou but reached us a minute later!--ah, God, or a minute earlier! Rarely had Sir Adrian's haunting visions of the past assumed such lurid reality. Rising in torment from the hearth to pace unceasingly the length and breadth of the restful, studious room, so closely secure from the outer turmoil of heaven and earth, he is once more back in the unknown sea-cave, in front of the angry breakers. Slowly, agonisingly, he is recalled to life through wheeling spaces of pain and confusion, only that his bruised and smarting eyes may see the actual proof of his own desolateness--a small, stark figure wrapped in coarse sailcloth, which now two or three ragged, long-haired men are silently lifting between them. He wonders, at first, vaguely, why the tears course down those wild, dark faces; and then, as vainly he struggles to speak, and is gently held down by some unknown hand, the little white bundle is gone, and he knows that _there_ was the pitiful relict of his love--that he will never see her again! * * * * * Sir Adrian halted in front of his seaward window, staring at the driven rain, which bounded and plashed and spread in minute torrents down the glass, obscuring the already darkening vision of furious sea and sky. The dog, that for some moments had shown an anxious restlessness in singular concert with his master's, now rose at last to sniff beneath the door. No sound penetrated the roar of the blast; but the old retriever's uneasiness, his sharp, warning bark at length recalled Sir Adrian's wandering thoughts to the present. And, walking up to the door, he opened it. Oh, God! Had the sea given up its dead? Sir Adrian staggered back, fell on his knees and clapped his hands together with an agonised cry: "Cécile...!" CHAPTER VI THE WHEEL OF TIME And to his eye There was but one beloved face on earth, And that was shining on him. BYRON. Upon the threshold she stood, looking in upon him with dark, luminous eyes; round the small wet face tangles of raven hair fell limp and streaming; dark raiments clung to her form, diapered with sand and sea-foam, sodden with the moisture that dripped from them to the floor; under the hem of her skirt one foot peered forth, shoeless in its mud-stained stocking. Sir Adrian stared up at her, his brain whirling with a frenzy of joy, gripped in its soaring ecstasy by terror of the incomprehensible. On the wings of the storm and the wind had she come to him, his love--across the awful barriers that divide life and death? Had his longings and the clamour of his desolate soul reached her, after all these years, in the far-beyond, and was her sweet ghost here to bid him cease from them and let her lie at rest? Or, yet, had she come to call him from the weary world that their souls might meet and be one at last?... Then let her but lay her lips against his, as once in the bitterness of death, that his sorely-tried heart may break with the exquisite pang and he, too, may die upon their kiss. Swift such thoughts were tossing in the turmoil of his mind when the vision smiled ... a young, rosy, living smile; and then reason, memory, the wonder of her coming, the haunting of her grave went from him; possessed by one single rapturous certainty he started up and gathered the wet form into his strong arms--yet gently as if he feared to crush the vision into void--and showered kisses on the wet face. Not death--but life! A beating heart beneath his; a lithe young form under his hand, warm lips to his kisses, ... Merciful Heaven! Were, then, these twenty years all an evil, fevered dream, and was he awake at length? She turned her face from him after a moment and put her hand against his breast to push him from her; and as she did so the wonder in the lovely, familiar eyes turned to merriment, and the lips parted into laughter. The sound of the girlish laughter broke the spell. Sir Adrian stepped back, and passed his hand across his forehead with a dazed look. And still she laughed on. "Why, cousin Landale," she said, at length between the peals; "I came to throw myself upon your kindness for shelter from the storm, but--I had not anticipated such a reception." The voice, clear and sweet, with just a tinge of outlandish intonation, struck Adrian to the heart. "I have not heard," he faltered, "that voice for twenty years...!" Then, coming up to her, he took her hands; and, drawing her towards the firelight, scanned her features with eager, hungering eyes. "Do not think me mad, child," he said at last; "tell me who you are--what has brought you here? Ah, God, at such a moment! Who is it," he pursued, as if to himself, whilst still she smiled mockingly and answered not; "who is it, then, since Cécile de Savenaye is dead--and I am not dreaming--nor in fever? No vision either--this is flesh and blood." "Yes, indeed," mocked the girl with another burst of merriment; "flesh and blood, please, and very living! Why, cousin Landale, you that knew Cécile de Savenaye so well have you forgotten two babes that were born at your own house of Pulwick? I believe, 'tis true, I have somewhat altered since you saw me last." And again the old room echoed to the unwonted sound of a girl's laughter. Now was the hallucination clearing; but the reality evoked a new and almost as poignant tenderness. Cécile--phantom of a life-time's love, reborn in the flesh, young as on the last day of her earthly existence, coming back into his life again, even the same as she had left it! A second wonder, almost as sweet as the first! He clung to it as one clings to the presence of a dream, and, joy unspeakable, the dream did not melt away, but remained, smiling, beautiful, unchanged. "Cécile's daughter ..." he murmured: "Cécile's self again; but she was not so tall, I think," and drew trembling, reverent hands from her head to her straight young shoulders. And then he started, crying in a changed voice: "How wet and cold you are! Come closer to the fire--sit you into this chair, here, in the warmth." He piled up the hearth with faggots till the flames roared again. She dropped into the proffered chair with a little shiver; now that he recalled her to it, she was wet and cold too. He surveyed her with gathering concern. "My child," he began, and hesitated, continuing, after a short pause of musing--for the thought struck him as strange--"I may call you so, I suppose; I that am nearly old enough to be your father; my mind was so unhinged by your sudden appearance, by the wonderful resemblance, that I have neglected all my duties as host. You will suffer from this--what shall we do to comfort you? Here, Jem, good dog! Call René!" The old retriever who, concluding that the visitor was welcome, had returned to his doze, here gathered his stiff limbs together, hobbled out through the doorway to give two or three yelping barks at some point on the stairs, and then crawl back to his cosy corner by the hearth. The girl laughed again. It was all odd, new, exciting. Adrian looked down at her. Cécile, too, had had a merry heart, even through peril and misfortune. And now there were hasty steps upon the stairs, creaking above the outer tumult of sea and wind; and, in accordance with the long-established custom of summoning him, René appeared upon the threshold, holding a pair of candles. At the sight of the figure sitting by the fire he halted, as if rooted to the ground, and threw up his hands, each still clutching its candle. "Mademoiselle...!" he ejaculated. "Mademoiselle here!" Then, rapidly recovering his quick wits, he deposited his burden of light upon the table, advanced towards the lady, made an uncouth but profound bow, and turned to his master. "And this, your honour," he remarked, oracularly, and in his usual manner of literal adaptation, "was also part of the news I had for your honour from my last journey; but, my faith, I did not know how to take myself to it, as your honour was so much occupied with old times this evening. But I had seen Mademoiselle at the castle, as Mademoiselle can tell you herself. And if your honour," he added, with a look of astonishment, "will have the goodness to say how it is possible that Mademoiselle managed to arrive here on our isle, in this weather of all the devils--reverence speaking, and I humbly beg the pardon of Mademoiselle for using such words--when it was with pain I could land myself, and that before the storm--I should be grateful to your honour. For I avow I cannot comprehend it at all. Ah, your honour!" continued René, with an altered tone, "'tis a strange thing, this!" The looks of master and man crossed suddenly, and in the frank blue eyes of the Breton peasant, Sir Adrian read a reflex of his own thoughts. "Yes," he said, more in answer to the look than to the exclamation, "yes, it is a strange thing, friend." "And his Honour cannot read the riddle any more than you yourself, René," quoth Mademoiselle de Savenaye, composedly from her corner; "and, as for me, I can give no explanations until I am a little warmer." "Why, truly," exclaimed Sir Adrian, striking his forehead, "we are a very pair of dolts! Hurry, Renny, hurry, call up Margery, and bid her bring some hot drink--tea, broth, or what she has--and blankets. Stay! first fetch my furred cloak; quick, René, every moment is precious!" With all the agitation of a rarely excited man Sir Adrian threw more wood on the fire, hunted for a cushion to place beneath her feet, and then, seizing the cloak from René's hands, he helped her to rise, and wrapped its ample folds round her as carefully as if she were too precious almost to be touched. Thus enveloped she sank back in the great arm-chair with a cosy, deliberate, kitten-like movement, and stretched out her feet to the blaze, laying the little shoeless one upon Jem's grey muzzle. Adrian knelt beside her, and began gently to chafe it with both hands. And, as he knelt, silence fell between them, and the storm howled out yonder; he heard her give a little sigh--that sigh which would escape from Cécile's weariness in moments of rest, which had once been so familiar and so pathetic a sound in his ear. And once more the power of the past came over him; again he was upon the heath near Quiberon, and Cécile was sitting by him and seeking warmth by the secret fire. "Oh, my darling," he murmured, "your poor little feet were so cold; and yet you would not let me gather them to my breast." And, stooping slowly, he kissed the pretty foot in its torn, stained stocking with a passion he had not yet shown. The girl looked on with an odd little smile. It was a novel experience, to inspire--even vicariously--such feelings as these; and there was something not unpleasant in the sense of the power which had brought this strange handsome man prostrate before her--a maidenly tremor, too, in the sensation of those burning lips upon her feet. He raised his eyes suddenly, with the old expectation of a rebuff; and then, at the sight of the youthful, curious face above him, betook himself to sighing too; and, laying the little foot back tenderly upon the cushion, he rose. From between the huge fur collar which all but covered her head, the black eyes followed him as alertly as a bird's; intercepting the soft melancholy of his gaze, she smiled at him, mischievous, confident, and uncommunicative, and snuggled deeper into the fur. Leaning against the high mantel-board, he remained silent, brooding over her; the clock ticked off solemnly the fleeting moments of the wonderful hour; and ever and anon the dog drew a long breath of comfort and stretched out his gaunt limbs more luxuriously to the heat. After a while Sir Adrian spoke. "He who has hospitality to dispense," said he, smiling down at her mutinous grace, "should never ask whence or how the guest came to his hearth ... and yet--" She made a slight movement of laziness, but volunteered nothing; and he continued, his look becoming more wistful as he spoke: "Your having reached this rock, during such weather, is startling enough; it is God's providence that there should live those in these ruins who are able to give you succour. But that you should come in to me at the moment you did--" He halted before the bold inquisitive brightness of her eyes. "Some day perhaps you will let me explain," he went on, embarrassed. "Indeed I must have seemed the most absolute madman, to you. But he who thinks he sees one returned from death in angry waters, may be pardoned some display of emotion." The girl sat up briskly and shook herself as if in protest against the sadness of his smile and look. "I rise indeed from a watery grave," she said lightly, "or at least from what should have been my grave, had I had my deserts for my foolishness; as it has turned out I do not regret it now; though I did, about midway." The red lips parted and the little teeth gleamed. "I have found such kindness and welcome." She caressed the dog who, lazily, tried to lick her hand. "It is all such an adventure; so much more amusing than Pulwick; so much more interesting than ever I fancied it might be!" "Pulwick; you come from Pulwick?" said Sir Adrian musing; "true, René has said it but just now. Yet, it is of a piece with the strangeness of it all." "Yes," said Mademoiselle de Savenaye, once more collecting her cloak, which her hurried movement had thrown off her shoulder. "Madelon and I are now at Pulwick--I am Molly, cousin, please to remember--or rather I am here, very warm now, and comfortable, and she is somewhere along the shore--perhaps--she and John, as wet as drowned rats. Well, well, I had best tell you the tale from the beginning, or else we never shall be out of the labyrinth.--We started from Pulwick, for a ride by the shore, Madelon and I. When we were on the strand it came on to rain. There was smoke out of your chimney. I proposed a canter as far as the ruins, for shelter. I knew very well Madelon would not follow; but I threw poor Lucifer--you know Lucifer, Mr. Landale has reserved him for me; of course you know Lucifer, I believe he belongs to you! Well, I threw him along the causeway. John, he's the groom you know, and Madelon, shrieked after me. But it was beautiful--this magnificent tearing gallop in the rain--I was not going to stop.--But when we were half way, Lucifer and I, I saw suddenly that the foam seemed to cover the sand in front of me. Then I pulled up quick and turned round to look behind me. There was already a frightful wind, and the sand and the rain blinded me almost, but there was no mistake--the sea was running between the shore and me. Oh! my God! but I was frightened then; I beat poor Lucifer until my whip broke, and he started away with a will. But when his feet began to splash the water he too became frightened and stopped. I did not know what to do; I pulled out my broach to spur him with the pin, but, at the first prick I gave him, he reared, and swerved and I fell right on my face in the froth. I got up and began to run through the water; then I came to some stones and I knew I was saved, though the water was up to my knees and rushing by like a torrent. When I had clambered up the beach I thought again of poor Lucifer. I looked about and saw him a little way off. He was shaking and tossing his dear black head, and neighing, though I really did not hear him, for the wind was in my ears; his body was stock still, I could not see his legs.... And gradually he sank lower, and lower, and lower, and at last the water passed over his head. Oh! it was horrible, horrible!" The girl shuddered and her bright face clouded. After a moment she resumed: "It was only then I thought of the moving sands they spoke of the other day at Pulwick--and that was why Madelon and that poltroon groom would not follow me! Yet perhaps they were wise, after all, for the thought of being buried alive made me turn weak all of a sudden. My knees shook and I had to sit down, although I knew I had passed through the danger. But I was so sorry for poor Lucifer! I thought if I had come down and led him, poor fellow, he might have come with me. Death is so awful, so hideous; he was so full of life and carried me so bravely, only a few minutes before! Is it not a shame that there should be such a thing as death?" she cried, rebelliously, and looked up at the man above her, whose face had grown white at the thought of the danger she had barely escaped. "I waited," she resumed at length, "till I thought he must be quite dead, there below, and came up to the ruins, and looked for an entrance. I knocked at some doors and called, but the wind was so loud, no one heard. And then, at last, there was one door I could open, so I entered and came up the stairs and startled you, as you know. And that is how I came here and how Lucifer is drowned." As she finished her tale at last, she looked up at her companion. But Sir Adrian, who had followed her with ever-deepening earnestness of mien, remained silent; noticing which she added quickly and with a certain tinge of defiance: "And now, no doubt, you are not quite so pleased as you seemed at first with the apparition which has caused you the loss of one of your best horses!" "Why child," cried Sir Adrian, "so that you be safe you might have left all Pulwick at the bottom of the sands for me!" And René who entered the room at that moment, heading the advance of Dame Margery with the posset, here caught the extraordinary sound of a laugh on his master's lips, and stepped back to chuckle to himself and rub his hands. "Who would have believed that!" he muttered, "and I who was afraid to tell his honour! Oh, yes, there are better times coming. Now in with you, Mother Margery, see for yourself who is there." Holding in both hands a fragrant, steaming bowl, the old crone made her slow entrance upon the scene, peering with dim eyes, and dropping tremulous curtseys every two or three steps. "Renny towd me as you wanted summat hot for a lady," she began cautiously; and then having approached near for recognition at last, burst forth into a long-drawn cry! "Eh, you never says! Eh, dear o' me," and was fain to relinquish the bowl to her fellow-servant who narrowly watching, dived forward just in time to catch it from her, that she might clasp her aged hands together once and again with ever-renewed gestures of astonishment. "An' it were truth then, an' I that towd Renny to give over his nonsense--I didn't believe it, I welly couldn't. Eh, Mester Adrian, but she's like the poor lady that's dead and gone, the spit an' image she is--e-eh, she is!" Molly de Savenaye laughed aloud, stretched out her hand for the bowl, and began with dainty caution to sip its scalding contents. "Ah, my dear Margery," said the master, "we little thought what a guest the sea would cast up at our doors to-night! and now we must do our best for her; when she's finished your comforting mixture I shall give her into your charge. You ought to put her to bed--it will not be the first time." "Ah! it will not, and a troublesome child she was," replied Margery, after the usual pause for the assimilation of his remark, turning to the speaker from her palsied yet critical survey of her whilom nursling. "And I'll see to her, never fear, I'll fettle up a room for her at once--blankets is airing already, an' sheets, an' Renny he's seen to the fire, so that as soon as Miss, here, is ready, I am." Upon which, dropping a last curtsey with an assumed dignity which would have befitted a mistress of the robes, she took her departure, leaving Adrian smiling with amusement at her specious manner of announcing that his own bedroom--the only one available for the purpose in the ruins--was being duly converted into a lady's bower. "It grieves me to think," mused he after a pause, while René still bursting with ungratified curiosity, hung about the further end of the room, "of the terrible anxiety they must be in about you at Pulwick, and of our absolute inability to convey to them the good news of your safety." The girl gave a little laugh, with her lips over the cup, and shrugged her shoulders but said nothing. "My God, yes," quoth René cheerfully from his corner. "Notre Dame d'Auray has watched over Mademoiselle to-day. She would not permit the daughter to die like the mother. And now we have got her ladyship we shall keep her too. This, if your honour remembers his sailor's knowledge, looks like a three-days' gale." "You are right, I fancy," said Sir Adrian, going over to him and looking out of the window. "Mademoiselle de Savenaye will have to take up her abode in our lighthouse for a longer time than she bargained. I do not remember hearing the breakers thunder in our cave so loud for many years. I trust," continued the light-keeper, coming down to his fair guest again, "that you may be able to endure such rough hospitality as ours must needs be!" "It has been much more pleasant and I feel far more welcome already than at Pulwick," remarked Mademoiselle, between two deliberate sips, and in no way discomposed, it seemed, at the prospect held out to her. "How?" cried Sir Adrian with a start, while the unwonted flush mounted to his forehead, "you, not welcome at Pulwick! Have they not welcomed a child of Cécile de Savenaye at Pulwick?... Thank God, then, for the accident that has sent you to me!" The girl looked at him with an inquisitive smile in her eyes; there was something on her lips which she restrained. Surrendering her cup, she remarked demurely: "Yes, it was a lucky accident, was it not, that there was some one to offer shelter to the outcast from the sea? It is like a tale of old. It is delightful. Delightful, too, not to be drowned, safe and sound ... and welcome in this curious old place." She had risen and, as the cloak fell from her steaming garments, again she shivered. "But you are right," she said, "I must go to bed, and get these damp garments off. And so, my Lord of Scarthey, I will retire to my apartments; my Lady in Waiting I see yonder is ready for me." With a quaint mixture of playfulness and gravity, she extended her hand, and Adrian stooped and kissed it--as he had kissed fair Cécile de Savenaye's rosy finger-tip upon the porch of Pulwick, twenty years before. CHAPTER VII FOREBODINGS OF GLADNESS Molly de Savenaye in her improvised bedroom, wet as she was, could hardly betake herself to disrobing, so amused was she in surveying the fresh and romantic oddity of her surroundings, with their mixture of barbarous rudeness and almost womanish refinement. Old Margery's fumbling hands were not nimble either, and it was long since she had acted as attendant upon one of her own sex. And so the matter progressed but slowly; but the speed of Margery's tongue was apparently not affected by its length of service. It wagged ceaselessly; the girl between her own moods of curious speculation vouchsafing an amused, half-contemptuous ear. Presently, however, as the nurse's reminiscences wandered from the less interesting topic of her own vicissitudes, the children she had reared or buried, and the marvellous ailments she had endured, to an account of those days when she had served the French Madam and her babes, Molly, slowly peeling a clinging sleeve from her arm, turned a more eager and attentive face to her. "Ah," quoth Margery, appraising her with blear eyes, "it's a queer thing how ye favour your mother, miss. She had just they beautiful shoulders and arms, as firm an' as white; but you're taller, I think, and may be so, to speak, a stouter make altogether. Eh, dear, you were always a fine child and the poor lady set a deal of store on you, she did. She took you with her and left your sister with my Sally, when she was trapesing up to London and back with Mester Adrian, ay, and me with ye. And many the day that I wished myself safe at Pulwick! And I mind the day she took leave of you, I do that, well." Here Dame Margery paused and shook her head solemnly, then pursued in another key: "See now, miss, dear, just step out of they wet things, will ye now, and let me put this hot sheet round ye?" "But I want to hear about myself," said Molly, gratefully wrapping the hot linen round her young beauty, and beginning to rub her black locks energetically. "Where was it my mother parted from me?" "Why, I'll tell you, miss. When Madam--we allus used to call her Madam, ye know--was goin' her ways to the ship as was to take her to France, I took you after her mysel' down to the shore that she might have the very last of ye. Eh, I mind it as if it were yesterday. Mester Adrian was to go with her--Sir Adrian, I should say, but he was but Mester Adrian then--an' a two three more o' th' gentry as was all fur havin' a share o' th' fightin'. Sir Thomas himsel' was theer--I like as if I could see him now, poor owd gentleman, talkin' an' laughin' very hard an' jov'al, an' wipin' 's e'en when he thought nobody noticed. Eh, dear, yes! I could ha' cried mysel' to see th' bonny young lady goin' off fro' her bairns. An' to think she niver came back to them no more. Well, well! An' Mester Adrian too--such a fine well-set-up young gentleman as he were--and _he_ niver comed back for ten year an' when he did, he was that warsened--" she stopped, shook her head and groaned. "Well, but how about me, nurse," observed Molly, "what about _me_?" "Miss, please it was this way. Madam was wantin' a last look at her bairn--eh, she did, poor thing! You was allus her favoryite, ye know, miss--our Sally was wet-nurse to Miss Maddyline, but Madam had you hersel'. Well, miss, I'd brought you well lapped up i' my shawl an' William Shearman--that was Thomas Shearman's son, feyther to William an' Tom as lives over yonder at Pulwick village--well, William was standin' in 's great sea-boots ready to carry her through th' surf into the boat; an' Mester Adrian--Sir Adrian, I mean--stood it might be here, miss, an' there was Renny, an' yon were th' t'other gentry. Well, Madam stopped an' took you out o' my arms, an' hugged you to her breast--an' then she geet agate o' kissin' you--your head an' your little 'ands. An' you was jumpin' an' crowin' in her arms--the wind had blown your cap off, an' your little downy black hair was standing back. (Just let me get at your hair now, miss, please--Eh! it's cruel full of sand, my word, it is.)" "It's 'ard, when all's said an' done, to part wi' th' babe ye've suckled, an' Madam, though there was niver nought nesh about 'er same as there is about most women, an' specially ladies--she 'ad th' mother's 'eart, she 'ad, miss, an when th' time coom for her to leave th' little un, I could see, as it were, welly burstin'. There we stood wi' th' wind blowin' our clothes an' our 'air, an' the waves roarin', an' one bigger nor th' t'others ran up till th' foam reached Madam's little feet, but she niver took no notice. Then all of a sudden she gets th' notion that she'd like to take you with 'er, an' she turns an' tells Mester Adrian so. 'She shall come with me,' she says, quite sharp an' determined, an' makes a sign to William Shearman to carry 'em both over. 'No, no,' says Mester Adrian, 'quite impossible,' says he, as wise as if he'd been an owd man i' stead o' nobbut a lad, ye might say. 'It would be madness both for you an' th' child. Now,' he says, very quiet an' gentle, 'if I might advise, I should say stay here with the child.' Eh, I couldn't tell ye all he said, an' then Sir Tummas coom bustlin' up, 'Do, now, my dear; think of it,' he says, pattin' her o' th' hand. 'Stay with us,' he says, 'ye'll be welcome as th' flowers in May!' An' there was Renny wi' 's 'at off, an' th' tears pourin' down his face, beggin' an' prayin' Madam to stop--at least, I reckoned that was what he were sayin' for it was all in 's own outlandish gibberish. The poor lady! she'd look from one to th' t'other an' a body a' must think she'd give in--an' then she'd unbethink hersel' again. An' Sir Thomas, he'd say, 'Do now, my dear,' an' then when she'd look at him that pitiful, he'd out wi' 's red 'andkercher an' frown over at Mester Adrian, an', says he, 'I wonder ye can ax her!' Well, all of a sudden off went th' big gun in th' ship--that was to let 'em know, miss, do ye see--an' up went Madam's head, an' then th' wind fetched th' salt spray to her face, an' a kind o' change came over her. She looked at the child, then across at the ship--an' then she fair tossed ye back to me. Big William catched her up in his arms just same as another bairn, an' carried her to the boat." "Yes," said Molly, gazing into the burning logs with brilliant eyes, but speaking low, as if to herself, so that her attendant's deaf ears failed to catch the meaning of the words. "Ah, that was life indeed! Happy mother to have seen such life--though she did die young." "As ye say, miss," answered Margery, making a guess at the most likely comment from a daughter's lips, "it was cruel hard--it was that. 'Come, make haste!' cries the other young gentlemen: my word, they were in a hurry lest Madam happen to change her mind. I could welly have laughed to see their faces when Mester Adrian were trying to persuade her to stop at Pulwick, and let the men go alone. 'T wern't for that they reckoned to go all that road to France, ye may think, miss. Well, miss, in a few minutes they was all out i' the boat wi' th' waves tossin' 'em--an' I stood watchin' with you i' my arms, cryin' and kickin' out wi' your little legs, an' hittin' of me wi' your little 'ands, same as if ye knowed summat o' what was agate, poor lamb, an' was angry wi' me for keepin' ye. Then in a little while the big, white sails o' th' ship went swellin' out an' soon it was gone. An' that was th' last we saw o' Madam. A two-three year arter you an' Miss Maddyline was fetched away, to France, as I've been towd. I doubt you didn't so much as think there was such a place as Pulwick, though many a one there minds how they dandled and played wi' you when you was a wee bairn, miss." "Well, I am very glad to be back in England, anyhow," said Molly, nimbly slipping into bed. "Oh, Margery, what delicious warm sheets, and how good it is to be in bed alive, dry, and warm, after all!" A new atmosphere pervaded Scarthey that night. The peaceful monotony of years, since the master of Pulwick had migrated to his "ruins," was broken at last, and happily. A warm colour seemed to have crept upon the hitherto dun and dull surroundings and brightened all the prospects. At any rate René, over his busy work in the lantern, whistled and hummed snatches of song with unwonted blithesomeness, and, after lighting the steady watch-light and securing all his paraphernalia with extra care, dallied some time longer than usual on the outer platform, striving to snatch through the driven wraith a glance of the distant lights of Pulwick. For there, in the long distance, ensconced among the woods, stood a certain gate-lodge of greystone, much covered with ivy, which sheltered, among other inmates, the gatekeeper's blue-eyed, ripe and ruddy daughter--Dame Margery's pet grandchild. The idea of ever leaving the master--even for the sake of the happiness to be found over yonder--was not one to be entertained by René. But what if dreams of a return to the life of the world should arise after to-day in the recluse's mind? Ah, the master's eyes had been filled with light!... and had he not actually laughed? René peered again through the wind, but nothing could be seen of the world abroad, save grey, tumbling waters foaming at the foot of the islet; fretful waters coalescing all around with the driven, misty air. A desolate view enough, had there been room for melancholy thoughts in his heart. Blithely did he descend the steep wooden stairs from the roaring, weather-beaten platform, to the more secure inhabited keep; and, humming a satisfied tune, he entered upon Margery in her flaming kitchen, to find the old lady intent on sorting out a heap of feminine garments and spreading them before the fire. René took up a little shoe, sand-soiled and limp, and reverentially rubbed it on his sleeve. "Well, mother," he said, cheerfully, "it is a long while since you had to do with such pretty things. My faith, these are droll doings, ah--and good, too! You will see, Mother Margery, there will be good out of all this." But Margery invariably saw fit, on principle, to doubt all the opinions of her rival. Eh, she didn't hold so much wi' wenches hersel', an' Mester Adrian, she reckoned, hadn't come to live here all by himsel' to have visitors breaking in on him that gate! "There be visitors _and_ visitors, mother--I tell you, I who speak to you, that his honour is happy." Margery, with a mysterious air, smoothed out a long silk stocking and gave an additional impetus to the tremor Nature had already bestowed upon her aged head. Well, it wasn't for her to say. She hoped and prayed there was nowt bad a coomin' on the family again; but sich likenesses as that of Miss to her mother was not lucky, to her minding; it was not. Nowt good had come to Mester Adrian from the French Madam. Ah, Mester Adrian had been happy like with her too, and she had taken him away from his home, an' his people, an' sent him back wi'out 's soul in the end. "And now her daughter has come to give it him back," retorted René, as he fell to, with a zest, on the savoury mess he had concocted for his own supper. "Eh, well, I hope nowt bad's i' the road," said Margery with senile iteration. "They do say no good ever comes o' saving bodies from drowning; not that one 'ud wish the poor Miss to have gone into the sands--an' she the babby I weaned too!" René interrupted her with a hearty laugh. "Yes, every one knows it carries misfortune to save people from the drowning, but there, you see, her ladyship, she saved herself--so that ought to bring good fortune. Good-night, Mother Margery, take good care of the lady.... Ah, how I wish I had the care of her!" he added simply, and, seizing his lantern, proceeded to ascend once more to his post aloft. He paused once on his way, in the loud sighing stairs, struck with a fresh aspect of the day's singular events--a quaint thought, born of his native religious faith: The Lady, the dear Mistress had just reached Heaven, no doubt, and had straightway sent them the young one to console and comfort them. Eh bien! they had had their time of Purgatory too, and now they might be happy. Pleasant therefore were René's musings, up in the light watcher's bunk, underneath the lantern, as, smoking a pipe of rest, he listened complacently to the hissing storm around him. And in the master's sleeping chamber beneath him, now so curiously turned into a feminine sanctum, pleasant thoughts too, if less formed, and less concerned with the future, lulled its dainty occupant to rest. Luxuriously stretched between the warm lavender-scented sheets, watching from her pillow the leaping fire on the hearth, Miss Molly wondered lazily at her own luck; at the many possible results of the day's escapade; wondered amusedly whether any poignant sorrow--except, indeed poor Madeleine's tears--for her supposed demise, really darkened the supper party at Pulwick this evening; wondered agreeably how the Lord of the Ruined Castle would meet her on the morrow, after his singular reception of her this day; how long she would remain in these romantic surroundings and whether she would like them as well at the end of the visitation. And as the blast howled with increasing rage, and the cold night drew closer on, and the great guns in the sea-cave boomed more angrily with the risen tide, she dimly began to dwell upon the thought of poor Lucifer being sucked deeper into his cold rapacious grave, whilst she was held in the warm embrace of a man whose eyes were masterful and yet gentle, whose arm was strong, whose kisses were tender. And in the delight of the contrast, Mademoiselle de Savenaye fell into the profound slumber of the young and vigorous. CHAPTER VIII THE PATH OF WASTED YEARS And I only think of the woman that weeps; But I forget, always forget, the smiling child. _Luteplayer's Song._ That night, even when sheer fatigue had subdued the currents of blood and thought that surged in his head, Sir Adrian was too restless to avail himself of the emergency couch providently prepared by René in a corner. But, ceasing his fretful pacing to and fro, he sat down in the arm-chair by the hearth where she had sat--the waif of the sea--wrapped round him the cloak that had enfolded the young body, hugging himself in the salt moisture the fur still retained, to spend the long hours in half-waking, firelight dreams. And every burst of tempest rage, every lash of rain at the window, every thud of hurricane breaking itself on impassable ramparts, and shriek of baffled winds searching the roofless halls around, found a strangely glad echo in his brain--made a sort of burden to his thoughts: Heap up the waters round this happy island, most welcome winds--heap them up high and boiling, and retain her long captive in these lonely ruins! And ever the image in his mind's eye was, as before, Cécile--Cécile who had come back to him, for all sober reason knew it was but the child. The child----! Why had he never thought of the children these weary years? They, all that remained of Cécile, were living and might have been sought. Strange that he had not remembered him of the children! Twenty years since he had last set eyes upon the little living creature in her mother's arms. And the picture that the memory evoked was, after all, Cécile again, only Cécile--not the queer little black-eyed puppet, even then associated with sea-foam and salty breeze. Twenty years during which she was growing and waxing in beauty, and unawares, maturing towards this wonderful meeting--and he had never given a thought to her existence. In what sheltered ways had this fair duplicate of his love been growing from a child to womanhood during that space of life, so long to look back upon--or so short and transient, according to the mood of the thinker? And, lazily, in his happier and tender present mood he tried to measure once again the cycles of past discontent, this time in terms of the girl's own lifetime. It is bitter in misery to recall past misery--almost as bitter, for all Dante's cry, as to dwell on past happiness. But, be the past really dead, and a new and better life begun, the scanning back of a sombre existence done with for ever, may bring with it a kind of secret complacency. Truly, mused Sir Adrian, for one who ever cherished ideal aspirations, for the student, the "man of books" (as his father had been banteringly wont to term him), worshipper of the muses, intellectual Epicurean, and would-be optimist philosopher, it must be admitted he had strangely dealt, and been dealt with, since he first beheld that face, now returned to light his solitude! Ah, God bless the child! Pulwick at least nursed it warmly, whilst unhappy Adrian, ragged and degraded into a mere fighting beast, roamed through the Marais with Chouan bands, hunted down by the merciless revolutionists, like vermin; falling, as months of that existence passed over him, from his high estate to the level of vermin indeed; outlawed, predatory, cunning, slinking, filthy--trapped at last, the fit end of vermin! Scarcely better the long months of confinement in the hulks of Rochelle. How often he had regretted it, then, not to have been one of the chosen few who, the day after capture, stood in front of six levelled muskets, and were sped to rest in some unknown charnel! Then!--not now. No, it was worth having lived to this hour, to know of that fair face, in living sleep upon his pillow, under the safeguard of his roof. Good it was, that he had escaped at last, though with the blood of one of his jailors red upon his hands; the blood of a perhaps innocent man, upon his soul. It was the only time he had taken a life other than in fair fight, and the thought of it had been wont to fill him with a sort of nausea; but to-night, he found he could face it, not only without remorse, but without regret. He was glad he had listened to René's insidious whispers--René, who could not endure the captivity to which his master might, in time, have fallen a passive, hopeless slave, and yet who would have faced a thousand years of it rather than escape alone--the faithful heart! Yes, it was good, and he was glad of it, or time would not have come when she (stay, how old was the child then?--almost three years, and still sheltered and cherished by the house of Landale)--when she would return, and gladden his eyes with a living sight of Cécile, while René watched in his tower above; ay, and old Margery herself lay once more near the child she had nursed. Marvellous turn of the wheel of fate! But, who had come for the children, and where had they been taken? To their motherland, perhaps; even it might have been before he himself had left it; or yet to Ireland, where still dwelt kinsfolk of their blood? Probably it was at the breaking up of the family, caused by the death of Sir Thomas, that these poor little birds had been removed from the nest, that had held them so safe and close. That was in '97, in the yellow autumn of which year Adrian Landale, then French fisherman, parted from his brother René L'Apôtre upon the sea off Belle Isle; parted one grizzly dawn after embracing, as brothers should. Oh, the stealthy cold of that blank, cheerless daybreak, how it crept into the marrow of his bones, and chilled the little energy and spirits he had left! For a whole year they had fruitlessly sought some English vessel, to convey this English gentleman back to his native land. He could remember how, at the moment of separation, from the one friend who had loved both him and her, his heart sank within him--remember how he clambered from aboard the poor little smack, up the forbidding sides of the English brig; how René's broken words had bidden God bless him, and restore him safely home (home!); remember how swiftly the crafts had moved apart, the mist, the greyness and desolateness; the lapping of the waters, the hoarse cries of the seamen, all so full of heart-piercing associations to him, and the last vision of René's simple face, with tears pouring down it, and his open mouth spasmodically trying to give out a hearty cheer, despite the sobs that came heaving up to it. How little the simple fellow dreamed of what bitterness the future was yet holding for his brother and master, to end in these reunions at last! The vessel which had taken Adrian Landale on board, in answer to the frantic signals of the fishing-smack, that had sailed from Belle Isle obviously to meet her, proved to be a privateer, bound for the West Indies, but cruising somewhat out of her way, in the hope of outgoing prizes from Nantes. The captain, who had been led to expect something of importance from the smack's behaviour, in high dudgeon at finding that so much bustle and waste of time was only to burden him with a mere castaway seeking a passage home--one who, albeit a countryman, was too ragged and disreputable in looks to be trusted in his assurances of reward--granted him indeed the hospitality of his ship, but on the condition of his becoming a hand in the company during the forthcoming expedition. There was a rough measure of equity in the arrangement, and Adrian accepted it. The only alternative, moreover, would have been a jump overboard. And so began a hard spell of life, but a few shades removed from his existence among the Chouan guerillas; a predatory cruise lasting over a year, during which the only changes rung in the gamut of its purpose were the swooping down, as a vulture might, upon unprotected ships; flying with superior speed from obviously stronger crafts; engaging, with hawk-like bravery, everything afloat that displayed inimical colours, if it offered an equal chance of fight. And this for more than a year, until the privateer, much battered, but safe, despite her vicissitudes made Halifax for refitting. Here, at the first suitable port she had touched, Adrian claimed and obtained his release from obligations which made his life almost unendurable. Then ensued a period of the most absolute penury; unpopular with most of his messmates for his melancholy taciturnity, despised by the more brutal as one who had as little stomach for a carouse as for a bloody fight, he left the ship without receiving, or even thinking of his share of prize-money. And he had to support existence with such mean mechanical employment as came in his way, till an opportunity was offered of engaging himself as seaman, again from sheer necessity, on a homeward-bound merchantman--an opportunity which he seized, if not eagerly, for there was no eagerness left in him, yet under the pressure of purpose. Next the long, slowly plodding, toilsome, seemingly eternal course across the ocean. But even a convoy, restricted to the speed of its slowest member, if it escape capture or natural destruction, must meet the opposite shore at length, and the last year of the century had lapsed in the even race of time when, after many dreary weeks, on the first of January 1801, the long low lines of sandhills on the Lancastrian coast loomed in sight. The escort drew away, swiftly southwards, as if in joyful relief from the tedious task, leaving the convoy to enter the Mersey, safe and sound. That evening Adrian, the rough-looking and taciturn sailor, set foot, for a short while, on his native land, after six years of an exile which had made of him at five and twenty a prematurely aged and hopelessly disillusioned man. And Sir Adrian, as he mused, wrapped in the honoured fur cloak, with eyes half closed, by his sympathetic fire, recalled how little of joy this return had had for him. It was the goal he had striven to reach, and he had reached it, that was all; nay, he recalled how, when at hand, he had almost dreaded the actual arrival home, dreaded, with the infinite heart-sickness of sorrow, the emotions of the family welcome to one restored from such perils by flood and field--if not indeed already mourned for and forgotten--little wotting how far that return to Pulwick, that seemed near and certain, was still away in the dim future of life. Yet, but for the fit of hypochondriacal humour which had fallen black upon him that day of deliverance and made him yearn, with an intensity increasing every moment, to separate himself from his repugnant associates and haste the moment of solitude and silence, he might have been rescued, then and for ever, from the quagmire in which perverse circumstances had enslaved him. "Look'ee here, matey," said one of his fellow-workers to him, in a transient fit of good-fellowship which the prospect of approaching sprees had engendered in him even towards one whom all on board had felt vaguely to be of a different order, and disliked accordingly, "you don't seem to like a jolly merchantman--but, maybe, you wouldn't take more kindly to a man-o'-war. Do you see that there ship?--a frigate she is; and, whenever there's a King's ship in the Mersey that means that it's more wholesome for the likes of us to lie low. You take a hint, matey, and don't be about Liverpool to-night, or until she's gone. Now, I know a crib that's pretty safe, Birkenhead way; Mother Redcap's, we call it--no one's ever been nabbed at Mother Redcap's, and if you'll come along o' me--why then if you won't, go your way and be damned to you for a----" This was the parting of Adrian Landale from his fellow-workers. The idea of spending even one night more in that atmosphere of rum and filth, in the intimate hearing of blasphemous and obscene language, was too repulsive to be entertained, and he had turned away from the offer with a gesture of horror. With half a dozen others, in whose souls the attractions of the town at night proved stronger than the fear of the press party, he disembarked on the Lancashire side, and separating from his companions, for ever, as he thought, ascended the miserable lanes leading from the river to the upper town. His purpose was to sleep in one of the more decent hotels, to call the next day for help at the banking-house with which the Landales had dealt for ages past, and thence to take coach for Pulwick. But he had planned without taking reck of his circumstances. No hotel of repute would entertain this weather-beaten common sailor in the meanest of work-stained clothes. After failing at various places even to obtain a hearing, being threatened with forcible ejectment, derisively referred to suitable cribs in Love Lane or Tower Street, he gave up the attempt; and, in his usual dejection of spirit, intensified by unavowed and unreasonable anger, wandered through the dark streets, brooding. Thus aimlessly wandering, the remembrance of his young Utopian imaginings came back to him to mock him. Dreams of universal brotherhood, of equality, of harmony. He had already seen the apostles of equality and brotherhood at work--on the banks of the Vilaine. And realising how he himself, now reduced to the lowest level in the social scale, hunted with insult from every haunt above that level, yet loathed and abhorred the very thought of associating again with his recent brothers in degradation, he laughed a laugh of bitter self-contempt. But the night was piercing cold; and, in time, the question arose whether the stench and closeness of a riverside eating-house would not be more endurable than the cutting wind, the sleet, and the sharper pangs of hunger. His roaming had brought him once more to that quarter of the town "best suited to the likes of him," according to the innkeeper's opinion, and he found himself actually seeking a house of entertainment in the slimy, ill-lighted narrow street, when, from out the dimness, running towards him, with bare feet paddling in the sludge, came a slatternly girl, with unkempt wisps of red hair hanging over her face under the tartan shawl. "Run, run, Jack," she cried, hoarsely, as she passed by breathless, "t' gang's comin' up...." A sudden loathly fear seized Adrian by the heart. He too, took to his heels by the side of the slut with all the swiftness his tired frame could muster. "I'm going to warn my Jo," she gasped, as, jostling each other, they darted through a maze of nameless alleys. And then as, spent with running, they emerged at last into a broader street, it was to find themselves in the very midst of another party of man-of-war's men, whose brass belt-buckles glinted under the flickering light of the oil-lamp swinging across the way. Adrian stopped dead short and looked at the girl in mute reproach. "May God strike me dead," she screamed, clapping her hands together, "if I knew the bloody thieves were there! Oh, my bonny lad, I meant to save ye!" And as her words rang in the air two sailors had Adrian by the collar and a facetious bluejacket seized her round the waist with hideous bantering. A very young officer, wrapped up in a cloak, stood a few paces apart calmly looking on. To him Adrian called out in fierce, yet anguished, expostulation: "I am a free and independent subject, sir, an English gentleman. I demand that you order your men to release me. For heaven's sake," he added, pleadingly, "give me but a moment's private hearing!" A loud guffaw rang through the group. In truth, if appearances make the gentleman, Adrian was then but a sorry specimen. The officer smiled--the insufferable smile of a conceited boy raised to authority. "I can have no possible doubt of your gentility, sir," he said, with mocking politeness, and measuring, under the glimmering light, first the prisoner, from head to foot, and then the girl who, scratching and blaspheming, vainly tried to make her escape; "but, sir, as a free-born English gentleman, it will be your duty to help his Majesty to fight his French enemies. Take the English gentleman along, my lads!" A roar of approbation at the officer's facetiousness ran through the party. "An' his mother's milk not dry upon his lips," cried the girl, with a crow of derisive fury, planting as she spoke a sounding smack on a broad tanned face bent towards her. The little officer grew pink. "Come, my men, do your duty," he thundered, in his deepest bass. A rage such as he never had felt in his life suddenly filled Adrian's whole being. He was a bigger man than any of the party, and the rough life that fate had imposed on him, had fostered a strength of limb beyond the common. A thrust of his knee prostrated one of his captors, a blow in the eye from his elbow staggered the other; the next instant he had snatched away the cutlass which a third was drawing, and with it he cleared, for a moment, a space around him. But as he would have bounded into freedom, a felling blow descended on his head from behind, a sheet of flame spread before his eyes, and behind this blaze disappeared the last that Adrian Landale was to see of England for another spell of years. When he came back to his senses he was once more on board ship--a slave, legally kidnapped; degraded by full and proper warrant from his legitimate status for no crime that could even be invented against him; a slave to be retained for work or war at his master's pleasure, liable like a slave to be flogged to death for daring to assert his light of independence. * * * * * The memory of that night's doing and of the odious bondage to which it was a prelude, rarely failed to stir the gall of resentment in Sir Adrian; men of peaceable instincts are perhaps the most prone to the feeling of indignation. But, to-night, a change had come over the spirit of his dreams; he could think of that past simply as the past--the period of time which would have had to be spent until the advent of the wonder-working present: these decrees of Fate had had a purpose. Had the past, by one jot, been different, the events of this admirable day might never have been. The glowing edifice on the hearth collapsed with a darting of sudden flame and a rolling of red cinders. Sir Adrian rose to rebuild his fire for the night; and, being once roused, was tempted by the ruddiness of the wine, glinting under the quiet rays of the lamp, to advance to the table and partake of his forgotten supper. The calm atmosphere, the warmth and quiet of the room, in which he broke his bread and sipped his wine, whilst old Jem stretched by the hearth gazed at him with yellow up-turned eyes full of lazy inquiry concerning this departure from the usual nightly regularity; the serene placidity of the scene indoors as contrasting with the angry voices of elements without, answered to the peace--the strange peace--that filled the man's soul, even in the midst of such uncongenial memories as now rose up before him in vivid concatenation. She was then five years old. Where was she, when he began that seemingly endless cruise with the frigate _Porcupine_? He tried to fancy a Cécile five years old--a chubby, curly-headed mite, nursing dolls and teasing kittens, whilst he was bullied and browbeaten by coarse petty officers, shunned and hated by his messmates, and flogged at length by a tyrannizing captain for obduracy--but he could only see a Cécile in the spring of womanhood, nestling in the arm-chair yonder by the fire and looking up at him from the folds of a fur cloak. She was seven years old when he was flogged. Ah, God! those had been days! And yet, in the lofty soul of him he had counted it no disgrace; and he had been flogged again, ay, and a third time for that obstinate head that would not bend, that obstinate tongue that would persist in demanding restitution of liberty. The life on board the privateer had been a matter of bargain; he had bartered also labour and obedience with the merchantman for the passage home, but the king had no right to compel the service of a free man! She was but twelve years old when he was finally released from thraldom--it had only lasted four years after all; yet what a cycle for one of his temper! Four years with scarce a moment of solitude--for no shore-leave was ever allowed to one who openly repudiated any service contract: four years of a life, where the sole prospect of change was in these engagements, orgies of carnage, so eagerly anticipated by officers and men alike, including himself, though for a reason little suspected by his companions. But even the historic sea-fights of the _Porcupine_, so far as they affected Adrian Landale, formed in themselves a chain of monotony. It was ever the same hurling of shot from ship to ship, the same fierce exchange of cutlass-throws and pike-pushes between men who had never seen each other before; the same yelling and execrations, sights, sounds, and smells ever the same in horror; the same cheers when the enemy's colours were lowered, followed by the same transient depression; the cleansing of decks from stains of powder and mire of human blood, the casting overboard of human bodies that had done their life's work, broken waste and other rubbish. For weeks Adrian after would taste blood, smell blood, dream blood, till it seemed in his nausea that all the waters of the wide clean seas could never wash the taint from him again. And before the first horrid impressions had time to fade, the next occasion would have come round again: it was not the fate of Adrian Landale that either steel or shot, or splintered timber or falling tackles should put an end to his dreary life, welcome as such an end would have been to him then. Then ... but not now. Remembering now his unaccountable escape from the destruction which had swept from his side many another whose eagerness for the fray had certes not sprung, like his own, from a desire to court destruction, he shuddered. And there arose in his mind the trite old adage: "Man proposeth..." God had disposed otherwise. It was not destined that Adrian Landale should be shot on the high seas any more than he should be drowned in the rolling mud of the Vilaine--he was reserved for this day as a set-off to all the bitterness that had been meted out to him; he was to see the image of his dead love rise from the sea once more. And, meanwhile, his very despair and sullenness had been turned to his good. It would not be said, if history should take count of the fact, that while the Lord of Pulwick had served four years before the mast, he had ever disgraced his name by cowardice.... Whether such reasonings were in accordance even with the most optimistic philosophy, Sir Adrian himself at other times might have doubted. But he was tender in thought this stormy night, with the grateful relaxation that a happy break brings in the midst of long-drawn melancholy. Everything had been working towards this end--that he should be the light-keeper of Scarthey on the day when out of the raging waters Cécile would rise and knock and ask for succour at his chamber. Cécile! pshaw!--raving again. Well, the child! Where was she on the day of the last engagement of that pugnacious _Porcupine_, in the year 1805, when England was freed from her long incubus of invasion? She was then twelve. It had seemed if nothing short of a wholesale disaster could terminate that incongruous existence of his. The last action of the frigate was a fruitless struggle against fearful odds. After a prolonged fight with an enemy as dauntless as herself, with two-thirds of her ship's company laid low, and commanded at length by the youngest lieutenant, she was tackled as the sun went low over the scene of a drawn battle, by a fresh sail errant; and, had it not been for a timely dismasting on board the new-comer, would have been captured or finally sunk then and there. But that fate was only held in reserve for her. Bleeding and disabled, she had drawn away under cover of night from her two hard-hit adversaries, to encounter a squall that further dismantled her, and, in such forlorn conditions, was met and finally conquered by the French privateer _Espoir de Brest_, that pounced upon her in her agony as the vulture upon his prey. Among the remainder of the once formidable crew, now seized and battened down under French hatches, was of course Adrian Landale--he bore a charmed life. And for a short while the only change probable in his prospects was a return to French prisons, until such time as it pleased Heaven to restore peace between the two nations. But the fortune of war, especially at sea, is fickle and fitful. The daring brig, lettre de marque, _L'Espoir de Brest_, soon after her unwonted haul of English prisoners, was overtaken herself by one of her own species, the _St. Nicholas_ of Liverpool, from whose swiftness nothing over the sea, that had not wings, could hope to escape if she chose to give the chase. Again did Adrian, from the darkness among his fellow-captives, hear the familiar roar and crash of cannon fight, the hustling and the thud of leaping feet, the screams and oaths of battle, and, finally, the triumphant shouts of English throats, and he knew that the Frenchman was boarded. A last ringing British cheer told of the Frenchman's surrender, and when he and his comrades were once more free to breathe a draught of living air, after the deathly atmosphere under hatches, Adrian learned that the victor was not a man-of-war, but a free-lance, and conceived again a faint hope that deliverance might be at hand. It was soon after this action, last of the fights that Adrian the peace-lover had to pass through, and as the two swift vessels, now sailing in consort, and under the same colours cleaved the waters, bound for the Mersey, that a singular little drama took place on board the _Espoir de Brest_. Among the younger officers of the English privateer, who were left in charge of the prize, was a lad upon whom Adrian's jaded eyes rested with a feeling of mournful sympathy, so handsome was he, and so young; so full of hope and spirits and joy of life, of all, in fact, of which he himself had been left coldly bare. Moreover, the ring of the merry voice, the glint of the clear eye awakened in his memory some fitful chord, the key of which he vainly sought to trace. One day, as the trim young lieutenant stood looking across the waters, with his brave eager gaze that seemed to have absorbed some of the blue-green shimmer of the element he loved, all unnoting the haggard sailor at his elbow, a sudden flourish of the spy-glass which he, with an eager movement, swung up to bear on some distant speck, sent his watch and seals flying out of his fob upon the deck at Adrian's feet. Adrian picked them up, and as he waited to restore them to their owner, who tarried some time intent on his distant peering, he had time to notice the coat and crest engraved upon one of the massive trinkets hanging from their black ribbons. When at last the officer lowered his telescope, Adrian came forward and saluted him with a slight bow, all unconsciously as unlike the average Jack Tar's scrape to his superior as can be well imagined: "Am I not," he asked, "addressing in you, sir, one of the Cochranes of the Shaws?" The question and the tone from a common sailor were, of course, enough to astonish the young man. But there must be more than this, as Adrian surmised, to cause him to blush, wax angry, and stammer like a very school-boy found at fault. Speaking with much sharpness: "My name is Smith, my man," cried he, seizing his belongings, "and you--just carry on with that coiling!" "And my name, sir, is Adrian Landale, of Pulwick Priory. I would like a moment's talk with you, if you will spare me the time. The Cochranes of the Shaws have been friends of our family for generations." A guffaw burst from a group of Adrian's mates working hard by, at this recurrence of what had become with them a standing joke; but the officer, who had turned on his heels, veered round immediately, and stood eyeing the speaker in profound astonishment. "Great God, is it possible! Did you say you were a Landale of Pulwick? How the devil came you here then, and thus?" "Press-gang," was Adrian's laconic answer. The lad gave a prolonged whistle, and was lost for a moment in cogitation. "If you are really Mr. Landale," he began, adding hastily, as if to cover an implied admission--"of course I have heard the name: it is well known in Lancashire--you had better see the skipper. It must have been some damnable mistake that has caused a man of your standing to be pressed." The speaker ended with almost a deferential air and the smile that had already warmed Adrian's heart. At the door of the Captain's quarters he said, with the suspicion of a twinkle in his eye: "A curious error it was you made, I assure you my name is Smith--Jack Smith, of Liverpool." "An excusable error," quoth Adrian, smiling back, "for one of your seals bear unmistakably the arms of Cochrane of the Shaws, doubtless some heirloom, some inter-marriage." "No, sir, hang it!" retorted Mr. Jack Smith of Liverpool, his boyish face flushing again, and as he spoke he disengaged the trinket from its neighbours, and jerked it pettishly overboard, "I know nothing of your Shaws or your Cochranes." And then he rapped loudly at the cabin-door, as if anxious to avoid further discussion or comment on the subject. The result of the interview which followed--interview during which Adrian in a few words overcame the skipper's scepticism, and was bidden with all the curiosity men feel at sea for any novelty, to relate, over a bottle of wine, the chain of his adventures--was his passing from the forecastle to the officers' quarters, as an honoured guest on board the _St. Nicholas_, during the rest of her cruise. Thinking back now upon the last few weeks of his sea-going life, Sir Adrian realised with something of wonder that he had always dwelt on them without dislike. They were gilded in his memory by the rays of his new friendship. And yet that this young Jack Smith (to keep for him the nondescript name he had for unknown reasons chosen to assume) should be the first man to awaken in the misanthropic Adrian the charm of human intercourse, was singular indeed; one who followed from choice the odious trade of legally chartered corsair, who was ever ready to barter the chance of life and limb against what fortune might bring in his path, to sacrifice human life to secure his own end of enrichment. Well, the springs of friendship are to be no more discerned than those of love; there was none of high or low degree, with the exception of René, whose appearance at any time was so welcome to the recluse upon his rock, as that of the privateersman. And so, turning to his friend in to-night's softened mood, Sir Adrian thought gratefully that to him it was that he owed deliverance from the slavery of the King's service, that it was Jack Smith who had made it possible for Adrian Landale to live to this great day and await its coming in peace. The old clock struck two; and Jem shivered on the rug as the light-keeper rose at length from the table and sank in his arm-chair once more. Visions of the past had been ever his companions; now for the first time came visions of the future to commingle with them. As if caught up in the tide of his visitor's bright young life, it seemed as though he were passing at length out of the valley of the shadow of death. * * * * * René, coming with noiseless bare feet, in the angry yellow dawn of the second day of the storm, to keep an eye on his master's comfort, found him sleeping in his chair with a new look of rest upon his face and a smile upon his lips. CHAPTER IX A GENEALOGICAL EPISTLE ... and braided thereupon All the devices blazoned on the shield, In their own tinct, and added, of her wit, A border fantasy of branch and flower. _Idylls of the King._ Pulwick Priory, the ancestral home of the Cumbrian Landales, a dignified if not overpoweringly lordly mansion, rises almost on the ridge of the green slope which connects the high land with the sandy strand of Morecambe; overlooking to the west the great brown breezy bight, whilst on all other sides it is sheltered by its wooded park. When the air is clear, from the east window of Scarthey keep, the tall garden front of greystone is visible, in the extreme distance, against the darker screen of foliage; whitely glinting if the sun is high; golden or rosy at the end of day. As its name implies, Pulwick Priory stands on the site of an extinct religious house; its oldest walls, in fact, were built from the spoils of once sacred masonry. It is a house of solid if not regular proportions, full of unexpected quaintness; showing a medley of distinct styles, in and out; it has a wide portico in the best approved neo-classic taste, leading to romantic oaken stairs; here wide cheerful rooms and airy corridors, there sombre vaulted basements and mysterious unforeseen nooks. On the whole, however, it is a harmonious pile of buildings, though gathering its character from many different centuries, for it has been mellowed by time, under a hard climate. And it was, in the days of the pride of the Landales, a most meet dwelling-place for that ancient race, insomuch as the history of so many of their ancestors was written successively upon stone and mortar, brick and tile, as well as upon carved oak, canvas-decked walls, and emblazoned windows. * * * * * Exactly one week before the disaster, which was supposed to have befallen Mademoiselle Molly de Savenaye on Scarthey sands, the acting Lord of Pulwick, if one may so term Mr. Rupert Landale, had received a letter, the first reading of which caused him a vivid annoyance, followed by profound reflection. A slightly-built, dark-visaged man, this younger brother of Sir Adrian, and vicarious master of his house and lands; like to the recluse in his exquisite neatness of attire, somewhat like also in the mould of his features, which were, however, more notably handsome than Sir Adrian's; but most unlike him, in an emphasised artificiality of manner, in a restless and wary eye, and in the curious twist of a thin lip which seemed to give hidden sarcastic meaning even to the most ordinary remark. As now he sat by his desk, his straight brows drawn over his amber-coloured eyes, perusing the closely written sheets of this troublesome missive, there entered to him the long plaintive figure of his maiden sister, who had held house for him, under his own minute directions, ever since the death in premature child-birth of his young year-wed wife. Miss Landale, the eldest of the family, had had a disappointment in her youth, as a result of which she now played the ungrateful _rôle_ of old maid of the family. She suffered from chronic toothache, as well as from repressed romantic aspirations, and was the _âme damnée_ of Rupert. One of the most melancholy of human beings, she was tersely characterised by the village folk as a "_wummicky_ poor thing." At the sight of Mr. Landale's weighted brow she propped up her own long sallow face, upon its aching side, with a trembling hand, and, full of agonised prescience, ventured to ask if anything had happened. "Sit down," said her brother, with a sort of snarl--He possessed an extremely irritable temper under his cool sarcastic exterior, a temper which his peculiar anomalous circumstances, whilst they combined to excite it, forced him to conceal rigidly from most, and it was a relief to him to let it out occasionally upon Sophia's meek, ringleted head. Sophia collapsed with hasty obedience into a chair, and then Mr. Landale handed to her the thin fluttering sheets, voluminously crossed and re-crossed with fine Italian handwriting: "From Tanty," ejaculated Miss Sophia, "Oh my dear Rupert!" "Read it," said Rupert peremptorily. "Read it aloud." And throwing himself back upon his chair, he shaded his mouth with one flexible thin hand, and prepared himself to listen. "CAMDEN PLACE, BATH, October 29th," read the maiden lady in those plaintive tones, which seemed to send out all speech upon the breath of a sigh. "MY DEAR RUPERT,--You will doubtless be astonished, but your invariably affectionate Behaviour towards myself inclines me to believe that you will also be _pleased_ to hear, from these few lines, that very shortly after their receipt--if indeed not before--you may expect to see me arrive at Pulwick Priory." Miss Landale put down the letter, and gazed at her brother through vacant mists of astonishment. "Why, I thought Tanty said she would not put foot in Pulwick again till Adrian returned home." Rupert measured the innocent elderly countenance with a dark look. He had sundry excellent reasons, other than mere family affection, for remaining on good terms with his rich Irish aunt, but he had likewise reasons, these less obvious, for wishing to pay his devoirs to her anywhere but under the roof of which he was nominal master. "She has found it convenient to change her mind," he said, with his twisting lip. "Constancy in your sex, my dear, is merely a matter of convenience--or opportunity." "Oh Rupert!" moaned Sophia, clasping the locket which contained her dead lover's hair with a gesture with which all who knew her were very familiar. Mr. Landale never could resist a thrust at the faithful foolish bosom always ready to bleed under his stabs, yet never resenting them. Inexplicable vagary of the feminine heart! Miss Sophia worshipped before the shrine of her younger brother, to the absolute exclusion of any sentiment for the elder, whose generosity and kindness to her were yet as great as was Rupert's tyranny. "Go on," said the latter, alternately smiling at his nails and biting them, "Tanty O'Donoghue observes that I shall be surprised to hear that she will arrive very shortly after this letter, if not before it. Poor old Tanty, there can be no mistake about her nationality. Have the kindness to read straight on, Sophia. I don't want to hear any more of your interesting comments. And don't stop till you have finished, no matter how amazed you are." Again he composed himself to listen, while his sister plunged at the letter, and, after several false starts, found her place and proceeded: "Since, owing to his most _unfortunate_ peculiarity of Temperament and consequent strange choice of abode, I cannot apply to my nephew Adrian, _à qui de droit_ (as Head of the House) I must needs address myself to you, my dear Rupert, to request hospitality for myself and the two young Ladies now under my Charge." The letter wavered in Miss Sophia's hand and an exclamation hung upon her lip, but a sudden movement of Rupert's exquisite crossed legs recalled her to her task. "These young ladies are _Mesdemoiselles de Savenaye_, and the daughters of Madame la Comtesse de Savenaye, who was my sister Mary's child. She and I, and Alice your mother, were sister co-heiresses as you know, and therefore these young ladies are _my_ grand-nieces and your _own_ cousins once removed. Of Cécile de Savenaye, her _strange_ adventures and ultimate _sad_ Fate in which your own brother was implicated, you cannot but have heard, but you may probably have forgotten even to the _very existence_ of these charming young women, who were nevertheless born at Pulwick, and whom you must at some time or other have beheld as infants during your _excellent_ and _lamented_ father's lifetime. They are, as you are doubtless also unaware--for I have remarked a _growing_ Tendency in the younger generations to neglect the study of Genealogy, even as it affects their own Families--as well born on the father's side as upon the maternal. M. de Savenaye bore _argent à la fasce-canton d'hermine_, with an _augmentation of the fleurs de lis d'or_, _cleft in twain_ for his ancestor's _memorable_ deed at the siege of Dinan." "There is Tante O'Donoghue fully displayed, _haut volante_ as she might say herself," here interrupted Mr. Landale with a laugh. "Always the same, evidently. The first thing I remember about her is her lecturing me on genealogy and heraldry, when I wanted to go fishing, till, school-boy rampant as I was, I heartily wished her impaled and debruised on her own Donoghue herse proper. For God's sake, Sophia, do not expect me to explain! Go on." "He was entitled to eighteen quarters, and related to such as Coucy and Armagnac and Tavannes," proceeded Miss Sophia, controlling her bewilderment as best she might, "also to Gwynne of Llanadoc in this kingdom--Honours to which Mesdemoiselles de Savenaye, being sole heiresses both of Kermelégan and Savenaye, not to speak of their own mother's share of O'Donoghue, which now-a-days is of greater substance--are personally entitled. "If I am the _sole_ Relative they have left in these Realms, Adrian and you are the next. I have had the charge of my two young Kinswomen during the last six months, that is since they left the Couvent des Dames Anglaises in Jersey. "Now, I think it is time that your Branch of the Family should incur the share of the _responsibility_ your relationship to them entails. "If Adrian were _as_ and _where_ he should be, I feel sure he would embrace this opportunity of doing his duty as the Head of the House without the smallest hesitation, and I have no doubt that he would offer the _hospitality_ of Pulwick Priory and his _Protection_ to these amiable young persons for as long as they _remain unmarried_. "From you, my dear Nephew, who have undertaken under these melancholy family circumstances to fill your Brother's place, I do not, however, _expect_ so much; all I ask is that you and my niece Sophia be kind enough to _shelter_ and _entertain_ your cousins for the space of two months, while I remain at Bath for the benefit of my Health. "At my age (for it is of no use, nephew, for us to deny our years when any Peerage guide must reveal them pretty closely to the curious), and I am this month passing sixty-nine, at my _age_ the charge of two high-spirited young Females, in whom conventional education has failed to subdue Aspirations for worldly happiness whilst it has left them somewhat inexperienced in the Conventions of Society, I find a _little trying_. It does not harmonise with the retired, peaceful existence to which I am accustomed (and at my time of life, I think, entitled), in which it is my humble endeavour to wean myself from this earth which is so full of Emptiness and to prepare myself for that other and _better_ Home into which we must all resign ourselves to enter. And happy, indeed, my dear Rupert, such of us as will be found worthy; for come to it we all must, and the longer we live, the sooner we may expect to do so. "The necessity of producing them in Society, is, however, rendered a matter of greater responsibility by the fact of the _handsome_ Fortunes which these young creatures possess already, not to speak of their expectations." Rupert, who had been listening to his aunt's letter, through the intermediary of Miss Sophia's depressing sing-song, with an abstracted air, here lifted up his head, and commanded the reader to repeat this last passage. She did so, and paused, awaiting his further pleasure, while he threw his handsome head back upon his chair, and closed his eyes as if lost in calculations. At length he waved his hand, and Miss Sophia proceeded after the usual floundering: "A neighbour of mine at Bunratty, Mrs. Hambledon of Brianstown, a _lively_ widow (herself one of the Macnamaras of the Reeks, and thus a distant connection of the Ballinasloe branch of O'Donoghues), and whom I had reason to believe I could trust--but I will not anticipate--took a prodigious fancy to Miss Molly and proposed, towards the beginning of the Autumn, carrying her away to Dublin. At the same time the wet summer, producing in me an acute recurrence of that Affection from which, as you know, I suffer, and about which you _never fail_ to make such kind Enquiries at Christmas and Easter, compelled me to call in Mr. O'Mally, the apothecary, who has been my very _obliging_ medical adviser for so many years, and who strenuously advocated an immediate course of waters at Bath. In short, my dear Nephew, thus the matter was settled, your cousin Molly departed _radiant_ with _good_ spirits, and _good_ looks for a spell of gayety in Dublin, while your cousin Madeleine, prepared (with _equal_ content) to accompany her old aunt to Bath. It being arranged with Mrs. Hambledon that she should herself conduct Molly to us later on. "We have been here about three weeks. Though persuaded by good Mr. O'Mally that the waters would benefit my old bones, I was actuated, I must confess, by another motive in seeking this Fashionable Resort. In such a place as this, thronged as it is by all the Rank and Family of England, one can at least know _who is who_, and I was not without hopes that my nieces, with their faces, their name, and their fortunes, would have the opportunity of contracting suitable Alliances, and thus relieve me of a charge for which I am, I fear, little fitted. "But, alas! my dear Rupert, I was most woefully mistaken. Bath is _distinctly not_ the place for two beautiful and unsophisticated Heiresses, and I am certainly neither possessed of the Spirits, nor of the Health to guard them from fortune-hunters and _needy nameless_ Adventurers. While it is my desire to impress upon you, and my niece Sophia, that the conduct of these young ladies has been _quite_ beyond reproach, I will not conceal from you that the attentions of a certain person, of the name of _Smith_, known here, and a favorite in the circles of frivolity and fashion as _Captain Jack_, have already made Madeleine _conspicuous_, and although the dear girl conducts herself with the utmost propriety, there is an air of _Romance_ and _mystery_ about the Young Man, not to speak of his unmistakable good looks, which have determined me to remove her from his vicinity before her Affections be _irreparably_ engaged. As for Molly, who is a thorough O'Donoghue and the image of her grandmother, that celebrated Murthering Moll (herself the toast of Bath in our young days), whose elopement with the Marquis de Kermelégan, after he had killed an English rival in a duel, was once a nine-days' wonder in this very town, and of whom you must have heard, Mrs. Hambledon restored her to my care only three days ago, and she has already twenty Beaux to her String, though favouring _nobody_, I am bound to say, but her own amusement. Yesterday she departed under Mrs. Hambledon's chaperonage, in the Company of a dozen of the highest in rank here, on an expedition to Clifton; the while my demure Madeleine spends the day at the house of her dear friend Lady Maria Harewood, whither, I only learnt upon her return at ten o'clock under his escort, _Captain Jack_--in my days that sort of _captain_ would have been strongly suspected, of having a shade too much of the _Heath_ or the _London Road_ about him--had likewise been convened. It was long after midnight when, with a great _tow-row_, a coach full of very merry company (amongst whom the widow Hambledon struck me as over-merry, perhaps) landed my other Miss _sur le perron_. "This has decided me. We shall decamp _sans tambou ni trompette_. To-morrow, without allowing discussion from the girls (in which I should probably be worsted), we pack ourselves into my travelling coach, and find our Way to you. But, until we are fairly on the Road, I shall not even let these ladies know _whither_ we are bound. "With your kind permission, then, I shall remain a few days at Pulwick, to recruit from the _fatigues_ of such a long Journey, before leaving your fair cousins in your charge, and in that of the gentle Sophia (whom I trust to entertain them with something besides her usual melancholy), till the time comes for me to bring them back with me to Bunratty. "Unless, therefore, you should hear to the contrary, you will know that on Tuesday your three _unprotected_ female relatives will be hoping to see your travelling carriage arrive to fetch them at the Crown in Lancaster. "Your Affectionate Aunt, "ROSE O'DONOGHUE." As Miss Landale sighed forth the concluding words, she dropped the little folio on her lap, and looked at her brother with a world of apprehension in her faded eyes. "Oh, Rupert, what shall we do?" "Do," said Mr. Landale, quickly turning on her, out of his absorption, "you will kindly see that suitable rooms are prepared for your aunt and cousins, and you will endeavour, if you please, to show these ladies a cheerful countenance, as your aunt requests." "The oak and the chintz rooms, I suppose," Sophia timidly suggested. "Tanty used to say she liked the aspect, and I daresay the young ladies will find it pleasant to look out on the garden." "Ay," returned Rupert, absently. He had risen from his seat, and fallen to pacing the room. Presently a short laugh broke from him. "Tolerably cool, I must say," he remarked, "tolerably cool. It seems to be a tradition with that Savenaye family, when in difficulties, to go to Pulwick." Miss Landale looked up with relief. Perhaps Rupert would think better of it, and make up his mind to elude receiving the unwelcome visitors after all. But his next speech dashed her budding hopes. "Ay, as in the days of their mother before them, when she came here to lay her eggs, like a cuckoo in another bird's nest--I wish they had been addled, I do indeed--we may expect to have the whole place turned topsy-turvy, I suppose. It is a pretty assortment, _faith_ (as Tanty says herself); an old papist, and two young ones, fresh from a convent school--and of these, one a hoyden, and the other lovesick! Faugh! Sophia you will have to keep your eyes open when the old lady is gone. I'll have no unseemly pranks in this house." "Oh, Rupert," with a moan of maidenly horror, and conscious incompetence. "Stop that," cried the brother, with a contained intensity of exasperation, at which the poor lady jumped and trembled as if she had been struck. "All your whining won't improve matters. Now listen to me," sitting down beside her, and speaking slowly and impressively, "you are to make our relatives feel welcome, do you understand? Everything is to be of the best. Get out the embroidered sheets, and see that there are flowers in the rooms. Tell the cook to keep back that haunch of venison, the girls won't like it, but the old lady knows a good thing when she gets it--let there be lots of sweet things for the young ones too. I shall be giving some silver out this afternoon. I leave it to you to see that it is properly cleaned. What are you mumbling about to yourself? Write it down if you can't remember, and now go, go--I am busy." PART II "MURTHERING MOLL THE SECOND" _Then did the blood awaken in the veins Of the young maiden wandering in the fields._ LUTEPLAYER'S SONG. CHAPTER X THE THRESHOLD OF WOMANHOOD Onward floweth the water, onward through meadows broad, "How happy," the meadows say, "art thou to be rippling onward." "And my heart is beating, beating beneath my girdle here;" "O Heart," the girdle saith, "how happy art thou that thou beatest." _Luteplayer's Song._ DUBLIN, _October 15th, 1814_.--This day do I, Molly de Savenaye, begin my diary. Madeleine writes to me from Bath that she has purchased a very fine book, in which she intends to set forth each evening all that has happened her since the morning; she advises me to do so too. She says that since _real life_ has begun for us; life, of which every succeeding day is not, as in the convent, the repetition of the previous day, but brings some new discovery, pleasure, or pain, we ought to write down and preserve their remembrance. It will be so interesting for us to read when a new life once more begins for us, and we are _married_. Besides it is the _fashion_, and all the young ladies she knows do it. And she has, she says, already plenty to write down. Now I _should_ like to know what about. When ought one to start such a record? Surely not on a day like this. "Why _demme_" (as Mrs. Hambledon's nephew says), "_what the deyvil_ have I got to say?" _Item:_ I went out shopping this morning with Mrs. Hambledon, and, bearing Madeleine's advice in mind, purchased at Kelly's, in Sackville Street, an album book, bound in green morocco, with clasp and lock, which Mr. Kelly protests is quite secure. _Item:_ We met Captain Segrave of the Royal Dragoons (who was so attentive to me at Lady Rigtoun's rout, two days ago). He looked very well on his charger, but how conceited! When he saw me, he rolled his eyes and grew quite red; and then he stuck his spurs into his horse, that we might admire how he could sit it; which he did, indeed, to perfection. Mrs. Hambledon looked vastly knowing, and I laughed. If ever I try to fancy myself married to such a man I cannot help laughing. This, however, is not diary.--_Item:_ We returned home because it began to rain, and to pass the time, here am I at my book. But is _this_ the sort of thing that will be of interest to read hereafter? I have begun too late; I should have written in those days when I saw the dull walls of our convent prison for the last time. It seems so far back now (though, by the calendar it is hardly six months), that I cannot quite recall how it felt to live in prison. And yet it was not unhappy, and there was no horror in the thought we both had sometimes then, that we should pass and end our lives in the cage. It did not strike us as hard. It seemed, indeed, in the nature of things. But the bare thought of returning to that existence now, to resume the placid daily task, to fold up again like a plant that has once expanded to sun and breeze, to have never a change of scene, of impression, to look forward to nothing but _submission_, sleep, and _death_; oh, it makes me turn cold all over! And yet there are women who, of their own will, give up the _freedom of the world_ to enter a convent _after_ they have tasted life! Oh, I would rather be the poorest, the ugliest peasant hag, toiling for daily bread, than one of these cold cloistered souls, so that the free air of heaven, be it with the winds or the rain, might beat upon me, so that I might live and love _as I like_, do right _as I like_; ay, and do wrong _if_ I liked, with the free will which is my _own_. We were told that the outer world, with all its sorrows and trials, and dangers--how I remember the Reverend Mother's words and face, and how they impressed me then, and how I should laugh at them, _now!_--that the world was but a valley of tears. We were warned that all that awaited us, if we left the fold, was _misery_; that the joys of this world were _bitter_ to the taste, its pleasures _hollow_, and its griefs _lasting_. We believed it. And yet, when the choice was actually ours to make, we chose all we had been taught to dread and despise. Why? I wonder. For the same reason as Eve ate the apple, I suppose. I would, if I had been Eve. I almost wish I could go back now, for a day, to the cool white rooms, to see the nuns flitting about like black and white ghosts, with only a jingle of beads to warn one of their coming, see the blue sky through the great bare windows, and the shadows of the trees lengthening on the cold flagged floors, hear the bells going ding-dong, ding-dong, and the murmur of the sea in the distance, and the drone of the school, and the drone of the chapel, to go back, and feel once more the dull sort of content, the calmness, the rest! But no, no! I should be trembling all the while lest the blessed doors leading back to that _horrible_ world should never open to me again. The sorrows and trials of the world! I suppose the Reverend Mother really meant it; and if I had gone on living there till my face was wrinkled like hers, poor woman, I might have thought so too, in the end, and talked the same nonsense. Was it really I that endured such a life for seventeen years? O God! I wonder that the sight of the swallows coming and going, the sound of the free waves, did not drive me mad. Twist as I will my memory, I cannot recall _that_ Molly of six months ago, whose hours and days passed and dropped all alike, all lifeless, just like the slow tac, tac, tac of our great horloge in the Refectory, and were to go on as slow and as alike, for ever and ever, till she was old, dried, wrinkled, and then died. The real Molly de Savenaye's life began on the April morning when that dear old turbaned fairy godmother of ours carried us, poor little Cinderellas, away in her coach. Well do I remember my birthday. I have read since in one of those musty books of Bunratty, that _moths_ and _butterflies_ come to life by shaking themselves out, one fine day, from a dull-looking, shapeless, ugly thing they call a _grub_, in which they have been buried for a long time. They unfold their wings and fly out in the sunshine, and flit from flower to flower, and they look beautiful and happy--the world, the wicked world, is open to them. There were pictures in the book; the ugly grub below, dreary and brown, and the lovely _butterfly_ in all its colours above. I showed them to Madeleine, and said: "Look, Madeleine, as we were, and as we are." And she said: "Yes, those brown gowns they made us wear were ugly; but I should not like to put on anything so bright as red and yellow. Would you?" That is the worst of Madeleine; she never realises in the least what I mean. And she _does_ love her clothes; that is the difference between her and me, she loves fine things because they are fine and dainty and all that--I like them because they make _me_ fine. And yet, how she did weep when she left the convent. Madeleine would have made a good nun after all; she does so hate anything ugly or coarse. She grows quite white if she hears people fighting; if there is a "row" or a "shindy," as they say here. Whereas Tanty and I think it all the fun in the world, and would enjoy joining in the fray ourselves, I believe, if we dared. I know _I_ should; it sets my blood tingling. But Madeleine is a real princess, a sort of Ermine; and yet she enjoys her new life, too, the beauty of it, the refinement, being waited upon and delicately fed and clothed. But although she has ceased to weep for the convent, if it had not been for me she would be there still. The only thing, I believe, that could make me weep now would be to find one fine morning that this had only been a dream, and that I was once more _the grub_! To find that I could not open my window and look into the wide, wide world over to the long, green hills in the distance, and know that I could wander or gallop up to them, as I did at Bunratty, and see for myself _what lies beyond_--surely that was a taste of heaven that day when Tanty Rose first allowed me to mount her old pony, and I flew over the turf with the wind whistling in my ears--to find that I could not go out when I pleased and hear new voices and see new faces, and men and women who _live each their own life_, and not the _same_ life as mine. When I think of what I am now, and what I might have remained, I breathe deep and feel like singing; I stretch my arms out and feel like flying. Our aunt told us she thought Bunratty would be dull for us, and so it was in comparison with this place. Perhaps _this_ is dull in comparison with what _may_ come. For good Tanty, as she likes us to call her, is intent on doing great things for us. "Je vous marierai," she tells us in her funny old French, "Je vous marierai bien, mes filles, si vous êtes sages," and she winks both eyes. _Marriage!_ _That_, it is quite evident, is the goal of every properly constituted young female; and every respectable person who has the care of said young female is consequently bent upon her reaching that goal. So marriage is _another_ good thing to look forward to. And _love_, that love all the verses, all the books one reads are so full of; _that_ will come to us. They say that _love is life_. Well, all I want is to live. But with a grey past such as we have had, the present is good enough to ponder upon. We now can lie abed if we have sweet dreams and pursue them waking, and be lazy, yet not be troubled with the self-indulgence as with an enormity; or we can rise and breathe the sunshine at our own time. We can be frivolous, and yet meet with smiles in response, dress our hair and persons, and be pleased with ourselves, and with being admired or envied, yet not be told horrid things about death and corruption and skeletons. And, above all--oh, above _all_, we can think of the future as different from the past, as _changing_, be it even for the worse; as unknown and fascinating, not as a repetition, until death, of the same dreary round. In Mrs. Hambledon's parlour here are huge glasses at either end; whenever you look into them you see a never-ending chain of rooms with yourself standing in the middle, vanishing in the distance, every one the same, with the same person in the middle, only a little smaller, a little more insignificant, a little darker, till it all becomes _nothing_. It always reminds me of life's prospects in the convent. I dislike that room. When I told Mrs. Hambledon the reason why, she laughed, and promised me that, with my looks and disposition, my life would be eventful enough. I have every mind that it shall. * * * * * _October 18th._--Yesterday, I woke up in an amazing state of happiness, though for no particular reason that I can think of. It could not be simply because we were to go out for a visit to the country and see new people and places, for I have already learned to find that most new people are cut out on the same pattern as those one already knows. It must have been rather because I awoke under the impression of one of my lovely dreams--such dreams as I have only had since I left my _grub_ state; dreams of space, air, long, long views of beautiful scenery, always changing, always wider, such as swallows flying between sky and earth might see, under an exquisite and brilliant light, till for very joy I wake up, my cheeks covered with tears. This time, I was sitting on the prow of some vessel with lofty white sails, and it was cutting through the water, blue as the sky, with wreaths of snow-like foam, towards some unknown shores, ever faster and faster, and I was singing to some one next to me on the prow--some one I did not know, but who felt with me--singing a song so perfect, so sweet (though it had no human words) that I thought _it explained all_: the blue of the heaven, the freshness of the breeze, the fragrance of the earth, and why we were so eagerly pressing onwards. I thought the melody was such that when once heard it could never be forgotten. When I woke it still rang in my ears, but now I can no more recall it. How is it we never know such delight in waking hours? Is that some of the joy we are to feel in Heaven, the music we are to hear? And yet it can be heard in this life if one only knew where to go and listen. And this life is beautiful which lies in front of us, though they would speak of it as a sorrowful span not to be reckoned. It is good to be young and think of the life still to come. Every moment is precious for its enjoyment, and yet sometimes I find that one only knows of a pleasure when it is just gone. One ought to try and be more awake at each hour to the happiness it may bring. I shall try, and you, my diary, shall help me. This is really _no_ diary-keeping. It is not a bit like those one reads in books. It ought to tell of other people and the events of each day. But other people are really very uninteresting; as for events, well, so far, they are uninteresting too; it is only what they cause to spring up in our hearts that is worth thinking upon; and that is so difficult to put in words that mostly I spend my time merely pondering and not writing. Last night Mrs. Hambledon took me to the _play_. It was for the first time in my life, and I was full of curiosity. It was a long drama, pretty enough and sometimes very exciting. But I could see that though the actress was very handsome and mostly so unhappy as to draw tears from the spectators, there were people, especially some gentlemen, who were more interested in looking at the box where I sat with Mrs. Hambledon. Indeed, I could not pretend, when I found myself before my glass that night, that I was not amazingly prettier than that Mrs. Colebrook, about whose beauty the whole town goes mad. When I recalled the hero's ravings about his Matilda's eyes and cheeks, and her foot and her sylph-like waist, and her raven hair, I wondered what _that_ young man would say of me if he were my lover and I his persecuted mistress. The Matilda was a pleasing person enough; but if I take her point by point, it would be absurd to speak of her charms in the same breath with mine. Oh, my dear Molly, how beautiful I thought you last night! How happy I should be, were I a dashing young lover and eyes like _yours_ smiled on me. I never before thought myself prettier than Madeleine, but now I do. Lovers, love, mistress, bride; they talked of nothing else in the play. And it was all ecstasy in their words, and nothing but _misery_ in fact (just as the Reverend Mother would have had it). The young man who played the hero was a very fine fellow; and yet when I conceive _him_ making love to me as he did last night to Mrs. Colebrook, the notion seems really _too_ ludicrous! What sort of man then is it I would allow to love me? I do not mind the thought of lovers sighing and burning for me (as some do now indeed, or pretend to) I like to feel that I can crush them with a frown and revive them with a smile; I like to see them fighting for my favour. But to give a man the right to love me, the right to my smiles, the _right to me_! Indeed, I have yet seen _none_ who could make me bear the thought. And yet I think that I could love, and I know that the man that I am to love must be living somewhere till fate brings him to me. He does not think of me. He does not know of me. And neither of us, I suppose, will taste life as life is till the day when we meet. CAMDEN PLACE, BATH, _November 1st_.--Bath at last, which, must please poor Mrs. Hambledon exceedingly, for she certainly did _not_ enjoy the transit. I cannot conceive how people can allow themselves to be so utterly distraught by illness. I feel I can never have any respect for her again; she moaned and lamented in such cowardly fashion, was so peevish all the time on board the vessel, and looked so very begrimed and untidy and _plain_ when she was carried out on Bristol quay. The captain called it _dirty_ weather, but I thought it _lovely_, and I don't think I ever enjoyed myself more--except when Captain Segrave's Black Douglas ran away with me in Phoenix Park. It was beautiful to see our brave boat plough the sea and quiver with anger, as if it were a living thing, when it was checked by some great green wave, then gather itself again under the wind and dash on to the fight, until it conquered. And when we came into the river and the sun shone once more it glided on swiftly, though looking just a little tired for a while until its decks and sails were dry and clean again, and I thought it was just like a bird that has shaken and plumed itself. I was sorry to leave it. The captain and the mate and the sailors, who had wrapped me up in their great, stiff tarpaulin coats and placed me in a safe corner where I could sit out and look, were also sorry that I should go. But it was good to be with Madeleine again and Tanty Donoghue, who always has such a kind smile on her old wrinkled face when she looks at me. Madeleine was astonished when I told her I had loved the storm at sea and when I mimicked poor Mrs. Hambledon. She says she also thought she was dying, so ill was she on her crossing, and that she was quite a week before she got over the impression. It seems odd to think that we are sisters, and twin sisters too; in so many things she is different from me. She has changed in manner since I left her. She seems so absorbed in some great thought that all her words and smiles have little meaning in them. I told her I had tried to keep my diary, but had not done much work, and when I asked to see hers (for a model) Madeleine blushed, and said I should see it this day year. _Madeleine is in love_; that is the only way I can account for that blush. I fear she is a sly puss, but there is such a bustle around us, and so much to do and see, I have no time to make her confess. So I said I would keep mine from her for that period also. It seems a long span to look ahead. What a number of things will happen before this day year! BATH, _November 3rd_.--Bath is delightful! I have only been here two days, and already I am what Tanty, in her old-fashioned way, calls _the belle_. Already there are a dozen sparks who declare that my eyes have _shot death_ to them. This afternoon comes my Lord of Manningham, nicknamed _King of Bath_, to "drink a dish of tea," as he has it, with his "dear old friend Miss O'Donoghue." Tanty has been here three weeks, and he has only just discovered her existence, and remembered their tender friendship. Of course, I know very well what has really brought him. He is Lord Dereham's grandfather on the mother's side, and Lord Dereham, who is the son of the Duke of Wells, is "the catch," as Mrs. Hambledon vows, of the fashionable world this year. And Lord Dereham has seen me twice, and _is in love with me_. But as Lord Dereham is more like a little white rat than a man, and swears more than he converses--which would be very shocking if it were not for his lisp, which makes it very funny--needless to say, my diary dear, your Molly is not in love with him--He has no chance. And so Lord Manningham comes to tea, and Tanty orders me to remain and see her "old friend" instead of going to ride with the widow Hambledon. The widow Hambledon and I are everywhere together, and she knows all the most entertaining people in Bath, whereas Madeleine, whom I have hardly seen at all except at night, when I am so dead tired that I go to sleep as soon as my head touches the pillow (I vow Tanty's manner of speech is catching), Miss Madeleine keeps to her own select circle, and turns up her haughty little nose at _my_ friends. So now Madeleine is punished, for Tanty and I have had the honour of receiving the _King of Bath_, and I have been vouchsafed the stamp of his august approval. "My dear Miss O'Donoghue," he cried, as I curtsied, "do my senses deceive me, or do I not once more behold _Murthering Moll_?" "I thought you could not fail to notice the likeness; my niece is, indeed, a complete O'Donoghue," says Tanty, amazingly pleased. "Likeness, ma'am," cried the old wretch, bowing again, and scattering his snuff all over the place, while I sweep him another splendid curtsey, "likeness, ma'am, why this is no feeble copy, no humble imitation, 'tis _Murdering Moll herself_, and glad I am to see her again." And then he catches me under the chin, and peers into my face with his dim, wicked old eyes. "And so you are Murdering Moll's daughter," says he, chuckling to himself. "Ay, she and I were very good friends, my pretty child, very good friends, and that not so long ago, either. Ay, _Mater pulchra, filia pulchrior_." "But I happen to be her grand-daughter, please my lord," said I, and then I ran to fetch him a chair (for I was dreadfully afraid he was going to kiss me). But though no one has ever accused me of speaking too modestly to be heard, my lord had a sudden fit of deafness, and I saw Tanty give me a little frown, while the old thing--he must be much older than Tanty even--tottered into a chair, and went on mumbling. "I was only a boy in those days, my dear, only a boy, as your good aunt will tell you. I can remember how the bells rang the three beautiful Irish sisters into Bath, and I and the other dandies stood to watch them drive by. The bells rang in the _belles_ in those days, my dear, he, he, he! only we used to call them 'toasts' then, and your mother was the most beautiful of 'the three Graces'--we christened them 'the three Graces'--and by gad she led us all a pretty dance!" "Ah, my lord," says Tanty, and I could see her old eyes gleam though her tone was so pious, "I fear we were three wild Irish girls indeed!" Lord Manningham was too busy ogling me to attend to her. "Your mother was just such another as you, and she had just such a pair of dimples," said he. "You mean my grandmother," shouted I in his ear, just for fun, though Tanty looked as if she were on pins and needles. But he only pinched my cheek again and went on: "Before she had been here a fortnight all the bucks in the town were at her feet. And so was I, so was I. Only, by gad, I was too young, you know, as Miss O'Donoghue here will tell you. But she liked me; she used to call me her 'little manny.' I declare I might have married her, only there were family reasons, and I was such a lad, you know. And then Jack Waterpark, some of us thought she would have had _him_ in the end--being an Irishman, and a rich man, and a marquis to boot--he gave her the name of _Murthering Moll_, because of her killing eyes, young lady--he! he! he!--and there was Ned Cuffe ready to hang himself for her, and Jim Denham, and old Beau Vernon, ay, and a score of others. And then one night at the Assembly Rooms, after the dancing was over and we gay fellows were all together, up gets Waterpark, he was a little tipsy, my dear, and by gad I can hear him speak now, with that brogue of his. 'Boys,' he says, 'it's no use your trying for her any more, for by God _I've won her_.' And out of his breast-pocket he pulls a little knot of blue ribbon. Your mother, my dear, had worn a very fine gown that evening, with little knots of blue ribbon all over the bodice of it. The words were not out of his mouth when Ned Cuffe starts to his feet as white as a sheet: 'It's a damned lie,' he cries, and out of his pocket _he_ pulls another little knot. 'She gave it to me with her own hands,' he cried and glares round at us all. And then Vernon bursts out laughing and flourishes a third little bow in our eyes, and I had one too, I need not tell you, and so had all the rest, all save a French fellow--I forget his name--and it was he she had danced with the most of all. Ah, Miss O'Donoghue, how the little jade's eyes sparkle! I warrant you have never told her the story for fear she would want to copy her mother in other ways besides looks--Hey? Well, my pretty, give me your little hand, and then I shall go on--pretty little hand, um--um--um!" and then he kissed my hand, the horrid, snuffy thing! but I allowed it, for I did so want to hear how it all ended. "And then, and then," I said. "And then, my dear, this French fellow, your papa he must have been--so I suppose I must not abuse him, and he was a very fine young man after all, and a man of honour as well--he stood and cursed us all." "'You English fools,' he said, 'you braggards--cowards.' And he seized a glass of wine from the table and with a sweep he dashed it at us and ended by flinging the empty glass in Lord Waterpark's face. It was the neatest thing you ever saw, for we all got a drop except Waterpark, and he got the glass. 'I challenge you all,' said the Frenchman, 'I'll fight you one by one, and I shall have her into the bargain.' And so he did, my dear, he fought us all, one after the other; there were five of us; he was a devil with the sword, but Ned Cuffe ran him through for all that--and he was a month getting over it, but as soon as he could crawl again he vowed himself ready for Waterpark, and weak as he was he ran poor Waterpark through the lungs. Some said Jack spitted himself on his sword--but dead he was anyhow, and monsieur your father--what was his name? Kerme-something--was off with your mother before the rest of us were well out of bed." "Fie, fie, my lord," said Tanty, "you should not recall old stories in this manner!" "Gad, ma'am, I warrant this young lady is quite ready to provide you with a few new ones," chuckled my lord; and as there was no more to be extracted from him but foolish old jokes and dreadful smiles, I contrived to free my "pretty little hand," and sit down demurely by Tanty's side like the modest retiring young female I should be. But my blood was dancing in my veins--the blood of Murthering Moll--doddering old idiot as he is, Lord Manningham is right for once, I mean to take quite as much out of life as she did. That indeed is worth being young and beautiful for! We know nothing of our family, save that both father and mother were killed in Vendée. Tanty never will tell us anything about them (except their coats of arms), and I am afraid even to start the subject, for she always branches off upon heraldry and then we are in for hours of it. But after Lord Manningham was gone I asked her when and how my grandmother died. "She died when your mother was born, my dear," said Tanty, "she was not as old as you are now, and your grandfather never smiled again, or so they said." That sobered me a little. Yet she lived her life so well, while she did live, that I who have wasted twenty precious years can find in my heart rather to envy than to pity my beautiful grandmother. * * * * * _November 5th._--It is _three o'clock in the morning_, but I do not feel at all inclined to go to bed. Madeleine is sleeping, poor pretty pale Madeleine! with the tears hardly dry upon her cheeks and I can hear her sighing in her sleep. I was right, she is in love, and the gentleman she loves is not approved of by Tanty and the upshot of it all is we are to leave dear Bath, delightful Bath, to-morrow--to-day rather--for some unknown penitential region which our stern relative as yet declines to name. I am longing to hear more about it; but Tanty, who, though she talks so much, can keep her own counsel better than any woman I know, will not give me any further information beyond the facts that the delinquent who has dared to aspire to my sister is a person of _the name of Smith_, and that it would not do at all. I have not the heart to wake Madeleine to make her tell me more, though I really ought to pinch her well for being so secretive--besides, my head is so full of my own day that I want to get it all written down, and I shall never have done so unless I begin at the beginning. Yesterday, then, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon Lord Dereham's coach and four came clattering up to our door to call for me. Mrs. Hambledon was already installed and Lady Soames and a dozen other of the _fashionables_ of Bath. My little Lord Marquis had kept the box seat for me, at which the other ladies, even my dear friend and chaperon, looked rather green. The weather was glorious, and off we went with a flourish of trumpets and whips, and I knew I should enjoy myself monstrously. And so I did. But it was the drive back that was the _best_ of all. We never started till near nine o'clock, and Lord Dereham insisted on my sitting beside him again--at which all the ladies looked daggers _at me_ and all the gentlemen daggers _at him_. And then we sang songs and tore along uphill and down dale, under the beautiful moonlight, through the still air, till all at once we found we had lost our way. We had to drive on till we came to an inn and we could make inquiries. There the gentlemen opened another hamper of wine, and when we set off again I promise you they were all pretty _lively_ (and most of the ladies too, for the matter of that). As for me, who never drank anything but milk or water till six months ago, I have not learnt to like wine yet, so, though I sipped out of the glass to keep the fun going, I contrived to dispose of the contents, quietly over the side of the coach, when no one was looking. It was a drive to remember. We came to a big hill, and as we were going down it at a smart pace the coach began to sway, then the ladies began to screech, and even the men looked so scared that I laughed outright. Lord Dereham was perfectly tipsy and he did not know the road a bit, but he drove in beautiful style and was extraordinarily amusing; as soon as the coach took to swaying, instead of slackening speed as they all begged him, he _lashed_ the horses into a tearing gallop, looking over his shoulder at the rest and cursing them with the greatest energy, grinning with rage, and looking more like a little white rat than _ever_. "Give me the whip," said I, "and I shall whip the team while you drive." "_Cuth me_," cried he, "if you are not worth the whole coach-load a dozen times over." On we went; the coach rocked, the horses galloped, and I knew at any moment the whole thing might upset, and I flourished my whip and lashed at the steaming flanks and I never felt what it was to really enjoy myself before. Presently, although we were tearing along so fast, the coach steadied itself and went as straight as an arrow; and this, it seems, it would never have done had not Lord Dereham kept up the pace. And all the rest of the drive his lordship wanted to kiss me. I was not a bit frightened, though he was drunk, but every time he grew too forward I just flicked at the horses with the whip, and I think he saw that I would have cracked him across the face quite as readily if he dared to presume. No doubt a dozen times during the day I could have secured a coronet for myself, not to speak of future 'strawberry leaves,' as my aunt says, if I had cared to; but who could think of loving a man like _that_? He can manage four horses, and he has shot two men in a duel, and he can drink three bottles of wine at a sitting, and when one tries to find something more to say for him, lo! that is all! When we at length arrived at Camden Place, for I vowed they must leave me home the first, there was the rarest sport. My lord's grooms must set to blow the horns, for they were as drunk as their master, while one of the gentlemen played upon the knocker till the whole crescent was aroused. Then the doors opened suddenly, _and Tanty appears_ on the threshold, holding a candle. Her turban was quite crooked, with the birds of Paradise over one eye, and I never saw her old nose look so hooked. All the gentlemen set up a shout, and Sir Thomas Wrexham began to crow like a cock for no reason on earth that I can think of. The servants were holding up lanterns, but the moon was nigh as bright as day. Tanty just looked round upon them one after another, and in spite of her crooked turban I think they all grew frightened. Then she caught hold of me, and just whisked me behind her. Next she spied out Mrs. Hambledon, who had been asleep inside the coach, and now tumbled forth, yawning and gaping. "And so, madam," cries Tanty to her, not very loud, but in a voice that made even me tremble; "so, madam, this is how you fulfil the confidence I placed in you. A pretty chaperon you are to have the charge of a young lady; though, indeed, considering your years, madam, I might have been justified in trusting you." Mrs. Hambledon, cut short in the middle of a loud yawn by this attack, was a sight to see. "Hoighty-toighty, ma'am!" she cried, indignantly, as soon as she could get her voice; "here's a fine to-do. It is my fault, of course, that Lord Dereham should mistake the road. And my fault too, no doubt, that your miss should make an exhibition of herself riding on the box with the gentlemen at this hour of night, when I implored her to come inside with me, were it only for the sake of common female propriety." "Common female indeed!" echoed Tanty, with a snort; "the poor child knew better." "Cuth the old cats! they'll have each other'th eyeth out," here cried my lord marquis, interposing his little tipsy person between them. He had scrambled down the box after me, and was listening with an air of profound wisdom that made me feel fit to die laughing. "Don't you mind her, old lady," he went on, addressing Tanty; "Mith Molly ith quite able to take care of herself--damme if she'th not." Aunt Donoghue turned upon him majestically. "And then that is more than can be said for you, my poor young man," she exclaimed; and I vow he looked as sobered as if she had flung a bucket of cold water over him. Upon this she retired and shut the door, and marched me upstairs before her without a word. Before my room door she stopped. "Mrs. Dempsey has already packed your sister's trunks," she said, in a very dry way; "and she will begin to pack yours early--I was going to say to-morrow--but you keep such hours, my dear--it will be _to-day_." I stared at her as if she had gone mad. "You and your sister," she went on, "have got beyond me. I have taken my resolution and given my orders, and there is not the least use making a scene." And then it came out about Madeleine. At first I thought I would go into a great passion and refuse to obey, but after a minute or two I saw it was, as she said, no use. Tanty was as cool as a cucumber. Then I thought perhaps I might mollify her if I could cry, but I couldn't pump up a tear; I never can; and at last when I went into my room and saw poor Madeleine, who has cried herself to sleep, evidently, I understood that there was nothing for us but to do as we were told. And now I can hear Tanty fussing about her room still--she has been writing, too--cra, cra, cra--this last hour. I wonder who to? After all there is some fun in being taken off mysteriously we don't know where. I should like to go and kiss her, but she thinks I am abed. CHAPTER XI A MASTERFUL OLD MAID No contrary advice having reached Pulwick since Miss O'Donoghue's _letter of invoice_, as Mr. Landale facetiously described it, he drove over to Lancaster on the day appointed to meet the party. And thus it came to pass that through the irresistible management of Miss O'Donoghue, who put into the promotion of her scheme all the energy belonging to her branch of the family, together with the long habit of authority of the _Tante à héritage_, the daughters of Cécile de Savenaye returned to that first home of theirs, of which they had forgotten even the name. Mr. Landale had not set eyes on his valuable relative for many years, but her greeting, at the first renewal of intercourse which took place in the principal parlour of the Lancaster Inn, was as easily detached in manner as though they had just met again after a trifling absence and she was bringing her charges to his house in accordance with a mutual agreement. "My dear Rupert," cried she, "I am glad to see you again. I need not ask you how you are, you look so extremely sleek and prosperous. Adrian's wide acres are succulent, hey? I should have known you anywhere; though to be sure, you are hardly large enough for the breed, you have the true Landale stamp on you, the unmistakable Landale style of feature. _Semper eadem._ In that sense, at least, one can apply your ancient and once worthy motto to you; and you know, nephew, since you have conveniently changed your faith, both to God and king, this sentiment strikes one as a sarcasm amidst the achievements of Landale, you backsliders! Ah, we O'Donoghues have better maintained our device, _sans changier_." Rupert, to whom the well-known volubility of his aunt was most particularly disagreeable, but who had nevertheless saluted the stalwart old lady's cheek with much affection, here bent his supple back with a sort of mocking gallantry. "You maintain your _device_, permit me to say, my dear aunt, as ostentatiously in your person as we renegade Landales ourselves." "Pooh, pooh! I am too old a bird to be caught by such chaff, nephew; it is pearls before.... I mean it is too late in the day, my dear. Keep it for the young things. And indeed I see the sheep's eyes you have been casting in their direction. Come nearer, young ladies, and make your cousin's acquaintance," beckoning to her nieces, who, arrayed in warm travelling pelisses and beaver bonnets of fashionable appearance, stood in the background near the fireplace. "They are very like, are they not?" she continued. "Twins always are; as like as two peas. And yet these are as different as day and night when you come to know them. Madeleine is the eldest; that is she in the beaver fur; Molly prefers bear. Without their bonnets you will distinguish them by their complexion. Molly has raven hair (she is the truest O'Donoghue), whilst Madeleine is fair, _blonde_, like her Breton father." The sisters greeted their new-found guardian, each in her own way. And, in spite of the disguising bonnets and their surprising similarity of voice, height, and build, the difference was more marked than that of beaver and bear. Madeleine acknowledged her kinsman's greeting with a dainty curtsey and little half-shy smile, marked by that air of distinction and breeding which was her peculiar characteristic. Molly, however, who thought she had reasonable cause for feeling generally exasperated, and who did not see in Mr. Rupert Landale, despite his good looks and his good manner, a very promising substitute for her Bath admirers (nor in the prospect of Pulwick a profitable exchange for Bath), came forward with her bolder grace to flounce him a saucy "reverence," measuring him the while with a certain air of mockery which his thin-skinned susceptibility was quick to seize. He looked back at her down the long tunnel of her bonnet, appraising the bloom and beauty within with cold and curious gaze, and then he turned to Madeleine and made to her his courteous speech of welcome. This was sufficient for Miss Molly, who, for six months already accustomed to compel admiration at first sight from all specimens of the male sex that came across her path, instantly vowed a deadly hatred to her cousin, and followed the party into the Landale family coach--Rupert preceding, with a lady on each arm--in a temper as black as her own locks. It fell to her lot to sit beside the objectionable relative on the back seat, while, by the right of her minute's seniority, Madeleine sat beside Tanty in the front. The projecting wings of her headgear effectively prevented her from watching his demeanour, unless, indeed, she had turned to him, which was, of course, out of the question; but certain fugitive conscious blushes upon the young face in front of her, certain castings down of long lashes and timid upward glances, made Molly shrewdly conjecture that Mr. Landale, through all the apparent devotion with which he listened to Tanty's continuous flow of observations, was able to bestow a certain amount of attention upon her pretty neighbour. Tanty herself conducted the conversation with her usual high hand, feigning utter oblivion of the thundercloud on Molly's countenance; and, if somewhat rambling in her discourse, nevertheless contriving to plant her points where she chose. Thus the long drive wore to its end. The sun was golden upon Pulwick when the carriage at length drew up before the portico. Miss Sophia received them in the hall, in a state of painful flutter and timidity. She had a constitutional terror of her aunt's sharp eyes, and, though she examined her young cousins wistfully, Madeleine's unconscious air of dignity repelled her as much as Molly's deliberate pertness. Rupert conducted his aunt upstairs, and down the long echoing corridor towards her apartment. "Ha, my old quarters," quoth Tanty, disengaging herself briskly from her escort to enter the room and look round approvingly, "and very comfortable they are. And my two nieces are next door, I see, as gay as chintz can make them. Thank you, nephew, I shall keep you no longer. We shall dine shortly, I feel sure. Well, well, I do not pretend I am not quite ready to do justice to your excellent fare--beyond doubt, it will be excellent! Go to your room, girls, your baggage is coming up, you see; I shall send Dempsey to assist you presently. No, not you, Sophia, I was speaking to the young ones. I should like to have a little chat with you, my dear, if you have no objection." One door closed upon Rupert as he smiled and bowed himself out, the other upon Molly hustling her sister before her. Tanty in the highest good humour, having accomplished her desire, and successfully "established a lodgment" (to use a military term not inappropriate to such a martial spirit) for her troublesome nieces in the stronghold of Pulwick, once more surveyed her surroundings: the dim old walls, the great four-post bed, consecrated, of course, by tradition to the memory of some royal slumberer, the damask hangings, and the uncomfortable chairs, with the utmost favour, ending up with a humorous examination of the elongated figure hesitating on the hearthrug. "Be seated, Sophia. I am glad to stretch my old limbs after that terrible drive. So here we are together again. What are you sighing for? Upon my soul, you are the same as ever, I see, the same tombstone on your chest, and blowing yourself out with sighs, just as you used. That will never give you a figure, my poor girl; it is no wonder you are but skin and bones. Ah, can't you let the poor fellow rest in his grave Sophia? it is flying in the face of Providence, I call it, to go on perpetually stirring up his ashes like that. I hope you mean to try and be a little more cheerful with those poor girls. But, there, I believe you are never so happy as when you are miserable. And it's a poor creature you would be at any time," added the old lady to herself, after a second thoughtful investigation of Miss Landale's countenance, which had assumed an expression of mulishness in addition to an increase of dolefulness during this homily. Here, to Miss Landale's great relief, the dying sunset, wavering into crimson and purple, from its first glory of liquid gold, attracted her aunt's attention, and Miss O'Donoghue went over to the window. Beneath her spread the quaint garden, with its clipped box edges, and beyond the now leafless belt of trees, upon the glimmer of the bay, the outline of Scarthey, a dark silhouette rose fantastically against the vivid sky. Even as she gazed, there leapt upon its fairy turret a minute point of white. The jovial old countenance changed and darkened. "And Adrian is still at his fool's game over there, I suppose," she said irately turning upon Sophia. "When have you seen him last? How often does he come here? I gather Master Rupert is nothing if not the master. Why don't you answer me, Sophia?" * * * * * The dinner was as well cooked and served a meal as any under Rupert's rule, which is saying a good deal, and if the young ladies failed to appreciate the "floating island," the "golden nests," and "silver web," so thoughtfully provided for them, Tanty did ample justice to the venison. Indeed the cloud which had been visible upon her countenance at the beginning of dinner, and which according to that downright habit of mind, which rendered her so terrible or so delightful a companion, she made no attempt to conceal, began to lift towards the first remove, and altogether vanished over her final glass of port. After dinner she peremptorily ordered her grand-nieces into the retirement of their bedchambers, unblushingly alleging their exhausted condition in front of the perfect bloom of their beautiful young vigour. She then, over a cup of tea, luxuriously stretching her thin frame in the best arm-chair the drawing-room could afford, gave Rupert a brief code of directions as to the special attentions and care she desired to be bestowed upon her wards, during their residence at Pulwick, descanting generously upon their various perfections, gliding dexterously over her reasons for wishing to be rid of them herself, and concluding with the hint--either pregnant or barren of meaning as he chose to take it--that if he made their stay pleasant to them, she would not forget the service. Then, as Mr. Landale began, with apparent guilelessness, to put a few little telling questions to her anent the episodes which had made Bath undesirable as a residence for these young paragons, the old lady suddenly became overwhelmed with fatigue and sleepiness, and professed herself ready to be conducted to her bower immediately. * * * * * Meanwhile, despite the _moue de circonstance_ which Molly thought it incumbent on her to assume, neither she nor Madeleine regretted their compulsory withdrawal from the social circle downstairs. Madeleine had her own thoughts to follow up, and that these were both engrossing and pleasant was easily evident; and Molly, bursting with a sense of injury arising from many causes, desired a special explanation with her sister, which the presence in and out upon them of Tanty's woman had prevented her from indulging in before dinner. "So here we are at last," cried she, indignantly, after she had walked round and severely inspected her quarters, pausing to "pull a lip" of extreme disfavour at the handsome portrait of Mr. Landale that hung between the windows, "we are, Madeleine, at last, kidnapped, imprisoned, successfully disposed of, in fact." "Yes, here we are at last," echoed Madeleine, abstractedly, warming her slender ankles by the fire. "Have you made out yet what particular kind of new frenzy it was that seized chère Tante?" asked Miss Molly, with great emphasis, as she sat down at her toilet-table. "You are the cause of it all, my dear, and so you ought to know. It is all very well for Tanty to pretend that I have brought it on myself by not coming home till three o'clock (as if that was _my_ fault). She cannot blink the fact that her Dempsey creature had orders to pack my boxes before bedtime. Your Smith must be a desperately dangerous individual. Well," she continued, looking round over her shoulder, "why don't you say something, you lackadaisical thing?" But Madeleine answered nought and continued gazing, while only the little smile, tilting the corners of her lips, betrayed that she had heard the petulant speech. The smile put the finishing touch to Molly's righteous anger. Brandishing a hairbrush threateningly, she marched over to her sister and looked down upon the slender figure, in its clinging white dress, with blazing eyes. "Look here," she cried, "there must be an end of this. I can put up with your slyness no longer. How _dare_ you have secrets from me, miss?--your own twin sister! You and I, who used never to have a thought we did not share. How dare you have a lover, and not tell me all about him? What was the meaning of your weeping like a fountain all the way from Bath to Shrewsbury, and then, without rhyme or reason apparently, smiling to yourself all the way from there to Lancaster. You have had a letter, don't attempt to deny it, it is of no use.... Oh, it is base of you, it is indeed! And to think that it is all through you that I am forced into this exile, through your _airs penchés_, and your sighing and dreaming, and your mysterous _Smith_.... To think that to-night, this very night, is the ball of the season, and we are going to bed! Oh, and to-morrow and to-morrow, and to-morrow, with nothing but a knave and a fool to keep us company--for I don't think much of your female cousin, Madeleine, and, as for your male cousin, I perfectly detest him--and all the tabbies of the country-side for diversion, with perhaps a country buck on high days and holidays for a relish! Pah!" Molly had almost talked her ill-humour away. Her energetic nature could throw off most unpleasant emotions easily enough so long as it might have an outlet for them; she now laid down the threatening brush, and, kneeling beside her, flung both her arms round Madeleine's shoulders. "Ma petite Madeleine," she coaxed, in the mother tongue, "tell thy little sister thy secrets." A faint flush crept to Madeleine's usually creamy cheeks, a light into her eyes. She turned impulsively to the face near hers, then, as if bethinking herself, pursed her lips together and shook her head slightly. "Do you remember, ma chèrie," she said, at last, "that French tale Mrs. Hambledon lent us in which it is said _'Qui fuit l'amour, l'amour suit.'_" "Well?" asked Molly, eagerly, her lips parted as if to drink in the expected confidence. "Well," replied the other, "well, perhaps things may not be so bad after all. Perhaps," rising from her seat, and looking at her sister with a little gentle malice, while she, too, began to disrobe her fairer beauty for the night, "some of your many lovers may come after you from Bath! Oh, Molly!" with a little scream, for Molly, with eyes flashing once more, had sprung up from her knees to inflict a vicious pinch upon the equivocator's arm. "Yes, miss, you shall be pinched till you confess." Then flouting her with a sudden change of mood, "I am sure I don't want to know your wonderful secret,"--seizing her comb and passing it crackling through her hair with quite unnecessary energy--"Mademoiselle la Cachotière. Anyhow, it cannot be very interesting.... _Mrs. Smith!_ Fancy caring for a man called Smith! If you smile again like that, Madeleine, I shall beat you." The two sisters looked at each other for a second as if hesitating on the brink of anger, and then both laughed. "Never mind, I shall pay you out yet," quoth Molly, tugging at her black mane. "So our lovers are to come after us, is _that_ it? Do you know, Madeleine," she went on, calming down, "I almost regret now that I would not listen to young Lord Dereham, simpleton though he be. He looked such a dreadful little fright that I only laughed at him.... I should have laughed at him all my life. But it would perhaps have been better than this dependence on Tanty, with her sudden whims and scampers and whisking of us away into the wilderness. Then I should have had my own way always. Now it's too late. Tanty told me yesterday that she sees he is a dissolute young man, and that his dukedom is only a Charles II. creation, and 'We know what that means,' she added, and shook her head. I am sure I had not a notion, but I shook my head too, and said, 'Of course, that made it impossible.' I was really afraid she would want me to marry him. She was dreadfully pleased and said I was a true O'Donoghue. Oh, dear! I don't know _anything_ about love. I can't imagine being in love; but one thing is certain, I could never, never, never allow a horrid little rat like Lord Dereham to make love to me, to kiss me, nor, indeed, any man--oh, horror! How you are blushing, my dear! Come here into the light. It would be good for your soul, indeed it would, to confess!" But Madeleine, burying her hot cheeks in her sister's neck and clasping her with gentle caresses, was not to be drawn from her reticence. Molly pushed her off at last, and gave a hard little good-night kiss like a bird-peck. "Very well; but you might as well have confessed, for I shall find out in the long run. And who knows, perhaps you may be sorry one day that you did not tell me of your own accord." CHAPTER XII A RECORD AND A PRESENTMENT. The gallery of family portraits at Pulwick is one of the most remarkable features of that ancient house. It was a custom firmly established at the Priory--ever since the first heralds' visitation in Lancashire, when some mooted point of claims to certain quarterings had been cleared in an unexpected way by the testimony of a well-authenticated ancestral portrait--for each successive representative to add to the collection. One of the first cares of every Landale, therefore, on succeeding to the title was to be painted, with his proper armorial and otherwise distinguishing honours jealously delineated, and thus hung in the place of honour over the high mantelshelf of the gallery--displacing on the occasion his own immediate and revered predecessor. The chain was consequently unbroken from the Elizabethan descendants of the first acquirers of ecclesiastical property at Pulwick, down to the present Light-keeper of Scarthey. But whilst the late Sir Thomas appeared in all the majesty of deputy-lieutenant, colonel of Militia, magistrate, and sundry other honourable offices, in his due place on the right of the present baronet, the latter figured in a character so strange and so incongruous that it seemed as if one day the dignified array of Landales--old, young, middle-aged, but fine gentlemen, all of them--must turn their backs upon their degenerate kinsman. Over the chimney-piece, in the huge carved-oak frame (now already two centuries old), a common sailor, in the striped loose trousers, the blue jacket with red piping of a man-of-war's man, with pigtail and coarse open shirt--stood boldly forth as the representative of the present owner of Pulwick. Proud of their long line of progenitors, it was a not unusual thing for the Landales to entertain their guests at breakfast in a certain sunny bow-window in the portrait gallery rather than in the breakfast parlour proper, which in winter, unmistakably harboured more damp than was pleasant. It was, therefore, with no surprise that Miss Landale received an early order from her brother to have a fire lighted in the apartment sacred to the family honours, and the matutinal repast served there in due course. Whether Mr. Landale was actuated by a regard for the rheumatism of his worthy relative, or merely a natural family pride, or by some other and less simple motive, he saw no necessity for informing his docile housewife on the matter. As Sophia was accustomed to no such condescension on his part even in circumstances more extraordinary, she merely bundled out of bed unquestioningly in the darkness and cold of the morning to see his orders executed in the proper manner; which, indeed, to her credit was so successfully accomplished that Tanty and her charges, when they made their entry upon the scene, could not fail to be impressed with the comfortable aspect of the majestic old room. Mr. Landale examined his two young uninvited guests with new keenness in the morning light. Molly was demure enough, though there was a lurking gleam in her dark eye which suggested rather armed truce than accepted peace. As for Madeleine, though to be serene was an actual necessity of her delicate nature, there was more than resignation in the blushing radiance of her look and smile. "Portraits of their mother," said Rupert, bringing his critical survey to a close, and stepping forward with a nice action of the legs to present his arm to his aunt. "Portraits of their mother both of them--I trust to that miniature which used to grace our collection in the drawing-room rather than to the treacherous memory of a school-boy for the impression--but portraits by different masters and in different moods." There was something patronising in the tone from so young a man, which Molly resented on the spot. "Oh, we should be as like as two peas, only that we are as different as day and night, as Tanty says," she retorted, tossing her white chin at her host, while Miss O'Donoghue laughed aloud at her favourite's sauciness. "And after all," said Rupert, as he bestowed his venerable relative on her chair, with an ineffable air of politeness, contradicted, though only for an instant, by the look which he shot at Molly from the light hazel eyes, "Tanty is not so far wrong--the only difference between night and day is the difference between the _brunette_ and the _blonde_," with a little bow to each of the sisters, "an Irish bull, if one comes to analyse it, is but the expression of the too rapid working of quick wits." "Faith, nephew," said Tanty, sitting down in high good humour to the innumerable good things in which her Epicurean old soul delighted, "that is about as true a thing as ever you said. Our Irish tongues are apt to get behind a thing before it is there, and they call that making a bull." Rupert's sense of humour was as keen as most of his other faculties, and at the unconscious humour of this sally his laugh rang out frankly, while Molly and Madeleine giggled in their plates, and Miss O'Donoghue chuckled quietly to herself in the intervals of eating and drinking, content to have been witty, without troubling to discover how. Sophia alone remained unmoved by mirth; indeed, as she raised her drooping head, amazed at the clamour, an unwary tear trickled down her long nose into her tea. She was given to revelling in anniversaries of dead and gone joys or sorrows; the one as melancholy to her to look back upon as the other; and upon this November day, now very many years ago, had the ardent, consumptive rector first hinted at his love. "And now," said Miss O'Donoghue, who, having disposed of the most serious part of the breakfast, pushed away her plate with one hand while she stirred her second cup of well-creamed tea lazily with the other, "Now, Rupert, will you tell me the arrangements you propose to make to enable me to see your good brother?" Rupert had anticipated being attacked upon this subject, and had fully prepared himself to defend the peculiar position it was his interest to maintain. To encourage a meeting between his brother and the old lady (to whom the present position of affairs was a grievous offence) did not, certainly, enter into his plan of action; but Tanty had put the question in an unexpected and slightly awkward shape, and for a second or two he hesitated before replying. "I fear," said he then, gliding into the subject with his usual easy fluency, "that you will be disappointed if you have been reckoning upon an interview with Adrian, my dear aunt. The hermit will not be drawn from his shell on any pretext." "What," cried Tanty, while her withered cheek flushed, "do you mean to tell me that my nephew, Sir Adrian Landale, will decline to come a few hundred yards to see his old aunt--his mother's own sister--who has come three hundred miles, at seventy years of age, to see him in his own house--_in his own house_?" repeated the irate old lady, rattling the spoon with much emphasis against her cup. "If you _mean_ this, Rupert, it is an insult to me which I shall never forget--_never_." She rose from her seat as she concluded, shaking with the tremulous anger of age. "For God's sake, Tanty," cried Rupert, throwing into his voice all the generous warmth he was capable of simulating, "do not hold me responsible for Adrian in this matter. His strange vagaries are not of my suggesting, heaven knows." "Well, nephew," said Miss O'Donoghue, loftily, "if you will kindly send the letter I am about to write to your brother, by a safe messenger, immediately, I shall believe that it is _your_ wish to treat me with proper respect, whatever may be Adrian's subsequent behaviour." Mr. Landale's countenance assumed an expression of very genuine distress; this was just the one proof of dutiful attachment that he was loth to bestow upon his cherished aunt. "I see how it is," he exclaimed earnestly, coming up to the old lady, and laying his hand gently upon her arm, "you entirely misunderstand the situation. I am not a free agent in this matter. I cannot do what you ask; I am bound by pledge. Adrian is, undoubtedly, more than--peculiar on certain points, and, really, I dare not, if I would, thwart him." "Oh!" cried Tanty, shooting off the ejaculation as from a pop-gun. Then, shaking herself free of Rupert's touch, she sat down abruptly in her chair again, and began fanning herself with her handkerchief. Not even in her interchange of amenities with Mrs. Hambledon, had Molly seen her display so much indignation. "You want me to believe he is mad, I suppose?" she snapped, at last. "Dear me! No, no, no!" responded the other, in his airy way. "I did not mean to go so far as that; but--well, there are very painful matters, and hitherto I have avoided all discussion upon them, even with Sophia. My affection for Adrian----" "Fiddlesticks!" interrupted Tanty. "You meant something, I suppose; either the man's mad, or he is not. And I, for one, don't believe a word of it. The worst sign about him, that I can see, is the blind confidence the poor fellow seems to put in you." Here Molly, who had been listening to the discussion "with all her ears"--anything connected with the mysterious personality of the absent head of the house was beginning to have a special fascination for her--gave an irrepressible little note of laughter. Rupert looked up at her quickly, and their eyes met. "Hold your tongue, Miss," cried Miss O'Donoghue, sharply; aware that she had gone too far in her last remark, and glad to relieve her oppression in another direction, "how dare you laugh? Sophia, this is a terrible thing your brother wants me to believe--may I ask what _your_ opinion is? Though I'll not deny I don't think that will be worth much." Sophia glanced helplessly at Rupert, but he was far too carefully possessed of himself to affect to perceive her embarrassment. "Come, come," cried Miss O'Donoghue, whose eyes nothing escaped, "you need not look at Rupert, you can answer for yourself, I suppose--you are not absolutely a drivelling idiot--_all_ the Landales are not ripening for lunatic asylums--collect your wits, Sophia, I know you have not got any, but you have _enough_ to be able to give a plain answer to a plain question, I suppose. Do you think your brother mad, child?" "God forbid," murmured Sophia, at the very extremity of those wits of which Miss O'Donoghue had so poor an opinion. "Oh, no, dear aunt, not _mad_, of course, not in the least _mad_." Then, gathering from a restless movement of Rupert's that she was not upon the right tack she faltered, floundered wildly, and finally drew forth the inevitable pocket-handkerchief, to add feelingly if irrelevantly from its folds, "And indeed if I thought such a calamity had really fallen upon us--and of course there _are_ symptoms, no doubt there are symptoms...." "What are his symptoms--has he tried to murder any of you, hey?" "Oh, my dear aunt! No, indeed, dear Adrian is gentleness itself." "Does he bite? Does he gibber? Oh, away with you, Sophia! I am sure I cannot wonder at the poor fellow wanting to live on a rock, between you and Rupert. I am sure the periwinkles and the gulls must be pleasant company compared to you. That alone would show, I should think, that he knows right well what he is about. Mad indeed! There never was any madness among the O'Donoghues except your poor uncle Michael, who got a box on the ear from a windmill--and _he_ wasn't an O'Donoghue at all! You will be kind enough, nephew, to have delivered to Sir Adrian, no later than to-day, the letter which I shall this moment indite to him." "Perhaps," said Rupert, "if you will only favour me with your attention for a few minutes first, aunt, and allow me to narrate to you the circumstances of my brother's return here, and of his subsequent self-exile, you will see fit to change your opinion, both as regards him and myself." A self-controlled nature will in the long run, rightly or wrongly, always assume the ascendency over an excitable one. The moderateness of Rupert's words, the coolness of his manner, here brought Tanty rapidly down from her pinnacle of passion. Certainly, she said, she was not only ready, but anxious to hear all that Rupert could have to say for himself; and, smoothing down her black satin apron with a shaking hand, the old lady prepared to listen with as much judicial dignity as her flustered state allowed her to assume. Rupert drew his chair opposite to hers and leant his elbow on the table, and fixed his bright, hard eyes upon her. "You remember, of course," he began after a moment's pause, "how at the time of my poor father's death, Adrian was reported to have lost his life in the Vendée war--though without authoritative confirmation--at the same time as the fair and unhappy Countesse de Savenaye, to whose fortune he had so chivalrously devoted himself." Tanty bowed her head in solemn assent; but Molly, watching with the most acute attention, felt her face blaze at the indefinable shade of mockery she thought to catch upon the speaker's curling lip. "It was," continued he, "the constant strain, the long months of watching in vain for tidings, that told upon my father, rather than the actual grief of loss. When he died, the responsibilities of the headship of the house devolved naturally upon me, the only male representative left, seemingly, to undertake them. The months went by; to the most sanguine the belief in Adrian's death became inevitable. Our hopes died slowly, but they died at last; we mourned for him," here Rupert cast down his eyes till the thick black lashes which were one of his beauties swept his cheek; his tone was perfect in its simple gravity. "At length, urged thereto by all the family, if I remember rightly by yourself as well, dear aunt, I assumed the title as well as the position which seemed mine by right. I was very young at the time, but I do not think that either then, or during the ten years that followed, I unworthily filled my brother's place." There was a proud ring of sincerity in the last words, and the old lady knew that they were true; that during the years of his absolute power as well as of his present more restricted mastership, Rupert's management of the estate was unimpeachable. "Certainly not, my dear Rupert," she said in softer tones than she had hitherto used to him, "no one would dream of suggesting such a thing--pray go on." "And so," pursued the nephew, with a short laugh, relapsing into that light tone of banter which was his most natural mode of expression; "when, one fine day, a hired coach clattered up Sir Rupert Landale's avenue and deposited upon his porch a tattered mariner who announced himself, in melancholy tones that would have befitted the ghost no doubt many took him for, as the rightful Sir Adrian, erroneously supposed defunct, I confess that it required a little persuasion to make me recognise my long-lost brother--and yet there could be no doubt of it. The missing heir had come to his own again; the dead had come back to life. Well, we killed the fatted calf, and all the rest of it--but I need not inflict upon you the narrative of our rejoicing." "Faith, no," said Tanty, drily, "I can see it with half an eye." "You know, too, I believe, the series of extraordinary adventures, or misadventures, which had kept him roaming on the high seas while we at home set up tablets to his memory and 'wore our blacks' as people here call it, and cultivated a chastened resignation. There was a good deal of correspondence going on at the time between Pulwick and Bunratty, if I remember aright, and you heard all about Adrian's divers attempts to land in England, about his fight with the King's men, his crack on the head and final impressment. At least you heard as much as we could gather ourselves. Adrian is not what one would call a garrulous person at the best of times. It was really with the greatest difficulty that we managed to extract enough out of him to piece together a coherent tale." "Well, well," quoth Tanty, with impatience, "you are glib enough for two anyhow, my dear! All this does not tell me how Adrian came to live on a lighthouse, and why you put him down as a lunatic." "Not as a lunatic," corrected Rupert, gently, "merely as slightly eccentric on certain points. Though, indeed, if you had seen him during those first months after his return, I think even you with your optimistic spirit would have feared, as we did, that he was falling into melancholia. Thank heaven he is better now. But, dear me, what we went through! I declare I expected every morning to be informed that Sir Adrian's corpse had been found hanging from his bedpost or discovered in a jelly at the bottom of the bluffs. And, indeed, when at length he disappeared for three days, after he had been last observed mooning along the coast, there was a terrible panic lest he should have sought a congenial and soothing end in the embraces of the quicksands.... It turned out, however, that he had merely strolled over to Scarthey--where, as you know, my father established a beacon and installed a keeper to warn boats off our shoals--and, finding the place to his liking, had remained there, regardless of our feelings." "Tut, tut!" said Tanty; but whether in reproof of Rupert's flippant language or of her elder nephew's erratic behaviour, it would have been difficult to determine. "Of course," went on Rupert, smoothly, "I had resolved, after a decent period, to remove my lares and penates from a house where I was no longer master and to establish myself, with my small patrimony (I believe I ought to call it _matrimony_, as we younger children benefit by our O'Donoghue mother) in an independent establishment. But when I first broached the subject, Adrian was so vastly distressed, expressed himself so well satisfied with my management of the estate and begged me so earnestly to consider Pulwick as my home, vowing that he himself would never marry, and that all he looked forward to in life was to see me wedded and with future heirs to the name springing around me, that it would have been actual unkindness to resist. Moreover, as you can imagine, Adrian is not exactly a man of business, and his spasmodic interferences in the control of the property being already then of a very injudicious nature, I confess that, having nursed it myself for eleven years with some success, I dreaded to think what it would become under his auspices. And so I agreed to remain. But the position increased in difficulty. Adrian's moroseness seemed to grow upon him; he showed an exaggerated horror of company; either flying from visitors as from the pest, and shutting himself up in his own apartments, or (on the few disastrous occasions when my persuasions induced him to show himself to some old family friends) entertaining them with such unusual sentiments concerning social laws, the magistracy, the government, his Majesty the King himself, that the most extraordinary reports about him soon spread over the whole county. This was about the time--as you may remember--of my own marriage." Here an alteration crept into Mr. Landale's voice, and Molly looked at him curiously, while Miss Sophia gave vent to an audible sniff. "To be sure," said Tanty, hastily. Comfortably egotistic old ladies have an instinctive dislike to painful topics. And that Rupert's sorrow for his young wife had been, if self-centred and reserved, of an intense and prolonged nature was known to all the family. The widower himself had no intention of dilating upon it. His wife's name he never mentioned, and no one could guess, heavily as the blow was known to have fallen upon him, the seething bitterness that her loss had left in his soul, nor imagine how different a man he might have been if that one strong affection of his life had been spared to soften it. "Adrian fled from the wedding festivities, as you may remember, for you were our honoured guest at the time, and greatly displeased at his absence," he resumed, after a few seconds of darkling reflection. "None of us knew where he had flown to, for he did not evidently consider his owl's nest sufficiently remote; but we had his fraternal blessing to sustain us. And after that he continued to make periodical disappearances to his retreat, stopping away each time longer and longer. One fine day he sent workmen to the island with directions to repair certain rooms in the keep, and he began to transfer thereto furniture, his books and his organ. A dilapidated little French prisoner next appeared on the scene (whom my brother had extracted from the Tower of Liverpool, which was then crammed with such gentry), and finally we were informed that, with this worthy companion, Sir Adrian Landale was determined to take up his abode altogether at Scarthey, undertaking the duties of the recently defunct light-keeper. So off he went, and there he is still. He has extracted from us a solemn promise that his privacy is to be absolutely respected, and that no communications, or, above all, visits are to be made to him. Occasionally, when we least expect it, he descends upon us from his tower, upsets all my accounts, makes the most absurd concessions to the tenants, rides round the estate with his eyes on the ground and disappears again. _Et voilà_, my dear aunt, how we stand." "Well, nephew," said Miss O'Donoghue, "I am much obliged to you, I am sure, for putting me _au courant_ of the family affairs. It is all very sad--very sad and very deplorable; but----" But Mr. Landale was quite aware that Tanty was not yet convinced to the desired extent. He therefore here interrupted her to play his last card--that ace he had up his sleeve, in careful preparation for this trial of skill with his keen-witted relative, and to the suitable production of which he had been all along leading. Rising from his chair with slow, deliberate movement, he proceeded, as if following his own train of thought, without noticing that Miss O'Donoghue was intent on speech herself: "You have not seen him, I believe, since he was quite a lad. You would have some difficulty in recognising him, though he bears, like the rest of us, what you call the unmistakable Landale stamp. His portrait is here, by the way--duly installed in its correct position. That," with a laugh, "was one of his freaks. It was his duty to keep up the family traditions, he said--and there you will approve of him, no doubt; but hardly, perhaps, of the manner in which he has had that laudable intention carried out. My own portrait was, of course, deposed (like the original)," added Mr. Landale, with something of a sneer; "and now hangs meekly in some bedroom or other--in that, if I mistake not, at present hallowed by my fair cousins' presence. Well, it is good for the soul of man to be humbled, as we are taught to believe from our earliest years!" Tanty was fumbling for her eye-glasses. She was glad to hear that Adrian had remembered some of his obligations (she observed, sententiously, as she hauled herself stiffly out of her chair to approach the chimney-piece); it was certainly a sign that he was more mindful of his duties as head of the house than one would expect from a person hardly responsible, such as Rupert had represented him to be, and ... Here, the glasses being adjusted and focussed upon the portrait, Miss O'Donoghue halted abruptly with a dropping jaw. "There is a curious inscription underneath the escutcheon," said Mr. Landale composedly, "which latter, by the way, you may notice is the only one in the line which has no room for an impaled coat (Adrian's way of indicating not only that he is single, but means to remain such); Adrian composed it himself and indeed attached a marked importance to it. Let me read it for you, dear Tanty, the picture hangs a little high and those curveting letters are hard to decipher. It runs thus: _Sir Adrian William Hugh Landale, Lord of Pulwick and Scarthey in the County Palatine of Lancaster, eighth Baronet, born March 12th, 1775. Succeeded to the title and estate on the 10th February 1799, whilst abroad. Iniquitously pressed into the King's service on the day of his return home, January 2nd, 1801. Twice flogged for alleged insubordination, and only released at last by the help of a friend after five years of slavery. Died_ [Here a space for the date.] It is a record with a vengeance, is it not? Notice my brother's determination to die unmarried and to retire, once for all, from all or any of the possible honours connected with his position!" They had all clustered in front of the picture; even Madeleine roused from her sweet day-dreams to some show of curiosity; Miss Landale's bosom, heaving with such sighs as to make the tombstone rise and fall like a ship upon a stormy sea; Molly with an eagerness she did not attempt to hide; and Miss O'Donoghue still speechless with horror and indignation. Mr. Landale had gauged his aunt's temperament correctly enough. To one whose ruling passion was pride of family, this mockery of a consecrated family custom, this heirloom destined to carry down a record of degradation into future generations, was an insult to the name only to be explained to her first indignation by deliberate malice--or insanity. And from the breezy background of blue sky and sea, contrasting as strangely with the dark solemnity of the other portraits as did the figure itself in its incongruous sailor dress, the face of the eighth baronet looked down in melancholy gravity upon the group gathered in judgment upon him. "Disgraceful! Positively disgraceful!" at length cried the last representative of the O'Donoghues of Bunratty, in scandalised tones. "My dear Rupert, you should have a curtain put up, that this exhibition of folly--of madness, I hardly know what to call it--be not exposed to every casual visitor. Dear me, dear me, that I should live to see any of my kin deliberately throw discredit on his family, if indeed the poor fellow is responsible! Rupert, my good soul, can you ascribe any reason for this terrible state of affairs ... that blow on the head?" "In part perhaps," said Mr. Landale. "And yet there have been other causes at work. If I could have a private word in your ear," glancing meaningly over his shoulder at the two young girls who were both listening, though with very different expressions of interest and favour, "I could give you my opinion more fully." "Go away now, my dear creatures," hereupon said Miss O'Donoghue, promptly addressing her nieces. "It is a fine morning, and you will lose your roses if you don't get the air. I don't care if it has begun to rain, miss! Go and have a game of battledore and shuttlecock then. Young people _must_ have exercise. Well, my dear Rupert, well!"--when Molly, with a pettish "battledore and shuttlecock indeed!" had taken her sister by the arm and left the room. "Well, my dear aunt, the fact is, I believe my unhappy brother has never recovered from--from his passion for Cécile de Savenaye, that early love affair, so suddenly and tragically terminated--well, it seems to have turned his brain!" "Pooh, pooh! why that was twenty years ago. Don't tell me it is in a man to be so constant." "In no _sane_ man perhaps; but then, you know, Tanty, that is just the point.... Remember the circumstances. He loved her madly; he followed her, lived near her for months and she was drowned before his eyes, I believe. I never heard, of course, any details of that strange period of his life, but we can imagine." This was a difficult, vague, subject to deal with, and Mr. Landale wisely passed on. "Moreover, his behaviour when in this house on his return at first has left me no doubt. I watched him closely. He was for ever haunting those rooms which she had inhabited. When he found her miniature in the drawing-room he went first as white as death, then he took it in his hand and stood gazing at it (I am not exaggerating) for a whole hour without moving; and, finally, he carried it off, and I know he used to talk to it in his room. And now, even if I had not given my poor brother my word of honour never to disturb his chosen solitude, I should have felt it a heavy responsibility to promote a meeting which would inevitably bring back past memories in a troublous manner upon him. In fact, were he to come across the children of his dead love--above all Molly, who must be startlingly like her mother--what might the result be? I hardly like to contemplate it. The human brain is a very delicately balanced organ, my dear aunt, and once it gets ever so slightly out of order one cannot be too careful to avoid risk." He finished his say with an expressive gesture of the hand. Miss O'Donoghue remained for a moment plunged in reflection, during which the cloud upon her countenance gradually lifted. "It is a strange thing," she said at last, "but constancy seems to run in the family. There is no denying that. Here is Sophia, a ridiculous spectacle--and you yourself, my dear Rupert.... And now poor Adrian, too, and his case of mere calf-love, as one would have thought." "A calf may grow into a fine bull, you know," returned Mr. Landale, who had winced at his aunt's allusion to himself and now spoke in the most unemotional tone he could assume, "especially if it is well fostered in its youth." "And I suppose," said Miss O'Donoghue, with a faint smile, "you think I ought to know all about bulls." She again put up her glasses to survey the portrait with critical deliberation; after which, recommending him once more strenuously to have a curtain erected, she observed, that it would break her heart to look at it one moment longer and requested to be conducted from the room. Mr. Landale could not draw any positive conclusion from his aunt's manner of receiving his confidence, nor determine whether she had altogether grasped the whole meaning of what he had intended delicately to convey to her concerning his brother's past as well as present position; but he had said as much as prudence counselled. CHAPTER XIII THE DISTANT LIGHT In spite of their first petulant or dolorous anticipation, and of the contrast between the even tenor of country life and the constant stream of amusement which young people of fashion can find in a place like Bath, the two girls discovered that time glided pleasantly enough over them at Pulwick. Instead of the gloomy northern stronghold their novel-fed imagination had pictured (the more dismally as their sudden removal from town gaieties savoured distantly of punishment at the hand of their irate aunt), they found themselves delivered over into a bright, admirably-ordered house, replete with things of beauty, comfortable to the extremity of luxury; and allowed in this place of safety to enjoy almost unrestricted liberty. The latter privilege was especially precious, as the sisters at that time had engrossing thoughts of their own they wished to pursue, and found more interest in solitary roamings through the wide estate than in the company of the hosts. On the fifth day Miss O'Donoghue took her departure. Her own travelling coach had rumbled down the avenue, bearing her and her woman away, in its polished yellow embrace, her flat trunk strapped behind, and the good-natured old face nodding out of the window, till Molly and Madeleine, standing (a little disconsolate) upon the porch to watch her departure, could distinguish even the hooked nose no longer. Mr. Landale, upon his mettled grey, a gallant figure, as Molly herself was forced to admit, in his boots and buckskins, had cantered in the dust alongside, intent upon escorting his aged relative to the second stage of her journey. That night, almost for the first time since their arrival, there was no company at dinner, and the young guests understood that the household would now fall back into its ordinary routine. But without the small flutter of seeing strangers, or Tanty's lively conversation, the social intercourse soon waned into exceeding dulness, and at an early hour Miss Molly rose and withdrew to her room, pretexting a headache, for which Mr. Landale, with his usual high courtesy, affected deep concern. As she was slowly ascending the great oaken staircase, she crossed Moggie, the gatekeeper's daughter, who in her character of foster-sister to one of the guests had been specially allotted to them as attendant, during the remainder of their visit to Pulwick. Molly thought that the girl eyed her hesitatingly, as if she wished to speak: "Well, Moggie?" she asked, stopping on her way. "Oh, please, miss," said the buxom lass, blushing and dropping a curtsey, "Renny Potter, please, miss, is up at our lodge to-night, he don't care to come to the 'ouse so much, miss. But when he heard about you, miss, you could have knocked him down with a feather he was so surprised and that excited, miss, we have never seen him so. And he's so set on being allowed to see ye both!" Molly as yet failed to connect any memories of interest with the possessor of the patronymic mentioned, but the next phrase mentioned aroused her attention. "He is Sir Adrian's servant, now, miss, and goes back yonder to the island, that is where the master lives, to-morrow morning. But he would be so happy to see the young ladies before he goes, if the liberty were forgiven, he says. He was servant to the Madam your mother, miss. "Well, Moggie," answered Miss Molly, smiling, "if that is all that is required to make Renny Potter happy, it is very easily done. Tell Renny Potter: to-morrow morning." And she proceeded on her way pondering, while the successful emissary pattered down to the lodge in high glee to gather her reward in her sweetheart's company. * * * * * When later on Madeleine joined her sister, she found her standing by the deep recessed window, the curtains of which were drawn back, resting her head on her hand against the wainscot, and gazing abroad into the night. She approached, and passing her hand round Molly's waist looked out also. "Again at your window?" "It is a beautiful night, and the view very lovely," said Molly. And indeed the moon was riding high in a deep blue starry heaven, and shimmered on the strip of distant sea visible from the windows. "Yes, but yesterday the night was not fine, and nothing was to be seen but blackness; and it was the same the day before, and yet you stared out of this window, as you have every night since our coming. It is strange to see _you_ so. What is it, why don't you tell me?" "Madeleine," said Molly, suddenly, after a lengthy pause, "I am simply _haunted_ by that light over yonder, the Light of Scarthey. There is a mystery about those ruins, on which I keep meditating all day long. I want to know more. It draws me. I would give anything to be able, now, to set sail and land there all unknown to any one, and see what manner of life is led where that light is burning." But Madeleine merely gave a pout of little interest. "What do you think you would find? A half-witted middle-aged man, mooning among a litter of books, with an old woman, and a little Frenchman to look after him. Why, Mr. Landale himself takes no trouble to conceal that his poor brother is an almost hopeless lunatic." "Mr. Landale--" Molly began, with much contempt; but she interrupted herself, and went on simply, "Mr. Landale is a very fine gentleman, with very superior manners. He speaks like a printed book--but for all that I _would_ like to know." Madeleine laughed. "The demon of curiosity has a hold of you, Molly; remember the fable they made us repeat: _De loin c'est quelque chose, et de près ce n'est rien._ Now you shall go straight into your bed, and not take cold." And Miss Madeleine, after authoritatively closing the curtains, kissed her sister, and was about to commence immediate disrobing, when she caught sight of the shagreen-covered book, lying open on the table. "So your headache was your diary--how I should like to have a peep." "I daresay!" said Molly, sarcastically, and then sat down and, pen in hand, began to re-read her night's entry, now and then casting a tantalising glance over her shoulder at her sister. The lines, in the flowing convent hand, ran thus: "Aunt O'Donoghue left us this morning, and so here we are, planted in Pulwick; and she has achieved her plan, fully. But what is odd is that neither Madeleine nor I seem to mind it, now. What has come over Madeleine is her secret, and she keeps it close; but that _I_ should like being here is strange indeed. "And yet, every day something happens to make me feel connected with Pulwick--something more, I mean, than the mere fact that we were born here. So many of the older people greet me, at first, as if they knew me--they all say I am so like 'the Madam;' they don't see the same likeness in Madeleine for all her _grand air_. There was Mrs. Mearson, the gatekeeper, was struck in amazement. And the old housekeeper, whenever she has an opportunity tries to entertain me about the beautiful foreign lady and the grand times they had at Pulwick when she was here, and 'Sir Tummas' was still alive. "But, though we are made to feel that we are more than ordinary guests, it is not on account of Mr. Landale, but _on account of Sir Adrian_--the Master, as they call him, whom we never see, and whom his brother would make out to be mad. Why is he so anxious that Sir Adrian should not know that Aunt Rose has brought us here? He seemed willing enough to please her, and yet nothing that she could say of her wish could induce him even to send a messenger over to the rock. And now we may be here all these two months and never even have caught a sight of the _Master_. I wonder if he is still like that portrait--whether he bears that face still as he now sits, all alone, brooding as his brother says, up in those ruined chambers, while the light burns calm and bright in the tower! What can this man of his have to say to me?" Molly dotted her last forgotten "i," blotted it, closed and carefully locked the book. Then, rising, she danced over to her sister, and forced her into a pirouette. "And now," she cried gaily, "our dear old Tanty is pulling on her nightcap and weeping over her posset in the stuffy room at Lancaster regretting _me_; and I should be detesting her with all my energies for leaving me behind her, were it not that, just at present, I actually find Pulwick more interesting than Bath." Madeleine lifted her heavy-lidded eyes a little wonderingly to her sister's face, as she paused in her gyration. "What fly stings thee now?" she inquired in French. "You do not tell me about _your_ wounds, my dear, those wounds which little Dan Cupid has made upon your tender heart, with his naughty little arrow, and which give you such sweet pain, apparently, that you revel in the throes all day long. And yet, I am a good child; you shall guess. If you guess aright, I shall tell you. So now begin." They stood before the fire, and the leaping tongues of light played upon their white garments, Madeleine's nightgear scarcely more treacherously tell-tale of her slender woman's loveliness than the evening robe that clung so closely to the vigorous grace of Molly's lithe young figure. The elder, whose face bore a blush distinct from the reflected glow of the embers, fell to guessing, as commanded, a little wildly: "You begin to find the _beau cousin_ Rupert a little more interesting than you anticipated." "Bah," cried Molly, with a stamp of her sandalled foot, "it is not possible to guess worse! He is more insufferable to me, hour by hour." "I think him kind and pleasant," returned Madeleine simply. "Ah, because he makes sweet eyes at you, I suppose--yet no--I express myself badly--he could not make anything sweet out of those hard, hard eyes of his, but he is very--what they call here in England--attentive to you. And he looks at you and ponders you over when you little think it--you poor innocent--lost in your dream of ... _Smith_! There, I will not tease you. Guess again." "You are pleased to remain here because you are a true weather-cock--because you like one thing one day another the next--because the country peace and quiet is soothing to you after the folly and noise of the great world of Bath and Dublin, and reminds you refreshingly, as it does me, of our happy convent days." The glimmer of a dainty malice lurked in the apparent candour of Madeleine's grave blue eyes, and from thence spread into her pretty smile at the sight of Molly's disdainful lip, "Well then, I give it up. You have some mischief on foot, of that at least I am sure." "No mischief--a work of righteousness rather. Sister Madeleine, you heard all that that gallant gentleman you think so highly of--your cousin Rupert, my dear" (it was a little way of Molly's to throw the responsibility of anything she did not like, even to an obnoxious relationship, upon another person's shoulders), "narrated of his brother Sir Adrian, and how he persuaded Tanty that he was, as you said just now, a hopeless madman--" "But yes--he does mad things," said the elder twin, a little wonderingly. "Well, Madeleine, it is a vile lie. I am convinced of it." "But, my darling----" "Look here, Madeleine, there is something behind it all. I attacked that creature, that rag, you cannot call her a woman, that female cousin of yours, Sophia, and I pressed her hard too, but she could not give me a single instance about Sir Adrian that is really the least like insanity; and last night, when the young fool who escorted me to dinner, Coventry his name was, told me that every one says Sir Adrian is shut up on the island and that his French servant is really his keeper, and that it was a shame Rupert was not the eldest brother, I quite saw the sort of story Master Rupert likes to spread--don't interrupt, please! When you were wool-gathering over the fire last night (in the lively and companionable way, permit me to remark in parenthesis, that you have adopted of late), and you thought I was with Tanty, I had marched off with my flat candlestick to the picture gallery to have a good look at the so-called lunatic. I dragged over a chair and lit the candles in the candelabra each side of the chimney-piece, and then standing on my perch still, I held up my own torch and I saw the sailor really well. I think he has a beautiful face and that he is no more mad than I am. But he looks so sad, so sad! I longed to make those closed lips part and tell me their secret. And, as I was looking and dreaming, my dear, just as you might, I heard a little noise, and there was Rupert, only a few yards off, surveying me with such an angry gaze--Ugh!" (with a shiver) "I hate such ways. He came in upon me with soft steps like some animal. Look at his portrait there, Madeleine!--Stay! I shall hold up the light as I did last night to Sir Adrian--see, it flickers and glimmers and makes him seem as if he were alive--oh, I wish he were not hanging in front of our beds, staring out at us with those eyes! You think them very fine, I daresay, that is because his lashes are as thick and dark as a woman's--but the look in them, my dear--do you know what it reminds me of? Of the beautiful, cruel greyhound we saw at the coursing at that place near Bunratty (you remember, just before they started the hare), when he stood for a moment motionless, looking out across the plain. I can never forget the expression of those yellow-circled eyes. And, when I see Rupert look at you as if he were fixing something in the far distance, it gives me just the feeling of horror and sickness I had then. (You remember how dreadful it was?) Rupert makes me think of a greyhound, altogether he is so lithe and so clean-cut, and so full of eagerness, a sort of trembling eagerness underneath his seeming quiet, and I think he could be cruel." Molly paused with an unusually grave and reflective look; Madeleine yawned a little, not at all impressed. "How you exaggerate!" she said. "Well what happened when he came in and caught you? The poor man! I suppose, he thought you were setting the house on fire." "My dear, I turned as red as a poppy and began blowing out all my illumination, feeling dreadfully guilty, and then he helped me off my chair with such an air of politeness that I could have struck him with pleasure, but I soon gathered my wits again. And, vexed with myself for being a ninny, I just dropped him a little curtsey and said, 'I've been examining my mad cousin.' 'Well, and what do you think of him?' he asked me, smiling (his abominable smile!). But I can keep my thoughts to myself as well as other people. 'I think he is very handsome,' I answered, and then I wagged my head and added, 'Poor fellow,' just as if I thought he was really mad. 'Poor fellow!' said cousin Rupert, still with his smile. Whereupon we interchanged good-nights, and he ceremoniously reconducted me to my door. What was he spying after me for, like that? My dear, your cousin has a bad conscience.--But I can spy too--I have been questioning the servants to-day, and some of the people on the estate." "Oh, Molly!" "Come, don't be so shocked. It was diplomatically, of course, but I am determined to find out the truth. Well, so far from looking upon Sir Adrian as a lunatic, they all adore him, it seems to me. He comes here periodically--once every three months or so--and it is like the King's Justices, you know--St. Louis of France--he redresses all wrongs, and listens to grievances and gives alms and counsel, and every one can come with his story, down to the poorest wretch on the estate, and they certainly gave me to understand that they would fare pretty hardly under Mr. Landale if it were not for that mild beneficent restraining influence in his tower yonder. It is very romantic, do you know (you like romance, Madeleine). I wonder if Sir Adrian will come over while we are here. Oh, I hope, I hope he will. I shall never rest till I have seen him." "Silly child," said Madeleine, "and so that is the reason you are glad to remain here?" "Even so, my dear," answered the other, skipped into the big four-post bed, carefully ascertained and selected the softest pillow, and then, smiling sweetly at her sister from under a frame of dark curls, let her white lids drop over the lustre of her eyes and so intimated she desired to sleep. CHAPTER XIV THE TOWER OF LIVERPOOL: MASTER AND MAN A prison is a house of care, A place where none can thrive, A Touchstone True to try a friend, A Grave for man alive. Sometimes a place of right, Sometimes a place of wrong, Sometimes a place of rogues and thieves, And honest men among. _Old Inscription._ It was soon after sunrise--at that time of year an hour not exorbitantly early--when Molly awoke from a tangle of fantastic dreams in which the haunting figure of her waking thoughts, the hermit of Scarthey, appeared to her in varied shapes; as an awe-inspiring, saintly ascetic with long, white hair; as a young, beautiful, imprisoned prince; even as a ragged imbecile staring vacantly at a lantern, somewhere in a dismal sea-cave. The last vision was uppermost in her mind when she opened her eyes; and the girl, under the impression of so disgusting a disillusion, remained for a while pondering and yawning, before making up her mind to exchange warmth and featherbed for her appointment without. But the shafts of light growing through the chinks in the shutters ever brighter and more full of dancing motes, decided her. "A beautiful morning, Madeleine," she said, leaning over and pulling one of the long fair strands upon her neighbour's pillow with sisterly authority. "Get up, lazy-bones, and come and have a walk with me before breakfast." The sleeping sister awoke, smiled with her usual exquisite serenity of temper, and politely refused. Molly insisted, threatened, coaxed, but to no avail. Madeleine was luxuriously comfortable, and was not to be disturbed either mentally or bodily; and Molly, aware of the resisting power of will hidden under that soft exterior, at length petulantly desisted; and wrapped up in furs, with hands plunged deep into the recesses of a gigantic muff, soon sallied forth herself alone into the park. Half-way down the avenue she met blue-eyed Moggie with round face shining out of the sharp, exhilarating atmosphere like a small sun. The damsel was overcome with blushes and rapture at her young mistress's unexpected promptitude in carrying out her promise, and ran back to warn her sweetheart of that lady's approach. * * * * * As Molly drew near the keeper's lodge--a sort of Doric temple, quaintly standing in the middle of a hedge-enclosed garden, and half-buried under thickly-clustering, interlacing creepers--from the side of the enormous nest of evergreen foliage there emerged, in a state of high excitement strenuously subdued, a short, square-built man (none other than René L'Apôtre), whilst between the boughs of the garden-hedge peeped forth the bashful, ruddy face of the lady of his fancy, eager to watch the interview. René ran forward, then stopped a few paces away, hat in hand, scraping and bowing in the throes of an overwhelming emotion that strove hard with humility. "Ah, Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle!" he ejaculated between spells of amazed staring, and seemed unable to bring forth another word. "And so you have known my mother, René," said Miss Molly (in her native tongue) with a smile. At the sound of the voice and of the French words, René's face grew pale under its bronze, and the tears he had so strongly combated, glistened in his eyes. "If I had not heard last night," he said at length, "that these ladies had come back--it was Moggie Mearson who told me, who was foster sister to you, or was it Mademoiselle your sister? and proud she is of it--if I had not known that the young ladies were here again, when I saw Mademoiselle I would have thought that my lady herself had returned to us (may the good God have her soul!). Ah, to think that I should ever see her again in the light of the sun!" He stopped, suffocated with the sob that his respect would not allow him to utter. But Molly, who had had other objects in view when she rose from her couch this cold, windy morning, than to present an objective to a serving-man's emotion, now thought the situation had lasted long enough for her enjoyment and determined to put an end to it. "Eh bien, René," she said gaily, "or should I call you Monsieur Potter? which, by the way, is a droll name for a Frenchman, I am very glad to see that you are pleased to see me. If you would care to have some talk with me you may attend me if you like. But I freeze standing here," stamping her feet one after the other on the hard ground. "I must absolutely walk; and you may put on your hat again, please; for it is very cold for you too," she added, snuggling into her muff and under her fur tippet. The man obeyed after another of his quaint salutes, and as Molly started forward, followed her respectfully, a pace in rear. "I daresay you will not be sorry to have a little talk with a compatriot in your own tongue, all English as you may have grown," said the young lady presently; "and as Moggie has told me that you were in my mother's service, there is a whole volume of things which, I believe, you alone can relate to me. You shall tell me all that, one day. But what seems to me the most curious, first of all, is your presence here. We ourselves are only at Pulwick by chance." "Mademoiselle," said René in an earnest voice, "if you knew the whole story, you would soon understand that, since it was not to be, that I should remain the humble servitor of Monseigneur le Comte de Savenaye, Mademoiselle's father, or of Madame, who followed him to heaven, notwithstanding all our efforts to preserve her, it is but natural that I should attach myself (since he would allow it) to my present master." "Mr. Landale?" asked Molly, affecting ignorance. "No, Mademoiselle," cried the Frenchman, hotly. "My master is Sir Adrian. Had Mr. Landale remained the lord of this place, I should have been left to die in my prison--or at least have remained there until this spring, for it seems there is peace again, and the Tower of Liverpool is empty now." "_Voyons, voyons, conte moi cela_, René," said Molly, turning her face, beautifully glowing from the caress of the keen air, eagerly to her companion. And he, nothing loth to let loose a naturally garrulous tongue in such company, and on such a theme, started off upon a long story illustrated by rapid gesticulation. "I will tell you," cried he, and plunged into explanation with more energy than coherence, "it was like this: "I had been already two years in that prison; we were some hundreds of prisoners, and it was a cruel place. A cruel place, Mademoiselle, almost as bad as that where we were shut up, my master and I together, years before, at La Rochelle--and that I will tell you, if you wish, afterwards. "I had been taken by the marine conscription, when their Republic became the French Empire. And a sailor I was then (just, as I heard later, as Sir Adrian also was at the time; but that I did not know, you understand), for they took all those that lived on the coast. Now I had only served with the ship six months, when she was taken by the English, and, as I say, we were sent to the prison in Liverpool, where we found so many others, who had been already there for years. When I heard it was Liverpool, I knew it was a place near Pulwick, and I at once thought of Mr. Landale, not him, of course, they _now_ call Mr. Landale, but him who had followed my mistress, Madame your mother, to help to fight the Republicans in the old time. And I thought I was saved: I knew he would get me out if it was possible to get any one out. For, you see, I thought his honour was home again, after we had been beaten, and there was no more to be done for my lady. We had contrived to find an English ship to take him home, and he had gone back, as I thought, Mademoiselle. Well, a prisoner becomes cunning, and besides, I had been in prison before; I managed to make up a letter, and as I knew already some English, I ended by persuading a man to carry it to Pulwick for me. It was a long way, and I had no money, but I made bold to assure him that Mr. Landale--oh, no! not _this_ one," René interrupted himself again with a gesture eloquent of resentful scorn, "but my master; I assured the man that he would receive recompence from him. You see, Mademoiselle, I knew his heart was so good, that he would not allow your mother's servant to rot in the tower.... But days afterwards the man came back. Oh, he was angry! terribly angry with me, and said he should pay me out--And so he did, but it is useless to tell you how. He had been to Pulwick, he said, and had seen Mr. Landale. Mr. Landale never knew anything of any French prisoner, and refused to give any money to the messenger. Ah, Mademoiselle, it was very sad! I had not signed my letter for fear of its getting into wrong hands, but I spoke of many things which I knew he could not have forgotten, and now I thought that he would not trouble his mind about such a wretch as René--triple brute that I was to conceive such thoughts, I should have deserved to remain there for ever!... I did remain, Mademoiselle, more than three years; many and many died. As for me, I am hard, but I thought I should never never walk free again; nor would I, Mademoiselle, these seven years, but for him." "He came, then?" said the girl with sympathetic enthusiasm. She was listening with attention, carried away by the speaker's earnestness, and knew instinctively to whom the "him," and the "he" referred. "He came," said René with much emphasis. "Of course he came--the moment he knew." And after a moment of half-smiling meditation he pursued: "It was one May-day, and there was some sun; and there was a smell of spring in the air which we felt even in that dirty place. Ah, how I remember me of it all! I was sitting against the wall in the courtyard with two others who were Bretons, like you and me, Mademoiselle, shifting with the sun now and then, for you must know a prisoner loves the sun above all; and there, we only had it a few hours in the day, even when it did shine. I was carving some stick-heads, and bread-plates in wood--the only thing I could do to put a little more than bread, into our own platters," with a grin, "and whistling, whistling, for if you can't be gay, it is best to play at it.... Well, that day into our courtyard there was shown a tall man--and I knew him at once, though he was different enough in his fine coat, and hat and boots, from the time when I had last seen him, when he was like me, in rags and with a woollen cap on his head, and no stockings under his shoes--I knew him at once! And when I saw him I stood still, with my mouth round, but not whistling more. My blood went phizz, phizz, all over my body, and suddenly something said in my head: 'René, he has come to look for you.' He was searching for some one, for he went round with the guardian looking into each man's face, and giving money to all who begged--and seeing that, they all got up, and surrounded him, and he gave them each a piece. But I could not get up; it was as if some one had cut out my knees and my elbows. And that was how he saw me the sooner. He noticed I remained there, looking at him like a dog, saying nothing. When he saw me, he stood a moment quite quiet; and without pretending anything he came to me and looked down smiling.--'But if I am not mistaken I know this man,' he said to the guardian, pretending to be astonished. 'Why, this is René L'Apôtre? Who would have thought of seeing you here, René L'Apôtre?' says he. And then he smiled again, as much as to say, 'You see I have come at last, René.' And once more, as if to explain: 'I have only lately come back to England,' in a gentle way, all full of meaning.... I don't know what took me, but I cried like an infant, in my cap. And the guardian and some of the others laughed, but when I looked up again, his eyes shone also. He looked so good, so kind, Mademoiselle, that it was as if I understood in words all he meant, but thought better not to say at the time. Then he spoke to the guardian, who shook his head doubtfully. And after saying, 'Have good courage, René L'Apôtre,' and giving me the rest of his money, he went away--but I knew I was not forgotten, and I was so happy that the black, black walls were no more black. And I sang, not for pretence this time, ah no! and I spent all my money in buying a dinner for those at our end of the prison, and we even had wine! You may be sure we drank to his happiness." Here the man, carried away by his feelings, seized his hat and waved it in the air. Then, ashamed of his ebullition, halted and glanced diffidently at the young lady. But Molly only smiled in encouragement. "Well, and then?" she asked. "Well, Mademoiselle," he resumed, "it was long before I saw him again; but I kept good courage, as I was told. One day, at last, the guardian came to fetch me and took me to the governor's cabinet; and my master was there--I was told that my release had been obtained, though not without trouble, and that Sir Adrian Landale, of Pulwick Priory, had gone warranty for me that I should not use my liberty to the prejudice of His Majesty, the King of England, and that I was to be grateful to Sir Adrian. I almost laughed at him, Mademoiselle. Oh! he took care to advise me to be grateful!" And here René paused ironically, but there was a quiver on his lips. "Ah, he little knew, Monsieur the Governor, that when my master had taken me to an inn, and the door was closed over the private room, he who had looked so grand and careless before the governor, took me by both hands and then, in his fine clothes, embraced me--me the dirty prisoner--just as he did when he left me in the old days, and was as poor and ragged as I was! And let me weep there on his breast, for I had to weep or my heart would have broken. But I wander, Mademoiselle, you only wanted to know how I came to be in his service still. That is how it was; as I tell you." Molly was moved by this artless account of fidelity and gratitude, and as she walked on in attentive silence, René went on: "It was then his honour made me know how, only by accident, and months after his own return, he chanced to hear of the letter that some one had sent to Mr. Landale from the Tower of Liverpool, and that Mr. Landale had said he knew nothing of any French prisoner and had thought it great impudence indeed. And how he--my master--had suddenly thought (though my letter had been destroyed) that it might be from me, the servant of my lady your mother, and his old companion in arms (for his honour will always call me so). He could not sleep, he told me, till he had found out. He started for Liverpool that very night. And, having discovered that it was me, Mademoiselle, he never rested till he had obtained my liberty." * * * * * Walking slowly in the winter sunshine, the one talking volubly, the other intently listening, the odd pair had reached a rising knoll in the park where, under the shelter of a cluster of firs, stood a row of carved stone seats that had once been sedillas in the dismantled Priory Church. From this secluded spot could be obtained the most superb view of the whole country-side. At the end of the green, gently-sloping stretch of pasture-land, which extended, broken only by irregular clusters of trees, down to the low cliffs forming the boundary of the strand, lay the wide expanse of brown sand, with its streamlets and salt pools scintillating under the morning sun. Further in the western horizon, a crescent of deep blue sea, sharply defined under a lighter blue sky and fringed landwards with a straggling border of foam, advanced slowly to the daily conquest of the golden bay. In the midst of that frame the eye was irresistibly drawn, as to the chief object in the picture, to the distant rock of Scarthey--a green patch, with the jagged red outline of the ruins clear cut against the sky. Since this point of view in the park had been made known to her, on the first day when she was piloted through the grounds, Molly had more than once found her way to the sedillas, yielding to the fascination of the mysterious island, and in order to indulge in the fancies suggested by its ever-changing aspect. At the fall of day the red glow of the sinking sun would glint through the dismantled windows; and against the flaming sky the ruins would stand out black and grim, suggesting nought but abandonment and desolation until suddenly, as the gloom gathered upon the bay, the light of the lamp springing to the beacon tower, would reverse the impression and bring to mind a picture of faithful and patient watching. When the sun was still in the ascendant, the island would be green and fresh to the gaze, evoking no dismal impression; and as the rays glanced back from the two or three glazed windows, and from the roofed beacon-tower, the little estate wore a look of solid security and privacy in spite of its crumbling walls, which was almost as tantalising to her romantic curiosity. It was with ulterior motives, therefore, that she had again wended her way to the knoll this sunny, breezy morning. She now sat down and let her eyes wander over the wide panorama, whilst René stood at a humble distance, looking with eyes of delight from her to the distant abode of his master. "And now you live with Sir Adrian, in that little isle yonder," said she, at length. "How came it that you never sought to go back to your country?" "There was the war then, Mademoiselle, and it was difficult to return." "But there has been peace these six months," insisted Molly. "Yes, Mademoiselle, though I only learned it yesterday. But then, bah! What is that? His honour needs me. I have stopped with him seven years, and my faith, I shall stop with him for ever." There was a long silence. "Does any one know," asked Molly, at length, with a vague air of addressing the trees, mindful, as she spoke, of the manner in which Mr. Landale had practically dismissed her and her sister at a certain point of his version of his brother's history, "_why_ Sir Adrian has shut himself up in that place instead of living at the Hall all this time?" A certain dignity seemed to come over the servant's squat figure. He hesitated for a moment, and then said very simply, his honest eyes fixed upon the girl's face: "I am only his humble servant, Mademoiselle, and it is enough for me that it is his pleasure to live alone." "You are indeed faithful," said Molly, with a little generous flush of shame at this peasant's delicacy compared to her own curiosity. And, after another pause, she added, pensively: "But tell me, does Sir Adrian never leave his solitude? I confess I should like to meet one who had known my mother, who could talk of her to me." René looked at the young girl with a wistful countenance, as though the question had embarked him on a new train of thought. But he answered evasively: "His honour comes rarely to Pulwick--rarely." Molly, with a little movement of pique, rose abruptly from her seat. But quickly changing her mood again she turned round as she was about to depart, and smiling: "Thank you, René," she said, and held out her dainty hand, which he, blushing, engulfed in his great paw, "I am going in, I am dreadfully hungry. We shall be here two months or more, and I shall want to see you again ... if you come back to Pulwick." She walked quickly away towards the house. René followed the retreating figure with a meditative look, so long as he could keep her in sight, then turned his gaze to the island and there stood lost in a deep muse, regardless of the fact that his sweetheart, Moggie, was awaiting a parting interview at the lodge, and that the tide that would wait for no man was swelling under his boat upon the beach. * * * * * A sudden resolution was formed in Molly's mind as the immediate result of this conversation, and she framed her behaviour that morning solely with a view to its furtherance. Breakfast was over when, glowing from her morning walk, she entered the dining-room; but, regardless of Mr. Landale's pointedly elaborate courtesy in insisting upon a fresh repast being brought to her, his sarcastically overacted solicitude, intended to point out what a deal of avoidable trouble she gave to the household, Molly remained perfectly gracious, and ate the good things, plaintively set before her by Miss Landale, with the most perfect appetite and good humour. She expatiated in terms of enthusiasm on the beauty of the estate and the delight of her morning exploration, and concluded this condescending account of her doings (in which the meeting with René did not figure) with a request that Mr. Landale should put horses at the disposal of herself and her sister for a riding excursion that very afternoon. And with determined energy she carried the point, declaring, despite his prognostications of coming bad weather, that the sunshine would last the day. In this wise was brought about the eventful ride which cost the life of Lucifer, and introduced such heart-stirring phantasmagories into the even tenor of Sir Adrian Landale's seclusion. * * * * * That evening the news rapidly spread throughout Pulwick that the cruel sands of the bay had secured yet another victim. In an almost fainting condition, speechless with horror, and hardly able yet to realise to the full her own anguish, Madeleine was conducted by the terrified groom, through the howling wind and drenching rain, back to the Priory. And there, between the fearful outcries of Miss Landale, and the deep frowning gravity of her brother, the man stammered out his tale.--How the young lady when the rain first began, had insisted, notwithstanding his remonstrances, upon taking the causeway to the island, and how it was actually by force that he prevented the other lady from following so soon as she understood the danger into which her sister was running. There was no use, he had thought (explained the man, half apologetically), for two more to throw away their lives, just for no good, that way. And so they had sat on their horses and watched in terror, as well as they could through the torrents of rain. They had seen in the distance Lucifer break from the young lady's control, and swerve from the advancing sea. And then had come the great gust that blew the rain and the sand in their faces and set their horses dancing; and, when they could see again, all traces of horse and rider had disappeared, and there lay nothing before them but the advancing tide, though the island and its tower were still just visible through the storm. No amount of cross-examination could elicit any further information. The girl's impulse seemed to have been quite sudden, and she had only laughed back at the groom over her shoulder upon his earnest shout of warning, though she had probably expected them to follow her. And as there could be no doubt about the calamity which had ensued, and no possible rescue even of the body, he had returned home at once to bring the disastrous news. Madeleine had been carried completely unconscious to her bed, but presently Miss Sophia was summoned to her side as the girl showed signs of returning animation, and Rupert was left alone. He fell to pacing the room, lost in a labyrinth of complicated and far-reaching reflections. Beyond doubt he was shocked and distressed by the sudden and horrible disaster; and yet as an undercurrent to these first natural thoughts, there ran presently a distinct notion that he would have felt the grievousness of it more keenly had Madeleine perished in that cruel manner and her sister survived to bring the tale home. The antagonism which his cousin, in all the insolence of her young beauty and vigorous self-esteem, had shown for him had been mutual. He had instinctively felt that she was an enemy, and more than that--a danger to him. This danger was now removed from his path, and by no intervention or even desire of his own. The calamity which had struck the remaining sister into such prostration would make her rich indeed; by anticipation one of the great heiresses in England. "Sorrow," thought Mr. Landale, and his lip curled disdainfully, "a girl's sorrow, at least, is a passing thing. Wealth is an everlasting benefit." Madeleine was a desirable woman upon all counts, even pecuniary considerations apart, or would be to one who had a heart to give--and even if the heart was dead...? Altogether the sum of his meditations was assuming a not unpleasing aspect; and the undercurrent in time assumed almost the nature of self-congratulation. Even the ordeal which was yet to come when he would have to face Miss O'Donoghue and render an account of his short trust, could not weigh the balance down on the wrong side. And yet a terrible ordeal it would be; women are so unreasonable, and Aunt Rose so much more so even than the average woman. Still it had to be done; the sooner the better; if possible while the storm lasted and while roaring waters kept all ill news upon land and the interloping heir on his island. And thus that very evening, whilst Madeleine sobbed on her pillow and Molly was snugly enjoying the warm hospitality of Scarthey, a mounted messenger departed from the Priory to overtake Miss O'Donoghue on the road to Bath and acquaint her with the terrible fatality that had befallen her darling and favourite. CHAPTER XV UNDER THE LIGHT DECEMBER 16TH.--Again I separate your green boards, my diary. No one has opened you; for your key, now a little rusty, still hangs upon my watch--my poor watch whose heart has ceased to beat, who, unlike its mistress, has _not_ survived the ordeal by sand and water! What is better, no one has attempted to force your secrets from you; which, since it appears that it had been agreed that Molly de Savenaye was dead and buried in Scarthey sands, speaks well for all concerned. But she is not dead. She is very much alive; and very happy to be so. This will indeed be an adventure worth reading, in the days to come; and it must be recounted--though were I to live to a hundred years I do not think I could ever forget it. Tanty Rose (she has not yet stopped scolding everybody for the fright she has had) is in the next room with Madeleine, who, poor dear, has been made quite ill by this prank of mine; but since after the distress caused by her Molly's death she has had the joy of finding her Molly alive again, things are balanced, I take it; and all being well that ends well, the whole affair is pleasant to remember. It has been actually as interesting as I expected--now that I think it over--even more. Of all the many pictures that I fancied, not one was at all like the reality--and this reality I could not have rested till I had found. It was René's account decided me. I laid my plans very neatly to pay the recluse a little visit, and plead necessity for the intrusion. My machinations would have been perfect if they had not caused Madeleine and poor old Tanty unnecessary grief. But now that I know the truth, I cannot distinctly remember what it was that I _did_ expect to find on that island. If it had not been that I had already gone through more excitement than I bargained for to reach that mysterious rock, how exciting I should have found it to wander up to unknown ruins, to knock at the closed doors of an enchanted castle, ascend unknown stairs and engage in devious unknown passages--all the while on the tiptoe of expectation! But when I dragged myself giddy and faint from the boiling breakers and scrambled upon the desolate island under the rain that beat me like the lashes of a whip, pushing against a wind that bellowed and rushed as though determined to thrust me back to the waters I had cheated of their prey, my only thoughts were for succour and shelter. Such warm shelter, such loving welcome, it was of course impossible that I could for a moment have anticipated! Conceive, my dear diary, the feelings of a poor, semi-drowned wanderer, shivering with cold, with feet torn by cruel stones, who suddenly emerges from howl and turmoil into a warm, quiet room to be received as a long and eagerly expected guest, whose advent brings happiness, whose presence is a highly prized favour; in fact not as one who has to explain her intrusion, but as one who in the situation holds the upper hand herself. And _this_ was my welcome from him whose absence from Pulwick was more haunting than any presence I can think of! Of course I knew him at once. Even had I not expected to see him--had I not come to seek him in fact--I should have known him at once from the portrait whose melancholy, wide-open eyes had followed me about the gallery. But I had not dreamed to see him so little altered. Now, apart from the dress, if he is in any way changed from the picture, it is in a look of greater youth and less sombreness. The portrait is handsome, but the original is better. Had it not been so, I imagine I might have felt vastly different when I was seized and enfolded and--kissed! As it was I cannot remember that, even at the moment of this extraordinary proceeding, I was otherwise than pleased, nor that the dark hints of Mr. Landale concerning Sir Adrian's madness returned to disturb my mind in the least. And yet I found myself enveloped in great strong arms out of which I could not have extricated myself by the most frantic efforts--although the folding was soft and tender--and I loved that impression. Why? I cannot say. His words of love were not addressed to me; from his exclamation I knew that the real and present Molly was not the true object of his sudden ecstasy. And yet I am glad that this is the first man who has been able to kiss Molly de Savenaye. It is quite incomprehensible; I ought to be indignant. Now the whole secret of my reception is plain to see, and it is pathetic; Sir Adrian Landale was in love with my mother; when she was an unprotected widow he followed her to our own country; if she had not died soon after, he would have married her. What a true knight must this Sir Adrian be, to keep so fresh for twenty years the remembrance of his boyish love that when I came in upon him to look at him with _her_ eyes, it was to find him pondering upon her, and to fill his soul with the rapturous thought that his love had come back to him. Though I was aware that all this fervour was not addressed to me, there was something very gratifying in being so like one who could inspire such long-lived passion.--Yes, it was unexpectedly pleasant and comforting to be so received. And the tender care, the thoughtful solicitude next bestowed on the limp and dishevelled waif of the sea by my _beau ténébreux_ were unmistakably meant for Molly and no one else, whatever his first imaginings may have been, and they were quite as interesting to receive. The half-hour I spent, cosily ensconced by his hands, and waited upon by his queer household, was perhaps the best I have ever known. He stood by the fireplace, looking down from his great height, with a wondering smile upon me. I declare that the loving kindness of his eyes, which he has wide, grey, and beautiful, warmed me as much as the pyramid of logs he had set burning on the hearth! I took a good reckoning of the man, from under the gigantic collar, in which, I felt, my head rested like a little egg at the bottom of a warm nest. "And so," I thought, "here is the Light-keeper of Scarthey Island!" And I was obliged to confess that he was a more romantic-looking person than even in my wildest dreams I had pictured to myself--that in fact I had found out for the first time _the man_ really approved of. And I congratulated myself on my own cleverness--for it was evident that, just as I had suspected from René's reticent manner, even by him our existence at Pulwick had not been mentioned to "the master." And as Mr. Landale was quite determined to avail himself of his brother's _sauvagerie_ not to let him know anything about us, on his side, but for me we might have remained at and departed from Pulwick unknown to the head of the house! And what a pity that would have been! Now, _why_ did not Mr. Landale wish his brother to know? Did he think (as indeed has happened) that the Light-keeper would take too kindly to the Savenaye children? Or to one of them? If so, he will be _bien attrappé_, for there is no doubt that my sudden and dramatic arrival upon his especial domain has made an impression on him that no meeting prepared and discussed beforehand could have produced. Adrian Landale may have been in love with our beautiful mamma in his boyish days, but now, Sir Adrian, the _man_ is in love with the beautiful Molly! That is positive. I was a long time before I could go to sleep in the tower; it was too perfect to be in bed in such a place, safe and happy in the midst of the rage I could hear outside; to have seen the unknown, to have found him such as he is--to be under _the Light_! What would have happened if my cousin had really been mad (and René his keeper, as that stupid country-side wit suggested in my ear the other night at dinner)? It would have been still more of an adventure of course, but not one which even "Murthering Moll the Second" can regret. Or if he had been a dirty, untidy hermit, as Madeleine thought? That would have spoilt all. Thus in the owl's nest, as Mr. Landale (spiteful creature!) called it to Tanty, there lives not owl any more than lunatic. A polished gentleman, with white, exquisite hands, who, when he is discovered by the most unexpected of visitors, is shaven as smooth as Rupert himself; has the most unexceptionable of snowy linen and old-fashioned, it is true, but most well-fitting clothes. As for the entertainment for the said casual visitor, not even Pulwick with all its resources (where housekeeping, between the fussy brother and the docile sister is a complicated science) could have produced more real comfort. In the morning, when I woke late (it was broad daylight), feeling as if I had been beaten and passed through a mangle, for there was not an inch of my poor body that was not sore, I had not turned round and so given sign of life, before I heard a whisper outside my door; then comes a sturdy knock and in walks old Margery, still dignified as a queen's housekeeper, bearing a bowl of warm frothy milk. And this being gratefully drunk by me, she gravely inquires, in her queer provincial accent, how I am this morn; and then goes to report to some anxious inquirer (whom?--I can easily guess) that with the exception of my cut foot I am very well. Presently she returns and lights a blazing fire. Then in come my dress and linen and my one shoe, all cleaned, dried and mended, only my poor habit is so torn and so stiff that I have to put up with Margery's best striped skirt in lieu of it, till she has time to mend and wash it. As it is she must have been at work all night upon these repairs for me. Again she goes out--for another consultation, I suppose--and comes back to find me half clad, hopping about the room; this time she has got nice white linen bandages and with them ties up my little foot, partly for the cuts, partly for want of a sandal, till it is twice the size of its companion. But I can walk on it. Then my strange handmaid--who by the way is a droll, grumbling old soul, and orders me about as if she were still my nurse--dresses me and combs my hair, which will not yet awhile be rid of all its sand. And so, in due course, Molly emerges from her bower, as well tended almost as she might have been at Bath, except that Margery's striped skirt is a deal too short for her and she displays a little more of one very nice ankle and one gouty foot than fashion warrants. And in this manner the guest goes to meet her host in the great room. He was walking up and down as if impatiently expecting me, and when I hobbled in, he came forward with a smile on his face which, once more, I thought beautiful. "God be praised!" he said, taking both my hands and kissing one of them, with his fine air of gallantry which was all the more delightful on account of his evident earnestness, "you seem none the worse for this terrible adventure. I dreaded this morning to hear that you were in a fever. You know," he added so seriously that I had to smile, "you might easily have had a fever from this yesterday's work; and what should we have done without doctor and medicines!" "You have a good surgeon, at least," said I laughing and pointing at my swaddled extremity. He laughed too at the _enmitouflage_. "I tried to explain how it was to be done," he said, "but I think I could have managed it more neatly myself." Then he helped me to the arm-chair, and René came in, and, after a profound bow (which did not preclude much staring and smiling at me afterwards), laid, on a dazzling tablecloth, a most tempting breakfast, explaining the while, in his odd English, "The bread is stale, for we bake only twice a month. But there are some cakes hot from the fire, some eggs, new laid last evening, some fresh milk, some tea. It was a happy thing I arrived yesterday for there was no more tea. The butter wants, but Mistress Margery will have some made to-morrow, so that the demoiselle will not leave without having tasted our Scarthey butter." All the while Sir Adrian looked on with a sort of dreamy smile--a happy smile! "Poor René!" he said, when the man had left the room, "one would think that you have brought to him almost as much joy as to me." I wondered what Mr. Landale would have said had he through some magic glass been able to see this little feast. I never enjoyed a meal more. As for my host, he hardly touched anything, but, I could see, was all absorbed in the delight of looking at me; and this he showed quite openly in the most child-like manner. Not one of the many fine gentlemen it has been my fate to meet in my six months' apprenticeship to the "great world," not cousin Rupert himself with all his elaborate politeness (and Rupert has de _grandes manières_, as Tanty says), could have played the host with a more exquisite courtesy, and more true hospitality. So I thought, at least. Now and again, it is true, while his eyes were fixed on me, I would see how the soul behind them was away, far in the past, and then at a word, even at a movement, back it would come to me, with the tenderest softening I have ever seen upon a human face. * * * * * It was only at the end of breakfast that he suddenly adverted to the previous day. "Of course," he said, hesitatingly, but keeping a frank gaze on mine, "you must have thought me demented when--when you first entered, yesterday." Now, I had anticipated this apology as inevitable, and I was prepared to put him at his ease. "I----? Not at all," I said quite gravely; and, seeing the puzzled expression that came upon his face, I hastened to add in lower tones: "I know I am very like my mother, and it was her name you called out upon seeing me." And then I stopped, as if that had explained everything. He looked at me with a wondering air, and fell again into a muse. After a while he said, with his great simplicity which seems somehow in him the last touch of the most perfect breeding: "Yes, such an apparition was enough to unhinge any one's mind for the moment. You never knew her, child, and therefore never mourned her death. But we--that is, René and I, who tried so hard to save her--though it is so long ago, we have not forgotten." It was then I asked him to tell me about the mother I had never known. At first it was as if he could not; he fell into a great silence, through which I could feel the working of his old sorrow. So then I said to him quickly, for I feared he thought me an indiscreet trespasser upon sacred ground, that he must remember my right to know more than the vague accounts I had been given of my mother's history. "No one will tell me of her," I said. "It is hard, for I am her own daughter." "It is wrong," he said very gently; "you ought to know, for you are indeed, most verily, her own daughter." And then by fragments he tried to tell me a little of her beauty, her loving heart, her faithfulness and bravery. At first it was with great tripping sighs as if the words hurt him, but by and by it came easier, and with his eyes fixed wistfully on me he took me, as it were, by his side through all their marvellous adventures. And thus I heard the stirring story of the "Savenaye band," and I felt prouder of my race than I had ever been before. Hitherto, being a Savenaye only meant the pride our aunt tried to instil into us of being undeniably _biennées_ and connected with numbers of great families. But the tale of the deeds mine had done for the King's cause, and especially the achievements of my own mother in starting such an expedition after my father's death, and following its fortunes to the bitter end, made my blood tingle with a new emotion. Little wonder that Sir Adrian should have devoted his life to her service. How madly enthralled I should have been, being a man, and free and strong, by the presence of a woman such as my mother. I, too, would have prostrated myself to worship her image returning to life--and I am that living, living portrait! When he came to the story of her death, he hesitated and finally stopped. It must have been horrible. I could see it in his eyes, and I dared not press him. Now, I suppose I am the only one in the world, besides René, who knows this man as he is. And I am proud of it. And it is for this constancy, which no vulgar soul of them can understand, that Rupert and his class have dubbed the gallant gentleman a madman. It fills me with scorn of them. I do not yet know what love is, therefore of course I cannot fathom its grief; but this much I know--that if I loved and yet could not reach as high as ever love may reach both in joy and sorrow, I should despise myself. I, too, would draw the utmost from life that life can give. He never even hinted at his love for my mother; speaking of himself throughout as René might, as of her humble devoted servant merely. And then the question began to gnaw at me. "Did she love him?" and somehow, I felt as if I could not rest till I knew; and I had it on my lips twenty times to cry out to him: "I know you loved her: oh! tell me, did she love you?" And yet I dared no more have done so, and overstepped the barrier of his gentle, reticent dignity, than I could have thrust the lighthouse tower down; and I could not think, either, whether I should be glad to hear that she had loved him, or that she had not. Not even here, alone with myself, can I answer that question. But though I respect him because he is as I have found him, and understand how rare a personality it takes to achieve such refinement of faithfulness, it seems to me, that to teach this constant lover to forget the past in the present, would be something worth living for--something worthy of _me_! Molly!--What is the meaning of this? You have never before put that thought in words, even to yourself! But let me be frank, or else what is the use of this diary? Looking back to those delightful three days, did not the _thought_ come to me, if not the words? Well, well, it is better, sometimes, I believe, to let oneself drift, than to try and guide the boat; and I must hurry back to Scarthey or I shall never have told my story.... How swiftly time had flown by us! I sitting in the arm-chair, with the old dog's muzzle on my lap, and Sir Adrian standing by his great chimney; the clock struck twelve, in the midst of the long silence, and I had thought that barely an hour had passed. I got up, and, seeing me limp in my attempt to walk, Sir Adrian gave me his arm; and so we went round the great room _bras dessus_, _bras dessous_, and it already seemed quite natural to feel like an intimate friend in that queer dwelling. We paused a long time in silence by the window, the tempest wind was still raging, but the sky was clear, and all round us was a wonderful sight; the sea, as far as eyes could reach, white with foam, lashed and tossing in frenzy round the rock on which we stood so safely, and rising in long jets of spray, which now and then dashed as far as our window; and when I looked down nearer, I could see the little stunted trees, bending backwards and forwards under the blast, and an odd idea came to my mind:--they looked to me when they caught my sight, as though they were bowing deep, hurriedly and frantically greeting me among them. I glanced up at my silent companion, the true knight, and found his wide grey eyes fixed upon me with the same expression that was already familiar to me, which I had especially noted as he told me his long tale of olden times. This time I felt the look go to my heart. _And then the thought first came to my mind, all unformed, but still sweet._ I don't know exactly why, but in answer to his sad look, I smiled at him, without a word, upon which he suddenly grew pale. After a while he gave a sigh, and, as he drew my arm again through his, I fancy his hand trembled a little. When he had taken me back to my chair, he walked to and fro in silence, looking at me ever and anon. A long time we passed thus, without speaking; but it seemed as if our thoughts were intermixing in harmony in the midst of our silence. And then the spell was broken by René, who never came in without making me his great scrape, trying hard not to beam too obtrusively in the delight that evidently overtakes him whenever he sets eyes on me. It was after a prolonged talk between him and the master, I fancy, concerning the means of attending fitly upon my noble and delicate person, that Sir Adrian, brought back, evidently, to the consideration of present affairs, began to be exercised about the best means of whiling away my time. When he hinted at the difficulty, I very soon disposed of it. I told him I had never been so happy in my life before--that the hours went all too quickly--I told him there was so much he and René had yet to tell me of their wonderful adventures, that I thought I should have to carry them back to Pulwick with me. At the mention of Pulwick his brow darkened, and René turned away to cough into his hand, and I saw that I had gone too fast. (N.B.--Pulwick is evidently a sore subject; I am sure I am not surprised. I can conceive how Rupert and Sophia would drive a man of Sir Adrian's sensitiveness nearly to desperation. Yet I _have_ brought Sir Adrian back to Pulwick, in spite of all. Is not that a feather in my cap?) But to return; I next made René laugh aloud and Sir Adrian give his indulgent smile--such as a father might give to his child--by adding that when I was bored I would soon let them know. "I always do," I said, "for I consider that a duty to myself." "God knows," said this strange man then, half smiling, "I would we could keep you here for ever." It was almost a declaration, but his eyes were far off--it was not addressed to me. I soon found that the recollection of all the extraordinary incidents Sir Adrian had lived through, is one neither of pride nor pleasure to him, but, all the same, never has anything in books seemed to me so stirring, as the tale of relentless fate, of ever-recurring battles and struggles and misfortunes told by the man who, still in the strength of life, has now chosen to forego everything that might for the remainder of his days have compensated him. Willing as he was to humour me, however, and disproportionately anxious to amuse me, it was little more than the dry bones of his history, I was able to obtain from him. With René's help, however, and my own lively imagination I have been able to piece together a very wonderful skeleton, from these same dry bones, and, moreover, endow it with flesh and blood and life. René was very willing to descant upon his master's exploits, as far as he knew them: "Whew, Mademoiselle should have seen him fight!" he would say, "a lion, Mademoiselle, a real lion!" And then I would contrast the reposeful, somewhat immobile countenance, the dreaming eye, the almost womanly softness of his smile, with the picture, and find the contrast piquant in the extreme. Concerning his present home Sir Adrian was more willing to speak--I had told him how the light on the little island had fascinated me from the distance, and all the surmises I had made about it. "And so, it was in order to see what sort of dungeon they kept the madman in," he said, laughing quietly, "that you pushed the reconnaissance, which nearly sent you into the jaws of death!" I was so struck, at first, by his speaking of himself as the reputed "madman" that I could not answer. To think of him as serenely contemptuous of the world's imputation--and an imputation so galling as this one of being irresponsible for his actions--and deliberately continuing his even way without taking the trouble to refute it, has given me an insight into his nature, that fills me with admiration, and yet, at the same time, with a sort of longing to see him reinstated in his proper place, and casting out those slandering interlopers. But, as he was waiting to be answered, I had to collect my thoughts and admit, not without a little bashfulness, that my first account of my exploit had contained a slight prevarication. In all he has to say about his little Scarthey domain, about the existence he has made for himself there, I cannot help noticing with what affection he speaks of René. René, according to Sir Adrian, is everything and everywhere; a perfect familiar genius; he is counsellor as well as valet, plays his master's game of chess as well as shaves him, can tune his organ, and manage his boat, and cast his nets, for he is fisherman as well as gardener; he is the steward of this wonderful little estate, and its stock of one pony, one cow, and twelve hens; he tends the light, and can cook a dinner a great deal better than his great rival, old Margery. Of this last accomplishment we had good proof in the shape of various dainties that appeared at our dinner. For when I exclaimed in astonishment, the master said, well pleased, and pointing to the attentive major-domo: "This is René's way of spoiling me. But now he has surpassed himself to celebrate so unique an occasion." And René's face was all one grin of rapture. I observe that on occasions his eyes wander quite tenderly from me to his master. Shall I ever enjoy dinners again like those in that old ruined tower! Or hours like those during which I listened to tales of peril and adventure, or to the music that pealed forth from the distant corner, when Sir Adrian sat down to his organ and made it speak the wordless language of the soul: that language that made me at times shiver with a mad yearning for life, more life; at times soothed my heart with a caress of infinite softness. How is it that our organ-songs at the convent _never_ moved me in this fashion? Ah! those will be days to remember; all the more for being certain that they will not be forgotten by him. Yes, those days have brought some light into his melancholy life. Even René knows that. "Oh, my lady," said he to me as he was leaving the island yesterday. "You have come like the good fairy, you have brought back the joy of life to his honour: I have not heard him really laugh--before this year passed I did not believe he knew any more how to laugh--what you can call laugh!" It is quite true. I had made some droll remark about Tanty and Cousin Sophia, and when he laughed he looked like a young man. He was quick enough in grasping at a pretext for keeping me yet another day. Yesterday the wind having suddenly abated in the night, there was quite a bevy of little fishing-boats sailing merrily away. And the causeway at low water was quite visible. As we looked out I know the same idea came to both our minds, though there was no word between us. At last it was I who spoke. "The crossing is quite safe," said I. And I added, as he answered nothing, "I almost wish now it was not. How quick the time has gone by, here!" His countenance when I looked up was darker. He kept his eyes fixed in the distance. At last he said in a low voice: "Yes, I suppose it is high time you should go back." "I am sure I don't wish it," I said quite frankly--he is not the sort of man with whom one would ever think of _minauderie_, "but Madeleine will be miserable about me." "And so you would really care to stop here," said he, with a smile of wonder on his face, "if it were not for that reason?" "Naturally I would," said I. "I feel already as cosy as a tame cat here. And if it were not for Madeleine, poor little Madeleine, who must be breaking her heart!--But then how can I go back?--I have no wraps and only one shoe?" His face had cleared again. He was walking up and down in his usual way, whilst I hopped back, with more limping than was at all necessary, to my favourite arm-chair. "True, true," he said, as if speaking to himself, "you cannot walk, with one shoe and a bandaged foot. And your clothes are too thin for the roundabout sea journey in this cold wind. This is what we shall do, child," he went on, coming up to me with a sage expression that struggled with his evident eager desire. "René shall go off, as soon as the tide permits, carrying the good news of your safety to your sister, and bring back some warm things for you to wear to-morrow morning, and I shall write to Rupert to send a carriage, to wait for you on the strand." And so, pleased like two children who have found a means of securing a further holiday, we wrote both our letters. I wonder whether it occurred to Sir Adrian, as it did to me, that, if we had been so very anxious that I should be restored to the care of Pulwick with the briefest delay, I might have gone with René that same day, wrapped up in a certain cloak which had done good warming service already; and that, as René had constructed with his cunning hands a sufficient if not very pretty sandal for my damaged foot out of some old piece of felt, I might have walked from the beach to the fishing village; and that there, no doubt, a cart or a donkey might have conveyed me home in triumph. Perhaps it did _not_ occur to him; and certainly I had no desire to suggest it on my side. Thus, soon after mid-day, Master René departed alone. And Sir Adrian and I, both very glad of our reprieve, watched, leaning side by side upon the window-sill, the brave little craft glide away on the still ruffled waters, until, when it had grown very small in the distance, we saw the sail lowered and knew René had reached mainland. And that was perhaps the best day of the three. René having been unexpectedly despatched, we had to help to do everything ourselves with old Margery, who is rather feeble. The sky was clear and beautiful; and, followed gravely by Jem the dog, we went round the little outer domain. I fed the hens, and Sir Adrian carried the pail when Margery had milked the cow; we paid a visit in his wide paddock to the pony, who trotted up to his master whinnying with pleasure. We looked at the waters rushing past like a mill race on the further side of the island, as the tide was rising, and he explained to me that it was this rush which makes the neighbourhood of Scarthey so dangerous to unwary crafts; we went down into the sea-caves which penetrate deep under the ruins.--They say that in olden days there was a passage under the rocky causeway that led as far as the old Priory, but all traces of it have been effaced. Then, later on, Sir Adrian showed me in detail his library. "I was made to be a man of books," he said, when I wondered at the number he had accumulated around him--there must be thousands, "a man of study, not of action. And you know how fate has treated me. These have been my one consolation of late years." And it marvelled me to think that one who had achieved so many manly deeds, should love musty old tiresome things so much. He really turned them over quite reverentially. I myself do not think much of books as companions. When I made that little confession he smiled rather sadly, and said that one like me never would lack the suitable companions of youth and happiness; but that a creature of his unfortunate disposition could find, in these long rows of folded leaves, the society of the best and the loftiest minds, not of our age, but of all ages, and, what was more, could find them ready for intercourse and at their best humour, just in those hours when he himself was fit and disposed for such intercourse--and this without dread of inflicting his own misery and dulness upon them. But I could not agree with his appreciation. I felt my nose curl with disdain at the breath of dust and must and age these old tomes gave forth, and I said again it was, to my mind, but a poor and tame sort of fellowship. He was perched on his ladder and had some odd volume in his hand, from which he was about to give an example in point; on hearing, however, this uncongenial sentiment he pushed back the book and came down quickly enough to talk to me. And this was the last of our excursions among the bookshelves. Of this I was glad, for I confess it was there I liked Sir Adrian the least. When the end of the short day drew near it was time to go and attend to the beacon. We ascended the ladder-like wooden stairs leading to the platform. Then I had the _reverse_ of that view that for so many days had engrossed my interest. _Pulwick from Scarthey!..._ What a long time it seemed then since I had left those rooms the windows of which now sent us back the rays of the setting sun! and I had no desire to return, though return I must on the morrow. René, of course, had left everything in his usual trim order, so all we had to do was to see to the lamp. It pleased my fantasy to light the beacon of Scarthey myself, and I struck the steel and kindled the brimstone and set fire to the huge, ill-smelling wicks until they gave a flame as big as my hand; and "there is the light of Scarthey at close quarters," I thought. And the Light-keeper was bending over me with his kindly look, humouring me like a child. As we sat there silently for a while in the twilight, there came from the little room adjoining the turret an odd sound of flapping and uncanny, melancholy cries. Sir Adrian rose, and we remembered the seagull by which he had played the part of good Samaritan. It had happened on the second day, as the storm was at its height. There had come a great crash at the window, and we saw something white that struggled on the sill outside; Sir Adrian opened the casement (when we had a little tornado of our own inside, and all his papers began dancing a sarabande in the room), and we gathered in the poor creature that was hurt and battered and more than half stunned, opening alternately its yellow bill and its red eyes in the most absurd manner. With a solicitude that it amused me to watch, Sir Adrian had tended the helpless, goose-like thing and then handed it to René's further care. René, it seemed, had thought of trying to tame the wild bird, and had constructed a huge sort of cage with laths and barrel-hoops, and installed it there with various nasty, sea-fishy, weedy things, such as seagulls consider dainty. But the prisoner, now its vigour had returned, yearned for nothing but the free air, and ever and anon almost broke its wings in sudden frenzy to escape. "I wonder at René," said Sir Adrian, contemplating the animal with his grave look of commiseration; "René, who, like myself, has been a prisoner! He will be disappointed, but we shall make one of God's creatures happy this day. There is not overmuch happiness in this world." And, regardless of the vicious pecks aimed at his hands, he with firmness folded the great strong wings and legs and carried the gull outside on the parapet. There the bird sat a moment, astonished, turning its head round at its benefactor before taking wing; and then it rose flying away in great swoops--flap, flap--across the waves till we could see it no longer. Ugly and awkward as the creature looked in its cage, it was beautiful in its joyful, steady flight, and I was glad to see it go. I must have been a bird myself in another existence, for I have often that longing to fly upon me, and it makes my heart swell with a great impatience that I cannot. But I could not help remarking to Sir Adrian that the bird's last look round had been full of anger rather than gratitude, and his answer, as he watched it sweep heavily away, was too gloomy to please me: "Gratitude," said he, "is as rare as unselfishness. If it were not so this world would be different indeed. As it is, we have no more right to expect the one than the other. And, when all is said and done, if doing a so-called kind action gives us pleasure, it is only a special form of self-indulgence." There is something wrong about a reasoning of this kind, but I could not exactly point out where. We both stood gazing out from our platform upon the darkening waters. Then across our vision there crept, round the promontory, a beautiful ship with all sails set, looking like some gigantic white bird; sailing, sailing, so swiftly yet so surely by, through the dim light; and I cried out in admiration: for there is something in the sight of a ship silently gliding that always sets my heart beating. But Sir Adrian's face grew stern, and he said: "A ship is a whitened sepulchre." But for all that he looked at it long and pensively. Now it had struck me before this that Sir Adrian, with all his kindness of heart, takes but a dismal view of human nature and human destiny; that to him what spoils the face of this world is that strife of life--which to me is as the breath of my nostrils, the absence of which made my convent days so grey and hateful to look back upon. I did not like to feel out of harmony with him, and so almost angrily I reproached him. "Would you have every one live like a limpet on a rock?" cried I. "Great heavens! I would rather be dead than not be up and doing." He looked at me gravely, pityingly. "May _you_ never see what I have seen," said he. "May you never learn what men have made of the world. God keep your fair life from such ways as mine has been made to follow." The words filled me, I don't know why, with sudden misgiving. Is this life, I am so eager for, but horror and misery after all? Would it be better to leave the book unopened? They said so at the convent. But what can they know of life at a convent? He bent his kind face towards mine in the thickening gloom, as though to read my thoughts, and his lips moved, but he did not speak aloud. Then, above the song of the waves as they gathered, rolled in, and fell upon the shingle all around, there came the beat of oars. "Hark," said Sir Adrian, "our good René!" His tone was cheerful again, and, as he hurried me away down the stairs, I knew he was glad to divert me from the melancholy into which he had allowed himself to drift. And then "good René" came, bringing breezy life and cheerfulness with him, and a bundle and a letter for me. Poor Madeleine! It seems she has been quite ill with weeping for Molly; and, indeed, her dear scrawl was so illegible that I could hardly read it. René says she was nearly as much upset by the joy as by the grief. Mr. Landale was not at home; he had ridden to meet Tanty at Liverpool, for the dear old lady has been summoned back in hot haste with the news of my decease! He for one, I thought to myself, will survive the shock of relief at learning that Molly has risen from the dead! * * * * * Ting, ting, ting.... There goes my little clock, fussily counting the hour to tell me that I have written so long a time that I ought to be tired. And so I am, though I have not told you half of all I meant to tell! CHAPTER XVI THE RECLUSE AND THE SQUIRE I thought I should never get away from supper and be alone! Rupert's air of cool triumph--it was triumph, however he may have wished to hide it--and Tanty's flow of indignation, recrimination, speculation, and amazement were enough to drive me mad. But I held out. I pretended I did not mind. My cheeks were blazing, and I talked _à tort et à travers_. I should have _died_ rather than that Rupert should have guessed at the tempest in my heart. Now I am alone at last, thank God! and it will be a relief to confide to my faithful diary the feelings that have been choking me these last two hours. "Pride must have a fall." Thus Rupert at supper, with reference, it is true, to some trivial incident, but looking at me hard and full, and pointing the words with his meaning smile. The fairies who attended at my birth endowed me with one power, which, however doubtful a blessing it may prove in the long run, has nevertheless been an unspeakable comfort to me hitherto. This is the reverse of what I heard a French gentleman term _l'esprit de l'escalier_. Thanks to this fairy godmother of mine, the instant some one annoys or angers me there rises on the tip of my tongue the most galling rejoinder that can possibly be made in the circumstances. And I need not add: _I make it_. To-night, when Rupert flung his scoff at me, I was ready for him. "I trust the old adage has not been brought home to you, _Sir_ Rupert," said I, and then pretending confusion. "I beg your pardon," I added, "I have been so accustomed to address the head of the house these last days that the word escaped me unawares." The shot told _well_, and I was glad--glad of the murderous rage in Rupert's eyes, for I knew I had hit him on the raw. Even Tanty looked perturbed, but Rupert let me alone for the rest of supper. He is right nevertheless, that is what stung me. I am humbled, _and I cannot bear it_! Sir Adrian has left. I was so triumphant to bring him back to Pulwick this morning, to have circumvented Rupert's plans, and (let me speak the truth,) so happy to have him with me that I did not attempt to conceal my exultation. And now he has gone, gone without a word to me; only this miserable letter of determined farewell. I will copy it--for in my first anger I have so crumpled the paper that it is scarcely readable. "My child, I must go back to my island. The world is not for me, nor am I for the world, nor would I cast the shadow of my gloomy life further upon your bright one. Let me tell you, however, that you have left me the better for your coming; that it will be a good thought to me in my loneliness to know of your mother's daughters so close to me. When you look across at the beacon of Scarthey, child, through the darkness, think that though I may not see you again I shall ever follow and keep guard upon your life and upon your sister's, and that, even when you are far from Pulwick, the light will burn and the heart of Adrian Landale watch so long as it may beat." I have shed more tears--hot tears of anger--since I received this than I have wept in all my life before. Madeleine came in to me just now, too full of the happiness of having me back, poor darling, to be able to bear me out of sight again; but I have driven her from me with such cross words that she too is in tears. I must be alone and I must collect myself and my thoughts, for I want to state exactly all that has happened and then perhaps I shall be able to see my way more clearly. * * * * * This morning then, early after breakfast, I started across the waters between René and Sir Adrian, regretting to leave the dear hospitable island, yet with my heart dancing within me, as gaily as did our little boat upon the chopping waves, to be carrying the hermit back with me. I had been deadly afraid lest he should at the last moment have sent me alone with the servant; but when he put on his big cloak, when I saw René place a bag at the bottom of the boat, I knew he meant to come--perhaps remain some days at Pulwick, and my spirits went up, up! It was a lovely day, too; the air had a crisp, cold sparkle, and the waters looked so blue under the clear, frosty sky. I could have sung as we rowed along, and every time I met Sir Adrian's eye I smiled at him out of the happiness of my heart. His look hung on me--we French have a word for that which is not translatable, _Il me couvait des yeux_--and, as every day of the three we had spent together I had thought him younger and handsomer, so this morning out in the bright sunlight I said to myself, I could never wish to see a more noble man. When we landed--and it was but a little way, for the tide was low--there was the carriage waiting, and René, all grins, handed over our parcels to the footman. Then we got in, the wheels began slowly dragging across the sand to the road, the poor horses pulling and straining, for it was heavy work. And René stood watching us by his boat, his hand over his eyes, a black figure against the dazzling sunshine on the bay; but I could see his white teeth gleam in that broad smile of his from out of his shadowy face. As, at length, we reached the high road and bowled swiftly along, I would not let Sir Adrian have peace to think, for something at my heart told me he hated the going back to Pulwick, and I so chattered and fixed his attention that as the carriage drew up he was actually laughing. When we stopped another carriage in front moved off, and there on the porch stood--Rupert and Tanty! Poor Tanty, her old face all disfigured with tears and a great black bonnet and veil towering on her head. I popped _my_ head out of the window and called to them. When they caught sight of me, both seemed to grow rigid with amazement. And then across Rupert's face came such a look of fury, and such a deathly pallor! I had thought, certainly, he would not weep the eyes out of his head for me; but that he should be stricken with _anger_ to see me alive I had hardly expected, and for the instant it frightened me. But then I had no time to observe anything else, for Tanty collapsed upon the steps and went off into as fine a fit of hysterics as I have ever seen. But fortunately it did not last long. Suddenly in the middle of her screams and rockings to and fro she perceived Sir Adrian as he leant anxiously over her. With the utmost energy she clutched his arm and scrambled to her feet. "Is it you, me poor child?" she cried, "Is it you?" And then she turned from him, as he stood with his gentle, earnest face looking down upon her, and gave Rupert a glare that might have slain him. I knew at once what she was thinking: I had experienced myself that it was impossible to see Sir Adrian and connect his dignified presence for one second with the scandalous impression Rupert would have conveyed. As for Rupert, he looked for the first time since I knew him thoroughly unnerved. Then Tanty caught me by the arm and shook me: "How _dare_ you, miss, how dare you?" she cried, her face was flaming. "How dare I what?" asked I, as I hugged her. "How dare you be walking about when it is dead you are, and give us all such a fright--there--there, you know what I mean.--Adrian," she whimpered, "give me your arm, my nephew, and conduct me into your house. All this has upset me very much. But, oh, am I not glad to see you both, my children!" In they went together. And my courage having risen again to its usual height, I waited purposely on the porch to tease Rupert a little. I had a real pleasure in noticing how he trembled with agitation beneath his mask. "Well, are you glad to see me, Cousin Rupert?" said I. He took my hand; his fingers were damp and cold. "Can you ask, my fair cousin?" he sneered. "Do you not see me overcome with joy? Am I not indeed especially favoured by Providence, for is not this the second time that a beloved being has been restored into my arms like Lazarus from the grave?" I was indignant at the heartlessness of his cynicism, and so the answer that leaped to my lips was out before I had time to reflect upon its unladylikeness. "Ay," said I, "and each time you have cried in your soul, like Martha, 'Behold, he stinketh.'" My cousin laughed aloud. "You have a sharp tongue," he said, "take care you are not cut with it yourself some day." Just then the footmen who had been unpacking Tanty's trunks from the first carriage laid a great wooden box upon the porch, and one of them asked Rupert which room they should bring it to. Rupert looked at it strangely, and then at me. "Take it where you will," he exclaimed at last. "There lies good money-value wasted--though, after all, one never knows." "What is it?" said I, struck by a sinister meaning in his accents. "Mourning, beautiful Molly--mourning for you--crape--gowns--weepers--wherewith to have dried your sister's tears--but not needed yet, you see." He bared his teeth at me over his shoulder--I could not call it a smile--and then paused, as he was about to brush past into the hall, to give me the _pas_, with a mocking bow. He does not even attempt now to hide his dislike of me, nor to draw for me that cloak of suave composure over the fierce temper that is always gnawing at his vitals as surely as fox ever gnawed little Spartan. He sees that it is useless, I suppose. As I went upstairs to greet Madeleine, I laughed to myself to think how Fate had circumvented the plotter. Alas, how foolish I was to laugh! Rupert is a dangerous enemy, and I have made him mine; and in a few hours he has shuffled the cards, and now he holds the trumps again. For that there is _du Rupert_ in this sudden departure of my knight, I am convinced. Of course, _his_ reasons are plain to see. It is the vulgarest ambition that prompts him to oust his brother for as long as possible--for ever, if he can. And now, _I_ am outwitted. _Je rage._ I have never been so unhappy. My heart feels all crushed. I see no help anywhere. I cannot in common decency go and seek Sir Adrian upon his island again, and so I sit and cry. * * * * * Immediately upon his arrival Tanty was closeted with Sir Adrian in the chamber allotted to her for so long a space of time that Rupert, watching below in an inward fever, now flung back in his chair biting his nails, now restlessly pacing the room from end to end, his mind working on the new problem, his ears strained to catch the least sound the while, was fain at last to ring and give orders for the immediate sounding of the dinner bell (a good hour before that meal might be expected) as the only chance of interrupting a conference which boded so ill to his plans. Meanwhile Madeleine sobbed out the story of her grief and joy on Molly's heart; and Miss Sophia, who thus inconsiderately arrested in the full congenial flow of a new grief, was thrown back upon her old sorrows for consolation, had felt impelled to pay a visit to the rector's grave with the watering-can, and an extra pocket-handkerchief. Never perhaps since that worthy clergyman had gasped out his last struggling breath upon her bosom had she known more unmixed satisfaction than during those days when she hovered round poor prostrate Madeleine's bed and poured into her deaf ear the tale of her own woes and the assurances of her thoroughly understanding sympathy. She had been looking forward, with a chastened eagerness, to the arrival of the mourning, and had already derived a good deal of pleasure from the donning of certain aged weeds treasured in her wardrobe; it was therefore a distinct though quite unconscious disappointment when the news came which put an untimely end to all these funereal revels. At the shrill clamour of the bell, as Rupert anticipated, Adrian emerged instantly from his aunt's room, and a simultaneous jingle of minor bells announced that the ladies' attention was in all haste being turned to toilet matters. Whatever had passed between his good old relative and his sensitive brother, Rupert's quick appraising glance at the latter's face, as he went slowly down the corridor to his own specially reserved apartment, was sufficient to confirm the watcher in his misgiving that matters were not progressing as he might wish. Sir Adrian seemed absorbed, it is true, in grave thought, but his countenance was neither distressed nor gloomy. With a spasm of fierce annoyance, and a bitter curse on the meddling of old females and young, Rupert had to admit that never had he seen his brother look more handsome, more master of the house and of himself, more _sane_. A few minutes later the guests of Pulwick assembled in the library one by one, with the exception of Sophia, still watering the last resting-place of the Rev. Herbert Lee. Adrian came first, closely followed by Tanty, who turned a marked shoulder upon her younger nephew and devoted all her attention to the elder--in which strained condition of affairs the conversation between the three was not likely to be lively. Next the sisters, attired alike in white, entered together, bringing a bright vision of youth and loveliness into the old room. At sight of them Adrian sprang to his feet with a sudden sharp ejaculation, upon which the two girls halted on the threshold, half shy, half smiling. For the moment, in the shadow of the doorway, they were surprisingly like each other, the difference of colouring being lost in their curious similarity of contour. My God, were there then two Céciles? Beautiful, miraculous, consoling had been to the mourner in his loneliness the apparition of his dead love restored to life, every time his eyes had fallen upon Molly during these last few blessed days; but this new development was only like a troublous mocking dream. Tanty turned in startled amazement. She could feel the shudder that shook his frame, through the hand with which he still unconsciously grasped at the back of her chair. An irrepressible smile crept to Rupert's lips. The little interlude could not have lasted more than a few seconds when Molly, recovering her usual self-possession, came boldly forward, leading her sister by the tips of her fingers. "Cousin Adrian," she said, "my sister Madeleine has many things to say to you in thanks for your care of my valuable person, but just now she is too bashful to be able to utter one quarter of them." As the girls emerged into the room, and the light from the great windows struck upon Madeleine's fair curls and the delicate pallor of her cheek; as she extended her hand, and raised to Adrian's face, while she dropped her pretty curtsey, the gaze of two unconsciously plaintive blue eyes, the man dashed the sweat from his brow with a gesture of relief. Nothing could be more unlike the dark beauty of the ghost of his dreams or its dashing presentment now smiling confidently upon him from Tanty's side. He took the little hand with tender pressure: Cécile's daughter must be precious to him in any case. Madeleine, moreover, had a certain appealing grace that was apt to steal the favour that Molly won by storm. "But, indeed, I could never tell Sir Adrian how grateful I am," said she, with a timidity that became her as thoroughly as Molly's fearlessness suited her own stronger personality. At the sound of her voice, again the distressful nightmare-like feeling seized Sir Adrian's soul. Of all characteristics that, as the phrase is, "go in families," voices are generally the most peculiarly generic. When Molly first addressed Sir Adrian, it had been to him as a voice from the grave; now Madeleine's gentle speech tripped forth upon that self-same note--Cécile's own voice! And next Molly caught up the sound, and then Madeleine answered again. What they said, he could not tell; these ghosts--these speaking ghosts--brought back the old memories too painfully. It was thus Cécile had spoken in the first arrogance of her dainty youth and loveliness; and in those softer tones when sorrow and work and failure had subdued her proud spirit. And now she laughs; and hark, the laugh is echoed! Sir Adrian turns as if to seek some escape from this strange form of torture, meets Rupert's eye and instinctively braces himself into self-control. "Come, come," cried Miss O'Donoghue, in her comfortable, commonplace, cheerful tone: "This dinner bell of yours, Adrian, has raised false hopes, which seem to tarry in their fulfilment. What are we waiting for, may I ask?" Adrian looked at his brother. "Rupert, you know, my dear aunt," he said, "has the ordering of these matters." "Sophia is yet absent," quoth Rupert drily, "but we can proceed without her, if my aunt wishes." "Pooh, yes. Sophia!" snorted Miss O'Donoghue, grasping Sir Adrian's arm to show herself quite ready for the march, "Sophia! We all know what she is. Why, my dear Adrian, she'll never hear the bell till it has stopped this half hour." "Dinner," cried Rupert sharply to the butler, whom his pull of the bell-rope had summoned. And dinner being served, the guests trooped into that dining-room which was full of such associations to Sir Adrian. It was a little thing, but, nevertheless, intensely galling to Rupert to have to play second gentleman, and give up his privileges as host to his brother. Usually indeed Adrian cared too little to stand upon his rights, and insisted upon Rupert's continuing to act in his presence as he did in his absence; but this afternoon Tanty had left him no choice. Nevertheless, as Mr. Landale sat down between the sisters, and turned smiling to address first one and then the other, it would have taken a very practised eye to discern under the extra urbanity of his demeanour the intensity of his inward mortification. He talked a great deal and exerted himself to make the sisters talk likewise, bantering Molly into scornful and eager retorts, and preventing Madeleine from relapsing into that state of dreaminess out of which the rapid succession of her recent sorrow and joy had somewhat shaken her. The girls were both excited, both ready to laugh and jest. Tanty, satisfied to see Adrian preside at the head of the table with a grave, courteous, and self-contained manner that completely fulfilled her notions of what family dignity required of him, cracked her jokes, ate her dinner, and quaffed her cup with full enjoyment, laughing indulgently at her grand-nieces' sallies, and showing as marked a disfavour to Rupert as she deemed consistent with good manners. The poor old lady little guessed how the workings in each brother's mind were all the while, silently but inevitably, tending towards the destruction of her newly awakened hopes. * * * * * There was silence between Sir Adrian and Rupert when at last they were left alone together. The elder's gaze wandering in space, his absent hand softly beating the table, his relaxed frame--all showed that his mind was far away from thought of the younger's presence. The relief to be delivered from the twin echoes of a haunting voice--once the dearest on earth to him--was immense. But his whole being was still quivering under the first acuteness of so disturbing an impression. His years of solitude, moreover, had ill prepared him for social intercourse; the laughter, the clash of conversation, the noise on every side, the length of the meal, the strain to maintain a fit and proper attitude as host, had tried to the utmost nerves by nature hypersensitive. Rupert, who had leisure to study the suddenly lined and tired lineaments of the abstracted countenance before him, noted with self-congratulation the change that a few hours seemed to have wrought upon it, and decided that the moment had come to strike. "So, Adrian," he said, looking down demurely as he spoke into the glass of wine he had been toying with--Rupert was an abstemious man. "So, Adrian, you have been playing the chivalrous rôle of rescuer of distressed damsels--squire of dames and what not. The last one would have ascribed to you at least at this end of your life. Ha," throwing up his head with a mirthless laugh; "how little any of us would have thought what a blessing in disguise your freak of self-exile was destined to become to us!" At the sound of the incisive voice Adrian had returned with a slight shiver from distant musing to the consciousness of the other's presence. "And did you not always look upon my exile as a blessing undisguised, Rupert?" answered he, fixing his brother with his large grave gaze. Rupert's eyelids wavered a little beneath it, but his tone was coolly insolent as he made reply: "If it pleases you to make no count of our fraternal affection for you, my dear fellow; if by insisting upon _our_ unnatural depravity you contrive a more decent excuse for your own vagaries, you have my full permission to dub me Cain at once and have done with it." A light sigh escaped the elder man, and then he resolutely closed his lips. It was by behaviour such as this, by his almost diabolical ingenuity in the art of being uncongenial, that Rupert had so largely contributed to make his own house impossible to him. But where was the use of either argument or expostulation with one so incapable of even understanding the mainsprings of his actions? Moreover (_he_, above all, must not forget it) Rupert had suffered through him in pride and self-esteem. And yet, despite Sir Adrian's philosophic mind, despite his vast, pessimistic though benevolent tolerance for erring human nature, his was a very human heart; and it added not a little to the sadness of his lot at every return to Pulwick (dating from that first most bitter home-coming) to feel in every fibre of his being how little welcome he was where the ties of flesh and blood alone, not to speak of his most ceaseless yet delicate generosity, should have ensured him a very different reception. Again he sighed, this time more deeply, and the corners of Rupert's lips, the arch of his eyebrows, moved upwards in smiling interrogation. "It must have given you a shock," said Mr. Landale, carelessly, "to see the resemblance between Molly and poor Cécile; not, of course, that _I_ can remember her; but Tanty says it is something startling." Adrian assented briefly. "I daresay it seems quite painful to you at first," proceeded Rupert, much in the same deliberate manner as a surgeon may lay bare a wound, despite the knowledge of the suffering he is inflicting, "I noticed that you seemed upset during dinner. But probably the feeling will wear off." "Probably." "Madeleine resembles her father, I am told; but then you never saw the _feu Comte_, did you? Well, they are both fine handsome girls, full of life and spirits. It is our revered relative's intention to leave them here--as perhaps she has told you--for two months or so." "I have begged her," said Sir Adrian gravely, "to make them understand that I wish them to look upon Pulwick as their home." "Very right, very proper," cried the other; "in fact I knew that was what you would wish--and your wishes, of course, are my law in the matter. By the way, I hope you quite understand, Adrian, how it happened that I did _not_ notify to you the arrival of these guests extraordinary--knowing that you have never got over their mother's death, and all that--it was entirely from a wish to spare you. Besides, there was your general prohibition about my visitors; I did not dare to take the responsibility in fact. And so I told Tanty." "I do not wish to doubt the purity of your motives, though it would have grieved me had _these_ visitors (no ordinary ones as you yourself admit) come and gone without my knowledge. As it fell out, however, even without that child's dangerous expedition, I should have been informed in any case--René knew." "René knew?" cried Rupert, surprised; and "damn René" to himself with heart-felt energy. That the infernal little spy, as he deemed his brother's servant, should have made a visit to Pulwick without his knowledge was unpleasant news, and it touched him on his tenderest point. But now, replenishing his half-emptied glass to give Adrian no excuse for putting an end to the conference before he himself desired it, he plunged into the heart of the task he had set himself without further delay: "And what would you wish me to do, Adrian," he asked, with a pretty air of deference, "in the matter of entertaining these ladies? I have thought of several things likely to afford them amusement, but, since you are here, you will readily understand that I should like your authorisation first. I am anxious to consult you when I can," he added, apologetically. "So forgive my attacking you upon business to-night when you seem really so little fitted for it--but you know one cannot count upon you from one minute to another! What would you say if I were to issue invitations for a ball? Pulwick was noted for its hospitality in the days of our fathers, and the gloom that has hung over the old home these last eight years has been (I suppose) unavoidable in the circumstances--but none the less a pity. No fear but that our fair cousins would enjoy such a festivity, and I think I can promise you that the sound of our revels should not reach as far as your hermitage." A slow colour had mounted to Adrian's cheeks; he drew his brows together with an air of displeasure; Rupert, quick to read these symptoms, hastened to pursue the attack before response should be made: "The idea does not seem to please you," he cried, as if in hurt surprise. "'Tis true I have now no legal right to think of reviving the old hospitable traditions of the family; but you must remember, Adrian, you yourself have insisted on giving me a moral right to act host here in your absence--you have over and over again laid stress upon the freedom you wished me to feel in the matter. Hitherto I have not made use of these privileges; have not cared to do so, beyond an occasional duty dinner to our nearest neighbours. A lonely widower like myself, why should I? But now, with these gay young things in the house--so near to us in blood--I had thought it so much our duty to provide fitting entertainment for them that your attitude is incomprehensible to me. Come! does it not strike you as savouring a little of the unamiable dog in the fable? I know you hate company yourself, and all the rest of it; but how can these things here affect you upon your island? As for the budget, it will stand it, I assure you. I speak hotly; pray excuse me. I own I have looked forward to the thought of seeing once more young and happy faces around me." "You mistake me," said Sir Adrian with an effort; "while you are acting as my representative you have, as you know, all liberty to entertain what guests you choose, and as you see fit. It is natural, perhaps, that you should now believe me anxious to hurry back to the lighthouse, and I should have told you before that it is my intention this time to remain longer than my wont, in which circumstance the arrangements for the entertaining of our relatives will devolve upon myself." Rupert broke into a loud laugh. "Forgive me, but the idea is too ludicrous! What sort of funeral festivities do you propose to provide to the neighbourhood, with you and Sophia presiding, the living images of mourning and desolation? There, my dear fellow, I _must_ laugh. It will be the skeleton at the feast with a vengeance. Why, even to-night, in the bosom of your family, as it were, your presence lay so like a wet blanket upon us all that, 'pon my soul, I nearly cracked my voice trying to keep those girls from noticing it! Seriously, I am delighted, of course, that you should feel so sportive, and it is high time indeed that the neighbourhood should see something of you, but I fear you are reckoning beyond your strength. Anyhow, command me. I shall be anxious to help you all I can in this novel departure. What are your plans?" "I have laid no plans," answered Sir Adrian coldly, after a slight pause, "but you do not need me to tell you, Rupert, that to surround myself with such gaiety as you suggest is impossible." "You mean to make our poor little cousins lead as melancholy an existence as you do yourself then," cried Rupert with an angry laugh. Matters were not progressing as he could have wished. "I fear this will cause a good deal of disappointment, not only to them but to our revered aunt--for she is very naturally anxious to see her charges married and settled, and she told me that she more or less counted upon my aid in the matter. Now as you are here of course I have, thank Heaven, nothing more to say one way or another. But you will surely think of asking a few likely young fellows over to the house, occasionally? We are not badly off for eldest sons in the neighbourhood; Molly, who is as arrant a little flirt, they tell me, as she is pretty, will be grateful to you for the attention, on the score of amusement at least." Mr. Landale, speaking somewhat at random out of his annoyance to have failed in immediately disgusting the hermit of the responsibilities his return home might entail, here succeeded by chance in producing the desired impression. The idea of Molly--Cécile's double--marrying--worse still, making love, coquetting before his eyes, was intolerable to Adrian. To have to look on, and see _Cécile's_ eyes lavish glances of love; _her_ lips, soft words and lingering smiles, upon some country fool; to have himself to give this duplicate of his love's sweet body to one unworthy perhaps--it stung him with a pain as keen as it was unreasonable. It was terrible to be so made, that the past was ever as living as the present! But he must face the situation, he must grapple with his own weakness. Tender memories had lured him from his retreat and made him for a short time almost believe that he could live with them, happy a little while, in his own home again; but now it was these very memories that were rising like avengers to drive him hence. Of course the child must marry if there her happiness lay. Ay, and both Cécile's children must be amused, made joyful, while they still could enjoy life--Rupert was right--right in all he said--but he, Adrian, could not be there to see. That was beyond his endurance. It was impossible of course, for one so single-minded himself, to follow altogether the doublings of such a mind as Rupert's; but through the melancholy relief of this sudden resolution, Adrian was distinctly conscious of the underlying duplicity, the unworthy motives which had prompted his brother's arguments. He rose from the table, and looked down with sad gaze at the younger's beautiful mask of a face. "God knows," he said, "God knows, Rupert, I do not so often inflict my presence upon you that you should be so anxious to show me how much better I should do to keep away. I admit nevertheless the justice of all you say. It is but right that Mesdemoiselles de Savenaye should be surrounded with young and cheerful society; and even were I in a state to act as master of the revels (here he smiled a little dreamily), my very presence, as you say, would cast a gloom upon their merrymaking--I will go. I will go back to the island to-night--I can rely upon you to assist me to do so quietly without unnecessary scenes or explanations--yes--yes--I know you will be ready to facilitate matters! Strange! It is only a few hours ago since Tanty almost persuaded me that it was my duty to remain here; now you have made me see that I have no choice but to leave. Have no fear, Rupert--I go. I shall write to Tanty. But remember only, that as you treat Cécile's children, so shall I shape my actions towards you in future." Slowly he moved away, leaving Rupert motionless in his seat; and long did the younger brother remain moodily fixing the purple bloom of the grapes with unseeing eyes. PART III "CAPTAIN JACK," THE GOLD SMUGGLER CHAPTER XVII THE GOLD SMUGGLER AND THE PHILOSOPHER On the evening of the day which had seen Miss Molly's departure for the main land, René, after the usual brisk post-prandial altercation with old Margery by her kitchen fire, was cheerfully finding his way, lantern in hand, to his turret, when in the silence of the night he heard the door of the keep open and close, and presently recognised Sir Adrian's tread echoing on the flagged steps beneath him. Astonished at this premature return and full of vague dismay, he hurried down to receive his master. There was a cloud on Sir Adrian's face, plainly discernible in spite of the unaltered composure of his manner. "I did not expect your honour back so soon," said René, tentatively. "I myself did not anticipate to return. I had thought I might perhaps stay some days at Pulwick. But I find there is no home like this one for me, René." There was a long silence. But when René had rekindled a blaze upon the hearth and set the lamp upon the table, he stood a moment before withdrawing, almost begging by his look some further crumb of information. "My room is ready, I suppose?" inquired Sir Adrian. "Yes, your honour," quoth the man ruefully, "Margery and I put it back exactly as--as before." "Good-night then, good-night!" said the master after a pause, warming his hands as the flames began to leap through the network of twigs. "I shall go to bed, I am tired; I had to row myself across. You will take the boat back to-morrow morning." René opened his mouth to speak; caught the sound of a sigh coming from the hearthside, and, shaking his head, in silence obeyed the implied dismissal. And bitterly did he meditate in his bunk, that night, upon the swift crumbling of those air-castles he had built himself so gaily erstwhile, in the rose and blue atmosphere that _La Demoiselle_ had seemed to bring with her to Scarthey. * * * * * From the morrow the old regular mode of life began again in the keep. Sir Adrian read a good deal, or at least appeared so to do; but René, who kept him more than ever under his glances of wistful sympathy, noted that far from being absorbed, as of old, in the pages of his book, the recluse's eyes wandered much off its edges into space; that when writing, or at least intent on writing, his pen would linger long in the bottle and hover listlessly over the paper; that he was more abstracted, even than his wont, when looking out of the eastern window; and that on the platform of the beacon it was the landward view which most drew his gaze. There was also more music in the keep than was the custom in evener days. Seated at his organ the light-keeper seemed to find a voice for such thoughts as were not to be spoken or written, and relief for the nameless pity of them. But never a word passed between the two men on the subject that filled both their hearts. It was Sir Adrian's pleasure that things at Scarthey should seem to be exactly the same as before, and that was enough for René. "And yet," mused the faithful fellow, within his disturbed mind, "the ruins now look like a house the day after an interment. If we were lonely before, my faith, now we are desolate?" and, trying to find something or somebody to charge with the curse of it, he invariably fell to upon Mr. Landale's sleek head, why, he could hardly have explained. Three new days had thus passed in the regularity, if not the serenity of the old--they seemed old already, buried far back in the past, those days that had lapsed so evenly before the brightness of youthful and beautiful life had entered the keep for one brief moment, and departing, again left it a ruin indeed--when the retirement of Scarthey was once more invaded by an unexpected visitor. It was about sundown of the shortest day. Sir Adrian was at his organ, almost unconsciously interpreting his own sadness into music. In time the yearning of his soul had had expression, the echo of the last sighing chord died away in the tranquil air, yet the musician, with head bent upon his breast, remained lost in far-away thoughts. A slight shuffling noise disturbed him; turning round to greet René as he supposed, he was astonished to see a man's figure lolling in his own arm-chair. As he peered inquiringly into the twilight, the intruder rose to his feet, and cried with a voice loud and clear, pleasant withal to the ear: "Sir Adrian, I am sorry you have stopped so soon; I never heard anything more beautiful! The door was ajar, and I crept in like a cat, not to disturb you." Still in doubt, but with his fine air of courtesy, the light-keeper advanced towards the uninvited guest. "Am I mistaken," he said, with some hesitation, "surely this is Hubert Cochrane's voice?" "Jack Smith's voice, my dear fellow; Jack Smith, at your service, please to remember," answered the visitor, with a genial ring of laughter in his words. "Not that it matters much here, I suppose! Had I not heard the peal of your organ I should have thought Scarthey deserted indeed. I could find no groom of the chambers to announce me in due form." As he spoke, the two had drawn near each other and clasped hands heartily. "Now, to think of your knowing my voice in this manner! You have a devilish knack of spotting your man, Sir Adrian. It is almost four years since I was here last, is it not?" "Four years?--so it is; and four years that have done well by you, it would appear. What a picture of strength and lustiness! It really seems to regenerate one, and put heart of grace in one, only to take you by the hand.--Welcome, Captain Smith!" Nothing could have more succinctly described the outer man of him who chose to be known by that most nondescript of patronymics. Sir Adrian stood for a moment, contemplating, with glances of approval such as he seldom bestowed on his fellow-man, the symmetrical, slender, yet vigorous figure of his friend, and responding with an unwonted cheerfulness to the smile that lit up the steel-blue eyes, and parted the shapely, strong, and good-humoured mouth of the privateersman. "Dear me, and what a buck we have become!" continued the baronet, "what splendid plumage! It is good to see you so prosperous. And so this is the latest fashion? No doubt it sets forth the frame of a goodly man, though no one could guess at the 'sea dog' beneath such a set of garments. I used to consider my brother Rupert the most especial dandy I had ever seen; but that, evidently, was my limited experience: even Rupert cannot display so perfect a fit in bottle-green coats, so faultless a silken stock, buckskins of such matchless drab!" Captain Jack laughed, blushed slightly under the friendly banter, and allowed himself to be thrust back into the seat he had just vacated. "Welcome again, on my lonely estate. I hope this is not to be a mere flying visit? You know my misanthropy vanishes when I have your company. How did you come? Not by the causeway, I should say," smiling again, and glancing at the unblemished top-boots. "I have two men waiting for me in the gig below; my schooner, the _Peregrine_, lies in the offing." The elder man turned to the window, and through the grey curtain of crepuscule recognised the rakish topsail schooner that had excited Molly's admiration some days before. He gazed forth upon it a few meditative moments. "Not knowing whether I would find you ready to receive me," pursued the captain, "I arranged that the _Peregrine_ was to wait for me if I had to return to-night." "Which, of course, is not to be heard of," said Sir Adrian. "Here is Renny; he will carry word that with me you remain to-night.... Come, Renny, do you recognise an old acquaintance?" Already well disposed towards any one who could call this note of pleasure into the loved voice, the Breton, who had just entered, turned to give a broad stare at the handsome stranger, then burst into a guffaw of pure delight. "By my faith, it is Mr. the Lieutenant!" he ejaculated; adding, as ingeniously as Tanty herself might have done, that he would never have known him again. "It is Mr. the Captain now, Renny," said that person, and held out a strong hand to grip that of the little Frenchman, which the latter, after the preliminary rubbing upon his trousers that his code of manners enjoined, readily extended. "Ah, it is a good wind that sent you here this day," said he, with a sigh of satisfaction when this ceremony had been duly gone through. "You say well," acquiesced his master, "it has ever been a good wind that has brought Captain Jack across my path." And then receiving directions to refresh the gig's crew and dismiss them back to their ship with instructions to return for orders on the morrow, the servant hurried forth, leaving the two friends once more alone. "Thanks," said Captain Jack, when the door had closed upon the messenger. "That will exactly suit my purpose. I have a good many things to talk over with you, since you so kindly give me the opportunity. In the first place, let me unburden myself of a debt which is now of old standing--and let me say at the same time," added the young man, rising to deposit upon the table a letter-case which he had taken from his breast-pocket, "that though my actual debt is now met, my obligation to you remains the same and will always be so. You said just now that I looked prosperous, and so I am--owing somewhat to good luck, it is true, but owing above all to you. No luck would have availed me much without _that_ to start upon." And he pointed to the contents of the case, a thick bundle of notes which his host was now smilingly turning over with the tip of his fingers. "I might have sent you a draft, but there is no letter-post that I know of to Scarthey, and, besides, it struck me that just as these four thousand pounds had privately passed between you and me, you might prefer them to be returned in the same manner." "I prefer it, since it has brought you in person," said Sir Adrian, thrusting the parcel into a drawer and pulling his chair closer towards his guest. "Dealings with a man like you give one a taste of an ideal world. Would that more human transactions could be carried out in so simple and frank a manner as this little business of ours!" Captain Jack laughed outright. "Upon my word, you are a greater marvel to me every time I see you--which is not by any means often enough!" The other raised his eyebrows in interrogation, and the sailor went on: "Is it really possible that it is to _my_ mode of dealing that you attribute the delightful simplicity of a transaction involving a little fortune from hand to hand? And where pray, in this terraqueous sublunary sphere--I heard that good phrase from a literary exquisite at Bath, and it seems to me comprehensive--where, then, on this terraqueous sublunary globe of ours, Sir Adrian Landale, could one expect to find another person ready to lend a privateersman, trading under an irresponsible name, the sum of four thousand pounds, without any other security than his volunteered promise to return it--if possible?" Sir Adrian, ignoring the tribute to his own merits, arose and placed his friendly hand on the speaker's shoulder: "And now, my dear Jack," he said gravely, "that the war is over, you will have to turn your energies in another direction. I am glad you are out of that unworthy trade." Captain Jack bounded up: "No, no, Sir Adrian, I value your opinion too much to allow such a statement to pass unchallenged. Unworthy trade! We have not given back those French devils one half of the harm they have done to our own merchant service; it was war, you know, and you know also, or perhaps you don't--in which case let me tell you--that my _Cormorant_ has made her goodly name, ay, and brought her commander a fair share of his credit, by her energy in bringing to an incredible number of those d----d French sharks--beg pardon, but you know the pestilent breed. Well, we shall never agree upon the subject I fear. As for me, the smart of the salt air, the sting of the salt breeze, the fighting, the danger, they have got into my blood; and even now it sometimes comes over me that life will not be perfect life to me without the dancing boards under my feet and the free waves around me, and my jolly boys to lead to death or glory. Yet, could you but know it, this is the veriest treason, and I revoke the words a thousand times. You look amazed, and well you may: ah, I have much to tell you! But I take it you will not care to hear all I have been able to achieve on the basis of your munificent help at my--ahem, unworthy trade." "Well, no," said Sir Adrian smiling, "I can quite imagine it, and imagine it without enthusiasm, though, perhaps, as you say, such things have to be. But I should like to know of these present circumstances, these prospects which make you look so happy. No doubt the fruits of peace?" "Yes, I suppose in one way they may be called so. Yet without the war and your helping hand they would even now hang as far from me as the grapes from the fox.--When I arrived in England three months after the peace had been signed, I had accumulated in the books of certain banks a tolerably respectable account, to the credit of a certain person, whose name, oddly enough, you on one or two occasions have applied, absently, to Captain Jack Smith. I was, I will own, already feeling inclined to discuss with myself the propriety of assuming the name in question, when, there came something in my way of which I shall tell you presently; which something has made me resolve to remain Captain Smith for some time longer. The old _Cormorant_ lay at Bristol, and being too big for this new purpose, I sold her. It was like cutting off a limb. I loved every plank of her; knew every frisk of her! She served me well to the end, for she fetched her value--almost. Next, having time on my hands, I bethought myself of seeing again a little of the world; and when I tell you that I drove over to Bath, you may perhaps begin to see what I am coming to." Sir Adrian suddenly turned in his chair to face his friend again, with a look of singular attention. "Well, no, not exactly, and yet--unless--? Pshaw! impossible----!" upon which lucid commentary he stopped, gazing with anxious inquiry into Captain Jack's smiling eyes. "Ah, I believe you have just a glimmer of the truth with that confounded perspicacity of yours," saying which the sailor laughed and blushed not unbecomingly. "This is how it came about: I had transactions with old John Harewood, the banker, in Bristol, transactions advantageous to both sides, but perhaps most to him--sly old dog. At any rate, the old fellow took a monstrous fancy to me, over his claret, and when I mentioned Bath, recommended me to call upon his wife (a very fine dame, who prefers the fashion of the Spa to the business of Bristol, and consequently lives as much in the former place as good John Harewood will allow). Well, you wonder at my looking prosperous and happy. Listen, for here is the _hic_: At Lady Maria Harewood's I met one who, if I mistake not, is of your kin. Already, then, somewhere at the back of my memory dwelt the name of Savenaye----Halloa, bless me! I have surely said nothing to----!" The young man broke off, disconcerted. Sir Adrian's face had become unwontedly clouded, but he waved the speaker on impatiently: "No, no, I am surprised, of course, only surprised; never mind me, my thoughts wandered--please go on. So you have met her?" "Ay, that I have! Now it is no use beating about the bush. You who know her--you do know her of course--will jump at once to the only possible conclusion. Ah, Adrian!" Captain Jack pursued, pacing enthusiastically about, "I have been no saint, and no doubt I have fancied myself as a lover once or twice ere this; but to see that girl, sir, means a change in a man's life: to have met the light of those sweet eyes is to love, to love in reality. It is to feel ashamed of the idiotic make-believes of former loves. To love her, even in vague hope, is to be glorious already; and, by George, to have her troth, is to be--I cannot say what ... to be what I am now!" The lover's face was illumined; he walked the room like one treading on air as the joy within him found its voice in words. Sir Adrian listened with an extraordinary tightness at his heart. He had loved one woman even so; that love was still with him, as the scent clings to the phial; but the sight of this young, joyful love made him feel old in that hour--old as he had never realised before. There was no room in his being for such love again. And yet...? There was a tremulous anxiety in the question he put, after a short pause. "There are _two_ Demoiselles de Savenaye, Jack; which is it?" Captain Jack halted, turned on his heels, and exclaimed enthusiastically: "To me there is but one--one woman in the world--Madeleine!" His look met that of Sir Adrian in full, and even in the midst of his own self-centred mood he could not fail to notice the transient gleam that shot in the elder's eyes, and the sudden relaxation of his features. He pondered for a moment or two, scanning the while the countenance of the recluse; then a smile lighted up his own bronzed face in a very sweet and winning way. "As her kinsman, have I your approval?" he asked and proceeded earnestly: "To tell the truth at once, I was looking to even more than your approval--to your support." Sir Adrian's mood had undergone a change: as a breeze sweeping from a new quarter clears in a moment a darkening mist from the face of the earth, Captain Jack's answer had blown away for the nonce the atmosphere of misgiving that enveloped him. He answered promptly, and with warmth: "Being your friend, I am glad to know of this; being her kinsman, I may add, my dear _Hubert_"--there was just a tinge of hesitation, followed by a certain emphasis, on the change of name--"I promise to support you in your hopes, in so far as I have any influence; for power or right over my cousin I have none." The sailor threw himself down once more in his arm-chair; and, tapping his shining hessians with the stem of his long clay in smiling abstraction, began, with all a lover's egotism, to expatiate on the theme that filled his heart. "It is a singular, an admirable, a never sufficiently-to-be-praised conjunction of affairs which has ultimately brought me near you when I was pursuing the Light o' my Heart, ruthlessly snatched away by a cunning and implacable dragon, known to you as Miss O'Donoghue. I say _dragon_ in courtesy; I called her by better names before I realised what a service she was unconsciously rendering us by this sudden removal." "Known to me!" laughed Sir Adrian. "My own mother's sister!" "Then I still further retract. Moreover, seeing how things have turned out, I must now regard her as an angel in disguise. Don't look so surprised! Has she not brought my love under your protection? I thought I was tolerably proof against the little god, but then he had never shot his arrows at me from between the long lashes of Madeleine de Savenaye. Oh, those eyes, Adrian! So unlike those southern eyes I have known so well, too well in other days, brilliant, hard, challenging battle from the first glance, and yet from the first promising that surrender which is ever so speedy. Pah! no more of such memories. Before _her_ blue eyes, on my first introduction, I felt--well, I felt as the novice does under the first broadside." The speaker looked dreamily into space, as if the delicious moment rose again panoramically before him. "Well," he pursued, "that did me no harm, after all. Lady Maria Harewood, who, I have learned since, deals strongly in sentiment, and, being unfortunately debarred by circumstances from indulgence in the soothing luxury on her own behalf, loves to promote matches more poetical--she calls it more 'harmonious'--than her own very prosaic one, she, dear lady, was delighted with such a rarity as a bashful privateersman--her 'tame corsair,' as I heard her call your humble servant.--I was a hero, sir, a perfect hero of romance in the course of a few days! On the strength of this renown thrust upon me I found grace before the most adorable blue eyes; had words of sympathy from the sweetest lips, and smiles from the most bewitching little mouth in all the world. So you see I owe poor Lady Maria a good thought.... You laugh?" Sir Adrian was smiling, but all in benevolence, at the artlessness of this eager youth, who in all the unconscious glory of his looks and strength, ascribed the credit of his entrance into a maiden's heart to the virtue of a few irresponsible words of recommendation. "Ah! those were days! Everything went on smoothly, and I was debating with myself whether I would not, at once, boldly ask her to be the wife of Hubert Cochrane; though the casting of Jack Smith's skin would have necessitated the giving up of several of his free-trading engagements." "Free trading! You do not mean to say, man alive, that you have turned smuggler now!" interrupted Sir Adrian aghast. "Smuggler," cried Jack with his frank laugh, "peace, I beg, friend! Miscall not a gentleman thus. Smuggler--pirate? I cut a pretty figure evidently in your worship's eyes. Lucky for me you never would be sworn as a magistrate, or where should I be ... and you too, between duty and friendship?--But to proceed: I was about, as I have said, to give that up for the reasons I mentioned, when, upon a certain fine evening, I crossed the path of one of the most masterful old maids I have ever seen, or even heard of; and, would you believe it?"--this with a quizzical look at his host's grave face--"this misguided old lady took such a violent dislike to me at first sight, and expressed it so thoroughly well, that, hang me if I was not completely brought to. And all for escorting my dear one from Lady Maria's house to her own! Well, the walk was worth it--though the old crocodile was on the watch for us, ready to snap; had got wind of the secret, somehow, a secret unspoken even between us two. This first and last interview took place on the flags, in front of No. 17 Camden Place, Bath. Oh! It was a very one-sided affair from the beginning, and ended abruptly in a door being banged in my face. Then I heard about Miss O'Donoghue's peculiarities in the direction of exclusiveness. And then, also, oddly enough, for the first time, of the great fortune going with my Madeleine's hand. Of course I saw it all, and, I may say, forgave the old lady. In short, I realised that, in Miss O'Donoghue's mind, I am nothing but an unprincipled fortune-seeker and adventurer. Now you, Adrian, can vouch that, whatever my faults, I am none such." Sir Adrian threw a quiet glance at his friend, whose eyes sparkled as they met it. "God knows," continued the latter, "that all I care for, concerning the money, is that _she_ may have it. This last venture, the biggest and most difficult of all, I then decided to undertake, that I might be the fitter mate for the heiress--bless her! Oh, Adrian, man, could you have seen her sweet tearful face that night, you would understand that I could not rest upon such a parting. In the dawn of the next morning I was in the street--not so much upon the chance of meeting, though I knew that such sweetness would have now to be all stolen--but to watch her door, her window; a lover's trick, rewarded by lover's luck! Leaning on the railings, through the cold mist (cold it was, though I never felt it, but I mind me now how the icicles broke under my hand), what should I see, before even the church-bells had set to chiming, or the yawning sluts to pull the kitchen curtains, but a bloated monster of a coach, dragging and sliding up the street to halt at her very door. Then out came the beldam herself, and two muffled-up slender things--my Madeleine one of course; but I had a regular turn at sight of them, for I swear I could not tell which was which! Off rattled the chariot at a smart pace; and there I stood, friend, feeling as if my heart was tied behind with the trunks." The sailor laughed, ran his fingers through his curls and stamped in lively recollection. "Nothing to be drawn from their landlady. But I am not the man to allow a prize to be snatched from under my very nose. So, anathematising Miss O'Donoghue's family-tree, root, stem, and branch--except that most lovely off-shoot I mean to transplant (you will forgive this heat of blood; it was clearing for action so to speak)--I ran out and overtook the ostler whom I had seen putting the finishing touch to the lashing of boxes behind! _'Gloucester!'_ says he. The word was worth the guinea it cost me, a hundred times over.--In less than an hour I was in the saddle, ready for pursuit, cantering boot to boot with my man--a trusty fellow who knows how to hold his tongue, and can sit a horse in the bargain. Neither at Gloucester, nor the next day, up to Worcester, could we succeed in doing more than keep our fugitives in view. When they had alighted at one inn, as ascertained by my squire, we patronised the opposition hostelry, and the ensuing morning cantered steadily in pursuit, on _our_ new post-horses half an hour after they had rumbled away with _their_ relays. But the evening of our arrival at Worcester, my fellow found out, at last, what the next stage was to be, and--clever chap, he lost nothing for his sharpness--that the Three Kings' Heads had been recommended to the old lady as the best house in Shrewsbury. This time we took the lead, and on to Shrewsbury, and were at the glorious old Kings' Heads (I in a private room, tight as wax) a good couple of hours before the chariot made its appearance. And there, man, there! my pretty one and I met again!" "That was, no doubt," put in Sir Adrian, in his gentle, indulgent way, "what made the Kings' Heads so glorious?" "Ay. Right! And yet it was but a few seconds, on the stair, under a smoky lamp, but her beauty filled the landing with radiance as her kindness did my soul.--It was but for a moment, all blessed moment, too brief, alas! Ah, Adrian, friend--old hermit in your cell--_you_ have never known life, you who have never tasted a moment such as that! Then we started apart: there was a noise below, and she had only time to whisper that she was on her way to Pulwick to some relatives--had only heard it that very day--when steps came up the stairs, creaking. With a last promise, a last word of love, I leaped back into my own chamber, there to see (through the chink between door and post) the untimely old mischief-maker herself pass slowly, sour and solemn, towards her apartments, leaning upon her other niece's arm. How could I have thought _that_ baggage like my princess? Handsome, if you will; but, with her saucy eye, her raven head, her brown cheek, no more to be compared to my stately lily than brass to gold!" The host listening wonderingly, his eyes fixed with kindly gravity upon the speaker as he rattled on, here gave a slight start, all unnoticed of his friend. "The next morning, when I had seen the coach and its precious freight move on once more northward, I began the retreat south, hugging myself upon luck and success. I had business in Salcombe--perhaps you may have heard of the Salcombe schooners--in connection with the fitting out of that sailing wonder, the _Peregrine_. And so," concluded Captain Jack, laughing again in exuberance of joy, "you may possibly guess one of the reasons that has brought her and me round by your island." There ensued a long silence, filled with thoughts, equally pressing though of widely different complexion, on either side of the hearth. * * * * * During the meal, which was presently set forth and proclaimed ready by René, the talk, as was natural in that watchful attendant's presence, ran only on general topics, and was in consequence fitful and unspontaneous. But when the two men, for all their difference of age, temper, and pursuits so strongly, yet so oddly united in sympathy, were once more alone, they naturally fell back under the influence of the more engrossing strain of reflection. Again there was silence, while each mused, gazing into space and vaguely listening to the plash of high water under the window. "It must have been a strong motive," said Sir Adrian, after his dreamy fashion, like one thinking aloud, "to induce a man like you to abandon his honourable name." Captain Jack flushed at these words, drew his elbows from the table, and shot a keen, inquiring glance at his friend, which, however, fell promptly before the latter's unconscious gaze and was succeeded by one of reflective melancholy. Then, with a slight sigh, he raised his glass to the lamp, and while peering abstractedly through the ruby, "The story of turning my back upon my house," he said musingly, "shaking its very dust off my feet, so to speak, and starting life afresh unbeholden to my father (even for what he could not take away from me--my own name),--is a simple affair, although pitiful enough perhaps. But memories of family wrongs and family quarrels are of their nature painful; and, as I am a mirth-loving fellow, I hate to bring them upon me. But perhaps it has occurred to you that I may have brought some disgrace upon the name I have forsaken." "I never allowed myself to think so," said Sir Adrian, surprised. "Your very presence by my fireside is proof of it." Again the captain scrutinised his host; then with a little laugh: "Pardon me," he cried, "with another man one might accept that likely proof and be flattered. But with you? why, I believe I know you too well not to feel sure that you would have received me as kindly and unreservedly, no matter what my past if only you thought that I had repented; that you would forgive even a _crime_ regretted; and having forgiven, forget.... But, to resume, you will believe me when I say that there was nothing of the sort. No," he went on, with a musing air, "but I could tell you of a boy, disliked at home for his stubborn spirit, and one day thrashed, thrashed mercilessly--at a time when he had thought he had reached to the pride of man's estate, thrashed by his own father, and for no just cause.... Oh, Adrian, it is a terrible thing to have put such resentment into a lad's heart." He rose as he spoke, and placed himself before the hearth. "If ever I have sons," he added after a pause, and at the words his whole handsome face relaxed, and became suffused with a tender glow, "I would rather cut my right hand off than raise such a spirit in them. Well, I daresay you can guess the rest; I will even tell you in a few words, and then dismiss the subject.--I have always had a certain shrewdness at the bottom of my recklessness. Now there was a cousin of the family, who had taken to commerce in Liverpool, and who was therefore despised, ignored and insulted by us gentry of the Shaws. So when I packed my bundle, and walked out of the park gate, I thought of him; and two days later I presented myself at his mansion in Rodney Street, Liverpool. I told him my name, whereat he scowled; but he was promptly brought round upon hearing of my firm determination to renounce it and all relations with my father's house for ever, and of my reasons for this resolve, which he found excellent. I could not have lighted upon a better man. He hated my family as heartily as even I could wish, and readily, out of spite to them, undertook to aid me. He was a most enterprising scoundrel, had a share in half a dozen floating ventures. I expressed a desire for life on the ocean wave, and he started me merrily as his nephew, Jack Smith, to learn the business on a slaver of his. The 'ebony trade,' you know, was all the go then, Adrian. Many great gentlemen in Lancashire had shares in it. Now it is considered low. To say true, a year of it was more than enough for me--too much! It sickened me. My uncle laughed when I demurred at a second journey, but to humour me, as I had learned something of the sailing trade, he found me another berth, on board a privateer, the _St. Nicholas_. My fortune was made from the moment I set foot on that lucky ship, as you know." "And you have never seen your father since?" "Neither father, nor brothers, nor any of my kin, save the cousin in question. All I know is that my father is dead--that he disinherited me expressly in the event of my being still in the flesh; my eldest brother reigns; many of us are scattered, God knows where. And my mother"--the sailor's voice changed slightly--"my mother lives in her own house, with some of the younger ones. So much I have ascertained quite recently. She believes me dead, of course. Oh, it will be a good day, Adrian, when I can come back to her, independent, prosperous, bringing my beautiful bride with me!... But until I can resume my name in all freedom, this cannot be." "But why, my dear fellow, these further risks and adventures? Surely, even at your showing you have enough of this world's goods; why not come forward, now, at once, openly? I will introduce you, as soon as may be, in your real character, for the sake of your mother--of Madeleine herself." The sailor shook his head, tempted yet determined. "I am not free to do so. I have given my word; my honour is engaged," he said. Then abruptly asked: "Have you ever heard of guinea smuggling?" "Guinea smuggling! No," said Sir Adrian, his amazement giving way to anxiety. "No? You surprise me. You who are, or were, I understand, a student of philosophical matters, freedom of exchange, and international intercourse and the rest of it--things we never shall have so long as governments want money, I am thinking.--However, this guinea smuggling is a comparatively new business. Now, _I_ don't know anything about the theory; but I know this much of the practice that, while our preventive service won't let guineas pass the Channel (as goods) this year, somebody on the other side is devilish anxious to have them at almost any cost. And the cost, you know, is heavy, for the risk of confiscation is great. Well, your banker or your rich man will not trust his bullion to your common free trader--he is not quite such a fool." "No," put in Sir Adrian, as the other paused on this mocking proposition. "In the old days, when I was busy in promoting the Savenaye expedition, I came across many of that gentry, and I cannot mind a case where they could have been trusted with such a freight. But perhaps," he added with a small smile, "the standard may be higher now." Captain Jack grinned appreciatively. "That is where the 'likes of me' comes in. I will confess this not to be my first attempt. It is known that I am one of the few whose word is warranty. What is more, as I have said, it is known that I have the luck. Thus, even if I could bring my own name into such a trade, I would not; it would be the height of folly to change now." For all his disapproval Sir Adrian could not repress a look of amusement. "I verily believe, Jack," he said, shaking his head, "that you are as superstitious yourself as the best of them!" "I ought to make a good thing out of it," said Jack, evasively. "And even with all that is lovely to keep me on shore, I would hardly give it up, if I could. As things stand I could not if I would. Do not condemn me, Adrian,--that would be fatal to my hopes--nay, I actually want your help." "I would you were out of it," reiterated Sir Adrian; "it takes so little to turn the current of a man's life when he seems to be making straight for happiness. As to the morals of it, I fail, I must admit, to perceive any wrong in smuggling, at least in the abstract, except that a certain kind of moral teaches that all is wrong that is against the law. And yet so many of our laws are so ferocious and inept, and as such the very cause of so much going wrong that might otherwise go well; so many of those who administer them are themselves so ferocious and inept, that the mere fact of a pursuit being unlawful is no real condemnation in my eyes. But, as you know, Jack, those who place themselves above some laws almost invariably renounce all. If you are hanged for stealing a horse, or breaking some fiscal law and hanged for killing a man, the tendency, under stress of circumstances is obvious. Aye, have we not a proverb about it: as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb?... There are gruesome stories about your free traders--and gruesome endings to them. I well remember, in my young days, the clanking gibbet on the sands near Preston and the three tarred and iron-riveted carcases hanging, each in its chains, with the perpetual guard of carrion crows.... Hanging in chains is still on the statute book, I believe. But I'll stop my croaking now. You are not one to be drawn into brutal ways; nor one, I fear, to be frightened into prudence. Nevertheless," laughing quietly, "I am curious to know in what way you expect help from me, in practice. Do you, seriously, want me to embark actually on a smuggling expedition?--I demur, my dear fellow." Obviously relieved of some anxiety, the other burst out laughing. "Never fear! I know your dislike to bilge water too well. I appreciate too well also your comfortable surroundings," he returned, seating himself once more complacently in his arm-chair, "much as I should love your company on board my pleasure ship--for, if you please, the _Peregrine_ is no smuggling lugger, but professes to be a yacht. Still, you can be of help for all that, and without lifting even a finger to promote this illicit trade. You may ignore it completely, and yet you will render me incalculable service, provided you do not debar me from paying you a few more visits in your solitude, and give me the range of your caves and cellars." "You are welcome enough," said the recluse. "I trust it may end as well as it promises." And, after a pause, "Madeleine does not know the nature of your present pursuit?" "Oddly enough, and happily (for our moments of interview are short, as you may imagine) she is not curious on the subject. I don't know what notions the old Lady Maria may have put into her head about me. I think she believes that I am engaged on some secret political intrigue and approves of such. At least I gathered as much from her sympathetic reticence; and, between ourselves, I am beginning to believe it myself." "How is that?" asked the listener, moved to fresh astonishment by this new departure. "Well, I may tell you, who not only can be as silent as the tomb, but really have a right to know, since you are tacitly of the conspiracy. This time the transaction is to be with some official of the French Court. They want the metal, and yet wish to have it secretly. What their motive may be is food for reflection if you like, but it is no business of mine. And, besides the fact that one journey will suffice for a sum which at the previous rate would have required half a score, all the trouble and uncertainty of landing are disposed of; at any rate, I am, when all is ready, to be met by a government vessel, get my _quid pro quo_ as will be settled, and there the matter is to end." "A curious expedition," mused Sir Adrian. "Yes," said the sailor, "my last will be the best. By the way, will you embark a few bags with me? I will take no commission." Sir Adrian could not help laughing. "No, thank you; I have no wish to launch any more of my patrimony on ventures--since it would be of no service to you. I had almost as lief you had made use of my old crow's nest without letting me into the ins and outs of your projects. But, be it as it may, it is yours, night and day. Your visits I shall take as being for me." "What a man you are, upon my soul, Sir Adrian!" cried Captain Jack, enthusiastically. * * * * * Later on, when the "shaking down" hour, in Captain Jack's phraseology, had sounded, and the two friends separated to rest, the young man refused the offer, dictated by hospitality, of his host's own bedroom. Sir Adrian did not press the point, and, leaving his guest at liberty to enjoy the couch arranged by René in a corner under the bookshelves, even as when Mademoiselle de Savenaye had been the guest of the peel, himself retired to that now hallowed apartment. "Odd fellow, that," soliloquised Captain Jack, as, slowly divesting himself, he paced about the long room and, in the midst of roseate reflections, examined his curious abode. "Withal, as good as ever stepped. It was a fine day's work our old _St. Nicholas_ did, about this time eight years ago. Rather unlike a crowded battery deck, this," looking from the solemn books to the glinting organ pipes, and conscious of the great silence. "As for me, I should go crazy by myself here. But it suits him. Queer fish!" again ruminated the young sailor. "He hates no one and yet dislikes almost everybody, except that funny little Frenchy and me. Whereas _I_ like every man I meet--unless I detest him!... My beautiful plumage!" this whilst carefully folding the superfine coat and thereon the endless silken stock. "Now there's a fellow who does not care a hang for any woman under the sun, and yet enters into another chap's love affairs as if he understood it all. I believe it will make him happy to win my cause with Madeleine. I wish one could do something for _his_ happiness. It is absurd, you know," as though apostrophising an objector, "a man can't be happy without a woman. And yet again, my good Jack, you never thought that before you met Madeleine. He has not met his Madeleine, that's what it means. Where ignorance is bliss.... Friend Adrian! Let us console ourselves and call you ignorantly happy, in your old crow's nest. You have not stocked it so badly either.--For all your ignorance in love, you have a pretty taste in liquor." So thinking, he poured himself a last glass of his host's wine, which he held for a moment in smiling cogitation, looking, with the mind's eye, through the thick walls of the keep, across the cold mist-covered sands of Scarthey and again through the warm and scented air of a certain room (imagination pictured) where Madeleine must at that hour lie in her slumber. After a moment of silent adoration he sent a rapturous kiss landwards and tossed his glass with a last toast: "Madeleine, my sweet! To your softly closed lids." And again Captain Jack fell to telling over the precious tale of that morning's interview, furtively secured, by that lover's luck he so dutifully blessed, under the cluster of Scotch firs near the grey and crumbling boundary walls of Pulwick Park. CHAPTER XVIII "LOVE GILDS THE SCENE AND WOMAN GUIDES THE PLOT" Tanty's wrath upon discovering Sir Adrian's departure was all the greater because she could extort no real explanation from Rupert, and because her attacks rebounded, as it were, from the polished surface he exposed to them on every side. Madeleine's indifference, and Molly's apparently reckless spirits, further discomposed her during supper; and upon the latter young lady's disappearance after the meal, it was as much as she could do to finish her nightly game of patience before mounting to seek her with the purpose of relieving her overcharged feelings, and procuring what enlightenment she might. The unwonted spectacle of the saucy damsel in tears made Miss O'Donoghue halt upon the threshold, the hot wind of anger upon which she seemed to be propelled into the room falling into sudden nothingness. There could be no mistake about it. Molly was weeping; so energetically indeed, with such a passion of tears and sobs, that the noise of Tanty's tumultuous entrance fell unheeded upon her ears. All her sympathies stirred within her, the old lady advanced to the girl with the intention of gathering her to her bosom. But as she drew near, the black and white of the open diary attracted her eye under the circle of lamplight, and being possessed of excellent long sight, she thought it no shame to utilise the same across her grand-niece's prostrate, heaving form, before making known her presence. _"And so I sit and cry."_ Miss Molly was carrying out her programme with much precision, if indeed her attitude, prone along the table, could be described as sitting. Miss O'Donoghue's eyes and mouth grew round, as with the expression of an outraged cockatoo she read and re-read the tell-tale phrases. Here was a complication she had not calculated upon. "Dear, dear," she cried, clacking her tongue in disconsolate fashion, so soon as she could get her breath. "What is the meaning of this, my poor girl?" Molly leaped to her feet, and turning a blazing, disfigured countenance upon her relative, exclaimed with more energy than politeness: "Good gracious, aunt, what _do_ you want?" Then catching sight of the open diary, she looked suspiciously from it to her visitor, and closed it with a hasty hand. But Miss O'Donoghue's next words settled the doubt. "Well, to be sure, what a state you have put yourself into," she pursued in genuine distress. "What has happened then between you and that fellow, whom I declare I begin to believe as crazy as Rupert says, that you should be crying your eyes out over his going back to his island?--you that I thought could not shed a tear if you tried. Nothing left but to sit and cry, indeed." "So you have been reading my diary, you mean thing," cried Miss Molly, stamping her foot. "How dare you come creeping in here, spying at my private concerns! Oh! oh! oh!" with unpremeditated artfulness, relapsing into a paroxysm of sobs just in time to avert the volley of rebuke with which the hot-tempered old lady was about to greet this disrespectful outburst. "I am the most miserable girl in all the world. I wish I were dead, I do." Again Tanty opened her arms, and this time she did draw the stormy creature to a bosom, as warm and motherly as if all the joys of womanhood had not been withheld from it. "Tell me all about it, my poor child." There was a distinct feeling of comfort in the grasp of the old arms, comfort in the very ring of the deep voice. Molly was not a secretive person by nature, and moreover she retained quite enough shrewdness, even in her unwonted break-down, to conjecture that with Tanty lay her sole hope of help. So rolling her dark head distractedly on the old maid's shoulder, the young maid narrated her tale of woe. Pressed by a pointed question here and there, Tanty soon collected a series of impressions of Molly's visit to Scarthey, that set her busy mind working upon a startlingly new line. It was her nature to jump at conclusions, and it was not strange that the girl's passionate display of grief should seem to be the unmistakable outcome of tenderer feelings than the wounded pride and disappointment which were in reality its sole motors. "I am convinced it is Rupert that is at the bottom of it," cried Molly at last, springing into uprightness again, and clenching her hands. "His one idea is to drive his brother permanently from his own home--and he _hates me_." Tanty sat rigid with thought. So Molly was in love with Sir Adrian Landale, and he--who knows--was in love with her too; or if not with her, with her likeness to her mother, and that was much the same thing when all was said and done. Could anything be more suitable, more fortunate? Could ever two birds be killed with one stone with more complete felicity than in this settling of the two people she most loved upon earth? Poor pretty Molly! The old lady's heart grew very tender over the girl who now stood half sullenly, half bashfully averting her swollen face; five days ago she had not known her handsome cousin, and now she was breaking her heart for him. It might be, indeed, as she said, that they had to thank Rupert for this--and off flew Tanty's mind upon another tangent. Rupert was very deep, there could be no doubt of that; he was anxious enough to keep Adrian away from them all; what would it be then when it came to a question of his marriage? Tanty, with the delightful optimism that seventy years' experience had failed to damp, here became confident of the approach of her younger nephew's complete discomfiture, and in the cheering contemplation of that event chuckled so unctuously that Molly looked at her amazed. "It is well for you, my dear," said the old lady, rising and wagging her head with an air of enigmatic resolution, "that you have got an aunt." * * * * * Some two days later, René, sitting upon a ledge of the old Scarthey wall, in the spare sunshine which this still, winter's noon shone pearl-like through a universal mist, busy mending a net, to the tune of a melancholy, inward whistle, heard up above the licking of the waves all around him and the whimper of the seagulls overhead, the beat of steady oars approaching from land side. Starting to his feet, the little man, in vague expectation, ran to a point of vantage from which to scan the tideway; after a few seconds' investigation he turned tail, dashed into the ruins, up the steps, and burst open the door of the sitting-room, calling upon his master with a scared expression of astonishment. Captain Jack, poring over a map, his pipe sticking rakishly out of one side of his mouth, looked up amused at the Frenchman's evident excitement, while Adrian, who had been busy with the uppermost row of books upon his west wall, looked down from his ladder perch, with the pessimist's constitutional expectation of evil growing upon his face. "One comes in a boat," ejaculated René, "and I thought I ought to warn his honour, if his honour will give himself the trouble to look out." "It must be the devil to frighten Renny in this fashion," muttered Captain Jack as distinctly as the clench of his teeth upon the pipe would allow him. Sir Adrian paled a little, he began to descend his ladder, mechanically flicking the dust from his cuffs. "Your honour," said René, drawing to the window and looking out cautiously, "I have not yet seen her, but I believe it is old miss--the aunt of your honour and these ladies." Captain Jack's pipe fell from his dropping jaw and was broken into many fragments as he leaped to his feet with an elasticity of limb and a richness of expletive which of themselves would have betrayed his calling. Flinging his arm across one of Adrian's shoulders he peeped across the other out of the window, with an alarm half mocking, half genuine. "The devil it is, friend Renny," he cried, drawing back and running his hands with an exaggerated gesture of despair through his brown curls; "Adrian, all is lost unless you hide me." "My aunt here, and alone," exclaimed Adrian, retreating from the window perturbed enough himself, "I must go down to meet her. Pray God it is no ill news! Hurry, Renny, clear these glasses away." "In the name of all that's sacred, clear me away first!" interposed Captain Jack, this time with a real urgency; through the open lattice came the sound of the grating of the boat's keel upon the sand and a vigorous hail from a masculine throat--"Ahoy, Renny Potter, ahoy!" "Adrian, this is a matter of life and death to my hopes, hide me in your lowest dungeon for goodness' sake; I do not know my way about your ruins, and I am convinced the old lady will nose me out like a badger." There was no time for explanation; Sir Adrian made a sign to René, who highly enjoying the situation and grinning from ear to ear, was already volunteering to "well hide Mr. the Captain," and the pair disappeared with much celerity into the inner room, while Adrian, unable to afford himself further preparation, hurried down the great stairs to meet this unexpected guest. He emerged bareheaded into the curious mist which hung pall-like upon the outer world, and seemed to combine the opposite elements of glare and dulness, just as Tanty, aided by the stalwart arm of the boatman, who had rowed her across, succeeded in dragging her rheumatic limbs up the last bit of ascent to the door of the keep. She halted, disengaged herself, and puffing and blowing surveyed her nephew with a stony gaze. "My dear aunt," cried Adrian, "nothing has happened, I trust?" "Sufficient has already happened, nephew, I should _hope_," retorted the old lady with extreme dignity, "sufficient to make me desire to confer with you most seriously. I thank you, young man," turning to William Shearman who stood on one side, his eager gaze upon "the master," ready to pull his forelock so soon as he could catch his eye, "be here again in an hour, if you please." "But you will allow me to escort you myself," exclaimed Adrian, rising to the situation, "and I hope there need be no hurry so long as daylight lasts--Good-morning, Will, I am glad the new craft is a success--you need not wait. Tanty, take my arm, I beg, the steps are steep and rough." Gripping her nephew's arm with her bony old woman's hand, Miss O'Donoghue began a laborious ascent, pausing every five steps to breathe stertorously and reproachfully, and look round upon the sandstone walls with supreme disdain; but this was nothing to the air with which, when at last installed upon a high hard chair, in the sitting-room (having sternly refused the easy one Sir Adrian humbly proffered), she deliberately proceeded to survey the scene. In truth, the neatness that usually characterised Adrian's surroundings was conspicuously absent from them, just then. Two or three maps lay overlapping each other upon the table beside the tray with its flagon of amber ale, which had formed the captain's morning draught; and the soiled glass, the fragments of his pipe, and its half-burnt contents lay strewn about the prostrate chair which that lively individual had upset in his agitation. Adrian's ladder, the books he had been handling and had not replaced, the white ash of the dying fire, all contributed to the unwonted aspect of somewhat melancholy disorder; worse than all, the fumes of the strong tobacco which the sailor liked to smoke in his secluded moments hung rank, despite the open window, upon the absolute motionlessness of the atmosphere. Tanty snorted and sniffed, while Adrian, after picking up the chair, began to almost unconsciously refold the maps, his eyes fixed wonderingly upon his visitor's face. This latter delivered herself at length of some of the indignation that was choking her, in abrupt disjointed sentences, as if she were uncorking so many bottles. "Well I'm sure, nephew, I am not surprised at your _extraordinary_ behaviour, and if this is the style you prefer to live in--style, did I say?--sty would be more appropriate. Of course it is only what I have been led to expect, but I must say I was ill prepared to be treated by you with actual disrespect. My sister's child and I your guest, not to speak of your aunt, and you your mother's son, and her host besides! It is a slap in the face, Adrian, a slap in the face which has been a very bitter pill to have to swallow, I assure you--I may say without exaggeration, in fact, that it has cut me to the quick." "But surely," cried the nephew, laughing with gentle indulgence at this complicated indictment, "surely you cannot suppose I would have been willingly guilty of the smallest disrespect to you. I am a most unfortunate man, most unfortunately situated, and if I have offended, it is, you must believe, unwittingly and unavoidably. But you got my letter--I made my motives clear to you." "Oh yes, I got your letter yesterday," responded Tanty, not at all softened, "and a more idiotic production from a man of your attainments, allow me to remark, I never read. Adrian, you are making a perfect fool of yourself, and _you cannot afford it_!" "I fear you will never really understand my position," murmured Adrian hopelessly. Tanty rattled her large green umbrella upon the floor with a violence that made her nephew start, then turned upon him a countenance inflamed with righteous anger. "It is only three days ago since I gave you fully my view of the situation," she remarked, "you were good enough at the time to admit that it was a remarkably well-balanced one. I should be glad if you will explain in what manner your position could have changed in the space of just three hours after, to lead you to rush back to your island, really as if you were a mole or a wild Indian, or some other strange animal that could not bear civilised society, without even so much as a good-bye to me, or to your cousins either? What is that?--you say you wrote--oh, ay--you wrote--to Molly as well as to me; rigmaroles, my dear nephew, mere absurd statements that have not a grain of truth in them, that do not hold water for an instant. You are not made for the world forsooth, nor the world for you! and if that is not flying in the face of your Creator, and wanting to know better than Providence!--And then you say, 'you cast a gloom by your mere presence.' Fiddle-de-dee! It was not much in the way of gloom that Molly brought back with her from her three days' visit to you--or if that is gloom--well, the more your presence casts of it the better--that is all I can say. Ah, but you should have seen her, poor child, after you went away in that heartless manner and you had removed yourself and your shadow, and your precious gloom--if you could have seen how unhappy she has been!" "Good God!" exclaimed the man with a paling face, "what are you saying?" "Only the truth, sir--Molly is breaking her heart because of your base desertion of her." "Good God," muttered Adrian again, rose up stiffly in a sort of horrified astonishment and then sat down again and passed his hand over his forehead like a man striving to awaken from a painful dream. "Oh, Adrian, don't be more of a fool than you can possibly help!" cried his relative, exasperated beyond all expression by his inarticulate distress. "You are so busy contemplating all sorts of absurdities miles away that I verily believe you cannot see an inch beyond your nose. My gracious! what is there to be so astonished at? How did you behave to the poor innocent from the very instant she crossed your threshold? Fact is, you have been a regular gay Lothario. Did you not"--cried Tanty, starting again upon her fine vein of metaphor--"did you not deliberately hold the cup of love to those young lips only to nip it in the bud? The girl is not a stock or a stone. You are a handsome man, Adrian, and the long and the short of it is, those who play with fire must reap as they have sown." Tanty, who had been holding forth with the rapidity of a loose windmill in a hurricane, here found herself forced to pause and take breath; which she did, fanning herself with much energy, a triumphant consciousness of the unimpeachability of her logic written upon her heated countenance. But Adrian still stared at her with the same incredulous dismay; looking indeed as little like a gay Lothario as it was possible, even for him. "Do you mean," he said at last, in slow broken sentences, as his mind wrestled with the strange tidings; "am I to understand that Molly, that bright beautiful creature, has been made unhappy through me? Oh, my dear Tanty," striving with a laugh, "the idea is too absurd, I am old enough to be her father, you know--what evidence can you have for a statement so distressing, so extraordinary." "I am not quite in my dotage yet," quoth Tanty, drily; "neither am I in the habit of making unfounded assertions, nephew. I have heard what the girl has said with her own lips, I have read what she has written in her diary; she has sobbed and cried over your cruelty in these very arms--I don't know what further evidence----" But Sir Adrian had started up again--"Molly crying, Molly crying for me--God help us all--Cécile's child, whom I would give my life to keep from trouble! Tanty, if this is true--it must be true since you say so, I hardly know myself what I am saying--then I am to blame, deeply to blame--and yet--I have not said one word to the child--did nothing...." here he paused and a deep flush overspread his face to the roots of his hair; "except indeed in the first moment of her arrival--when she came in upon me as I was lost in memories of the past--like the spirit of Cécile." "Humph," said Tanty, pointedly, "but then you see what you took for Cécile's spirit happened to be Molly in the flesh." She fixed her sharp eyes upon her nephew, who, struck into confusion by her words, seemed for the moment unable to answer. Then, as if satisfied with the impression produced, she folded her hands over the umbrella handle and observed in more placid tones than she had yet used: "And now we must see what is to be done." Adrian began to pace the room in greater perturbation. "What is to be done?" he repeated, "alas! what can be done? Tanty, you will believe me when I tell you that I should have cut off my right hand rather than brought this thing upon the child--but she is very young--the impression, thank heaven, cannot in the nature of things endure. She will meet some one worthy of her--with you, Tanty, kindest of hearts, I can safely trust her future. But that she should suffer now, and through me, that bright creature who flitted in upon my dark life, like some heaven-sent messenger--these are evil tidings. Tanty, you must take her away, you must distract her mind, you must tell her what a poor broken-down being I am, how little worthy of her sweet thoughts, and she will learn, soon learn, to forget me, to laugh at herself." Although addressing the old lady, he spoke like a man reasoning with himself, and the words dropped from his lips as if drawn from a very well of bitterness. Tanty listened to him in silence, but the tension of her whole frame betrayed that she was only gathering her forces for another explosion. When Adrian's voice ceased there was a moment's silence and then the storm burst; whisking herself out of her chair, the umbrella came into play once more. But though it was only to thump the table, it was evident Miss O'Donoghue would more willingly have laid it about the delinquent's shoulders. "Adrian, are you a man at all?" she ejaculated fiercely. Then with sudden deadly composure: "So _this_ is the reparation you propose to make for the mischief you have wrought?" "In God's name!" cried he, goaded at length into some sort of despairing anger himself, "what would you have me do?" The answer came with the promptitude of a return shot: "Do? why marry her, of course!" "_Marry her!_" There was a breathless pause. Tanty, leaning forward across the table, crimson, agitated, yet triumphant; Adrian's white face blasted with astonishment. "Marry her," he echoed at length once more, in a whisper this time. Then with a groan: "This is madness!" Miss O'Donoghue caught him up briskly. "Madness? My good fellow, not a bit of it; on the contrary, sanity, happiness, prosperity.--Adrian, don't stand staring at me like a stuck pig! Why, in the name of conscience, should not you marry? You are a young man still--pooh, pooh, what is forty!--you are a very fine-looking man, clever, romantic--hear me out, sir, please--_and you have made the child love you_. There you are again, as if you had a pain in your stomach; you would try the patience of Job! Why, I don't believe there is another man on earth that would not be wild with joy at the mere thought of having gained such a prize. A beautiful creature, with a heart of gold and a purse of gold to boot." "Oh, heavens, aunt!" interrupted the man, passionately, "leave that question out of the reckoning. The one thing, the only thing, to consider is _her_ happiness. You cannot make me believe it can be for her happiness that she should marry such as me." "And why shouldn't it be for her happiness?" answered the dauntless old lady. "Was not she happy enough with you here in this God-forsaken hole, with nothing but the tempest besides for company? Why should not she be happy, then, when you come back to your own good place? Would not you be _kind_ to her?--would not you cherish her if she were your wife?" "Would I not be kind to her?--would I not cherish her?--would I not----? My God!" "Why, Adrian," cried Tanty, charmed at this unexpected disclosure of feeling and the accent with which it was delivered, "I declare you are as much in love with the girl as she is with you. Why, now you shall just come back with me to Pulwick this moment, and she shall tell you herself if she can find happiness with you or not. Oh--I will hear no more--your own heart, your feelings as a gentleman, as a man of honour, all point, my dear nephew, in the same direction. And if you neglect this warning voice you will be blind indeed to the call of duty. Come now, come back to your home, where the sweetest wife ever a man had awaits you. And when I shall see the children spring up around you, Adrian, then God will have granted my last wish, and I shall die in peace.... There, there, I am an old fool, but when the heart is over full, then the tears fall. Come, Adrian, come, I'll say no more; but the sight of the poor child who loves you shall plead for her happiness and yours. And hark, a word in your ear: let Rupert bark and snarl as he will! And what sort of a devil is it your generosity has made of _him_? You have done a bad day's work there all these years, but, please God, there are better times dawning for us all.--What are you doing, Adrian? Oh! writing a few orders to your servant to explain your departure with me--quite right, quite right, I won't speak a word then to interrupt you. Dear me! I really feel quite in spirits. Once dear Molly and you settled, there will be a happy home for Madeleine: with you, we can look out a suitable husband for her. Well, well, I must not go too fast yet, I suppose: but I have not told you in what deep anxiety I have been on _her_ account by reason of a most deplorable affair--a foolish girl's fancy only, of course, with a most undesirable and objectionable creature called _Smith_.... Oh! you are ready, are you?--My dear Adrian, give me your arm then, and let us proceed." * * * * * Silence had reigned for but a few seconds in the great room of the keep when Captain Jack re-entered, bearing on his face an expression at once boyishly jubilant and mockingly astonished. He planted himself in front of the landward window, and gazed forth a while. "There goes my old Adrian, as dutifully escorting that walking sack of bones, that tar-barrel ornament--never mind, old lady, from this moment I shall love you for your brave deeds of this morning--escorting his worthy aunt as dutifully as though he were a penniless nephew.... Gently over the gunnel, madam! That's done! So you are going to take my gig? Right, Adrian. Dear me, how she holds forth! I fancy I hear her from here.--Give way, my lads! That's all right. Gad! Old Adrian's carried off on a regular journey to Cythera, under a proper escort!" With this odd reminiscence of early mythological reading, the sailor burst into a loud laugh and walked about slapping his leg. "Would ever any one have guessed anything approaching this? Star-gazing, book-grubbing Sir Adrian ... in love! Adrian the solitary, the pessimist, the I-don't-know-what superior man, in love! Neither more nor less! In love, like an every-day inhabitant of these realms, and with that black-eyed sister of mine that is to be! My word, it's too perfect! Adrian my brother-in-law--for if I gauge that fine creature properly--splendid old lady--she won't let him slide back this time. No, my dear Adrian, you are hooked for matrimony and a return to the living world. That black-eyed jade too, that Molly sister of my Madeleine, will wake up and lead you a life, by George!... Row on, my lads," once more looking at the diminishing black spot upon the grey waters. "Row on--you have never done a better day's work!" René, entering a few moments later, with an open note in his hand, found his master's friend still chuckling, and looked at him inquisitively. "His honour has returned to Pulwick," said he, in puzzled tones, handing the missive. "Ay, lad," answered the sailor, cheerily. "The fact is, my good Renny, that in that room of Sir Adrian's where you ensconced me for safety from that most wonderful specimen of her sex (I refer to your master's worthy aunt), it was impossible to avoid overhearing many of her remarks--magnificent voice for a storm at sea, eh? Never mind what it was all about, my good man; what I heard was good news. Ah!" directing his attention to the note; "his honour does not say when he will return, but will send back the gig immediately; and you, M. Potter, are to look after me for as long as I choose to stop here." René required no reflection to realise that anything in the shape of good news which took his master back to his estate must be good news indeed; and his broad face promptly mirrored, in the broadest of grins, the captain's own satisfaction. "For sure, we will try to take care of M. the captain, as well as if his honour himself was present. He told me you were to be master here." "Make it so. I should like some dinner as soon as possible, and one of my bro----of Sir Adrian's best bottles. It's a poor heart that never rejoices. Meanwhile, I want to inspect your ruins and your caves in detail, if you will pilot me, Renny. This is a handy sort of an old Robinson Crusoe place for hiding and storing, is it not?" CHAPTER XIX A JUNIOR'S OPINION A rarely failing characteristic of very warm-hearted and strongly impulsive people is their inability of graduating their likes and dislikes; a state of mind which cannot fail to lead to frequent alterations of temper. On more than one occasion, since the domineering old lady had started upon her peregrinations, had her favour for the two brothers undergone reversal; but the ground Rupert gained by Adrian's offences was never of safe tenure. At the present hour, under the elation of her victorious sally upon the hermit's pessimistic entrenchments--the only thing in him of which she disapproved--he at once resumed the warm place she liked to keep for him in her heart. And as a consequence "Master Rupert," as she contemptuously called the "locum tenens Squire," who, in the genealogical order of things, should have been a person of small importance, fell promptly into his original state of disgrace. During the drive from the village (where she had ordered the carriage to await her return) to the gates of Pulwick, Miss O'Donoghue entertained her companion with an indignant account of his brother's ingratitude, of his hypocritical insinuating method of disparagement of Sir Adrian himself, winding up each indictment with a shrewd, "but he could not impose upon _me_," which, indeed, she firmly believed. Her object was, of course, to strengthen the baronet in his resolve to return to the headship of his family--little guessing what a strong incentive to seclusion these very tales of a state of things he suspected but too well would have proved, had it not been for the new unforeseen motive that the morning's revelation had brought. "Does Molly know of your visit to me?" he asked, as the carriage halted before the gate, and the enormous, red-headed Cumbrian gatekeeper with his rosy Moggie, proudly swung it open to stand on either side, the one bowing with jubilant greeting and the other curtseying with bashful smiles at the real master. "Does she expect my visit?" relapsing into gravity after returning the salutation in kindliness. "I have told no one of my purpose this day. Rupert walked off to the stables immediately after breakfast--going a-hunting he said he was, and offered to bear the girls to the meet. And then, feeling lonely without his company," added Tanty, with a wink, "I ordered the carriage and thought I would go and have a peep at the place where poor Molly was drowned, just for a little diversion. Whether the little rogue expects you or not, after your note of the other day, I am sure I could not take upon myself to say. She sits watching that crazy old tower of yours by day and your light by night. Well, well, I must not tell tales out of school, you may find out for yourself. But mind you, Adrian," she impressed on him, sagely, "it is not I who bring you back: you return of your own accord. The child would murder me, if she knew--with that proud heart of hers." "My dear Tanty, trust me. This incomprehensible discovery of yours, which I cannot yet believe in, really is, so far as my discretion is concerned, as if I had never heard of it. Heavens! I have been a blundering fool, but I could not insult her with a hint of it for the world. I have come to see Rupert to-day, as usual, of course--and, as you say ... I shall see for myself. You have opened my eyes." Miss O'Donoghue looked at her nephew with admiration. "_Voyez un peu_," she said, "_comme l'amour vous dégourdit_ even a doleful Sir Adrian! Faith, here we are. This has been a pleasant ride, but my old bones are so tired, and you and yours have set them jogging so much of late, that I think I'll never want to stir a foot again once I get back to Bunratty ... except indeed to come and be godmother to the heir." Having lent a dutiful arm up the stairs to his now beaming relative, Sir Adrian came down pensively and entered the library. There, booted and spurred, but quietly installed at a writing table, sat Mr. Landale, who rose in his nonchalant manner and with cold looks met his brother. There was no greeting between them, but simply thus: "I understood from Aunt Rose you were out hunting." "Such was my intention, but when I found out that she had gone to see you--don't look so astonished, Adrian--a man must know what is going on in his household--I suspected you would escort her back; so I desisted and waited for you. It is an unexpected pleasure to see you, for I thought we had sufficiently discussed all business, recently. But doubtless you will profit of the opportunity to go into a few matters which want your attention. Do you mean to remain?" Speaking these words in a detached manner, Mr. Landale kept a keenly observant look upon his brother's countenance. In a most unwonted way the tone and the look irritated Sir Adrian. "I came back, Rupert, because there were some things I wished to see for myself here," he answered frigidly. And going to the bell, rang it vigorously. On the servant's appearance, without reference to his brother, he himself, and very shortly, gave orders: "I shall dine here to-day. Have the tapestry-room made ready for me." Then turning to Rupert, whose face betrayed some of the astonishment aroused by this most unusual assumption of authority, and resuming as it were the thread of his speech, he went on: "No, Rupert, I have no desire to talk business with you. It is a pity you should have given up your day. Is it yet too late?" "Upon my word, Adrian," said Mr. Landale, clenching his hand nervously round his fine cambric handkerchief, "there must be something of importance in the wind to have altered your bearing towards me to this extent. I have no wish to interfere. I came back and gave up good company for the reason I have stated. I will now only point out that, with your sudden whims, you render my position excessively false in a house where, at your own wish, I am ostensibly established as master." And without waiting for another word, the younger brother, having shot the arrow which hitherto never failed to reach the bull's-eye of the situation, left the room with much dignity. Once more alone, Sir Adrian, standing motionless in the great room, darkened yet more in the winter light by the heavy festoons of curtains that hung over the numerous empty bookshelves, the souls of which had migrated to the peel to keep the master company, cogitated upon this first unpleasant step in his new departure, and wondered within himself why he had felt so extraordinarily moved by anger to-day at the cold inquisitiveness of his brother. No doubt the sense of being watched thus, held away at arm's-length as it were, was cause sufficient. And yet that was not it; ingratitude alone, even to enmity, in return for benefits forgot could not rouse this bitterness. But had it not been for Tanty's interference he would be now exiled from his home until the departure of Cécile's child, just as, but for chance, he would have been kept in actual ignorance of her arrival. It was his brother's doing that he had blindly withdrawn himself when his presence would have caused happiness to her. Yes, that was it. Rupert had a scheme. That was what dwelt in his eyes,--a scheme which would bring, indeed did bring, unhappiness to that dear guest.... No wonder, now, that the unconscious realisation of it awoke all the man's blood in him. "No, Rupert," Sir Adrian found himself saying aloud, "I let you reign at Pulwick so long as you crossed not one jot of such pleasure and happiness that might belong to Cécile's child. But here our wills clash; and now, since there cannot be two masters in a house as you say, _I_ am the master here." * * * * * As Sir Adrian's mind was seething in this unusual mood, Miss O'Donoghue, entering her nieces' room, found Molly perched, in riding dress, on the window-sill, looking forth upon the outer world with dissatisfied countenance. Mr. Landale had sent word at the last moment that, to his intense regret, he could not escort the ladies to the meet, some important business having retained him at Pulwick. So much did Miss Molly pettishly explain in answer to the affectionate inquiry concerning the cloud on her brow, slashing her whip the while and pouting, and generally out of harmony with the special radiance of the old lady's eye and the more than usual expansiveness of the embrace which was bestowed upon her. "Tut, tut, tut, now," observed the artful person in tones of deep commiseration. "Ah well, Rupert's a poor creature which ever side he turns up. Will you go now, my child, and fetch me the letters I left on the drawing-room table? Isn't it like me to spend half the morning writing them and leave them down there after all!" Molly rose unwillingly, threw her whip on the bed, her hat on the floor; and mistily concerned over Tanty's air of irrepressible and pleasurable excitement, walked out of the room, bestowing as she passed her long pier glass a moody glance at her own glowering beauty. "What's the use of _you_?" she muttered to herself, "Anybody can fetch and carry for old aunts and look out of windows on leafless trees!" The way to the drawing-room was through the library. As Molly, immersed in her reflections, passed along this room, she stopped with a violent start on perceiving the figure of Sir Adrian, a tall silhouette against the cold light of the window. As she came upon him, her face was fully illumined, and there was a glorious tale-telling in the widening of her eyes and the warm flush that mounted to her cheek that on the instant scattered in the man's mind all wondering doubts. A rush of tenderness filled him at one sweep, head and heart, to the core. "Molly!" he cried, panting; and then with halting voice as she advanced a pace and stood with mouth parted and brilliant expectant eyes: "You took away all light and warmth with you when you left my lonely dwelling. I tried to take up my life there, but----" "But you have come back--for me?" And drawn by his extended hands she advanced, her burning gaze fixed upon his. "I dared not think of seeing you again," he murmured, clasping her hands; "yet my return ... pleases you?" "Yes." Thus was crowned this strange wooing, was clenched a life's union, based upon either side on fascinating unrealities. She was drawn into his arms; and against his heart she lay, shaking with little shivers of delight, looking into the noble face bent so lovingly over hers, her mind floating between unconscious exultation and languorous joy. For a long while without a word he held her thus on his strong arm, gazing with a rending conflict of rapture and anguish on the beautiful image of his life's love, until his eyes were dimmed with rising tears. Then he slowly stooped over the up-turned face, and as she dropped her lids with a faint smile, kissed her lips. There came a warning rattle at the door handle, and Molly, disengaging herself softly from her betrothed's embrace, but still retaining his arm, turned to witness the entrance of Miss O'Donoghue and Mr. Landale. On the former's face, under a feigned expression of surprise, now expanded itself in effulgence the plenitude of that satisfaction which had been dawning there ever since her return from the island. Rupert held himself well in hand. He halted, it is true, for an instant at the first sight of Sir Adrian and Molly, and put his handkerchief furtively to his forehead to wipe the sudden cold sweat which broke out upon it. But the hesitation was so momentary as to pass unperceived; and if his countenance, as he advanced again, bore an expression of disapproval, it was at once dignified and restrained. "So you are there, Molly," exclaimed the old lady with inimitable airiness. "Just imagine, my dear, I had those letters in my pocket all the while, after all. You did not find them, did you?" But Adrian, still retaining the little hand on his arm, came forward slowly and broke through the incipient flow. "Aunt Rose," said he in a voice still veiled by emotion, "I know your kind heart will rejoice with me, although you may not be so surprised, as no doubt Rupert will be, at the news we have for you, Molly and I." "You are right, Adrian," interrupted Rupert gravely, "to any who know your life and _your past_ as I do, the news you seem to have for us must seem strange indeed. So strange that you will excuse me if I withhold congratulations. For, if I mistake not," he added, with a delicately shaded change of tone to sympathetic courtesy, and slightly turning his handsome face towards Molly, "I assume that my fair cousin de Savenaye has even but now promised to be my sister, Lady Landale." Sir Adrian who, softened by the emotion of this wonderful hour, had made a movement to grasp his brother's hand, but had checked himself with a passionate movement of anger, instantly restrained, as the overt impertinence of the first words fell on his ears, here looked with a shadowing anxiety at the girl's face. But Molly, who could never withhold the lash of her tongue when Rupert gave the slightest opening, immediately acknowledged her enemy's courtly bow with sauciness. "What! No congratulations from the model brother? Not even a word of thanks to Molly de Savenaye for bringing the truant to his home at last? But you malign yourself, my dear Rupert. I believe 'tis but excess of joy that ties your tongue." With gleaming smile Mr. Landale would have opposed this direct thrust by some parry of polished insult; but he met his elder's commanding glance, remembered his parting words on two previous occasions, and wisely abstained, contenting himself with another slight bow and a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders. At the same time Miss O'Donoghue, with an odd mixture of farcically pretended astonishment and genuine triumph, fell on the girl's neck. "It is possible, soul of my heart, my sweet child--I can't believe it--though I vow I knew it all along! So I am to see my two favourites made one by holy matrimony!" punctuating her exclamation with kisses on the fair young face, and wildly seeking in space with her dried-up old fingers to meet Adrian's hand. "I, the one barren stock of the O'Donoghues, shall see my sister's children re-united. Ah, Adrian, what a beautiful coat this will make for you to hand to your children! O'Donoghue, Landale, Kermelégan, Savenaye--eighteen quarters with this heiress alone, Adrian child, for the descendants of Landale of Pulwick!" And Miss O'Donoghue, overcome by this culminating vision of happiness and perfection, fairly burst into tears. In the midst of this scene, Mr. Landale, after listening mockingly for a few instants, retired with ostentatious discretion. Later in the day, as Madeleine bent her pretty ears, dutifully yet with wandering attention, to Molly's gay prognostications concerning Pulwick under her sway; whilst the servants in the hall, pantry and kitchen discussed the great news which, by some incomprehensible agency, spread with torrent-like swiftness through the whole estate; while Miss O'Donoghue was feverishly busy with the correspondence which was to disseminate far and wide the world's knowledge of the happy betrothal, Sir Adrian met his brother walking meditatively along the winding path of the garden, flicking with the loop of his crop the border of evergreens as he went. From their room, Molly and Madeleine, ensconced in the deep window-seat, could see the meeting. "How I should like to hear," said Molly. "I know this supple wretch will be full of Adrian's folly in marrying me--first, because, from the Rupertian point of view, it is a disastrous thing that his elder should marry at all; and secondly, because Molly, mistress at Pulwick Priory, means a very queer position indeed for Mr. Rupert Landale. How I wish my spirit could fly into Adrian's head just for a moment! Adrian is too indulgent. It requires a Molly to deal with such impertinence." "Indeed you are unjust with our cousin," said Madeleine, gently. "Why this hatred? I cannot understand." "No, of course not, Madeleine. Rupert is charming--with you. I am not blind. But take care he does not find out _your_ secret, miss. Oh, I don't ask you any more about it. But if he ever does--_gare, ma chère_." But at the present juncture, Molly's estimate of Sir Adrian's mood was mistaken. His love of peace, which amounted to a well-known weakness where he alone was concerned, weighed not a feather in the balance when such an interest as that now engaged was at stake. As a matter of fact, Rupert Landale was to be taken by surprise again, that day, and again not pleasantly. On noticing his brother's approach, he stopped his angry flickings, and slowly moved to meet him. At first they walked side by side in silence. Presently Sir Adrian began: "Rupert," he said gravely, "after our first interview to-day, it was my intention to have begged your pardon for a certain roughness in my manner which I should have controlled and which you resented. I would have done so, had you allowed me, at that moment when I announced my forthcoming marriage and my heart was full of good-will to all, especially to you. Now, on the contrary, to re-establish at least that outward harmony without which life in common would be impossible, I expect from you some expression of regret for your behaviour." The first part of his brother's say was so well in accordance with his more habitual mood, that Mr. Landale had already sketched his equally habitual deprecating smile; but the conclusion changed the entire standpoint of their relations. "An expression of regret--from _me_?" cried he, exaggerating his astonishment almost to mockery. "From any one but my brother," said Adrian, with a slight but perceptible hardening in his tone, "I should say an apology for an impertinence." Mr. Landale, now genuinely taken aback, turned a little pale and halted abruptly. "Adrian, Adrian!" he retorted, quickly. "This is one of your mad moments. I do not understand." "No, brother, I am not mad, and never have been, dearly as you would wish me to be so in reality--since Death would have none of me. But though you know this yourself but too well, you have never understood me really. Now listen--once for all. Try and see our positions as they are: perhaps then matters will go more pleasantly in the future for you as well as for me." Mr. Landale looked keenly at the speaker's face for a second, and then without a word resumed his walk, while Sir Adrian by his side pursued with quiet emphasis: "When I returned, from the other world so to speak, at least from your point of view (one which I fully understood), I found that this very return was nothing short of a calamity for all that remained of my kin. I had it in my power to reduce that misfortune to a great extent. You loved the position--that worldly estimation, that fortune, all those circumstances which, with perfect moral right, you had hitherto enjoyed. They presented little attraction to me. Moreover, there were many reasons, which I am quite aware you know, that made this very house of mine a dismal dwelling for me. You see I have no wish to give too generous a colour to my motives, too self-denying a character to the benefits I conferred upon you. But, as far as you are concerned, they were benefits. For them I received no gratitude; but as I did not expect gratitude it matters little. I might, however, have expected at least that you should be neutral, not directly hostile to me----Pray let me finish" (in anticipation of a rising interruption from his companion), "I shall soon have done, and you will see that I am not merely recriminating. Hostile you have been, and are now. So long as the position you assumed towards me only bore on our own relations, I acquiesced: you had so much more to lose than I could gain by resenting your hidden antagonism. I held you, so to speak, in the hollow of my hand; I could afford to pass over it all. Moreover, I had chosen my own path, which was nothing if not peaceful. I say, you always were hostile to me; you have been so, more than ever since the arrival of Cécile de Savenaye's children. You were, however, grievously mistaken if you thought--I verily believe you did--that I did not realise the true motives that prompted you to keep me away from them.--I loved them as their mother's children; I love Molly with a sort of love I myself do not understand, but deep enough for all its strangeness. Yet I submitted to your reasoning, to your plausible representations of the disastrous effects of my presence. I went back to my solitude because it never entered my mind that it could be in my power to help their happiness; you indeed had actually persuaded me of the contrary, as you know, and I myself thought it better to break the unfortunate spell that was cast on me. Unfortunate I thought it, but it has proved far otherwise." They had reached the end of the alley, and as they turned back, facing each other for a moment, Sir Adrian noticed the evil smile playing upon his brothers lips. "It has proved otherwise," he repeated. "How I came to change my views, I daresay you have guessed, for you have, of late, kept a good watch on your mad brother, Rupert. At any rate you know what has come to pass. Now I desire you to understand this clearly--interference with me as matters stand means interference with Molly: and as such I must, and shall, resent it." "Well, Adrian, and what have I done _now_?" was Mr. Landale's quiet reply. He turned a gravely attentive, innocently injured countenance to the paling light. "When I said you did not understand me," returned Sir Adrian with undiminished firmness; "when I said you owed me some expression of regret, it was to warn you never again to assume the tone of insinuation and sarcasm to me, which you permitted yourself to-day in the presence of Molly. You could not restrain this long habit of censuring, of unwarrantable and impertinent criticism, of your elder, and when you referred to my past, Molly could not but be offended by the mockery of your tones. Moreover, you took upon yourself, if I have heard aright, to disapprove openly of our marriage. Upon what ground that would bear announcing I know not, but let this be enough: try and realise that our respective positions are totally changed by this unforeseen event, and that, as Molly is now to be mistress at Pulwick, I must of course revoke my tacit abdication. Nevertheless, if you think you can put up with the new state of things, there need be little alteration in your present mode of life, my dear Rupert; if you will only make a generous effort to alter your line of conduct." And here, Sir Adrian, succumbing for a moment to the fault, so common to kindly minds, of discounting the virtue of occasional firmness by a sudden return to geniality, offered his hand in token of peace. Mr. Landale took it; his grasp, however, was limp and cold. "I am quite ready to express regret," he said in a toneless voice, "since that would seem to be gratification to you, and moreover seems to be the tacit condition on which you will refrain from turning me out. I ought indeed to have abstained from referring, however vaguely, to past events, for the plain reason that anything I could say would already have come too late to prevent the grievous deed you have now pledged yourself to commit." "Rupert--!" exclaimed Sir Adrian stepping back a pace, too amazed, at the instant, for indignation. "Now, in your turn, hear me, Adrian," continued Mr. Landale with his blackest look. "I have listened to your summing up of our respective cases with perfect patience, notwithstanding a certain assumption of superiority which--allow me to insist on this--is somewhat ridiculous from you to me. You complain of my misunderstanding you. Briefly, this is absurd. As a matter of fact I understand you better than you do yourself. On the other hand it is you that do not understand me. I have no wish to paraphrase your little homily of two minutes ago, but the heads of my refutation are inevitably suggested by the points of your indictment. To use your own manner of speech, my dear Adrian, I have no wish to assume injured disinterestedness, when speaking of my doings with regard to you and your belongings and especially to this old place of yours, of our family. You have only to look and see for yourself...." Mr. Landale made a wide comprehensive gesture which seemed to embrace the whole of the noble estate, the admirably kept mansion with walls now flushed in the light of the sinking sun, the orderly maintenance of the vast grounds, the prosperousness of its dependencies--all in fact that the brothers could see with the eyes of the body from where they stood, and all that they could see with the eyes of the mind alone: "Go and verify whether I fulfilled my duty with respect to the trust which was yours, but which you have allowed to devolve upon my shoulders, and ask yourself whether you would have fulfilled it better--if as well. I claim no more than this recognition; for, as you pointed out, the position carried its advantages, if it entailed arduous responsibility too. It was my hope that heirs of my body would live to perpetuate this pride--this work of mine. It was not to be. Now that you step in again and that possibly your flesh will reap the benefits I have laboured to produce, ask yourself, Adrian, whether you, who shirked your own natural duties, would have buckled to the task, under _my_ circumstances--distrusted by your brother, disliked and secretly despised by all your dependants, who reserved all their love and admiration for the 'real master' (oh, I know the cant phrase), although he chose to abandon his position and yield himself to the stream of his own inertness, the real master who in the end can find no better description for these years of faithful service than 'hostility' and 'ingratitude.'" Sir Adrian halted a pace, a little moved by the speciousness of the pleading. The incidental reference to that one grief of his brother's life was of a kind which could never fail to arouse generous sympathy in his heart. But Mr. Landale had not come to the critical point of his say, and he did not choose to allow the chapter of emotion to begin just yet. "But," he continued, pursuing his restless walk, "again to use your own phraseology, I am not merely recriminating. I, too, wish you to understand me. It would be useless to discuss now, what you elect to call my hostility in past days. I had to keep up the position demanded by our ancient name; to keep it up amid a society, against whose every tenet almost--every prejudice, you may call them--you chose to run counter. My antagonism to your mode of acting and thinking was precisely measured by your own against the world in which the Landales, as a family, hold a stake. Let that, therefore, be dismissed; and let us come at once to the special hostility you complain of in me, since the troublesome arrival of Aunt Rose and her wards. As the very thing which I was most anxious to prevent, if possible, has, after all, come to pass, the present argument may seem useless; but you have courted it yourself." "Most anxious to prevent--if possible...!" repeated Sir Adrian, slowly. "This, from a younger brother, is almost cynical, Rupert!" "Cynical!" retorted Mr. Landale, with a furious laugh. "Why, you have given sound to the very word I would, in anybody else's case, have applied to a behaviour such as yours. Is it possible, Adrian," said Rupert, turning to look his brother in the eyes with a look of profound malice, "that it has not occurred to you yet, that _cynical_ will be the verdict the world will pass on the question of your marriage with that young girl?" Sir Adrian flushed darkly, and remained silent for a pace or two; then, with a puzzled look: "I fail to understand you," he said simply. "I am no longer young, of course; yet, in years, I am not preposterously old. As for the other points--name and fortune----" But Rupert interrupted him with a sharp exclamation, which betrayed the utmost nervous exasperation. "Pshaw! If I did not know you so well, I would say you were playing at candour. This--this unconventionality of yours would have led you into curious pitfalls, Adrian, had you been obliged to live in the world. My 'hostility' has saved you from some already, I know--more is the pity it could not save you from this--for it passes all bounds that you should meditate such an unnatural act, upon my soul, in the most natural manner in the world. One must be an Adrian Landale, and live on a tower for the best part of one's life, to reach such a pitch of--unconventionality, let us call it." "For God's sake," exclaimed Sir Adrian, suddenly losing patience, "what are you driving at, man? In what way can my marriage with a young lady, who, inconceivable as it may be, has found something to love in me; in what way, I say, can it be accounted cynical? I am not subtle enough to perceive it." "To any one but you," sneered the other, coming to his climax with a sort of cruel deliberation, "it would hardly require special subtleness to perceive that for the man of mature age to marry the _daughter_, after having, in the days of his youth, been the lover of the _mother_, is a proceeding, the very idea of which is somewhat revolting in the average individual.... There are many roués in St. James' who would shrink before it; yet you, the enlightened philosopher, the moralist----" But Sir Adrian, breathing quickly, laid his hand heavily on his brother's shoulder. "When you say the mother's lover, Rupert," he said, in a contained voice, which was as ominous of storm as the first mutters of thunder, "you mean that I loved her--you do not mean to insinuate that that noble woman, widowed but a few weeks, whose whole soul was filled with but one lofty idea, that of duty, was the mistress--the mistress of a boy, barely out of his teens?" Rupert shrugged his shoulders. "I insinuate nothing, my dear Adrian; I think nothing. All this is ancient history which after all has long concerned only you. You know best what occurred in the old days, and of course a man of honour is bound to deny all tales affecting a lady's virtue! Even you, I fancy, would condescend so far. But nevertheless, reflect how this marriage will rake up the old story. It will be remembered how you, for the sake of remaining by Cécile de Savenaye's side, abandoned your home to fight in a cause that did not concern you; nay, more, turned your back for the time upon those advanced social theories which even at your present season of life you have not all shaken off. You travelled with her from one end of England to the other, in the closest intimacy, and finally departed over seas, her acknowledged escort. She on her side, under pretext of securing the best help on her political mission that England can afford her, selected a young man notoriously in love with her, at the very age when the passions are hottest, and wisdom the least consideration--as her influential agent, of course. Men are men, Adrian--especially young men--small blame to you, young that you were, if then ... but you cannot expect, in sober earnest, the world to believe that you went on such a wild pilgrimage for nothing! Women are women--especially young women, of the French court--who have never had the reputation of admiring bashfulness in stalwart young lovers...." Sir Adrian's hand, pressing upon his brother's shoulder, as if weighted by all his anger, here forced the speaker into silence. "Shame! Shame, Rupert!" he cried first, his eyes aflame with a generous passion; then fiercely: "Silence, fellow, or I will take you by that brazen throat of yours and strangle the venomous lie once for all." And then, with keen reproach, "That you, of my blood, of hers too, should be the one to cast such a stigma on her memory--that you should be unable even to understand the nature of our intercourse.... Oh, shame, on you for your baseness, for your vulgar, low suspiciousness!... But, no, I waste my breath upon you, you do not believe this thing. You have outwitted yourself this time. Hear me now: If anything could have suggested to me this alliance with the child of one I loved so madly and so hopelessly, the thought that such dastardly slander could ever have been current would have done so. The world, having nothing to gain by the belief, will never credit that Sir Adrian Landale would marry the daughter of his paramour--however his own brother may deem to his advantage to seem to think so! The fact of Molly de Savenaye becoming Lady Landale would alone, had such ill rumours indeed been current in the past, dispel the ungenerous legend for ever." There were a few moments of silence while Sir Adrian battled, in the tumult of his indignation, for self-control again; while Rupert, realising that he had outwitted himself indeed, bestowed inward curses upon most of his relations and his own fate. The elder brother resumed at length, with a faint smile: "And so, you see, even if you had spoken out in time, it would have been of little avail." Then he added, bitterly. "I have received a wound from an unforeseen quarter. You have dealt it, to no purpose, Rupert, as you see ... though it may be some compensation to such a nature as yours to know that you have left in it a subtle venom." The sun had already sunk away, and its glow behind the waters had faded to the merest tinge. In the cold shadow of rising night the two men advanced silently homewards. Sir Adrian's soul, guided by the invidious words, had flown back to that dead year, the central point of his existence--It was true: men will be men--in that very house, yonder, he had betrayed his love to her; on board the ship that took them away and by the camp fire on the eve of fight, he had pleaded the cause of his passion, not ignobly indeed, with no thought of the baseness which Rupert assigned to him, yet with a selfish disregard of her position, of his own grave trust. And it was with a glow of pride, in the ever living object of his life's devotion--of gratitude almost--that he recalled the noble simplicity with which the woman, whom he had just heard classed among the every-day sinners of society, had, without one grandiloquent word, without even losing her womanly softness, kept her lover as well as herself in the path of her lofty ideal--till the end. And yet she did love him: at the last awful moment, sinking into the very jaws of death, the secret of her heart had escaped her. And now--now her beauty, and something of her own life and soul was left to him in her child, as the one fit object on which to devote that tenderness which time could not change. * * * * * After a while, from the darkness by his side came the voice of his brother again, in altered, hardly recognisable accents. "Adrian, those last words of yours were severe--unjust. I do not deserve such interpretation of my motives. Is it my fault that you are not as other men? Am I to be blamed for judging you by the ordinary standard? But you have convinced me: you were as chivalrous as Cécile was pure, and if needs be, believe me, Adrian, I will maintain it so in the face of the world. Yes, I misunderstood you--and wounded you, as you say, but such was not my intention. Forgive me." They had come to the door. Sir Adrian paused. There was a rapid revulsion in his kindly mind at the extraordinary sound of humble words from his brother; and with a new emotion, he replied, taking the hand that with well-acted diffidence seemed to seek his grasp: "Perhaps we have both something to forgive each other. I fear you did not misjudge me so much as you misjudged her who left me that precious legacy. But believe that, believe it as you have just now said, Rupert, the mother of those children never stooped to human frailty--her course in her short and noble life was as bright and pure as the light of day." Without another word the two brothers shook hands and re-entered their home. Sir Adrian sought Miss O'Donoghue whom he now found in converse with Molly, and with a grave eagerness, that put the culminating touch to the old lady's triumph, urged the early celebration of his nuptials. Mr. Landale repaired to his own study where in solitude he could give loose rein to his fury of disappointment, and consider as carefully as he might in the circumstances how best to work the new situation to his own advantage. * * * * * Even on that day that had been filled with so many varied and poignant emotions for him; through the dream in which his whole being seemed to float, Sir Adrian found a moment to think of the humble followers whom he had left so abruptly on the island, and of the pleasure the auspicious news would bring to them. It was late at night, and just before parting with the guest who was so soon to be mistress under his roof, he paused on the stairs before a window that commanded a view of the bay. Molly drew closer and leant against his shoulder; and thus both gazed forth silently for some time at the clear distant light, the luminous eye calmly watching over the treacherous sands. That light of Scarthey--it was the image of the solitary placid life to which he had bidden adieu for ever; which even now, at this brief interval of half a day, seemed as far distant as the years of despair and vicissitude and disgust to which it had succeeded. A man can feel the suddenly revealed charm of things that have ceased to be, without regretting them. With the dear young head that he loved, with a love already as old as her very years, pressing his cheek; with that slender hand in his grasp, the same, for his love was all miracle, that he had held in the hot-pulsed days of old--he yet felt his mind wander back to his nest of dreams. He thought with gratitude of René, the single-minded, faithful familiar; of old Margery, the nurse who had tended Cécile's children, as well as her young master; thought of their joy when they should hear of the marvellous knitting together into the web of his fate, of all those far-off ties. In full harmony with such fleeting thoughts, came Molly's words at length breaking the silence. "Will you take me back to that strange old place of yours, Adrian, when we are married?" Sir Adrian kissed her forehead. "And would you not fear the rough wild place, child," he murmured. "Not for ever, I mean," laughed the girl, "for then my mission would not be fulfilled--which was to make of Adrian, Sir Adrian, indeed. But now and again, to recall those lovely days, when--when you were so distracted for the love of Murthering Moll and the fear lest she should see it. You will not dismantle those queer rooms that received so hospitably the limping, draggled-tailed guest--they must again shelter her when she comes as proud Lady Landale! How delicious it would be if the tempest would only rage again, and the sea-mew shriek, and the caverns roar and thunder, and I knew you were as happy as I am sure to be!" "All shall be kept up even as you left it," answered Sir Adrian moved by tender emotion; "to be made glorious again by the light of your youth and fairness. And Renny shall be cook again, and maid of all work. My poor Renny, what joy when he hears of his master's happiness, and all through the child of his beloved mistress! But he will have to spend a sobering time of solitude out there, till I can find a substitute for his duties." "You are very much attached to that funny little retainer, Adrian!" said Molly after a pause. "To no man alive do I owe so much. With no one have I had, through life, so much in common," came the grave reply. "Then," returned the girl, "you would thank me for telling you of the means of making the good man's exile less heavy, until you take him back with you." "No doubt." There was a tone of surprise and inquiry in his voice. "Why, it is simple enough. Have you never heard of his admiration for Moggie Mearson, our maid? Let them marry. They will make a good pair, though funny. What, you never knew it? Of course not, or you would not have had the heart to keep the patient lovers apart so long. Let them marry, my Lord of Pulwick: it will complete the romance of the persecuted Savenayes of Brittany and their helpful friends of the distant North." Musing, Sir Adrian fell into silence. The faithful, foolish heart that never even told its secret desire, for very fear of being helped to win it; by whom happiness and love were held to be too dearly bought at the price of separation from the lonely exile! "_Eh bien_, dreamer?" cried the girl gaily. "Thank you, Molly," said Sir Adrian, turning to her with shining eyes. "This is a pretty thought, a good thought. Renny will indeed doubly bless the day when Providence sent you to Pulwick." And so, the following morn, Mr. Renny Potter was summoned to hear the tidings, and informed of the benevolent prospects more privately concerning his own life; was bidden to thank the future Lady Landale for her service; was gently rebuked for his long reticence, and finally dismissed in company of the glowing Moggie with a promise that his nuptials should be celebrated at the same time as those of the lord of the land. The good fellow, however, required first of all an assurance that these very fine plans would not entail any interference with his duties to his master before he would allow himself to be pleased at his fortunes. Great and complex, then, was his joy; but it would have been hard to say, as Moggie confessed to her inquiring mistress that night, when he had returned to his post, whether the pride and delight in his master's own betrothal was not uppermost in his bubbling spirits. CHAPTER XX TWO MONTHS LATER: THE QUICK AND THE DEAD Neighbour, what doth thy husband when he cometh home from work? He thinks of her he loved before he knew me _Luteplayer's Song._ _February 18th._ Upon the 18th of January, 1815, did I commit that most irreparable of all follies; then by my own hand I killed fair Molly de Savenaye, who was so happy, so free, so much in love with life, and whom I loved so dearly, and in her stead called into existence Molly Landale, a poor-spirited miserable creature who has not given me one moment's amusement. How could I have been so stupid? Let me examine. It is only a month ago, only a month, 4 weeks, 31 days, millions of horrible dreary minutes, Oh, Molly, Molly, Molly! since you stood, that snowy day, in the great drawing-room (_my_ drawing-room now, I hate it), and vowed twice over, once before the Jesuit father from Stonyhurst, once before jolly, hunting heretical parson Cochrane to cleave to Adrian Landale till death bid you part! Brr--what ghastly words and with what a light heart I said them, tripped them out, _ma foi_, as gaily as "good-morning" or "good-night!" They were to be the _open sesame_ to joys untold, to lands flowing with milk and honey, to romance, adventure, splendour--and what have they brought me? It is a cold day, sleeting, snowing, blowing, all that is abominable. My lord and master has ridden off, despite it, to some distant farm where there has been a fire. The "Good Sir Adrian," as they call him now--he is _that_; but, oh dear me--there! I must yawn, and I'll say no more on this head, at present, for I want to think and work my wretched problem out in earnest, and not go to sleep. It is the first time I have taken heart to write since yonder day of doom, and God knows when I shall have heart again! Upon such an afternoon there is nothing better to do, since Sir Adrian would have none of my company--he is so precious of me that he fears I should melt like sugar in the wet--he never guessed that it was just because of the storm I wished the ride! Were we to live a hundred years together--which, God forfend--he would never understand me. Ah, lack-a-day, oh, misery me! (My lady, you are wandering; come back to business.) What, then, has marriage brought me? First of all a husband. That is to say, another person, a man who has the right to me--to whom I myself have given that right--to have me, to hold me, as it runs in the terrible service, the thunders of which were twice rolled out upon my head, and which have been ringing there ever since. And I, Molly, gave of my own free will, that best and most blessed of all gifts, my own free will, away. I am surrounded, as it were, by barriers; hemmed in, bound up, kept in leading strings. I mind me of the seagull on the island. 'Tis all in the most loving care in the world, of course, but oh! the oppression of it! I must hide my feelings as well as I can, for in my heart I would not grieve that good man, that _excellent_ man, that pattern of kind gentleman--oh, oh, oh--it will out--that _dreary_ man, that dull man, that most melancholy of all men! Who sighs more than he smiles, and, I warrant, of the two, his sighs are the more cheerful; who looks at his beautiful wife as if he saw a ghost, and kisses her as if he kissed a corpse! There is a mate for Molly! the mate she chose for herself! So much for the husband. What else has marriage brought her? Briefly I will capitulate. A title--I am _my lady_. For three days it sounded prettily in my ears. But to the girl who refused a duchess' coronet, who was born comtesse--to be the baronet's lady--Tanty may say what she likes of the age of creation, and all the rest of it--that advantage cannot weigh heavy in the balance. Again then, I have a splendid house--which is my prison, and in which, like all prisoners, I have not the right to choose my company--else would Sophia and Rupert still be here? They are going, I am told occasionally; but my intimate conviction is, however often they may be going, _they will never go_. _Item four:_ I have money, and nothing to spend it on--but the poor. What next? What next?--alas, I look and I find nothing! This is all that marriage has brought me; and what has it not taken from me? My delight in existence, my independence, my hopes, my belief in the future, my belief in _love_. Faith, hope, and charity, in fact, destroyed at one fell sweep. And all, to gratify my curiosity as to a romantic mystery, my vanity as to my own powers of fascination! Well, I have solved the mystery, and behold it was nothing. I have eaten of the fruit of knowledge, and it is tasteless in my mouth. I have made my capture with my little bow and spear, and I am as embarrassed of my captive as he of me. We pull at the chain that binds us together; nay, such being the law of this world between men and women, the positions are reversed, my captive is now my master, and Molly is the slave. Tanty, I could curse thee for thy officiousness, from the tip of thy coal black wig to the sole of thy platter shoe--but that I am too good to curse thee at all! Poor book of my life that I was so eager to fill in, that was to have held a narrative all thrilling, and all varied, now will I set forth in thee, my failure, my hopelessness, and after that close thee for ever. Of what use indeed to chronicle, when there is nought to tell but flatness, chill monotony, on every side; when even the workings of my soul cannot interest me to follow, since they can now foreshadow nothing, lead to nothing but fruitless struggle or tame resignation! I discovered my mistake--not the whole of it, but enough to give me a dreadful foreboding of its hideousness, not two hours after the nuptial ceremony. Adrian had borne himself up to that with the romantic, mysterious dignity of presence that first caught my silly fancy; behind which I had pictured such fascinating depths of passion--of fire--Alas! When he looked at me it was with that air of wondering, almost timid, affection battling with I know not what flame of rapture, with which look I have become so fatally familiar since--without the flame of rapture, be it understood, which seems to have rapidly burnt away to a very ash of grey despondency and self-reproach. I could have sworn even as he gave me his arm to meet and receive the congratulations of our guests, that the glow upon his cheek, the poise of his head denoted the pride any man, were he not an idiot nor a brute, must feel in presenting his bride--such a bride!--to the world. Then we went in to the great dining hall where the wedding feast, a very splendid one, was spread. All the gentlemen looked with admiration at me; many with envy at Adrian. I knew that I was beautiful in my fine white satin with my veil thrown back, without the flattering whispers that reached me now and again; but these were sweet to hear nevertheless. I knew myself the centre of all eyes, and it elated me. So too did the tingling flavour of the one glass of sparkling wine I drank to my fortunes. Immediately upon this silent toast of Lady Landale to herself, Rupert rose and in choice words and silver-ringing voice proposed the health of the bride and bridegroom. There was a merry bustling pause while the glasses were filled; then rising to their feet as with one man, all the gentlemen stood with brimming goblets one instant extended, the next emptied to the last drop; and then the cheers rang out, swelling up the rafters, three times three, seeming to carry my soul along with them. I felt my heart expand and throb with an emotion I never knew in it before, which seemed to promise vast future capacities of pain and delight. I turned to my husband instinctively; looking for, expecting, I could not explain why, an answering fire in his eyes. This was the last moment of my illusions. From thence they began to shrivel away with a terrifying rapidity. Adrian sat with a face that looked old and lined and grey; with haggard unseeing eyes gazing forth into space as though fixing some invisible and spectre show. He seemed as if wrapt in a world of his own, to which none of us had entrance; least of all, I, his wife. The shouts around us died away, there were cries upon him for "Speech--speech," then playful queries--"How is this, Sir Adrian? So bashful, egad!" next nudges were exchanged, looks of wonder, and an old voice speaking broadly: _"Yes, by George,"_ it was saying, _"I remember it well, by George, in this very room, now twenty years ago, 'Here, gentlemen,' says old Sir Tummas, 'Here's to Madam de Savenaye,' and gad, ma'am, we all yelled,--she was a lovely creature--Eh--Eh?"_ "Hush," said some one, and there was a running circle of frowns and the old voice ceased as abruptly as if its owner had been seized by the weasand. In the heavy embarrassed silence, I caught Tanty's red perturbed look and Rupert's smile. But Adrian sat on--like a ghost among the living, or a live man among the dead. And this was my gallant bridegroom! I seized him by the hand--"Are you ill, Adrian?" He started and looked round at me--Oh that look! It seemed to burn into my soul, I shall never forget the hopelessness, the dull sadness of it, and then--I don't know what he read in my answering glance--the mute agonised question, followed by a terror. "They want you to speak," I whispered, and shook the cold hand I held in a fury of impatience. His lips trembled: he stared at me blankly. "My God, my God, what have I done?" he muttered to himself, "Cécile's child--Cécile's child!" I could have burst out sobbing. But seeing Rupert's face bent down towards his plate, demure and solemn, yet stamped, for all his cleverness, with an almost devilish triumph, my pride rose and my courage. Every one else seemed to be looking towards us: I stood up. "Good friends," I said, "I see that my husband is so much touched by the welcome that you are giving his bride, the welcome that you are giving him after his long exile from his house, that he is quite unable to answer you as he would wish. But lest you should misunderstand this silence of his, I am bold enough to answer you in his name, and--since it is but a few moments ago that you have seen us made one, I think I have the right to do so.... We thank you." My heart was beating to suffocation--but I carried bravely on till I was drowned in a storm of acclamations to which the first cheers were as nothing. They drank my health again, and again I heard the old gentleman of the indiscreet voice--I have learned since he is stone deaf, and I daresay he flattered himself he spoke in a whisper--proclaim that I was _my mother all over again: begad--so had she spoken to them twenty years ago in this very room!_ Here Tanty came to the rescue and carried me off. I dared not trust myself to look at Adrian as I left, but I knew that he followed me to the door, from which I presumed that he had recovered his presence of mind in some degree. Since that day we have been like two who walk along on opposite banks of a widening stream--ever more and more divided. I have told no one of my despair. It is curious, but, little wifely as I feel towards him, there is something in me that keeps me back from the disloyalty of discussing my husband with other people. And it is not even as it might have been--this is what maddens me. _We are always at cross purposes._ Some wilful spirit wakes in me, at the very sound of his voice (always gentle and restrained, and echoing of past sadness); under his mild, tender look; at the every fresh sign of his perpetual watchful anxiety--I give him wayward answers, frowning greetings, sighs, pouts; I feel at times a savage desire to wound, to anger him, and as far as I dare venture I have ventured, yet could not rouse in him one spark, even of proper indignation. The word of the riddle lay in that broken exclamation of his at our wedding feast. "Cécile's child!" His wife, then, is only Cécile's child to him. I have failed when I thought to have conquered--and with the consciousness of failure have lost my power, even to the desire of regaining it. My dead mother is my rival; her shade rises between me and my husband's love. Could he have loved me, I might perhaps have loved him--and now--now I, _Molly_, I, shall perhaps go down to my grave without having known _love_. I thought I had found it on that day when he took me in his arms in that odious library--my heart melted when he so tenderly kissed my lips. And now the very remembrance of that moment angers me. Tenderness! Am I only a weak, helpless child that I can arouse no more from the man to whom I have given myself! I thought the gates of life had been opened to me--behold, they led me to a warm comfortable prison! And this is Molly's end! There is a light in Madeleine's eyes, a ring in her voice, a smile upon her lip. She has bloomed into a beauty that I could hardly have imagined, and this is because of this unknown whom she _loves_. She breathes the fulness of the flower; and by-and-by, no doubt, she will taste the fulness of the fruit; she will be complete; she will be fed and I am to starve. What is coming to me? I do not know myself. I feel that I could grudge her these favours, that I _do_ grudge them to her. I am sick at heart. And she--even she has proved false to me. I know that she meets this man. Adrian too knows it, and more of him than he will tell me; and he approves. I am treated like a child. The situation is strange upon every side; Madeleine loving a plebeian--a sailor, not a king's officer--stooping to stolen interviews! Adrian the punctilious, in whose charge Tanty solemnly left her, pretending ignorance, virtually condoning my sister's behaviour! For though he has distinctly refused to enlighten me or help me to enlighten myself, he could not, upon my taxing him with it, deny that he was in possession of facts ignored by me. Then there is Rupert paying now open court to this sly damsel--for the sake of her beautiful eyes, or for the beautiful eyes of her casket? And last and strangest, the incongruous friendship struck up this week between her and that most irritating of melancholy fools, Sophia. The latter bursts with suppressed importance, she launches glances of understanding at my sister; sighs, smiles (when Rupert's eye is not on her), starts mysteriously. One would say that Madeleine had made a confidant of her--only that it would be too silly. What? Make a confidant of that funereal mute and deny _me_ the truth! If I had the spirit for it I would set myself to discovering this grand mystery; and then let them beware! They would have none of Molly as a friend: perhaps she will yet prove one too many upon the other side. If I have grown bitter to Madeleine, it is her own fault; I would have been as true as steel to her if she had but trusted me. Now and again, when a hard word and look escape me, she gives me a great surprised, reproachful glance, as of a petted child that has been hurt; but mostly she scarcely seems to notice the change in me--Moonlike in dreamy serenity she sails along, wrapt in her own thoughts, and troubles no more over Molly's breaking her heart than over Rupert's determined suit. To me when she remembers me, she gives the old caresses, the old loving words; to him smiles and pretty courtesy. Oh, she keeps her secret well! But I came upon her in the woods alone, last Friday, fresh, no doubt, from her lover's arms; tremulous, smiling, yet tearful, with face dyed rose. And when to my last effort to attain the right of sisterhood she would only stammer the tell-tale words: _she had promised!_ and press her hot cheeks against mine, I thrust her from me, indignant, and from my affections for ever. Yet I hold her in my power, I could write to Tanty, put Rupert on the track.... Nay, I have not fallen so low as to become Rupert's accomplice yet! And so the days go on. Between my husband's increasing melancholy, my own mad regrets, Rupert's watchfulness, Madeleine's absorption and Sophia's twaddle, my brain reels. I feel sometimes as if I could scream aloud, as we all sit round the table, and I know that _this_ is the life that I am doomed to, and that the days may go on, go on thus, till I am old. Poor Murthering Moll the second! Why even the convent, where at least I knew nothing, would have been better! No, it is not possible! Something is still to come to me. Like a bird, my heart rises within me. I have the right to my life, the right to my happiness, say what they may. CHAPTER XXI THE DAWN OF AN EVENTFUL DAY Rupert's behaviour at home, since his brother's wedding, had been, as even Molly was bound to admit to herself, beyond reproach in tactfulness, quiet dignity, and seeming cheerfulness. He abdicated from his position of trust at once and without the smallest reservation; wooed Madeleine with so great a discretion that her dreamy eyes saw in him only a kind relative; and he treated his sister-in-law, for all her freaks of bearing to him, with a perfect gentleness and gentility. At times Sir Adrian would watch him with great eyes. What meant this change? the guileless philosopher would ask himself, and wonder if he had judged his brother too harshly all through life; or if it was his plain speaking in their last quarrel which had put things in their true light to him, and awakened some innate generosity of feeling; or yet if--this with misgiving--it was love for pretty Madeleine that was working the marvel. If so, how would this proud rebellious nature bear another failure? Rupert spoke with unaffected regret about leaving Pulwick, at the same time, in spite of Molly's curling lip, giving it to be understood that his removal was only a matter of time. For the ostensible purpose, indeed, of finding himself another home he made, in the beginning of March, the second month after his brother's marriage, several absences which lasted a couple of days or more, and from which he would return with an eager sparkle in his eye, almost a brightness on his olive cheek, to sit beside Madeleine's embroidery frame, pulling her silks and snipping with her scissors, and talking gaily, persistently, with such humour and colour as at last to draw that young lady's attention from far off musings to his words with smiles and laughter. Meanwhile, Molly would sit unoccupied, brooding, watching them, now fiercely, from under her black brows, now scornfully, now abstractedly; the while she nibbled at her delicate finger-nails, or ruthlessly dragged them along the velvet arms of her chair with the gesture of a charming, yet distracted, cat. Sir Adrian would first tramp the rooms with unwitting restlessness, halting, it might be, beside his wife to strive to engage her into speech with him; and, failing, would betake himself at length with a heavy sigh to solitude; or, yet, he would sit down to his organ--the new one in the great hall which had been put up since his marriage, at Molly's own gay suggestion, during their brief betrothal--and music would peal out upon them till Lady Landale's stormy heart could bear it no longer, and she would rise in her turn, fly to the shelter of her room and roll her head in the pillows to stifle the sound of sobs, crying from the depths of her soul against heaven's injustice; anon railing in a frenzy of impotent anger against the musician, who had such passion in him and gave it to his music alone. During Rupert's absences that curious intimacy which Molly had contemptuously noted between her sister and sister-in-law displayed itself in more conspicuous manner. Miss Landale's long sallow visage sported its airs of mystery and importance, its languishing leers undisguisedly, so long as her brother Rupert's place was empty; and though her visits to the rector's grave were now almost quotidian, she departed upon them with looks of wrapt importance, and, returning, sought Madeleine's chamber (when that maiden did not herself stroll out to meet her in the woods), her countenance invariably wreathed with suppressed, yet triumphant smiles, instead of the old self-assertive dejection. * * * * * The 15th of March of that year was to be a memorable day in the lives of so many of those who then either dwelt in Pulwick, or had dealings on that wide estate. Miss Landale, who had passed the midnight hour in poring over the delightful wickedness of Lara, and, upon at length retiring to her pillow, had had a sentimental objection to shutting out the romantic light of the moon by curtain or shutter, was roused into wakefulness soon after dawn by a glorious white burst of early sunshine. As a rule, the excellent soul liked to lie abed till the last available moment; but that morning she was up with the sun. When dressed she drew a letter from a secret casket with manifold precautions as though she were surrounded with prying eyes, and, placing it in her reticule, hastened forth to seek the little lonely disused churchyard by the shore. She afterwards remarked that she could never forget in what agitation of spirits and with what strange presentiment of evil she was led to this activity at so unwonted an hour. The truth was, however, that Miss Landale tripped along through the damp wooded path as gaily as if she were going to visit her living lover instead of his granite tomb; and that in lieu of evil omens a hundred fantastically sentimental thoughts floated through her brain, as merrily and irresponsibly as the motes in the long shafts of brilliancy that cleaved, sword-like through the mists, upon her from out the east. Visions of Madeleine's face when she would learn before breakfast that Sophia had actually been to the churchyard already; visions of whom she might meet there; rehearsals of a romantic scene upon that hallowed spot, of her own blushes, her knowing looks, her playful remonstrances, with touching allusions to one who had loved and lost, herself, and who thus, &c. &c. Miss Landale tossed her long faded ringlets quite coquettishly, turned one slim bony hand with coy gesture before her approving eyes. Then she patted her reticule and hurried on with fresh zest, enjoying the tart whisper of the wind against her well bonneted face, the exquisite virginal beauty of the earth in the early spring of the day and of the year. As she stepped out of the shadow of the trees, her heart leaped and then almost stood still as she perceived in the churchyard lying below her, beside the great slab of granite which lay over the remains of her long-departed beloved one, the figure of a man, whose back was turned towards her, and whose erect outline was darkly silhouetted against the low, dazzling light. Then a simper of exceeding archness crept upon Miss Landale's lips; and with as genteel an amble as the somewhat precipitate nature of the small piece of ground that yet divided her from the graveyard would allow, she proceeded on her way. At the click of the lych-gate under her hand the man turned sharply round and looked at her without moving further. An open letter fluttered in his hand. His face was still against the light, and Miss Landale's eyes had wept so many tears by day and night that her sight was none of the best. She dropped a very elegant curtsey, simpered, drew nearer, and threw a fetching glance upwards. Then her shrill scream rang through the still morning air and frightened the birds in the ruined church. "You are early this morning, Sophia," said Mr. Landale. Sophia sank upon the tombstone. To say that she was green or yellow would ill describe the ghastliness of the tint that suffused her naturally bilious countenance; still speechless, she made a frantic plunge towards the great urn that adorned the head of the grave. Mr. Landale looked up from his reading again with a quiet smile. "I shall have done in one minute," he remarked, "It is a fine production, egad! full of noble protestations and really high-sounding words. And then, my dear Sophia, you can take charge of it, and I shall be quite ready for the other, which I presume you have as usual with you--ah, in your bag! Thanks." "Rupert?" ejaculated the unfortunate lady, first in agonised query, and next in agonised reproach, clasping her hands over the precious reticule--"Rupert!" Mr. Landale neatly folded the sheet he had been reading, moistened with his tongue a fresh wafer which he drew from his waistcoat pocket, and, deftly placing it upon the exact spot from which the original one had been removed, handed the letter to his sister with a little bow. But, as with a gesture of horror the latter refused to take it, he shrugged his shoulders and tossed it carelessly into the urn. "Now give me Madeleine's," he said, peremptorily. Rolling upwards eyes of appeal the unhappy Iris called upon heaven to witness that she would die a thousand deaths rather than betray her solemn trust. But even as she spoke the fictitious flame of courage withered away in her shrinking frame; and at the mere touch of her brother's finger and thumb upon her wrist, the mere sight of his face bending masterfully over her with white teeth just gleaming between his twisting smile and half-veiled eyes of insolent determination, she allowed him, unresisting, to take the bag from her side; protesting against the breach of faith only by her moans and the inept wringing of her hands. Mr. Landale opened the bag, tossed with cynical contempt upon the flat tombstone, sundry precious relics of the mouldering bones within, and discovered at length in an inner pocket a dainty flower-scented note. Then he flung down the bag and proceeded with the same deliberation to open the letter and peruse its delicate flowing handwriting. "Upon my word," he vowed, "I think this is the prettiest she has written yet! What a sweet soul it is! Listen, Sophia: 'You praise me for my trust in you--but, Jack, dear love, my trust is so much a part of my love that the one would not exist without the other. Therefore, do not give me any credit, for you know I could not help loving you.' Poor heart! poor confiding child! Oh!" ejaculated Mr. Landale as if to himself, carefully proceeding the while with his former manoeuvres to end by placing the violated missive, to all appearance intact, beside its fellow, "we have here a rank fellow, a foul traitor to deal with!" Then, wheeling round to his sister, and fixing her with piercing eyes: "Sophia," he exclaimed, in tones of sternest rebuke, "I am surprised at you. I am, indeed!" Miss Landale raised mesmerised, horror-stricken eyes upon him; his dark utterances had already filled her foolish soul with blind dread. He sat down beside her, and once more enclosed the thin arm in his light but warning grasp. "Sophia," he said solemnly, "you little guess the magnitude of the harm you have been doing; the frightful fate you have been preparing for an innocent and trusting girl; the depth of the villainy you are aiding and abetting. You have been acting, as I say, in ignorance, without realising the awful consequences of your folly and duplicity. But that you should have chosen _this_ sacred place for such illicit and reprehensible behaviour; that by the grave of this worthy man who loved you, by the stones chosen and paid for by my fraternal affection, you should plot and scheme to deceive your family, and help to lead a confiding and beautiful creature to ruin, I should never have expected from _you_, Sophia--Sophia!" Miss Landale collapsed into copious weeping. "I am sure, brother," she sobbed, "I never meant any harm. I am sure nobody loves the dear girl better than I do. I am sure I never wished to hide anything from you!--Only--they told me--they trusted me--they made me promise--Oh brother, what terrible things you have been saying! I cannot believe that so handsome a young gentleman can mean anything wrong--I only wish you could have seen him with her, he is so devoted--it is quite beautiful." "Alas--the tempter always makes himself beautiful in the eyes of the tempted! Sophia, we can yet save this unhappy child, but who knows how soon it may be too late!--You can still repair some of the wrong you have done, but you can only do so by the most absolute obedience to me.... Believe me, I know the truth about this vile adventurer, this Captain Jack Smith." "Good Heavens!" cried Sophia, "Rupert, do not tell me, lest I swoon away, that he is married already?" "The man, my dear, whose plots to compromise and entangle a lovely girl you have favoured, is a villain of the deepest dye--a pirate." "Oh!" shivered Sophia with fascinated misery--thrilling recollections of last night's reading shooting through her frame. "A smuggler, a criminal, an outlaw in point of fact," pursued Mr. Landale. "He merely seeks Madeleine for her money--has a wife in every port, no doubt--" Miss Landale did not swoon; but her brother's watchful eye was satisfied with the effect produced, and he went on in a well modulated tone of suppressed emotion: "And after breaking her heart, ruining her body and soul, dragging her to the foulest depths he would have cast her away like a dead weed--perhaps murdered her! Sophia, what would your feelings be then?" A hard red spot had risen to each of Miss Landale's cheek bones; her tears had dried up under the fevered glow. "We believed," she said trembling in every limb, "that he was working on a mission to the French court--" "Faugh--" cried Mr. Landale, contemptuously, "smuggling French brandy for our English drunkards and traitorous intelligence for our French enemies!" "Such a handsome young man, so gentlemanly, such an air!" maundered the miserable woman between her chattering teeth. "It was quite accidental that we met, Rupert, quite accidental, I assure you. Madeleine--poor dear girl--came down with me here, I wanted to show her the g-grave----" here Sophia gurgled convulsively, remembering her brother's cruel reproaches. "Well?" "She came here with me, and as I was kneeling down, planting crocuses just here, Rupert, and she was standing _there_, a young man suddenly leaped over the wall, and fell at her feet. He had not seen _me_--Alas, it reminded me of my own happiness! And he was so well-dressed, so courteous--and seemed such a perfect gentleman--and he took off his hat so gracefully I am sure I never could have believed it of him. And they confided in me and I promised by--by--those sacred ashes to keep their secret. I remembered of course what Tanty had said in her letter, and quite understood he was the young gentleman in question--but they explained to me how she was under a wrong impression altogether. He said that the instant he laid eyes upon me, he saw I had a feeling heart, and he knew they could trust me. He spoke so nobly, Rupert, and said: What better place could they have for their meetings than one consecrated to such faithful love as this? It was so beautiful--and oh dear! I can't but think there is some mistake." And Miss Landale again wrung her hands. "But I have proof!" thundered her brother, "convincing proof, of what I have told you. At this very moment the man who would marry Madeleine, forsooth, runs the risk of imprisonment--nay, of the gallows! You may have thought it strange that I should have opened and read letters not addressed to me, but with misfortune hanging over a beloved object I did not pause to consider myself. My only thought was to save her." Here Mr. Landale looked very magnanimous, and thrust his fingers as he spoke through the upper buttons of his waistcoat with the gesture which traditionally accompanies such sentiments: these cheap effects proved generally irresistible with Sophia. But his personality had paled before the tremendous drama into which the poor romance-loving soul was so suddenly plunged, and in which in spite of all her woe she found an awful kind of fascination. Failing to read any depth of admiration in her roving eye, Rupert promptly abandoned grandiloquence, and resuming his usual voice and manner, he dropped his orders upon her heat of agitation like a cool relentless stream under which her last protest fizzed, sputtered, and went out. "I mean to unmask the gay lover at my own time and in my own way; never fear, I shall deal gently with _her_. You will now take this letter of his and put it in your bag, leaving hers in that curious post-office of yours." "Yes, Rupert." "And you will give his letter to her at once when you go in without one word of having met me." "Y ... yes, Rupert." "As you are too great a fool to be trusted if you once begin to talk, you will have a headache for the rest of the day and go to bed in a dark room." "Y ... yes, Rupert." "You will moreover swear to me, now, that you will not speak of our interview here till I give you leave; say I swear I will not." "I swear I will not." "So help me God!" "Oh, Rupert." "_So help me God_, you fool!" Sophia's lips murmured an inaudible something; but there was such complete submission in every line and curve of her figure, in the very droop of her ringlets and the helpless appeal of her gaze that Rupert was satisfied. He assisted her to arise from her tombstone, bundled the clerical love-tokens back into the bag, duly placed Captain Jack's letter in the inner pocket, and was about to present her with his arm to conduct her homewards, when he caught sight of a little ragged urchin peeping through the bars of the gate, and seemingly in the very act of making a mysterious signal in the direction of Miss Landale's unconscious figure. Rupert stared hard at the ruddy, impudent face, which instantly assumed an appearance of the most defiant unconcern, while its owner began to devote his energies to shying stones at an invisible rook upon the old church tower with great nicety of aim. "Sophia," said her brother in a low tone, "go to the gate: that boy wants to speak to you. Go and see what he wants and return to me." Miss Landale gasped, gazed at her brother as if she thought him mad, looked round at the little boy, coloured violently, then meeting Rupert's eye again staggered off without a word of protest. Rupert, shaken with silent laughter, humming a little song to himself, stooped to pick a couple of tender spring flowers from the border beside the grave, and after slipping them into a button-hole of his many caped overcoat, stood looking out over the stretch of land and sea, where Scarthey rose like a dream against the sparkle of the water and the exquisite blue of the sky. Presently rapid panting breaths and a shuffling rustle of petticoats behind him informed him of his sister's return. "So you are there, my dear," he said loudly. "One of your little fishing friends from the village, I suppose--a Shearman, unless I am mistaken. Yes, a Shearman; I thought so. Well, shall we return home now? They will be wondering what has become of us. Pray take my arm." Then beneath his breath, seeing that words were struggling to Sophia's lips, "Hold your tongue." The small ragged boy watched their departure with a derisive grin, and set off at a brisk canter down to the shore, jingling some silver coin in his pocket with relish as he went. When Rupert and Sophia had reached the wood the former paused. "Letter or message?" "Oh, Rupert, it was a letter; had I not better destroy it?" "Give it to me." * * * * * A hasty scrawl, it seemed, folded anyhow. Only two or three lines, yet Rupert conned them for a curiously long time. "My darling," it ran, "meet me to-day in the ruins at noon. A misfortune has happened to me, but if you trust me, all will still be well.--Your Jack." Mr. Landale at length handed it back to Sophia. "You will give it to Madeleine with the other," he said briefly. "Mention the fact of the messenger having brought it." And then in a terrible bass he added, "And remember your oath!" She trembled; but as he walked onwards through the wood, his lips were smiling, and his eyes were alight with triumph. CHAPTER XXII THE DAY: MORNING The appointment of a regular light-keeper at Scarthey, intended to release René and old Margery from their exile, had been delayed so as to suit the arrangement which was to leave for a time the island domain of Sir Adrian at the disposal of Captain Jack. Meanwhile Moggie's presence greatly mitigated the severity of her husband's separation from his master. On his side the sailor was in radiant spirits. All worked as he could wish, and Sir Adrian's marriage, besides being a source of unselfish satisfaction, was, with regard to his own prospects, an unexpected help; for, his expedition concluded, he would now be able in the most natural manner to make his appearance at Pulwick, an honoured guest of the master, under the pride of his own name. And for the rest, hope unfolded warm-coloured visions indeed. During the weeks which had elapsed since Sir Adrian's departure, Captain Jack's visits to the island had been fitful and more or less secret--He always came and left at night. But as it was understood that the place was his to be used and enjoyed as he thought best, neither his sudden appearances with the usual heavy travelling-bag, nor his long absences excited any disturbance in the arcadian life led by René between his buxom young wife and the old mother--as the good-humoured husband now termed the scolding dame. A little sleeping closet had been prepared and allotted to the use of the peripatetic guest in one of the disused rooms when René's own accommodation under the light tower had been enlarged for the new requirements of his matrimonial status. And so Monsieur the Captain (in René's inveterate outlandish phraseology) found his liberty of action complete. Both the women's curiosity was allayed, and all tendency to prying into the young stranger's mysterious purposes amid their seclusion condemned beforehand, by René's statement: that Monsieur the Captain was a trusted friend of the master--one indeed (and here the informant thought fit to stretch a point, if but slightly) to whom the Lord of Pulwick was indebted, in bygone days, for life and freedom. Except when weather-bound, a state of things which at that time of year occurred not unfrequently, René journeyed daily as far as the Hall, ostensibly to report progress and take possible orders, but really to gratify himself with the knowledge that all was well with the master. About the breakfast hour, upon this 15th of March, as Sir Adrian was discussing with the bailiff sundry matters of importance to the estate, a tap came to the door, which he recognised at once as the Frenchman's own long accustomed mode of self-announcement. Since he had assumed the reins of government, the whilom recluse had discovered that the management of such a wide property was indeed no sinecure; and moreover--as his brother, who certainly understood such matters in a thoroughly practical manner, had warned him--that a person of his own philosophical, over-benevolent and abstracted turn of mind, was singularly ill-fitted for the task. But a strong sense of duty and a determination to act by it will carry a man a long way. He had little time for dreaming and this was perhaps a providential dispensation, for Sir Adrian's musings had now lost much of the grave placidity born of his long, peaceful residence in his Thelema of Scarthey. The task was long and arduous; on sundry occasions he was forced to consult his predecessor on the arcana of landed estate government, which he did with much simplicity, thereby giving Mr. Landale, not only inwardly mocking satisfaction, but several opportunities for the display of his self-effacing loyalty and superior capacities. The business of this day was of sufficiently grave moment to make interruption unwelcome--being nothing less than requests from a number of tenants to the "Good Sir Adrian," "the real master come to his own again"--for a substantial reduction of rent; a step towards which the master's heart inclined, but which his sober reason condemned as preposterous. But René's countenance, as he entered, betrayed news of such import that Sir Adrian instantly adjourned the matter on hand, and, when the bailiff had retired, anxiously turned to the new-comer, who stood in the doorway mopping his steaming brow. "Well, Renny," said he, "what is wrong? Nothing about your wife--?" "No, your honour," answered the man, "your honour is very good. Nothing wrong with our Moggie. But the captain.... I ran all the way from the Shearmans." "No accident there, I hope." "I fear there is, your honour. The captain--he has been attacked this morning." "Not wounded--!" exclaimed Sir Adrian. "Not dead, Renny?" "Oh no, your honour, well. But he has, I fear, killed one of the men ... the revenue men--" Then, seeing his master start aghast, he went on rapidly; "At least he is very bad--but what for did he come to make the spy upon our island? We have left him at the Shearmans--the mother Shearman will nurse him. But the captain, your honour"--the speaker lowered his voice to a whisper and advanced a step, looking round--"that is the worst of all, the captain has turned mad, I believe--Instead of going off with his ship and his crew, (they are safe out to sea, as they should be) he remains at Scarthey. Yes--in your honour's rooms. He is walking up and down and clutching his hair and talking to himself, like a possessed. And when I respectfully begged him to consider that it was of the last folly his having rested instead of saving himself, I might as well have tried to reason a mule. And so, knowing that your honour would never forgive me if misfortune arrived, I never drew breath till I reached here to tell you. If his honour would come himself he might be able to make Mr. his friend hear reason--Your honour will run no risk, for it is only natural that you should go to the peel after what has occurred--but if you cannot get Mr. the captain to depart this night, there will arrive to us misfortune--it is I who tell you so." "I will go back with you, at once," said Sir Adrian, rising much perturbed. "Wait here while I speak to Lady Landale." Molly was standing by the great log fire in the hall, yawning fit to dislocate her pretty jaws, and teasing the inert form of old Jim, as he basked before the flame, with the tip of her pretty foot. She allowed her eyes to rest vaguely upon her husband as he approached, but neither interrupted her idle occupation nor endeavoured to suppress the yawn that again distended her rosy lips. He looked at her for a moment in silence; then laying a hand upon her shoulder, said gently: "My child, I am called back to Scarthey and must leave instantly. You--you will be careful of yourself--amuse yourself during my absence--it may be for two or three days." Lady Landale raised her black brows with a fine air of interrogation, and then gazed down at the old dog till the lashes swept her cheek, while a mocking dimple just peeped from the corner of her mouth and was gone again. "Oh yes," she answered drily, "I shall take endless care of myself and amuse myself wildly. You need have no fear of that." Sir Adrian sighed, and his hand fell listless from her shoulder. "Good-bye, then," he said, and stooped it seemed hesitatingly to lay his lips between the little dark tendrils of hair that danced upon her forehead. But with a sudden movement she twitched her face away. "Despite all the varied delights which bind me to Pulwick," she remarked carelessly, "the charms of Sophia and Rupert's company, and all the other _amusements_--I have a fancy to visit your old owl's nest again--so we need not waste sentiment upon a tender parting, need we?" Sir Adrian's cheek flushed, and with a sudden light in his eyes he glanced at her quickly; but his countenance faded into instant melancholy again, at sight of her curling lip and cold amused gaze. "Will you not have me?" she asked. "If you will come--you will be welcome--as welcome," his voice shook a little, "as my wife must always be wherever I am." "Ah--oh," yawned Lady Landale, "(excuse me pray--it's becoming quite an infirmity) so that is settled. I hope it will storm to-night, that the wind will blow and howl--and then I snuggle in the feather bed in that queer old room and try and fancy I am happy Molly de Savenaye again." Adrian's lip quivered; yet in a second or two he spoke lightly. "I do not want to hurry you, but I have to leave at once." Then struck by a sudden thought, by that longing to bring pleasure to others which was always working in him, "Why not let Madeleine come with you too?" he asked, "she could share your room, and--it would be a pleasure to her I think." He sighed as he thought of the trouble in store for the lovers. Lady Landale grew red to the roots of her hair and shot a look of withering scorn at her husband's unconscious face. "It would be charming," she said, sarcastically, "but after all I don't know that I care to go so much--oh, don't stare at me like that, for goodness' sake! A woman may change her mind, I suppose--at least, in a trifle here and there if she can't as regards the whole comfort of her life.--Well, well, perhaps I shall go--this afternoon--later--you can start now. I shall follow--I can always get a boat at the Shearmans. And I shall bring Madeleine, of course--it is most kind and thoughtful of you to suggest it. _Mon Dieu_, I have a husband in a thousand!" She swept him a splendid curtsey, kissed her hand at him, and then burst out laughing at the pale bewilderment of his face. * * * * * When Sir Adrian returned to the morning-room, he found René, half hidden behind the curtain folds, peering curiously out of the window which overlooked the avenue. On his master's entrance, the man turned his head, placed his finger on his lip, and beckoned him to approach. "If I may take the liberty," said he with subdued voice, "will his honour come and look out, without showing himself?" And he pointed to a group, consisting of Mr. Landale and two men in blue jackets and cockaded hats of semi-naval appearance, now slowly approaching the house. Mr. Landale was listening with bent head, slightly averted, to the smaller of his two companions--a stout square-looking fellow, who spoke with evident volubility, whilst the other followed defferentially one pace in rear. Presently the trio halted, a few yards from the entrance, and Mr. Landale, cutting designs upon the sand with the end of his stick in a meditative way, appeared to be giving directions at some length, on the conclusion of which the two men, touching their hats with much respect, departed together, while the magistrate pensively proceeded on his way to the house. "Those, your honour," said René, "were with him that was struck in the fight this morning. It was I rowed them over, together with the wounded. I left them at the Shearmans, and slipped away myself to carry the news. If I might take upon myself to advise, it would be better if your honour would come with me now, at once, for fear Mr. Landale should delay us by questioning me--Mr. Landale being a magistrate, as I heard these men say; and Moggie has assured me that he always arranges himself for knowing when I arrive from the island--ever since the day when the demoiselles had just come, and I found it out. Ever since then he has not liked me, Mr. Landale. Come away, your honour, before he finds out I have been here to-day." Following upon this advice, which he found to the point, Sir Adrian left his house by a back passage; and, through a side garden, found his way to the coast and to the fishing village. The wounded man who had not recovered consciousness, lay in the brother Shearman's hut, as René had said, surrounded by such uncouth attendance as the rude fisherfolk could dispense. After giving directions for the summoning of medical aid and the removal, if it should prove advisable, of the patient to the Hall, but without a single comment upon the unfortunate occurrence, Sir Adrian then took the road of the peel. During the transit, walking rapidly by his master's side, across the now bare causeway, René gave his account of events. The captain (he related) after three days' absence had re-appeared the night before the last, and requested him to warn the womankind not to be alarmed if they heard, as no doubt they would, strange noises on the beach at night. He was, said he, storing provisions and water for the forthcoming journey, and the water in the well was so excellent that he had determined to take in his store. Of course his honour understood well that René did not concern himself in these matters; but that was the explanation he conveyed to his wife, lest she should be alarmed and wonder. As for the old mother, she was too deaf to be awakened out of sleep by anything short of the trumpet of the last judgment. As announced, there had been during the night the noise of a party of men landing, of the hoisting and rolling of barrels--a great _remue-ménage_ altogether--and the next morning, that was yesterday, the captain had slept sound in his bunk till late. During several hours of the following day, he had some secret work to do in the caves of which René had shown the ins and outs, and whilst so engaged had requested that watch should be kept from the light-tower, and message sent by some arranged signal should any one approach the island. But no one had come near. Whilst at his post, the watcher had heard at different times the sound of hammering; and when the captain had come to relieve him, the good gentleman was much begrimed with dust and hot with work, but appeared in excellent humour. In the castle, he sang and whistled for joyfulness, and made jokes with Moggie, all in his kind way, saying that if he were not to be married himself soon, he would feel quite indignant and jealous at the happiness of such a rascal as her husband. Oh! he was happy--Monsieur the Captain--he had brought Moggie a beautiful shawl; and to René, he had given a splendid watch, telling him to keep count of the hours of his unmerited bliss. Alas, this morning all had been different indeed! The captain looked another man; his face was as white as linen. The very look of him would have told any one that a misfortune had occurred. René did not quite understand it himself, but this is what had taken place: The captain had left Scarthey on foot late in the evening, and when he returned (he was not long away) he bade René again not to mind what he heard during the night; and, in faith, once more there had been a real noise of the devil; men coming to and fro, a deal of rowing on the water, away and back again, in the early night and then once more before dawn. "But I was not unquiet," said René, "I knew they had come for the remainder of what Mr. Smith was pleased to call his provisions. From our room I could see by the light on the stairs that the lamp was burning well, and Moggie slept like a child, so sound, she never moved. Just before the rising sun, I had got up and put out the lamp, and was going to bed again, when there came thumps of the devil at the lower door. Well knowing that the captain had his own way of entering--for he had spent many days in finding out all sorts of droll passages in the ruins--I was quite seized; and as I hurried down, the thumps came again and great cries for the lighthouse-keeper. And, your honour, when I unbarred the door, there was a man in uniform whom I did not know, and he asked me, grumbling, if I knew of the pretty doings on the beach, whilst I slept like pig, he said--Of course I made the astonished as his honour may imagine: I knew nothing, had heard nothing, though my heart was beating like to burst not knowing what was coming. Then he ordered me to lend a hand and bring a ladder to carry away one of his men who had been murdered by the smugglers, he said. And there, on the sands, in front of the small cave was another man, in a blue coat too, watching over the body of one who was stretched out, quite tranquil, his face covered with blood and his eyes closed. They are gone, says the gross man. And I was glad, as your honour may well think, to see the chaloupe full of the captain's men rowing hard towards the vessel. She had just come out of the river mouth and was doubling round the banks. We carried the man on his ladder to the kitchen and we and the women did all we could, but he remained like a log. So after a time the two men (who said they had come along the dyke soon after midnight, on foot, as they thought it would be more secret, and had watched all night in the bent) wanted to eat and drink and rest. They had missed their game, the big man said; they had been sent to find out what sort of devil's tricks were being played on in the island unbeknown to Sir Adrian;--but it was the devil's luck altogether, for the smugglers had slipped away and would not be seen in this part of the world again. That is the way the fat man spoke. The other had nothing to say, but swallowed our bacon and our beer as if he did not care. And then, your honour, they told me I should have to lend them the yawl to go on land, and go myself to help, and take the body with us. And as he was speaking, I saw Moggie the wife, who had been backwards and forwards serving them, looking at me very straight but without blowing a word, as if she had fear. And all at once I felt there was something on foot. So I drew the men more beer and said I would see after the yawl. Outside the door the wife whispered: 'Upstairs, quick! Renny,' and she herself whisked back into the kitchen so that she should not cause suspicion to those others--Ah, your honour, that is a woman!" "Well, well," interrupted his master, anxiously. "Well, I went upstairs, four by four; and there, in your honour's room, without an attempt to conceal himself (when any moment it might have entered into those brigands' heads downstairs to search the place), there was Monsieur the Captain, raging up and down, like a wolf in cage, as I had the honour to describe before. No wonder Moggie was afraid for him. A woman is quick to feel danger ahead. He looked at me as if he did not know me, his face all unmade. 'You know what has happened;' he says. 'Am I not the most unfortunate...? All is lost.' 'With respect,' says I; 'nothing is lost so long as life is safe, but it is not a good thing Monsieur the Captain that you are here, like this, when you should be on your good ship as many miles away as she can make. Are you mad?' to him I say, and he to me, 'I think I am.' 'At least let me hide you,' I beg of him, 'I know of many beautiful places,' and so for the matter of that does he. But it was all lost trouble. At length he sits down at the table and begins to write, and his look brightens: 'You _can_ help me, my good friend,' he says; 'I have a hope left--who knows--who knows,'--and he writes a few lines like an enraged and folds them and kisses the billet. 'Find means,' says he, 'René, to get Johnny, the Shearman boy, to take this to the old churchyard and place it in the place he knows of; or, better still, should he chance upon Miss Landale to give it to her. He is a sharp rogue,' says he, 'and I can trust his wits; but should you not find him, dear René, you must do the commission for me yourself. Now go--go,' he cries, and pushes me to the stairs. And, as I dared remain no more, I had to leave him. Of course Monsieur the Captain has not been here all this time without telling me of his hopes, and it is clear that it is to bid farewell to Mademoiselle Madeleine that he is playing with his life. It is as ill reasoning with a lover as a lunatic: they are the same thing, _Ma foi_, but I trust to your honour to bring him to his senses if any one can. And so, to continue, I went down and I told the men in blue the boat was ready, we carried the body; I left them at the Shearmans, as your honour knows. I found Johnny and gave him the letter; he knew all about what to do, it seemed. And then I came straight to the Hall." "It is indeed a miserable business!" said Sir Adrian. René heaved a great sigh of sympathy, as he noticed the increasing concern on his master's face. "You heard them mention my brother's name?" inquired the latter, after following the train of his misgivings for a few moments. "You have reason to think that Mr. Landale knew of these men's errand; other reason, I mean, than having seen them with him just now?" René's quick mind leaped at the meaning of the question: "Yes, your honour. 'Mr. Landale will want to know of this,' says the fat one; 'though it is too late,' he says." And René added ruefully: "I have great fear. The captain is not at the end of his pains, if Mr. Landale is ranged against him!" Such was also Sir Adrian's thought. But he walked on for a time in silence; and, having reached Scarthey, rapidly made his way into the peel. Captain Jack was still pacing the room much as René had described when Sir Adrian entered upon him. The young man turned with a transient look of surprise to the new-comer, then waved away the proffered hand with a bitter smile. "You do not know," he said, "who it is you would shake hands with--an outlaw--a criminal. Ah, you have heard? Then Renny, I suppose, has told you." "Yes," groaned the other, holding his friend by both shoulders and gazing sorrowfully into the haggard face, "the man may die--oh, Jack, Jack, how could you be so rash?" "I can't say how it all happened," answered Captain Jack, falling to his walk to and fro again in the extremity of his distress, and ever and anon mopping his brow. "I felt such security in this place. All was loaded but the last barrel, when, all of a sudden, from God knows where, the man sprang on me and thrust his dark lantern in my face. 'It is Smith,' I heard him say. I do believe now that he only wanted to identify me. No man in his senses could have dared to try and arrest me surrounded by my six men. But I had no time to think then, Adrian. I imagined the fellow was leading a general attack.... If that last barrel was seized the whole secret was out; and that meant ruin. Wholesale failure seemed to menace me suddenly in the midst of my success. I had a handspike in my hand with which I had been helping to roll the kegs. I struck with it, on the spur of the moment; the man went down on the spot, with a groan. As he fell I leaped back, ready for the next. I called out, 'Stretchers, lads; they want to take your captain?' My lads gathered round me at once. But there was silence; not another creature to be seen or heard. They set to work to get that last blessed bit of cargo, the cause of all the misery, on board with the rest; while I stood in the growing dawn, looking down at the motionless figure and at the blood trickling into the sand, trying to think, to settle what to do, and only conscious of one thing: the intense wish that I could change places with my victim. Can you wonder, Adrian, that my brain was reeling? You who know all, all this means to me, can you wonder that I could not leave this shore--even though my life depended on it--without seeing her again! Curwen, my mate, came up to me at last, and I woke up to some sort of reason at the idea that they, the crew and the ship, must be removed from the immediate danger. But the orders I gave must have seemed those of a madman: I told him to sail right away but to double back in time to have the schooner round again at twelve noon to-day, and then to send the gig's crew to pick me up on Pulwick sand. 'Life and death,' said I to him, and he, brave fellow, 'Ay, ay, sir,' as if it was the most simple thing in the world, and off with him without another word." "What imprudence, what imprudence!" murmured Sir Adrian. "Who knows? None will believe that I have not seized the opportunity of making my escape with the others. The height of imprudence may become the height of security. I have as yet no plan--but it will come. My luck shall not fail me now! who knows: nothing perhaps is damaged but an excise man's crown. Thank heaven, the wind cannot fail us to-day." "But, meanwhile," urged Sir Adrian, quite unconvinced, highly disturbed, "that treasure on board.... I know what has been your motive, Jack, but indeed it is all nothing short of insanity, positive insanity. Can you trust your men?" "I would trust them with my own secrets, willingly enough; but not with those of other people. So they do not know what I have in those barrels. Four thousand golden guineas in each...! No, the temptation would be too terrible for the poor lads. Not a soul knows that, beyond you and me. Curwen has charge of the cargo, such as it is. But I can answer for it none of them will dream of tampering with the casks. They are picked men, sober, trusty; who have fought side by side with me. I am their best friend. They are mine, body and soul, I believe. They do know there is some risk in the business, but they trust me. They are sure of treble pay, and besides, are not troubled with squeamishness. As for Curwen, he would go to hell for me, and never ask a question. No, Adrian, the scheme was perfect, but for this cursed blow of mine this morning. And now it is a terrible responsibility," continued the young man, again wiping his forehead; "every ounce of it weighs on my shoulders. But it is not that that distracts me. Oh, Adrian ... Madeleine!" The elder man felt his heart contract at the utter despairing of that cry. "When my handspike crashed on that damned interferer's skull," the sailor went on, "I felt as if the blow had opened an unfathomable chasm between her and me. Now I am felon--yes, in law, a felon! And yet I am the same man as yesterday. I shall have to fly to-night, and may never be able to return openly to England again. All my golden dreams of happiness, of honour, vanished at the sound of that cursed blow. But I must see her, Adrian, I _must_ see her before I go. I am going to meet her at noon, in the ruins of Pulwick." "Impossible!" ejaculated the other aghast. "Listen, Jack, unfortunate man! When I heard of the--the misfortune, and of your folly in remaining, I instantly planned a last meeting for you. As it fell out, my wife has a fancy to spend the night here: I have asked her to bring her sister with her. But this inconceivably desperate plan of leaving in your ship, in broad light of day, frustrates all I would have done for you. For God's sake let us contrive some way of warning the _Peregrine_ off till midnight; keep hidden, yourself; do not wilfully run your head into the noose!" But the young man had stopped short in his tramping, and stood looking at his friend, with a light of hope flaming in his eye. "You have done that, Adrian! You have thought of that!" he repeated, as if mechanically. A new whirlwind of schemes rushed through his mind. For a while he remained motionless, with his gaze fixed on Sir Adrian, putting order in his own thoughts with that genius of precision and swiftness which, in strong natures, rises to meet a crisis. Then advancing, and seizing him by both hands: "Adrian," he cried, in something more like his own voice, again, "I shall yet owe my happiness to you, to this thought, this sublime thought of your heart!" And, as Sir Adrian, astounded, unable to understand this extremity of hopefulness, following upon the previous depth of misery, stared back at him, speechless, the latter proceeded in still more surprising fashion. "Now, you listen to me, this time. I have been selfish in running the risk of having you mixed up in my dangerous affairs. But, God is my witness, I acted under the belief that all was absolutely secure. Now, however, you must do nothing more that might implicate you. Remember, do nothing to let people suspect that you have seen me to-day. Renny, too, must keep close counsel. You know nothing of my future movements. Remain here for a while, do not even look out of the window.... I fear we shall not meet for a long time. Meanwhile, God bless you--God bless you!" After another wrench of the hands he held in his, the sailor released them and fairly ran out of the room, without heeding his friend's bewildered expostulations. At the door of the keep he met René again. And after a brief but earnest colloquy, the man whose life was now forfeit to the community and upon whose head there would soon be a price, was quietly walking along the causeway, making for the shore, with the greatest apparent unconcern and deliberation. And whilst Sir Adrian, alone in his chamber, with his head resting upon his hand, anxiously pondered upon the possible issues of this nefarious day's doings, the sailor advanced, in broad daylight towards the land to keep his appointment. * * * * * A solitary speck of life upon the great waste, with the consciousness of the precarious thread of chance upon which it hung! What wonder that, for all his daring, the traveller felt, as he deliberately regulated his pace to the most nonchalant gait, a frantic desire to run forward, or to lie down! How many approach glasses might now be laid, like so many guns, upon him from secret points of the coast until he came within range of recognition; what ambushes those clumps of gorse and juniper, those plantations of alders and young firs on the bluffs yonder, might conceal? The eye could reach far and wide upon the immense stretch of sand, along the desert coast; and his solitary figure, moving upon the yellow strand was a mark for miles around. Steadily, nevertheless did he advance; the very daring, the unpardonable foolhardiness of the deed his safety. And yet the strain was high. Were they watching the island? Among the eager crew, to each of whom the capture might mean a splendid prize and chance of promotion, was there one would have the genius of suddenly suspecting that this foolhardy wayfarer might be the man they wanted and not merely Sir Adrian returning on foot towards his home?... And then came the answer of hopeful youth and hardy courage----. No. The preventive are a lubberly lot--It will require something better than a water-guard to track and take Lucky Jack Smith! * * * * * But for all his assurance Lucky Jack Smith drew a long breath of relief when he felt the shadow of Pulwick woods closing around him at last. CHAPTER XXIII THE DAY: NOON There stood two men and they did point their fingers at that house. And on his finger one had blood; the other's finger shook. _Luteplayer's Song._ Broken lengths of wall, a crumbling indication of the spring of once exquisite arches, windows gaping darkly like the eye sockets of a skull--this was all that was left of the old priory of Pulwick, whilom proud seat of clerical power and learning. But the image of decay was robbed of all melancholy by the luxuriance of climbing vegetation, by the living screen of noble firs and larches arranged in serried ranks upon the slopes immediately behind it, with here and there a rugged sentinel within the ruinous yards and rooms themselves; by wild bushes of juniper and gorse and brambles. And, with the bright noon sun pouring down upon the worn red sandstone, and gilding the delicate tassels of the larches' green needles; with the light of young love, spreading glamour upon every leaf and stone, in the eyes of the lovers, the scene, witness of so many sweet meetings, bore that day a beautiful and home-like aspect. Captain Jack was standing upon the grass-grown floor of what had been the departed monks' refectory, with ears eagerly bent to listen. Three ragged walls, a clump of fir trees, and a bank of brambles screened him from any chance passer-by, and he now and again peered through a crevice on to a path through the woods, cautiously, as if fearful to venture forth. His face was pale beneath its tan, and had none of its usual brightness; his attire for him was disordered; his whole appearance that of a man under the pressure of doubt and anxiety. Yet, when the sound of a light footfall struck among the thousand whispering noises of wind and leaf that went to make up the silence of the ruins, the glory of joy that lit up eye and lip left no room for any other impression. Madeleine stood in the old doorway: a vision of beautiful life amid emblems of decay and death. "I come alone to-day," she said, with her half-shy smile. And then, before she could utter a further word of explanation, she was gathered into her lover's strong arms with a passion he had never as yet shown in his chivalrous relations with her. But it was not because they met without the sympathetic rapture of Miss Landale's eye upon them; not because there was no other witnesses but the dangling ivy wreath, the stern old walls, the fine dome of spring sky faintly blue; not because of lover's audacious joy. This Madeleine, feeling the stormy throbbing of his heart against hers, knew with sure instinct. She pushed him gently from her as soon as she could, the blushes chased from her cheeks by pale misgivings, and looked at him with eyes full of troubled questioning. Then he spoke, from his full heart: "Madeleine, something has happened--a misfortune, as I wrote to you. I must now start upon my venture sooner than I thought--at once. I shall have to _fly_ in fact, to-day. There have been spies upon me, and my secret trust is in danger. How they have tracked me, how suspicion has been aroused, I cannot guess. But I have been tracked. A fellow came at dawn. I had to defend my secret--the secret not my own, the charge entrusted to me. The man was hurt. I cannot explain, dear love, there is no time; even now I run the risk of my life by being here, and life is so dear to me now, my Madeleine! Hush! No, do not be afraid! I am afraid of nothing, so long as you trust me. Will you trust me? I cannot leave you here behind; and now, with this cursed stroke of ill-luck, this suspicion upon me, it may be long before I can return to England. I cannot leave you behind, I cannot! Will you trust me, Madeleine, will you come with me? We shall be married in France, my darling. You should be as a queen in the guard of her most humble slave. I am half mad to think I must go. Ah, kiss me, love, and say yes! Listen! I must sail away and make believe that I have gone. My _Peregrine_ is a bird that none can overtake, but I shall come back to-night. Listen: If you will be on the island to-night--Sir Adrian is there already, and I hear your sister is coming--a freak of fancy--and he, God bless him, has told her to bring you too (it shows my luck has not deserted me yet). I shall be there, unknown to all except Renny. I cannot meet you nearer home, but you will be my own brave bride and keep your own counsel. You will not be frightened, will you, my beautiful love? All you have to do is to follow Renny's instructions. My ship will be back, waiting, an hour after dark, ready, when you set foot on it, to spread its wings with its treasures--treasures, indeed! And then we shall have the world before us--riches, love, such love! And once safe, I shall be free to prove to you that it is no common blood I would mate with that dear and pure stream that courses in your veins. You shall soon know all; will you trust me?" She hung upon his hot words, looking at him with loving, frightened eyes. Now he gathered her to his arms again, again his bursting heart throbbed its stormy passion to her ear. She was as one carried away by a torrent against which resistance is useless. He bent his head over her face; the scent of the bunch of violets in her breast rose deliciously to his nostrils. Alas! Hubert Cochrane was not to reach that kiss of acquiescence, that kiss from which it seemed that but so small a fraction of space and time divided him! Some one, who had stepped along in the shadow as silently as a cat coming upon a bird, clapped here a hand upon his shoulder. "Who are you, sir, and what do you want?" exclaimed Captain Jack, wrenching himself free, falling back a pace and measuring the new-comer from head to foot with furious glances, while, with burning blushes Madeleine faltered: "Rupert!" Nothing awakens anger in hot blood sooner than an unsanctioned touch. In certain moods the merest contact is as infuriating as a blow. Such an insult, added to the irreparable injury of interrupting their meeting at the most exquisite and crucial moment, drove Captain Jack beside himself with rage. But Madeleine's hand was still on his arm. She felt it suddenly harden and twitch with murderous anger. But, by an effort that made the veins of his temple swell like whipcord, he refrained from striking the double offender. Mr. Landale surveyed the pair for a moment in silence with his grave look; then coldly he answered the sailor's irate speech. "My name, fellow, is Rupert Landale. I am here to protect my cousin from an unprincipled and criminal adventurer." "You take a sharp tone sir," cried Captain Jack, the flush on his face deepening yet a shade, his nostrils ominously dilated, yet speaking without further loss of self-control. "You probably count upon the presence of this lady to prevent my resenting it; but as my time with her is short and I have still much to say, I shall be forced promptly to eject you from the ruins here, unless you will be good enough to immediately remove yourself. I shall hope for another meeting with you to discuss the question as to your right of interference; but to-day--I cannot spare the time." Rupert smiled without moving; then the sailor gently disengaging himself from Madeleine would have put her behind him but that she pressed forward and laid a hand upon an arm of each of the men. "Stay, Jack," she pleaded, "let me speak. There is some mistake here. Cousin Rupert, you cannot know that I am engaged to this gentleman and that he is a friend of your brother's as well as of other good friends of mine." "My poor child," answered Rupert, closing a cold hand gently over hers and speaking with a most delicate tenderness of accent, "you have been grossly imposed upon, and so have others. As for my poor brother Adrian, he is, if anything, easier to deceive than you, innocent convent-bred girl! I would have you to go home, my dear, and leave me to deal with this--gentleman. You have bitter truths to learn; would it not be better to wait and learn them quietly without further scandal?" This was too much for Captain Jack, who fairly ground his teeth. Rupert's honeyed tones, his grasp of Madeleine's hand were more unbearable even than the words. He advanced upon the elder man and seizing him by the collar whirled him away from the girl as easily as a straw puppet. The fine gentleman of sensitive nerves and unworked sinews had no chance against the iron strength of the man who had passed all the years of virility fighting against sea and storm. The two faced each other; Jack Smith, red and panting with honest rage, only the sense of his lady's proximity keeping him from carrying his high-handed measures a little further. Mr. Landale, livid, with eyes suddenly black in their orbits, moistening his white lips while he quivered from head to foot with a passion so tense that not even his worst enemy could have attributed it to fear. An unequal match it would seem, yet unequal in a way that the young man, in the conscious glory of his strength could not have conceived. Madeleine neither screamed nor fainted; she had grown white, in natural apprehension, but her eyes fixed upon her lover's face shone with admiration. Mr. Landale turned slowly towards her. "Madeleine," he said, readjusting his stock and smoothing the folds of his collar with a steadfast striving after coolness, "you have been grossly deceived. The man you would trust with your life and honour is a mere smuggler. He has no doubt told you fine stories, but if he has given himself out for aught else he lied, take my word for it--he lied. He is a common smuggler, and the vessel he would carry you away in is packed with smuggled goods. To-day he has attacked and wounded an officer, who, in the discharge of his duty, endeavoured to find out the nature of his suspicious purpose. Your would-be lover's neck is in danger. A felon, he runs the risk of his life every moment he remains on land--but he would make a last effort to secure the heiress! Look at him," his voice raising in spite of himself to a shriller pitch--"he cannot deny it!" Madeleine gazed from one to the other. Her mind, never a very quick one at decision, was too bewildered to act with clearness; moreover with her education and ignorance of the world the indictment conveyed no special meaning to her. But there was an agony of suspense and beseeching in the glance that her lover cast upon her; and to that appeal she smiled proudly. Hers were no true love, she felt, were its confidence shaken by the slandering of anger. Then the thought of his danger, danger admitted by his own lips, flashed upon her with terror. She rushed to him, "Oh go, Jack, go!--As you love me, go!" Mr. Landale, who had already once or twice cast impatient looks of expectation through a window of the east wall, taken by surprise at this unforeseen result of his speech, suddenly climbed up upon a broken piece of stone-work, from which there was an abrupt descent towards the shore, and began to signal in eager gesticulation. There was a sound of heavy running footfalls without. Captain Jack raised his head, every nerve on the alert. "Go, go," again cried Madeleine, dreading she knew not what.--A fat panting red face looked over the wall; Mr. Landale turned for a second to throw at the lovers a glance of elation. But it seemed as if the sailor's spirits rose at the breath of danger. He rapidly looked round upon the ruins from which there were no other outlets than the window guarded by Mr. Landale, and the doorway in which the red-faced new-comer now stood, framed in red stone; then, like a cat he darted on to the ledge of the wall at the opposite end, where some invading boughs of larch dropped over the jagged crest, before the burly figure in the blue coat of the preventive service had recovered from the surprise of finding a lady in his way, or gathered his wits and his breath sufficiently to interfere. There the nimble climber stood a moment balancing himself lightly, though the ivied stones rocked beneath him. "I go, love," he cried in ringing voice, "but one word from you and I go----" "Oh, I trust you! I will trust you!" screamed the girl in despair, while her fascinated gaze clung to the erect figure silhouetted against the sky and the stout man looked up, open-mouthed. Mr. Landale snarled at him: "Shoot, fool--shoot!" And straining forward, himself drew a pistol from the man's belt, cocked it and thrust it into his grasp. Captain Jack kissed his hand to Madeleine with a joyful gesture, then waved his hat defiantly in Rupert's direction, and with a spring disappeared, just as the pistol cracked, drawing a shriek of terror from the girl, and its bullet flattened itself against the upper stone of the wall--considerably wide of the mark. "Come, this way----!" screamed Mr. Landale from his window sill, "you have another!" But the preventive shook his head, and thrust his smoking barrel back through his belt, with an air of philosophical resignation; and slowly approaching the window, through which the fugitive could now be seen steadily bowling down the seaward slope, observed in slow, fat tones: "Give you a hand, sir?" Rupert, thrusting his extended arm aside jumped down beside him as if he would have sprung at his throat. "Why are you so late?--why have you brought no one with you? I gave you notice enough. You fool! You have let him slip through your fingers, now, after all! Couldn't you even shoot straight? Such a mark as he made against the sky--Pah! well may the sailors say, lubberly as a land preventive----!" "Why, there you are, Mr. Landale!" answered the man with imperturbable, greasy good-humour. "The way you shoved that there pistol into my hand was enough to put off anybody. But you country magistrate gentlemen, as I have always said, you are the real sort to make one do illegal actions with your flurry and your hurry over everything. 'Shoot!' says you, and damme, sir, if I didn't shoot straight off before I knew if I were on my head or on my heels. It's a mercy I didn't hit the sweet young lady--it is indeed. And as for the young gentleman, though to be sure he did show a clean pair of heels at the sight of me, I had no proper time for i-dentification--no time for i-den-ti-fi-cation, Mr. Landale, sir. So I say, sir, it's a mercy I did not hit him either, now I can think of it. Ah, slow and sure, that's my motter! I takes my man on his boat, in the very middle of his laces and his brandy and his silk--I takes him, sir, in the very act of illegality, red-handed, so to speak, and then, if he shows fight, or if he runs away, then I shoots, sir, and then if I hits, why it's a good job too--but none of this promiscuous work for Augustus Hobson. Slow and sure, that's my motter." The speaker who had been rolling a quid of tobacco in his mouth during this exposition of policy, here spat emphatically upon the grass, and catching Madeleine's abstracted eye, begged pardon for the liberty with a gallant air. "Aye, so slow, man, that you are pretty sure to fail," muttered Mr. Landale. "I knows my business, sir, meaning no offence," retorted Mr. Hobson serenely. "When I has no orders I acts on regulation. I brought no one with me because I had no one to bring, having sent, as per regulation, my one remaining man to give notice to the water service, seeing that that there schooner has had the impudence to come back, and is at this very moment cruising quite happy-like just the other side of the bank; though if ever their cutter overhauls her--well, I'm a Dutchman! You might have done wiser, perhaps (if I may make so bold as to remark), to leave the management of this business to them as understands such things. As to being late, sir, you told me to be in the ruins at twelve noon, and I beg to insinuate that it's only just past the hour now." At this point the preventive man drew from his capacious breeches a brass time-piece, of congenial stoutness, the face of which he turned towards the magistrate. The latter, however, waved the proffered witness impatiently aside. Furtively watching his cousin, who, leaning against the door-post, her pale head thrown out in strong relief by the dark stones, stood as if absolutely detached from her surroundings, communing over troubled thoughts with her own soul, he said with deliberate distinctness: "But have I been misled, then, in understanding that you were with the unfortunate officer who was so ferociously assaulted this morning? that you and he did come upon this Captain Smith, red-handed as you call it, loading or unloading his vessel on Scarthey Island?" "Aye, sir," rolled out the other, unctuously, "there you are again, you see. Poor Nat Beavor, he was one of your hot-headed ones, and see what it has brought _him_ to--a crack in his skull, sir, so that it will be days before he'll know himself again, the doctor says, if ever he does in this world, which I don't think. Ah, I says to him, when we started in the dawn this morning agreeable to our arrangement with you: 'For peeping and prying on the quiet without any running risks and provoking others to break the law more than they're doing, I'm your man,' says I; 'but as for attacking desperate individles without proper warrant and authority, not to speak of being one to ten, I tell you fair, Nat Beavor, I'll have nothing to do with it.' But Nat, he went off his head, clean, at the sight of Captain Jack and his men a trundling the little kegs down the sands, as neat and tidy as could be; and so he cut out from behind the rocks, and I knew there was mischief ahead! Ah, poor fellow, if he would only have listened to me! I did my best for him, sir; started off to call up the other man, who was on the other side of the ruins, as soon as I saw his danger, but when I came back----" "The birds were flown, of course," interrupted Rupert with a sneer, "and you found the body of your comrade who had been dastardly wounded, and who, I hear, is dead now. So the villain has twice escaped you. Cousin Madeleine," hastily breaking off to advance to the girl, who now awakening from her reflective mood seemed about to leave the ruins, "Cousin Madeleine, are you going? Let me escort you back." She slowly turned her blue eyes, burning upon him from her white face. "Cousin Rupert, I do not want your company." Then she added in a whisper, yet with a passion for which Rupert would never have given her credit and which took him vastly by surprise, "I shall never forgive you." "My God, Madeleine," cried he, with genuine emotion, "have I deserved this? I have had no thought but to befriend you, I have opened your eyes to your own danger----" "Hold your tongue, sir," she broke in, with the same repressed anger. "Cease vilifying the man I love. All your aspersions, your wordy accusations will not shake my faith in him. _Mon Dieu_," she cried, with an unsteady attempt at laughter, looking under her lashes and tilting her little white round chin at Mr. Hobson, who, now seated upon a large stone, and with an obtrusive quid of tobacco bulging in an imperfectly shorn cheek, was mopping his forehead with a doubtful handkerchief. "_That_ is the person, I suppose, whose testimony I am to believe against my Jack!" "Your Jack was prompt enough in running away from him, such as he is," retorted her cousin bitterly. He could not have struck, for his purpose, upon a weaker joint in her poor woman's armour of pride and trust. She caught her breath sharply, as if indeed she had received a blow. "Well, say your say," she exclaimed, coming to a standstill and facing him; "I will hear all that you and your--your friend have to say, lest," with a magnificent toss of her head, "you fancy I am afraid, or that I believe one word of it all. I know that Jack--that Captain Smith, as he is called--is engaged upon a secret and important mission; but it is one, Rupert, which all English gentlemen should wish to help, not impede." "Do you know what the mission is--do you know to whom? And if, my fair cousin, it is such that all English gentlemen would help, why then this secrecy?" She bit her lip; but it trembled. "What is it you accuse him of?" she asked, with a stamp of her foot. "Listen to me," said Rupert gently, "it is the kinder thing that you should know the truth, and believe me, every word I say I can substantiate. This Captain Jack Smith, whatever his real name may be, was picked up when a mere boy by an old Liverpool merchant, starving in the streets of that town. This merchant, by name Cochrane, an absurd person who gave himself out to be a relative of Cochrane of Shaws, adopted the boy and started him upon a slaver, that is a ship which does trade in negro slaves, my dear--a pretty trade. He next entered a privateer's ship as lieutenant. You know what these are--ocean freebooters, tolerated by government for the sake of the harm they wreck upon the ships of whatever nation we may happen to be at war with--a sort of pirate ship--hardly a much more reputable business than the slaver's; but Captain Smith made himself a name in it. Now that the war is over, he has taken to a lower traffic still--that of smuggling." "But _what_ is smuggling?" cried the girl, tears brimming up at last into her pretty eyes, and all her heat of valiance suddenly gone. "What does it mean?" "What is smuggling? Bless your innocence! I beg your pardon, my dear--miss I should say--but if you'll allow _me_ I think I'm the man to explain that 'ere to you." The husky mellifluous tones of the preventive-service man, who had crept up unnoticed to listen to the conversation, here murmured insinuatingly in her ear. Rupert hesitated; then reading shrinking aversion upon Madeleine's face, shrewdly conjectured that the exposition of her lover's doings might come with more force from Mr. Hobson's lips than from his own, and allowed the latter to proceed unmolested. "Smuggling, my pretty," wheezed the genial representative of the custom laws, "again asking pardon, but it slipped out, smuggling is, so to say, a kind of stealing, a kind of cheating and that of a most rank and heinous kind. For, mind you, it ain't stealing from a common man, nor from the likes of you and me, nor from a nobleman either: it's cheating and stealing from his most gracious Majesty himself. For see you, how 'tis, his Majesty he says, 'Every keg of brandy,' says he, 'and every yard of lace and every pipe o' tobacco as is brought into this here country shall be paid for, so much on, to me, and that's called a tax, miss, and for that there are the custom houses and custom officers--which is me--to see his Majesty paid right and proper his lawful dues. But what does your smuggler do, miss--your rollicking, dare-devil chap of a smuggler? Why he lands his lace and his brandy and his 'baccy unbeknownst and sells 'em on the sly--and pockets the profit! D'ye see?--and so he cheats his Majesty, which is a very grievous breaking of the law; so much so that he might as well murder at once--Kind o' treason, you may say--and that's what makes 'em such desperate chaps. They knows if they're caught at it, with arms about them, and two or three together--it's--clank." Mr. Hobson grasped his own bull neck with an unpleasantly significant gesture and winked knowingly at the girl, who turned white as death and remained gazing at him with a sort of horrified fascination which he presently noted with an indulgent smile. "Don't take on now, my lass--no offence, miss--but I can't bear to see a fine young 'oman like you upset-like--I'm a damned, hem, hem, a real soft hearted fellow. Your sweetheart's heels have saved his gullet this time--and though he did crack poor Nat upon the skull (as I can testify for I as good as saw him do it--which makes it a hanging matter twice over I won't deny), yet there's a good few such as him escapes the law and settles down arter, quite respectable-like. A bit o' smuggling now is a thing many a pretty fellow has taken to in his day, and has made a pretty penny out of too, and is none the worse looked to arter, as I said. Aye, and there's many a gentleman and a magistrate to boot as drinks his glass of smuggled brandy and smokes his smuggled baccy and finds them none the worse, oh dear no! Human nature it is and human nature is a queer thing. Even the ladies, miss, are well-known to be soft upon the smuggled lace: it's twice as cheap you see as t'other, and they can get double as handsome for the money. Begging your pardon--if I may make so bold--" stretching out a great, coarse, tobacco-stained finger and thumb to close them appreciatively upon the hanging lace of Madeleine's neck handkerchief, "may be your spark brought you that there, miss, now? He, he, he--as pretty a bit of French point it is as has ever been my fate to lay hands on--Never fear," as the girl drew back with a gesture of loathing from the contact. "I ain't agoing to seize it off you or take you up, he--he--he--eh, Mr. Landale? I'm a man o' my duty, I hope, but our orders don't run as far as that." "Rupert!" cried Madeleine, piteously turning a dark gaze of anguish at him--it seemed as if she were going to faint. He hastened up to her, shouldering the clumsy form of Mr. Augustus Hobson unceremoniously out of the way: the fellow had done his work for the time being, and this last piece of it so efficaciously indeed that his present employer felt, if not remorse, at least a certain pity stir within him at the stricken hopelessness of the girl's aspect. He passed his arm round her waist as she shivered and swayed. "Lean on me," he said, his fine eyes troubled with an unwonted softness and anxiety. "Rupert," she whispered, clutching at his sleeve, eagerly fixing him with a look eloquent of unconscious pleading, "all these things this--this man talks of are things which are brought into England--are they not? I know that--_he_ was bringing nothing into the country, but he was going to another country upon some important trust, the nature of which he had promised not to reveal. Therefore he cannot be cheating the King, if that is smuggling--Oh Rupert, is there not some grievous mistake?" "My poor child," said Rupert, holding her close and tenderly, and speaking with a gentle gravity in which there was this time less hypocrisy, "there is one thing which is smuggled out of England, and it is as dishonest and illegal work as the other, the most daring and dangerous smuggling of all in fact; one in which none but a desperate man would engage--that of gold." "Yes, gold," exclaimed the girl sharply, withdrawing herself from her cousin's arms, while a ray of intelligence and hope lit up her face. "Gold for the French King's service." Rupert betrayed no emotion; he drew from the inner pocket of his coat a crushed news-sheet. "Deceived there, as well as everywhere else, poor little cousin," he said. "And did the scoundrel say so? Nay, he is a damnable scoundrel who could betray your trustfulness to your own sweet face. Gold indeed--but not for the King--gold for the usurper, for the tyrant who was supplied already, no doubt, by the same or similar traitor hands with enough to enable him to escape from the island where he was so justly imprisoned. See here, Madeleine, Bonaparte is actually landed in France: it has all been managed with the most devilish ingenuity and takes the whole world by surprise. And your lover, doubtless, is engaged upon bringing him fresh supplies to enable him to begin again and rack humanity with hideous wars. Oh, he never told you of the Corsican's escape, yet this news is three days old. See you, my dear, this explains the whole mystery, the necessity for absolute secrecy; all England is friendly to the French monarch; no need to smuggle gold for his aid--but the other...! It is treason, the blackest treason on every side of it, treason to his King, to his country, to _your_ King, to you. And he would have cozened you with tales of his loyalty to the rightful cause!" "Give me the paper," said Madeleine. A tide of blood had swept into her face; she was no longer white and shaken, but erect and beautiful in strong indignation. Rupert examined her, as if a little doubtful how to take the sudden change; but he handed her the printed sheet in silence. She read with lips and nostrils expanded by her quick breathing; then crumpled up the sheet and cast it at his feet. And after a pause, with her princess air of dignity, "I thank you, cousin Rupert," she said; then, passing him with stately steps, moved towards the house. He pressed forward to keep up with her; and upon the other side, smiling, irrepressible, jocose, Mr. Hobson did the same. "You are not fit to go alone," urged the former, while the latter engagingly protruding an elbow, announced that he'd be proud to give her an arm as far as the Hall. She drew away from this well-meaning squire of dames with such shuddering distaste, and looked once more so white and worn and sickened after her sudden blaze of passion, that Mr. Landale, seeing that the only kindness was to let her have her will, arrested his companion roughly enough, and allowed her to proceed as she wished. * * * * * And so, with bent head, Madeleine hurried forth. And the same glorious sun smiled down upon her in her anguish that had greeted her when she hastened an hour before glowing and light-hearted--if, indeed, a heart so full of love could be termed light--to meet her lover; the same brambles caught her dress, the same bird trilled his song. But Madeleine thought neither of ray nor leaf, nor yet of mating songsters: all the spring world, as she went, was to her strewn with the wreck of her broken hopes, and encompassed by the darkness of her lonely future. * * * * * Mr. Landale and the preventive service man stood some time watching her retreating figure through the wood, and then walked slowly on for a while, in silent company. Presently the latter, who during the last part of the interview, had begun to feel a little ruffled by the magistrate's persistently overbearing manner, inquired with something of dudgeon in his voice: "Begging your pardon, sir, what was that I heard the young lady call out just now? 'Gold!' she cries. Is it guineas that nipping young man is a taking over seas, if I may make so bold? Now you see, sir, we haven't had no orders about no gold on this station--that sort of thing is mostly done down south. But what I wants to know is: Why, if you knew all about the fellow's little games, you sent us to spy on him? Ah, poor Nat would want a word or two with you on that score, I fancy! Now it's as plain as Salisbury...." "But I know nothing certain," impatiently interrupted Mr. Landale. "I know no more than you do yourself. Only not being a perfect idiot, I can put two and two together. What in the name of goodness can a man smuggle _out_ of England but gold? But I wanted the proofs. And your business, it was agreed with the Chief Officer, was to follow my instructions." "And so we did," grumbled Mr. Hobson; "and a pretty business it's turned out! Nat's to pocket his bludgeoning, I suppose, and I am to bear the blame and lose my share. A cargo of guineas, by God! I might have nosed it, down south, but here.... Blast it! But since you was so clever over it, sir, why in blazes--if I may speak so to a gentleman and a magistrate," pursued the man with a rueful explosion of disgust, "didn't you give _me_ the hint? Why, guineas is contraband of war--it's treason, sir--and guineas is a cargo that's _fought_ for, sir! I shouldn't have moved with two men in a boat patrol, d'ye think? I should have had the riding officers, and the water-guard, and a revenue cruiser in the offing, and all tight and regular. But you _would_ have all the credit, and where are you? and _where's_ my share? and where is Nat?--Bah!" "You are forgetting yourself, officer," said Mr. Landale, looking severely into the eyes of the disappointed preventive man, whose rising ebullition became on the instant reduced. "So I am, sir, so I am--and beg your pardon. But you must admit, it's almost enough to make ... but never mind, sir, the trick is done. Whatever it may be that that there schooner carries in her bottom, she is free now to take it, barring accident, wherever she pleases. I'll trouble you to look this way, sir." They had emerged from the wooded part of the park, and the rising ground on which they stood commanded a wide sea-view, west of the great bay. "There she is again, sir," said Mr. Hobson, waving his broad paw, like a showman displaying his goods, with a sort of enraged self-satisfaction. "There is the schooner, ready to hoist sail as soon as he comes alongside. And that there black point which you may see, if your eyes are good enough, is a six-oared galley with as ship-shaped a crew--if it's the same as I saw making off this morning--as ever pulled. Your Captain Smith, you may take your oath, is at the tiller, and making fun of us two to the lads. In five minutes he will be on board, and then the revenue cutter from the station may give chase if she likes!... And there she is, due to the time--about a mile astern. But bless you, that's all my eye, you may take your oath! They know well enough that in an open sea they can't run down a Salcombe schooner. But to earn their pay they will hang on till they lose her, and then sail home, all cosy.--I'm thinking," he added slily, with a side glance at the magistrate: "we won't hang him _this_ time." Mr. Landale made no answer; during the last few minutes his reflections had enabled him to take a new view of the situation. After all the future fate of Captain Jack was of little moment. He had been successfully exposed before Madeleine, whose love for the young man was, as had just been sufficiently proved, chiefly composed of those youthful illusions which dispelled once, never can return. Rupert fell gradually into a reverie in which he found curious satisfaction. His work had not been unsuccessful, whatever Mr. Hobson's opinion might be. But, as matters stood between Madeleine and her lover, the girl's eyes had been opened in time, and that without scandal.... And even the escape of Captain Jack was, upon reflection, the best thing that could have happened. And so it was with a return to his usual polite bearing, that he listened to the officer's relapse into expostulation. "Now if you had only given me the hint first of all," the man was grumblingly saying, "and then let me act--for who would have suspected a boat, yacht-rigged like that?--A friend of Sir Adrian's, too! If you'd only left it to me! Why that six-oared galley alone is agin the law unless you can prove good reason for it ... as for the vessel herself...." "Yes, my dear Mr. Hobson," interrupted Mr. Landale, smiling propitiously. "I have no doubt you would have secured him. I have made a mess of it. But now you understand, least said, soonest mended, both for me and (between ourselves, Mr. Hobson) for the young lady." The man, in surprise at this sudden alteration of manner, stopped short and gaped; and presently a broad smile, combined with a knowing wink, appeared on his face. He received the guineas that Mr. Landale dropped in his palm with an air of great candour, and, without further parley, acted on the kind advice to repair to the Priory and talk with one Mrs. Puckett the housekeeper, on the subject of corporeal refreshment. * * * * * "Well," said Molly, bursting in upon her sister, who sat by her writing-table, pen in hand, and did not even raise her head at the unceremonious entrance. "This is evidently the day for mysterious disappearances. First Rupert and Sophia; then my lord and master who is fetched hurriedly to his island (that isle of misfortune!) God knows for what--though _I_ mean to know presently; then you, Mademoiselle, and Rupert again. It is, faith, quite a comedy. But the result has been that I have had my meals alone, which is not so gay. Sophia is in bed, it turns out; Rupert out a-riding, on important business, of course! all he does is desperately important. And there you are--alone in your room, moping. God, child, how pale you are! What ails you then?" "Molly," cried Madeleine, ignoring Lady Landale's question and feverishly folding the written sheet which lay under her hand, "if you love me, if ever you loved me, will you have this letter conveyed by a safe messenger to Scarthey, and given to René--to none but René, at once? Oh, Molly, it will be a service to me, you little guess of what moment!" "_Voyez un peu!_" said Lady Landale coolly. "What trust in Molly, all at once! Aha, I thought it would come. If I love you? Hum, I'm not so sure about that. If ever I loved you?--a droll sort of plea, in truth, considering how you have requited my love!" Madeleine turned a dazed look upon her sister, who stood surveying her, glowing like a jewel of dazzling radiance, from her setting of black mantle and black plumed hat. "So you will not!" she answered hopelessly, and let her forehead fall upon her hand without further protest. "But I did not say I would not--as it happens I am going to the island myself. How you stare--oh you remember now do you? Who told you I wonder?--of course, such a couple as we are, Adrian and I, could not be divided from each other for over half a day, could we? By the way, I was to convey a gracious invitation to you too. Will you come with me?--No?--strange girl. So even give me the letter, I will take it to--no, not to René, 'tis addressed to Captain Smith, I see. Dear me--you don't mean to say, Madeleine, that you are corresponding with that person; that he is near us? What would Tanty say?" "Oh, Molly, cease your scoffs," implored poor Madeleine, wearily. "You are angry with me, well, now rejoice, for I am punished--well punished. Oh, I would tell you all but I cannot! my heart is too sick. See, you may read the letter, and then you will understand--but for pity's sake go--Do not fail to go; he will be there on the island at dark--he expects _me_--Oh, Molly! I cannot explain--indeed I cannot, and there is no time, it will soon be dusk; but there is terrible danger in his being there at all." Molly took the letter, turned it over with scornful fingers and then popped it in her pocket. "If he expects you," she asked, fixing cold, curious eyes on her sister's distress, "and he is in danger, why _don't_ you go?" A flush rose painfully to Madeleine's face, a sob to her throat. "Don't ask me," she murmured, turning away to hide her humiliation. "I have been deceived, he is not what I thought." Lady Landale gazed at the shrinking figure for a little while in silence. Then remarking contemptuously: "Well you are a poor creature," turned upon her heel to leave her. As she passed the little altar, she paused to whisk a bunch of violets out of a vase and dry the stems upon her sister's quilt. "Molly," cried Madeleine, in a frenzy, "give me back my letter, or go." "I go, I go," said Lady Landale with a mocking laugh. "How sweet your violets smell!--There, do not agitate yourself: I'm going to meet your lover, my dear. I vow I am curious to see the famous man, at last." CHAPTER XXIV THE NIGHT So the blood burned within her, And thus it cried to her: And there, beside the maize field The other one was waiting-- He, the mysterious one. _Luteplayer's Song._ The mantle of night had already fallen upon the land when Lady Landale, closely wrapped in her warmest furs, with face well ensconced under her close bonnet, and arms buried to the elbow in her muff, sallied from her room on the announcement that the carriage was waiting. As, with her leisurely daintiness, she tripped it down the stairs, she crossed Mr. Landale, and paused a moment, ready for the skirmish, as she noticed the cynical curiosity with which he examined her. "Whither, my fair sister," said he, ranging himself with his best courtesy against the bannisters, "so late in the day?" "To my lord and master's side, of course," said Molly. "Why--is not Adrian coming back to-night?" "Apparently not, since he has graciously permitted me to join him upon his rock. I trust you will not find it too unhappy in our absence: that would be the crowning misfortune of a day when everything seems to have gone wrong. Sophia invisible with her vapours; Madeleine with the megrim; and you in and out of the house as excited and secret as the cat when she has licked all the cream. I suppose I shall end by knowing what it is all about. Meanwhile I think I shall enjoy the tranquillity of the island--although I have actually to tear myself away from the prospect of a tête-à-tête evening with you." But as Rupert's serenity was not to be moved, her ladyship hereupon allowed herself to be escorted to the carriage without further parley. As she drove away through the dark night, first down the level, well-metalled avenue, then along the uneven country road, and finally through the sand of the beach in which hoofs and tyres sank noiselessly, inches deep, Molly gave herself up, with almost childish zest to the leaven of imagination.... Here, in this dark carriage, was reclining, not Lady Landale (whose fate deed had already been signed, sealed and delivered to bring her nothing but disappointment), but her happier sister, still confronted with the fascinating unknown, hurrying under cover of night, within sound of the sea, to that enthralling lure, a lover--a real lover, ardent, daring, _young_, ready to risk all, waiting to spread the wings of his boat, and carry her to the undiscovered country. Glowing were these fleeting images of the "might have been," angry the sudden relapses into the prose of reality. No, Madeleine, the coward, who thought she had loved her lover, was now in her room, weak and weeping, whilst he, no doubt, paced the deck in mad impatience (as a lover should), now tortured by the throes of anxiety, now hugging himself with the thought of his coming bliss ... that bliss that never was to be his. And in the carriage there was only Molly, the strong-hearted but the fettered by tie and vow, the slave for ever of a first girlish fancy but too successfully compassed; only Lady Landale rejoining her husband in his melancholy solitude; Lady Landale who never--never! awful word! would know the joys which yonder poor fool had had within her grasp and yet had not clutched at. Molly had read, as permitted, her sister's letter, and to some purpose; and scorn of the girl who from some paltry quibble could abandon in danger the man she professed to love, filled her soul to the exclusion of any sisterly or ever womanly pity. At the end of half an hour the carriage was stopped by the black shadow of a man, who seemed to spring up from the earth, and who, after a few rapid words interchanged with the coachman, extinguished both the lights, and then opened the door. Leaning on the offered elbow Molly jumped down upon the yielding sand. "René?" she asked; for the darkness even on the open beach was too thick to allow of recognition. "René, your ladyship--or Mademoiselle is it?" answered the man in his unmistakable accent. "I must ask; for, by the voice no one can tell, as your ladyship, or Mademoiselle knows--and the sky is black like a chimney." "Lady Landale, René," and as he paused, she added, "My sister would not come." "Ah, _mon Dieu_! She would not come," repeated the man in tones of dismay; and the black shadow was struck into a moment of stillness. Then with an audible sigh Mr. Potter roused himself, and saying with melancholy resignation, "The boat is there, I shall be of return in a minute, My Lady," took the traveller's bag on his shoulder and disappeared. The carriage began to crunch its way back in the darkness and Molly was left alone. * * * * * In front of her was a faint white line, where the rollers spread their foam with mournful restless fugue of long drawn roar and hissing sigh. In the distance, now and then glancing on the crest of the dancing billows, shone the steady light of Scarthey. The rising wind whistled in the prickly star-grass and sea-holly. Beyond these, not a sight, not a sound--the earth was all mystery. Molly looked at the light--marking the calm spot where her husband waited for her; its very calm, its familiar placidity, monotony, enraged her; she hearkened to the splashing, living waves, to the swift flying gusts of the storm wind, and her soul yearned to their life, and their mysteriousness. What she longed for, she herself could not tell. No words can encompass the desire of pent-up young vitality for the unknown, for the ideal, for the impossible. But one thing was overpoweringly real: that was the dread of leaving just then the wide, the open world whose darkness was filled to her with living scenes of freedom and space, and blood-stirring emotions; of re-entering the silent room under the light; of consorting with the shadowy personality, her husband; of feeling the web of his melancholy, his dreaminess, imprison as it were the wings of her imagination and the thoughtful kindness of his gaze, paralyse the course of her hot blood through her veins. And yet, thither she was going, must be going! Ah Madeleine, fool--you may well weep, yonder on your pillow, for the happiness that was yours and that you have dropped from your feeble hands! * * * * * In a few minutes the black shadow re-appeared close to her. "If My Lady will lean on my shoulder, I shall lead her to the boat." And after a few steps, the voice out of the darkness proceeded in explanation: "I have not taken a lantern, I have put out those of the carriage, for I must tell My Lady, that since what arrived this morning, there may be _gabelous_--they call them the preventive here--in every corner, and the light might bring them, as it does the night papilions, and ... as I thought Mademoiselle was to accompany you--they might have frightened her. These people want to know so much!" "I know nothing of what has happened this morning, that you speak of as if the whole world must know," retorted Lady Landale coolly. "You are all hatching plots and sitting on secrets, but nobody confides in me. It seems then, that you expected Mademoiselle, my sister, here for some purpose and that you regret she did not come; may I ask for an explanation?" A few moments elapsed before the man replied, and then it was with embarrassment and diffidence: "For sure, I am sorry, My Lady ... there have been misfortunes on the island this morning--nothing though to concern her ladyship--and, as for Mademoiselle, mother Margery would have liked to see her, no doubt ... and Maggie the wife also--and--and no doubt also Mademoiselle would have liked to come.... What do I know?" "Oh, of course!" said Molly with her little note of mocking laughter. Then again they walked a while in silence. As René lifted his mistress in his arms to carry her over the licking hissing foam, she resumed: "It is well, René, you are discreet, but I am not such a fool as people seem to think. As for her, you were right in thinking that she might easily be frightened. She was afraid even to come out!" René shoved his boat off, and falling to his sculls, suddenly relapsed into the old vernacular: "_Ah Madame_," he sighed, "_c'est bien triste--un gentilhomme si beau--si brave!_" During the crossing no further words passed between them. "So brave--so handsome?" The echo of the words came back to the woman in every lap of the water on the sides of the boat, in every strain of the oars. The keel ground against the beach, and René leaped out to drag the boat free of the surf. As he did so, two blacker outlines segregated themselves from the darkness and a rough voice called out, subdued but distinct: "Savenaye, St. Malo!" "Savenaye, St. Malo!" repeated René, and helped Lady Landale to alight. Then one of the figures darted forward and whispered a rapid sentence in the Frenchman's ear. René uttered an exclamation, but his mistress intervened with scant patience: "My good René," said she, "take the bag into the peel, and come back for me. I have a message for these gentlemen." René hesitated. As he did so a rustle of anger shook the lady in her silks and furs. "Do you hear me?" she repeated, and he could guess how her little foot stamped the yielding sand. "_Oui, Madame_," said he, hesitating no longer. Immediately the other two drew near. Molly could just see that they stood in all deference, cap in hand. "Madam," began one of these in hurried words, "there is not a moment to be lost: the captain had to remain on board." "What!" interrupted Lady Landale with much asperity, "not come in person!" She had been straining her eyes to make out something of her interlocutor's form, unable to reconcile her mind's picture with the coarse voice that addressed her--And now all her high expectations fell from her in an angry rush. "Have I come all this way to be met by a messenger! Who are you?" "Madam," entreated the husky voice, "I am the mate of the _Peregrine_. The captain has directed me to beg and pray you not to be afraid, but to have good courage and confidence in us--the schooner is there; in five minutes you can be safe on board. You see, madam," continued the man with an earnestness that spoke well of his devotion, "the captain found he couldn't, he dared not leave the ship--he is the only one who knows the bearings of these waters here--any one of us might run her on the bank, and where would we be then, madam, and you, if we were found in daylight still in these parts?--'For God's sake, Curwen,' says he, 'implore the lady not to be afraid and tell her to trust, as she has promised,' so he says. And for God's sake, say I, madam, trust us. In five minutes you will be with him? Say the word, madam, am I to make the signal? There he is, eating his heart out. There are all the lads ready waiting for your foot on the ladder, to hoist sail. No time to lose, we are already behind. Shall I signal?" Molly's heart beat violently; under the sudden impulse, the fascination of the black chasm, of the peril, the adventure, the unfathomed, took possession of her, and whirled her on. "Yes," she said. On the very utterance of the word the man, who had not yet spoken, uncovered a lantern, held it aloft, as rapidly replaced it under his coat, and moved away. Almost immediately, against the black pall, behind the dim line of grey that marked the shore, suddenly sprang up three bright points in the form of a triangle. It was as if all the darkness around had been filled with life; as if the first fulfilment of those promises with which it had been drawing this woman's soul was now held out to her to lure her further still. "See, madam, how they watch!--By your leave." And with no further warning, Molly felt herself seized with uncompromising, but deferential, energy, by a pair of powerful arms; lifted like a child, and carried away at a bear-like trot. By the splashing she judged it was through the first line of breakers. Then she was handed into another irresistible grasp. The boat lurched as the mate jumped in. Then: "Now give way, lads," he said, "and let her have it. Those lights must not be burning longer than we can help. Tain't wholesome for any of us." And under the pulse of four willing pairs of arms the skiff, like a thing of life, clove the black waters and rose to the billows. "You see, madam," explained the mate, "we could not do without the lights, to show us where she lay, and give us a straight course. We are all right so long as we keep that top 'un in the middle--but he won't be sorry, I reckon, when he can drop them overboard. They can't be seen from the offing yet, but it's astounding how far a light will reach on a night like this. Cheerily, lads, let her have it!" But Molly heeded him not. She had abandoned herself to the thrilling delight of the excitement. The die was cast--not by her own hand, no one should be able to hold her responsible--she had been kidnapped. Come what might she must now see the adventure out. The lights grew larger; presently a black mass, surmounted by a kind of greyish cloud, loomed through the pitch of the night; and next it was evident that the beacon was hanging over the side of a ship, illuminating its jagged leaping water line. A voice, not too loud, yet, even through the distance, ringing clear in its earnestness sounded from above. "Boat ahoy! what boat is that?" And promptly the helmsman by Molly's side returned: "Savenaye, St. Malo." On the instant the lights went out. There was a creaking of block and cordage, and new ghostly clouds rose over the ship--sails loosened to the wind. As the skiff rowers came alongside, boat-hooks leaped into action and gripped the vessel; an arm, strong as steel, was held out for the passenger as she fearlessly put her foot on the ladder; another, a moment later, with masterful tenderness bent round her waist, and she was fairly lifted on board the _Peregrine_. But before her foot touched the deck, she felt upon her lips, laid like a burning seal, a passionate kiss; and her soul leaped up to it, as if called into sudden life from slumber, like the princess of fairy lore. She heard Madeleine's mysterious lover whisper in her ear: "At last! Oh, what I have suffered, thinking you would not come!" From the warm shelter of her loosened cloak the violets in her bosom sent forth a wave of sweetness. For a moment these two were in all creation alone to each other, while in a circle the _Peregrine's_ crew stood apart in respectful silence: a broad grin of sympathy upon the mouth of every mother's son. Released at last, Lady Landale took a trembling step on the deck. Into what strange world had she come this night? The schooner, like a mettled steed whose head is suddenly set free, was already in motion, and with gentle forward swaying leaps rising to the wave and gathering speed under her swelling sails. Captain Jack had seized Molly's hand, and the strong clasp trembled round the little fingers; he said no more to her; but, in tones vibrating with emotion which all the men, now silently seeking their posts in the darkness, could hear: "My lads," he cried, "the lady is safe with us after all. Who shall say that your skipper is not still Lucky Smith? Thank you, my good fellows! Now we have yet to bring her safe the other side. Meanwhile--no cheering, lads, you know why--there is a hundred guineas more among you the hour we make St. Malo. Stand to, every man. Up with those topsails!" Scarcely had the last words been spoken when, from the offing, on the wings of the wind, came a long-drawn hail, faint through the distance, but yet fatally distinct: "Ahoy, what schooner is that?" Molly, who had not withdrawn her hand, felt a shock pass over Captain Jack's frame. He turned abruptly, and she could see him lean and strain in the direction of the voice. The call, after an interval, was repeated. But the outlook was impenetrable, and it was weird indeed to feel that they were seen yet could not see. Molly, standing close by his side, knew in every fibre of her own body that this man, to whom she seemed in some inexplicable fashion already linked, was strongly moved. Nevertheless she could hardly guess the extremity of the passion that shook him. It was the frenzy of the rider who feels his horse about to fail him within a span of the winning post; of the leader whose men waver at the actual point of victory. But the weakness of dismay was only momentary. Calm and clearness of mind returned with the sense of emergency. He raised his night-glass, with a steady hand this time, and scanned the depth of blackness in front of him: out of it after a moment, there seemed to shape itself the dim outline of a sail, and he knew that he had waited too long and had fallen in again with the preventive cutter. Then glancing aloft, he understood how it was that the _Peregrine_ had been recognised. The overcast sky had partly cleared to windward during the last minutes; a few stars glinted where hitherto nothing but the most impenetrable pall had hung. In the east, the rays of a yet invisible moon, edging with faint silver the banks of clouds just above the horizon, had made for the schooner a tell-tale background indeed. On board no sound was heard now save the struggle of rope and canvas, the creaking of timber and the swift plashing rush of water against her rounded sides as she sped her course. "Madeleine," he said, forcibly controlling his voice, and bringing, as he spoke, his face close to Molly's to peer anxiously at its indistinct white oval, "we are not free yet; but in a short time, with God's help, we shall have left those intermeddling fools yonder who would bar our way, miles out of the running. But I cannot remain with you a moment longer; I must take the helm myself. Oh, forgive me for having brought you to this! And, should you hear firing, for Heaven's sake do not lose courage. See now, I will bring you to your cabin; there you will find warmth and shelter. And in a little while, a very little while, I will return to you to tell you all is well. Come, my dearest love." Gently he would have drawn her towards the little deck-cabin, guiding her steps, as yet untutored to the motion of the ship, when out of the black chasm, upon the weather bow of the _Peregrine_, leaped forth a yellow tongue of light fringed with red and encircled by a ruddy cloud; and three seconds later the boom of a gun broke with a dull, ominous clangour above the wrangling of sea and wind. Molly straightened herself. "What is that?" she asked. "The warning gun," he answered, hurriedly, "to say that they mean to see who we are and that if we do not stop the next will be shotted. Time presses, Madeleine, go in--fear nothing! We shall soon be on their other side, out of sight in darkness again." "I shall stop with you. Let no thought of me hinder you. I am not afraid. I want to see." At these words the lover was struck with a surprise that melted into a proud and new joy. He had loved Madeleine for her woman's grace and her woman's heart; now, he told himself, he must worship her also for her brave soul. But this was no time for useless words. It was not more unsafe for her on deck than in the cabin, and at the thought of her beside him during the coming struggle the strength of a god rose within him. "Come," he answered, briefly, and moved with her to the helm which a sailor silently surrendered to him whilst she steadied herself by holding to the binnacle--the only place on board at that time where (from sheer necessity) any light had been allowed to remain. It was faint enough, but the reflection from the compass-board, as he bent to examine it, was sufficient to make just visible, with a dim fantastic glow, the strong beauty of his face, and put a flash into each wide dilated eye. And thus did Molly, for the first time, see Captain Jack. She sank down at the foot of the binnacle, her hands clasped round her knees, as if hugging the new rapture as closely to her as she could. And looking up at the alert figure before her which she now began to discern more clearly under the lightening sky; at the face which she divined, although she could only see the watchful gleam of the eyes as now and again they sought her down in the shadow at his feet, she felt herself kindle in answer to the glow of his glorious life-energy. They were going, side by side, this young hero of romance and she, to fight their way through some unknown peril! "Madeleine, my sweet bride, my brave love, they are about to fire again, and this time you will hear the shot burring; but be not afraid, it will strike ahead of us." Another flash sprang out of the night, much nearer this time, and louder, for it belched forth a shot which ploughed its way in the water across the schooner's bow. "I am not afraid," said Molly again; and she laughed a little fierce, nervous laugh. "They are between us and the open sea. Thus far the luck is on their side. Had you come but half an hour sooner, Madeleine, we should be running as free as any king's ship. Now they think, no doubt, they will drive me on to the sand; but," he tossed back his head with a superb gesture; "there is no power from heaven or hell that can keep me out of my course to-night." By this time the preventive cutter was faintly discernible two cables length on the larboard bow. There came another hail--a loud, husky bellow from over the water, "Schooner ahoy! Heave to, or we'll sink you!" "Madeleine," said Captain Jack; "come closer to me, lie down, behind me, quick--The next shot will be in my rigging. Heave to?--with my treasures, my bride on board and a ten knot breeze...!" And he looked down at Molly, laughing in his contempt. Then he shouted some order which brought the _Peregrine_ some points more off the wind, and she bounded forward with renewed zest. "Sink us! Why don't you fire now, you lubbers?" He glanced back over his shoulder to see the beacon of Scarthey straight over the stern. "You have got us in line with the light, and that's your last chance. In another minute I shall be past you. Ah, I can see you now, my fine fellows!--Courage, Madeleine." To Molly, of course, his words conveyed no meaning, except that the critical moment had come, that the ship which carried her flying upon the water like a living thing, eager, yet obedient in all its motions to the guiding will of the man beside her, was rushing to the fray. The thought fired her soul, and she sprang up to look over the side. "What," she exclaimed, for the little cutter on close quarters looked insignificant indeed by the side of the noble vessel that so scornfully bore down on her. "Is that all!" "They have a gun, and we have none," answered Captain Jack. "Down, Madeleine! down behind, in the name of God!" "Why should I crouch if you stand up?" The man's heart swelled within him; but as he looked with proud admiration at the cloaked and hooded figure by his side, the cutter's gun fired for the third time. With roar and hiss the shot came over the bow of the schooner, as she dipped into the trough, and raking the deck, crashed through her side on the quarter. Molly gave a shriek and staggered. A fearful malediction burst from Captain Jack's lips: he left the tiller and sprang to her. One of the hands, believing his skipper to have been struck, ran to the helm, and again put the vessel on her proper course which a few moments later was to make her shoot past the revenue cutter. "Wounded, Madeleine! Wounded through my fault! By the living God, they shall pay for this!" "Oh," groaned Molly, "something has cut me in the arm and shoulder." Then rapidly gathering composure, "But it's not much, I can move it." At one glance the sailor saw from the position of the shot hole in the vessel's side that the wound could only have been made by a splinter. But the possibility of exposing his beloved to such another risk was not to be borne--a murderous rush of blood flew to his brain. The cutter, perceiving the tactics of the swifter schooner, was now tacking about with the intention of bringing the gun to bear upon her once more as she attempted to slip by. But Captain Jack in his new-fanned fury had made up his mind to a desperate cast of the die. "Starboard, hard a starboard," he called out in a voice that his men had known well in old fighting days and which was heard as far as the cutter itself. "They shall not fire that gun again!" With a brief, "Starboard it is, sir," the man who had taken the helm brought the ship round, and the silent, active crew in a trice were ready to go about. Majestically the schooner changed her course, and as the meaning of the manoeuvre became fearfully apparent, shouts and oaths arose in confusion from the cutter. "What are you going to do?" eagerly asked Molly, enthralled by the superb motion of the vessel under her foot as it swept round and increased speed upon the new tack. He held her in his arms. His hand had sought her wounded shoulder and pressed the lacerated spot in his effort to staunch the precious blood that rose warm through the cloth, torturing his cold fingers. "I am going to clear those men from our way to freedom and to love! I am going to sink that boat: they shall pay with their lives for this! Come to the other side, Madeleine, and watch how my stout _Peregrine_ sweeps our course--and then I may see how these scoundrels have mangled you, my love. But, nay, this is no sight for you. Hold on close to me, sweet, and hide your eyes while they go." He steadied himself firmly with one hand on the rigging. Now musket shots flashed on board the cutter in quick succession, and sundry balls whizzed over the poop, intended for the helmsman by their side. Captain Jack gnashed his teeth, as the menacing drone of one of them came perilously close to the beloved head by his cheek. "Look out, every man. We'll run her down!" he called. His voice was like the blast of bugles. Cheers broke out from every part of the ship, drowning the yells of execration and the shouts of fear from below. And now, with irresistible sway, the rushing _Peregrine_ heavy and powerful was closing and bearing down upon her frailer enemy. There was a spell of suspense when all was silence, save the rush and turmoil of the waters, and the flapping of the cutter's sails, helpless for the moment in the teeth of the breeze. Like a charging steed the schooner seemed to leap at her foe. Then came the shock. There was a brief check in her career, she rose by the head; the rigging strained and sighed, the masts swayed groaning, but stood. Over the bows, in the darkness was heard a long-drawn crash, was seen a white wall of foaming water rising silently to break the next moment with a great roar. The cutter, struck obliquely amidships, was thrown straightway on her beam ends: the _Peregrine_, with every sail spread and swollen, held her as the preying bird with outstretched wings holds its quarry, and pressed her down until she began to fill and settle. It was with wide-open eyes, with eager, throbbing heart that Molly watched it all. "Lights, my lads," cried Captain Jack, with a shout of exultation, when the anxious instant had passed. "Take in every man you can save but handspike is the word for the first who shows fight! Curwen, do you get her clear again." All around upon the deck, sprang rumour and turmoil, came shouts and sounds of scuffling and the rushing of feet; from the blank waters came piteous calls for help. But paying little heed to aught but Molly, Captain Jack seized a lighted lantern from the hands of a passing sailor and drew her aside. Fevered with pain and fascinated by the horror of fight and death's doings, yet instinctively remembering to pull her hood over her face, she allowed herself to be taken into the little deck cabin. He placed the lantern upon the table: "Rest here," he said quickly, once more striving to see her beneath the jealous shade. "I must find out if anything is amiss on board the ship and attend to these drowning men--even before you, my darling! But I shall be back instantly. You are not faint?" The light shone full on his features which Molly eagerly scanned from her safe recess. When she met his eyes, full of the triumph of love and hope, her soul broke into fierce revolt--again she felt upon her lips that kiss of young passionate love that had been the first her life had ever known ... and might be the last, for the disclosure was approaching apace. She was glad of the respite. "Go," she said with as much firmness as she could muster. "Let me not stand between you and your duty. I am strong." Strong indeed--Captain Jack might have wondered whence had come to this gentle Madeleine this lioness-strength of soul and body, had he had time to wonder, time for aught but his love thoughts and his fury, as he dashed back again panting for the moment when he could have her to himself. "Any damage, Curwen?" "Bowsprit broken, and larboard bulwark stove in, otherwise everything has stood." "Casualties?" "No, sir. We have three of the cutter's men on board already. They swarmed over the bows. One had his cutlass out and had the devil's impudence to claim the schooner, but a boat-hook soon brought him to reason. There they be, sir," pointing to a darker group huddled round the mast. "I have lowered the gig to see if we can pick up the others, damn them!" "As soon as they are all on board bring them aft, I will speak to them." When, with a master's eye, he had rapidly inspected his vessel from the hold to the rigging, without finding aught to cause anxiety for its safety, Captain Jack returned to the poop, and there found the party of prisoners arranged under the strong guard of his own crew. Molly stood, wrapped up in her cloak, at the door of the cabin, watching. One of the revenue men came forward and attempted to speak--but the captain impatiently cut him short. "I have no time to waste in talk, my man," he said commandingly. "How many were you on board the cutter?" "Nine," answered the man sullenly. "How many have we got here?" "Six, sir," interposed Curwen. "Those three," pointing to three disconsolate and dripping figures, "were all we could pick up." "Hark ye, fellows," said the captain. "You barred my road, I had to clear you away. You tried to sink me, I had to sink you. You have lost three of your ship-mates, you have yourselves to blame for it; your shot has drawn blood from one for whom I would have cut down forty times your number. I will send you back to shore. Away with you! No, I will hear nothing. Let them have the gig, Curwen, and four oars." "And now God speed the _Peregrine_," cried Jack Smith, as the revenue men pushed off in the direction of the light and the wind was again swelling every sail of his gallant ship. "We are well out of our scrape. Shape her course for St. Malo, Curwen. If this wind holds we should be there by the nineteenth in the morning, at latest." CHAPTER XXV THE FIGHT FOR THE OPEN As o'er the grass, beneath the larches there We gaily stepped, the high noon overhead, Then Love was born--was born so strong and fair. Knowest thou! Love is dead. _Gipsy Song._ At last he was free. He had wrested his bride and the treasure trusted to his honour from the snares so unexpectedly laid on his path; whatever troubles might remain stored against him in the dim distance of time, he would not reck them now. The present and the immediate future were full of splendour and triumph. All those golden schemes worked out under yonder light of Scarthey--God bless it--now receding in the gloom behind his swift running ship, whether in the long watches of the night, or in the recent fevered resolves of imminent danger, they had come to pass after all! And she, the light of his life, was with him. She had trusted her happiness, her honour, herself, to his love. The thought illumined his brain with glory as he rushed back to the silent muffled figure that still stood awaiting his coming. "At last!" he said, panting in the excess of his joy; "At last, Madeleine ... I can hardly believe it! But selfish brute that I am, you must be crushed with fatigue. My brave darling, you would make me forget your tender woman's frame, and you are wounded!" Supporting her--for the ship, reaching the open sea, had begun to roll more wildly--he led her back into the little room now lighted by the fitful rays of a swinging lamp. With head averted, she suffered herself to be seated on a kind of sofa couch. When he had closed the door, he seized her hand, on which ran streaks of half-dried blood, and covered it with kisses. "Ah, Madeleine! here in the sanctuary I had prepared for you, where I thought you would be so safe, so guarded, tell me that you forgive me for having brought this injury to you. Wounded, torn, bleeding.... I who would give all my blood, my life, if life were not so precious to me now that you have come into it, to save you from the slightest pain! At least here you are secure, here you can rest, but--but there is no one to wait on you, Madeleine." He fell on his knees beside her. "Madeleine, my wife, you must let me tend you." Then, as she shivered slightly, but did not turn to him, he went on in tones of the most restrained tenderness mingled with humblest pleading: "Had it not been for your accident, I had not ventured even to cross the threshold of this room. But your wound must be dressed; darling, darling, allow me, forgive me; the risk is too great." Rising to his feet again he gently pulled at her cloak. Molly spoke not a word, but untied it at the neck and let it fall away from her fair young body; and keeping her hooded face still rigidly averted, she surrendered her wounded arm. He muttered words of distress at the sight of the broad blood stains; stepped hurriedly to a little cupboard where such surgical stores as might be required on board were hoarded, and having selected scissors, lint, and bandages, came back and again knelt down by her side to cut off, with eager, compassionate hands, the torn and maculated sleeve. The wound was but a surface laceration, and a man would not have given a thought to it in the circumstances. But to see this soft, white woman's skin, bruised black in parts, torn with a horrid red gap in others; to see the beauty of this round arm thus brutally marred, thus twitching with pain--it was monstrous, hideously unnatural in the lover's eyes! With tenderness, but unflinchingly, he laved the mangled skin with cool, fresh water; pulled out, with far greater torture to himself than to her, some remaining splinters embedded in the flesh; covered the wound with lint, and finished the operation by a bandage as neat as his neat sailor's touch, coupled with some knowledge of surgery, gained in the experiences of his privateering days, could accomplish it. He spoke little: only a word of encouragement, of admiration for her fortitude now and then; and she spoke not at all during the ministration. She had raised her other hand to her eyes, with a gesture natural to one bracing herself to endurance, and had kept it there until, his task completed, her silence, the manner in which she hid her face from him awoke in him all that was best and loftiest in his generous heart. As he rose to his feet and stood before her, he too dared not speak for fear of bruising what he deemed an exquisite maidenliness, before which his manhood was abashed at itself. For some moments there was no sound in the cabin save that of the swift rushing waters behind the wooden walls and of the labour and life of the ship under full sail; then he saw the tumultuous rising of her bosom, and thought she was weeping. "Madeleine," he cried with passionate anxiety, "speak! Let me see your face--are you faint? Lie upon this couch. Let me get you wine--oh that these days were passed and I could call you wife and never leave you! Madeleine, my love, speak!" Molly rose to her feet, and with a gesture of anger threw off her hood and turned round upon him. And there in the light of the lamp, he glared like one distraught at the raven locks, the burning eyes of a strange woman. She was very pale. "No," said Molly, defiantly, when twice or thrice his laboured breath had marked the passing of the horrible moment, "I am not Madeleine." Then she tried to smile; but unconsciously she was frightened, and the smile died unformed as she pursued at random: "You know me--perhaps by hearsay--as I know you, Captain Smith." But he, shivering under the coldness of his disappointment, answered in a kind of weary whisper: "Who are you--you who speak with her voice, who stand at her height and move and walk as she does? I have seen you surely--Ah, I know.... Madam, what a cruel mockery! And she, where is she?" Still staring at her with widely dilated eyes, he seized his forehead between his hands. The gesture was one of utter despair. Before this weakness Molly promptly resumed the superiority of self-possession. "Yes," she said, and this time the smile came back to her face, "I am Lady Landale, and my sister Madeleine--I grieve to have to say so--has not had that courage for which you gave her credit to-night." Little was required at a moment like this to transmute such thoughts as seethed in the man's head to a burst of fury. Fury is action, and action a relief to the strained heart. There was a half-concealed, unintended mockery in her tones which brought a sudden fire of anger to his eyes. He raised both hands and shook them fiercely above his head: "But why--why in the name of heaven--has such a trick been played on me ... at such a time?" He paused, and trembling with the effort, restrained himself to a more decent bearing before the woman, the lady, the friend's wife. His arms fell by his side, and he repeated in lower tones, though the flame of his gaze could not be subdued: "Why this deception, this playing with the blindness of my love? Why this comedy, which has already had one act so tragic?--Yes, think of it, madam, think of the tragedy this is now in my life, since she is left behind and I never now, with these men's lives to account for, may go back and claim her who has given me her troth! Already I staked the fortune of my trust, on the bare chance that she would come. What though her heart failed her at the eleventh hour?--God forgive her for it!--surely she never sanctioned this masquerade?... Oh no! she would not stoop to such an act, and human life is not a thing to jest upon. She never played this trick, the thought is too odious. What have you done! Had I known, had I had word sooner--but half an hour sooner--those corpses now rolling under the wave with their sunken ship would still be live men and warm.... And I--I should not be the hopeless outlaw, the actual murderer that this night's work has made of me!" His voice by degrees rose once more to the utmost ring of bitterness and anger. Molly, who had restored her cloak to her shoulders and sat down, ensconced in it as closely as her swaddled arm would allow her, contemplated him with a curious mixture of delight and terror; delight in his vigour, his beauty, above everything in his mastery and strength; and delight again at the new thrill of the fear it imposed upon her daring soul. Then she flared into rage at the thought of the coward of her blood who had broken faith with such a man as this, and she melted all into sympathy with his anger--A right proper man most cruelly used and most justifiably wrathful! And she, being a woman whose face was at most times as a book on which to read the working of her soul, there was something in her look, as in silence she listened and gazed upon him, which struck him suddenly dumb. Such a look on a face so like, yet so unlike, that of his love was startling in the extreme--horrible. He stepped back, and made as if he would have rushed from the room. Then bethinking himself that he was a madman, he drew a chair near her in a contrary mood, sat down, and fixed his eyes upon her very steadily. She dropped her long lids, and demurely composed her features by some instinct that women have, rather than from any sense of the impression she had produced. A little while they sat thus again in silence. In the silence, the rolling of the ship and the manner in which, as she raced on her way, she seemed to breathe and strain, worked in with the mood of each; in his, with the storm and stress of his soul; in hers, as the very expression of her new freedom and reckless pleasure. Then he spoke; the strong emotion that had warmed her had now left his voice. It was cold and scornful. "Madam, I await your explanation. So far, I find myself only the victim of a trick as unworthy and cruel as it is purposeless." She had delayed carrying out her mission with the most definite perverseness. She could not but acknowledge the justice of his reproof, realise the sorry part she must play in his eyes, the inexcusable folly of the whole proceeding, and yet she was strung to a very lively indignation by the tone he had assumed, and suddenly saw herself in the light of a most disinterested and injured virtue. "Captain Smith," she exclaimed, flashing a hot glance at him, "you assume strangely the right to be angry with me! Be angry if you will with things as they are; rail against fate if you will, but be grateful to me.--I have risked much to serve you." The whole expression of his face changed abruptly to one of eager, almost entreating, inquiry. "Do me the favour," she continued, "to look into the pocket of my cloak--my arm hurts me if I move--you will find there a letter addressed to you. I was adjured to see that it should reach you in safety. I promised to place it in your own hands. This could hardly have been done sooner, as you know." The words all at once seemed to alter the whole situation. He sprang up and came to her quickly. "Oh, forgive me, make allowances for me, Lady Landale, I am quite distracted!" There had returned a tinge of hope into his voice. "Where is it?" he eagerly asked, seeking, as directed, for the pocket. "Ah!" and mechanically repeating, "Forgive me!" he drew out the letter at last and retreated, feverishly opening it under the light of the lamp. Molly had turned round to watch. Up to this she had felt no regret for his disillusion, only an irritable heat of temper that he should waste so much love upon so poor an object. But now all her heart went to him as she saw the sudden greyness that fell on his face from the reading of the very first line; there was no indignation, no blood-stirring emotion; it was as if a cold pall had fallen upon his generous spirit. The very room looked darker when the fire within the brave soul was thus all of a sudden extinguished. He read on slowly, with a kind of dull obstinacy, and when he came to the miserable end continued looking at the paper for the moment. Then his hand fell; slowly the letter fluttered to the floor, and he let his eyes rest unseeingly, wonderingly upon the messenger. After a little while words broke from him, toneless, the mere echo of dazed thoughts: "It is over, all over. She has lost her trust. She does not love me any more." He picked up the letter again, and sitting down placed it in front of him on the table. "'Tis a cruel letter, madam, that you have brought me," he said then, looking up at Molly with the most extraordinary pain in his eyes. "A cruel letter! Yet I am the same man now that I was this morning when she swore she would trust me to the end--and she could not trust me a few hours longer! Why did you not speak? One word from you as you stepped upon the ship would have saved my soul from the guilt of these men's death!" Then with a sharper uplifting of his voice, as a new aspect of his misfortune struck him: "And you--you, too! What have I to do with you, Adrian's wife? He does not know?" She did not reply, and he cried out, clapping his hands together: "It only wanted this. My God, it is I--I, his friend, who owes him so much, who am to cause him such fear, such misery! Do you know, madam, that it is impossible that I should restore you to him for days yet. And then when, and where, and how? God knows! Nothing must now come between me and my trust. I have already dishonourably endangered it. To attempt to return with you to-night, as perhaps you fancy I will--as, of course, I would instantly do had I alone myself and you to consider, would be little short of madness. It would mean utter ruin to many whom I have pledged myself to serve. And yet Adrian--my honour pulls me two ways--poor Adrian! What dumb devil possessed you that you did not speak before. Had you no thought for your woman's good name? Ill-fated venture, ill-fated venture, indeed! Would God that shot had met me in its way--had only my task been accomplished!" He buried his head in his hands. Lady Landale flushed and paled alternately, parted her lips to speak, and closed them once more. What could she say, and how excuse herself? She did not repent what she had done, though it had been sin all round; she had little reck of her woman's good name, as he called it; the death of the excise men weighed but lightly, if at all, upon her conscience; the thought of Adrian was only then a distasteful memory to be thrust away; nay--even this man's grief could not temper the wild joy that was in her soul to-night. Fevered with fatigue, with excitement, by her wound, her blood ran burning in her veins, and beat faster in every pulse. And as she felt the ship rise and fall, and knew that each motion was an onward leap that separated her further and ever further from dull home and dull husband, and isolated her ever more completely with her sister's lover, she exulted in her heart. Presently he lifted his head. "Forgive me," he said, "I believe that you meant most kindly, and as you say, I should be grateful. Your service is ill-requited by my reproaches, and you have run risk indeed--merciful Heaven, had my old friend's wife been killed upon my ship through my doings! But you see I cannot command myself; you see how I am situated. You must forgive me. All that can be done to restore you to your home as soon as possible shall be done, and all, meanwhile, to mitigate the discomfort you must suffer here--And for your good intention to her and me, I thank you." He had risen, and now bowed with a dignity that sat on his sailor freedom in no wise awkwardly. She, too, with an effort, stood up as if to arrest his imminent departure. A tall woman, and he but of average height, their eyes were nearly on a level. For a second or two her dark gaze sought his with a strange hesitation, and then, as if the truth in him awoke all the truth in her, the natural daring of her spirit rose proudly to meet this kindred soul. She would let no falsehood, no craven feminine subterfuge intervene between them. "Do not thank me," she exclaimed, glowing with a brilliant scorn in which the greatness of her beauty, all worn as she was, struck him into surprise, yet evoked no spark of admiration. "What I did I did, to gratify myself. Oh, aye, if I were as other women I should smile and take your compliments, and pose as the martyr and as the self-sacrificing devoted sister. But I will not. It was nothing to me how Madeleine got in or out of her love scrapes. I would not have gone one step to help her break her promise to you, or even to save your life, but that it pleased me so to do. Madeleine has never chosen to make me her confidant. I would have let her manage her own affairs gaily, had I had better things to occupy my mind--but I had not, Captain Smith. Life at Pulwick is monotonous. I have roaming blood in my veins: the adventure tempted, amused me, fascinated me--and there you have the truth! Of course I could have given the letter to the men and sent them back to you with it--it was not because of my promise that I did not do it. Of course I could have spoken the instant I got on board, perhaps----" here a flood of colour dyed her face with a gorgeous conscious crimson, and a dimple faintly came and went at the corner of her mouth, "perhaps I would have spoken. But then, you must remember, you closed my lips!" "My God!" said Captain Jack, and looked at her with a sort of horror. But this she could not see for her eyes were downcast. "And now that I have come," she went on, and would have added, "I am glad I did," but that all of a sudden a new bashfulness came upon her, and she stammered instead, incoherently: "As for Adrian--René knew I had a message for you, and René will tell him--he is not stupid--you know--René, I mean." "I am glad," answered the man gravely, after a pause, "if you have reasonable grounds for believing that your husband knows you to be on my ship. He will then be the less anxious at your disappearance: for he knows too, madam, that his wife will be as honoured and as guarded in my charge as she would be in her mother's house." He bowed again in a stately way and then immediately left her. Molly sank back upon her couch, and she could not have said why, burst into tears. She felt cold now, and broken, and her stiffening wound pained her. But nevertheless, as she lay upon the little velvet pillow, and wept her rare tears were strangling sobs, the very ache of her wound had a strange savour that she would not have exchanged for any past content. * * * * * René, having obeyed his mistress's orders, and left her alone with the sailors on the beach, withdrew within the shelter of the door, but remained waiting, near enough to be at hand in case he should be called. It was still pitch dark and the rollers growled under a rough wind; he could catch the sound of a man's voice, now and again, between the clamour of the sea and the wuthering of the air, but could not distinguish a word. Presently, however, this ceased, and there came to him the unmistakable regular beat of oars retreating. The interview was over, and breathing a sigh of relief at the thought that, at last, his master's friend would soon be setting on his way to safety, the servant emerged to seek her ladyship. A few minutes later he dashed into Sir Adrian's room with a livid face, and poured forth a confused tale: Milady had landed without Mademoiselle; had stopped to speak to two of the _Peregrine_, whilst he waited apart. The men had departed in their boat. "The _Peregrine_ men! But the ship has been out of sight these eight hours!" ejaculated Sir Adrian, bewildered. Then, catching fear from his servant's distraught countenance: "My wife," he exclaimed, bounding up; and added, "you left her, Renny?" The man struck his breast: he had searched and called.... My Lady was nowhere to be found. "As God is my witness," he repeated, "I was within call. My Lady ordered me to leave her. Your honour knows My Lady has to be obeyed." "Get lanterns!" said Sir Adrian, the anguish of a greater dread driving the blood to his heart. Even to one who knew the ground well, the isle of Scarthey, on a black, stormy night, with the tide high, was no safe wandering ground. For a moment, the two--comrades of so many miserable hours--faced each other with white and haggard faces. Then with the same deadly fear in their hearts, they hurried out into the soughing wind, down to the beach, baited on all sides by the swift-darting hissing surf. Running their lanterns close to the ground, they soon found, by the trampled marks upon the sand, where the conclave had been held. From thence a double row of heavy footprints led to the shelving bit of beach where it was the custom for boats to land from seawards. "See, your honour, see," cried René, in deepest agitation, "the print of this little shoe, here--and there, and here again, right down to the water's edge. Thank God--thank God! My Lady has had no accident. She has gone with the sailors to the boat. Ah! here the tide has come--we can see no farther." "But why should she have gone with them?" came, after a moment, Sir Adrian's voice out of the darkness. "Surely that is strange--and yet ... Yes, that is indeed her foot-print in the sand." "And if your honour will look to sea, he will perceive the ship's lights yonder, upon the water. That is the captain's ship.... Your honour, I must avow to you that I have concealed something from you--it was wrong, indeed, and now I am punished--but that poor Monsieur the Captain, I was so sorry for him, and he so enamoured. He had made a plan to lift off Mademoiselle Madeleine with him to-night, marry her in France; and that was why he came back again, at the risk of his life. He supplicated me not to tell you, for fear you would wish to prevent it, or think it your duty to. Mademoiselle had promised, it seemed, and he was mad with her joy, the poor gentleman! and as sure of her faith as if she had been a saint in Heaven. But My Lady came alone, your honour, as I said. The courage had failed to Mademoiselle, I suppose, at the last moment, and Madame bore a message to the captain. But the captain was not able to leave his ship, it seems; and, my faith," cried Mr. Potter; his spirits rising, as the first ghastly dread left him, "the mystery explains itself! It is quite simple, your honour will see. As the captain did not come to the island, according to his promise to Mademoiselle--he had good reasons, no doubt--Madame went herself to his ship with her message. She had the spirit for it--Ah! if Mademoiselle had had but a little of it to-night, we should not be where we are!" Sir Adrian caught at the suggestion out of the depths of his despair. "You are right, Renny, you must be right. Yet, on this rough sea, in this black night--what madness! The boat, instantly; and let us row for those lights as we never rowed before!" Even as the words were uttered the treble glimmer vanished. In vain they strained their eyes: save for the luminous streak cast by their own beacon lamp, the gloom was unbroken. "His honour will see, a boat will be landing instantly with My Lady safe and sound," said René at last. But his voice lacked confidence, and Sir Adrian groaned aloud. And so they stood alone in silence, forced into inaction, that most cruel addition to suspense, by the darkness and the waters which hemmed them in upon every side. The vision of twenty dangerous places where one impetuous footfall might have hurled his darling into the cruel beating waves painted themselves--a hideous phantasmagory--upon Sir Adrian's brain. Had the merciless waters of the earth that had murdered the mother, grasped at the child's life also? He raised his voice in a wild cry, it seemed as if the wind caught it from him and tore it into shreds. "Hark!" whispered René, and clasped his master's icy hand. Like an echo of Sir Adrian's cry, the far-off ring of a human voice had risen from the sea. Again it came. "_C'est de la mer, Monseigneur!_" panted the man; even as he spoke the darkness began to lift. Above their heads, unnoticed, the clouds had been rifted apart beneath the breath of the north wind; the horizon widened, a misty wing-like shape was suddenly visible against the receding gloom. The captain's ship! The _Peregrine_! As master and man peered outward as if awaiting unconsciously some imminent solution from the gliding spectre, it seemed as if the night suddenly opened on the left to shoot forth a burst of red fire. A few seconds later, the hollow boom of cannon shook the air around them. Sir Adrian's nails were driven into René's hands. The flaming messenger had carried to both minds an instant knowledge of the new danger. "Great Heavens!" muttered Adrian. "He will surrender; he must surrender! He could not be so base, so wicked, as to fight and endanger _her_!" But the servant's keener sight, trained by long stormy nights of watching, was following in its dwindling, mysterious course that misty vision in which he thought to recognize the _Peregrine_. "_Elle file, elle file joliment la goëlette!_ Mother of Heaven, there goes the gun again! I never thought my blood would turn to water only to hear the sound of one like this. But your honour must not be discouraged; he can surely trust the captain. Ah, the clouds--I can see no more." The wild blast gathering fresh droves of vapour from the huddled masses on the horizon was now, in truth, herding them fiercely across the spaces it had cleared a few moments before. Confused shouts, strange clamour seemed to ring out across the waves to the listeners: or it might have been only the triumphant howlings of the rising storm. "Will not your honour come in? The rain is falling." "No, Renny, no, give me my lantern again, friend, and let us examine anew." Both knew it to be of no avail, but physically and mentally to move about was, at least, better than to stand still. Step by step they scanned afresh the sand, the shingle, the rocks, the walls, to return once more to the trace of the slender feet, leading beside the great double track of heavy sea boots to the water's edge. Sir Adrian knelt down and gazed at the last little imprint that seemed to mock him with the same elusive daintiness as Molly herself, as if he could draw from it the answer to the riddle. René endeavouring to stand between his master and the driving blast laid down his lantern too, and strove by thumping his breast vigorously to infuse a little warmth into his numbed limbs and at the same time to relieve his overcharged feelings. As he paused at length, out of breath, the noise of a methodical thud and splash of oars arose, above the tumult of the elements, very near to them, upon their left. Sir Adrian sprang to his feet. "She returns, she returns," shouted René, capering, in the excess of the sudden joy, and waving his lantern; then he sent forth a vigorous hail which was instantly answered close by the shore. "Hold up your light, your honour--ah, your honour, did I not say it?--while I go to help Madame. Now then, you others down there," running to the landing spot, "make for the light!" The keel ground upon the shingle. "My Lady first," shouted René. Some one leaped up in the boat and flung him a rope with a curse. "The lady, ay, ay, my lad, you'd better go and catch her yourself. There she goes," pointing enigmatically behind him with his thumb. Sir Adrian, unable to restrain his impatience, ran forward too, and threw the light of his lantern upon the dark figures now rising one by one and pressing forward. Five or six men, drenched from head to foot, swearing and grumbling; with faces pinched with cold, all lowering with the same expression of anger and resentment and shining whitely at him out of the confusion. He saw the emptying seats, the shipped oars, the name _Peregrine_ in black letters upon the white paint of the dingey; and she?... she was not there! The revulsion of feeling was so cruel that for a while he seemed turned to stone, even his mind becoming blank. The waves lashed in up to his knees; he never felt them. René's strong hands came at last to drag him away, and then René's voice, in a hot whisper close to his ear, aroused him: "It is good news, your honour, after all, good news. My Lady is on board the _Peregrine_. I made these men speak. They are the revenue men--that God may damn them! and they were after the captain; but he ran down their cutter, that brave captain. And these are all that were saved from her, for she sank like a stone. The _Peregrine_ is as sound as a bell, they say--ah, she is a good ship! And the captain, out of his kind heart, sent these villains ashore in his own boat, instead of braining them or throwing them overboard. But they saw a lady beside him the whole time, tall, in a great black cloak. My Lady in her black cloak, just as she landed here. Of course Monsieur the Captain could not have sent her back home with these brigands then--not even a message--that would have compromised his honour. But his honour can see now how it is. And though My Lady has been carried out to sea, he knows now that she is safe." CHAPTER XXVI THE THREE COLOURS The sun was high above the Welsh hills; the _Peregrine_ had sheered her way through a hundred miles or more of fretted waters before her captain, in his hammock slung for the nonce near the men's quarters, stirred from his profound sleep--nature's kind restorer to healthy brain and limbs--after the ceaseless fatigue and emotions of the last thirty-six hours. As he leaped to his feet out of the swinging canvas, the usual vigour of life coursing through every fibre of him, he fell to wondering, in half-awake fashion, at the meaning of the unwonted weight lurking in some back recess of consciousness. Then memory, the ruthless, arose and buffeted his soul. The one thing had failed him without which all else was as nothing; fate, and his own hot blood, had conspired to place his heart's desire beyond all reasonable hope. Certain phrases in Madeleine's letter crossed and re-crossed his mind, bringing now an unwonted sting of anger, now the old cruel pain of last night. The thought of the hateful complication introduced into his already sufficiently involved affairs by the involuntary kidnapping of his friend's wife filled him with a sense of impotent irritation, very foreign to his temper; and as certain looks and words of the unwished-for prisoner flashed back upon him, a hot colour rose, even in his solitude, to his wholesome brown cheek. But in spite of all, in spite of reason and feeling alike his essential buoyancy asserted itself. He could not despair. He had not been given this vigour of soul and body to sit down under misfortune. Resignation was for the poor of heart; only cravens gave up while it was yet possible to act. His fair ship was speeding with him as he loved to feel her speed; around him spread the vast spaces in which his spirit rejoiced--salt sea and vaulted heavens; the full air of the open, the brisk dash of the wind filled him with physical exhilaration at every breath, and tingled in his veins; the sporting blood, which had come to him from generations of hunting squires, found all its craving satisfied in this coursing across the green ocean fields, and the added element of danger was as the sting of the brine to his palate. What--despair now? with his perilous enterprise all but accomplished, the whole world, save one country, before him, and Madeleine unwed! Another might, but not Jack Smith; not Hubert Cochrane! He was actually trolling out the stave of a song as he sprang up the companion ladder after his rough breakfast in the galley, but the sound expired at the sight of the distant flutter of a woman's scarf in the stern of the ship. He halted and ran his fingers through his crisp hair with an expressive gesture of almost comical perplexity; all would be plain sailing enough, with hope at the prow again, but for this--he stamped his foot to choke down the oath of qualification--this encumbrance. Adrian's wife and Madeleine's sister, as such entitled to all honour, all care, and devotion; and yet, as such again, hideously, doubly unwelcome to him! As he stood, biting his lips, while the gorgeous sunshine of the young spring morning beat down upon his bare head, the brawny figure of the mate, his mahogany-tinted face wrinkled into as stiff a grin as if it had been indeed carved out of the wood in question, intervened between his abstracted gaze and the restless amber beyond. "It's a fine day, sir," by way of opening conversation. The irrepressible satisfaction conveyed by the wide display of tobacco-stained teeth, by the twinkle in the hard, honest eyes called up a queer, rueful grimace to the other man's face. "Do you know, Curwen," he said, "that you brought me the wrong young lady last night?" The sailor jumped back in amazement. "The wrong young lady, sir," staring with starting, incredulous eyeballs, "the wrong, young lady!" here he clapped his thigh, "Well of all--the wrong young lady! Are you quite sure, sir?" Captain Jack laughed aloud. But it was with a bitter twist at the corners of his lips. "Well I'm----," said poor Curwen. All his importance and self-satisfaction had left him as suddenly as the starch a soused collar. He scanned his master's face with almost pathetic anxiety. "Oh, I don't blame you--you did your part all right. Why, I myself fell into the same mistake, and we had not much time for finding it out, had we? The lady you see--the lady--she is the other lady's sister and she came with a message. And so we carried her off before we knew where we were--or she either," added Captain Jack as a mendacious after thought. "Well I'm----," reiterated Curwen who then rubbed his scrubby, bristling chin, scratched his poll and finally broke into another grin--this time of the kind classified as sheepish. "And what'll be to do now?" "By the God that made me, I haven't a notion! We must take all the care of her we can, of course. Serve her her meals in her cabin, as was arranged, and see that she is attended to, just as the other young lady would have been you know, only that I think she had better be served alone, and I shall mess downstairs as usual. And then if we can leave her at St. Malo, we shall. But it must be in all safety, Curwen, for it's a terrible responsibility. Happily we have now the time to think. Meanwhile I have slept like a log and she--I see is astir before me." "Lord bless you, sir, she has been up these two hours! Walking the deck like a sailor, and asking about things and enjoying them like. Ah, she is a rare lady, that she is! And it is the wrong one--well this is a go! And I was remarking to Bill Baxter, just now, that it was just our captain's luck to have found such a regular sailor's young woman, so I said--begging pardon for the word. And not more than he is worth, says he, and so said I also. And she the wrong lady after all! Well, it's a curious thing, sir, nobody could be like to guess it from her. She's a well-plucked one, with her wound and all. She made me look at it this morning, when I brought her a cup of coffee and a bite: 'You're old enough to be my father,' says she, as pretty as can be, 'so you shall be doctor as well as lady's maid; and, if you've got a girl of your own, it'll be a story to tell her by the fire at night, when you're home again,' so she said; and never winced when I put my great fingers on her arm. I was all of a tremble, I declare, with her a smiling up at me, but the wound--it's doing finely; healing as nice as ever I see, and not a sign of sickness on her. The very lady as I was saying, for our captain--but here she comes." This was an unwontedly long speech for Curwen; and, silent again, he effaced himself discreetly, just in time to avoid the angry ejaculation that had sprung to his captain's lips, but not without a backward glance of admiration at the tall, alert figure now bearing down in their direction with steps already firmly balanced to the movement of the ship. At a little distance from Captain Jack, Molly paused as if to scrutinise the horizon, and enjoy the invigorating atmosphere. In reality her heart was beating fast, her breath came short; and the gaze she flung from the faint outline of coast upon one side to the vast monotony of sparkling sea upon the other conveyed no impression to her troubled mind. The next instant he was by her side. As she smiled at him, he noticed that her face was pale, and her eyes darkly encircled. "Ah, madam," said he, as he drew close and lifted his hand to his head, with a gesture of formal courtesy that no doubt somewhat astonished a couple of his men who were watching the group with covert smiles and nudges, being as yet unaware of the misadventure, "you relieve my mind of anxiety. How is the arm? Does it make you suffer much? No! You must be strong indeed." "Yes, I am strong," answered she, and flushed, and looked out across the sea, inhaling the air with dilated nostrils. Within her, her soul was crying out to him. It was as if there was a tide there, as fierce and passionate as the waves around her, all bearing, straining to him, and this with a struggle and flow so resistless, that she could neither remember the past, nor measure the future, but only feel herself carried on, beaten and tossed upon these great waters, like a helpless wreck. "I trust you are well attended to," began the man constrainedly again. "I fear you will have to endure much discomfort. I had reckoned----." Here he halted galled by the thought of what it was he had reckoned upon, the thought of the watchful love that was to have made of the little ship a very nest for his bride, of the exquisite joy it was to have harboured! And he set his teeth at fate. She played for a while with her little finger tips upon the rail, then turned her gaze, full and bold, upon him. "I do not complain," she said. He bowed gravely. "We will do our best for you, and if you will take patience, the time will pass at last, as all time passes. I have a few books, they shall be brought into your cabin. In three days we shall be in St. Malo--There, if you like----" he hesitated, embarrassed. "There!" echoed Lady Landale with her eyes still fixed upon his downcast face--"If I like--what?" "We could leave you----" Her bosom rose and fell quickly with stormy breaths. "Alone, moneyless, in a strange town--that is well and kindly thought!" she said. Whence had come to her this strange power of feeling pain? She had not known that one could suffer in one's heart like this; she, whose quarrel with life hitherto had been for its too great comfort, security and peace. She felt a lump rise to her throat, and tears well into her eyes, blurring all the sunlit vision and she turned her head away and beat her sound left hand clenched upon the ledge. "Before heaven," cried Jack, distressed out of his unnatural stiffness, "you mistake me, Lady Landale! I am only anxious to do what is best for you, what Adrian would wish. To leave you alone, deserted, helpless at St. Malo, you could not have thought I should mean that? No, indeed, I would have seen you into safe hands, in some comfortable hotel, with a maid to wait upon you--I know of such a place--Adrian could not have been long in coming to fetch you. I should have had a letter ready to post to him the instant we landed. As to money," flushing boyishly, "that is the least consideration--there is no dearth of that to fear. If you prefer it I can, however, convey you somewhere upon the English coast after we quit St. Malo; but that will entail a longer residence for you here on board ship; and it is no fit place for you." Still looking out across the sea, Molly replied, in a deep shaken voice, unlike her own, "You did not think it unfit for my sister." "Your sister? But your sister was to have been my wife!" Burning through the mists of her unshed tears once more her glance returned to his: "And I--" she cried and here was suddenly silent again, gazing at the thin circlet of gold upon her left hand, beneath the flashing diamonds. After a moment then, she broke out fiercely--"Oh do with me what you will, but for God's sake leave me in peace!" And stamping, turned her shoulder on him to stare straight outwards as before. Captain Jack drew back, paused an instant, clutched his hair with a desperate gesture and slowly walked away. * * * * * The voyage of the _Peregrine_ was as rapid as her captain had hoped, and the dawn of the fourth day broke upon them from behind the French coast, where Normandy joins old Armorica. For a little while, Lady Landale, awakened from her uneasy sleep by the unusual stir on deck, lay languidly watching the light as it filtered through the port-hole of her little cabin, the colours growing out of greyness on the walls; listening to the tramp of feet and the mate's husky voice without. Then her heart tightened with a premonition of the coming separation. She sat up and looked out of her window: as the horizon rose and fell giddily to her eye there lay the fatal line of land. The land of her blood but to her now, the land of exile! She had seen but little of Captain Jack these last two days; interchanged but few and formal words with him, now and then, as they met morning and evening or came across each other during the day. She felt that he avoided her. But she had seen him, she had heard his voice, they had been close to each other upon the great seas, however divided, and this had been something to feed upon. Now what prospect before her hungry heart but--starvation? At least the last precious moments should not be lost to her. She rose and dressed in haste; a difficult operation in her maimed state. Before leaving her narrow quarters, she peered into the looking-glass with an eagerness she had never displayed in the days of her vain girlhood. "What a fright!" she said to the anxious face that looked back at her with yearning eyes and dark burning lips. And she thought of Madeleine's placid fairness as Cain might of Abel's modest altar. When she emerged upon deck, a strange and beautiful scene was spread to her gaze. A golden haze enveloped the water and the coast, but out of it, in brown jagged outline, against the blazing background of glowing sunlight rose the towers, the pointed roofs and spires of that old corsair's hive, St. Malo. The waters were bright green, frothed with oily foam around the ship. The masts cast strange long black shadows, and Molly saw one spring from her own feet as she moved into the morning glow. The _Peregrine_, she noticed, was cruising parallel with the coast, instead of making for the harbour, and just now all was very still on board. Two men, conspicuous against the yellow sky, stood apart, a little forward, with their backs turned to her. One of these was Captain Jack, gazing steadily at the town through a telescope; the other the mate. Both were silent. Silently herself and unnoticed Molly went up and stood beside them; observing her sister's lover as intently as he that unknown distant point, she presently saw the lean hand nearest her tremble ever so slightly as it held the glass; then he turned and handed it to his companion, saying briefly, "See what you make of it." The man lifted the glass, set it, looked, dropped his hand and faced his captain. Their eyes met, but neither spoke for a second or two. "It is so, then?" said the captain at last. "Aye, sir, no mistake about that. There's the tricolour up again--and be damned to it--as large as life, to be sure!" The healthy tan of the captain's face had not altered by one shade; his mouth was set in its usual firm line, but, by the intuition of her fiery soul, the woman beside him knew that he had received a blow. "A strange thing," went on Curwen in a grumbling guttural bass, "and it's only a year ago since they set up the old white napkin again. You did not look for this, sir?" He too had his intuitions. "No, Curwen, it is the last thing I looked for. And it spells failure to me--failure once more!" As he spoke he turned his head slightly and perceiving Molly standing close behind him glanced up sharply and frowned, then strove to smooth his brow into conventional serenity and greeted her civilly. Curwen, clenching his hard hands together round the telescope, retired a step and stood apart, still hanging on his captain's every gesture like a faithful dog. "What does it mean?" asked Molly, disregarding the morning salutation. "It means strange things to France," responded Captain Jack slowly, with a bitter smile; "and to me, Madam, it means that I have come on a wild goose chase----" He stretched out his hand for the glass once more as he spoke--although even by the naked eye the flag, minute as it was, could be seen to flash red in the breeze--and sought the far-off flutter again; and then closing the instrument with an angry snap, tossed it back. "But what does it mean?" reiterated Molly, a wild impatience, a wild hope trembling in her breast. "It means, Madam, that I have brought my pigs to the wrong market," cried Captain Jack, still with the smile that sat so strangely upon his frank lips; "that the goods I have to deliver, I cannot deliver. For if there is any meaning in symbols, by the wave of that tricolour yonder the country has changed rulers again. My dealings were to be with the king's men, and as they are not here, at least, no longer in power--how could they be under that rag?--I must even trot the cargo home again. Not a word to the men, Curwen, but give the order to sheer off! We have lowered the blue, white and red too often, have not we? to risk a good English ship, unarmed, under the nozzles of those Republican or Imperial guns." The man grinned. The two could trust each other. Molly turned away and moved seawards, for she knew that the joy upon her face was not to be hidden. Captain Jack fell to pacing the deck with bent head, and long, slow steps. Absorbed in dovetailing the last secret arrangements of his venture, and more intent still, during his very few hours of idleness, on the engrossing thought of love, he had had no knowledge of the extraordinary challenge to fate cast by Bonaparte, of that challenge which was to end in the last and decisive clash of French and English hosts. He had not even heard of the Corsican's return to France with his handful of grenadiers, for newspapers were scarce at Scarthey. But even had he heard, like the rest of the world, he would no doubt have thought no more of it than as a mad freak born of the vanquished usurper's foolhardy restlessness. But the conclave of plenipotentiaries assembled at Vienna were not more thunderstruck when, on that very 19th of March, the semaphore brought them news of the legitimate King of France once more fled, and of his country once more abandoned to the hated usurper, than was Captain Jack as he watched the distant flagstaff in the sunrise, and saw, when the morning port gun had vomited forth its white cloud on the ramparts of St. Malo, the fatal stripes run up the slender line in lieu of the white standard. But Jack Smith's mind, like his body, was quick in action. The sun had travelled but a degree or two over the wide undulating land, the mists were yet rising, when suddenly he halted, and called the mate in those commanding tones that had, from the first time she had heard them, echoed in Molly's heart: "Bring her alongside one of those smacks yonder, the furthest out to sea." Thereupon followed Curwen's hoarse bellow, an ordered stampede upon the deck, and gracefully, with no more seeming effort than a swan upon a garden pond, the _Peregrine_ veered and glided towards the rough skiff with its single ochre sail and its couple of brown-faced fishermen, who had left their nets to watch her advance. Captain Jack leant over the side, his hands over his mouth, and hailed them in his British-French--correct enough, but stiff to his tongue, as Molly heard and smiled at, and loved him for, in woman's way, when she loves at all. "Ahoy, the friend! A golden piece for him who will come on board and tell the news of the town." A brief consultation between the fisher pair. "_Un écu d'or_," repeated Captain Jack. Then there was a flash of white teeth on the two weather-beaten faces. "_On y va, patron_," cried one of the fellows, cheerfully, and jumped into his dinghey, while his comrade still stared and grinned, and the stalwart lads of the _Peregrine_ grinned back at the queer foreign figure with the brown cap and the big gold earrings. Soon the fisherman's bare feet were thudding on the deck, and he stood before the English captain, cap in hand, his little, quick black eyes roaming in all directions, over the wonders of the beautiful white ship, with innocent curiosity. But before Captain Jack could get his tongue round another French phrase, Molly, detaching herself from her post of observation, came forward, smiling. "Let me speak to him," she said, "he will understand me better, and it will go quicker. What is it you want to know?" Captain Jack hesitated a moment, saw the advantage of the suggestion, and then accepted the offer with the queer embarrassment that always came over him in his relations with her. "You are very good," he said. "Oh, I like to talk the father and mother tongue," she said, gaily and sweetly. Her eyes danced; he had never seen her in this mood, and, as before, grudgingly had to admit her beauty. "And if you will allow it," she went on, "I am glad to be of use too." The fisherman, twirling his cap in his knotted fingers, stared at her open mouthed. _Une si belle dame!_ like a queen and speaking his tongue that it was a music to listen to. This was in truth a ship of marvels. _Ah, bon Dieu, oui, Madame_, there were news at St. Malo, but it depended upon one's feelings whether they were to be regarded as good or bad--_Dame_, every one has one's opinions--but for him--_pourvu qu'on lui fiche la paix_--what did it matter who sat on the throne--His Majesty the King--His Majesty the Emperor, or Citizen Bonaparte. Oh, a poor fisherman, what was it to him? He occupied himself with his little fishes, not with great folk. (Another white-teethed grin.) What had happened? _Parbleu_, it began by the military, those accursed military (this with a cautious look around, and gathering courage by seeing no signs of disapproval, proceeding with greater volubility). The poor town was full of them, infantry and artillery; regiments of young devils--and a band of old ones too. The veterans of _celui là_ (spitting on the deck contemptuously) they were the worst; that went without saying. A week ago there came a rumour that he had escaped--was in France--and then the ferment began--duels every day--rows in the cafés, fights in the ports. At night one would hear shouts in the streets--_Vive l'Empereur!_ and it spread, it spread. _Ma foi_--one regiment mutinied, then another--and then it was known that the Emperor had reached Paris. Oh, then it was warm! All those gentlemen, the officers who were for the King, were arrested. Then there was a grand parade on the _place d'armes_--Yes, he went there too, though he did not care much about soldiers. All the garrison was there. The colonel of the veterans came out with a flag in its case. _Portez armes!_ Good. They pull out the flag from the case: it's the old tricolour with the eagle on the top! _Presentez armes!_ And this time it was all over. Ah, one should have seen that, heard the houras, seen the bonfires! _Monsieur le Maire_ and the rest, appointed by the King, they were in a great fright, they had to give way--what does Madame say? Traitors? Oh, _bédame_ (scratching his head), it was no joke with the military just now--the whole place was under military law and, _saperlotte_, when the strong commands it is best for the weak to obey. As for him, he was only a poor fisherman. What did he know? he was not a politician: every one to his trade. So long as they let one have the peace--He thanked the gentleman, thanked him much; thanked the lady, desired to wish her the good-morning and _Monsieur_ too. Did they like no little fresh soles this morning? He had some leaping then below in his boat. No? well the good-morning then. They had heard enough. The fisherman paddled back to his skiff, and Molly stood watching from a little distance the motionless figure of the captain of the _Peregrine_ as with one hand clenching the hand-rail he gazed towards St. Malo with troubled eyes. After a few minutes Curwen advanced and touched him lightly on the arm. Captain Jack turned slowly to look at him: his face was a little pale and his jaw set. But the mate, who had served under him since the day he first stepped upon the old _St. Nicholas_, a gallant, fair-faced lad (and who knew "every turn of him," as he would have expressed it himself), saw that he had taken his decision; and he stepped back satisfied, ready to shape his course for the near harbour, or for the Pacific Ocean, or back to Scarthey itself at his master's bidding. "Call the men up," said the captain, "they have earned their bounty and they shall have it. Though their skipper is a poorer man than he thought to be, by this fool's work yonder, his good lads shall not suffer. Tush, man, that's the order--not a word. And after that, Curwen, let her make for the sea again, northwards." CHAPTER XXVII THE LIGHT AGAIN--THE LADY AND THE CARGO Does not all the blood within me Leap to meet thee, leap to meet thee, As the spring to meet the sunshine! _Hiawatha._ "Curwen," said Captain Jack, suddenly--the two stood together at the helm on the afternoon of the same day, and the _Peregrine_ was once more alone, a speck upon the waste of waters, "I have made up my mind to return to Scarthey." The mate wagged his bushy eyebrows and shifted his hand on the helm. "Ay, ay, sir," he said, after just an instant's pause. "I would not run you and the men into unnecessary danger, that you may be sure of; but the fact is, Curwen, I'm in a devil of a fix all round. There's no use hiding it from you. And, all things considered, to land the lady and the cargo at the lighthouse itself, gives me as fair a chance of getting out of it as any plan I can think of. The cargo's not all my own and it's a valuable one, I daresay you have guessed as much; and it's not the kind we want revenue men to pry into. I could not unload elsewhere that I know of, without creating suspicion. As to storing it elsewhere, it's out of the question. Scarthey's the place, though it's a damned risky one just now! But we've run many a risk together in our day, have we not?" "Ay, sir; who's afraid?" "Then there's the lady," lowering his voice; "she's Lady Landale, my friend's wife, the wife of the best friend ever man had. Ay, you remember him, I doubt not--the gentleman seaman of the _Porcupine_--I owe him more than I can ever repay, and he owes me something too. That sort of thing binds men together; and see what I have done to him--carried off his wife!" Curwen grunted, enigmatically, and disengaged a hand to scratch his chin. "I must have speech with him. I must, it is enough to drive me mad to think what he may be thinking of me. What I purpose is this: we'll disguise the ship as far as we can (we have the time), paint her a new streak and alter those topsails, change the set of the bowsprit and strike out her name." "That's unlucky," said the mate. "Unlucky, is it? Well, she's not been so lucky this run that we need fear to change the luck. Then, Curwen, we'll slip in at night at a high tide, watching for our opportunity and a dark sky; we'll unship the cargo, and then you shall take command of her and carry her off to the East Coast and wait there, till I am able to send you word or join you. It will only be a few hours danger for the men, after all." Still keeping his seaman eye upon the compass, Curwen cleared his throat with a gruesome noise. Then in tones which seemed to issue with difficulty from some immense depth: "Beg pardon, sir," he said, "that ain't a bargain." "How now?" cried his captain, sharply. "No, sir," rolling his head portentously; "that don't run to a bargain, that don't. The lads of the _Peregrine_ 'll stick to their skipper through thick and thin. I'll warrant them, every man Jack of them; and if there was one who grumbled, I'd have my knife in him before another caught the temper from him--I would, or my name's not Curwen. If ye bid us steer to hell we'll do it for you, sir, and welcome. But for to go and leave you there--no, sir, it can't be done." Captain Jack gave a little laugh that was as tender as a woman's tear. Curwen rolled his head again and mumbled to himself: "It can't be done." Then Jack Smith clapped his hand on the sailor's shoulder. "But it's got to be done!" he cried. "It is the only thing you can do to help me, Curwen. To have our _Peregrine_ out in the daylight on that coast would be stark madness--no disguise could avail her, and you can't change your ugly old phiz, can you? As for me, I must have a few days on shore, danger or no danger. Ah, Curwen," with a sudden, passionate outbreak, "there are times when a man's life is the least of his thoughts!" "Couldn't I stop with you, sir?" "I would not trust the ship to another, and you would double the risk for me." "I could double a blow for you too," cried the fellow, hoarsely. "But if it's got to be--it must be. I'll do it, sir." "I count on it," said the captain, briefly. As the ring of his retreating steps died away upon his ear the mate shook his head in melancholy fashion: "Women," he said, "is very well, I've nought to say against them in their way. And the sea's very well--as I ought to know. But women and the sea, it don't agree. They's jealous one of the other and a man gets torn between." As Molly sat in her cabin, watching the darkening sky outside with dreaming eyes, she started on seeing Captain Jack approach, and instead of passing her with cold salute, halt and look in. "I would speak a word with you," he said. "On deck, then," said Molly. She felt somehow as if under the broad heaven they were nearer each other than in that narrow room. The sea was rough, the wind had risen and still blew from the north, it was cold; but her blood ran too fast these days to heed it. She drew one of the capes of her cloak over her head and staggering a little, for the schooner, sailing close to the wind, pitched and rolled to some purpose, she made for her usual station at the bulwarks. "Well?" she asked. He briefly told her his purpose of returning to Scarthey direct. Her eye dilated; she grew pale. "Is that not dangerous?" He made a contemptuous gesture. "But they must be watching for you on that coast. You have sunk the boat--killed those men. To return there--My God, what folly!" "I must land my goods, Madam. You forget that I have more contraband on board than, smuggler as I am, even I bargained for." "If it is for me?--I would rather fling myself into the waves this instant than that you should expose yourself to danger." "Then I should fling myself after you, and that would be more dangerous still." He smiled a little mockingly upon her as he spoke; but the words called a transient fire into her face. "You would risk your life to save me?" she cried. "To save Adrian's wife, Madam." "_Bah!_" He would have gone then, but she held him with her free hand. She was again white to the lips. But her eyes--how they burned! He would have given all his worth to avoid what he felt was coming. A woman, at such a juncture may forbid speech, or deny her ear: a man, unless he would seem the first of Josephs or the last of coxcombs, dare not even hint at his unwelcome suspicions. "I will not have you go into this danger, I will not!" stammered Molly incoherently. The dusk was spreading, and her eyes seemed to grow larger and larger in the uncertain light. "Lady Landale, you misunderstand. It is true that to see you safely restored to your husband's roof is an added reason for my return to Scarthey--but were you not on board, I should go all the same. I will tell you why, it is a secret, but you shall know it. I have treasures on board, vast treasures confided to me, and I must store them in safety till I can give them back to their rightful owners. This I can only do at Scarthey--for to cruise about with such a cargo indefinitely is as impossible as to land it elsewhere. And more than this, had I not that second reason, I have yet a third that urges me to Scarthey still." "For Madeleine?" she whispered, and her teeth gleamed between her lips. He remained silent and tried gently to disengage himself from her slender fingers, but the feeling of their frailness, the knowledge of her wound, made her feeble grasp as an iron vice to his manliness. She came closer to him. "Do you not remember then--what she has said to you? what she wrote to you in cold blood--the coward--in the very moment when you were staking your life for love of her? I remember, if you do not--'You have deceived me,' she wrote, and her hand never trembled, for the words ran as neatly and primly as ever they did in her convent copy books. 'You are not what you represented yourself to be--You have taken advantage of the inexperience of an ignorant girl, I have been deluded and deceived. I never wish to see you, to hear of you again.'" "For Heaven's sake, Lady Landale----" cried the man fiercely. Molly laughed--one of those laughs that have the ring of madness in them. "Do I not remember? Ah, that is not all! She knows you now for what you are, knows what your 'mission' is--but you must not believe she writes in anger. No, she----" Captain Jack's patience could bear no further strain. "Be silent," he commanded fiercely, and wrenched his arm away to face her with menacing eyes. "Ah, does it rouse so much anger in you even to hear repeated what she did not hesitate to write, did not hesitate to allow me to read? And yet you love her? If you had seen her, if you knew her as I do! I tell you she means it; when she wrote that she was not angry; it was the truth--she did it in cold blood. She loved you, you think, and yet she believed you a liar; she loved you, and she thinks you a traitor to all she holds dear. She believes that of _you_, and you ... you love her still!" "Lady Landale!" "Listen--she could never love you, as you should be loved. She was not born your kin. Between you and her there is nothing--nothing but your own fancy. Do not risk your life again for her--your life!" She stopped, drew her breath with a long gasp, the spray from a turbulent wave came dashing across the bows into her face, and as once the blood of Cécile de Savenaye had been roused by the call of the wild waters to leave safety and children and seek her doom, so now the blood she had transmitted to her child, leaped to the same impulse and bore her onwards with irresistible force. "When," she pursued, "in the darkness you took me in your arms and kissed me; what did the touch of my lips bring to you? My lips, not Madeleine's.... Were you not happy then? Oh, you were, do not deny it, I felt, I knew our souls met! My soul and yours, not yours and Madeleine's. And I knew then that we were made for each other. The sea and the wide free life upon it: it draws me as it draws you; it was that drew me to you before I had ever seen you. Listen, listen. Do not go to Scarthey--you have your beautiful ship, your faithful crew--there are rich and wonderful worlds, warm seas that beckon. You can have life, money, adventure--and love, love if you will. Take it, take me with you! What should I care if you were an adventurer, a smuggler, a traitor? What does anything matter if we are only together? Let us go, we have but one life, let us go!" Bereft of the power of movement he stood before her, and the sweat that had gathered upon his brow ran down his face. But, as the meaning of her proposition was borne in upon him, a shudder of fury shook him from head to foot. No man should have offered dishonour to Jack Smith and not have been struck the next instant at his feet. But a woman--a woman, and Adrian's wife! "Lady Landale," he said, after a silence during which the beating of her heart turned her sick and cold, and all her fever heat fell from her, leaving nothing but the knowledge of her shame, her misery, her hopeless love. "Lady Landale, let me bring you back to your cabin--it is late." She went with him as one half-conscious. At the door she paused. The light from within fell upon his face, deeply troubled and white, but upon the lips and brows, what scorn! He was a god among men.... How she loved him, and he scorned her! Poor Murthering Moll! She looked up. "Have you no word for me?" she cried passionately. "Only this, Lady Landale: I will forget." * * * * * Back towards the distant northern light the schooner clove her valiant way in spite of adverse winds and high seas. The return journey was slower than the outward, and since the second day of it the lady kept much to her cabin, while the captain would pace the deck till far into the night, with unwonted uneasiness. To him the white wings of his _Peregrine_ were bearing him all too slowly for endurance, while to the stormy woman's heart that beat through the night watches in passionate echo to his restless tread, every instant that passed but brought nearer the prospect of a future so intolerable that she could not bring herself to face it. A gloom seemed to have come over the tight little craft, and to have spread even to the crew, who missed the ring of their captain's jolly laugh and the sound of his song. When, within a day's sail of the goal, the planned disguise was finally carried out upon the schooner's fair sides and rigging, her beautiful stretch of sail curtailed, and her name (final disgrace), superseded by the unmeaning title of _The Pretty Jane_, open murmurs broke out which it required all Curwen's severity--and if the old martinet did not execute the summary justice he had threatened he was quite equal to the occasion nevertheless--and all Jack's personal influence to quell. The dawn of the next day crept gloomily upon a world of rain; with long faces the men paddled about the deck, doing their duty in silence; Curwen's old countenance, set into grimmer lines than ever, looked as if it had just been detached from the prow of some vessel after hard experience of stress and storm. The spirits of the captain alone seemed to rise in proportion as they drew nearer land. "The moon sets at half-past eleven," he said to Curwen, "but we need not fear her to-night. By half-past twelve I reckon on your having those twenty-five damned casks safe in the cave you took them from; it is a matter of three journeys. And then the nose of the _Pretty Jane_ must be pointed for the Orkneys. All's going well." * * * * * Night had fallen. "The gaudy bubbling and remorseful day" had "crept into the bosom of the sea." From the cross-trees the look-out man had already been able to distinguish through the glass the faint distant glimmer of Scarthey beacon, when Captain Jack knocked for admittance at Lady Landale's cabin for the last time, as he thought, with a sigh of relief. "In the course of an hour, Madam," he said in a grave tone, "I hope to restore you to land. As for me, I shall have again to hide in the peel, though I hope it will not be for long. My fate--and by my fate I mean not only my safety, but my honour, which, as you know, is now bound up in the safety of the treasures--will be in your hands. For I must wait at Scarthey till I can see Adrian again, and upon your return to Pulwick I must beg you to be the bearer of a message to ask him to come and see me." She replied in a voice that trembled a little: "I will not fail you." But her great eyes, dark circled, fixed upon him with a meek, sorrowful look, spoke dumbly the troublous tale of her mind. In her subdued mood the likeness to Madeleine was more obtrusive than it had ever yet been. He contemplated her with melancholy, and drew a heavy sigh. Molly groaned in the depths of her soul, though her lips tight set betrayed no sound. Oh, miserable chaos of the human world, that such pent up love should be wasted--wasted; that they, too, young and strong and beautiful, alone together, so near, with such glorious happiness within their reach, should yet be so perversely far asunder! There was a long silence. They looked into each other's eyes; but he was unseeing; his mind was far away, dwelling upon the memory of that last meeting with his love under the fir trees of Pulwick only ten days ago, but now as irrevocably far as things seem that may never again be. At length, she made a movement which brought him back to present reality--a movement of her wounded arm as if of pain. And he came back to Lady Landale, worn with the fatigue of these long days in the cramped discomfort of a schooner cabin, thinned by pain and fevered thinkings, shorn of all that daintiness of appearance which can only be maintained in the midst of luxury, and yet, by the light of the flickering lamp, more triumphantly beautiful than ever. His thoughts leaped to his friend with a pang of remorse. "You are suffering--you are ill," he said. "Thus do I bring you back to him who last saw you so full of strength.... But you will recover at Pulwick." "Suffering, ill! Ah, my God!" As if suffocating, she pressed her hand upon her heart, and bowed her head till it rested on the table. And then he heard her murmur in a weary voice: "Recover at Pulwick! My God, my God! The air at Pulwick will stifle me, I think." He waited a moment in silence and saw that she was weeping. Then he went out and closed the door behind him with gentle hand. Nearly all the lights of the ship were now extinguished, and in a gloom as great as that in which they had started upon their unsuccessful venture, the _Peregrine_ and her crew returned to the little island which had already been so fateful to them. Captain Jack had taken the helm himself, and Curwen stood upon his right hand waiting patiently for his commands. For an hour or so they hung off the shore. The rain fell close and fine around them; it was as if sea and sky were merging by slow imperceptible degrees into one. The beacon light looming, halo encircled, through the mist, seemed, like a monster eye, to watch with unmoved contempt the restlessness of these pigmies in the grand solitude of the night. Who shall say with what conflict of soul Molly, in her narrow seclusion, saw the light of Scarthey grow out of the dimness till its rays fell across the darkened cabin and glimmered on her wedding ring? At last the captain drew his watch, and by the faint rays upon the binnacle saw the hour had come. "Boat loaded, Curwen?" he asked in a low voice. "This hour, sir." "Ready to cast?" "Right, sir." "Now, Curwen." Low, from man to man, the order ran through the ship, and the anchor was dropped, almost within a musket shot of the peel. It was high tide, but no hand but Captain Jack's would have dared risk the vessel so close. She swung round, ready to slip at a moment's notice. He left the helm; and in the wet darkness cannoned against the burly figure of his mate. "You, Curwen? Remember we have not a moment to lose. Remain here--as soon as the men are back from the last run, sheer off." He grasped the horny hand. Curwen made an inarticulate noise in his big throat, but the grip of his fingers upon his master's was of eloquence sufficient. "Let some one call the lady." A couple of men ran forward with dark lanterns. The rest gathered round. "Now, my lads, brisk and silent is the word." The cabin door opened, and Molly came forth, the darkness hid the pallor of her face, but it could not hide the faltering of her steps. Captain Jack sprang forward and gave her his arm, and she leant upon it without speaking, heavily. For one moment she stopped as if she could not tear her feet from the beloved planks, but Curwen caught her by the other arm; and then she was on the swinging ladder. And so she left the _Peregrine_. * * * * * The gig was almost filled with barrels; there was only room for the four oarsmen selected, besides the captain and herself. The boat shoved off. She looked back and saw, as once before, the great wall of the ship's side rise sheer above the sea, saw the triangle of light again slide down to lie a span above the water-line. With what a leaping heart she had set forth, that black night, away from the hateful lighthouse beam to that glimmer of promise and mystery! And now! She felt herself grow sick at the thought of that home-coming; at the vision of the close warm rooms, of her husband's melancholy eyes. Yet, as she sat, the sleeve of the captain's rough sailor coat touched her shoulder, and she remembered she was still with him. It was not all death yet. In less than three minutes they touched ground. He jumped into the water, and stretched out his arms for Molly. She rose giddily, and his embrace folded her round. The waves rolled in with surge and thud and dashed their spray upon them; and still the rain fell and beat upon her head, from which she had impatiently pushed her hood. But her spirit had no heed for things of the body this night. Oh, if the sea would open sudden deeps before them! if even the quicksand would seize them in its murderous jaws, what ecstasy the hideous lingering death might hold for her, so that only she lay, thus, in his arms to the end! It was over now; his arms had clasped her for the last time. She stood alone upon the dry sand, and her heart was in hell. He was speaking; asking her pardon for not going at once with her to see her into the keep, but he dared not leave the beach till his cargo was landed, and he must show the men the way to the caves. Would she forgive him, would she go with him? Forgive him! Go with him! She almost laughed aloud. A few poor moments more beside him; they would be as the drops of water to the burning tongue of Dives. Yes, she would go with him. One by one the precious caskets were carried between a couple of men, who stumbled in the darkness, close on their captain's heels. And the lady walked beside him and stood beside him without a word, in the falling rain. The boat went backwards and forwards twice; before the hour had run out, the luckless cargo was all once more landed, and the captain heard with infinite relief the last oar-strokes dwindling away in the distance, and saw the lights suddenly disappear. "You have been very patient," he said to Molly then, with a gentle note in his voice. But she did not answer. Are the souls of the damned patient? * * * * * "My Lady and Mr. the Captain! My God--my God! so wet--so tired! Enter--enter in the name of heaven. It is good, in verity, to have My Lady back, but, Mr. the Captain, is it well for _him_ to be here? And Madam is ill? She goes pale and red by turns. Madam has the fever for sure! And her arm is hurt, and she is as wet as the first time she came here. Ah, Lord God, what are we coming to? Fire we must have. I shall send the wife." "Ay, do so, man," cried Captain Jack, looking with concern at Lady Landale, who in truth seemed scarcely able to stand, and whose fluctuating colour and cracked fevered lips gave painful corroboration to René's surmise, "your mistress must be instantly attended to." But Molly arrested the servant as he would have hurried past upon his errand. "Your master?" she said in a dry whisper, "is he at Pulwick?" "His honour! My faith, I must be but half-awake yet. Imbecile that I am, his honour--where is he? Is he not with you? No, indeed, he is not at Pulwick, My Lady; he has gone to St. Malo to seek you. Nothing would serve him but that he must go. And so he did not reach in time to meet you? Ah, the poor master--what anxiety for him!" Captain Jack glanced in dismay at his friend's wife, met her suddenly illumined gaze and turned abruptly on his heel, with a grinding noise. "See to your mistress," he said harshly, "I hear your women folk are roused overhead; hurry them, and when Lady Landale no longer requires you, I must speak with you on an urgent business of my own. You will find me in my old room." "Go with the captain at once, René, since he wants you," interposed Molly quickly, "here comes Moggie. She will take care of me. Leave me, leave me. I feel strong again. Good-night, Captain Smith, I shall see you to-morrow?" There was a wistful query in her voice and look. Captain Smith bowed distantly and coldly, and hastened from the room, accompanied by René, while open-mouthed and blinking, rosy, blowsy, and amazed, Mrs. Potter made her entry on the scene and stared at her mistress with the roundest of blue eyes. * * * * * "My good Renny," said the captain, "I have no time to lose. I have a hard hour's work to do, before I can even think of talking. I want your help. Your light will burn all safe for the time, will it not? Hark ye, man, you have been so faithful a fellow to my one friend that I am going to trust to you matters which concern my own honour and my own life. Ask no question, but do what I tell you, if you would help one who has helped your master long ago; one whom your master would wish you to help." Thus adjured, René repressed his growing astonishment at the incomprehensible development of events. And having, under direction, provided the sailor with a lantern, and himself with a wide tarpaulin and sundry carpenter's tools, he followed his leader readily enough through the ruinous passages, half choked up with sand, which led from the interior of the ruins to one of the sea caves. Before reaching the open-mouthed rocky chamber, the captain obscured the light, and René promptly barked his shins against a barrel. "_Sacrebleu_," he cried, feeling with quick hands the nature of the obstruction, "more kegs?" "The same, my friend! Now hang that tarpaulin against the mouth of the cave and be sure it is close; then we may again have some light upon the matter. What we must do will not bear interference, and moving glimmers on a dark night have told tales before this." As soon as the beach entrance was made secure, the captain uncovered his lantern; and as the double row of kegs stood revealed, his eyes rapidly scanned their number. Yes, they were all there: five and twenty. "Now, to work, man! We have to crack every one of these nuts, and take the kernels out." Even as he spoke, he turned the nearest cask on end, with a blow of chisel and mallet stove in the head and began dragging out quantities of loose tow. In the centre of the barrel, secured in position on to a stout middle batten, was a bag of sailcloth closely bound with cord. This he lifted with an effort, for it was over a hundred-weight, and flung upon the sand in a corner. "That's the kernel you see," he said to René, who had watched the operation with keen interest. "And when we have shelled them all I will show you where to put them in safety. Now carry on--the quicker the better. The sooner we have it all upstairs, the freer I shall breathe." Without another word, entering into the spirit of haste which seemed to fill his companion, and nobly controlling his seething curiosity, René set to work on his side, with his usual dexterousness. Half an hour of speechless destructive labour completed the first part of the task. Then the two men carried the weighty bags into the room which had been Captain Jack's in the keep. And when they had travelled to and fro a dozen times with each heavy load, and the whole treasure was at length accumulated upstairs, René, with fresh surprise and admiration, saw the captain lift the hearthstone and disclose a recess in the heavy masonry--presumably a flue, in the living days of Scarthey peel--which, although much blocked with stony rubbish, had been evidently improved by the last lodger during his period of solitary residence into a convenient and very secure hiding-place. Here was the precious pyramid now heaped up; the stone was returned to its place, and the two stood in front of each other mopping their faces. "Thank goodness, it is done," said Jack Smith. "And thank you too, Renny. To-morrow, break up these casks and add the staves to your firewood stack; then nobody but you, in this part of the world, need be any the wiser about our night's work.--A smart piece of running, eh?--Phew, I am tired! Bring me some food, and some brandy, like a good fellow. Then you can back to your pillow and flatter yourself that you have helped Jack Smith out of a famous quandary." René grinned and rushed to execute the order. He had less desire for his pillow than for the gratification of his hyper-excited curiosity. But although pressed to quaff one cup of good fellowship and yet another, he was not destined to get his information, that night, from the captain, who had much ado to strangle his yawns sufficiently to swallow a mouthful or two of food. "No one must know, Renny," was all he said, at last, between two gapes, kicking the hearthstone significantly, and stretching his arms, "not even the wife." Then he flung himself all dressed upon his bed. "And my faith," said René, when he sought his wife a moment later, "he was fast asleep before I had closed the door." CHAPTER XXVIII THE END OF THE THREAD Madeleine had appeared greatly distressed at the thought that, through her, her sister was now in so doubtful and precarious a situation. It was part of her punishment, she told herself for her sins of deceit and unmaidenliness in encouraging and meeting a clandestine lover. She had gone through some very bitter hours since her tryst at the ruins. The process of cutting off a malignant growth that has become part of oneself is none the less painful because the conviction is clear that it is for one's health to do so, and the will is firm not to falter. Not the less is the flesh mangled, do nerves throb, and veins bleed. But Madeleine was determined that nobody should even guess her sufferings. Rupert had counted upon Sophia's old habit of obedience to him, and upon her superstitious terrors not to betray to the young girl the part he had played in the unmasking of her lover; but he had an unexpected, and even more powerful ally in Madeleine's own pride. When Miss Sophia had tremblingly endeavoured to falter out a few words of sympathy and sorrow, upon the distressing subject, Madeleine quickly interrupted her. "Never speak even his name again, Sophia; all that is finished for me." There was such a cold finality in her voice, that the poor confidant's expansiveness withered up within her beyond even the hope of blossoming again. When Rupert heard of Captain Jack's latest doings, and especially of his sister-in-law's disappearance, he thought that the fates were propitious indeed. In his wildest schemes he could not have planned anything that would have suited his game more perfectly. Though he thought it incumbent upon him to pull a face of desperate length whenever the subject was touched, in his innermost soul he had hardly ever enjoyed so delightful a joke as this dénouement to his brother's marriage and to his cousin's engagement. And, strange to say, though he would most gravely protest against any interpretation of his kinswoman's disappearance save the one which must most redound to her credit, the story, started by the gossips in the village upon the return of the revenue men, that Lady Landale had bolted with the handsome smuggler, grew and spread apace all over the county, more especially from such houses as Rupert was wont to visit. That all his hints and innuendoes should fail, apparently, to make Madeleine put upon the case the interpretation he would have liked, was at once a matter of secret sneering and of admiration to his curiously complicated mind. The days went by, to all appearance placidly enough, for the trio at Pulwick. Madeleine shunned none of the usages of life in common, worked and talked with Sophia of a morning, rode or walked out with Rupert of an afternoon; and passed the evening at her embroidery frame meeting his efforts to entertain her as amiably as before. Rupert thought he knew enough of the human heart, and more especially the feminine, to draw satisfactory conclusions from this behaviour. For a girl to bear no malice to the man who had taken it upon himself to demonstrate to her the unworthiness of her lover, argued, to his mind, that her affections could not have been very deeply engaged in that quarter. It was clear that she felt gratitude for a timely rescue. Nay, might he not go further, and lay the flattering unction to his soul that she would not be unwilling to transfer these same blighted feelings to a more suitable recipient? A slight incident which took place a few nights later, tended still more to increase the kindness of Madeleine's manner to him upon the next day; but this was for a reason that he little suspected. It had been an anniversary with Sophia--none less indeed than that of the lamented Rector's demise. When her young cousin had retired to her room, the desire to pursue her thither with a packet of old letters, and other treasures exhumed from the depths of her cupboards, had proved too strong for a soul burning for congenial sympathy; and Sophia had spent a couple of very delightful hours pouring forth reminiscences and lamentations into the bosom of one who, as she said, she knew could understand her. Madeleine a little wearied, stifling a sigh or a yawn as the minutes ticked by, was too gentle, too kind-hearted to repel the faithful, if loquacious mourner; so she had sat and listened, which was all that Sophia required. Upon the stroke of twelve, Miss Landale rose at length, collected her relics, and mopping her swollen eyes, embraced her cousin, and bade her good-night with much effusion, while with cordial alacrity the latter conducted her to the door. But here Sophia paused. Holding the flat silver candlestick with one hand, with the other clasping to her bosom her bundle of superannuated love letters, she glanced out into the long black chasm of corridor with a shudder, and vowed she had not the courage to traverse it alone at such an hour. She cast as she spoke such a meaning glance at Madeleine's great bed, that, trembling lest her next words should be a proposal to share it for the night, the young girl hurriedly volunteered to re-conduct her to her own apartment. Half way down the passage they had to pass the door of the picture gallery, which was ajar, disclosing light within. At the sight of Rupert standing with his back to them, looking fixedly at the picture upon the opposite wall, Sophia promptly thought better of the scream she was preparing, and seized her cousin by the arm. "Come away, come away," she whispered, "he will be much displeased if he sees us." Madeleine allowed herself to be pulled onward, but remembering Molly's previous encounter upon the same spot, was curious enough to demand an explanation of Rupert's nocturnal rambles when they had reached the haven of Sophia's bedroom. It was very simple, but it struck her as exceedingly pathetic and confirmed her in her opinion of the unreasonableness of her sister's dislike to Rupert. He was gazing at his dead wife's picture. He could not bear, Sophia said, for any one to find him there; could not bear the smallest allusion to his grief, but at night, as she had herself discovered quite by accident, he would often spend long spells as they had just seen him. There was something in Madeleine's own nature, a susceptible proud reserve which made this trait in her cousin's character thoroughly congenial; moreover, what woman is not drawn with pity towards the man who can so mourn a woman. She met him therefore, the next day, with a softness, almost a tenderness, of look and smile which roused his highest hopes. And when he proposed, after breakfast, that they should profit by the mild weather to stroll in the garden while Sophia was busy in the house, she willingly consented. Up the gravel paths, between the gooseberry bushes, to the violet beds they went. It was one of those balmy days that come sometimes in early spring and encourage all sorts of false hopes in the hearts of men and vegetables. "A growing day," the farmers call them; indeed, at such times you may almost hear the swelling and the bursting of the buds, the rising of the sap, the throbbing and pushing of the young green life all around. Madeleine grew hot with the weight of her fur tippet, the pale face under the plumy hat took an unusual pink bloom; her eyes shone with a moist radiance. Rupert, glancing up at her, as, bent upon one knee, he sought for stray violets amid the thick green leaves, thought it was thus a maiden looked who waited to be won; and though all of true love that he could ever give to woman lay buried with his little bride, he felt his pulses quicken with a certain æsthetic pleasure in the situation. Presently he rose, and, after arranging his bunch of purple sweetness into dainty form, offered it silently to his companion. She took it, smiling, and carried it mechanically to her face. Oh, the scent of the violets! Upon the most delicate yet mighty pinions she was carried back, despite all her proud resolves to that golden hour, only five days ago, when she lay upon her lover's broad breast, and heard the beating of his heart beneath her ear. Again she felt his arm around her, so strong, yet so gentle; saw his handsome face bent towards her, closer--ever closer--felt again the tide of joy that coursed through her veins in the expectation of his kiss. No, no, she must not--she would not yield to this degrading folly. If it were not yet dead, then she must kill it. She had first grown pale, but the next moment a deep crimson flooded her face. She turned her head away, and Rupert saw her tremble as she dropped the hand that held the flowers close clenched by her side. He formed his own opinion of what was passing within her, and it made even his cold blood course hotly in his veins. "Madeleine," he said, with low rapid utterance; "I am not mistaken, I trust, in thinking you look on me as a good friend?" "Indeed, yes;" answered the girl, with an effort, turning her tremulous face towards him; "a good friend indeed." Had he not been so five days ago? Aye, most truly, and she would have it so, in spite of the hungry voice within her which had awaked and cried out against the knowledge that had brought such misery. He saw her set her little teeth and toss her head, and knew she was thinking of the adventurer who had dared aspire to her. And he gained warmer courage still. "Nothing more than a friend, sweet?" "A kind cousin; almost a brother." "No, no; not a brother, Madeleine. Nay, hear me," taking her hands and looking into her uncomprehending eyes, "I would not be a brother, but something closer, dearer. We are both alone in the world, more or less. Whom have you but a mad-cap sister, a poor dreamer of a brother-in-law, an octogenarian aunt, to look to? I have no one, no one to whom my coming or my going, my living or my dying makes one pulse beat of difference--except poor Sophia. Let us join our loneliness and make of it a beautiful and happy home. Madeleine, I have learned to love you deeply!" His eyes glowed between their narrowing eyelids, his voice rang changes upon chords of most exquisite tenderness; his whole manner was charged with a courtly reverence mingled with the subtlest hint of passion. Rupert as a lover had not a flaw in him. Yet fear, suspicion, disgust chased each other in Madeleine's mind in quick succession. What did he mean? How could it be that he loved her? Oh! if _this_ had been his purpose, what motive was prompting him when he divided her from her deceiving lover? Was no one true then? Was this the inconsolable widower whose grief she had been so sympathetically considering all the morning; for whose disinterested anxiety and solicitude on her behalf her sore heart had forced itself to render gratitude? Oh! how terrible it all was ... what a hateful world! "Well, Madeleine?" he pressed forward and slid his arm around her. All her powers of thought and action restored by the deed, she disengaged herself with a movement of unconscious repulsion. "Cousin Rupert, I am sure you mean kindly by me, but it is quite impossible--I shall never marry." He drew back, as nonplussed as if she had struck him in the face. "Pshaw, my dear Madeleine." "Please, Cousin Rupert, no more." "My dear girl, I have been precipitate." "Nothing can make any difference. That I could never marry you, so much you must believe; that I shall never marry at all you are free to believe or not, as you please. I am sorry you should have spoken." "Still hankering after that beggarly scoundrel?" muttered Rupert, a sneer uncovering his teeth betrayed hideously the ungenerous soul within. He was too deeply mortified, too shaken by this utter shattering of his last ambitions to be able to grasp his usual self-control. Madeleine gave him one proud glance, turned abruptly away, and walked into the house. She went steadily up to her room, and, once there, without hesitation proceeded to unlock a drawer in her writing-table and draw from it a little ribbon-tied parcel of letters--Jack's letters. Her heart had failed her, womanlike, before the little sacrifice when she had unshrinkingly accomplished the larger one. Now, however, with determined hand, she threw the letters into the reddest cavern of her wood-fire and with hard dry eyes watched them burn. When the last scrap had writhed and fluttered and flamed into grey ash, she turned to her altar, and, extending her arm, called out aloud: "I have done with it all for ever----" And the next instant flinging herself upon her bed, she drew her brown ringlets before her face, and under this veil wept for her broken youth and her broken heart, and the hard cold life before her. * * * * * There is a kind of love a man can give to woman but once in his lifetime: the love of the man in the first flush of manhood for the woman he has chosen to be his mate, untransferable and never to be forgotten: love of passion so exquisite, of devotion so pure, born of the youth of the heart and belonging to an existence and personality lost for ever. A man may wed again, and (some say) love again, but between the boards of the coffin of his first wife--if he has loved her--lie secrets of tenderness, and sweetness, and delight, which, like the spring flowers, may not visit the later year. But, notwithstanding this, a second wooing may have a charm and an interest of its own, even the wooing which is to precede a marriage of convenience. So Rupert found. The thought of an alliance with Madeleine de Savenaye was not only engrossing from the sense of its own intrinsic advantages, but had become the actual foundation-stone of all his new schemes of ambition. Nay, more: such admiration and desire as he could still feel for woman, he had gradually come to centre upon his fair and graceful cousin, who added to her personal attractions the other indispensable attributes, blood, breeding and fortune. Mr. Landale was as essentially refined and fastidious in his judgment as he was unmeasured in his ambition. His error of precipitancy had been pardonable enough; and mere self-reproach for an ill-considered manoeuvre would not have sufficed to plunge him into such a depth of bitter and angry despondency as that in which he now found himself. But the rebuff had been too uncompromising to leave him a single hope. He was too shrewd not to see that here was no pretty feminine nay, precursor of the yielding yea, not to realise that Madeleine had meant what she said and would abide by it. And, under the sting of the moment betrayed into a degradingly ill-mannered outburst, he had shown that he measured the full bearings of the position. So, the wind still sat in that quarter! Failing the mysterious smuggler, it was to be nobody with the Savenaye heiress--and least of all Rupert Landale. And this, though the scoundrel had been thoroughly shown up; though he had started upon his illegal venture and was gone, never to return if he valued his neck, after murdering four officers of the crown and sinking a king's vessel; though he had carried away with him (ah! there was consolation in that excellent jest which had so far developed into Sir Adrian's wild goose chase to France and might still hold some delicate dénouement), had carried with him no less a person than Lady Landale herself (the fellow had good taste, and either of the sisters was a dainty morsel), he still left the baneful trail of his influence behind him upon the girl he had deluded and beguiled! Rupert Landale, who, for motives of his own had pleased himself by hunting down Madeleine's lover, had felt, in the keenness of his blood-hound work, something of the blood-hound instinct of destruction and ferocity spring up within him before he had even set eyes on his quarry. And the day they had stood face to face this instinctive hatred had been intensified by some singular natural antagonism. Added to this there was now personal injury and the prey was out of reach. Impotence for revenge burned into the soul of him like a corrosive poison. Oh, let him but come within his grip again and he should not escape so easily. Sits the wind still in that quarter? The burthen droned in his head, angry conclusion to each long spell of inconclusive thought, as he still paced the garden, till the noon hour began to wane. And it was in this mood, that, at length, returning to his study, he crossed in one of the back passages a young woman enveloped in a brilliant scarlet and black shawl, who started in evident dismay on being confronted with him. Rupert knew by sight and name every wench of kitchen and laundry, as well as every one of the buxom lasses or dames whom business brought periodically to the great hall. That this person was neither of the household nor one of the usual back-door visitors, he would have seen at a glance, even had not her own embarrassment drawn his closer attention. He looked keenly and recognised the gatekeeper's daughter Moggie. Having married Sir Adrian's servant and withdrawn to take up her abode in the camp of the enemy, so to speak, she was not one whom Mr. Landale would have regarded with favour in any case; but now, concentrating his thoughts from their aimless whirl of dissatisfaction upon the present encounter, he was struck by the woman's manner. Yes, she was most undoubtedly frightened. He examined her with a malevolent eye which still discountenanced her. And, though he made no inquiry, she forthwith stammered out: "I--I came, sir, to see if there be news of her Ladyship ... or of Sir Adrian, sir--Renny can't leave the island, you know, and he be downright anxious." "Well, my good woman, calm yourself. Nothing wrong; nothing to hide in this very laudable anxiety of you and your good man! No, we have no news yet--that is quickly told, Mrs. Potter." He kept her for a moment quailing and scared under his cruel gaze, then went on his way, working upon the new problems she had brought him to solve. No matter was too small for Rupert's mind, he knew how inextricably the most minute and apparently insignificant may be connected with the most important events of life. The woman was singularly anxious to explain, reflected he, pausing at his chamber door, singularly ready with her explanation--too ready. She must have lied. No doubt she lied. Liar was written upon every line of the terrified face of her. What was that infernal little French husband of hers hatching now? He had been in the Smith plot, of course. Ah, curse that smuggling fellow: he cropped up still on every side! Pray the fates he would crop up once too often for his own safety yet; who knew! Meanwhile Mrs. Potter, the innocent news-gatherer, must not be allowed to roam unwatched at her own sweet will about the place. Hark! what clumping, creaking, steps! These could only be produced by René's fairy-footed spouse: the house servants had been too well drilled by his irritable ear to venture in such shoe leather within its range. He closed his door, and gently walked back along the corridor. As he passed Molly's apartment, he could hear the creaking of a wardrobe door; and, a startling surmise springing into his brain, he quietly slipped into an opposite room and waited, leaving the door slightly ajar. As he expected, a few minutes later, Moggie re-appeared loaded with a bulky parcel, glancing anxiously right and left. She tiptoed by him; but, after a few steps, suddenly turning her head once more, met his eyes grimly fixed upon her through the narrow aperture. With a faint squeal she paddled off as though a fiend were at her heels. "Something more than anxiety for news there, Mrs. Potter," said Mr. Landale, apostrophising the retreating figure with a malignant, inward laugh! Then, when the last echo of her stout boots had faded away, he entered his sister-in-law's room, looked around and meditatively began to open various presses and drawers. "You visited this one at any rate, my girl," thought he, as he recognised the special sound of the hinges. "And, for a lady's maid, you have left it in singular disorder. As for this," pulling open a linen drawer half-emptied, and showing dainty feminine apparel, beribboned and belaced, in the most utter disorder--"why, fie on you, Mrs. Potter! Is this the way to treat these pretty things?" He had seen enough. He paused a moment in the middle of the room with his nails to his lips, smiling to himself. "Ah, Mrs. Potter, I fancy you might have given us a little news, yourself! Most unkind of my Lady Landale to prefer to keep us in this unnatural anxiety--most unkind indeed! She must have singularly good reasons for so doing.... Captain Smith, my friend, Mr. Cochrane, or whatever may be your name, we have an account to settle. And there is that fool of an Adrian scurrying over the seas in search of his runaway wife! By George! my hand is not played out yet!" Slowly he repaired to his study. There he sat down and wrote, without any further reflection, an urgent letter to the chief officer of the newly established Preventive Service Station. Then he rang the bell. "One of the grooms will ride at once to Lancaster with this," he said to the servant, looking at the missive in his hand. But instead of delivering it he paused: a new idea had occurred. How many of these servants might not be leagued in favour of that interloper, bribed, or knowing him, perhaps, to have been a friend of Sir Adrian, or yet again out of sheer spite to himself? No; he would leave no loop-hole for treachery now. "Send the groom to me as soon as he is ready," he continued, and when the footman had withdrawn, enclosed the letter, with its tale-telling superscription, in another directed to a local firm of attorneys, with a covering note instructing them to see that the communication, on His Majesty's Service, should reach the proper hands without delay. When the messenger had set forth, Mr. Landale, on his side, had his horse saddled and sallied out in the direction of Scarthey sands. As from the top of the bluff he took a survey of the great bay, a couple of figures crossing the strand in the distance arrested his attention; he reined in his horse behind a clump of bushes and watched. "So ho! Mrs. Potter, your careful husband could not leave the island?" muttered he, as he marked the unmistakable squat figure of the one, a man carrying a burden upon his shoulder, whilst, enveloping the woman who walked briskly by his side, flared the brilliant-hued shawl of Moggie. "That lie alone would have been sufficient to arouse suspicion. Hallo, what is the damned _crapaud_ up to?" The question was suggested by the man's movements, as, after returning the parcel to his consort at the beginning of the now bare causeway, he turned tail, while she trudged forward alone. "The Shearman's house! I thought as much. Out he comes again, and not by himself. I have made acquaintance with those small bare legs before. I should have been astonished indeed if none of the Shearman fellows had been mixed up with the affair. I shall be even yet with those creditable friends of yours, brother Adrian. So, it's you again, Johnny, my lad; the pretty Mercury.... Can it be possible that Captain Smith is at his old games once more?" Mr. Landale's eyes shone with a curious eager light; he laughed a little mirthless laugh, which was neither pleasant to hear nor to give. "Dear me," he said aloud, as he watched the pair tramp together towards Scarthey, "for plotters in the dark, you are particularly easy to detect, my good friends!" Then he checked himself, realising what a mere chance it had been, after all--a fortuitous meeting in the passage--that had first aroused his suspicions, and placed between his fingers the end of the thread he now thought it so simple to follow up. But he did hold the thread, and depended no longer upon chance or guess-work, but on his own relentless purpose to lay the plotters by the heels, whatever their plot might be. In the course of an hour and a half, Johnny Shearman, whistling, light-hearted, and alone, was nearing his native house once more, when the sight of a horseman, rapidly advancing across the sands, brought him to a standstill, to stare with a boy's curiosity. Presently, however, recognising Mr. Landale--a person for whom he had more dread than admiration--he was starting off homeward again at a brisk canter, when a stern hail from the rider arrested him. "Johnny!" The boy debated a moment, measured the distance between the cottage and himself, and shrewdly recognised the advisability of obeying. "Johnny, my boy, I want you at the Hall; take hold of my stirrup, and come along with me." The boy, with every symptom of reluctance, demurred, pleading a promise to return to his mother. Then he suddenly perceived a look in the gentleman's eye, which gave him a frantic, unreasoned desire to bolt at once, and at any cost. But the horseman anticipated the thought; bending in the saddle, he reached out his arm and seized the urchin by the collar. "Why, you little devil, what is the matter with you?" he asked, grinning ominously into the chubby, terrified face. "It strikes me it is time you and I should come to a little understanding. Any more letters from the smuggler to-day, eh? Ah, would you, you young idiot!" and Mr. Landale's fingers gave a sudden twist to the collar, which strangled the rising yell. "Listen, Johnny," tightening his grasp gradually until the brown face grew scarlet, then purple, and the goggling eyes seemed to start out of their sockets; "that is what it feels like to be hanged. They squeeze your neck so; and they leave you dangling at the end of a rope till you are dead, dead, dead, and the crows come and eat you. Do you want to be hanged?" For some moments more he kept the writhing lad under the torture; then loosening his grip, without however relinquishing his hold, allowed him to taste once more the living air. "Do you want to be hanged, Johnny Shearman?" he asked again gravely. The lad burst into gasping sobs, and looked up at his captor with an agony of fear in his bloodshot eyes. "No," continued Mr. Landale, "I am sure you don't, eh?" with a renewed ominous contraction of the hand. "It's a fearful thing, is hanging. And yet many a lad, hardly older than you, has been hanged for less than you are doing. Magistrates can get people hanged, and I am a magistrate, you know. _Stop that noise!_" "Now," continued the gentleman, "there are one or two little things I want to know myself, Johnny, and it's just possible I might let you off for this time if by chance you were able to tell them to me. So, for your sake, I hope you may be." He could see that the boy's mind was now completely turned with fright. "If you were to try to run away again I should know you had secrets to keep from me, and then, Johnny Shearman, it would go hard with you indeed! Now come along beside me, up to the Hall." Quite certain of his prey, he released him, and, setting his horse to a trot, smiled to note the desperate clutch of the lad upon his stirrup leather, as, with the perspiration dripping from his face, and panting breath, he struggled to keep up the pace alongside. Marched with tremendous ceremony into the magistrate's study and directed to stand right opposite the light, while Mr. Landale installed himself in an arm-chair with a blood-curdling air of judicial sternness, Johnny Shearman, at most times as dare-devil a pickle of a boy as ever ran, but now reduced to a state of mental and physical jelly, underwent a terrible cross-examination. It was comparatively little that he had to say, and no doubt he wished most fervently he had greater revelations to make, and could thus propitiate the arbiter of the appalling fate he firmly believed might lie in store for him. Meagre as his narrative was, however, it quite sufficed for Mr. Landale. "I think, Johnny," he said more pleasantly, well knowing the inducement that a sudden relaxation from fear offers to a witness's garrulity, "I think I may say you will not hang this time--that is," with a sudden hardening of his voice, and making a great show of checking the answers with pen and ink in his most magisterial manner, "that is if you have really told me _all_ you know and it be all _true_. Now let us see, and take care. You saw no one at the peel to-day but Renny Potter, Mrs. Potter and Mrs. Crackenshaw?" "No, sir." "But you heard other voices in the next room--a man's voice--whilst you were waiting?" "Yes, sir." "Then Renny Potter came back and gave you a message for your brothers. This message they made you repeat, over and over again. How did it go?" And as Mr. Landale frowningly looked at his paper, the boy tremblingly repeated: "I mun tell brothers Will an' Rob, that one or t'other mun watchen the light o' nights, to-night, to-morrow night, an' ontil woord coom again. If light go out they mun setten forth in they ketch thot moment, fettled op for a two-three days' sailing. If wind is contrairy like, they mun take sweeps. This for the master's service--for Sir Adrian's service!"--amending the phrase with a sharp reading of the blackness of Mr. Landale's swift upward look. "Yes," murmured the latter after a pause. "And you were to tell no one else. You were to keep it above all from getting to my ears. Very good, Johnny. If you have spoken the truth, you are safe." There was a special cell, off the official study, with high windows, bolts and bars, and a wooden bench, for the temporary housing of such desperate criminals as might be brought to the judgment of Rupert Landale, Esquire, J.P. There he now disposed of the young offender who snivelled piteously once more; and having locked the door and pocketed the key, returned to his capacious arm-chair, where, as the twilight waned over the land, he fell to co-ordinating his scheme and gloating upon this unexpected turn of Fortune's wheel. * * * * * At that hour Madeleine, alone in her chamber, knelt before her little altar, wrestling with the rebellion of her soul and besieging the heavens with a cry for peace. * * * * * Sir Adrian having failed to hear aught of the _Peregrine_ at St. Malo, filled with harassing doubt about its fate but clutching still at hope--as men will, even such pessimists as he--stood on the deck of his homeward bound ship, straining his eyes in the dusk for the coast line. * * * * * In the peel, the beacon had just been lighted by René, in whose company, up in his secluded turret, sat Captain Jack, smoking a pipe, but so unusually silent as to have reduced even the loquacious Frenchman to silence too. Below them Lady Landale, torn between the dread of a final separation from the loadstar of her existence and the gnawing anxiety roused in her bosom by Moggie's account of Mr. Landale's watchfulness, was pacing the long book-lined room with the restlessness of a caged panther. * * * * * On the road from Lancaster to Pulwick a posse of riding officers and a carriage full of hastily gathered preventive men were trotting on their way to the Priory. CHAPTER XXIX THE LIGHT GOES OUT The light of Scarthey had not been shining for quite an hour over the wilderness, when Lady Landale, suddenly breaking the chain of her restless tramp, ran to the door and called for Moggie. There was so shrill a tone of anguish in the summons that the young woman rushed into the room in trembling expectancy: yet it was to find her mistress alone and the place undisturbed. "Moggie," said Lady Landale, panting and pressing her hands upon her side as if in the endeavour to control the beating of her heart, "something is going to happen; I know it, I feel it! Tell Captain Smith that I must speak to him, here, at once." Infected by the terror upon her mistress's face, Madame Lapôtre flew upon her errand; a moment later, Captain Jack entered the room and stood before Lady Landale with a look of impatient inquiry. "Oh, it is wicked, it is mad!" cried she passionately; "it is tempting God to remain here!" "Of whom are you speaking?" he asked, with an involuntary glance of contempt at the distracted figure. "If it is of yourself, I entirely concur. How often these last days, and how earnestly have I not begged of you to return to Pulwick? Was not the situation you placed me in with regard to Adrian already odious enough that it needed this added folly? Oh, I know--I know what you would say: spare it me. My safety? You fear for me? Ah, Lady Landale, that you could have but left me in peace!" He had waxed hot with anger from his first would-be calmness, as he spoke. This dismal life of close but inharmonious proximity, started upon the seas and continued under his absent friend's own roof had tried his impetuous temper to the utmost. Upon the morrow of their return he had, indeed, exercised all his powers of persuasion to induce Lady Landale to proceed to the Priory; but, impelled by her frantic dread of the separation, and entrenching herself behind the argument that her mysterious re-appearance would awaken suspicion where people would otherwise believe the _Peregrine_ still in foreign parts, she had declared her irrevocable determination not to quit the island until she knew him to be safe. And he had remained, actuated by the dual desire, first to exonerate himself personally in her husband's eyes from any possible suspicion of complicity in Molly's flight--the bare thought of which had become a horrible torment to him--then to encompass through that good friend's means an interview and full explanation with Madeleine, which not only the most ordinary precaution for his life, but likewise every instinct of pride forbade him now to seek himself. Thus began a state of affairs which, as the days succeeded each other without news of Sir Adrian, became every moment more intolerable to his loyalty. The inaction, the solitary hours of reflection; the maddening feeling of unavailing proximity to his heart's dearest, of impotency against the involving meshes of the present false and hateful position; all this had brought into the young man's soul a fever of anger, which, as fevers will, consumed him the more fiercely because of his vigour and strength. It was with undisguised hatred and with scorn immeasurable that he now surveyed the woman who had degraded him in his own eyes. At another time Molly might have yielded before his resentment, but at this hour her whole being was encompassed by a single thought. "It is for you--for you!" she repeated with ashen lips; "you must go before it is too late." "And is it not too late?" stormed he. "Too late, indeed, do I see my treachery to Adrian, my more than brother! Upon my ship I could not avoid your company, but here--Oh, I should have thought of him and not of myself, and done as my honour bade me! You are right; since you would not go, I should have done so. It was weak; it was mad; worse, worse--dishonourable!" But she had no ears for his reproaches, no power to feel the wounds he dealt her woman's heart with such relentless hand. "Then you will go," she cried. "Tell René, the signal." He started and looked at her with a different expression. "Have you heard anything; has anything happened?" he asked, recovering self-restraint at the thought of danger. "Not yet," she replied, "not yet, but it is coming." Her look and voice were so charged with tragic force that for the moment he was impressed, and, brave man though he was, felt a little cold thrill run down his spine. She continued, in accents of the most piercing misery: "And it will have been through me--it will have been through me! Oh, in mercy let me make the signal! Say you will go to-night." "I will go." There followed a little pause of breathless silence between them. Then as, without speaking, he would have turned away, a loud, peremptory knock resounded upon the door of the keep and echoed and re-echoed with lugubrious reverberation through the old stone passages around them. At first, terror-stricken, her tongue clave to her palate, her feet were rooted to the ground; then with a scream she flung herself upon him and would have dragged him towards the door. "They have come--hide--hide!" He threw up his head to listen, while he strove to disengage himself. The blood had leaped to his cheek, and fire to his eye. "And if it be Adrian?" he cried. Another knock thundered through the still air. "It is but one man," cried René from his tower down the stairs. "You may open, Moggie." "No--no," screamed Molly beside herself, and tighter clasped her arms round Captain Jack's neck. "Adrian, it is Adrian!" said he. "Hush, Madam, let me go! Would you make the breach between me and my friend irreparable?" Both his hands were on her wrists in the vain endeavour to disengage himself from her frenzied grip; the door was flung open and Rupert Landale stood in the opening, and looked in upon them. "Damnation!" muttered Jack between his teeth and flung her from him, stamping his foot. Rupert gazed from one to the other; from the woman, who, haggard and dishevelled, now turned like a fury upon him, to the sailor's fierce erect figure. Then he closed the door with an air of grave deliberation. "What do you want?" demanded Molly--"you have come here for no good purpose. What do you want?" As she spoke she strove to place herself between the two men. "I came, my dear sister-in-law," said Rupert in his coldest, most incisive voice, "to learn why, since you have come back from your little trip, you choose to remain in the ruins rather than return to your own house and family. The reason is clear to see now. My poor brother!" The revulsion of disappointment had added to the wrath which the very sight of Rupert Landale aroused in Jack Smith's blood; this insinuation was the culminating injury. He took a step forward. "Have a care, sir," he exclaimed, "how you outrage in my presence the wife of my best friend! Have a care--I am not in such a hurry to leave you as when last we met!" Mr. Landale raised his eyebrows, and again sent a look from Molly back to the sailor, the insolence of which lashed beyond all control the devils in the sailor's soul. "We have an account to settle, it seems to me, Mr. Landale," said he, taking another step forward and slightly stooping his head to look the other in the eye. Crimson fury was in his own. "I doubt much whether it was quite wise of you, assuming that you expected to find me here, to have come without that pistolling retinue with which you provided yourself last time." Rupert smiled and crossed his arms. Cowardice was no part of his character. He had come in advance of his blood-hounds, in part to assure himself of the correctness of his surmises, but also to feast upon the discomfiture of this man and this woman whom he hated. To have found them together, and thus, had been an unforeseen and delicious addition to his dish of vengeance, and he would linger over it while he could. "Well, Captain Smith, and about this account? Lady Landale, I beg of you, be silent. You have brought sufficient disgrace upon our name as it is. Nay, sir," raising his voice, "it is useless to shake your head at me in this furious style; nothing can alter facts. _I saw._ Who has an account to demand then--you, whose life is already forfeit for an accumulation of crimes; you, screened by a conspiracy of bribed servants and ... your best friend's wife, as you dare call your paramour; or I, in my brother's absence the natural guardian of his family, of his honour? But I am too late. One sister I saved from the ignominy you would have brought upon her. The other I could not save." With a roar Jack Smith would have sprung at the speaker; but, once more, his friend's wife rushed between. "Let him speak," she cried, "what matter what he says? But you--remember your promise. I will make the signal." The signal! The mask of Rupert's face, sternly and sadly rebuking, was not proof against the exquisite aptness of this proposal. His men outside were waiting for the signal, surrounding the island from land and seaward, (for the prey was not to be allowed to escape them again); but how to make it without creating suspicion had not yet suggested itself to his fertile brain. Now, while he held her lover in play, Molly would herself deliver him to justice. Excellent, excellent! Truly life held some delightful jokes for the man of humour! The light of triumph came and went upon his countenance like a flash, but when the life hangs upon the decision of a moment the wits become abnormally sharp. Jack Smith saw it, halted upon his second headlong onslaught, and turned round.--Too late: Molly was gone. He brought his gaze back upon his enemy and saw he had been trapped. Their gleams met like duelling blades, divining each other's purpose with the rapidity of thrust answering thrust. Both made a leap for the door. But Rupert was nearest; he first had his hand on the key and turned it, and, with newly-born genius of fight, suddenly begotten of his hatred, quickly stooped, eluded the advancing grasp, was free for one second, and sent the key crashing through the window into the darkness of the night. Baffled by the astounding swiftness of the act, the sailor, wheeling round, had already raised his fist to crush his feebler foe, when, in the midst of his fury, a glimmer of the all-importance of every second of time stayed his hand. He threw himself upon the heavy ladder that rested against Sir Adrian's rows of books, and, clasping it by the middle, swung it above his head. The battering blow would, no doubt, have burst panel, lock, and hinges the next instant, but again Rupert forestalled him, and charged him before the door could be reached. Overbalanced by the weight he held aloft, Captain Jack was hurled down headlong beneath the ladder, and lay for a moment stunned by the violence of the fall. When the clouds cleared away it was to let him see Rupert's face bending over him, his pale lips wreathed into a smile of malignant exultation. "Caught!" said Mr. Landale, slowly, pausing over each word as though to prolong the savour of it in his mouth, "caught this time! And it is your mistress's hand that puts the noose round your neck. That is what I call poetical justice." The prostrate man, collecting his scattered wits and his vast strength, made a violent effort to spring to his feet. But Rupert's whole weight was upon him, his long thin fingers were gripping him by each shoulder, his face grinned at him, close, detested, infuriating. The grasp that held him seemed to belong to no flesh and blood, it was as the grasp of skeleton hands, the grinning face became like a death's head. "I shall come to your hanging, Captain Jack Smith, or rather, Mr. Hubert Cochrane of the Shaws." These were the last words of Rupert Landale. A red whirl passed through the sailor's brain, his hands fell like lashes round the other's neck and drew it down. _If Hubert Cochrane dies so does Rupert Landale: that throat shall never give sound to that name again._ Over and over they roll like savage beasts, but yet in deathly silence. For the pressure of the fingers on his gullet, fingers that seem to gain fresh strength every moment and pierce into his very flesh, will not allow even a sigh to pass Rupert's lips, and Jack can spare no atom of his energy from the fury of fight: not one to spare even for the hearing of the frantic knocks at the door, the calls, the hammering at the lock, the desperate efforts without to prise it open. _But if Rupert Landale must die so shall Hubert Cochrane, and by the hangman's hand, treble doomed by this._ The same thought fills both these men's heads; the devil of murder has possession of both their souls. But, true to himself to the last, it is with Rupert a calculating devil. The officers must soon be here: he will hold the scoundrel yet with the grasp of death, and his enemy shall be found red-handed--red-handed! His hatred, his determination of vengeance, the very agony of the unequal struggle for life gave him a power that is almost a match for the young athlete in his frenzy. The dying efforts of his victim tax Jack's strength more than the living fight; but his hands are still locked in their fatal clutch when at last, with one fearful and spasmodic jerk, Rupert Landale falls motionless. Then exhaustion enwraps the conqueror also, like a mantle. He, too, lies motionless with his cheek on the floor, face to face with the corpse, dimly conscious of the voluptuousness of victory. But the dead grasp still holds him by the wrists, and it grows cold now, and rigid upon them. It is as if they were fettered with iron. * * * * * Lady Landale's dread of her once despised kinsman, now that she knew what a powerful weapon he held in his hands, this night, was almost fantastic. As she darted from the room, she fell against René, who, with a white face and bent ear, stood at the door, eavesdropping, ready to rush to the help of Sir Adrian's friend upon the first hint of necessity. But he had heard more than he bargained for. The scared, well-nigh agonised look of inquiry with which he turned to his mistress was lost upon her. In her whirlwind exit, she seized upon him and dragged him with her to the ladder that led to the tower. "Quick, René, the signal!" And with the birdlike swiftness of a dream flight she was up the steps before him. Panting in her wake, ran the sturdy fellow, his brain seething in a chaos of conflicting thought. Mr. the Captain must be helped, must be saved: this one thing was clear at any rate. His honour would wish it so--no matter what had happened. Yes, he would obey My Lady and make the signal. But, what if Mr. Landale were right? Not indeed in his accusation of Mr. the Captain, René knew, René had seen enough to trust him: he was no false friend; but as regarded My Lady? Alas! My Lady had indeed been strange in her manner these days; and even Moggie, as he minded him now, even Moggie had noticed, had hinted, and he had not understood. The man's fingers fumbled over the catch of the great lantern, he shook as if he had the palsy. Goodness divine, if his master were to come home to this! Impatiently Lady Landale pushed him upon one side. What ailed the fellow, when every second was crucial, life or death bringing? Medusa-like for one second her face hung, white-illumined, set into terrible fixity, above the great flame, the next instant all was blackness to their dazzled eyes. The light of Scarthey was out! She groped for René; her hot fingers burnt upon his cold rough hand for a second. "I will go down to the sands," she said, whispering as if she feared, even here, the keenness of Rupert's ear, "and you--hurry to him, stop with him, defend him, your master's friend!" She flitted from him like a shadow, the ladder creaked faintly beneath her light footfall, and then louder beneath his weighty tread. His master's friend! Ay, he would stand by him, for his master's sake and for his own sake too--the good gentleman!--And they would get him safe out of the way before his honour's return. * * * * * Out upon the beach ran Molly. It was a mild still night; through veils of light mist the moon shone with a tranquil bride-like grace upon the heaving palpitating waters and the mystery of the silent land. A very night for lovers, it seemed; for sweet meetings and sweeter partings; a night that mocked with its great passionless calm at the wild anguish of this woman's impatience. Yet a night upon which sound travelled far. She bent her ear--was there nothing to hear yet, nothing but the lap of the restless waters? Were those men false? She rushed to and fro, from one point to another along the sands in a delirium of impotent desire. Oh, hurry, hurry, hurry! And as she turned again, there, upon the waters out in the offing, glimmered a light, curtseying with the swell of the waves; the sails of a ship caught the moonbeams. She could see the vessel plainly and that it was bearing full for the island. Alas! This might scarcely be the little Shearman boat manned by two fishermen only; even she, unversed in sea knowledge could tell that. It was as large as the _Peregrine_ itself--certainly as large as the cutter. The _cutter_! She caught her breath, and clapped her hands to her lips to choke down the wild scream of fear that rose to them. At the same instant, a dull thud of oars, a subdued murmur of a deep voice rose from the other side of the island. They were coming, coming from the landward, these rescuers of her beloved. And yonder, with swelling canvas, came the hell ship from out the open sea, sent by Rupert's infernal malice and cleverness, to make their help of no avail; to seize him, in the very act of flight. She ran in the direction of the sound, and with all her strength called upon the new-comers to speed. "Here--here, for God's sake! Hasten or it will be too late!" Her voice seemed to her, in the midst of the endless space, weak as a child's; but it was heard. "Coming!" answered a gruff shout from afar. And the oar beat came closer, and fell with swifter rhythm. Stumbling, catching in her skirts, careless of pool or stone beneath her little slippered feet, Lady Landale came flying round the ruins: a couple of boats crashed in upon the shingle, and the whole night seemed suddenly to become alive with dark figures--men in uniform, with gleams upon them of brass badges and shining belts, and in their hands the gleam of arms. For the moment she could not move. It was as if her knees were giving way, and she must fall. None of them saw her in the shadow; but as they passed, she heard them talking to each other about the signal, the signal which they had been told to look for, which had been brought to them ... the signal _she_ had made. Then with a wave of rage, the power of life returned to her. This was Rupert's work! But all was not lost yet. The other boat was coming, the other boat must be the rescue after all; the Shearman's boat, or--who knows?--if there was mercy in Heaven, the _Peregrine_, whose crew might have heard of their captain's risk. Back she raced to the seaward beach, hurling--unknowing that she spoke at all--invectives upon her husband's brother. "Serpent, blood-hound, devil, devil, you shall not have him!" As she reached the landing-place, breathless, a boat was landing in very truth. Even as she came up a tall figure jumped out upon the sand, and crunched towards her with great strides. She made a leap forward, halted, and cried out shrilly: "Adrian!" "Molly--wife! Thank God!" His arms were stretched out to her, but he saw her waver and shudder from him, and wring her hands. "My God, what has happened? The light out, too! What is it?" She fastened on him with a sudden fierceness, the spring of a wild cat. "Come," she said, drawing him towards the peel, "if you would save him, lose not a second." He hesitated a moment, still; she tugged at him like one demented, panting her abjurations at him, though her voice was failing her. Then, without a word, he fell to running with her towards the keep, supporting her as they went. The great door had swung back on its hinges, and the men were pressing, in a dark body, into the dim-lit recesses, when Sir Adrian and his wife reached the entrance. The sight of the uniforms only confirmed the homecomer in his own forebodings anent the first act of the drama that was being enacted upon his peaceful island. He needed no further pushing from the frantic woman at his side. Lost in bringing her back, perhaps, his only friend! Lost by his loyalty and his true friendship! They dashed up the stone stairs just as the locked door of the living-room burst with a crash, under the efforts of many stalwart shoulders; they saw the men crush forwards, and fall back, and herd on again, with a hoarse murmur that leaped from mouth to mouth. And René came running out from the throng with the face of one that has seen Death. And he caught his mistress by the arm, and held her by main force against the wall. He showed no surprise at the sight of his master--there are moments in life that are beyond surprise--but cried wildly: "She must not see!" She fought like a tigress against the faithful arms, but still they held her, and Sir Adrian went in alone. A couple of men were dragging Captain Jack to his feet, forcing his hands from the dead man's throat; it seemed as if they had grown as rigid and paralysed in their clasp like the corpse hands that had now, likewise, to be wrenched from their clutch of him. He glanced around, as though dazed, then down at the disfigured purple face of his dead enemy, smiled and held out his hands stiffly for the gyves that were snapped upon them. And then one of the fellows, with some instinctive feeling of decency, flung a coat over the slain man, and Captain Jack threw up his head and met Adrian's horror-stricken, sorrowful eyes. At the unexpected sight he grew scarlet; he waved his fettered hands at him as they hustled him forth. "I have killed your brother, Adrian," he called out in a loud voice, "but I brought back your wife!" Some of the men were speaking to Sir Adrian, but drew back respectfully before the spectacle of his wordless agony. But, as Molly, with a shriek, would have flung herself after the prisoner, her husband awoke to action, and, pushing René aside, caught her round the waist with an unyielding grip: his eyes sought her face. And, as the light fell on it, he understood. Aye, she had been brought back to him. But how? And René, watching his master's countenance, suddenly burst out blubbering, like a child. CHAPTER XXX HUSBAND AND WIFE Tout comprendre-- c'est tout pardonner. Staring straight before her with haggard, unseeing eyes, her hands clasped till the delicate bones protruded, her young face lined into sudden agedness, grey with unnatural pallor, framed by the black masses of her dishevelled hair, it was thus Sir Adrian found his wife, when at length he was free to seek her. He and René had laid the dead man upon the bed that had been occupied by his murderer, and composed as decently as might be the hideous corpse of him who had been the handsomest of his race. René had given his master the tale of all he knew himself, and Sir Adrian had ordered the boat to be prepared, determined to convey Lady Landale at once from the scene of so much horror. His own return to Pulwick, moreover, to break the news to Sophia, to attend to the removal of the body and the preparation for the funeral was of immediate necessity. As he approached his wife she raised her eyes. "What do you want with me?" she asked, with a stony look that arrested him, as he would gently have taken her hand. "I would bring you home." "Home!" the pale lips writhed in withering derision. "Yes, home, Molly," he spoke as one might to a much-loved and unreasonable sick child--with infinite tenderness and compassion--"your own warm home, with your sister. You would like to go to Madeleine, would not you?" She unclasped her hands and threw them out before her with a savage gesture of repulsion. "To Madeleine?" she echoed, with an angry cry; and then wheeling round upon him fiercely: "Do you want to kill me?" she said, between her set teeth. Sir Adrian's weary brow contracted. He paused and looked at her with profoundest sorrow. Then she asked, hoarsely: "Where have they taken him to?" "To Lancaster, I believe." "Will they hang him?" "I pray God not." "There is no use of praying to God, God is merciless. What will they do to him?" "He will be tried, Molly, in due course, and then, according to the sentence of the judges.... My poor child, control yourself, he shall be defended by the best lawyers that money can get. All a man can do for another I shall do for him." She shot the sombre fire of her glance at him. "You know that I love him," she said, with a terrible composure. A sudden whiteness spread round Sir Adrian's lips. "Poor child!" he said again beneath his breath. "Yes, I love him. I always wanted to see him. I was sick and tired of life at Pulwick, and that was why I went on board his ship. I went deliberately because I could not bear the dulness of it all. He mistook me for Madeleine in the dark--he kissed me. Afterwards I told him that I loved him. I begged him to take me away with him, for ever. I love him still, I would go with him still--it is as well that you should know. Nothing can alter it now. But he did not want me. He loves Madeleine." The words fell from her lips with a steady, cruel, deliberateness. She kept her eyes upon him as she spoke, unpityingly, uncaring what anguish she inflicted; nay, it seemed from some strange perversity, glad to make him suffer. But hard upon a man as it must be to hear such a confession from his wife's lips, doubly hard to such a one as Adrian, whose heart bled for her pain as well as for his own, he held himself without departing for a second from his wonted quiet dignity. Only in his earnest gaze upon her there was perhaps, if possible, an added tenderness. But she, to see him so unmoved, was moved herself to a sudden scorn. What manner of man was this, that not love, nor jealousy, nor anger had power to stir? "And now what will you do with me?" she asked him again, with superb contempt on eye and lip. "For a guilty wife I am to you, as far as the will could make me, and I have no claim upon you any more." "No claim upon me!" he repeated, with a wonder of grief in his voice. "Ah, Molly, hush child! You are my wife. The child of the woman I loved--the woman I love for her own sake. You can no more put yourself out of my life now than you can out of my heart; had you been as guilty in deed as you may have been in purpose my words would be the same. Your husband's home is your home, my only wish to cherish and shelter you. You cannot escape my care, poor child, and some day you may be glad of it. My protection, my countenance you will always have. God! who am I that I should judge you? Is there any sin of human frailty that a human being dare condemn? Guilty? What is your guilt compared to mine for bringing you to this, allying my melancholy age with your bright youth?" He fell into the chair opposite to her and covered his face with his hands. As, for a minute's space, his self-control wavered, she watched him, wearily. Her heat of temper had fallen from her very quickly; she broke into a moan. "Oh, what does it matter? What does anything matter now? I love him and I have ruined him--had it not been for me he would be safe!" After a little silence Sir Adrian rose. "I must leave you now, I must go to Pulwick," he said. His heart was yearning to her, he would have gathered her to his arms as a father his erring child, but he refrained from even touching her. "And you--what would you do? It shall be as you like." "I would go to Lancaster," she said. "The carriage shall be sent for you in the morning and Renny and his wife shall go with you. I will see to it. After Rupert's funeral--my God, what a night this has been!--I will join you, and together we shall work to save his life." He paused, hesitated, and was about to turn away when suddenly she caught his hand and kissed it. He knew she would as readily have kissed René's hand for a like promise; that her gratitude was a pitiable thing for him, her husband, to bear; and yet, all the way, on his sad and solitary journey to Pulwick, the touch of her lips went with him, bringing a strange sweetness to his heart. * * * * * There was a vast deal of wonder in the county generally, and among the old friends of his father's house in particular, when it became known that Sir Adrian Landale had engaged a noted counsel to defend his brother's murderer and was doing all he could to avert his probable doom. In lowered tones were whispered strange tales of Lady Landale's escapade. People wagged wise and virtuous heads and breathed scandalous hints of her power upon her infatuated husband; and then they would tap their foreheads significantly. Indeed it needed all the master of Pulwick's wide-spread reputation for mental unsoundness to enable him to carry through such proceedings without rousing more violent feelings. As it was, it is to be doubted whether his interference had any other effect than that of helping to inflame the public mind against the prisoner. The jury's verdict was a foregone conclusion; and though the learned lawyer duly prepared a very fine speech and pocketed some monstrous fees with a great deal of complaisance, he was honest enough not to hold out the smallest hope of being able to save his client. The conviction was too clear, the "crimes" the prisoner had committed were of "too horrible and bloody a character, threatening the very foundations of society," to admit of a merciful view of the case. As the trial drew near, Sir Adrian's despondency increased; each day seemed to bring a heavier furrow to his brow, an added weight to his lagging steps. He avoided as much as possible all meetings with his wife, who, on the contrary, recovered stronger courage with the flight of time, but whose feverish interest in his exertions was now transferred to some secret plans that she was for ever discussing with René. The prisoner himself showed great calmness. "They will sentence me of course," he said quietly to Adrian, "but whether they will hang me is another question. I don't think that my hour has come yet or that the cord is twisted which will hang Jack Smith." In other moods, he would ridicule Sir Adrian's labours in his cause with the most gentle note of affectionate mockery. But, from the desire doubtless to save one so disinterested and unworldly from any accusation of complicity, he was silent upon the schemes on which he pinned his hopes of escape. The first meeting of the friends after the scene at Scarthey had been, of course, painful to both. When he entered the cell, Adrian had stretched out his hand in silence, but Captain Jack held his own pressed to his side. "It is like you to come," he said gloomily, "but you cannot shake the hand that stifled your brother's life out of him. And I should do it again, Adrian! Mark you, I am not repentant!" "Give me your hand, Jack," said Adrian steadfastly. "I am not of those who shift responsibility from the dead to the living. You were grievously treated. Oh, give me your hand, friend, can I think of anything now but your peril and your truth to me?" For an instant still the younger man hesitated and inquiringly raised his eyes laden with anxious trouble, to the elder man's face. "My wife has told me all," said Sir Adrian, turning his head to hide his twitching lip. And then Jack Smith's hand leaped out to meet his friend's upon an impulse of warm sympathy, and the two faced each other, looking the words they could not utter. * * * * * The year eighteen hundred and fifteen which delivered England at last from the strain of outlandish conflict saw a revival of official activity concerning matters of more homely interest. The powers that were awoke to the necessity, among other things, of putting a stop by the most stringent means to the constant and extensive leakage in the national revenue proceeding from the organisation of free traders or smugglers. After twenty years of almost complete supineness on the part of the authorities, the first efforts made towards a systematic "Preventive" coast service, composed of customs, excise and naval officials in proportion varied according to the localities, remained singularly futile. And to the notorious inability of these latter to cope with the experience and the devilish daring of the old established free traders, was due no doubt to the ferocity of the inquisitional laws presently levelled against smuggling and smugglers--laws which ruthlessly trenched upon almost every element of the British subjects' vaunted personal freedom, and which added, for the time, several new "hanging cases" to the sixty odd already in existence. That part of the indictment against Captain Jack Smith and the other criminals still at large, which dealt with their offences against the smuggling act, would in later times have broken down infallibly from want of proper evidence: not a tittle of information was forthcoming which could support examination. But a judge of assizes and a jury in 1815, were not to be baulked of the necessary victim by mere circumstantiality when certain offences against society and against His Majesty had to be avenged; and the dispensers of justice were less concerned with strict evidence than with the desirability of making examples. Strong presumption was all that was required to them to hang their man; and indeed the hanging of Captain Jack upon the other and more serious counts than that of unlawful occupation, was, as has been said, a foregone conclusion. The triple charge of murder being but too fully corroborated. Every specious argument that could be mooted was of course put forward by counsel for the defence, to show that the death of the preventive men and of Mr. Landale on Scarthey Island and the sinking of the revenue cutter must be looked upon, on the one hand, as simple manslaughter in self-defence, and as the result of accidental collision, on the other. But, as every one anticipated, the charge of the judge and the finding of the jury demanded strenuously the extreme penalty of the law. Besides this the judge deemed it advisable to introduce into the sentence one of those already obsolete penalties of posthumous degradation, devised in coarser ages for the purpose of making an awful impression upon the living. "Prisoner at the bar," said his lordship at the conclusion of the last day's proceedings, "the sentence of the law which I am about to pass upon you and which the court awards is that you now be taken to the place whence you came, and from thence, on the day appointed, to the place of execution, there to be hanged by the neck until you be dead, dead, dead. And may God have mercy on your soul!" Captain Jack, standing bolt upright, with his eyes fixed upon the speaker, calm as he ever had been when awaiting the enemy's broadside, hearkened without stirring a muscle. But when the judge, after pronouncing the last words with a lingering fulness and impressiveness, continued through the heavy silence: "And that, at a subsequent time, your body, bound in irons, shall be suspended upon a gibbet erected as near as possible to the scenes of your successive crimes, and shall there remain as a lasting warning to wrong-doers of the inevitable ultimate end of such an evil life as yours," a wave of crimson flew to the prisoner's forehead, upon which every vein swelled ominously. He shot a glance of fury at the large flabby countenance of the righteous arbiter of his doom, whilst his hands closed themselves with an involuntary gesture of menace. Then the tide of anger ebbed; a contemptuous smile parted his lips. And, bowing with an air of light mockery to the court, he turned, erect and easy, to follow his turnkey out of the hall. CHAPTER XXXI IN LANCASTER CASTLE All that his friendship for the condemned man, all that his love and pity for his almost distracted wife, could suggest, Sir Adrian Landale had done in London to try and avert Captain Jack's doom. But it was in vain. There also old stories of his peculiar tenets and of his well-known disaffection to the established order of things, had been raked up against him. Unfavourable comparisons had been drawn between him and Rupert; surprise and disapproval had been expressed at the unnatural brother, who was displaying such energy to obtain mercy for his brother's murderer. Finally an influential personage, whom Sir Adrian had contrived to interest in the case, in memory of an old friendship with his father, informed the baronet that his persistence was viewed with extreme disfavour in the most exalted quarter, and that His Royal Highness himself had pronounced that Captain Jack was a damned rascal and richly deserved his fate. From the beginning, indeed, the suppliant had been without hope. Though he was resolved to leave no stone unturned, no possibility untried in the effort to save his friend, well-nigh the saddest part of the whole business to him was the realisation that the prisoner had not only broken those custom laws (of which Sir Adrian himself disapproved as arbitrary) but also, as he had been warned, those other laws upon which depend all social order and security; broken them so grievously that, whatever excuses the philosopher might find in heat of blood and stress of circumstances, given laws at all, the sentence could not be pronounced otherwise than just. And so, with an aching heart and a wider horror than ever of the cruel world of men, and of the injustices to which legal justice leads, Sir Adrian left London to hurry back to Lancaster with all the speed that post-horses could muster. The time was now drawing short. As the traveller rattled along the stony streets of the old Palatine town, and saw the dawn breaking, exquisite, primrose tinted, faintly beautiful as some dream vision over the distant hills, his soul was gripped with an iron clutch. In three more days the gallant heart, breaking in the confinement of the prison yonder, would have throbbed its last! And he longed, with a desire futile but none the less intense, that, according to that doctrine of Vicarious Atonement preached to humanity by the greatest of all examples, he could lay down his own weary and disappointed life for his friend. Having breakfasted at the hotel, less for the necessity of food than for the sake of passing the time till the morning should have worn to sufficient maturity, he sought on foot the quiet lodgings where he had installed his wife under René's guard before starting on his futile quest. Early as the hour still was--seven had but just rung merrily from some chiming church clock--the faithful fellow was already astir and prompt to answer his master's summons. One look at the latter's countenance was sufficient to confirm the servant's own worst forebodings. "Ah, your honour, and is it indeed so. _Ces gredins!_ and will they hang so good a gentleman?" "Hush, Renny, not so loud," cried the other with an anxious look at the folding-doors, that divided the little sitting-room from the inner apartment. "Oh, his honour need have no fear. My Lady is gone, gone to Pulwick. His honour need not disquiet himself; he can well imagine that I would not allow her to go alone--when I had been given a trust so precious. No, no, the old lady, Miss O'Donoghue, your honour's aunt and her ladyship's, she has heard of all these terrible doings, and came to Lancaster to be with My Lady. _Ma foi_, I know not if she be just the person one would have chosen, for she has scolded a great deal, and is as agitated--as agitated as a young rabbit. But, after all, she loves the poor young lady with all her heart, and I think she has roused her a little. His honour knows," said the man, flushing to the roots of his hair, whilst he shifted nervously from one foot to another, "that My Lady has been much upset about the poor captain. After his honour went, she would sit, staring out of the window there, just where the street turns up to the castle, and neither ate nor slept, nor talked to speak of. Of course, as I told the old Demoiselle, I knew it was because My Lady had taken it to heart about the signal that she made--thinking to save him--and which only brought the gabelous on him, that his honour's infernal brother (God forgive me, and have mercy on his soul) had set to watch. And My Lady liked to see me coming and going, for she sent me every day to the prison; she did not once go herself." Sir Adrian drew a long breath. With the most delicate intuition of his master's thoughts, René avoided even a glance at him while he continued in as natural a tone as he could assume: "But the day after the old miss came, she, My Lady, told me to find out if he would see her. He said no; but that the only kindness any one could do him now would be to bring him Mademoiselle Madeleine, and let him speak to her once more. And My Lady, when she heard this, she started off that day with the old one to fetch Mademoiselle herself at Pulwick. And she left me behind, your honour, for I had a little plan there." René faltered and a crestfallen look crept upon his face. Sir Adrian remembered how before his departure for London his servant had cheerily assured him that Mr. the Captain would be safe out of the country long before he returned, "faith of him, René, who had already been in two prisons, and knew their ways, and how to contrive an escape, as his honour well knew." A sad smile parted his lips. "And so you failed, Renny," he said. "Ah, your honour, those satanic English turnkeys! With a Frenchman, the job had been done; but it is a bad thing to be in prison in England. His honour can vouch I have some brains. I had made plans--a hundred plans, but there was ever something that did not work. The captain, he too, was eager, as your honour can imagine. My faith, we thought and we thought, and we schemed and contrived, and in the end, there was only one thing to complete our plot--to bribe the jailer. Would your honour believe--it was only that one little difficulty. My Lady had given me a hundred guineas, I had enough money, your honour sees. But the man--I had smoked with him, drunk with him, ay, and made him drunk too, and I thought all was going well, but when I hinted to him what we wanted--Ah! he was a brute--I tell you I had hard work to escape the prison myself, and only for my leaving him with some of the money, I should now be pinched there too. I hardly dare show my face in the place any more. And my poor Lady builds on the hope, and Mr. the Captain--I had to tell him, he took it like an angel. Ah, the poor gentleman! He looked at me so brave and kind! 'I am as grateful, my poor friend, as if you had done it,' said he, 'and perhaps it is all for the best.' All for the best--ah, your honour!" René fairly broke down here, and wept on his sleeve. But Sir Adrian's eyes, circled and worn with watching and thought, shone dry with a far deeper grief, as, a few moments later, he passed along the street towards the walls of the castle. * * * * * There was in those days little difficulty in obtaining admission to a condemned prisoner; and, in the rear of the red-headed, good-tempered looking jailer--the same, he surmised, whose sternness in duty had baffled the Breton's simple wiles--he stepped out of the sweet morning sunshine into the long stone passages. The first tainted breath of the prison brought a chill to his blood and oppression to his lungs, and the gloom of the place enveloped him like a pall. With a rattle of keys a door dismally creaking on its hinges was swung back at last, and the visitor was ushered into the narrow cell, dark for all its whitewashed walls, where Captain Jack was spending his last hours upon earth. The hinges groaned again, the door slammed, and the key once more grated in the lock. Sir Adrian was alone with his friend. For a moment there was silence; the contraction of the elder man's heart had brought a giddiness to his brain, a dimness of his eyes, through which he was ill able to distinguish anything. But then there was a clank of fetters--ah, what a sound to connect with lucky Jack Smith, the gayest, freest, and most buoyant of men! And a voice cried: "Adrian!" It had a joyful ring, well-nigh the old hearty tones. It struck Adrian to the soul. He could have borne, he thought, to find his friend a broken man, changed out of all recognition, crushed by his misfortunes; but to find him the same, a little pale, indeed, and thinner, with a steady earnestness in the sea-blue eyes instead of the old dancing-light, but still gallant and undaunted, still radiating vigorous life and breezy energy by his very presence, this was a cruelty of fate which seemed unendurable. "I declare," the prisoner had continued, "I declare I thought you were only the incorruptible jailer taking his morning survey. They are desperately careful of me, Adrian, and watch me with maternal solicitude lest I should strangle myself with my chains, these pretty bracelets which I have had to wear ever since poor Renny was found out, or swallow my pillow--dash me! it's small enough--and spoil the pretty show for Saturday! Why, why, Adrian, old friend?" There was a sudden change of tone to the warmest concern, for Sir Adrian had staggered and would have fallen had not Jack, as nimbly as his fetters would allow him, sprung to support him and conduct him to the bed. A shaft of light struck through the tiny barred window on to the elder man's face, and showed it against the surrounding darkness deathly white and wet with anguish. "I have done all I could, Hubert," he murmured, in an extinguished voice, "but to no avail." "Ay, man, I guessed as much. But never fret for me, Adrian: I have looked death too often in the face to play the poltroon, now. I don't say it's the end I should have chosen for myself; but it is inevitable, and there is nothing, as you know, my friend, that a man cannot face if he knows it must be faced." The grasp of his strong warm hands, all manacled as they were, upon the other's nerveless clammy fingers, sent, more than the words, something of the speaker's own courage to his friend's wrung heart. And yet that very courage was an added torment. That from a community, so full of evil, feeble, harmful wretches, this noble soul, no matter how it had sinned, should be banished at the bidding of justice--what mockery of right was this? The world was out of joint indeed. He groaned aloud. "Nay, I'll have none of it," cried Jack. "Our last talk, Adrian, must not be spoiled by futile regrets. Yes, our last talk it is to be, for"--the prisoner's face became transfigured with a tenderness so exquisite that Adrian stared at its beauty, amazed--"I have begged her, Madeleine, to come and see me once more. I think she can be here to-day, at latest to-morrow. And after that I would not see any of those I love again, that I may fit myself to meet my God." He spoke with the utmost simplicity. Adrian bowed his head silently. Then averting his eyes, he said: "My wife has gone to Pulwick to fetch her." Captain Jack crimsoned. "That is kind," he answered, in a low voice; and, after a pause, pursued: "I hope you do not think it wrong of me to wish to see her. But you may trust me. I shall distress her as little as is possible in the circumstances. It is not, as you can fancy"--his face flushed again as he spoke--"to indulge in a pathetic parting scene, or beg from her sweet lips one last kiss--that would be too grossly selfish, and however this poor body of mine, so soon to be carrion, may yearn to hold her once more closely, these lips, so soon to touch death, shall touch hers no more. I have risen so far above this earthliness, that in so many hours I am to shake off for ever, that I can trust myself to meet her soul to soul. She must believe me now, and I would tell her, Adrian, that my deceit was not premeditated, and that the man she once honoured with her love is not the base wretch she deems. I think it may comfort her. If she does mourn for me at all--she has so proud a spirit, my princess, as I used to call her--it may comfort her to know that I was not all unworthy of the love she once gave me, of the tears she may yet give to its memory and mine." Sir Adrian pressed his hand, but again could not speak, and Captain Jack went on: "You will give her a happy home, will you not, till she has one of her own? You and your old dragon of an aunt, whose bark is so much worse than her bite, will watch and guard her. Ah, poor old lady! she is one of those that will not weep for Jack Smith, eh, Adrian? Well, well, I have had a happy life, barring one or two hard raps of fate, and when only I have seen Madeleine once more, I'll feel all taut for the port, though the passage there be a rough one." Sir Adrian turned his gaze with astonishment upon him. The sailor read his thoughts: "Don't think," he said, while a sudden shadow crossed his face, "don't think that I don't realise my position, that I have not had to fight my battle. In the beginning I had hopes; never in the success of your mission, but, absurd as it was, in Renny's scheme. The good fellow's own hopefulness was infectious, I believe. And when that fell through--well then, man, I just had to make up my mind to what was to be. It was a battle, as I told you. I have been in danger of death many a time upon the brave old _St. Nicholas_, and my _Cormorant_--death from the salt sea, from musket ball and cannon shot, fearful deaths of mangling and hacking. But death on the gallows, the shameful death of the criminal; to be hung; to be executed--Pah! Ay! it was a battle--two nights and one day I fought it. And I tell you, 'tis a hard thing to bring the living flesh and the leaping blood to submit to such as that. At first I thought indeed, it could not be borne, and I must reckon upon your or Renny's friendship for a secret speed. I should have had the pluck to starve myself if need be, only I am so damned strong and healthy, I feared it could not have been managed in the time. At any rate, I could have dashed my brains out against the wall--but I see it otherwise now. The prison chaplain, a good man, Adrian, has made me realise that it would be cowardly, that I should accept my sentence as atonement, as deserved--I _have_ deserved to die." It had been Sir Adrian's own thought; but he broke out now in inarticulate protest. It seemed too gross, too monstrous. "Yes, Adrian, I have. You warned me, good friend, in your peaceful room--ah, how long ago it seems now! that night, when all that could make life beautiful lay to my hand for the taking. Oh, man, why did I not heed you! You warned me: he who breaks one law will end by breaking many. You were right. See the harm I wreaked--those poor fellows, who were but doing their duty bravely, whose lives I sacrificed without remorse! Your brother, too, whose soul, with the most deliberate vindictiveness, I sent before its Maker, without an instant's preparation! A guilty soul it was; for he hounded me down, one would almost think for the sport of it.... God! when I think that, but for him, for his wanton interference--but there, the devils are loose again! I must not think on him. Do I not deserve my fate, if the Bible law be right? 'He who sheds blood, his blood shall be shed.' Never was sentence more just. I have sinned, I have repented; I am now ready to atone. I believe the sacrifice will be accepted." He laid his hand, for a minute, upon the Bible on the table, with a significant gesture. But Sir Adrian, the philosopher, though he could find no words to impeach the logic of his friend's reasoning, and was all astir with admiration for a resignation as perfect as either Christian or Stoic could desire, found his soul rising in tumultuous rebellion against the hideous decree. The longing that had beset him in the dawn, now seized upon him with a new passion, and the cry escaped his lips almost unwittingly: "Oh, if I could die for you!" "No, no," said Jack, with his sweet smile, "your life is too valuable, too precious to the world. Adrian, believe me, you can still do much good with it. And I know you will be happy yet." It was the only allusion he had made to his friend's more personal sorrows. Before the latter had time to reply, he hastened to proceed: "And now to business. All the gold entrusted to me lies at Scarthey and, faith, I believe it lies as weightily on my mind as if it was all stored there instead! Renny knows the secret hiding-place. Will you engage to restore it to its owners, in all privacy? This is a terribly arduous undertaking, Adrian, and it is asking much of your friendship; but if I know you, not too much. And it will enable my poor bones to lie at rest, or rather," with a rueful laugh, "hang at rest on their gibbet; for you know I am to be set up as a warning to other fools, like a rat on a barn door. I have, by the kindness of the chaplain, been able to write out a full schedule of the different sums, and to whom they are due. He has taken charge of the closed packet directed to you, and will give it to you intact, I feel sure. He is a man of honour, and I trust him to respect the confidence I have placed in him.... Egad! the poor old boys will be right glad to get their coin back in safety. A couple of them have been up here already, to interview me, in fear and trembling. They were hard set to credit me when I assured them that they would be no losers in the end, after all--barring the waiting. You see, I counted upon you." "I shall never rest until it is done," said Sir Adrian, simply. And Captain Jack as simply answered: "Thank you. Among the treasure there is also £10,000 of my own; the rest of my laboriously acquired fortune is forfeit to the Crown, as you know--much good may it do it! But this little hoard I give to you. You do not want it, of course, and therefore it is only to be yours that you may administrate it in accordance to my wishes. Another charge--but I make no apology. I wish you to divide it in three equal shares: two to be employed as you see best, for the widows and families of those poor fellows of the preventive service, victims of my venture; the third, as well as my beautiful _Peregrine_, I leave to the mate and men who served me so faithfully. They have fled with her, and must avoid England for some time. But Renny will contrive to hear of them; they are bound to return in secret for tidings, and I should like to feel that the misery I have left behind me may be mitigated.... And now, dear Adrian, that is all. The man outside grows impatient. I hear him shuffling his keys. Hark! there he knocks; the fellow has a certain rude feeling for me. An honest fellow. Dear Adrian, good-bye." "My God! this is hard--is there nothing else--nothing--can indeed all my friendship be of no further help?--Hubert!" "Hush, hush," cried Jack Smith hastily, "Adrian, you alone of all living beings now know me by that name. Never let it cross your lips again. I could not die in peace were it not for the thought that I bring no discredit upon it. My mother believes me dead--God in His mercy has spared me the crowning misery of bringing shame to her white hairs--shame to the old race. Hubert Cochrane died ten years ago. Jack Smith alone it is that dies by the hangman's hand. One other," his voice softened and the hard look of pain left his face, "one other shall hear the secret besides you--but I know she will never speak of it, even to you--and such is my wish." It was the pride of race at its last and highest expression. There was the sound, without, of the key in the lock. "One last word--if you love me, nay, as you love me--do not be there on Saturday! This parting with you--the good-bye to her--that is my death. Afterwards what happens to this flesh," he struck at himself with his chained hands, "matters no more than what will happen to the soulless corpse. I know you would come to help me with the feeling of your love, your presence--but do not--do not--and now good-bye!" Adrian seized his friend by the hands with a despairing grip, the door rolled back with its dismal screech. The prisoner smiled at him with tender eyes. This man whom, all unwillingly he had robbed of his wife's heart, was broken with grief that he could not save the life that had brought him misery. Here was a friend to be proud of, even at the gate of death! "God be with you, dear Adrian! God bless you and your household, and your children, and your children's children! Hear my last words: _From my death will be born your happiness, and if its growth be slow, yet it will wax strong and sure as the years go by_." The words broke from him with prophetic solemnity; their hands fell apart, and Adrian, led by the jailer, stumbled forth blindly. Jack Smith stood erect, still smiling, watching them: were Adrian to turn he should find no weakness, no faltering for the final remembrance. But Adrian did not turn. And the door closed, closed upon hope and happiness and life, shut in shame and death. Out yonder, with Adrian, was the fresh bright world, the sea, the sunshine, the dear ones; here the prison smells, the gloom, the constraint, the inflicted dreadful death. All his hard-won calm fled from him; all his youth, his immense vitality woke up and cried out in him again. He raised his hands and pulled fiercely at his collar as if already the rope were round his neck strangling him. His blood hammered in his brain. God--God--it was impossible--it could not be--it was a dream! Beyond, from far distant in the street came the cry of a little child: "Da-da--daddy." The prisoner threw up his arms and then fell upon his face upon the bed, torn by sobs. Yes, Adrian would have children; but Hubert Cochrane, who, from the beautiful young brood that was to have sprung from his loins would have grafted on the old stock a fresh and noble tree, he was to pass barren out of life and leave no trace behind him. CHAPTER XXXII THE ONE HE LOVED AND THE ONE WHO LOVED HIM On the evening of the previous day Lady Landale and her Aunt had arrived at Pulwick. The drive had been a dismal one to poor Miss O'Donoghue. Neither her angry expostulations, nor her tender remonstrances, nor her attempts at consolation could succeed in drawing a connected sentence from Molly, who, with a fever spot of red upon each cheek only roused herself from the depth of thought in which she seemed plunged to urge the coachman to greater speed. Miss O'Donoghue tried the whole gamut of her art in vain, and was obliged at last to desist from sheer weariness and in much anxiety. Madeleine and Sophia were seated by the fireside in the library when the unexpected travellers came in upon them. Sophia, in the blackest of black weeds, started guiltily up from the volume of "The Corsair," in which she had been plunged, while Madeleine, without manifesting any surprise, rose placidly, laid aside her needlework--a coarse flannel frock, evidently destined for charity--and bestowed upon her sister and aunt an affectionate though unexpansive embrace. She had grown somewhat thinner and more thoughtful-looking since Molly and she had last met, on that fatal 15th of March, but otherwise was unchanged in her serene beauty. Molly clutched her wrist with a burning hand, and, paying not the slightest attention to the other two, nor condescending to any preamble, began at once, in hurried words to explain her mission. "He has asked for you, Madeleine," she cried, her eyes flaming with unnatural brilliance as they sought her sister's mild gaze. "He has asked for you, I will take you back with me, to-morrow, not later than to-morrow. Don't you understand?" shaking her impatiently as she held her, "he is in prison, condemned to death, he has asked for you, he wants to see you. On Saturday--on Saturday----" Something clicked in her throat, and she raised her hand to it with an uneasy gesture, one that those who surrounded her had grown curiously familiar with of late. Madeleine drew away from her at this address, the whole fair calm of her countenance troubled like a placid pool by the casting of a stone. Clasping her hands and looking down: "I saw that the unfortunate man was condemned," she said. "I have prayed for him daily, I trust he repents. I am truly sorry for him. From my heart I forgive him the deception he practised upon me. But----" a slight shudder shook her, "I could not see him again--surely you could not wish it of me." She spoke with such extreme gentleness that for a minute the woman before her, in the seething turmoil of her soul, failed to grasp the meaning of her words. "You could not go!" she repeated in a bewildered way, "I could not wish it of you--!" then with a sort of shriek which drew Tanty and Miss Sophia hurriedly towards her, "Don't you understand--on Saturday--if it all fails, they will hang him?" "A-ah!" exclaimed Madeleine with a movement as if to ward off the sound--the cry, the gesture expressive, not of grief, but of shrinking repugnance. But after a second, controlling herself: "And what should that be now, sister, to you or to me?" she said haughtily. Lady Landale clapped her hands together. "And this is the woman he loves!" she cried with a shrill laugh. And she staggered, and sank back upon a chair in an attitude of utter prostration. "Molly, Molly," exclaimed her sister reprovingly, while she glanced in much distress at Miss O'Donoghue, "you are not yourself; you do not know what you are saying." "Remember," interposed Sophia in tragic tones, "that you are speaking of the murderer of my beloved brother." Then she dissolved in tears, and was obliged to hide her countenance in the folds of a vast pocket-handkerchief. "Killing vermin is not murder!" cried Molly fiercely, awakening from her torpor. Miss O'Donoghue, who in the most unwonted silence had been watching the scene with her shrewd eyes, here seized the horrified Sophia by the elbow and trundled her, with a great deal of energy and determination, to the door. "Get out of this, you foolish creature," she said in a stern whisper, "and don't attempt to show your nose here again till I give it leave to walk in!" Then returning to the sisters, and looking from Molly's haggard, distracted face to Madeleine's pale one: "If you take my advice, my dear," she said, a little drily, to the latter, "you will not make so many bones about going to see that poor lad in the prison, and you'll stop wrangling with your sister, for she is just not able to bear it. We shall start to-morrow, Molly," turning to Lady Landale, and speaking in the tone of one addressing a sick child, "and Madeleine will be quite ready as early as you wish." "My dear aunt," said Madeleine, growing white to the lips, "I am very sorry if Molly is ill, but you are quite mistaken if you think I can yield to her wishes in this matter. I could not go; I could not; it is impossible!" "Hear her," cried the other, starting from her seat. "Oh, what are you made of? Is it water that runs in your veins? you that he loves"--her voice broke into a wail--"you who ought to be so proud to know he loves you even though your heart be broken! You refuse to go to him, refuse his last request!... Come to the light," she went on, seizing the girl's wrists again; "let me look at you. Bah! you never loved him. You don't even understand what it is to love.... But what could one expect from you, who abandoned him in the moment of danger. You are afraid; afraid of the painful scene, the discomfort, the sight of the prison, of his beautiful face worn and changed--afraid of the discredit. Oh! I know you, I know you. But mind you, Madeleine de Savenaye, he wishes to see you, and I swore you would go to him, and you shall go, if I have to drag you with these hands of mine." Her grip was so fierce, her eyes so savage, the words so strange, that Madeleine screamed faintly, "She is mad!" and was amazed that Miss O'Donoghue did not rush to the rescue! But Miss O'Donoghue, peering at her from the depths of her arm-chair, merely said snappishly: "Ah, child, can't you say you will go, and have done! Oughtn't you to be ashamed to be so hard-hearted?" and mopped her perspiring and agitated countenance with her kerchief. Then upon the girl's bewildered mind dawned a glimmer of the truth; and, blushing to the roots of her hair, she looked at her sister with a growing horror. "Oh, Molly, Molly!" she said again, with a sort of groan. "Will you go?" cried Molly from between her set teeth. Again the girl shuddered. "Less than ever--now," she murmured. And as Molly threw her from her, almost with violence, she covered her face with her hands and fell, weeping bitter tears, upon the couch behind her. Lady Landale, with great steps, stormed up and down the room, her eyes fixed on space, her lips moving; now and again a word escaped her then, sometimes hurled at her sister, sometimes only in desperate communing with herself. "Base, cowardly, mean! Oh, my God, cruel--cruel! To go back without her." After a little, with a sudden change of mood, she halted and stood a while, as if in deep reflection, holding her hand to her head, then crossing the room hurriedly, she knelt down, and flung her arms round the weeping figure. "_Ma petite Madeleine_," she said in a voice of the most piteous pleading, "thou and I, we were always good friends; thou canst not have the heart to be so cruel to me now. See, my darling, he must die, they say--oh, Madeleine, Madeleine! And he asked for you. The one thing, he told René, the only thing we could do for him on earth was to let him see you once more. My little sister, you cannot refuse: he loves you. What has he done to offend you? Your pride cannot forgive him for being what he is, I suppose; yet such as he is you should be proud of him. He is too noble, too straightforward to have intentionally deceived you. If he did wrong, it was for love of you. Madeleine, Madeleine!" Her tones trailed away into a moan. Miss O'Donoghue sobbed loudly from her corner. Madeleine, who had looked at her sister at first with repulsion, seemed moved; she placed her hands upon her shoulders, and gazed sadly into the flushed face. "My poor Molly," she said hesitatingly, "this is dreadful! But I too--I too was led into deceit, into folly." She blushed painfully. "I would not blame you; it was not your fault that you were carried away in his ship. You went only for my sake: I cannot forget that. Yet that he should have this unhappy power over you too, you with your good husband, you a married woman, oh, my poor sister, it is terrible! He is a wicked man; I pray that he may yet repent." "Heavens," interrupted Molly, her passion up in arms again, loosening as she spoke her clasp upon her sister, and rising to her feet to look down on her with withering scorn, "have I not made myself clear? Are you deaf, stupid, as well as heartless? It is you--you--_you_ he loves, _you_ he wants. What am I to him?" with a curious sob, half of laughter, half of anguish. "Your pious fears are quite unfounded as far as he is concerned--the wicked man, as you call him! Oh, he spurns my love with as much horror as even you could wish!" "Molly!" "Ay--Molly, and Molly--how shocked you are! Yes, I love him, I don't care who hears it. I love him--Adrian knows--he is not as virtuous as you, evidently, for Adrian pities me. He is doing all he can, though they say it is in vain, to get a reprieve for him--though I _do_ love him! While you--you are too good, too immaculate even to soil your dainty foot upon the floor of his prison, that floor that I could kiss because his shoe has trod it. But it is impossible! no human being could be so hard, least of all you, whom I have seen turn sick at the sight of a dead worm--Madeleine----!" Crouching down in the former imploring manner, while her breast heaved with dry tearless sobs: "It cannot hurt you, you who loved him." And then with the old pitiful cry, "it is the only thing he wants, and he loves you." Madeleine disengaged herself from the clinging hands with a gesture almost of disgust. "Listen to me," she said, after a pause, "try and compose yourself and understand. All this month I have had time to think, to realise, to pray. I have seen what the world is worth, that it is full of horror, of sin, of trouble, of dreadful dissensions--that its sorrow far outweighs its happiness. I _have_ suffered," her pretty lips quivered an instant, but she hardened herself and went on, "but it is better so--it was God's will, it was to show me where to find real comfort, the true peace. I have quite made up my mind. I was only waiting to see you again and tell you--next week I am going back to the convent for ever. Oh, why did we leave it, Molly, why did we leave it!" She broke down, and the tears gushed from her eyes. Lady Landale had listened in silence. "Well--is that all?" she said impatiently, when her sister ceased speaking, while in the background Tanty groaned out a protest, and bewailed that she was alive to see the day. "What does it matter what you do afterwards--you can go to the convent--go where you will then; but what has that to say to your visit to _him_ now?" "I have done with all human love," said Madeleine solemnly, crossing her hands on her breast, and looking upward with inspired eyes. "I did love this man once," she answered, hardening herself to speak firmly, though again her lips quivered--"he himself killed that love by his own doing. I trusted him; he betrayed that trust; he would have betrayed me, but that I have forgiven, it is past and done with. But to go and see him now, to stir up in my heart, not the old love, it could not be, but agitation, sorrow--to disturb this quietness of soul, this calm which God has given me at last after so much prayer and struggle--no, no--it would not be right, it cannot be! Moreover, if I would, I could not, indeed I could not. The very thought of it all, the disgrace, that place of sin and shame, of him in chains, condemned--a criminal--a murderer!..." A nervous shudder shook her from head to foot, she seemed in truth to sicken and grow faint, like one forced to face some hideous nauseating spectacle. "As for him," she went on in low, feeble tones, "it will be the best too. God knows I forgive him, that I am sorry for him, that I regret his terrible fate. But I feel it would be worse for him to see me--if he must die, it would be wrong to distract him from his last preparations. And it would only be a useless pain to him, for I could not pretend--he would see that I despise him. I thought I loved a noble gentleman, not one who was even then playing with crime and cheating." The faint passionless voice had hardly ceased before, with a loud cry, Molly sprang at her sister as if she would have strangled her. "Oh, unnatural wretch," she exclaimed, "you are not fit to live!" Tanty rushed forward and dragged the infuriated woman away. Madeleine rose up stiffly--swayed a moment as she stood--and then fell unconscious to the ground. * * * * * Next day in the dawn Lady Landale came into her sister's bedroom. Her circled eyes, her drawn face bespeaking a sleepless night. Madeleine was lying, beautiful and white, like a broken lily, in the dim light of the lamp; Sophia, an unlovely spectacle in curl papers, wizened and red-eyed from her night's watch, looked up warningly from the arm-chair beside her. But Molly went unhesitatingly to the window, pulled the curtains, unbarred the shutters, and then walked over to the bed. As she approached, Madeleine opened her blue eyes and gazed at her beseechingly. "There is yet time," said Molly in a hollow voice. "Get up and come with me." The wan face upon the pillow grew whiter still, the old horror grew in the uplifted eyes, the wan lips murmured, "I cannot." There was an immense strength of resistance in the girl's very feebleness. Molly turned away abruptly, then back again once more. "At least you will send him a message?" Madeleine drew a deep breath, closed her eyes a moment and seemed to whisper a prayer; then aloud she said, while, like a shadow so faint was it, a flush rose to her cheeks: "Tell him that I forgive him, that I forgive him freely--that I shall always pray for him." The flush grew deeper. "Tell him too that I shall never be any man's bride, now." She closed her eyes again and the colour slowly ebbed away. Molly stood, her black brows drawn, gazing down upon her in silence.--Did she love him after all? Who can fathom the mystery of another's heart? "I will tell him," she answered at last. "Good-bye, Madeleine--I shall never see you or speak to you again as long as I live." She left the room with a slow, heavy step. Madeleine shivered, and with both hands clasped the silver crucifix that hung around her neck; two great tears escaped from her black lashes and rolled down her cheeks. Miss Sophia moaned. She, poor soul, had had tragedy enough, at last. * * * * * When the jailer brought in the mid-day meal after Adrian's departure, he found the prisoner seated very quietly at his table, his open Bible before him, but his eyes fixed dreamily upon the space of dim whitewashed wall, and his mind evidently far away. Upon his guardian's entrance he roused himself, however, and begged him, when he should return for the dish, to restore neatness to the bed and to assist him in the ordering of his toilet which he wished to be spick and span. "For I expect a visitor," said Captain Jack gravely. When in due course the fellow had carried out these wishes with the surly good-nature characteristic of him, Jack set himself to wait. The square of sky through his window grew from dazzling white to deepest blue, the shadows travelled along the blank walls, the street noises rose and fell in capricious gusts, the church bells jangled, all the myriad sounds which had come to measure his solitary day struck their familiar course upon his ear; yet the expected visitor delayed. But the captain, among other things, had learnt to possess his soul in patience of late; and so, as he slowly paced his cell after his wont, he betrayed neither irritation nor melancholy. If she did not come to-day, then it would be to-morrow. He had no doubt of this. The afternoon had waned--golden without, full of grey shadows in the prison room--when light footfalls mingled with the well-known heavy tread and jangle of keys, along the echoing passage. There was the murmur of a woman's voice, a word of gruff reply, and the next moment a tall form wrapped in a many-folded black cloak and closely veiled, advanced a few steps into the room, while, as before, the turnkey retired and locked the door behind him. His heart beating so thickly that for the moment utterance was impossible, Captain Jack made one hurried pace forward with outstretched hands, only to check himself, however, and let them fall by his side. He would meet her calmly, humbly, as he had resolved. The woman threw back her veil, and it was Molly's dark gaze, Molly's brown face, flushed and haggard, yet always beautiful, that looked out of the black frame. An ashen pallor spread over the prisoner's countenance. "Madeleine?" he asked in a whisper; then, with a loud ring of stern demand, "_Madeleine!_" "I went for her, I went for her myself--I did all I could--she would not come." _She would not come!_ It is a sort of unwritten law that the supremely afflicted have the right, where possible, to the gratification of the least of their wishes. That Madeleine could refuse to come to him in his last extremity, had never once crossed her lover's brain. He stood bewildered. "She is not ill?" "Ill!" Lady Landale's red lips curved in scorn, "No--not ill--but a coward!" She spat the word fiercely as if at the offender's face. There fell a minute's silence, broken only by a few labouring deep-drawn breaths from the prisoner's oppressed lungs. Then he stood as if turned to stone, not a muscle moving, his eyes fixed, his jaw set. Molly trembled before this composure, beneath which she divined a suffering so intense that her own frail barriers of self-restraint were well-nigh broken down by a torrent of passionate pity. But she braced herself with the feeling of the moment's urgency. She had no time to lose. "Hear me," she cried in low hurried tones, laying a hand upon his folded arm and then drawing it away again as if frightened by the rigid tension she felt there. "Waste no more thought on one so unworthy--all is not lost--I bring you hope, life. Oh, for God's sake, wake up and listen to me--I can save you still. Captain Smith, Jack--_Jack!_" Her voice rose as high as she dare lift it, but no statue could be more unhearing. The woman cast a desperate look around her; hearkened fearfully, all was silent within the prison; then with tremulous haste she cast off her immense cloak, pulled her bonnet from her head, divested herself of her long full skirt and stood, a strange vision, lithe, unconscious, unashamed, her slender woman's figure clad in complete man's raiment, with the exception of the coat. Her dark head cropped and curly, her face, with its fever-bloom, rising flower-like above the folds of her white shirt. With anxious haste she compared herself with the prisoner. "René told me well," she said; "with your coat upon me none would tell the difference in this dark room. I am nearly as tall as you too. Thanks be to God that he made me so. _Jack_," calling in his ear, "don't you see? Don't you understand? It is all quite easy. You have only to put on these clothes of mine, this cloak, the bonnet comes quite over the face; stoop a little as you go out and hold this handkerchief to your face as if in tears. The carriage waits outside and René. The rest is planned. I shall sit on the bed with your coat on. It is a chance--a certainty. When I found René had failed, I swore that I would save you yet. Ever since I came from Pulwick this morning he and I have worked together upon this last plan. There is not a flaw; it must succeed. Oh, God, he does not hear me! Jack--Jack!" She shook him with a sort of fury, then, falling at his feet, clasped his knees. "For God's sake--for God's sake!" He sighed, and again came the murmur: "She would not come----" He lifted his hand to his forehead and looked round, then down at her, as if from a great height. She saw that he was aroused at last, sprang to her feet, and poured out the details of the scheme again. "I run no risk, you see. They would not dare to punish me, a woman--Lady Landale--even if they could. Be quick, the precious moments are going by. I gave the man some gold to leave us as long as he could, but any moment he may be upon us." "Poor woman," said Jack, and his voice seemed as far off as his gaze; "see these chains." She staggered back an instant, but the next, crying: "The file--the file--that was why René gave it to me." She seized the skirt as it lay at her feet, and, striving with agonised endeavours to control the trembling of her hands, drew forth from its pocket a file and would have taken his wrist. But he held his hands above his head, out of her reach, while a strange smile, almost of triumph, parted his lips. "The bitterness of death is past," he said. She tore at him in a frenzy, but, repulsed by his immobility, fell again broken at his feet. In a torrent of words she besought him, for Adrian's sake, for the sake of the beautiful world, of his youth, of the sweetness of life--in her madness, at last, for her own sake! She had ruined him, but she would atone, she would make him happy yet. If he died it was death to her.... When at length her voice sank away from sheer exhaustion, he helped her to rise, and seated her on the chair; then told her quietly that he was quite determined. "Go home," said he, "and leave me in peace. I thank you for what you would have done, thank you for trying to bring Madeleine," he paused a moment. How purely he had loved her--and twice, twice she had failed him. "Yet, I do not blame her," he went on as if to himself; "I did not deserve to see her, and it has made all the rest easy. Remember," again addressing the woman whom hopelessness seemed for a moment to have benumbed, "that if you would yet do me a kindness, be kind to her. If you would atone--atone to Adrian." "To Adrian?" echoed Molly, stung to the quick, with a pale smile of exceeding bitterness. And with a rush of pride, strength returned to her. "I leave you resolved to die then?" she asked him, fiercely. "You leave me glad to die," he replied, unhesitatingly. She spoke no more, but got up to replace her garments. He assisted her in silence, but as his awkward bound hands touched her she shuddered away from him. As she gathered the cloak round her shoulders again, there was a noise of heavy feet at the door. The jailer thrust in his rusty head and looked furtively from the prisoner to his visitor as they stood silently apart from each other; then, making a sign to some one whose dark figure was shadowed behind him without, entered with a hesitating sidelong step, and, drawing Captain Jack on one side, whispered in his ear. "The blacksmith's yonder. He's come to measure you, captain, for them there irons you know of--best get the lady quietly away, for he wunnut wait no longer." The prisoner smiled sternly. "I am ready," he said, aloud. "I'll keep him outside a minute or two," added the man, wiping his brow, evidently much relieved by his charge's calmness. "I kep' him back as long as I could--but happen it's allus best to hurry the parting after all." He moved away upon tiptoe, in instinctive tribute to the lady's sorrow, and drew the door to. Molly threw back her veil which she had lowered upon his entrance, her face was livid. "What is it?" she asked, articulating with difficulty. "Nothing--a fellow to see to my irons." He moved his hands as he spoke, and she understood him, as he had hoped, to refer only to his manacles. She drew a gasping breath. How they watched him! Yet all was not lost after all. "I will leave the file," she said, in a quick whisper; "you will reflect; there is yet to-morrow," and rushed to hide it in his bed. But he caught her by the arm, his patience worn out at length. "Useless," he answered, harshly. "I shall not use it. Moreover, it would be found, and I am sure it is not your wish to bring unnecessary hardship upon my last moments. I should lose the only thing that is left to me, the comfort of being alone. And to-morrow I shall see no one." The door groaned apart: "Very sorry, mum," came the husky voice in the opening, "Time's up." She turned a look of agony upon Captain Jack's determined figure. Was this to be the end? Was she to leave him so, without even one kind word? Alas, poor soul! All her hopes had fallen to this--a parting word. He was unpitying; his arms were folded; he made no sign. She took a step away and swayed; the turnkey came forward compassionately to lead her out. But the next instant she wheeled round and stood alone and erect, braced up by the extremity of her anguish. "I _have_ a message," she cried, as if the words were forced from her. "I could not make her come, but I made her send you a message. She told me to say that she forgave you, freely; that she would always pray for you. She bade me tell you too that she would never be any man's bride now." It had been like the rending of body and soul to tell him this. As she saw the condemned man's face quiver and flush at last out of its impassiveness, she thought hell itself could hold no more hideous torment. He extended his arms: "Now welcome death!" he exclaimed. And she turned and fled down the passage as though driven upon this last cry. * * * * * "E-h, he be a strange one!" said the jailer afterwards to his mate. "If ye'd heard that poor lady sob as she went by! I've seen many a one in the same case, but I was sore for her, I was that. And he--as cool--joking with Robert over the hanging irons the next minute. 'New sort of tailor I've got,' says he. 'Make them smart,' he says, 'since I'm to wear them in so exalted a position.' So exalted a position, that's what he says. 'And they've got to last me some long time, you know,' says he." "He'll be something worth looking at on Saturday. I could almost wish he could ha' got off, only that it's a fine sight to see a real gentleman go through it. Ah, it's they desperate villains has the proper pluck!" CHAPTER XXXIII LAUNCHED ON THE GREAT WAVE Sir Adrian made, at first personally, then through Miss O'Donoghue, two attempts to induce his wife to return to Pulwick, or at any rate to leave Lancaster on the next day. But the contempt, then the fury, which she opposed to their reasoning rendered it worse than useless. The very sight of her husband, indeed, seemed to exasperate the unfortunate woman to such a degree that, in spite of his anxiety concerning her, he resolved to spare her even to the consciousness of his presence, and absented himself altogether from the house. Miss O'Donoghue, unable to cope with a state of affairs at once so distressing and so unbecoming, finally retired to her own apartment with a book of piety and some gruel, and abandoned all further endeavour to guide her unruly relations. So that Molly found herself left to her own resources, in the guardianship of René, the only company her misery could tolerate. Three times she went to the castle, to be met each time with the announcement that, by the express wish of the prisoner, no visitors were to be admitted to him again. Then in restless wandering about the streets--once entering the little chapel where the silent tabernacle seemed, with its closed door, to offer no relenting to the stormy cry of her soul, and sent her forth uncomforted in the very midst of René's humble bead-telling, to pace the flags anew--so the terrible day wore to a close for her; and so that night came, precursor of the most terrible day of all. The exhaustion of Lady Landale's body produced at last a fortunate torpor of mind. Flung upon her bed she fell into a heavy sleep, and Tanty who announced her intention of watching her, when René's guardianship had of necessity to cease, had the satisfaction of informing Adrian, as he crept into the house, like one who had no business there, of this consoling fact before retiring herself to the capacious arm-chair in which she heroically purposed to spend the night. The sun was bright in the heavens, there was a clatter and bustle in the street, when Molly woke with a great start out of this sleep of exhaustion. Her heart beating with heavy strokes, she sat up in bed and gazed upon her surroundings with startled eyes. What was this strange feeling of oppression, of terror? Why was she in this sordid little room? Why was her hair cut short? Ah, my God! memory returned upon her all too swiftly. It was for to-day--_to-day_; and she was perhaps too late. She might never see him again! The throbbing of her heart was suffocating, sickening, as she slipped out of bed. For a moment she hardly dared consult the little watch that lay ticking upon her dressing table. It was only a few minutes past seven; there was yet time. The energy of her desire conquered the weakness of her overwrought nerves. Noiselessly, so as to avoid awakening the slumbering watcher in the arm-chair, but steadily, she clothed herself, wrapt the dark mantle round her; and then, pausing for a moment to gaze with a fierce disdain at the unconscious face of Miss O'Donoghue, which, with snores emerging energetically and regularly from the great hooked nose, presented a weird and witchlike vision in the frame of a nightcap, fearfully and wonderfully befrilled, crept from the room and down the stairs. At René's door she paused and knocked. He opened on the instant. From his worn face she guessed that he had been up all night. He put his finger to his lips as he saw her, and glanced meaningly towards the bed. The words she would have spoken expired in a quick-drawn breath. Her husband, with face of deathlike pallor and silvered hair abroad upon the pillow, lay upon the poor couch, still in his yesterday attire, but covered carefully with a cloak. His breast rose and fell peacefully with his regular breath. The scorn with which she had looked at Miss O'Donoghue now shot forth a thousand times intensified from Molly's circled eyes upon the prostrate figure. "Asleep!" she cried. And then with that incongruity with which things trivial and irrelevant come upon us, even in the supremest moments of life, the thought struck her sharply how old a man he was. Her lip curved. "Yes, My Lady--asleep," answered René steadily--it seemed as if the faithful peasant had read her to her soul. "Thank God, asleep. It is enough to have to lose one good gentleman from the world this day. If his honour were not sleeping at last, I should not answer for him--I who speak to you. I took upon myself to put some of the medicine, that he has had to take now and again, when his sorrows come upon him and he cannot rest, into his soup last night. It has had a good effect. His honour will sleep three or four hours still, and that, My Lady, must be. His honour has suffered enough these last days, God knows!" The wife turned away with an impatient gesture. "Look, Madame, at his white hairs. All white now--they that were of a brown so beautiful, all but a few locks, only a few months past! Well may he look old. When was ever any one made to suffer as he has been, in only forty years of life? Ah, My Lady, we were at least tranquil upon our island!" There was a volume of reproach in the quiet simplicity of the words, though Lady Landale was too bent on her own purpose to heed them. But she felt that they lodged in her mind, that she would find them there later; but not now--not now. "It is to be for nine o'clock, you know," she said, with desperate calmness. "I must see him again. I must see him well. Alone I shall not be able to get a good place in the crowd. Oh, I would see all!" she added, with a terrible laugh. René cast a glance at his master's placid face. "I am ready to come with My Lady," he said then, and took his hat. A turbulent, tender April day it was. Gusts of west wind, balmy and sweet with all the sweet budding life of the fields beyond, came eddying up the dusty streets and blowing merrily into the faces of the holiday crowd that already pressed in a steady stream towards the castle courtyard to see the hanging. In those days there were hangings so many after assizes that an execution could hardly be said to possess the interest of novelty. But there were circumstances enough attending the forthcoming show to give it quite a piquancy of its own in the eyes of the worthy Lancastrian burghers, who hurried with wives and children to the place of doom, anxious to secure sitting or standing room with a good view of the gallows-tree. It was not every day, indeed, that a _gentleman_ was hanged. So handsome a man, too, as the rumours went, and so dare-devil a fellow; friend of the noble family of Landale, and a murderer of its most respected member. Could justice ever have served up a spicier dish whereon to regale the multitude? First the courtyard, then, the walls, the roofs of the adjoining houses, swarmed with an eager crowd. Every space of ground and slate and tile, every ledge and window, was occupied. As thick as bees they hung--men, women, and children; a sea of white faces pressed together, each still, yet all as instinct with tremulous movement as a field of corn in the wind; while the hoarse, indescribable murmur that seizes one with so strange and fearsome an impression, the voice of the multitude, rose and fell with a mighty pulsation, broken here and there by the shriller cry of a child. Overhead the sky, a delicious spring blue sky, flecked with tiny white clouds, looked down like a great smile upon the crowd that laughed and joked beneath. No pity in heaven or on earth. But as the felon came out into the air, which, warm and fickle, puffed against his cheek, he cast one steady glance around upon the black human hive and then looked up into the white flecked ether, without the quiver of a nerve. He drew the spring breath into his lungs with a grateful expansion of his deep chest. How fresh it was! And the sky, how fair and blue! As the eagerly expected group emerged from the prison door and was greeted by a roar that curdled the blood in at least one woman's heart there, an old Irish hag, who sat in a coign of vantage, hugging her knees and crooning, a little black pipe held in her toothless jaws, ceased her dismal hum to concentrate all her attention upon the condemned man. The creature was well known for miles around as a constant attendant at such spectacles, and had become in the course of time a privileged spectator. No one would have dreamt of disputing the first place to old Judy. Since the day when, still a young woman, she had seen her two sons, mere lads, hanged, the one for sheep-stealing, the other for harbouring the booty, she had, by a strange freak of nature, taken a taste for the spectacle of justice at work, and what had been the cause of her greatest sorrow became the only solace of her life. Judy and her pipe had become as familiar a figure at the periodical entertainment as the executioner himself--more so, indeed, for she had seen many generations of these latter, and could compare their styles with the judgment of a connoisseur. But as Captain Jack advanced, the pallor of his clean shorn, handsome face illumined not so much by the morning sun without it seemed as by the shining of the bright spirit within; as gallantly clad as he had ever been, even in the old Bath days when he had been courting fair Madeleine de Savenaye; his head proudly uplifted, his tread firm, strong of soul, strong of body--some chord was struck in the perverted old heart that had so long revelled in unholy and gruesome pleasure. She drew the pipe from her lips, and broke out into screeching lamentations. "Oh, me boy, me boy, me beautiful boy! Is it hang him they will, and he so beautiful and brave? The murthering villains, my curse on them--a mother's curse--God's curse on them--the black murtherers!" She scrambled to her feet, and shook her fist wildly in the face of one of the sheriff's men. A woman in the crowd, standing rigid and motionless, enveloped in mourning robes, here suddenly caught up the words with a muttering lip. "Murderers, who said murderers? Don't they know who murdered him? Murdering Moll, Murdering Moll!" "For heaven's love, Madam," cried a man beside her, who seemed in such anxiety concerning her as to pay little heed to the solemn procession which was now attracting universal attention, "let me take you away!" But she looked at him with a distraught, unseeing eye, and pulled at the collar of her dress as if she were choking. Old Judy's sudden expression of opinion created a small disturbance. The procession had to halt; a couple of officials good-naturedly elbowed her on one side. But she thrust a withered hand expanded in protest over their shoulders, as the prisoner came forward again. "God bless ye, honey, God bless ye: it's a wicked world." He turned towards her; for the last time the old sweet smile sprang to lip and eye. "Thank you, mother," he said, and raised his hand to his bare head with courteous gesture. The crowd howled and swayed. He passed on. And now the end! There is the cart; the officers draw back to make way for the man who is to help him with his final toilet. The chaplain, too, falls away after wringing his hand again and again. Good man, he weeps and cannot speak the sacred words he would. Why weep? We must all die! How blue the sky is: he will look once more before drawing down the cap upon his eyes. His hands are free, for he is to die as like a gentleman as may be. Just the old blue that used to smile down at him upon his merry _Peregrine_, and up at him from the dancing waves. He had always thought he would have liked to die upon the sea, in the cool fresh water ... a clean, brave death. It is hard to die in a crowd. Even the very beasts would creep into cave or bush to die decently--unwatched. A last puff of sweeping wind in his face; then darkness, blind, suffocating.... Ah, God is good! Here is the old ship giving and rising under his feet like the living creature he always thought her, and here is dazzling brilliant sunshine all around, so bright he scarce can see the free white-crested waves that are dashing down upon him; but he is upon the sea indeed, upon the sea alone, and the waves are coming. Hark how they roar, see how they gather! The brave _Peregrine_ she dips and springs, she will weather the breakers with him at the helm no matter how they rear. On, on they come, mountain high, overwhelming, bitter drenching. A great wave in very truth, it gathers and breaks and onward rolls, and carries the soul of Hubert Cochrane with it. The woman in the black cloak falls as if she had been struck, and as those around her draw apart to let her companion and another man lift her and carry her away, they note with horror that her face is dark and swollen, as if the cord that had just done its evil work yonder had been tightened also round her slender throat. CHAPTER XXXIV THE GIBBET ON THE SANDS Woman! take up thy life once more Where thou hast left it; Nothing is changed for thee, thou art the same, Thou who didst think that all things Would be wholly changed for thee. _Luteplayer's Song._ Pulwick again. The whirlwind of disaster that upon that fatal fifteenth of March had burst upon the house of Landale has passed and swept away. But it has left deep trace of its passage. The restless head, the busy hand, the scheming brain of Rupert Landale lie now mouldering under the sod of the little churchyard where first they started the mischief that was to have such far reaching effects. Low, too, lies the proud head of the mistress of Pulwick, so stricken, indeed, so fever-tortured, that those who love her best scarce dare hope more for her than rest at last under the same earth that presses thus lightly above her enemy's eternal sleep. There is a great stillness in the house. People go to and fro with muffled steps, the master with bent white head; Miss O'Donoghue, indefatigable sick nurse; Madeleine, who may not venture as far as the threshold of her sister's room, and awaits in prayer and tears the hour of that final bereavement which will free her to take wing towards the cloister for which her soul longs; Sophia, crushed finally by the sorrows she has played at all her days. Seemingly there is peace once more upon them all, but it is the peace of exhaustion rather than that of repose. And yet--could they but know it, as the sands run down in the hour-glass of time there are golden grains gathering still to drop into the lives of each. But meanwhile none may read the future, and Molly fights for her life in the darkened room, the gloom of which, to the souls of the dwellers at Pulwick, seems to spread even to the sunny skies without. * * * * * When Lady Landale was brought back to her home from Lancaster, it was held by every one who saw her that Death had laid his cold finger on her forehead, and that her surrender to his call could only be a matter of hours. The physician in attendance could point out no reasonable ground for hope. Such a case had never come within his experience or knowledge, and he was with difficulty induced to believe that it was not the result of actual violence. "In every particular," said he, "the patient's symptoms are those of coma resulting from prolonged strangulation or asphyxia. These spectacles are very dangerous to highly sensitive organisations. Lady Landale no doubt felt for the miserable wretch in the benevolence of her heart. Imagination aiding her, she realised suddenly the horror of his death throes, and this vivid realisation was followed by the actual simulacrum of the torture. We have seen hysterical subjects simulate in the same manner diverse diseases of which they themselves are organically free, such as epilepsy, or the like. But Lady Landale's condition is otherwise serious. She is alive; more I cannot say." According to his lights, he had bled the patient, as he would have bled, by rote, to recall to life one actually cut down from the beam. But, although the young blood did flow, bearing testimony to the fact that the heart still beat in that deathlike frame, the vitality left seemed so faint as to defy the power of human ministration. The flame of life barely flickered; but the powers of youth were of greater strength in the unconscious body than could have been suspected, and gradually, almost imperceptibly, they asserted themselves. With the return of animation, however, came a new danger: fever, burning, devastating, more terrible even than the almost mortal syncope; that fever of the brain which wastes like the rack, before which science stands helpless, and the watcher sinks into despair at his impotence to screen a beloved sufferer from the horrible, ever-recurring phantoms of delirium. Had not Sir Adrian intuitively known well-nigh every act of the drama which had already been so fatal to his house, Molly's frenzied utterances would have told him all. Every secret incident of that storm of passion which had desolated her life was laid bare to his sorrowing heart:--her aspirations for an ideal, centred suddenly upon one man; her love rapture cruelly baulked at every step; the consuming of that love fire, resisting all frustration of hope, all efforts of conscience, of honour; how her whole being became merged into that of the man she loved and whom she had ruined, her life in his life, her very breath in his breath. And then the lamentable, inevitable end: the fearful confrontation with his death. Again and again, in never ceasing repetition, was that fair, most dear body, that harrowed soul, dragged step by step through every iota of the past torture, always to fall at last into the same stillness of exhaustion--appalling image of final death that wrung Adrian with untold agonies of despair. For many days this condition of things lasted unaltered. In the physician's own words it was impossible that life could much longer resist such fierce onslaughts. But one evening a change came over the spirit of the sufferer's vision. There had been a somewhat longer interval between the paroxysms; Sir Adrian seated as usual by the bed, waiting now with a sinking heart for the wonted return of the frenzy, clamouring in his soul to heaven for pity on one whom seemingly no human aid could succour, dared yet draw no shadow of hope from the more prolonged stillness of the patient. Presently indeed, she grew restless, tossed her arms, muttered with parched lips. Then she suddenly sat up and listened as if to some deeply annoying and disquieting sound, fell back again under his gentle hands, rolling her little black head wearily from side to side, only however to start again, and again listen. Thus it went on for a while until the haunted, weary eyes grew suddenly distraught with terror and loathing. Straining them into space as if seeking something she ought to see but could not, she began to speak in a quick yet distinct whisper: "How it creaks, creaks--creaks! Will no one stop that creaking! What is it that creaks so? Will no one stop that creaking!" And again she placed her cheek on the pillow, covering her ear with her little, wasted hand, and for a while remained motionless, moaning like a child. But it was only to spring up again, this time with a cry which brought the physician from the adjacent sleeping room in alarm to her bedside. "Ah, God," she shrieked, her eyes distended and staring as if into the far distance through walls and outlying darkness. "I see it! They have done it, they have done it! It is hanging on the sands--how it creaks and sways in the wind! It will creak for ever, for ever.... Now it spins round, it looks this way--the black face! It looks at _me_!" She gave another piercing cry, then her frame grew rigid. With mouth open and fixed eyeballs she seemed lost in the frightful fascination of the image before her brain. As, distracted by the sight of her torments, Adrian hung over her, racking his mind in the endeavour to soothe her, her words struck a chill into his very soul. He cast a terrified glance at the doctor who was ominously feeling her pulse. "There is a change," he faltered. The doctor shrugged his shoulders. "I have told you before," he retorted irritably, "that you should attach no more importance to the substance of these delirious wanderings than you would to the ravings of madness. It is the fact of the delirium itself which must alarm us. She is less and less able to bear it." The patient moaned and shuddered, resisting the gentle force that would have pressed her down on her pillow. "Oh the creaking, the creaking! Will no one stop that creaking! Must I hear it go on creak, creak, creak for ever, and see it sway and sway.... Will no one ever stop it!" Sir Adrian took a sudden resolution. "I will," he said, low and clear into her ear. She sank down on the instant and looked at him, back from her far distance, almost as if she understood him and the pitiful cry for the help he would have given his heart's blood to procure for her, was silent for the moment upon her lips. "I will prepare an opiate," said the physician in a whisper. "And I," said Sir Adrian to him, with a strange expression upon his pale face, "am going to stop that creaking." The man of medicine gazed after him with a look of intense astonishment which rapidly changed to one of professional interest. "It is evident that I shall soon have another mentally deranged patient to see to," he remarked to himself as he rose to seek the drugs he meant to administer. Downstairs, Sir Adrian immediately called for René, and being informed that he had left for the island early in the afternoon and had announced his return before night, cast a cloak over his shoulders and hurried forth in the hope of meeting him upon his homeward way. His pulses were beating well-nigh as wildly as those of the fever stricken woman upstairs in the house. He dared not pause to reflect on his purpose, or seek to disentangle the confusion of his thoughts, for fear of being confronted with the hopelessness of their folly. But the exquisite serenity of the night sky, where swam the moon, "a silver splendour;" the freshness of the sweeping breeze that dashed, keen from the east, over the sea against his face; all the glorious distance, the unconsciousness and detachment of nature from the fume and misery of life, brought him unwittingly to a calmer mood. He had reached the extreme confine of the pine wood, when, across the sands that stretched unbroken to the lips of the sea, a figure advanced towards him. "Renny!" called Sir Adrian. "Your honour!" cried the man, breaking into a run to meet him. O God! how ghostly white looked the master's face in the moon-flood! "My Lady----?" "Not worse; yet not better--and that means worse now. But there is a change. Renny," sinking his voice and clasping the man's sturdy arm with clammy hand, "is it true they have placed him on the sands to-day?" The man stared. "How did your honour know? Yes--they have done so. It is true: the swine! not more than an hour, in verity. How could it have come so soon to your honour's ears? This morning, indeed, they came from the town in a cart, and planted the great gibbet on Scarthey Point, at low water. And to-night they brought the body, all bound in irons, and from a boat, for it was high tide, they riveted it on the chain. And it is to remain for ever, your honour--so they say." "Strange," murmured Sir Adrian to himself, gazing seaward with awestruck eyes. "And did you," he asked, "hear its creaking, Renny, as it swayed in the wind?" Again René cast a quick glance of alarm at his master. The master had a singular manner with him to-night! Then edging closer to him he whispered in his ear: "They say it is to hang for ever. There is a warning to those who would interfere with this justice of theirs. But, your honour, there came one to the island to-day, I do not know if your honour knows him, the captain's second on that vessel of misfortune. And I believe, your honour, the dawn will never see that poor, black body hanging over yonder like a scarecrow, to spoil our view. This man, this brave mariner, Curwen is his name, he is mad furious with us all! He has just but come from hearing of his captain's fate, and he is ready to kill us, that we let him be murdered without breaking some heads for him. Faith, if it could have done any good, it is not I that would have balanced about it! But, as I told him, there was no use running one's own head into a loop of rope when that would please nobody but Mr. the Judge. But he is not to be reasoned with. He is like a wild animal. When I left him," said René, dropping his voice still lower, "he was knocking a coffin together out of the old sea wood on Scarthey. He said his captain would rest better in those boards that were seasoned with salt water. And when I went away, your honour, and left him hammering there--faith, I thought that the coffin was like to be seasoned by another kind of salt water too." His face twitched and the ready tears sprang to his own eyes which, unashamed, he now wiped with his sleeve after his custom. But Sir Adrian's mind was still drifting in distant ghastly companionship. "How the wind blows!" he said, and shuddered a little. "How the poor body must sway in the wind, and the chains creak." "If it can make any difference to the poor captain he will lie in peace to-night, please God," said René. "Ay," said Sir Adrian, "and you and I, friend, will go too, and help this good fellow in his task. I hope, I believe, that I should have done this thing of my own thought, had I had time to think at all. But now, more hangs upon those creaking chains than you can dream of. This is a strange world--and it is full of ghosts to-night. But we must hurry, Renny." * * * * * Bound even to the tips of her burning little fingers by the spell of the opiate, Lady Landale lay in the shadowed room as one dead, yet in her sick brain fearfully awake, keenly alive. At first it was as if she too was manacled in chains till she could not move a muscle, could not breathe or cry because of the ring round her breast; and she was hanging with the black figure, swaying, while the rusty iron links went creak, creak, creak, with every swing to and fro. Then suddenly she seemed to stand, as it were, out of herself and to be seeing with the naked soul alone. And what she saw was the great stretch of beach and sea, white, white, white, in the moonlight and spreading, it seemed, for leagues and leagues, spreading till all the world was only beach and sea. But close to her in the whitest moonlight rose the great gibbet, gaunt and black, cutting the pale sky in two and athwart; and hanging from it was the black figure that swayed and swung. And though the winds muttered and the waves growled, she could not hear them with the ears of the soul, for that the whole of this great world of sea and sand was filled with the creaking of the chains. But now, across the bleak and pallid spaces came three black figures. And, as she looked and watched and they drew nearer, the dreadful burthen of the gibbet swung round as if to greet them, and she too, felt in her soul that she knew them all three, though not by names, as creatures of earth know each other, but by the kinship of the soul. This man with hair as white as the white beach, hair that seemed to shine silver as he came; and him yonder who followed him as a dog his master; and yonder again the third, in the seaman's dress, with hard face hewn into such rugged lines of grief and fury--she knew them all. And next they reached the gibbet: and one swarmed up the black post, and hammered and filed and prised, and then, oh merciful God! the creaking stopped at last! Now she could hear the wash of the waves, the rush of the wholesome wind! A mist came across her vision; faintly she saw the stiffened disfigured corpse which yet she felt had once been something she had loved with passion, laid reverently upon a stretcher, its irons loosened and cast away, and then covered with a great cloak. Then the sea, the beach, the white moon faded and waved and receded. Molly's soul went back to her body again, while blessed tears fell one by one from her hot eyes. She breathed; her limbs relaxed; round the tired brain came, with a soft hush like that of gentle wings, dark oblivion. Bending over her, for he was aware that for good or evil the crisis was at hand, the physician saw moisture bead upon the suddenly smoothed brow, heard a deep sigh escape the parted lips. And then with a movement like a weary child's she drew her arms close and fell asleep. * * * * * Having laid his friend to his secret rest, deep in the rock of Scarthey, where the free waves that his soul had revelled in would beat till the world's end, Sir Adrian returned to Pulwick in the early morning, spent with the long and heavy night's toil--for it had taxed the strength of even three men to hollow out a grave in such a soil. On the threshold he was greeted by the physician. "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messengers of glad tidings!" From afar, by the man's demeanour, he knew that the tidings were glad. And most blessed they were indeed to his ears, but to them alone not strange. Throughout every detail of his errand his mind had dwelt rather with the living than the dead. What he had done, he had done for her; and now, the task achieved, it seemed but natural that the object for which it had been undertaken should have been achieved likewise. But, left once more with her, seeing her once more wrapt in placid sleep, whom he had thought he would never behold at rest again save in the last sleep of all, the revulsion was overpowering. He sat down by her side, and through his tears gazed long at the lovely head, now in its pallor and emaciation so sadly like that of his dead love in the sorrowful days of youth; and he thanked heaven that he was still of the earth to shield her with his devotion, to cherish her who was now so helpless and bereft. And with such tears and such thoughts came a forgetfulness of that anguish which in him, as well as in her, had for so long been part of actual existence. When Tanty entered on tiptoe some hours later, she saw her niece motionless upon her pillow, sleeping as easily and reposefully as a child. And close to her head, Sir Adrian, reclining in the arm-chair, asleep likewise. His arm was stretched limply over the bed and, on its sleeve still stained with the red mud of the grave in Scarthey, rested Lady Landale's little, thin, ivory-white fingers. * * * * * Thus ended Molly's brief but terrible madness. "Then you have hope, real hope?" asked Sir Adrian, of the physician as they met again that day in the gallery. "Every hope," replied the man of science with the proud consciousness of having, by his wisdom, pulled his patient out of the very jaws of death. "Recovery is now but a question of a time; of a long time, of course, for this crisis has left her weaker than the new-born babe. Repose, complete repose, sleep: that is almost everything. And she will sleep. Happily, as usual in such cases, Lady Landale seems to have lost all memory. But I must impress upon you, Sir Adrian, that the longer we can keep her in this state, the better. If you have reason to believe that even the sight of _you_ might recall distressing impressions, you must let me request of you to keep away from the sick room till your wife's strength be sufficiently restored to be able to face emotions." This was said with a certain significance which called the colour to Sir Adrian's cheek. He acquiesced, however, without hesitation; and, banished from the place where his treasure lay, fell to haunting the passages for the rest of the day and to waylaying the privileged attendants with a humble resignation which would have been sorrowful but for the savour of his recent relief from anguish. But the next morning, Lady Landale, though too weak of body to lift a finger, too weak of mind to connect a single coherent phrase, nevertheless took the matter into her own hands, and proved that it is as easy to err upon the side of prudence as upon its reverse. Miss O'Donoghue, emerging silently from the room after her night's vigil, came upon her nephew at his post, and, struck to her kind heart by his wistful countenance, bade him with many winks and nods enter and have a look at his wife. "Don't make a sound," she whispered to him, "and then she won't hear you. But, faith she's sleeping so well, it's my belief if you danced a jig she would not stir a limb. Go in, child, go in. It's beautiful to see her!" And Adrian, pressed by his own longing, was unable to resist the offer. Noiselessly he stepped across the forbidden threshold and stood for a long time contemplating the sleeper in the dim light. As he was about to creep out at length, she suddenly opened her eyes and fixed them wonderingly upon him. Fearful of having done the cruel deed against which he had been warned, he felt his heart contract and would have rushed away, in an agony of self-accusation, when there occurred what seemed to him a miracle. A faint smile came upon the pale lips, and narrowed ever so little the large sunken eyes. Yes; by all that was beautiful, it was a smile--transient and piteous, but a smile. And for him! As he bent forward, almost incapable of believing, the lips relaxed again and the lids drooped, but she shifted her hands upon the bed, uneasily, as if seeking something. He knelt, trembling, by her side, and as with diffident fingers he clasped the wandering hands he felt them faintly cling to his. And his heart melted all in joy. The man of science had reasoned astray; there need be no separation between the husband who would so dearly console, and the wife who needed help so sorely. For a long while he remained thus kneeling and holding her hands. It seemed as though some of the life strength he longed to be able to pour from himself to her, actually passed into her frame: as though there were indeed a healing virtue in his all encompassing tenderness; for, after a while, a faint colour came to the sunken cheeks. And presently, still holding his hand, she fell once more into that slumber which was now her healing. After this it was found that the patient actually became fretful and fevered again when her husband was too long absent from her side; and thus it came to pass that he began to supersede all other watchers in her room. Tanty in highest good humour, declared that her services were no longer necessary, and volunteered to conduct Madeleine to the Jersey convent, whither (her decision being irrevocable) it was generally felt that it would be well for the latter to proceed before her sister's memory with returning strength should have returned likewise. This memory, without which the being he loved would remain afflicted and incomplete, yet upon the working of which so much that was still uncertain must hinge--Sir Adrian at once yearned for, and dreaded it. Many a time as he met the sweet and joyful greeting in those eyes where he had grown accustomed to find nought but either mockery or disdain, did he recall his friend's prophetic words: "Out of my death will grow your happiness." Was there happiness indeed yet in store in the future? Alas, happiness for them dwelt in oblivion; and, some day, "remembrance would wake with all her busy train, and swell at _her_ breast," and then---- Meanwhile, however, the present had a sweetness of its own. There was now free scope for the passion of devotedness which almost made up the sum of this man's character--a character which, to the Molly of wayward days, to the hot-pulsed, eager, impatient "Murthering Moll," had been utterly incomprehensible and uncongenial. And to the Molly crushed in the direst battle of life, whom one more harshness of fate, even the slightest, would have straightaway hurled back into the grave that had barely been baulked of its prey, it gave the very food and breath of her new existence. Week after week passed in this guise, during which her natural healthiness slowly but surely re-established itself; weeks that were happy to him, in later life, to look back upon, though now full of an anxiousness which waxed stronger as recovery drew nearer. There was little talking between them, and that kept by him studiously on subjects of purely ephemeral, childish interest. Her mind, by the happy dispensation of nature which facilitates healing by all means when once healing has begun, was blank to any impressions save the luxury of rest, of passive enjoyment, indifferent to ought but the passing present. She took pleasure in flowers, in the gambols of pet animals, in long listless spells of cloud-gazing when the heavens were bright, in the presence of her husband in whom she only saw a being whose eyes were always beautiful with the light of kindness, whose touch invariably soothed her when fatigue or irritation marred the even course of her feelings. She had ever a smile for him, which entered his soul like the radiance of sunshine through a stormy sky. Thus the days went by. Like a child she ate and slept and chattered--irresponsible chatter that was music to his ear. She laughed and teased him too, as a child would; till sad, as it was, he hugged the incomplete happiness to his heart with a dire foreboding that it might be all he was to know in life. But one evening, in sudden freak, she bade him open the shutters, pull the curtains, and raise the window that she might, from her pillow, look forth upon the night, and smell the sweet night air. She had been unusually well that day, and on her face now filling out once more into its old soft oval, bloomed again a look of warm life and youth. Unsuspecting, unthinking Sir Adrian obeyed. It was a dim, close night, and the blush-roses nodded palely into the room from the outer darkness as he raised the sash. There was no moon, no stars shone in the mist hung sky; there was no light to be seen anywhere except one faint glimmer in the distance--the light upon Scarthey Island. "Is that a star?" said Molly, after a moment's dreamy silence. Sir Adrian started. A vision of all that might hang upon his answer flashed through his brain. With a trembling hand he pulled the curtain. It was too late. Molly sat up in bed, with a contracted brow and hands outstretched as one who would seize a tantalising escaping memory. "I used to watch it then, at night, from this window," she whispered. "What was it? The light of Scarthey?" Then suddenly, with a scream; "The light of Scarthey!" Adrian sprang to her side but she turned from him, shrank from him, with a look of dread which seared him to the soul. "Do not come near me, do not touch me," she cried. And then he left her. * * * * * Miss O'Donoghue was gone upon her journey with Madeleine. There was none in whom he might confide, with whom seek counsel. But presently, listening outside the door in an agony of suspense, he heard a storm of sobs. In time these gradually subsided; and later he learnt from Moggie, whom he had hurriedly ordered to her mistress's side, that his wife was quiet and seemed inclined to rest. On the next day, she expressed no desire to see him and he dared not go to her unsought. He gathered a great dewy bunch of roses and had them brought to her upon her breakfast tray instead of bringing them himself as had been his wont. She had taken the roses, Moggie told him, and laid them to her cheek. "The master sent them, said I," continued the sturdy little matron, who was far from possessing the instinctive tact of her spouse; "an' she get agate o'crying quiet like and let the flowers fall out of her hands on the bed--Eh, what ever's coom to her, sin yesterday? Wannut you go in, sir?" "Not unless she sends for me," said Sir Adrian hastily. "And remember, Moggie, do not speak my name to her. She must not be worried or distressed. But if she sends for me, come at once. You will find me in the library." And in the library he sat the long, long day, waiting for the summons that did not come. She never sent for him. She had wept a good deal during the day, the faithful reporter told him in the evening, but always "quiet like;" had spoken little, and though of unwonted gentleness of manner had persistently declined to be carried to the garden as usual, or even to leave her room. Now she had gone back to bed, and was sleeping peacefully. An hour later Sir Adrian left his home for Scarthey once again. It is to be doubted whether, through all the vicissitudes of his existence he ever carried into the sheltering ruins a heart more full of cruel pain. When Tanty returned to Pulwick from her travels again, it was to find in Miss Landale the only member of the family waiting to greet her. The old lady's displeasure on learning the reason of this defection, was at first too intense to find relief in words. But presently the strings of her tongue were loosened under the influence of the usual feminine restorative; and, failing a better listener, she began to dilate upon the situation with her wonted garrulity. "Yes, my good Sophia, I will thank you for another cup of tea. What should we do without tea in this weary world? I declare it's the only pleasure left to me now--for, of all the ungrateful things in life, working for your posterity is the most ungrateful. Posterity is born to trample on one.... And now, sit down and tell me exactly how matters stand. My niece is greatly better, I hear. The doctor considers her quite convalescent? At least this is very satisfactory. Very satisfactory indeed! Just now she is resting. Quite so. I should not dream of disturbing her; more especially as the sight of me would probably revive painful memories, and we must not risk her having a bad night--of course not. Ah, my dear, memory, like one's teeth, is a very doubtful blessing. Far more trouble than pleasure when you have it, and yet a dreadful nuisance when you have not--But what's this I hear about Adrian? Gone back to that detestable island of his again! I left him and Molly smiling into each other's eyes, clasping each other's hands like two turtle-doves. Why, she could not as much as swallow a mouthful of soup, unless he was beside her to feed her--And now I am told he has not been near her for four days. What is the meaning of this? Oh, don't talk to me, Sophia! It's more than flesh and blood can bear. Here am I, having been backward and forward over nine hundred miles, looking after you all, at my age, till I don't know which it is, Lancashire or Somerset I'm in, or whether I'm on my head or my heels, though I'm sure I can count every bone of my body by the aching of them;--and I did think I was coming back to a little peace and comfort at length. That island of his, Sophia, will be the death of me! I wish it was at the bottom of the sea: that is the only thing that will bring your brother to his senses, I believe. Now he might as well be in his grave at once, like Rupert, for all the good he is; though, for that matter it's more harm than good poor Rupert ever did while he was alive----" "Excuse me, Aunt Rose," here exclaimed Sophia, heroically, her corkscrew ringlets trembling with agitation, "but I must beg you to refrain from such remarks--I cannot hear my dear brother...." But Miss O'Donoghue waved the interruption peremptorily away. "Now it's no use your going on, Sophia. _We_ don't think a man flies straight to heaven just because he's dead. And nothing will ever make me approve of Rupert's conduct in all this dreadful business. Of course one must not speak evil of those who can't defend themselves, but for all that he is dead and buried, Rupert might argue with me from now till doomsday, and he never would convince me that it is the part of a gentleman to act like a Bow Street runner. I _hope_, my dear, he has found more mercy than he gave. I _hope_ so. But only for him my poor dear grand-niece Molly would never have gone off on that mad journey, and my poor grand-niece Madeleine would not be buried alive on that other island at the back of God's speed. Ah, yes, my dear, it has been a very sad time! I declare I felt all the while as if I were conducting a corpse to be buried; and now I feel as if I had come back from the dear girl's funeral. We had a dreadful passage, and she was _so_ sick that I'm afraid even if she wanted to come out of that place again she'd never have the courage to face the crossing. She was a wreck--a perfect wreck, when she reached the convent. Many a time I thought she would only land to find herself dead. _I_ wanted her to come to the hotel with me, where I should have popped her into bed with a hot bottle; but nothing would serve her but that she must go to the convent at once. 'I shall not be able to rest till I am there,' she said. 'And it's precious little rest you will get there,' said I, 'if it's rest you want?--What with the hard beds, and all the prayers you have to say, and the popping out of bed, as soon as you are asleep, to sing in the middle of the night, and those blessed little bells going every three minutes and a half. There is no rest in a convent, my dear.' But I might as well have talked to the wall. "When I went to see her the next day, true enough, she declared that she was more content already, and that her soul had found what it yearned for--peace. She was quite calm, and sent you all messages to say how she would pray for you and for the repose of the souls of those you loved--Rupert, your rector and all--that they may reach eternal bliss." "God forbid!" exclaimed the pious Protestant, in horrified tones. "God forbid?--You're a regular heathen, Sophia. Oh, I know what you mean quite well. But would it not have been better for you to have been praying for that poor fellow who never lived to marry you, all these years, than to have been wasting your time weeping over spilt milk? Tell me _that_, miss. Please to remember, too, that you could not have come to be the heretic you are, if your great grandfather had not been the time-server he was. Any how, you need not distress yourself. I don't think Madeleine's prayers will do any one any harm, even Rupert; though, honestly, I don't think they are likely to be of much good in _that_ quarter. However, there, there, we won't discuss the subject any more. Poor darling; so I left her. I declare I never liked her so much as when I said good-bye, for I felt I'd never see her again. And the Reverend Mother--oh! she is a very good, holy woman--a Jerningham, and thus, you know, a connection of mine. She was an heiress but chose the cloister. And I saw the buckles sable on a memorial window in the chapel erected to another sister--also a nun--they are a terribly pious family. I knew them at once, for they are charges I also am entitled to bear, as you know, or, rather, don't know, I presume; for you have all the haziest notion of what sort of blood it is that runs in your veins. Well, as I said, she is a holy woman! She tried to console me in her pious way. Oh, it was very beautiful, of course:--bride of heaven and the rest of it. But I had rather seen her the bride of a nice young man. Many is the time I have wished I had not been so hasty about that poor young Smith. I don't believe he _was_ purely Smith after all. He must have had some good blood in his veins! Oh, of course, of course, he was dreadfully wicked, I know; but he was a fine fellow, and all these complications would have been avoided. But, after all, it was Rupert's fault if everything ended in tragedy ... there, there, we won't speak another word about your brother; we must leave him to the Lord--and," added Miss O'Donoghue, piously under her breath, "if it's not the devil, He is playing with him, it's a poor kind of justice up there!--Alas, my poor Sophia, such is life. One only sees things in their true light when they're gone into the darkness of the past. And now we must make the best of the present, which, I regret to find, seems disposed to be peculiarly uncomfortable. But I have done what I could, and now I owe it myself to wash my hands of you and look after my own soul.--I'll take no more journeys, at any rate, except to lay my bones at Bunratty; if I live to reach it alive." CHAPTER XXXV THE LIGHT REKINDLED Look not upon the sky at eventide, For that makes sorrowful the heart of man; Look rather here into my heart, And joyful shalt thou always be. _Luteplayer's Song._ It was on the fifth day after Sir Adrian's return to his island home. Outwardly the place was the same. A man had been engaged to attend to the lighthouse duties, but he and his wife lived apart in their own corner of the building and never intruded into the master's apartments or into the turret-room which had been Captain Jack's. From the moment that Sir Adrian, attended by René, had re-entered the old rooms, the peel had resumed its wonted aspect. But the peace, the serenity which belonged to it for so many years, had fled--fled, it seemed to Sir Adrian, for ever. Still there was solitude and, in so far, repose. It was something to have such a haven of refuge for his bruised spirit. The whole morning of this day had been spent in counting out and securing, in separate lots, duly docketted and distinguished, a portion of that unwieldy accumulation of wealth, the charge of which he had accepted, against the time when it should be called for and claimed by its depositors. The task was by no means simple, and required all his attention; but there is a blessing even in mere mechanical labour, that soothes the torment of the mind. In the particular occupation upon which he had been engaged there was, moreover, a hidden touching element. It was work for the helpless dead, work for that erring man but noble soul who had been his loyal friend. As Sir Adrian tied up each bag of gold and labelled it with the name of some unknown creditor who had trusted Jack, dimly the thought occurred that it would stand material proof, call for recognition that this Captain Smith, who had died the death of a felon, had been a true man even in his own chosen lawless path. On the table, amid the papers and books, a heap of gold pieces yet untold, remainder of his allotted day's task, awaited still his ministering hand. But he was tired. It was the dreamy hour of the day when the shadows grow long, the shafts of light level; and Sir Adrian sat at his open window, gazing at the distant view of Pulwick, while his thoughts wandered into the future, immediate and distant. With the self-detachment of his nature these thoughts all bore upon the future of the woman whom he pictured to himself lying behind those sunlit windows yonder, framed by the verdure of leafy June, gathering slowly back her broken strength for the long life stretching before her. Unlike the musings which in the lonely days of old had ever drifted irresistibly towards the past and gathered round the image of the dead, all the power of his mind was now fixed upon what was to come, upon the child, still dearer than the mother, who had all her life to live. What would she do? What could _he_ do for her, now that she required his helping hand no more? Life was full of sorrow past and present; and in the future there lurked no promise of better things. The mind of man is always fain, even in its darkest hour, to take flight into some distant realm of hope. To those whom life has utterly betrayed there is always the hope of approaching death--but this, even, reason denied to him. He was so strong; illness had never taken hold of him; he came from such long-lived stock! He might almost outlive her, might for ever stand as the one ineluctable check upon her peace of mind. And his melancholy reflections came circling back to their first starting-point--that barren rock of misery in a vast sea of despondency--there was nothing to be done. The barriers raised between them, on his side partly by the poisonous words of his brother, partly by the phantom of that old love of which the new had at first been but an eluding reflex, and on hers, by the chilly disillusion which had fallen so soon upon her ardent nature; these sank into insignificance, contrasted to the whirl of baulked passion which had passed over her life, to leave it utterly blasted, to turn her indifference to hate. Yes, that was the burden of his thoughts: she hated and dreaded him. His love, his forbearance, his chivalrousness had been in vain. All he had now to live upon was the memory of those few days when, under the spell of oblivion the beloved child had smiled on him in the unconscious love born of her helplessness and his care. But even this most precious remembrance of the present was now, like that of the past, to be obscured by its abrupt and terrible end. Death had given birth to the first and last avowal of love in her who had perished between his arms under the swirling waters of the Vilaine--but it was Life itself, returning life and health of mind, which had changed looks of trust and affection into the chilly stare of dread in the eyes of her whom with all the strength of his hoarded manhood he now loved alone. The past for all its sorrows had held sweetness: the present, the future, nothing but torment. And now, even the past, with its love and its sorrow was gone from him, merged in the greater love and sorrow of the present. How long could he bear it?--Useless clamour of the soul! He must bear it. Life must be accepted. Sir Adrian rose and, standing, paused a moment to let his sight, wandering beyond the immense sands, seek repose for a moment in the blue haze marking the horizon of the hills. The day was pure, exquisite in its waning beauty; the breeze as light and soft as a caress. In the great stillness of the bay the sisters sea and land talked in gentle intermittent murmurs. Now and then the cries of circling sea-fowl brought a note of uncanny joy into the harmony that seemed like silence in its unity. A beautiful harmonious world! But to him the very sense of the outer peace gave a fresh emphasis to the discordance of his own life. He brought his gaze from afar and slowly turned to resume his work. But even as he turned a black speck upon the nearer arm of sea challenged his fleeting attention. He stood and watched--and, as he watched, a sensation, the most poignant and yet eerie he had ever known clutched him by the heart. A boat was approaching: a small row-boat in which the oars were plyed by a woman. By the multi-coloured, glaring shawl (poor Jack's appreciated gift) he knew her, but without attaching name or personality to his recognition; for all his being was drawn to the something that lay huddled, black and motionless, in the stern. He felt to the innermost fibre of him that this something was a woman too--this woman Molly. But the conviction seized him with a force that was beyond surprise. And all the vital heat in him fled to his heart, leaving him deadly cold. As her face grew out of the distance towards him, a minute white patch amid the dark cloud of silk and lace that enwrapt it, it seemed as though he had known for centuries that she was thus to come to him. And the glow of his heart spread to his brain. When the boat was about to land, he began, like one walking in his sleep, to move away; and, slowly descending the stairs of the keep, he advanced towards the margin of the sea. He walked slowly, for the body was heavy whilst the soul trembled within its earthly bounds. Molly had alighted and was toiling, with her new born and yet but feeble strength upon the yielding sand, supported between René and Moggie. She halted as she saw him approach, and, when he came close, looked up into his face. Her frail figure wavered and bent, and she would have fallen on her knees before him, but that he opened his arms wide and caught her to him. An exclamation rose to Moggie's lips, to die unformed under an imperious glance from René who, with shining eyes and set mouth, had stood apart to watch the momentous issue. Adrian felt his wife nestle to him as he held her. And then the tide of his long-bound love overflowed. And gathering her up in his arms as if she were a child, he turned to carry the broken woman with him into the shelter, the silence of the ruins. At the foot of the outer wall, just out of reach of high water, yet within reach of its salt spray, a little mound of red stony soil rose very slightly above the green turf; at its head, a small stone cross, roughly hewn, was let into the masonry itself. The grave of Hubert Cochrane was not obtrusive: in a few months it would have merged again into the greensward, and its humble memorial symbol would be covered with moss and lichen like the matrix of stone which encompassed it. Involuntarily as he passed it, the man, with his all too light burden, halted. A flame shot through him as Molly turned her head to gaze too: he shook with a brief agony of jealousy--jealousy of the dead! The next instant he felt her recoil, look up pleadingly and cling to him again, and he knew into the soul of his soul that the words spoken by those loyal lips--now clay beneath that clay--were coming true, that, out of his house laid desolate to him was to rise a new and stately mansion. Grasping her closer he hurried into the sanctuary of the old room, where he had first seen her bright young beauty. At the door he gently suffered her to stand, still supporting her with one arm about her waist. As they entered, she cast a rapid glance around: her eyes, bedewed with rising tears, fell upon the heap of gold glinting under the rays of the sinking sun, and she understood the nature of the task her coming had interrupted. Her tears gushed forth; catching his hand between hers, and looking up at him with a strange, wonderful humility, she pressed it to her lips. What need for words between them, then? He stood a little while motionless in front of her, entranced yet still almost incredulous, as one suddenly freed from long intolerable pain, when there rose once more, for the last time, before his mind's eye the ideal image that had been the companion of twenty years of his existence. It was vivid almost as life. He saw Cécile de Savenaye bend over her child with grave and tender look, then turn and smile upon him with the old exquisite sweetness that he had adored so madly in that far off past. And then, it was as if she had merged into Molly. Behold, she was gone! there was no Cécile, only Molly the woman he loved. Molly, whom now he seized to his heart, who smiled at him through her tears as he bent to kiss her lips. Twilight was waning and the light of Scarthey beamed peacefully over the yellow sands; and the waves receded dragging away sand and shingle from the foot of the hidden grave. 
36306	----	TRIAL OF THE OFFICERS AND CREW OF THE PRIVATEER SAVANNAH, ON THE CHARGE OF PIRACY, IN THE UNITED STATES CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK. HON. JUDGES NELSON AND SHIPMAN, PRESIDING. REPORTED BY A. F. WARBURTON, STENOGRAPHER, AND CORRECTED BY THE COUNSEL. NEW YORK: BAKER & GODWIN, PRINTERS, PRINTING-HOUSE SQUARE, OPPOSITE CITY HALL. 1862. CONTENTS. Page PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS: Capture of the Savannah; the removal of the prisoners to New York, and their committal for trial, v The Indictment, vi The Arraignment, xiii TRIAL OF THE PRISONERS. FIRST DAY: Organization of the Court, 1 Impaneling of the Jury, 2 Opening of Mr. E. Delafield Smith, United States District Attorney, 14 Testimony for the Prosecution: Albert G. Ferris, 20 William Habeson, 41 George Thomas, 41 George H. Cables, 41 Thies N. Meyer, 42 Horace W. Bridges, 46 Silas H. Stringham, 48 Argument on the Jurisdiction: Mr. Larocque, 49 Mr. Brady, 50 Mr. Evarts, 50 Mr. Larocque, 51 TRIAL. SECOND DAY: Decision on the Jurisdiction, 54 Testimony for the Prosecution, resumed: Silas H. Stringham, 55 David C. Constable, 60 Daniel D. Tompkins, 62 J. Buchanan Henry, 63 Ethan Allen, 64 Mr. Larocque's Opening for the Defence, 66 Documentary Testimony, 108 TRIAL. THIRD DAY: Documentary Testimony, 110 Testimony for the Defence: Daniel D. Tompkins, 112 Presentation of Authorities by Counsel for the Prosecution, 113 Arguments of Counsel on the Points of Law: Mr. Lord, 117 Mr. Larocque, 133 TRIAL. FOURTH DAY: Arguments of Counsel on the Points of Law: Mr. Larocque, continued, 144 Mr. Mayer, 164 Mr. Brady, 169 Mr. Evarts, 170 TRIAL. FIFTH DAY: Summings up of Counsel to the Jury: Mr. Dukes, 204 Mr. Sullivan, 218 Mr. Davega, 231 Mr. Brady, 236 TRIAL. SIXTH DAY: Summings up of Counsel to the Jury: Mr. Brady, continued, 270 Mr. Evarts, 283 TRIAL. SEVENTH DAY: Summings up of Counsel to the Jury: Mr. Evarts, continued, 334 Charge to the Jury, by Judge Nelson, 368 Return of the Jury and further instructions, 373 TRIAL. EIGHTH DAY: Discharge of the Jury, 375 APPENDIX: President's Proclamation, April 15, 1861, 377 Proclamation of the President, declaring a Blockade, 378 Correspondence between Gov. Pickens and Major Anderson, 379 Extracts from President Lincoln's Inaugural, 380 The President's Speech to the Virginia Commissioners, 381 Extracts from President Lincoln's Message to Congress, July 4, 1861, 382 Extracts from President Buchanan's Message to Congress, December 4, 1860, 383 Proclamation of August 16, 1861, 384 PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS During the month of May, 1861, the schooner Savannah, of Charleston, of about fifty-three tons burden, and mounting one pivot gun, was fitted out as a privateer, in the City of Charleston; and on the second of June, under the authority of "a paper, purporting to be a letter of marque, signed by Jefferson Davis," she sailed from that port for the purpose of making captures among the commercial marine of the United States. On the following day (Monday, June 3), after having captured the brig Joseph, laden with sugar, she was, in turn, herself taken by the United States brig-of-war Perry, Captain Parrott, and carried to the blockading squadron, off Charleston, to the commander of which (Commodore Stringham) she was surrendered by her captors. On the fifth of June the officers and crew of the Savannah were transferred from the Perry to the United States steam-frigate Minnesota, while the prize was taken in charge by a prize crew from the Perry and sent to New York. The Minnesota, with the prisoners on board, proceeded, on her way to New York, to Hampton Roads, where the prisoners were transferred to the steam-cutter Harriet Lane; and thence, on board that vessel, they were conveyed to New York, at which port they arrived in the course of the month of June. On the arrival of the Harriet Lane at New York, the prisoners were given in charge to the United States Marshal; and, on application of the District Attorney of the United States, a warrant was issued, under which the prisoners were committed for trial. On the 16th of July following, the Grand Jury of the Federal Court, then sitting in this city, came into court and presented a true bill against the prisoners, a copy of which Indictment is as follows:-- CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK, IN THE SECOND CIRCUIT.[1] At a stated Term of the Circuit Court of the United States of America for the Southern District of New York, in the Second Circuit, begun and held at the City of New York, within and for the District and Circuit aforesaid, on the first Monday of April, in the year of our Lord 1861, and continued by adjournments to the 26th day of June in the year last aforesaid: [1] At the request of the United States District Attorney, the publishers state that the Indictment was mainly the work of Mr. JOHN SEDGWICK, of the New York bar. Southern District of New York, ss.:--The Jurors of the United States of America, within and for the District and Circuit aforesaid, on their oath, present: That Thomas Harrison Baker, late of the City and County of New York, in the District and Circuit aforesaid, mariner; and John Harleston, late of the same place, mariner; Charles Sidney Passalaigue, late of the same place, mariner; Henry Cashman Howard, late of the same place, mariner; Joseph Cruz del Carno, late of the same place, mariner; Henry Oman, late of the same place, mariner; Patrick Daly, late of the same place, mariner; William Charles Clark, late of the same place, mariner; Albert Gallatin Ferris, late of the same place, mariner; Richard Palmer, late of the same place, mariner; John Murphy, late of the same place, mariner; Alexander Carter Coid, late of the same place, mariner; and Martin Galvin, late of the same place, mariner, on the 3d day of June, A.D. 1861, upon the high seas, out of the jurisdiction of any particular State, and within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the said United States of America, and within the jurisdiction of this Court, did, with force and arms, piratically, feloniously, and violently set upon, board, break, and enter a certain vessel, to wit, a brig called the Joseph, the same being then and there owned in whole or in part, by a citizen or citizens of the United States of America, whose name or names are to the Jurors aforesaid unknown, and did then and there in and on board of the said brig, the Joseph, in and upon one Thies N. Meyer, then and there being a mariner, and then and there one of the ship's company of the said brig, the Joseph, and then and there master and commander thereof, and in and upon Horace W. Bridges, Albert Nash, William H. Clanning, John J. Merritt, John Quin, and Joseph H. Golden, each then and there being a mariner and one of the ship's company of the said brig, the Joseph, piratically, feloniously, and violently make an assault, and them did then and there piratically, feloniously, and violently, put in personal fear and danger of their lives, and did then and there, the brig, the said Joseph, of the value of $3,000, and the tackle, apparel, and furniture thereof, of the value of $500, and 250 hogsheads of sugar, of the value of $100 each hogshead, of the goods, chattels, and personal property of certain persons whose names are to the jurors aforesaid unknown, the said 250 hogsheads of sugar being then and there in and on board of the said brig, and being then and there the lading thereof, and the said brig, the tackle, apparel, and furniture thereof, and the said 250 hogsheads of sugar, being then and there in the care, custody, and possession of the said Thies N. Meyer, Horace W. Bridges, Albert Nash, William H. Clanning, John J. Merritt, John Quin, and Joseph H. Golden, from the said Thies N. Meyer, Horace W. Bridges, Albert Nash, William H. Clanning, John J. Merritt, John Quin, and Joseph H. Golden, and from their said possession, care, and custody, and in their presence and against their will, violently, piratically, and feloniously seize, rob, steal, take, and carry away against the form of the statute of the said United States of America in such case made and provided, and against the peace of the said United States and their dignity. _Second Count_: And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do further present: That Thomas Harrison Baker, late of the City and County of New York, in the District and Circuit aforesaid, mariner; and John Harleston, late of the same place, mariner; Charles Sidney Passalaigue, late of the same place, mariner; Henry Cashman Howard, late of the same place, mariner; Joseph Cruz del Carno, late of the same place, mariner; Henry Oman, late of the same place, mariner; Patrick Daly, late of the same place, mariner; William Charles Clark, late of the same place, mariner; Albert Gallatin Ferris, late of the same place, mariner; Richard Palmer, late of the same place, mariner; John Murphy, late of the same place, mariner; Alexander Carter Coid, late of the same place, mariner; and Martin Galvin, late of the same place, mariner, on the third day of June, in the year of our Lord 1861, upon the high seas, out of the jurisdiction of any particular State, and within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the said United States of America, and within the jurisdiction of this Court, did, with force and arms, piratically, feloniously, and violently set upon, board, break, and enter a certain American vessel, to wit, a brig called the Joseph, the same then and there being owned, in part, by George H. Cables, John Cables, and Stephen Hatch, then citizens of the United State of America, and did then and there, in and on board of the said brig, the Joseph, in and upon one Thies N. Meyer, then and there being a mariner and one of the ship's company of the said brig, the Joseph, and master and commander thereof, and in and upon divers other persons, each then and there being a mariner and one of the ship's company of the said brig, the Joseph, whose names are to the jurors aforesaid unknown, piratically, feloniously, and violently make an assault, and them did then and there piratically, feloniously, and violently put in bodily fear and danger of their lives, and did then and there, the said brig, the said Joseph, of the value of three thousand dollars, and the tackle, apparel, and furniture of the same, of the value of five hundred dollars, of the goods, chattels, and personal property of George H. Cables, John Cables, and Stephen Hatch, citizens of the United States of America, and two hundred and fifty hogsheads of sugar, of the value of one hundred dollars each hogshead, of the goods, chattels, and personal property of one Morales, whose Christian name is to the jurors aforesaid unknown, the said sugar being then and there in and on board of the said brig, the Joseph, and being then and there the lading thereof, and the said brig and the tackle, apparel, and furniture thereof, and the said two hundred and fifty hogsheads of sugar then and there being in the care, custody, and possession of the said Thies N. Meyer, and the said divers other persons, mariners, as aforesaid, and of the ship's company of the said brig, the Joseph, and whose names are to the jurors aforesaid unknown, from the said Thies N. Meyer and the said divers other persons, mariners, aforesaid, and of the ship's company of the said brig, the Joseph, whose names are, as aforesaid, to the jurors aforesaid, unknown, and from their care, custody, and possession, and in their presence and against their will, piratically, feloniously, and violently, rob, seize, steal, take and carry away, against the form of the statute of the said United States of America in such case made and provided, and against the peace of the said United States and their dignity. _Third Count_: And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do further present: That Thomas Harrison Baker, late of the City and County of New York, in the District and Circuit aforesaid, mariner; and John Harleston, late of the same place, mariner; Charles Sidney Passalaigue, late of the same place, mariner; Henry Cashman Howard, late of the same place, mariner; Joseph Cruz del Carno, late of the same place, mariner; Henry Oman, late of the same place, mariner; Patrick Daly, late of the same place, mariner; William Charles Clark, late of the same place, mariner; Albert Gallatin Ferris, late of the same place, mariner; Richard Palmer, late of the same place, mariner; John Murphy, late of the same place, mariner; Alexander Carter Coid, late of the same place, mariner; and Martin Galvin, late of the same place, mariner, on the 3d day of June, A.D. 1861, upon the high seas, out of the jurisdiction of any particular State, and within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the said United States of America, and within the jurisdiction of this Court, did, with force and arms, piratically, feloniously, and violently set upon, board, break, and enter a certain vessel, to wit: a brig called the Joseph, then and there being owned by certain persons, citizens of the United States of America, to wit: George H. Cables, John Cables, and Stephen Hatch, of Rockland, in the State of Maine, and in and upon certain divers persons whose names are to the jurors aforesaid unknown, the said last-mentioned persons each being then and there a mariner, and of the ship's company of the said brig called the Joseph, and then and there being in and on board of the said brig the Joseph, did then and there, piratically, feloniously, and violently make an assault, and them did then and there piratically, feloniously, and violently put in bodily fear, and the said brig, the Joseph, of the value of $3,000; the apparel, tackle, and furniture thereof, of the value of $500; of the goods, chattels, and personal property of the said George H. Cables, John Cables, and Stephen Hatch, and 250 hogsheads of sugar of the value of $100 each hogshead, of the goods, chattels, and personal property of one Thies N. Meyer, from the said divers persons, mariners, as aforesaid, whose names are to the jurors aforesaid unknown, in their presence, then and there, and against their will, did then and there piratically, feloniously, and violently seize, rob, steal, take, and carry away, against the form of the statute of the said United States of America in such case made and provided, and against the peace of the said United States and their dignity. _Fourth Count_: And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do further present: That Thomas Harrison Baker, late of the City and County of New York, in the District and Circuit aforesaid, mariner; and John Harleston, late of the same place, mariner; Charles Sidney Passalaigue, late of the same place, mariner; Henry Cashman Howard, late of the same place, mariner; Joseph Cruz del Carno, late of the same place, mariner; Henry Oman, late of the same place, mariner; Patrick Daly, late of the same place, mariner; William Charles Clark, late of the same place, mariner; Albert Gallatin Ferris, late of the same place, mariner; Richard Palmer, late of the same place, mariner; John Murphy, late of the same place, mariner; Alexander Carter Coid, late of the same place, mariner; and Martin Galvin, late of the same place, mariner, on the third day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty one, upon the high seas, out of the jurisdiction of any particular State, and within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the said United States of America, and within the jurisdiction of this Court, did, with force and arms, piratically, feloniously, and violently set upon, board, break, and enter a certain vessel then and there being, to wit, a brig called the Joseph, and in and upon one Thies N. Meyer, then and there being in and on board of the said brig, and being a mariner and master and commander of the said brig, and the said Thies N. Meyer then and there being a citizen of the United States of America, did then and there piratically, feloniously, and violently make an assault, and him, the said Thies N. Meyer, did then and there piratically, feloniously, and violently put in great bodily fear, and the said brig, the Joseph, of the value of $3,000, and the tackle, apparel, and furniture thereof, of the value of $500, and 250 hogsheads of sugar, of the value of $100 each hogshead, the same then and there being of the lading of the said brig, of the goods, chattels, and personal property of the said Thies N. Meyer, in his presence and against his will, did violently, feloniously, and piratically rob, steal, seize, take, and carry away, against the form of the statute of the said United States of America in such case made and provided, and against the peace of the said United States and their dignity. _Fifth Count_: And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do further present: That Thomas Harrison Baker, late of the City and County of Nev York, in the District and Circuit aforesaid, mariner; and John Harleston, late of the same place, mariner; Charles Sidney Passalaigue, late of the same place, mariner; Henry Cashman Howard, late of the same place, mariner; Joseph Cruz del Carno, late of the same place, mariner; Henry Oman, late of the same place, mariner; Patrick Daly, late of the same place, mariner; William Charles Clark, late of the same place, mariner; Albert Gallatin Ferris, late of the same place, mariner; Richard Palmer, late of the same place, mariner; John Murphy, late of the same place, mariner; Alexander Carter Coid, late of the same place, mariner; and Martin Galvin, late of the same place, mariner, each being a citizen of the United States of America, on the 3d day of June, in the year of our Lord 1861, upon the high seas, out of the jurisdiction of any particular State, and within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States of America, and within the jurisdiction of this Court, in and upon one Thies N. Meyer, then and there being, the said Thies N. Meyer then and there being a citizen of the said United States, and he, the said Thies N. Meyer, then and there being in and on board of a certain American vessel of the United States of America, to wit, a brig called the Joseph, and the said brig then and there being on the high seas as aforesaid, did, piratically, feloniously and violently, make an assault, and him, the said Thies N. Meyer, did, piratically, feloniously and violently, then and there put in bodily fear, and the said brig, the Joseph, of the value of $3,000, the tackle, apparel and furniture of the same, of the value of $500, and 250 hogsheads of sugar, of the value of $100 each hogshead, of the goods, chattels and personal property of the said Thies N. Meyer, from the said Thies N. Meyer, and in his presence, and against his will, did, piratically, feloniously and violently, seize, rob, steal, take and carry away, against the form of the statute of the said United States of America in such case made and provided, and against the peace of the said United States and their dignity. _Sixth Count_: And the Jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do further present: That Thomas Harrison Baker, late of the City and County of New York, in the District and Circuit aforesaid, mariner; and John Harleston, late of the same place, mariner; Charles Sidney Passalaigue, late of the same place, mariner; Henry Cashman Howard, late of the same place, mariner; Joseph Cruz del Carno, late of the same place, mariner; Henry Oman, late-of the same place, mariner; Patrick Daly, late of the same place, mariner; William Charles Clark, late of the same place, mariner; Albert Gallatin Ferris, late of the same place, mariner; Richard Palmer, late of the same place, mariner; John Murphy, late of the same place, mariner; Alexander Carter Coid, late of the same place, mariner; and Martin Galvin, late of the same place, mariner, on the 3d day of June, in the year of our Lord 1861, upon the high seas, out of the jurisdiction of any particular State, and within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the said United States of America, and within the jurisdiction of this Court, each then and there being a citizen of the said United States of America, did, on pretense of authority from a person, to wit, one Jefferson Davis, with force and arms, piratically, feloniously and violently set upon, board, break and enter, a certain vessel, to wit, a brig called the Joseph, the same being then and there owned, in whole or in part, by a citizen or citizens of the United States of America, whose name or names are to the Jurors aforesaid unknown, and did, on pretense of authority from a person, to wit, one Jefferson Davis, then and there in and on board of the said brig, the Joseph, in and upon one Thies N. Meyer, then and there being a mariner, and then and there one of the ship's company of the said brig, the Joseph, and then and there master and commander thereof, and in and upon Horace W. Bridges, Albert Nash, William H. Clanning, John J. Merritt, John Quin, and Joseph H. Golden, each then and there being a mariner and one of the ship's company of the said brig, the Joseph, piratically, feloniously and violently make an assault, and them did, on pretense of authority from a person, to wit, one Jefferson Davis, then and there piratically, feloniously and violently, put in personal fear and danger of their lives, and did, on pretense of authority from a person, to wit, one Jefferson Davis, then and there, the brig, the said Joseph, of the value of $3,000, and the tackle, apparel and furniture thereof, of the value of $500, and two hundred and fifty hogsheads of sugar, of the value of $100 each hogshead, of the goods, chattels and personal property of certain persons whose names are to the Jurors aforesaid unknown, the said two hundred and fifty hogsheads of sugar being then and there in and on board of the said brig, and being then and there the lading thereof, and the said brig, the tackle, apparel and furniture thereof and the said two hundred and fifty hogsheads of sugar, being then and there in the care, custody and possession of the said Thies N. Meyer, Horace W. Bridges, Albert Nash, William H. Clanning, John J. Merritt, John Quin and Joseph H. Golden, from the said Thies N. Meyer, Horace W. Bridges, Albert Nash, William H. Clanning, John J. Merritt, John Quin and Joseph H. Golden, and from their said possession, care and custody, and in their presence and against their will, violently, piratically and feloniously, seize, rob, steal, take and carry away, against the form of the statute of the said United States of America in such case made and provided, and against the peace of the said United States and their dignity. _Seventh Count_: And the Jurors aforesaid upon their oath aforesaid, do further present: That Thomas Harrison Baker, late of the City and County of New York, in the District and Circuit aforesaid, mariner; and John Harleston, late of the same place, mariner; Charles Sidney Passalaigue, late of the same place, mariner; Henry Cashman Howard, late of the same place, mariner; Joseph Cruz del Carno, late of the same place, mariner; Henry Oman, late of the same place, mariner; Patrick Daly, late of the same place, mariner; William Charles Clark, late of the same place, mariner; Albert Gallatin Ferris, late of the same place, mariner; Richard Palmer, late of the same place, mariner; John Murphy, late of the same place, mariner; Alexander Carter Coid, late of the same place, mariner; and Martin Galvin, late of the same place, mariner, on the third day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, upon the high seas, out of the jurisdiction of any particular State, and within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the said United States of America, and within the jurisdiction of this Court, each then and there being a citizen of the said United States of America, did, on pretense of authority from a person, to wit, one Jefferson Davis, with force and arms, piratically, feloniously and violently set upon, board, break and enter a certain American vessel, to wit, a brig called the Joseph, the same then and there being owned in part by George H. Cables, John Cables and Stephen Hatch, then citizens of the United States of America, and did, on pretense of authority from a person, to wit, one Jefferson Davis, then and there in and on board of the said brig, the Joseph, in and upon one Thies N. Meyer, then and there being a mariner and one of the ship's company of the said brig, the Joseph, and master and commander thereof, and in and upon divers other persons, each then and there being a mariner, and one of the ship's company of the said brig, the Joseph, whose names are to the Jurors aforesaid unknown, piratically, feloniously and violently make an assault, and them did, on pretense of authority from a person, to wit, one Jefferson Davis, then and there, piratically, feloniously and violently, put in bodily fear and danger of their lives, and did, on pretense of authority from a person, to wit, one Jefferson Davis, then and there, the said brig, the said Joseph, of the value of $3,000, and the tackle, apparel and furniture of the same, of the value of $500, of the goods, chattels and personal property of George H. Cables, John Cables and Stephen Hatch, citizens of the United States of America, and two hundred and fifty hogsheads of sugar, of the value of $100 each hogshead, of the goods, chattels and personal property of one Morales, whose Christian name is to the Jurors aforesaid unknown, the said sugar being then and there in and on board the said brig, the Joseph, and being then and there the lading thereof, and the said brig, and the tackle, apparel and furniture thereof, and the said two hundred and fifty hogsheads of sugar, then and there being in the care, custody and possession of the said Thies N. Meyer and the said divers other persons, mariners as aforesaid, and of the ship's company of the said brig, the Joseph, and whose names are to the Jurors aforesaid unknown, from the said Thies N. Meyer and the said divers other persons, mariners as aforesaid, and of the ship's company of the said brig, the Joseph, whose names are as aforesaid to the Jurors aforesaid unknown, and from their care, custody and possession, and in their presence and against their will, piratically, feloniously, and violently, rob, seize, steal, take and carry away, against the form of the statute of the said United States of America in such case made and provided, and against the peace of the said United States and their dignity. _Eighth Count_: And the Jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do further present: That Thomas Harrison Baker, late of the City and County of New York, in the District and Circuit aforesaid, mariner; and John Harleston, late of the same place, mariner; Charles Sidney Passalaigue, late of the same place, mariner; Henry Cashman Howard, late of the same place, mariner; Joseph Cruz del Carno, late of the same place, mariner; Henry Oman, late of the same place, mariner; Patrick Daly, late of the same place, mariner; William Charles Clark, late of the same place, mariner; Albert Gallatin Ferris, late of the same place, mariner; Richard Palmer, late of the same place, mariner; John Murphy, late of the same place, mariner; Alexander Carter Coid, late of the same place, mariner; and Martin Galvin, late of the same place, mariner, on the 3d day of June, in the year of our Lord, 1861, upon the high seas, out of the jurisdiction of any particular State and within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the said United States of America and within the jurisdiction of this Court, each then and there being a citizen of the said United States of America, did, on pretense of authority from a person, to wit, one Jefferson Davis, with force and arms, piratically, feloniously, and violently, set upon, board, break, and enter a certain vessel, to wit, a brig, called the Joseph, then and there being owned by certain persons, citizens of the United States of America, to wit, George H. Cables, John Cables, and Stephen Hatch, of Rockland, in the State of Maine, and in and upon certain divers persons whose names are to the Jurors aforesaid unknown, the said last-mentioned persons each being then and there a mariner, and of the ship's company of the said brig called the Joseph, and then and there being in and on board of the said brig, the Joseph, did, on pretense of authority from a person, to wit, one Jefferson Davis, then and there, piratically, feloniously, and violently, make an assault, and them did, on pretense of authority from a person, to wit, one Jefferson Davis, then and there, piratically, feloniously, and violently, put in bodily fear, and the said brig, the Joseph, of the value of $3,000, and the apparel, tackle, and furniture thereof, of the value of $500, of the goods, chattels, and personal property of the said George H. Cables, John Cables, and Stephen Hatch, and 250 hogsheads of sugar, of the value of $100 each hogshead, of the goods, chattels, and personal property of one Thies N. Meyer, from the said divers persons, mariners as aforesaid, whose names are to the Jurors aforesaid unknown, in their presence, then and there, and against their will, did, on pretense of authority from a person, to wit, one Jefferson Davis, then and there, piratically, feloniously, and violently, seize, rob, steal, take and carry away, against the form of the statute of the said United States of America in such case made and provided, and against the peace of the said United States and their dignity. _Ninth Count_: And the Jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do further present: That Thomas Harrison Baker, late of the City and County of New York, in the District and Circuit aforesaid, mariner; and John Harleston, late of the same place, mariner; Charles Sidney Passalaigue, late of the same place, mariner; Henry Cashman Howard, late of the same place, mariner; Joseph Cruz del Carno, late of the same place, mariner; Henry Oman, late of the same place, mariner; Patrick Daly, late of the same place, mariner; William Charles Clark, late of the same place, mariner; Albert Gallatin Ferris, late of the same place, mariner; Richard Palmer, late of the same place, mariner; John Murphy, late of the same place, mariner; Alexander Carter Coid, late of the same place, mariner; and Martin Galvin, late of the same place, mariner, on the 3d day of June, in the year of our Lord 1861, upon the high seas, out of the jurisdiction of any particular State, and within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the said United States of America, and within the jurisdiction of this Court, each then and there being a citizen of the said United States of America, did, on pretense of authority from a person, to wit, one Jefferson Davis, with force and arms, piratically, feloniously, and violently set upon, board, break, and enter a certain vessel then and there being, to wit, a brig called the Joseph, and in and upon one Thies N. Meyer, then and there being in and on board of the said brig, and being a mariner and master and commander of the said brig, and the said Thies N. Meyer then and there being a citizen of the United States of America, did, on pretense of authority from a person, to wit, one Jefferson Davis, then and there, piratically, feloniously, and violently, make an assault, and him, the said Thies N. Meyer, did, on pretense of authority from a person, to wit, one Jefferson Davis, then and there, piratically, feloniously, and violently, put in great bodily fear, and the said brig, the Joseph, of the value of $3,000, and the tackle, apparel, and furniture thereof, of the value of $500, and 250 hogsheads of sugar, of the value of $100 each hogshead, the same then and there being of the lading of the said brig, of the goods, chattels, and personal property of the said Thies N. Meyer, in his presence and against his will, did, on pretense of authority from a person, to wit, one Jefferson Davis, violently, feloniously, and piratically, rob, steal, seize, take, and carry away, against the form of the statute of the said United States of America in such case made and provided, and against the peace of the said United States and their dignity. _Tenth Count_: And the Jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do further present: That Thomas Harrison Baker, late of the City and County of New York, in the District and Circuit aforesaid, mariner; and John Harleston, late of the same place, mariner; Charles Sidney Passalaigue, late of the same place, mariner; Henry Cashman Howard, late of the same place, mariner; Joseph Cruz del Carno, late of the same place, mariner; Henry Oman, late of the same place, mariner; Patrick Daly, late of the same place, mariner; William Charles Clark, late of the same place, mariner; Albert Gallatin Ferris, late of the same place, mariner; Richard Palmer, late of the same place, mariner; John Murphy, late of the same place, mariner; Alexander Carter Coid, late of the same place, mariner; and Martin Galvin, late of the same place, mariner, each being a citizen of the United States of America, on the 3d day of June, in the year of our Lord 1861, upon the high seas, out of the jurisdiction of any particular State, and within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States of America, and within the jurisdiction of this Court, in and upon one Thies N. Meyer, then and there being, the said Thies N. Meyer, then and there being a citizen of the said United States, and he, the said Thies N. Meyer, then and there being in and on board of a certain American vessel, of the United States of America, to wit, a brig called the Joseph, and the said brig then and there being on the high seas as aforesaid, did, on pretense of authority from a person, to wit, one Jefferson Davis, piratically, feloniously and violently, make an assault, and him, the said Thies N. Meyer, did, on pretense of authority from a person, to wit, one Jefferson Davis, piratically, feloniously and violently, then and there put in bodily fear, and the said brig, the Joseph, of the value of $3,000, the tackle, apparel and furniture of the same, of the value of $500, and 250 hogsheads of sugar, of the value of $100 each hogshead, of the goods, chattels and personal property of the said Thies N. Meyer, from the said Thies N. Meyer, and in his presence, and against his will, did, on pretense of authority from a person, to wit, one Jefferson Davis, piratically, feloniously and violently seize, rob, steal, take and carry away, against the form of the statute of the said United States of America in such case made and provided, and against the peace of the said United States and their dignity. And the Jurors aforesaid, on their oath aforesaid, do further present: That the Southern District of New York, in the Second Circuit, is the district and circuit in which the said Thomas Harrison Baker, John Harleston, Charles Sidney Passalaigue, Henry Cashman Howard, Joseph Cruz del Carno, Henry Oman, Patrick Daly, William Charles Clark, Albert Gallatin Ferris, Richard Palmer, John Murphy, Alexander Carter Coid, and Martin Galvin, were brought and in which they were found, and is the district and circuit where they were apprehended, and into which they were first brought, for the said offense. E. DELAFIELD SMITH, Attorney of the United States for the Southern District of New York. On Wednesday, the seventeenth of July, the prisoners were brought into Court to plead to the Indictment, when MR. E. DELAFIELD SMITH, United States District Attorney, said: _If the Court please_,--In the case of Baker and others, the prisoners now at the bar, indicted for robbery on the high seas, I move that they be arraigned. I may here remark, that I have caused the service of a notice of this motion upon all the counsel known to me as engaged in the case; and if any gentleman has not received a notification, the omission proceeds from the fact that his name has not been given to the District Attorney. I understand that Mr. Larocque is counsel for one or two of the prisoners, and that he is in the building. _Mr. Larocque_ here entered the Court. _The District Attorney_: I would now renew my motion that the prisoners at the bar be arraigned under the indictment presented yesterday. _Mr. Larocque_: If your honor please, I represent but one of the prisoners. There are other counsel, I believe, who represent them generally. I appear for Mr. Harleston (the mate), and I will now state what I have to say with respect to the motion made by the District Attorney. Mr. Daniel Lord is associated with me, and I believe he is now engaged in the adjoining Court, but will soon be here. The Court will perceive that the learned District Attorney has very properly taken a considerable period of time for the framing of this indictment. It is some weeks now since the warrant of arrest was issued, and the course which he has taken certainly deserves great commendation; for the indictment in this case, more than any other that has ever been found in this Court, required greater care in its preparation, and it is one which will certainly present more important questions than probably any that has ever been tried in this Court. The indictment was only presented yesterday, and, as far as I am concerned, I was only informed of its presentation late yesterday afternoon. Of course, I had no opportunity to examine it. I believe it is quite a voluminous document, and contains a great many counts; and before the prisoners at the bar would be prepared to plead to the indictment, it will certainly be necessary that their counsel should examine it with care, and determine what course to take with regard to it; and then, probably, there may be some application that it will be necessary to make to the Court before the prisoners will be prepared to plead. I therefore desire a postponement for that purpose, until we can have time to examine this indictment. _The District Attorney_: I doubt not it is proper that time should be given to examine this indictment, and to adopt such course with respect to it as gentlemen standing in the sacred relation of counsel may deem it their duty to take. I should be very glad, however, if that time could be, with due regard to the convenience of counsel, so near as that the pleas may be recorded and the trial set down for some day before the Court adjourns. I shall be ready, if your honor please, on behalf of the Government, to try the prisoners on any day. I shall be prepared to try them within two or three days; but, certainly, it is right that counsel should have time to examine the indictment, as suggested. I hope only that such examination may be made speedily, as I understand your honor will adjourn the Court at an early day. _Mr. Larocque_: It would be utterly impossible for this case to be tried this term. In conversation with the counsel for the Government, a few days ago, the gentleman himself declared that the case could not be tried this term of the Court, and it would be impossible, your honor, for us to be ready for trial during this term. It will be necessary for us to obtain testimony from abroad, out of the limits of this State, and that cannot be procured in time to try the case this term. Certainly, no interest of public justice can suffer by a delay of the trial of this case; and I think it is eminently proper, and I am sure the Court will agree with me, that a proceeding of this importance should be conducted with deliberation, and that ample time should be given to the prisoners to prepare their defence. I had understood, moreover, that some intimation had been made by your honor's associate on the bench (Judge Nelson) that he would attend upon the trial of this case. I am told that Judge Nelson met with an accident shortly after his return home from his attendance upon his judicial duties, by being run away with by a horse, and that he is so lame that he is unable to move at present; and I am very credibly assured that Judge Nelson has expressed his conviction that it was his duty to attend and to sit on the trial of this case. Very important questions of law will be presented, and your honor is aware that in a criminal case in this Court there is no writ of error. The prisoner has the right to a review of any decision that might be made in this Court, in case a difference of opinion should arise between the Judges who preside. And certainly, in a case of such great importance as this is, where the lives of so many prisoners are at stake, it is of the utmost consequence that there should be a full Court present when the prisoners are tried. So far with respect to the trial of the case. Now, your honor is also aware that, by the statutes of the United States, the prisoners have a right to a certain period of time before any movement can be made with a view to trial. We certainly cannot be ready to plead to this indictment in less than a week. _The District Attorney_: The Court will permit a single remark concerning the conversation to which my learned friend has alluded. I never intended to say decidedly that the trial could not take place during the present term. I did, however, at one time, express an opinion that, as the term was nearly ended, and as the summer was upon us, probably I should not succeed in bringing the case on for trial until the autumn. As, however, the indictment has been promptly found, delay till fall is, I trust, unnecessary. Events continually taking place upon the ocean seem to render it important that the trial should take place at an early day. With these suggestions, I leave the matter entirely with the Court, where, of course, it ultimately belongs. _Mr. Sullivan_: May it please the Court, I appear for Captain Baker, the first prisoner named in the indictment. _Judge Shipman_ asked who appeared for the other prisoners. He wished to know if all the prisoners were supplied with counsel; if not, he would assign them counsel. _Mr. Sullivan_ said he did not desire a week's postponement, as he understood his honor had intimated that the Court would adjourn on Wednesday. As to the time of trial, he was authorized and instructed specially to say for Captain Baker that he would ask for no delay other than what was absolutely necessary for his counsel to prepare. He (Mr. Sullivan) hoped that the Court would continue its session specially to hear the case, or at least to try some portion of the defendants. He made that remark on the presumption that the defendants would ask to be tried separately. _Mr. Mayer_ said he appeared for one of the seamen, Wm. C. Clark; and he concurred in Mr. Larocque's remarks. _Judge Shipman_: It is hardly necessary now to discuss when the case will be set down for trial. The motion now before the Court is for the arraignment of the prisoners, and counsel asks for time to plead. I should like to know the names of the counsel who appear for the prisoners. _Mr. Larocque_ said he appeared, in conjunction with Mr. Lord, for Mr. Harleston. _Mr. Ridgway_ appeared for the sailors Carno, Oman, Daly, Palmer, Murphy, Galvin, and Coid; and he, also, concurred in the motion for time to plead. _Mr. Sandford_ appeared for Albert G. Ferris, and desired that the trial should be brought on as speedily as possible. _The District Attorney_: I have a suggestion to make as to the time of pleading. With regard to the indictment, when counsel come to examine it, I think they will find, that although the counts are numerous, yet, after all, the indictment is simple. I would suggest that counsel should examine the record between this and to-morrow morning, and then the prisoners could undoubtedly be arraigned without objection. _Mr. Daniel Lord_: I perceive that the prisoners are brought here to plead in chains. If that is to be repeated each time they are brought here, I would wish to have the time named when they are to plead. _Mr. James T. Brady_ said that he believed the engagement under which he acted, in connection with some other gentlemen, covered the cases of all the accused who had not already been represented before his honor by distinct counsel. _Judge Shipman_: There is no necessity, then, for the Court to assign counsel? _Mr. Brady_: In response to your honor, allow me to say that I represent Captain Baker more particularly. From the very necessity of this case a number of counsel have been employed, and more, probably, than will take part, as your honor is well aware, in the trial. I have had the pleasure of conferring with Mr. Lord only once since this case arose; and as he is in every respect the senior of the gentlemen who are employed in the case, we should like an opportunity for conference. It is highly important to determine what species of plea should be put into the indictment; and while, as I remarked, all the counsel may not take a prominent part in the argument or the trial, yet their judgments ought to be considered by each other, and some decisive course concluded upon. There certainly can be no great occasion for hurry, as these men are closely confined, and certainly are under the closest kind of restraint, from what I see around me (glancing at the prisoners, handcuffed). I don't suppose there is any apprehension, even if the prison doors were opened, that they would be likely to escape, from the state of feeling which at present exists in this city and this section of the country. We only wish for time that is necessary to determine what kind of an answer to make to this indictment; and after that we will proceed, I venture to say, with the utmost diligence, to have this case prepared for trial, or it may probably turn out that there will be no necessity for any trial. That may occur to a legal mind, or it may not. _Judge Shipman_: Well, let the prisoners be remanded until Tuesday morning next. The Court then adjourned. On Tuesday, the twenty-third of July, the prisoners were again brought into Court, and were placed within the bar, at the south end of the room. _E. Delafield Smith, Esq._, District Attorney, moved that the prisoners be arraigned. _Algernon S. Sullivan, Esq._, of counsel for the prisoners, stated that all the prisoners were represented by counsel, and that they were acquainted with the charges contained in the indictment. The prisoners were ordered to stand up; and the Clerk of the Court called T. Harrison Baker, saying: "You have been indicted for robbery on the high seas; how do you plead--guilty, or not guilty?" To which Mr. Baker replied, "Not guilty." _The District Attorney_ suggested that the indictment be read to the prisoners, unless each one of them expressly waived the reading. He would prefer to have it read, however. The prisoners' counsel respectively submitted that it was of no consequence. The accused knew the contents of it. _Judge Shipman_ remarked that the reading of the indictment would consume some time; but the District Attorney said that questions had been raised on this point, and, to insure regularity, he desired to have the indictment read; whereupon the Court ordered the Clerk to read the instrument. At the conclusion of the reading, the prisoners severally pleaded, each for himself, "not guilty." _District Attorney Smith_: If the Court please, the facts in this case are exceedingly simple. The evidence in reference to them--as well such as is required by the prosecution, as that which we may suppose to be desired by the defendants--is within a narrow range and easily attainable. I have examined the testimony with care. There can be no doubt, upon the evidence in the case, that the prisoners are guilty, and that as a matter of law, as well as a matter of fact, they ought to be convicted. It is impossible to close our eyes to the facts relating to this case, as they bear upon what is daily taking place upon the high seas. The merchant marine of the country is subjected to piratical seizure from day to day. Murder is the natural child of robbery, and we may daily expect to hear of bloodshed on the ocean, in attempting the execution of the purpose conceived by so many of our countrymen, to deal a death-blow to American commerce. It seems to me, that the ends of public justice require that I should urge upon your Honor the propriety and necessity of an early trial of this issue. If, peradventure, the prisoners are innocent, it can work no injury to them; if guilty, they ought to be convicted, and in my judgment, the law ought to take its course to the end, in order that an example may be set to those who are pursuing the species of marauding, of which I think the testimony will show the prisoners to have been guilty. I respectfully urge, that the trial be set down for Wednesday, July 31st, a week from to-morrow. I may add that I shall be happy to render to the counsel for the prisoners every facility within my power for the presentation of all the facts. The plea of authority, which we can anticipate, is set forth in the indictment, and a copy of the letter of marque has been furnished to counsel for the defence. I can see no valid reason for postponing the trial; none, certainly, in the present state of the country. _Mr. Larocque_ said, it seemed to him the idea might have occurred to the District Attorney, that these men had not yet been convicted. The law presumed every man to be innocent until he was proved guilty. The counsel should not presume these men to be guilty until they were tried. There were questions of international law involved in this case which would be entitled to consideration. The counsel for the United States would learn that he had misunderstood the meaning of the statute under which these men were indicted. The prisoners' counsel were not ready. They required documentary evidence and witnesses to be procured from a distance. They could not be ready to go on at this term of the Court. He submitted that a cause of this magnitude should not be disposed of so hurriedly. What had the prisoners to do with others on the ocean? Did the counsel for the Government desire to hurry them to trial unprepared for the purpose of striking terror to those on the ocean? He could not believe it to be so. _Mr. Sullivan_ said the prisoners would not ask any further delay after procuring their testimony. Some of the evidence could not be obtained this side of Charleston, and it would be impossible to procure it under three or four weeks. The case involved the legal status between the United States and the seceded States. He opposed setting down the case for trial on next Wednesday. _Mr. Davega_, of counsel for the prisoners, also opposed the motion, reiterating the statements in relation to the testimony to be procured. _Mr. Mayer_ called the attention of the District Attorney to the fifth count of the indictment, describing the prisoners as citizens of the United States. His client was a citizen of Hamburg, and he would not be ready to try the case in several weeks. _Mr. Daniel Lord_, in behalf of Mr. Harleston, said this case involved the lives of thirteen men. If the District Attorney supposed the law of the case was simple, he took a very different view of it from what that gentleman did. _The District Attorney_, in reply, said that in respect to the intimation of a necessity to refer to Charleston, it was a matter of notoriety that the prisoners were in constant communication with that city. Counsel were bound to disclose the nature of testimony required, that the Court might judge of the sufficiency of the reasons for a postponement. Much of it might be to facts which the prosecution would admit; as, in reference to the question of citizenship, there would be no difficulty in conceding the fact that certain of the prisoners were not citizens of the United States. He was not tenacious as to the very day named. Without throwing the case over to the fall term, the trial could be so fixed as to afford counsel ample opportunity to collect their proofs and examine the questions of law involved. All the difficulties suggested to impede the trial were obstructions created by these defendants themselves and their confederates, and it was in the nature of taking advantage of their own wrong to seek a postponement because of the existence of a state of things for which they were responsible. It had been said, thirteen lives are at issue. He would say that many more lives were at stake--lives, in his judgment, of far greater value--the lives of innocent officers and sailors in the merchant marine. The facts are simple. The law appears to be certain. There can be no defence here, the nature of which is not visible. The only justification for the piracy would seem to be the treason. If the prisoners ought justly to be convicted, such conviction should be speedy, in order to deter their confederates from expeditions partaking of the character of both treason and piracy. _Judge Shipman_ said, that he had no doubt in relation to the disposition to be made of this motion. The Court could not have several sets of rules to apply at will to the same class of cases; and even if the Court had power to adopt a different rule in some criminal cases from that fixed in others of the same grade, it would be very questionable whether such power ought to be exercised. The law had made no distinction in regard to this class of criminal offences. Upon the statute book of the United States are various acts of Congress defining atrocious crimes punishable capitally; and among these, is the crime of piracy, or robbery upon the high seas, for which the defendants are indicted. In all cases where parties are charged with criminal offences, and especially with capital crimes, it is customary to give the defendants a reasonable time for the preparation of their defence; and the Court must always assume and act, so far as the technical proceedings are concerned, upon the presumption of innocence which the law always interposes. The Court cannot take into consideration many of the suggestions made by counsel for the Government or for the defence; and in disposing of this motion, I wish it to be distinctly understood that I do so just as I should in any other case of alleged robbery or piracy upon the high seas, where, if the defendants be convicted, they must suffer, according to the statute, the penalty of death. I cannot look at other considerations. I cannot anticipate other defences. In the administration of the criminal law, although the principles are usually very simple, and although, for aught I know, they may be as simple when applied to this case as to any other, yet in the application of those principles, there is often ground for difference of opinion. Courts that have been long regarded as entitled to very great respect for learning, discrimination, and experience, frequently differ as to the application of principles of law to particular cases. In view of this fact, in capital cases, it has been a rule usually adhered to in the United States Circuit Courts (which are so constituted by the Act of Congress that two Judges are authorized to sit) to have, if applied for, a full Court, so that the defendant might have the benefit, if I may so speak, of the chance of a division of opinion. For such division of opinion constitutes the only ground upon which the case can be removed to a higher Court for revision. In this view of the case, and upon the strenuous application of the defendants for the presence of a full Court, I certainly cannot deny the application consistently with my judgment of what is right and proper; and I say this with a full recognition of the importance of this trial. I might add, it may be desirable for the Government, in the event of a certain determination of this case, that in the preliminary proceedings--the time fixed for trial and the constitution of the Court--there should be nothing to weaken the full and appropriate effect of such determination. After some observations in regard to two exceptional cases--that of Gordon, on his first trial for engaging in the slave trade,[2] and the case of the parties convicted of murder on board the ship "Gen. Parkhill," both cases having been tried before a District Judge sitting alone, the counsel for the defendant in each case making no request to have a full Court--Judge Shipman went on to say, that in consequence of Judge Nelson's engagements in another District, in September, and in view of his confinement with the effects of a fall from his carriage, which would prevent his sitting in August, he (Judge Nelson) could not probably hear this case until the October term. He therefore ordered the trial to be set down for the third Monday of October, at eleven o'clock. [2] The second trial of Gordon, resulting in a conviction, took place before a full Court, Mr. Justice NELSON sitting with Judge SHIPMAN. The prisoners were remanded to the custody of the Marshal, and their manacles, which had been removed while they were in Court, being replaced, they were taken to the Tombs. TRIAL OF THE OFFICERS AND CREW OF THE SCHOONER SAVANNAH, ON THE CHARGE OF PIRACY. UNITED STATES CIRCUIT COURT, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK. Wednesday, Oct. 23, 1861. THE UNITED STATES _against_ THOMAS HARRISON BAKER, CHARLES SYDNEY PASSALAIGUE, JOHN HARLESTON, JOSEPH CRUSE DEL CARNO, PATRICK DALY, JOHN MURPHY, MARTIN GALVIN, HENRY CASHMAN HOWARD, HENRY OMAN, WILLIAM CHARLES CLARKE, RICHARD PALMER, ALEXANDER CARTER COID, ALBERT G. FERRIS. HON. JUDGES NELSON AND SHIPMAN PRESIDING. _Counsel for the United States_: E. DELAFIELD SMITH, WM. M. EVARTS, SAML. BLATCHFORD, ETHAN ALLEN. _Counsel for the Defendants_: BOWDOIN, LAROCQUES & BARLOW, DANIEL LORD, JAMES T. BRADY, ALGERNON S. SULLIVAN, JOSEPH H. DUKES, ISAAC DAVEGA, MAURICE MAYER. _E. Delafield Smith, Esq._, United States District Attorney, stated that he desired to use Albert Gallatin Ferris, one of the prisoners indicted, as a witness, and would therefore enter a _nolle prosequi_ in regard to him. _The Court_: Are the prisoners to be tried jointly? _Mr. Lord_: I believe so, sir. _The Clerk_ called over the names of the prisoners, directing them to challenge the Jurors as called. _Judge Nelson_: Those of the prisoners who desire to do so may take seats by the side of their counsel. _The Clerk_ proceeded to call the panel. _Edward Werner_ called, and challenged for principal cause by Mr. Smith: _Q._ Have you any conscientious scruples that would prevent your finding a verdict of guilty, in a capital case, where the evidence was sufficient to convince you that the prisoner was guilty? _A._ No, sir. _By Mr. Larocque_, for the prisoners: _Q._ Have you read the account in the newspapers of the capture of the Savannah privateers? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ Have you ever formed or expressed any opinion as to the guilt or innocence of these prisoners? _A._ No, sir. _Q._ Have you ever formed or expressed any opinion as to whether they were guilty of piracy, if the facts were as alleged? _A._ No, sir. Challenge withdrawn. _Juror sworn._ _William H. Marshall_ called, and challenged for principal cause: _Q._ Have you any conscientious scruples that would prevent your finding a verdict of guilty in a capital case, where the evidence was sufficient to convince you that the prisoner was guilty? _A._ No, sir. _By Mr. Larocque_, for the prisoners: _Q._ You read the account of the privateer Savannah? _A._ I believe I have. _Q._ Have you formed or expressed any opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the prisoners? _A._ No, sir. _Q._ Have you ever formed or expressed any opinion as to whether they were guilty of piracy, if the facts were as alleged? _A._ I have not formed any opinion as to these men. _Q._ As to the general question, whether cruising under a commission from the Confederate States is piracy? _A._ I do not think I have formed any opinion, or expressed one. Challenge withdrawn. _Juror sworn._ _William Powell_ called, and challenged for principal cause by Mr. Smith: _Q._ Have you any conscientious scruples that would prevent your finding a verdict of guilty, in a capital case, where the evidence was sufficient to convince you that the prisoner was guilty? _A._ No, sir. _By Mr. Larocque_, for the prisoners: _Q._ Have you formed or expressed any opinion as to the guilt or innocence of these prisoners? _A._ I have not formed any opinion that would prevent me from giving a verdict according to the facts of the case. I have read the account, and I presume have formed such an opinion as most men do from reading an account, if the facts be so and so. _Q._ Have you formed any opinion as to whether cruising, under a commission from the Confederate States, is piracy? _A._ Yes, sir, I have. _Mr. Evarts_ objected that this was purely a question of law, and one jurors should not be inquired of. _The Court_ sustained the objection. _Q._ Did you believe the accounts which you read of this transaction? _A._ Well, it is difficult to say. There is so much published in the papers now-a-days that is not correct, that I am hardly prepared to say I believe anything I see, without palpable evidence. I believe the fact of the capture of the Savannah. _Q._ Did you read what had been done by the Savannah before she was captured? _A._ Well, I formed no opinion with regard to that. _Q._ Did you form an opinion of the character of the act with which the defendants were charged? _A._ No, sir. _Q._ Do you entertain the settled opinion that acting under a commission from President Davis, or the Confederate Government, constitutes piracy? _Mr. Evarts_ objected that this was a question of law. _The Court_: I doubt whether that is a question that would be proper. _Mr. Larocque_: This is a very peculiar case, as your honor is well aware. It is a case of first impression in the courts of the United States. It is a case in which, probably, there will be very little difference between the prosecution and the defendants as to the mere facts which are charged in this indictment, and it is a case in which jurors who present themselves to be sworn, if they have any bias or prejudice whatever, have it rather in reference to the character of the acts than as to the acts themselves having been committed or not having been committed. Now, we all know, if your honor please, that in all criminal trials a great deal of discussion has always taken place with reference to the jurisdiction of the jury over questions of law. The Courts have held that they are bound to receive their instructions on the law from the Court; but, at the same time, if they do not act in pursuance of the instructions which they receive, it is a matter between them and their own consciences, and it is a matter which no form of review in these Courts will reach. Now, one of my associates has handed to me an authority upon this subject from 1st Baldwin's Reports--that on the trial of Handy, in 1832, for treason, Judge Grier held that a juror who had formed an opinion that the riots in question did not amount to treason, was incompetent; and, in the case of the United States _v._ Wilson, it was held that a juror was incompetent who stated, on being challenged, that he had read the newspaper account of the facts at the time, and had come to his own conclusion, and had made up his mind that the offence was treason, although he had not expressed that opinion, nor formed or expressed an opinion that the defendant was or was not engaged in the offence. It seems to me that these authorities cover precisely the case before the Court, the only difference being that this is a charge of piracy, and the other a charge of treason. _Judge Nelson_: The only difference is that there the question was put to the juror as to the crime, after it appeared he had read the account of the transaction, which involved both the law and the facts--involved the whole case; but as we understand your question, you put a pure question of law, which we do not think belongs to the juror. _Mr. Larocque_: I understand your honor to rule the question is not admissible. _Judge Nelson_: Yes. Defendants' Counsel took exception. _Mr. Larocque_: Permit me to put the question in two forms. _Q._ Have you formed or expressed the opinion that the acts charged, if proved, constitute the offence of piracy? _The Court_: That question is admissible. _A._ I have not expressed the opinion, and I can hardly say I have formed an opinion, because I am not sufficiently informed on the law to do so. Challenge withdrawn. _Juror sworn._ _The Court_: Then the other form of the question is withdrawn? _Mr. Larocque_: Yes, sir; we are satisfied with the form of the question the Court allows us to put. _James Cassidy_ called. Challenged for principal cause, by Mr. Larocque, for the defendants. _Q._ Did you read the account of the capture of the Savannah privateer? _A._ I believe I did. _Q._ Have you formed or expressed any opinion upon the guilt or innocence of these prisoners? _A._ I believe not, sir. I may have made some mention of it at the time of reading the transaction, but not to express any opinion. _Q._ Have you formed or expressed an opinion whether the facts, if proved, constitute the offence of piracy? _A._ No, sir. _By Mr. Smith_: _Q._ Have you any conscientious scruples on the subject of capital punishment that would interfere with your rendering a verdict of guilty, if the evidence proved the prisoners to be guilty? _A._ No, sir. Challenge withdrawn. _Juror sworn._ _Joel W. Poor_ called. Challenged for principal cause by Mr. Smith: _Q._ Have you any opinion on the subject of capital punishment which would prevent your rendering a verdict of guilty, if the evidence was such as to satisfy you? _A._ No, sir. _By Mr. Larocque_, for the prisoners: _Q._ Have you read the account of the capture of the Savannah privateers? _A._ I have. _Q._ Have you formed or expressed any opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the prisoners? _A._ I think not, sir. _Q._ Have you formed or expressed any opinion whether the facts charged, if proved, constitute the offence of piracy? _A._ I have not. _Q._ Have you never conversed on this subject? _A._ I do not think I have. _Q._ Have you no recollection of having conversed upon it at all? _A._ I may have talked about it something at the time, but I do not recollect. _Q._ Are you a stockholder, or connected with any marine insurance company? _A._ No, sir. _Q._ Have you been engaged in Northern trade? _A._ No, sir. _Challenged peremptorily_, by prisoners. _Thomas Dugan_ called. Challenged for principal cause, by Mr. Smith: _Q._ Have you any conscientious scruples that would interfere with your rendering a verdict of guilty, if you deemed the prisoners guilty upon the evidence? _A._ I have strong conscientious scruples. _Mr. Smith_ asked that the juror stand aside. Defendants' Counsel objected to the question, as not proper in form. Objection sustained. _Q._ In a capital case, where the evidence is sufficient to satisfy your mind of the prisoner's guilt, have you any conscientious scruples that would prevent your finding a verdict of guilty? _A._ If I may explain, I would endeavor to find a verdict; but I believe my sympathy would control my judgment to that extent that I would not be able to do my duty between the people and the prisoner. I have been on a jury before, and I doubt that my judgment would be controlled by my sympathy. _Mr. Larocque_: The witness has not said his sympathies would be of that strength that would prevent his finding a verdict of guilty, if the evidence was satisfactory. A juror that has doubts of himself is the most honest and reliable, according to all experience in criminal trials. _The Court_: Examine him on that point. _By Mr. Larocque_: _Q._ Suppose that upon this trial the facts charged in this indictment were proved by clear and satisfactory evidence, and the Court should instruct you, upon that evidence, that those facts constitute the offence of piracy, would your conscientious scruples be so strong as to prevent your finding a verdict of guilty in such a case as that? _A._ There must be not a shadow of doubt. It must be strong and conclusive in my mind before a verdict is rendered. _Q._ But where there was strong, conclusive evidence, you would render a verdict of guilty? _A._ Yes, sir. _Mr. Evarts_: It is pretty apparent that the juror does not regard himself as in a position to deal impartially with this question, which involves human life. The intention of this cause of challenge is, that the juror should be in a position to yield to the evidence that just assent which its character is entitled to call for, unimpeded by his repugnance to the result when fatal to human life. Still, if your honor should not think that upon this ground he ought to be excluded absolutely, certainly it would be consistent with the course of practice, and with the just feeling of the juror, that he should stand aside until the panel be made up. _Mr. Brady_: That practice I understand not to prevail any longer, since it has been provided that the empanneling of jurors in the United States Courts shall be the same as in the State Courts, and we do not consent to any such principle as the gentleman proposes. Your honor has decided that a juror, to disqualify him from serving in a capital case, must say that his conscientious scruples are of such a character that, though the evidence be clear and conclusive under the law, as stated by the Court, they would prevent his doing his duty and giving a verdict of guilty. To my mind, nothing can be more clear and satisfactory than the statement of the juror himself, which exhibits a state of mind that should be possessed by every juror; that is, that he must be satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt of the guilt of the accused before rendering a verdict of guilty; and when be speaks of his sympathy on behalf of human life, it is only that sympathy which the law recognizes where it gives the prisoner the benefit of every doubt. It is true he does use the expression that there must not be the shadow of a doubt; but when the Court comes to expound the law, he will be instructed that it must be a reasonable doubt. I do not see anything against the juror on the ground of conscientious scruples. Your honor knows that the prosecution have no peremptory challenge in cases of piracy or treason, and the old practice of setting aside jurors until the panel is exhausted, and then, if not able to make up twelve without the rejected jurors, requiring their acceptance, has passed. That is decided in the case of Shackleford, in 18 Howard's Reports. _The Court_ (to the Juror): We do not exactly comprehend the views you entertain upon this question; therefore we desire, for our own satisfaction, to put some questions to you, to ascertain, if we can, the state of your mind and opinions upon these questions, and see whether you are a competent juryman or not in a capital case. It is a very high duty, and a common duty, devolving upon every respectable citizen. The question is this--and we desire that there may be no delusion or misapprehension on your mind in respect to it--in a capital case, if the proof on behalf of the Government should be such as to satisfy your mind that the prisoner was guilty of the capital offence, whether or not you have any conscientious scruples as respects capital punishment, that would prevent your rendering a verdict of guilty? _A._ In answer to that I would say that this is what troubles me: I want to do my duty; I want to render a verdict fairly and squarely as between the prisoner and the people; but I have this to contend with--I have read that people have been convicted upon the clearest testimony, and afterwards found to be innocent; and before I would have such feelings I would as soon go to the scaffold as send a person there who was not guilty. Therefore my sympathy is so strong that I am afraid to trust myself. I did serve on a former occasion, and I do not know that even then I did my duty. _Q._ What do you mean by being afraid to trust yourself? Is it a conscientious feeling and opinion against the penalty of capital punishment? _A._ Yes, sir, it is. I have a great abhorrence of it, if I may so express myself. Yet I should like to render a verdict, and do what is right; but I believe my feelings are too great to trust myself. _The Court_: We think we are bound to set the juror aside. _Mr. Larocque_: Permit me to put one question. _Q._ It strikes me that you are a little at fault as to what the purport of this question is. It is not whether you have an abhorrence of convicting a prisoner of a capital offence. The question is, whether you have such conscientious scruples against capital punishment as would prevent your finding the prisoner guilty, if the facts were proved, and the Court instructed you that those facts constituted the offence? _A._ I answered before. It places me in rather a peculiar position. As I said, I want it understood distinctly, I desire to do my duty; but there is a struggle between that and my sympathy, and I am afraid to trust myself. _Q._ But you can draw a distinction between your sympathy and any conscientious scruples against the punishment of death, can you not? _A._ Well, sir, where it comes to the point---- _Q._ Allow me to put the question in another way: If you are entirely satisfied, upon the evidence and instructions of the Court, that the prisoner was guilty, your conscience would not trouble you in finding him guilty? _A._ Well, sir, there would be this: I would feel that persons, under the strongest kind of testimony, have been found guilty, wrongfully, and it would operate on me--the fear that I had judged wrong on the facts, and committed murder. That feeling is very strong. _Q._ If the evidence satisfied you that the prisoner was guilty, would your conscience prevent your saying so? _A._ It would not now. It might in the jury-room. When it comes to the point, and I feel that I hold the life of a human being, it is pretty hard to know what I would do then. _Q._ Your conscience would only trouble you if you doubted that your judgment was right? _A._ Yes, sir. _Mr. Larocque_: I submit that the juror is competent. _Juror_: You must take your chances if you take me. I still think I am not fit to sit on a jury to represent the people. _The Court_: I think we must take the opinion of the juror as against himself. Set aside. [Defendants took exception.] _John Fife_ called, and challenged for principal cause: _Q._ In a capital case, where the evidence is sufficient to convince you of the guilt of the prisoner, have you any conscientious scruples that would prevent your finding a verdict of guilty? _A._ No, sir. _By Mr. Larocque_, for the prisoners: _Q._ Did you read the account of the capture of the privateer Savannah? _A._ I did. _Q._ Have you formed or expressed an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the prisoners? _A._ I believe not, sir. _Q._ Have you formed or expressed an opinion whether the facts charged, if proved, constitute the offence of piracy? _A._ I have not, sir. _Q._ You think you have no bias or prejudice in this case? _A._ No, sir. Challenge withdrawn. _Juror sworn._ _Thomas Costello_ called. Challenged for principal cause. _By Mr. Smith_: _Q._ In a capital case, where the evidence is sufficient to convince you of the guilt of the prisoner, have you any conscientious scruples that would prevent your finding a verdict of guilty? _A._ No, sir. _By Mr. Larocque_, for the prisoners: _Q._ You know that this case is an indictment for piracy against the prisoners. Have you formed or expressed any opinion upon their guilt or innocence? _A._ No, sir. _Q._ Have you formed or expressed any opinion whether the facts charged against them, if proved, constitute the offence of piracy? _A._ I have not, sir. Challenge withdrawn. _Juror sworn._ _Tuganhold Kron_ called. Challenged for principal cause. _By Mr. Smith_: _Q._ In a capital case, where the evidence was sufficient to convince you of the guilt of the prisoner, have you any conscientious scruples that would prevent your finding a verdict of guilty? _A._ Yes, sir. (Question repeated.) _A._ No, sir. _Q._ Do you readily understand English? _A._ Pretty well. _Q._ You did not understand me when I asked the question the first time? _A._ No, sir. _Q._ Do you understand English well? _A._ Yes, pretty well. There may be some words I do not understand. _Q._ Did you ever sit as a juror on a trial? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ Did you understand all the witnesses said? _A._ No, because I did not hear, sometimes. _Q._ Do you think you understand English well enough, so that you can hear a trial intelligently? _A._ I cannot say, sir. _Q._ You are not sure? _A._ No, sir. _By Mr. Larocque_: _Q._ What is your occupation? _A._ A bookbinder. _Q._ Have you an establishment of your own? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ The men you employ--do they speak English or German? _A._ Some English--the most of them German. _Q._ And you transact your business with gentlemen who speak English? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ How long have you done so? _A._ Eight years. _By the Court_: _Q._ How long have you been in this country? _A._ Seventeen years. _Q._ Have you been in business all that time? _A._ I worked as journeyman ten years, and have been seven years in business of my own. _By Mr. Smith_: _Q._ Do you think you can understand English well enough so that you can, from the evidence, form an opinion of your own? _A._ I think I will. _By Mr. Larocque_: _Q._ You read the account of the capture of the privateer Savannah in the newspapers? _A._ Yes, sir; in some German paper. _Q._ Did you form or express any opinion as to the guilt or innocence of these prisoners? _A._ No, sir. _Q._ Did you form or express an opinion whether the facts charged against them, if proved, constitute the offence of piracy? _A._ No, sir. _Mr. Evarts_: We think the juror's knowledge of the language is shown, by his own examination, to be such as should at least entitle the Government to ask that he should stand aside until it is seen if the panel shall be filled from other jurors--if that right exists. Your honor held, in the case of the United States _v._ Douglass--a piracy case tried some ten years ago--that that right did exist. _The Court_: I think we have since qualified that in the case of Shackleford. It was intended to settle that debatable question, and it was held that the Act of Congress, requiring the empanneling of jurors to be according to the practice in State Courts, did not necessarily draw after it this right of setting aside. We think the objection taken is not sustained. _Juror sworn._ _Matthew P. Bogart_ called. Challenged for principal cause by Mr. Smith: _Q._ In a capital case, where the evidence is sufficient to convince you of the guilt of the prisoner, have you any conscientious scruples that would prevent your rendering a verdict of guilty? _A._ No, sir. _By Mr. Larocque_, for the prisoners: _Q._ Have you read the account of the capture of the privateer Savannah in the newspapers? _A._ I recollect reading it at the time--not since. _Q._ Have you ever formed or expressed an opinion upon the guilt or innocence of these prisoners? _A._ Not to my recollection. _Q._ Have you ever formed or expressed an opinion whether the facts charged against them, if proved, constitute the offence of piracy? _A._ I have not. Challenge withdrawn. _Juror sworn._ _George Moeller_ called. Challenged for principal cause by Mr. Smith: _Q._ In a capital case, where the evidence is sufficient to convince you of the guilt of the prisoner, have you any conscientious scruples that would prevent your finding a verdict of guilty? _A._ No, sir. _By Mr. Larocque_, for the prisoners: _Q._ Have you read the account of the capture of the Savannah? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ Have you formed or expressed any opinion as to the guilt or innocence of these prisoners? _A._ No, sir. _Q._ Have you formed or expressed any opinion as to whether, if the facts were proved, as alleged, it was piracy? _A._ I do not know what the facts are, sir. I have only read an account of the capture. Challenge withdrawn. _Juror sworn._ _Robert Taylor_ called. Challenged for principal cause, by Mr. Smith: _Q._ In a capital case, where the evidence is sufficient to convince you of the guilt of the prisoner, have you any conscientious scruples that would prevent your finding a verdict of guilty? _A._ No, sir. _By Mr. Larocque_, for the prisoners: _Q._ You read of the capture of the privateer Savannah? _A._ I think I have. _Q._ Did you form or express any opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the prisoners? _A._ Not that I know of, sir. _Q._ Have you formed or expressed any opinion whether the facts, if proved, constitute the offence of piracy? _A._ No, sir, not any. Challenge withdrawn. _Juror sworn._ _Daniel Bixby_ called. Challenged for principal cause, by Mr. Smith: _Q._ In a capital case, where the evidence is sufficient to convince you of the guilt of the prisoner, have you any conscientious scruples that would prevent your finding a verdict of guilty? _A._ I have not. _By Mr. Larocque_: _Q._ Have you ever formed or expressed any opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the prisoners? _A._ I have not. _Q._ Or whether the facts, if proved, constitute the offence of piracy? _A._ No, sir. Challenge withdrawn. _Juror sworn._ _Ira L. Cady_ called. Challenged for principal cause, by Mr. Smith: _Q._ In a capital case, where the evidence is sufficient to convince you of the guilt of the prisoner, have you any conscientious scruples that would prevent your finding a verdict of guilty? _A._ No, sir. _By Mr. Larocque_: _Q._ You know what this case is for? _A._ I believe I understand it. _Q._ An indictment of piracy against the privateersmen captured on the Savannah? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ Have you formed or expressed any opinion upon the guilt or innocence of the prisoners? _A._ I do not recollect that I have. _Q._ Have you formed or expressed any opinion whether the facts, if proved, constitute piracy? _A._ I do not think I have. _Q._ Have you any opinion now upon either of these subjects? _A._ I cannot say that I am entirely indifferent of opinion on the subject, but still I have not formed any definite opinion. _Q._ Your mind, however, is not entirely unbiased upon the question? _A._ Well, no, sir--not if I understand the question; that is, the question whether the facts, if proved, constitute the offence of piracy? _Mr. Larocque_ submitted that the juror was not indifferent. _Mr. Evarts_: All that has been said by the juror is that, on the question of whether the facts charged constitute the offence of piracy, he has no fixed opinion; but he cannot say he has no opinion on the subject. He is ready to receive instruction from the Court. _Mr. Larocque_ contended that, as the question of whether the facts alleged constituted piracy, or not, was a most important one to be discussed, they were entitled to have the mind of the juror entirely blank and unbiased on that subject. _The Court_: Let us see what the state of mind of the juror is. _Q._ You mentioned, in response to a question put to you, that you had read an account in the newspapers of the capture of this vessel. _A._ I was not asked that question. I have no mind made up in respect to the subject that would prevent my finding a verdict in accordance with the evidence; but I said I was not entirely devoid of an opinion in regard to the case--that is, the offence. _Q._ Have you read an account of the capture of this vessel? _A._ Yes, sir; I read it at the time. _Q._ Is it from the account, thus read, of the transaction of the capture, that you found this opinion upon? _A._ No, sir; it is not that. It is upon the general subject that I mean to be understood--not in reference to this case particularly. _Q._ Do you say, upon the general question, that you have an opinion? _A._ Well, not fully made up. I have the shadow of an opinion about it. _Q._ Not a fixed opinion? _A._ No, sir; I would be governed by the law and instructions of the Court. _Q._ You are open to the control of your opinion upon the facts and law as developed in the course of the trial? _A._ Certainly, sir. _The Court_: We do not think the objection sustained. Challenged peremptorily by the prisoners. _Samuel Mudget_ called. Challenged for principal cause. _By Mr. Smith_: _Q._ In a capital case, where the evidence is sufficient, in your opinion, to convict the prisoner, have you any conscientious scruples that would prevent your finding a verdict of guilty? _A._ I have not. _By Mr. Larocque_: _Q._ You have read the account of the capture of the privateer Savannah? _A._ Yes, sir; at the time. _Q._ Have you formed or expressed any opinion upon the guilt or innocence of these privateersmen? _A._ I have not. _Q._ Have you formed or expressed an opinion whether the acts charged upon them, if proved, constitute piracy? _A._ No, sir; I have not formed any opinion with regard to the question whether it was piracy or not. Challenged peremptorily by the prisoners. _George H. Hansell_ challenged for principal cause. _Q._ In a capital case, where the evidence is sufficient to convince you that the prisoner was guilty, have you any conscientious scruples that would prevent your finding a verdict of guilty? _A._ No, sir. _By Mr. Larocque_: _Q._ Have you read the account of the capture of the Savannah privateer? _A._ I believe I read the account at the time. I have a very indistinct recollection of it. _Q._ Have you formed or expressed an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the prisoners? _A._ I do not remember that I have, sir. I certainly do not have any opinion now; and certainly would not have until I have heard the evidence. _Q._ Do you say you do not recollect whether you have formed or expressed any opinion? _A._ I do not remember that I have, sir. I may, on reading the article, have expressed an opinion on it; but I am not positive of that. _Q._ Have you formed or expressed an opinion whether the facts charged, if proved, amount to piracy? _A._ I should not consider myself competent to form an opinion upon that until I have heard the law on the subject. Challenge withdrawn. _Juror sworn._ Panel completed. DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OPENING. MR. E. DELAFIELD SMITH opened the case for the prosecution. He said: _May it please the Court, and you, Gentlemen of the Jury_: The Constitution of the United States, in the eighth section of the first article, authorized the Congress, among other things, to define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations. In pursuance of that authority, the Congress, on the 30th of April, 1790, made provisions contained in an act entitled "An Act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States." I refer to the 8th and 9th sections of that act, which is to be found in the first volume of the U.S. Statutes at Large, page 112. In the State Courts, gentlemen, it is common to say that the jury is judge both of the law and the fact; but such is not the case in the United States Courts. The Court will state to you the law, which you are morally bound to follow. But in opening this case, I refer to the statutes for the purpose of showing you precisely what the law is supposed to be under which this indictment is found, and under which we shall ask you for a verdict. The 8th section of the act of 1790, commonly called "The Crimes Act," and to which I have just referred, declares, that if any person or persons shall commit, upon the high seas, or in any river, haven, basin, or bay, out of the jurisdiction of any particular State, murder or robbery, or any other offence which, if committed within the body of a county, would, by the laws of the United States, be punishable with death; or if any captain or mariner of any ship or other vessel shall piratically and feloniously run away with such ship or vessel, or any goods or merchandize to the value of fifty dollars, or yield up such ship or vessel voluntarily to any pirate; or if any seaman shall lay violent hands upon his commander, thereby to hinder and prevent his fighting in defence of his ship or goods committed to his trust, or shall make a revolt in the ship; every such offender shall be deemed, taken, and adjudged to be a pirate and felon, and, being thereof convicted, shall suffer death; and the trial of crimes committed on the high seas, or in any place out of the jurisdiction of any particular State, shall be in the district where the offender is apprehended, or into which he may first be brought. The 9th section of the same act provides, that if any citizen shall commit any piracy or robbery aforesaid, or any act of hostility against the United States, or any citizen thereof, upon the high sea, under color of any commission from any foreign prince or state, or on pretence of authority from any person, such offender shall, notwithstanding the pretence of any such authority, be deemed, adjudged, and taken to be a pirate, felon, and robber, and, on being thereof convicted, shall suffer death. A statute, on this subject, enacted in 1819, expired by its own limitation; but on the 15th of May, 1820, an act was passed making further provisions for punishing the crime of piracy. This law is printed in the third volume of the U.S. Statutes at Large, page 600. The 3d section provides, that if any person shall, upon the high seas, or in any open roadstead, or in any haven, basin, or bay, or in any river where the sea ebbs and flows, commit the crime of robbery in or upon any ship or vessel, or upon any of the ship's company of any ship or vessel, or the lading thereof, such person shall be adjudged to be a pirate; and, being thereof convicted before the Circuit Court of the United States for the district into which he shall be brought, or in which he shall be found, shall suffer death. I now refer to the act of March 3d, 1825, to be found in the 4th volume of the Statutes at Large, page 115. It is entitled, "An act more effectually to provide for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States, and for other purposes." I cite it simply on the question of jurisdiction. The 14th section provides, that the trial of all offences which shall be committed upon the high seas or elsewhere, out of the limits of any State or district, shall be in the district where the offender is apprehended, or into which he may be first brought. The twenty-fifth section of this act repeals all acts, or parts of acts, inconsistent therewith. Under the act of 1790 a question of construction arose, in the Supreme Court of the United States, as to whether robbery on the high seas was punishable with death. It was settled (3 Wheaton, 610) that the statute did punish robbery with death if committed on the high seas, even though robbery on land might not incur that extreme penalty. I refer to the United States _v._ Palmer, 3 Wheaton, 610; the United States _v._ Jones, 3 Washington's Circuit Court Reports, 209; United States _v._ Howard, Id., 340; 2 Whar. Crim. Law, fifth ed., p. 543. I have been thus particular in referring to the laws under which this indictment is framed, in order that you may perceive precisely the inquiry which we now have to make. It is, whether the statutory law of the United States has or has not been violated? You have all, undoubtedly, heard more or less of the crime of piracy as generally and popularly understood. A pirate is deemed by the law of nations, and has always been regarded as the enemy of the human race,--as a man who depredates generally and indiscriminately on the commerce of all nations. Whether or not the crime alleged here is piracy under the law of nations, is not material to the issue. It might well be a question whether, in regard to depredations committed on the high seas, by persons in a foreign vessel, under the acknowledged authority of a foreign country, Congress could effectively declare that to be piracy which is not piracy under the law of nations; but it is not material in this case. Congress is unquestionably empowered to pass laws for the protection of our national commerce and for the punishment of those who prey upon it. Congress has done so in the statutes to which I have referred. If the words "pirate and felon" were stricken out from the act of 1790, and if the statutes simply read that any person committing robbery on the high seas should suffer death, the law would be complete, and could be administered without reference to what constitutes piracy by the law of nations. Having thus referred to the statutory law under which this indictment was found, I will state as succinctly as possible, with due regard to fullness, fairness, and completeness, the facts in this case. In the middle or latter part of May, 1861, a number of persons in the city of Charleston, South Carolina, conceived the purpose of purchasing or employing a vessel to cruise on the Atlantic with the object of depredating on the commerce of the United States. They proceeded to the fulfillment of that design by procuring persons willing to act as captain, officers, and crew of such piratical vessel. This there was at first considerable difficulty in effecting, and it was not until many men were thrown out of employment in Charleston, by the acts of South Carolina and of what is called the Confederate Government, and by the action of the United States Government in blockading the port of Charleston and other Southern ports, that a crew could be found to man this vessel. There were no shipping articles or agreement as to wages; but it was understood that all were to share in the plunder or proceeds arising from the capture of American vessels on the high seas. We shall show to you that the prisoners at the bar were finally induced to embark on this enterprise; that Captain Baker was one of the first to engage in it; that he used exertions to obtain a crew, and succeeded, after considerable difficulty. On Saturday, the first of June, 1861, the crew were embarked on a small pilot boat and proceeded down to opposite Fort Sumter, where they were transferred, in small boats, to the schooner Savannah. We shall show, by the declarations of the parties who stand charged here to-day, and also by the facts and circumstances of the equipment of the vessel, the intent and purpose of this voyage. The Savannah, a schooner of fifty-three or fifty-four tons, was armed with cannon and small arms. Pistols and cutlasses were provided for her men. On Sunday afternoon, the 2d of June, she sailed from opposite Fort Sumter, her crew numbering about twenty men, all of whom are here with the exception of six, who were detached to form a prize crew of the brig Joseph. On the morning of Monday, the 3d of June, a sail was descried; it was remarked among the crew that the vessel, from her appearance, was undoubtedly a Yankee vessel, as they termed it--a vessel owned in one of the Northern States of the Union. She proved to be the brig Joseph, laden with sugar, and bound from Cardenas, in Cuba, to Philadelphia. The Savannah, displaying the American flag, gave chase. When within hailing distance, Captain Baker spoke the Joseph, ordered her captain on board his schooner, and ran up the rebel standard. Captain Meyer, of the Joseph, perceiving that the Savannah was armed, and that her men were ready for assault, fearing for his safety and that of his crew, obeyed the summons. A prize crew was placed on board the Joseph--the captain of the Savannah declaring that he "was sailing under the flag of the Confederate Government." The Savannah proceeded on her cruise. In a few hours afterward, she descried the United States brig-of-war Perry. Supposing her to be a merchant vessel, she started in pursuit, fired a gun, and finally fired several guns. On discovering, however, that the brig was a United States vessel-of-war, she attempted resistance, Captain Baker saying to his men, "Now, boys, prepare for action!" When within speaking distance, the commander of the Perry asked Captain Baker whether he surrendered, and he replied that he did. The prisoners were transferred from the Savannah to the Perry; thence to the United States steam ship-of-war, Minnesota. The Savannah was then taken in charge by a prize crew from on board the Perry and brought to New York. The Minnesota, with the prisoners on board, proceeded--on her way to New York--to Hampton Roads, where, after two days, she transferred the prisoners to the Harriet Lane, which delivered them at New York. Here they were given in charge to the United States Marshal. On my official application, a warrant was issued by a United States Commissioner, and under it the Marshal, as directed, took formal possession of and held the prisoners. They were committed for trial and were, within a few weeks afterwards, indicted by the United States Grand Jury. Although the guilt and mischief of both piracy and treason may be embraced in the crime and its consequences, the charge is not one of treason, nor necessarily of piracy, as commonly understood, but the simple one of violating the statutes to which I have referred. The learned District Attorney here stated the evidence which he was prepared to submit, with the decisions upon which he would rest the case, and he proceeded to cite and comment upon the following, among other authorities:--U.S. _v._ Furlong, 5 Wheaton, 184; U.S. _v._ Klintock, 5 _Id._, 144; Nueva Anna and Liebre, 6 _Id._, 193; U.S. _v._ Holmes, 5 _Id._, 412; U.S. _v._ Palmer, 3 _Id._, 610; U.S. _v._ Tully, 1 Gallison, first ed., 247; U.S. _v._ Jones, 3 Wash. Circuit Court Rep., 209; U.S. _v._ Howard, 3 _Id._, 340; U.S. _v._ Gibert, 2 Sumner, 19; U.S. _v._ Smith, 5 Wheaton, 153; 3 Chitty's Criminal Law, 1128; 1 Kent's Com., 25, note _c_, and cases cited; 1 _Id._, 99, 100, and cases cited; 1 _Id._, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 191, and cases cited. Decisions as to jurisdiction: U.S. _v._ Hicks, MS. Judge Nelson; Irvine _v._ Lowry, 14 Peters, 293, 299; Sheppard _v._ Graves, 14 Howard, 505; D'Wolf _v._ Rabaud, 1 Peters, 476, 498. Mr. SMITH then continued as follows: The atrocity of the authors and leaders of this rebellion against a government whose authority has never been felt, with the weight of a feather, upon the humblest citizen, except for crime, has been portrayed so much more eloquently than I could present it, that I should not indulge in extended remarks on that subject, even if relevant to the case. Ignominy and death will be their just portion. The crime of those who have acted as the agents and servants of these leaders is also a grave one--a very grave one--mitigated, no doubt, by ignorance, softened by a credulous belief of misrepresentations, and modified by the very air and atmosphere of the place from which these prisoners embarked. It is, undoubtedly, a case where the sympathies of the jury and of counsel--whether for the prosecution or the defence--may be well excited in reference to many, if not all, of the prisoners at the bar, misguided and misdirected as they have been. But it will be your duty, gentlemen, while allowing these considerations to induce caution in rendering your verdict, to disregard them so far as to give an honest and truthful return on the evidence, and on the law as it will be stated to you by the Court. This is all the prosecution asks. As to the policy of ultimately allowing the law to take its course in this case, it is not necessary for us to express any opinion whatever. That is a question which the President of the United States must determine if this trial should result in a conviction. It is for him, not for us. You must leave it wholly to those who are charged with high duties, after you shall have performed yours. The case is of magnitude; but the issue for you to determine is simple. Leaving out of view the alleged authority under which the prisoners claim to have acted, you will inquire, in the first instance, whether the seizure of the Joseph and her lading was robbery. You will be unable to discover that any element of the crime was wanting. If no actual force was employed in compelling the surrender, it is enough that the captain and crew were put in bodily fear. So the traveler delivers his purse in obedience to a request, and the crime is complete, although violence proves unnecessary. That the humble owners of the brig were despoiled of their property--how hardly earned we know not--will not be disputed. Nor is it material that the proceeds were to be shared between the prisoners and absent confederates. As to the question of intent, it cannot be denied that the prisoners designed to do, and to profit by, what they did. They are without excuse, unless possessed of a valid commission. This brings us to the plea of authority. A paper, purporting to be a letter of marque, signed by Jefferson Davis, was found on the Savannah. Such a commission is of no effect, in our courts of law, unless emanating from some government recognized by the Government of the United States. The political authority of the nation, at Washington, has never recognized the so-called Confederate States as one of the family of nations. On the contrary, it resists their pretensions, and proclaims them in rebellion. In this position of affairs, a court of justice will not, nor can you as its officers, regard the letter as any answer to the case which the prosecution will establish. Such is the law. It is so determined in decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, which I have just cited. I will now proceed with the examination of the witnesses. _Albert G. Ferris_ called and sworn. Examined by District Attorney Smith: _Q._ Where were you born? _A._ In Barnstable, Massachusetts. _Q._ How old are you? _A._ Fifty on the 10th of September last. _Q._ Have you a family? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ Does your family reside at Charleston? _A._ Yes, sir, at Charleston, South Carolina. _Q._ How long have you resided at Charleston? _A._ Since 1837. _Q._ What has been your business there? _A._ Sea-faring man. _Q._ In what capacity have you acted as a sea-faring man? _A._ As master and mate. _Q._ In what crafts? _A._ In various crafts, small and large, and steamers. _Q._ Sailing out of the port of Charleston? _A._ Yes, and from ports of New York, and Virginia, and other places. _Q._ In what capacity were you acting just prior to the time you embarked on board the Savannah? _A._ I was acting as master of a vessel sailing from Charleston on the Southern rivers, in the rice and cotton trade. _Q._ What was the name of the vessel? _A._ The James H. Ladson, a schooner of about seventy-five tons. _Q._ Was the business in which you were engaged stopped? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ At what time? _A._ In December, 1860. _Q._ What was your employment after that? _A._ I had no employment after that. The blockade prevented vessels from going out, although some did get out after the blockade was established. _Q._ State the facts and circumstances which preceded your connection with the Savannah? _A._ I joined the Savannah as a privateer, through the influence of acquaintances of mine, with whom I had sailed, and from the necessity of having something to do, and under the idea of legal rights from the Confederate Government. _Q._ What did you first do in reference to shipping on the Savannah? _A._ I was on the bay with an acquaintance of mine, named James Evans, who is now, I believe, at Charleston, and who spoke to me about it. _Q._ Was Evans one of the crew of the Savannah? _A._ Yes, he was one of the prize crew that went off with the Joseph. He solicited me to join him, and said that he knew Captain Baker, and that he and others were going in the Savannah. _Q._ Where did you see him? _A._ I saw him on the bay at Charleston. _Q._ Did you go anywhere with him in reference to enlisting? _A._ Yes, we went to the house of Bancroft & Son, and I was there introduced to Captain Baker. _Q._ Did you recognize Captain Baker on the cruise? _A._ Yes, I recognized him then and since. _Q._ State the conversation? _A._ Mr. Evans recommended me to Captain Baker as a man who was acquainted with the coast, and who was likely to be just the man to answer his purpose. I partly made arrangements with Captain Baker to--that is, he was to send for me when he wanted me. He further proposed, as nothing was doing, that he would give me a job to go to work on board the Savannah and fit her out; but I had some little business to attend to at the time and declined. _Q._ State the conversation at Bancroft & Son's when you and Evans and Captain Baker were there? _A._ These were the items, as near as my memory serves me: that we were going on a cruise of privateering. I considered it was no secret. It was well known, and posted through the city. Previous to that I had met some of the party, who talked about going, and who asked me whether I had an idea of going, and I said I had talked about it. They said that Captain Baker was the officer. I then declined to go, and did not mean to go in her until Saturday morning. _Q._ Did you have a further interview with Captain Baker, or any others of these men? _A._ I had no other interview with Captain Baker at that time. I had no acquaintance with Captain Baker, or any on board, except these men who came from shore with me. _Q._ Did you see any one else in reference to shipping on this vessel, except those you mentioned? _A._ I believe there was a man by the name of Mills who talked of it. He did not proceed in the vessel. I believe he fitted her out, but did not go in her. _Q._ Did you talk to any one else in regard to going? _A._ No; he only told me he was going to get a crew. _Q._ What articles did you see drawn up? _A._ There were no articles whatever drawn up, and I do not know what arrangements were made. I understood since I have been here that arrangements were made, but they were not proposed to me. It was a mere short cruise to be undertaken. _Q._ Was the purpose or object of the cruise stated? _A._ It was the object of going out on a cruise of privateering. _Q._ When did you embark on the vessel? _A._ On Saturday night, the 1st of June, 1861. _Q._ Do you recollect who embarked with you that night? _A._ Some five or six of us. _Q._ Give their names? _A._ Alexander Coid was one (witness identified him in Court), Charles Clarke was another, and Livingston or Knickerbocker was another. I do not recollect any more names. There was a soldier, whose name I do not know, who went on the prize vessel. _Q._ How did you get from the dock at Charleston? _A._ In a small boat to a pilot-boat, and in the pilot-boat to the Savannah in the stream. She was lying about three miles from the city, and about three-quarters of a mile from Fort Sumter. _Q._ How did you get from the pilot-boat to the Savannah? _A._ In a small boat. _Q._ And from the dock at Charleston to the pilot-boat? _A._ In a small boat. _Q._ Did any one have any direction in the embarkation? _A._ No one, particular. There were some agents employed to carry us down. There was no authority used whatever. _Q._ When did you sail from Charleston in the Savannah? _A._ On Sunday afternoon from the outer roads. _Q._ When did you weigh anchor and sail from Fort Sumter? _A._ On Sunday morning, about 9 or 10 o'clock. _Q._ Do you know the men you saw on board? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ Do you know the names of all the prisoners? _A._ I believe I do, pretty nearly. I do not know that I could pronounce the name of the steward or cook, but I know that they were with us. (The prisoner, Passalaigue, was asked to stand up, and the witness identified him.) _Q._ What was his position on board? _A._ I do not know what his position was. I never learned that. He was on board as if superintending the provisions, or something of that kind. (The prisoner, John Harleston, was asked to stand up, and witness identified him.) _Q._ What position had he on board? _A._ I do not know what he did on board, anything more than that he arranged the big gun, and asked assistance to lend him a hand in managing the gun. _Q._ Was he an officer, or seaman? _A._ I believe he is no seaman. _Q._ In what capacity did he act on board? _A._ Nothing further than that, so far as I learned. _Q._ Did you hear him give any directions? _A._ No, sir; I was at the helm most of the time, when anything was done at the gun. (The prisoner, Henry Howard, was asked to stand up, and witness identified him.) _Q._ In what capacity was he? _A._ That was more than I learned. They were all on board when I joined her. _Q._ Was he a seaman or officer? _A._ He stood aft with the rest of us, and assisted in working the vessel. (The prisoner, Del Carno, was directed to stand up, and witness identified him as being the steward. He also identified Henry Oman as attending to the cooking department. The prisoner was directed to stand up, and was identified by the witness.) _Q._ In what capacity was he? _A._ The same as the rest--a seaman. (Witness also identified William Charles Clarke, Richard Palmer, and John Murphy, as seamen, and Alexander C. Coid, as seaman. Martin Galvin, the prisoner, was directed to stand up, and was identified by the witness.) _Q._ Was he a seaman? _A._ I do not think he was either seaman or officer. _Q._ What did he do on board? _A._ Little of anything. There was very little done any way. _Q._ Did he take part in working the vessel? _A._ Very little, if anything at all. I believe he took part in weighing anchor. _Q._ You identify Captain Baker as captain of the vessel? _A._ Yes, I could not well avoid that. _Q._ How many more were there besides those you have identified? _A._ Some six. I think about eighteen all told, not including Knickerbocker and myself. _Q._ How many went off on the Joseph? _A._ There were six of them. _Q._ Did any of those that are now here go off on the Joseph? _A._ No, I believe not. I know all here. We have been long enough in shackles together to know one another. _Q._ Do you remember the names of those that went on the Joseph? _A._ I know two of them--one named Hayes, and Evans, the Charleston pilot. _Q._ The same Evans who went on board with you? _A._ Yes, sir; he was a Charleston pilot. _Q._ What did Hayes and Evans do on board? _A._ They did the same as the rest--all that was to be done. _Q._ Were either of them officers? _A._ Mr. Evans was the Charleston pilot. He gave the orders when to raise anchor and go out. He acted as mate and pilot when he was there. I presume he had as much authority, and a little more, than any one else; he was pilot. _Q._ What did Hayes do? _A._ He was an old, experienced man--did the same as the rest--lived aft with the rest. He was a seaman. _Q._ The other four, whose names you do not recollect, did they act as seamen? _A._ Exactly, sir. _Q._ Any of them as officers? _A._ No, sir; if they were, they were not inaugurated in any position while I was there. _Q._ What did you do? _A._ I did as I was told by the captain's orders--steered and made sail. _Q._ What time did you get off from the bar in Charleston? _A._ We got off Sunday afternoon and made sail east, outside of the bar, and proceeded to sea. _Q._ Do you remember any conversation on board when any of the prisoners were present? _A._ Yes; we talked as a party of men would talk on an expedition of that kind. _Q._ What was said about the expedition? _A._ That we were going out privateering. The object was to follow some vessels, and that was the talk among ourselves. _Q._ Did anything happen that night, particularly? _A._ No, sir; nothing happened, except losing a little main-top mast. _Q._ What course did you take? _A._ We steered off to the eastward. _Q._ Did you steer to any port? _A._ No, sir; we were not bound to any port, exactly. _Q._ What directions were given in respect to steering the vessel? _A._ To steer off to the eastward, or east by south, just as the wind was; that was near the course that was ordered. _Q._ When did you fall in with the Joseph? _A._ On Monday morning, the 3d. _Q._ Do you remember who discovered the Joseph? _A._ I think it was Evans, at the masthead. _Q._ What did he cry out? _A._ He sung out there was a sail on the starboard bow, running down, which proved afterwards to be the brig Joseph. _Q._ State all that was said by or in the presence of the prisoners when and after the vessel was descried? _A._ We continued on that course for two or three hours. We saw her early in the morning, and did not get up to her until 9 or 10 o'clock. _Q._ How early did you see her? _A._ About 6 o'clock. There were other vessels in sight. We stood off on the same course, when we saw this brig,--I think steering northeast by east. We made an angle to cut her off, and proceeded on that course until we fell in with her. _Q._ What was said while running her down? _A._ When near enough to be seen visibly to the eye, our men, Mr. Hayes, and the others, said she was a Yankee vessel; she was from the West Indies, laden with sugar and molasses. The general language was very little among the men; in fact, sailor-like, being on a flare-up before we left port, not much was said. _Q._ State what was said? _A._ Well, first the proposition was made that it was a Yankee prize; to run her down and take her. That was repeated several times. Nothing further, so far as I know of. _Q._ During the conversation were all hands on deck? _A._ Yes, sir, all hands on deck. In fact, they had been on deck. It was very warm; our place was very small for men below. In fact, we slept on deck. No one slept below, while there, much. It was a very short time we were on board of her--from Saturday to Monday night--when we were taken off. _Q._ What was said was said loud, so as to be heard? _A._ Yes; it was heard all about deck. That was the principal of our concern in going out; it was our object and our conversation. _Q._ When you ran along down towards the Joseph, state what was said. _A._ That was about the whole of what occurred--the men talking among themselves. _Q._ When you got to the Joseph what occurred? _A._ She was hailed by Captain Baker, and requested to send a boat on board. _Q._ Who answered the hail? _A._ I believe Captain Meyer, of the brig. _Q._ Would you recognize Captain Meyer now? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ State what Captain Baker said? _A._ Captain Baker, as near as I can bear in mind, hailed him, and told him to come on board and fetch his papers. _Q._ Did Captain Meyer come on board? _A._ He lowered his boat, and came on board with his own boat and crew. Captain Baker said to him that he was under the Confederate flag, and he considered him a prisoner, and his vessel a prize to the Confederate Government. _Q._ Repeat that? _A._ If I bear in mind, Captain Meyer asked what authority he had to hail his vessel, or to that effect. The reply of Captain Baker, I think, was that he was under a letter of marque of the Confederate Government, and he would take him as a prisoner, and his vessel as a prize to the Southern Confederacy. I do not know the very words, but that was the purport of the statement, as near as I understood. _Q._ When Captain Baker hailed the Joseph, do you remember the language in which he hailed her? _A._ I think, "Brig, ahoy! Where are you from?" He answered him where from--I think, from Cardenas; I think, bound to Philadelphia or New York. _Q._ Did he inquire about the cargo? _A._ No, sir, I think not, until Captain Meyer came on board. We were but a short distance from the brig. The brig was hove to. _Q._ Do you remember anything further said by Captain Baker, or any of the prisoners? _A._ He had some further conversation with Captain Meyer, on the deck, with respect to the vessel, where from, the cargo, and the like of that. She had in sugars, as near as my memory serves me. _Q._ What flag had the Savannah, or how many? _A._ She had the Confederate flag. _Q._ What other flags, if any? _A._ She had the United States flag. _Q._ Any other? _A._ No, sir, I do not know that she had any other. _Q._ Did you notice what flag the Joseph had? _A._ I did not see her flag, or did not notice it. I saw her name, and where she hailed from. I knew where she belonged. _Q._ What was on her stern? _A._ I think "The Joseph, of Rockland." I knew where it was. I had been there several times. _Q._ When the sail was first descried was there any flag flying on the Savannah? _A._ No, sir. _Q._ When you ran down towards the Joseph was there any flying? _A._ Yes, sir, we had the Confederate flag flying, and, I believe, the American flag. _Q._ Which was it? _A._ I believe both flying--first one, and then the other. _Q._ Which first? _A._ I think the Stars and Stripes first. I am pretty certain that Mr. Evans then hauled that down. _Q._ When running down toward the Joseph you had the American flag flying? _A._ Yes, sir; I think so; and Mr. Evans hauled down that, and put up the Confederate flag, when we got close to her. _Q._ She ran with the American flag until close to her, and then ran up the Confederate flag? _A._ Yes, when some mile or so of her--in that neighborhood. _Q._ Do you remember who gave the order to the prize crew to leave the Savannah and go on board the Joseph? _A._ Issued the orders? Well, Captain Baker, I believe, told the pilot, Mr. Evans, to select his men, and go with the boat. _Q._ And they went on board? _A._ Yes, they went on board. _Q._ Do you remember anything said among the men, after the prize crew went off, in respect to the Joseph, or her cargo, or her capture? _A._ Captain Meyer was there, and stated what he had in her, and where he was from, and so forth. We were merely talking about that from one to the other. _Q._ Do you remember any directions given to the prize crew, as to the Joseph--where to go to? _A._ I do not recollect Captain Baker directing where to get her in, or where to proceed with her. Evans was better authority, I presume, than Captain Baker, where to get her in. _Q._ Any directions as to where the vessel was to be taken? _A._ No, sir; either to Charleston or Georgetown--the nearest place where they could get in, and evade the blockade. That was the reason of having the pilot there. _Q._ Did Captain Meyer remain on board the Savannah? _A._ Yes, sir, until we were captured, and then he was transferred to the brig Perry, with the rest of us. _Q._ What direction did the Joseph take after she parted from you? _A._ Stood in northward and westward. Made her course about northwest, or in that neighborhood. _Q._ In what direction from Charleston and how far from Charleston was the Joseph? _A._ I think Charleston Bar was west of us about 50 or 55 miles. _Q._ Out in the open ocean? _A._ Yes, sir. I calculated that Georgetown light bore up about 35 miles in the west; but whether that is correct or not I cannot say. _Q._ Where was the nearest land, as nearly as you can state? _A._ I think the nearest land was Ball's Island, somewhere in the neighborhood of north and west, 35 or 40 miles. _Q._ What sail did you next fall in with? _A._ We fell in with a British bark called the Berkshire. _Q._ What did you do when you fell in with her? _A._ We passed closely across her stern. She was steering to the northward and eastward--I suppose bound to some Northern port. _Q._ That was a British brig? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ What was the next sail you fell in with? _A._ The next sail we fell in with was the brig-of-war Perry. _Q._ At what time did you descry her? _A._ I suppose about 3 o'clock in the afternoon of the same day. _Q._ Where were you when you fell in with her? _A._ We were somewhere in the same parallel. We saw the brig Perry from the masthead, and stood towards her. _Q._ What was said when she was seen? _A._ We took her to be a merchant vessel. That was our idea, and we stood to the westward. _Q._ Did you make chase? _A._ Yes, sir, we stood to the westward when we saw her; and the brig Joseph, that we took, saw her. The Perry, I presume, saw us before we saw her, and was steering for us at the time we were in company with the Joseph. _Q._ How far off was the Joseph at the time? _A._ Not more than three or four miles. When we made her out to be the brig-of-war Perry, we then tacked ship and proceeded to sea, to clear her. _Q._ How near was the brig Perry when you first discovered she was a man-of-war? _A._ I should think she was all of 10 or 11 miles off. _Q._ The brig Perry made chase for you? _A._ Yes, sir. _Mr. Larocque_: If the Court please, from the opening of counsel I suppose he is now proceeding to that part of the case that he laid before the jury in his opening, that consists in an exchange of shots between the brig Perry and the Savannah. We object to that. There is no charge in the indictment of resisting a United States cruiser, or of any assault whatever. _Mr. Smith_: What the vessel did on the same day, before and after the main charge, goes to show the purpose of the voyage--the general object of the Savannah and her crew. It may be relevant in that respect. _Mr. Larocque_: We are not going to dispute the facts testified to by this witness. There will be no dispute on this trial that this was a privateer--that her object was privateering under the flag of the Confederate Government, and by authority of that Government, and, under these circumstances, the gentleman has no need to trouble himself to characterize these acts by showing anything that occurred between the Savannah and the Perry. Your honor perceives at once that this indictment might have been framed in a different way, under the 8th section of the Act of 1790, with a view of proving acts of treason, if you please, which are made piracy, as a capital offence, by that act. The counsel has elected his charge, and he has strictly confined the charge in the indictment to the allegation of what occurred between the Savannah and the Joseph. There is not one word in the indictment of any hostilities between the Perry and the Savannah, and therefore it must be utterly irrelevant and immaterial under this indictment. Evidence on that subject would go to introduce a new and substantial charge that we have not been warned to appear here and defend against, and have not come prepared to defend against, for that reason. So far as characterizing the acts we are charged with in the indictment, there can be no difficulty whatever. _The Court_: I take it there is no necessity for this inquiry after the admission made. _Mr. Evarts_: We propose to show the arrest and bringing of the vessel in, with her crew. _The Court_: Of course. _Mr. Evarts_: That cannot very well be done without showing the way in which it was done. _The Court_: But it is not worth while to take up much time with it. _Mr. Brady_: The witness has stated that this vessel was captured, and he has stated the place of her capture; and of course it is not only proper, but, in our view, absolutely necessary, that the prosecution should show that, being captured, she was taken into some place out of which arose jurisdiction to take cognizance of the alleged crime. But the cannonading is no part of that. _Q._ _By Mr. Smith_: State the facts in regard to the capture of the Savannah by the Perry. _A._ Well, the brig Perry ran down after dark and overtook us; came within hail. _Q._ At what time? _A._ Near 8 o'clock at night. Without any firing at all, she hailed the captain to heave to, and he said yes; she told him to send his boat on board. He said that he had no boat sufficient to go with. They then resolved to send a boat for us, and did so, and took us off. That was the result. _Q._ The Perry sent her boat to the Savannah? _A._ Yes, sir; we had no boat sufficient to take our crew aboard of her. We had a small boat, considerably warped, and it would not float. _Q._ Where at sea was the capture made of the Savannah by the Perry? _A._ It was in the Atlantic Ocean. _Q._ About how far from Charleston? _A._ Well, about 50 miles from Charleston light-house, in about 45 fathoms of water. _Q._ How far from land? _A._ I suppose the nearest land was Georgetown light, about 35 or 40 miles; I should judge that from my experience and the course we were running. _Q._ Were you all transferred to the Perry? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ When was that? _A._ Monday night; it was later than 8 o'clock. _Q._ Transferred by boats? _A._ Yes, sir; the Perry's boats. She sent her boat, with arms and men, and took us on board. There we were all arrested and put in irons that night, except the captain and Mr. Harleston, I believe. I do not know whether they were, or not. _Q._ Was Mr. Knickerbocker put on board the Perry, with the rest? _A._ Yes, sir, and on board the Minnesota, with us. _Q._ Who were put in charge of the Savannah? Were there any men of the Perry? _A._ Yes, sir; I believe they sent a naval officer on board to take charge of her, and a crew; and I think they took Mr. Knickerbocker and Capt. Meyer, too, on board the Savannah. _Q._ Did you hear the direction as to the port the Savannah should sail to after the prize crew were put on board? _A._ To New York I understood it was ordered. I was told that she was ordered to New York. (Objected to as incompetent.) _Q._ In respect to the Perry, what course did she take after you were taken on board? _A._ As informed by the captain, next day, she was bound to Florida, to Fernandina, to blockade. _Q._ When did she fall in with the Minnesota? _A._ About the third day after our capture, I think; lying 8 or 10 miles off Charleston. _Q._ In the open ocean? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ You were all transferred to the Minnesota? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ What did the Minnesota do? _A._ We were confined on board the Minnesota. _Q._ When was it you went on board the Minnesota? _A._ I think on Wednesday or Thursday; I forget which. _Q._ You were captured on Monday night? _A._ Yes, sir, the 3d of June, and I think it was on Wednesday or Thursday (I do not know which) we went on board the Minnesota. _Q._ How long did you lie off Charleston? _A._ Several days. _Q._ At anchor? _A._ The ship was under way sometimes, steering off and on the coast. _Q._ How far from Charleston? _A._ I think in 8 or 9 fathoms of water, 8 or 10 miles from the land. _Q._ Where did the Minnesota proceed from there? _A._ To Hampton Roads. _Q._ Were all the persons you have identified here on board the Minnesota? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ State the facts as to transfer from ship to ship? _A._ We were transferred from the Savannah to the Perry; from the Perry to the Minnesota; from the Minnesota to the Harriet Lane. _Q._ All of you? _A._ Yes, sir; all. _Q._ State, as near as you can, where, at Hampton Roads, the Minnesota came? _A._ She came a little to the westward of the Rip Raps; I suppose Sewall's Point was bearing a little to the west of us, 3/4 or 1/2 a mile to the west of us; I should judge west by south. I am well acquainted there. We call it 24 miles from Old Point Comfort. _Q._ What was the nearest port of entry to where you were anchored? _A._ Norfolk, Va. _Q._ How far from Fortress Monroe? _A._ A mile, or 1-1/8 or 1-1/4--not a great distance. _Q._ How long did you lie there before you were transferred to the Harriet Lane? _A._ Several days. I did not keep any account. Some two or three days. _Q._ And you were brought to this port in the Harriet Lane? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ And all the prisoners you identified to-day were brought here? _A._ Yes, sir, to the Navy Yard, Brooklyn; there transferred to a ferry-boat and brought to the Marshal's office here. _Mr. Evarts_: If the Court please, we deem it a regular and necessary part of our proof to show the manner of the seizure of this vessel by the U.S. ship Perry; to show that it was a forcible seizure, by main force, and against armed forcible resistance of this vessel. Besides being almost a necessary part of the circumstances of the seizure, it is material as characterizing the purpose of this cruise, and the depth and force of the sentiment which led to it, and the concurrence and cohesion of the whole ship's crew in it. _The Court_: What necessity for that after what has been conceded on the other side? _Mr. Evarts_: They concede that she was seized; but do they concede that, as against all those accused, the crime of piracy is proved--the concurrence of the whole--and that the only question is, whether the protection claimed from what is called the privateering character of the vessel shields them? _The Court_: I understand the admission to be broad. _Mr. Evarts_: If as broad as that, that there is no distinction taken between the concurrence of these men, it is sufficient. _Mr. Brady_: We have said nothing about that? _The Court_: So far as the capture is concerned, that does not enter into any part of the crime, and has no materiality to the elements of this case at all. The force that may enter into the crime is in the capture by the privateer of the Joseph. I do not want to confound this case by getting off on collateral issues; and so far as concerns the animus, or intent, I understand it to be admitted. _Mr. Evarts_: My learned friends say that on this point they have not said anything as to the jointness or complicity of the parties in this crime. Now I think your honor would understand that a concurrence in resistance, by force, of an armed vessel of the United States, bearing the flag of the United States, and undertaking to exercise authority over it, would show their design. _The Court_: Have you any question as to the facts? _Mr. Evarts_: The Government have all the facts. Stripped of all the circumstances that attended the actual transaction, it would appear as if, when the brig Perry came along, these people at once surrendered, gave up, and submitted quietly and peacefully. As against that, we submit the Government should protect itself by proving the actual transaction. _Mr. Brady_: One thing is certain, that if these men committed any offence whatever, it was committed before they saw the Perry; it was an act consummated and perfect, whatever may have been its legal character, and whatever may have been the consequences which the law would attach to it. The proof of the capture of the Savannah by the Perry is in no way relevant, except in proving jurisdiction, for which purpose alone is it of any importance that it should be mentioned here. And whether the capture was effected after a chase, or without one, against resistance, or by the consent of the persons to that from which they could not escape, is of no possible consequence in any aspect of the case. Whether there was firing or armed resistance can make no difference. It cannot bear on the question whether all the defendants are responsible for the acts of each other, like conspirators. It may be, as the counsel for the prosecution holds, that when you show they did set out on a common venture each became the agent of the other. That may be, and they must take the responsibility of trying the case on such a theory of the law as they think proper. We would not feel any hesitation in saying they all acted with a common design, only that there are some of the prisoners that we have had no communication with, and it may be that some of them went on board without knowing what the true character of the enterprise was. It is sufficient now to object that the question, whether there was resistance or not, after the Perry came up, is of no consequence in deciding the question of whether the men are responsible. _Mr. Evarts_: My learned friend is certainly right in saying that the crime was completed when the Joseph was seized; but it does not follow that the proof of what the crime was, and what the nature of the act was, is completed by the termination of that particular transaction. You might as well say that the fact of a robbery or theft has been completed by a pickpocket or highwayman when his victim has been despoiled of his property; and that proof of the crime prohibits the Government from showing the conduct of the alleged culprit after the transaction--such as evading the officer, running away from or resisting the officer. _The Court_: You do not take into account the admission of the counsel. I believe the subsequent conduct of the privateers, if the intent with which they seized and captured the Joseph was in question, would be admissible; but when this is admitted broadly by the counsel for the defendants, I do not see why it is necessary to go into proof with a view to make out that fact, except to occupy the time of the Court. _Mr. Evarts_: I am sure your honor will not impute to us any such motive. The point of difficulty is: my learned friends do not admit the completeness of the crime by all the prisoners, subject only to the answer whether the privateering character of the enterprise protects them. The moment that is admitted, I have no occasion to dwell upon the facts. _The Court_: I understand the admission as covering all the prisoners, as to the intent. _Mr. Brady_: That she was fitted out as a privateer--the enterprise, and capture of the Joseph. _Mr. Smith_: Is the admission that all were engaged in a common enterprise, and all participators in the fact? _The Court_: So I understand the admission, without any qualification. _Mr. Smith_: Do we understand the counsel as assenting to the Court's interpretation as to the breadth of the admission? _Mr. Brady_: There is no misunderstanding between the Court and the counsel; but the learned gentlemen seem not to be satisfied with the admission we made. The intent is, of course, an element in the crime of piracy. There must be an _animus furandi_ established, in making out the crime; and that is, of course, a question about which we have a great deal to say, both as to the law and the fact, at a subsequent stage of the case. When the counsel proposed to prove the firing of cannon, and armed resistance, we said--what we say now--that we do not intend to dispute the facts proved by the witness on the stand: that the Savannah was, at the port of Charleston, openly and publicly, without any secresy (to use the witness's language, it was "posted"), fitted out as a privateer, in the service of the Confederate States, under their flag, and by their authority; that it was so announced, and that these men were shipped on board of her as a privateer. All that, there is no intention to dispute at all; and, of course, that all the men who shipped for that purpose were equally responsible for the consequences, we admit. _Mr. Evarts_: Do you admit that all shipped for the purpose? If we can prove their conduct, concurring in this armed resistance, then I show that they were not there under any deception about its being a peaceable mercantile transaction. I may be met by the suggestion that, so far as the transaction disclosed about the Joseph is concerned, there was not any such depth of purpose in this enterprise as would have opposed force and military power in case of overhauling the vessel. It would seem to me, with great respect to the learned Court, that when the facts of the transaction can be brought within very narrow compass, as regards time, it is safer that we should disclose the facts than that admissions should be accepted by the Court and counsel when there is so much room for difference of opinion as to the breadth of the admission. We may run into some misunderstanding or difference of view as to how far the actual complicity of these men, or the strength of their purpose and concurrence in this piratical (as we call it) enterprise, was carried. _Mr. Lord_: If your honor will permit, it appears to me that this is exceedingly plain. The notoriety and equipment of the vessel--all the character of the equipment--the sailing together--all that is covered by the admission of my friend, Mr. Brady. So far as to there being a joint enterprise up to the time of the capture of the Joseph, it seems to me there is nothing left. Now, what do they wish? They wish to show, what is in reality another, additional, and greater crime, after this capture of the Joseph, for which we alone are indicted, as they say, for the purpose of showing that we assented to this, which we went out to do. Your honor knows that, if we have any fact to go to the jury, they are getting into this case a crime of a very different character and of a deeper dye, for which they have made no charge, and which does not bear upon that which, if a crime at all, was consummated in the capture of the Joseph--the only crime alleged in the indictment. I submit that they cannot, with a view of showing complicity in a crime completed, show that the next day the men committed another crime of a deeper character. I think it is not only irrelevant, but highly objectionable. _The Court_: We are of opinion that this testimony is superfluous, and superseded by the admission of the counsel. I understand the admission of the counsel to be, that the vessel was fitted out and manned by common understanding on the part of all the persons on board, as a privateer; and that in pursuance of that design and intent, and the completion of it, the Joseph was captured. That is all the counsel can ask. That shows the intent--all that can be proved by this subsequent testimony; and unless there is some legitimate purpose for introducing this testimony, which might, of itself, go to show another crime, we are bound to exclude it. _Mr. Evarts_: We consider the decision of your honor rests upon that view of the admission, and we shall proceed upon that as being the admission. _The Court_: Certainly; if anything should occur hereafter that makes it necessary, or makes it a serious point, the Court will look into it. _Examination resumed by District Attorney Smith._ _Q._ You stated, I believe, that it was after 8 o'clock in the evening when the boat of the Perry came to the Savannah? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ Who was in that boat? _A._ There was a gentleman from the Perry; I do not know that I ever saw him before; an officer and boat's crew,--I suppose 15 or 20 men. _Q._ One of the United States officers? _A._ Yes, sir; some officer from the brig Perry boarded us, and demanded us to go on board the Perry. _Q._ Where were the crew of the Savannah at the time the boat came from the Perry? _A._ All on deck, sir. _Q._ At the time the Savannah was running down the Joseph, what time was it? _A._ We got up to the Joseph somewhere late in the forenoon, as near as my memory serves me. _Q._ I want to know whether all the officers and crew of the Savannah were on duty, or not, at the time you were running down? _A._ Yes, sir; there were some walking the deck, and some lying down, right out of port; the men, after taking a drink, did not feel much like moving about; they were all on deck. _Q._ Was there any refusal to perform duty on the part of any one? _A._ No, sir; all did just as they were told. _Q._ How was the Savannah armed, if armed at all? _A._ I never saw all her arms, sir. _Q._ What was there on deck? _A._ A big gun on deck. _Q._ What sort of a gun? _A._ They said an eighteen-pounder; I am no judge; I never saw one loaded before. _Q._ A pivot gun? _A._ No, sir, not much of a pivot. They had to take two or three handspikes to round it about. _Q._ It was mounted on a carriage, the same as other guns? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ With wheels? _A._ I believe so; I took no notice of the gun. _Q._ Reflect, and tell us how the gun was mounted? _A._ It was mounted so that it could be altered in its position by the aid of handspikes; it could be swung by the use of handspikes. _Q._ The gun could be swung on the carriage without moving the carriage? _A._ I do not know that part of it; I know the men complained that moving the gun was hard work. _Q._ What other arms had you on board? _A._ I saw other arms on board,--pistols, I believe, and cutlasses. _Q._ How many pistols did you see? _A._ I saw several; I do not know how many. _Q._ About how many cutlasses? _A._ I cannot say how many; I saw several, such as they were--cutlasses or knives, such as they were. _Q._ Where were the cutlasses? _A._ Those were in the lockers that I saw; I never saw them until Monday noon, when we ran down the Joseph; I saw them then. _Q._ Where were they then? _A._ I saw them in the lockers that lay in the cabin. _Q._ When the Perry's boat came to you where were they? _A._ Some out on the table, and some in the lockers. _Q._ When you captured the Joseph where were they? _A._ I think there were some out on the table, and about the cabin; the pistols, too; but there were none used. _Q._ Were any of the men armed? _A._ No, sir; I saw none of our men armed, except in their belt they might have a sheath knife. _Q._ Where were all hands when you captured the Joseph, in the forenoon of Monday? _A._ All on deck, sir; there might be one or two in the forecastle, but most on deck, some lying down, and some asleep. _Q._ What size is the Savannah? _A._ I think in the neighborhood of 50 to 60 tons. _Q._ What is the usual crew for sailing such a vessel, for mercantile purposes? _A._ I have been out in such a boat with four men and a boy, besides myself; that was all-sufficient. _Q._ Where did you run to? _A._ I ran to Havana, and to Key West, with the mails, and returned again in a pilot boat of that size, with four men and a boy, some years ago. _Q._ Was the Savannah in use as a pilot boat before that expedition? _A._ Yes; that is what she was used for. _Q._ Do you know where the Savannah was owned? _A._ I believe she was owned in Charleston. _Q._ How long have you known her? _A._ Two or three years, as a pilot boat. _Q._ Do you know her owners? _A._ I know one of them. _Q._ What was his name? _A._ Mr. Lawson. _Q._ Is he a citizen of the United States? _A._ Yes, I believe so. _Cross-examined by Mr. Larocque._ _Q._ In speaking of your meeting with the Joseph, you spoke of a conversation that took place between Captain Baker and Captain Meyer, after Captain Meyer came on board the Savannah. Do you not recollect that before that, when Captain Meyer was still on the deck of the Joseph, Captain Baker having called him to come on board the Savannah, and bring his papers, he asked Captain Baker by what authority he called on him to do that? _A._ I think this conversation occurred on board the Savannah. _Q._ The way you stated was this: that Captain Baker, on board the Savannah, stated to Captain Meyer that he must consider himself and crew prisoners, and his vessel a prize to the Confederate States? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ That was on board the Savannah? _A._ It was. _Q._ But do you not recollect that before that, when Captain Baker called on the Captain of the Joseph to come on board the Savannah, and bring his papers, Captain Meyer asked by what authority Captain Baker called on him to do that? _A._ I do not bear that in mind. I cannot vouch for that. I do not exactly recollect those words, I think the proposition was only made when he was on board the Savannah, but probably it might have been made before. _Q._ Did Captain Meyer bring his papers with him? _A._ I do not know. I did not see them. _Q._ You spoke of having met another vessel after that, and before you fell in with the Perry--I mean the Berkshire--you spoke of her as a British vessel? _A._ Yes. We did not speak her. _Q._ How did you ascertain the fact that she was a British vessel? _A._ We could tell a British vessel by the cut of her sails. _Q._ Was the Berkshire, so far as you observed, an armed or an unarmed vessel? _A._ I think she was an unarmed vessel. I considered she had been at some of the Southern ports, and had been ordered off. _Q._ She was a merchant vessel? _A._ Yes. _Q._ Which you, from your seamanlike knowledge, thought to be a British vessel? _A._ Yes; and I think that the words, "Berkshire, of Liverpool," were on her stern. _Q._ Did you read the name on the stern? _A._ I think I did. _Q._ You had fallen in with the Joseph, one unarmed vessel, and had made her a prize, and her crew prisoners? _A._ Yes. _Q._ You fell in with the Berkshire, another unarmed vessel, and passed under her stern and did not interfere with her. What was the reason of that difference? _A._ We had no right to interfere with her. _Q._ Why not? _A._ She was not an enemy of the Confederate Government. The policy we were going on, as I understood it, was to take Northern vessels. _Q._ Then you were not to seize all the vessels you met with? _A._ No; we were not to trouble any others but those that were enemies to the Confederate Government. That was the orders from headquarters. The Captain showed no disposition to trouble any other vessels. _Q._ When you were taken on board the Perry were you put in irons? _A._ Yes. _Q._ Where were those irons put on. Was it on board the Savannah, or after you were put on board the Perry? _A._ When we got on board the Perry. _Q._ How soon after you went on board the Perry were those irons put on? _A._ As soon as our baggage was searched. We were put in the between-decks on board the Perry and irons put on us immediately after we were searched. _Q._ Were you in irons when you were transferred from the Perry to the Minnesota? _A._ No, sir. _Q._ When were the irons taken off? _A._ On board the Perry, when we were going into the boat to go on board the Minnesota. _Q._ When you were on board the Minnesota were your irons put on again? _A._ They were, at night. _Q._ Was that the practice--taking them off in the day, and putting them on at night? _A._ Yes; we were not ironed at all on that day on board the Minnesota. _Q._ When you arrived in Hampton Roads,--you have described the place where the Minnesota lay, about half a mile from the Rip Raps? _A._ Yes. (A chart was here handed to witness, and he marked on it the position of the Minnesota off Fortress Monroe.) _Q._ As I understand it, you have marked the position of the anchorage of the Minnesota a little further up into the land than on a direct line between the Rip Raps and Fortress Monroe? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ You were then taken on board the Harriet Lane, from the Minnesota? _A._ Yes. _Q._ Where did the Harriet Lane lie when you were taken on board of her? _A._ She was further up into the Roads, about half a mile from the Minnesota, westward. (Witness marked the position of the Harriet Lane on the chart.) _Q._ You are familiar with these Roads? _A._ Yes, sir; for years. _Q._ You know the town of Hampton? _A._ Yes. _Q._ And the college there? _A._ Yes. _Q._ How, with reference to the college at Hampton, did the Harriet Lane lie? _A._ The college at Hampton appeared N.N.W., and at a distance of a mile and a quarter, or a mile and a half. _Q._ How were you taken from the Minnesota on board the Harriet Lane? _A._ The ship's crew took us in a boat. _Q._ In one trip, or more trips? _A._ We all went in one of the ship's boats. _Q._ On what day was that? _A._ I do not bear in mind exactly. _Q._ Was the Harriet Lane ready to sail when you were taken on board of her? _A._ Yes; she sailed in a few hours afterwards. _Q._ She had already had steam up? _A._ Yes; they were waiting for the commander, who was on shore. _Q._ How long were you lying on board the Minnesota after your arrival there? _A._ I think we were transferred from the Minnesota on Saturday, the 20th of June. _Q._ How long had you been lying on board the Minnesota, in Hampton Roads? _A._ Two or three days; I do not recollect exactly. _Q._ You have been a seafaring man a good many years? _A._ I have been about 34 years at it. _Q._ In the capacity of master and mate? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ As pilot, also? _A._ I have run pilot on all the coasts of America. _Q._ How often had you been in Hampton Roads? _A._ Many a time. I sailed a vessel in and out in the West India trade. _Q._ How familiar are you with the localities about there? _A._ I am so familiar that I could go in, either night or day, or into Norfolk. _Q._ Do you know the ranges, bearings, distances, depth of water, and all about it? _A._ Yes; and could always find my way along there. _Q._ (_By a Juror._) I understood you to say that the Savannah carried both the American flag and the Confederate flag? _A._ Yes. _Q._ And that the American flag was flying when you were bearing on the Joseph? _A._ Yes. _Q._ What was the object of sailing under that flag? _A._ I presume our object was to let her know that we were coming; and, no doubt, the vessel heaved to for us. Suddenly enough we raised the Confederate flag. _Q._ Then it was deception? _A._ Of course; that was our business--that was as near as I understood it. _William Habeson_ called, and sworn. Examined by District Attorney Smith. _Q._ You are the Deputy Collector of the port of Philadelphia? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ Have you charge of the register of vessels there? _A._ Yes. _Q._ Did you take this certified copy of the register of the Joseph from the original book? _A._ It is copied from the original book. _Mr. Evarts_: It is a temporary register, dated 26th January, 1861, showing the building of the vessel, and the fact of her owners being citizens of the United States. _Q._ Who was the master of the vessel then? _A._ George H. Cables. _Q._ Do you know who was the master afterwards? _A._ Yes; I saw him afterwards. That man (pointing to Captain Meyer) is the man. He was endorsed as master after the issuing of this register. _Q._ And you recollect this person being master of the vessel mentioned in that register? _A._ I do, sir. _George Thomas_ called, and sworn. Examined by District Attorney Smith. _Q._ Where do you reside? _A._ Quincy, Massachusetts. _Q._ What is your business? _A._ Shipbuilder. _Q._ Do you know the brig Joseph? _A._ I have known her; I built her. _Q._ Where did you build her? _A._ At Rockland, Maine. _Q._ Who did you build her for? _A._ For Messrs. Crocket, Shaller, Ingraham, and Stephen N. Hatch--all of Rockland. _Q._ Were they American citizens? _A._ They were all American citizens. _Q._ What was the tonnage of the vessel? _A._ About 177 tons. She was a hermaphrodite brig. _Q._ Look at this description in the register and say whether it was the vessel you built. _A._ I have no doubt that this is the vessel. _George H. Cables_ called, and sworn. Examined by District Attorney Smith. _Q._ Where do you reside? _A._ Rockland, Maine. _Q._ Look at the description of the brig Joseph, in this register, and see if you know her? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ You were formerly master of the vessel? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ Who was the master that succeeded you? _A._ I put Captain Meyer in charge of her. _Q._ You recognize Mr. Meyer here? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ Did you own any part of that vessel? _A._ I bought a part of it, and gave it to my wife. _Q._ Is your wife an American-born woman? _A._ She is. _Q._ Where does she reside? _A._ In Rockland. _Q._ Do you know any others of the part-owners of her? _A._ Yes; my brother and myself bought a three-eighth interest. _Q._ Where does your brother reside? _A._ In Rockland. _Q._ Is he an American-born citizen? _A._ Yes. _Q._ Are you an American citizen? _A._ Yes. _Q._ You spoke of some other owner? _A._ Yes; Messrs. Hatch and Shaler. _Q._ Are they American citizens? _A._ Yes. _Q._ Did you know all the owners? _A._ Yes. _Q._ Were they all American citizens? _A._ Yes. _Q._ When did you put Meyer in charge of the vessel? _A._ On the 26th or 27th of April last. _Q._ Where? _A._ In Philadelphia. _Q._ Where did you sail from? _A._ From Cardenas, in Cuba, on a round charter which I made at Cardenas myself with J. L. Morales & Co., consigned to S. H. Walsh & Co. _Q._ The ownership remained the same? _A._ Just the same. _Q._ Was there any change up to the time of her capture? _A._ No, sir. _Thies N. Meyer_, examined by District Attorney Smith. _Q._ You were Captain of the brig Joseph at the time of her capture? _A._ I was. _Q._ What American port had you sailed from? _A._ Philadelphia. _Q._ Where did you go to? _A._ Cardenas, in Cuba. _Q._ What port did you sail for from Cardenas? _A._ Back to Philadelphia. _Q._ What cargo had you? _A._ Sugar. _Q._ By whom was it owned? _A._ By J. M. Morales & Co., of Cardenas. _Q._ When did you leave the port of Cardenas? _A._ 28th May, 1861. _Q._ And you were captured by the Savannah on the 3d June? _A._ Yes. _Q._ State the particulars of the capture by the Savannah of the brig Joseph from the time she first hove in sight? _A._ Mr. Bridges, my mate, called me some time between 6 and 7 o'clock in the morning, and told me there was a suspicious looking vessel in sight, and he wished me to look at her. I went on deck and asked him how long he had seen her, he told me he had seen her ever since day-light. When I took the spy-glass and looked at her I found that she was a style of vessel that we do not generally see so far off as that. I hauled my vessel to E.N.E., and when I found that she was gaining on me I hauled her E. by N. and so until she ran E. About 8 o'clock she came near enough for me to see a rather nasty looking thing amid-ships, so that I mistrusted something; but when I saw the American flag hanging on her main rigging, on her port side, I felt a little easier--still, I rather mistrusted something, and kept on till I found I could not get away at all. When she got within half a gun shot of me I heaved my vessel to, hoping the other might be an American vessel. _Q._ Had she any gun on board? _A._ I saw a big gun amid-ships, on a pivot. _Q._ How far on was she when you saw the gun? _A._ About a mile and a half or two miles; I could see it with the spy-glass very plainly. _Q._ Can you give us the size of the gun? _A._ Not exactly; I believe it was an old eighteen pound cannonade. _Q._ How was it mounted? _A._ On a kind of sliding gutter, which goes on an iron pivot: it was on a round platform on deck, so that it could be hauled round and round. _Q._ So that it could be pointed in any direction? _A._ Yes, in any direction. After she came up alongside of me, Captain Baker asked me where I was from, and where bound, and ordered me with my boat and papers on board his vessel. I asked him by what authority he ordered me on board, and he said, by authority of the Confederate States. I lowered my boat and went on board with two of my men. When I got alongside, Captain Baker helped me over the bulwarks, or fence, and said he was sorry to take my vessel, but he had to retaliate, because the North had been making war upon them. I told him that that was all right, but that he ought to do it under his own flag. He then hoisted his own flag, and ordered a boat's crew to go on board the brig. Some of them afterwards returned, leaving six on board the brig. _Q._ Did Captain Baker take your papers? _A._ Yes. _Q._ Do you recognize Captain Baker in court? _A._ Yes. As soon as they secured my crew they hauled the brig on the other tack, and stood into the westward, with the privateer in company. Captain Baker desired me to ask my mate to take the sun, as he had a chronometer on board, and the privateer had not. At 3 o'clock the privateer stood back to find out the longitude; while so doing she got astern of the brig, and about that time the brig Perry hove in sight, steering southward and eastward. When they saw the brig Perry they hauled the privateer more on the wind, because she would go a point or two nearer to the wind than the brig Joseph, so as to cut off the Perry if they could. They went aloft a good deal with opera glasses, to find out what she was, and they made her out to be a merchant vessel, as they thought. Then they saw the Perry's quarter boats, and rather mistrusted her. They backed ship and stood the same as the Perry. The Perry then set gallant stern-sail, and kept her more free, because she got the weather-gauge of the privateer. _Q._ At the time of the capture of the Joseph by the Savannah did you observe all the crew, and in what attitude they were on deck? _A._ I saw them working around the gun and hauling at it. Whether it was loaded or not, I could not say. _Q._ Were any of the men armed? _A._ None at that time that I know of; but after I went on board I saw them armed with a kind of cutlass, and old-fashioned boarding-pistols; and they had muskets with bayonets on. _Q._ At the time you left your vessel for the Savannah, in what attitude were the men on board the Savannah? _A._ They were all around on deck. Perhaps half of them were armed. _Q._ How was the gun pointed? _A._ The gun was pointing toward the brig. _Q._ Who were about the gun? _A._ Before I went on board I saw that a man was stationed beside the gun; I could not say which of them it was. _Q._ What crew had you? _A._ I had four men, a cook, and mate. _Q._ Were they armed? _A._ No, sir. _Q._ Were you armed? _A._ I had one old musket that would go off at half-cock. _Q._ Was there any gun on board your vessel? _A._ None except that. _Q._ How many men did you see on the deck of the Savannah? _A._ Some 16, or 18, or 20. _Q._ Were you transferred to the Perry from the Savannah? _A._ Yes. _Q._ And from the Perry to the Minnesota? _A._ Yes. _Q._ And from the Minnesota to the Harriet Lane? _A._ No; to the Savannah. I came to New York in the Savannah. _Q._ Then the Savannah sailed to New York before the Harriet Lane did? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ Where were you born? _A._ In the Duchy of Holstein, under the flag of Denmark. _Q._ You have been naturalized? _A._ Yes. _Q._ In what Court? _A._ In the Court of Common Pleas, New York. _Q._ When did you come to this country? _A._ In the winter of '47. _Q._ Did you hail from here ever since? _A._ I hailed from almost all over the States. I never had a home until lately. I have hailed from here about a year. Before that, wherever my chest was was my home. _Q._ You have resided in the United States ever since you were naturalized? _A._ Yes, sir; I have never been out of it except on voyages. _Q._ You have continued to be a citizen of the United States since you were naturalized? _A._ Yes. _Q._ And to reside in the United States? _A._ Yes. _Q._ Do you recollect the names of your crew? _A._ No, sir; none except the mate; his name was Bridges. _Q._ Is he here? _A._ Yes. _Q._ When the Joseph was seized by the Savannah, what was done with the Joseph? _A._ She was taken a prize, a crew of six was put on board of her, and they started with her to westward. _Q._ What became of the rest of the men of the Joseph besides yourself? _A._ They were carried on with the Joseph; I continued on the Savannah. _Q._ When did you first observe, on board the Savannah, that the American flag was flying? _A._ When she was within about a mile and a half off. _Q._ At what time, in reference to her distance from you, did she run up the Confederate flag? _A._ The Confederate flag was not run up until after I had asked Captain Baker by what authority he ordered me to go on board; then the Confederate flag was run up; that was just before I went on board. _Cross-examined by Mr. Larocque._ _Q._ Be good enough to spell your name. _A._ Thies N. Meyer. _Q._ Was there any flag hoisted on board the Savannah at the time she was captured by the Perry, or immediately preceding that? _A._ They were trying to hoist the Stars and Stripes up, but it got foul and they could not get it up, and they had to haul it down again. _Q._ Then she had no flag flying at the time? _A._ No, sir. The District Attorney here put in evidence the certified copy of the record of naturalization of Thies N. Meyer, captain of the Joseph, dated 28th January, 1856. _Horace W. Bridges_, examined by District Attorney Smith. _Q._ You were mate of the Joseph when she was captured by the Savannah? _A._ Yes. _Q._ Do you know the names of the others of the crew beside yourself and the captain? _A._ I do not know all of them. _Q._ State those you know? _A._ The cook's name is Nash, and there was another man named Harry Quincy; that is all I know. _Q._ Were they citizens of the United States? _A._ I think they were both. _Q._ Are you a citizen of the United States? _A._ Yes; I was born in the State of Maine. _Q._ You have heard the statement of Captain Meyer as to the seizure of the vessel? _A._ Yes. _Q._ You were on board the Joseph after she parted company with the Savannah and sailed for South Carolina? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ Under whose direction did she sail? _A._ By the direction of the prize-master. _Q._ With a prize crew from the Savannah? _A._ Yes. _Q._ Do you recollect the name of the prize-master? _A._ Evans. _Q._ How many men did the crew consist of? _A._ Six, with the prize-master. _Q._ What did they do with the vessel? _A._ Took her into Georgetown. _Q._ What was done with you and the others of the crew? _A._ We were taken to jail at Georgetown. _Q._ What was done with the vessel? _A._ I believe she was sold, from what I saw in the papers and what I was told. _Q._ Where were you taken from Georgetown? _A._ To Charleston. _Q._ What was done with you there? _A._ We were put in jail again. _Q._ How long were you kept in jail in Georgetown? _A._ About 2 months and 20 days. _Q._ How long were you kept in jail in Charleston? _A._ Three days. _Cross-examined by Mr. Larocque._ _Q._ You said that, while you were held as a prisoner at Georgetown, you saw something in reference to the sale of the Joseph in the papers? _A._ Yes. _Q._ What was the purport of it? _A._ She was advertised for sale. _Q._ Under legal process? _A._ I do not know about that. I was also told of it by one of the prize crew that took us in. _Q._ You saw in the newspapers an advertisement of the sale? _A._ Yes. _Q._ Was that of a sale by order of a Court? _A._ It was a sale by order of the Sheriff or Marshal. _Q._ As a prize? Objected to by District Attorney Smith, for two reasons: _First_--That it was a mere newspaper account; and, _Secondly_--That the newspaper was not produced. After argument, the Court decided that there was no foundation laid for this hearsay evidence. _Q._ Did the advertisement state by whose authority the sale was to take place? _A._ I do not recollect anything about that. _Q._ Do you recollect the name of a judge as connected with it? _A._ No, sir. There was no judge connected with the sale. _Q._ Do you recollect the name of Judge Magrath in connection with it? _A._ No, sir; I recollect his name in connection with some prize cases, but not in connection with the sale of the Joseph. _Q._ Since your arrival at New York, you have been examined partially by the District Attorney, and have made a statement to him? _A._ Yes. _Q._ Did you not state on that examination that while you were in confinement the vessel was confiscated by Judge Magrath, and sold at Georgetown? _A._ No, sir; I do not think I did. _Q._ You were released at Charleston, after a confinement of three days? _A._ Yes. _Q._ How did you get out? _A._ The Marshal let us out. _Q._ While you were in confinement at Georgetown or Charleston was your examination taken in any proceeding against the bark Joseph, or in relation to her? _A._ Yes, sir. In Georgetown. _Q._ By whom was that examination taken? _Mr. Evarts_ suggested that there was a certain method of proving a judicial inquiry. _Judge Nelson_: They may prove the fact of the examination. _Q._ Before whom were you examined? _A._ Before a man who came from Charleston. _Q._ Did he take your examination in writing? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ Did you learn what his name was? _A._ I think his name was Gilchrist. _Q._ Were you sworn, as a witness? _A._ Yes. _Q._ What proceeding was that, as you were given to understand, and what was the object of the examination? _A._ The object of it was to find out what vessel she was, what was her nationality, and who owned the cargo belonging to her. _Q._ And you gave your testimony on these subjects. _A._ Yes. _Q._ Was it in written questions put to you? _A._ I think so. _Q._ And you signed your examination? _A._ Yes. _Q._ And what came of it afterwards? _A._ I do not know. _Q._ Was it taken away by Mr. Gilchrist? _A._ I expect so. _Q._ Was there any other of the crew besides yourself examined? _A._ Yes; all of them. _Q._ On the same subject? _A._ I expect so. _Q._ Were you present during the examination of them all? _A._ No; only at my own. _Q._ What newspaper was it that you saw that advertisement in? _A._ I think in the Charleston Courier. _Q._ Do you recollect its date? _A._ No, sir. _Q._ What had become of the vessel when you went to Charleston? _A._ She was lying in Georgetown. _Q._ Do you know in whose possession, or under whose charge, she was? _A._ I do not. _Q._ Was she in Georgetown, in the hands of the Marshal, to your knowledge? _A._ No, sir; not to my knowledge. I was in prison at the time. _Commodore Silas H. Stringham_, examined by District Attorney Smith. _Q._ You are in the United States Navy? _A._ I am. _Q._ The Minnesota was the flag ship of the Atlantic Blockading Squadron, off Charleston? _A._ Yes, sir. I was the commanding officer. _Q._ The Minnesota took the prisoners off the Perry? _A._ Yes; on the 5th of June, in the afternoon. _Q._ State precisely where the transfer from the Perry to the Minnesota was made? _A._ I discovered, about mid-day, a vessel close in to Charleston. I stood off to make out what she was. A short time afterwards we discovered it was the Perry, and were surprised to find her there, as she had been ordered, some time previously, to Fernandina, Fla. She hailed us, and informed us she had captured a piratical vessel. The vessel was half a mile astern. Captain Parrott, of the Perry, came and made to me a report of what had taken place. I ordered him to send the prisoners on board, and sent a few men on board the Savannah to take charge of her during the night. The vessels were then anchored. The next morning I made arrangements to put a prize crew on board the Savannah, and send her to New York, and I directed the Captain of the Joseph to take passage in her. I took the prisoners from the Perry, and directed the Perry to proceed on her cruise, according to her previous orders. I then got the Minnesota under weigh, and took the privateer in tow, and brought her close in to Charleston harbor, within 3 miles, so as to let them see that their vessel was captured. Some slaves in a boat told me next day that they had seen and recognized the vessel. _Mr. Brady_: The question you were called upon to answer is, as to the place where the prisoners were transferred from the Perry to the Minnesota. _A._ The transfer was made about 10 miles from Charleston Harbor, out at sea. It was fully 10 miles off. _Q._ State the design of transferring the prisoners to the Minnesota? Objected to by Mr. Larocque. ARGUMENT ON THE JURISDICTION. The District Attorney, Mr. Smith, stated that he would prove that every thing done from that time onward was done in pursuance of a design then conceived of sending the prisoners, to the port of New York. _Mr. Larocque_ contended that the naked question of jurisdiction, or want of jurisdiction, could not be affected by showing that the prisoners were taken on board a particular vessel, with or without a particular design. All that affected that question was, the place where the prisoners were first taken to after they were captured. The only question their honors could consider was, whether, after their apprehension, the prisoners were or were not brought within the District of Virginia, so as to give the Court of Virginia jurisdiction, before they were brought to New York. The fact that Commodore Stringham did, or did not, entertain in his own mind a design to bring the prisoners to New York, was of no relevancy whatever. Their objection was based on the broad ground, that the statute had fixed the only District that was to have jurisdiction of these criminals, namely, the District within which they are first brought. If they were first brought within the District of Virginia, the design which the Commodore might have entertained made no manner of difference, and the fact could not be got rid of by any evidence to show that the design was not to put themselves in that dilemma. _Mr. James T. Brady_ submitted an argument on the same side. He said that the true test of the correctness of the objection could be ascertained thus: If a man were arrested anywhere on the high seas, supposed to be amenable to the Act of 1790, and was brought into a port of the United States, within a Judicial District of the United States, could he not demand, under the Act of Congress, to be tried in that District? Could the commander of the vessel supersede that Act of Congress, and say he would take the prisoner into the port of New York, or any other port? What answer would that be to a writ of _habeas corpus_ sued out by either of these men confined on that ship, within that Judicial District? If any such rule as that could prevail, the Act of Congress would become perfectly nugatory and subservient to the will of the individual who apprehended prisoners on the high seas. If he had started on a cruise round the world, he could carry them with him, and, after returning to the United States, could take them into every District till he came to the one that suited him. Mr. Brady, therefore, claimed that it was wholly immaterial what might have been the design of Commodore Stringham; and that the question of jurisdiction was determined by the physical fact, as to what was the first Judicial District into which these men were brought after being apprehended on the high seas. _Mr. Evarts_ considered that this was a question rather of regularity of discussion, than a question to be now absolutely determined by the Court. He supposed that they were entitled to lay before the Court all the attendant facts governing the question of, whether the introduction of these criminals from the point of seizure on the high seas was, within the legal sense, made into the District of New York, or into that of Virginia--whether the physical introduction of prisoners, in the course of a voyage toward the port of New York, into the roads at Hampton, is, within the meaning of the law, a bringing them into the District of Virginia. If the substantial qualification of the course of the voyage from the point of seizure to the place of actual debarcation was to affect the act, this was the time for the prosecution to produce that piece of evidence; and he supposed that that important inquiry should be reserved till the termination of the case, when the proof would be all before the Court. He suggested that no large ship could enter the port of New York without physically passing through what might be called the District of New Jersey; and argued that, in no sense of the act, and in no just sense, should these prisoners be tried in New Jersey, because the ship carrying them had passed through her waters. _Mr. Larocque_, for the defendants, contended that the arrest of the parties as criminals was at the moment when they were taken from on board the Savannah, placed on board the Perry, and put in irons. The learned gentleman (Mr. Evarts) had said that it would be impossible to bring them within the District of New York without first bringing them within the District of New Jersey; but that objection was met by the fact that, over the waters of the bay of New York, the States of New Jersey and New York exercised concurrent jurisdiction, and therefore they came within the District of New York, to all intents and purposes. He proposed to refer to the authorities on which the point rested. In this case, the place where the arrest was made was the Perry, a United States cruiser, which, in one sense, was equivalent to a part of the national soil; and he held that the idea under this statute was, that their apprehension and confinement from the moment they were arrested as criminals was complete, without being required to be under legal process, it being sufficient that they were arrested by the constituted authorities of the United States. The moment they were brought within a Judicial District of the United States, that moment the jurisdiction attached; and no jurisdiction could attach anywhere else. This was an offence committed on the high seas. All the Districts of the country could not have concurrent jurisdiction over it; and this very case was an exemplification of the injustice that would result from permitting an officer, in times of high political excitement, to have the privilege, at his mere pleasure or caprice, of selecting the place of jurisdiction, and the place of trial. Suppose these prisoners, instead of being landed at the first place where the vessel touched, could have been taken up the Mississippi river in a boat, and up the Ohio river in another boat, and landed within the District of Ohio, for the purpose of being tried there,--would not their honors' sense of justice and propriety revolt at that? The same injustice would result in a different degree, and under different circumstances, if, after taking these prisoners to Virginia and ascertaining the difficulties in the way of their being tried there, the officer could change their course and bring them into the port of New York. The prisoners were entitled to the benefit of being tried in the District where they were first taken, in preference to any other District; and justice would be more surely done by holding a strict rule on that subject, by requiring that the facts should control, and that no mere intention on the part of the captors should be allowed to govern. One of the cases on this subject which had produced a misapprehension of the question was that of the United States _vs._ Thompson, 1st Sumner's Reports, which was an indictment for endeavoring to create a revolt, under the Act of 1790. It was in the Massachusetts District. The facts in the case were these:--"The vessel arrived at Stonington, Connecticut, and from thence sailed to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where the defendant was arrested, and committed for trial. It did not appear that he had been in confinement before. Judge Story ruled on the question of jurisdiction. He said: 'The language of the Crimes Act of 1790 (Cap. 36, sec. 8) is, that the trial of crimes committed on the high seas, or in any place out of the jurisdiction of any particular State, shall be in the District in which the offender is apprehended, or into which he shall first be brought. The provision is in the alternative, and therefore the crime is cognizable in either District. And there is wisdom in the provision; for otherwise, if a ship should, by stress of weather, be driven to take shelter temporarily in any port of the Union, however distant from her home port, the master and all the crew, as well as the ship, might be detained, and the trial had far from the port to which she belonged, or to which she was destined. And if the offender should escape into another District, or voluntarily depart from that into which he was first brought, he would, upon an arrest, be necessarily required to be sent back for trial to the latter. And now there is no particular propriety, as to crimes committed on the high seas, in assigning one District rather than another for the place of trial, except what arises from general convenience; and the present alternative provision is well adapted to this purpose.'" This was noticed, in the first place, in the case of the United States _vs._ Edward C. Townsend, of which he (Mr. Larocque) held in his hand a copy of the exemplication of the record. Townsend was charged, in the District Court of Massachusetts, with piracy, in having been engaged in the slave trade, in 1858. He was captured on board the brig Echo, by a United States cruiser. That vessel first made the port of Key West, putting in there for water; and thence proceeded to Massachusetts, where the prisoner was landed, taken into custody under a warrant of the Commissioner, and the matter brought before the Grand Jury, for the purpose of having an indictment found against him. In that case Judge Sprague charged the Grand Jury that, under the law, the prisoner could only be tried in Key West, because that was the first port which the vessel had made after he had been captured and confined as a prisoner. Under that instruction the Grand Jury refused to find a bill of indictment; and thereupon the District Attorney (Mr. Woodbury) applied to the court for a warrant of removal, to remove him to Key West, for trial; and also to have the witnesses recognized to appear at Key West, to testify on the trial. The counsel read a note from Mr. Woodbury on the subject, showing that Mr. Justice Clifford, of the Supreme Court of the United States, sat and concurred with Judge Sprague in granting the warrant of removal. He referred also to another case, decided by Judge Sprague--the United States _vs._ Bird--volume of Judge Sprague's Decisions, page 299: "This indictment alleged an offence to have been committed on the high seas, and that the prisoner was first brought into the District of Massachusetts. Questions of jurisdiction arose upon the evidence. The counsel for the prisoner contended that the offence, if any, was committed on the Mississippi river, and within the State of Louisiana; and, further, that if committed beyond the limits of that State, the prisoner was not first brought into this District. Sprague, J., said that, if an offence be committed within the United States, it must be tried in the State and District within which it was committed. Constitution Amendment 6, If the offence be committed without the limits of the United States, on the high seas, or in a foreign port, the trial must be had in the District 'where the offender is apprehended, or into which he may be first brought.'--Stat. 1790, cap. 9, sec. 8; Stat. 1825, cap. 65, sec. 14. By being brought within a District, is not meant merely being conveyed thither by the ship on which the offender may first arrive; but the statute contemplates two classes of cases: one, in which the offender shall have been apprehended without the limits of the United States, and brought in custody into some Judicial District; the other, in which he shall not have been so apprehended and brought, but shall have been first taken into legal custody, after his arrival within some District of the United States, and provides in what District each of these classes shall be tried. It does not contemplate that the Government shall have the election in which of two Districts to proceed to trial. It is true that, in United States _vs._ Thompson, 1 Sumner, 168, Judge Story seems to think that a prisoner might be tried either in the District where he is apprehended, or in the District into which he is first brought. But the objection in that case did not call for any careful consideration of the meaning of the word 'brought,' as used in the statute; nor does he discuss the question, whether the accused, having come in his own ship, satisfies that requisition. In that case the party had not been apprehended abroad; and the decision was clearly right, as the first arrest was in the District of Massachusetts. The statute of 1819, cap. 101, sec. 1 (3 U.S. Statutes at Large, 532), for the suppression of the slave trade, is an example of a case in which an offender may be apprehended without the limits of the United States, and sent to the United States for trial. Ex parte Bollman _vs._ Swartwout, 4 Cranch, 136." Their honors would observe that in both the cases cited, correcting the manifest misapprehension of Judge Story, the point was distinctly held that the question of jurisdiction was controlled exclusively by the fact as to what District the prisoner was first brought into after his arrest on the high seas, out of the United States, for a crime committed on the high seas. Judge Nelson stated that, as it was now late (half-past 5 P. M.), the question might go over till morning. The counsel on each side assenting, the Jury were allowed to separate, with a caution from the Court against conversing in respect to the case. Adjourned to Thursday, at 11 A.M. SECOND DAY. _Thursday, Oct. 24, 1861._ The Court met at 11 o'clock A.M. _Judge Nelson_, in deciding the question raised yesterday, said: So far as regards the question heretofore under consideration of Judge Sprague, we do not think that at present involved in the case. We will confine ourselves to the decision of the admissibility of the question as it was put by the District Attorney and objected to, as respects the purpose with which the Minnesota, with the prisoners, was sent to Hampton Roads. We think that the fact of their being sent by the commanding officer of that place, with the prisoners, to Hampton Roads, is material and necessary; and, in order to appreciate fully the fact itself, the purpose is a part of the _res gestæ_ that characterizes the fact. What effect it may have upon the more general question, involving the jurisdiction of the Court, is not material or necessary now to consider. We think the question is proper. Counsel for defendants took exception to the ruling of the Court. _Commodore Stringham_ recalled. Direct examination resumed by Mr. Smith. _Q._ What was your object in transferring the prisoners from the Perry to the Minnesota? _A._ Sending them to a Northern port. The port of New York was the port I had in my mind. To send them by the first ship from the station, as soon as possible, to a Northern port, for trial. I could not send them to a Southern port for trial. The only way I could do so would be by guns. I could get no landing in those places otherwise; and I could get no judge or jury to give them a trial. _Mr. Larocque_ asked if, conceding the propriety of the inquiry, the statement of the witness was competent, viz.: that he had a port in his mind. _The Court_: No; the question was not put in the shape I supposed. The question should have been--for what purpose or object did he send the prisoners in the Minnesota to Hampton Roads? That is the point in the case--the intent with which the vessel was sent to Hampton Roads? _A._ I sent them there with the intention of sending them to a Northern port, for trial. The Harriet Lane being the first vessel that left, after my arrival there, they were sent in the Harriet Lane to the Northern port of New York. _Q._ Why did you not take them in the Minnesota directly to New York, instead of taking them to Hampton Roads? _A._ My station was at Hampton Roads, and I went there to arrange the squadron that might be there, and to get a supply of fuel for the ship. I do not think we had enough to go to New York, if we wished to go there. I had supplied vessels on the coast below, and had exhausted pretty nearly all the coal from the Minnesota when we arrived at Hampton Roads. _Q._ What directions did you give to the officers of the Harriet Lane? _A._ I gave no directions to the officers of the Harriet Lane. I gave directions to the commander of the Minnesota. I left on the day previous, I think, to their being transferred to the Harriet Lane,--giving directions that, as soon as she came down from Newport News, to send her to New York, with the prisoners. I had been called to Washington, by the Secretary of the Navy, the day before she sailed. _Q._ Are you aware of any facts which rendered it impossible to land the prisoners in the Virginia District, or on the Virginia shore? _A._ It was impossible to land without force of arms, and taking possession of any port. We _could_ land them there, but not for trial, certainly. The Harriet Lane had been fired into but a short time previous; and that was one cause of sending her to New York. _Q._ Fired into from the Virginia shore? _A._ Yes, sir; from Field Point; I should judge, about 8 miles from Norfolk port, on the southern shore, nearly opposite Newport News. I was not there, but it was reported to me. She was fired into, and she was ordered to New York to change her armament. _Q._ Was that fort in the way, proceeding to Norfolk? _A._ Not on the direct way to Hampton Roads, but a little point on the left. _Q._ Would a vessel, going the usual way to Norfolk, be in range of the guns that were fired at the Harriet Lane? _A._ Not of these; but she would be in the range of four or five forts that it would be necessary to pass in order to land the prisoners at Norfolk. _Q._ What was the nearest port to where the Minnesota went with the prisoners? _A._ The nearest port of entry was Norfolk. Hampton Roads was a little higher up. We were not anchored exactly at the Roads, but off Old Point, which is not considered Hampton Roads. [_Map produced._] I have marked the position of the Minnesota on this map, in blue ink. [Exhibits the position to the Court.] _Q._ State the position of the Minnesota? _A._ That is as near as I can put it--between the Rip Raps and Fortress Monroe--a little outside of the Rip Raps. _Q._ In what jurisdiction is the Fort? _A._ In the United States. (Objected to, as matter of law.) _Q._ At what distance were you from Fortress Monroe? _A._ About three-quarters of a mile, and nearly the same from the Rip Raps. _Q._ What distance from Norfolk? _A._ I think 14 miles, as near as I can judge; 12 or 14. _Q._ Had you any instructions from the Government, in respect to any prisoners that might be arrested on the high seas, as to the place they were to be taken to? _A._ Not previous to my arriving at Hampton Roads. After that, I had. Those instructions were in writing. _Q._ You had no particular or general instructions previous to that? _A._ No, sir; it was discretionary with me, previous to that, where to send the prisoners I had. _Q._ When vessels are sent from one place to another, state whether it is not frequently the case that they take shelter in roadsteads? (Objected to. Excluded.) _Q._ Where did your duties, as flag-officer of the squadron, require you to be with your ship, the Minnesota? (Objected to. Excluded.) _Q._ Where do Hampton Roads commence on this map, and where end? _A._ In my experience, I have always considered it higher up than where we were anchored. This is anchoring off Fortress Monroe, when anchoring there. When they go a little higher up, they go to Hampton Roads; and, before the war, small vessels anchored up in Newport News, in a gale of wind. _Q._ Where did the Minnesota anchor, in respect to Hampton Roads? _A._ We anchored outside, sir. I can only say this from the pilot. When commanding the Ohio, he asked me whether I wished to anchor inside the Roads. Baltimore pilots have permission to go into Hampton Roads, and no farther. That is considered as neutral ground for all vessels. _By the Court_: _Q._ What is the width of the entrance to the Hampton Roads? _A._ I should judge about 3-1/2 miles, or 3-1/4, from Old Point over to Sewall's Point. I have not measured it accurately. It is from 3 to 4 miles. _By Mr. Smith_: _Q._ Was the Minnesota brought inside or outside of a line drawn from Old Point to the Rip Raps? _A._ A little outside of the line, sir. _By a Juror_: _Q._ Would a person be subject to any port-charges where the Minnesota lay? _A._ No, sir. Defendants' counsel objected to the question and answer. _The Court_: _Q._ What do you mean by port dues? _A._ I mean they do not have to enter into the custom-house to pay port-charges. It is not a port of entry, that compels them to carry their papers. The only port-charges I know of are the pilot-charges, in and out. (The Court ruled it out as immaterial.) _Cross-examined by Mr. Brady._ _Q._ I want, for the purpose of preventing any misapprehension, to ask if there is any line that you know of, which you could draw upon that map, distinguishing the place at which Hampton Roads begins? _A._ Nothing only among sea-faring men;--just as the lower bay of New York, which is considered to be down below the Southwest Spit. When anchored between this and that, it is called off a particular place, as Coney Island, &c. So, there, after you pass up from Fortress Monroe, it is called Hampton Roads. _Q._ Is there any specific point you can draw a line from on the map that distinctly indicates where Hampton Roads begin? _A._ I cannot, sir. _Q._ Designate where the Harriet Lane was? _A._ I cannot say, sir. She was at Newport News when I left, and came down the next day, I believe, and took the prisoners on board and proceeded to New York. _Q._ The Minnesota was anchored? _A._ Yes, sir, but not moored; with a single anchor. _Q._ How much cable was out? _A._ From 65 to 70 fathoms, I think. I generally order 65 fathoms; but the captain gave her 5 fathoms more. _Q._ Would she swing far enough to affect the question whether she was in or outside of Hampton Roads, as you understood it? _A._ No, sir. _Q._ Had you often been there before? _A._ I had, sir, often. I was there 51 years ago. I started there. _Q._ Did you ever have occasion, for any practical purposes, to locate where Hampton Roads began? _A._ Yes, sir; several times I have anchored there with ships under my command, and the pilots have said, "Will you go up into the Roads?" and I said, "Yes;" and we never anchored within two or three miles of where we lay with the Minnesota. _Q._ But it was not your object to get at any particular line which separated Hampton Roads? _A._ No; we considered it a better anchorage. The only importance was a better anchorage. _Q._ You had no instructions of any kind in regard to the prisoners before you left for Washington? _A._ I would say I had not, before I arrived at Hampton Roads, or at Old Point. _Q._ Did you receive any between the time of your arrival and your departure for Washington? _A._ I cannot say, but I think not. _Q._ The only instructions you gave were that, when the Harriet Lane came up, the prisoners should be removed, and sent to New York? _A._ I gave orders that they should be sent to New York and delivered to the Marshal. _Q._ There would be no difficulty to transfer prisoners to Fortress Monroe? _A._ No, sir, no difficulty. _Q._ Could they not have been taken to Hampton? _A._ I think not. Our troops had abandoned Hampton and moved in, I think. There was nothing there to land at Hampton. We may have had possession at that time. _Q._ Do you know of any obstacle whatever to these men having been taken ashore at Old Point Comfort and carried to Hampton? _A._ I went up twice to Washington, with Colonel Baker, when he abandoned Hampton; but I think at the time the prisoners were on board we had the occupation of Hampton by our troops. My impression is, we occupied it partly with our troops at that time. I went to Washington at another time, when the troops had abandoned Hampton, and Colonel Baker took his soldiers up in the same boat. _Q._ A college has been described on shore, and the locality described. Was it not occupied as an hospital? _A._ Yes, sir, at the time the Minnesota arrived. It is not in Hampton. _Q._ When the Minnesota arrived with the prisoners was not that building in possession of our Government? _A._ It was, sir, I believe. I was not in it. _By Mr. Evarts_: Is not the hospital at Old Point? _A._ Near Old Point. _By Mr. Brady_: Designate on the chart where it is? _A._ I have done so,--the square mark, on the shore, in the rear of the fort, on the Virginia shore. _By the Court_: How much of a town is Hampton? _A._ There is none of it left now. I suppose it was a town of 4,000 or 5,000 inhabitants. _Q._ Was it not formerly a port of entry? _A._ No, sir, I believe not; not that I know of. That was 4 or 5 miles off from the vessel. _By Mr. Brady_: How far was Hampton from Fortress Monroe? _A._ I should judge 3 miles. _Q._ I ask again, before you left the Minnesota, after the arrival of the prisoners, had you any instructions from Washington in regard to these prisoners? _A._ I cannot bring to my mind whether I had any or not. I had instructions, subsequent to my arrival, about all prisoners, and that was the reason why I came here. There was some question as to why I came with 700 prisoners; but I had instructions to bring all prisoners taken, and turn them over to Colonel Burke, of New York. _Q._ After you arrived at Washington did you receive any instructions in regard to these prisoners? _A._ I do not know that I did. I had some discussion in Washington. _Q._ Did you communicate from Washington, in any way, to Fortress Monroe, or the Minnesota, in regard to the prisoners? _A._ No, sir. _Q._ They went forward under the directions you gave before leaving to go to Washington? _A._ They did, sir; I gave the instructions. I did not know whether the Harriet Lane would be ready. She was waiting until the vessel arrived to relieve her from the station. _Q._ Was General Butler at Fortress Monroe at the time of the arrival of the prisoners? _A._ He was, sir. _Q._ Did you confer with him about it? _A._ No, sir. _Q._ Neither then nor at Washington? _A._ No, sir. _Q._ Was there any conversation between you and him in regard to that? _A._ I do not think there was until after my return and the prisoners had gone to New York. _Re-direct._ _Q._ How large a space is occupied by the hospital to which you have referred? _A._ I cannot give the number of feet, but I think about 150 feet square. I never was in it but once, when I passed in for a moment, and right out of the hall. _David C. Constable_ called by the prosecution and sworn. Examined by Mr. Smith. _Q._ You are a Lieutenant in the United States Navy? _A._ Not now; I am First Lieutenant of the _Harriet Lane_. We were then serving under the Navy; I am now in a revenue cutter. _Q._ Were you on board the Harriet Lane when she received the prisoners from the Minnesota? _A._ I was, sir. _Q._ Who did you receive your orders from on the subject? _A._ Captain Van Brunt, of the Minnesota. _Q._ Was that a verbal order? _A._ No; a written one, sir. _Q._ Was it an order to bring the prisoners to New York? _A._ To proceed with the prisoners to New York, and deliver them to the civil authorities, I think. _Q._ Where was the Harriet Lane, in respect to the Rip Raps and fort at Old Point Comfort, when the prisoners were taken on board from the Minnesota? _A._ We were about half a mile, I should judge, from the Minnesota; a little nearer in shore. _Q._ Where had the Harriet Lane come from? _A._ From Newport News. _Q._ Did she, or not, come from Newport News in pursuance of the object to go to New York? _A._ Yes, sir; although at the time we had received no orders in regard to any prisoners. We were coming on for a change of armament and for repairs. _Q._ The Harriet Lane had been fired into? _A._ She had, sir. _Q._ Where was she when fired into? (Objected to. Offered to show the impossibility of landing. Ruled out as immaterial.) _Q._ How was the transfer made from the Minnesota to the Harriet Lane? _A._ By boats. _Q._ Show on this map where the Harriet Lane was when the transfer was made of the prisoners from the Minnesota, and also where the Minnesota lay? [Witness marked the place on map.] _Q._ State the relative position of the vessels as you have marked it? _A._ I should judge we were about a mile from Old Point, in about eleven fathoms of water, and probably about a mile from the Rip Raps. I do not remember exactly. _Q._ The Harriet Lane was about half a mile further up? _A._ Yes, a little west of the Minnesota, but farther in shore. _Q._ What is your understanding in respect to where Hampton Roads commence, in reference to the position of these vessels? _A._ I had always supposed it was inside of Old Point and the Rip Raps, after passing through them,--taking Old Point as the Northern extremity, and out to Sewall's Point. _Q._ How in respect to where the Harriet Lane lay? _A._ I consider she was off Old Point, and not, properly speaking, in Hampton Roads. _Q._ The Minnesota was still further out? _A._ Yes, sir, a very little. _Q._ You brought the prisoners to New York in the Harriet Lane and delivered them to the United States Marshal at New York? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ You delivered them from your vessel to the United States Marshal? _A._ Yes, sir; the United States Marshal came alongside our ship, while in the Navy Yard, in a tug, and they were delivered to him. _Q._ Do you remember the day they arrived at New York? _A._ On the 25th of June, in the afternoon. _Q._ In what service was the Harriet Lane? _A._ In the naval service of the United States. _Cross-examined by Mr. Brady._ _Q._ As has already been stated, there was no difficulty about landing the prisoners from the Minnesota at Fortress Monroe, or at the College Hospital, or at Hampton. Was there any difficulty in taking them to Newport News? _A._ No, sir; I suppose they might have been taken to Newport News. _Q._ Who was in possession of Newport News at that time? _A._ The United States troops, sir. Our vessel had been stationed there for six weeks preceding. _Re-direct._ _Q._ What occupation had the United States of Fortress Monroe, and of this hospital building, and of Newport News? Was it other than a military possession? (Objected to by defendants' counsel.) _The Court:_ It is not relevant. _Mr. Evarts:_ We know there was no physical difficulty in landing them; we want to know whether there was any other. _The Court:_ We need not go into any other. Practically, they could have been landed there. That is all about it. As to being a military fort, and under military authority, that is not of consequence. _Mr. Evarts:_ As to military forts receiving prisoners at all times? _The Court:_ We do not care about that. It is not important to go into that. We know it is a military fort, altogether under military officers. Civil justice is not administered there, I take it. _Daniel T. Tompkins_ called by the Government; sworn. Examined by Mr. Smith. _Q._ You were Second Lieutenant on the Harriet Lane? _A._ I was, sir. _Q._ You were present at the transfer of these prisoners from the Minnesota to the Harriet Lane? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ You were with them to New York? _A._ Yes; but I was ashore when they were delivered here. _Q._ You accompanied the prisoners on the voyage? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ Where did the Harriet Lane lie at Hampton Roads, in relation to the Fort and Rip Raps? _A._ I should think we were about a mile from the Rip Raps, and probably three-fourths of a mile from the Fort. _Q._ At the time of the transhipment? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ The transhipment was made in boats? _A._ Yes, sir,--in a boat from the Minnesota. I believe all came in one boat. _Q._ Where do Hampton Roads commence, as you understand, in respect to where the Harriet Lane was? _A._ I think they commence astern of where we lay; a little to the westward, as we were lying off of Old Point. _Q._ Look upon that map and indicate, by a pencil, where the vessels lay, without any reference to the marks already made there--in the first place the Minnesota and then the Harriet Lane--when the transhipment was made, taken in relation to the Fort and the Rip Raps? Witness marks the positions, and adds: We were about half a mile from the Minnesota, I should say. _J. Buchanan Henry_ called by the prosecution; sworn. Examined by Mr. Smith. _Q._ In June and July last you were United States Commissioner? _A._ From the 15th of June. _Q._ [Producing warrant.] Is that your signature? _A._ It is. Counsel for prosecution reads warrant, issued by J. Buchanan Henry, in the name of the President, addressed to the Marshal, dated June 26, 1861. (Objected to as irrelevant. Objection overruled.) _Q._ This warrant was issued by you? _A._ It was, sir. _Q._ On an affidavit filed with you? _A._ Yes, sir. _Cross-examined._ _Q._ Against all these prisoners? _A._ Yes, sir. Defendants take exception to the admission of the testimony. The U.S. District Attorney was about to call the Marshal, to prove that he arrested the prisoners. Defendants' counsel admitted the prisoners were arrested, under this warrant, by the Marshal, in this district. _Mr. Brady:_ Perhaps you can state, Mr. Smith, where they were when arrested under that warrant? _Mr. Smith:_ They had been brought to the Marshal's office, I think. _Mr. Brady:_ They were in the Marshal's office when arrested? _Mr. Smith:_ They were brought to the Marshal's office before the writ was served. _Ethan Allen_ called by the prosecution; sworn. Examined by Mr. Smith. _Q._ You are Assistant District Attorney? _A._ I am, sir. _Q._ And were in June last? _A._ Yes, sir. _Q._ Do you remember, at my request, calling upon the prisoners now in Court? _A._ I do, sir. _Q._ Did you call upon every one? _A._ I called upon all the prisoners at the Tombs. _Q._ Upon each one separately? _A._ I called upon them in the different cells. They were confined two by two. _Q._ Had you previously attended, as Assistant District Attorney, upon the examination of these prisoners? _A._ I had, upon one or two occasions. _Q._ Were the prisoners all present on those occasions? _A._ They were present once, I distinctly recollect. _Q._ Did you then talk with them? _A._ No, sir; I addressed myself to the Commissioner in adjourning the case. _Q._ Was there any examination proceeded with? _A._ There was no examination. _Q._ State what you said to the prisoners, the object of your calling, and what their reply was. I ask, first, did you make a memorandum at the time? _A._ I did, sir. _Q._ Was it made at the very time you asked the questions? _A._ I took paper and pencil in hand, and asked the questions which you requested, and took a note of it. _Q._ What was the object of your calling upon them? _A._ To ask them where they were born; and, if born elsewhere, were they naturalized. _Q._ Did you state for what purpose you made this inquiry? _A._ I do not recollect that I made any statement to the prisoners for what purpose I wanted the information. I told them I wanted it. They seemed to recognize me as Assistant District Attorney; and as to those that did not recognize me, I told them I was Assistant District Attorney. The memorandum produced is the one I made at the time. _Q._ Referring to that, give the statements that were made by each of the prisoners in reply to your questions? _A._ Henry Cashman Howard said he was born in Beaufort, North Carolina. Charles Sydney Passalaigue said he was born in Charleston, South Carolina. Joseph Cruse del Carno said he was born in Manilla, in the Chinese Seas, and was never naturalized. Thomas Harrison Baker said he was born in Philadelphia. John Harleston said he was born in Anderson District, or County, in South Carolina. Patrick Daly was born in Belfast, Ireland. Has never been naturalized. William C. Clarke born in Hamburg, Germany. Never naturalized. Henry Oman born in Canton. Never was naturalized. Martin Galvin born in the County Clare, Ireland. Not naturalized. Richard Palmer born in Edinburgh. Never naturalized. Alexander C. Coid was born in Galloway, Scotland. Was naturalized in Charleston,--about 1854 or 1855, he thinks. John Murphy born in Ireland. Never naturalized. _Mr. Brady_: We will insist, hereafter, that this admission of naturalization cannot be used at all. _Mr. Evarts_: We will concede that. _By Mr. Smith_: Do you remember asking the prisoners for their full names? _A._ I asked them particularly for their full names. _Q._ Are they correctly stated in the indictment? _A._ They are stated from the memorandum which I then took; that is my only means of recollection. _Mr. Smith_: The Assistant District Attorney desires me to state that he did not know that he was to be called as a witness in the case; that if he had had any idea that he would be called as a witness, he would not have made the visit. Yesterday, for the first time, he ascertained that he would be called. I would also state that I did not send him there for the purpose of making him a witness, but with the object of obtaining particulars which might render the allegations in the indictment entirely accurate in respect to every detail. _Mr. Smith_ added: I now close the case for the prosecution. OPENING FOR THE DEFENCE. Mr. LAROCQUE opened the case for the defence. He said: _May it please the Court, and you, Gentlemen of the Jury_: We have now reached that stage in this interesting trial where the duty has been assigned to me, by my associates in this defence, of presenting to you the state of facts and the rules of law on which we expect to ask from you an acquittal of these prisoners. I could wish that it had been assigned to some one more able to present it to you than myself, for I feel the weight of this case pressing upon me, from various considerations connected with it, in a manner almost overpowering. I think that we have proceeded far enough in this case for you to have perceived that it is one of the most interesting trials that ever took place on the continent of America, if not in the civilized world. For the first time, certainly in this controversy, twelve men are put on trial for their lives, before twelve other men, as pirates and--as has been well expressed to you by the learned District Attorney who opened this case on behalf of the prosecution--as enemies of the human race. If you have had time, in the exciting progress of this trial, to reflect in your own minds as to what the import of these words was, it must certainly, ere this, have occurred to you that, in regard to these prisoners, whatever may be the legal consequences of the acts charged upon them, it was a misapplication of the term. Look for a moment, gentlemen, first, at the position of things in our country under which this trial takes place. All these prisoners come before you from a far distant section of the country. Some of them were not born there--some of them were. At the time when these events occurred all of the prisoners lived there, and were identified with that country, with its welfare, with its Government, whatever it was. They had there their homes, their families, everything which attaches a man to the spot in which he lives. Those of them who had not been born in America had sought it as an asylum. They had come from distant regions of the earth--some from the Chinese Sea and the remote East--because they had been taught there that America was the freest land on the globe. They had lived there for years. Suddenly they had seen the country convulsed from one end to the other. They had seen hostile armies arrayed against each other, the combatants being for the most part divided by geographical lines as to the place where they were born or as to the State in which they lived. This very morning a newspaper in the city of New York estimates the numbers thus arrayed in hostility against each other at no less than seven hundred thousand souls. These prisoners have the misfortune, as I say, of being placed on their trial far from their homes. They have been now in confinement and under arrest on this charge for some four or five months. During that whole period they have had no opportunity whatever of communicating with their friends or relatives. Intercourse has been cut off. They have had no opportunity of procuring means to meet their necessary expenses, or even to fee counsel in their defence. Without the solace of the company of their families, immured in a prison among those who, unfortunately, from friends and fellow-countrymen have become enemies, they are now placed in this Court on trial for their lives. You will certainly reflect, gentlemen, that it was not for a case of this kind that any statute punishing the crime of piracy was ever intended to be enacted. You will reflect, when you come to consider this case, after the evidence shall have been laid before you, and after you have received instructions from the Court, that however by technical construction our ingenious friends on the other side may endeavor to force on your minds the conviction that this was a case intended to be provided for by statutes passed in the year 1790, and by statutes passed in the year 1820,--it is a monstrous stretch of the provisions of those statutes to ask for a conviction in a case of this kind. And I may be permitted, with very great respect for the constitutional authorities of our Government, to which we all owe our allegiance and respect, to wonder that this case has been brought for trial before you. I cannot help, under the circumstances surrounding these trials--for while you are sitting here, another jury is passing on a similar case in the neighboring City of Philadelphia--attributing the determination of the Government to submit these cases to the judicial tribunals at this time to a desire to satisfy the mind of the community itself, which has been naturally excited on this subject, that these men are not pirates within the meaning of the law. And I do most sincerely hope, for the credit of our Government, that that is the object which it has in view, and that the heart of every officer of the Government, at Washington or elsewhere, will be most rejoiced at the verdict of acquittal, which, I trust, on every consideration, you will pronounce. We all know that in a time of civil commotion and civil war like this, the minds of the people, particularly at the incipient stages of the controversy, become terribly excited and aroused. We could not listen, at the outbreak of these commotions, to any other name but that of pirate or traitor, as connected with those arrayed against our Government and countrymen. One of the misfortunes of a time of popular excitement like this is, that it pervades not only the minds of the community, but reaches the public halls of legislation, and the executive and administrative departments of the Government. And it is no disrespect, even to the Chief Magistrate of the country to say, that he might, in a time like this, put forward proclamations and announce a determination to do what his more sober judgment would tell him it was imprudent to announce his intention of doing. You will all probably recollect that when this outbreak occurred the Government at Washington announced the determination of treating those who might be captured on board of privateers fitted out in the Confederate States as pirates. Such an announcement once made, it is difficult to depart from. And therefore I do most sincerely hope that the administration in Washington, as my heart tells me must be the case, are looking at these trials in progress here and in Philadelphia, with an earnest desire that the voice of the Juries shall be the voice of acquittal,--thus disembarrassing the Government of the trammels of a proclamation which it were better, perhaps, had never been issued. This civil war had at that time reached no such proportions as those which it has since acquired. It was then a mere beginning of a revolution. The cry was, that Washington was in danger. There were no hostile forces arrayed on the opposite sides of the Potomac. There was a fear that they would soon make their appearance; and there was also an earnest hope--which I lament most deeply has not been realized--that that outbreak would be stopped in its commencement, and that no armies approaching to the proportions of those which have since been in hostile conflict would be arrayed on the field of battle. Look at the state of things now. Scarcely a day elapses on which battles are not taking place, from one end to the other of this broad continent--in Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, and other States--and where the opposing forces are not larger than those that met in any battle of the Revolution which gave this country its independence. Does humanity, which rules war as well as peace, permit that while whole States, forming almost one half of the Confederacy; have arrayed themselves as one man--for aught we know to the contrary--while they think, no matter how mistakenly, that they have grievances to be redressed, and that they have a right to exercise that privilege of electing their own Government, which we claimed for ourselves in the day of our own Revolution--does humanity, I say, permit, in such a state of things, one side or the other to treat its opponents as pirates and robbers, as enemies of the human race? Gentlemen, our brave men who are fighting our battles on land and sea have a deep interest in this question; and if the votes of our whole army could be taken on the question of whether, as a matter of State policy, these men should be treated as pirates and robbers, I believe, in my heart, that an almost unanimous vote would go up from its ranks not to permit such a state of things to take place. I wish to say a word here, gentlemen, preliminarily, on another subject, and that is, what the duty and right of counsel is on a trial of this kind. I hold the doctrine that counsel, when he appears in Court to defend the life of one man, much less the lives of twelve men, is the _alter ego_ of his clients--that he has no trammels on his lips, and that his conscience, and his duty to God, and to his profession, must direct him in his best efforts to save the lives of his clients,--and that it becomes his duty; regardless of all other considerations, except adherence to truth and the laws of rectitude, to present every argument for his clients which influenced their minds when they embarked in the enterprise for which they are placed before the Jury on trial for their lives. It is not the fault of counsel, in a case of this kind, if he is obliged to call the attention of the Jury to the past history of his own country, to the cotemporaneous expositions of its Constitution, to the decisions of its Courts of Judicature, and of the highest Court of the Union, which have laid down doctrines with reference to the Constitution of the Government, which are accepted at the present day, entirely incompatible with the success of this prosecution. In doing so, you will certainly perceive that, however much these men on trial for their lives may have been deceived and deluded, as I sincerely think they have been to a very great extent, and, as was frankly admitted by the learned counsel who opened the case for the prosecution, that at least, there was the strongest excuse for that deception and delusion among those of them who had read the Constitution of their Government, who had read its Declaration of Independence, who had read the cotemporaneous exposition of its Constitution, put forward by the wisest of the men who framed it, and on the honeyed accents of whose lips the plain citizens of the States reposed when they adopted the Constitution. If it had been their good fortune to be familiar with the decisions of its Courts, they had learned what the Supreme Court had said with reference to the sovereign rights of the States, and with reference to the strict limit and measure of power which they had conceded to the General Government, and there was, at least, a very strong excuse for their following those doctrines, however unpopular they may have become in a later day of the Republic. One of the reasons why I most regret that the Government has thought fit to force these cases to trial at the present time is, that it forces the counsel for the prisoners, in the solemn discharge of their duty to their clients, whose lives hang in the balance, to call the attention of the Jury and the attention of the public to those doctrines, doing which, under other circumstances, might be considered as a needless interference with the efforts of the Government to restore peace to the country. But, as I say, I hold that our clients in this case have a right to all the resources of intelligence with which it has pleased God to bless their counsel. They have a right to every pulsation of their hearts, and I do not know that I can sum up the whole subject in more appropriate language than that used by the Marquis of Beccaria, which was quoted by John Adams on the trial of some British soldiers in Boston, who, in a time of great public excitement, had shot some citizens, and were placed on trial for their lives before a Jury in Boston. He quoted and adopted on that occasion, as his own, these memorable words of that great philanthropist: "If I can be but the instrument of saving one human life, his blessing and tears of gratitude will be a sufficient consolation to me for the contempt of all mankind." I hold, with John Adams, that counsel on a trial like this has no right to let any earthly consideration interfere with the full and free discharge of his duty to his client; and in what I have to say, and in my course on this trial, I will be actuated by that feeling, and by none other. And, gentlemen, I love my country when I say that; I feel as deep a stake in her prosperity as does any man within the hearing of my voice, and as deep a stake as any man who lives under the protection of her flag. The Jury have a great and solemn duty to discharge on this occasion. They have the great and solemn duty to discharge of forgetting, if possible, that they are Americans, and of thinking, for the moment, that they have been transformed into subjects of other lands; of forgetting that there is a North or a South, an East or a West, and of remembering only that these twelve men are in peril of their lives, and that this Jury is to judge whether they have feloniously and piratically, with a criminal intent, done the act for which it is claimed their lives are forfeited to their country. I wish to dispel from the minds of the Jury, at the outset of this case, an illusion which has been attempted to be produced on them, with no improper motive, I am sure, by the counsel who opened the case on the part of the Government--that this trial is a mere matter of form. I tell you, gentlemen, that it is a trial involving the lives of twelve men, and this Jury are bound to assume, from the beginning to the end of the case, that if their verdict shall pronounce these men guilty of the crime of piracy, with which they are charged, every one of them will as surely terminate his life on the scaffold, as the sun will rise on the morrow of the day on which the verdict shall be pronounced. We have nothing to do with what the Government in its justice and clemency may see fit to do after that verdict has been pronounced. We are bound to believe that the Government does not put these men upon their trial with an intention to make the verdict, if it shall be one of guilty, a mere idle mockery. I, for one, while I love my country, and wish its Government to enjoy the respect of the whole world, would not be willing to believe that it would perform a solemn farce of that kind; and, gentlemen, as you value the peace and repose of your own consciences, you will, in the progress of this trial, from its beginning to its end, look on it in this light, and in none other. Now, gentlemen, what is the crime of piracy, as we have all been taught to understand it from our cradle? My learned friend has given one definition of what a pirate is, by saying that he is the enemy of the human race. And how does his crime commence? Is it blazoned, before he starts on his wicked career, in the full light of the sun, or is it hatched in secret? Does it commence openly and frankly, with the eyes of his fellow-citizens looking on from the time that the design is conceived, or does it originate in the dark forecastle of some vessel on the seas, manned by wicked men, to whom murder and robbery have been familiar from their earliest days, and who usually commence by murdering the crew of the vessel, the safety of which has been partly entrusted to them? And when the first deed of wickedness has been done which makes pirates and outcasts of the men who perpetrated it, what is their career from that moment to the time when they end their lives, probably on the scaffold? Is it not one of utter disregard to the laws of God and man, and to those of humanity? Is it not a succession of deeds of cruelty, of rapine, of pillage, of wanton destruction? Who ever heard of pirates who, in the first place, commenced the execution of their design by public placards posted in the streets of a populous city like Charleston, approved of by their fellow-citizens of a great and populous city, and not only by them, but by the people of ten great and populous States? And who ever heard of pirates who, coming upon a vessel that was within the limits of the commission under which they were acting, took her as a prize, with an apology to her Captain for the necessity of depriving him of his property, and claiming to act under the authority of ten great and populous States, and under that authority alone? And who ever heard of pirates doing what has been testified to in this case by the witnesses for the Government,--taking one ship because she belonged to the enemies of the Confederate States, to which they sincerely believed they owed the duty of allegiance, and passing immediately under the stern of another vessel, because they knew by her build and appearance that she was a British vessel, and not an enemy of their country, as they believed? But, gentlemen, the difficulties with which the prosecution had to contend, in making out this case, are too great to be lost sight of; and the Jury must certainly have seen how utterly preposterous it is to characterize as piracy acts of this kind. Who ever heard of a pirate who, having seized a prize, put a prize-crew on board of her, sent her home to his native port--a great and civilized city, in a great and populous country--to be submitted to the adjudication of the Courts in that city, and to be disposed of as the authorities of his home should direct? I beg to call your attention to the facts that have been brought out on the testimony for the prosecution itself--that, in regard to this vessel, instead of her crew having been murdered--instead of helpless women and children having been sent to a watery grave, after having suffered, perhaps, still greater indignities--that not a hair of the head of any one was touched,--that not a man suffered a wound or an indignity of any kind--that they were sent, as prisoners of war, into the neighboring port of Georgetown, where, in due time, by decree of a court, the vessel was condemned and sold--and the prisoners, having been kept in confinement some time as prisoners of war, were released, and have been enabled to come into Court and testify before you. Comparing this case, gentlemen, with the cases which are constantly occurring in the land, what earthly motive can you conceive, on the part of the Government, for having made the distinction between these poor prisoners, taken on board of this paltry little vessel of 40 or 50 tons, and the great bands in arms in all parts of the country? Look what occurred a little while ago in Western Virginia, where a large force of men, in open arms against the Government, who had been carrying ravage and destruction through that populous country, and over all parts of it, were captured as prisoners. Were any of those men sent before a court, to be tried for their lives? Did not the commanding officer of the forces there, acting under the authorization, and with the approval, of the Government, release every one of those men, on his parole of honor not to bear arms any more against the country? And what earthly motive can be conceived for making the distinction which is attempted to be made between these men and those? Shall it be said, to the disgrace of our country--for it would be a disgrace if it could be justly said--that we had not courage and confidence enough in our own resources to believe that we would be able to cope with these adversaries in the field in fair and equal warfare? Gentlemen, I think it would be a cowardly act, which would redound to the lasting disgrace of the country, to have it said, one century or two centuries hence, that, in this great time of our country's troubles and trials, eighteen States of this Confederacy, infinitely the most populous, infinitely the most wealthy, abounding in resources, with a powerful army and navy, were obliged to resort to the halter or the ax for the purpose of intimidating those who were in arms against them. I do not think that any one of this Jury would be willing to have such a thing said. Now, gentlemen, with regard to the conduct of these men, an impression has been attempted to be created on your minds by one circumstance, and that is, that at the time of the capture of the Joseph by the Savannah the American flag was hoisted on board the Savannah, and that the Joseph came down to her, and permitted her to approach from the false security and confidence occasioned by that circumstance. The time has now arrived to dispel the illusion from your mind that there was anything reprehensible in that, or anything in it not warranted by the strictest rules of honor and of naval warfare. Why, gentlemen, I could not give you a more complete parallel on that subject than one which occurred at the time of the chase of the Constitution by a British fleet of men-of-war, and the escape of the Constitution from which fleet at that time reflected such lasting honor on our country and her naval history. You will all recollect that the Constitution, near the coast of our country, fell in with and was chased for several days by a large British fleet. Let me read to you one short sentence, showing what occurred at that time. I read from Cooper's Naval History: "The scene, on the morning of this day, was very beautiful, and of great interest to the lovers of nautical exhibitions. The weather was mild and lovely, the sea smooth as a pond, and there was quite wind enough to remove the necessity of any of the extraordinary means of getting ahead that had been so freely used during the previous eight and forty hours. All the English vessels had got on the same tack with the Constitution again, and the five frigates were clouds of canvas, from their trucks to the water. Including the American ship, eleven sail were in sight; and shortly after a twelfth appeared to windward; that was soon ascertained to be an American merchantman. But the enemy were too intent on the Constitution to regard anything else, and though it would have been easy to capture the ships to leeward, no attention appears to have been paid to them. _With a view, however, to deceive the ship to windward, they hoisted American colors, when the Constitution set an English ensign, by way of warning the stranger to keep aloof._" After that, I hope we will hear no more about the Savannah having hoisted the American flag for the purpose of inducing the Joseph to approach her. It now becomes my duty, gentlemen, to call your attention, very briefly, to the grounds on which the prosecution rests this case. There are two grounds, and I will notice them in their order. The first is, that this was robbery. Well, I have had occasion, already, in what I have said to you, to call your attention to some of the points that distinguish this case from robbery. I say it was not robbery, because, in the first place, one of the requisites of robbery on the sea, which is called piracy, is, that it shall be done with a piratical and felonious intent. The intent is what gives character to the crime; and the point that we shall make on that part of the case is this, that if these men, in the capture of the Joseph (leaving out of view for the present the circumstance of their having acted under a commission from the Confederate States), acted under the belief that they had a right to take her, there was not the piratical and felonious intent, and the crime of robbery was not committed. I will very briefly call your attention to a few authorities on that subject. One of the most standard English works, and the most universally referred to on this subject of robberies, is _Hale's Pleas of the Crown_. Hale says: "As it is _cepit_ and _asportavit_ so it must be _felonice_ or _animo furandi_, otherwise it is not felony, for it is the mind that makes the taking of another's goods to be a felony, or a bare trespass only; but because the intention and mind are secret, they must be judged by the circumstances of the fact, and though these circumstances are various and may sometimes deceive, yet regularly and ordinarily these circumstances following direct in this case. "If _A_, thinking he hath a title to the horse of _B_, seizeth it as his own, or supposing that _B_ holds of him, distrains the horse of _B_ without cause, this regularly makes it no felony, but a trespass, because there is a pretence of title; but yet this may be but a trick to color a felony, and the ordinary discovery of a felonious intent is, if the party does it secretly, or being charged with the goods, denies it. * * * * * "But in cases of larceny, the variety of circumstances is so great, and the complications thereof so weighty, that it is impossible to prescribe all the circumstances evidencing a felonious intent; on the contrary, the same must be left to the due and attentive consideration of the Judge and Jury, wherein the best rule is, _in dubiis_, rather to incline to acquittal than conviction." The next authority on that subject to which I will refer you is 2_d East's Pleas of the Crown, p._ 649. The passage is: "And here it may be proper to remark, that in any case, if there be _any fair pretence_ of property or _right_ in the prisoner, _or if it be brought into doubt at all, the court will direct an acquittal; for it is not fit that such disputes should be settled in a manner to bring men's lives into jeopardy_. "The owner of ground takes a horse _damage feasant_, or a lord seizes it as an estray, though perhaps without title; yet these circumstances explain the intent, and show that it was not felonious, unless some act be done which manifests the contrary: as giving the horse new marks to disguise him, or altering the old ones; for these are presumptive circumstances of a thievish intent." I call attention also to the case of _Rex_ vs. _Hall_, _3d Carrington & Payne_, 409, which was a case before one of the Barons of the Exchequer in England. It was an indictment for robbing John Green, a gamekeeper of Lord Ducie, of three hare-wires and a pheasant. It appeared that the prisoner had set three hare-wires in a field belonging to Lord Ducie, in one of which this pheasant was caught; and that Green, the gamekeeper, seeing this, took up the wires and pheasant, and put them into his pocket; and it further appeared that the prisoner, soon after this, came up and said, "Have you got my wires?" The gamekeeper replied that he had, and a pheasant that was caught in one of them. The prisoner asked the gamekeeper to give the pheasant and wires up to him, which the gamekeeper refused; whereupon the prisoner lifted up a large stick, and threatened to beat the gamekeeper's brains out if he did not give them up. The gamekeeper, fearing violence, did so. Maclean, for the prosecution, contended-- "That, by law, the prisoner could have no property in either the wires or the pheasant; and as the gamekeeper had seized them for the use of the Lord of the Manor, under the statute 5 Ann, c. 14, s. 4, it was a robbery to take them from him by violence." Vaughan, B., said: "I shall leave it to the Jury to say whether the prisoner acted on an impression that the wires and pheasant were his property, for, however he might be liable to penalties for having them in his possession, yet, if the Jury think that he took them under a _bona fide_ impression that he was only getting back the possession of his own property, there is no _animus furandi_, and I am of opinion that the prosecution must fail. "Verdict--Not guilty." Without detaining the Court and Jury to read other cases, I will simply give your honors a reference to them. I refer to the _King_ vs. _Knight_, cited in 2_d East's Pleas of the Crown_, p. 510, decided by Justices _Gould_ and _Buller_; the case of the _Queen_ vs. _Boden_, 1_st Carrington and Kirwan_, p. 395; and for the purpose of showing that this is the same rule which has been applied by the Courts of the United States, in these very cases of piracy, I need do nothing more than read a few lines from a case cited by the counsel for the prosecution in opening the case of the _United States_ vs. _Tully_, 1_st Gallison's Circuit Court Reports_, 247, where Justices Story and Davis say, that to constitute the offence of piracy, within the Act of 30th April, 1790, by "piratically and feloniously" running away with a vessel, "the act must have been done with the wrongful and fraudulent intent thereby to convert the same to the taker's own use, and to make the same his own property, against the will of the owner. The intent must be _animo furandi_." Now, gentlemen, I think that when you come to consider this case in your jury-box, whatever other difficulties you may have, you will very speedily come to the conclusion that the taking of the Joseph was with no intent of stealing on the part of these prisoners. But, gentlemen, there is another requisite to the crime of robbery, which, I contend, and shall respectfully attempt to show to you, is absent from this case. I mean, it must be by violence, or putting him in fear that the property is taken from the owner, and that the crime of robbery is committed. I beg to refer the Court to the definition of robbery in _1st Blackstone's Commentaries_, p. 242, and _1st Hawkins' Pleas of the Crown_, p. 233, where robbery at common law is defined to be "open and violent _larceny_, the rapina of the civil law, the _felonious_ and _forcible_ taking from the person of another of goods or money to any value by violence, or putting him in fear." Now, gentlemen, I say there was nothing of that kind in this case. What are the circumstances as testified to by the witnesses for the prosecution? The circumstances are, that the Joseph and the Savannah, having approached within hailing distance, the Captain of the Savannah hailed the Captain of the Joseph, standing on the deck of his own vessel, and requested him to come on board and bring his papers. The answer of the Captain of the Joseph was an inquiry by what authority that direction was given; and the Captain of the Savannah replied, "by the authority of the Confederate States." Whereupon the Captain of the Joseph, in his own boat, with two of his crew, went alongside the Savannah, was helped over the side by the Captain of the Savannah, and was informed by him that he was under the disagreeable necessity of taking his vessel and taking them prisoners; and without the slightest force or violence being used by the Captain, or by a single member of the crew of the Savannah--without a gun being fired, or even loaded, so far as anything appears--the Captain of the Joseph voluntarily submitted, yielded up his vessel, and there was not the slightest violence or putting any body in fear. Therefore, gentlemen, I say, that so far as the crime charged here is the crime of robbery, there is no evidence in the case under which, on either of these grounds, by reason of the secrecy of the act, or the violence or putting in fear, or the showing a felonious intent, by the evidence for the prosecution, these prisoners can be convicted under the indictment before you. To show that the definition of robbery at common law is the one that applies to these statutes of the United States, I beg to refer your honors to cases in the Supreme Court of the United States. I refer to the case of the _United States_ vs. _Palmer, 3 Wheaton, 610_; the _United States_ vs. _Wood, 3d Washington, 440_; and the _United States_ vs. _Wilson, 1 Baldwin,_ p. 78. But, gentlemen, there is another set of counts in this indictment on which, probably, as to those who are citizens, a conviction will be pressed for by counsel on the part of the Government. That is a set of counts to which I am about to call your attention in reference to the acts under which they were framed. You will recollect this, gentlemen, that under the counts charging the offence of robbery, the majority of these prisoners must be convicted, or none of them can be convicted at all, for reasons which I will immediately give you. The only statute under which it is claimed on the part of the prosecution that a conviction can be had, if not for robbery on the high seas, imperatively requires that the prisoners to be convicted must be citizens of the United States. There are twelve prisoners here, and by the statement of the last witness produced on the part of the prosecution, only four of them appear to be citizens of the United States, or ever to have been citizens of the United States. The others were all born in different countries in Europe and Asia, and had never been naturalized; and the Court, whenever this case comes before you, so far as that point is concerned, will give you the evidence on the subject, by which you will see exactly which of these prisoners had ever been citizens of the United States, and which of them had not been. I therefore proceed to examine as to what the statute is, and what the requisites are for a conviction of those who were citizens of the United States at any time. I will read to you the section of the statute to which I have reference. It is the 9th section of the Act of 1790. It reads, "That if any _citizen_ shall commit any piracy or robbery aforesaid, or any act of hostility against the United States, or any citizen thereof, upon the high seas, under color of any commission from any _foreign Prince_ or _State_, or on pretence of authority from any person, such offender shall, notwithstanding the pretence of any such authority, be deemed, adjudged, and taken to be a pirate, felon, and robber, and, on being thereof convicted, shall suffer death." Now, it will be interesting and necessary to understand the circumstances under which that statute was passed, and the application which it was intended to have. I will briefly read to you the explanation of that subject, which your honors will find in _Hawkins' Pleas of the Crown, 1st Vol., p. _268. Hawkins says: "It being also doubted by many eminent civilians whether, during the Revolution, the persons who had captured English vessels by virtue of commissions granted by James 2nd, at his court at St. Germain, after his abdication of the throne of England, could be deemed pirates, the grantor still having, as it was contended, the right of war in him; it is enacted by 11 and 12 Will. III., chap. 7, sec. 8, 'That if any of his Majesty's natural born subjects or denizens of this Kingdom shall commit any piracy or robbery, or any act of hostility against others of his Majesty's subjects upon the sea, under color of any commission from any foreign Prince or State, or pretence of authority from any person whatsoever, such offender or offenders, and every of them, shall be deemed, adjudged, and taken to be pirates, felons, and robbers; and they and every of them, being duly convicted thereof according to this Act or the aforesaid statute of King Henry the Eighth, shall have and suffer such pains of death, loss of land and chattels, as pirates, felons, and robbers upon the sea ought to have and suffer.'" Your honors will find that further referred to in the case of the _United States_ vs. _Jones_, _3d Wash. Cir. Court Reps. p._ 219, in these terms: "The 9th sec. of this law (the Act of 1790) is in fact copied from the statute of the 11th and 12th Wm. 3d, ch. 7, the history of which statute is explained by Hawkins. It was aimed at Commissions granted to Cruisers by James II., after his abdication, which, by many, were considered as conferring a legal authority to cruise, so as to protect those acting under them against a charge of piracy. Still, we admit that unless some other reason can be assigned for the introduction of a similar provision in our law, the argument which has been founded on it would deserve serious consideration. We do not think it difficult to assign a very satisfactory reason for the adoption of this section without viewing it in the light of a legislative construction of the 8th sec, or of the general law. "If a citizen of the United States should commit acts of depredation against any of the citizens of the United States, it might at least have been a question whether he could be guilty of piracy if he acted under a foreign commission and within the scope of his authority. He might say that he acted under a commission; and not having transgressed the authority derived under it, he could not be charged criminally. But the 9th sec. declares that this shall be no plea, because the authority under which he acted is not allowed to be legitimate. It declares to the person contemplated by this section, that in cases where a commission from his own Government would protect him from the charge of piracy, that is, where he acted within the scope of it or even where he acted fairly but under a mistake in transgressing it, yet that a _foreign_ commission should afford him no protection, even although he had not exceeded the authority which it professed to give him. But it by no means follows from this that a citizen committing depredations upon foreigners or citizens, not authorized by the commission granted by his own Government, _and with a felonious intention_, should be protected by that commission against a charge of piracy. Another object of this section appears to have been to declare that acts of hostility committed by a citizen against the United States upon the high seas, _under pretence of a commission issued by a foreign Government, though they might amount to treason, were nevertheless piracy and to be tried as such_." Your honors will find another very interesting history in reference to this statute in _Phillimore's International Law, 1st vol., sec. 398_. Phillimore says: "Soon after the abdication of James II., an international question of very great importance arose, namely, what character should be ascribed to privateers commissioned by the monarch, who had abdicated, to make war against the adherents of William III., or rather against the English, while under his rule. The question, in fact, involved a discussion of the general principle, whether a deposed sovereign, claiming to be sovereign _de jure_, might lawfully commission privateers against the subjects and adherents of the sovereign _de facto_ on the throne; or whether such privateers were not to be considered as pirates, inasmuch as they were sailing _animo furandi et depraedundi_, without any _national_ character. The question, it should be observed, did not arise in its full breadth and importance _until James II. had been expelled from Ireland as well as England, until, in fact, he was a sovereign, claiming to be such de jure_, BUT CONFESSEDLY WITHOUT TERRITORY. It appears that James, after he was in this condition, continued to issue letters of marque to his followers. The Privy Council of William III. desired to hear civilians upon the point of the piratical character of such privateers. The arguments on both sides are contained in a curious and rather rare pamphlet, published by one of the counsel (Dr. Tindal) for King William, in the years 1693-4. The principal arguments for the piratical character of the privateers appear to have been-- "That they who acted under such commission may be dealt with as if they had acted under their own authority or the authority of any private person, and therefore might be treated as pirates. That if such a titular Prince might grant commissions to seize the ships and goods of all or most trading nations, he might derive a considerable revenue as a chief of such freebooters, and that it would be madness in nations not to use the utmost rigor of the law against such vessels. "That the reason of the thing which pronounced that robbers and pirates, when they formed themselves into a civil society, became just enemies, pronounced also that A KING WITHOUT TERRITORY, without power of protecting the innocent or punishing the guilty, or in any way of administering justice, dwindled into a pirate if he issued commissions to seize the goods and ships of nations; and that they who took commissions from him must be held by legal inference to have associated _sceleris causâ_, and could not be considered as members of a civil society." I will not occupy the time of the Court and Jury by recapitulating the rest of the arguments which were urged with very great ability by the learned and distinguished civilians arrayed against each other in that interesting debate. But the points which arise, and which the Court will have, in due time, to instruct you upon, we respectfully claim and insist are these: That this English statute, after which our own statute was precisely copied, was intended only to apply to the case of pirates cruising under a commission pretended to have been given, in the first place, by a Prince deposed, abdicated, not having a foot of territory yielding him obedience in any corner of the world; and, in the next place, that it was intended to be aimed against those cruising under a commission issued under the pretence of authority from a foreigner, and not from the authorities over them _de jure_ or _de facto_, or from any authorities of the land in which they lived, and where the real object was depredation; because, where it was issued by a monarch without territory--by a foreigner, having no rule, and no country in subjection to him--there could be no prize-court, and none of the ordinary machinery for disposing of prizes captured, according to the rules of international law; and, lastly, it was intended to apply to the case of a citizen, taking a privateer's commission from a foreign Government as a pretence to enable him to cruise against the commerce of his own countrymen. But it was never intended to apply to a case of this kind, where the commission was issued by the authorities of the land in which the parties receiving it live, exercising sway and dominion over them, whether _de jure_ or _de facto_. Now, gentlemen, so far I have thought it necessary to go in explanation of what the statutes were, of the circumstances bearing on them, and of the requisites which the prosecution had to make out, in order to ask a conviction at your hands. I come now, for the purpose of this opening, to lay before you what we shall rely upon in our defence. The first defence, as has already appeared to you from the course of the examination of the prosecution's witnesses, has reference to the question of the jurisdiction of this Court to hear and determine this controversy. The statute has been already read to you, on which that question of jurisdiction rests; but, for fear that you do not recollect it, I will beg once more to call your attention to it. The concluding paragraph of sec. 14 of the Act of 1825, 4th vol. of the Statutes at Large, p. 118, is as follows: "And the trial of all offences which shall be committed on the high seas or elsewhere out of the limits of any State or District, shall be in the District where the offender is apprehended, or into which he may first be brought." Now, you observe that the language of the statute is imperative--the reasons which led to its adoption were also imperative and controlling. It is necessary that the law shall make provision for the place where a man shall be put on trial under an indictment against him; and the law wisely provides that in cases of offences committed on the land, the trial shall only take place where the offence was committed. It was thought even necessary to provide for that by an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, in order that there might be no misunderstanding of, and no departure from, the rule. The Constitution, by one of its amendments, in the same paragraph which provides for the right of every accused to a speedy and impartial trial, provides also that that trial shall take place in the District, which District shall first have been ascertained by law; and as I said to you, in cases of crimes committed on the land, that District must be the District where the offence was committed, and no other. Now look at the state of things here, gentlemen. These men are all citizens or residents of the State of South Carolina, and have been so for years. This vessel was fitted out in South Carolina. The authority under which she professed to act was given there. The evidence for the defence, if it could be got, must come from there. All the circumstances bearing on the transaction occurred in that section of the country, and not elsewhere,--occurred in a country which is now under the same Government and domination as Virginia, because Virginia is included at present under the domination and Government of the Confederate States. Well, with reference to offences committed at sea, the officers capturing a prize have a right to bring it into any port, it is true, and the port where the prisoners are brought is, as we claim under the construction of the statute, the port where the trial is to take place; the port where the prisoners are first brought, whether they are landed or not. On that question of jurisdiction the rule is this: The jurisdiction of the State extends to the distance of a marine league from shore; and if these prisoners were brought on this vessel within the distance of three miles from the shores of Virginia, where the vessel anchored, as in port, having communication with the land, the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court of the Eastern District of Virginia attached, and they could not, after that, be put on trial for that offence elsewhere. It is not necessary for me now to trouble the Jury with re-reading authorities which were read upon this subject yesterday. In a case which occurred some years ago, before Judge Story, the learned Judge had fallen into a misapprehension on a question which did not necessarily arise, because the facts to give rise to it did not occur in the case. An offence had been committed--an attempt to create a revolt on board of a vessel at sea. Those who had made the attempt had either repented of the design, or had not succeeded in it; at all events, they had afterwards gone on to do their duty on the vessel, and had not been incarcerated on board the vessel at all. The vessel first got into a port in Connecticut, and finally got into a port in Massachusetts, and there, for the first time, those prisoners were arrested and put into confinement. Undoubtedly the Court in Massachusetts had jurisdiction in that case; but Judge Story, speaking on a question which did not arise, appeared to treat the language of the statute as being alternative, giving the Government the right to select one of two places for the trial. That was corrected in a late case which came before the Court in Massachusetts, in the same District where Judge Story had decided the previous case. Both Judge Sprague, of the District Court, and Judge Clifford, of the Circuit Court, held that in a case where prisoners had been captured as malefactors on the high seas, and had been confined on board a United States vessel, where the vessel had gone into Key West for a temporary purpose, to get water, without the prisoners ever having been landed, and where they went from thence to Massachusetts, where the prisoners were arrested by the civil authorities and imprisoned, that the Court of Massachusetts had no jurisdiction whatever. Under the instructions of the Court, the Grand Jury refused to find an indictment, and a warrant of removal was granted to remove the prisoners for trial in the Court at Key West,--the Court of Massachusetts holding that that was the only place where they could be tried for the offence, because the vessel having them in custody as prisoners had touched there to get water on her voyage. We have not even the information in that case as to whether the vessel went within three miles of the shore; it was enough that she had communicated with Key West, and that the prisoners might have been landed there; but it was held that the Government had not a right to elect the place of trial of the prisoners; and it is important, particularly in cases of this kind, that no one shall have the right to elect a place of trial. I say that, not with the slightest intention of imputing any unfair motives to the Government, to the officers of the Navy, or any one else. It is a great deal better that where men are to be put on trial for their lives, they should have the benefit of the chapter of accidents. If it would have been any better for these prisoners to have had a Jury to try them in Virginia, they were entitled to the benefit of that. In saying so, I mean no reflection on any Jury in New York. I have no doubt you will try this case as honestly, as fairly, and as impartially as any Jury in Virginia could try it. But at the same time we all know that if this right of election can be resorted to on the part of the United States, men might suffer, not from any wrong intention, but from the natural and inevitable and often unconscious tendency of those who are to prosecute, to select the place of prosecution most convenient for themselves. We shall therefore claim before you, gentlemen, following the rule laid down in Massachusetts by Judge Clifford and Judge Sprague, that this vessel, having been within a marine league of the shore of Virginia, was within the jurisdiction of the District Court of Virginia, and that that was the only place where they could be tried. Suppose, as was well suggested to me by one of my associates, that on the Minnesota, lying where she did, or on the Harriet Lane, lying where she did in Hampton Roads, a murder had been committed: could it be contended by any one that the United States Court in Virginia would not have had jurisdiction, and the only jurisdiction over the case? Now, gentlemen, that is all which, on the opening of this case, I am going to say on the subject of jurisdiction. Our next defence will be, that the commission in this case affords adequate protection to these prisoners; and we will put that before you in several points of view. It will undoubtedly be read to you in evidence. It was one of the documents found on board this vessel. _Mr. Evarts:_ It is not in evidence; and how can counsel open to the Jury upon a commission which is not in evidence? _Judge Nelson:_ Counsel can refer to it as part of his opening. _Mr. Larocque:_ Now, gentlemen, you will recollect that the counsel for the prosecution, in framing this indictment, has treated this in the way in which we claim he was bound to treat it; that is to say, that the 9th section of the Act of 1790 was intended to refer exclusively to offences claimed to have been committed under a commission; throwing on the prosecution the necessity of setting forth the commission or the pretence of authority. Having set it forth, the prosecution is bound by the manner in which it is described in the indictment; and if it is described as something which it is not, the prisoners must have the benefit of that mis-description. Now, in framing this indictment, the counsel for the prosecution has set forth that the prisoners claimed to act under a commission issued by one Jefferson Davis. That is to say, he has attempted to ground his claim to a conviction on that section of the statute. You will recollect that the statute reads, "under pretence of any commission granted by any foreign Prince or State" (which the Courts of the United States have held, to mean a foreign State), "or under pretence of authority from any person." And it was necessary, in order to ground an indictment on that section of the statute, to bring this case within the exact letter or words of one or the other clause of that section of this statute. It would not do for them to claim that this commission was issued by a foreign Prince or foreign State, because, if by a foreign Prince or foreign State, there would be no doubt or question that all of these parties were citizens of that foreign State or residents there, and were not citizens of the United States. Of course, if this were a foreign State, they were foreign citizens, and not citizens of the United States. What is this commission? As we shall lay it before you, it reads in this way: "JEFFERSON DAVIS, "President of the Confederate States of America, "To all who shall see these Presents, Greeting: "Know ye, That by virtue of the power vested in me by law, I have commissioned, and do hereby commission, have authorized, and do hereby authorize, the schooner or vessel called the 'Savannah' (more particularly described in the schedule hereunto annexed), whereof T. Harrison Baker is commander, to act as a private armed vessel in the service of the Confederate States, on the high seas, against the United States of America, their ships, vessels, goods, and effects, and those of their citizens, during the pendency of the war now existing between the said Confederate States and the said United States. "This commission to continue in force until revoked by the President of the Confederate States for the time being. "Given under my hand and the seal of the Confederate States, [c.s.] at Montgomery, this eighteenth day of May, A.D. 1861. "(Signed) JEFFERSON DAVIS. "By the President. "R. TOOMBS, "_Secretary of State_. "SCHEDULE OF DESCRIPTION OF THE VESSEL. "Name--Schooner 'Savannah.' "Tonnage--Fifty-three 41/95 tons. "Armament--One large pivot gun and small arms. "No. of Crew--Thirty." That is the document, bearing the seal of ten States, signed by Jefferson Davis as President--signed by the Secretary of State for those ten States, which the learned counsel who framed the indictment has undertaken to call "a pretence of authority from one Jefferson Davis." The counsel was forced to frame his indictment in that way; for if he had alleged in the indictment that it was by pretence of authority from the Confederate States--to wit, South Carolina, Georgia, &c., naming States which this Government, for the purpose of bringing this prosecution at all, must claim to be in the Union--it would be clearly outside of the provision of the statute, and could never get before a Jury, because it would have been dismissed on application to the Court beforehand. But the learned counsel has sought, by stating an argumentative conclusion of law in his indictment, according to his understanding of it, to bring within the statute a case which the statute was not meant to meet--an entirely different and distinct case. I submit to you, that that cannot be done,--that the commission on its face does not purport to be a commission granted by any person. It purports to be, and, if anything, it is, a commission granted by authority of the States that are joined together under the name of Confederate States; and, gentlemen, as I said, we shall claim before you that this commission is a protection to these parties, against the charge of piracy, upon various distinct grounds. In the first place, we shall claim before you that the Government, called the Government of the Confederate States (whether you call it a Government _de jure_ or a Government _de facto_, or whatever name under the nomenclature of nations you choose to give it), is the present existing Government of those States, exercising dominion over them, without any other Government having an officer or court, or any insignia of Government within them. This is a point which, at a future stage of the case, my learned associate, who is much better able to do so than I am, will have occasion to dwell upon. I wish, however, to call your attention to the rules as they have been laid down; and first, I would desire to refer you, and also to call the attention of the Court, to what is said by Vattel,--who, as you all probably know, is one of the most celebrated authors upon international rights, and international law, and who is received as authority upon that subject in every Court in Europe and America. I refer to Vattel, book 1, chap. 17, secs. 201 and 202, where he says: "_Sec. 201._ When a city or province is threatened, or actually attacked, it must not, for the sake of escaping a danger, separate itself, or abandon its natural Prince, even when the State or the Prince is unable to give it immediate and effectual assistance. Its duty, its political engagements, oblige it to make the greatest efforts in order to maintain itself in its present state. If it is overcome by force, necessity, that irresistible law, frees it from its former engagements, and gives it a right to treat with the conqueror, in order to obtain the best terms possible. If it must either submit to him or perish, who can doubt but it may, and even ought to prefer the former alternative? Modern usage is conformable to this decision,--a city submits to the enemy, when it cannot expect safety from vigorous resistance. It takes an oath of fidelity to him, and its sovereign lays the blame on fortune alone." "_Sec. 202._ The State is obliged to protect and defend all its members; and the Prince owes the same assistance to his subjects. If, therefore, the State or the Prince refuses or neglects to succor a body of people who are exposed to imminent danger, the latter, being thus abandoned, become perfectly free to provide for their own safety and preservation in whatever manner they find most convenient, without paying the least regard to those who, by abandoning them, have been the first to fail in their duty. The Canton of Zug, being attacked by the Swiss in 1352, sent for succor to the Duke of Austria, its sovereign; but that Prince, being engaged in discourse concerning his hawks at the time when the deputies appeared before him, would scarcely condescend to hear them. Thus abandoned, the people of Zug entered into the Helvetic Confederacy. The city of Zurich had been in the same situation the year before. Being attacked by a band of rebellious citizens, who were supported by the neighboring nobility, and the House of Austria, it made application to the head of the Empire; but Charles IV., who was then Emperor, declared to its deputies that he could not defend it, upon which Zurich secured its safety by an alliance with the Swiss. The same reason has authorized the Swiss in general to separate themselves entirely from the Empire which never protected them in any emergency. They had not denied its authority for a long time before their independence was acknowledged by the Emperor, and the whole Germanic Body, at the treaty of Westphalia." I also refer to the case of the United States _v._ Hayward, 2 Gallison, 485, which was a writ of error to the District Court of Massachusetts, in a case of alleged breach of the revenue laws. It appears that Castine (in Maine) was taken possession of by the British troops on the 1st of September, 1814, and was held in their possession until after the Treaty of Peace. Judge Story says: "The second objection is, that the Court directed the Jury that Castine was, under the circumstance, a foreign port. By 'foreign port,' as the terms are here used, may be understood a port within the dominions of a foreign sovereign, and without the dominions of the United States. The port of Castine is the port of entry for the District of Penobscot, and is within the acknowledged territory of the United States. But, at the time referred to in the bill of exceptions, it had been captured, and was in the open and exclusive possession of the enemy. _By the conquest and occupation of Castine, that territory passed under the allegiance and sovereignty of the enemy. The sovereignty of the United States over the territory was, of course, suspended, and the laws of the United States could no longer be rightfully enforced, or be obligatory upon the inhabitants, who remained and submitted to the conquerors._" Now, gentlemen, I must trouble you, very briefly, with a reference to one or two other authorities on that subject. At page 188 of Foster's Crown Law that learned author says: "_Sec 8._ Protection and allegiance are reciprocal obligations, and consequently the allegiance due to the Crown must, as I said before, be paid to him who is in the full and actual exercise of the regal powers, and to none other. I have no occasion to meddle with the distinction between Kings _de facto_ and Kings _de jure_, because the warmest advocates for that distinction, and for the principles upon which it hath been founded, admit that even a King _de facto_, in the full and sole possession of the Crown, is a King within the Statute of Treasons; it is admitted, too, that the throne being full, any other person out of possession, but claiming title, is no King within the act, be his pretensions what they may. "These principles, I think, no lawyer hath ever yet denied. They are founded in reason, equity, and good policy." And again, at page 398, he continues: "His Lordship [Hale] admitted that a temporary allegiance was due to Henry VI. as being King _de facto_. If this be true, as it undoubtedly is, with what color of law could those who paid him that allegiance before the accession of Edward IV. be considered as traitors? For call it a temporary allegiance, or by what other epithet of diminution you please, still it was due to him, while in full possession of the Crown, and consequently those who paid him that due allegiance could not, with any sort of propriety, be considered as traitors for doing so. "The 11th of Henry VII., though subsequent to these transactions, is full in point. For let it be remembered, that though the enacting part of this excellent law can respect only future cases, the preamble, which his Lordship doth not cite at large, is declaratory of the common law: and consequently will enable us to judge of the legality of past transactions. It reciteth to this effect, 'That the subjects of England are bound by the duty of their allegiance to serve their Prince and Sovereign Lord for the time being, in defence of him and his realm, against every rebellion, power, and might raised against him; and that whatsoever may happen in the fortune of war against the mind and will of the Prince, as in this land, some time past it hath been seen, it is not reasonable, but against all laws, reason, and good conscience, that such subjects attending upon such service should suffer for doing their true duty and service of allegiance.' It then enacteth, that no person attending upon the King for the time being in his wars, shall for such service be convict or attaint of treason or other offence by Act of Parliament, or otherwise by any process of law." The author says then: "Here is a clear and full parliamentary declaration, that by the antient law and Constitution of England, founded on principles of reason, equity, and good conscience, the allegiance of the subject is due to the King for the time being, and to him alone. This putteth the duty of the subject upon a rational, safe bottom. He knoweth that protection and allegiance are reciprocal duties. He hopeth for protection from the Crown, and he payeth his allegiance to it in the person of him whom he seeth in full and peaceable possession of it. He entereth not into the question of title; he hath neither leisure or abilities, nor is he at liberty to enter into that question. But he seeth the fountain, from whence the blessings of Government, liberty, peace, and plenty flow to him; and there he payeth his allegiance. And this excellent law hath secured him against all after reckonings on that account." And another author on that subject [Hawkins], in his Pleas of the Crown, Book I., chap. 17, sec. 11, says: "As to the third point, who is a King within this act? [26 Edw. 3, ch. 2.] It seems agreed that every King for the time being, in actual possession of the crown, is a King within the meaning of this statute. For there is a necessity that the realm should have a King by whom and in whose name the laws shall be administered; and the King in possession being the only person who either doth or can administer those laws, must be the only person who has a right to that obedience which is due to him who administers those laws; and since by virtue thereof he secures to us the safety of our lives, liberties, and properties, and all other advantages of Government, he may justly claim returns of duty, allegiance, and subjection." "_Sec. 12._ And this plainly appears by the prevailing opinions in the reign of King Edward IV., in whose reign the distinction between a King _de jure_ and _de facto_ seems first to have begun; and yet it was then laid down as a principle, and taken for granted in the arguments of Bagot's case, that a treason against Henry VI. while he was King, in compassing his death, was punishable after Edward IV. came to the Crown; from which it follows that allegiance was held to be due to Henry VI. while he was King, because every indictment of treason must lay the offence _contra ligeantiæ debitum_. "_Sec. 13._ It was also settled that all judicial acts done by Henry VI. while he was King, and also all pardons of felony and charters of denization granted by him, were valid; but that a pardon made by Edward IV., before he was actually King, was void, even after he came to the Crown." "And by the 11th Henry VII., ch. 1, it is declared 'that all subjects are bound by their allegiance to serve their Prince and Sovereign Lord for the time being in his wars for the defence of him and his land against every rebellion, power, and might reared against him, &c., and that it is against all laws, reason, and good conscience that he should lose or forfeit any thing for so doing;' and it is enacted 'that from thenceforth no person or persons that attend on the King for the time being, and do him true and faithful allegiance in his wars, within the realm or without, shall for the said deed and true duty of allegiance _be convict of any offence_.'" "_Sec. 15._ From hence it clearly follows: _First_, that every King for the time being has a right to the people's allegiance, because they are bound thereby to defend him in his wars, against every power whatsoever. "_Sec. 16._ _Secondly_, that one out of possession is so far from having any right to allegiance, by virtue of any other title which he may set up against the King in being, that we are bound by the duty of our allegiance to resist him." And these doctrines, if the Court please, have been recently acted upon and enforced by a learned Judge in the case of the United States _vs._ The General Parkhill, tried in Philadelphia, and published in the newspapers, although not yet issued in the regular volumes of Reports. I need not tell you, gentlemen, that what is said there of the King, applies to any other form of Government equally well, whether it be a republican form of Government, or whatever it may be. These doctrines belong to this country as well as they belong to England. They belong to every country which has adopted the common law; and what would be due to a King in the actual possession of the Government in England, under our statutes and decisions, and under the rules adopted here, would be equally due to a President of the United States in any part of the country in which we live. I have only to call your attention, in that connection, in opening the defence, to what the condition of things was in the South at the time the acts charged in the indictment occurred. You will bear in mind there is no pretence in this case that any one of these prisoners had anything whatever to do with the initiation of this controversy,--with the overthrow or disappearance of the United States authority in those Confederate States, or with any act occurring anterior to the 2d of June, when this vessel, the Savannah, started upon her career. Nothing, so far, appears, and, in reality, nothing can be made to appear, to show any event, before that time, with which they were connected. The question, then, is, What was the state of things existing in Charleston, and in the Confederate States, at that time? In the course of the evidence, we will lay that before you, in the completest form it can be laid. We will show you, by the official documents, by the messages of the President, by proclamations, and by the Acts of Congress themselves, that there was not an officer of the United States exercising jurisdiction in one of these Confederate States--not a Judge, or Marshal, or District Attorney, or any other officer by whom the Government had been previously administered on the part of the United States. Every one of them had resigned his office. This new Government had been formed. It was the existing Government, which had replaced the United States in all these States, long anterior to the time that this vessel was fitted out and sailed from the port of Charleston; and upon these questions, whether that was a _de jure_ or _de facto_ Government, we say it was the existing Government that was in authority over these men--that exercised the power of life and death over them, for it had Courts administering its decrees, as well as every other form and all the other insignia of power; and they were justified by overruling necessity, and by every other title, in yielding obedience to that Government, and in yielding their allegiance to it, as the cases I have read decide; and that duty enjoined upon their consciences to aid and support it by all means in their power from that time forward, until there was another Government over them. I say, therefore, gentlemen, that this was not a commission issued by a "person, to wit, one Jefferson Davis." I say it was a commission issued by several of the States of the Union, represented, if you please, by Jefferson Davis, and by authority, in fact, from those States, and from the Government in force over them. And more than that, gentlemen, to bring the case still more clearly within the authorities I have read to you, and which you, no doubt, carry in your minds, we will show by the declarations of the Presidents of the United States--by the declaration of Mr. Buchanan, in December, 1860, and by the declaration of Mr. Lincoln, on the 4th of March, 1861--that neither of them, at either of those dates, intended to interfere, or to attempt to interfere, by force, with this existing Government. They both, publicly and solemnly, in the presence of the United States, declared that they would not attempt, by any forcible invasion of those States, to overthrow the Government established over them;--that there would be no "invasion," is the expression;--that they would leave it to the sober second thought of the people of those States, by process of time, by maturer thought and better reflection, to return, probably, to their former position under the Government of the United States. And what were men to do, in that condition of things, in the State of South Carolina, in the State of Georgia, or in any one of those States, with not an officer of the United States to protect them--with not a Court of Justice to protect them--with Courts of Justice, on the contrary, organized by the new Government, and exercising dominion of life and death, and every other dominion that Government could exercise--but to yield their allegiance to it, and from thenceforth to support it, as honest men should do, who yield their allegiance to the Government? As I said before, in respect to this question, even if this were a voluntary act on the part of the prisoners--if they were not controlled by necessity--if they had a state of things before them which authorized them to believe that their conduct was right--that the States did nothing more than they had a right to do--they were justified in giving allegiance to the Government in existence. We have nothing to say as to the correctness of the political views or opinions of the prisoners whatever. The question is, What did these men believe--what were they taught to believe, by your own expounders of the Constitution--what did they conscientiously and sincerely believe? When they acted under this commission, did they believe that it was a legitimate authority, and had they full color for the belief which they held? And now, gentlemen, another point that we shall maintain before you is, that under the Constitution of the United States, those States had color of authority to grant this commission; and that the executive government of the State had the jurisdiction to decide, for all the citizens of the State, whether the emergency for taking hostile proceedings against the General Government had arrived, or not. And I know that, in saying that, I am speaking to this Jury an unpalatable doctrine, at the present day; but it is a doctrine which is amply borne out by the cotemporaneous expositions of the Constitution, penned by its own framers, by the decisions of the Courts, and by authorities on which we are accustomed to rely for questions of that character. Now, the Constitution of the country is a complex one. There are two sovereigns in every State, exercising allegiance over the inhabitants of the State. The one sovereign is the United States of America, and the other sovereign is the State in which the citizen lives. And when I say that, I am speaking in the language of the Supreme Court of the United States itself, over and over repeated, as late as the 21st of Howard's Reports (but a few removes, I believe, from the last volume issued from that Court), without a dissenting voice. The theory of our Government is, that the States are sovereign and independent, and that, in coming into the Union, they have retained that sovereignty and independence for every purpose, and in every case, except those in which an express grant of power has been made to the Government of the United States, either in express words, or by necessary implication; and the Courts have held, over and over again, that any act of the General Government of the United States, which transcends the express grant of power made by the Constitution, is absolutely void, to all intents and purposes whatever. And more than that, gentlemen, the citizen of a State cannot only commit treason against the United States, or other kindred political offences; but he can, in like manner, commit treason against the State in which he lives, or other kindred political offences against its government. The Constitution of the United States defines treason to be, "levying war against the United States, or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort." The Constitution of the State of New York defines treason against the State of New York to be, "levying war against the State, or adhering to its enemies, giving them aid and comfort." The Constitution of South Carolina defines and punishes treason against the State, in the language of the old English statute, bringing it to precisely the same thing. As I said, therefore, the citizen of New York or the citizen of South Carolina (because, whether in one or the other locality, it is the same thing) is under two sovereigns, owing allegiance to each of them--the sovereign State in which he is, owning the whole mass of residuary power (as it has been happily expressed in the decisions of the Court) beyond the express, limited power granted to the Federal Government by the Constitution of the United States. I want to call your attention to another thing, as I go along with this line of the argument. I contend that, among the powers which have been delegated to the State governments by the Constitutions of the States, is the power in the executive government of the State, co-ordinately with the General Government, to decide whether itself or the General Government has transcended the line which bounds their respective jurisdictions, upon any case in which a collision may arise between them, which affects the public domain of the State, or the whole State, or its citizens, considered as a body politic. And you will see, in a moment, the reason why I state my proposition in that way. You have all heard of what, in the history of the country, has been called _nullification_, and you probably all understand very nearly what that is. By _nullification_, as it has been spoken of in the history of our country, was meant the claim on the part of a State, by a convention of its people, or otherwise, to decide that the laws of the United States should not operate within its limits upon its citizens, in cases where the law could legitimately operate upon individual citizens. Because you will all recollect that the laws of the United States, in their operation throughout the Union--their criminal laws, laws for the collection of duties, and similar laws--operate upon individual citizens, without reference to whether they are citizens of one State or another. The law operates upon them as people of the United States. And therefore, if you are carrying on business in the port of New York, and a consignment comes to you, it is a question between you as a citizen of the United States and the Government whether the tariff, under which duties are attempted to be collected is valid, as between you and the Government, or not--whether it was legitimate for Congress to pass that tariff; and, in all cases arising on these subjects, the Constitution has provided a tribunal, an arbiter, which is supreme and final, without any appeal. For instance, if you deny the validity of the law under which duties are attempted to be collected upon the goods imported by you, and the Collector attempts to collect them, you refuse to pay, or pay under protest,--and the case must come into the District Court of the United States; and if the Court decides that the law was unconstitutional, you get immediate redress; if it decides that it was constitutional, the question can be carried to the Supreme Court of the United States, and there finally settled. And, therefore, I say that in all cases that come within the purview of the judicial department of the Government, the laws of the United States, as administered by the Courts, and their decisions, bind the citizens of the States in every part of the land. But, gentlemen, there are an immense class of cases constantly arising where no opportunity can ever be presented to a Court to pass upon them, which were never intended to be passed upon by a Court, which are cases of collision between the executive department of the General Government and the State government in matters, as I expressed it to you before, affecting the public domain, or the State or its citizens as a body politic. As laid down by the expounders of the Constitution of the United States, that instrument is one to which the States are parties, as well as the people of the United States and people of each State. Suppose a case of this kind. It is not a case likely to arise; but every case may arise, as we have been sadly admonished by the events of the last few months. Suppose we had a President in the executive chair at Washington who was a citizen of the State of Massachusetts, and greatly interested in the prosperity of the commerce of the City of Boston; and suppose that, being a wicked man (for wicked men have been sometimes elected to offices in this and every country), he had conceived the iniquitous design of ruining the commerce of New York, for the purpose of benefiting the commerce of the City of Boston; and suppose, in the prosecution of that wicked design, without the pretense of authority to do so under the Constitution of the United States, without a pretense that Congress had passed any law authorizing him to do anything of the kind, he should station a fleet of vessels, by orders to the commander of his squadron, off the harbor of New York, and should say, from this day forward the commerce of the port of New York is hermetically closed, and the commerce which has formerly gone to New York must go to Boston. Is the State of New York, under a condition of things of that kind, to submit to the closing of her commerce, to her ruin and destruction? Can she get before the Courts for redress against such an infringement of the Constitution by the President? How is she to get there? She cannot go to the Supreme Court of the United States, for in the Courts of the United States there is no form of jurisdiction by which the question can be brought before the Courts by any possibility whatever; and New York is a sovereign and independent State, and, so far as she has not conceded jurisdiction to the United States by the Constitution, has a right to exercise every sovereign and independent power that she has. _There_ is a case, therefore, in which the Courts of law can afford no redress,--in which the Constitution has erected no common arbiter between the General Government and the government of the State. Who, then, is the arbiter in such a case? Why, gentlemen, the books have expressed it. It is the last argument of Kings--it is the law of might; and in case of a collision of that kind, I maintain before you, upon this trial, that the State has a right to redress herself by force against the General Government; that she has a right, if necessary, to commission cruisers, to drive the squadron away from the port of New York; and she has a right, if more effectual, to commission private armed vessels to aid in driving them away, or to capture or subdue them. There being no common arbiter between her and the General Government in a case of that kind, she has a right to use force in redressing herself, and to take the power into her own hands. And the authorities are uniform upon that subject. I have been obliged to detain you so long that I shall not read them to you; but I have them collected before me, and in the future discussions which may take place before the Court I shall be able to show that that right was maintained by Hamilton, one of the most distinguished members of the Convention who helped to frame the Constitution, and the strongest advocate of placing large powers in the hands of the Federal Government; by Madison, Jefferson, and all the Fathers of the Constitution, and by all who have written upon the subject; that it is a doctrine which has been asserted by the Legislature of the State of New Jersey, and, indeed, by the State Legislatures of all the States, pretty much, in which the question has arisen--that the Supreme Court of the United States have themselves over and over again declared that the only safeguard that existed, under the Constitution, against the right of the State to come into collision with the General Government, in all cases whatever, was the existence of the judiciary power, in cases where that was applicable between them, and that in all cases where that judiciary power failed, they were left to the law of nature and the might of Kings to redress themselves. Now, gentlemen, if I am right in that step in my argument,--if that right would exist at any time or under any circumstances,--there must be some authority, in the State that has the jurisdiction, to decide for the citizens of the State when that occasion has arisen; and there must be some authority in the United States which has a right to decide for the Government of the United States when that occasion has arisen; whose decision (that is, in the General Government) is binding for the people of all the States, except the State in collision with the Federal Government and which makes a contrary decision; and whose decision, in that State, is an authority and protection for all the citizens of that State. I say to you, moreover, gentlemen, that that right, under the law of nature, to resist the attempted usurpation of a power which has not been granted by the Constitution, resides, in a State, in the executive government, and necessarily in the Governor of the State; because you will recollect one of the premises upon which we started was, that all the residuary power in the government, beyond what had been expressly ceded to the Government of the United States by the Federal Constitution, is, by the Constitution, reserved to the State; and the Governor of the State is the sentinel upon the watch-tower for the protection of the rights of the State. He is placed in that position to watch the danger from afar. He communicates with the General Government. Any steps taken having reference to the State, pass under his inspection; and he alone has the materials within his reach for knowing the circumstances and deciding upon the facts in regard to the question whether the General Government is acting within the constitutional limit of its powers, or whether it is guilty of any usurpation of power, in any claim of authority it makes with reference to the affairs of the State. Because, in the case I have supposed, of a President elected from the State of Massachusetts, seeking to destroy the commerce of New York, and stationing a fleet off the harbor, it is not likely that a President who was guilty of such wickedness would avow that he did it for the purpose of building up the commerce of Boston and destroying that of New York. No; he would say that he had notice of a hostile invasion--a fleet leaving the coast of Great Britain or of some other maritime power to make a descent upon New York,--that he had notice of some threatened injury to New York, which would make it necessary to station a fleet there, and to prevent vessels from entering or leaving. The Governor alone would have the means of ascertaining whether there was any foundation in truth for that, or whether it was a mere pretence to cover his iniquitous purpose; and in determining the case whether the Federal Government is exceeding its power or not, or acting within the constitutional limit of its power, the Governor has to deal with a compound question of law and fact. He must first read the Constitution of the United States, and ascertain its grant of power, and then compare that with the facts as presented to him; and upon that comparison the jurisdiction is placed in him to decide whether the act of the General Government is within its power, or a transgression of it. He decides the question, and what more have we then? He is, by his office, commander-in-chief of the military and naval forces of the State; for the State can have both military and naval forces. It has its militia at all times. It is authorized expressly by the Constitution to keep ships of war, in time of war. There is, certainly, a prohibition in the Constitution of the United States against a State granting letters of marque; but that is a prohibition against its granting letters of marque in a war against foreign States; it has no reference whatever to any possible collision that may take place between the State and the Federal Government. And that rule is laid down by _Grotius_ and _Vattel_ both; for they both maintain and assert the right of the people, under every limited Constitution, in the case of a palpable infringement of power by the chief of the State, forcibly to resist it; and GROTIUS puts the case of a State with a limited Constitution, having both a King and a Senate, in which the power of declaring war was in express terms reserved to the King alone, and he says that by no means prevents the Senate, in case of an infringement of the Constitution by the King, from declaring and making war against him; because the phrase is to be understood of a war with foreign nations and not of an internal war. I say, therefore, that in a case of that kind--a palpable infringement by the General Government of the Constitution--the Governor of the State, in the first place, has the only means and the only right of deciding whether that infringement has taken place. In each State the Governor is commander-in-chief of the naval and military forces; he has a right to give military orders to citizens; he has a right to order them to muster in the service of the State; and if they disobey him they can be punished the same as they can in any civilized country. And more than that: suppose a case arises of that kind, in which the General and State Governments come into forcible collision, and suppose a citizen should take arms against the State; there is the law of the State which punishes for treason every citizen of the State who adheres to its enemies, giving them aid and comfort; and, under the theory of the prosecution, if he adheres to the State, and the Federal Government should happen to be the victor in the contest, there is the law of the Federal Government which punishes him for adhering to the State. So that the poor citizen of the State, if this theory be correct, is to be punished and hanged, whichever party may succeed in the unhappy contest. But, gentlemen, the law perpetrates no such absurdity as that; for the very moment the doctrine for which I contend is admitted, the citizen, in a conflict like that between the Federal Government and the State, is not liable to be considered a traitor or punished as such, let him adhere to which of the two parties he pleases, in good faith. The reason of which is clear. He is the subject of two sovereigns,--the one the Federal Government and the other the State in which he lives. Either of these sovereigns has jurisdiction to decide for him the question whether the other is committing a usurpation of power or not; and it inevitably follows that if these two sovereigns decide that question differently, the citizen is not to be punished as a traitor, let him adhere to which he pleases in good faith. And I submit to you, gentlemen, that is the only doctrine, under the Constitution of the United States, and under our complex system of government, which can be admitted for a moment. I will give you a confirmation of that. I have already stated to you the clause of the Constitution of the United States which defines the punishment of the crime of treason against the United States,--and by looking at the reports of the debates in the Convention which adopted the Constitution, you will find that the clause, as originally reported to the Convention, read: "Treason against the United States shall consist in levying war against the United States _or any of them_, or in adhering to the enemies of the United States, _or any of them_, giving them aid and comfort,"--and the clause, as reported, was amended by striking out the words, "or any of them," and making it read: "Treason against the United States shall consist in levying war against them or in adhering to their enemies," &c. Therefore, under our Constitution, treason against the United States must be levying war against all the States of this Confederacy. It does not mean the Government. The amendment which I have spoken of shows it must be an act of hostility which is, in judgment of law, an act of hostility against all the States of the Union. Therefore I say that a citizen who owes allegiance to a State of the Union, when he acts in good faith, under the jurisdiction of one of the sovereigns to whom he owes allegiance--to wit, the State--does not levy war against the United States. He levies war against the Government which claims to represent him, in that case,--his other sovereign, to whom he equally owes allegiance, deciding that that Government is committing an usurpation of power; and he is acting under the authority of those in whom he rightly and justly reposes faith,--to whom has been delegated the right to decide; and however the Governor of the State may be punished by impeachment, if he has acted in bad faith, the citizen cannot be subject to the halter for doing that which he was under a legal obligation to do. Then, gentlemen, to show the application of the rule for which I have been contending--and with the necessary details of which I fear I must have wearied you--to the case in hand: The moment it is conceded that any possible case can arise in which a State would have the right to resist by force the General Government,--the moment it is conceded that it is the Governor of the State, who, co-ordinately with the President of the Union, has a right to decide that question for himself,--then I say we have nothing whatever to do with the question, whether, under the unhappy circumstances which have arisen, the Governor of the State, or of any of the States, decided right or wrong. We know they did claim that the General Government was usurping power which did not belong to it. In fact, I think we have the confession of the President of the United States that, with an honest heart and with honest purposes, which I believe have actuated him all through, he has, as he says, for the preservation of the Union, the hope of humanity in all ages, and the greatest Government, as I shall ever believe, that man has ever created,--that he has been compelled to, and did, usurp power which did not belong to him. President Buchanan, before and after this controversy arose, asserted plainly and unequivocally that he had searched the Constitution and laws of the United States for the purpose of finding any color of authority for the invasion of a State by military force, or the using of force against it; and that he could find no such warrant in the Constitution. He was right. There was nothing of the kind in the Constitution; but he failed to see (in my humble judgment) that the law of nature gave him the power to enforce the legitimate authority of the Union, as it gave to the State government the power to repel usurpation. President Lincoln, when he assumed the reins of power, admitted that there was a doubt on that subject. He declared at first that it was not expedient to exercise that power, and that he would not exercise it. He changed his mind afterwards, and did exercise it; and on the 13th of April he issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteers, the first duty assigned to whom, as he stated in his proclamation, would be to invade the Southern States, for the purpose of recapturing the forts and retaking the places that had passed out of the jurisdiction of the United States. And in a subsequent proclamation he declared that he had granted to the military commanders of these forces, without the sanction of an Act of Congress, authority to suspend the writ of _habeas corpus_, within certain limits and in certain cases, in those States. And he makes the frank admission that, in his own belief at least, some of the powers which he had found himself compelled to exercise were not warranted in the Constitution of the United States. Now these acts of hostility complained of in the indictment took place long subsequent to that. This proclamation was in the month of April. These commissions were not issued, and the Act of the Confederate States to authorize their issue was not passed, until some time afterwards--after they had learned of this proclamation; and this commission was not granted until the month of June subsequent. I say, therefore, a case was presented for the exercise of the jurisdiction of the Government of the United States, to decide whether it was exercising its rightful powers, under the Constitution, and for the Governor of the State to decide, for the State, that same question; and that an unhappy case of collision, ever to be regretted and deplored, had arisen between the Government of the United States and the Government of those States; and I say that the citizens of any one of those States owing the duty of allegiance to two sovereigns--to the government of their State and to the Government of the United States--had a right honestly to make their election to which of the two sovereigns they would adhere, and are not to be punished as traitors or pirates if they have decided not wisely, nor as we would have done in the section of the country where we live. I am sorry, gentlemen, to detain you on the question; but it is a most important one--one that enters into the very marrow of this case; and we do claim that the issuing of this commission, whether on the footing of its having been issued by a _de facto_ Government, or by authority from the State, considering it as remaining under the Constitution, was a commission that forms a protection to the defendants, and one which is not within the purview of the Act of 1790; because it was not, in the language of that section, a commission taken by a citizen of the United States to cruise against other citizens of the United States, either from a _foreign_ Prince or State, or a person merely. You will observe that if the claim of the Confederate States, that the ordinances of secession are valid, be correct, then it is true that they are foreign States; but their citizens have ceased to be citizens of the United States, and are therefore not within the purview of the ninth section of the Act of 1700. If, on the contrary, the claim on the part of the Government of the United States, that these ordinances are absolutely void, be correct, then the States are still States of this Union, and the commission, being issued by their authority, is not a commission issued by a _foreign_ State, and therefore the case is not within the purview of the ninth section of the Act of 1790. I must allude very briefly, before closing, to another ground on which this defence will be placed: and that is, that conceding (if we were obliged to concede) that this was not an authority, such as contemplated, to give protection to cruisers as privateers, there was a state of war existing in which hostile forces were arrayed against each other in this country, and which made this capture of the Joseph a belligerent act, even obliterating State lines altogether, for the purpose of the argument. But before I pass from what I have said to you on the subject of the claim of authority of the States of this Union to come into collision with the General Government, allow me to call attention to the forcible precedents shown in the history of our own glorious Revolution, when the thirteen Colonies, numbering little more than three millions, instead of thirty, separated from Great Britain. At the time when that occurred, in 1776, this very statute of 1790 was in force in England, as I have shown you. It was passed in England, if I recollect right, in 1694. The position of the thirteen Colonies towards the mother country, at that time, was precisely the position that those States which call themselves the "Confederate States" now occupy towards the General Government of the Union. Appealing to God, as the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, for the rectitude of their intentions, and acknowledging their accountability to no other power, they had claimed to resist the usurpation of the King of Great Britain. They had not even claimed, at the time of which I speak--for I speak of the end of the year 1775 and the beginning of 1776--to declare their independence and to throw off their subjection to Great Britain. At that very early day there were very few in these Colonies that contemplated a thing of that kind, or whose minds could be brought to contemplate such an act. They had risen in resistance against what they claimed to be arbitrary power; they claimed that the King of Great Britain had encroached upon their rights and privileges in a manner not warranted by the Constitution of Great Britain. They did not claim to secede from Great Britain; they did not claim to make themselves independent of subjection to her rule; they claimed to stop the course of usurpation which, they held, had been commenced; and they proposed to return under subjection to the British crown the very moment that an accommodation should be made, yielding allegiance to the King of Great Britain as in all time before. And now, gentlemen, on the 23d March, 1776, on a Saturday, the little Continental Congress was sitting in the chamber, of which you have often seen the picture, composed of the great, wise, and good men, who sat there in deliberation over the most momentous event that has ever occurred in modern times, if we except that now agitating and convulsing our beloved country. I never heard one of those men stigmatized as a pirate. I never heard one of those men calumniated as an enemy of the human race. I have often heard them called the greatest, wisest, and best men that ever lived on the face of God's earth. I will read to you what occurred on the 23d March, 1776;--they being subjects of the King of Great Britain, and having never claimed to throw off allegiance to him, but claiming that he was usurping power which did not belong to him, and that they, as representatives of the thirteen Colonies of America, were the judges of that question and those facts, as we claim that the States are now the judges of this question and these facts. They adopted the following preamble and resolutions: "The Congress resumed the consideration of the Declaration, which was agreed to, as follows: "WHEREAS, The petitions of the United Colonies to the King for the redress of great and manifold grievances have not only been rejected, but treated with scorn and contempt, and the opposition to designs evidently formed to reduce them to a state of servile subjection, and their necessary defence against hostile forces actually employed to subdue them, declared rebellion; "AND WHEREAS, An unjust war hath been commenced against them which the commanders of the British fleets and armies have prosecuted and still continue to prosecute with their utmost vigor, in a cruel manner, wasting, spoiling, and destroying the country, burning houses and defenceless towns, and exposing the helpless inhabitants to every misery, from the inclemency of the winter, and not only urging savages to invade the country, but instigating negroes to murder their masters; "R. TOOMBS, The Parliament of Great Britain hath lately passed an Act, affirming these Colonies to be in open rebellion; forbidding all trade and commerce with the inhabitants thereof until they shall accept pardons, and submit to despotic rule; declaring their property wherever found upon the water liable to seizure and confiscation, and enacting that what had been done there by virtue of the royal authority were just and lawful acts, and shall be so deemed; from all which it is manifest that the iniquitous schemes concerted to deprive them of the liberty they have a right to by the laws of nature, and the English Constitution, will be pertinaciously pursued. It being, therefore, necessary to provide for their defence and security, and justifiable to make reprisals upon their enemies and otherwise to annoy them according to the laws and usages of nations; the Congress, trusting that such of their friends in Great Britain (of whom it is confessed there are many entitled to applause and gratitude for their patriotism and benevolence, and in whose favor a discrimination of property cannot be made) as shall suffer by captures will impute it to the authors of our common calamities, Do Declare and Resolve as follows, to wit: "_Resolved_, That the Inhabitants of these Colonies be permitted to fit out armed vessels to cruise on the enemies of these United Colonies. "_Resolved_, That all ships and other vessels, their tackle, apparel and furniture, and all goods, wares and merchandize belonging to any inhabitant of Great Britain, taken on the high seas, or between high and low water-mark, by any armed vessel fitted out by any private person or persons, and to whom commissions shall be granted, and being libelled and prosecuted in any Court erected for the trial of maritime affairs in any of these Colonies, shall be deemed and adjudged to be lawful prize, and after deducting and paying the wages which the seamen and mariners on board of such captures as are merchant ships and vessels shall be entitled to, according to the terms of their contracts, until the time of their adjudication, shall be condemned to and for the use of the owner or owners, and the officers, marines, and mariners of such armed vessels, according to such rules and proportions as they shall agree on. Provided, always, that this resolution shall not extend to any vessel bringing settlers, arms, ammunition or warlike stores to and for the use of these Colonies, or any of the inhabitants thereof who are friends to the American cause, or to such warlike stores, or to the effects of such settlers. "_Resolved_, That all ships or vessels, with their tackle, apparel and furniture, goods, wares and merchandize, belonging to any inhabitant of Great Britain, as aforesaid, which shall be taken by any of the vessels of war of these United Colonies, shall be deemed forfeited; one-third, after deducting and paying the wages of seamen and mariners, as aforesaid, to the officers and men on board, and two-thirds to the use of the United Colonies. "_Resolved_, That all ships or vessels, with their tackle, apparel and goods, wares and merchandizes, belonging to any inhabitant of Great Britain, as aforesaid, which shall be taken by any vessel of war fitted out by and at the expense of any of the United Colonies, shall be deemed forfeited and divided, after deducting and paying the wages of seamen and mariners, as aforesaid, in such manner and proportions as the Assembly or Convention of such Colony shall direct." There are two or three other resolutions, which it is not necessary for me to trouble you with the reading of. You will bear in mind that there were no two sovereignties over these United Colonies at that time. They had no sovereignty or independence whatever; they were mere Provinces of the British Crown; the Governors derived their appointment from the Crown itself, or from the proprietors of the Colonies; and these wise and good men, on the 23d March, 1776, claimed that the King of Great Britain had usurped powers which did not belong to him under the Constitution of Great Britain, and that they had the right to resist his encroachments; and they authorized letters of marque to cruise against the ships and property of their fellow subjects of Great Britain, because of the state of things which arose from a collision between them and the Crown. They were enemies, and although they regretted that they had to injure in their property men who were their friends, they trusted they would excuse them, owing to the inevitable necessity that existed and the impossibility of discriminating between friends and foes in the case of inhabitants of Great Britain. And now, gentlemen, to trouble you with one more brief reference, let me show you what took place before that Act of the Provincial Congress was passed in the Province of Massachusetts. They had already passed a Provincial Act of the General Assembly, couched in similar language, authorizing cruisers and privateers against the enemies of that Province; and you will see what occurred. I read again from Cooper's Naval History, 1st Vol., p. 42. He is speaking of the year 1775: "The first nautical enterprise that succeeded the battle of Lexington was one purely of private adventure. The intelligence of this conflict was brought to Machias, in Maine, on Saturday, the 9th of May, 1775. An armed schooner, in the service of the Crown, called the Margaretta, was lying in port, with two sloops under her convoy, that were loading with lumber on behalf of the King's Government. "The bearers of the news were enjoined to be silent,--a plan to capture the Margaretta having been immediately projected among some of the more spirited of the inhabitants. The next day being Sunday, it was hoped that the officers of the schooner might be seized while in church; but the scheme failed, in consequence of the precipitation of some engaged. Captain Moore, who commanded the Margaretta, saw the assailants, and, with his officers, escaped through the windows of the church to the shore, where they were protected by the guns of their vessel. The alarm was now taken; springs were got on the Margaretta's cables, and a few harmless shot were fired over the town by way of intimidation. After a little delay, however, the schooner dropped down below the town to a distance exceeding a league. Here she was followed, summoned to surrender, and fired on from a high bank, which her own shot could not reach. The Margaretta again weighed, and running into the bay, at the confluence of the two rivers, anchored. The following morning, which was Monday, the 11th of May, four young men took possession of one of the lumber sloops, and, bringing her alongside of a wharf, they gave three cheers as a signal for volunteers. On explaining that their intentions were to make an attack on the Margaretta, a party of about thirty-five athletic men was soon collected. Arming themselves with firearms, pitchforks, and axes, and throwing a small stock of provisions into the sloop, these spirited freemen made sail on their craft, with a light breeze at northwest. When the Margaretta observed the approach of the sloop, she weighed and crowded sail to avoid a conflict that was every way undesirable,--her commander not yet being apprised of all the facts that had occurred near Boston. In jibing, the schooner carried away her main-boom, but, continuing to stand on, she ran into Holmes' Bay, and took a spar out of a vessel that was lying there. While these repairs were making, the sloop hove in sight again, and the Margaretta stood out to sea, in the hope of avoiding her. The breeze freshened, and, with the wind on the quarter, the sloop proved to be the better sailer. So anxious was the Margaretta to avoid a collision, that Captain Moore now cut away his boats; but, finding this ineffectual, and that his assailants were fast closing with him, he opened a fire--the schooner having an armament of four light guns and fourteen swivels. A man was killed on board the sloop, which immediately returned the fire with a wall-piece. This discharge killed the man at the Margaretta's helm, and cleared her quarter-deck. The schooner broached to, when the sloop gave a general discharge. Almost at the same instant the two vessels came foul of each other. A short conflict now took place with musketry,--Captain Moore throwing hand-grenades, with considerable effect, in person. This officer was immediately afterwards shot down, however, when the people of the sloop boarded and took possession of their prize. The loss of life in this affair was not very great, though twenty men, on both sides, are said to have been killed and wounded. The force of the Margaretta, even in men, was much the most considerable; though the crew of no regular cruiser can ever equal, in spirit and energy, a body of volunteers assembled on an occasion like this. There was, originally, no commander in the sloop; but, previously to engaging the schooner, Jeremiah O'Brien was selected for that station. This affair was the Lexington of the sea,--for, like that celebrated land conflict, it was a rising of the people against a regular force; was characterized by a long chase, a bloody struggle, and a triumph. It was also the first blow struck on the water, after the war of the American Revolution had actually commenced." And that is the act, gentlemen, which, instead of being the act of desperadoes, pirates, and enemies of the human race, is recorded in history as an act of spirited freemen. You will remember that the act was done without any commission; it was done while these Provinces were Colonies of the British Crown; it was done long before the Declaration of Independence. The Act of the Provincial Congress, so far as that could have any validity, authorizing letters of marque, was not passed until afterwards, on the 23d of March. The Declaration of Independence was passed on the 4th July, 1776. According to the theory on the other side, call this lawful secession--call it revolution--call it what you please,--these Confederate States, as they are called, are not independent. They have not any Government--they cannot do any thing until their independence is acknowledged by the United States. Therefore, according to the theory of the other side, no act of the Provincial Congress, no act of any of the United Colonies, had any validity in it until the treaty of peace between them and Great Britain was signed, in 1783. But, I need not tell you, gentlemen, that in this country, in all public documents, in all public proceedings, in the decisions of our Courts, the actual establishment of the independence of the United States is dated as having been accomplished on the 4th July, 1776. All the state papers that run in the name and by the authority of the United States of America, run in their name, and by their authority, as of such a year of their independence, dating from the 4th July, 1776. Let me, therefore, show you what was done by the Colonies, in 1776, before and after the date of the Declaration of Independence; and let me show how many piracies our hardy seamen of those days must have committed, on the theory of the prosecution in this case. I read again from Cooper's Naval History: "Some of the English accounts of this period state that near a hundred privateers had been fitted out of New England alone, in the two first years of the war; and the number of seamen in the service of the Crown, employed against the new States of America, was computed at 26,000. "The Colonies obtained many important supplies, colonial as well as military, and even manufactured articles of ordinary use, by means of their captures,--scarce a day passing that vessels of greater or less value did not arrive in some one of the ports of their extensive coast. By a list published in the 'Remembrancer,' an English work of credit, it appears that 342 sail of English vessels had been taken by American cruisers, in 1776; of which number 44 were recaptured, 18 released, and 4 burned." Well, gentlemen, with these facts staring you in the face, I ask you if it is not flying in the face of history--if it is not rejecting and trampling in the dust the glorious traditions of our own country--to be asked seriously to sit in that jury box and try these men for their lives, as pirates and enemies of the human race, on the state of things existing here? Gentlemen, my mind may be under a strong hallucination on the subject; but I cannot conceive the theory on which the prosecution can come into Court, on the state of things existing, and ask for a conviction. Remember that, in saying that, I am speaking as a Northern man,--for I am a Northern man; I am speaking as a subject and adherent to the Government of the Union; I am speaking as one who loves the flag of this country--as one who was born under it--as one who hopes to be permitted to die under it; and I am speaking with tears in my eyes, because I do not want to see that flag tarnished by a judicial murder, and by an act cowardly and dastardly, as I say it would be, if we are to treat these men as pirates, while we are engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict with them with arms in the field, and while they are asserting and maintaining the rights which we claimed for ourselves in former ages. In God's name, gentlemen, let us, if necessary, fight them; if we must have civil war, let us convince them, by the argument of arms, and by other arguments that we can bring to bear, that they are in the wrong; let us bring them back into the Union, and show them, when they get back, that they have made a great mistake; but do not let us tarnish the escutcheon of our country, and disgrace ourselves in the eyes of the civilized world, by treating this mighty subject, when States are meeting in mortal shock and conflict, with the ax and the halter. In God's name, let us have none of that! I have but one word more to say, gentlemen, before I close. I have already said that we claim that this commission is an adequate protection, considering that this is an inter-state war. It has been so considered, and is now so considered by the Government of the United States itself, because, after the conflict had commenced and had gone on for some time, it being treated by the Government at Washington as a mere rebellion or insurrection by insurgent and rebellious citizens in some of the Southern States, it was found that it had assumed too mighty proportions to be treated in that way, and therefore, in the month of July last, the Congress then in session passed an Act, one of the recitals of which was that this state of things had broken out and still existed, and that the war was claimed to be waged under the authority of the governments of the States, and that the governments of the States did not repudiate the existence of that authority. Congress then proceeded to legislate upon the assumption of the fact that the war was carried on under the authority of the governments of the States. There is a distinct recognition by your own Government of the fact that this is an inter-state war, and that the enemies whom our brave troops are encountering in the field are led on under authority emanating from those who are rightfully and lawfully administering the Government of the States. You will recollect, gentlemen, that in most of those States the State governments are the same as they were before this condition of things broke out. There has been no change in the State constitutions. In a great many of them there has been no change in the personnel of those administering the government. They are the recognized legitimate Governors of the States, whatever may be said of those claiming to administer the Government of the Confederate States. But, gentlemen, let us pass from that, and let us suppose it was not a war carried on by authority of the States. It is, then, a civil war, and a civil war of immense and vast proportions; and the authorities are equally clear in that case, that, from the moment that a war of that kind exists, captures on land and at sea are to be treated as prizes of war, and prisoners treated as prisoners of war, and that the vocation of the ax and the halter are gone. I refer you to but a single authority on this subject, because I have already occupied more of your time than I had intended doing, and I have reason to be very grateful to you for the patience and attention with which you have listened to me in the extended remarks that I was obliged to make. I refer to Vattel, Book 3, cap. 18, secs. 287, 292 and 293: "_Sec. 287._ It is a question very much debated whether a sovereign is bound to observe the common laws of war towards rebellious subjects who have openly taken up arms against him. A flatterer, or a Prince of cruel and arbitrary disposition, will immediately pronounce that the laws of war were not made for rebels, for whom no punishment can be too severe. Let us proceed more soberly, and reason from the incontestible principles above laid down." The author then proceeds to enforce the duty of moderation towards mere rebels, and proceeds: "_Sec. 292._ When a party is formed in a State who no longer obey the sovereign, and are possessed of sufficient strength to oppose him; or when, in a Republic, the nation is divided into two opposite factions, and both sides take up arms, this is called a civil war. Some writers confine this term to a just insurrection of the subjects against their sovereign to distinguish that lawful resistance from rebellion, which is an open and unjust resistance. But what appellation will they give to a war which arises in a Republic, torn by two factions, or, in a Monarchy, between two competitors for the Crown? Custom appropriates the term of civil war to every war between the members of one and the same political society. If it be between part of the citizens on the one side, and the sovereign with those who continue in obedience to him on the other, provided the malcontents have any reason for taking up arms, nothing further is required to entitle such disturbance to the name of civil war, and not that of rebellion. This latter term is applied only to such an insurrection against lawful authority as is void of all appearance of justice. The sovereign, indeed, never fails to bestow the appellation of rebels on all such of his subjects as openly resist him; but when the latter have acquired sufficient strength to give him effectual opposition, and to oblige him to carry on the war against them according to the established rules, he must necessarily submit to the use of the term civil war. "_Sec. 293._ It is foreign to our purpose, in this place, to weigh the reasons which may authorize and justify a civil war; we have elsewhere treated of the cases wherein subjects may resist the sovereign. (Book 1, cap. 4.) Setting, therefore, the justice of the cause wholly out of the question, it only remains for us to consider the maxims which ought to be observed in a civil war, and to examine whether the sovereign, in particular, is on such an occasion bound to conform to the established laws of war. "A civil war breaks the bonds of society and Government, or at least suspends their force and effect; it produces in the nation two independent parties, who consider each other as enemies, and acknowledge no common judge. Those two parties, therefore, must necessarily be considered as thenceforward constituting, at least for a time, two separate bodies--two distinct societies. Though one of the parties may have been to blame in breaking the unity of the State, and resisting the lawful authority, they are not the less divided in fact. Besides, who shall judge them? Who should pronounce on which side the right or the wrong lies? On each they have no common superior. They stand, therefore, in precisely the same predicament as two nations who engage in a contest, and, being unable to come to an agreement, have recourse to arms. "This being the case, it is very evident that the common laws of war--those maxims of humanity, moderation and honor, which we have already detailed in the course of this work--ought to be observed by both parties in every civil war. For the same reasons which render the observance of those maxims a matter of obligation between State and State, it becomes equally and even more necessary in the unhappy circumstances of two incensed parties lacerating their common country. Should the sovereign conceive he has a right to hang up his prisoners as rebels, the opposite party will make reprisals; if he does not religiously observe the capitulations, and all other conventions made with his enemies, they will no longer rely on his word; should he burn and ravage, they will follow his example; the war will become cruel, horrible, and every day more destructive to the nation." After noticing the cases of the Duc de Montpensier and Baron des Adrets, he continues: "At length it became necessary to relinquish those pretensions to judicial authority over men who proved themselves capable of supporting their cause by force of arms, and to treat them not as criminals, but as enemies. Even the troops have often refused to serve in a war wherein the Prince exposed them to cruel reprisals. Officers who had the highest sense of honor, though ready to shed their blood on the field of battle for his service, have not thought it any part of their duty to run the hazard of an ignominious death. Whenever, therefore, a numerous body of men think they have a right to resist the sovereign, and feel themselves in a condition to appeal to the sword, the war ought to be carried on by the contending parties in the same manner as by two different nations, and they ought to leave open the same means for preventing its being carried into outrageous extremities and for the restoration of peace." Now, gentlemen, can anything be more explicit on this subject, leaving out of view all questions of the authority of the States or of the Confederate Government to issue this commission? Can anything be more pointed or more direct on the question? Treat this as a mere civil war--treat it as though all State lines of the Union were obliterated, and as though this was a common people, actuated by some religious or political fanaticism, who had set themselves to cutting each others' throats--treat it as a purely civil strife, without any question of State sovereignty or State jurisdiction connected with it,--and still you have the authority of Vattel, an authority than which none can be higher, as the Court will tell you--and I could multiply authorities on that point from now until the shadows of night set in--that even in that case it is obligatory to observe the laws of war just the same as if it was a combat between two nations, instead of between two sections of the same people. Even if there was no commission whatever here, by any one having a color or pretence of right to issue it, but if those belonging to one set of combatants, in a civil strife which had reached the magnitude and proportions of which Vattel speaks, had set out to cruise, and had captured this vessel, I submit to you that it could not be treated as a case of piracy. I have closed, gentlemen, the argument which, on opening the case, I have thought it necessary to advance in order that you may be able to apply the evidence. Every word that Vattel says there endorses the entreaty which I have made to you, as you love your country and as you love her prosperity, to view this case without passion and without prejudice created by the section in which you live, as I know and trust by your looks and indications that you will. And I say to you, gentlemen, that a greater stab could not be inflicted on our Government--not a greater wound could be given to the cause in which we all, in this section of the country, are enlisted--than to proclaim the doctrine that these cases are to be treated as cases for the halter, instead of as cases of prisoners of war between civilized people and nations. The very course of enlistment of troops for the war has been stopped in this city by that threat. As I said before, the officers and soldiers on the banks of the Potomac, if they could be appealed to on that question, would say, "For God's sake, leave this to the clash of arms, and to regular and legitimate warfare, and do not expose us to the double hazard of meeting death on the field, or meeting an ignominious death if we are captured." And as history has recorded what I have called your attention to as having occurred in the days of the Revolution, so history will record the events of the year and of the hour in which we are now enacting our little part in this mighty drama. The history of this day will be preserved. The history of your verdict will be preserved. You will carry the remembrance of your verdict when you go to your homes. It will come to you in the solemn and still hours of the night. It will come to you clothed in all the solemn importance which attaches to it, with the lives of twelve men hanging upon it, with the honor of your country at stake, with events which no one can foresee to spring from it. And I have only to reiterate the prayer, for our own sake and for the sake of the country, that God may inspire you to render a verdict which will redound to the honor of the country, and that will bring repose to your own consciences when you think of it, long after this present fitful fever of excitement shall have passed away. DOCUMENTARY TESTIMONY. _Mr. Brady_, for the defence, put in evidence the following documents: 1. Preliminary Chart of Part of the sea-coast of Virginia, and Entrance to Chesapeake Bay.--Coast Survey Work, dated 1855. 2. The Constitution of Virginia, adopted June 29, 1776. It refers only to the western and northern boundaries of Virginia--Art. 21--but recognizes the Charter of 1609. That charter (Hemmings' Statutes, 1st vol., p. 88) gives to Virginia jurisdiction over all havens and ports, and all islands lying within 100 miles of the shores. 3. The Act to Ratify the Compact between Maryland and Virginia, passed January 3, 1786--to be found in the Revised Code of Virginia, page 53. It makes Chesapeake Bay, from the capes, entirely in Virginia. _Mr. Sullivan_ also put in evidence, from _Putnam's Rebellion Record_, the following documents: 1. Proclamation of the President of the United States, of 15th April, 1861. (_See Appendix._) 2. Proclamation of the President, of 19th April, 1861, declaring a blockade. (_See Appendix._) 3. Proclamation of 27th April, 1861, extending the blockade to the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina. 4. Proclamation of May 3d, for an additional military force of 42,034 men, and the increase of the regular army and navy. 5. The Secession Ordinance of South Carolina, dated Dec. 20, 1860. _Mr. Smith_ stated that, in regard to several of the documents, the prosecution objected to them,--not, however, as to any informality of proof. He supposed that the argument as to their relevancy might be reserved till the whole body of the testimony was in. _Judge Nelson_: That is the view we take of it. _Mr. Brady_ suggested that the defence would furnish, to-morrow, a list of the documents which they desired to put in evidence. The Court then, at half-past 4 P.M., adjourned to Friday, at 11 A.M. THIRD DAY. _Friday, Oct. 25, 1861._ The Court met at 11 o'clock A.M. _Mr. Brady_ stated to the Court that two of the prisoners--Richard Palmer and Alexander Coid--were exceedingly ill, suffering from pulmonary consumption, and requested that they might be permitted to leave the court-room when they wished. It was not necessary that they should be present during all the proceedings. _Mr. Smith_: It would be proper that the prisoners make the application. _Mr. Brady_: They will remain in Court as long as they can; and will, of course, be present when the Court charges the Jury. _The Court_ directed the Marshal to provide a room for the prisoners to retire to, when they desired. _Mr. Sullivan_: Before adjourning yesterday it was stated that the different ordinances of the seceded States were all considered in evidence without being read. _Mr. Smith_: Are any of them later in date than the commission to the Savannah? _Mr. Sullivan_: No, sir. Some States have seceded since the date of the commission, and have been received into the Confederacy. _Mr. Evarts_: We will assume, until the contrary appears, that there are no documents of date later than the supposed authorization of the privateer. _Mr. Larocque_: With this qualification,--that there are a great many documents from our own Government which recognize a state of facts existing anterior to those documents. _Mr. Sullivan_ read in evidence from page 10 of _Putnam's Rebellion Record_: Letter from Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, to President James Buchanan, dated December 29, 1860. President Buchanan's reply, dated December 31, 1860. Also, from page 11 of _Rebellion Record_: The Correspondence between the South Carolina Commissioners and the President of the United States. [Considered as read.] Also, referred to page 19 of _Rebellion Record_, for the Correspondence between Major Anderson and Governor Pickens, with reference to firing on the _Star of the West_. Read Major Anderson's first letter (without date), copied from _Charleston Courier_, of Jan. 10, 1861. (_See Appendix._) Governor Pickens' reply, and second communication from Major Anderson. (_See Appendix._) Also, from page 29 of _Rebellion Record_, containing the sections of the Constitution of the Confederate States which differ from the Constitution of the United States. Also, from page 31 of _Rebellion Record_: Inaugural of Jefferson Davis, as President of the Confederate States. Also, page 36 of _Rebellion Record_: Inaugural of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, (for the passages, _see Appendix_.) Also, page 61 of _Rebellion Record_: The President's Speech to the Virginia Commissioners. (_See Appendix._) Also, page 71 of _Rebellion Record_: Proclamation of Jefferson Davis, with reference to the letters of marque, dated 17th April, 1861. Also, page 195 of _Rebellion Record_: An Act recognizing a state of war, by the Confederate Congress,--published May 6, 1861. [Read Section 5.] _Mr. Lord_ read from pages 17, 19, and 20, of _Diary of Rebellion Record_, to give the date of certain events: 1861, February 8. The Constitution of the Confederate States adopted. February 18. Jefferson Davis inaugurated President. February 21. The President of the Southern Confederacy nominates members of his Cabinet. February 21. Congress at Montgomery passed an Act declaring the establishment of free navigation of the Mississippi. March 19. Confederates passed an Act for organizing the Confederate States. April 8. South Carolina Convention ratified the Constitution of the Confederate States by a vote of 119 to 16. _Mr. Sullivan_: We propose now to introduce the papers found on board the Savannah when she was captured. The history of these papers is, that they were captured by the United States officers, taken from the Savannah, and come into our hands now, in Court, through the hands of the United States District Attorney, in whose possession they have been;--and they have been proceeded upon in the prize-court, for the condemnation of the Savannah. The first I read, is-- The Commission to the Savannah, dated 18th May, 1861. Also, put in evidence, copy of Act recognizing the existence of war between the United States and the Confederate States, and concerning letters of marque,--approved May 6, 1861. Also, read _President Davis' Instructions to Private Armed Vessels_,--appended to the Act. Also, an Act regulating the sale of prizes, dated May 6, 1861,--approved May 14, 1861. Also, an Act relative to prisoners of war, dated May 21, 1861. _Mr. Sullivan_ also read in evidence three extracts from the Message of President Lincoln to Congress, at Special Session of July 4, 1861. (_See Appendix._) Also, extracts from the Message of President Buchanan, at the opening of regular Session of Congress, December 3d, 1860. (_See Appendix._) Also, from page 245 of _Rebellion Record_: Proclamation of the Queen of Great Britain, dated May 13, 1861. _Mr. Evarts_ objected to this, on the ground that it could not have been received here prior to the date of the commission. Objection overruled. Also, from page 170 of _Rebellion Record_: Proclamation of the Emperor of France,--published June 11, 1861. Also, the Articles of Capitulation of the Forts at the Hatteras Inlet, dated August 29th, on board the United States flagship Minnesota, off Hatteras Inlet. _Mr. Evarts_ remarked that this latter document was not within any propositions hitherto passed upon; but he did not desire to arrest the matter by any discussion, if their honors thought it should be received. _Judge Nelson_: It may be received provisionally. _Mr. Brady_ also put in evidence the _Charleston Daily Courier_, of 11th June, 1861, containing a Judicial Advertisement,--a monition on the filing of a libel in the Admiralty Court of the Confederate States of America, for the South Carolina District, and an advertisement of the sale of the Joseph, she having been captured on the high seas by the armed schooner Savannah, under the command of T. Harrison Baker,--attested in the name of Judge Magrath, 6th June, 1861. And containing, also, a judicial Act, relating to the administration of an estate in due course of law. _Mr. Brady_ stated that the reference was to show that they had a judicial system established under their own Government. _Lieutenant D. D. Tompkins_ recalled for the defence, and examined by _Mr. Sullivan_. _Q._ State your knowledge as to the sending of any flags of truce while your vessel, the Harriet Lane, was lying at Fortress Monroe? (Same objection; received provisionally.) _A._ I have seen flags of truce come down from the direction of Norfolk. _Q._ Did your vessel have any communication with the officer bearing the flag of truce? _A._ No, sir. _Q._ Did they come with the Confederate flag flying on the same vessel with the flag of truce? _A._ Yes. One vessel came down with the Confederate flag flying, and a flag of truce, also. _Q._ Where was it received, and by what officer? _A._ I am not positive whether it was received by the Cumberland or the Minnesota. They communicated with either of those vessels. _Q._ Were any vessels or boats, with flags of truce, ever sent from Fort Monroe toward the Confederate forces? _A._ I have seen vessels go up the Roads with a flag of truce. _Q._ And the United States flag on the same vessels? _A._ Yes. _Q._ You saw Captain Baker and the other prisoners--were they uniformed? _A._ No, sir; I do not think they had any regular uniform. Captain Baker had a uniform, with metal buttons on his coat. I did not notice what was on the buttons. _Q._ He had on such a dress as he wears to-day? _A._ Something similar to that. He was the only one who had a uniform. _Q._ Do you know anything as to the exchange of prisoners between the forces of the United States and of the Confederate States on any station where you have been? _A._ No, sir. The defence here closed. The District Attorney stated that the prosecution had no rebutting evidence to offer. _Judge Nelson_: Before counsel commence summing up the case to the Jury, they will please present the propositions of law on both sides. _Mr. Lord_: I was going to ask my friends on the other side to give us their authorities, so that we shall know what we are to go to the Jury upon. We would then be able to lay our views before the Court and to divide the labor of summing up--some of us addressing ourselves entirely to the Court. _Mr. Evarts_: I would have no objection to taking that course if I had been prepared for it. In the presentation of the case, we rely on the statute of the United States--on the fact that the defendants are within the terms of the statute; and that the affirmative defence, growing out of the state of things in this country, does not apply in a Court of the United States, and under a statute of the United States, which still covers the condition of the persons brought in. Whether they are citizens or aliens, nothing has been shown which takes them out of the general operation of our laws. On the question of the ingredients of the crime of piracy--which is a particular inquiry, irrespective of the considerations connected with the state of war--I do not know that we need refer to anything which is not quite familiar. The cases referred to by the learned counsel for the prisoners--the United States _vs._ Jones, the United States _vs._ Palmer, and the United States _vs._ Tully--contain all the views in reference to the ingredients of the crime of piracy, or to the construction of the statutes, that we need to present. In the general elementary books to which the learned counsel have referred--the various books on the Pleas of the Crown--there are passages to which we shall have occasion to refer. _Judge Nelson_: The counsel for the Government should give to the counsel on the other side, before the summing up is commenced, all the authorities on which they intend to rely. _Mr. Evarts_: That we shall do, of course. _Judge Nelson_: We will take them now. _Mr. Evarts_: I refer to 1st East's Pleas of the Crown, 70-1. It is under the title of Treason, but it is on the point of the character of the crime as qualified by the influence on the party, of force, or of the state of the population by which the accused was surrounded. I read from page 70: "Joining with rebels freely and voluntarily in any act of rebellion is levying war against the King; and this, too, though the party was not privy to their intent. This was holden in the case of the Earl of Southampton, and again in Purchase's case, in 1710. But yet it seems necessary, in this case, either that the party joining with rebels, and ignorant of their intent at the time, should do some deliberate act towards the execution of their design, or else should be found to have aided and assisted those who did. * * * But if the joining with rebels be from fear of present death, and while the party is under actual force, such fear and compulsion will excuse him. It is incumbent, however, on the party setting up this defence, to give satisfactory proof that the compulsion continued during all the time that he stayed with the rebels." The case of Axtell, one of the regicides, is referred to. The defense was set up for him that he acted by command of his superior officer; but that was ruled to be no defence. I now read from page 104: "One species of treason, namely, that of committing hostilities at sea, under color of a foreign commission, or any other species of adherence to the King's enemies there, may be indicted and tried as piracy, by virtue of the statutes." That is, that although being guilty of treason, in its general character of adhering to the enemy, yet it also falls within the description of piracy, and may be proceeded against as such. On the question of the element of force or intimidation as entering into the crime of robbery, I refer to 1st Hawkins' Pleas of the Crown, page 235: "Wherever a person assaults another with such circumstances of terror as put him into fear, and cause him, by reason of such fear, to part with his money, the taking thereof is adjudged robbery, whether there were any weapon drawn, or not, or whether the person assaulted delivered his money upon the other's command, or afterwards gave it him upon his ceasing to use force, and begging an alms; for he was put into fear by his assault, and gives him his money to get rid of him. "But it is not necessary that the fact of actual fear should either be laid in the indictment or be proved upon the trial; it is sufficient if the offence be charged to be done _violenter et contra voluntatem_. And if it appear upon the evidence to have been attended with those circumstances of violence or terror which in common experience are likely to induce a man to part with his property against his consent, either for the safety of his person or for the preservation of his character and good name, it will amount to a robbery." I refer to Hale's Pleas of the Crown, vol. I., p. 68, on the question of double or doubtful allegiance: "Though there may be due from the same person subordinate allegiances, which, though they are not without an exception of the fidelity due to the superior Prince, yet are in their kind _sacramenta ligea fidelitatis_, or subordinate allegiances, yet there can not, or at least should not, be two or more co-ordinate allegiances by one person to several independent or absolute Princes; for that lawful Prince that hath the prior obligation of allegiance from his subject can not lose that interest without his own consent, by his subject's resigning himself to the subjection of another." I refer to the case of the United States _against_ Tully, 1st Gallison's Reports, p. 253-5, to show that the statute does not, in terms, require that there shall be any personal violence or putting in fear to constitute robbery, provided the offence is committed _animo furandi_. I also refer to the case of the United States _vs._ Jones, 3 Washington C.C.R., p. 219, on the point of the justification given by a commission; to the case of United States _vs._ Hayward, 2 Gallison, 501; to the observations of Chancellor Kent, vol. I., p. 200, marginal page 191; to the United States _vs._ Palmer, 3 Wheaton, p. 634, as to the manner in which our Courts deal with international questions respecting the recognition of nationalities; to the case of the Santissima Trinidad, Kent's Commentaries, vol. I., p. 27, marginal page 25; to the case of Rose _vs._ Hinely, 4 Cranch, 241. I refer to the latter case for the general doctrines therein contained on the proposition that although a parent or original Government may find the magnitude and power of the rebellion such as to induce or compel it to resort to warlike means of suppression, so as that toward neutral nations there will grow up such a state of authority as will compel the recognition by neutral nations of the rights of war and belligerents, that is not inconsistent with or in derogation of the general proposition that the parent Government still maintains the sovereignty, and can enforce its municipal laws, by all those sanctions, against its rebellious subjects. In other words, that the flagrancy of civil war, which gives rise to the aspect and draws after it the consequences of war, does not destroy either the duty of allegiance or the power of punishing any infraction of law which the rebels may be guilty of, either in reference to the principal crime of treason, or in reference to any other violation of municipal rights. I also ask your honors' attention to a recent charge of Judge Sprague, to the Grand Jury in the Massachusetts District, in reference to the crime of piracy. On the question of jurisdiction, I refer to the case of the United States _vs._ Hicks, decided in this Court. I refer to the case of the Mariana Flora, to show that the arrest of a pirate at sea arises under a general principle of the law of nations, which authorizes either a public or a private vessel to make the arrest. It is analogous to the common-law arrest of a felon. The point in the case of the Mariana Flora is, that any public or private vessel has a right to arrest a piratical vessel at sea and bring it in. It differs in that respect from the authority to arrest a slaver. On the general question of the ingredients of robbery, I refer to Archbold's Criminal Practice and Pleadings, 2 vol., p. 507, marginal pages 417, 510, 526. In political connections I shall have occasion to refer to the Constitution of the United States and to the Articles of the Confederation, to the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, and the answers of the other States of the Union, which will be found collected in Ellett's Debates, vol. 4, pages 528 to 545. I may refer also to Mr. Pinckney's speech in the Convention of South Carolina which adopted the Constitution, same volume, p. 331; to the formal ratifications of the Constitution by the different States of the Union, same volume, p. 318; and I may have occasion to refer to Grotius in connection with the discussion of the general state of war. The citations will be--book 1st, chap. 1, secs. 1 and 2; chap. 3, secs. 1 and 4; and chap. 4, sec. 1. MR. LORD'S ARGUMENT. _Mr. Lord_, of counsel for the defence, said: May it please your honors,--The distribution of duties which counsel for the defence have made among themselves is, that I shall briefly present the propositions of law, somewhat irrespective of the wide political range which my friends seem to think is to be involved. I shall not pursue even the field which Mr. Larocque has opened, knowing that he has cultivated it to a far greater degree than I have, and therefore I will leave it to him to till. My friend, Mr. Brady, will address the Jury on any questions of fact that may be supposed to be involved. Before I enter upon the discussion, and with the view that this case may be relieved from one prejudice which probably every man has felt on first hearing of it, I beg leave to set ourselves all right on the idea that there is something different in a private armed ship from a public armed vessel, in the law, and in the view of the people of the country. I desire to read on that subject a letter from Mr. Marcy to the Count de Sartiges. _Mr. Lord_ read the letter, and continued: Therefore in this discussion, so far from a private armed vessel being regarded with disfavor, it is regarded, and has to be regarded, with all the favor which would belong to it as a regularly commissioned cruiser, belonging to the State, and not to the individual. I now approach, with all the brevity due to your valuable time, the question of jurisdiction. It seems to me to be very clear indeed that after Harleston and the crew, of the Savannah were taken by the Perry, he was confined as a prisoner, as one of a crew of a piratical vessel, for an act charged as piratical, on board the United States ship-of-war Minnesota, by order of its commander. That Harleston was taken by the said commander into the District of Virginia, within a marine league of its shores, where the said ship remained; and the said Harleston and the other prisoners could have been there landed and detained for trial. If the facts are so, the Circuit Court of this District has no jurisdiction, and the prisoners should be acquitted. The evidence of our friend, Commodore Stringham, on that subject, leaves us no doubt as to the character of the arrest. After seeing the Perry close in to Charleston, she having been ordered by him to cruise further off, and he, wondering what she was doing there--he says: "She hailed us and informed us she had captured a piratical vessel. The vessel was half a mile astern. Captain Parrot, of the Perry, came and made to me a report of what had taken place. I ordered him to send the prisoners on board, and I sent a few men on board the Savannah to take charge of her during the night. The vessels were then anchored. Next morning I made arrangements to put a prize crew on board the Savannah and send her to New York, and I directed the Captain of the Joseph to take passage in her. I took the prisoners from the Perry, and directed the Perry to proceed," &c. Again he testifies: "_Q._ What was your object in transferring the prisoners from the Perry to the Minnesota? "_A._ Sending them to a Northern port. The port of New York was the port I had in my mind to send them to, in the first ship from the station." The prisoners, thus taken from a piratical vessel, he determined to carry to Norfolk, and to send them thence to the North for trial. Now, if your honors please, my learned friend (Mr. Evarts) seems to say that there is no authority in law for a United States vessel to arrest pirates at sea; but if you will read the President's proclamation of 19th June you will find that he speaks of dealing with the persons who may be taken on board private armed ships as pirates. I will then ask to direct your attention to the Act of 1819 (3d Vol. Statutes, p. 510), where the President is authorized to employ public armed vessels to arrest offenders against that law. Therefore the capture of the prize was not only a part of the general law of nations, but it was particularly a thing which the commanders of ships of the United States were charged by the proclamation of the President, and by Act of Congress, to do. I now approach the other question, as to where these prisoners were apprehended, or into what District they were first brought. That they were apprehended by a warrant from the United States Commissioner in New York, is not in dispute. The question, however, is, where they were first brought. If an officer having them in charge could anchor his vessel at Baltimore, and then at Philadelphia, and then bring his prisoners to New York, it would be putting the law entirely in his hands and dissipating all its force. In ordinary cases of crime the jurisdiction is local; and that for many reasons. One is, that a man is to be tried by his peers--meaning those of his own neighborhood,--and that it is easier to procure evidence at the place where the crime is committed. The law does not give to any man the power of assigning the place of trial. In the case of offences committed on the high seas, the law declares that the accused shall be tried in the District into which he is first brought. Now, that tnese men were held by Capt. Stringham for the purpose of being tried as pirates, the evidence is clear. They were transferred from the Perry to the Minnesota, taken to the Norfolk station, and there kept in irons on board the Minnesota till they were transferred to the Harriet Lane. Could they have been detained there for trial? It might be an inconvenience if there was no Court. They might have had to be detained for a long time, or Congress might pass some law varying the jurisdiction. But as the law stood, if these men could have been landed and detained for trial, then that was the District in which they were necessarily to be tried. Can any one say that it was not as easy to have landed these men at Fortress Monroe, or at Hampton, as to transfer them to the Harriet Lane? And could they not have been detained there? You did not need a Court to detain them. They were taken by force, and might have been detained in the fortress till a trial should be had. There was no difficulty in their being landed in Virginia; and, moreover, there were in Western Virginia loyal Courts, where they could be tried. Now, what is there that takes away the jurisdiction which belongs to that part of the country and not to this? "Why," says Captain Stringham, "I wanted to send them to New York." But had he any right to do so, when he had actually brought them to that station where his ship belonged, and where he was bound to keep her unless he returned her to the cruising ground? Remember that his ship remained there some time before the transfer was made. They were detained as prisoners there, and might as well have been detained on shore. Therefore, it seems to me, that unless the capturing officer, and not Congress, has the right to determine the place where the trial shall be had, these men were to be tried in the District of Virginia. Now, it is no answer to this to say that, where a vessel is sailing along the shores of a District, a prisoner on board is not brought there in the proper sense of the word. The ship is not bound to stop and break up her voyage in order to have the Court designated where he is to be tried; but where the ship comes into port--where she stops at a port--I submit to your honors that this is the bringing contemplated by the statute. I now approach, if your honors please, the merits of this case. The indictment is founded on two sections of the Crimes Act, originally two separate and very distinct statutes. It is the eighth section which makes robbery on the high seas piracy. That embraces the first five counts of the indictment, which are varied in mere circumstances. The remaining counts rest on the transcript into the legislation of this country, from the Act of 11 and 12 William III., to the effect, substantially, that if any citizen of the United States shall, under color of a commission from any foreign Prince or State, or under pretence of authority from any other person, commit acts of hostility against the United States, or the citizens thereof, that shall be piracy. In the argument which I shall address to your honors I will beg leave to characterize the first as piracy by the laws of nations, and the second as statutory piracy. But, before I discuss that subject, permit me to say that, as to eight of these prisoners, it is conceded that they do not come under that section, as the evidence for the prosecution shows that they were not citizens of the United States. So that, as to these eight, unless they are adjudged pirates under the eighth section, they must be acquitted, if they can justify themselves under the commission. _Judge Nelson_: Then the other four, you say, can only be convicted under the ninth section? _Mr. Lord_: Yes; that is the statutory process, if I may be permitted to give it that name. The act is charged as an act of robbery, not as an act of treason. It is not alleged to have been done treasonably. If the prosecution wanted to give it that character, they must have alleged it to be treason. They must have alleged that this act, done on the high seas, was done treasonably, traitorously, and therefore piratically. They have alleged no such thing. I take pleasure in saying that the District Attorney, in opening this case, did it with great fairness, and disavowed any idea of introducing treason into the case. There are many reasons why, if that were pretended, this whole trial should stop. The requisites of a prosecution for treason have not been, in any degree, complied with. The charge is robbery. It may be charged as done piratically, involving _animus furandi_. Let us see, for an instant, what piratical is. Piracy is, by all definitions, a crime against all nations. It enters into every description of a pirate that he is _hostis humani generis_. That is the common-law idea of piracy. It is not a political heresy that will make piracy. It is not a political conformity that will always exempt from the charge of piracy. For instance, if the officer of a Government vessel, with the most full and complete commission, such as my friend Commodore Stringham had, should invade a ship at sea, and should, under pretence of capture, take jewels and secrete them, not bringing them in for adjudication, he would be a pirate, because, though he held a commission, he did the act _animo furandi_,--did it out of the jurisdiction of any particular country,--did it against the great principles of civilization and humanity. Again, if a commissioned vessel hails a private ship, and, on the idea that she is a subject of prize, captures her, and it turns out that that capture is illegal and unwarranted, that fact does not make the act piracy. Although the act might be ever so irregular--although it might subject the officer to the severest damages for trespass--yet it is not piratical, and the officer is not to be hung at the yard-arm because he mistakes a question of law. Your honors therefore see how utterly it enters into the whole subject that the thing shall be done _animo furandi_, piratically, as against the general law of nations and the sense of right of the civilized world. Well, now, we are at once struck with this consideration: Suppose the act is regarded as not piratical by millions of people having civilized institutions, having Courts of Justice, giving every opportunity for a trial of the question of forfeiture or no forfeiture--why, it shocks the moral sense to say that that is done _animo furandi_, that it is a theft and a robbery, and that the man who does it is an enemy to the human race. Carry the idea a little further, and you find that the commission under which a man acts in seizing a vessel with a view of bringing it in as a prize is regarded by all the great commercial nations of the world as regular, and that the act is regarded not as a piratical, but as a belligerent act. Does it not shock the very elements of justice to have it supposed that in such a case the man acting under the commission, and within its powers, is to be deemed an enemy of the whole human race, while all the human race, except the power which seeks to subject him to punishment, says the act is not piratical? Now, upon this subject my learned friends have cited many authorities, which all bear on the effect of what should give validity to the transfer of captured property under the circumstances of rebellions in States. Now I beg leave, at the outset of the consideration of this case, to say that the question of passing title to property is a thing entirely different from the question of hanging a man for committing a crime. In the first place, look at the numerous acts of trespass which are committed on the high seas by vessels of every nation. The books are full of cases of marine trespass, and of damages against captors for their irregularities; but are the authorities which bear upon that subject, which is a mere question of property--a question of title--of the mere transfer of title--are they authorities which decide the question that a man should be hanged if he mistakes the law, or if he acts under the impulse of a wrong judgment as to the sovereign which he should serve? I would call your attention to the case of Klintock, reported in the 5th of Wheaton, where the Court say that they will not regard the commission of General Aubrey as sufficient to give title to the property, "although it might be sufficient to defend him from a charge of piracy." I also refer to Phillimore on International Law, vol. 3, p. 319. [Counsel read from the authority.] Now, under what circumstances was this done? And in the discussion I give to this question I am entirely free from the necessity of considering how the Government of this country shall regard the seceded States,--as having a Government, or not. I am under the law of nations, because this act which I am now discussing, of robbery on the high seas, was evidently a transcript of the law of nations upon the subject of piracy. What are the undeniable facts?--the facts about which, in this case, there is not any dispute, either in this country or in the whole world--about which there is but one opinion--what are they? At the time the crew of the Savannah shipped for this cruise, and at the time of the capture of the Joseph, the authorities of the State of South Carolina (for the State of South Carolina had an organization from its beginning, as a part of this country, and, as a government, was well known to the Government of the United States)--the authorities of the State of South Carolina, where the Savannah was fitted out and the crew resided, had become parties to a confederation of others of the United States. Now it is immaterial to me, in the light in which I view this case, whether that was politically right or not--whether it was legally right or not--whether this country could look at it as a source of title to property or not; the fact is there, that a State--one of the original, recognized States of the Union--united itself, under an assumption of authority, revolutionary if you please, with other similar States, and formed a league and a Government. That fact is undoubtedly so. Under such confederation a Government, in fact, existed, and exercised, in fact, the powers of civil and military Government over the territories and peoples of those States, or a principal part of them. Here we have eleven recognized States, doing, if you please, an illegal thing, when you come to submit it to the just principles of law. They form a league,--against an Act of Congress,--but they do form a league, and do constitute a Government; and this Government takes possession of a territory of some ten millions of people, all of whom submit to it. It maintains the Government in its domestic character of States, and originates a Government for its foreign relations. It assumes to make war, and declares war. The President's proclamation says that the said Confederated States had in fact declared war against the United States of America, and were openly prosecuting the same with large military forces, under the military and civil organization of a Government; and had assumed, and were in the exercise of, the power of issuing commissions to private armed ships to make captures of the property of the United States, and the citizens thereof, as prize of war, and to send them into Court for adjudication as such. Now, all that is beyond any doubt; and is it possible that it can be contended that an act of that vast extent, of that wide publicity and great power, should fail even to justify the killing of a chicken, without charge of petty larceny? Does it not shock the common sense of mankind that, in the case of men dwelling there, and acting in subordination to the existing Government (you cannot say whether voluntarily or not), for every shot fired and man killed you could have a trial for murder; that for every horse shot you could have an action of trover; and for every trespass you could have an action of trespass? This practically shocks us. How is it in view of the doctrine of _hostis humani generis_? Here are ten millions of people doing acts which, if done only by three or four, would be murders and treasons. But justice must be equal. If required to execute justice upon three or four, you are bound to execute it on tens of millions? Why, that is the very thing which publicists tell us constitutes civil war. A civil war is always a rebellion when it begins. In the first instance it commences with a few individuals,--the Catalines of the country; but when it gets to be formed, so that a large force is collected, and, instead of the Courts of Justice before existing, it substitutes Courts of its own, then comes up the doctrine of humanity which belongs to the laws of war,--that you can no longer speak of it as a rebellion. In the judgments of publicists when a rebellion gets to that head that it represents States, and parts of a nation, humanity stops the idea of private justice, and it goes upon the principle of public and international law. That will be found elaborately stated in Vattel; but I do not intend to trouble you with any lengthened reading of citations. I refer to the 18th chap. on the subject of civil war, page 424: "When a party is formed in a State, who no longer obey the sovereign, and are possessed of sufficient force to oppose him; or when, in a Republic, the nation is divided into two opposite factions, and both sides take up arms,--this is called a _civil war_. Some writers confine this term to a just insurrection of the subjects against their sovereign, to distinguish that lawful resistance from _rebellion_, which is an open and unjust resistance. But what appellation will they give to a war which arises in a Republic torn by two factions, or in a Monarchy, between two competitors for the crown? Custom appropriates the term of '_civil war_' to every war between the members of one and the same political society. If it be between the part of the citizens, on the one side, and the sovereign, with those who continue in obedience to him, on the other,--provided the malcontents have any reason for taking up arms, nothing further is required to entitle such disturbance to the name of _civil war_, and not _rebellion_. This latter term is applied only to such an insurrection against lawful authority as is void of all appearance of justice. The sovereign, indeed, never fails to bestow the appellation of _rebels_ on all such of his subjects as openly resist him; but, when the latter have acquired sufficient strength to give him effectual opposition, and to oblige him to carry on the war against them according to the established rules, he must necessarily submit to the use of the term 'civil war.'" The moment the term "civil war" comes up, the idea of punishing, as rebellion or as piracy, the capture of a vessel, is an abuse of justice; and it is not only an abuse of justice, but it is an abuse of the fact, to say that those who are large enough to be a nation are to be considered as the enemies of all nations, because they undertake to make civil war. The point is not founded upon any technical considerations; it is founded upon the great doctrines of humanity and civilization. Because, what is to be the end of it? If we hang twelve men, they hang one hundred and fifty-six. If we treat them as rebels, why they treat our captured forces as these rebels are treated. You bring on a war without any civilizing rules. You bring in a war of worse than Indian barbarity. You bring in a war which can know nothing except bloodshed, in battle or upon the block. This is not a technical notion. It is that, when civil war is found to exist (and that altogether comes from the magnitude of the opposition), then the rules of war apply, as much as in any public war, so far as to protect the individuals acting under them. What would be said if you should take a gentleman who was made prisoner at Fort Hatteras, and try him for treason, and hang him? What would be said in this country, or in Europe,--what would be said anywhere, in the present or in future ages,--as to an act like that? Well, why not? Because justice must be equal. If you do it to one, you must do it to all. If you do it to all, you carry on an extermination of the human race, against all the principles which can animate a Court of Justice, or find a seat in the human bosom. Therefore, if we have the fact of civil war, we have the rules of war introduced. Now, is this a civil war? I do not ask the question of how this country simply should regard it; but on the question in a Criminal Court, as to whether a civil war exists so as to give protection to those who act on one side of it, I have the concurrent judgments of the Courts. Judge Dunlop, in the case of the Tropic Wind, says there can be no blockade except in a case of war; that this is a civil war, and therefore there is a blockade. Judge Cadwalader says this is a civil war, and in civil war you may make captures; and Judge Betts, in a vastly profitable judgment, delivered in the other room, confiscating millions of property of Union men in the South, says that this is civil war. Now, if the Government of the United States forfeits the property of persons residing in these seceded States, without the formality of a trial for treason, because it is simply enemy's property, with what pretence can they set up the principle that they will not treat them as enemies? They will treat them as enemies, for the purpose of confiscation, and not as enemies, but as traitors and pirates, for the purpose of execution? Why, it is a glaring inconsistency. It strikes us off our feet as a people fit to be looked at by any impartial or rational person, in political jurisprudence. We submit, therefore, that there was a civil war. Then what was the taking of the Joseph? I now pass by the Savannah's commission for a moment. The capture of the Joseph was in this way: The Joseph was approached by the Savannah, and her Captain ordered on board. I make no question about its being a taking by force; I make no question but that, if it was done piratically, there was force enough to make it piratical. But when asked, Why do you do it? Captain Baker replied, "I take this by authority of the Confederated States. I am sorry for it; but you make war upon us, and we have, in retaliation, to make war upon you." The vessel is taken; nothing is removed from her; and she is sent in as a prize, and reaches Georgetown. Nothing is then taken from her, but she is proceeded against in Court, and men are examined there as to the vessel, just as fairly, and probably just as good men, as have been examined in the other room. The question is tried. It is an undeniable case that, if this is a civil war, they having declared war, the vessel belongs to a belligerent, and she is taken, condemned and sold, according to the laws which have dominion over that country--a proceeding (erroneous as it may be in the ultimate object of it) according to all the course of every civilized country. And yet, we are told, that is piratical! I submit that this cannot be so. We cannot, with any approach to consistency, hold that we can treat them both as enemies and rebels at the same time. Not so. Treat them as rebels, and confiscate the property by due course of law, and you can get nothing; because it is a singular thing that in this country there is no such thing as forfeiture for treason. You cannot forfeit the chattels, but only the land, and that for life; and as the penalty of treason is death, leaving no life estate for the forfeiture to act on, there is, practically, no forfeiture for treason. When these men come and say, we have taken this property as an enemy, you treat them as rebels. It seems to me this is indulging a private animosity; it is indulging a fanatical principle, an unworthy principle, that cannot be carried out without disregarding the great rules that belong to civilized nations with regard to war. Again, if your honors please, piracy and robbery always have secrecy about them. The open robber, who meets you in noonday, yet secretes the plunder. He does not go into a Court of Justice and say, "Behold what I have taken! here are the jewels, and here the gold; adjudge if they are lawful prize!" The robber never does that. Here there is nothing secret or furtive. The vessel and cargo are taken before a Court and adjudicated to be a prize. Let us take a case which, although unlikely to happen, might occur. A man goes from seceding Virginia with an execution to levy upon a man in loyal Virginia. The man there says, "You are superseded; you have no authority;" and it is tried there. The Court hold that the execution and levy from the seceded State does not pass the property; but would it be possible to say, there was anything furtive in the taking on the part of the officer? There is nothing more plain, in criminal law, than that, if you act under color of authority, although you may be ruined by suits in trespass, yet you are not to be subjected to punishment as having done what was felonious. But there is one other consideration which I would present on the subject of piracy: it is robbery upon the high seas,--an act _hostis humani generis_. It is made an offence in this country, because it is an offence against the law of nations; for this is a question on which civilized nations do not differ. All the nations of Europe look on at this controversy. Here comes a man that the District Attorney of New York says is _hostis humani generis_. What says the great commercial nation of Great Britain? We do not treat you as pirates, but as belligerents. We do not recognize your independence, because you have not achieved it; but when the question arises, whether we shall consider you as pirates, whom we, in common with all other nations, have a right to take up, we say it is no such thing. Judge Sprague says, that they say it is no such thing. So, too, with France. Here is the authority of a great Empire that this is not a piratical but a belligerent act. And again, Spain reiterates the same decision. Suppose I could bring the authority of the highest Court in Great Britain that, just in such a case as this, the Court acquitted a man of piracy; and suppose I could add to that a similar judgment under the law of France; and bring a case from the Courts in Spain, deciding the question in the same way; and so, too, from Holland,--and when I come down to New York, the District Attorney says the man is _hostis humani generis_! Is it not absurd? If piracy be a crime against public law, it is so. The recognition and the application of the doctrines of common humanity to this great struggle,--that they should be regarded as the determining point upon this great question--it seems to me your honors will never hesitate in admitting. I, therefore, present this point, and if your honors will permit me, after this discursive argumentation, I will read it as I think it ought to be decided in law: "There is evidence that at the time of the crew of the Savannah shipping for the cruise, and at the time of the capture of the Joseph, the authorities of the State of South Carolina had become parties to a confederation of others of the United States of America, named in the President's proclamation. That under such confederation a Government, in fact, existed; and exercised, in fact, the powers of civil and military Government over the territories and people of those States, or the principal part thereof. That the said Confederate States had, in fact, declared war against the United States of America, and were openly prosecuting the same, with large military forces, and the military and civil organization of a Government; and had assumed, and were in the exercise of, the power of issuing commissions to private armed ships, to make captures of the property of the United States, and the citizens thereof, as prize of war, and to send them into port for adjudication as such. And that a civil war thus, in fact, existed. That the taking of the Joseph was under such authority of the Confederate States, and in the name of prize of war, and with the purpose of having the same adjudged by a Prize Court in South Carolina, or some other of the said Confederate States. And, if the facts are so found, then the taking of the Joseph was not piratical, under the eighth section of the Act of 1790, and the prisoners must be acquitted from the charge under this count." Now I approach the case of the commission. I suppose that the District Attorney, by not proving the commission as a part of the charge, is not entitled to convict any of these prisoners under the commission which is shown. He does not prove his case; and it is no matter what we have proved,--he is not entitled to a conviction under evidence which he does not bring. But now I take up the matter of the commission, and the consideration of _piracy by statute_, under the 9th section. If your honors please, it is right that I should give some history of that 9th section's coming into the law of piracy. The 8th section you will find to be the law of piracy, by the law of nations. All nations hold that to be piracy which is there described. But, in the 11th and 12th of William III., this state of things existed: King James had abdicated the Crown of England twelve years before; William and Mary reigned together six years; William survived her. Here, then, was a Government in England, with a pretender, whom the English Government had declared was an alien from the Throne; they had banished him. But he was at the Court of St. Germain, in France; and there, through his instrumentality, privateers were fitted out against English commerce. Then this Act was enacted which I will now mention. You find it in _Hawkins' Pleas of the Crown_, under the title _Piracy_, book I., chap. 37, sec. 7: "It being also doubted by many eminent civilians whether, during the Revolution, the persons who had captured English vessels, by virtue of commissions granted by James II., at his Court at St. Germain, after his abdication of the Throne of England, could be deemed pirates, the grantor still having, as it was contended, the right of war in him, it is enacted--11 & 12 Wm. III., c. 7, s. 8--'That if any of His Majesty's natural-born subjects, or denizens of this Kingdom, shall commit any piracy or robbery, or any act of hostility against others, His Majesty's subjects, upon the sea, under color of any commission from any foreign Prince or State, or pretence of authority from any person whatsoever, such offender or offenders, and every of them, shall be deemed, adjudged, and taken to be pirates, felons, and robbers; and they, and every of them, being duly convicted thereof, according to this Act, or the aforesaid statute of King Henry VIII., shall have and suffer such pains of death, loss of lands, goods, and chattels, as pirates, felons, and robbers upon the seas ought to have and suffer.'" When an Act of Congress, declaring the crime of piracy, was enacted, in 1790, it is perfectly apparent that those who drew up the Act were acquainted with _Hawkins' Pleas_, containing the 8th section, which is the recognized law of piracy by all nations, and from that book, then, took in this 9th section; because there was no exigency in our Government to call for it, and no reason for its introduction, except that it was found in a book familiar to those who were legislating for this country. In regard to the Act, there are some peculiarities which are very striking, and which bear strongly on this subject. The first is the fact that a commission, although from a foreign State, taken by a British subject or denizen of England, and committed against British commerce, protected the party against the charge of piracy,--because the thing was taken as prize, and for adjudication according to the principles of the laws of nations, for which national action the nation which took it was responsible. But, in the case and condition of James II., the English declared that he was no longer of England,--they declared him fallen from the Crown, and a foreigner. He had no dominions, and no place where the poor man could hold a Prize Court; and, if he could authorize a capture, there was no Court to adjudicate upon it; there was no sovereign to be responsible for the action of the Prize Court. He was a King without responsibility, and without the power of having Courts of Adjudication; and it was a necessity arising in the history of English law that that kind of action should be treated as piratical. The English adopted that, therefore, as the statute piracy. I refer your honors to Phillimore's International Law (vol. III., page 398), where all the discussion and reasons are contained; and they all are reasons applicable to a Prince without dominions, without Courts, without a country; and to a foreign Prince, in regard to English property and English subjects. Now, then, let us see how these men stand. Under the 8th section, those men who were not citizens of the United States, are, of course, protected by a commission from a Government _de facto_. Their taking was not _animo furandi_, because there was a commission. The very enactment of the statute of William III. was upon the basis that it was not piracy where there was a commission, even of this questionable sort. I say, then, in my third point, that if the facts are found as supposed in the preceding point, and if it also appears that the commission from the Confederated States, or the President thereof, had been issued for the Savannah, and that the capture was made under color thereof, then, as to the prisoners shown not to be citizens of the United States, the taking of the Joseph was not piratical under the eighth section of the Act of 1790,--_first_, because it was under color of authority; nor, _second_, was it piratical under the ninth section, because that only applies to citizens of the United States; and the prisoners, Del Carno, &c., must be acquitted under the ninth as well as under the eighth section. But now we come to the American citizens who took that commission, and we are to see with some accuracy how the case stands as to them,--which involves two questions: One is, what kind of "other person" is embraced in that law? And the other is, whether this indictment is supported as under a commission from any _person_ whatever? Let me call your attention to the form of the indictment in this last count of the declaration. They all run in this way: that these persons, "being citizens, did, _on pretence of authority from a person, to wit, one Jefferson Davis_," &c. That is all that is said as to the pretence. Now there is no lack of skill in this indictment. The pleader under this indictment was surrounded with difficulties very grave indeed. He had the commission. If he had described it as a commission from certain foreign States, namely, South Carolina, Georgia, &c., the Government would have recognized the existence of those States in the most formal manner and by action of the most formal kind. If he said "Jefferson Davis, President of certain Confederate States," that would be simply that the pretence of authority was a pretence of authority from those States, and the same consequence would result. Well, what could he do? The only way in which he could make this stand at all was by saying that it is an authority from Jefferson Davis, as an individual. That is the meaning of this allegation. Now, then, under the facts already stated, including now the commission and the action under it, the taking of the Joseph was not piratical, under the ninth section, because the commission was from the Confederate States, and not from "a person, to wit, one Jefferson Davis," as described in the indictment. Now that leads me to a consideration of this commission. We had something a little like it here yesterday, when the warrant issued by Mr. Buchanan Henry was given in evidence for the arrest of these men. I suppose I would be charged with ridicule in the last degree if I said they were arrested by the authority of Buchanan Henry, or under pretence of authority from Buchanan Henry; yet the warrant ran in the name of Buchanan Henry. Now let us see whether this commission supports the allegation of its being a commission from a private person. The allegation is, that the capture was made under pretence of authority from one Jefferson Davis. The commission runs just as the President's commission to your honors: "JEFFERSON DAVIS, "PRESIDENT OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA. _"To all who shall see these presents, greeting:_--Know ye, that by virtue of the power vested in me by law, I have commissioned, and do hereby commission, have authorized, and do hereby authorize, the schooner or vessel called the Savannah (more particularly described in the schedule hereunto annexed), whereof T. Harrison Baker is commander, to act as a private armed vessel in the service of the Confederate States, on the high seas, against the United States of America, their ships, vessels, goods, and effects, and those of her citizens, during the pendency of the war now existing between the said Confederate States and the said United States. "This commission to continue in force until revoked by the President of the Confederate States for the time being. "Schedule of description of the vessel:--Name, Schooner Savannah; tonnage, 53-41/95 tons; armament, one large pivot gun and small arms; number of crew, thirty. "Given under my hand and the seal of the Confederate States, at Montgomery, this 18th day of May, A.D. 1861. "JEFFERSON DAVIS. "By the President--R. TOOMBS, Secretary of State." Now I submit that, if they had framed an indictment for taking a commission under the King of England, and it had been under the Government of England as a foreign State, without naming the individual, such a commission as this would sustain it. If they had indicted as taking a commission out under any foreign State or nation, a commission in this way would have sustained that indictment; because the officer is merely the authenticator of the instrument; the authority is not his,--it is not under his authority; he is the mere ministerial officer, in fact, of the Government. Now I submit, that this taking cannot be held piratical, under the ninth section, on this indictment; because it was a taking, not on pretence of authority from Jefferson Davis, but under authority of the Confederate States, exercised by Jefferson Davis. And, in a case of this kind, I must say that I consider it will prove the greatest Godsend to the Government, and to the prisoners on both sides who now anxiously await the result, if, without touching the other questions, this indictment shall fall to the ground on a mere technical point. That is one reason. Another reason is this: The Act is for taking vessels under a commission from any foreign Prince or State, or on pretence of authority from any person. Now what is a foreign Prince or a foreign State? If your honors please, at the time this Act was enacted, within some three years of the United States coming together, is it conceivable that the thought entered into the heart of any man who had anything to do with it that it was to take effect against any man acting under the authority of any of the States of this Union? The States all were authorized, under certain circumstances, to have ships-of-war and to have armies. There was no telling what collision there might be; and the idea that this Act, almost a literal transcript from the English statute of 11 and 12 William III., contemplated that punishment for acting under the authority of domestic persons, is inconceivable. In construing an Act so highly penal as this we must be very sure that we are not only within the letter, but within the very spirit and contemplation, of the Act; and can you think that the framers of this Government gravely provided for the offence of taking a commission under some of the persons acting as Governor, or in connection with the domestic institutions of this country? I submit that the Act was intended to operate against foreign States and nations, and a foreign person; and it is inconceivable that the Act should have been contemplated to embrace any such thing as is now brought up. I submit, therefore, as the third of my specifications under this point, that Jefferson Davis was not a foreign person, nor assuming the authority of a foreign Prince or Ruler. The statute was one against commissions under foreign authority of some kind or other, either Prince, or State, or person. But I now draw your attention to another feature of the statute, which seems to me equally decisive. This statute is transmitted to us from England, and that which was the design and exigency of its adoption there is to bear with great, if not decisive, force, upon its construction here. We took it because they had it, and we took it, therefore, for reasons similar to theirs. Now what was the real difficulty there? It was this: that a Prince without dominion, a Prince having no Government _de facto_, a mere nominal Prince, undertook to issue commissions throughout the world against British commerce. Evils that are very manifest and plain, in regard to the law of prizes, apply to that case. The prizes could not be adjudicated in his Courts; he had none. This was an enactment against Princes who had abdicated and were without dominion. Such things were common, as well in the time of William III. as since. Abdicated Princes very soon turn to be robbers, whose only object is to get re-established, and they are not scrupulous as to means. They stand as mere fictions, undertaking to exercise authority, with none of the responsibilities which belong to Rulers. How different it is with this Jefferson Davis! I speak now in no degree of his merits, or as lessening that feeling which my fellow-citizens and I share alike upon the subject of this rebellion. But here is a man, not a nominal Prince or Ruler, but he is (if you please without right) Ruler of ten millions of people. Is this Act, which is intended to meet the case of a man without people, or dominion, or force--without any thing but the name and claim of Ruler--to be applied to a man who represents (rightfully or wrongfully) a large fraction of a great nation? To say that every man who takes a commission (applying as well to civil as to military commissions), that any man who takes a commission, from him, is either a robber or a pirate--if on land, a robber, if on sea, a pirate--is unjust and unreasonable--contrary to every principle that governs the laws of nations. Patriotic vituperation may go far--patriotic spirit and feeling may go far--but there is a limit to every thing that is real. The human mind, as it seems to me, and the human heart, cannot go to the extent of the doctrine that they can be treated as robbers who act under a Government extending _de facto_ so far and doing _de facto_ so many things throughout upon the principles of civilized warfare, and having a vast territory, and vast numbers of people acting as it dictates. It is perverting the law of piracy to apply it to a case so entirely different. Now it comes back to the fact that this "pretence of authority" was the authority of all those States. Those States, when they come back to the Union, if they ever do, will come back with all their powers as original States. The Confederation you may call illegal and improper, but it is a Confederation _de facto_; its right may be questioned, but it is a _de facto_ Government, with this gentleman presiding over it, and performing the duties which, as the Ruler of a great nation, devolve upon him--bringing out armies by hundreds of thousands, bringing out treasures by the million,--and yet you are to say it has no color of authority. It is idle, it seems to me, to say that a man situated as Jefferson Davis is was intended by a law against a mere nominal Prince. I submit that because Jefferson Davis was actually the Chief of a Confederation of States, not foreign, exercising actual power and government over large territories, with a large population, under an organized Government, having Courts within its territories for the adjudication of captures,--that upon each of these grounds Harleston, as well as the others who are citizens, should be acquitted under the 9th section. That is all the argument which I address particularly; and I beg leave to read two or three general propositions on the construction of the law in this matter: I.--The recognition, by the great commercial nations of the world, of the Confederate States as belligerents, and not pirates and robbers, prevents the captures under authority from being held piratical under the law of nations. II.--1. The ninth section of the Act of 1790 has not in view any application to the States then recently united as the United States of America, or to the persons having authority _de facto_ in them. 2. That section had in view foreign Princes and States, and foreign authority only. 3. The authority from any person in that section has reference to persons without the possession, in fact, of territory. If your honors please, I have endeavored, so far as it was possible, to abbreviate what I have had to say on this subject. It is a very interesting one, undoubtedly, not only to the legal student, but to all persons in the country. This war is a war to reclaim those States. To attempt to reclaim them by prosecutions for piracy, or by acts of hostility which disregard them as having any form of society,--it seems to me that no national evil could be greater. The idea that in a commercial city it is very offensive that there should be privateers, is a trifle. The navy can regulate that. Let them look more to the privateers that want to get out than to the prizes that want to come in, and that will be provided for. We need not violate principles of law, or of humanity, or the common sense of the world, to produce an effect of that kind. We need to show that, in the midst of all this excitement and outcry against piracy--in the midst of a press that never names any of these people without calling them "pirates"--the men brought in always in chains, for the purpose of exciting public indignation against them and preventing their being treated as men of common rights and common interests with us--all which is very humiliating, it seems to me--in a Court of Justice no such feelings will be succumbed to. Certain I am that, where I stand, no such principles will be put in use. Justice will come--severe and stern, it may be--but it will be justice, with truth, and reason, and humanity, and political tenderness accompanying all its acts and all its judgments. _Mr. Larocque_: If the Court please, I had hoped to be saved the necessity of addressing your honors upon these propositions of law; but, in the distribution that has been made among the counsel, it has fallen to my lot to present the propositions in reference to which my opening was made, yesterday, to the Jury, and which will be adverted to by the counsel who, on our side, will close the case; and, simply, without detaining your honors, at this late hour, with any remarks upon them further than the reading of some extracts from authorities I have collected, I will present the propositions, leaving them to the action of your honors, and to the remarks of my associate, who will close this case, after we have ascertained the direction it will take before the Jury. The first proposition I had stated, with reference to jurisdiction: "That the defendants, after their capture and confinement as criminals, for the acts charged in this indictment, having been taken within the District of Virginia, on board the vessel on which they were so confined before being brought within the Southern District of New York, cannot be convicted under this indictment." In reference to that, there are a number of additional authorities that I will furnish to your honors. In the case of the _United States_ vs. _Charles A. Greiner_, tried before Judge Cadwalader, in the Philadelphia District, the defendant had been arrested under a charge of treason committed in Georgia. It seems to have been understood, by the learned counsel on the other side, that the question of jurisdiction may be influenced by the fact of whether there was any possibility of these prisoners being tried in Virginia or not; and it is in reference to that point that I cite this case. Judge Cadwalader says: "The questions in this case are more important than difficult. On the 2d of January last an artillery company of the State of Georgia, mustered in military array, took Fort Pulaski, in that State, from the possession of the United States, without encountering any forcible resistance. They garrisoned the post for some time, and left it in the possession of the government of the State. The accused, a native of Philadelphia, where he has many connections, resides in Georgia. He was a member of this artillery company when it occupied the fort, and, for aught that appears, may still be one of its members. He was not its commander. Whether he had any rank in it, or was only a private soldier, does not appear, and is, I think, unimportant. He is charged with treason in levying war against the United States. The overt act alleged is, that he participated, as one of this military company, in the capture of the fort, and in its detention until it was handed over to the permanent occupation of the authorities of the State. "The primary question is whether, if his guilt has been sufficiently proved, I can commit him for trial, detain him in custody, or hold him to bail to answer the charge. The objection to my doing so is, that the offence was committed in the State of Georgia, where a Court of the United States cannot, at present, be held, and where, as the District Attorney admits, a _speedy_ trial cannot be had. The truth of this admission is of public notoriety. "The Constitution of the United States provides that in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a _speedy_ trial by a Jury of the _State and District_ wherein the crime shall have been committed. The only statute which, if the Courts of the United States for the State of Georgia were open, would authorize me to do more than hold this party to security of the peace, and for good behavior, is the 33d section of the Judiciary Act of the 24th September, 1789. That section, after authorizing commitments, &c., for trial, before any Court of the United States having cognizance of the offence, provides that if the commitment is in a District other than that in which the offence is to be tried, it shall be the duty of the Judge of the District where the delinquent is imprisoned _seasonably_ to issue, and of the Marshal of the same District to execute, a warrant for the removal of the offender to the District in which the trial is to be had. The District Attorney of the United States does not ask me to issue such a warrant for this party's removal to Georgia for trial. Therefore I can do nothing under this Act of Congress. It does not authorize me to detain him in custody to abide the ultimate result of possible future hostilities in Georgia, or to hold him to bail for trial in a Court there, of which the sessions have been interrupted, and are indefinitely postponed." In reference to the counts of the indictment founded upon the 8th section of the Act of 1790 and the Act of 1820, the propositions I have are these: "_Second_, That to convict the defendants, under either of the first five counts of the indictment, the Jury must have such evidence as would warrant a conviction for robbery if the acts proved had been performed on land. "_Third_, That the defendants cannot be convicted of robbery, in the capture of the Joseph, unless she was taken with a piratical and felonious intent. "_Fourth_, That if the defendants, at the time of her capture, were acting under the commission in evidence, and, in good faith, believed that such commission authorized her capture, they did not act with a piratical or felonious intent, and cannot be convicted under either of the first five counts in the indictment." There are one or two authorities I did not state yesterday, which I beg now to furnish, as some additional authorities have been handed up on the other side: The Josefa Segunda, 5 Wheaton, 357. In this case Judge Livingston says: "Was the General Arismendi a piratical cruiser? The Court thinks not. Among the exhibits is a copy of a commission, which is all that in such a case can be expected, which appears to have been issued under the authority of the Government of Venezuela. This Republic is composed of the inhabitants of a portion of the dominions of Spain, in South America, which have been for some time, and still are, maintaining a contest for independence with the mother country. Although not acknowledged by our Government as an independent nation, it is well known that open war exists between them and His Catholic Majesty, in which the United States maintain strict neutrality. In this state of things, this Court cannot but respect the belligerent rights of both parties, and does not treat as pirates the cruisers of either so long as they act under and within the scope of their respective commissions." In the _United States_ vs. _The Brig Malek Adhel_ (2 Howard's U.S. Rep. 211), as to the Act of 1819, Judge Story (page 232) says: "Where the Act uses the word piratical, it does so in a general sense,--importing that the aggression is unauthorized by the law of nations, hostile in its character, wanton and cruel in its commission, and _utterly without any sanction from any public authority or sovereign power. In short, it means that the act belongs to the class of offences which pirates are in the habit of perpetrating, whether they do it for purposes of plunder, or purposes of hatred, revenge, or wanton abuse of power. A pirate is deemed--and properly deemed_--HOSTIS HUMANI GENERIS. But why is he so deemed? _Because he commits hostilities upon the subjects and property of any or all nations, without any regard to right or duty, or any pretence of public authority._ If he willfully sinks or destroys an innocent merchant ship, without any other object than to gratify his lawless appetite for mischief, it is just as much piratical aggression, in the sense of the law of nations, and of the Act of Congress, as if he did it solely and exclusively for the sake of plunder, _lucri causâ_. The law looks to it as an act of hostility; and, being committed by a vessel not commissioned and engaged in lawful warfare, it treats it as the act of a pirate, and one who is emphatically _hostis humani generis_." Then upon the question that this commission is only by color of authority from an unrecognized power, and that the authority to grant such a commission is disputed, I refer to the case of _Davison_ vs. _Certain Seal Skins_ (2 Paine's C.C.R. 332), which was a case of salvage of property after a piracy alleged to have been committed by Louis Vernet, at Port St. Louis, in the Eastern Falkland Islands, by taking them from a vessel,--he wrongfully and unlawfully claiming and pretending to be Governor of the Islands, under Buenos Ayres. The Court says: "Robbery on the high seas is understood to be piracy by our law. The taking must be _felonious_. A commissioned cruiser, by exceeding his authority, is not thereby to be considered a pirate. It may be a marine trespass, but not an act of piracy, _if the vessel is taken as a prize_, unless taken feloniously, and with intent to commit a robbery: the _quo animo_ may be inquired into. _A pirate is one who acts solely on his own authority, without any commission or authority from a sovereign State_, seizing by force and appropriating to himself, without discrimination, every vessel he meets with; and hence pirates have always been compared to robbers. The only difference between them is that the sea is the theatre of action for the one, and the land for the other." By referring to this case, pp. 334, 335, your honors will find that Buenos Ayres had no lawful jurisdiction over the islands, and that our Executive Government had so decided; but Buenos Ayres avowed the acts of those claiming to act under her authority, and our Government discharged the prisoners who had been captured as pirates, disclaiming, under those circumstances, to hold them personally criminally responsible. The next proposition which I state is this: "That, by the public law of the world, the law of nations, and the laws of war, the commission in evidence, supported by the proof in the case as to the color of authority under which it was issued, would afford adequate protection to the defendants against a conviction for piracy; and being an authority emanating neither from a foreign Prince nor foreign State, nor from a person merely, the offence charged in the last five counts of the indictment, is not within the purview of the 9th section of the Act of 1790, and the defendants cannot be convicted under either of those counts, if they acted in good faith under that commission." I refer your honors to the case of the _Santissima Trinidad_, 7 Wheaton, 283, to the opinion of Judge Story, in which he says: "There is another objection urged against the admission of this vessel to the privileges and immunities of a public ship, which may as well be disposed of in connection with the question already considered. It is, that Buenos Ayres has not yet been acknowledged as a sovereign independent Government, by the Executive or Legislature of the United States, and therefore is not entitled to have her ships-of-war recognized by our Courts as national ships. We have, in former cases, had occasion to express our opinion on this point. The Government of the United States has recognized the existence of a civil war between Spain and her Colonies, and has avowed a determination to remain neutral between the parties, and to allow to each the same rights of asylum, and hospitality, and intercourse. Each party is, therefore, deemed by us a belligerent nation, having, so far as concerns us, the sovereign rights of war, and entitled to be respected in the exercise of those rights. We cannot interfere to the prejudice of either belligerent, without making ourselves a party to the contest and departing from the posture of neutrality. All captures made by each must be considered as having the same validity; and all the immunities which may be claimed by public ships in our ports, under the laws of nations, must be considered as equally the right of each, and as such must be recognized by our Courts of Justice, until Congress shall prescribe a different rule. This is the doctrine heretofore asserted by this Court, and we see no reason to depart from it." Your honors, by referring to the case of The Bello Corunnes, 6 Wheaton, 152, will see the doctrine laid down distinctly, that acts may be piratical for all civil purposes which would not authorize the conviction of the perpetrators criminally as pirates; _e.g._, a citizen of the United States, taking from a State at war with Spain a commission to cruise against that power, contrary to the 14th art. of the Spanish Treaty;--and the Court held, in that case, that that would involve the consequences of a piracy, for the purpose of condemnation of property; but it would not be criminal piracy, under either the law of nations or of the United States. On the general subject of privateers I had a reference to Vattel, but I do not think it necessary to read it, because the authorities on that subject cover it so fully. I come now, if your honors please, to what my learned friend, when he addressed the Court on the part of the Government, has been pleased to call the political part of this case; and I have distinctly stated in my propositions what I contended for on that subject. In the first place, that the Federal Executive Government, and the executive governments of the States, under the Constitution of the United States, each possess the jurisdiction to decide whether their respective acts are within or exceed the limits of their respective constitutional powers, in cases of collision between them in their administrative acts, operating upon the public domain, or upon the State, or its citizens as a body politic. I shall, without stopping for any discussion, simply state the subordinate propositions by which I think that is established, and give a reference to the authorities. I say, in the first place, as I said to the Jury, that citizens of the United States owe a divided allegiance, partly to the United States and partly to their respective States. They can commit treason against either; for the State constitutions and laws define and punish treason against the States, as the Constitution of the United States does treason against them. The Federal and State Governments are each supreme and sovereign within the limits of their respective jurisdictions under the Federal and State Constitutions; each operates directly upon the citizen, and each also operates as a check and restriction upon the other, and upon the encroachments of the other, in seeking to extend beyond legitimate limits its jurisdiction over the citizen, or over the public domain common to both. Now, if your honors please, in regard to that, I will very briefly refer you to what I rely upon. I refer, in the first place, to sections 2 and 3, of Article 6th, of the Constitution of the United States. "_Sec. 2._ This Constitution, and the laws of the United States, _which shall be made in pursuance thereof_, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. "_Sec. 3._ The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." In the amendments to the Constitution of the United States, Articles 9 and 10, we find this language: "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." I refer to the case of McCulloch _vs._ The State of Maryland, 4 Wheaton, p. 400, in which the opinion was delivered by Chief Justice Marshall. He says: "No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines which separate the States, and of compounding the American people into one common mass." I cite particularly from pp. 402 and 410. On page 410 his language is as follows: "In America, the powers of sovereignty are divided between the Government of the Union and those of the States. _They are each sovereign with respect to the objects committed to it, and neither sovereign with respect to the objects committed to the other._ We cannot comprehend that train of reasoning which would maintain that the extent of power granted by the people is to be ascertained, not by the nature and terms of the grant, but by its date. Some State constitutions were formed before, some since, that of the United States. We cannot believe that their relation to each other is in any degree dependent upon this circumstance. Their respective powers must, we think, be precisely the same as if they had been formed at the same time." The next I refer to is the case of _Rhode Island_ agst. _Massachusetts_, 12 Peters, 889, where Judge Baldwin says: "Before we can proceed in this cause, we must, therefore, inquire whether we can hear and determine the matters in controversy between the parties, who are two States of this Union, _sovereign within their respective boundaries, save that portion of power which they have granted to the Federal Government, and foreign to each other for all but federal purposes_." I now refer to the case of _Livingston_ vs. _Van Ingen_, 9 Johnson, 574, where Chancellor Kent reasons thus: "When the people create a single entire Government, they grant at once all the rights of sovereignty. The powers granted are indefinite and incapable of enumeration. Every thing is granted that is not expressly reserved in the constitutional charter, or necessarily retained as inherent in the people. _But when a Federal Government is erected with only a portion of the sovereign power, the rule of construction is directly the reverse, and every power is reserved to the members that is not, either in express terms or by necessary implication, taken away from them and rested exclusively in the Federal Head._" "This rule has not only been acknowledged by the most intelligent friends to the Constitution, but is plainly declared by the instrument itself. This principle might be illustrated by other instances of grants of power to Congress, with a prohibition to the States from exercising the like powers; but it becomes unnecessary to enlarge upon so plain a proposition, as it is removed beyond all doubt by the 10th article of the amendments to the Constitution. That article declares that 'the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.' The ratification of the Constitution by the Convention of this State was made with the explanation and understanding that 'every power, jurisdiction and right which was not clearly delegated to the General Government remained to the people of the several States, or to their respective State governments.' There was a similar provision in the articles of Confederation, and the principle results from the very nature of the Federal Government, which consists only of a defined portion of the undefined mass of sovereignty vested in the several members of the Union. There may be inconveniences, but generally there will be no serious difficulty, and there cannot well be any interruption of the public peace in the concurrent exercise of those powers. _The powers of the two Governments are each supreme within their respective constitutional spheres. They may each operate with full effect upon different subjects, or they may, as in the case of taxation, operate upon different parts of the same subject._" I now refer to the Massachusetts Bill of Rights of 1780, art. 4. It reads: "The people of this Commonwealth have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign and independent State; and do, and forever hereafter shall, exercise and enjoy every power, jurisdiction and right, which is not, or may not hereafter be, by them expressly delegated to the United States of America, in Congress assembled." I also refer to the New Hampshire Bill of Rights, of September, 1792: "ART. 7. The people of this State have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign and independent State; and do, and forever hereafter shall, exercise and enjoy every power, jurisdiction and right pertaining thereto, which is not, or may not hereafter be by them expressly delegated to the United States of America, in Congress assembled." I next beg leave to refer your honors to No. 32 of the Federalist, by Hamilton, who says: "An entire consolidation of the States into one complete national sovereignty would imply an entire subordination of the parts, and whatever power might remain in them would be altogether dependent on the general will. But as the plan of the Convention aims only at a partial union or consolidation, _the State governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not by that act exclusively delegated to the United States_." Also, to the Federalist, No. 39, by Madison, in which he says: "The difference between a Federal and National Government, as it relates to the operation of the Government, is, by the adversaries of the plan of the Convention, supposed to consist in this, that in the former the powers operate upon the political bodies composing the Confederacy in their political capacities; in the latter, on the individual citizens composing the nation in their individual capacities. On trying the Constitution by this criterion, it falls under the national and not the federal character, though perhaps not so completely as has been understood. In several cases, and particularly in the trial of controversies to which States may be parties, they must be viewed and proceeded against in their collective and political capacities only. But the operation of the Government on the people in their individual capacities, in its ordinary and most essential proceedings, will, on the whole, in the sense of its opponents, designate it, in this relation, a National Government. "But if the Government be national with regard to the operation of its powers, it changes its aspect again when we contemplate it with regard to the extent of its powers. The idea of a National Government involves in it not only an authority over the individual citizens, but an indefinite supremacy over all persons and things, so far as they are objects of lawful government. Among a people consolidated into one nation, this supremacy is completely vested in the National Legislature. Among communities united for political purposes, it is vested partly in the general and partly in the municipal Legislatures. In the former case all local authorities are subordinate to the supreme, and may be controlled, directed or abolished by it at pleasure. _In the latter the local or municipal authorities form_ DISTINCT AND INDEPENDENT PORTIONS OF THE SUPREMACY, _no more subject, within their respective spheres, to the general authority, than the general authority is subject to them within its own sphere. In this relation, then, the proposed Government cannot be deemed a national one, since its jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the several States a residuary and_ INVIOLABLE _sovereignty over all other objects._ It is true that, in controversies relating to the boundary line between the two jurisdictions, the tribunal which is ultimately to decide is to be established under the General Government. But this does not change the principle of the case. The decision is to be impartially made according to the rules of the Constitution; and all the usual and most effectual precautions are taken to secure this impartiality. _Some such tribunal is clearly essential to prevent an appeal to the sword and a dissolution of the compact_; and that it ought to be established under the general rather than the local Governments, or, to speak more properly, that it could be safely established under the first alone, is a position not likely to be combated." I will refer, also, to the letter of Gov. Seward, written to Gov. Gilmore, of Virginia, October 24th, 1839, taken from the Assembly Journal, 63d Sess., 1840, p. 55. That distinguished public man says: "You very justly observe, 'that neither the Government nor the citizens of any other country can rightfully interfere with the municipal regulations of any country in any way;' and in support of this position you introduce the following extract from Vattel's Law of Nations, 'that all have a right to be governed as they think proper, and that no State has the smallest right to interfere in the government of another. Of all the rights that belong to a nation, sovereignty is doubtless the most precious, and that which other nations ought the most scrupulously to respect if they would not do her an injury.' "It might, perhaps, be inferred, from the earnestness with which these principles are pressed in your communication, that they have been controverted on my part. Permit me, therefore, to bring again before you the following distinct admissions: 'I do not question the constitutional right of a State to make such a penal code as it shall deem necessary or expedient; nor do I claim that citizens of other States shall be exempted from arrest, trial and punishment in the State adopting such code, however different its enactments may be from those existing in their own State.' Thus you will perceive that I have admitted the sovereignty of the several States upon which you so strenuously insist. To prevent, however, all possible misconstruction upon this subject, I beg leave to add that no person can maintain more firmly than I do the principle that the States are sovereign and independent in regard to all matters except those in relation to which sovereignty is expressly, or by necessary implication, transferred to the Federal Government by the Constitution of the United States. I have at least believed that my non-compliance with the requisition made upon me in the present case would be regarded as maintaining the equal sovereignty and independence of this State, and by necessary consequence, those of all the other States." I contend, then, that the people of the several States, in forming the State governments, have surrendered to the latter supreme and sovereign jurisdiction over all questions affecting the State, or its citizens as a body politic, not included in the grant of power to the General Government by the Federal Constitution. This surrender necessarily includes the power and jurisdiction to determine, co-ordinately with the Federal Government, whether the Federal Executive Government is acting within or transgressing the limits of its legitimate authority in any case affecting the State as such, or its citizens as a body politic, when the question is not one of the validity or constitutionality of a law of the United States, operating directly upon individual citizens, and conformity to which is to be enforced or resisted by suit or defence in the Federal or State Courts, with the right of ultimate appeal, in either case, to the Supreme Court of the United States; but, on the contrary, brings into collision the Federal and State Executive Departments of the Government, in the exercise of powers which, from their very nature and the mode in which they are exerted, never can be presented for the determination of a Court. And with regard to that proposition I would cite Vattel, Book I., chap. 1, sec. 2, upon the proposition that jurisdiction to determine such a mixed question of law and fact has been ceded equally to the State as to the Federal Government. Vattel says: "It is evident that, by the very act of the civil or political association, each citizen subjects himself to the authority of the entire body in everything that relates to the common welfare. The authority of all over each member therefore essentially belongs to the body politic or State; but the exercise of that authority may be placed in different hands, according as the society may have ordained." I refer, also, to the Federalist, No. 40, by Madison. He uses this language: "Will it be said that the fundamental principles of the Confederation were not within the purview of the Convention, and ought not to have been varied? I ask, what are those principles? Do they require that, in the establishment of the Constitution, the States should be regarded as distinct and independent sovereigns? They are so regarded by the Constitution proposed. * * * Do they require that the powers of the Government should act on the States, and not immediately on individuals? In some instances, as has been shown, the powers of the new Government will act on the States in their collective character. In some instances, also, those of the _existing_ Government act immediately on individuals. In cases of capture, of piracy, of the post-office, of coins, weights and measures; of trade with the Indians; of claims under grants of land by different States; and, above all, in the cases of trial by Courts Martial, in the Army and Navy, by which death may be inflicted without the intervention of a Jury, or even of a Civil Magistrate,--in all these cases the _powers of the Confederation_ operate immediately on the persons and interests of individual citizens." I would also refer your honors to the Report of the Committee of the General Assembly of Connecticut, on a call for the militia, by the General Government, in 1812. The Report reads: "The people of this State were among the first to adopt that Constitution; they have been among the most prompt to satisfy all its lawful demands, and to give facility to its fair operations; they have enjoyed the benefits resulting from the Union of the States; they have loved, and still love and cherish that Union, and will deeply regret if any events shall occur to alienate their affection from it. They have a deep interest in its preservation, and are still disposed to yield a willing and prompt obedience to all the legitimate requirements of the Constitution of the United States. "But it must not be forgotten that the State of Connecticut is a free, sovereign and independent State,--that the United States are a Confederacy of States,--that we are a confederated and not a consolidated Republic. The Governor of this State is under a high and solemn obligation 'to maintain the lawful rights and privileges thereof as a sovereign, free and independent State,' as he is 'to support the Constitution of the United States,' and the obligation to support the latter imposes an additional obligation to support the former. The building cannot stand if the pillars upon which it rests are impaired or destroyed. The same Constitution which delegates powers to the General Government, forbids the exercise of powers not delegated, and reserves those powers to the States respectively." And that was "approved by both Houses," and the following resolution passed: "_Resolved_, That the conduct of His Excellency, the Governor, in refusing to order the militia of this State into the service of the United States, on the requisition of the Secretary of War and Major-General Dearborn, meets with the entire approbation of this Assembly." I would also refer to the second speech of Mr. Webster on Mr. Foot's resolution, in reply to Mr. Hayne, in the Senate of the United States, where he thus expresses himself: "The States are unquestionably sovereign, so far as their sovereignty is not affected by this supreme law (the Constitution). * * * The General Government and the State governments derive their authority from the same source. Neither can, in relation to the other, be called primary; though one is definite and restricted, and the other general and residuary." Also, to the case of _Luther_ vs. _Borden_, 7 Howard, 1--one of the Dorr rebellion cases. The Supreme Court of the United States there decided that the government of a State, by its Legislature, has the power to protect itself from destruction by armed rebellion by declaring martial law, and that the Legislature is the judge of the necessary exigency. At this point the Court intimated that they would adjourn to the following day. The District Attorney, Mr. E. Delafield Smith, stated that the case of the _United States_ vs. _William Smith_, one of the ship's company of the privateer Jefferson Davis, the trial of which had been proceeding in Philadelphia, had terminated in a verdict. That case involved the main questions, and also the question of jurisdiction involved here. Mr. Smith further stated that he had sent for a copy of the charge of Mr. Justice Grier in that case, and expected to receive it by telegraph, and he desired to reserve the right to refer to that charge as one of his authorities in this case. _The Court_ assented. Adjourned to Saturday, October 26th, at 11 A.M. FOURTH DAY. _Saturday, Oct. 26, 1861._ The Court met at 11 o'clock, when-- _Mr. Larocque_ resumed: I will proceed very briefly, if your honors please, to close what I was submitting to the Court upon the propositions which, as I maintain, tend to show a colorable authority in the State government, in possible cases that might arise, to authorize the issuing of letters of marque. I will state them in their connection, in order that your honors may see what they are. The first is the one I considered yesterday, viz., that the Federal Executive Government and the executive governments of the States, under the Constitution of the United States, each possess the jurisdiction to decide whether their respective acts are within or exceed the limits of their respective constitutional powers in cases of collision between them in their administrative acts operating upon the public domain, or upon the State, or its citizens as a body politic. I had concluded what I intended to submit upon that, and proceed to the others, which are-- 2. That in such cases, the Constitution having erected no common arbiter between them, the right of forcible resistance to the exercise of unlawful power, which, by the law of nature, resides in the people, has been delegated by them, by the Federal and State Constitutions respectively, to the Federal and State Governments respectively, and each having the jurisdiction to judge whether its acts are within the constitutional limit of its own powers, has also necessarily the right to employ force in their assertion or defence, if needed. 3. That in such cases the citizen of a State which, in its political capacity, has come into forcible collision with the Federal Government, owing allegiance to both within the limits of their respective constitutional powers, and each possessing the jurisdiction to determine for him the compound question of law and fact, whether the constitutional limit of those powers has been exceeded by itself or the other in the particular case, is protected from all criminal liability for any act done by him, in good faith, in adhering to and under the authority of either Government. I wish very briefly to refer your honors to a few authorities, which, I hold, sustain these propositions. I say, in the first place, that this right bears no analogy whatever to the right, once claimed and most successfully refuted, of the inhabitants of a State, in Convention, to decide by ordinance upon the unconstitutionally of a law of the Union, and to prevent by force its operation within the limits of the State, in a case legitimately falling within the cognizance of the Courts. The claim to collect duties under an Act of Congress alleged to be unconstitutional was strictly an instance of this latter class. The citizen from whom the duties were claimed could simply refuse to pay, and thereby refer the question of constitutionality of the law to the judicial tribunals to which it properly belonged, and which must necessarily pass upon the question before the duties could be collected. On the other hand, the claim to hold or retake forts or other public places within the limits of a State, as property of the United States, is one against which, if unauthorized, the State could not by possibility defend itself through the agency of the Courts. Now, if your honors please, I have stated most distinctly, and admitted most fully, that, in whatever cases the judicial power of the United States extends to, it is supreme. That is to say, if a collision takes place in a suit in a State Court between the Federal and State laws, and the decision of the State Court is against the right, privilege, or exemption, as it is called in the judiciary Act, claimed under the authority of the Union, the Supreme Court of the United States can redress the error. But I am now speaking of that class of cases where the judiciary have nothing whatever to do, and in which, I contend, the Federal and State authorities are each supreme and sovereign, within the limits of their respective power, and neither has any right or authority beyond the lines which bound their respective jurisdiction. And, if your honors please, I refer to the Inaugural Address of Mr. Lincoln, not only for the proposition that the judicial authority has nothing to do whatever in a case such as that I am now supposing, but that, even in cases where the judiciary is competent to act, its decisions do not form precedents, do not form rules for the government of the co-ordinate departments of the Union, in future cases of State policy, and that the executive and the legislative departments are still left at liberty to act as if no decision had been made. I do not mean to be understood as acquiescing in that claim; I consider it as a doctrine infinitely more dangerous and destructive than the doctrine of constitutional secession; but it comes to us as the claim set up on the part of the President; and if that is at all correct, there is an end of all pretence that the judiciary is competent to afford any relief or protection in the other class of cases referred to. He says: "I do not forget the position assumed by some, that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny that such decision must be binding in any case upon the parties to a suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the Government; and while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it being limited to that particular case, with the chances that it may be overruled, and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time the candid citizen must confess that, if the policy of the Government upon the vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by the decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigations between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own masters, having to that extent practically resigned the Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there, in this view, any assault upon the Court or the Judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink, to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes." I have not the document at this moment; but your honors will probably bear in mind that the Executive also lately consulted the law-officer of the Government upon the question of suspending the privilege of _habeas corpus_, and I well remember the clause in the opinion which was delivered by that eminent legal gentleman and high officer of the Government on that occasion, and which was afterwards communicated by the President to Congress as the basis of his action. In that opinion the present learned Attorney-General used this language: "To say that the departments of our Government are co-ordinate, is to say that the judgment of one of them is not binding upon the other two, as to the arguments and principles involved in the judgment. It binds only the parties to the case decided." And your honors will recollect that, acting upon that enunciation of the law of the land and of the construction of the Constitution, although he admitted that the Supreme Court of the United States had decided that the privilege of _habeas corpus_ could not be suspended by the Executive, without the interposition of Congress, the legal adviser of the Government held, at the same time, that that decision of the Supreme Court was not binding upon the Executive. Now, for the purpose of showing what I mean by the right of resistance reserved to the people by the law of nature, which, as I say, is delegated by them to these two sovereigns, for the purpose that each may maintain its own authority and prevent encroachment by the other, I beg to refer your honors to _Rutherforth's Institutes of Natural Law, vol. 1, page 391_, commencing with section 10. And as a proof than I broach no novel or revolutionary doctrine, your honors will bear in mind that these Institutes of Natural Law were a course of lectures delivered in one of the great seminaries of learning of England, and their doctrines thought fit and proper to be instilled into the minds of the youth of that Kingdom, the loyalty of whose people to their Government has become proverbial among all the nations of the world. The author says: "It is a question of some importance, and has been thought a question not easily to be determined, whether the members of a civil society have, upon any event, or in any circumstances whatsoever, a right to resist their governors, or rather the persons who are invested with the civil power of that society." Then he states several cases in which the civil governors, as he calls them, lose their power over their subjects, and continues: "Fourthly, Though the governors of a society should be invested by the constitution with all civil power in the highest degree and to the greatest extent that the nature of a civil power will admit of, yet this does not imply that the people are in a state of perfect subjection. Civil power is, in its own nature, a limited power; as it arose at first from social union, so it is limited by the ends and purposes of such union, whether it is exercised, as it is in democracies, by the body of the people, or, as it is in monarchies, by one single person. But if the power of a Monarch, when he is considered as a civil governor, is thus limited by the ends of social union, whatever obedience and submission the people may owe him whilst he keeps within these limits, he has no power at all, and consequently the people owe him no subjection, when he goes beyond them. "Having thus taken a short view of the several ways in which the authority of the governors of a society fails, and the subjection of the people ceases, we may now return to the question which was before us. "If you ask whether the members of a civil society have a right to resist the civil governors of it by force? your question is too general to admit of a determinate answer. "As far as the just authority of the civil governors and the subjection of the people extend, resistance by force is rebellion. "Subjection consists in an obligation to obey; as far, therefore, as the people are in subjection, they can have no right to resist; because an obligation to obey, and a right to resist, are inconsistent with one another. "But the power of civil governors is neither necessarily connected with their persons, nor infinite whilst it is in their possession. "It ceases by abdication; it is overruled by the laws of nature and of God; and it does not extend beyond the limits which either the civil constitution or the ends of social union have set to it. "Where their power thus fails in right, and they have no just authority, the subjection of the people ceases; that is, as far as of right they have no power, or no just authority, the people are not obliged to obey them; so that any force which they make use of, either to compel obedience or to punish disobedience, is unjust force; the people may perhaps be at liberty to submit to it, if they please; but, because it is unjust force, the law of nature does not oblige them to submit to it. "But this law, if it does not oblige the people to submit to such force, allows them to have recourse to the necessary means of relieving themselves from it, and of securing themselves against it, to the means of resistance by opposing force to force, if they cannot be relieved from it and secured against it by any other means." I continue my citation at-- "Sec. XV. In the general questions concerning the right of resistance, it is usually objected that there is no common judge who is vested with authority to determine, between the supreme governors and the people, where the right of resistance begins; and the want of such a judge is supposed to leave the people room to abuse this right; they may possibly pretend that they are unjustly oppressed, and, upon this pretence, may causelessly and rebelliously take up arms against their governors, although they are laid under no other restraints, and no other compulsion is made use of, but what the general nature of civil society or the particular circumstances of their own society require. "But, be this as it may, the possibility that the right may be abused, does not prove that no such right subsists. "If we would conclude, on the one hand, that the people have no right of resistance, because this right is capable of being abused, we might, for the same reason, conclude, on the other hand, that supreme governors have no authority. "Whatever authority these governors have in any civil society, it was given them for the common benefit of the society; and it is possible that, under the color of this authority, they may oppress the people in order to promote their own separate benefit. "Sec. XVI. It is a groundless suggestion, that a right of resistance in the people will occasion treason and rebellion, and that it will weaken the authority of civil government, and will render the office of those who are invested with it precarious and unsafe, even though they administer it with the utmost prudence and with all due regard to the common benefit. "The right of resistance will indeed render the general notion of rebellion less extensive in its application to particular facts. "All use of force against such persons as are invested with supreme power, would come under the notion of rebellion, if the people have no right of this sort; whereas, if they have such a right, the use of force to repel tyranical and unsocial oppression, when it cannot be removed by any other means, must have some other name given to it. So that, however true it may be that, in consequence of this right of resistance, supreme government will be liable, of right, to some external checks, arising out of the law of nature, to which they would otherwise not be liable, yet it cannot properly be said to expose them to rebellion." I beg, in the next place, to read to your honors, from the opinion of Mr. Justice Johnson, a short paragraph. It is to be found in 1st Wheaton, 363, in the case of _Martin_ vs. _Hunter's Lessee_. I believe a paragraph from that has been already read, on the other side, and I wish to give you, in connection with it, what he says, speaking of the power of the judiciary, and the consequences that would result in any case to which that power did not reach. He says: "On the other hand, so firmly am I persuaded that the American people no longer can enjoy the blessings of a free Government, whenever the State sovereignties shall be prostrated at the feet of the General Government, nor the proud consciousness of equality and security, any longer than the independence of judicial power shall be maintained consecrated and intangible, that I could borrow the language of a celebrated orator, and exclaim, 'I rejoice that Virginia has resisted.'" I also wish to read a sentence from the case of _Moore_ vs. _The State of Illinois_, in 14 Howard, p. 20--the opinion by Mr. Justice Grier. He says: "Every citizen of the United States is also a citizen of a State or Territory. He may be said to owe allegiance to two sovereigns, and may be liable to punishment for an infraction of the laws of either." And Mr. Justice McLean, in speaking of the same subject, in the same case, at page 22, says: "It is true the criminal laws of the Federal and State Governments emanated from different sovereignties; but they operate on the same people, and should have the same end in view. In this respect the Federal Government, though sovereign within the limitation of its powers, may, in some sense, be considered as the agent of the States, to provide for the general welfare by punishing offences under its own laws within its jurisdiction." I wish also to refer to the case of the _United States_ vs. _Booth_, in 21 Howard--the opinion of CHIEF JUSTICE TANEY--in connection with the question of what the result is where the judiciary has not power to act. He says: "The importance which the framers of the Constitution attached to such a tribunal, for the purpose of preserving internal tranquillity, is strikingly manifested by the clause which gives this Court jurisdiction _over the sovereign States which compose this Union_, when a controversy arises _between them_. Instead of reserving the right to seek redress for injustice from another State by their sovereign powers, they have bound themselves to submit to the decision of this Court, and to abide by its judgment. And it is not out of place to say, here, that experience has demonstrated that this power was not unwisely surrendered by the States; for, in the time that has already elapsed since this Government came into existence, several irritating and angry controversies have taken place between adjoining States, in relation to their respective boundaries, and which have sometimes threatened to end in force and violence, but for the power vested in this Court to hear them and decide between them. "The same purposes are clearly indicated by the different language employed when conferring supremacy upon the laws of the United States and jurisdiction upon its Courts. In the first case, it provides that 'this Constitution, and the laws of the United States, _which shall be made in pursuance thereof_, shall be the supreme law of the land, and obligatory upon the Judges in every State.' The words in italics show the precision and foresight which marks every clause in the instrument. The sovereignty to be created was to be limited in its powers of legislation; and, if it passed a law not authorized by its enumerated powers, it was not to be regarded as the supreme law of the land, nor were the State Judges bound to carry it into execution." And further on, speaking of the claimed right of the State of Wisconsin to discharge a prisoner convicted in the United States Court upon a criminal conviction, and to refuse afterwards to obey a writ of error issued out of the Supreme Court of the United States to review that judgment, he uses language of this kind: "This right to inquire by process of habeas corpus, and the duty of the officer to make a return, grows necessarily out of the complex character of our Government, and the existence of two distinct and separate sovereignties within the same territorial space, each of them restricted in its powers, and each, within its sphere of action prescribed by the Constitution of the United States, independent of the other." Now, if your honors please, upon that question still further--that where there is no possibility of the power of the judiciary being exercised, there being, as the learned Chief Justice expresses it in his own language, "two distinct and separate sovereignties within the same territorial space" exercising jurisdiction, the right of forcible resistance exists in the State governments. I beg to refer to the Federalist, No. 28, by Alexander Hamilton, p. 126. He says: "It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system, that the State governments will in all possible contingencies afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the federal authority. Projects of usurpation cannot be masked under pretences so likely to escape the penetration of select bodies of men as of the people at large. The Legislatures will have better means of information; they can discover the danger at a distance, and, possessing all the organs of civil power and the confidence of the people, they can at once adopt a regular plan of opposition; they can combine all the resources of the community. They can readily communicate with each other in the different States, and unite their common forces for the protection of their common liberty." I refer also to the _Federalist_, No. 46, by James Madison, where he uses this language: "Were it admitted, however, that the Federal Government may feel an equal disposition with the State governments to extend its power beyond the due limits, the latter would still have the advantage in the means of defeating such encroachments. If the act of a particular State, though unfriendly to the National Government, be generally popular in that State, and should not too grossly violate the oaths of the State officers, it is executed immediately, and of course by means on the spot, and depending on the State alone. * * * On the other hand, should an unwarrantable measure of the Federal Government be unpopular in particular States, which would seldom fail to be the case, or even a warrantable measure be so, which may sometimes be the case, the means of opposition to it are at hand. * * * "But ambitious encroachments of the Federal Government on the authority of the State governments would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm. Every government would espouse the common cause; a correspondence would be opened; plans of resistance would be concerted; one spirit would animate and conduct the whole. The same combination, in short, would result from an apprehension of the _federal_ as was produced by the dread of a _foreign_ yoke; and, unless the projected innovations should be voluntarily renounced, the same appeal to a trial of force would be made in the one case as was made in the other. But what degree of madness would ever drive the Federal Government to such an extremity? * * * But what would be the contest in the case we are supposing? Who would be the parties? A few Representatives of the people would be opposed to the people themselves; or, rather, one set of Representatives would be contending against thirteen sets of Representatives, with the whole body of their common constituents on the side of the latter. The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the Federal Government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition. * * * Extravagant as the supposition is, let it, however, be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed, and let it be entirely at the devotion of the Federal Government; still it would not be going too far to say that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed 1/100th of the whole number of souls, or 1/25th part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield to the United States an army of more than 25 or 30,000 men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near 500,000 citizens, with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence." I shall not spend the time of your honors by reading the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions--the one the production of James Madison, and the other of Thomas Jefferson--with which you are so familiar. They fully bear out the doctrine for which I contend, and much more than I contend for. I wish, however, to read, from the American State Papers, vol. 21, p. 6, a series of resolutions adopted by the Legislature of Pennsylvania, on the 3d April, 1809. They are as follows: "_Resolved_, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: "That, as a member of the Federal Union, the Legislature of Pennsylvania acknowledges the supremacy, and will cheerfully submit to the authority, of the General Government, as far as that authority is delegated by the Constitution of the United States. But while they yield to this authority, when exerted within constitutional limits, they trust they will not be considered as acting hostile to the General Government _when, as the guardians of the State rights_, they cannot permit an infringement of those rights by an unconstitutional exercise of power in the United States Courts. "_Resolved_, That in a Government like that of the United States, where there are powers granted to the General Government and rights reserved to the States, it is impossible, from the imperfection of language, so to define the limits of each that difficulties should not sometimes arise from a collision of powers; and it is to be lamented that no provision is made in the Constitution for determining disputes between the General and State Governments by an impartial tribunal, when such cases occur. "_Resolved_, That, from the construction which the United States Courts give to their powers, the harmony of the States, if they resist the encroachments on their rights, will frequently be interrupted; and if, to prevent this evil, they should on all occasions yield to stretches of power, the reserved rights of the States will depend on the arbitrary powers of the Courts. "_Resolved_, That should the independence of the States, as secured by the Constitution, be destroyed, the liberties of the people in so extensive a country cannot long survive. To suffer the United States Courts to decide on State rights, will, from a bias in favor of power, necessarily destroy the federal part of our Government; and, whenever the Government of the United States becomes consolidated we may learn from the history of nations what will be the event." To prevent the balance between the General and State Governments from being destroyed, and the harmony of the States from being interrupted-- "_Resolved_, That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Representatives be requested, to use their influence to procure amendment to the Constitution of the United States, that an impartial tribunal may be established to determine disputes between the General and State Governments; and that they be further instructed to use their endeavors that, in the meantime, such engagements may be made between the Governments of the Union and of the State as will put an end to existing difficulties." Those resolutions were transmitted to Congress by President Madison. They were never acted upon. My next reference is to the Remonstrance of the State of Massachusetts against the War of 1812, adopted June 18th, 1813--from the _American State Papers_, vol. 21, page 210: "The Legislature of Massachusetts, deeply impressed with the sufferings of their constituents, and excited by the apprehension of still greater evils in prospect, feel impelled by a solemn sense of duty to lay before the National Government their views of the public interests, and to express, with the plainness of freemen, the sentiments of the people of this ancient and extensive Commonwealth. "Although the precise limits of the powers reserved _to the several State sovereignties_ have not been defined by the Constitution, yet we fully concur in the correctness of the opinions advanced by our venerable Chief Magistrate, that our Constitution secures to us the freedom of speech, and that, at this momentous period, it is our right and duty to inquire into the grounds and origin of the present war, to reflect upon the state of public affairs, and to express our sentiments concerning them with decency and frankness, and to endeavor, so far as our limited influence extends, to promote, by temperate and constitutional means, an honorable reconciliation. * * * _The States, as well as the individuals composing them, are parties to the National Compact; and it is their peculiar duty, especially in times of peril, to watch over the rights and guard the privileges solemnly guaranteed by that instrument._" There were also a set of resolutions, which I will not take time to read, passed by the Legislature of New Jersey, November 27th, 1827, which will be found in the _American State Papers_, vol. 21, page 797. They were based upon the then prevalent opinion that the Constitution had not conferred upon the Supreme Court of the United States the power to decide disputed questions of boundary, or similar questions, between States of the Union, and proposed an amendment to remedy that difficulty, expressly recognizing that the right to resort to force in such cases necessarily resulted from the omission. The decision of the Supreme Court, in the case of _Rhode Island_ vs. _Massachusetts_, that it possessed that jurisdiction, conjured that danger. The greater one, however, of there being no tribunal to administer justice between the federal and State sovereignties, remains. I will also refer to one other resolution, passed by the Legislature of the State of New York, on the 29th January, 1833, upon the Nullification Ordinances, as they were called: "_Resolved_, That we regard the right of a single State to make void within its limits the laws of the United States, as set forth in the Ordinance of South Carolina, as wholly unauthorized by the Constitution of the United States, and, in its tendency, subversive to the Union and the Government thereof." I do not know that any sane man will now dispute that truth; but this follows. The present Secretary of State of the United States, at that time a member of the Senate of this State, then moved: "That this Legislature do adhere, in their construction of the Constitution, to the principle that the reserved rights of the States, not conceded to the General Government, ought to be _maintained and defended_." This latter resolution was indefinitely postponed. I will not now stop to read what was said by President Buchanan, in his Message to Congress, on December 4th, 1860, as to the consequences of a refusal by the States to repeal the obnoxious laws which had been enacted. You will recollect that he said that, if that was not done, the injured States would be justified, standing on the basis of the Constitution, in revolutionary resistance to the Government of the Union. I do not need to claim that, for I have nothing to do, on this trial, with the justice of these mighty questions, debated between the General Government and the governments and people of these States. The question of their justice or injustice does not arise upon this trial. I was simply making these citations to show that, by the ablest writers cotemporaneous with the Constitution, and who performed the work of framing it--by the proceedings of legislative bodies and the decisions of the Supreme Court--the principle has been recognized that, in all cases in which jurisdiction has not been given to the judiciary over questions between the General Government and the State, they are equal, co-ordinate, each possessed of the right to decide for itself as to the excess by the other, if it is claimed that there is an excess of constitutional power, and to assert its own right or repel the encroachments of the other by force. I say, in further confirmation of this, that the offence of treason against the United States, under the 3d section of the 3d article of the Constitution of the United States, must be a levying of war against them all. The words, "United States," in that section, mean the States, and not merely the Government of the Union. This is evident from the fact that the section, as originally reported (being sec. 2 of art. 7), read: "Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against the United States, OR ANY OF THEM; and in adhering to the enemies of the United States, OR ANY OF THEM," &c. (Journal of the Convention, page 221). It was amended so as to read collectively only, and not disjunctively. When, however, the act done is not under authority of a State, I concede that levying war against the General Government is levying war against all the States. And, in this connection, I wish to refer to the proceedings, which I have hastily adverted to in opening to the Jury, upon the adoption of the section of the Constitution relating to treason. I refer to the _Madison Papers_, vol. 3, page 1370: "Art. 7, sec. 2, concerning treason, was then taken up. "_Mr. Gouverneur Morris_ was for giving to the Union an exclusive right to declare what should be treason. In case of a contest between the United States and a particular State, the people of the latter must, under the disjunctive terms of the clause, be traitors to one or other authority. "_Dr. Johnson_ contended that treason could not be both against the United States and individual States, being an offence against the sovereignty, which can be but one in the same community. "_Mr. Madison_ remarked that as the definition here was of treason against the United States, it would seem that the individual States would be left in possession of a concurrent power, so far as to define and punish treason particularly against themselves, which might involve double punishment." The words, "or any of them," were here stricken out by a vote. "_Mr. Madison_: This has not removed the difficulty. The same act might be treason against the United States, as here defined, and against a particular State, according to its laws. "_Dr. Johnson_ was still of opinion there could be no treason against a particular State. It could not, even at present, as the Confederation now stands--_the sovereignty being in the Union_; much less can it be under the proposed system. "_Colonel Mason: The United States will have a qualified sovereignty only. The individual States will retain a part of the sovereignty._ An act may be treason against a particular State, which is not so against the United States. He cited the rebellion of Bacon, in Virginia, as an illustration of the doctrine. "_Mr. King_: No line can be drawn between levying war and adhering to the enemy, against the United States, and against an individual State. Treason against the latter must be so against the former. "_Mr. Sherman_: Resistance against the laws of the United States, as distinguished from resistance against the laws of a particular State, forms the line." _Mr. Ellsworth_, afterwards Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, closed the debate in these memorable words: "The United States are sovereign on one side of the line dividing the jurisdictions; the States, on the other. _Each ought to have power to defend their respective sovereignties._" Now, if your honors please, it will probably be attempted to be answered to the argument, that by section 10 of article 1 of the Constitution of the Union, the States are forbidden to enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation, or to grant letters of marque and reprisal; or, without the consent of Congress, to enter into any agreement or compact with another State; or to engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay. This does not conflict with, but, on the contrary, confirms, the views I have presented, for the following reasons: The prohibition against entering into any treaty, alliance, or confederation, and against granting letters of marque and reprisal, has clearly no reference whatever to the relations which the States of the Union sustain to each other. It refers solely to their relations towards foreign powers. I beg to cite, upon that subject, from Grotius, Lib. 1, chap. 4, sec. 13. He says: "In the sixth place, when a King has only a part of the sovereignty, the rest being reserved to the people, or to a Senate, if he encroaches upon the jurisdiction which does not belong to him he may lawfully be opposed by force, since in that regard he is not at all sovereign. This is the case, in my opinion, even when in the distribution of the sovereign power the power of making war is assigned to the King. _For the grant of such a power must in that case be understood only in its relation to wars with foreign powers, those who possess a part of the sovereignty necessarily having at the same time the right of defending it_; and when a necessity arises of having recourse to forcible resistance against the King, he may, by right of war, lose even the part of the sovereignty which incontestibly belonged to him." I say, then, in the next place, that if any of the States, having come into collision with any of their sister States, or with the General Government, and being threatened with invasion or overthrow in the contest, resort to letters of marque as a means of weakening their adversary, and thereby preventing or retarding the threatened invasion, their right to do so is not at all affected or impaired by that provision of the Federal Constitution. The right of resistance includes it as well as every other means of rendering resistance effectual. So also with regard to the prohibition against entering into any treaty, alliance, or confederation, which is coupled with the prohibition against granting letters of marque in the first paragraph of the tenth section. That that prohibition is restricted to compacts or agreements with foreign powers, is manifest from the whole structure of the section. The second paragraph of the section provides that no State shall, without the consent of Congress, enter into any agreement or compact with another State. It follows that, conceding the invalidity of the State acts of separation from the Union, which the whole of the preceding argument admits, the Confederation of the States claiming to have separated is not valid against the authority of the Union; but the individual States, in ratifying the Constitution of the so-called Confederate States, have done more than to make an agreement or compact with each other. Each one of them, separately, has conferred upon the same agent the authority to issue the commission in question, as its act. Moreover, this second paragraph of the tenth section strongly confirms the doctrine of the right of forcible resistance of the States in the Union. It permits a State, without the consent of Congress, to engage in war when actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay. This, it will be remembered, is in the paragraph of the section imposing restrictions upon the States, and clearly justifies forcible resistance, rising even to the dignity of war, by one State, to aggressive invasion, from another or others, when the danger is so imminent that it will not admit of delay. The same paragraph also permits individual States to keep troops and ships of war, in time of war. The word "troops" here is evidently used in the sense of regular troops, forming an army, in contradistinction to the ordinary State militia. To apply, then, these principles to the facts of this case: The President of the United States had, by proclamation, on the 15th April last, called for military contingents from the various States of the Union, to put down resistance to the exercise of federal authority in the State of South Carolina and other Southern States. Those States had, by their Legislatures and Conventions of their people, decided that a proper case for resistance to the federal authority claimed to be exercised within their borders had arisen, and had authorized and commanded such resistance. The 5th section of the Act of July 13th, 1861, and the President's Proclamation of August 16th, under that Act, concede that the resistance was claimed to be under authority of the State governments; that that claim was not disavowed by the State governments; and Congress thereupon legislated, and the President exercised the authority vested in him by the Act, on the assumption that such was the fact,--prohibiting commercial intercourse with those States, authorizing captures and confiscations of the property of their citizens without regard to their political affinities, and placing them, as we contend, in all respects, upon the footing of public enemies. They were, moreover, threatened with immediate invasion. The Proclamation of the President assigned, as their first probable duty, to the military contingents called for from other States, to repossess the Federal Government of property which it could not repossess without an actual invasion of the discontented States. The Congress of the Union was not then in session. It had adjourned, after having omitted to confer upon the Federal Executive the power to resort to measures of coercion, which had been under discussion during its sitting. The commission in question was issued as one of the measures of forcible resistance to this exercise of federal power, claimed--whether rightfully or wrongfully, is not the question here--to be unlawful by the governments of all the States against which it was directed, and to which those governments enjoined forcible resistance upon, and authorized it by, their citizens. I contend, therefore, that whether the action of the Federal Government or of the State government was justifiable or unjustifiable, no citizen of any of the States which authorized and enjoined such resistance is criminally responsible, whether he espoused one side or the other in the unhappy controversy, either to the General Government or to the government of the State of which he is a citizen, so long as he acted in good faith, and in the honest belief that the government to which he adhered was acting within the legitimate scope of its constitutional powers. We contend that every sovereign has necessarily power to defend its sovereignty, and to decide the mixed question of law and fact as to whether it has been infringed; that there can be no sovereign, or defence of sovereignty, without subjects to whom the sovereign's mandate and authority are a protection; and that as one sovereign cannot lawfully punish another, who is his equal, by personal pains and penalties, for resistance, after he is subdued, so neither can punish the subject of both who, in good faith and under honest convictions of duty, adhered to either in the struggle. Now, if your honors please, I pass to the next proposition, which is: That the defendants, who are citizens of the States calling themselves Confederate States, cannot be convicted under this indictment, if they in good faith believed, at the time of the capture of the Joseph, that the political _status_ of those States, as members of the Federal Union, had been legally terminated, and that they had thereby ceased to be citizens of the United States, and made the capture in good faith, under the commission in evidence, as a belligerent act,--such States being, as they supposed, at war with the United States. It is not necessary for me, if your honors please, to enlarge upon that. I rely, for that proposition, on the same authorities that I have already cited to the point, that robbery or piracy cannot be committed, unless it is committed with felonious or piratical intent. But I say, with reference to the validity or invalidity of those acts of separation from the Union, that the counsel for the prisoners, whatever their private convictions may be, are not at liberty to concede their invalidity, so long as that concession may affect the lives of their clients. Their validity has been maintained by some of the ablest lawyers of the country, and in the Senate of the United States itself, and by all the authorities, legislative, executive and judicial, of the States which have adopted them. If, as they undoubtedly did, the prisoners _bona fide_ believed in their validity, the argument in favor of the protection afforded by the commission, or, by what comes to the same thing, the absence of criminal intent, becomes so much the more irresistible. And even though wholly invalid, such illegal action could not deprive the citizen of the State of the shield and protection afforded him by the action of the State government authorizing resistance, and regarded as still continuing a member of the federal Union. The next proposition is: That under the state of facts existing in South Carolina, as established by the public documents and other evidence in the cause, those administering the Government of the so-called Confederate States constituted the _de facto_ Government which replaced the Government of the United States in those States before and at the time of the commission of the acts charged in the indictment; and the defendants who are citizens of those States were justified by overpowering necessity in submitting to that Government, in yielding their allegiance to it, and thenceforth in actively aiding and supporting it; and that the capture of the Joseph, having been a belligerent act in a war between such _de facto_ Government, and the people of the States which had submitted to its authority on the one side, and the United States on the other, such defendants cannot be convicted under this indictment. Now, with reference to that, allow me to call your honors' attention to but a single authority, in addition to those which I cited in my opening remarks to the Jury. It is the case of _The United States_ vs. _The General Parkhill_, decided by Judge Cadwalader, in the United States District Court, in Philadelphia, in July, 1861. He says: "The foregoing remarks do not suffice to define the legal character of the contest in question. It is a civil war, as distinguished from such unorganized intestine war as occurs in the case of a mere insurrectionary rebellion. "Civil war may occur where a nation without an established Government is divided into opposing hostile factions, each contending for the acquisition of an exclusive administration of her Government. If a simple case of this kind should occur at this day, the Governments of the nations not parties to the contest might regard it as peculiarly one of civil war. As between the contending factions themselves, however, neither could easily regard their hostile opponents in the contest otherwise than as mere insurgents engaged in unorganized rebellion. Thus, in the language of Sir M. Hale, every success of either party would subject all hostile opponents of the conqueror to the penalties of treason. A desire to prevent the frequency of such a result was the origin of the rule of law, that allegiance is due to any peaceably established Government, though it may have originated in usurpation. The statute of 11 H. 7, c. 1 (A.D. 1494), excusing an English subject who has yielded obedience, or who has even rendered military service to a Ruler who was King in fact, though not in law, was declaratory of a previous principle of judicial decision." After referring to Bracton, Coke, Hawkins, and Foster, the learned Judge proceeds: "It has already been stated that a King in whose name justice was administered in the Courts of law was usually regarded as in actual possession of the Government. "Civil war of another kind occurs where an organized hostile faction is contending against an established Government, whose laws are still administered in all parts of its territory except places in the actual military or naval occupation of insurgents or their adherents. "In such a case the question has been, whether a place in the actual military occupation of the revolutionary faction, or of its adherents, may, under the law of war, be treated by that Government as if the contest was a foreign war and the place occupied by public enemies. In the case of a maritime blockade of such a place, the affirmative of this question was decided in England, in the year 1836. It had previously been so decided by the Supreme Tribunal of Marine, at Lisbon (3 Scott, 201; 2 Bingh., N.C., 781)." Judge Cadwalader then refers to Grotius (Proleg., sec. 23), citing with approval the statement by Demosthenes of the rule of public law in the case of the invasion by Deiopeithes, the Athenian commander in the Chersonese, of the dominions of Philip of Macedon, who had sent a military force to the relief of Cardia, when sought to be reduced to submission by Deiopeithes--that wherever judicial remedies are not enforceable by a Government against its opponents, the proper mode of restoring its authority is war,--and continues: "This doctrine is of obvious applicability to civil war of a third kind, which occurs where the exercise of an established Government's jurisdiction has been revolutionarily suspended in one or more territorial Districts, whose willing or unwilling submission to the revolutionary rule prevents the execution of the suspended Government's laws in them, except at points occupied by its military or naval forces. The present contest exemplifies a civil war of this kind. It was also, with specific differences, exemplified in the respective contests which resulted in the independence of the United Netherlands and of the United States." He then proceeds: "Within the limits of two of the States in which so-called ordinances of secession have been proclaimed the execution of the laws of the United States has not been wholly suppressed. They are enforceable in the Western Judicial District of Virginia, and perhaps in the adjacent Eastern Division of Tennessee. In the other nine States which profess to have seceded, including South Carolina, those laws are not enforceable anywhere. "The Constitution of the United States prohibits the enactment by Congress of a bill of attainder, and secures, in all criminal prosecutions, to the accused, the right to a speedy public trial, by Jury of the State and District wherein the crime shall have been committed, which District must have been previously ascertained by law. Therefore if a treasonable or other breach of allegiance is committed within the limits of one of these nine States, it is not at present punishable in any Court of the United States. This was practically shown in a recent case (Greiner's case, _Legal Intelligencer_, May 10, 1861). War is consequently the only means of self-redress to which the United States can, in such a case, resort, for the restoration of the constitutional authority of their Government. "The rule of the common law is, that when the regular course of justice is interrupted by revolt, rebellion, or insurrection, so that the Courts of justice cannot be kept open, civil war exists, and hostilities may be prosecuted on the same footing as if those opposing the Government were foreign enemies invading the land. The converse is also regularly true, that when the Courts of a Government are open, it is ordinarily a time of peace. But though the Courts be open, if they are so obstructed and overawed that the laws cannot be peaceably enforced, there might perhaps be cases in which this converse application of the rule would not be admitted. (1 Knapp, 346, 360, 361; 1 Hale, P.C. 347; Co. Litt. 249 _b_.)" Now, if your honors please, the last proposition with which I am compelled to trouble you is: That the Acts of Congress and the Proclamations of the President since the outbreak of the present struggle evidence the existence of a state of war between the Federal Government and the States calling themselves the Confederate States from a time anterior to the performance of the acts charged in the indictment, in which all the citizens of those States are involved and treated as public enemies of the Federal Government, whether they had any agency in initiating the conflict or not; and that the natural law of self-preservation, under these circumstances, justified the defendants, who are citizens of those States, in the commission of the acts charged in the indictment, as a means of weakening the power of destruction possessed by the Federal Government. Now the counsel on the other side, from the intimation which he gave when he addressed the Court, intended to treat that subject of a _de facto_ Government, or whatever it was, on the footing of men under duress, not in danger of their lives, joining with rebels and aiding them in a treasonable enterprise. Your honors will perceive that was not the footing on which we put it at all. It was the footing on which it stood at one time, when rebellion first broke out, when forts were seized--acts which it is no part of the duty of counsel on this trial to justify or say anything about, because there is no act connected with that part of the struggle which is in evidence on this trial. But on that I wish to refer to what Judge Cadwalader said in another case--that of _Greiner_--which undoubtedly the learned counsel for the Government had in his mind when he drew that distinction. Shortly before the late so-called secession of Georgia, a volunteer military company, of which _Greiner_ was a member, by order of the Governor, took possession of a fort within her limits, over which jurisdiction had been ceded by her to the United States, and garrisoned it until her ordinance of secession was promulgated, when, without having encountered any hostile resistance, they left it in the possession of her Government. A member of this company, Charles A. Greiner, who had participated in the capture and detention of the fort, afterwards visited Pennsylvania, at a period of threatened if not actual hostilities between the Confederate States and the United States. He was arrested in Philadelphia, under a charge of treason. Your honors will very readily perceive what a difference there was between that case and this. Judge Cadwalader applies the rule in reference to that; and, speaking of this doctrine of allegiance due to a Government in fact, he says: "This doctrine is applicable wherever and so long as the duty of allegiance to an existing Government remains unimpaired. When this fort was captured, the accused, in the language of the Supreme Court, owed allegiance to two Sovereigns, the United States and the State of Georgia (see 14 How. 20). The duty of allegiance to the United States was co-extensive with the constitutional jurisdiction of their Government, and was, to this extent, independent of, and paramount to, any duty of allegiance to the State (6 Wheaton, 381, and 21 Howard, 517). His duty of allegiance to the United States continued to be thus paramount so long at least as their Government was able to maintain its peace through its own Courts of Justice in Georgia, and thus extend there to the citizen that protection which affords him security in his allegiance, and is the foundation of his duty of allegiance. Though the subsequent occurrences which have closed these Courts in Georgia may have rendered the continuance of such protection within her limits impossible at this time, we know that a different state of things existed at the time of the hostile occupation of the fort. The revolutionary secession of the State, though threatened, had not then been consummated. This party's duty of allegiance to the United States, therefore, could not then be affected by any conflicting enforced allegiance of the State. He could not then, as a citizen of Georgia, pretend to be an enemy of the United States, in any sense of the word 'enemy' which distinguishes its legal meaning from that of traitor. _Future cases may perhaps require the definition of more precise distinctions and possible differences under this head. The present case is, in my opinion, one of no difficulty, so far as the question of probable cause for the prosecution is concerned._" Having decided that, in the present state of things, he could not commit the prisoner for trial, to be conveyed to Georgia, because there were no Courts of the United States there, and because it would be a violation of the Constitution of the United States--that he could not have a speedy trial--he decided that, under a subsequent act of Congress, he had a right to require the prisoner to find sureties to be of good behavior towards the United States. I have thus ended what I had to say upon this subject, with but one single exception. A great deal will be said, undoubtedly, on the part of the prosecution, here, with reference to this being a revolutionary overthrow of the Government of the United States in the States which have taken these steps. I have only to ask, in reference to that--conceding it, for the sake of argument, in its fullest extent--what was the adoption of the Constitution of the United States but a revolutionary overthrow of the previously existing Confederation? It was done by nine States, without the consent of four, whose consent was necessary, and the Government of the United States went into operation; and it was a long time before at least two of them came in under the new Government. _Mr. Evarts_: Will my learned friend allow me to ask him, in that part of his argument which proceeds upon the right of a State, yet being a State, to justify the acts of its citizens, to explain the proposition that a State can oppose the United States, within and under the Constitution, in regard to any law of the United States about which this essential right of judgment, whether the aggression of the United States has carried it beyond the powers of the Constitution, or not, is claimed to exist? _Mr. Larocque_: I thought I had been very explicit on that. I said, in the first place, that I had nothing to do with the question of right or wrong. I said this: That a collision had occurred between the government of the State and the Federal Government; that each being sovereign, within the limitation of its powers, had a right to judge for itself whether the occasion for such a collision had occurred, or not; that these prisoners, citizens of the States which had decided that such a case had occurred, as subjects owing allegiance to two equal and co-ordinate sovereigns, which had come into hostile collision with each other, must exercise, upon their consciences, their election to which Sovereign they would adhere; and that, whatever may be the unfortunate consequences, they are not responsible before the tribunal of the other sovereignty because they adhered to one of them; that they would be no more responsible before the criminal tribunals of South Carolina if, in this contest, they had adhered to the General Government and borne arms against their native State, than they are responsible in the tribunals of the Federal Government because, exercising their own consciences, they had adhered to the State and not to the Federal Government. I say it is like the case of a child whose parents disagree, and who is obliged to adhere either to his father or his mother; and that he violates no law of God or of man in adhering to either. _Mr. Smith_: If the Court please, I rise for a purpose different from the remark that I wish to make in reply to the last illustration of my learned friend. I might say that the instance of a child is one very parallel to that we might have given--that the father is the superior authority, where there is a difference between two parents. I rise, however, to present to the Court, as one of the authorities, or rather a citation which will receive its respectful consideration, the Charge of Mr. Justice Grier, in the case tried in Philadelphia; and also the opinion of Judge Cadwalader, in the same case. _Mr. Brady:_ Who reported this? _Mr. Smith_: I received it, by telegraph, from the District Attorney of Philadelphia; and it is also printed in a newspaper published last evening in Philadelphia. I have compared them, and the two accounts perfectly agree. I do not cite them as authority, but as entitled to the respectful consideration of the Court. _Mr. Brady_: As, now-a-days, what the newspapers publish one day they generally contradict the next, I think any report should be taken with some grains of allowance, at least. I suppose I would recognize the style of Judge Grier. _Mr. Blatchford_: I think you will, on examining it. It is evidently printed from the manuscript. _Mr. Smith_ read the charge of Judge Grier in the case of the privateers tried in Philadelphia. _Mr. Brady_: Tell me what question of fact was there left to the Jury? _Mr. Smith_: I refer you to Judge Cadwalader's opinion, which is much longer. _Mr. Brady_: I do not see that there was anything left for the Jury. Judge Grier decided that case,--which undoubtedly he could do, for he is a very able man. _Mr. Sullivan_ put in evidence the log-book of the Savannah. ARGUMENT OF MR. MAYER, OF COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENCE. MR. MAYER said:--May it please your honors,--A foreign-born citizen now rises, on behalf of eight of the defendants, who, as it has been conceded by the prosecution, are subjects of foreign States. It might appear almost superfluous, after the full and eloquent argument of our venerable brother--I was almost tempted to say father (Mr. LORD)--for one of the junior counsel for the defence to say anything. Still, I thought it incumbent on me to anticipate a construction or interpretation which the prosecution may attempt to make, by offering, myself, a proposition. But before reading it, I will, as briefly as my proposition is brief, state my comment thereon. Let us, in the first place, look at the aspect of the relations in which these foreigners stood at the time of their committing this alleged offence. They are all sea-faring men. Their various crafts had been locked up in the port of Charleston by the blockade there. Business, as we have heard here in evidence, was prostrated. Nothing was left for them but to enlist in the army of the Confederacy, or to become privateers. It is certainly a pity that they did not choose the first alternative; for, even if they had been caught with arms in their hands, their fate would now be far better than it is. They would not now be in jeopardy of their lives, threatened with the pains and penalties of a law that is not applicable to them. But being, as I said before, inured to the life of seafarers, they chose to become privateers. We must, however, in judging of their act, place ourselves in their position. They were foreigners. As foreigners, they brought to this country views and notions as regards their act which are widely different from those sought to be enforced here. They knew the practice and theories of Europe in regard to their act. What are those views and theories? I can state them in a very few words, and am sorry that the authorities to which I shall refer are in a language which may not be familiar to your honors. I will, however, state their effect. It is this: Whenever a rebellion in any country has assumed such extensive magnitude as no longer to be a simple insurrection, which may be put down by police measures or regulations, but has come to such a degree that mighty armies are opposed to each other, although the revolted portion may not have been acknowledged by any nation, yet belligerent rights must be granted to it. This is the notion, or theory, which has entered into the mind of every European, to whatever State or nation he may belong. I may be permitted to quote a few historical facts to show why this is so. When the Netherland Colonies revolted against Spain the privateers of the Prince of Orange, even before he was elected Admiral General by those Colonies, were by most nations recognized. They were only not recognized by some of those nations against which they committed depredations; and it is a historical fact that a great many of those privateers commissioned by the Prince of Orange became pirates. Another case is furnished by our own Revolution. It is known to all Europeans that, although in the beginning of the American Revolution England did not recognize the belligerent rights of America, yet, after some time, she did recognize those rights, even by a Parliamentary Act. I refer to 16 George the Third, ch. 5. The same was the case in the French Revolution; and there I may refer to a very curious fact. England recognized the privateers of the revolutionary Government of France, so far as those privateers went against other nations; but when they cruised against her own commerce she did not recognize them. She remonstrated with Denmark because Denmark had recognized them, and Denmark simply pointed to her (England's) own course. All these facts are very well known to every European, and it is with a knowledge of these facts that every European looks upon a revolution. To express it in a very short sentence, it is the theory of "Let us have fair play." If your honors please, I may say that this notion of belligerent rights in revolution has entered into the flesh and blood of every European to such an extent, that the only nation which does not allow, in revolution, that fair play, is despised and hated, except by these United States. I mean Russia. Russia is now very friendly towards this Union; not, however, I may be permitted to state--reversing an oft-quoted passage of Shakspeare--not because she loves Rome more, but that she loves Cæsar less. It is not out of love for this country, but because the diplomatists of Russia--the farthest-seeing diplomatists of Europe--hope that England and France will interfere in the contest between these States, and that she may get an opportunity to return the compliment to these two powers which she received from them at Sebastopol. With a knowledge of these facts, and with these European theories, these foreigners, now indicted under the Act of 1790, entered into this privateering business. They saw, as I said before, Charleston blockaded. To them a blockade is an act of belligerent rights. They saw a constitutional government adopted in the Confederate States. They never dreamed that, if they wished to embark in this privateering business, they should be treated as pirates. They knew well, as every European knows who has any knowledge of international law, that there are two kinds of piracy--piracy by international law, and piracy under municipal law--municipal piracy, or, as Mr. LORD called it yesterday, statutory piracy. And now I refer, as to the right of one nation making anything piracy that is not piracy by the law of nations, to Wheaton, volume 6, page 85; 1st Phillimore, 381; and to 1st Kent, 195. I will not take up the time of your honors in reading all these passages, but I hold here the last work on international law. It is, however, written in the German language. It is of unbounded authority on the Continent, and has been translated into French and Greek. It is very frequently referred to by all those authors whom I have just quoted. It states this theory in two lines, which I will read to your honors in a translation: "Laws of individual nations (as, for instance, the French law of the 10th April, 1825) may, so far as their own subjects are concerned, either alter the meaning of piracy, or extend its operation; but they are not allowed to do that to the prejudice of other States." I refer to Hefter on Modern International Law, 4th ed., page 191. From this we can see that there are two kinds of piracy--national piracy and municipal piracy. No State can be prevented by any law of nations from making anything piracy which that State pleases. For instance, there is a law of piracy in Spain that any person committing frauds in matters of insurance is a pirate; or that any one even cutting the nets of a simple fisherman is a pirate. I might quote other instances. In our own country the slave-trade is a piracy; but that does not make it piracy everywhere. In some of the States of Germany slave-trade is kidnapping, and is punished as such. What, now, is the relation of these foreigners to this municipal piracy, under the indictment with which they stand charged? That it is municipal piracy, I need not say anything further, after the full argument of our friend and father, Mr. Lord. The law is very distinct. It is, "if any _citizen_ shall do so and so." But how do these men come in? Here I come to the point why I thought it fit and incumbent on me to offer my propositions. The prosecution will certainly stretch, as I said before, the construction and interpretation of the law in this way: It will say, "These men were apprehended on an American bottom, and, being on an American bottom, they were on American soil, and as, according to criminal law, they are protected by our law, so they are bound by our law." This, I apprehend, is the theory on which the prosecution will urge that these foreigners--notwithstanding the distinct expression of the law, "if any citizen"--shall be found guilty under this indictment. But as they are foreigners to this law, so is this law foreign to them. And there is a principle in criminal law which says--I read from section 238 of Bishop's Criminal Law, vol. I.-- "It is a general principle that every man is presumed to know the laws of the country in which he dwells, or, if resident abroad, transacts business. And within certain limits, not clearly defined, this presumption is conclusive. Its conclusive character rests on considerations of public policy, and, of course, it cannot extend beyond this foundation, though we may not easily say, on the authorities, precisely how far the foundation of policy extends. We may safely, however, lay down the doctrine that in no case may one enter a Court of Justice to which he has been summoned, in either a civil or criminal proceeding, with the sole and naked defence that when he did the thing complained of he did not know of the existence of the law he violated. _Ignorantia juris non excusat_ is, therefore, a principle of our jurisprudence, as it is of the Roman, from which it is derived." This rule, so essential to the ordinary administration of justice, cannot be deemed strange in criminal cases generally, because most indictable wrongs are _mala in se_, and, therefore, offenders are still conscious of violating the law "written in every man's heart." But--and now I refer to the note to this section, which says--"ignorance of the law of foreign countries is, with the exception noticed in the text, ignorance of fact which persons are not held to know." The author cites the following authorities: Story's Equity Jurisprudence, sections 110, 23; American Jurisprudence, sections 146 and 347; to which I would add 8 Barbour's Supreme Court Reports, 838 and 839, and the case of Rex _versus_ Lynn, 2d Term Report, 233. Now, I contend that, as this law under which the indictment is drawn is a law creating municipal piracy, so it is a law foreign to these foreigners; that, therefore, as to them, it is a matter of fact, and, according to the criminal theory, _ignorantia facti excusat_, these foreigners cannot be found guilty under this law. Municipal piracy, to carry out the doctrine of this theory, is not _malum in se_; for, as I said before, international law does not acknowledge it as such, but is opposed to it as to foreigners; and if I understand well the decision of the Supreme Court, it is even acknowledged, in the case of the United States _versus_ Palmer, 3d Wheaton, 610, that the Congress of the United States cannot make that piracy which is not piracy by the law of nations, in order to give jurisdiction to its Courts over such offences. Besides, this knowledge of facts enters a good deal into the theory of intent. So much has been said about the piratical intent, that I can pass this by in silence. But, with reference to the theory that foreigners are to be taken as ignorant of facts, I will give an illustration that was suggested to me this morning by an incident which occurred on my way to the Court. A little boy in the street handed to me a card of advertisement which had all the appearance of a bank note. Now, I remembered at the moment that about three years ago the Legislature of South Carolina passed a law making the issuing and publication of such advertisements--such business cards--an offence, punishable, if I am not mistaken, both by fine and imprisonment. Now suppose that the great American showman at the corner of Ann and Broadway should carry his "What is it" or Hippopotamus down to Charleston, and issue such an advertisement, and he should be brought before the Court of South Carolina; would it not be unjust, as the offence is not _malum in se_, to find him guilty? Certainly it would be; and, according to the same theory, I cannot imagine, by any possible process of reasoning, that these prisoners should be deemed guilty under an indictment, when the law was entirely foreign to them. They may justly say, as they might have known, and did perhaps know, that our country, too, holds to this simple doctrine: "Let us have fair play." So when certain provinces rose up in revolt against the parent or original Government, to conquer, as it were, their independence, this country maintained a state of neutrality, and granted to both parties belligerent rights. Many such cases have been cited; but the most striking one, I am astonished, has not been cited. I will refer to it now. It is the case of the United States against the Miramon and the Havana, tried before the District Court of New Orleans. These two steamers were commissioned vessels, belonging to an authority not only not recognized by the Government of the United States, but opposed to the Government which had been recognized by ours. They were commissioned ships of General Miramon, and were seized and libeled; yet they were released. Perhaps it would have been better for us if they had not been released, because they have since given us some trouble--one of them (the Havana) having been converted into the ubiquitous Sumter, which is rather a terror to our mercantile marine. I will not further trespass upon your honors' time, but will immediately read my proposition. That proposition is, that, "As to the defendants who are shown to have been citizens of foreign States at the date of the alleged offence, the law is, that they cannot be found guilty of piracy under the present indictment, which includes only piracy by municipal law--the ignorance of which, as to foreigners, is not _ignorantia legis_, but _ignorantia facti_. Therefore the defendant Clarke, and the other foreigners, should be acquitted." Before, however, I close my few remarks, I must, in justice to my immediate client, William Charles Clarke, add another observation. I have, by submitting to your honors the proposition, separated, as it were, his case and that of the other foreigners from the rest of the prisoners. I did so on my own responsibility; for he let me understand that he did not wish to see his case separated from the others. He expressed that sentiment to me in a very forcible German proverb. It was, "_Mitgegangen, mitgefangen, mitgehangen_!"[3] Yet I thought it incumbent on me, as his counsel, to urge all those circumstances that might be beneficial to him and to those in the same position,--trusting that the unity and identity of the fate of all thus severed by me may be restored in this wise: that the case of these foreigners may be made also the case of the four citizens, both by the ruling of your honors and the verdict of general acquittal of the Jury. [3] "Gone along, caught along, hanged along." _Mr. Brady_--Before Mr. Evarts proceeds to close the legal considerations involved in the case I feel it proper to advise him of a point for which I will contend, and on the discussion of which I do not now intend to enter. I will not admit that Congress had the power, under the Constitution of the United States, to pass the ninth section of the Act of 1790, which, upon my construction of it, would punish as piracy the act of an American citizen who should take a commission from England or France and then commit an act of hostility on an American ship or on an American citizen on the high seas. The argument is in a nutshell; though, of course, I shall give some illustrations at the proper time. It is this--that there is no common-law jurisdiction of offences in this Government; that it can take cognizance of no crimes except those which are created by Act of Congress, including piracy; and that the authority of the Constitution conferred upon Congress, to pass laws defining piracy and to punish offences against the law of nations, relates only to such offences as were then known, and does not invest the Legislature of the Federal Government with authority, under pretence of defining well-known offences, to create other and new offences, as is attempted to be done in the Act of 1790. ARGUMENT OF MR. EVARTS. _Mr. Evarts_ said: If the Court please, I shall hardly find it necessary, in stating the propositions of law for the Government, to consume as much time as has been, very usefully and very properly, employed by the various counsel for the prisoners in asking your attention to the views which they deem important and applicable in defence of their clients. The affirmative propositions to which the Government has occasion to ask the assent of the Court, in submitting this case to the Jury, are very few and simple. Your honors cannot have failed to notice that all the manifold, and more or less vague and uncertain, views of ethics, of government, of politics, of moral qualifications, and of prohibited crimes, which have entered into the discussion of the particular transaction whose actual proportions and lineaments have been displayed before the Court and Jury, are, in their nature, affirmative propositions, meeting what is an apparently clear and simple case on the part of the Government, and requiring to be encountered on our part more by criticism than by any new and positive representation of what the law is which is to govern this case under the jurisprudence of the United States. I shall first ask your honors' attention to the question of jurisdiction, which, of course, separates itself from all the features and circumstances of the particular crime. Your honors will notice that this question of jurisdiction does not, in the least, connect itself with the subject or circumstances of the crime, as going to make up its completeness, under the general principles which give the _locality_ of the crime as the _locality_ of the trial. With these principles, whether of right and justice, or of convenience for the adequate and complete ascertainment of the facts of an alleged crime, we have no concern here. The crime complained of is one which has no locality within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, and assigns for itself, in its own circumstances, no place of trial. From the fact that the crime was completed on the high seas, equally remote, perhaps, from any District the Courts of which might have cognizance of the transaction, there are no indications whatever, in its own circumstances, pointing out the jurisdiction for its trial. It is, therefore, wholly with the Government, finding a crime which gives, of itself, no indication of where, on any principle, it should be tried, to determine which of all the Districts of the United States in which its Courts of Judicature are open,--all having an equal judicial authority, and all being equally suitable in the arrangement of the judicial establishment of the Union,--it is entirely competent, I say, for the Government to determine, on reasons of its own convenience, which District, out of the many, shall gain the jurisdiction, and upon what circumstances the completeness of that jurisdiction shall depend. It is not at all a right of the defendant to claim a trial before a particular tribunal, nor are there any considerations which should prevent the selection of the place of jurisdiction through whatever casual agency may be employed in that selection. In the eye of the law, the Judges are alike, and the Districts are alike. Congress, considering the matter thus wholly open, in order that there might be no contest open for all the Districts, and assuming that there would be some natural circumstance likely to attend the bringing of the offender within the reach of civil process, when a crime had been committed outside of the civil process of every nation, determined, by the 14th section of the Crimes Act of March 3d, 1825, which gives the law of jurisdiction in this case, that the trial should be "had in the District where the offender is apprehended, or into which he may be first brought." Nor is it a true construction of this statute to say that the law intends that the cognizance of the crime--all of the Districts being equally competent to try it, and there being nothing in the crime itself assigning its locality as the place of trial--shall belong exclusively to that Court which shall first happen to get jurisdiction by the actual bringing of the offender within its operation. If that be true, it is apparent that neither one of the Districts thus differently described has jurisdiction exclusively of the other. Now, the language of the statute certainly gives this double place of trial in the alternative; and it is very difficult to say what principle either of right, of convenience, or of judicial regularity, is offended by such a construction and application of the statute. Accordingly, I understand it to have been held by Mr. Justice Story, in the case of _The United States_ vs. _Thompson_ (1 _Sumner_, 168), that there were these alternative places of trial; and, as a matter of reasoning, he finds that such arrangement is suitable to the general principles of jurisprudence, and to the general purposes of the statute. Now, if this be so, then, as we come, in this District, within one of the alternatives of the statute, and as this District is confessedly the one in which the apprehension of the offenders took place, we are clear of any difficulty about jurisdiction. The case of Hicks, decided here, was, perhaps, not entirely parallel to the one now under consideration. But, let us see how far the views and principles there adopted go to determine this case, in the construction of the statute in any of its parts. Hicks had committed a crime on the high seas--in the immediate vicinity, I believe, of our own waters. Making his way to the land, he proceeded unmolested to Providence, in Rhode Island. The officers of justice of the United States, getting on his track, pursued him to Rhode Island, and there he was found, unquestionably within the District of Rhode Island. They did not obtain his apprehension by legal process there, and thus bring him within the actual exercise of the power of a Court of the District of Rhode Island; but they persuaded him, or in some way brought about his concurrence, to come with them into the District of New York, and here the process of this Court was fastened upon him, and he was brought to trial on the capital charge of piracy. On a preliminary plea to the jurisdiction of the Court, and on an agreed state of facts, to the effect, I believe, of what I have stated, the matter was considerably argued before your honor, Judge Nelson, on behalf of the prisoner; but your honor, as I find by the report, relieved the District Attorney from the necessity of replying, considering the matter as settled, under the facts of the case, in the practice of the Court. Now, the argument there was, that the District of Rhode Island was the District where the offender was apprehended; and it could not be contended that the Southern District of New York was the one into which he was first brought by means other than those of legal process. And the argument was, that the crime for which he was to be tried here, being a felony, any control of his person by private individuals was a lawful apprehension, and one which might be carried out by force, if necessary; and that, therefore, there was, in entire compliance with the requisition of the statute, an apprehension within the District of Rhode Island. If, under the circumstances of that case, that view had been sustained by the Court, it could not have been, I think, pretended that the Courts of this District had concurrent jurisdiction, because of Hicks having been first brought into this District. The whole inquiry turned on the question whether he was apprehended in the District of Rhode Island. In considering the case, your honor, Judge Nelson, recognized, as I suppose, the view of the alternative jurisdiction which I have stated. You said to the District Attorney: "We will not trouble you, Mr. Hunt. The question in this case is not a new one. It is one that has been considered and decided by several members of the Supreme Court, in the course of the discharge of their official duties. It has repeatedly arisen in cases of offences upon the high seas, and the settled practice and construction of the Act of Congress is, that in such cases the Court has jurisdiction of the case, in the one alternative, in the District into which the offender is first brought from the high seas--meaning, into which he is first brought by authority of law and by authority of the Government. In cases where the offender has been sent home under the authority of the Government, the Courts of the District into which he is first brought, under that authority, are vested with jurisdiction to try the case. The other alternative is, the District in which the prisoner is first apprehended--meaning an apprehension under the authority of law--under the authority of legal process. This interpretation of the Statute rejects the idea of a private arrest, and refers only to an arrest under the authority of law and under legal process. It is quite clear, in this case, that no District except the Southern District of New York possesses jurisdiction of the offence; for here the prisoner was first apprehended by process of law. We do not inquire into anything antecedent to the arrest under the warrant in this District, because it has no bearing whatever upon the question of the jurisdiction of the Court. We have no doubt, therefore, that the Court has jurisdiction of the case, and that this is the only District in which the prisoner can be tried." Now I owe the Court and my learned friend, Mr. Lord, an apology for having supposed and stated that the provisions of the Act of March 3d, 1819, giving certain powers to the naval officers of the United States "to protect the commerce of the United States," as is the title of the Act, were not now in force. I was misled. The Act itself was but temporary in its character, being but of a year's duration. By the Act of May 15th, 1820, the first four sections of the Act of March 3d, 1819, were temporarily renewed. But afterwards, by the Act of January 30th, 1823, those four sections were made a part of the permanent statutes of the country. The substantial part of the Act of March 3d, 1819, namely, the fifth section, which defined and punished the crime of piracy, was repealed, and replaced by the Act of May 15th, 1820, and has never reappeared in our statutes. _Judge Nelson_: It is the fifth section of the Act of 1819 that is repealed. _Mr. Evarts_: Yes; that Act is found at page 510 of the 3d volume of the Statutes at Large. _Mr. Lord_: All that relates to the apprehension of offenders is in force. _Mr. Evarts_: Yes; that is all in force. The Act is entitled, "An Act to protect the Commerce of the United States, and punish the Crime of Piracy." The first section provides, that "the President of the United States be, and hereby is, authorized and requested to employ so many of the public armed vessels as, in his judgment, the service may require, with suitable instructions to the commanders thereof, in protecting the merchant vessels of the United States and their crews from piratical aggressions and depredations." There is nothing in that section which is pertinent to this case. The second section provides, "that the President of the United States be, and hereby is, authorized to instruct the commanders of the public armed vessels of the United States to subdue, seize, take, and send into any port of the United States, any armed vessel or boat, or any vessel or boat, the crew whereof shall be armed, and which shall have attempted or committed any piratical aggression, search, restraint, depredation, or seizure, upon any vessel of the United States or of citizens thereof, or upon any other vessel, and also to retake any vessel of the United States or its citizens which may have been unlawfully captured upon the high seas." This, your honors will notice, is entirely confined to authority to subdue the vessel and take possession of it, and send it in for the adjudication and forfeiture which are provided in the fourth section. The third section gives the right to merchant vessels to defend themselves against pirates. There is nothing in the Act which gives to the officers of the Government the power, or enjoins on them the duty, of apprehending the pirates. I will now ask your honors' attention to the distinction between this Act and the powers conferred by the slave-trading Act. _Judge Nelson_: The Act of 1819 gives to the commanders authority to bring home prisoners,--does it not? _Mr. Evarts_: It does not, in terms, say anything about them. That is the point to which I ask your honors' attention. The Act instructs the commanders of public armed vessels to subdue, seize, take, and send into any port of the United States, any armed vessel or boat, or any vessel or boat, the crew whereof is armed, and that may have attempted or committed any piratical aggression, &c. There is nothing said as to the arrest of the criminals. It is a question of construction. _Judge Nelson_: It is not specific in that respect. _Mr. Evarts_: No, sir, it is not specific. Now, in the Act of March 3d, 1819, entitled, "An Act in addition to the Acts prohibiting the slave trade," which will be found at page 532 of the 3d volume of the Statutes at Large, a general authority is given to the President, "whenever he shall deem it expedient, to cause any of the armed vessels of the United States to be employed to cruise on any of the coasts of the United States or Territories thereof, or on the coast of Africa, or elsewhere," "and to instruct and direct the commanders of all armed vessels of the United States to seize, take, and bring into any port of the United States, all ships or vessels of the United States, wheresoever found," engaged in the slave trade. And then comes this distinct provision in reference to the apprehension and the bringing in for adjudication of persons found on board of such vessels. It is the last clause of the first section: "And provided further, that the commanders of such commissioned vessels do cause to be apprehended and taken into custody every person found on board of such vessel so seized and taken, being of the officers or crew thereof, and him or them convey, as soon as conveniently may be, to the civil authority of the United States, to be proceeded against in due course of law, in some of the Districts thereof." This Act is the one referred to by Judge Sprague in the case of _The United States_ vs. _Bird_ (_Sprague's Decisions_, 299) _Judge Nelson_: There is limitation to that Act, is there? _Mr. Evarts_: No, sir; it is unlimited in duration, and a part of the law now administered. Now, I need not ask your honors' attention to the familiar act which gives to Consuls of the United States direct authority to take offenders into custody and detain them, and send them by the first convenient vessel to the United States, to be delivered to the civil authorities to be proceeded against. Now, my proposition is this,--that neither under the slave-trading Act, nor under the Act for the prevention and punishment of piracy passed in 1819, does the extra-territorial seizure, control and transmission of offenders, exclude the plain terms of the alternative of the statute, which makes jurisdiction dependent, not on apprehension merely, but on apprehension within a District; and that, even though there is a governmental introduction of the offender into a District, making that District, in a proper sense, the one into which he is first brought, yet that does not in the least displace the alternative of jurisdiction of an apprehension within a District, there having been no prior apprehension, by process, within any other District, as the consummation and completion of the delivery of the offender to the civil authorities for the purpose of a trial, the transaction having been instituted on the high seas or in a foreign port. Now, on the facts in this case, there is no room for disputing that the first apprehension was within this District. Nor can I deny that the seizure of these persons on the high seas was made by an armed vessel of the United States, either under the general right which the law of nations gives both to public and private vessels to seize pirates, or under the implied right and power to do so, certainly so far as to make it justifiable on the part of commanders of cruisers, by virtue of the provision of the Act of 1819 which authorizes them to send in a piratical vessel. These men were sent in, in the course of such active intervention, by an armed vessel of the United States. But I submit to your honors, that the provisions of that Act, which thus incidentally include, as it were, the transmission of the ship's company of a pirate, because they are to be subdued, and the ship is to be sent in, cannot be turned, by any process of reasoning, into anything that can be called a legal apprehension. I am satisfied that your honor, Judge Nelson's view, that the term "apprehension" is only meant to apply to the service of judicial process within a District, is entirely sound. The principal argument and the principal authority relied on to displace the jurisdiction thus plainly acquired under one alternative of the statute, denies, really, that there is any alternative, or that there can possibly be two Districts, either one of which may rightfully have jurisdiction. That, I take it, is the substance of the proposition. It is, that the alternative gives to one of the two exclusive jurisdiction; and that, whenever facts have occurred--whether jurisdiction has been exercised or not--which give to the one District jurisdiction and an opportunity to exercise it, then, by the prior concurrence of all the circumstances which fix the statutory jurisdiction on that District, the possibility of the occurrence of any new circumstances to give jurisdiction in the other and alternative District is displaced. The case of _The United States_ vs. _Townsend_ has been brought to your honors' attention in the manuscript record of the preliminary proceedings. The prisoner, who had been taken and brought into Key West, where the vessel stopped, as we are told, for the temporary purpose of supplies, was thence brought into Massachusetts. It is the record of a proceeding wherein Judge Sprague, with the concurrence of his associate, Mr. Justice Clifford, of the Supreme Court, sent the prisoner, in that predicament, back to Key West for trial, and would not permit an indictment to be found against him in the District of Massachusetts. We have no knowledge of the facts of that case, except what are contained in this record. Now, your honors will notice, in the first place, that this is not a judicial determination as to the right of jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Court, necessarily; but that, on the theory which I present, that there are two alternative jurisdictions, it may have been only a prudent and cautious exercise of the discretion of that Court, preliminary to indictment, that this man should be sent, on his own application, to the District of Florida for trial. In other words, he interposed an objection that he was entitled to a trial in Key West; and the Court, affirming the opinion that that District had jurisdiction of the crime, determined that it would send him there for trial, and that it would not exercise its own jurisdiction, which might be made subject to some question. And yet it is not to be denied that Judge Sprague is apparently of the opinion that there are not two alternative places of jurisdiction, neither one exclusive of the other; but that they are only alternative as respects the one or the other which is the first to gain jurisdiction. It is a little difficult to see, on this view, how there can be any two places, rightfully described as separate places, one of which is the place into which the prisoner is first brought, and the other of which is the place where he is first apprehended; because, in the very nature of the case, the moment you raise the point that the offender has been in two Districts, and that in the latter of them he is apprehended, then it follows that he has passed through the former; and the statute is really reduced to this--that the offender must be indicted in the District into which he is first brought. There cannot then be two different Districts, into one of which he is brought, within the meaning of the law, and in the other of which he is apprehended; because, that into which he is first brought must necessarily precede, in time, that in which he is first apprehended, and he could not have been apprehended before, in a District other than that into which he is first brought. So that you necessarily reduce the statute to a fixing of the place of trial in the District into which the offender is first brought. The case of Smith--the trial just terminated in Philadelphia, in which the prisoner was tried and convicted before the Circuit Court of the United States--is an authority of the two Judges of that Court on this very point, the circumstances of a prior introduction of the prisoner within the Eastern District of Virginia being much more distinct than in this case. The capturing vessel was a steamer, which took the prize into Hampton Roads. The defendant and the others of the prize crew were kept as prisoners on board this war steamer, which, after anchoring in Hampton Roads, near Fortress Monroe, went a short distance up the Potomac, returned, and again anchored in Hampton Roads, after which she brought the prisoners, including the defendant, into Philadelphia, where they were taken into the custody of the Marshal. Now, unquestionably, geographically, that prisoner was within the State of Virginia, and within the Eastern District of Virginia, rather more distinctly than in the case now on trial. In that case, the Court said--"One of the points of law on which counsel for the defence requests instruction to the Jury is, that the Court has no jurisdiction of the case; because, after his apprehension on the high seas, he was first brought into another District, meaning the Eastern District of Virginia, and ought to be there tried. This instruction cannot be given. When he was taken prisoner, and was detained in the capturing vessel, he was not apprehended for trial, within the meaning of the Act of Congress. His first apprehension for that purpose, of which there is any evidence, was at Philadelphia, after his arrival in this District. Whether he had been previously brought into another District, within the meaning of the Act, is immaterial"--recognizing the doctrine of two alternative jurisdictions, neither exclusive of the other. "It has been decided that, under this law, a person, first brought into one District, and afterwards apprehended in another, may be tried in the latter District. Therefore, if you believe the testimony on the subject, this Court has jurisdiction of the case." Now, your honors very easily understand, that without any election or purpose on the part of any authority, civil or naval, representing the Government, a prisoner may be brought into a District, yet never come, in any sense, under the judicial cognizance of that District. In this case, these prisoners might have escaped from the Harriet Lane, and have fled to Massachusetts, or Pennsylvania, or wherever else their fortune should have carried them, and might there have been first apprehended. Now, what is there in the nature of the jurisprudence of the United States, in respect of a crime committed outside of both Districts, which should prevent the jurisdiction of Massachusetts being just as effective as the jurisdiction of New York? If such be the law, I have no occasion to argue any further. But the decision of Judge Sprague is, in my judgment, quite opposed to that view of the law; and I, must, therefore, present to your honors some considerations which, in my judgment, make this the District, in the intendment of the statute, into which these offenders were first brought, as well as the District in which they were first apprehended. The alleged prior introduction of these persons within any other Judicial District of the United States, within the meaning of the statute, is shown by the evidence of what occurred in reference to the transit of the Minnesota, after she had taken them on board from the capturing vessel, the Perry, off the coast of South Carolina. She anchored off Fortress Monroe, just opposite Hampton Roads, and there transferred these prisoners to the Harriet Lane, which brought them into this District. Now, it is said that that incident of the anchorage of the Minnesota in or near Hampton Roads, and the transhipment of the prisoners to another vessel, which the exigencies of the naval service sent to New York, did fulfill the terms of the law in reference to the introduction of those offenders within a District of the United States, and that they were, therefore, first brought into the Eastern District of Virginia; and, if that circumstance displaces the alternative jurisdiction, and thereby Virginia became the exclusive District of jurisdiction, this trial cannot be valid, and must result in some other disposition of these prisoners than a verdict of guilty, if, on the merits of the case, such a verdict should be warranted. What are the traits and circumstances of that transmission? I understood my learned friend, Mr. Lord, to concede that he would not argue that the mere transit of the keel of the vessel transporting the prisoners, in the course of its voyage to a port of destination, through the waters of another District, was an importation or introduction of the offenders into that District, so as to make it the place of trial. Take, for instance, the case of a vessel making a voyage from Charleston to New York. For aught I know, certainly, within the practicability of navigation, her course may be within a marine league of the shore of North Carolina, of the shore of Virginia, of the shore of Maryland, and of the shore of New Jersey, before making the port which is the termination of her transit. Well, my learned friends say that they do not claim that this local position of a vessel within a marine league while she is sailing along, is, within any sensible view of the statute, an introduction into the District, so as to found a jurisdiction. Let us see, if your honors please, whether the transit of these prisoners from the capturing vessel to the Marshal's office in New York was not simply part of the continuous voyage of the vessel from one point to the other. Where was the Minnesota, and on what employment and duty, at the time she received these prisoners on board? She was the flag ship, as the Commodore has told us, of the Atlantic Blockading Squadron, and her whole duty was as a cruiser or blockading ship, at sea, in discharge of the duty assigned to her. I take it for granted that my learned friends will not contend that a vessel, pursuing her voyage continuously along the coast of North Carolina and the coast of Virginia, introduces an offender within a District by stopping, either under any stress of navigation, or for any object unconnected with any purpose to terminate her voyage, or that the fact of her being becalmed, or of her having anchored off the coast to get water or supplies, and having then pursued her voyage continuously to New York, would alter the character of the transit, in any legal construction that it should receive. Now, what did the Minnesota do? The Commodore took the prisoners on board that vessel, as he tells you, for the purpose of sending them to New York by the first naval vessel that he should be able to detach from the service. Did he, in the interval between the capture and the complete transmission and reception of the prisoners here, ever make a port or a landing from his vessel, or ever depart from the design of the voyage on which he was engaged? No. He was on his cruise, bound to no port, always at sea, and only in such relations to the land as the performance of his duty to blockade at such points as he saw fit, whether at Charleston or the Capes of Virginia, required him to be in. And there is no difference, in the quality of the act, arising from his having stopped at Hampton Roads, and thence sent forward the prisoners by the Harriet Lane, because she was the first vessel that was going to New York--going, as has been stated, for a change of her armament and for repairs. Now, I submit to your honors, that there is nothing, either in the design or the act of this blockading vessel, the Minnesota, or of the Harriet Lane, that causes the course of transmission of these prisoners to the point of their arrest in this District to differ from what it would have been if, with an even keel, and without any interruption, the capturing vessel, the Perry, had started for New York, and had, in the course of her navigation, come within the line of a marine league from the shore of some District of the United States, and had, perchance, anchored there, for the purpose of replenishing her supplies for the voyage. In other words, in order to make out, within the terms of the statute, a bringing into a District of the United States, so as to make it a District of jurisdiction, within the sense of the statute, it is impossible for the Court to fail to require the ingredient of a voyage into a port, at least as a place of rest and a termination of the passage of the vessel, temporary or otherwise. That is requisite, in order to make an introduction within a District. And I cannot imagine how his honor, Judge Sprague, or his honor, Judge Clifford, could, in the case before them, have given any such significance to the prior arrival of the vessel of the United States at Key West; for, it was but a stopping at an open roadstead for the purpose, not of a port, but of continuing at sea or in the sea service of the country. Your honors will notice that, by such a construction of the Act, instead of making the place where jurisdiction shall be acquired dependent on some intelligent purpose, in the discretion of the officers who control the person of the prisoner, as to where he shall be landed, you make the question of jurisdiction dependent upon the purest accident in the navigation of the vessel. Thus, in this particular case, the Captain of the Minnesota tells us he had not coal enough to come directly to New York, if he had designed to do so, and that he stopped at his blockading station and sent the prisoners on by another vessel, which the exigencies of the service required to make the voyage. There is another proposition upon this question of jurisdiction which I deem it my duty to make to your honors, although I suppose the whole matter will be disposed of on considerations which have been presented on one side or the other, and, as I suppose, in favor of the jurisdiction. Yet I cannot but think that the rules of jurisprudence and the regular and effective administration of criminal justice will suffer if these questions are to be interposed and to be passed upon by the Court at the same time as the indictment itself. Where the question of the locality of the trial forms no part of the body of the crime, and has nothing to do with the place where the crime was committed, but is wholly a question of the local position of the prisoner, then the exception to the jurisdiction can only be taken as a preliminary plea, or in the shape of a plea in abatement. That was the construction in the Hicks case, and is the general rule in reference to jurisdiction in civil cases which are dependent upon the proper cognizance of the person of the defendant. I refer to the cases of _Irvine_ vs. _Lowry_, (14 _Peters_, 293;) _Sheppard_ vs. _Graves_, (14 _Howard_, 505;) and _D'Wolf_ vs. _Rabaud_, (1 _Peters_, 476.) _Mr. Larocque_: I ask what particular point is decided by those cases? _Mr. Evarts_: They are wholly on the point that where the jurisdiction of a Court of the United States depends, not on the subject matter of the suit, but on the District where the defendant is found, or on the citizenship of the parties, an objection to the jurisdiction must be taken by a plea in abatement. _Mr. Larocque_: But suppose it depends upon the place where the crime was committed, whether in New York or Ohio, whether on land or at sea? _Mr. Evarts_: It is not necessary to ask that question, for I have expressly excluded that consideration by the preliminary observation, that the locality of the trial forms no part of the body of the crime. In this case, the crime having been committed outside of any locality, it is wholly a question of the regularity and legality of the means whereby the criminal has been brought into the jurisdiction--nothing else. _Mr. Larocque_: Does the counsel cite these cases to show that want of jurisdiction must be pleaded in abatement? _Mr. Evarts_: It is the rule in civil cases. Now, your honors will see that the question forms no part of the issue of guilty or not guilty. _Mr. Larocque_: Will you look at the last averment in your indictment? _Mr. Evarts_: I repeat, that it forms no part of the body of the crime, and no part of the issue of guilty or not guilty, that is to be determined by the Jury. If the Jury, upon the issue of guilty or not guilty, should pass upon the question as to what District the defendant had been first brought into, or as to what District he was apprehended in, and should find that this Court had no jurisdiction, he would be entitled to an acquittal on that ground, and that acquittal would be pleadable in bar if he were put on trial in the proper District; for, there is no mode, that I know of, of extricating this part of the issue from the issue on the merits of the case, when it is decided by a verdict. There is no possibility of discriminating in the verdict. There is no special verdict and no question reserved. It is a verdict of not guilty. And, therefore, on the question of regularity of process, the crime itself is disposed of--the whole result of the judicial investigation being that the trial should have been in another District. But, where the locality of the crime forms a part of its body, of course, the Government, undertaking to prove a crime to have been committed within a District, rightly fails if the crime is shown not to have been committed within that District. _Mr. Larocque_: And then can they not try it where it was committed? _Mr. Evarts_: I should not like to be the District Attorney who would try it. Now, if the Court please, upon the matters connected with the merits of this trial, the first proposition to which I ask your honors' attention is--that the Act of April 30th, 1790, in the sections relating to piracy, is constitutional, and that the evidence proves the crime as to all the prisoners under the eighth section, and as to the four citizens under the ninth section. The crime is also charged and proved against all the prisoners under the third section of the Act of May 15th, 1820. I do not know that your honors' attention has been drawn to the distinction between the eighth section of the Act of 1790 and the third section of the Act of 1820. The counts in the indictment cover both statutes, and both statutes are in force. The words of the eighth section of the Act of 1790 are these: "If any person or persons shall commit, upon the high seas," "murder or robbery," "every such offender shall be deemed, taken and adjudged to be a pirate and felon, and, being thereof convicted, shall suffer death." The whole description of the crime is "murder or robbery" "upon the high seas." The third section of the Act of 1820 adds to that simple description of criminality certain words not at all tautological, but making other acts equivalent to the same crime. The section provides that, "if any person shall, upon the high seas, or in any haven, &c., commit the crime of robbery in or upon any ship or vessel, or upon any of the ship's company of any ship or vessel, or the lading thereof, such person shall be adjudged to be a pirate, and, being thereof convicted," "shall suffer death." Beyond the simple word, "robbery," is added, "in or upon any ship or vessel, or upon any of the ship's company of any ship or vessel, or the lading thereof." _Judge Nelson_: The fifth section of the Act of March 3d, 1819, provides for piracy on the high seas according to the law of nations. The previous Act of 1790, and the third section of the Act of 1820, prescribe the punishment of the crimes of murder and robbery on the high seas. _The District Attorney_: The Act of 1820 does not refer to murder, only to robbery on the high seas. _Judge Nelson_: It denominates as a pirate a person guilty of robbery on the high seas. _Mr. Evarts_: But the body of the crime is the robbery, and not the epithet. _Mr. Brady_: That is the question. _Mr. Evarts_: But, in the fifth section of the Act of 1819, the provision is, that "if any person shall, on the high seas, commit the crime of piracy as defined by the law of nations." _Judge Nelson_: That is a different offence. _Mr. Evarts_: Yes, and is open always to the inquiry, what the law of nations is. Now, that Act of 1790 is, we say, constitutional. And here I may as well say what seems to be necessary in reference to the point made by Mr. Brady on behalf of the prisoners. He will contend, he says, that the ninth section of the Act of 1790 is beyond the constitutional power of Congress--its constitutional power in the premises being limited, as he supposes, to the right to define and punish the crime of piracy. _Mr. Brady_: "And offences against the law of nations." _Mr. Evarts_: To that explicit clause in the Constitution. Now, your honors will notice what the crime in the ninth section of the Act of 1790 is. It is not piracy so described, nor robbery so described merely, but it is a statutory definition of the crime, which includes a particular description and predicament of the offender (the eighth section having included all persons), and also defines the subject of the robbery, or the object of the piratical aggression. It is this: "If any citizen shall commit any piracy or robbery aforesaid, or any act of hostility against the United States, or any citizen thereof," &c. "Piracy or robbery aforesaid" would, of course, include the definition of the crime as embraced in the eighth section. But, the ninth section proceeds to add a new and substantive completeness of crime, not described either as piracy or robbery, to wit: "Or any act of hostility against the United States, or any citizen thereof, upon the high seas, under color of any commission from any foreign Prince or State, or on pretence of authority from any person, such offender shall, notwithstanding the pretence of any such authority, be deemed, adjudged, and taken to be a pirate, felon, and robber, and, on being thereof convicted, shall suffer death." Now, it is quite immaterial whether this statute is accurate in declaring the offender to be "a pirate, felon, and robber." It has made the offence a crime. Under what restrictions has it made it a crime? Has it undertaken to extend the jurisdiction of the Federal Government, as supported by the law of nations respecting piracy, which is a right on the part of every nation to legislate not only for its own citizens--not only in protection of its own property--but in punishment of all pirates, of whatever origin, and in protection of all property on sea, and wherever owned? Now that, undoubtedly, is the jurisdiction under the law of nations, and neither by the Constitution has Congress received any greater power under the law of nations than that, nor, I respectfully submit, can it receive any greater power under the law of nations; that is, Congress cannot receive any power greater than that which other nations, not bound by our municipal statutes, would be bound to respect, as sustained by the law of nations. Now I agree that "any act of hostility against the United States, or any citizen thereof," would not necessarily be up to the grade and of the quality of piracy under the law of nations; and that the Congress of the United States, in undertaking to make laws which would create an offence, and punish it as piracy, which was not piracy by the law of nations, and in seeking to enforce its jurisdiction and inflict its sanctions on a people who owed it no municipal obedience, and in protection of property over which it had no municipal control, and no duty to perform, could not control foreign nations; and that foreign nations would not be bound to respect convictions obtained under such a municipal extension of our law over persons never subject to us, and in respect to property never under our dominion. And thus your honors see that, just in proportion as the ninth section has extended the crime, it has limited both the persons to whom the statute is applied, and the property in respect of which the crime is defined. It is wholly limited to our own citizens, subject to whatever laws we choose to make for our own government, and in respect of the marine property of the United States, and of its citizens when at sea, which, by every rule of the extension or limit of municipal authority, is always regarded, on general principles of public jurisprudence, as a part of the property and of the territory of the nation to which the ship and cargo belong, wherever it may be on the high seas. Now, this ninth section, I suppose, if your honors please,--and such I understand to be the views of Judge Sprague, as expressed by him to the Grand Jury, at Boston,--proceeds and is supported on the general control given by the Constitution to Congress over all external commerce, which, I need not say, must, to be effective, extend to the criminal jurisprudence which protects against wrong, and the criminal control which punishes crime perpetrated by our citizens on our own commerce on the high seas. My learned friend would certainly not contend that the different States had this authority in reference to crimes on the high seas. And, if they have not that authority, then, between these jurisdictions, we should have omitted one of the most necessary, one of the most ordinary, one of the wisest and plainest duties of Governments in regard to the protection of their commerce. For, it is idle to say that there are no crimes which may be committed at sea which are not piracy, and that there is no protection needed for our own commerce against our own citizens which does not fall within the international law of piracy. _Mr. Brady_: I ask Mr. Evarts' permission to make a suggestion upon this point, which it is due to him, and to myself, also, that I should present, that I may hear his views in respect to it. I would ask the learned gentleman, and the Court, to suppose the case of an American citizen who, on the breaking out of a war between the United States and England, should be residing in England as a denizen, and who had resided there for many years, and who should take a commission for privateering from the British Government, regularly issued, having about it all the sanctions belonging to such an authority, and who, in the prosecution of a war, should take an American prize,--would he be liable to be convicted in the Courts of the United States of piracy or robbery, under the act of 1790? He clearly would, on its language. And then the question occurs--Had Congress any authority to pass such a law? Now, I will put a case which is stronger, and which comes equally within the plain terms, purview, and spirit of that Act, upon a literal construction. Suppose that two American vessels should come into collision on the Pacific Ocean, each manned and officered exclusively by American citizens, and, an angry feeling being engendered, the Captain of one of them should direct a sailor to throw a belaying-pin at the Captain of the other, and the sailor should do it. That would clearly be an act of hostility against one citizen of the United States perpetrated by another, and would be perpetrated under pretence of authority from a person, to wit, the Captain of the ship who gave the violent order. Would the sailor be liable to a conviction for that offence, as a pirate or robber? and would Congress have the authority to pass such a law? I doubt it very much. _Mr. Evarts_: I agree with my learned friend that the case which he first stated is not only within the words, but within the intent, of the ninth section. _Mr. Brady_: That an American citizen cannot take a commission from a foreign Government without being a pirate? _Mr. Evarts_: To serve against the United States, he certainly could not; and, if the law of nations and the rights of citizens require that a Government which demands allegiance and repays it by protection cannot make penal the taking of service from a foreign power against itself, I do not know what a Government can do. So much for the general right or power of a Government. If the particular and clipped interpretation of our Constitution has shorn our Government of that first, clearest, and most necessary power, why, very well. Such a result follows, not from that power or its exercise being at variance with the general principles or powers of Government, but because, as I have said, in the arrangement of the Government, there has fallen out of the general fund of sovereignty this plain, and clear, and necessary right. But, on the second instance which my learned friend has put, I am equally clear in saying, that the case he there suggests is not within the statute of 1790, simply because, although by a forced and literal construction, if you please, about which I will not here quarrel, my learned friend thinks he places it within the general terms of the ninth section, yet I imagine your honors will at once come to the conclusion, which seems to my poor judgment a sensible one, that the case he puts has nothing to do with the subject matter of the statute, within its intent or purpose--and that, simply, because the statute has not chosen to cover the case proposed, by applying to it so extravagant a penalty. It is not from any defect in the power of Congress. Congress does punish just such an offence as the one suggested, whenever the weapon and the assault make it of the gravity of offences to which Congress has chosen to apply its penal legislation. The statute covering such an offence is enforced every day in this Court. And, certainly, I do not need to argue that, if Congress had the right to pass a statute prohibiting an assault with a belaying-pin, it had the right to call the offence piracy, if it pleased, and might punish it by hanging, if it saw fit; and, for that, it is not amenable to the law of nations, nor is its power exercised with reference to piracy under the law of nations when it deals with that class of offences. I certainly do not need to fortify my answer to the case first put by my learned friend, in regard to the right of a nation to punish its citizens for taking service against its own country and commerce, by the practice or the legislation of other nations. But your honors will find, in the statutes of Great Britain--the statutes of 11 and 12 William III., and 2 George II.--precisely the same exercise of power and authority, and to the same extent, as respects the gravity of the crime and the punishment prescribed for it. And it would seem to me to be one of the plainest rights and most necessary duties of the Government, if its attention is called to any proclivity of its citizens to take service against itself, to punish them not as prisoners of war, and not under the laws affecting privateers. _Mr. Brady_: I will only mention to you that, when I argue the question hereafter, and answer your suggestions, I will refer to the case of _The United States_ v. _Smith_, (5 _Wheaton_, 153,) where Mr. Webster conceded, in the Federal Court, that this original Act defining piracy was, as respects the language I have referred to, not a constitutional exercise of the power conferred on Congress. He took the ground that the statute made a general reference to the law of nations as defining piracy, whereas, in his view, Congress should have proceeded to state what were the elements of the offence. I want to use that, in my argument, as an illustration of how strictly the Courts have held that it was never intended that even the case of taking a commission in a foreign service and making war against the United States, which might be treason, should be converted into piracy by any necromancy or alchemy of the law, such as the gentleman seems to have in view. _Mr. Evarts_: Whenever a statute declares an offence to be a certain offence, that offence the Courts must hold it to be. The nomenclature of the Legislature is not to be quarreled with by the Courts which sit under its authority. They are to see that the crime is proved. What the crime is called is immaterial. _Mr. Brady_: Then the Legislature might say that speaking offensive words on the high seas by our citizens is piracy. _Mr. Evarts_: They can call it piracy, and punish it. _Mr. Brady_: Yes, by death! _Mr. Evarts_: It does not come under the law of nations as piracy, but under the general control of Congress over our citizens at sea. In other words, no nation depends, in the least, on the law of nations and its principles for the extent of its control over its own citizens on the high seas, or for the extent of the penalties by which it protects its own commerce against the acts of its own citizens on the high seas. It takes cognizance of such offences by the same plenary power by which it takes cognizance of offences on land. The difference with us would be, that the State government would have the control of these offences when committed on the land, as a general rule, and they would come within the Federal jurisprudence and the Federal legislation only by their being committed on the high seas. Now, what was said by Mr. Webster in the case of _The United States_ v. _Smith_, a case arising under the Act of 1819? Mr. Webster argued that the special verdict did not contain sufficient facts to enable the Court to pronounce the prisoner guilty of the offence charged--that his guilt could not be necessarily inferred from the facts found, but that they were, on the contrary, consistent with his innocence--but that, even supposing the offence to have been well found by the special verdict, it could not be punished under the Act of 1819, because that Act was not a constitutional exercise of the power of Congress to define and punish piracy,--that Congress was bound to define it in terms, and was not at liberty to leave it to be settled by judicial interpretation. That was Mr. Webster's criticism upon the statute--that while the Constitution had said that the law must define what was piracy, Congress had left it to the Courts to define. Mr. Justice Story delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court in that case, to the effect, that the crime of piracy was constitutionally defined by the Act of Congress, and the point was so certified to the Circuit Court. The authority which this Court has for punishing the crime which has come under consideration in this case is the law of the United States, supported by the Constitution of the United States, in respect to both branches of the statute under inquiry. As the indictment follows the law, and the law follows the Constitution, the subject for your cognizance is rightfully here, and the proofs and the evidence in the case show that the crime has been committed, and that the acts of the prisoners which resulted in the seizure of the Joseph on the high seas include all the ingredients that enter into the completeness of the crime of robbery on the high seas, as named in the eighth section of the Act of 1790, and in the third section of the Act of 1820. I am confining myself, in these observations, to the crime of the whole twelve, not affected by the question of citizenship, and not falling under the ninth section of the Act of 1790. It is certainly not necessary for me here to insist, with much of detail, on the question of the completeness or effect of the evidence as showing that the seizure of the Joseph was attended by all the circumstances of force, and was stimulated by all the purposes of robbery, which the law makes an ingredient of this offence. So far as the sufficiency of the evidence is to pass under the judgment of the Jury, it is entirely out of place for me to comment on it here. And, so far as any purpose of instruction to the Jury by your honors requires any consideration now, it is sufficient for me to say, that there is no trait of violence, and threat, and danger which, within the law of robbery,--and the law of piracy, if there be any difference,--makes up the necessary application of force, that is not present here. And I understand my learned friend, Mr. Lord, to concede, that there was force enough to make up the crime, if the element of intent, the vicious purpose of robbery, was present, as part of the body of the crime. My learned friends have treated this latin phrase, _animo furandi_, as if it meant _animo fruendi_--as if the point was, not the intent to despoil another, but the intent to enjoy the fruits of the crime themselves. Now, I need not say that a man who robs his neighbor to give the money to charity, despoils him, _animo furandi_, just as much as if he did it with the intention of using the money for his own purposes of pleasure or profit. That is the point, and all the cases cited only touch the question of whether, in the violent taking, or the fraudulent taking, imputed as a crime, there could be supposed by the Jury to be, on any evidence introduced, any honest thought, even the baseless notion, on the part of the offender, that the property was not that of the man from whom he took it, but was his own. I have not seen anything in this evidence which should lead us to suppose that Mr. Baker and his crew thought that this vessel, the Joseph, belonged to them, and that they took her under a claim of right, as property of their own. The right under which they acted was a supposed right to make it their own, it then and there being the property of somebody else--to wit, of the United States of America, or of some of its citizens. So, your honors will find, that except so far as the considerations of the moral quality of this crime, in regard to its not being furtive and stealthy, are raised and supported by the general considerations which are to change this transaction from its private quality and description into a certain public dignity, as part of a wider contest, and which considerations are to be disposed of by the views which your honors may take of the affirmative proposition of the defence, which would make this privateering at least an act of hostility in flagrant war--except so far, I say, as these considerations are concerned, I need not say anything more as to the completeness of the ingredients, both of force, and of robbery or despoiling another, necessary to make up the crime. We come, now, if the Court please, to a variety of considerations, many of them, I think, not at all pertinent to a judicial inquiry; many of them ethical; many of them political; many of them addressed to the consciences of men; and many of them addressed to the policy of Governments--and which, in the forum where they are debatable, and which for the most part is a forum which can never make a decision, may be useful and interesting. Some of them do approach, doubtless, the substance and shape of legal propositions; and I am sure I do no injustice either to the nature, or purpose, or character of these manifold views, when I say that they all centre on the proposition, that this transaction, which, in its own traits and features as a private act of these parties, is a crime of piracy, is transferred into the larger range of a conflict of force, authorized by the laws of war, and with no arbiter and no avenger, but in the conscience, and before the common Judge of all. Now, if the Court please, the legal notion to which we must bring this down, is this--that the acts here complained of are, within the law and jurisprudence which this Court administers, acts of privateering, not falling within the law of piracy. Now, what is privateering? My learned friends have spoken of privateering as if it were one of the recognized, regular, suitable public methods of carrying on hostilities between nations, and as if it fell within the general protection which makes combatants in the field, fighting as public enemies, and against public enemies, amenable only to the laws of war. And my learned friend, Mr. Lord, has read, with much satisfaction, the very pointed observations made by Mr. Marcy in his letter to the French Minister, which were very just and very appropriate as a home argument against France; that is, the encomiums of certain French commanders on the dignity and nobility of the conduct of privateers who rushed to the aid of their country when at war. Now, my view, and I believe the view of the law books and of the publicists of the present day, is this--that privateering is the last relic of the early and barbarous notions of war, that a trial of force between nations involved a rightful exercise of personal hostility by every individual of one nation against every individual of the other, and against every portion of the property of the other. That law of war which authorizes the attack on peaceful persons by armed bands on land, and the robbery, devastation, and destruction of private property wherever it may be found, has been long since displaced by those principles of humanity, of necessity, and of common sense, which make war an appeal, when there is no other arbiter, to the strength of the parties, to be determined with as little injury to property and life as possible. Now, privateers have never been looked upon as being themselves entitled to the least comparison with the regularly enrolled military power, or with the regular naval service, in respect to their motives, or the general rules of their conduct, or the general effect which their depredations are expected to produce. And the tendency of all movements in the public laws of nations, as affecting the maintenance of war, has been at least to discourage and to extirpate, if possible, this private war on sea, in both of its forms--to wit, in the form of public armed vessels taking private and peaceable property on sea, and in the still more aggravated form of private armed vessels, with crews collected for the purposes of gain and plunder, under the license which war may give. So far from this Government having, on the general principles, moral and social, which should govern such a discussion, desired to maintain or extend privateering, it was among the first and the earliest to concede in its treaties, and to gain from the other contracting parties the concession, that if war should arise between the parties to the treaty, privateers should not be commissioned or tolerated on either side. And, if this Government has failed to yield to the attempt made on the part of certain European powers to crush this single branch of private war on the ocean, to wit, war by private parties on the ocean, it has only been because it saw that that design, not including the destruction of that other branch of private war at sea--the war of public vessels against private property--was not a design clearly stimulated by the purposes and interests of humanity. While the European Governments chose to destroy that branch which was least important to them--the use of private armed vessels--they claimed to continue in full force the right of public armed vessels to make aggressions on private property on every sea. The one point was quite as important to have ameliorated as the other, which permits us to recruit the small navy which our republican institutions justify us in maintaining, by the vigor of our mercantile marine in the time of naval war. Therefore, there is nothing in the history of the country which can, in the least, support the idea that we look with favor on the notion of privateering. Some sensible observations upon the subject are to be found on marginal page 97, in the first volume of Kent's Commentaries, to which I ask your honors' attention: "Privateering, under all the restrictions which have been adopted, is very liable to abuse. The object is not fame or chivalric warfare, but plunder and profit. The discipline of the crews is not apt to be of the highest order, and privateers are often guilty of enormous excesses, and become the scourge of neutral commerce. They are sometimes manned and officered by foreigners, having no permanent connection with the country or interest in its cause." I agree that there is still left, under the license and protection of the law of nations, the prosecution of hostilities on the high seas by privateers and private armed vessels. And I agree that, although the crime proved in this case does come within the description and punishment of robbery and piracy, in its own actual traits and features, yet if it be shown that what is thus made piracy and robbery by the statute was actually perpetrated by a privateer, under the protection of the law of nations, with a commission from a sovereign nation, within the scope of the authority of that commission, it is an answer to an indictment, the terms of which had been otherwise proved. And that is undoubtedly what is claimed here. You have proved piracy and robbery under the eighth section, say these defendants, if we cannot impart to the circumstances and features of this crime some public quality and authority which saves the transaction from condemnation and punishment. _Mr. Brady_: We say no such thing. We say that, if they acted in good faith, however mistaken, and though the commission may be void, they have not committed any offence whatever. _Mr. Evarts_: This is the extent of my concession, as matter of law,--that it is an answer to a charge of piracy which is otherwise complete, that the crime was committed under conditions which, by the law of nations, relieve it from punishment. Now, what are the conditions that the law of nations requires? First, there must be a war. We do not allow private armed vessels to prosecute general marauding hostilities in support of the views of their Governments. We do not allow the interruption of the freedom of the seas by such marauding vessels, except in cases of flagrant war, which neutral nations are compelled to recognize. Secondly. The privateer must have received its commission from a public, national, sovereign power. You cannot make a privateer, and turn private acts that, by the law of nations and by municipal law, are piratical, into acts of war, which are of the same intrinsic quality and have the force of national acts, unless by this _sine qua non_ of public authority and adoption. Now, if the Court please, when it comes up for judicial inquiry, whether a case of privateering, under the law of nations, is fairly made out, and where the case arises during flagrant war between two separate, independent, established nations, whose nationality is a part of the order of things in the world, the Court has only really to inquire, judicially, into two subjects--whether the vessel had a lawful privateer's commission from one of the contending parties--and whether the acts committed by her were within its scope, either actually or in the sense of a fair construction of the authority, and of good faith in the exercise of the power. But, even in these cases, where the only points are, whether there be war, and whether there be nationalities on each side which can convey this public authority, the Court is all the while governed by, dependent upon, and subordinate to, the views of the Government from which the Court derives its authority. No judicial tribunal has a right to recognize a nation, of its own motion. No judicial tribunal has authority to recognize a Government which the Government from which it derives its authority does not recognize. I have never heard it proposed, as a view either of public or of domestic law, that when a Government has declined to recognize a nation, it was within the jurisdiction of a Court of that Government to determine differently, and reverse the decision of the political power. In the cases of France and England, which are recognized Governments that have placed themselves as firmly among the nations of the world as private individuals are planted in the rights of man, our Courts intermit this inquiry. A privateer of England which confines itself within the scope of its commission, can not be proceeded against as a pirate, although it commits acts which would of themselves be piracy. But, there do arise questions which come under the jurisdiction of the Courts, under circumstances of doubt and obscurity as to the course or view which our Government has taken in relation to the alleged nationalities of alleged belligerents; and I need not say to your honors, that by an unbroken series of the decisions of the Supreme Court, as well as by the necessary subordination of the judicial authority to the political power of the Government, our Courts always take the view which their Government takes in respect to struggles and hostilities which arise between uncertain, indefinite and unascertained powers. Thus, whenever there occur, between Colonies and the parent Government,--between disaffected regions or populations and the sovereign to which they have been subject--dissensions which, arising from the region of discontent, sedition and turbulent disorder, reach the proportion of military conflict and appeal to arms, then, when acts in the nature of war are assumed to be performed, under circumstances that bring them within judicial cognizance in our Courts, and in the Courts of any other civilized nation, as to whether they still retain their quality and character of private acts, attended by the private responsibility of the criminals, or whether they are transferred to the wider theatre and looser responsibility of warlike engagement, our Courts, as do the Courts of other civilized nations, look to the Government to see what is its policy and its purpose. The instances in which these unhappy contests and these obscure questions have been presented before the Courts, have been almost entirely connected with the separation of the South American Colonies from the mother country of Spain. In all these cases, the new Governments of the revolted Colonies gave commissions to privateers, and undertook to put themselves before the nations of the world as belligerents, claiming from neutral nations, not a recognition of their independence, or of their completed nationality, but of their right to struggle, through the forms of force and war, to establish that nationality. They presented to the discretion and the policy of every other civilized Government precisely this question--Is there enough of substance, of good faith, of power, to justify us, as equal expounders and equal defenders and protectors of the laws of nations, although there be now no present nationality that can support, under the rules of the law of nations, by mere right, the exercise of warlike powers--is there enough, in the transaction, to justify us in considering it to be so substantial and _bona fide_ an effort for the assertion of independence and the creation of a new nation, that we shall give to it the opportunity, and turn what would be piracy and marauding into an act of belligerents, so far as we neutrals are concerned? When a nation is an independent nation, all other nations of the earth are, by public law, bound to recognize it, and bound to recognize its right to make war. The most powerful nation in the world has no more right to make war than the smallest nation in the world; and, each being judge of its own conduct, when a state of war exists, such war must, by the public law of the world, be recognized. But when new, unformed, inchoate, tentative consolidations or efforts of nationalities present themselves, every nation has, by the public law, a right to exercise its own wisdom, its own policy and its own sense of justice, to determine whether or not it will recognize them; and, in every one of the cases I have referred to that came before our Courts, arising for their consideration as between two parts of a foreign country, our Courts said--Our Government has done so and so; it has recognized them as belligerents, and we follow our Government. In other cases, as in that of the Commander Aury, the Court said--We do not understand that there is any such power known in the world; our Government has never in any way recognized, not its independence, for that is not necessary, but its position as a war-making power, or as a struggling power, fighting for nationality, and we cannot recognize that condition of things. Now, unhappily, there arises a conflict in our own country, which presents the case of an armed military rebellion--a revolt of certain portions of population, maintaining, if you please, to a certain extent, the mastery over a certain portion of our soil, using against us the actual means and processes of war, and compelling from our Government, in maintaining dominion against their aggressive assaults, the means of military power, naval and land forces, and all the authority and violence of war. Foreign nations have had, in regard to us and to this conflict, the same kind of questions presented that have been presented to us in the contests between the dismembered parts of other countries. And every nation was free to determine, upon this exact question of the right of private war, as belonging to those rebellious portions of this country--to determine whether it would tolerate privateering as a warlike proceeding, or would regard privateers as marauders or pirates without just right or cause, and without the pretence of sufficient force and dignity, in a movement to disturb the peace of the world. My learned friends have said, using the force of the argument in aid of their cause, that France and England have recognized the insurgents as belligerents, and have precluded themselves from treating as pirates private armed vessels that shall derive authority from these rebellious powers. Well, by the same law of nations that gave to France and England this right thus to elect, they had the right to determine, and to announce by proclamation, that the peace of the world upon the ocean should not be disturbed, under pretence of war, by these insurgents, and that, if they should resort to private armed vessels to inflict aggressions and disturb the commerce of the world, they would be treated as pirates. And if, under the law of nations, the political authorities of France and England had thus announced their policy that these insurgents should be treated as pirates, I would like to know if advocates would be heard, in the Court of Queen's Bench or in the Courts of France, to urge that the Court, wiser than its Government, should, in the exercise of sovereign discretion under the law of nations, tolerate, as an act of war, what is piracy by municipal statute or the law of nations, unless accredited as part of a warlike movement. Would those Courts permit the defence to be made, that what were declared to be acts of piracy were acts of war,--the Government having so elected and so announced, that it would regard them as acts of piracy and not as acts of war? Now, I am arguing this case altogether on this point, as if the Government from which this Court derives its authority--whose laws we are administering--whose authority is vested in your honors on this trial--stood as a stranger to and spectator of this contest, and it was really a controversy between parts of another nation. And all I have claimed is, that our Government, in common with the other nations of the world, has, by the law of nations, the right, in its discretion, to determine how this proceeding shall be treated, and what consequences shall follow from it. Now, I need not say that, treating our Government as if it stood _ab extra_, and as if, passing its judgment on what was going on, it had determined that these privateers should be regarded as pirates, they should not be recognized as having the right of war, or the right, as an inchoate nationality, to perfect their independence. The Proclamation of the President of the United States, of the 19th of April, 1861, is a complete and perfect denunciation of this threatened crime of piracy, the purpose to recur to which had been manifested by a public declaration of Jefferson Davis, which had invited, from all quarters of the globe, privateers to prey upon the commerce of the United States. I need not say to your honors that when our Government has pronounced this to be piracy, and to be not within the law of nations, under its discretion to determine whether it will recognize an inchoate nationality, this Court has not, any more than has a Court of England or France, the power to say that what its Government does not choose to recognize, even in the quality of belligerents, it will recognize. What our Government has said shall remain in the quality of criminality, must so remain, notwithstanding this proclamation of Jefferson Davis, or any commission that may issue in pursuance of it. I apprehend that even if we were to bring ourselves into the paradoxical condition of passing judgment on this question as a disinterested, yet sovereign nation, your honors would find in the acts of the Government a complete denunciation against this proceeding as a crime of piracy, and a complete policy, which the Court must follow, leaving any diplomatic considerations of the results which may follow its mistaken, if you please, construction of its duty, to be disposed of by the authorities that are responsible for it. _Mr. Brady:_ I believe there is no proof of any such action by the legislative branch of this Government. _Mr. Evarts:_ I apprehend that the whole course of the legislation of this country shows that we do not recognize or tolerate this contest as a thing that is rightfully to go on. That is all that is necessary. I say, if the Court please, that the course of an external sovereignty, in these intestine quarrels, turns upon the point whether it will give its sanction to an intrusion upon the peace of the world by an inchoate nation, and I am trying to consider that question as if our Government had passed judgment upon it _ab extra_; and I say that the action of our Government shows that we do not intend to recognize it as something that should be allowed to go on. These considerations, as to any recognition by this Court of rights derivable from _quasi_, pretended, nascent, public powers, would induce this Court to follow the decision of the Government, in case we were judging of the question as a controversy between parts of another nation. I am now brought to the consideration of who are the parties to this controversy, and what are the relations of this Court and of the laws we are administering to the subject and the inquiry. The Government of the United States still stands. The old Constitution, the whole system of its statutes, the whole power of its army and of its navy, stand. It has its Courts of judicature; it has its commerce still on the seas; its laws are still operative, and still to be administered. And when this Court considers this case, it finds it brought before it as every other criminal case is, and limited to the considerations that belong to every criminal case. The Government of the United States, by the ordinary exercise of the process of judicature,--by seizure under public authority,--by arrest within this District, through the criminal process of this Court,--by the indictment of a Grand Jury,--by the prosecution of the District Attorney,--has proposed to this Court the naked and narrow inquiry of whether these men have committed a crime against the statutes of the United States. Now, I would like to know whether there is anything in these occurrences, that have secured, if you please, for the present, (and the future may be uncertain,) in large portions of our territory, a practical control over great portions of our population,--I would like to know if there is anything in these transactions that has displaced the constitutional legislation of the United States of America over crimes on the high seas, and over its citizens committing crimes on the high seas, or over subjects or citizens, of whatever country, committing crimes on the high seas against our property? I take it, not. Therefore, if your honors please, whatever may be said, in one form or another, of the political right, as respects these States, either constitutionally or by the right of force, to be independent, or to attempt to be independent of the United States, or to engage in this struggle for the settlement of some question of dispute under the Constitution,--whatever may be said of that, your honors cannot fail to discover that nothing which has occurred has destroyed the organism of our Government, or altered for a moment the judicial authority or the force and supremacy of the Constitution and the laws, within the territory where the Courts are open, over the subjects of our Government, and the subjects of whatever Government, in respect to whatever property, upon the high seas. I understand that my learned friend, Mr. Larocque, supposes that the ordinance of repeal of South Carolina, constitutionally or unconstitutionally supported by the strength to maintain its independence, has changed these four men who are indicted here and are proved to be citizens of the United States, from their condition of citizens of the United States; and he holds, and asks as legal proposition from your honors, that, at the time of the commission of this crime, these men were not citizens of the United States, by reason of the constitutional right of South Carolina to carry itself out of the Union, by force of ordinances, or supported by military power that had maintained itself up to the first of June in the possession of independent power. Your honors will charge, or refuse to charge, accordingly as you may find that the old Government has sovereignty and has attempted to exercise it, and that there has been no severance of our territory to the extent of a permanent division,--whether these men are citizens of the United States, or of a foreign country. If they are held to be citizens of a foreign country, to wit, of South Carolina, or of the Confederate States, then they fall back under the eighth section of the Act, as having committed piracy under that section. But, to come back to the attitude of our Government, which this Court must follow, towards these rebels,--towards these malcontents,--towards these combinations, which are exercising the processes of war, undoubtedly,--what is the attitude of our Government? Does it recognize their right--does it recognize their independence--does it recognize their authority, so that you find that our Government has adopted the policy of not punishing them under the laws of the United States? And this brings me to the consideration of another general subject, which Mr. Lord adverted to, and upon which he cited the authority of Vattel--that it would be monstrous, and would expose this Government to the execration of the world, if the criminal laws against murder and robbery on land, and the civil laws against trespass, were to be executed to the letter, and to the full extent of the vengeance of the law against the multitudinous enemies that are arrayed against this Government. Now, I must decline to be led out of a Court of Justice, by this argument, to considerations that appeal to the wisdom, or humanity, or policy of the Government. I would like to know whether my learned friend would contend that, if a private soldier, found in arms, and part of a military force, against the Government of this country, is arrested by that Government, and is indicted, and put upon his trial for treason, which the Constitution of the United States limits to the overt act of levying war against the Government, and if, under the indictment, he pleads in bar that he was levying war against the United States of America,--that would relieve him? For that is the whole nature of the proposition put forward in a Court of Justice,--that, because there are armies, there is no treason! Why, if your honors please, how absurd to present for the recognition of a Government, in its Courts of Judicature, the proposition that there is no treason, from the number of the confederates in the treachery! Your honors see at once that, the idea of setting up such a defence, on a trial for treason, against a private soldier, found in arms against the Government, is absurd. And yet, your honors recognize what is laid down by the publicists, that when the dimensions of a rebellion have been aggravated into the proportions of flagrant war, for a Government to insist upon the decimation or extermination of the population by the gallows or the axe, would be inconsistent with those general principles of humanity and justice that actuate, by necessity, the affairs of men. It is not necessary for me to discuss these questions. It belongs to the Government, after it has procured a conviction, either for piracy or for treason, to decide, in its own discretion, whether the penalty of the law shall be inflicted. Let us confine ourselves to our duties. Let us not be asked here, as a learned Bench, or as honest Jurymen, to recognize a Government or a state of belligerency that our nation does not recognize. And let us not be asked to repeal statutes of treason because the number of the traitors is so great that we cannot carry out the penalties of the law against the whole. I would like to know if in the face of any Court of Justice,--if in the face of the public opinion of the world,--if in the face of the principles of eternal justice,--it is to be set forward as a shield over the heads of the rebel leaders and traitors, that they have inflamed and misled so large a body of the common people, that they, the leaders, cannot be punished. I would like to know if, when in advance, immediately upon the rebel proclamation inviting privateers, our Government, through every newspaper in the land, proclaimed that whoever should voluntarily take up this form of piracy would be treated as a pirate, and you find the first privateer, with the first commission taken out under this proclamation of sovereignty, and the first band that volunteer--Mr. Baker and his crew, collected from all the quarters of the globe,--the first engaged in this new and flagrant form of outrage, against which they had been warned,--I would like to know if these bold outlaws, stretching forward a ready hand to grasp the license of war for plunder, the whole proceeds of which are to fill their pockets, are to be presented in this Court as being special objects of protection, under the principles of humanity, and as being shielded against public justice in enforcing the laws of piracy. Now, if your honors please, treating, as I do, this question as one to be passed upon, not with the coolness of a neutral power looking upon these contending parties as independent nations, but by this Court as the Government's own judicial organ for administering the public justice, I would like to know what pretence there is that, under the laws of the United States, the crime of piracy having been proved, there is anything in this notion of a commission from a nationality recognized by our Government, or of a belligerent right recognized by our Government, that this Court can adopt as a merger of the private crime in the public conflict. We contend, therefore, that in the conflict now raging, the Constitution and the laws of the United States make every person levying war against the Government a rebel and traitor, and, if the war thus levied take the form of piratical aggression, a pirate, within the statute. Now, let me consider the ninth section of the statute. I will readily concede to my learned friends whatever advantage they can gain from the proposition that, when the ninth section was drawn, in the year 1790, one year after the adoption of the Constitution, it was never supposed that a pretended commission or authority to prey upon the commerce of the United States and violate its laws would come from any part of the people or of the territory of the United States. And I claim that there is nothing in this commission which, if there had been no statute recognizing a possible protection from a commission--there is nothing in this commission from a citizen of the United States, Jefferson Davis, to another citizen of the United States, Thomas Harrison Baker, to prey upon the commerce of the United States, that can be regarded for a moment as a license which makes him a privateer, instead of a pirate. My learned friends have even sought to find occasion for a variance between the proof and the indictment because we have alleged, under the ninth section, that the pretended authority comes from "one Jefferson Davis," and have proved a commission which says, "I, Jefferson Davis, in the name of the Confederate States," have given such authority. Why, if your honors please, this indictment was drawn by an officer of the United States Government, to be tried in a Court of the United States; and, having a fear of the law and a sense of his duty to his country, he describes things as they are. And I would like to have my learned friends point out to me any place, any office, any title, any description, any addition, any qualification, that, under the laws of the United States of America and its Constitution, describes Jefferson Davis, except "one Jefferson Davis." He has precisely that port and dignity before the law and the Constitution that every other individual in the United States has, not filling an office and post of authority under our Government and under our laws. He does fill the place of citizen of the United States, and no measures of separate State action, or of Confederate authority, have relieved him from that full and complete description of him, under the Constitution of the United States, as the measure of his allegiance and of the penalties for its forfeiture. How could we have found a legal phrase or term, if we regard the Government of the United States and its Constitution, by which we could designate any such thing as "Confederate States," or a foreign state, within the accredited territory of the United States? The terms and intent of this ninth section were framed so as to cover every imaginable authority, in the nature of a commission from a State, from a nation, from a power, or from any person, under the law of nations, for the conversion of private marauders into public enemies with the rights of war; and, although it never entered into the imagination of the framers of this statute that it would ever have to be applied to exclude protection under a commission from a citizen of the United States, its terms are absolutely fitting. I contend that the statute is complete, and that this commission is not a pretence of authority, even under the law of nations establishing and recognizing privateers for struggling communities. It is nothing but an authority from one citizen of the United States to another citizen of the United States to prey upon the property of the United States. There are, if the Court please, some political considerations which were, it appears to me, more appropriately urged by my learned friend, Mr. Larocque, in his first address to the Jury, than in his argument to the Court. The point made by him was this--that, under the Constitution of the United States, every citizen of every State held what was called the position of divided allegiance, having two sovereign masters over him; that they were equal and co-ordinate sovereigns; and that it was his duty to obey both of them. Now, with the necessary limitation that each one is sovereign over him in some respects, and has not the least power over him in others, and that the other is sovereign over him in other respects, and does not include the first topic or line of duty, there is a speculative support for this general notion. And, whenever it is not urged into any absurd consequences, it serves, in the language of the Courts and of public men, to describe the complex Government under which we live. But, if my learned friend means to assert that there are, under the Government of the United States, according to its form and method of organic operation, two equal sovereigns over every citizen on the same subjects, why then he has flown in the face of a fundamental proposition, coming from higher authority than the Convention of 1790--that no man can serve two masters. It is not in the nature of things that there can be two sovereigns having equal rights and authority over one subject; and my learned friend illustrates the absurdity of the proposition when he comes to consider what would be the result if the two sovereigns should disagree. He says it is the duty of the subject to adhere to one side or the other; that, it being his complete duty to adhere to one side, the other side cannot complain of it as a breach of duty that he does not adhere to him, but to the other; and that, therefore, the general rule, that when you have a sovereign and are unfaithful to him you may be hanged, cannot apply to the case, because you would, in either case, be hanged. And his wise, and suitable, and certainly humane solution of this difficulty is, that when one of the sovereigns indicts you for treason, it is a good bar to say you elected in good faith to serve the other sovereign. Thus, so far from there being two sovereigns, the nature of the term sovereign including the right to hang you for unfaithfulness, there is not one that has the right to hang you, and you are master of both; for, whatever you do in good faith is a supreme answer to both. Now, if the Court please, this is the point of the whole thing--that, under this peculiar Constitution of ours, and under this division of the subjects of Government, each sovereign is judge of when the other has passed the limits of his authority, and that the States possess the right to compel the obedience of their citizens, and the United States possess the right to compel the obedience of their citizens. It is sufficient for us to say that we represent, as Federal citizens, the Government of the United States in its interpretation of its own position towards those its citizens, or those persons not its citizens, who are alleged to have perpetrated crimes against its commerce; and, whether there be, or not, speculations of political and theoretical and ethical and conscientious right, in good faith, to put yourself at variance with the Government of the United States because other people do so, or because the State authority does so, it follows that the United States, its authorities, its Courts, and its population, have the right to think, and feel, and act, as if its Government were in the right and you were in the wrong; and you, being brought within the criminal justice of their law, can find no support and no protection upon the good faith or upon the speculative political theories upon which you have rested for your protection and for your authority. It is said, that outside of this question of the political and legal qualifications of this act which we say is criminal, the circumstances, actual and moral, which surround these actors, and are shown by their actions, have deprived their acts of the criminal quality which the statute affixes to them; and that if, in good faith, they thought there was a commission, and in good faith thought there was a rightful Government, that good faith, which has despoiled the American merchant of his property, is a plea in bar to the criminal jurisdiction of the United States of America, whose laws they have violated, although all this pretence, all this show, all this form of political and legal support qualifying their acts, comes from men whom the Constitution pronounces to be in the category of rebels and traitors, every one of them amenable to the final jurisdiction of our laws. This is but another form of saying that criminals joining hand in hand shall go unpunished. Make the number of them what you will, if in the eye of the law they assume authority which is on its face criminal and illegal, and even though it is a part of a general scheme and organization for violent military resistance to the authority of the country, no Court can dispense from the punishment, but must inflict it through the general and ordinary criminal authority in respect to the crime in question, leaving the question of dispensation to the clemency, the humanity, and the policy of the Government. I believe that all the cases have been cited, either on the one side or the other, from the Reports of the Supreme Court of the United States, that have had to do with the question as to the political character of the revolted South American States. Those which were cited by my learned friend, Mr. Larocque, _The Josefa Segunda_ (5 _Wheaton_, 338), _The Bello Corunnes_ (6 _Wheaton_, 152), and _The Santissima Trinidad_ (7 _Wheaton_, 283), are all authorities, as we suppose, for the view which the Courts adopt, even when they are Courts of a neutral nation--that they follow the decisions of their Government as to the public quality and character of belligerents. Adjourned to Monday, 28 Oct., at 11 o'clock, A.M. FIFTH DAY. _October 28, 1861._ ARGUMENT OF MR. DUKES FOR THE DEFENCE. _Mr. Evarts_ said: Perhaps it is unnecessary that I should say to the Court and learned counsel, that I shall refer to the Statute of treason, as well as to the Constitutional provision as to treason. The Statute of treason is found in the first section of the Crimes Act of 1790. _Mr. Dukes_ said: _May it please your honors and gentlemen of the Jury._ It has been said by one of the most eminent statesmen that ever lived, that "civil wars strike deepest into the manners of the people,--they vitiate their politics; they corrupt their morals; they pervert the natural taste and relish of equity and justice." If this be so, one would think that this was a singularly unfortunate time for the Government to bring on the trial of these prisoners at your bar, who are entitled to that right which the Constitution offers to the meanest citizen--that of a fair and impartial trial. Is it to obtain that fair and impartial trial that the case is brought on now, when the flame of civil war lights the land, and when, in every stage and condition of society, the bitterest sentiments of hostility prevail? Is it in order to afford the prisoners a fair and impartial trial that the case is brought on now, when tender infancy and gentle woman unite with stern and selfish man in uttering the deepest imprecations on their enemies? Is it in order to obtain a fair and impartial trial that the case is brought on now, when, on God's holy day, in his holy temple, his chosen ministers officiating at his holy altar, utterly unmindful of the injunction of their meek and lowly Master, "to forgive their enemies, and to pray for those who despitefully use them"--offer up to Heaven prayers for its severest vengeance upon the heads of their enemies? If so, gentlemen, I beg at least, (as one of the counsel,) to offer my dissent. It does, indeed, seem to me that this is a singularly unfortunate time to bring on this trial. But yet, gentlemen, I feel buoyed up with hope, because I know the unbending integrity of the Judges that officiate, and I know that the Jury, which sits in judgment over the lives of these men, is chosen from the citizens of New York--a city in which, if any city in the world possesses large, liberal, and enlightened views, we may hope to find them. But, still, the officers of the Government must excuse me for saying that I think it unfortunate, and somewhat illiberal in them, considering the character of the charge made against these men, to try them now. It does seem to me that it is, at best, but trying treason with an odious name. Gentlemen, this is no new thing. Years ago this very question, as to the propriety of trying men situated as these men are, was brought before the mind of that liberal and enlightened statesman, Edmund Burke--the long-tried and faithful friend of America; and I trust that I may be pardoned for referring to his words on this occasion, and for reading to you a passage from his celebrated letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, in 1777, which, perhaps, will more fully illustrate my views than anything I can say. Speaking about American privateersmen, then in the same position as these men now are, he says: "The persons who make a naval warfare upon us, in consequence of the present troubles, may be rebels; but to treat and call them pirates is confounding, not only the natural distinction of things, but the order of crimes; which, whether by putting them from a higher part of the scale to the lower, or from the lower to the higher, is never done without dangerously disordering the whole frame of jurisprudence. "Though piracy may be, in the eye of the law, a less offence than treason, yet, as both are, in effect, punished with the same death, the same forfeiture, and the same corruption of the blood, I never would take from any fellow-creature whatever any sort of advantage which he may derive to his safety from the pity of mankind, or to his reputation from their general feelings by degrading his offence, when I cannot soften his punishment. "The general sense of mankind tells me, that those offences which may possibly arise from mistaken virtue are not in the class of infamous actions. "Lord Coke, the oracle of the English law, conforms to that general sense, where he says, 'That those things which are of the highest criminality may be of the least disgrace.' * * * * * "If Lord Balmerine, in the last rebellion, had driven off the cattle of twenty clans, I should have thought it would have been a scandalous and low juggle, utterly unworthy of the manliness of an English judicature, to have tried him for felony as a stealer of cows. "Besides, I must honestly tell you that I could not vote, or countenance in any way, a statute which stigmatizes with the crime of piracy these men, whom an Act of Parliament had previously put out of the protection of the law. "When the legislature of this Kingdom had ordered all their ships and goods, for the mere new-created offence of exercising trade, to be divided as a spoil among the seamen of the navy--to consider the necessary reprisal of an unhappy, proscribed, interdicted people as the crime of piracy, would have appeared, in any other legislature than ours, a strain of the most insulting and unnatural cruelty and injustice. I assure you, I never remember to have heard any thing like it, in any time or country." Gentlemen, I read this extract because it is the testimony of an eminently wise man, and an eminently just one. Such were his views at that day, and I am inclined to believe that those words spoken by him then have a better application to the state of things at present than any remarks I can make, or that can be made by any one of us who are in the midst of this whirl of excitement. But, gentlemen, the Government has chosen to make the issue. It was at liberty to do so; and that issue is piracy. Piracy, gentlemen of the Jury, you have heard defined by the eminent counsel who preceded me. The parties here occupy, as it were, a two-fold capacity. The eighth section of the Act of 1790 applies to piracy under the common law; the ninth section of that Act creates what we have called statutory piracy. The eighth section of the Act only alludes to piracy as it is acknowledged under the law of nations, and as known to the common law. The ninth section, however, differs from the eighth, because it applies peculiarly to citizens of the United States, and is supposed to be more enlarged in its character than the eighth section. Now, with reference to a portion of the prisoners here,--to those who are not citizens,--eight of them come entirely under the eighth section; and we shall contend that, under that section, they cannot be convicted. As regards the other four, it will be contended, that not only are they embraced by the first, but likewise by the second of these sections--that of statutory piracy, which applies peculiarly to them. Well now, gentlemen, in regard to the eighth section, the learned counsel who very ably addressed the Court on last Saturday, stated that intent had little or nothing to do with the offence; that he did not choose to be held to the _animus fruendi_, but that the charge was the _animus furandi_, and that when a person committed robbery it was but of very little consequence to what purpose he applied the proceeds of the robbery, or for whom he committed it. Now, with all due deference to the learned counsel, I think this is putting the case rather unfairly, because he is quietly assuming the very point we are discussing; for it is the fact of the _animus furandi_--the fact whether or not this is robbery--that we are discussing. We have distinctly said, and shown by the books, that that which he says is not the characteristic of the crime, is really its characteristic, and that intent in this, as in every other offence, peculiarly constitutes the crime. It is just because the taking is not for the party himself--is not an appropriation for his own purpose, and for his own ends, and for his own object, that there is a difference between piracy and privateering. And why is this so? Because the party who goes forth on a privateering expedition, goes forth under the sanction of a nation. It may be a nation only _de facto_, but still it is a nation. He goes by the authority of that nation, armed with a commission under its sanction, after having given the most ample security to be responsible to the nation itself for any act of misconduct on his part; that nation holding itself out to the civilized world as responsible for every excess on the part of the citizen to whom it grants letters of marque. Well, gentlemen, the taking of property on the part of the privateer is not for himself. The taking is in the name of the State. The title which the privateer has in the captured property is no title at all, nor does he pretend to claim it. The title is in the State, and up to the very moment of condemnation, although the property may have been acquired by his blood, and by his treasure, the State has the right to release it. So important is this fact of intention, as entering into the transaction, that it has been held that no excess on the part of a person carrying letters of marque from a regular Government could be punished as piracy--the Government being liable, and he himself being referred to his own Government for punishment. It has been even held in England, that where the act of taking a commission from a foreign prince was so unlawful in its character as to amount under the law to a felony, yet still the party having letters of marque, should not be charged with piracy. Now, gentlemen, there was an attempt made by the learned counsel to cast odium upon privateering and upon this transaction, by speaking of these men as going out for their own plunder. Well, I have nothing to say about that; but there is one thing to be remarked: that in times of hostility the plunder does not belong to one side, nor does it belong to the privateersman alone, but the regularly armed vessels of every nation in the world, as well as privateersmen, are enriched by the capture of prizes at sea; and I suspect that the members of the bar now present can tell you how extensively our own navy has been enriched within the last few weeks by the condemnation of prizes. If the spoils derived from enemies' property be plunder, and if it be disgraceful to take it, then the highest names in England have been associated with such plunder, for you have but to look into the English books to find the name of the great and distinguished Arthur, Duke of Wellington, as connected with such cases. But, gentlemen, there is another thing which would prevent the parties from being convicted of piracy, that is, the state of enmity existing between the two nations. It is a general rule that enemies can never commit piracy against each other, their depredations being deemed mere acts of hostility. This is as far back as the days of Lord Coke; and the rule has been carried so far as to protect the citizen of one of the belligerents, who, without any letter of marque at all, goes on the ocean and seizes the property of the enemy. It is true, it has been said that in such cases citizens act at their peril, and are liable to be punished by their own sovereign; but the enemy is not warranted in considering them as criminals. That the people of the Confederate States, under whose commission these men have acted, stand in the light of enemies, the learned decisions of Judges Cadwalader and Betts; the blockade of the Southern ports, which is a hostile measure; the confiscation of the property of their citizens--not only of the property of the men who have arms in their hands, but of the citizens at large; the captures at sea; the vessels condemned here; the virtual dissolution of partnerships; the admission of the plea of alien enemy; the President's proclamation of non-intercourse; the arrest of citizens of those States returning from Europe; and the opinion of my learned friend, the District Attorney himself, showing that it is treason for the banks here to pay over the bank balances to Southern customers,--all these things go to establish, thoroughly and sufficiently, the condition of enmity or hostility, which forms a protection to these parties. They fix the status of war; they decide that the two powers are enemies, and that, too, without any declaration of war, for no declaration of war is needed. It seems to me that it is all useless to attempt to evade the admission that there is war. We cannot by legal enactments--we cannot by judicial decisions--we cannot by Presidential Proclamations--establish the condition of war and all the consequences of war, and yet shrink from its open avowal. And yet that is precisely what is attempted here. It may do with those that are strong to oppress their own subjects, but it will not do when you come to deal with foreign nations. When you come to deal with these eight men who are here, the subjects of foreign powers, those powers have a right to put in a word. Gentlemen, it is impossible for this Government to do less than acknowledge that, in fact, there is a state of hostility; and you may as well call it by its proper name--we are in the midst of war. It will not do for the Government, like the ostrich, to put its head under its wing, and fancy that because it sees nobody, nobody sees it. The Government has enacted all the consequences of war without making an open or decided declaration of it. Under such circumstances, however, the status of enmity is sufficiently fixed to protect the prisoners. But there is another test of piracy, gentlemen, and it is this--Is the privateer a universal enemy? Is he a universal plunderer? Is his hand against every man? Has he not a nation? Now a pirate has no nation. He is an outlaw, and is justiciable everywhere. His is the law of might-- "For why? Because the good old rule Sufficeth him: the simple plan That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can." But it is not necessary that the nation under whose commission he acts, shall be one which is already established and acknowledged among the family of nations. It may be a colony struggling for independence, and not yet recognized by the nations of the earth. Our own Courts years ago decided this case with a liberality which has eminently distinguished them, and established the principle in respect to the South American colonies--colonies at that time not acknowledged by our Government as independent nations. So, gentlemen, it was with regard to the powers of Europe during the days of the American Revolution. Every power in the world respected the letters of marque issued by Congress; and if there is an instance of a single case in which, in any land in the civilized world, there was a criminal trial of an American privateersman, I have not been able to find it. Their letters of marque were recognized because they were the letters of a _de facto_ Government. Now, gentlemen, what are the tests sufficient to form such a nationality as will cover these commissions? Are the Confederate States, in this instance, competent to maintain the relations of war and of peace? Gentlemen, if the South American provinces were, I think it can hardly be disputed that the people of ten great States like these certainly are. They are very far beyond them in civilization, in information, in wealth, and in all the means by which nations sustain their independence. So important, however, is the fact of a commission, that even a commission from the Barbary powers--states which subsisted entirely, I may say, by plunder and piracy--was regarded as sufficient, in the Courts of England, to protect an Algerine who was taken with letters of marque. And that opinion comes with the authority of one of the greatest masters of the science of jurisprudence--Sir William Scott--a name that can never be mentioned without feelings of reverence by any man who respects the sentiments of justice and their application to the principles of international law. In the case I allude to, the Barbary subject was taken in an attempt to seize an English vessel. The crew was composed of foreigners, men of different nations, most of them belonging to Spain and France. It was held that as to all the rest of the parties they should be treated as outlaws, but the Algerine was allowed the plea of _respondeat superior_. In other words, he had but to point to his country, and say she was responsible; that she gave him authority, and assumed the responsibility; and upon that plea he was allowed to go. I mention this to show how far the doctrine has been carried. But, gentlemen, if the commission from a Government _de facto_ generally is a plea in bar (and that it is, I have no doubt the Court will charge you), it certainly holds good in a case of this kind, where the authority is much less questionable. Now, are the United States bound to recognize the Confederate States as belligerents? Not as an independent nation,--that is an entirely different question. We say, gentlemen, not only that the United States are bound to recognize the Confederate States as belligerents, but we think we have shown that they have done so. The capitulation between Commodore Stringham, General Butler, and Commodore Barron, recognized the existence of a state of war, and recognized the prisoners as prisoners of war; and not one word has been said, and not one act done, by the Government, to disavow their authority in so doing. It is the principle of civilized nations--and we belong to the family of civilized nations--to recognize parties, even in the midst of civil war, as belligerents; and this country is too just, too powerful, and too elevated in sentiment, to shrink from that which civilization, decency and honor compel her to stand to. She must recognize even those who are her children--struggling against her authority though they be--as fair and honest antagonists. From the time of our own struggle, in the days of the Revolution, we professed the principles of international law. They are now a part of the law of the land. There is a moral obligation upon us to occupy our position in the great family of nations; to hold it, as we have always done, with honor and with distinguished consideration. Sorry, indeed, would I be to think that there should be, on this occasion, any eminent departure from it, as there certainly would be if these men were held in any other light than as mere privateersmen, and not pirates. But if these principles are true, as applying between the people of this country and the people of England during the days of the Revolution,--if the mother country then considered us as belligerents where there could be no subtle political question such as may be raised here, and has already been raised--the doctrine of the two sovereignties,--there is then, at least, a reason which applies in this case, and never could have applied in that case; for the allegiance of the colonies to the mother country was firm, fixed, and undivided: it never was, and never could be, questioned. I say, then, that these parties are not pirates; and I further say that the municipal laws of a State, or of a number of States, cannot constitute that offence to be piracy which is not so characterized by international law; and for this principle I refer to 1st Phillimore, 381 (International Law). I come now to the 9th section, and I will read that section: "And be it further enacted, that if any citizen should commit any piracy or robbery aforesaid, or any act of hostility against the United States or any citizen thereof, on the high seas, under color of any commission of any foreign Prince or State, or on pretence of authority from any person, such offender shall, notwithstanding the pretence of any such authority, be deemed, adjudged, and taken to be a pirate, felon, and robber, and on being convicted thereof shall suffer death." This section applies particularly to the citizens of the United States. Now, I contend that this section does not change the character of the offence. It differs only by stating that the commission shall not form a pretext. The words "piracy and robbery" explain the words "acts of hostility," which follow immediately afterwards. Where particular words are followed by general words, the latter are held as applying to persons and things of the same kind as those which precede. The coupling of words together shows that they are to be understood in the same sense. Take these two principles with the other principle, that penal statutes are to receive a strict interpretation. The general words of a penal statute must be restrained for the benefit of him against whom the penalty is inflicted. To the same effect is the case of _The United States_ vs. _Bevins_ (5 _Wheaton_): "Penal statutes, however, are taken strictly and literally only in point of defining and setting down the _crime_ and the _punishment_; and not literally in words that are but circumstances and conveyance in the putting of the case. "Thus, though by the statute 1 Ed. 6, C. 12, it was enacted that those who were convicted of stealing _horses_ should not have the benefit of clergy, the Judges conceived that this did not extend to him that should steal but one horse, and therefore procured a new Act for that purpose in the following year. "But upon the Statute of Gloucester, that gives the action of waste against him that holds _pro termino vitæ vel annorum_, if a man holds but for a year he is within the statute; while, if the law be that for a certain offence a man shall lose his right hand, and the offender hath had his right hand before cut off in the wars, he shall not lose his left hand, but the crime shall rather pass without the punishment which the law assigned than the letter of the law shall be extended. "A penal law, then, shall not be extended by equity; that is, things which do not come within the words shall not be brought within it by construction. "The law of England does not allow of constructive offences, or of arbitrary punishments. No man incurs a penalty unless the act which subjects him to it is clearly both within the spirit and the letter of the statute imposing such penalty. "'If these rules are violated,' said Best, C.J., in the case of _Fletcher_ vs. _Lord Sondes, 3 Bing., 580_, 'the fate of accused persons is decided by the arbitrary discretion of Judges, and not by the express authority of the laws. _2d Dwarris Stat., 634_.' "By another restrictive rule of construing penal statutes, if general words follow an enumeration of particular cases, such general words are held to apply only to cases of the _same kind_ as those which are expressly mentioned. By the 14 Geo. 2, C. 1, persons who should steal sheep _or any other cattle_ were deprived of the benefit of clergy. The stealing of any cattle, whether commonable or not commonable, seems to be embraced by these general words, "_any other cattle_," yet they were looked upon as too loose to create a capital offence. By the 15 George 2, C. 34, the Legislature declared that it was doubtful to what sorts of cattle the former Act extended besides sheep, and enacted and declared that the Act was made to extend to any bull, cow, ox, steer, bullock, heifer, calf, and lamb, as well as sheep, and to no other cattle whatsoever. "Until the Legislature distinctly specified what cattle were meant to be included, the Judges felt that they could not apply the statute to any other cattle but sheep. "The Legislature, by the last Act, says that it was not to be extended to horses, pigs, or goats, although all these are cattle. "3 Bingh., 581. "2 Dwarris, Statutes, 635." By the English law, and by the principles of general law, may it please the Court, the offence must be clearly defined--it must be limited, ascertained, fixed. It must be clear to the accuser. It must be clear to the accused. It must be equally clear to the Judge. It must leave him no discretion whereby he can enlarge or alter it. And, may it please the Court, this is the safe and true principle of construction--to give as little as possible to the discretion of the Courts; for it has been well said, that the arbitrary discretion of any man is the law of tyrants. It is always unknown; it is different in different men; it is casual, and depends on constitution, temper, and passion. In the best of us it is oftentimes caprice; in the worst of us it is every vice, folly and passion to which human nature is liable. It is by defining crime clearly that the citizen has his strongest guarantee for his personal safety. Let us see the opinion of perhaps the greatest master that ever touched the subject of jurisprudence--I mean _Montesquieu_. "It is determined," he says, "by the laws of China, that whoever shows any disrespect to the Emperor is to be punished with death. As they do not mention in what this disrespect consists, every thing may furnish a pretext to take away a man's life, and to exterminate any family whatsoever. "If the crime of high treason be indeterminate, this alone is sufficient to make the Government degenerate into arbitrary power."--_Montesquieu, Spirit, Book_ 12, _c._ 7. Now, may it please the Court, it is through statutes in which crimes are ill-defined--are not clearly and distinctly designated--that tyrants in every age have been able to crush their victims. Hence, in the noble system of laws that it is your honors' privilege to dispense, safeguards have been put in the strongest degree, and bulwarks have been erected around the life, the liberties, and the rights of the citizen. Now, what is an "act of hostility"? Suppose these men had gone out with a commission instructing them to go on the seas, to board vessels, and to beat the captains of vessels, and to do no more--to abandon them then, and take to their own ships--would that be an act of piracy? Is it not plain that the law meant piracy or robbery, or any "act of hostility" _ejusdem generis_, that is, _animo furandi_? To show that this construction is not forced, your honors will find in the Act of March 3d, 1825 (Dunlop's Laws, p. 723, sect. 6), that a special law was passed for the very purpose of punishing _acts of hostility_ against the United States and its citizens by _forcibly attacking_ and _setting upon vessels_ owned in part or wholly by either of them, _with intent to plunder and despoil the owners of moneys, goods_, &c., &c. If, therefore, this construction of these words, which I respectfully submit to the Court, has any weight in it, they amount to no more than what has been already decided in Clintock's case--the clear and well-settled principle of law that the commission shall not form a pretext for robbery. But, may it please the Court, as to the ninth section of the Act, it never was contemplated as applying to organized States. It was an Act which was intended to apply to individuals alone. States are not the subjects of criminal law, nor can you legislate against them; and this has been distinctly decided. If the Confederate States have been guilty of a gross breach of faith in the attempt to withdraw from the Confederation, they may be coerced; but the citizen himself must go unpunished. They are States--recognized by yourselves as States. They are not a collection of piratical hordes; and under such circumstances the law will not apply to the citizen of any of these States who acts fairly and honestly under his commission. The learned counsel who spoke last Saturday, referred to privateering as a relic of the barbarous age. No one agrees with the learned counsel in that respect more than I do; and from the bottom of my heart I hope that he may be yet able to take his share in banishing from the world this relic of the olden time. But, really, I see very little chance of advancement in that line, so long as a vessel of war is allowed to take private property on the seas. There should be perfect immunity for all property on the ocean belonging to individuals; but the letter of Mr. Marcy shows that we are not yet exactly up to that point. The learned counsel stated that, before he could concede the commission in this case to be a justification, two things must be shown: First, there must be a state of war; and, second, the privateer must have received his commission from some public, national, sovereign power. Well, we think we have shown the existence of war sufficiently strongly; and as to this point, I fancy that few gentlemen of the bar can forget the pointed and admirable allusion of the learned counsel himself (Mr. Evarts), in his argument in the District Court, some time since, to the absent clerk, in illustrating the fact of the existence of war. I remember how forcibly it struck me when I read it. The decisions in the case of the South American privateers settles the point as to the nationality. But, gentlemen, there is another subject to which I will briefly allude--that is, the abstract right of these States legally to secede. Now, gentlemen, we do not deny that there is no such right. I concede all that. Yet, still, these men have ever held different notions; and, on this subject, a line has been drawn for many years through an immense tract of this our country. The right or the wrong of it does not affect us here. You have failed to convince them, and they have failed to convince you. There is no common arbiter between you, because they contend that, being sovereigns, they cannot submit to the Courts questions between themselves and the United States. Now, they may be wrong, but have you the right to declare them so? You ought to be perfectly certain. Justice, reason, and duty prompt that there ought to be no mistake. When you hold a party for a criminal charge, there ought not to be a reasonable doubt. Is there no possibility that, in the course of the proceedings between the Federal and State Governments, you may be wrong? Does truth only consort with one side of the line, and falsehood with the other? May you not be mistaken? Look at the different lights in which, for years, you have respectively viewed various questions. See how gradually the change has been effected; and yet how stronger and stronger it has grown day by day. Can any one forget the deep and intense anxiety with which that great statesman, Mr. Clay, just before his death, regarded the division between the Methodist and Baptist Churches of the North and the South? And yet no man was a truer or firmer patriot, or an abler advocate of the Government; and no man saw with more unerring certainty that the line, sooner or later, was destined to be drawn between the two sections, unless some compromise was effected. Now, the doctrine in which these men have been brought up may be political heresy; but, do you crush a heresy with chains? Does history not tell us how utterly vain and futile such an attempt is? Have you to go back farther than the days of James the Second, to see the attempt of that despot to enforce upon the English people a religion which they did not choose to adopt? Can you forget the bloody assizes of Jeffreys, when hundreds were carried to the block and thousands were sent into exile to all parts of the world? Can you forget the great scene, when the noble Duke of Argyle, with his head bared and his limbs in chains, was led through Edinburgh amidst the reproaches and contempt of the populace; and do you forget the cold and manly dignity with which he endured it all? And do you reflect that, with all these things, the religion of England to-day is the same as it was then? Can you expect, by a system like this, to mould the human mind as you would mould potter's clay? Oh, no! gentlemen, the human heart is a different thing; love and tenderness may melt and control it, but chains and manacles never yet subdued it. Call this piracy! why this is, indeed, confounding the order of things; and when the real piracy comes, you will feel no dislike or contempt for the offence. You give it a dignity by thus confounding it with crimes of a different nature. If these men are pirates, all are pirates who have taken naval commissions from the Confederate States, and all are robbers who have served them on land. Pirates! Is Tatnall a pirate--Tatnall who, by his skill, and valor, and daring, succeeded in landing your gallant army in Mexico, challenging on that occasion the admiration alike of the army and navy? Tatnall a pirate! Tatnall, whose name has been for forty years the synonym of all that is high and noble and brave in the American navy! Is Hartsteine a pirate--Hartsteine, the modest but hardy sailor, who carried your ensign into the far, remote, and unfriendly regions of the frigid zone? Is Ingraham a pirate--Ingraham, who, when the down-trodden naturalized refugee from Austria asked for the protection of the American flag said, "Do you want the protection of this flag?--then you shall have it!" Are these men pirates? Oh, no! gentlemen; there is some mistake about this. Is Lee a robber--Lee, the chosen and bosom friend of your venerable commander in Washington, and who, but a few months ago, parted from him with an aching heart and eyes brimful of tears? Lee, a robber! Lee, whose glory is yours, and whose name is written on every page of your country's history which attests the triumphant march of your army from Vera Cruz to the gates of Mexico? Methinks I see the flash of fire light the eye, and the curl of contempt play upon the lips, of the old hero of Lundy's Lane, as he hears the foul imputation upon the stainless honor of the well-tried friend of many years. No, gentlemen, these men are not pirates! they are not robbers! Your own hearts tell you they are not. Truly, it may indeed be said, that civil war does pervert the natural taste, and relish of equity and of justice. But, gentlemen, what is the object of this prosecution? Can the united States desire revenge on these men? That is a passion not attributable to States. States have no passion. The dignity and the power of a State ought to make it tolerant. Is it because the President's proclamation has pronounced these men pirates? Certainly, the respected Chief Magistrate of these United States has no disposition to enforce this law, simply because he has declared it, as in the case of King Ahasuerus. Is their punishment sought for the good of the community? If it is designed for such a purpose, its effect is very questionable. It is extremely strange, gentlemen, that the prosecution should have been, any how, brought on now, and under this Act. Is it a strange fact, gentlemen, that, under the Act of William the Third, which has been cited to you, there was not, during the American Revolution, a single American privateersman ever brought to trial in England. And yet the English Government repeatedly captured them, and put them in prison. That Act is just as strong as this, for the ninth section of our Act of 1790 is copied from it. I suppose the truth is, gentlemen, that the English Government felt the utter inapplicability of that law to a case of this kind. But, it is time that I should draw to a close. If these men have been brought into the position in which they now stand, much depends upon their political education--much depends upon the different views with which they have regarded this question from ourselves. It is the part of humanity to err. These men are the representatives of those who were once united with us in the gentle tie of brotherhood. That tie is now rent, and it may be years before the kindly and good feeling which once subsisted between the sections is restored. God grant that the hour may not be far distant! But, gentlemen, to treat these men with kindness; to treat them with humanity; to have respect for that great principle which underlies the bottom of our own Government--the right of resistance (and I mean here legal resistance, and not that revolutionary resistance which the Courts of justice do not adopt, and never have, and cannot sanction),--I say, to treat them with kindness and humanity will do more, in my honest belief, to knit together the two sections than a hundred battle-fields would do. Gentlemen, if there has been a division between you, remember that that division has sprung up from honest conviction. Can you think otherwise? Shoulder to shoulder with your fathers, in the days of the Revolution, their fathers fought the battles of freedom. Side by side with you, they trod the burning plains of Mexico, and encountered, in hostile strife, the foes of your country; and when the shock of battle was over, wrapped in the same honored flag, their dead and yours were borne to their final resting place. Is it for a light and a trifling cause that they have thus separated from you? In conclusion, gentlemen, let me beg you to meet this issue like men. No matter what the pressure upon you is, stand firm, do justice, and discharge these prisoners. In so doing, you will but do your duty, and God himself will sanction the act. But, gentlemen, if deaf to the promptings of reason, of justice, and of humanity--if, impelled by political rancor and passion--you condemn these prisoners, and execution follows condemnation, be assured that they will meet their fate like men; and that these manacled hands, which you have so often disported through your streets to excited crowds, will, "though impotent here," be lifted, and not in vain, to a far more august tribunal than this, before whose unerring decrees Courts and nations alike must bow with awful reverence. ARGUMENT OF MR. SULLIVAN. Mr. Sullivan, of Counsel for the prisoners, said: _May it please the Court: Gentlemen of the Jury_: This case has brought to my mind an interesting episode in ancient history, to which I beg permission to refer. For many years, the States of Greece had been engaged in bloody civil strife, which ended in the discomfiture of Athens. The Spartans and their allies assembled in council to consider and determine on her fate. Animated by resentful passion, the Thebans urged extreme and vindictive measures: that Athens should be razed to the ground, that the hand of the victorious States should fall heavy, and the Athenians be proclaimed exiles from their homes and outlaws in Greece. This proposal was applauded by the Corinthians and some others, but at that moment the deputy of the Phocians, who owed a debt of gratitude to the Athenians, sang in the assembly the mournful Choral Ode from the Electra of Sophocles, which moved all present in such a manner that they declared against the design. The poem had lifted them from the passion of the hour, and invoked the memories and ancestral glories of their common nation. The spirits of departed heroes now lent the inspiration of their presence, and yielding to it the members of that council and jury became great Greeks, as of old their fathers were. Marathon and Salamis, Platæa and Mycale, were pictured in the chambers of their souls, with Miltiades, Themistocles and Aristides for their counselors; and then, and not until then were they fit to render a verdict upon Athens, the loveliest sister of them all. And gentlemen, before we touch upon the details of this case, may we not contemplate some examples and sentiments which will enlighten and strengthen our spirits as guardians of the important interests committed to our hands this day? I am sure it will be agreeable to you and to seek them in the annals of our forefathers, "The great of old, The dead but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule Our spirits, from their urns." It may be that a voice like that of the Theban delegate, and like the voice of Corinth, is sounding in your ears, and appealing, by sophistries, and passion, and prejudices, to you to lay the hand of your Government with all possible severity upon those of her enemies who are now in her power and arraigned at her bar. But I entreat you to lift yourselves to that stand-point from which our ancestors, who founded this Union, who enacted the law upon which this prosecution is founded, would have regarded a case analagous to that of Captain Baker and the other defendants herein. What was the central and distinguishing idea of Government, blazing like another sun on the world, which our fathers established and made honorable? Was it not the imperishable doctrine of revolutionary right--and that without special regard to the names, and forms, and paths through which it might be sought? For many other causes they may have pledged their fortunes; there were many for which they periled their lives; but only for this is it recorded by them, "We pledge our sacred honor." It is their incommunicable glory that they consummated their purpose; and if for anything we have a place in history and a name in the world, it is that we have hitherto professed to be the special guardians of that principle among the nations. Will you rise with me to the dignity and affecting associations that surrounded and auspicated the struggle of our forefathers for this principle? Shall their memory be your guiding light, and their honorable purpose that upon which your thoughts will linger? Let us subject our hearts to their influence, for it will not mislead us. And, now, would our fathers with casuistry and technical constructions of a statute which they never meant should apply to such a case as the present, pronounce judgment of piracy and outlawry against any people who were making an effort, by the recognized forms of war, to assert revolutionary right and independent self-government for themselves? Never! And while the page on which our fathers' history is written is lustrous, it would be readorned with all the beauty of immortal splendor, if under it were written to-day, "That which the American people of 1776 claimed for themselves (the right to 'dissolve the political bands that bound them to another'), they possessed the greatness of soul, in 1861, to acknowledge against themselves, when another portion of the same race sought the same end. Beguiled by the almost omnipotent sophistries of interest and passion, they have nevertheless adhered in loyal faith to their time-honored doctrine of free government. In the faithful devotion of the Sons, the principles of the Fathers have been revindicated. Henceforth the nation must stand unapproachable in their greatness." Why I make these observations, gentlemen, is, that when the officers of the United States ask you to-day to find a verdict of guilty against these prisoners, they ask you to do that which, shape it and distort it and reason about it as they may, is asking you to lift an impious hand and strike a parricidal blow, conspicuous in the eyes of the world, against the ever sacred doctrine which our ancestors transmitted to us as their best legacy and a part of their own good name. Will you abandon it? Nay, rather cling to it, "As one withstood clasps a Christ upon the rood, In a spasm of deathly pain." I wish now, gentlemen, to ask you to go with me a moment to the deck of the _Perry_, when she captured the _Savannah_ and her crew. Let us recall the historical incidents of the capture, and the preparations for the trial, that we may introduce this case as justice requires. The _Savannah_ was captured on the Atlantic Ocean, about fifty-five miles from Charleston. The Commander of the _Perry_, who at that moment represented the United States Government, virtually said to the defendants herein, "We propose to try you as _citizens_ of the United States, who, by acting under a commission of letter of marque from the Confederate States, have become liable to the penalties of the United States law against piracy." The prisoners at once reply, "If that is true, take us into the nearest ports for trial. They are in South Carolina. You claim that she is a part of the United States, and that her citizens (_i.e._, ourselves) are amenable to your laws, and that the United States are sovereign there. Take us before one of your Courts in that State and try our case." "Oh! no, (say the United States) we cannot, with all our guns, land upon the shores of South Carolina." "Well, take us into the adjoining State, Georgia." "No; there is not an officer of the United States in Georgia. We cannot protect or sustain a single law in Georgia." "Well, take us to Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana or Texas--any place along that extended coast of over two thousand miles." "No, (say the United States) throughout all that coast, we confess to you, Capt. Baker, that we have not a Court, not an officer, we cannot execute a single law." "Well, take us north, into North Carolina, or into Virginia." The reply of the United States is still, "We have no place there. But, notwithstanding we admit that throughout that territory we have no practical existence; we have no Court; we have no civil functionaries; we have no protection for allegiance to us; we have not a citizen who acknowledges his allegiance to us; we admit that the people in those States have excluded our government and established another, which is in active and exclusive control--notwithstanding all this, you are still our citizens; and none, nor all of these facts, relieve you from the guilt and liability to punishment." The defendants are accordingly put in chains and brought to the District of New York for trial. The witnesses for the prosecution prove all the facts that are in the case, and we stand willing to be tried by them. They prove that the defendants did capture a brig on the high seas, which brig belonged to citizens of the United States. They prove, further, that the defendants at the time of the capture, and in the act, alleged that they did so, in the name and on behalf of the "Confederate States of America," and by authority derived from them, as an act of war between the two Governments. The authority and intent thus alleged for the capture, were they honestly, or only colorably alleged? Were they a justification of the act, so far as this prosecution is concerned, or not? _First_: Was it true that the capture of the Joseph was in the name of the Confederate States? The fact is, that when the Savannah approached and summoned the Joseph to surrender, the captain of the Savannah stated his purpose to be as I have repeated; he hoisted the Confederate flag; he wore the uniform and insignia of an officer of the Confederate States; he had, as the paper upon which his vessel was documented, a paper which has been produced before us, and which bears the broad seal of the "Confederate States of America," which authorizes him to take the Savannah as a private armed vessel, and, in the name and authority of the Confederate States, to "make war" against the United States and her vessels. The facts preclude any possible suggestion, that the defendants made any false pretence on the subject. The defendants had every adequate and sufficient warrant for what they did, if the "Confederate States of America" could give any authority which would constitute a defence, or if there was anything in the state of the contest between the United States and the Confederate States which constitutes _war_. But, the question will present itself, even if the defendants had this warrant from the Confederate States--Did they intend to, and did they in fact comply with its requirements, or were they abusing and transgressing its license, and engaged in freebooting? Did they intend to infract the regulations prescribed for their control by the Government of the Confederate States and imposed imperatively by the law of nations upon legitimate privateers, or did they intend to rob and steal? I think I may safely assert that the law officers of the United States will admit that the defendants intended in good faith to comply strictly and literally with all the conditions of their authority, prescribed by their own Government for their conduct, and also with the code of war in the law of nations. And not only was this their general intention, but as a fact, their conduct furnishes not a single deviation from these requirements. I read to the Court and Jury the Regulations published by the Confederates, for the privateers, and which were found to be on board of the Savannah at the time of her capture. They are similar, in all of their provisions, to those usually prescribed by civilized nations at war. In substance, they permitted the privateers to capture the vessels and cargoes belonging to the United States and her citizens, the capture to be made in the name of the Confederate States; they forbade, after capture, any disturbance or removal of the furniture, tackle, or cargoes of the captured prizes, and required immediate transmission, to a proper Court, of the prize, for adjudication. Did the defendants comply with these terms? The evidence is too plain that they did, to admit the slightest doubt. As soon as the Joseph was captured, a prize crew was put on board of her and she was sent to the care of an Admiralty Court in a home port, and her papers, books and crew were sent along, that the Court might have the fullest evidence of the ownership and character of the captured vessel, and be able to decide properly, whether or not she was liable to capture. If the defendants had any corrupt or furtive motives, or if they had been indifferent to their assumed obligations, would they have been so scrupulous in furnishing all the evidence to the Court? Did they destroy, alter or erase any evidence, or offer to do so? Did they evince the least desire to have any other than the full facts appear with regard to all their acts? Your answer, with mine, is No! And when the vessel arrived in port, observe what proceedings were instituted by the agent of the captors. He did not offer to sell the vessel and cargo at private sale; he did not offer to submit her disposition to the adjudication of any merely State Court; but caused her to be libeled in a Prize Court, constituted on precisely the same basis, and enforcing the identical rules of law with the United States Prize and Admiralty Court, which convenes in the room adjoining to that in which we now are. In fact, I am safe in saying that the decisions of our Courts here are controlling precedents in the Court wherein the brig Joseph was tried and condemned as a prize of war. The trial was in a Court known to and recognized by the law of nations. Now, gentlemen, I certainly need do no more than thus re-advert to the facts in evidence to remove from your minds the slightest suspicion that the defendants ever intended to violate the laws of war or the instructions received from their Government when they received their letter of marque. Perhaps, however, the question may arise,--whether the defendants did regard the commission under which they sailed as competent and adequate authority to justify their acts; or were they distrustful of its sufficiency? I do not admit, gentlemen, that that is a consideration to which in this trial we should recur, for your decision must rest on other grounds. But, I will not hesitate to say, that it is morally impossible for any man who has heard the evidence, and who is familiar with the course of events in the South, to believe that the defendants did not act in the fullest confidence that the authority of the Confederate States was ample and just authority for their undertaking. Even that one of the Savannah's crew who has become a witness for the prosecution, under a _nolle prosequi_, asserted on the stand, that at the time the Savannah was being fitted out for her cruise as a privateer, no one in the community of the South seemed to have any other idea but that the Government of the Confederate States was completely and legally established, and that every citizen of those States owed to it supreme allegiance. They believed that a letter of marque from the Confederate States constituted as good authority for privateering as the letters which were issued by our revolutionary fathers in '76, or as if they were issued by the United States. But, gentlemen, we are to proceed one step further, for under the theory presented by attorneys for the prosecution, they virtually admit that there was good faith on the part of the prisoners, and that they intended to comply with the restrictions imposed by the authority which they carried out of port with them. But they say that, inasmuch as the Confederate States were not a recognized Government, they could not confer any right upon the defendants to act as privateers, which could justify them in a plea to the pending charge. That is a proposition which enfolds the real issue in this trial. The difficulties in respect to its solution do not appear to me to be great, and I am satisfied that the more they are examined the less they will appear to candid minds. Had the Government of the Confederate States a right to issue letters of marque; or, in other words, to declare and wage war? The denial of that right, by the attorneys for the United States, involves them in inextricable embarrassments, and must expose the fallacies which lie at the bottom of the erroneous reasonings of the prosecution. In the first place, it is substantially an assertion, on the part of the United States, of the doctrine, "_Once a sovereign always a sovereign_,"--that the United States Government cannot--by revolution accomplished--by the Act of the States repealing their ordinances of union--by any act of the people establishing and sustaining a different Government--be divested of their former sovereignty. Or, in the language of Mr. Evarts, until there has been some formal acquiescence, some assent, some acknowledegment by the executive authority of the United States of the independence of the Confederate States, there can be no other plea, and no progress in any line of investigation, with a view to a defence of these defendants in a Court of justice of the United States. Upon that point, I beg to be understood as taking an issue as wide as it is possible for human minds to differ; and I am bold to assert that the doctrine cannot be maintained successfully in a capital case of this kind. It is not true that a recognition of the Confederate States by the United States executive, in a formal and distinct manner, is requisite to entitle them and their citizens to the rights belonging to a nation, in the eye of this Court. An acknowledgment of independence would be one way of proving the fact, but is far from being the only way. Proof of such an acknowledgment by a formal State paper would, of course, terminate this prosecution; but, in the absence of that fact, there may be a recurrence to others, which will suffice as well, and satisfy the Court and Jury that the Confederate States must, at least, to a certain extent, be regarded as a nation, entitled to the usual consideration belonging to a nation at war. To show how unreasonable the proposition is, and to illustrate how impossible it is to accept it, let me submit a supposition: If, for fifty years to come, the United States shall not re-establish her sovereignty and restore her laws and power over the seceded States, and the latter shall continue to maintain an open and exclusive Government; and if the United States shall still refuse to recognize the new Government by formal documentary record, would the refusal then warrant the United States in capturing Confederate armies of a new generation, and punishing them for treason and piracy? And, if so fifty years hence, would it continue twice or thrice fifty years? Or what is the limit? The difficulties in the answer can be avoided in only one way, and that is, to conclude that the acknowledgment of the independence of the revolutionizing section is of no consequence at all, for all the purposes of this case, provided the fact of independence and separate Government really exists, and is proven. A _de facto_ Government, merely, must be allowed by every sound jurist to possess in itself, for the time being, all the attributes and functions of a Government _de jure_. It may properly claim for itself, and the citizen may rightfully render to it, allegiance and obedience, as if the Government rested on an undisputed basis. This is a rule never denied in the law of nations. History has scarcely a page without its record of revolution and dynastic struggle to illustrate this rule. The official acts of a _de facto_ Government affecting personal rights, title to property, the administration of justice, the organization of its society, and imposing duties on the citizens, receive that consideration which belongs to acts of long-established Governments. The successor does not pronounce the laws of the predecessor null. He simply repeals them, with a clause protecting all vested rights. This principle is correct, even in case of an usurping monarch; but how much more, if it shall appear that the people who are to be governed, have, for themselves, with mutual concurrence and choice, cast off the former Government, and organized a new one, avowing to the world their purpose to maintain it, and at the same time yielding to it the obedience which it requires? When that state of facts shall occur, and a people sufficiently numerous to enable them to fulfill the duties of a nation, and with a territory sufficiently compact to enable its Government to execute its functions without inconvenience to the world, shall evince its purpose and a fair assurance of its ability to maintain an independent Government, it will be a surprise, indeed, to hear, in this country, that such a people are still liable to felons' punishment and pirates' doom. It is no longer a case of insurrection or turbulent violence. It has ceased to be a tumult or a riot. The war between the original Government and the revolutionary Government may still continue, but no longer can it, with propriety, be said that the army is merely the _posse comitatus_, dispersing and arresting offenders against the law. The conflicting parties must, at least for the time, be deemed two distinct people--two different nations. The evidence in this case and the public history of the day, show that such is the condition of the United States and the Confederate States. In addition thereto, the United States have, by repeated acts, indicated that they so regarded the fact. The principal witness for the prosecution testified that he repeatedly saw the officers of the United States negotiating, through flags of truce, with the officers of the Confederate States; and that always the flag of truce from the Confederate States was displayed with their Government flag, but that fact never prevented the negotiation. This was well known to our Government. We have in evidence, also, the agreement of capitulation at the surrender of the Forts at Hatteras Inlet. The representative of the United States signed that official document and accepted it for his Government, with the signature of Commander Barron to it as "commanding the forces of the Confederate States," etc. That was a virtual recognition that there is such a Government, _de facto_. A few days since our Government published another general order, or document, directing that a certain number of prisoners, captured in arms against the United States, and when fighting under regular enlistment the army of the Confederate States, should be released as "prisoners of war," because the Confederate States had released a similar number. That was an exchange of prisoners of "war," and another virtual acknowledgment that the Confederate States constitute a Government. Remember that these "prisoners of war" had, if they were citizens of the United States, violated the law in the first section of the statute under the eighth and succeeding sections of which this prosecution is founded. One class were fighting on land against the United States, and the penalty is death by the statute. The defendants here fought on water; and there is the same penalty, if either is liable to the penalties of the statute. Both classes fought under the same flag and received their commission from the same Government. If one class are "prisoners of war" in the opinion of the Government of the United States, so must the other be. It is impossible to recede from the consequences of the virtual recognition of belligerent rights involved in the exchange of these captives, under the chosen designation of "prisoners of war." How, then, doth the dignity of our Government suffer by this prosecution! It evinces an indecision, a caprice, a want of consistency and character on the part of the Government. It is an unfortunate, and I hope an unpremeditated one. The good name of the nation is involved, unnecessarily, by the mere fact of arraignment of these defendants under an indictment; but your verdict of "not guilty" may yet save it. The Jury will and must accept the construction which the Government has in fact put on the law, viz., that it does not apply, and was never intended to apply, to such a state of affairs as the present revolution has brought about. Let me illustrate further the absence of all reason to support the proposition that, until a formal acknowledgment of the existence of the Confederate States by the United States, the official acts of the former cannot be regarded as having any validity, or as affording protection to their citizens. Go beyond our own borders, to countries where the sovereign is an individual, with fixed hereditary right to reign, and where the doctrine established is that which I repudiate, "Once a sovereign, always a sovereign," and that the sovereign rules by divine right and cannot innocently be superseded. If the doctrine affirmed in this case be true, that to give validity to the acts of a Government established by a revolution the preceding Government must have recognized its existence, then the world will be sadly at fault. Show me where the King of Naples has acknowledged the kingship of Victor Emanuel? Show me where the sovereigns of Parma and Modena and Tuscany have consented to the establishment of the new government in their territory? But the people have voted in the new Government, and they maintain it; and Victor Emanuel is, in spite of King Bomba, _de facto_, King of Naples; and Victor's commissions to his army and navy, and his letters of marque, will be recognized in every court in every enlightened nation. Even in Italy, the Courts of Justice would, when the case arose that required it, enforce the same regard to the existing Government as if the former sovereigns had formally relinquished their claims to sovereignty. Again, I say, the act of the people is entitled to more weight in an inquiry, "what is the Government?" than the seal and recognition of the former sovereign. As Americans, imbued with correct opinions upon the relation of the governed to the governing, your hearts reject the theory propounded by this prosecution, and concur with me. To vindicate your opinion you will find the defendants herein "not guilty." Come to our own recent history. Texas was one of the States of the Union which is called Mexico. Texas seceded from that Union. She declared her independence, and during a struggle of arms became a _de facto_ Government. Mexico would not recognize her independence, and continued her intention to restore her to the old Union. The United States, however, recognized the right of Texas to her independence, and invited her to enter into our Union, and did incorporate her in that Union in defiance of the doctrine of Mexico, "once a sovereign, always a sovereign until independence shall be acknowledged." We then denounced that doctrine, but now we seem ready to embrace its odious sentiments. We placed our declaration on record before the world, that Texas, by her act alone, unauthorized and unrecognized by the central Government of Mexico, had become a sovereign and independent State, invested with full power to dispose of her territory and the allegiance of her citizens, and, as a sovereign State, to enter into compacts with other States. Have not the Courts of the United States sanctioned that proceeding? Suppose that Hungary, or Venice, or Ireland shall separate from their present empires and establish Governments for themselves, what will be our position? Let your verdict in this case determine. It is, perhaps, well, now, to recur to the law of nations. That is a part of the common law of England and of this country. We may claim in this Court the benefit of its enlightened and humane provisions, as if they were embodied in our statutes. There are circumstances in the history of every nation, when the law of nations supervenes upon the statutes and controls their literal interpretation. If the case becomes one to which the law of nations is applicable, it thereby is removed from the pale of the statute. Such is the present case. In the seceded States a Government has been established. It has been hitherto maintained by force, it is true, as against the United States, but by consent of the people at home; and both sides have taken up arms, and large armies now stand arrayed against each other, in support of their respective Governments. It is all-important to the cause of justice, and to the honor of the United States, to see that in their official acts, in their treatment of prisoners, either of the army or captured privateers, they conform to the rules recognized as binding, under similar circumstances, by civilized and Christian nations, and sanctioned by the authoritative publicists of the world. I will recall your attention to extracts from Vattel, and with the firmest confidence that they will vindicate my views, that the defendants are entitled to be held as prisoners of war, and not as criminals awaiting trial: Vattel, Book III., chapter 18, sec. 292: "When a party is formed in a State, which no longer obeys the sovereign, and is of strength sufficient to make a head against him, or when, in a Republic, the nation is divided into two opposite factions, and both sides take arms, this is called a _civil war_. Some confine this term only to a just insurrection of subjects against an unjust sovereign, to distinguish this lawful resistance from _rebellion_, which is an open and unjust resistance; but what appellation will they give to a war in a Republic torn by two factions, or, in a Monarchy, between two competitors for a crown? Use appropriates the term of civil war to every war between the members of one and the same political society." Subsequent clause in same section: "Therefore, whenever a numerous party thinks it has a right to resist the sovereign, and finds itself able to declare that opinion, sword in hand, the war is to be carried on between them in the same manner as between two different nations; and they are to leave open the same means for preventing enormous violences and restoring peace." Last clause in section 295: "But when a nation becomes divided into two parties absolutely independent and no longer acknowledging a common superior, the State is dissolved, and the war betwixt the two parties, in every respect, is the same with that in a public war between two different nations. Whether a Republic be torn into two factious parties, each pretending to form the body of the State, or a Kingdom be divided betwixt two competitors to the Crown, the nation is thus severed into two parties, who will mutually term each other rebels. Thus there are two bodies pretending to be absolutely independent, and who having no judge, they decide the quarrel by arms, like two different nations. The obligation of observing the common laws is therefore absolute, indispensable to both parties, and the same which the law of nature obliges all nations to observe between State and State." "If it be between part of the citizens, on one side, and the sovereign, with those who continue in obedience to him, on the other, it is sufficient that the malcontents have some reasons for taking arms, to give this disturbance the name of _civil war_, and not that of _rebellion_. This last term is applied only to such an insurrection against lawful authority as is void of all appearance of justice. The sovereign, indeed, never fails to term all subjects rebels openly resisting him; but when these become of strength sufficient to oppose him, so that he finds himself compelled to make war regularly on them, he must be contented with the term of civil war." Clause of section 293: "A civil war breaks the bands of society and government, or at least it suspends their force and effect. It produces in the nation two independent parties, considering each other as enemies, and acknowledging no common judge. Therefore, of necessity, these two parties must, at least for a time, be considered as forming two separate bodies--two distinct people. Though one of them may be in the wrong in breaking up the continuity of the State--to rise against lawful authority--they are not the less divided in fact. Besides, who shall judge them? On earth they have no common superior. Thus they are in the case of two nations who, having dispute which they cannot adjust, are compelled to decide it by force of arms." First clause in sec. 294: "Things being thus situated, it is evident that the common laws of war, those maxims of humanity, moderation and probity which we have before enumerated and recommended, are, in civil wars, to be observed on both sides. The same reasons on which the obligation between State and State is founded, render them even more necessary in the unhappy circumstance when two incensed parties are destroying their common country. Should the sovereign conceive he has a right to hang up his prisoners as rebels, the opposite party will make reprisals; if he does not religiously observe the capitulations and all the conventions made with his enemies, they will no longer rely on his word; should he burn and destroy, they will follow his example; the war will become cruel and horrid; its calamities will increase on the nation." Remember you are an American Jury; that your fathers were revolutionists; that they judged for themselves what Government they would have, and they did not hesitate to break off from their mother Government, even though there were penalties of statutes with which they were threatened. And remember, also, that from the beginning of your fathers' revolution, they claimed that they were not liable to the treatment of offenders against British statutes, but that the Colonies were a nation, and entitled to belligerent rights--one of which was, that if any of their army or navy fell into the hands of the British army, they should be held as prisoners of war. Your fathers never admitted that the _continental army_ were liable to punishment with the _halter_, if taken prisoners. To be sure, the statute of Great Britain, literally construed, so provided, but the law of nations had supervened, and rendered that statute no longer applicable. Vindicate your respect for your fathers' claims, by extending the same immunities to the prisoners at the bar, whose situation is analogous to that of our fathers. At the commencement of the Revolution, preceding the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the Colonies became each a separate sovereignty. That became the _status_, with some, without documentary declaration to that effect; but most of them have left on record positive enunciations of their assumption of independence and sovereignty as States, unconnected with the proceedings of any other State.[4] They entered into a Confederation as independent States, declaring, however, distinctly, in a separate article, that each State retained its own sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power of jurisdiction and right not expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled. And at the close of the war, when the treaty of peace was made, recognizing the independence of the Colonies, each State was named individually. I have never been able to discover when and where, since that period, any State has surrendered its sovereignty, or deprived itself of its right to act as a sovereign. The Constitution suspends the exercise of some of the functions of sovereignty by the States, but it does not deprive them of their power to maintain their rights as sovereigns, when and how they shall think best, if that Constitution shall, in their judgment, be broken or perverted as a delegated trust of power. [4] An interesting fact, not published previously, I believe, has been communicated to the public recently by Mr. Dawson, of New York, a historical student and writer of great research and culture. He has found an original minute in the records of the General Court of Massachusetts, whereby, as early as May 1st, 1776, the sovereignty and independence of that _Colony_ was declared formally. Listen, therefore, to the better voices whispering to each heart. Remember, the honor and consistency of the United States are involved in this case. By a conviction of the defendants, you condemn the Revolution of your ancestors; you sustain the theories of the worst courtiers who surrounded George III. in his war to put down the rebellion; you will appear to the world as stigmatizing revolutionists with the names of outlaws and pirates, which is the phraseology applied to them by Austria and Russia; you will violate the law of nations; you will appear to be merely wreaking vengeance, and not making legitimate war; you will henceforth preclude your nation from offering a word of sympathy to people abroad who may be struggling for their independence, and who have heretofore always turned their hearts to you. You can never--having punished your revolutionists on the gallows--send an invitation to the unfortunate champions of independent Government in the old world. Kossuth will reply: The American maxim is that of Francis Joseph, and of Marshal Haynau. You cannot say "Godspeed!" to Ireland, if she shall secede. No! as you love the honor of your country, and her place among nations, refuse to pronounce these men pirates. Tell your Government to wage manly, open, chivalric war on the field and ocean, and thus or not at all; that dishonor is worse even than disunion. Stain not your country's hand with blood. If I were your enemy, I would wish no worse for your names, than to record your verdict against these prisoners. Leave no such record against your country in her annals; and when the passions of the hour shall have subsided, your verdict of acquittal of Thomas H. Baker and the other defendants herein, will be recalled by you with satisfaction, and will receive the approval of your countrymen. ARGUMENT OF MR. DAVEGA. _May it please your Honors: Gentlemen of the Jury_: On the 25th of June last, when the startling intelligence was announced in our daily papers of the capture of the so-called _Pirates of the Savannah_, our community was thrown into a _furore_ of excitement. Every one was anxious to get a glimpse of the "monsters of the deep," as they were carried manacled through our streets. Some expected to see in Captain Baker a "counterfeit presentment" of the notorious Captain Kidd; others expected to trace resemblances in Harleston and Passalaigue to Hicks and Jackalow; but what was their surprise when they discovered, instead of _fiends_ in human shape, gentlemen of character, intelligence, refinement, and education! Captain Baker is a native of the Quaker City, Harleston and Passalaigue of the State of South Carolina,--all occupying the best positions in society, and respectably connected. The father of Harleston was educated in one of our Northern universities, and, by a strange coincidence, one of his classmates was no less a person than the venerable and distinguished counsel who now appears in behalf of his unfortunate son. (The counsel directed his eyes to Mr. Lord.) Another strange coincidence in the case is, that twelve men are sitting in judgment upon the lives of twelve men, and these men "enemies of the country, enemies of war," and as such are entitled to the rights of prisoners of war. They do not belong to your jurisdiction; their custody belongs exclusively to the military and not the civil power. Instead of being incarcerated as felons, in the Tombs, they should have been imprisoned in Fort Lafayette, as prisoners of war. They are your enemies to-day; they were your friends yesterday. It is no uncommon occurrence that when two men engage in a quarrel, ending in a fierce combat, they are afterwards better friends than they were before; the vanquished magnanimously acknowledging the superiority of the victor, and the victor in return receiving him kindly. And so, gentlemen, I hope the day is not far distant when the Stars and Stripes will float in the breeze upon every house-top and every hill-top throughout the length and breadth of our glorious Republic: then shall we establish the great principle, for which our forefathers laid down "their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor," that this is a Government of consent, and not of force; and "that free governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." In this case some of the gravest and most complicated questions of political and international jurisprudence are involved. The learned counsel who have preceded me have so fully and ably argued the political questions involved, that it would be the work of supererogation for me to go over them; but in this connection it is not inappropriate to refer to the fact that political opinions instilled into the minds of the prisoners may have influenced their conduct. They were indoctrinated with the principles of political leaders who advocated States' Rights, Nullification, and Secession; and without undertaking to justify or approve the soundness or correctness of their views, it is enough for me to show that the prisoners at the bar were actuated by these principles. The name of John C. Calhoun was _once_ dear to every American; his fame is now sectional. Every Southerner believes implicitly in his doctrines; his very name causes their bosoms to swell with emotions of pride; his works are political text books in the schools. It has been facetiously said that when Mr. Calhoun took a pinch of snuff, the whole State of South Carolina sneezed. I do not mean to treat this case with levity, but merely intend to show the sympathy that existed between Mr. Calhoun and his constituents. Then what is the "_head and front of their offending_"? They conscientiously believed that _allegiance_ was due to their State, and she in return owed them protection; and under such convictions enlisted in her behalf. If they have erred, it was from mistaken or false notions of patriotism, and not from criminality. It is the _intent_ that constitutes the crime. And this is the only just rule that should obtain in _human_ as well as _divine_ tribunals. The prisoners at the bar stand charged with the offence of piracy. I contend that they do not come within the intention and purview of the statute against piracy. To understand and properly interpret a law, we must look to the intention of the legislator, and the motives and causes which give rise to the enactment of the law. In the construction of a will, the intention of the testator is to be ascertained; and the same rules apply in the just interpretation of every law. These laws were enacted at a period when peace and prosperity smiled upon this country. If they had been passed during Nullification in 1832, when the disruption of the Union was threatened, then we might reasonably infer that they were intended to apply to the existing state of affairs; so that the irresistible conclusion is, that they were applicable only to a state of peace, and not to a state of war. The question then arises, Does a state of war exist? The learned counsel for the prosecution (Mr. Evarts), in an able and elaborate argument for the Government, when this question arose in the trial of prize causes, in the other part of this Court (when it was the interest of the Government to assume that position), demonstrated clearly, to my mind, that a state of war did exist, and confirmed his views by citations from the best authorities on international law. Vattel, who ranks among the first of authors, and whose work on the law of nations is recognized by every enlightened jurist throughout the civilized world, defines "war to be that state, where a nation prosecutes its rights by force." That this is a nation no one will doubt; that it is prosecuting its rights can not be denied; and no one will doubt that it is using force upon a stupendous scale--requiring four hundred millions of dollars, and 500,000 men, with the probability of additional requisitions of men and treasure for a successful termination of this fratricidal war. It may be said that this is a civil war. Admitting it to be so, the only distinction between this and an international war is, that the former is an intestinal war between the people, where the Republic is divided into two factions, and the latter is where two nations are opposed to each other. All the rules of civilized war, therefore, should govern equally, and it is to soften and mitigate the horrors of civil war that an exchange of prisoners is recognized. I have endeavored to show that the prisoners at the bar are not guilty of piracy, as defined by the Acts of Congress; and if they are not guilty of municipal piracy, they are certainly not guilty of piracy by the law of nations. What is a pirate? He is defined to be an enemy of the human race--a common sea rover, without any fixed place of residence, who acknowledges no sovereign, no law, and supports himself by pillage and depredation. Do the prisoners come within the meaning of this definition? Did they not encounter a British vessel upon the high seas? Could they not have captured her? But, no, gentlemen of the Jury, as soon as they ascertained that she belonged to a nation in amity with theirs, they allowed her to depart in peace. With the permission of the Court, I would beg leave to refer to an authority entitled to high respect--the works of Sir Leoline Jenkins, 4th Institutes, p. 154, where this principle is laid down: "If the subjects of different States commit robbery upon each other upon the high seas, if their respective States be in amity, it is piracy; if at enmity, it is not, for it is a general rule that enemies never can commit piracy on each other, their depredations being deemed mere acts of hostility." The prisoners were acting in good faith, by virtue of a commission under the seal of the Confederate States. It is said, by the learned counsel for the prosecution, that the prisoners were acting under the authority of a person named Jefferson Davis. This does so appear nominally, but it is virtually and actually a commission issuing from eight millions of people, who recognize and sanction it under the hand of their President and the seal of their Government--each one being _particeps criminis_, and each one being amenable to the laws of the country, and liable to the penalties of treason and piracy, if evenhanded justice is to be meted out. I have not yet been able to perceive the distinction between this offence as committed upon sea or land, except that it is attended with more danger. Why, then, have not the prisoners captured by our armies, who are now in Fortress Monroe and Fort Lafayette, been brought to the bar of justice? Because the Government has come to the conclusion that it would be unwise, impolitic, and impracticable; our tribunals would be inadequate in the administration of the laws. But justice should be equal. One of the learned Judges who charged the Jury in the case of the privateers who were tried in Philadelphia, has undertaken to establish the doctrine that rebellion is wrong, and that it is only justifiable when it acquires the form of a successful revolution. To analyze this doctrine, it means no more nor less than this: that that which was originally wrong, success makes right. To carry out the metaphor, a certain insect in its chrysalis state is the loathsome and detestable caterpillar, but when it assumes the form and variegated hues of the butterfly, it is glorious and beautiful to behold. With equal force of reason it might be said, that if the Father of his country had been unsuccessful in consummating our independence, his name, instead of going down to posterity in glory and honor, would have descended in infamy and disgrace to all succeeding generations. Such notions are unworthy of refined and enlightened civilization. It was intimated by the learned District Attorney, in his opening remarks, that in the event of a conviction, the President would exercise the pardoning prerogative. Gentlemen, this is a delusion. I do not mean to insinuate that the learned counsel would willfully mislead you; for I am bound to admit, in all becoming candor, that the prosecution have acted with fairness and magnanimity highly creditable, and not in any manner inconsistent with the _performance of their arduous_ and responsible duties; but I do say that it should not have the slightest weight in your deliberations upon the important questions involved in this case. Is this a mere form--a farce? is your time, and the valuable time of the Court, to be consumed in the investigation of a long and tedious case like the present as a mere pastime? It is a reflection upon the good sense and intelligence of a Jury, for the Executive to exercise the pardoning power, except in special cases, where new evidence is discovered after conviction which may go to establish the innocence of the party so convicted. Gentlemen of the Jury, you have a duty to perform that requires almost superhuman nerve and moral courage--requiring more prowess than to face the cannon's mouth. You have it in your power to prove to the nation, and to the whole civilized world, that in the administration of the criminal laws of the country, in a case involving the rights and interests of this Republic, before a Jury of New York citizens, that "_justice can triumph over passion, and reason prevail over prejudice_." If there is no other feeling which can influence your judgment, if you have no sympathy in common with these men, there is a sympathy you should have--a sympathy for those brave and valiant spirits who fought so nobly for the Union, the Constitution, and the enforcement of the laws, and who are now prisoners of war in the power of the enemy; and it would be expecting too much clemency from the hands of the enemy to suppose that they would allow the sacrifice of these men to go unavenged. I repeat, you have a solemn duty to perform, and public opinion should not have the slightest influence upon your mind. You are to be governed by a "higher law;" a law based upon the sacred precepts of Holy Writ--its teachings emanating from God himself; and therein you are commanded to observe that golden rule, "Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you." ARGUMENT OF JAMES T. BRADY, ESQ. _Mr. Brady_ inquired of Mr. Evarts for what purpose he intended to refer to the statute against treason. _Mr. Evarts_: Not in any other light than I have already referred to the doctrine of treason, to wit, that a party cannot be shielded from indictment for the crime of piracy by showing a warrant or assumed authority for acts which made out that his crime was treason; that showing a treasonable combination did not make out a warrant or authority for that which was piracy or murder. _Mr. Brady_ then proceeded to address the Jury on behalf of the accused: _May it please the Court: Gentlemen of the Jury_: I feel quite certain that all of you are much satisfied to find that this important trial is rapidly drawing to a close; and I think it would be unbecoming in me, as one of the counsel for the accused, to proceed a step farther in my address to you without acknowledging to the Court the gratitude which we feel for their kindness in hearing so largely discussed the grave legal questions involved in this controversy; to the Jury, for their unvarying patience throughout the investigation; and to our learned opponents, for the frank and open manner in which the prosecution has been conducted. Our fellow-citizens at the South--certainly that portion of them who cherish affection for this part of the Union--will find in the course of this trial most satisfactory evidence that respect for law, freedom of speech, freedom of discussion, liberty of opinion, and the rights of all our countrymen, here exist to the fullest extent. All of us have heretofore been connected with interesting and exciting trials. I am warranted in saying that, considering the period at which this trial has occured, and all the facts and circumstances attending it, the citizens of New York have reason to be proud that such a trial could proceed without one word of acerbity, without one expression of angry feeling, or one improper exhibition of popular sentiment. At the same time, as an American citizen, loyal to the Union,--one who has never recognized as his country any other than the United States of America; who has known and loved his country by that name, and will so continue to know and love it to the end of his existence,--I deeply regret that, for any purpose of public policy, it has been deemed judicious to try any of these "piratical" cases, as they are denominated, at this particular juncture. I am not to assume that good reasons for such a proceeding have not in some quarters been supposed to exist; and I certainly have no right to complain of the officers of the law, charged with a high duty, who bring to trial, in the usual course, persons charged with crime. I have not a word to say against my friend the District Attorney, for whom I feel a respect I am happy to express; nor against his learned associate, Mr. Evarts, for whom I have high regard; nor our brother Blatchford, who always performs the largest amount of labor with the smallest amount of ostentation. Still I regret the occurrence of this trial at a time when war agitates our country; for, apart from all theories of publicists, all opinions of lawyers, for you or me to say that there is not a war raging between two contending forces within our territory, is to insult the common sense of mankind. A war carried on for what? What is to be its end, gentlemen of the Jury? This war to which you, like myself, and all classes and all denominations of the North have given a cheerful and vigorous support--pouring out treasure and blood as freely as water--what is it for? Not to look at the result which must come out of it is folly; and it is the folly that pervades the whole American people. Suppose it were now announced that the entire Southern forces had fled in precipitate retreat before our advancing hosts, and that the American flag waved over every inch of American soil--what then? Are we fighting to subjugate the South in the sense in which an emperor would make war upon a rebellious province? Is that the theory? Are we fighting to compel the seceded States to remain in the Union against their will? And do we suppose such a thing practicable? Are we fighting simply to regain the property of the Federal Government of which we have been despoiled in the Southern States? Or are we fighting with a covert and secret intention, such as I understand to have been suggested by an eloquent and popular divine, in a recent address to a large public audience, some of them, like himself, from the Bay State, "that Massachusetts understands very well what she is fighting for"? Is it to effect the abolition of slavery all over the territory of the United States? I will do the Administration the justice to say that, so far as it has given the country any statement of its design in prosecuting the war, it has repelled any such object as negro emancipation. Who can justify the absurd aspect presented by us before the enlightened nations of the Old World, when they find one commander in our army treating slaves as contraband of war; another declaring that they belong to their masters, to whom he returns them; and another treating them all as free. I am an American, and feel the strongest attachment to my country, growing out of affection and duty; but I cannot see that we present before the world, in carrying on this war, anything like a distinct and palpable theory. But I tell you, and I stand upon that prophecy, as embodying all the little intelligence I possess, that if it be a war for any purposes of mere subjugation--that if it be for the purpose of establishing a dictatorship, or designedly waged for the emancipation of all the slaves, our people never will sustain it at the North. (Applause, which was checked by the Court.) You will see presently, gentlemen, why I have deemed it necessary, at the very outset, to speak thus of what I call a state of civil war,--a condition which, if the learned Judges on the bench, in their charge to you, shall, as matter of law, declare to have existed, then this commission, under which the acts charged in the indictment were perpetrated, forms an absolute legal protection to the accused. Whether such a war exists, is one of the great questions with which the Jury have to deal; and I understand that the Jury _have_ to deal with this case--that they are not mere _automata_--that we have not had twelve men sitting in the jury-box for several days as puppets. The great question for this Jury, absorbing all others, is, Have the twelve men named in the indictment, or has either of them, committed piracy, and thus incurred the penalty of death? It is a very interesting inquiry, gentlemen,--interesting in its historical, national, judicial, and political aspects,--interesting, too, because of the character and description of the accused. We discover that eight of them are foreigners, who have never been naturalized, and do not judicially come under the designation of citizens of the United States. Four of them are what we call natural-born citizens--two from the State of South Carolina, one from North Carolina, and one from Philadelphia. Two of them are in very feeble health; and I am sorry to say, some are not yet of middle age--some quite young, including Passalaigue, who has not yet attained his eighteenth year. I know my fellow-citizens of New York quite well enough to be quite sure that even if there had been any exhibition of popular prejudice, or feeling, or fury, with a view to disturb their judgments in the jury-box, the sympathy that arises properly in every well-constituted heart and mind, in favor of the accused, their relatives and friends, would overcome any such wrong impulse as might be directed to deprive them of that fair trial which, up to this point, they have had, and which, to the end, I know they will have. Are they pirates and robbers? Have they incurred the penalty of death? Gentlemen, it is a little curious, that during the present reign of Victoria, a statute has been passed in England softening the rigor of the punishment for piracy, and subjecting the person found guilty to transportation, instead of execution, unless arms have been used in the spoliation, or some act done aggravating the offence. I have used the term "pirate," and the term "robber." There is another which, strangely enough, was employed by a Judge of the Vice Admiralty Court in South Carolina, in 1718, who calls these pirates and robbers, as we designate them, "sea thieves;" and I am very glad to find that phrase, because the words robber and pirate have fallen into mere terms of opprobrium; while the word "thief" has a significance and force understood by every man. You know what you thought a "thief" to be, when a boy, and how you despised him; and you are to look at each prisoner mentioned in this indictment, and say, on your consciences as men, in view of the facts and of the law, as expounded by the learned Court, do you consider that the word "thief" can be applied to any one of the men whom I have the honor to assist in defending? That is the great practical question which you are to decide. [Here Mr. Brady briefly alluded to the question of jurisdiction as already discussed fully enough, and made some observations on the Hicks case, which had been referred to. He then continued as follows:] This indictment charges two kinds of offence: Piracy, as that crime existed by the _law of nations_,--which law may be said to have been incorporated into the jurisprudence of the United States,--and Piracy _under the ninth section of the Act of 1790_. Piracy by the law of nations is defined by Wheaton, the great American commentator on international law, on page 184 of his treatise on that subject. "_Piracy_" says that eminent gentleman, who was an ornament to the country which gave him birth, and an honor to my profession, "_Piracy is defined by the text writers, to be the offence of depredating on the seas_ WITHOUT BEING AUTHORIZED BY ANY SOVEREIGN STATE, _or with commissions from_ DIFFERENT SOVEREIGNS _at war with_ EACH OTHER." The last part of the definition you need not trouble yourselves about as I only read it so as not to quibble the text. I will read the passage without the latter part. "_Piracy is defined to be the offence of depredating on the seas_ WITHOUT BEING AUTHORIZED BY ANY SOVEREIGN STATE." Other definitions will hereafter be suggested. This leads me to remark upon certain judicial proceedings in Philadelphia against men found on board the Southern privateer "Jefferson Davis," and who were convicted of piracy for having seized and sent away as a prize the "Enchantress." Now my way of dealing with juries is to act with them while in the jury box as if they were out of it. I never imitate that bird referred to by the gentleman who preceded me--the ostrich, which supposes that when he conceals his head his whole person is hidden from view. I know, and every gentleman present knows, that a jury in the city of Philadelphia has convicted the men arrested on the "Jefferson Davis," of piracy. We are a nation certainly distinguished for three things--for newspapers, politics, and tobacco. I do not know that the Americans could present their social individualities by any better signs. Everybody reads the papers, and everybody has a paper given him to read. The hackman waiting for his fare consumes his leisure time perusing the paper. The apple-woman at her stall reads the paper. At the breakfast table, the dinner table, and the supper table, the paper is daily read. I sometimes take my meals at Delmonico's, and have there observed a gentleman who, while refreshing himself with a hasty meal, takes up the newspaper, places it against the castor, and eats, drinks and reads all at the same time. Gentlemen, I say that a people so addicted to newspapers must have ascertained that the men in Philadelphia were convicted; and how the jury could have done otherwise upon the charge of Justices Grier and Cadwalader I am incapable of perceiving. I have the pleasure of knowing both those eminent Judges. My acquaintance with Judge Cadwalader is slight, it is true, but of sufficient standing to ensure him the greatest respect for his learning and character. With Judge Grier the acquaintance is of longer duration; and as he has always extended to me in professional occupations before him courtesies which men never forget, I cannot but speak of him with affection. I have nevertheless something to say about the law laid down by those Judges on that case. No question on the merits was left to the jury, as I understand the instructions. The jurymen were told that _if they believed the testimony, then the defendants were guilty of piracy_. Now, as to the aspect of this case in view of piracy by the law of nations, the question for the jury is, in the first place, _Did these defendants, in the act of capturing the "Joseph," take her by force, or by putting the captain of her in fear_, WITH THE INTENT TO STEAL HER? That is the question as presented by the indictment, and in order to convict under either of the first five counts, the jury must be satisfied, beyond all reasonable doubt, _that in attacking the "Joseph" the defendants were actuated_ as described in the indictment, from which I read the allegation that they, "with _force_ and _arms, piratically, feloniously, and violently_, put the persons on board in _personal fear and danger of their lives_, and in seizing the vessel did, as aforesaid, _seize_, ROB, STEAL and carry her away." In this the indictment follows the law. Another question of fact, in the other aspect of the case, under the ninth section of the act of 1790, will be, substantially, _whether the existence of a civil war is shown_. That involves inquiry into the existence of the Confederate States as a _de facto_ Government or as a _de jure_ Government. The _animus furandi_, so often mentioned in this case, means nothing but the intent to _steal_. The existence of that intent must be found in the evidence, before these men can be called pirates, robbers, or thieves; and whether such intent did or did not exist, is a question entirely for you. To convict under the ninth section of the Act of 1790, the prosecution must prove that the defendants, being at the time of such offence _citizens of the United States of America_, did something which by that Act is prohibited. You will bear in mind that the Act of 1790, in its ninth section, has no relation except to American-born citizens, and as to that part of the indictment the eight foreigners charged are entirely relieved from responsibility. Well, on page 104, 5 Wheaton, in the case of _The United States_ vs. _Smith_, the Jury found a special verdict, which I will read to illustrate what is piracy and what is not piracy. [Here Mr. Brady commented on the case referred to, saying, amongst other things,--] According to the evidence in the case of Smith, the defendants were clearly pirates. They had no commission from any Government or Governor, and were mere mutineers, who had seized a vessel illegally, and then proceeded to seize others without any pretence or show of authority, but with felonious intent. For these acts they were justly convicted. Now, we say, that this felonious intent as charged against these defendants, must be proved. But what say my learned friends opposed? Why (in effect), that it need not be proved to a Jury by any evidence, but must be _inferred_, as a matter of law, or by the Jury first, from the presumption that every man knows the law; and these men, in this view, are pirates--though they _honestly believed that there was a valid Government called the Confederate States_, and that they _had a right to act under it_--because they _ought_ to have known the law; _ought_ to have known that, although the Confederate States had associated for the purpose of forming, yet they had not _completed_ a Government; _ought_ to have known that, though Baker had a commission signed by Jefferson Davis, the so-called President of the Confederate States, under which he was authorized to act as a privateer, yet the law did not recognize the commission. There is, indeed, a rule of law, said to be essential to the existence of society, that all men must be taken to know the law, except, I might add, lawyers and judges, who seldom agree upon any proposition until they must. The whole judicial system is founded upon the theory that judges will err about the law, and thus we have the Courts of review to correct judicial mistakes and to establish permanent principles. Yet it is true that every man is presumed to know the law; and the native of Manilla (one of the parties here charged), _Loo Foo_, or whatever his name may be, who does not, probably, understand what he is here for, is presumed to know the law as well as one of us. If he did not know it better, considering the differences between us, he might not be entitled to rate high as a jurist. One of my brethren read to you an extract from a recent German work, which presents a different view of this subject as relates to foreign subjects in particular cases. I was happy to hear MR. MAYER on the law of this case, more particularly as he declared himself to be a foreign-born citizen; for it is one of the characteristics of this Government--a characteristic of our free institutions--that no distinction of birth or creed is permitted to stand in the way of merit, come from what clime it may. There is another presumption. Every man is presumed to _intend the natural consequences of his own acts_. Now, what are the natural consequences of the acts done by these defendants? The law on this point is illustrated and applied with much effect in homicide cases. Suppose a man has a slight contention with another, and one of the combatants, drawing a dagger, aims to inflict a slight wound, say upon the hand of the other; but, in the struggle, the weapon enters the heart, and the injured party dies. The man is arrested with the bloody dagger in his hand, the weapon by which death was unquestionably occasioned; and the fact being established that he killed the deceased, the law will presume the act to be murder, and cast upon the accused the burthen of showing that it was something other than murder. I hope, gentlemen, to see the day when this doctrine of law will no longer exist. I never could understand how the presumption of murder could be drawn from an act equally consistent with murder, manslaughter, justifiable or excusable homicide, or accident, but such is the law, and it must be respected. I say, that neither of the defendants intended, as the ordinary and natural consequence of his act, _to commit piracy or robbery_, though what he did might, in law, amount to such an offence. He intended to take legal prizes, and no more to rob than the man in the case I supposed designed to kill. The natural consequences of his acts were, to take the vessel and send her to a port to be adjudicated upon as a prize. Now, I state to my learned friends and the Court this proposition--that though a _legal presumption_ as to intent might have existed in this case if the prosecution had proved merely the forcible taking, yet if, in making out a case for the Government, any fact be elicited which shows that the actual intent was different from what the law in the absence of such fact would imply, the presumption is gone. And when the prosecution made their witness detail a conversation which took place between Captain Baker and the Captain of the Joseph, with reference to the authority of the former to seize the vessel, and when you find that Captain Baker asserted a claim of right, that overcomes the presumption that he despoiled the Captain of the Joseph with an intent to steal. The _animus furandi_ must, in this case, depend on something else than presumption. I will refer you for more particulars of the law on this point, to _1 Greenleaf on Evidence_, sections 13 and 14, and I make this citation for another purpose. When an act is in itself illegal, sometimes, if not in the majority of cases, the law affixes to the party the intent to perpetrate a legal offence. But this is not the universal rule. In cases of procuring money or goods under false pretences, where the intent is the essence of the crime, the prosecution must establish the offence, not by proving alone the act of receiving, but by showing the act and intent; so both must be proved here. Now, I ask, has the prosecution entitled itself to the benefit of any presumption as to intent? What are the facts--_the conceded facts_? Baker, and a number of persons in Charleston, did openly and notoriously select a vessel called the "Savannah," then lying in the stream, and fitted her out _as a privateer_. Baker, in all of these proceedings, acted under the authority of a commission signed by Jefferson Davis, styling and signing himself President of the Confederate States of America. Baker and his companions then went forth as privateersmen, and in no other capacity, for the purpose of despoiling the commerce of the United States, and _with the strictest injunction not to meddle with the property of any other country_. The instructions were clear and distinct on this head, as you know from having heard them read. They went to sea, and overhauled the Joseph; gave chase with the American flag flying--one of the ordinary devices or cheats practiced in naval warfare; a device frequently adopted by American naval commanders to whose fame no American dare affix the slightest stigma. On nearing the Joseph, the Savannah showed the secession flag, and Baker requested Captain Meyer to come on board with his papers. The Captain asked by what authority, and received for answer: "The authority of the Confederate States." The Captain then went on board with his papers, when Baker, helping him over the side, said: "I am very sorry to take your vessel, but I do so in retaliation against the United States, with whom we are at war." Baker put a prize crew on board the Joseph, and sent her to Georgetown; the Captain he detained there as a prisoner. She was then duly submitted for judgment as a prize. These are the facts upon which they claim that piracy at common law is established. My learned associate, Mr. Larocque, cited a number of cases to show that though a man might take property of another, and appropriate it to his own use, yet if he did so under color of right, under a _bona fide_ impression that he had authority to take the property, he would only be a trespasser; he would have to restore it or pay the value of it, but he could not be convicted of a crime for its conversion. Let me state a case. You own a number of bees. They leave your land, where they hived, and come upon mine, and take refuge in the hollow of a tree, where they deposit their honey. They are your bees, but you cannot come upon my land to take them away; and though they are in my tree, I cannot take the honey. Such a case is reported in our State adjudications. But, suppose that I did take the bees and appropriate the honey to my own use: I might be unjustly _indicted_ for larceny, because I took the property of another, but I am not, consequently, a thief in the eye of the law; the absence of intent to steal would ensure my acquittal. That is one illustration. I will mention one other, decided in the South, relating to a subject on which the South is very strict and very jealous. A slave announced to a man his intention to escape. The man secreted the slave for the purpose of aiding his escape and effecting his freedom. He was indicted for larceny, on the ground that he exercised a control over the property of the owner against his will. The Court held that the object was not to steal, and he could not be convicted. In _Wheaton's Criminal Proceedings_, page 397, this language will be found, and it is satisfactory on the point under discussion. "There are cases where taking is no more than a trespass: Where a man takes another's goods _openly before him_, or where, having otherwise than by _apparent robbery_, possessed himself of them, he _avows the fact_ before he is questioned. This is _only a trespass_." Now all these principles are familiar and simple, and do not require lawyers to expound them, for they appeal to the practical sense of mankind. _It is certainly a most lamentable result of the wisdom of centuries, to place twelve men together and ask them, from_ FICTIONS _or_ THEORIES _to say, on oath, that a man is a thief, when every one of them_ KNOWS THAT HE IS NOT. If any man on this Jury thinks the word pirate, robber or thief can be truly applied to either of these defendants, I am very sorry, for I think neither of them at all liable to any such epithet. But, suppose that the intent is to be inferred from the act of seizing the Joseph, and the defendants must be convicted, unless justified by _the commission issued for Captain Baker_; let us then inquire as to the effect of that commission. We say that it _protects the defendants against being treated as pirates_. Whether it does, or not, depends upon the question whether the Confederate States have occupied such a relation to the United States of America that they might adopt the means of retaliation or aggression recognized in a state of war. It is our right and duty, as advocates, to maintain that the _Confederate Government was so situated_; and to support the proposition by reference to the political and judicial history and precedents of the past, stating for these men the principles and views which they and their neighbors of the revolting States insist upon; our personal opinions being in no wise called for, nor important, nor even proper, to be stated at this time and in this place. If it can be shown that the Confederate States occupy the same position towards the Government of the United States that the thirteen revolted Colonies did to Great Britain in the war of the Revolution, then these men cannot be convicted of piracy. I do not ask you to decide that the Southern States had the _right_ to leave the Union, or secede, or to revolt--to set on foot an insurrection, or to perfect a rebellion. That is not the question here. I will place before the Jury such views of law and of history as bear upon the case--endeavoring not to go over the ground occupied by my associates. I will refer you to a small book published here in 1859, entitled, "The History of New York from the Earliest Time," a very reliable and authentic work. In this book I find a few facts to which I will call your attention, one of which may be unpleasant to some of our friends from the New England States, for we find that New York, so far as her people were concerned--exclusive of the authorities--was in physical revolt against the parent Government long before our friends in New England, some of whom often feel disposed to do just what they please, but are not quite willing to allow others the same privilege. I will refer to it to show you what was the condition of things long before the 4th of July, 1776, and to show that, though we now hurl our charges against these men as pirates,--who never killed anybody, never tried to kill anybody,--who never stole and never tried to steal,--yet the men of New York city who committed, under the name of "Liberty Boys," what England thought terrible atrocities, in New York, were never touched by justice--not even so heavily as if a feather from the pinion of the humming bird had fallen upon their heads. I find that, about the year 1765, our people here began to grumble about the taxes and imposts which Great Britain levied upon us. And you know, though the causes of the Revolutionary war are set forth with much dignity in the Declaration of Independence, the contest originated about taxes. That was the great source of disaffection, directing itself more particularly to the matter of tea, and which led to the miscellaneous party in Boston, at which there were no women present, however, and where salt water was used in the decoction. I find that the governor of the city had fists, arms, and all the means of aggression at his command; but at length, happily for us, the Government sent over a young gentleman to rule us (Lord Monckford), who, when he did come, appears to have been similar in habits to one of the accused, who is described as being always idle. The witness for the prosecution explained that separate posts and duties were assigned to each of the crew of the Savannah; one fellow, he said, would do nothing. But he will be convicted of having done a good deal, if the prosecution prevail. A state of rebellion all this time and afterwards existed in this particular part of the world, until the British came and made themselves masters of the city. In the course of the acts then committed by the citizens, and which the British Government called an insurrection, a tumultuous rebellion and revolution, they offered, or it was said they offered, an indignity to an equestrian statue of George III. The British troops, in retaliation, and being grossly offended at the conduct of Pitt, who had been a devoted friend of the Colonists, mutilated the statue of him which stood on Wall street. The remains of the statue are still with us, and can be seen at the corner of West Broadway and Franklin street, where it is preserved as a relic of the past--a grim memento of the perfect absurdity of charging millions of people with being all pirates, robbers, thieves, and marauders. When the British took possession of this city, they had at _one time in custody five thousand persons_. That was before any formal declaration of independence--before the formation of a Government _de jure_ or _de facto_--and yet did they ever charge any of the prisoners with being robbers? Not at all. Was this from any kindness or humane spirit? Not at all: for they adopted all means in their power to overcome our ancestors. The eldest son of the Earl of Chatham resigned his commission, because he would not consent to fight against the colonies. The Government did not hesitate to send to Germany for troops. They could not get sufficient at home. The Irish would not aid them in the fight. The British did not even hesitate to employ Indians; and when, in Parliament, the Secretary of State justified himself, saying that they had a perfect right to employ "all the means God and nature" gave them, he was eloquently rebuked. Even, with all this hostility, such a thing was never thought of as to condemn men, when taken prisoners, and hold them outside that protection which, according to the law of nations, should be extended to men under such circumstances, even though in revolt against the Government. In October, 1774, the King, in his Message to Parliament, said that a most daring spirit of resistance and disobedience to the laws existed in Massachusetts, and was countenanced and encouraged in others of his Colonies. Now, I want you to keep your minds fairly applied to the point, on which the Court will declare itself, as to whether I am right in saying, that the day when that Message was sent to Parliament the Colonies occupied towards the old Government a position similar to that of the Confederate States in their hour of revolt to the United States. But we will possibly see that the Confederate States occupy a stronger position. In the course of the discussion which ensued upon the Message, the famous Wilkes remarked: "Rebellion, indeed, appears on the back of a flying enemy, but revolution flames on the breastplate of the victorious warrior." If an illegal assemblage set itself up in opposition to the municipal Government, it is a mere insurrection, though ordinary officers of the law be incapable of quelling it, and the military power has to be called out. That is one thing. But when a _whole State_ places itself in an attitude of hostility to the other States of a Confederacy, assumes a distinct existence, and has the power to maintain independence, though only for a time, that is quite a different affair. We remember how beautifully expressed is that passage of the Irish poet, so familiar to all of us, and especially to those who, like myself, coming from Irish ancestry, know so well what is the name and history of rebellion: "Rebellion--foul, dishonoring word, Whose wrongful blight so oft hath stained The holiest cause that tongue or sword Of mortal ever lost or gained! How many a spirit born to bless Has sunk beneath thy withering bane, Whom but a day's--an hour's success, Had wafted to eternal fame!" A remarkable instance, illustrating the sentiment of this passage, is found in the history of that brave man, emerging from obscurity, stepping suddenly forth from the common ranks of men, whose name is so generally mentioned with reverence and love, and who so lately freed Naples from the rule of the tyrant. This brave patriot was driven from his native land, after a heroic struggle in Rome. History has recorded how he was followed in this exile by a devoted wife, who perished because she would not desert her husband; and how he came to this country, where he established himself in business until such time as he saw a speck of hope glimmer on the horizon over his lovely and beloved native land. Then he went back almost alone. Red-shirted, like a common toiling man, he gathered round him a few trusty followers who had unlimited confidence in him as a leader, and accomplished the revolution which dethroned the son of Bomba, and placed Victor Emanuel in his stead. You already know that I speak of Garibaldi. And yet, Garibaldi, it seems, should have been denounced as a pirate, had the sea been the theatre of his failure; and a robber, had he been unsuccessful upon land! What do you think an eminent man said, in the British Parliament, about the outbreak of our Revolution, and the condition of things then existing in America? "_Whenever oppression begins, resistance becomes lawful and right._" Who said that? The great associate of Chatham and Burke--Lord Camden. At that time Franklin was in Europe, seeking to obtain a hearing before a committee of Parliament in respect to the grievances of the American people. It was refused. The Lords and Commons, in an address to the King, declared in express terms, that a "REBELLION _actually existed in_ MASSACHUSETTS;" and yet, in view of all that, no legal prosecution of any rebel ever followed. So matters continued till the war effectively began, Washington having been appointed Commander-in-chief. Then some Americans were taken by the British and detained as prisoners. Of this Washington complained to General Gage, then in command of the British army. Gage returned answer that he had treated the prisoners only too kindly, seeing that they were rebels, and that "their lives, by the law of the land, were destined for the cord." Yet not one of them so perished. In view of these things, even so far as I have now advanced; in view of the sacrifices of the Southern Colonies in the Revolution; in view of the great struggle for independence, and the great doctrine laid down, that, whenever oppression begins, resistance becomes lawful and right,--is it possible to forget the history of the past, and the great principles which gleamed through the darkness and the perils of our early history? Are we to assert that the Constitution establishing our Government is perfect in all its parts, and stands upon a corner stone equivalent to what the globe itself might be supposed to rest on, if we did not know it was ever wheeling through space? Is all the history of our past, its triumphs and reverses, and the glorious consummation which crowned the efforts of the people, all alike to be thrown aside now, upon the belief that we have established a Government so perfect, and a Union so complete, that no portion of the States can ever, under any circumstances, secede, or revolt, or dispute the authority of the others, without danger of being treated as pirates and robbers? The Declaration of Independence has never been repudiated, I believe, and I suppose I have a right to refer to it as containing the political creed of the American people. I do not know how many people in the old world agree with it, and a most eminent lawyer of our own country characterized the maxims stated at its commencement as "glittering generalities." But I believe the American people have never withdrawn their approbation from the principles and doctrines it declares. Among those we find the self-evident truth, that man has an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that it is to secure these rights that Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and that whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of those ends, it is right and patriotic to alter and abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its foundations on such principles, and conferring power in such a form, as to them may seem most likely to secure their safety and happiness. Is this a mockery? Is this a falsehood? Have these ideas been just put forward for the first time? There has been a dispute among men as to who should be justly denominated the author of this document. The debate may be interesting to the historian; but these principles, though they are embodied in the Constitution, were not created by it. They have lived in the hearts of man since man first trod the earth. I can imagine the time, too, when Egypt was in her early glory, and in fancy see one of the poor, miserable wretches, deprived of any right of humanity, harnessed, like a brute beast, to the immense stone about being erected in honor of some monarch, whose very name was destined to perish. I can imagine the degraded slave pausing in his loathsome toil to delight over the idea that there might come a time when the meanest of men would enjoy natural rights, under a Government of the multitude formed to secure them. Now, what says _Blackstone_ (_1st vol., 212_), the great commentator on the law of England, when speaking of the revolution which dethroned James II.: "_Whenever a question arises between the society at large and any magistrate originally vested with powers originally delegated by that society, it must be decided by the voice of the society itself. There is not upon earth any other tribunal to resort to._" Prior to the 23d March, 1776, the legislature of Massachusetts authorized the issuing of letters of marque to privateers upon the ocean, and when my learned friend, Mr. Lord, in his remarks so clear and convincing, called attention to the lawfulness of privateering, my brother Evarts attempted to qualify it by designating the granting of letters of marque as reluctantly tolerated, and as if no such practice as despoiling commerce should be permitted even in a state of war. I will not again read from _Mr. Marcy's_ letter, but I will say here that the position he took gratified the heart of the whole American people. He said in substance, If you, England and France, have the right to despoil commerce with armed national vessels we have a right to adopt such means of protection and retaliation as we possess. We do not propose, if you make war upon us, or we find it necessary to make war upon you, that we, with a poor, miserable fleet, shall not be at liberty to send out privateers, but yield to you, who may come with your steel-clad vessels and powerful armament to practice upon us any amount of devastation. No. We never had a navy strong enough to place us in such a position as that with regard to foreign powers. Look at it. Do you think that France or England has any feeling of friendship towards this country as a nation? I do not speak of the people of these countries, but of the cabinets and governments. No. Nations are selfish. Nearly all the laws of nations are founded on interest. Nations conduct their political affairs on that basis. They never receive laws from one another--not even against crime. And when you want to obtain back from another country a man who has committed depredations against society, you do it only by virtue of a treaty, and from no love or affection to the country demanding it. And if this war continues much longer, I, for one, entertain the most profound apprehension that both these powers, France and England, will combine to break the blockade if they do not enter upon more aggressive measures. If they for a moment find it their interest to do so, they will, and no power, moral or physical, can prevent them. I say, then, the right of revolution is a right to be exercised, not according to what the Government revolted against may think, but according to the necessities or the belief of the people revolting. If you belonged to a State which was in any way deprived of its rights, the moment that oppression began resistance became a duty. A slave does not ask his master when he is to have his freedom, but he strikes for it at the proper opportunity. A man threatened with death at the hands of another, does not stop to ask whether he has a right to slay his assailant in self-defence. If self-preservation is the first law of individuals, so also is it of masses and of nations. Therefore, when the American Colonies made up their minds to achieve independence, whether their reasons were sufficient or not, they did not consent to have the question decided by Great Britain, but at once decided it for themselves. Very early in our history, in 1778, France recognized the American Government. England, as you know, complained, and the French Government sent back an answer saying, Yes, we have formed a treaty with this new Government; we have recognized it, and you have no right to complain; for you remember, England, said France, that during the reign of Elizabeth, when the Netherlands revolted against Spain, you, in the first place, negotiated secret treaties with the revolutionists, and then recognized them; but, when Spain complained of this, you said to Spain--The reasons which justify the Netherlands in their revolt entitle them to our support. Was success necessary? Was the doctrine of our opponents correct, that, though people may be in absolute revolt against the parent Government, with an army in the field, and in exclusive possession of the territories they occupy, yet they have no right to be recognized by the law of nations, and are not entitled to the humanities that accompany the conditions of a war between foreign powers? Is success necessary? Why was it not necessary in the case of the Colonies when recognized by France? Why not necessary in the case of the Netherlands when recognized by England? Never has been put forward such a doctrine for adjudication since the days of _Ogden and Smith_, tried in this city in 1806. That was a period when we were in profound peace with all the world. Our new country was proceeding on the march towards that greatness which every one hoped would be as perpetual as it was progressive. We had invited to our shores not only the oppressed of other lands, but all they could yield us of genius, eloquence, industry and wisdom. Among others who came to assist our progress and adorn our history was that eminent lawyer and patriot--that good and pure man whose monument stands beside St. Paul's Church, on Broadway, and may be considered as pointing its white finger to heaven in appeal against the severe doctrines under which these prisoners are sought to be punished. I refer to THOMAS ADDIS EMMETT. In 1806, two men, Smith and Ogden, were put upon trial, charged with aiding Miranda and the people of Caraccas to effect a revolt against the Government of Spain, which, it was said, was at peace with the United States. They were indicted under a statute of the United States; and if it had turned out on the trial that the United States was certainly in a condition of peace with Spain, they might have been convicted. However, that was a question of fact left to the Jury. The learned Judges, pure and able men, entertained views very hostile to the notions of the accused, and were quite as decided in those views as his honor Judge Grier in the summary disposition he made of the so-called pirates in Philadelphia. The trial came on, and, with the names of the Jurors on that trial, there are preserved to us the names of Counsel, whose career is part of history. Among them were NATHAN SANFORD, PIERPOINT EDWARDS, WASHINGTON MORTON, CADWALLADER D. COLDEN, JOSIAH OGDEN HOFFMAN, RICHARD HARRISON, and MR. EMMETT, already named. Well, there was an effort made to disparage any such enterprise as Miranda's, and any such aid thereto as the accused were charged with giving. The Counsel endeavored to prove that the intent was a question of law, and the fact had nothing to do with it. COLDEN, in his argument, said, "Gentlemen, all _guilt_ is _rooted in the mind_, and _if not to be found there, does not exist, and whoever will contend against the proposition_ MUST FIGHT AGAINST HUMAN NATURE, AND SILENCE HIS OWN CONSCIENCE." We do not often find an opportunity, gentlemen, to regale ourselves with anything that emanated from the mind of Mr. Emmett. It is peculiar to the nature of his profession that most of what the advocate says passes away almost at the moment of its utterance. When Mr. Emmett comes to allude to the disfavor sought to be thrown on revolutionary ideas by the eminent counsel for the prosecution, he says: "In particular, I remember, he termed Miranda a fugitive on the face of the earth, and characterized the object of the expedition as something audacious, novel, and dangerous. It has often struck me, gentlemen, as matter of curious observation, how speedily new nations, like new made nobility and emperors, acquire the cant and jargon of their station. "Let me exemplify this observation by remarking, that here within the United States, which scarcely thirty years ago were colonies, engaged in a bloody struggle, for the purpose of shaking off their dependence on the parent State, the attempt to free a colony from the oppressive yoke of its mother country is called 'audacious, novel, and dangerous.' It is true, General Miranda's attempt is daring, and, if you will, '_audacious_,' but wherefore is it novel and dangerous? "Because he, a private individual, unaided by the public succor of any state, attempts to liberate South America. Thrasybulus! expeller of the thirty tyrants! Restorer of Athenian freedom! Wherefore are _you_ named with honor in the records of history? "Because, while a fugitive and an exile, you collected together a band of brave adventurers, who confided in your integrity and talents--because, without the acknowledged assistance of any state or nation, with no commission but what you derived from patriotism, liberty, and justice, you marched with your chosen friends and overthrew the tyranny of Sparta in the land that gave you birth. Nor are Argos and Thebes censured for having afforded you refuge, countenance, and protection. Nor is Ismenias, then at the head of the Theban government, accused of having departed from the duties of his station because he obeyed the impulse of benevolence and compassion towards an oppressed people, and gave that private assistance which he could not publicly avow." Mr. Emmett, remembering the history of his own name, and the fate of that brother who perished ignominiously on the scaffold for an effort to disenthrall his native land, after that outburst of eloquence, indulged in the following exclamation: "In whatever country the contest may be carried on, whoever may be the oppressor of the oppressed, may the Almighty Lord of Hosts strengthen the right arms of those who fight for the freedom of their native land! May he guide them in their counsels, assist them in their difficulties, comfort them in their distress, and give them victory in their battles!" I have thought proper to fortify myself, gentlemen, by reference to this man of pure purpose, finished education, and thorough knowledge of international law, in what I said to you, that the principles which lie at the base of this American revolution, call it by what name you please, have been known and recognized at least as long as the English language has been spoken on the earth, and will be known forever--they furnishing certain rules, the benefit of which, I hope and trust, under the providence of God, after the enlightened remarks of the Court, and through your intervention, may be extended to our clients. Some people in New England take particular offence at applying these doctrines to the present state of affairs. Has New England ever repudiated them? Has the South ever maintained with more unhesitating declaration, more vigorous resolve, more readiness for the deadly encounter, than the North, these views which I present? Gentlemen, when we look at history, we must take it as we find it. In the war of 1812, the New England States, which had taken offence before at the embargo of 1809, were found, to a very great extent among her people, in an attitude of direct resistance to the war; and they were not afraid to say so. New England said so through her individual citizens. She said so in her public associations. She said so in the form of conventions and solemn resolves. To one of these I will call attention. I do this for no other purpose than to present analogies, principles, and precedents showing what rights belong to those who oppose the Government, or to a state of civil war, or revolution,--that men situated like our clients are not to be treated as pirates and robbers. I have here a book called "THE UNION FOREVER; THE SOUTHERN REBELLION, AND THE WAR FOR THE UNION." It is an excellent compilation, prepared and published under the superintendence of _James D. Torrey_, of this city. I read from it: "The declaration of war against Great Britain, June, 1812, brought the excitement to its climax. A peace party was formed in New England, pledged to offer all possible resistance to the war. * * * The State Legislatures of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, &c., passed laws forbidding the use of their jails by the United States for the confinement of prisoners committed by any other than judicial authority, and directing the jailors at the end of thirty days to discharge all British officers, prisoners of war, committed to them. The President, however, applied to other States of the confederacy for the use of their prisons, and thus the difficulty was, in a measure, obviated." Thus these men set themselves up pretty strongly against the Government. It is an act of which I do not approve, gentlemen; but, suppose I should say that the men who did that were, because their political sentiments differed from mine, fools or idiots, knaves or traitors, what would you think of the taste or justice of such an observation? It is the intolerance, gentlemen, which abides in the heart of almost every man, woman, and child, and the diffusion of it over the land, that has led to our present dreadful condition. It is the endeavor of one party, or of one set, to set itself up in absolute judgment over the opinions, rights, persons, liberties and hearts of other men. It is that notion which CROMWELL expressed when he said (I quote from memory alone), "I will interfere with no man's liberty of conscience; but, if you mean by that, solemnizing a mass, that shall not be permitted so long as there is a Parliament in England." I have no doubt that the men who did these acts in New England, which we would call unpatriotic, were actuated by conscientious motives; and I want to claim the same thing for the men who, in the South, are doing what is very offensive to you and very offensive to me, and the more offensive because I honestly and conscientiously believe that it is unnecessary and wanton. I know that I differ with very eminent men who belonged to the same political organization as myself when I make that remark; but it is the result of the best judgment that I can form, after a careful and just review of the circumstances attending the present unfortunate breach in our relation to each other. And certainly, gentlemen, it is in no spirit of anger that we, in this sacred temple of justice, should deal with our erring brethren. We do not mean to pronounce, through the forms of justice, from this jury-box, any anathema or denunciation against our fellow-men, _merely_ for holding erroneous opinions. All the dictates of every enlightened religion on earth are against any such conduct. I take for granted that there is not one of you who has not some friend engaged in the war, on one side or the other. I took up a newspaper the other morning, and discovered that two men, with whom I had been in the most intimate relations of personal friendship, were in the same engagement, each commanding as colonel, and fighting against each other. They were men who had been close friends during a long series of years--men whom you and I might well be proud to know--each of them a graduate of West Point. One of them is said to have been seen to fall from his saddle, and the fate of the other (COLONEL COGSWELL) is at this moment uncertain. You or I, while we remain loyal to our flag and our country--while we wish and hope for success to our arms in all the conflicts that may occur--may regard with pity men born on the same territory, as well educated, as deftly brought up, as generous and as high minded as ourselves, because we consider them wrong. But, to look upon them as mere outlaws and outcasts, entitled to no protection, sympathy, or courtesy, is something which I am perfectly sure this Jury will never do, and which no community would feel justified or excusable in doing. Now, let me read more to you from this book: "On the 18th of October, twelve delegates were elected to confer with delegates from the other New England States. Seven delegates were also appointed by CONNECTICUT, and four by RHODE ISLAND. NEW HAMPSHIRE was represented by two, and VERMONT by one. The Convention met at Hartford, Connecticut, on the 15th of December, 1814. After a session of twenty days a report was adopted, which, with a slight stretch of imagination, we may suppose to have originated from a kind of _en rapport_ association with the South Carolina Convention of 1861. We may quote from the report." Listen to this, gentlemen, and say how much right we have to stigmatize as novel, unprecedented, base, or wicked, the notions on which the Southern revolt is, in a certain degree, founded: "Whenever it shall appear" (says this Report, the result of twenty days' labor among calm and cool men of New England) "that the causes are radical and permanent, _a separation_, _by equitable arrangement_ will be _preferable to an alliance by constraint among nominal friends, but real enemies, inflamed by mutual hatred and jealousy, and inviting, by intestine divisions, contempt and aggressions from abroad; but a severance of the Union by one or more States against the will of the rest, and especially in time of war, can be justified_ ONLY BY ACTUAL NECESSITY." The report then proceeds to consider the several subjects of complaint, the principal of which is the national power over the militia, claimed by Government. We will not agree, say they, that the general Government shall have authority over the militia; we claim that it shall belong to us. The report goes on to say: "In this whole series of devices and measures for raising men, this Convention discerns a total disregard for the Constitution, and a disposition to violate its provisions, demanding from the individual States a firm and decided opposition. An iron despotism can impose no harder service upon the citizen than to force him from his home and occupation to wage offensive war, undertaken to gratify the pride or passions of his master. _In cases of deliberate, dangerous and palpable infraction of the Constitution,_ _affecting the sovereignty of a State and the liberties of the people, it is not only the right but the duty of such State to interpose its authority for the protection, in the manner best calculated to secure that end. When emergencies occur, which are either beyond the reach of the judicial tribunals or too pressing to admit of the delay incident to their forms, States which have no common umpire must be their own judges and execute their own decisions._" I think that is pretty strong secession doctrine. I do not see that it is possible, in terms, to state it more distinctly. Well, it is true that candid people in that section of the country did not approve these views, but disapproved them; and yet they were the views, clearly and forcibly expressed, of a large number of intelligent and moral people. Now, this enables me to repeat, with a clearer view derived from history, the proposition that the Confederate States are--_under the law of nations_, and the principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence, sustained in the Revolution, and recognized by our people--in a condition not distinguishable from that of the Colonies in '76, except that, if there be a difference, the position of the Confederates, _in reference to legality, as a judicial question_, is more justifiable, as it is certainly more formidable. This word "secession" is, after all, only a word; a word, as MR. WEBSTER said in one of his great speeches, answering Mr. Calhoun, of fearful import; a word for which he could not according to his views, too strongly express condemnation. But whether you use the word "secession," or the familiar expression, "going out of the Union," or, "not consenting to remain in the Union," the idea is one and the same. Much acumen and ingenuity have been displayed, even by a mind profound as that of Mr. Calhoun--a most acute man and a pure man, as Mr. Webster eloquently attested in the Senate chamber, after the decease of that South Carolina statesman--I say a good deal of acumen has been spent on the question whether a State, or any number of States, have _a_ RIGHT UNDER THE CONSTITUTION _to secede from the Union_. It is a quarrel about phrases. It is not necessary in any point of view, political, philological or moral, to use the word "secession" as either excusing or justifying the act of the Confederate States. Suppose I grant, as a distinct proposition, in accordance with what I admit to be the opinion of the great majority of jurists, and orators, and statesmen at the North, that there is no right in a State, under the Constitution, to recede from the Union--what then? I shall not stop to give you the argument with which the South presents a view of the question entirely different from that of the North. Of what consequence is it, practically, whether the right of the State to go out be found in any part of the compact called the Constitution, or be derived from a source extrinsic of it? You (let me suppose) are twelve States, and I am the thirteenth. There is the original Confederacy of States, pure and simple, under the agreement with each other; and there, according to the views of Mr. Webster and the prosecution here, we became constituted in a general Government, or, as Wheaton says, in a "composite Government," giving great power to the general center. Now, what difference does it make, if you twelve States conclude to leave me, whether you do it by virtue of anything contained in the Constitution, or inferable from the Constitution, or in virtue of some right or claim of right that resides out of the Constitution? It is not of the least consequence. I do not care for the word "secession." It would be, at the worst, revolution. In that same great speech of Mr. Webster's against Calhoun, in which I think I am justified in saying he exhausts the subject and makes the most formidable argument against the theory of secession that was ever uttered in the United States, all the conclusion he comes to is this:--"_'Peaceable_ secession!' I cannot agree to such a name. I cannot think it possible. _It would be_ REVOLUTION." Very well. Of what consequence is the designation? Who cares for the baptism or the sponsors? It is the _thing_ you look to. And if they have either the _right_ or the _power_ to secede or revolutionize, they _may do it_, and there is no tribunal on earth to sit in judgment upon them; though we have the right and the power, on the other hand, to battle for the maintenance of the whole Union. Our friend, _Mr. Justice Grier_, says: "_No band of_ CONSPIRATORS _can overcome the Government_ MERELY _because they are dissatisfied with the result of an election_." Now, gentlemen, with the deference he deserves, I would ask the learned Justice Grier, or any other Justice, or my learned friend, Mr. Evarts, how he will proceed to dispose of the case which I am about to put? Suppose that all but one of our States meet in their Legislatures, and, by the universal acclaim, and with the entire approval of all the people, resolve that they will remain no longer in association with the others--what will you do with them? That solitary State, which may be Rhode Island, says: "I have in me the sovereignty; I have in me all the attributes that belong to empire or national existence; but I think I will have to let you go. Whether you call it secession, or rebellion, or revolution, you may go, because _you have the power to go_, if there be no better reason." And power and right become, in reference to this subject, the same thing in the end. Do they not? Is there any relation on earth that has a higher sanction than marriage? So long as two parties, who have contracted that holy obligation, have, in truth, no fault to find with each other, is there any _right_ in either to go away from the other? There is no such right, either by the law of God or of man. But there is a _power_ to do it, is there not? And if the wife flee from her husband, instead of towards him, or if a husband go from his wife, is there any law of society that can compel them to unite? And why not? Because mankind, though they have perpetrated many follies, have, at least, recognized that this was a remedy utterly impossible. In the relation of partnership between two individuals, does not the same state of things exist? and do not the same arguments suggest themselves? I ask my learned brother what he can do in reference to the ten States that have claimed to secede from the Union, and have organized themselves into a Government? I will give him all the army he demands, and will let him retain in the chair of State this honest, pleasant Mr. Lincoln, who is not the greatest man in the world--nobody will pretend that--but is as good and honest a person as there is in the world. There is not the slightest question but that, in all his movements, he only proposes what he deems consistent with the welfare and honor of the country. I will give my learned brother the army now on the banks of the Potomac, doing nothing, and millions of money, and then I desire him to tell us how, with all these aids, he can coerce those ten States to remain in the Confederacy. What was said by MR. BUCHANAN on the subject, in his Message of December last? "_I do not propose_" said he, "_to attempt any coercion of the States. I believe that it would be utterly impossible. You cannot compel a State to remain in the Union. They may refuse to send Senators to the Senate of the United States. They may refuse to choose electors, and the Government stops._" Well, I grant you that this is not the view of other men quite as eminent as Mr. Buchanan. I grant you that the great CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL--a man to whom it would be bad taste to apply any other word than great, because that includes everything which characterized him--I grant you that brilliant son of Virginia met an argument like this with the great power that distinguished all his judgments, when a question arose in the Supreme Court of the United States, affecting the State of Virginia and a citizen. But of what importance is it what any man thinks about it? What is your theory as compared with your practice? Now, I will give my friend all the power he wants, and ask him to deal with these ten States. Do you believe it to be within the compass of a possibility to compel them to remain in the Union, as States, if they do not wish it? Thus I reach the conclusion, on even the weakest view of the case for us, that the POWER to secede, and the POWER to organize a Government existing, there is no power on earth which, on any rule of law, can interfere with it, except that of war, conducted on the principles of civilized war. Now, then, let us look at those Confederate States a little more closely. What says Vattel, in the passage referred to by my learned friend, Mr. Larocque, and which it is of the utmost importance, in this connection, to keep in mind? [Here Mr. Brady read an extract, which will be found in the argument of Mr. Larocque.[5]] [5] See pages 105, 106, and 107. Is not that clearly expressed, and easy to understand? All of us comprehend and can readily apply it in this case. That resolves the question, if indeed this be the law of the land, into this: _Have the Confederate States, on any show of reason, or without it--for that does not affect the inquiry--attained sufficient_ STRENGTH, _and_ BECOME SUFFICIENTLY FORMIDABLE, _to entitle them to be treated, under that law of nations, as in a condition of_ CIVIL WAR, _even if they have not constituted a separate, sovereign_, and _independent nation?_ Really, it seems to me, too clear for doubt, that they have. We had, in the Revolution, thirteen Colonies, with a limited treasury, almost destitute of means, and with some of our soldiers so behaving themselves, in the early part of the struggle, that General Washington, on one memorable occasion, threw down his hat on the ground and asked, "Are these the men with whom I am to defend the liberties of America?" And those of you, gentlemen, who have read his correspondence, know how constantly he was complaining to Congress about the inefficiency of the troops, and their liability to desertion. I remember that he says something like this: "There is no doubt that patriotism may accomplish much. It has already effected a good deal. But he who relies on it as the means of carrying him through a long war will find himself, in the end, grievously mistaken. It is not to be disguised that the great majority of those who enter the service do so with a view to the pay which they are to receive; and, unless they are satisfied, desertions may be expected." He also remarked, at another period, in regard to the troops of a certain portion of our country, which I will not name, that they would have their own way; that when their term of enlistment expired they would go home; and that they would sometimes go before that period arrived. That, I am mortified to say, has been imitated in the present struggle. Such was the early condition of the Colonies. Now, the Southern Confederacy have ten States--they had seven when this commission was issued--with about eight millions of people. They have separate State governments, which have existed ever since the Union was formed, and which would exist if this revolution were entirely put down. They have excluded us from every part of their territory, except a little foothold in the Eastern part of Virginia, and "debateable ground" in Western Virginia. We have not yet been able to penetrate farther into the Confederate States. We cannot send even food to the hungry or medicine to the afflicted there. We cannot interchange the commonest acts of humanity with those of our friends who are shut up in the South. I do think, with the conceded fact looking directly into the face of the American people that, with all the millions at the command of the Administration, there is yet found sufficient force and power in the Confederate States to maintain their territory, their Government, their legislature, their judiciary, their executive, and their army and navy, it is vain and idle to say that they are not now in a state of civil war, and that they ought to be excluded from the humanities incident to that condition. Such an idea should not, I think, find sanction in either the heart, the conscience, or intelligence of any right-minded man. Not only are the facts already stated true, but the Confederate States have been RECOGNIZED AS A BELLIGERENT POWER by FRANCE and ENGLAND, as we have proved by the proclamations placed before you; and _they have been recognized_ by OUR _Government as belligerents, at least_. That I submit, as _a distinct question of fact, to the Jury_, unless the Court conceive that it is a pure question of law,--in which case I am perfectly content that the Court shall dispose of it. And where do I find this? I find it in the _admission of Mr. Lincoln, in his Inaugural Address, that there is to be no attempt at any physical coercion of these States_--a concession that it is a thing not called for, not consistent with the views of the Administration, or with the general course of policy of the American people. According to his view, there was to be no war. I find it in the _correspondence of General Anderson with Governor Pickens_, which has been read in the course of the trial--which of course has been communicated to the Government, will be found among its archives, and of which no disapprobation has been expressed. And here I borrow a doctrine from the District Attorney, who said, when I declared that the legislative branch of the Government had not given their declaration as to what was the true condition of the South, that their silence indicated what it was; and so, the silence of the Government, in not protesting against this correspondence, is good enough for my purpose. The _proclamation of the President, calling for 75,000 troops_, and then calling _for a greater number_, would, in any Court in Christendom, outside of the United States, be regarded, under international law, as conclusive evidence that those troops were to be used against _a belligerent power_. Who ever heard of EIGHT MILLIONS of people, or of ONE MILLION of people, being ALL TRAITORS, and being ALL LIABLE TO PROSECUTION FOR TREASON AT ONCE. I find this recognition in the _exchange of prisoners_, which we know, as a matter of history, has occurred. I find it in the _capitulation at Hatteras_, at which, and by which, GENERAL BUTLER, of his own accord, when he refused the terms of surrender proposed by Commodore Barron, declared that the garrison should be taken as PRISONERS OF WAR; and that has been communicated to the Government, and no dissatisfaction expressed about it. And, gentlemen, I rest it, also, as to the recognition by our Government, on the fact to which MR. SULLIVAN so appropriately alluded--_the exchange of flags of truce_ between the two contending forces, as proved by one of the officers of the navy. A flag of truce sent to rebels--to men engaged in lawless insurrection, in treasonable hostility to the Government, with a view to its overthrow! Why, gentlemen, it is the grandest, as it is the most characteristic, device by which humanity protects men against atrocities which they might otherwise perpetrate upon each other--that little white flag, showing itself like a speck of divine snow on the red and bloody field of battle; coming covered all over with divinity; coming in the hand of peace, who rejoices to see another place where her foot may rest; welcome as the dove which returned to the ark; coming, I say, in the hand of peace, who is the great conqueror, and before whom the power of armies and the bad ambitions and great struggles of men must ultimately be extinguished. This, of itself, will be regarded by mankind, when they reflect wisely, as sufficient to show that our Government must not be brutal; and we seek to rescue the Administration from any imputation that it wants to deny to the South the common humanities which belong to warfare, by your refusing to let men be executed as pirates, or to make a distinction between him who wars on the deep and him who wars upon the land. It is very strange if the poor fellows who had no means of earning a meal of victuals in the city of Charleston, like some of those who composed the crew of this vessel, shut up as if in a trap, should be hanged as pirates for being on board a privateer, under a commission from the Confederate States, and that those who have slain your brothers in battle should be taken as prisoners of war, carefully provided for, and treated with the benevolence which we extend to all prisoners who fall into our hands--the same humanities that, as you perceive, are provided for in the instructions from Jefferson Davis, found on board the privateer, directing that the prisoners taken should be dealt with gently and leniently, and to give them the same rations as were supplied to persons in the Confederate service. But it seems to be suggested in Vattel, and certainly is promulgated in the opinion of Mr. Justice Grier, that, although the Confederate States have obtained any proportions however large, any power however great, there must be some _sound cause_, some _reasonable pretext_, for this revolt. Well, who is to judge of that? We do not, says the Government, admit that the cause is sufficient. The United States Government says there is none. Now, I propose to show you _what the South says on that subject_--to lay before you matters of history with which you are all acquainted--to show you what is supposed by men as able as any of us, as well acquainted with the history of the country, and as pure--what is supposed by them to have created this state of things, entitling the Confederate States to leave us and be a community by themselves. I will hereafter appeal to the late Daniel Webster as a witness that one of the causes assigned by the Southern States for their act is at least the expression and proof of a great wrong done them. In the first place, a large proportion of our people at the North claim _the right to abolish slavery in places ceded to the United States, or formed by contributions from the States, such as the District of Columbia_. I do not know what my learned friends' views on that subject are, but I know that the two great political parties of the country have had distinct opinions on that subject. By one, it has been steadily maintained, and with great energy, that, so far as the nation has power over the subject of slavery, it shall exercise it to abolish slavery. And the South says: "If you undertake to abolish slavery in any fort, any ceded place, any territory that we have given you for the purposes of the National Government, we will regard that as a breach of faith; for, whether you abhor slavery, or only pretend to abhor it, it is the means of our life. I, a Southerner, whose mother was virtuous as yours--whom I loved as you loved your mother--received from her at her death, as my inheritance, the slaves whom my father purchased--whom I am taught, under my religious belief, to regard as property, and whom I will so continue to regard as long as I live." That is the argument of the South; and if men at the South conscientiously believe that, from their knowledge of the sentiments, factions, or agitations at the North, such as these, there is an intention to make a raid and foray on the institution of slavery, deprive them of all the property they have in the world, and condemn them to any stigma--is it any wonder that they should express and act upon such an opinion? Next, gentlemen, in the category of their complaints, is the _agitation for the prohibition of what is called the inter-State slave trade_. Next is _the exclusion of slavery from new territory_, which, says the South, "we helped to acquire by our blood and treasure--towards which we contributed as you did. If you had a gallant regiment in the field in Mexico, had we not the Palmetto and other regiments, which came back--such of them as survived--covered with glory?" This has been the great subject that has recently divided our political parties--the Republican party, so-called, proclaiming with great earnestness and great decency its sincere conviction that it was a moral and political right to prevent slavery from being carried into new territory, and insisting that the slave-owner, if he went there with his slaves, must bring them to a state of freedom. There is another party of intelligent and upright men, claiming that the South has the same right to go into the Territories with their slaves as the North has to go with their implements of agriculture; and these irreconcilable differences of opinion are only to be settled at the polls, by determining the question which shall have sway either in the executive councils or in the legislation of the Government. A grand subject of debate, for some time, was the endeavor to acquire Texas; and I need not tell you that the great reason why the acquisition of Texas was opposed by the Whig party was, that they thought it might induce to the extension of slavery. When MR. CHOATE made his great speech against it in New York, he confessed that that was the point, and said: "You may be told that this is a new garden of the Hesperides; but do not receive any of its fruits: touch not, taste not, handle not, for in the hour that you eat thereof you shall surely die." Next, gentlemen, is _the nullification of the Fugitive-Slave Law by several of the States of New England_, which say: "True it is that the Constitution of the United States declares that the fugitive shall be delivered up to his master; true it is that Congress has made provision for his restoration; true it is that the Supreme Court of the United States has declared that he must be given up; but we say--we, a sovereign State--that if any officer of our Government lends any aid or sanction for such purpose he shall be guilty of a crime. If you want any slave delivered to his master, you must do it exclusively by the authority of the Federal Government, by its power and officers." And because, in the city of Boston, MR. LORING, a virtuous citizen, a respectable lawyer, performed, in his official capacity, an official act toward the restoration of a slave to his master, he was removed from his judicial station by the Executive of Massachusetts. _The District Attorney_: (To Mr. Evarts) He was not removed for that reason. _Mr. Brady_: The District Attorney says he was not removed for that reason. Well, he was removed just about that time. (Laughter.) It was a remarkable coincidence; it was like the caution given to the elder Weller, when he was transferring a number of voters to the Eatonsville election, not to upset them in a certain ditch, and, as he said, by a very extraordinary coincidence, he got them into that very place. But, gentlemen, this is a solemn subject, and is not to be dealt with lightly. And here it is that I will refer to the great speech of Mr. Webster, in the Senate of the United States, on the _7th of March, 1850_--to be found in the fifth volume of his works, _page_ 353. Mr. Webster was a great man, gentlemen, like John Marshall, and he could stand that test of a great man--to be looked at closely. Our country produces an abundance of so-called great men. The very paving-stones are prolific with them. Every village, and hamlet, and blind alley has one, at least. And when we catch a foreigner, just arrived, we first ask him what he thinks of our country, and then, pointing to some person, say, "He is one of the most remarkable men in the country;" until, finally, the foreigner begins to conclude that we are all remarkable men; that, like children, we are all prodigies until we grow up, when we give up the business of being prodigies very soon, as most of us have had occasion to illustrate. Mr. Webster, I say, was a great man, because he could stand the test of being looked at very near, and he grew greater all the time. There is no incident in my life of which I cherish a more pleasant or more vivid recollection than being once in a small room, with some other counsel, associated with Mr. Webster, about the time he made his last professional effort, when, in a moment of melancholy, one night about twelve o'clock, he came up, and, sitting down on the corner of a very old-fashioned bedstead, put his arm around the post, and proceeded to enlighten and fascinate us with a familiar, and sometimes playful, account of his early life; his first arguments in the Supreme Court of the United States; and the course, in its inner developments, of that life which, in its public features, has been so interesting to the country, and is to be always so interesting to mankind. "Mr. President," said he, "in the excited times in which we live there is found to exist a state of crimination and recrimination between the North and South. There are lists of grievances produced by each, and those grievances, real or supposed, alienate the minds of one portion of the country from the other, exasperate the feelings, and subdue the sense of fraternal affection, patriotic love, and mutual regard. I shall bestow a little attention, sir, upon these various grievances existing on the one side and on the other. I begin with _complaints of the South_. I will not answer further than I have the general statements of the honorable Senator from South Carolina, that the North has prospered at the expense of the South, in consequence of the manner of administering this Government, in the collecting of its revenues, and so forth. These are disputed topics, and I have no inclination to enter into them. But I will allude to other complaints of the South, and _especially to one which has, in my opinion, just foundation_; and that is, that there has been found at the North, among individuals and among legislators, a disinclination to perform fully their constitutional duties in regard to the return of persons bound to service who have escaped into the Free States. In that respect the South, in my judgment, is right, and the North is wrong. Every member of any Northern Legislature is bound by oath, like every other officer in the country, to support the Constitution of the United States; and the article of the Constitution (Art. iv., sec. 2, subd. 2) which says to these States that they shall deliver up fugitives from service, is as binding in honor and conscience as any other article. No man fulfills his duty in any Legislature who sets himself to find excuses, evasions, escapes, from this constitutional obligation. I have always thought that the Constitution addressed itself to the Legislatures of the States, or to the States themselves. It says that those persons escaping to other States 'shall be delivered up;' and I confess I have always been of the opinion that it was an injunction upon the States themselves. When it is said that a person escaping into another State, and coming, therefore, within the jurisdiction of that State, shall be delivered up, it seems to me the import of the clause is, that the State itself, in obedience to the Constitution, shall cause him to be delivered up. That is my judgment. I have always entertained that opinion, and I entertain it now. But when the subject, some years ago, was before the Supreme Court of the United States, the majority of the Judges held that the power to cause fugitives from service to be delivered up was a power to be exercised under the authority of this Government. I do not know, on the whole, that it may not have been a fortunate decision. My habit is to respect the result of judicial deliberations and the solemnity of judicial decisions. As it now stands, the business of seeing that these fugitives are delivered up resides in the power of Congress and the national judicature; and my friend at the head of the Judiciary Committee (Mr. Mason) has a bill on the subject now before the Senate, which, with some amendments to it, I propose to support, with all its provisions, to the fullest extent. And I desire to call the attention of all sober-minded men at the North, of all conscientious men, of all men who are not carried away by some fanatical idea or some false impression, to their constitutional obligations. I put it to all the sober and sound minds at the North, as a question of morals and a question of conscience: What right have they, in their legislative capacity or any other capacity, to endeavor to get around this Constitution, or to embarrass the free exercise of the rights secured by the Constitution to the persons whose slaves escape from them? None at all--none at all. Neither in the forum of conscience, nor before the face of this Constitution, are they, in my opinion, justified in such an attempt. Of course, it is a matter for their consideration. They, probably, in the excitement of the times, have not stopped to consider of this. They followed what seemed to be the current of thought and of motives, as the occasion arose; and they have neglected to investigate fully the real question, and to consider their constitutional obligations; which I am sure, if they did consider, they would fulfill with alacrity. I repeat, therefore, sir, that here is a well-founded ground of complaint against the North, which ought to be removed; which it is now in the power of the different departments of this Government to remove; which calls for the enactment of proper laws authorizing the judicature of this Government in the several States to do all that is necessary for the recapture of fugitive slaves, and for their restoration to those who claim them. Wherever I go, and whenever I speak on the subject,--and when I speak here I desire to speak to the whole North,--I say that the South has been injured in this respect, and has a right to complain; and the North has been too careless of what I think the Constitution peremptorily and emphatically enjoins upon her as a duty." Now, gentlemen, this may not accord with the sentiments of some of you; but what right have you--if you should differ entirely with Mr. Webster--if you should believe that there is a great law of our Maker, a higher law than any created on earth, which requires you to refuse obedience to that Fugitive-Slave Law, and makes it a high duty to resist its execution--what right, I say, have you to _force_ that opinion upon me? What right have you to require that I shall yield an allegiance to all parts of the Constitution which _you_ approve, while _you_ refuse it allegiance whenever you please? They have assigned, as another cause, the notorious fact of _the establishment of what is known as "the Underground Railroad," aiding in the escape and running off of slaves_, and the clandestine removal of property which belongs to the people of the South. They assign, as another, the _rescue of persons claimed as fugitive slaves_, as in the case of the _Jerry rescue_, in or near Syracuse. Passing once through that city, I saw a placard announcing a grand demonstration to come off in honor of that achievement--the forcible rescue of a man from the hands of the Government who was claimed under the provisions of the Constitution and an act of Congress which the Federal Courts had declared to be constitutional! They refer, also, to the _Creole case, in which, according to the Southern view of the subject, it was virtually and practically decided that no protection was to be afforded to slaves, as property of Southern men, on the high seas_. That is their view of it, and it has been expressed by able men with a great deal of force. They also refer to the _John Brown raid_, which we have not forgotten--to the invasion of Virginia by that man, who furnished the negroes with implements of slaughter. With the results of that outrage you are all familiar. They refer to _the general assault on the institution of slavery_ which many men at the North have felt it on their conscience to make, including such distinguished orators as LLOYD GARRISON, GERRIT SMITH, the fascinating and silver-tongued PHILLIPS--to whom I have listened with pleasure, much as I detested his sentiments--and THEODORE PARKER, the greatest of them all. They refer to the declarations of cultivated men at the North, that there were no means to which men might not resort to extirpate slavery; and who, when against them were cited certain passages of Scripture that were supposed to sanction the institution of slavery, fell back on the position that our Constitution was _an "infidel Constitution,"_ and that even the Bible was not to be regarded as any authority for such a monstrous error as that. They refer to _the declaration of Mr. Lincoln_, in one of his addresses to the public, _that Government could not endure half slave and half free_. But, gentlemen, it was not strange to the American people to know that there was danger of such a secession as has occurred. Some years ago it would have been esteemed the most impossible thing in the world. It has come to happen in your time and mine. It has been predicted. I know a very remarkable instance in which that prediction was stated so clearly that the author of it would seem to have been invested with the spirit and power of prophecy. We cherished the abiding hope that this would not occur; but we now see that the causes moving toward it were irresistible, and that it has become an event of history. Now, if these seceded States, on any reasoning, good or bad, on sufficient cause, or on a belief that they had sufficient cause, determined that it was not their interest to remain in the Union, they only subscribed to those doctrines promulgated by the Hartford Convention, and agreed with Blackstone, and with all the writers on civil law, that a state of things having happened in which they could have no redress, except by their own act, what course were they to adopt? It is not for you or for me to say, at this time, whether they were right or wrong in their opinions or reasons. I ask you, what course were they to adopt? and what has been the argument heretofore? Why, the argument that, when such a collision of interest took place--when the States supposed that the General Government was trespassing on them and usurping powers, making war upon their institutions, oppressing them, or failing to accomplish the ends for which the Government was established--they should appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States as common arbiter, and that its decision should be final. My friend, Mr. Larocque, has called attention to cases that might happen, of collision between executives of States and of the United States, which could not possibly be submitted to the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and I shall not mar his argument or his examples by repeating them or saying anything in addition. But, suppose that the next Congress should pass a law providing that the State of New York should pay all the expenses of this war for ten years to come, if it last so long; and that every boy of eighteen years, in the State of New York, should be mustered into the service, and coerced to march to Washington within ten days; and that no man in the State of New York should be permitted to go into another State without permission from the Executive; or should do anything of a similar character,--what course would the State of New York have under such circumstances? What course, but disobedience to the law, or insurrection, or revolution? Will my learned friends say that, in a case like that, you could appeal to the arbitrament of the Supreme Court of the United States? Is that so? Has the Supreme Court of the United States, under such circumstances, any way of redressing this wrong? But, suppose I concede that it has: what said the Republican party in reference to that Court? I instance that party, because it has the administration of the General Government. I remember distinctly that MR. CHASE, now one of the Cabinet officers, in a public speech, shortly before the Presidential election, and MR. WADE, of Ohio, a Senator of the United States--both able men, grave men, honorable men--insisted, before the people, that the Supreme Court of the United States was a mere organization of a certain number of respectable gentlemen, whose opinions were entirely conclusive, no doubt, as between parties litigant, but had no control over the political sentiments, rights, or actions of the people; that their adjudications would be a rule and a precedent in future cases of just the same character; but, beyond that, should have no efficacy whatever. Gentlemen, I will tell you what, in confirmation of these views, Mr. Lincoln says. In the Message that has been read to you he states exactly the same thing, with the addition that, if we were to submit to the Supreme Court of the United States to decide for us what is right in our Government, and what principles should be maintained, and what course the Administration should adopt, we would be surrendering to the Supreme Court the political power of the nation, and would become a species of serfs and slaves. When _nullification_ reared its head within our territory, and the people of South Carolina claimed that an Act of the General Government was an aggression upon them, against which they had a right to make physical resistance, if necessary, the parties of this country were divided into Whigs and Democrats. They were two formidable parties. There had not then grown up any of these little schismatic organizations, which are, in these latter days, numerous as the eddies on the biggest stream. They were not the days for certain clubs of professional politicians, with very imperfect wardrobes and more imperfect consciences, who sit in judgment on the qualifications of judicial officers, and measure their fitness for office by their capacity to pay money to strikers. "Now," said that great party claiming to be conservative, "South Carolina has no right to resist. If she has suffered any wrong--if the General Government has attempted any aggression on her--let her submit the whole matter to the Supreme Court of the United States, and let its arbitration be final." Yes; and so the cry continued, till it was supposed that the Supreme Court of the United States was said to have decided that the owner of slave property might carry it into the Territories. Then the note was changed. Instantly the doctrine was reversed, and the Supreme Court was no longer the great, solemn, majestic, and omnipotent arbiter to dispose of this question. Then that Court became "a convention of very respectable gentlemen," who took their seats with black robes, and who were very competent to decide the right of a controversy between John Doe and Richard Roe, but must not lay their hands on politics. Why, they talk about the Earl of Warwick being a King-maker; but your man who seats himself on the head of a whisky barrel, in a corner grocery store, is a greater King-maker than ever Warwick was; and such a man as that, in his prerogatives, is not to be displaced by the Supreme Court of the United States! He may get up a town meeting, at which it will be declared that the doctrine laid down by the Supreme Court of the United States is all preposterous and absurd, and that the people are not going to submit to that tribunal. There is no recognition, therefore, by this Administration, of the idea that the Supreme Court of the United States is capable of affording any relief in such a case as that which has led to the action of the seceded States. And so, that argument being out of the way, I ask you, I ask the learned Court, and I ask our opponents, whether, under the law of nations, as expounded, there was any other course left except that which the seceding States have adopted, assuming that any action whatever was to be taken? Adjourned till Tuesday, 29th October, at 11 o'clock A.M. SIXTH DAY. _Tuesday, Oct. 29th, 1861._ _Mr. Brady_ resumed his address, and said: In the same general line of discussion which I adopted yesterday, I will refer you to a striking passage from a distinguished gentleman, and, when I have read the extract, will state from whom it emanated: "Any people anywhere, being _inclined_ and having the _power_, have a _right_ to rise up and _shake off the existing Government_, and _form a new one that suits them better_. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right--a right which, we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which _the whole people_ of an existing Government may choose to exercise it. _Any portion of such people_ that _can_, MAY REVOLUTIONIZE and make their _own_ of _so much of the territory as they inhabit_. More than this: a _majority_ of any portion of such people may revolutionize--putting down a _minority_ intermingled with or near about them who may oppose their movements. IT IS A QUALITY OF REVOLUTIONS NOT TO GO BY OLD LINES OR OLD LAWS, BUT TO BREAK UP BOTH AND MAKE NEW ONES."--Appendix Con. Globe, 1st Session 35th Congress, p. 94. Would you suppose, gentlemen, that it was an ardent South Carolina secessionist who declared that any people may revolutionize and hold mastery of any territory which they occupy? Would you suppose that was from Jefferson Davis, in the Senate of the United States? No, gentlemen; it is from Abraham Lincoln, the President of the United States, when he was a member of Congress, and was delivered on the 12th of January, 1848. Now, gentlemen, I do not think that an intelligent gentleman born in South Carolina, Kentucky, or Virginia, and educated by his parents in a certain political faith, has not as much right to adhere to it as he has to the religious faith in which he is brought up; and if he should happen to say all that is substantially claimed by these seceding States, he would be sustained by authority quoted here, and have the express sanction of the distinguished and excellent gentleman now at the head of this nation. Let me now cite to you _Wheaton's International Law, page_ 30, in which he says, that "_sovereignty_ is acquired by a State, _either_ at the _origin_ of the civil society of which it is composed, _or_ when it _separates itself_ from the community of which it previously formed a part, and on which it was dependent." Then he says, that "CIVIL WAR _between the members of the same society is, by the general usages of nations, such a war as entitles both the contending parties to all the rights of war as against each other, and as against neutral nations._" This, if your honors please, seems to me an answer to the doctrine put forward in this case, that the Judges are to treat this question in reference to the seceding States as it has been viewed by the executive and legislative branches of the Government. If it be true that when a state of civil war exists, as stated by Wheaton, both the contending parties have all the rights of war as against each other, as well as against neutral nations, then it follows very clearly that the seceding States, as well as our own, have all the rights of war; and there is no such rule as that they must have those rights determined only by the executive or legislative branches of the Government, or by both. And here, gentlemen, let us refer to the matter of blockade, which I take to be the highest evidence of a distinct recognition, by the General Government, of a state of war as between the United and the Confederate States. I see no escape from that conclusion. It is true that a learned Judge in New England, an eminent and pure man, has determined, as we see from the newspapers, that in his judgment it is not a blockade which exists, but merely the exercise by the General Government of its authority over commerce and territory in a state of insurrection--that it is a mere police or municipal regulation. Well, gentlemen, that is not the view taken by the Judges elsewhere. Certainly it is not adopted in this District, where prize cases have arisen, instituted by the Government, which calls this a blockade; and I undertake to say that, in the history of the human race, that word, blockade, never was applied except in a state of war; and the exercise of that power never can occur except in a state of war, because, as the writers inform us, blockade is the right of a belligerent _affecting a neutral, and_ ONLY ALLOWABLE IN A STATE OF WAR. Why is it that France and England and all the other countries of the world do not attempt to send their vessels to any of the ports in guard of which we place armed vessels? A word more about piracy: A pirate is an offender against the law of nations. He is called in the Latin, and by the jurists, the enemy of the human race. Any nation can lay hold of him on the high seas, take him to its country, and punish him. Now, if a ship of war--British, French, Russian, or of any other nation--should meet with a piratical craft, she would capture and condemn it in the courts of her country, and the crew would suffer the punishment of pirates. No one will dispute that proposition. But if such a ship of war had met with the privateer Savannah, even in the very act of capturing the Joseph, would she have captured the Savannah, or attempted to arrest her crew as pirates? If not, does it not follow, as a necessary consequence, that the "Savannah" was not engaged in piratical business? and does it not involve a palpable absurdity to say, that a vessel on the high seas, cruising under a privateer's commission, can be treated as a pirate by the power with which it is at war, and yet be declared not a pirate by all the other powers of the earth? This must be so, if there is anything in the idea that piracy is an offence against the law of nations. There is not a case in our books where any man, under a commission emanating from any authority or person, was ever treated as a pirate, and so condemned, unless the _actual_ intent to steal was proved. In the case of _Aurey_ such was the fact, as in many other cases which have been cited. And so it seems that if the Confederate States were either an actual Government, established in virtue of the principles of right to which I have referred, or if a Government _de facto_, as distinguished from one having that right, or if these men believed that the commission emanated from either kind of Government was--lawfully issued--we claim that it is impossible in law, and would be wrong in morals, and unjust in all its consequences, to hold them as pirates, or to treat them otherwise than as prisoners of war. And, gentlemen, I am sorry to say, or rather I am glad to say, that if they should be acquitted of the crime of piracy, they would yet remain as prisoners of war. The worst thing to do with them is to hang them. By preserving their lives we have just their number to exchange for prisoners taken by the enemy. You, gentlemen, will do your duty under the law, whatever be the consequences. If you have no doubt that these men have committed piracy, they should be convicted of piracy. No threat of retaliation from any quarter should or will influence right-minded men in the disposition to be made of cases where they have to give a verdict according to their conscience, the evidence, and the law of the land. But the fact of retaliation, as a danger that may ensue from treating as pirates men engaged in war, is referred to by VATTEL in his treatise on the laws of nations. It is one of the considerations which enjoin on Courts and Governments the duty of seeing that, when people are prosecuting civil war, they shall enjoy the humanities of war. I will now consider this case under the ninth section of the Act of 1790, which is as follows: "If any _citizen_ shall commit any piracy or robbery aforesaid, or _any act of hostility_ against the United States, _or any of the citizens thereof_, on the high seas, under color of any commission from _any foreign Prince or State,_ or on _pretence_ of authority _from any person_, such offender shall, notwithstanding the pretence of any such authority, be deemed, adjudged, and taken to be a pirate, felon, and robber, and, on being thereof convicted, shall suffer death." Now, in the first place, we say, as was before urged, that statute has no bearing whatever on the case of the eight foreigners, and you are to disregard them entirely in passing upon all the questions which this Act may raise; and we say that it has no bearing on the four Americans before you, even if it be a valid Act and applicable to a case of this character, because, at the time of the acts charged, they were _citizens of another Government, owing it allegiance, receiving its protection, engaged in its service, and bound to perform such service_. We have been told that allegiance and protection are reciprocal. The people of the Southern States would be placed in a very extraordinary condition if the arguments of my learned opponent are to prevail. Look at the citizens of Charleston. There are men in that city who love the Union, among whom is MR. PETTIGREW, an able lawyer, a patriot, and a man of great virtue, talents, and distinction. If those loyal people wanted to leave Charleston and come North, they could not do it. If they felt inclined to utter, at this moment, their sentiments in favor of reunion of the States, it would be an act of folly and danger. They are living in A STATE, under its government and jurisdiction, and bound to perform their duties as citizens. Can they refuse? They may be ordered into the service of the government--sent to sea--enlisted as soldiers. They cannot refuse to fight. If they do, they make themselves amenable to their own Judges. I refer to _1st Hawkins, Pl. Crown_, 87, 89, where it is said: "_There is a_ NECESSITY _that the realm should have a King, by whom and in whose name the laws shall be administered; and the King_ IN POSSESSION, _being the only person who either doth or can administer those laws_, MUST BE THE ONLY PERSON _who has a right to that obedience which is due to him who administers those laws; and since, by virtue thereof, he secures us the safety of our lives, liberties, and properties, and all the advantages of Government, he may_ JUSTLY CLAIM RETURNS OF DUTY, ALLEGIANCE, AND SUBJECTION." And BLACKSTONE is equally explicit (_4 Blackstone's Comm._, 78): "When, therefore, an USURPER is _in possession_, the subject is _excused_ and _justified in obeying and giving him assistance_; OTHERWISE, UNDER AN USURPATION, NO MAN _could_ BE SAFE, _if the lawful Prince had a right to hang him for obedience to the power in being, as the_ USURPER WOULD CERTAINLY DO FOR DISOBEDIENCE." _3d Inst. (Coke)_ 7, is to the same point: "_The stat. 11 Henry VII., ch. 1_, is declaratory of the law on this subject; _and the year books, 4 Edw. IV., 1, 9 Edw. IV., 1, 2, show that it was always the English law_." Our statute, or rather constitutional definition, of _treason_, is a transcript of the English statute of treason; and it is hardly necessary to cite _2 Story on the Constitution, sec. 1799_, to the point that our Courts will construe the Constitution as the English law is construed by the English Courts. And here we observe a marked difference between a revolt by the subjects of a single consolidated Government which is a unit, and the action of one or more States in a Confederacy, or of the people dwelling within them, when such States resolve, as States, to recognize no sovereignty or Government within their territory except that established under their own Constitution. But I insist upon it that _Congress had no power to pass this 9th section of the Act of 1790_; that the construction put upon it by our opponents is entirely unwarranted; and that it cannot be applied to a case like this. Your honors are aware that in _The case of Smith, 5 Wheaton_, Mr. Webster took the ground that the law was not constitutional, because it did not define piracy otherwise than by referring to the law of nations. The authority given to Congress on that subject is to define and punish piracy and other offences against the law of nations. "To define and punish piracy" is all of the phrase with which I have to deal. Now, you understand, gentlemen, that there is no common-law jurisdiction of offences residing in the United States Courts. They can punish no crime except by statute. Congress had fully defined piracy and robbery in the _eighth_ section of the Act of 1790; and, having done so, what power or authority was there in Congress to go on and say that something else should be called piracy, when the definition of it was complete? Let me refer your honors again to the language of the law, which furnishes a strong argument on this subject: "If any citizen shall commit any piracy or robbery _aforesaid_, or any act of hostility against the United States," &c. Does not that clearly recognize and admit that piracy has been defined? and can it be pretended that Congress, under pretence of defining piracy, can provide that a common assault and battery on the high sea shall be piracy? Is there no limitation to that grant? We claim that its terms are just as much a _restriction_ as a _delegation_ of power. It defines as clearly the limits which the Government shall not transcend, as it does the area which Congress may occupy. You may "define piracy and punish it:" does this mean that you can call anything piracy, whether it be so or not? Suppose Congress passed an Act providing that, if any man _on land_ should, during a state of war, attempt to make reprisals on another, it should be piracy, punishable with death: would that be a legitimate exercise of the authority vested in Congress? We claim that it would not, and that it would be a manifest usurpation against the true meaning, spirit, and proper effect of the Constitution. Again, it has been argued to your honors, and we insist, that _this statute, if it be operative_, only _relates to the case of a person taking a commission from a_ FOREIGN _Government or State_. To say that an act of hostility committed by authority of any _person_ whatever--using the word "person" to mean a human being--against another, on the high seas, would be piracy, and punishable by death, is a monstrous construction of this Act; and if I understood brother Evarts, in the course of the discussion that took place between him and myself, he conceded that the case which I suggested, of throwing a belaying-pin, by order of the Captain of one vessel, at the Captain of another, on the high seas, _although an act of hostility by one citizen against another_, under pretence of authority from a person, would not come within the law; yet this assault would be within the _very letter_ of the Act. Read that law just as it is, and say, after the words "Prince" and "State" have been used, what other term is necessary or apposite. Why, no other, except as in the case of Aurey, an _individual_ fitting out an expedition against a foreign Government, and undertaking to grant commissions; or as in the case of _James II._, who, as shown by Mr. Lord, was an exile in a foreign land, having no territory, no Government, and no subjects; and he was treated in the English Act--from which ours is taken--as a _mere person_, not to be denominated King. I do not mean to concede that the case of _Miranda_, who fitted out the expedition against Spain, assisted by some of our citizens, and granted commissions to privateers, would be a case within the statute of 1790; but if it would, it will not subserve the purposes of the prosecution at all, or be injurious to us. The word "person," in this connection, means a person standing in the same relation to another as a Prince or a State. Gentlemen, that this was never intended to apply between so many States as remained in the Union and those that went out, is a proposition about which Mr. Lord has been heard, and I see no answer to his argument. Now, there is a dilemma here. If the gentlemen insist that, in the construction I have given, we are right, and that Mr. Jefferson Davis or the Confederate States, in the giving of this commission or authority, are to be regarded as a power or person within my definition, then it is as a foreign power; in which case Capt. Baker is the subject or citizen of that power, and not a citizen of the United States, and not within the Act of 1790. And if the Confederate States is _not_ a foreign power, within the construction and meaning of the Act of 1790, then there is no violation of that statute by Capt. Baker, or any one associated with him, if it be true, as I contend, that the pretence of authority must be of one from a foreign source. If they make out that the Confederate States is a foreign power, it is because it is a Government in existence; and if it be a Government in existence, then its commission must be recognized by the law of nations. Now, I certainly understood, from the opening by the learned District Attorney, that the prosecution did not rely much on the piracy branch of this case; they did not abandon it; they have never said they would not press a conviction upon it. But the strong effort is made to convict under the ninth section of the Act of 1790, saying to you of the Jury, "All you have to find is, that Baker and three of his associates were citizens of the United States; that they were on the high seas; and that, being there, they committed an act of hostility against another citizen of the United States, under pretence of authority from Jefferson Davis; and, then, they are pirates." I think it would have been a little more magnanimous in the Government not to attempt any scheme of this kind. I think, if it be possible to drag these men, manacled, within the construction of a statute which exposes their lives to danger, it is yet not the right way to deal with them. When they were captured they were entitled to be treated either as prisoners of war, or as traitors to the Government. Why were they not indicted for treason? Now, my learned friend said that this indictment was drawn with the utmost possible care and circumspection, when he spoke of the averment that this act of the defendants was done under pretence of the authority of "_one Jefferson Davis_." The pleader did not wish to admit, by the language of the indictment, that it was under pretence of any authority from any Government or Confederate States. He wanted to regard it as the act of a mere individual, who, although he claimed to represent so-called States, was, after all, merely a person signing a paper on his own account, and for which he was to take the exclusive responsibility. I will refer your honors to _Blackstone, 4 vol., p. _72, where he interprets this statute of _11 and 12 William III., chap. _4, to relate to acts done under color of a commission from a _foreign power_; and it was never supposed to have meant anything else. In 1819, Great Britain passed a law making it a crime for British subjects to be connected in any way with the sending out of vessels to cruise against a power at peace with England. By the _18th George II., chap. _30, it is made piracy, in time of war, for English subjects to commit hostilities of any kind against fellow subjects. How did that act become necessary in the legislation of England, if the previous law had already provided for the same thing? That, certainly, is a question of some importance in this case. We have statutes that punish citizens of the United States, under certain circumstances when they are engaged in privateering; and there have been trials and convictions under these statutes, as your honors will find by referring to _Wharton's State Trials_. We contend, therefore, that the ninth section of the Act of 1790, as construed by our opponents, would be unconstitutional; that it only applies, if valid, to acts done under authority of a foreign power or person; that if Jefferson Davis was, or represented, such foreign power, then the defendants were subjects of that power, not citizens of the United States, and not within the Act; if he were not or did not represent a foreign power, the Act does not apply to the case; and so, in every view of the subject, there is no right to convict any of these men under this Act. I will now cite some authorities on the question of _variance_ made by my friend, Mr. Lord, in describing this commission as a pretence of authority from one Jefferson Davis. Certainly, in law, that commission is the act and authority of the Confederate States. There can be no dispute about that. I refer my learned opponents to _Wharton's Criminal Treatise, at pps. 78, 91, 93, 94 and 96_, for these two propositions: In the first place, that, where a new offence is created by statute, the utmost particularity is required, when drawing the indictment, to set forth all the statutory elements of the offence; and, in the second place, what is thus averred must be proved strictly as laid. Well, it may seem to you, gentlemen, rather a technical and immaterial question, whether this was set out as a pretence of authority from one Jefferson Davis, or from the Confederate States,--and it is. But, nevertheless, it is a legal technicality; and these prisoners, if it be well founded, have a right to the benefit of it. It is very little that I have to read from this book, for the propositions are pointedly stated: Page 91. "It is a general rule that, in regard to offences created by statutes, it is necessary that the defendant be brought within all the material words of the statute; and nothing can be taken by intendment." Page 93. "Defects in the description of a statutory offence will not be aided by a verdict, nor will the conclusion _contra formam statutis_ cure it." Page 94. "An indictment under the Stat. 5th Elizabeth, which makes it high treason to clip round or file any of the coin of the realm for wicked lucre or gain sake,--it was necessary to charge the offence as being committed for wicked lucre or gain sake, otherwise the indictment was bad. In another case, an indictment on that part of the black act which made it felony willfully or maliciously to shoot at a person in a dwelling-house was held to be bad, because it charged the offence to have been done '_unlawfully and maliciously_,' without the word '_willfully_.'" That is technical enough, I admit, but it emanates from high authority. [Mr. Brady read other passages from Wharton, and said]: And, now, what relates more particularly to the matter in hand, is the case of _The United States_ vs. _Hardiman, 13 Peters_, 176. In that case the defendant was indicted for receiving a fifty-dollar treasury note, knowing it to have been stolen out of the mail of the United States. The indictment was under the 45th section of the Post-Office Law. The thing stolen was described as a fifty-dollar _treasury note, bearing interest at one per cent._; and it turned out to be a treasury note which, although of fifty-dollars' denomination, bore interest at the rate of _one mill per cent._; and the Court held the variance to be fatal. Now, we claim that to describe the commission as emanating from one Jefferson Davis, when in fact it emanated from the Confederate States, is such a variance as is here referred to; and, on that ground, the indictment is not sustained. The argument is made here, that, no matter what publicists may say,--no matter what Courts of other countries may declare as international law, about the organization of government or the creation of powers _de jure_ or _de facto_,--this Court has nothing to do with the debate; that your honors have simply to inquire whether Mr. Lincoln, the President, has said, or whether Congress has said, a certain thing, and the matter proceeds no further; that the citizen is not entitled to have a trial, in a Court of Justice, on the question whether, being in a state of revolt, a civil war does in fact exist; and that the right of trial by Jury does not, as to such a question, exist at all. It is utterly absurd to have you here, gentlemen, if all that is necessary to be shown against these men is the proclamation by the Executive, and an Act of Congress calling them rebels and pirates. Is there any trial by Jury under such circumstances? The form of it may exist, but not the substance. It is a mockery. No, your honors; this question, as to the _status_ of the Confederate States, is a judicial question, when it arises in a Court of Justice. It is a juridical question. It is one of which Courts may take cognizance--must take cognizance--in view of and with the aid of that international law which is part of the common law, part of the birthright of all our citizens, and to the benefit and immunities as well as responsibilities of which they are subject and may make claim. Otherwise it would lead to this most extraordinary consequence, that, whenever any portion of a State or any State of a Confederacy, either here or elsewhere, revolts, and attempts to withdraw itself from the old Government, the old Government shall be the only judge on earth to determine whether the seceders, or the revolutionists, or the rebels, shall be treated as pirates or robbers. Would it not be very strange if our nation should extend to those who revolt in any other country, when they have attained a certain formidable position before the world, the rights and humanities of civil war; and that, when any of our own people, under the claim of right and justice, however ill-founded, unfortunate, or otherwise, put themselves in an attitude of hostility to the Government, they are to be treated as outlaws and enemies to the human race, having no rights whatever incident to humanity and growing out of benign jurisprudence? Then, apart from all that has been said, _if the United States made war upon the South, as it certainly did by the act of the President, it is one of the propositions which these men may insist upon, that the States had a right to defend themselves, to make reprisals, to issue letters of marque, and that they had all the other rights of warfare._ On this point, Mr. Larocque has given copious and apposite arguments and citations. The Constitution itself, when it comes to prohibit a State from making war and granting letters of marque, distinctly recognizes that privateers are not illegal. It has limited the prohibition against granting letters of marque, &c., by saying that a State may do so in the case of invasion, and when the danger is imminent. Now, what are the facts before us here which raise this as a question in the case? There was no declaration of war by our Government, and none by the South; but at a certain time there was a firing on an unarmed vessel entering Charleston harbor--the "Star of the West." General Anderson, who was in command of Fort Sumter--whether acting under the authority of the Government, or not, does not very clearly appear in the case--sent a communication to Governor Pickens, to the effect that, if unarmed vessels were to be fired upon, he wished to be informed of the fact, saying, "You have not yet declared war against the United States;" and that, if the offence were repeated, he should open his batteries on Charleston. That is the substance of it. Mr. Pickens retorted, saying, substantially, that they would maintain their positions. The next thing in order is the proclamation by the President, for the organization of the army, for the purpose, as he said, of retaking our forts. When, therefore, that condition of things had arrived, war was begun by the United States upon the South. You may say it was not a war. You may say it was the employment of means to put down an insurrection. I care not for the mere use of language. It was, in effect and substance, a war against those States which claimed the authority to hold territory for themselves, under a separate and independent Government; and that would give them the right to oppose force by force, unless, indeed, the whole thing was a tumultuous act--a mere act of treason--and so to be regarded in all aspects of the case. There is a principle applicable to this whole case, referred to by MR. DUKES, in his argument--the doctrine of _respondeat superior_, of which he gave some instances. These men may go wholly free by the law of nations, and yet the State which, in the name of Jefferson Davis or the Confederate States, issued this commission, would be responsible to the General Government for the consequences. We had a memorable instance of this in this State, some years since. You will remember that a man, named MCLEOD, was charged with coming across the lines from Canada and setting fire to an American steamer. He was tried, and acquitted on the ground--not very complimentary to him--that he did not do any such thing, although he had boasted of it. It was rather humiliating to be absolved of crime on the ground that the accused was a liar; yet still that is the history of the case. Now, there was a diplomatic correspondence in reference to this incident, as some of you well remember. Great Britain insisted that Mr. McLeod must not be tried at all; that the American Government had no authority to take cognizance of the act; and that we must look to Great Britain for redress. Well, gentlemen, I am sorry to say that our Government has very often acted like the Government of England. Each of us has been quite willing, occasionally, to swoop down on an inferior power, as the vulture on its prey; but, whenever there was a possibility of conflict with a power equal to either, a great deal of caution and reserve has been evinced. We have been for years--almost from the foundation of our Government--truckling to British ideas, British principles, British feelings, and British apprehensions, in a manner which has not done us any honor; and we see to-day what reward we are enjoying for it. There has not been a public speaker in England who has ever designated us, for a long period, by any other name than that of the Anglo-Saxon race--a designation which includes but one element of even the race which exists in the British Islands, omitting the gentle, noble, and effective traits imported into it by the Normans, and excluding those countrymen of my ancestors who do not like to be outside when there is anything good going on within. What said our Government to that? I understand that they distinctly admitted that McLeod was not amenable to our jurisdiction; but the State of New York held on, in virtue of its jurisdiction and sovereignty, and Mr. McLeod had to be tried, and was tried and acquitted. There the principle of _respondeat superior_ was acknowledged by our Government; and I believe that is the policy upon which it has acted on every occasion when the case arose. Gentlemen, I will detain you but a few moments longer. I have endeavored to show, in the first place, that these men cannot be convicted of piracy, because they had not the intent to steal, essential to the commission of that offence, and that you are the judges whether that intent did or did not exist. If it did not, then the accused men are entitled to acquittal on that ground. If the Act of 1790 be constitutional, and if it can be construed to extend to a case like this, then eight of the prisoners are to be discharged--being foreigners, not naturalized; and the other four, also--having acted under a commission issued in good faith by a Government which claimed to have existence, acted upon in good faith by themselves, and with the belief that they were not committing any lawless act of aggression. In this connection I hold it to be immaterial whether the Confederate Government was one of right, established on sufficient authority according to the law of nations, and to be recognized as such, or whether it was merely a Government in fact. We claim, beyond all that, and apart from the question of Government in law or Government in fact, that there exists a state of civil war; which entitles these defendants to be treated in every other manner than as pirates; which may have rendered them amenable to the danger of being regarded as prisoners of war, but which has made it impossible for them to be ever dealt with as felons. I am sorry that it has become necessary in this discussion to open subjects for debate, any inquiry about which, at this particular juncture in our history, is not likely to be attended with any great advantage. But, like my brethren for the defence, I have endeavored to state freely, fearlessly, frankly and correctly, the positions on which the defendants have a right to rely before the Court and before you. It would have been much more acceptable to my feelings, as a citizen, if we had been spared the performance of any such duty. But, gentlemen, it is not our fault. The advocate is of very little use in the days of prosperity and peace, in the periods of repose, in protecting your property, or aiding you to recover your rights of a civil nature. It is only when public opinion, or the strong power of Government, the formidable array of influence, the force of a nation, or the fury of a multitude, is directed against you, that the advocate is of any use. Many years ago, while we were yet Colonies of Great Britain, there occurred on this island what is known as the famous negro insurrection,--the result of an idle story, told by a worthless person, and yet leading to such an inflammation of the public mind that all the lawyers who then practiced at the bar of New York (and it is the greatest stigma on our profession of which the world can furnish an example) refused to defend the accused parties. One of them was a poor priest, of, I believe, foreign origin. The consequence was, that numerous convictions took place, and a great many executions. And yet all mankind is perfectly satisfied that there never was a more unfounded rumor--never a more idle tale--and that judicial murders were never perpetrated on the face of the earth more intolerable, more inexcusable, more without palliation. How different was it in Boston, at the time of what was called the massacre of Massachusetts subjects by British forces! The soldiers, on being indicted, sought for counsel; and they found two men, of great eminence in the profession, to act for them. One of them was Mr. Adams, and the other Mr. Quincy. The father of Mr. Quincy addressed a letter, imploring him, on his allegiance as a son, and from affection and duty toward him, not to undertake the defence of these men. The son wrote back a response, recognizing, as he truly felt, all the filial affection which he owed to that honored parent, but, at the same time, taking the high and appropriate ground that he must discharge his duty as an advocate, according to the rules of his profession and the obligation of his official oath, whatever might be the result of his course. The struggles, in the history of the world, to have, in criminal trials, an honest judiciary, a fearless jury, and a faithful advocate, disclose a great deal of wrong and suffering inflicted on advocates silenced by force, trembling at the bar where they ought to be utterly immovable in the discharge of their duty--on juries fined, and imprisoned, and kept lying in dungeons for years, because they dared, in State prosecutions, to find verdicts against the direction of the Court. The provisions of our own Constitution, which secure to men trial by jury and all the rights incident to that sacred and invaluable privilege, are the history of wrong against which those provisions are intended to guard in the future. This trial, gentlemen, furnishes a brilliant illustration of the beneficial results of all this care. Nothing could be fairer than the trial which these prisoners have had; nothing more admirable than the attention which you have given to every proceeding in this case. I know all the gentlemen on that Jury well enough to be perfectly certain that whatever verdict they render will be given without fear or favor, on the law of the land, as they shall be informed it does exist, on a calm and patient review of the testimony, with a due sympathy for the accused, and yet with a proper respect for the Government, so that the law shall be satisfied and individual right protected. But, gentlemen, I do believe most sincerely that, unless we have deceived ourselves in regard to the law of the land, I have a right to invoke your protection for these men. The bodily presence, if it could be secured, of those who have been here in spirit by their language, attending on this debate and hovering about these men to furnish them protection--Lee, and Hamilton, and Adams, and Washington, and Jefferson, all whose spirits enter into the principles for which we contend--would plead in their behalf. I do wish that it were within the power of men, invoking the great Ruler of the Universe, to bid these doors open and to let the Revolutionary Sages to whom I have referred, and a Sumter, a Moultrie, a Marion, a Greene, a Putnam, and the other distinguished men who fought for our privileges and rights in the days of old, march in here and look at this trial. There is not a man of them who would not say to you that you should remember, in regard to each of these prisoners, as if you were his father, the history of Abraham when he went to sacrifice his son Isaac on the mount--the spirit of American liberty, the principles of American jurisprudence, and the dictates of humanity, constituting themselves another Angel of the Lord, and saying to you, when the immolation was threatened, "Lay not your hand upon him." (Manifestations of applause in Court.) ARGUMENT OF WILLIAM M. EVARTS, ESQ., FOR THE PROSECUTION. _May it please your Honors, and Gentlemen of the Jury_: A trial in a Court of Justice is a trial of many things besides the prisoners at the bar. It is a trial of the strength of the laws, of the power of the Government, of the duty of the citizen, of the fidelity to conscience and the intelligence of the Jury. It is a trial of those great principles of faith, of duty, of law, of civil society, that distinguish the condition of civilization from that of barbarism. I know no better instance of the distinction between a civilized, instructed, Christian people, and a rude and barbarous nation, than that which is shown in the assertions of right where might and violence and the rage of passion in physical contest determine everything, and this last sober, discreet, patient, intelligent, authorized, faithful, scrupulous, conscientious investigation, under the lights of all that intelligence with which God has favored any of us; under that instruction which belongs to the learned and accredited expounders of the law of an established free Government; under the aid of, and yet not misled by, the genius or eloquence of advocates on either side. But, after all, the controlling dominion of duty to the men before you in the persons of the prisoners, to the whole community around you, and to the great nation for which you now discharge here a vital function for its permanence and its safety,--your duty to the laws and the Government of your country (which, giving its protection, requires your allegiance, and finds its last and final resting-place, both here and in England, in the verdicts of Juries),--your duty to yourselves,--requires you to recognize yourselves not only as members of civil society, but as children of the "Father of an Infinite Majesty," and amenable to His last judgment for your acts. Can any of us, then, fail to feel, even more fully than we can express, that sympathies, affections, passions, sentiments, prejudices, hopes, fears, feelings and responsibilities of others than ourselves are banished at once and forever, as we enter the threshold of such an inquiry as this, and never return to us until we have passed from this sacred precinct, and, with our hands on our breasts and our eyes on the ground, can humbly hope that we have done our duty and our whole duty? Something was said to you, gentlemen of the Jury, of the unwonted circumstances of the prosecution, by the learned counsel who, many days ago, and with an impressiveness that has not yet passed away from your memory, opened on behalf of the prisoners the course of this defence. He has said to you that the number of those whose fate, for life or for death, hangs on your verdict, is equal to your own--hinting a ready suggestion that that divided responsibility by which twelve men may sometimes shelter themselves, in weighing in the balance the life of a single man, is not yours. Gentlemen, let us understand how much of force and effect there is in the suggestion, and how truly and to what extent the responsibility of a Jury may be said to include this issue of life and death. In the first place, as Jurymen, you have no share or responsibility in the wisdom or the justice of those laws which you are called upon to administer. If there be defects in them--if they have something of that force and severity which is necessary for the maintenance of Government and the protection of peace and property, and of life on the high seas--you have had no share in their enactment, and have no charge, at your hands, of their enforcement. In the next place, you have no responsibility of any kind in regard to the discretion of the representatives of this Government in the course which they choose to take, as to whether they will prosecute or leave unprosecuted. You do not, within the limits of the inquiry presented to you, dispose of the question, why others have not been presented to you; nor may that which has been done in a case not before you, serve as a guide for the subject submitted to your consideration. So, too, you have no responsibility of any kind concerning the course or views of the law which this tribunal may give for your guidance. The Court does not make the law, but Congress does. The Court declares the law as enacted by the Government, and the Jury find the facts--giving every scrutiny, every patient investigation, every favor for life, and every reasonable doubt as to the facts, to the prisoners. Having disposed of that duty, as sober, intelligent and faithful men, graduating your attention only by the gravity of the inquiry, you have no further responsibility. But I need not say to you, gentlemen, that if any civilized Government is to have control of the subject of piracy--if pirates are to be brought within the jurisdiction of the criminal law--the very nature of the crime involves the fact that its successful prosecution necessarily requires that considerable numbers shall be engaged in it. I am quite certain that, if my learned friends had found in the circumstances of this case nothing which removed it out of the category of the heinous crime of private plunder at sea, exposing property and life, and breaking up commerce, they would have found nothing in the fact that a ship's crew was brought in for trial, and that the number of that crew amounted to twelve men, that should be pressed to the disturbance of your serene judgment, in any disposition of the case. Now, gentlemen, let us look a little into the nature of the crime, and into the condition of the law. The penalty of the crime of piracy or robbery at sea stands on our statute books heavier than the penalty assigned for a similar crime committed on land--which is, in fact, similar, so far as concerns its being an act of depredation. It may be said, and it is often argued, that, when the guilt of two offences is equal, society transcends its right and duty when it draws a distinction in its punishments; and it may be said, as has been fully argued to you--at least, by implication, in the course of this case--that the whole duty and the whole responsibility of civil Governments, in the administration of criminal law and the punishment of crime, has to do with retributive vengeance, as it were, on the moral guilt of the prisoner. Now, gentlemen, I need not say to you, who are experienced at least in the common inquiries concerning Governments and their duties, that, as a mere naked and separate consideration for punishing moral guilt, Government leaves, or should leave, vengeance where it belongs--to Him who searches the heart and punishes according to its secret intents--drawing no distinction between the wicked purpose which fully plans, and the final act which executes that purpose. The great, the main duty--the great, the main right--of civil society, in the exercise of its dominion over the liberties, lives, and property of its subjects, is the good of the public, in the prevention, the check, the discouragement, the suppression of crime. And I am sure that there is scarcely one of us who, if guilt, if fault, if vice could be left to the punishment of conscience and the responsibility of the last and great assize, without prejudice to society, without injury to the good of others, without, indeed, being a danger and a destruction to all the peace, the happiness, and the safety of communities, would not readily lay aside all his share in the vindictive punishments of guilty men. But society, framed in the form and for the purposes of Government, finds, alas! that this tribunal of conscience, and this last and future accountability of another world, is inadequate to its protection against wickedness and crime in this. You will find, therefore, in all, even the most enlightened and most humane codes of laws, that some necessary attention is paid to the predominant interest which society has in preventing crime. The very great difficulty of detecting it, the circumstances of secrecy, and the chances of escape on the part of the criminal, are considerations which enter into the distribution of its penalties. You will find, in a highly commercial community, like that of England, and to some extent--although, I am glad to say, with much less severity--in our own, which is also a highly commercial community, that frauds against property, frauds against trade, frauds in the nature of counterfeiting and forgery, and all those peaceful and not violent but yet pernicious interferences with the health and necessary activity of our every-day life, require the infliction of severe penalties for what, when you take up the particular elements of the crime, seems to have but little of the force, and but little of the depth of a serious moral delinquency. The severity of the penalties for passing counterfeit money are inflicted upon the poor and ignorant who, in so small a matter as a coin of slight value, knowingly and intelligently, under even the strongest impulses of poverty, are engaged in the offence. Now, therefore, when commercial nations have been brought to the consideration of what their enactments on the subject of piracy shall be, they have taken into account that the very offence itself requires that its commission should be outside of the active and efficient protection of civil society--that the commission of the crime involves, on the part of the criminals, a fixed, deliberate determination and preparation--and that the circumstances under which the victims, either in respect of their property or of their lives, are exposed to these aggressions, are such as to make it a part of the probable course of the crime, that the most serious evils and the deepest wounds may be inflicted. Now, when a crime, not condemned in ethics or humanity, and which the positive enactments of the law have made highly penal, yet contains within itself circumstances that appeal very strongly to whatever authority or magistrate has rightful control of the subject for a special exemption, and special remission, and special concession from the penalty of the law, where and upon what principles does a wise and just, a humane and benignant Government, dispose of that question? I agree that, if crimes which the good of society requires to be subjected to harsh penalties, must stand, always and irrevocably; upon the mere behest of judicial sentence, there would be found an oppression and a cruelty in some respects, that a community having a conscientious adherence to right and humanity would scarcely tolerate. Where, then, does it wisely bestow all the responsibility, and give all the power that belongs to this adjustment, according to the particular circumstances of the moral and personal guilt, which must be necessary, and is always conceded? Why, confessedly, to the pardoning power, alluded to on one side or the other--though chiefly on the part of the prisoners' counsel--in the course of this trial. Now, you will perceive, at once, what the difference is between a Court, or a Jury, or a public prosecuting officer, yielding to particular circumstances of actual or of general qualification of a crime charged,--so that the law shall be thwarted, and the certainty and directness of judicial trial and sentence be made the sport of sympathy, or of casual or personal influences,--and placing the pardoning power where it shall be governed by the particular circumstances of each case, so that its exercise shall have no influence in breaking down the authority of law, or in disturbing the certainty, directness, and completeness of judicial rules. For, it is the very nature of a pardon,--committed to the Chief Magistrate of the Federal Union in cases of which this Court has jurisdiction, and to the Chief Magistrate of every State in the Union in cases of which the State tribunals take cognizance,--that it is a recognition of the law, and of the sentence of the law, and leaves the laws undisturbed, the rules for the guidance of men unaffected, the power and strength of the Government unweakened, the force of the judiciary unparalyzed, and yet disposes of each case in a way that is just, or, if not just, is humane and clement, where the pardon is exercised. Now, gentlemen, I shall say nothing more on the subject of pardon. It is a thing with which I have nothing to do--with which this learned Court has nothing to do--with which you, as Jurymen, have nothing to do--beyond the fact that this beneficent Government of ours has not omitted from its arrangement, in the administration of its penal laws, this divine attribute of mercy. Now, there being the crime of piracy or robbery on the high seas, which the interests of society, the protection of property and of life, the maintenance of commerce, oblige every State and every nation, like ours, to condemn--what are the circumstances, what are the acts, that, in view of the law, amount to piracy? You will understand me that, for the present, I entirely exclude from your consideration any of the particular circumstances which are supposed to give to the actual crime perpetrated a public character, lifting it out of the penal law that you administer, and out of the region of private crime, into a field of quite different considerations. They are, undoubtedly, that the act done shall be with intent of depriving the person who is in possession of property, as its owner, or as the representative of that owner, of that property. That is what is meant by the Latin phrase, with which you are quite as familiar now, at least, as I, _animo furandi_--with the intention of despoiling the owner of that which belongs to him. And, to make up the crime of robbery on land, in distinction from larceny or theft, as we generally call it, (though theft, perhaps, includes all the variety of crime by which the property of another is taken against his will,) robbery includes, and _piracy_, being robbery at sea, includes, the idea that it is done with the application, or the threat, or the presence of force. There must be actual violence, or the presence and exhibition of power and intent to use violence, which produces the surrender and delivery of the property. Such are the ingredients of robbery and piracy. And, gentlemen, these two ingredients are all; and you must rob one or the other of them of this, their poison, or the crime is completely proved, when the fact of the spoliation, with these ingredients, shall have been proved. The use that the robber or the pirate intends to make of the property, or the justification which he thinks he has by way of retaliation, by way of injury, by way of provocation, by way of any other occasion or motive that seems justifiable to his own conscience and his own obedience to any form whatever of the higher law, has nothing to do with the completeness of the crime, unless it come to what has been adverted to by the learned counsel, and displayed before you in citations from the law-books--to an honest, however much it may be a mistaken and baseless, idea that the property is really the property of the accused robber, of which he is repossessing himself from the party against whom he makes the aggression. Now, unless, in the case proved of piracy, or robbery on land, there be some foundation for the suggestion that the willful and intentional act of depriving a party of his property rests upon a claim of the robber, or the pirate, that it is his own property (however baseless may be the claim), you cannot avoid, you cannot defeat, the criminality of the act of robbery, within the intention of the law, by showing that the robber or the pirate had, in the protection of his own conscience, and in the government of his own conduct, certain opinions or views that made it right for him to execute that purpose. Thus, for instance, take a case of morals: A certain sect of political philosophers have this proposition as a basis of all their reasoning on the subject of property,--that is, that property, the notion of separate property in anything, as belonging to anybody, is theft; that the very notion that I can own anything, whatever it may be, and exclude other people from the enjoyment of it, is a theft made by me, a wrongful appropriation, when all the good things in this world, in the intention of Providence, were designed for the equal enjoyment of all the human race. Well, now, a person possessed of that notion of political economy and of the moral rights and duties of men, might seek to avail himself of property owned and enjoyed by another, on the theory that the person in possession of it was the original thief, and that he was entitled to share it. I need not say to you that all these ideas and considerations have nothing whatever to do with the consideration of the moral intent with which a person is despoiled of his property. Now, with regard to force, I do not understand that my learned friends really make any question, seriously, upon the general principle of what force is, or upon the facts of this case, that this seizure of the Joseph by the Savannah had enough of force,--the threat, the presence, and exhibition of power,--and of the intent to use it, to make the capture one of force, if the other considerations which are relied upon do not lift it out of that catalogue of crime. It is true that the learned counsel who last addressed you seemed to intimate, in some of his remarks, near the close of his very able and eloquent and interesting address, that there was not any force about it, that the master of the Joseph was not threatened, that there was no evidence that the cannon was even loaded, and that it never had been fired off. Well, gentlemen, the very illustration which he used of what would be a complete robbery on land,--the aggressor possessing a pistol, and asking, in the politest manner, for your money,--relieves me from arguing that you must fire either a cannon or a pistol, before you have evidence of force. If our rights stand on that proposition, that when a pistol is presented at our breast, and we surrender our money, we must wait for the pistol to be fired before the crime is completed, you will see that the terrors of the crime of robbery do not go very far towards protecting property or person, which is the object of it. When, gentlemen, the Government, within a statute which, in the judgment of the Court, shall be pronounced as being lawfully enacted under the Constitution of the United States, has completed the proof of the circumstances of the crime charged, it is entitled at your hands to a conviction of the accused, unless, by proof adduced on his part, he shall so shake the consistency and completeness of the proof on the part of the Government, or shall introduce such questions of uncertainty and doubt, that the facts shall be disturbed in your mind, or unless he shall show himself in some predicament of protection or right under the law,--(and, by "under the law," I mean, under the law of the land where the crime is punishable, and where the trial and the sentence are lawfully attributed to be,)--or unless he shall introduce some new facts which, conceding the truthfulness and the sufficiency of the case made by the Government, shall still interpose a protection, in some form, against the application of the penalty of the law. I take it that I need not say to you that this protection or qualification of the character of the crime must be by the law of the land; and, whether it comes to be the law of the land by its enactment in the statutes of the United States, or by the adoption and incorporation into the law of the land of the principles of the law of nations, is a point quite immaterial to you. You are not judges of what the statutes of the United States are, except so far as their interpretation may rightfully become a subject of inquiry by the Jury, in the sense of whether the crime is within the intent of the Act, in the circumstances proved. You are not judges of what the law of nations is, in the first place; nor are you judges of how much of the law of nations has been adopted or incorporated into the system of our Government and our laws, by the authority of its Congress or of its Courts. Whether, as I say to you, there is a defence, or protection, or qualification of the acts and transactions which, in their naked nature, and in their natural construction, are violent interferences with the rights of property, against the statute, and the protection of property intended by the statute,--whether the circumstances do change the liability or responsibility of the criminal, by the introduction of a legal defence under the law of nations, or under the law of the land in any other form, is a question undoubtedly for the Court,--leaving to you always complete control over the questions of fact that enter into the subject. So that the suggestion, also dropped by my learned friend, at the close of his remarks, that any such arrangement would make the Jury mere puppets, and give them nothing to do, finds no place. It would not exclude from your consideration any matters of fact which go to make up the particular condition of public affairs or of the public relations of the community towards each other, in these collisions which disturb the land, provided the Court shall hold and say that, on such a state of facts existing, or being believed by you, there is introduced a legal qualification or protection against the crime charged. But, if it should be held that all these facts and circumstances, to the extent and with the effect that is claimed for them by the learned counsel as matter of fact, yet, as matter of law, leave the crime where it originally stood, being of their own nature such as the principles of law do not permit to be interposed as a protection and a shield, why, then you take your law on the subject in the same way as you do on every other subject, from the instructions of the learned and responsible Bench, whose errors, if committed, can be corrected; while your confusion between your province and the province of the Court would, both in this case, and in other cases, and sometimes to the prejudice of the prisoner, and against his life and safety, when prejudices ran that way, confound all distinctions; and, in deserting your duty, to usurp that of another portion of the Court, you would have done what you could, not to uphold, but to overthrow the laws of your country and the administration of justice according to law, upon which the safety of all of us, at all times, in all circumstances, depends. Now, gentlemen, let me ask your attention, very briefly, to the condition of the proof in this case, from the immediate consideration of which we have been very much withdrawn by the larger and looser considerations, as I must think them, which have occupied most of the attention of the counsel, and been made most interesting, undoubtedly, and attractive to you. These twelve men now on trial--four of them citizens of the United States, and eight of them foreigners by birth and not naturalized--formed part of the crew of a vessel, originally a pilot-boat, called the Savannah. That crew consisted of twenty men, and one of them has given the circumstances of the preparation for the voyage, of the embarkation upon the vessel, of her weighing anchor from the port of Charleston and making her course out to sea without any port of destination, and without any other purpose than to make seizures of vessels belonging to the loyal States of the Union and its citizens. He has shown you that all who went on board, all who are here on trial, had a complete knowledge of, and gave their ready and voluntary assent to and enlistment in this service; and that the service had no trait of compulsion, or of organized employment under the authority of Government, in any act or signature of any one of the crew, as far as he knew, leaving out, of course, what I do not intend to dispute, and what you will not understand me as disregarding--the effect that may be gained from the notorious facts and the documents that attended the enterprise. He has shown you that, going to sea with that purpose, without any crew list, without any contract of wages, they descried, early in the morning after they adventured from the port, and at a point about sixty miles to sea, this bark, and ran down to her; and that, while running down to her, they sailed under the flag of the United States, and, hailing the brig, when within hailing distance, required the master of it to come on board with his papers. Upon the inquiry of the master, by what authority they made that demand on him, the stars and stripes being then floating at the masthead of the Savannah, Captain Baker informed him that it was in the name and by the authority of the Confederate States of America, at the same time hauling down the American flag and running up the flag of the Confederacy. Whatever followed after this, gentlemen, except so far as to complete the possession of the captured vessel, by putting a prize crew on board of it, (so called,) sending it into Charleston, and there lodging in jail the seamen or ship's company of the Joseph that accompanied it, and procuring a sale of the vessel--anything beyond that (and this only to show the completeness of the capture, and the maintenance of the design to absolutely deprive the owners of the vessel and cargo of their property) seems to be quite immaterial. Now, when we add to this the testimony of Mr. Meyer, the master of the captured vessel, who gives the same general view of the circumstances under which his vessel was overhauled and seized by the Savannah, as well as the observations and the influences which operated upon his mind while the chase was going on, we have the completeness of the crime,--not forgetting the important yet undisputed circumstances of the ownership of the vessel, and of the nature of the voyage in which she was engaged. You will observe that this vessel, owned by, and, we may suppose, judging from the position of the witnesses examined before you, constituting a good part of the property of, our fellow-countrymen in the State of Maine, sailed on the 28th day of April, from Philadelphia, bound on a voyage to Cardenas, in Cuba, with a charter party out and back, under which she was to bring in a cargo of sugar and molasses. You will have noticed, comparing this date with some of the public transactions given in evidence, that it was after both the proclamation of Mr. Davis, inviting hostile aggressions against the commerce of the United States, on the part of whosoever should come to take commissions from him; and after the proclamation of the President of the United States, made to the people of the United States and all under its peace and protection, that if, under this invitation of Mr. Davis, anybody should assume authority to make aggressions, on the high seas, upon the private property of American citizens, they should be punished as pirates. This vessel, therefore, sailed on her voyage under the protection of the laws of the United States, and under this statement of its Government, that the general laws which protected property and seamen on the high seas against the crime of piracy were in force, and would be enforced by the Government of the United States, wherever it held power, against any aggressions that should assume to be made under the protection of the proclamation of Mr. Davis. While returning, under the protection of this flag and of this Government, she meets with hostile aggression at the hands of an armed vessel, which has nothing to distinguish it from the ordinary condition of piracy, except this very predicament provided against by the proclamation of the President, and under the protection of which the vessel had sailed, to wit, the supposed authority of Jefferson Davis; which should not, and cannot, and will not, as I suppose, protect that act from the guilt and the punishment of piracy. Now, you will have observed, gentlemen, in all this, that whatever may be the circumstances or the propositions of law connected with this case, that may change or qualify the acts and conduct of Mr. Baker, so far as the owners of this vessel and the owners of this cargo are concerned, there has been as absolute, as complete, as final and as perfect a deprivation of their property, as if there had been no commission--no public or other considerations that should expose them to having the act done with impunity. You will discover, then, that, so far as the duty of protection from this Government to its citizens and their property--so far as the duty of maintaining its laws and enforcing them upon the high seas--is concerned, there is nothing pretended--there is nothing, certainly, proved--that has excused or can excuse this Government, in its Executive Departments, in its Judicial Departments, in the declaration of law from the Court, or in the finding of facts by the Jury, from its duty towards its citizens and their property. And, while you have been led to look at all the qualifying circumstances that should attend your judgment concerning the act and the fact on the part of these prisoners, I ask your ready assent to the proposition, that you should look at the case of these sufferers, the victims of those men, whose property has been ventured upon the high seas in reliance on its safety against aggression, from whatever source, under the exercise of the authority of the Government to repel and to punish such crimes. Before I go into any of the considerations which are to affect the relations of these prisoners to this alleged crime, and to this trial for such alleged crime, let us see what there are in the private circumstances particular to themselves, and their engagement in this course of proceeding, that is particularly suited to attract your favor or indulgence. Now, these men had not, any of them, been under the least compulsion, or the least personal or particular duty of any kind, to engage in this enterprise. Who are they? Four of them are citizens of the United States. Mr. Baker is, by birth, a citizen of the State of Pennsylvania; two are citizens, by birth, of the State of South Carolina, and one of North Carolina. The eight men, foreigners, are, three of Irish origin, two of Scotch, one a German, one a native of Manilla, in the East Indies, and one of Canton, in China. Now, you will observe that no conscription, no enlistment, no inducement, no authority of any public kind has been shown, or is suggested, as having influenced any of them in this enterprise. My learned friend has thought it was quite absurd to impute to this Chinaman and this Manillaman a knowledge of our laws. Is it not quite as absurd to throw over them the protection of patriotism--the protection of indoctrination in the counsels and ethics of Calhoun--to give them the benefit of a departure from moral and natural obligations to respect the property of others, on the theory that they must surrender their own rectitude--their own sense of right--to an overwhelming duty to assist a suffering people in gaining their liberty? What I have said of them applies equally to these Irishmen, this German, and these Scotchmen--as good men, if you please, in every respect, as the same kind of men born in this country. I draw no such national distinctions; but I ask what there is, in the sober, sensible, practical consideration of the motives and purposes with which these men entered into this enterprise to despoil the commerce of the United States, and make poor men of the owners of that vessel, that should give them immunity from the laws of property and the laws of the land, or form any part in the struggles of a brave and oppressed people, (as we will consider them, for the purpose of the argument), against a tyrannical and bloodthirsty Government? No! no! Let their own language indicate the degree and the dignity of the superior motives that entered into their adoption of this enterprise: "We thought we had a right to do it, and we did it." Was there the glow of patriotism--was there the self-sacrificing devotion to work in the cause of an oppressed people, in this? No! And the only determination that these men knew or looked at, was the lawfulness of the enterprise, in respect of the sanctions and punishments of the law. They, undoubtedly, had not any purpose or any thought of running into a collision with the comprehensive power and the all-punishing condemnation of the statutes of the United States, whether they knew what the statutes were or not; but they did take advantage of the occasion and opportunity to share the profits of a privateering enterprise against the commerce of the United States; and they were unquestionably acquainted, either by original inspection or by having a favorable report made to them with the fundamental provision in regard to this system of privateering, so called. They knew that the entire profits of the transaction would be distributed among those who were engaged in it. Now, I am not making any particular or special condemnation of these men, (in thus readily, without compulsion, and without the influence of any superior motives, however mistaken, of patriotism,) beyond what the general principles of public law, and general opinion, founded on the experience of privateering, have shown to be the reckless and greedy character of those who enter upon private war, under the protection of any, however recent, flag. Every body knows it--every body understands it--every body recognizes the fact that, if privateers, who go in under the hope of gain, and for the purposes of spoliation, are not corrupt and depraved at the outset, they expose themselves to influences, and are ready to expose themselves to influences, which will make them as dangerous, almost, to commerce, and as dangerous to life, as if the purpose and the principle of privateering did not distinguish them from pirates. And, to show that, in this law of ours, there is nothing that is forced in its application to privateers--that there is nothing against the principles of humanity or common sense in the nation's undertaking to say, We will not recognize any of those high moral motives, any of this superior dignity, about privateers; we understand the whole subject, and we know them to be, in substance and effect, dangerous to the rights of peaceful citizens, in their lives and their property,--reference need only be had to the action of civilized Governments, and to that of our Government as much as any, in undertaking to brush away these distinctions, wherever it had the power--that is my proposition--wherever it had the power to do so. And I ask your Honors' attention to the provision on this subject, in the first treaties which our Government--then scarcely having a place among the nations of the earth--introduced upon this very question of piracy and privateers. I refer to the twenty-first article of the Treaty of Commerce with France, concluded on the 6th of February, 1778, on page 24 of the eighth volume of the Statutes at Large. This is a commercial arrangement, entered into by this infant Government, before its recognition by the Throne of Great Britain, with its ally, the most Christian Monarch of France: "No subjects of the Most Christian King shall apply for or take any commission or letters of marque, for arming any ship or ships to act as privateers against the said United States, or any of them, or against the subjects, people or inhabitants of the said United States, or any of them, or against the property of any of the inhabitants of any of them, from any Prince or State with which the said United States shall be at war; nor shall any citizen, subject or inhabitant of the said United States, or any of them, apply for or take any commission or letters of marque for arming any ship or ships, to act as privateers against the subjects of the Most Christian King, or any of them, or the property of any of them, from any Prince or State with which the said King shall be at war; and if any person of either nation shall take such commissions or letters of marque, he shall be punished as a pirate." Now, we have had a great deal of argument here to show that, under the law of nations,--under the law that must control and regulate the international relations of independent powers--it is a gross and violent subversion of the natural, inherent principles of justice, and a confusion between crime and innocence, to say to men who, under the license of war, take commissions from other powers, that they shall be hanged as pirates. And yet, in the first convention which we, as an infant nation, formed with any civilized power, attending in date the Treaty of Alliance which made France our friend, our advocate, our helper, in the war of the Revolution, his Most Christian Majesty, the King of France, standing second to no nation in civilization, signalized this holy alliance of friendship in behalf of justice, and humanity, and liberty, by engaging that, whatever the law of nations might be, whatever the speciousness of publicists might be, his subjects, amenable to the law, should never set up the pretence of a commission of privateering against the penalties of piracy. Nor had this treaty of commerce which I have referred to, anything of the nature of a temporary or warlike arrangement between the parties, pending the contest with Great Britain. It was a treaty independent of the Treaty of Alliance which engaged them as allies, offensive and defensive, in the prosecution of that war. Nor is this an isolated case of the morality and policy of this Government on the subject of piracy. By reference to the 19th Article of the Treaty between the Netherlands and the United States, concluded in 1782, at p. 44 of the same volume, your honors will find the same provision. After the same stipulation, excluding the acceptance of commissions from any power, to the citizens or subjects of the contracting parties, there is the same provision: "And if any person of either nation shall take such commissions or letters of marque, he shall be punished as a pirate." Now, our Government has never departed from its purpose and its policy, to meliorate the law of nations, so as to extirpate this business of private war on the ocean. It is entirely true that, in its subsequent negotiations with the great powers of Christendom, it has directed its purpose to the more thorough and complete subversion and annihilation of the whole abominable exception, which is allowed on the high seas, from the general melioration of the laws of war, that does not tolerate aggressions of violence, and murder, and rapine, and plunder, except by the recognized forces contending in the field. It has attempted to secure not only the exclusion of private armed vessels from privateering, but the exclusion of aggressions on the part of public armed vessels of belligerents on private property of all kinds upon the ocean. And no trace of any repugnance or resistance on the part of our Government to aid and co-operate in that general melioration in the laws of war, in respect to property on the ocean, can be charged or proved. In pursuance of that purpose, as well as in conformity with a rightful maintenance of its particular predicament in naval war,--to wit., a larger commerce than most other nations, and a smaller navy,--it has taken logically, and diplomatically, and honestly, the position: I will not yield to these false pretences of humanity and melioration which will only deprive us of privateers, and leave our commerce exposed to your immense navies. If you are honest about it, as we are, and opposed to private war, why, condemn and repress private war in respect to the private character of the property attacked, as well as private war in respect to the vessels that make the aggressions. Nor, gentlemen, do I hesitate to say that, whatever we may readily concede to an honest difference of opinion and feeling, in respect to great national contests, where men, with patriotic purposes, raise the standard of war against the Government, and, on the other hand, uphold the old standard to suppress the violence of war lifted against it, we do not, we cannot, as honest and sensible men, look with favor upon an indiscriminate collection from the looser portions of society, that rush on board a marauding vessel, the whole proceeds and results of whose aggressions are to fill their own pockets. And, when my learned friends seek to go down into the interior conscience and the secret motives of conduct, I ask you whether, if this had been a service in which life was to be risked, and all the energies of the man were to be devoted to the public service, for the glory and the interests of the country, and the poor food, poor clothing and poor pay of enlisted troops, you would have found precisely such a rush to that service? Now, I am not seeking, by these considerations, to disturb in the least the legal protections, if there be any, in any form, which it is urged have sprung out of the character of privateering which this vessel had assumed, and these men, as part of its crew, had been incorporated in. If legal, let it be so; but do not confound patriotism, which sacrifices fortune and life for the love of country, with the motives of these men, who seek privateering because they are out of employment. Far be it from me to deny that the feeling of lawful right, the feeling that statutory law is not violated, if it draw the line between doing and not doing a thing, is on the whole a meritorious consideration and a trait that should be approved. But I do object to having the range of these men's characters and motives exalted, from the low position in which their acts and conduct place them, into the high purity of the patriot and the martyr. We are trying, not the system of privateering--we are trying the privateers, as they are called; and, when they fail of legal protection, they cannot cover themselves with this robe of righteousness in motive and purpose. Now, how much was there of violence in the meditated course, or in the actual aggression? Why, the vessel is named in the commission as having a crew of thirty. In fact, she had twenty. Four men was a sufficient crew for a mercantile voyage. She had an eighteen pounder, a great gun that must have reached half way across the deck, resting on a pivot in the middle, capable of being brought around to any quarter, for attack. At the time this honest master and trader of the Joseph descried the condition of the vessel, he was struck with this ugly thing amidships, as he called it--to wit, this eighteen pound cannon, and was afraid it was a customer probably aggressive--a robber. But he was encouraged by what? Although he saw this was a pilot boat, and not likely, with good intent, to be out so far at sea, what was this honest sailor encouraged by? The flag of the United States was flying at her mast! But, when hailed--still under that view as to the aspect presented by the marauding vessel--he is told to come on board, and asks by what authority--instead of what would have been the glad and reassuring announcement--the power of the American flag--the Confederate States were announced as the marauding authority, and the flag of his country is hauled down, and its ensign replaced by this threat to commerce. Now, when this gun, as he says, was pointed at him, and this hostile power was asserted, my learned friends, I submit to you, cannot, consistently with the general fairness with which they have pursued this argument, put the matter before you as failing in any of the completeness of proof concerning force. For, when we were proposing to show that these prisoners all the while, in their plans, had the purpose of force, if force was necessary, and that, in the act of collision with the capturing vessel, that force occurred, we were stopped, upon the ground that it was unnecessary to occupy the attention of the Court and the Jury with anything that was to qualify this vessel's violent character, by reason of the admission that, if it was not protected by the commission, or the circumstances of a public character of whatever kind and degree--about which I admit there was no restriction of any kind,--if it stood upon the mere fact that the vessel was taken from its owners by the Savannah, in the way that was testified,--it would not be claimed to be wanting in any of the quality of complete spoliation, or in any of the quality of force. Now, that defence, we may say, must not be recurred to, to protect, in your minds, these men from the penalty which the law has imposed upon the commission of piracy. It cannot be pretended that there was any defect in the purpose of despoiling the original owners, nor that there is any deficiency in the exhibition of force, to make it piracy; and you will perceive, gentlemen, that although my learned friends successively, Mr. Dukes, Mr. Sullivan, and Mr. Brady, have, with the skill and the purpose of advocates, taken occasion, at frequent recurring points, to get you back to the want of a motive and intent or purpose of the guiltiness of robbing, yet, after all, it comes to this--that the inconsistency of the motive and intent, or the guiltiness of robbing, with the lawfulness, under the law of nations, of privateering, is the only ground or reason why the crime is deficiently proved. I do not know that I need say anything to you about privateering, further than to present somewhat distinctly what the qualifications, what the conditions, and what the purposes, of privateering are. In the first place, privateering is a part of war, or is a part of the preliminary hostile aggressions which are in the nature of a forcible collision between sovereign powers. Now what is the law of nations on this subject--and how does there come to be a law of nations--and what is its character, what are its sanctions, and who are parties to it? We all know what laws are when they proceed from a Government, and operate upon its citizens and its subjects. Law then comes with authority, by right, and so as to compel obedience; and laws are always framed with the intent that there shall be no opportunity of violent or forcible resistance to them, or of violent or forcible settlement of controversies under them, but that the power shall be submitted to, and the inquiry as to right proceed regularly and soberly, under the civil and criminal tribunals. But, when we come to nations, although they have relations towards each other, although they have duties towards each other, although they have rights towards each other, and although, in becoming nations, they nevertheless are all made up of human beings, under the general laws of human duty, as given by the common lawgiver, God, yet there is no real superior that can impose law over them, or enforce it against them. And it is only because of that, that war, the scourge of the human race--and it is the great vice and defect of our social condition, that it cannot be avoided--comes in, as the only arbiter between powers that have no common superior. I am sure that the little time I shall spend upon this topic will be serviceable; as, also, in some more particular considerations, as to what is called a state of war, and as to the conditions which give and create a war between the different portions of our unhappy country and its divided population. So, then, nations have no common superior whom they recognize under this law, which they have made for themselves in the interest of civilization and humanity, and which is a law of natural right and natural duty, so far as it can be applied to the relations which nations hold to one another. They recognize the fact that one nation is just as good, as matter of right, of another; that whether it be the great Powers of Russia, as England, of France, of the United States of America, or of Brazil, or whether it be one of the feeble and inferior Powers, in the lowest grade,--as, one of the separate Italian Kingdoms, or the little Republic of San Marino, whose territories are embraced within the circuit of a few leagues, or one of the South American States, scarcely known as a Power in the affairs of men,--yet, under the proposition that the States are equal in the family of nations, they have a right to judge of their quarrels, and, finding occasions for quarrel, have a right to assert them, as matter of force, in the form of war. And all the other nations, however much their commerce may be disturbed and injured, are obliged to concede certain rights that are called the rights of war. We all understand what the rights of war are on the part of two people fighting against each other. A general right is to do each other as much injury as they can; and they are very apt to avail themselves of that right. There are certain meliorations against cruelty, which, if a nation should transgress, probably other nations might feel called upon to suppress. But, as a general thing, while two nations are fighting, other nations stand by, and do not intervene. But the way other nations come to have any interest, and to have anything to say whether there is war between sovereign powers, grows out of certain rights of war which the law of nations gives to the contending parties, against neutrals. For instance: Suppose Spain and Mexico were at war. Well, you would say, what is that to us? It is this to us. On the high seas, a naval vessel of either power has a right, in pursuit of its designs against the enemy, to interrupt the commerce of other nations to a certain extent. It has a right of visitation and of search of vessels that apparently carry our flag. Why? In order to see whether the vessel be really our vessel, or whether our flag covers the vessel of its enemy, or the property of its enemy. It has also a right to push its inquiries farther, and if it finds it to be a vessel of the United States of America, to see whether we are carrying what are called contraband of war into the ports of its enemy; and, if so, to confiscate it and her. Each of the powers has a right to blockade the ports of the other, and thus to break up the trade and pursuits of the people of other nations--and that without any quarrel with the other people. And so you see, by the law of nations, this state of war, which might, at first, seem to be only a quarrel between the two contending parties, really becomes, collaterally, and, in some cases, to a most important extent, a matter of interest to other nations of the globe. But however much we suffer--however much we are embarrassed (as, for example, in the extreme injury to British commerce and British interests now inflicted in this country--the blockade keeping out their shipping, and preventing shipments of cotton to carry on their industry)--we must submit, as the English people submit, in the view their Government has chosen to take of these transactions. Now, gentlemen, this being the law of nations, you will perceive that, as there is no human earthly superior, so there are no Courts that can lay down the law, as our Courts do for our people, or as the Courts of England do for their people. There are no Courts that can lay down the law of nations, so as to bind the people of another country, except so far as the Courts of that country, recognizing the sound principles of morality, humanity and justice obtaining in the government and conduct of nations towards each other, adopt them in their own Courts. So, when my learned friends speak of the law of nations as being the law that is in force here, and that may protect these prisoners in this case against the laws of the United States of America, why, they speak in the sense of lawyers, or else in a sense that will confuse your minds, that is to say, that the law of nations, as the Court will expound and explain it, has or has not a certain effect upon what would be otherwise the plain behests of the statute law. Now, it is a part of the law of nations, except so far as between themselves they shall modify it by treaty--(two instances of which I have read in the diplomacy of our own country, and a most extensive instance of which is to be found in the recent treaty of Paris, whereby the law of nations, in respect to privateering, has been so far modified as to exclude privateering as one of the means of war)--outside of particular arrangements made by civilized nations, it was a part of the original law of war prevailing among nations, that any nation engaged in war might fit out privateers in aid of its belligerent or warlike purposes or movements. No difficulty arose about this when war sprang up between two nations that stood before the world in their accredited and acknowledged independence. If England and France went to war, or if England and the United States, as in 1812, went to war, this right of fitting out privateers would obtain and be recognized. But, there arises, in the affairs of nations, a condition much more obscure and uncertain than this open war between established powers, and that is, when dissension arises in the same original nation--when it proceeds from discontent, sedition, private or local rebellion, into the inflammation of great military aggression; and when the parties assume, at least, (assume, I say), to be rightfully entitled to the position of Powers, under the law of nations, warring against one another. The South American States, in their controversy which separated them from the parent country, and these States, when they were Colonies of Great Britain, presented instances of these domestic dissensions between the different parts of the same Government, and the rights of war were claimed. Now, what is the duty of other nations in respect to that? Why, their duty and right is this--that they may either accord to these struggling, rebellious, revolted populations the rights of war, so far as to recognize them as belligerents, or not; but, whether they will do so, or not, is a question for their Governments, and not for their Courts, sitting under and by authority of their Governments. For instance, you can readily see that the great nations of the earth, under the influences upon their commerce and their peace which I have mentioned, may very well refuse to tolerate the quarrel as being entitled to the dignity of war. They may say--No, no; we do not see any occasion for this war, or any justice or benefit that is to be promoted by it; we do not see the strength or power that is likely to make it successful; and we will not allow a mere attempt or effort to throw us into the condition of submitting to the disturbance of the peace, or the disturbance of the commerce of the world. Or, they may say--We recognize this right of incipient war to raise itself and fairly contend against its previous sovereign--not necessarily from any sympathy, or taking sides in it, but it is none of our affair; and the principles of the controversy do not prevent us from giving to them this recognition of their supposed rights. Now, when they have done that, they may carry their recognition of right and power as far as they please, and stop where they please. They may say--We will tolerate the aggression by public armed vessels on the seas, and our vessels shall yield the right of visitation and search to them. They may say--We will extend it so far as to include the right of private armed vessels, and the rights of war may attend them; or they may refuse to take this last step, and say--We will not tolerate the business of privateering in this quarrel. And, whatever they do or say on that subject, their Courts of all kinds will follow. Apply this to the particular trouble in our national affairs that is now progressing to settle the fate of this country. France and England have taken a certain position on this subject. I do not know whether I accurately state it (and I state it only for the purpose of illustration, and it is not material), but, as I understand it, they give a certain degree of belligerent right, so that they would not regard the privateers on the part of the Southern rebellion as being pirates, but they do not accord succor or hospitality in their ports to such privateers. Well, now, suppose that one of these privateers intrudes into their ports and their hospitalities, and claims certain rights. Why, the question, if it comes up before a Court in Liverpool or London, will be--Is the right within the credit and recognition which our Government has given? And only that. So, too, our Government took the position in regard to the revolting States of South America, that it would recognize them as belligerents, and that it would not hang, as pirates, privateers holding commissions from their authority. But, when other questions came up, as to whether a particular authority from this or that self-styled power should be recognized, our Government frowned upon it, and would not recognize it. With regard to Captain Aury, who styled himself Generalissimo of the Floridas, or something of that kind, when Florida was a Spanish province, our Courts said--We do not know anything about this--his commissions are good for nothing here--our Government has not recognized any such contest or incipient nationality as this. So, too, in another case, where there was an apparent commission from one struggling power, the Court say--Our Government does not recognize that power, and we do not, in giving any rights of war to it; but, the Court say, it appears in the proof that this vessel claims to have had a commission from Buenos Ayres, another contending power; if so, that is a power which our Government recognizes; and the case must go down for further proof on that point. I confess that, if the views of my learned friends are to prevail, in determining questions of crime and responsibility under the laws and before the Court, and are to be accepted and administered, I do not see that there is any Government at all. For you have every stage of Government: first, Government of right; next, a Government in fact; next, a Government trying to make itself a fact; and, next, a Government which the culprit thinks ought to be a fact. Well, if there are all these stages of Government, and all these authorities and protections, which may attend the acts of people all over the world, I do not see but every Court and every Jury must, finally, resolve itself into the great duty of searching the hearts of men, and putting its sanctions upon pure or guilty secret motives, or notions, or interpretations of right and wrong--a task to which you, gentlemen of the Jury, I take it, feel scarcely adequate. Now, gentlemen, I have perhaps wearied you a little upon this subject; because it is from some confusion in these ideas,--first, of what the law of nations permits a Government to do, and how it intrudes upon and qualifies the laws of that Government; and, second, upon what the rights are that grow out of civil dissensions, as towards neutral powers,--that some difficulty and obscurity are introduced into this case. If the Court please, I maintain these propositions, in conformity with the views I have heretofore presented--first, that the law of the land is to determine whether this crime of piracy has been committed, subject only to the province of the Jury in passing upon the facts attending the actual perpetration of the offence; and, second, upon all the questions invoked to qualify, from the public relations of the hostile or contending parties in this controversy, the attitude that this Government holds towards these contending parties, is the attitude that this Court, deriving its authority from this Government, must necessarily hold towards them. I have argued this matter of the choice and freedom of a Government to say how it will regard these civil dissensions going on in a foreign nation, as if it had some application to this controversy, in which we are the nation, and this Court is the Court of this nation. But, gentlemen, the moment I have stated that, you will see that there is not the least pretence that there is any dispensing power in the Court, or that there has been any dispensing power exercised by our Government, or that there has been any pardon, or any amnesty, or any proclamation, saving from the results of crime against our laws, any person engaged in these hostilities, who at any time has owed allegiance and obedience to the Government of the United States. Therefore, here we stand, really extricated from all the confusion, and from all the wideness of controversy and of comment that attends these remote considerations of this case, that have been pressed upon your attention as if they were the case itself, on the part of our learned friend. Now, if the Court please, I shall bestow some particular consideration upon the statute, but I shall think it necessary to add very little to the remarks I have heretofore made to the Court. The 8th section of the statute has been characterized by the learned counsel, and, certainly, with sufficient accuracy, for any purposes of this trial, as limited to the offence of piracy as governed by the law of nations. I do not know that any harm comes from that description, if we do not confuse it with the suggestion that the authority of this Government over the crime is limited to the construction of the law of nations which is expressed in that section of the statute. At all events, as they concede, I believe, that the 8th section is within the constitutional right and power of Congress, under the special clause giving them authority to define and punish piracy, under the law of nations, there is no room for controversy here on the point. When we come to the 9th section, we have two different and quite inconsistent views presented by the different counsel. One of the counsel (I think, Mr. Dukes) insists that the 9th section does not create any additional crime beyond that of piracy as defined in the 8th section, but only robs that crime of piracy of any apparent protection from a commission or authority from any State. But, my friend Mr. Brady contends (and, I confess, according to my notion of the law, with more soundness) that there is an additional crime, which would not be embraced, necessarily, in the crime of piracy or robbery on the high seas--which is the whole purview of the 8th section, and which is in terms repeated in the 9th--and that the additional words, "or any act of hostility against the United States, or any citizens thereof," create a punishable offence, although it may fall short of the completed crime of piracy and robbery, as defined. Now, I concede to my learned friend that the particular case he put of a quarrel between two ships' crews on the high seas, and of an attack by one of the crew of one upon one of the crew of the other with a belaying pin, would not, in my judgment, as an indictable, punishable offence, fall within the 9th section. But, whether I am right or wrong about it, it does not impede the argument of the Government, that there are crimes which are in the nature of and up to the completeness of hostile attacks upon vessels or citizens of the United States which would not be piracy, but yet are punishable under the 9th section. Now, agreeing, thus far, that there is an added offence to the crime of piracy in the 9th section, I am obliged to meet his next proposition, that such additional offence is beyond the constitutional power of Congress, because it is an offence which does not come up to the crime of piracy, and, therefore, exceeds the grant of authority under the particular section of the Constitution which gives to Congress power over the definition and punishment of piracy under the law of nations. Now, if the Court please, the argument is a very simple one. This 9th section does not profess to carry the power of this Government where alone the principles of the law of nations would justify; that is, to operate upon all the world, so far as the subjects of it--that is, the persons included in its sanctions--are concerned, or so far as the property protected by it is concerned. It is limited to citizens, and limited to hostilities against citizens of the United States, or their property at sea. Now, the authority in respect to this comes to Congress under the provision of the Constitution which gives the regulation of commerce and its control, in regard to which I need not be more particular to your Honors, because there are statutes of every-day enforcement, and under the highest penalty, too, of the law, such as revolt, mutiny, &c., which have nothing to do with the national considerations of the law of piracy, and nothing to do with the clause of the Constitution which gives to Congress power over the crime of piracy, but rest in the power reposed in Congress to protect the commerce of the United States. So, this is wholly within the general competency of Congress to govern citizens of the United States on the high seas, and to protect the property of citizens on the high seas, although there is no common law of general jurisdiction of Congress on the subject of crimes. Now, upon this subject there is but one other criticism, and that is--that although the statute is framed with the intent, and its language covers the purpose, of prohibiting any defence or protection being set up under an assumed or supposed authority from any foreign Government, State, or Prince, or from any person, yet the particular authority which is averred in the indictment and produced in proof, if you take it in the sense that we give to it, is not within the purview of the statute, and, if you take it in any other sense, is not proved; and that thus a variance arises between the indictment and the proof, because the proof goes so far as to remove from under the statute the four defendants who would otherwise be amenable as citizens, by making the Government foreign, and making them foreign citizens. Now, to take up one branch of this at a time, I do not care at all whether the Government of the United States, when they passed this law, anticipated that there ever would be an occurrence which would give shape to such a commission as this, from either a person or an authority that emanated from what was or ever had been a part or a citizen of the United States. If these new occurrences here have produced new relations--(and that is the entire argument of my learned friends, for, if they have produced no new relations, what have we to do with any of these discussions?)--if they have produced new relations, perfect or imperfect, effectual or ineffectual, to this or that extent, why then, if these new relations and attitude have brought this matter within the purview of a statute of the United States which was framed to meet all relations that might arise at any time, they come within its predicament, and the argument seems to me to amount to nothing. It will not be pretended that the 9th section of this statute can only be enforced as to Powers in existence at the time it was passed. Whenever a new Power or new authority is set forth as a protection to the crime of piracy, the 9th section of the statute says: "Well, we do not know or care anything about what the law of nations says about your protection, or your authority--we say that no citizen of the United States, depredating against our commerce, shall set up any authority to meet the justice of our criminal law." Well, now, that the statute has said; and we have averred and proved the commission such as it is. It is either the commission of a foreign Prince, or State, or it is an authority from some person. We do not recognize it as from a foreign State or Prince. Indeed, Mr. Davis does not call himself a Prince, and we do not recognize the Confederate States as a nation or State, in any relation. Therefore, if we would prove this authority under our law, we must aver it as it is, coming from an individual who was once a citizen of the United States, and still is, as the law decides, a citizen of the United States. Whatever port or pretension of authority he assumes, and whatever real fact and substance there may be to his power, it is, in the eye of the law, nothing. It is not provable, and it is not proved. Now, as to the right of Congress to include the additional crime, under the authority given to it to punish piracy according to the law of nations, my learned friend contends that this statute is limited by that authority, and is, as respects anybody within its purview, unconstitutional, and that, although a particular act may be within the description of the statute, so far as regards hostility, it is not piracy. On that subject I refer your Honors to a very brief proposition contained in the case of _The United States_ v. _Pirates (5 Wheaton, 202)_: "And if the laws of the United States declare those acts of piracy in a citizen, when committed on a citizen, which would be only belligerent acts when committed on others, there can be no reason why such laws should not be enforced. For this purpose the 9th section of the Act of 1790 appears to have been passed. And it would be difficult to induce this Court to render null the provisions of that clause, by deciding either that one who takes a commission under a foreign power, can no longer be deemed a citizen, or that all acts committed under such a commission, must be adjudged belligerent, and not piratical acts." I would also refer to the case of _The Invincible_, to which my learned friend called the attention of the Court, in the opinion of the late Attorney-General, Mr. Butler. It is to be found in the 3d volume of the _Opinions of the Attorney-Generals_, page 120. My learned friend cited this case in reference to the proposition that persons holding a commission (as I understood him) should not be treated as pirates, under the law of nations, by reason of any particular views or opinions of our Government. I refer to that part of the opinion where he says: "A Texan armed schooner cannot be treated as a pirate under the Act of April 30th, 1790, for capturing an American merchantman, on the alleged ground that she was laden with provisions, stores, and munitions of war for the use of the army of Mexico, with the Government of which Texas, at the time, was in a state of revolt and civil war." Now, undoubtedly, Mr. Butler does here hold that, by the law of nations, in a controversy between revolting Colonies and the parent State, where our Government recognizes a state of war as existing, a privateer cannot be treated as a pirate. But we will come to the opinion of the Attorney-General on the other proposition we contend for--that is, in support of the 9th section of the statute, as far as it would have exposed citizens of the United States to the penalty of piracy: "In answer to this question, I have the honor to state that, in my opinion, the capture of the American ship _Pocket_ can in no view of it be deemed an act of piracy, _unless it shall appear that the principal actors in the capture were citizens of the United States_. The ninth section of the Crimes Act of 30th April, 1790, declares 'that if any citizen shall commit any piracy or robbery, or any act of hostility against the United States, or any citizen thereof, upon the high seas, under color of any commission from any foreign Prince, or State, or on pretence of authority from any person, such offender shall, notwithstanding the pretence of any such authority, be deemed, adjudged and taken to be a pirate, felon and robber, and on being thereof convicted, shall suffer death.' This provision is yet in force, and _should it be found that any of those who participated in the capture of the Pocket are American citizens, the flag and commission of the Government of Texas would not protect them from the charge of piracy_." It will be seen here, that the condition of belligerents will not protect our citizens from aggressions against our commerce; and there is no place for my learned friends to put this authority, and this assumed belligerent power and right, on any footing that must not make it, either actually or in pretence, at least, proceed from a separate contending power. And, if they say, (as, in one of their points substantially is said,) that the 9th section cannot apply, because the alleged authority is not from a foreign State, or a foreign personage, but from a personage of our own country,--why, then, we are thrown back at once to the 8th section entirely, and there is either no pretence of authority at all, and it is just like arguing that the pirate accused was authorized by the merchant owner of a vessel in South street, to commit piracy, or we are put in the position, which is unquestionably the true one, that the 9th section was intended to cover all possible although unimagined forms in which the justice of the country could be attempted to be impeded under the claim of authority. Now, gentlemen, if the Court please, I come to a consideration of the political theories or views on which these prisoners are sought to be protected against the penalties of this law. In that argument, as in my argument, it must be assumed that these penalties, but for those protections, would be visited upon them; for we are not to be drawn hither and thither by this inquiry, and to have it said, at one time, that the crime itself, in its own nature, is not proved, and, at another time, that, if it be proved, these are defences. I have said all I need to say, and all I should say, about the crime itself. The law of the case on that point will be given to you by the Court, and, if it should be, as I suppose it must, in accordance with that laid down by the Court in the Circuit of Pennsylvania, then, as my learned friend Mr. Brady has said of that, that he could not see how the Jury could find any verdict but guilty, it necessarily follows, if that is a sound view of the law, that you cannot find any other verdict but guilty. I proceed, therefore, to consider these other defences which grow out of the particular circumstances of the piracy. Now, there are, as I suggested, three views in which this subject of the license, or authority, or protection against our criminal laws in favor of these prisoners, is urged, from their connection with particular occurrences disclosed in the evidence. One is, that they are privateers; but I have shown you that, to be privateers, their commission must come from an independent nation, or from an incipient nation, which our Government recognizes as such. Therefore, they fail entirely to occupy that explicit and clear position, under the law of the land, and the law of nations. But, as they say, they are privateers either of a nation or a Power that exists, as the phrase is, _de jure_,--that has a right, the same as we, or England, or France,--or of a Power that has had sufficient force and strength to establish itself, as matter of fact. Without considering the question of right, as recognized under the system of nations, they contend, and with a great deal of force and earnestness, in the impression of their views upon the Jury, and great skill and discretion in handling the matter,--they contend that there is a state of civil war in this country, and that a state of civil war gives to all nations engaged in it, against the Government with which they are warring, rights of impunity, of protection, of respect, of regard, of courtesy, which belong to the laws of war; and that, without caring to say whether they are a Government, or ever will be a Government, so long as they fight, they cannot be punished. That is the proposition,--there is nothing else to it. They come down from the region of _de jure_ Government and _de facto_ Government, and have nothing to prove but the rage of war on the part of rebels, in force enough to be called war. Then they say that, by their own act, they are liberated from the laws, and from their duty to the laws, which would otherwise, they admit, have sway over them, and against which they have not as yet prevailed. That is the proposition. Another proposition, on which they put themselves, is that whatever may be the law, and whatever the extent of the facts, if any of these persons believed that there was a state of war, rightful to be recognized, and believed, in good faith, that they were fighting against the United States Government, they had a right to seize the property of United States' citizens; and that, if they believed that they constituted part of a force co-operating, in any form or effect, with the military power which has risen up against the United States of America, then, so long as they had that opinion, they, by their own act, and their own construction of their own act, impose the law upon this Government, and upon this Bench, and upon this Jury, and compel you to say to them that if, in taking, in a manner which would have been robbery, this vessel, the Joseph, they were also fighting against the United States of America, they have not committed the crime of piracy. Now, if the Court please, and gentlemen of the Jury, let us, before we explore and dissect these propositions,--before we discover how utterly subversive they are of any notions of Government, of fixity in the interpretation of the law, or certainty in the enforcement of it,--let us see what you will fairly consider as being proved, as matter of fact, concerning the condition of affairs in this country. Let us see what legal discrimination or description of this state of things is likely to be significant and instructive, in determining the power and authority of the Government, and the responsibility of these defendants. They began with an Ordinance of South Carolina, passed on the 20th of December of last year, which, in form and substance, simply annulled the Ordinance of that State with which, as they say, they ratified or accepted the Constitution of the United States. They then went on with similar proceedings on the part of the States of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida, showing the establishment and adoption of a Provisional Constitution, by which they constituted and called themselves the Confederate States of America. They proved, then, the organization of the Government, the election of Mr. Davis and Mr. Stephens as President and Vice-President, and the appointment of Secretaries of War, and of the Navy, and other portions of the civil establishment. They proved, then, the occurrences at Fort Sumter, and gave particular evidence of the original acts at Charleston--the firing on the Star of the West, and the correspondence which then took place between Major Anderson and the Governor of South Carolina. They then went on to prove the evacuation of Fort Moultrie; the storming of Fort Sumter; the Proclamation of the President of the United States, of the 15th of April, calling for 75,000 troops; Mr. Davis' Proclamation, of the 17th of April, inviting privateers; and then the President's Proclamation, of the 19th of April, denouncing the punishment of piracy against privateers, and putting under blockade the coasts of the revolted States. The laws about privateering passed by what is called the Confederate Government, have, also, been read to you; and this seems to complete the documentary, and constitutional, and statutory proceedings in that disaffected portion of the country. But what do the prisoners prove further? That an actual military conflict and collision commenced, has proceeded, and is now raging in this country, wherein we find, not one section of the country engaged in a military contest with another section of the country--not two contending factions, in the phrase of Vattel, dividing the nation for the sake of national power--but the Government of the United States, still standing, without the diminution of one tittle of its power and dignity--without the displacement or disturbance of a single function of its executive, of its legislative, of its judicial establishments--without the disturbance or the defection of its army or its navy--without any displacement in or among the nations of the world--without any retreat, on its part, or any repulsion, on the part of any force whatever, from its general control over the affairs of the nation, over all its relations to foreign States, over the high seas, and over every part of the United States themselves, in their whole length and breadth, except just so far as military occupation and military contest have controlled the peaceful maintenance of the authority and laws of the Government. Now, this may be conceded for all sides of the controversy. I do not claim any more than these proofs show, and what we all know to be true; and I am but fair in conceding that they do show all the proportions and extent which make up a contest by the forces of the nation, as a nation, against an armed array, with all the form and circumstances, and with a number and strength, which make up military aggression and military attack on the part of these revolting or disaffected communities, or people. Now, some observations have been made, at various stages of this argument, of the course the Government has taken in its declaration of a blockade, and in its seizure of prizes by its armed vessels, and its bringing them before the Prize Courts; and my learned friend, Mr. Brady, has done me the favor to allude to some particular occasion on which I, on behalf of the Government, in the Admiralty Court, have contended for certain principles, which would lead to the judicial confiscation of prizes, under the law of the land, or under the law of nations adopted and enforced as part of the law of the land. Well, now, gentlemen, I understand and agree that, for certain purposes, there is a condition of war which forces itself on the attention and the duty of Governments, and calls on them to exert the power and force of war for their protection and maintenance. And I have had occasion to contend--and the learned Courts have decided--that this nation, undertaking to suppress an armed military rebellion, which arrays itself, by land and by sea, in the forms of naval and military attack, has a right to exert--under the necessary principles which control and require the action of a nation for its own preservation, in these circumstances of danger and of peril--not only the usual magisterial force of the country--not only the usual criminal laws--not only such civil posses or aids to the officers of the law as may be obtained for their assistance--but to take the army and the navy, the strength and the manhood of the nation, which it can rally around it, and in every form, and by every authority, human and divine, suppress and reduce a revolt, a rebellion, a treason, that seeks to overthrow this Government in, at least, a large portion of its territory, and among a large portion of its people. In doing so, it may resort--as it has resorted--to the method of a warlike blockade, which, by mere force of naval obstruction, closes the harbors of the disaffected portion of the country against all commerce. Having done that, it has a right, in its Admiralty Courts, to adjudicate upon and condemn as prizes, under the laws of blockade, all vessels that shall seek to violate the blockade. Nor, gentlemen, have I ever denied--nor shall I here deny--that, when the proportions of a civil dissension, or controversy, come to the port and dignity of war, good sense and common intelligence require the Government to recognize it as a question of fact, according to the actual circumstances of the case, and to act accordingly. I, therefore, have no difficulty in conceding that, outside of any question of law and right--outside of any question as to whether there is a Government down there, whether nominal or real, or that can be described as having any consistency of any kind, under our law and our Government--there is prevailing in this country a controversy, which is carried on by the methods, and which has the proportions and extent, of what we call war. War, gentlemen, as distinguished from peace, is so distinguished by this proposition--that it is a condition in which force on one side and force on the other are the means used in the actual prosecution of the controversy. Now, gentlemen, if the Court please, I believe that that is all that can be claimed, and all that has been claimed, on behalf of these prisoners, in regard to the actual facts, and the condition of things in this country. And I admit that, if this Government of ours were not a party to this controversy,--if it looked on it from the outside, as England and France have done,--our Government would have had the full right to treat these contending parties, in its Courts and before its laws, as belligerents, engaged in hostilities, as it would have had an equal right to take the opposite course. Which course it would have taken, I neither know, nor should you require to know. But, I answer to the whole of this, if the Court please, that it is a war in which the Government recognizes no right whatever on the part of the persons with whom it is contending; and that, in the eye of the law, as well as in the eye of reason and sound political morality, every person who has, from the beginning of the first act of levying war against the United States until now, taken part in this war, actively and effectively, in any form--who has adhered to the rebels--who has given aid, information, or help of any kind, wherever he lives, whether he sends it from New Hampshire or New York, from Wisconsin or from Baltimore--whether he be found within or without the armed lines--is, in his own overt actions, or open espousal of the side of this warring power, against the Government of the United States, a traitor and a rebel. I do not know that there is any proposition whatever, of law, or any authority whatever, that has been adduced by my learned friends, in which they will claim, as matter of law, that they are not _rebels_. I invited the attention of my learned friends, as I purposed to call that of the Court, to the fact, that the difficulty about all this business was, that the plea of authority or of war, which these prisoners interposed against the crime of piracy, was nothing but a plea of their implication in treason. I would like to hear a sober and solemn proposition from any lawyer, that a Government, as matter of law, and a Court, as matter of law, cannot proceed on an infraction of a law against violence either to person or property, instead of proceeding on an indictment for treason. The facts proved must, of course, maintain the personal crime; and there are many degrees of treason, or facts of treason, which do not include violent crime. But, to say that a person who has acted as a rebel cannot be indicted as an assassin, or that a man who has acted, on the high seas, as a pirate, if our statutes so pronounce him, cannot be indicted, tried and convicted as a pirate, because he could plead, as the shield of his piracy, that he committed it as part of his treason, is, to my apprehension, entirely new, and inconsistent with the first principles of justice. Now, this very statute of piracy is really a general Crimes Act. The first section is: "If any person or persons owing allegiance to the United States of America shall levy war against them, or shall adhere to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States, or elsewhere, and shall be thereof convicted," "such person or persons shall be adjudged guilty of treason against the United States, and shall suffer death." Now, you will observe that treason is not a defence against piracy; nor is good faith in treason a defence against treason, or a defence against piracy. What would be the posture of these prisoners, if, instead of being indicted for piracy, they were indicted for treason? Should we then hear anything about this notion that there was a war raging, and that they were a party engaged in the war? Why, that is the very definition of treason. Against whom is the war? Against the United States of America. Did you owe allegiance to the United States of America? Yes, the citizens did; and I need not say to you, gentlemen, that those residents who are not citizens owe allegiance. There is no dispute about that. Those foreigners who are living here unnaturalized are just as much guilty of treason, if they act treasonably against the Government, as any of our own citizens can be. That is the law of England, the law of treason, the necessary law of civilized communities. If we are hospitable, if we make no distinction, as we do not, in this country, between citizens, and foreigners resident here and protected by our laws, it is very clear we cannot make any distinction when we come to the question of who are faithful to the laws. So, therefore, if they were indicted for treason, what would become of all this defence? It would be simply a confession in open Court that they were guilty of treason. Well, then, if they fell back on the proposition,--"We thought, in our consciences and judgments, that either these States had a right to secede, or that they had a right to carry on a revolution; that they were oppressed, and were entitled to assert themselves against an oppressive Government, and we, in good faith, and with a fair expectation of success, entered into it,"--what would become of them? The answer would be, "Good faith in your attempt to overthrow the Government, does not excuse you from responsibility for the crime of attempting it." Our statute is made for the purpose of protecting our Government against efforts made, in good faith or in bad faith, for its overthrow. And now, in this connection, gentlemen, as your attention, as well as that of the Court, has been repeatedly called to it, let me advert again to the citation from that enlightened public writer, Vattel, who has done as much, perhaps, as our learned friends have suggested, to place on a sure foundation the amelioration of the law of nations in time of war, and their intercourse in time of peace, as any writer and thinker whom our race has produced. You remember, that he asks--How shall it be, when two contending factions divide a State, in all the forms and extent of civil war--what shall be the right and what the duty of a sovereign in this regard? Shall he put himself on the pride of a king, or on the flattery of a courtier, and say, I am still monarch, and will enforce against every one of this multitude engaged in this rebellion the strict penalties of my laws? Vattel reasons, and reasons very properly: You must submit to the principles of humanity and of justice; you must govern your conduct by them, and not proceed to an extermination of your subjects because they have revolted, whether with or without cause. You must not enforce the sanctions of your Government, or maintain its authority, on methods which would produce a destruction of your people. And you must not further, by insisting, under the enforced circumstances which surround you, on the extreme and logical right of a king, furnish occasion for the contending rebels, who have their moments of success and power, as well as you, to retaliate on your loyal people, victims of their struggle on your behalf, and thrown into the power of your rebellious subjects,--to retaliate, I say, on them the same extreme penalties, without right, without law, but by mere power, which you have exerted under your claim of right. And now, gentlemen of the Jury, as the Court very well understands, this general reasoning, which should govern the conduct of a Sovereign, or of a Government, against a mere local insurrection, does not touch the question as to whether the law of the nation in which the Sovereign presides, and in violation of which the crime of the rebels has been perpetrated, shall be enforced. There has been, certainly, in modern times, no occasion when a Sovereign has not drawn, in his discretion, and under the influence of these principles of humanity and justice, this distinction, and has not interposed the shield of his own mercy between the offences of misled and misguided masses of his people and offended laws. We know the difference between law and its condemnation, and mercy and its saving grace; and we know that every Government exercises its discretion. And, I should like to know why these learned counsel, who are seeking to interpose, as a legal defence on the part of a criminal, the principles of policy and mercy which should guide the Government, are disposed to insist that this Government, in its prosecutions and its trials, has shown a disposition to absolve great masses of criminals from the penalties of its laws. I should like to know, when my learned friend Mr. Brady, near the close of his remarks, suggested that there had been no trial for treason, whether this Government, from the first steps in the outbreak, down to the final and extensive rage of the war, has not foreborne to take satisfaction for the wrongs committed against it, and has not been disposed to carry on and sustain the strength of the Government, without bloody sacrifices for its maintenance, and for the offended justice of the land. But it is certainly very strange if, when a Government influenced by those principles of humanity of which Vattel speaks, and which my learned friends so much insist upon, has foreborne, except in signal instances, or, if you please, in single instances that are not signal, to assert the standard of the law's authority and of the Government's right,--that it may be seen that the sword of justice, although kept sheathed for the most part, has yet not rusted in its scabbard, and that the Government is not faithless to itself, or to its laws, its powers, or its duties, in these particular prosecutions that have been carried, one to its conclusion, in Philadelphia, and the other to this stage of its progress, here,--it is strange, indeed, that the appeal is to be thrust upon it--"Do not include the masses of the misguided men!" and, when it yields so mercifully to that appeal, and says--"I will limit myself to the least maintenance and assertion of a right," that the answer is to come back: "Why, how execrable--how abominable, to make distinctions of that kind!" But, gentlemen, the mercy of the Government, as I have said to you, remains after conviction, as well as in its determination not to press numerous trials for treason; but it is an attribute, both in forbearing to try and in forbearing to execute, which is safely left where the precedents that are to shape the authority of law cannot be urged against its exercise. Now, I look upon the conduct and duty of the Government on somewhat larger considerations than have been pressed before you here. The Government, it is said, does not desire the conviction of these men, or, at least, should not desire it. The Government does not desire the blood of any of its misguided people. The Government--the prosecution--should have no passion, no animosities, in this or in any other case; and our learned friends have done us the favor to say that the case is presented to you as the law should require it to be; that you, and all, are unaffected and unimpeded in your judgment; and that, with a full hearing of what could be said on the part of these criminals, you have the case candidly and openly before you. Now, gentlemen, the Government, although having a large measure of discretion, has no right, in a country where the Government is one wholly of law, to repeal the criminal law, and no right to leave it without presenting it to the observation, the understanding, and the recognition of all its citizens, whether in rebellion or not, in its majesty, in its might, and in its impartiality. The Government has behind it the people, and it has behind it all the great forces which are breathing on our agitated society, all the strong passions, all the deep emotions, all the powerful convictions, which impress the loyal people of this country as to the outrage, as to the wickedness, as to the perils of this great rebellion. Do you not recollect how, when the proclamation of Mr. Davis invited marauders to prey upon our commerce, from whatever quarter and from whatever motives--(patriotism and duty not being requisite before they would be received)--the cry of the wounded sensibilities of a great commercial people burst upon this whole scene of conflict? What was there that as a nation we had more to be proud of, more to be glad for in our history, than our flag? To think that in an early stage of what was claimed to be first a constitutional, and then a peaceful, and then a deliberate political agitation and maintenance of right, this last extreme act, the arming of private persons against private property on the sea, was appealed to before even a force was drawn on the field on behalf of the United States of America! The proclamation of the President was but two days old when privateers were invited to rush to the standard. The indignation of the community, the sense of outrage and hatred was so severe and so strong, that at that time, if the sentiment of the people had been consulted, it would have found a true expression in what was asserted in the newspapers, in public speeches, in private conversations--that the duty of every merchantman and of every armed vessel of the country, which arrested any of these so-called privateers, under this new commission, without a nation and without authority, was, to treat them as pirates caught in the act, and execute them at the yard-arm by a summary justice. Well, I need not say to you, gentlemen, that I am sure you and I and all of us would have had occasion to regret, in every sense, as wrong, as violent, as unnecessary, and, therefore, as wholly unjustifiable, on the part of a powerful nation like ourselves, any such rash execution of the penalties of the law of nations, and of the law of the land, while our Government had power on the sea, had authority on the land, had Courts and laws and juries under its authority to inquire and look into the transaction. The public passions on this subject being all cool at this time, after an interval of four months or more from the arrest, we are here trying this case. Yet my learned friends can find complaint against the mercy of the Government and its justice, that it brings any prosecution; and great complaint is made before you, without the least ground or cause, as it seems to me, that the prosecution is pressed in a time of war, when the sentiments of the community are supposed to be inflamed. Well, gentlemen, what is the duty of Government, when it has brought in prisoners arrested on the high seas, but to deliver them promptly to the civil authorities, as was done in this case--and then, in the language of the Constitution, which secures the right to them, to give them a speedy and impartial trial? That it is impartial, they all confess. How speedy is it? They say, they regret that it proceeds in time of war. Surely, our learned friends do not wish to be understood as having had denied to them in this Court any application which they have made for postponement. The promptness of the judicial and prosecuting authorities here had produced this indictment in the month of June, I believe, the very month in which the prisoners were arrested, or certainly early in July; and then the Government was ready to proceed with the trial, so far as I am advised. But, at any rate, an application--a very proper and necessary application--was made by our learned friends, that the trial should be postponed till, I believe, the very day on which it was brought on. That application was not objected to, was acquiesced in, and the time was fixed, and no further suggestion was made that the prisoners desired further delay; and, if the Government had undertaken to ask for further delay, on the ground of being unprepared, there was no fact to sustain any such application. If it was the wish of the prisoners, or for their convenience, that there should be further delay, it was for them to suggest it. But, being entitled by the Constitution to a speedy as well as an impartial trial, and the day being fixed by themselves on which they would be ready, and they being considered ready, and no difficulty or embarrassment in the way of proof having been suggested on the part of the Government, it seems to me very strange that this regret should be expressed, unless it should take that form of regret which all of us participate in, that the war is not over. That, I agree, is a subject of regret. But how there has ever been any pressure, or any--the least--exercise of authority adverse to their wishes in this matter, it is very difficult for me to understand. Now, gentlemen, I approach a part of this discussion which I confess I would gladly decline. I have not the least objection--no one, I am sure, can feel the least objection--to the privilege or supposed duty of counsel, who are defending prisoners on a grave charge,--certainly not in a case which includes, as a possible result, the penalty of their client's lives,--to go into all the inquiries, discussions and arguments, however extensive, varied, or remote, that can affect the judgment of the Jury, properly or fairly, or that can rightly be invoked. But, I confess that, looking at the very interesting, able, extensive and numerous arguments, theories and illustrations, that have been presented in succession by, I think, in one form or another, seven counsel for these prisoners, as the introduction into a judicial forum, and before a Jury, of inquiries concerning the theories of Government, the course of politics, the occasion of strife on one side or the other, within the region of politics and the region of peace, in any portion of the great communities that composed this powerful nation--in that point of view, I aver, they seem to me very little inviting and instructive, as they certainly are extremely unusual in forensic discussions. Certainly, gentlemen of the Jury, we must conceive some starting point somewhere in the stability of human affairs, as they are entrusted to the control and defence of human Governments. But, in the very persistent and resolute views of the learned counsel upon this point--first on the right of secession as constitutional; second, if not constitutional, as being supposed by somebody to be constitutional; third, on the right of revolution as existing on the part of a people oppressed, or deeming themselves oppressed, to try their strength in the overthrow of the subsisting Government; fourth, on the right to press the discontents inside of civil war; and then finally and at last, that whoever thinks the Government oppresses him, or thinks that a better Government would suit his case, has not only the right to try the venture, but that, unsuccessful, or at any stage of the effort, his right becomes so complete that the Government must and should surrender at once and to every attempt--I see only what is equivalent to a subversion of Government, and to saying that the right of revolution, in substance and in fact, involves the right of Government in the first place, and its duty in the second place, to surrender to the revolutionist, and to treat him as having overthrown it in point of law, and in contemplation of its duty. That is a proposition which I cannot understand. Nevertheless, gentlemen, these subjects have been so extensively opened, and in so many points attacks have been made upon what seems to me not only the very vital structure and necessary support of this, our Government, but the very necessary and indispensable support of any Government whatever, and we have been so distinctly challenged, both on the ground of an absolute right to overthrow this Government, whenever any State thinks fit--and, next, upon the clear right, on general principles of human equity, of each State to raise itself against any Government with which it is dissatisfied--and upon the general right of conscience--as well as on the complete support by what has been assumed to have been the parallel case, on all those principles, of the conduct of the Colonies which became the United States of America and established our Government--that I shall find it necessary, in the discharge of my duty, to say something, however briefly, on that subject. Now, gentlemen, these are novel discussions in a Court of Justice, within the United States of America. We have talked about the oppressions of other nations, and rejoiced in our exemption from all of them, under the free, and benignant, and powerful Government which was, by the favor of Providence, established by the wisdom, and courage, and virtue of our ancestors. We had, for more than two generations, reposed under the shadow of our all-protecting Government, with the same conscious security as under the firmament of the heavens. We knew, to be sure, that for all that made life hopeful and valuable--for all that made life possible--we depended upon the all-protecting power, and the continued favor of Divine Providence. We knew, just as well, that, without civil society, without equal and benignant laws, without the administration of justice, without the maintenance of commerce, without a suitable Government, without a powerful nationality, all the motives and springs of human exertion and labor would be dried up at their source. But we felt no more secure in the Divine promise that "summer and winter, seed-time and harvest," should not cease, than we did in the permanent endurance of that great fabric established by the wisdom and the courage of a renowned ancestry, to be the habitation of liberty and justice for us and our children to every generation. We felt no solicitude whatever that this great structure of our constituted liberties should pass away as a scroll, or its firm power crumble in the dust. But, by the actual circumstances of our situation,--and, if not by them, certainly by the destructive theories which are presented for your consideration,--it becomes necessary for us, as citizens, and, in the judgment at least of the learned counsel, for these prisoners, for you, and for this learned Court, in the conduct of this trial, and in the disposition of the issue of "guilty" or "not guilty" as to these prisoners, to pay some attention to these considerations. If, in the order of this discussion, gentlemen, I should not seem to follow in any degree, or even to include by name, many of the propositions, of the distinctions, and of the arguments which our learned friends have pressed against the whole solidity, the whole character, the whole permanence, the whole strength of our Government, I yet think you will find that I have included the principal ideas they have advanced, and have commented upon the views that seem to us--at least so far as we think them to be at all connected with this case--suitable to be considered. Now, gentlemen, let us start with this business where our friends, in their argument, where many of the philosophers, and partisans, and statesmen of the Southern people, have found many of their grounds of support. Let us start with this very subject of the American Revolution, with the condition that we were in, and with the place that we found ourselves raised to, among the nations of the earth, as the result of that great transaction in the affairs of men. What were we before the Revolution commenced? Was any one of the original thirteen States out of which our nation was made, and which, previous to the Revolution, were Colonies of Great Britain--was any one of them an independent nation at the time they all slumbered under the protection of the British Crown? Why, not only had they not the least pretension to be a nation, any of them, but they had scarcely the position of a thoroughly incorporated part of the great nation of England. Now, how did they stand towards the British power, and under what motives of dignity, and importance, and necessity did they undertake their severance from the parent country? With all their history of colonization, the settlement of their different charters, and the changes they went through, I will not detain you. For general purposes, we all know enough, and I, certainly not more than the rest of you. This, however, was their condition. The population were all subjects of the British Crown; and they all had forms of local Government which they had derived from the British Crown; and they claimed and possessed, as I suppose, all the civil and political rights of Englishmen. They were not subject to any despotic power, but claimed and possessed that right to a share in the Government, which was the privilege of Englishmen, and under which they protected themselves against the encroachment of the Crown. But, in England, as you know, the monarch was attended by his Houses of Parliament, and all the power of the Government was controlled by the people, through their representatives in the House of Commons. And how? Why, because, although the King had prerogatives, executive authority, a vast degree of pomp and wealth, and of strength, yet the people, represented in the House of Commons, by controlling the question of taxation, held all the wealth of the kingdom--the power of the purse, as it was described--and without supplies, without money for the army, for the navy, for all the purposes of Government, what authority, actual and effective, had the Crown of England? These were the rights of Englishmen; these made them a free people, not subject to despotic power. They cherished it and loved it. Now, what relation did these Colonies, becoming off-shoots from the great fabric of the national frame of England, bring with them, and assert, and enjoy here? Why, the king was their king, just as he was the king of the people whom they left in England, but they had their legislatures here, which made their laws for them in Massachusetts, in Connecticut, in Virginia, in South Carolina, and in the rest of these provinces; and among those laws, in the power of law-making, they had asserted, and possessed, and enjoyed the right of laying taxes for the expenses and charges of their Government. They formed no part of the Parliament of England, but, as the subjects of England within the four seas were obedient to the king, and were represented in the Parliament that made laws for them, the Colonies of America were subject to the king, but had local legislatures, to pass laws, raise and levy taxes, and graduate the expenses and contributions which they would bear. Now, gentlemen, it is quite true that the local legislatures were subject to the revision, as to their statutes, to a certain extent, of the sovereign power of England. The king had the veto power--as he had the veto power over Acts of Parliament--the power of revision--and other powers, as may have been the casual outgrowth of the forms of different charters. In an evil hour--as these Colonies, from being poor, despised, and feeble communities, gained a strength and numbers that attracted the attention of the Crown of England, as important and productive communities, capable of being taxed--the Government undertook to assert, as the principle of the Constitution of England, that the king and Parliament, sitting in London, could tax as they pleased, when they pleased, and in the form, and on the subjects, and to the amount, they pleased, the free people of these Colonies. Now, you will understand, there was not an incidental, a casual, a limited subject of controversy, of right, of danger, but there was an attack upon the first principles of English liberty, which prevented the English people from being the subjects of a despot, and an attempt to make us subject to a despotic Government, in which we took no share, and in which we had no control of the power of the purse. What matter did it make to us that, instead of there being a despotic authority, in which we had no share or representation of vote or voice, exercised by the king alone, it was exercised by the king and Parliament? They were both of them powers of Government that were away from us, and in which we had no share; and we, then, forewarned by the voices of the great statesmen whose sentiments have been read to you, saw in time that, whatever might be said or thought of the particular exercise of authority, the proposition was that we were not entitled to the privilege and freedom of Englishmen, but that the power was confined to those who resided within the four seas--within the islands that made up that Kingdom--and that we were provinces which their King and their Parliament governed. Therefore, you may call it a question of taxation, and my friend may call it "a question of three pence a pound on tea;" but it was the proposition that the power of the purse, in this country, resided in England. We had not been accustomed to it. We did not believe in it. And our first revolutionary act was to fight for our rights as Englishmen (subject to the King, whose power we admitted), and to assert the rights of our local legislature in the overthrow of this usurpation of Parliament. Now, of the course which we took before we resorted to the violence and vehemence of war, I shall have hereafter occasion to present you, very briefly and conclusively, a condensed recital; but this notion, that we here claimed any right to rise up against a Government that was in accordance with our rights, and was such as we had made it, and as we enjoyed it, equally with all others over whom it was exercised--which lies at the bottom of the revolt in this country--had not the least place, or the opportunity of a place, in our relations with England. We expected and desired, as the correspondence of Washington shows--as some of the observations of Hamilton, I think, read in your presence by the learned counsel, show--as the records of history show--we expected to establish security for ourselves under the British Crown, and as a part of the British Empire, and to maintain the right of Englishmen, to wit, the right of legislation and taxation where we were represented. But the parent Government, against the voice and counsels of such statesmen as Burke, and the warnings of such powerful champions of liberty as Chatham, undertook to insist, upon the extreme logic of their Constitution, that we were British subjects, and that the king and Parliament governed all British subjects; and they had a theory, I believe, that we were represented in Parliament, as one English jurist put it, in the fact that all the grants in all the Colonies were, under the force of English law, "to have and to hold, as the Manor of East Greenwich," and that, as the Manor of East Greenwich was represented in Parliament, all this people were represented. But this did not suit our notions. The lawyers of this country, the Judges of this country, and many of the lawyers of England, as mere matter of strict legal right, held that the American view of the Constitution of England, and of the rights of Englishmen who enjoy it, was the true one. But, at any rate, it was not upon an irritation about public sentiment; nor was it upon the pressure of public taxes; nor because we did not constitute a majority of Parliament; nor anything of that kind; but it was on clear criteria of whether we were slaves, as Hamilton presents it, or part of the free people of a Government. We, therefore, by degrees, and somewhat unconscious, perhaps, of our own enlightened progress, but yet wisely, fortunately, prosperously, determined upon our independence, as the necessary means of securing those rights which were denied to us under the Constitution of our country. Now, there was not the least pretence of the right of a people to overthrow a Government because they so desire--which seems to be the proposition here--because they think they do not like it--and because there are some points or difficulties in its working they would like to have adjusted. No; it was on the mere proposition that the working of the administration in England was converting us into subjects, not of the Crown, with the rights of Englishmen, but subjects of the despotic power of Parliament and the king of England. Now, how did we go to work, and what was the result of that Revolution? In the first place, did we ever become _thirteen_ nations? Was Massachusetts a nation? Was South Carolina a nation? Did either of them ever declare its independence, or ever engage in a war, by itself and of itself, against England, to accomplish its independence? No, never; the first and preliminary step before independence was union. The circumstances of the Colonies, we may well believe, made it absolutely necessary that they should settle beforehand the question of whether they could combine themselves into one effectual, national force, to contend with England, before they undertook to fight her. It was pretty plain that Massachusetts could not conquer England, or its own independence, and that Virginia could not do so, and that the New England States alone could not do it, and that the Southern States alone could not do it. It was quite plain that New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, alone, could not do it; and, therefore, in the very womb, as it were, and preceding our birth as a nation, we were articulated together into the frame of one people, one community, one nationality. Now, however imperfectly, and however clumsily, and however unsuitably we were first connected, and however necessary and serious the changes which substituted for that inchoate shape of nationality the complete, firm, noble and perfect structure which made us one people as the United States of America, yet you will find, in all the documents, and in all the history, that there was a United States of America, in some form represented, before there was anything like a separation, on the part of any of the Colonies, from the parent country, except in these discontents, and these efforts at an assertion of our liberties, which had a local origin. The great part of the argument of my learned friend rests upon the fact that these States were nations, each one of them, once upon a time; and that, having made themselves this Government, they have remained nations, in it and under it, ever since, subject only to the Confederate authority, in the terms of a certain instrument called a compact, and with the reserved right of nationality ready, at all times, to spring forth and manifest itself in complete separation of any one of the States from the rest. And I find, strangely enough, in the argument as well of the promoters of these political movements at the South as in the voice of my learned friends who have commented on this subject, a reference to the early diplomacy of the United States, as indicative of the fact that they were separate and independent communities--regarded as such by the contracting Powers into connection with whom they were brought by their treaties and conventions, and, more particularly, in the definitive treaty whereby their independence was recognized by Great Britain. Now, if the Court please, both upon the point (if it can be called a point, connected with your judicial inquiry) that these Colonies were formed into a Union before they secured their national independence, and that there was no moment of time wherein they were not included, either as united Colonies, under the parental protection of Great Britain, or as united in a struggling Provisional Government, or in the perfect Government of the Confederation, and, finally, under the present Constitution--I apprehend there can be no doubt that our diplomacy, commencing, in 1778, with the Treaty of Alliance with France, contains the same enumeration of States that is so much relied upon by the reasoners for independent nationality on the part of all the States. In the preamble to that Treaty, found at page 6 of the 8th volume of the Statutes at Large, the language was: "The Most Christian King and the United States of North America, to wit, New Hampshire, &c., having this day concluded," &c. The United States are here treated as a strictly single power, with whom his Most Christian Majesty comes into league; and the credentials or ratifications pursued the same form. The Treaty of Commerce with the same nation, made at the same time, follows the same idea; and the Treaty with the Netherlands, made in 1782, contains the same enumeration of the States, and speaks of each of the contracting parties as being "countries." The Convention with the Netherlands, on page 50 of the same volume, and which was a part of the same diplomatic arrangement, and made at the same time, speaks, in Article 1, of the vessels of the "two nations." Now, the only argument of my learned friends, on the two treaties with Great Britain, of November, 1782, and September, 1783, is, that they are an agreement between England and the thirteen nations; and it is founded upon the fact, that the United States of America, after being described as such, are enumerated under a "viz." as being so many provinces. Now, the 5th and 6th articles of that Convention of 1782 with the Netherlands speak of "the vessels of war and privateers of one and of the other of the two nations." So that, pending the Revolution, we certainly, in the only acts of nationality that were possible for a contending power, set ourselves forth as only one nation, and were so recognized. And the same views are derivable from the language of the Provisional Treaty with Great Britain of November, 1782, and of the Definitive Treaty of Peace with Great Britain of September, 1783, which Treaties are to be found at pages 54 and 80 of the same 8th volume. The Preamble to the latter Treaty recites: "It having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose the hearts of the most serene and most potent Prince George the Third, &c., and of the United States of America to forget all past misunderstandings and differences that have unhappily interrupted the good correspondence and friendship, which they mutually wish to restore; and to establish such a beneficial and satisfactory intercourse '_between the two countries_, &c.'" And then comes the 1st article, which is identical in language with the Treaty with the Netherlands, of 1782: "His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, &c., to be free, sovereign and independent States." The United States had previously, in the Treaty, been spoken of as one country, and the language I have just quoted is only a statement of the provinces of which they were composed; for, we all know, as matter of history, that there were other British provinces that might have joined in this Revolution, and might, perhaps, have been included in the settlement of peace; and this rendered it suitable and necessary that the provinces whose independence was acknowledged should be specifically described. But, in the 2d article, so far from the separateness of the nationalities with which the convention was made being at all recognized, that important article, which is the one of boundaries, goes on to bound the entire nation as one undivided and integral territory, without the least attention to the divisions between them. It may be very well to say that England was only concerned to have one continuous boundary, coterminous to her own possessions, described, and that that was the object of the geographical bounding; but the entire Western, Eastern, and Southern boundaries are gone through as those of one integral nation. The 3d article speaks, again, of securing certain rights to the citizens or inhabitants of "both countries." Now, that "country" and "nation," in the language of diplomacy, are descriptive, not of territory, in either case, but of the nationality, admits of no discussion; and yet, I believe that the most substantial of all the citations and of all the propositions from the documentary evidence of the Revolution, which seeks to make out the fact that we came into being as thirteen nations, grows out of this British Treaty, which, in its preamble, takes notice of but one country, called the United States of America, and, then, in recognition of the United States of America, names the States under a "viz."--they being included in the single collective nation before mentioned as the United States. Now, gentlemen, after the Revolution had completed our independence, how were we left as respects our rights, our interests, our hopes, and our prospects on this very subject of nationality? Why, we were left in this condition--that we always had been accustomed to a parent or general Government, and to a local subordinate administration of our domestic affairs within the limits of our particular provinces. Under the good fortune, as well as the great wisdom which saw that this arrangement--a new one--quite a new one in the affairs of men--now that we were completely independent, and capable of being masters of our whole Government, both local and general, admitted of none of those discontents and dangers which belonged to our being subject collectively to the dominion of a remote power beyond the seas--under the good fortune and great wisdom of that opportunity, we undertook and determined to establish, and had already established provisionally, a complete Government, which we supposed would answer the purpose of having a general representation and protection of ourselves toward the world at large, and yet would limit the local power and authority, consistently with good and free Government, as respected populations homeogeneous, and acquainted with each other, and with their own wants and the methods of supplying them. The Articles of Confederation, framed during the Revolution, ratified at different times during its progress, and at its close, was a Government under which we subsisted--for how long? Until 1787--but four years from the time that we had an independent nationality--we were satisfied with the imperfect Union that our provisional Government had originated, and that we had shaped into somewhat more consistency under the Articles of Confederation. Why did we not stay under that? We were a feeble community. We had but little population, but little wealth. We had but few of the occasions of discontent that belong to great, and wealthy, and populous States. But the fault, the difficulty, was, that there were, in that Confederation, too many features which our learned friends, their clients here, and theoretical teachers of theirs elsewhere, contend, make the distinctive character of the American Constitution, as finally developed and established. The difficulty was that, although we were apparently and intentionally a nation, as respected the rest of the world, and for all the purposes of common interest and common protection and common development, yet this element of separate independency, and these views that the Government thus framed operated, not as a Government over individuals, but as a Government over local communities in an organized form, made its working imperfect, impossible, and the necessary occasion of dissension, and weakness, and hostility, and left it without the least power, except by continued force and war, to maintain nationality. Now, it was not because we were sovereigns, all of us, because we had departed from sovereignty. There was not the least right in any State to send an ambassador, or make a treaty, or have anything signed; but the vice was, that the General Government had no power or authority, directly, on the citizens of the States, but had to send its mandates for contributions to the common treasury, and its requirements for quotas for the common army and the common navy, directly to the States. Now, I tarry no longer on this than to say, that the brief experience of four years showed that it was an impossible proposition for a Government, that there should be in it even these imperfect, clipped and crippled independencies, that were made out of the original provinces and called States. In 1787, the great Convention had its origin, and in 1789 the adoption of the Constitution made something that was supposed to be, and entitled to be, and our citizens required to be, as completely different, on this question of double sovereignty, and divided allegiance, and equal right of the nation to require and of a State to refuse, as was possible. If, indeed, instead of the Confederation having changed itself from an imperfect connection of States limited and reduced in sovereignty, into a Government where the nation is the coequal and co-ordinate power (as our friends express it) of every State in it, why surely our brief experience of weakness and disorder, and of contempt, such as was visited upon us by the various nations with whom we had made treaties, that we could not fulfil them, found, in the practical wisdom of the intelligent American people, but a very imperfect and unsatisfactory solution, if the theories of the learned counsel are correct, that these United States are, on the one part, a power, and on the other part, thirty-four different powers, all sovereign, and the two having complete rights of sovereignty, and dividing the allegiance of our citizens in every part of our territory. Now, the language of the Constitution is familiar to all of you. That it embodies the principle of a General Government acting upon all the States, and upon you, and upon me, and upon every one in the United States; that it has its own established Courts--its own mandate by which jurors are brought together--its own laws upon all the subjects that are attributed to its authority; that there is an establishment known as the Supreme Court, which, with the appropriate inferior establishments, controls and finally disposes of every question of law, and right, and political power, and political duty; and that this adjusted system of one nation with distributed local power, is, in its working, adequate to all the varied occasions which human life develops--we all know. We have lived under it, we have prospered under it, we have been made a great nation, an united people, free, happy, and powerful. Now, gentlemen, it is said--and several points in our history have been appealed to, as well as the disturbances that have torn our country for the last year--that this complete and independent sovereignty of the States has been recognized. Now, there have been several occasions on which this subject has come up. The first was under the administration of the first successor of General Washington--John Adams,--when the famous Virginia and Kentucky resolutions had their origin. About these one of my learned friends gave you a very extensive discussion, and another frankly admitted that he could not understand the doctrine of the co-ordinate, equal sovereignty of two powers within the same State. On the subject of these Virginia resolutions, and on the question of whether they were the recognized doctrines of this Government, I ask your attention to but one consideration of the most conclusive character, and to be disposed of in the briefest possible space. The proposition of the Virginia resolutions was, that the States who are parties to the compact have the right and are in duty bound to interpose to arrest the progress of the evil (that is, when unconstitutional laws are passed), and to maintain, within their respective limits, the authority, rights, and liberties pertaining to them. That is to say, that where any law is passed by the Congress of the United States, which the State of Virginia, in its wise and independent judgment, pronounces to be in excess of the constitutional power, it is its right and duty to interpose. How? By secession? No. By rebellion? No. But by protecting and maintaining, within its territory, the authority, rights, and liberties pertaining to it. Now, these resolutions grew out of what? Certain laws, one called the "Alien" and the other the "Sedition" law, rendered necessary by the disturbances communicated by the French revolution to this country, and which necessarily came within the doctrine of my friend, Mr. Larocque, that there is not the least right of secession when the laws are capable of being the subject of judicial investigation. Well, those laws were capable of being the subject of judicial investigation, and the resolutions did not claim the right of secession, but of nullification. My learned friend says that the doctrine of "secession" has no ground. But what was the fate of the "Virginia resolutions"? For Virginia did not pretend that she had all the wisdom, and virtue, and patriotism of the country within her borders. She sent these resolutions to every State in the Union, and desired the opinion of their legislatures and their governors on the subject. Kentucky passed similar resolutions; and Kentucky, you will notice, had just been made a State, in 1793--an off-shoot from Virginia; and, as the gentleman has told you, Mr. Madison wrote the resolutions of Virginia, and Mr. Jefferson those of Kentucky. So that there was not any great independent support, in either State, for the views, thus identical, and thus promulgated by these two Virginians. Their great patriotism, and wisdom, and intelligence, are a part of the inheritance we are all proud of. But, when the appeal was sent for concurrence to New York, South Carolina, Georgia, Massachusetts, and the New England States, what was the result? Why, Kentucky, in 1799, regrets that, of all the States, none, except Virginia, acquiesced in the doctrines; and the answers of every one of the States that made response are contained in the record which also contains the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions. And that doctrine there exploded, and exploded forever, until its recurrence in the shape of nullification, in South Carolina, as part of the doctrines of this Constitution. We had another pressure on the subject of local dissatisfaction, in 1812; and then the seat of discontent and heresy was New England. I do not contend, and never did contend, in any views I have taken of the history of affairs in this country, that the people of any portion of it have a right to set themselves in judgment as superiors over the people of any other portion. I never have had any doubt that, just as circumstances press on the interests of one community or another, just so are they likely to carry their theoretical opinions on the questions of the power of their Government and of their own rights, and just so to express themselves. So long as they confine themselves to resolutions and politics, to the hustings and to the elections, nobody cares very much what their political theories are. But my learned friend Mr. Brady has taken the greatest satisfaction in showing, that this notion of the co-ordinate authority of the States with the nation, found its expression and adoption, during the war of 1812, in some of the States of New England. Well, gentlemen, I believe that all sober and sensible people agree that, whether or not the New England States carried their heresies to the extent of justifying the nullification of a law, or the revocation of their assent to the Confederacy, and their withdrawal from the common Government, the doctrines there maintained were not suitable for the strength and the harmony, for the unity and the permanency, of the American Government. I believe that the condemnation of those principles that followed, from South Carolina, from Virginia, from New York, and from other parts of the country, and the resistance which a large, and important, and intelligent, and influential portion of their own local community manifested, exterminated those heresies forever from the New England mind. Next, we come to 1832, and then, under the special instruction and authority of a great Southern statesman, (Mr. Calhoun,) whose acuteness and power of reasoning have certainly been scarcely, if at all, surpassed by any of our great men, the State of South Carolina undertook, not to secede, but to nullify; and yet Mr. Larocque says, that this pet doctrine of Mr. Calhoun,--nullification, and nothing else,--is the absurdest thing ever presented in this country; and we are fortunate, I suppose, in not having wrecked our Union upon that doctrine. Now we come, next, to the doctrine of secession. Nullification, rejected in 1798 by all the States, except Virginia and Kentucky, and never revived by them,--nullification, rejected by the sober sense of the American People,--nullification was put down by the strong will of Jackson, in 1832,--having no place to disturb the strength and hopes and future of this country. And what do we find is the proposition now put forward, as matter of law, to your Honors, to relieve armed and open war from the penalties of treason, and from the condemnation of a lesser crime? What is it, as unfolded here by the learned advocate (Mr. Larocque), with all his acuteness, but so manifest an absurdity that its recognition by a lawyer, or an intelligent Jury, seems almost impossible? It is this: This Union has its power, its authority, its laws. It acts directly upon all the individuals inside of every State, and they owe it allegiance as their Government. It is a Government which is limited, in the exercise of its power, to certain general and common objects, not interfering with the domestic affairs of any community. Within that same State there is a State government, framed into this General Government, to be certainly a part of it in its territories, a part of it in its population, a part of it in every organization, and every department of its Government. The whole body of its administration of law, the Legislature and the Executive, are bound, by a particular oath, to sustain the Constitution of the United States. But, although it is true that the State Government has authority only where the United States Government has not, and that the United States have authority only where the State has not; and although there is a written Constitution, which says what the line of separation is; and although there is a Supreme Court, which, when they come into collision, has authority to determine between them, and no case whatever, affecting the right or the conduct of any individual man, can be subtracted from its decision; yet, when there comes a difference between the State and the General Government, the State has the moral right, and political right, to insist upon its view, and to maintain it by force of arms, and the General Government has the right to insist upon its view, and to maintain it by force of arms. And then we have this poor predicament for every citizen of that unlucky State,--that he is bound by allegiance, and under the penalty of treason, to follow each and both of these powers. And as, should he follow the State, the United States, if it be treason, would hang him, and, if he should follow the United States, the State, if it be treason, would hang him, this peculiar and whimsical result is produced,--that when the United States undertake to hang him for treason his answer is--"Why, if I had not done as I did, the State would have hanged me for treason, and, surely, I cannot be compelled to be hanged one way or the other--so, I must be protected from hanging, as to both!" Well, _that_, I admit, is a sensible way to get out of the difficulty, for the man and for the argument, if you can do it. But, it is a peculiar result, to start with two sovereigns, each of which has a right over the citizen, and to end with the citizen's right to choose which he shall serve, and to throw it in the face of offended majesty and justice--"Why, your statute of treason is repealed as against me, because the State, of which I am a subject, has counseled a particular course of conduct!" Now, gentlemen, my learned friend qualifies even this theory--which probably must fall within the condemnation of the perhaps somewhat harsh and rough suggestion of Mr. Justice Grier, of a "political platitude"--by the suggestion that it only applies to questions where the united States cannot settle the controversy. And when my learned friend is looking around for an instance or an occasion that is likely to arise in human affairs, and in this nation, and in this time of ours, he is obliged to resort to the most extraordinary and extravagant proposition by way of illustration, and one that has, in itself, so many of the ingredients of remoteness and impossibility, that you can hardly think a Government deficient in not having provided for it. He says, first--suppose we have a President, who is a Massachusetts man. Well, that is not very likely in the course of politics at present. And then, suppose that he is a bad man,--which, probably, my learned friends would think not as unlikely as I should wish it to be. And, then, suppose he should undertake to build up Boston, in its commerce, at the expense of New York; and should put a blockading squadron outside New York, by mere force of caprice and tyranny, without any law, and without any provision for the payment of the men of the Navy, or any commission or authority to any of them under which they could find they were protected for what they should do, in actually and effectually blockading our port. My learned friend acknowledges that this is a pretty violent sort of suggestion, and that no man in his senses would pretend to do such a thing, however bad he was, unless he could find a reasonable sort of pretext for it. Therefore he would, wisely and craftily, pretend that he had private advices that England was going to bombard New York. Now that is the practical case created by my learned friend's ingenuity and reflection, as a contingency in which this contest by war between New York and the United States of America would be the only practical and sensible mode of protecting our commerce, and keeping you and me in the enjoyment of our rights as citizens of the State of New York. Well, to begin with, if we had a fleet off New York harbor, what is there that would require vessels to go to Boston instead of to Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other places that are open? In the second place, how long could we be at war, and how great an army could we raise in New York, to put in the field against the Federal Government, before this pretence of private advices that England was going to bombard New York, would pass away, and the naked deformity of this bad Massachusetts President be exposed? Why, gentlemen, it is too true to need suggestion, that the wisdom which made this a Government over all individual citizens, and made every case of right and interest that touches the pocket and person of any man in it a question of judicial settlement, made it a Government which requires for the solution of none of the controversies within it, a resort to the last appeal--to battle, and the right of kings. (Adjourned to 11 o'clock to-morrow.) SEVENTH DAY. _Wednesday, October 30, 1861._ The Court met at 11 o'clock A.M., when _Mr. Evarts_ resumed his argument. Gentlemen of the Jury: In resuming the course of my remarks, already necessarily drawn to a very considerable length, I must recall to your attention the point that I had reached when the Court adjourned. I was speaking of this right of secession, as inconsistent with the frame, the purpose, and the occasion upon which the General Government was formed; and of the illustration invented by my learned friend, and so improbable in its circumstances, of the position of the United States and one of the States of the Union, that could bring into play and justify this resort to armed opposition. I had said what I had to say, for the most part, as to the absurdity and improbability of the case supposed, and the inadequacy, the worthlessness, the chimerical nature of the remedy proposed. Now, you will observe that, in the case supposed, the blockade of New York was to be without law, without authority, upon the mere capricious pretence of the President--a pretence so absurd that it could not stand the inspection of the people for a moment. What is the use of a pretence unless it is a cover for the act which it is intended to cloak? In such a case, the only proper, peaceful course would be to raise the question, which might be raised judicially, by attempting, in a peaceful manner, to pass the blockade, and throw the consequences upon the subordinate officers who attempted to execute the mere usurpation of the President, and, following the declaration of the Divine writings, that "wisdom is better than weapons of war," wait until the question could be disposed of under the Constitution of the United States. For you will observe that, in the case supposed, there is no threat to the integrity, no threat to the authority, no threat to the existence of the State Government, or its Constitution; but an impeding of the trade or interests of the people of this city, and of the residents of all parts of the country interested in the commerce of New York. That port is not the port of New York alone. It is the port of the United States of America, and all the communities in the Western country, who derive their supplies of foreign commodities through our internal navigation, when commerce has introduced them into this port, are just as much affected--just as much injured and oppressed--by this blockade of our great port and emporium, as are the people of the State of New York. So that, so far from its being a collision between the Government of the State of New York and the Government of the United States, it is a violent oppression, by usurpation--exposing to the highest penalties of the law the magistrate who has attempted it--exercised upon the people of the United States wherever residing, in the far West, in the surrounding States, in the whole country, who are interested in the maintenance of the commerce of this port. I need not say that the action of our institutions provides a ready solution for this difficulty. Two or three weeks must bring to the notice of every one the frivolity of the pretence of the Executive, that there was a threat of armed attack by a foreign nation. But if two or three weeks should bring the evidence that this was not an idle fear, and that, by information conveyed to the Government, this threat was substantial, and was followed by its attempted execution,--why, then, how absurd the proposition that, under the opinion of the State of New York, that this was but an idle pretext, for purposes of oppression, the State should fly into arms against the power exercised to protect the city from foreign attack! The working of our affairs, which brings around the session of Congress at a time fixed by law--not at all determinable by the will of the President--exposes him to the grand inquest of the people, which sits upon his crime, and, by his presentation and trial before the great Court of Impeachment, in the course of one week--nay, in scarcely more than one day after its coming into session--both stamps this act as an usurpation, and dispossesses the magistrate who has violated the Constitution. And yet, rather than wait for this assertion of the power of the Constitution peacefully to depose the usurping magistrate, my friend must resort to this violent intervention of armed collision, that would keep us--in theory, at least--constantly maintaining our rights by the mere method of force, and would make of this Government--at the same time that they eulogize the founders of it, as the best and wisest of men--but an organization of armed hostilities, and its framers only the architects of an ever-impending ruin! My learned friend, Mr. Brady, has asked my attention to the solution of a case wherein he thinks the State Government might be called upon to protect the rights of its citizens against the operation of an Act of Congress, by proposing this question: Suppose Congress should require that all the expenses of this great war, as we call it, should be paid by the State of New York,--what should we do in that case? Nothing but hostilities are a solution for that case, it is suggested. Now, I would freely say to my learned friend, Mr. Brady, that if the General Government, by its law, should impose the whole taxation of the war upon the State of New York, I should advise the State of New York, or any citizen in it, not to pay the taxes. That is the end of the matter. And I would like to know if there is any warlike process by which the General Government of the United States exacts its tribute of taxation, that could impose the whole amount on New York? As the process of taxation goes on, it is distributed through different channels, and presents itself as an actual and effective process, from the tax-gatherer to the tax-payer: "Give me so many dollars." And the tax-payer says: "There is no law for it, and I will not do it." Then the process of collection raises for consideration this inquiry--whether the tax is according to law, and according to the constitutional law of the United States of America. And this tribunal, formed to decide such questions--formed to settle principles in single cases, that shall protect against hostilities these great communities--disposes of the question. If the law is constitutional, then the tax is to be paid--if unconstitutional, then the tax is not collectable; and the question is settled. But my learned friends, in their suggestions of what is a possible state of law that may arise in this country, forget the great distinction between our situation under the Federal Government and our situation as Colonies under the authority of the King and Parliament of England. It is the distinction between not being represented and being represented. Why, my learned friends, in order to get the basis of a possible suggestion of contrariety of duty and of interest between the Government of the United States and the people in these States, must overlook, and do overlook the fact that there is not a functionary in the Federal Government, from the President down to the Houses of Congress, that does not derive his authority from the people, not of one State, not of any number of States, but of all the States. And thus standing, they are guardians and custodians, in their own interests--in their own knowledge of the interests of their own people--in their own knowledge that their place in the protection, power, and authority of the Government of the United States, proceeds by the favor and the approval of the local community in which they reside. So far, therefore, from anything in the arrangement or the working of these political systems being such as to make the Representatives or Senators that compose Congress the masters or the enemies of the local population of the States from which they respectively come, they come there under the authority of the local population which they represent, dependent upon it for their place and continuance, and not on the Federal Government. Away, then, with the notion, so foreign to our actual, constituted Government, that this Government of the United States of America is a Government that is extended over these States, with an origin, a power, a support independent of them, and that it contains in itself an arrangement, a principle, a composition that can by possibility excite or sustain these hostilities! Why, every act of Congress must govern the whole Union. Every tax must, to be constitutional, be extended over the whole Union, and according to a fixed ratio of distribution between the States, established by the Constitution itself. Now, therefore, when any particular interest, any particular occasion, any supposed necessity, any political motive, suggests a departure, on the part of the General Government, from a necessary adherence to this principle of the Constitution, you will perceive that not only are the Representatives and Senators who come from the State against which this exercise of power is attempted, interested to oppose, in their places in Congress, the violation of the Constitution, but the Representatives and the Senators from every other State, in support of the rights of the local communities in which they reside, have the same interest and the same duty, and may be practically relied upon to exercise the same right, and authority, and opposition, in protection of their communities, against an application of the same principle, or an obedience to the same usurpation, on subsequent occasions, in reference to other questions that may arise. Therefore, my learned friends, when they are talking to you, theoretically or practically, about the opposition that may arise between co-ordinate and independent sovereignties, and would make the glorious Constitution of this Federal Government an instance of misshapen, and disjointed, and impractical inconsistencies, forget that the great basis of both of them rests in the people, and in the same people--equally interested, equally powerful, to restrain and to continue the movements of each, within the separate, constitutional rights of each. Now, unquestionably, in vast communities, with great interests, diverse and various, opinions may vary, and honest sentiments may produce the enactment of laws of Congress, which equally honest sentiments, on the part of local communities, expressed through the action of State legislation, may regard as inconsistent with the Government and the Constitution of the United States, and with the rights of the States. But, for these purposes, for these occasions, an ample and complete theoretical and practical protection of the rights of all is found, in this absolute identity of the interests of the people and of their authority in both the form and the structure of their complex Government, and in the means provided by the Constitution itself for testing every question that touches the right, the interest, the liberty, the property, the freedom of any citizen, in all and any of these communities, before the Supreme Court of the United States. Let us not be drawn into any of these shadowy propositions, that the whole people may be oppressed, and not a single individual in it be deprived of any personal right. Whenever the liberty of the citizen is abridged in respect to any personal right, the counsel concede that the Courts are open to him; and that is the theory, the wisdom, and the practical success of the American Constitution. Now, gentlemen of the Jury, but one word more on this speculative right of secession. It is founded, if at all, upon the theory, that the States, having been, anterior to the formation of the Constitution, independent sovereignties, are, themselves, the creators, and that the Constitution is the creature proceeding from their power. I have said all I have to say about either the fact, or the result of the fact, if it be one, of the existence of these antecedent, complete national sovereignties on the part of any of the original States. But, will my learned friends tell me how this theory of theirs, in respect to the original thirteen States, has any application to the States, now quite outnumbering the original thirteen, which have, since the Constitution was formed, entered into the Government of this our territory, this our people? Out of thirty-four States, eleven have derived their existence, their permission to exist, their territory, their power to make a Constitution, from the General Government itself, out of whose territory--either acquired originally by the wealth or conquest of the Federal Government, or derived directly or indirectly through the cession or partition or separation of the original Colonies--they have sprung into existence. Of these eleven allied and confederate States, but four came from the stock of the original thirteen, and seven derived their whole power and authority from the permission of the Constitution of the United States, and have sprung into existence, with the breath of their lives breathed into them through the Federal Government. When the State of Louisiana talks of its right to secede by reason of its sovereignty, by reason of its being one of the creators of the Federal Government, and of the Federal Constitution--one of the actors in the principles of the American Revolution, and in the conquest of our liberties from the English power--we may well lift our hands in surprise at the arrogance of such a suggestion. Why, what was Louisiana, in all her territory, at the time of the great transaction of the Federal Revolution, and for a long time afterwards, but a province of Spain, first, and afterwards of France? How did her territory--the land upon which her population and her property rest--come to be a part of our territory, and to give support to a State government, and to State interests? Why, by its acquisition, under the wise policy of Mr. Jefferson, early in this century, upon the opportunity offered, by the necessity or policy of the Emperor Napoleon, for its purchase, by money, as you would buy a ship, or a strip of land to build a fort on. Coming thus to the United States, by its purchase, how did Louisiana come to be set apart, carved out of the immense territory comprehended under the name of Louisiana, but by lines of division and concession of power, proceeding from the Government of the United States? And why did we purchase it? We purchased it preliminarily, not so much to seize the opportunity for excluding from a foothold on this Continent a great foreign Power, which, although its territory here was waste and uninhabited, had the legal right to fill it, and might, in the course of time, fill it, with a population hostile in interests to our own,--not so much for this remote contingency, as to meet the actual and pressing necessity, on the part of the population that was beginning to fill up the left or eastern bank of the Mississippi, from its source to near its mouth, that they should have the mouth of the Mississippi also within their territory, governed by the same laws and under the same Government. And now, forsooth, the money and the policy of the United States having acquired this territory, and conceded the political rights contained in the Constitution of Louisiana, we are to justify the secession of the territory of Louisiana, carrying the mouth of the Mississippi with her, on the theory that she was one of the original sovereignties, and one of the creators of the Constitution of the United States! Well, gentlemen, how are our learned friends to escape from this dilemma? Are they to say that our constituted Government, complex, composed of State and of Federal power, has two sets of State and Federal relations within it, to wit, that which existed between the General Government and the thirteen sovereign, original States, and that which exists between the Federal Government and the other twenty-one States of the Union? Is it to follow, from this severance, that these original Colonies, declaring their independence--South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Georgia--are to draw back to themselves the portions of their original territory that have since, under the authority of the Constitution, been formed into separate communities? Our Constitution was made by and between the States, and the people of the States--not for themselves alone--not limited to existing territory, and arranged State and Provincial Governments--but made as a Government, and made with principles in respect to Government that should admit of its extension by purchase, by conquest, by all the means that could bring accretion to a people in territory and in strength, and that should be, in its principles, a form of Government applicable to and sufficient for the old and the new States, and the old and the new population. I need but refer to the later instances, where, by purchase, we acquired Florida, also one of the seceded States, and where, by our armies, we gained the western coast of the Pacific. Are these the relations into which the power, and blood, and treasure of this Government bring it, in respect to the new communities and new States which, under its protection, and from its conceded power, have derived their very existence? Why, gentlemen, our Government is said, by those who complain of it, or who expose what they regard as its difficulties, to have one element of weakness in it, to wit, the possibility of discord between the State and the Federal authorities. But, if you adopt the principle, that there is one set of rules, one set of rights, between the Federal Government and the original States that formed the Union, and another set of rules between the Federal Government and the new States, I would like to know what becomes of the provision of the Constitution, that the new States may be admitted on the same footing with the old? What becomes of the harmony and accord among the local Governments of this great nation, which we call State Governments, if there be this superiority, in every political sense, on the part of the old States, and this absolute inferiority and subjection on the part of the new? And now, gentlemen, having done with this doctrine of secession, as utterly inconsistent with the theory of our Government, and utterly unimportant, as a practical right, for any supposable or even imaginable case that may be suggested, I come to consider the question of the right of revolution. I have shown to you upon what principles, and upon what substantial question, between being subjects as slaves, or being participants in the British Government, our Colonies attempted and achieved their independence. As I have said to you, a very brief experience showed that they needed, to meet the exigencies of their situation, the establishment of a Government that should be in accordance with the wishes and spirit of the people, in regard of freedom, and yet should be of such strength, and such unity, as would admit of prosperity being enjoyed under it, and of its name and power being established among the nations of the earth. Now, without going into the theories of Government, and of the rights of the people, and of the rights of the rulers, to any great extent, we all know that there has been every variety of experiment tried, in the course of human affairs, between the great extreme alluded to by my learned friend (Mr. Brady) of the slavery of Egyptians to their king--the extreme instance of an entire population scarcely lifted above the brutes in their absolute subjection to the tyranny of a ruler, so that the life, and the soul, and the sweat, and the blood of a whole generation of men are consumed in the task of building a mausoleum as the grave of a king--and the later efforts of our race, culminating in the happy success of our own form of Government, to establish, on foundations where liberty and law find equal support, the principle of Government, that Government is by, and for, and from all the people--that the rulers, instead of being their masters and their owners, are their agents and their servants--and that the greatest good of the greatest number is the plain, practical and equal rule which, by gift from our Creator, we enjoy. Now this, you will observe, is a question which readily receives our acceptance. But the great problem in reference to the freedom of a people, in the establishment of their Government, presents itself in this wise: The people, in order to maintain their freedom, must be masters of their Government, so that the Government may not be too strong, in its arrangement of power, to overmaster the people; but yet, the Government must be strong enough to maintain and protect the independence of the nation against the aggressions, the usurpations, and the oppressions of foreign nations. Here you have a difficulty raised at once. You expose either the freedom of the nation, by making the Government too strong for the preservation of individual independence, or you expose its existence, by making it too weak to maintain itself against the passions, interests and power of neighboring nations. If you have a large nation--counting its population by many millions, and the circumference of its territory by thousands of miles--how can you arrange the strength of Government, so that it shall not, in the interests of human passions, grow too strong for the liberties of the people? And if, abandoning in despair that effort and that hope, you circumscribe the limits of your territory, and reduce your population within a narrow range, how can you have a Government and a nation strong enough to maintain itself in the contests of the great family of nations, impelled and urged by interests and passions? Here is the first peril, which has never been successfully met and disposed of in any of the forms of Government that have been known in the history of mankind, until, at least, our solution of it was attempted, and unless it has succeeded and can maintain itself. But, again, this business of self-government by a people has but one practical and sensible spirit and object. The object of free Government is, that the people, as individuals, may, with security, pursue their own happiness. We do not tolerate the theory that all the people constituting the nation are absorbed into the national growth and life. The reason why we want a free Government is, that we may be happy under it, and pursue our own activities according to our nature and our faculties. But, you will see, at once, that it is of the essence of being able to pursue our own interests under the Government under which we live, that we can do so according to our own notions of what they are, or the notions of those who are intelligently informed of, participate in, and sympathize with, those interests. Therefore, it seems necessary that all of the every-day rights of property, of social arrangements, of marriage, of contracts--everything that makes up the life of a social community--shall be under the control, not of a remote or distant authority, but of one that is limited to, and derives its ideas and principles from, a local community. Now, how can this be in a large nation--in a nation of thirty millions, distributed over a zone of the earth? How are we to get along in New York, and how are others to get along in South Carolina, and others in New England, in the every-day arrangements that proceed from Government, and affect the prosperity, the freedom, the independence, the satisfaction of the community with the condition in which it lives? How can we get along, if all these minute and every-day arrangements are to proceed from a Government which has to deal with the diverse opinions, the diverse sentiments, the diverse interests, of so extensive a nation? But if, fleeing from this peril, you say that you may reduce your nation, you fall into another difficulty. The advanced civilization of the present day requires, for our commercial activity, for our enjoyment of the comforts and luxuries of life, that the whole globe shall be ransacked, and that the power of the nation which we recognize as our superior shall be able to protect our citizens in their enterprises, in their activities, in their objects, all over the world. How can a little nation, made up of Massachusetts, or made up of South Carolina, have a flag and a power which can protect its commerce in the East Indies and in the Southern Ocean? Again--we find that nations, unless they are separated by wide barriers, necessarily, in the course of human affairs, come into collision; and, as I have shown to you, the only arbitrament for their settlement is war. But war is a scourge--an unmitigated scourge--so long as it lasts, and in itself considered. But for objects which make it meritorious and useful, it is a scourge never to be tolerated. It puts in abeyance all individual rights, interests, and schemes, until the great controversy is settled. If, then, we are a small nation, surrounded on all sides by other nations, with no natural barriers, with competing interests, with occasions of strife and collision on all sides, how can we escape war, as a necessary result of that miserable situation? But war strengthens the power of Government, weakens the power of the individual, and establishes maxims and creates forces, that go to increase the weight and the power of Government, and to weaken the rights of the people. Then, we see that, to escape war, we must either establish a great nation, which occupies an extent of territory, and has a fund of power sufficient to protect itself against border strifes, and against the ambition, the envy, the hatred of neighbors; or else one which, being small, is exposed to war from abroad to subjugate it, or to the greater peril to its own liberties, of war made by its own Government, thus establishing principles and introducing interests which are inconsistent with liberty. I have thus ventured, gentlemen, to lay before you some of these general principles, because, in the course of the arguments of my learned friends, as well as in many of the discussions before the public mind, it seems to be considered that the ties, the affections and the interests, which oblige us to the maintenance of this Government of ours, find their support and proper strength and nourishment only in the sentiments of patriotism and duty, because it happens to be our own Government; and that, when the considerations of force or of feeling which bring a people to submit to a surrender of their Government, or to a successful conquest of a part of their territory, or to a wresting of a part of their people from the control of the Government, shall be brought to bear upon us, we shall be, in our loss and our surrender, only suffering what other nations have been called upon to lose and to surrender, and that it will be but a change in the actual condition of the country and its territory. But you will perceive that, by the superior fortune which attended our introduction into the family of nations, and by the great wisdom, forecast, and courage of our ancestors, we avoided, at the outset, all the difficulties between a large territory and a numerous population on the one hand, and a small territory and a reduced population on the other hand, and all those opposing dangers of the Government being either too weak to protect the nation, or too strong, and thus oppressive of the people, by a distribution of powers and authorities, novel in the affairs of men, dependent on experiment, and to receive its final fate as the result of that experiment. We went on this view--that these feeble Colonies had not, each in itself, the life and strength of a nation; and, yet, these feeble Colonies, and their poor and sparse population, were nourished on a love of liberty and self-government. These sentiments had carried them through a successful war against one of the great powers of the earth. They were not to surrender that for which they had been fighting to any scheme, to any theory of a great, consolidated nation, the Government of which should subdue the people and re-introduce the old fashion in human affairs--that the people were made for the rulers, and not the rulers by and for the people. They undertook to meet, they did meet, this difficult dilemma in the constitution of Government, by separating the great fund of power, and reposing it in two distinct organizations. They reserved to the local communities the control of their domestic affairs, and attributed the maintenance and preservation of them to the State governments. They undertook to collect and deposit, under the form of a written Constitution, with the general Government, all those larger and common interests which enter into the conception and practical establishment of a distinct nation among the nations of the earth, and determined that they would have a central power which should be adequate, by drawing its resources from the patriotism, from the duty, from the wealth, from the numbers, of a great nation, to represent them in peace and in war,--a nation that could protect the interests, encourage the activities, and maintain the development of its people, in spite of the opposing interests or the envious or hostile attacks of any nation. They determined that this great Government, thus furnished with this range of authority and this extent of power, should not have anything to do with the every-day institutions, operations and social arrangements of the community into which the vast population and territory of the nation were distributed. They determined that the people of Massachusetts, the people of New York, and the people of South Carolina, each of them, should have their own laws about agriculture, about internal trade, about marriage, about apprenticeship, about slavery, about religion, about schools, about all the every-day pulsations of individual life and happiness, controlled by communities that moved with the same pulsations, obeyed the same instincts, and were animated by the same purposes. And, as this latter class of authority contains in itself the principal means of oppression by a Government, and is the principal point where oppression is to be feared by a people, they had thus robbed the new system of all the dangers which attend the too extensive powers of a Government. They divided the fund of power, to prevent a great concentration and a great consolidation of the army of magistrates and officers of the law and of the Government which would have been combined by a united and consolidated authority, having jurisdiction of all the purposes of Government, of all the interests of citizens, and of the entire population and entire territory in these respects. They thus made a Government, complex in its arrangements, which met those opposing difficulties, inherent in human affairs, that make the distinction between free Governments and oppressive Governments. They preserved the people in their enjoyment and control of all the local matters entering into their every-day life, and yet gave them an establishment, springing from the same interests and controlled by the same people, which has sustained and protected us in our relations to the family of nations on the high seas and in the remote corners of the world. Now, this is the scheme, and this is the purpose, with which this Government was formed; and you will observe that there is contained in it this separation, and this distribution. And our learned friends, who have argued before you respecting this theory, and this arrangement and practice of the power of a Government, as inconsistent with the interests and the freedom of the people, have substantially said to you that it was a whimsical contrivance, that it was an impossible arrangement of inconsistent principles, and that we must go back to a simple Government composed of one of the States, or of a similar arrangement of territory and people, which would make each of us a weak and contemptible power in the family of nations--or we must go back to the old consolidation of power, such as is represented by the frame of France or England in its Government, or, more distinctly, more absolutely, and more likely to be the case, for so vast a territory and so extensive a population as ours, to the simple notion of Russian Autocracy. That, then, being the object, and that the character, of our institutions, and this right of secession not being provided for, or imagined, or tolerated in the scheme, let us look at the right of revolution, as justifying an attempt to overthrow the Government; and let us look at the occasions of revolution, which are pretended here, as giving a support, before the world, in the forum of conscience, and in the judgment of mankind, for the exercise of that right. And first, let me ask you whether, in all the citations from the great men of the Revolution, and in the later stages of our history, any opinion has been cited which has condemned this scheme, as unsuitable and insufficient for the freedom and happiness of the people, if it can be successful? I think not. The whole history of the country is full of records of the approval, of the support, of the admiration, of the reverent language which our people at large, and the great leaders of public opinion--the great statesmen of the country--have spoken of this system of Government. Let me ask your attention to but two encomiums upon it, as represented by that central idea of a great nation, and yet a divided and local administration of popular interests--to wit, one in the first stage of its adoption, before its ratification by the people was complete; and the other, a speech made at the very eve of, if not in the very smoke of, this hostile dissolution of it. Mr. Pinckney, of South Carolina, who had been one of the delegates from that State in the National Convention, and had co-operated with the Northern statesmen, and with the great men of Virginia, in forming the Government as it was, in urging on the Convention of South Carolina the adoption of the Constitution, and its ratification, said: "To the Union we will look up as the temple of our freedom,--a temple founded in the affections and supported by the virtue of the people. Here we will pour out our gratitude to the Author of all good, for suffering us to participate in the rights of a people who govern themselves. Is there, at this moment, a nation on the earth which enjoys this right, where the true principles of representation are understood and practised, and where all authority flows from, and returns at stated periods to, the people? I answer, there is not. Can a Government be said to be free where those do not exist? It cannot. On what depends the enjoyment of those rare, inestimable rights? On the firmness and on the power of the Union to protect and defend them." Had we anything from that great patriot and statesman of this right of secession, or independence of a State, as an important or a useful element in securing these rare, these unheard of, these inestimable privileges of Government, which the Author of all good had suffered the people of South Carolina to participate in? No--they depended "on the firmness and on the power of the Union to protect and defend them." Mr. Pinckney goes on to say: "To the philosophic mind, how new and awful an instance do the United States at present exhibit to the people of the world! They exhibit, sir, the first instance of a people who, being thus dissatisfied with their Government, unattacked by a foreign force and undisturbed by domestic uneasiness, coolly and deliberately resort to the virtue and good sense of the country for a correction of their public errors." That is, for the abandonment of the weakness and the danger of the imperfect Confederation, and the adoption of the constitutional and formal establishment of Federal power. Mr. Pinckney goes on to say: "It must be obvious that, without a superintending Government, it is impossible the liberties of this country can long be secure. Single and unconnected, how weak and contemptible are the largest of our States! how unable to protect themselves from external or domestic insult! how incompetent, to national purposes, would even the present Union be! how liable to intestine war and confusion! how little able to secure the blessings of peace! Let us, therefore, be careful in strengthening the Union. Let us remember we are bounded by vigilant and attentive neighbors"--(and now Europe is within ten days, and they are near neighbors)--"who view with a jealous eye our rights to empire." Pursuing my design of limiting my citations of the opinions of public men to those who have received honor from, and conferred honor on, that portion of our country and those of our countrymen now engaged in this strife with the General Government, let me ask your attention to a speech delivered by Mr. Stephens, now the Vice-President of the so-called Confederate States, on the very eve of, and protesting against, this effort to dissolve the Union. I read from page 220 and subsequent pages of the documents that have been the subject of reference heretofore: "The first question that presents itself"--(says Mr. Stephens to the assembled Legislature of Georgia, of which he was not a member, but which, as an eminent and leading public man, he had been invited to address)--"is, shall the people of the South secede from the Union in consequence of the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency of the United States? My countrymen, _I tell you frankly, candidly, and earnestly, that I do not think that they ought_. In my judgment, the election of no man, constitutionally elected to that high office, is sufficient cause for any State to separate from the Union. It ought to stand by and aid still in maintaining the Constitution of the country. To make a point of resistance to the Government--to withdraw from it because a man has been constitutionally elected--puts us in the wrong. We are pledged to maintain the Constitution. Many of us have sworn to support it. "But it is said Mr. Lincoln's policy and principles are against the Constitution, and that if he carries them out it will be destructive of our rights. Let us not anticipate a threatened evil. If he violates the Constitution, then will come our time to act. Do not let us break it because, forsooth, he may. If he does, that is the time for us to strike. * * * My countrymen, I am not of those who believe this Union has been a curse up to this time. True men--men of integrity--entertain different views from me on this subject. I do not question their right to do so; I would not impugn their motives in so doing. Nor will I undertake to say that this Government of our fathers is perfect. There is nothing perfect in this world, of a human origin. Nothing connected with human nature, from man himself to any of his works. You may select the wisest and best men for your Judges, and yet how many defects are there in the administration of justice? You may select the wisest and best men for your legislators, and yet how many defects are apparent in your laws? And it is so in our Government. "But that this Government of our fathers, with all its defects, comes nearer the objects of all good Governments than any on the face of the earth, is my settled conviction. Contrast it now with any on the face of the earth." ["England," said Mr. Toombs.] "England, my friend says. Well, that is the next best, I grant; but I think we have improved upon England. Statesmen tried their apprentice hand on the Government of England, and then ours was made. Ours sprung from that, avoiding many of its defects, taking most of the good and leaving out many of its errors, and, from the whole, constructing and building up this model Republic--the best which the history of the world gives any account of. "Compare, my friends, this Government with that of Spain, Mexico, the South American Republics, Germany, Ireland--are there any sons of that down-trodden nation here to-night?--Prussia, or, if you travel further east, to Turkey or China. Where will you go, following the sun in his circuit round our globe, to find a Government that better protects the liberties of its people, and secures to them the blessings we enjoy? I think that one of the evils that beset us is a surfeit of liberty, an exuberance of the priceless blessings for which we are ungrateful. * * * * * "When I look around and see our prosperity in every thing--agriculture, commerce, art, science, and every department of education, physical and mental, as well as moral advancement, and our colleges--I think, in the face of such an exhibition, if we can, without the loss of power, or any essential right or interest, remain in the Union, it is our duty to ourselves and to posterity to--let us not too readily yield to this temptation--do so. Our first parents, the great progenitors of the human race, were not without a like temptation when in the garden of Eden. They were led to believe that their condition would be bettered--that their eyes would be opened--and that they would become as gods. They in an evil hour yielded. Instead of becoming gods, they only saw their own nakedness. "I look upon this country, with our institutions, as the Eden of the world, the paradise of the Universe. It may be that out of it we may become greater and more prosperous, but I am candid and sincere in telling you that I fear if we rashly evince passion, and, without sufficient cause, shall take that step, that instead of becoming greater or more peaceful, prosperous and happy--instead of becoming gods--we will become demons, and, at no distant day, commence cutting one another's throats." Still speaking of our Government, he says: "Thus far, it is a noble example, worthy of imitation. The gentleman (Mr. Cobb) the other night said it had proven a failure. A failure in what? In growth? Look at our expanse in national power. Look at our population and increase in all that makes a people great. A failure? Why, we are the admiration of the civilized world, and present the brightest hopes of mankind. "Some of our public men have failed in their aspirations; that is true, and from that comes a great part of our troubles. "No, there is no failure of this Government yet. We have made great advancement under the Constitution, and I cannot but hope that we shall advance higher still. Let us be true to our cause." Now, wherein is it that this Government deserves these encomiums, which come from the intelligent and profound wisdom of statesmen, and gush spontaneously from the unlearned hearts of the masses of the people? Why, it is precisely in this point, of its not being a consolidated Government, and of its not being a narrow, and feeble, and weak community and Government. Indeed, I may be permitted to say that I once heard, from the lips of Mr. Calhoun himself, this recognition, both of the good fortune of this country in possessing such a Government, and of the principal sources to which the gratitude of a nation should attribute that good fortune. I heard him once say, that it was to the wisdom, in the great Convention, of the delegates from the State of Connecticut, and of Judge Patterson, a delegate from the State of New Jersey, that we owed the fact that this Government was what it was, the best Government in the world, a confederated Government, and not what it would have been--and, apparently, would have been but for those statesmen--the worst Government in the world--a consolidated Government. These statesmen, he said, were wiser for the South than the South was for herself. I need not say to you, gentlemen that, if all this encomium on the great fabric of our Government is brought to naught, and is made nonsense by the proposition that, although thus praised and thus admired, it contains within itself the principle, the right, the duty of being torn to pieces, whenever a fragment of its people shall be discontented and desire its destruction, then all this encomium comes but as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal; and the glory of our ancestors, Washington, and Madison, and Jefferson, and Adams--the glory of their successors, Webster, and Clay, and Wright, and even Calhoun--for he was no votary of this nonsense of secession--passes away, and their fame grows visibly paler, and the watchful eye of the English monarchy looks on for the bitter fruits to be reaped by us for our own destruction, and as an example to the world--the bitter fruits of the principle of revolution and of the right of self-government which we dared to assert against her perfect control. Pointing to our exhibition of an actual concourse of armies, she will say--"It is in the dragon's teeth, in the right of rebellion against the monarchy of England, that these armed hosts have found their seed and sprung up on your soil." Now, gentlemen, such is our Government, such is its beneficence, such is its adaptation, and such are its successes. Look at its successes. Not three-quarters of a century have passed away since the adoption of its Constitution, and now it rules over a territory that extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It fills the wide belt of the earth's surface that is bounded by the provinces of England on the North, and by the crumbling, and weak, and contemptible Governments or no Governments that shake the frame of Mexico on the South. Have Nature and Providence left us without resources to hold together social unity, notwithstanding the vast expanse of the earth's surface which our population has traversed and possessed? No. Keeping pace with our wants in that regard, the rapid locomotion of steam on the ocean, and on our rivers and lakes, and on the iron roads that bind the country together, and the instantaneous electric communication of thought, which fills with the same facts, and with the same news, and with the same sentiments, at the same moment, a great, enlightened, and intelligent people, have overcome all the resistance and all the dangers which might be attributed to natural obstructions. Even now, while this trial proceeds, San Francisco and New York, Boston and Portland, and the still farther East, communicate together as by a flash of lightning--indeed, it may be said, making an electric flash farther across the earth's surface, and intelligible too, to man, than ever, in the natural phenomena of the heavens, the lightning displayed itself. No--the same Author of all good, to whom Pinckney avowed his gratitude, has been our friend and our protector, and has removed, step by step, every impediment to our expansion which the laws of nature and of space had been supposed to interpose. No, no--neither in the patriotism nor in the wisdom of our fathers was there any defect; nor shall we find, in the disposition and purposes of Divine Providence, as we can see them, any excuse or any aid for the destruction of this magnificent system of empire. No--it is in ourselves, in our own time and in our own generation, in our own failing powers and failing duties, that the crash and ruin of this magnificent fabric, and the blasting of the future hopes of mankind, is to find its cause and its execution. I have shown you, gentlemen, how, when the usurpations of the British Parliament, striking at the vital point of the independence of this country, had raised for consideration and determination, by a brave and free people, the question of their destiny, our fathers dealt with it. My learned friends, in various forms, have spoken poetically, logically and practically about all that course of proceedings that has been going on in this country, as finding a complete parallelism, support, and justification in the course of the American Revolution; and a passage in the Declaration of Independence has been read to you as calculated to show that, on a mere theoretical opinion of the right of a people to govern themselves, any portion of that people are at liberty, as well against a good Government as against a bad one, to establish a bad Government as well as overthrow a bad Government--have the right to do as they please, and, I suppose, to force all the rest of the world and all the rest of the nation to just such a fate as their doing as they please may bring with it. Let us see how this Declaration of Independence, called by the great forensic orator, Mr. Choate, "a passionate and eloquent manifesto," and stigmatized as containing "glittering generalities"--let us see, I say, how sober, how discreet, how cautious it is in the presentation of this right, even of revolution. I read what, both in the newspapers and in political discussions, as well as before you, by the learned counsel, have been presented as the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence, and then I add to it the qualifying propositions, and the practical, stern requisitions, which that instrument appends to these general views: "To secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes. And, accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world." And it then proceeds to enumerate the facts, in the eloquent language of the Declaration, made familiar to us all by its repeated and reverent recitals on the day which celebrates its adoption. There is not anything of moonshine about any one of them. There is not anything of perhaps, or anticipation of fear, or suspicion. There is not anything of this or that newspaper malediction, of this or that rhetorical disquisition, of this or that theory, or of this or that opprobrium, but a recital of direct governmental acts of Great Britain, all tending to the purpose of establishing complete despotism over this country. And, then, even that not being deemed sufficient, on the part of our great ancestors, to justify this appeal to the enlightened opinion of the world, and to the God who directs the fate of armies, they say: "In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress, in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. "Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connection and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity." Now, gentlemen, this doctrine of revolution, which our learned friends rely upon, appeals to our own sense of right and duty. It rests upon facts, and upon the purpose, as indicated by those facts, to deprive our ancestors of the rights of Englishmen, and to subject them to the power of a Government in which they were not represented. Now, whence come the occasions and the grievances urged before you, and of what kind are they? My learned friend, Mr. Brady, has given you a distinct enumeration, under nine heads, of what the occasions are, and what the grievances are. There is not one of them that, in form or substance, proceeded from the Federal Government. There is not a statute, there is not a proclamation, there is not an action, judicial, executive, or legislative, on the part of the Federal Government, that finds a place, either in consummation or in purpose, in this indictment drawn by my friend Mr. Brady against the Government, on behalf of his clients. The letter of South Carolina, on completing the revocation of her adoption of the Constitution, addressed to the States, dwells upon the interest of slavery (as does my learned friend Mr. Brady, in all his propositions), and discloses but two ideas--one, that when any body or set of people cease to be a majority in a Government, they have a right to leave it; and the other, that State action, on the part of some of the Northern States, had been inconsistent with, threatening to, or opprobrious of the institution of slavery in the Southern States. Let me ask your attention to this proposition of the Southern States, and this catalogue of the learned counsel. As it is only the interest of slavery, social and political (for it is an interest, lawfully existing), that leads to the destruction of our Government and of their Government, let us see what there is in the actual circumstances of this interest, as being able, under the forms of our Constitution, to look out for itself, as well, at least, as any other interest in the country, that can justify them in finding an example or a precedent in the appeal of our fathers to arms to assert their rights by the strong hand, because in the Government of England they had no representation. Did our fathers say that, because they had not a majority in the English Parliament, they had a right to rebel? No! They said they had not a share or vote in the Parliament. That was their proposition. I now invite you to consider this fundamental view of the right and power of Government, and the right and freedom of the people,--to wit, that every citizen is entitled to be counted and considered as good as every other citizen,--as a natural and abstract right--as the basis of our Government, however other arrangements may have adjusted or regulated that simple and abstract right. Then, let us see whether the arrangement of the Federal Government, in departing from that natural right of one man to be as good as another, and to be counted equal in the representation of his Government, has operated to the prejudice of the interest of slavery. We have not heard anything in this country of any other interest for many a long year,--much to my disgust and discontent. There are other interests,--manufacturing interests, agricultural interests, commercial interests, all sorts of interests,--some of them discordant, if you please. Let us see whether this interest of slavery has a fair chance to be heard, and enjoys its fair share of political power under our Government, or whether, from a denial to it of its fair share, it has some pretext for appealing to force. Why, gentlemen, take the fifteen Slave States, which, under the census of 1850, had six millions of white people--that is, of citizens--and, under the census of 1860, about eight millions, and compare them with the white people of the State of New York, which, under the census of 1850, had three millions, and, under the census of 1860, something like four millions. Now, here we are,--they as good as we, and we as good as they,--we having our interests, and opinions, and feelings--they their opinions, interests, and feelings,--and let us see how the arrangement of representation, in every part of our Government, is distributed between these interests. Why, with a population just double that of the State of New York, the interest of slavery has _thirty_ Senators to vote and to speak for it, and the people of New York have _two_ Senators to vote and to speak for them. In the House of Representatives these same Slave States have _ninety_ Representatives to speak and to vote for them; and the people of the State of New York have _thirty-three_ to vote and to speak for them. And, in the Electoral College, which raises to the chief magistracy the citizen who receives the constitutional vote, these same States have _one hundred and twenty_ electoral votes, and the State of New York has _thirty-five_. Why, the three coterminous States--New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio--have, under either census, as great or a greater population than the fifteen Slave States, and they have but six Senators, against the Slave States' thirty. Do I mention this in complaint? Not in the least. I only mention it to show you that the vote and the voice of this interest has not been defrauded in the artificial distribution of Federal power. And, if I may be allowed to refer to the other august department of our Federal Government, the Supreme Court of the United States, in which the Presiding Justice has his seat as one of the members of that Court, you will see how the vast population, the vast interests of business, commerce, and what not, that reside in the Free States, as compared with the lesser population, the lesser business, and the lesser demand for the authority or intervention of the judiciary in the Slave States, have been represented for years, by the distribution of the nine Judges of that Court, so that the eighteen millions of white people who compose the population of the Free States have been represented (not in any political sense) by four of these Justices; and the rest of the country, the fifteen Slave States, with their population of six or eight millions, have been represented by five. Now, of this I do not complain. It is law--it is government; and no injustice has been done to the Constitution, nor has it been violated in this arrangement. But, has there been any fraud upon the interest of slavery, in the favor the Federal Government has shown in the marking out of the Judicial Districts, and in the apportionment of the Judges to the different regions of the country, and to the population of those regions? If you look at it as regards the business in the different Circuits, the learned Justice who now presides here, and who holds his place for the Second Circuit, including our State, disposes annually, here and in the other Courts, of more business than, I may perhaps say, all the Circuits that are made up from the Slave States. And, if you look at it as regards the population, there was one Circuit--that which was represented by the learned Mr. Justice McLean, lately deceased--which contained within itself five millions of white, free population; while one other Circuit, represented by another learned Justice, lately deceased--a Circuit composed of Mississippi and Arkansas--contained only 450,000, at the time of the completion of the census of 1850. Who complains of this? Do we? Never. But, when it is said to you that there is a parallelism between the right of revolt, because of lack of representation, in the case of our people and the Parliament of England, and the case of these people and the United States, or any of the forms of its administration of power, remember these things. I produce this in the simple duty of forensic reply to the causes put forward as a justification of this revolt--that is to say that, the Government oppressing them, or the Government closed against them, and they excluded from it, they had a right to resort to the revolution of force. You, therefore, must adopt the proposition of South Carolina, that, when any interest ceases to be the majority in a Government, it has a right to secede. How long would such a Government last? Why, there never was any interest in this country which imagined that it had a majority. Did the tariff interest have a majority? Did the grain interest have a majority? Did the commercial interest have a majority? Did the States of the West have a majority? Does California gold represent itself by a majority? Why, the very safety of such a Government as this is, that no interest shall or can be a majority; but that the concurring, consenting wisdom drawn out of these conflicting interests shall work out a system of law which will conduce to the general interest. Now, that I have not done my learned friend, Mr. Brady, any injustice in presenting the catalogue of grievances (not in his own view, but in the view of those who have led in this rebellion), let us see what they are: "The claim to abolish slavery." Is there any statute of the United States anywhere that has abolished it? Has any Act been introduced into Congress to abolish it? Has the measure had a vote? "Stoppage of the inter-state slave-trade." I may say the same thing of that. "No more slavery in the Territories." Where is the Act of Congress, where is the movement of the Federal Government, where the decision of the Supreme Court, that holds that slavery cannot go into a territory? Why, so far as acts go, everything has gone in the way of recognizing the confirmation of the right--the repeal of the Missouri Compromise by Congress, and the decision of the Federal Court, if it go to that extent, as is claimed, in the case of Dred Scott. "Nullification of the fugitive-slave law." Who passed the fugitive-slave law? Congress. Who have enforced it? The Federal power, by arms, in the city of Boston. Who have enjoined its observation, to Grand Juries and to Juries? The Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, in their Circuits. Who have held it to be constitutional? The Supreme Court of the United States, and the subordinate Courts of the United States, and every State Court that has passed upon the subject, except it be the State Court of the State of Wisconsin, if I am correctly advised. "Under-ground railroads, supported by the Government, and paid by them." Are they? Not in the least. "The case of the Creole"--where, they say, no protection was given to slaves on the high seas. Is there any judicial interpretation to that effect? Nothing but the refusal of Congress to pass a bill, under some circumstances of this or that nature, presented for its consideration; and, because it has refused, it is alleged there is the assertion of some principle that should charge upon this Government the inflamed and particular views generally maintained on slavery by Garrison, Phillips, and Theodore Parker. The other enormities they clothe in general phrase, and do not particularly specify, except one particular subject--what is known as the "John Brown raid"--in regard to which, as it has been introduced, I shall have occasion to say something in another connection, and, therefore, I will not comment upon it now. I find, however, I have omitted the last--Mr. Lincoln's doctrine, that it is impossible, theoretically, for slave and free States to co-exist. For many years that was considered to be Mr. Seward's doctrine, but, when Mr. Lincoln became a candidate for the Presidency, it was charged on him, being supported by some brief extracts from former speeches made by him in canvassing his State. I cannot discuss all these matters. They are beneath the gravity of State necessity, and of the question of the right of revolution. They are the opinions, the sentiments, the rhetoric, the folly, the local rage and madness, if you please, in some instances, of particular inflammations, either of sentiment or of action, rising in the bosom of so vast, so impetuous a community as ours. But, suppose the tariff States, suppose the grain States, were to attempt to topple down the Government, and maintain a separate and sectional independence upon their interests, of only the degree and gravity, and resting in the proof of facts like these? Now, for the purpose of the argument, let us suppose all these things to be wrong. My learned friends, who have made so great and so passionate an appeal that individual lives should not be sacrificed for opinion, certainly might listen to a proposition that the life of a great nation should not be destroyed on these questions of the opinions of individual citizens. No--you never can put either the fate of a nation that it must submit, or the right of malcontents to assert their power for its overthrow, upon any such proposition, of the ill-working, or of the irritations that arise, and do not come up to the effect of oppression, in the actual, the formal, and the persistent movement of Government. Never for an instant. For that would be, what Mr. Stephens has so ably presented the folly of doing, to require that a great Government, counting in its population thirty millions of men, should not only be perfect in its design and general form and working, but that it should secure perfect action, perfect opinions, perfect spirit and sentiments from every one of its people--and that, made out of mere imperfect individuals who have nothing but poor human nature for their possession, it should suddenly become so transformed, as to be without a flaw, not only in its administration, but in the conduct of every body under it. Now, my learned friends, pressed by this difficulty as to the sufficiency of the causes, are driven finally to this--that there is a right of revolution when anybody thinks there is a right of revolution, and that that is the doctrine upon which our Government rests, and upon which the grave, serious action of our forefathers proceeded. And it comes down to the proposition of my learned friend, Mr. Brady, that it all comes to the same thing, the _power_ and the _right_. All the argument, most unquestionably, comes to that. But do morals, does reason, does common sense recognize that, because power and right may result in the same consequences, therefore there is no difference in their quality, or in their support, or in their theory? If I am slain by the sword of justice for my crime, or by the dagger of an assassin for my virtue, I am dead, under the stroke of either. But is one as right as the other? An oppressive Government may be overthrown by the uprising of the oppressed, and Lord Camden's maxim may be adhered to, that "when oppression begins, resistance becomes a right;" but a Government, beneficent and free, may be attacked, may be overthrown by tyranny, by enemies, by mere power. The Colonies may be severed from Great Britain, on the principle of the right of the people asserting itself against the tyranny of the parent Government; and Poland may be dismembered by the interested tyranny of Russia and Austria; and each is a revolution and destruction of the Government, and its displacement by another--a dismemberment of the community, and the establishment of a new one under another Government. But, do my learned friends say that they equally come to the test of power as establishing the right? Will my learned friend plant himself, in justification of this dismemberment of a great, free, and prosperous people, upon the example of the dismemberment of Poland, by the introduction of such influences within, and by the co-operation of such influences without, as secured that result? Certainly not. And yet, if he puts it upon the right and the power, as coming to the same thing, it certainly cannot make any difference whether the power proceeds from within or from without. There is no such right. Both the public action of communities and the private action of individuals must be tried, if there is any trial, any scrutiny, any judgment, any determination, upon some principles that are deeper than the question of counting bayonets. When we are referred to the ease of Victor Emannuel overthrowing the throne of the King of Naples, and thus securing the unity of the Italian people under a benign Government, are we to be told that the same principle and the same proposition would have secured acceptance before the forum of civilization, and in the eye of morality, to a successful effort of the tyrant of Naples to overthrow the throne of Victor Emannuel, and include the whole of Italy under his, King Bomba's, tyranny? No one. The quality of the act, the reason, the support, and the method of it, are traits that impress their character on those great public and national transactions as well as upon any other. There is but one proposition, in reason and morality, beyond those I have stated, which is pressed for the extrication and absolution of these prisoners from the guilt that the law, as we say, impresses upon their action and visits with its punishment. It is said that, however little, as matter of law, these various rights and protections may come to, good faith, or sincere, conscientious conviction on the part of these men as to what they have done, should protect them against the public justice. Now, we have heard a great deal of the assertion and of the execration of the doctrine of the "higher law," in the discussions of legislation, and in the discussions before the popular mind; but I never yet have heard good faith or sincere opinion pressed, in a Court of Justice, as a bar to the penalty which the law has soberly affixed, in the discreet and deliberate action of the Legislature. And here my learned friend furnishes me, by his reference to the grave instance of injury to the property, and the security, and the authority of the State of Virginia, which he has spoken of as "John Brown's raid," with a ready instance, in which these great principles of public justice, the authority of Government, and the sanctions of human law were met, in the circumstances of the transaction, by a complete, and thorough, and remarkable reliance, for the motive, the support, the stimulus, the solace, against all the penalties which the law had decreed for such a crime, on this interior authority of conscience, and this supremacy of personal duty, according to the convictions of him who acts. The great State of Virginia administered its justice, and it found, as its principal victim, this most remarkable man, in regard to whom it was utterly impossible to impute anything like present or future, near or remote, personal interest or object of any kind--a man in regard to whom Governor Wise, of Virginia, said, in the very presence of the transaction of his trial, that he was the bravest, the sincerest, the truthfulest man that he ever knew. And now, let us look at the question in the light in which our learned friend presents it--that John Brown, as matter of theoretical opinion of what he had a right to do, under the Constitution and laws of his country, was justified, upon the pure basis of conscientious duty to God--and let us see whether, before the tribunals of Virginia, as matter of fact, or matter of law, or right, or duty, any recognition was given to it. No. John Brown was not hung for his theoretical heresies, nor was he hung for the hallucinations of his judgment and the aberration of his wrong moral sense, if you so call it, instead of the interior light of conscience, as he regarded it. He was hung for attacking the sovereignty, the safety, the citizens, the property, and the people of Virginia. And, when my learned friend talks about this question of hanging for political, moral, or social heresy, and that you cannot thus coerce the moral power of the mind, he vainly seeks to beguile your judgment. When Ravaillac takes the life of good King Henry, of France, is it a justification that, in the interests of his faith, holy to him--of the religion he professed--he felt impelled thus to take the life of the monarch? When the assassin takes, at the door of the House of Commons, the life of the Prime Minister, Mr. Percival, because he thinks that the course of measures his administration proposes to carry out is dangerous to the country, and falls a victim to violated laws, I ask, in the name of common sense and common fairness--are these executions to be called hanging for political or religious heresies? No. And shall it ever be said that sincere convictions on these theories of secession and of revolution are entitled to more respect than sincere convictions and opinions on the subject of human rights? Shall it be said that faith in Jefferson Davis is a greater protection from the penalty of the law than faith in God was to John Brown or Francis Ravaillac? But, gentlemen, it was said that certain isolated acts of some military or civil authority of the United States, or some promulgation of orders, or affirmation of measures by the Government, had recognized the belligerent right, or the right to be considered as a power fighting for independence, of this portion of our countrymen. The flags of truce, and the capitulation at Hatteras Inlet, and the announcement that we would not invade Virginia, but would protect the Capital, are claimed as having recognized this point. Now, gentlemen, this attempts either too much or too little. Is it gravely to be said that, when the Government is pressing its whole power for the restoration of peace and for the suppression of this rebellion, it is recognizing a right to rebel, or has liberated from the penalties of the criminal law such actors in it as it may choose to bring to punishment? Is it to be claimed here that, by reason of these proceedings, the Government has barred itself from taking such other proceedings, under the same circumstances, as it may think fit? Why, certainly not. The Government may, at any time, refuse to continue this amenity of flags of truce. It can, the next time, refuse to receive a capitulation as "prisoners of war," and may, in any future action--as, indeed, in its active measures for the suppression of the rebellion it is doing--affirm its control over every part of the revolted regions of this country. There is nothing in this fact that determines anything for the occasion, but the occasion itself. The idea that the commander of an expedition to Hatteras Inlet has it in his power to commit the Government, so as to empty the prisons, to overthrow the Courts, and to discharge Jurors from their duty, and criminals from the penalties of their crimes, is absurd. I shall now advert to the opinion of Judge Cadwalader, on the trial in Philadelphia, and to the propositions of the counsel there, on behalf of the prisoners, as containing and including the general views and points urged, in one form or another, and with greater prolixity, at least, if not earnestness and force, by the learned counsel who defend the prisoners here. It will be found that those points cover all these considerations: _First._ If the Confederate States of America is a Government, either _de facto_ or _de jure_, it had a right to issue letters of marque and reprisal; and if issued before the commission of the alleged offence, that the defendant, acting under the authority of such letters, would be a privateer, and not a pirate, and, as such, is entitled to be acquitted. _Second._ That if, at the time of the alleged offence, the Southern Confederacy, by actual occupation, as well as acts of Government, had so far acquired the mastery or control of the particular territory within its limits as to enable it to exercise authority over, and to demand and exact allegiance from, its residents, that then a resident of such Confederacy owes allegiance to the Government under which he lives, or, at least, that by rendering allegiance to such Government, whether on sea or land, he did not thereby become a traitor to the Government of the United States. _Third._ That if, at the time of the alleged offence and the issuing of the letters of marque and reprisal upon which the defendant acted, the Courts of the United States were so suspended or closed in the Southern Confederacy, as to be no longer able to administer justice and enforce the law in such Confederacy, that the defendant thereby became so far absolved from his allegiance to the United States as to enable him to take up arms for, and to enter the service of, the Southern Confederacy, either on land or sea, without becoming a traitor to the Government of the United States. _Fourth._ That if, at the time of the alleged offence and his entering into the service of the Southern Confederacy, the defendant was so situated as to be unable to obtain either civil or military protection from the United States, whilst at the same time he was compelled to render either military or naval service to the Southern Confederacy, or to leave the country, and, in this event, to have his property sequestrated or confiscated by the laws of the said Confederacy, that such a state of things, if they existed, would amount in law to such duress as entitles the defendant here to an acquittal. _Fifth._ That this Court has no jurisdiction of the case, because the prisoner, after his apprehension on the high seas, was first brought into another District, and ought to have been there tried. And now, gentlemen, even a more remote, unconnected topic, has been introduced into this examination, and discussed and pursued with a good deal of force and feeling, by my learned friend, Mr. Brady; and that is, what this war is for, and what is expected to be accomplished by it. Well, gentlemen, is your verdict to depend upon any question of that kind? Is it to depend either upon the purpose of the Government in waging the war, or upon its success in that purpose? If so, the trial had been better postponed to the end of the war, and then you will find your verdict in the result. What is the meaning of this? Let those who began the war say what the war is for. Is it to overthrow this Government and to dismember its territory? Is it to acquire dominion over as large a portion of what constitutes the possessions of the American people, and over as large a share of its population, as the policy or the military power of the interest that establishes for itself an independent Government, for its own protection, can accomplish? Who are seeking to subjugate, and who is seeking to protect? No subjugation is attempted or desired, in respect of the people of these revolting States, except that subjugation which they themselves made for themselves when they adopted the Constitution of the United States, and thanked God, with Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, that his blessing permitted them to do so,--and, up to this time, with Alexander Stephens, have found it to be a Government that can only be likened, on this terrestrial sphere, to the Eden and Paradise of the nations of men. What is the interest that is seeking to wrest from the authority of that benign Government portions of its territory and authority, but the social and political interest of slavery, about which I make no other reproach or question than this--that it has purposes, and objects, and principles which do not consult the general or equal interests of the population of these revolting States themselves, nor contemplate a form of Government that any Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, now, or any Alexander Stephens, hereafter, can thank God for having been permitted to establish; and that, as Mr. Stephens has said, instead of becoming gods, by bursting from the restraints of this Eden, they will discover their own nakedness, and, instead of finding peace and prosperity, they will come to cutting their own throats. Now, what is the duty of a Government that finds this assault made by the hands of terror and of force against the judgment and wishes of the discreet, sober, and temperate, at least, to those to whom it owes protection, as they owe allegiance to it? What, but to carry on, by the force of the Government, the actual suppression of the rebellion, so that arms may be laid down, peace may exist, and the law and the Constitution be reinstated, and the great debate of opinion be restored, that has been interrupted by this vehement recourse to arms? What, but to see to it that, instead of the consequences of this revolt being an expulsion, from this Paradise of free Government, of these people whom we ought to keep within it, it shall end in the expulsion of that tempting serpent--be it secession or be it slavery--that would drive them out of it. Government has duties, gentlemen, as well as rights. If our lives and our property are subject to its demands under the penal laws, or for its protection and enforcement as an authority in the world, it carries to every citizen, on the farthest sea, in the humblest schooner, and to the great population of these Southern States in their masses at home, that firm protection which shall secure him against the wicked and the willful assaults, whether it be of a pirate on a distant sea, or of an ambitious and violent tyranny upon land. When this state of peace and repose is accomplished by Conventions, by petitions, by representations against Federal laws, Federal oppressions, or Federal principles of government, the right of the people to be relieved from oppression is presented; and then may the spirit and the action of our fathers be invoked, and their condemnation of the British Parliament come in play, if we do not do what is right and just in liberating an oppressed people. But I need not say to you that the whole active energies of this system of terror and of force in the Southern States have been directed to make impossible precisely the same debate, the same discussion, the same appeal, and the same just and equal attention to the appeal. And you will find this avowed by many of their speakers and by many of their writers--as, when Mr. Toombs interrupts Mr. Stephens in the speech I have quoted from, when urging that the people of Georgia should be consulted, by saying: "I am afraid of Conventions and afraid of the people; I do not want to hear from the cross-roads and the groceries," which are the opportunities of public discussion and influence, it appears, in the State of Georgia. That is exactly what they did not want to hear from; and their rash withdrawal of this great question from such honest, sensible consideration, will finally bring them to a point that the people, interested in the subject, will take it by force; and then, besides their own nakedness, which they have now discovered, the second prophecy of Mr. Stephens, that they will cut their own throats, will come about; and nothing but the powerful yet temperate, the firm yet benign, authority of this Government, compelling peace upon these agitations, will save those communities from social destruction and from internecine strife at home. Now, having such an object, can it be accomplished? It cannot, unless you try; and it cannot, if every soldier who goes into the field concludes that he will not fire off his gun, for it is uncertain whether it will end the war; or if, on any post of duty that is devolved upon citizens in private life, we desert our Government, and our full duty to the Government. But that it can be done, and that it will be done, and that all this talk and folly about conquering eight millions of people will result in nothing, I find no room to doubt. In the first place, where are your eight millions? Why, there are the fifteen Slave States, and four of them--Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri--are not yet within the Confederacy. So we will subtract three millions, at least, for that part of the concern. Then there are five millions to be conquered; and how are they to be conquered? Why, not by destruction, not by slaughter, not by chains and manacles; but by the impression of the power of the Government, showing that the struggle is vain, that the appeal to arms was an error and a crime, and that, in the region of debate and opinion, and in equal representation in the Government itself, is the remedy for all grievances and evils. Be sure that, whatever may be said or thought of this question of war, these people can be, not subjugated, but compelled to entertain those inquiries by peaceful means; and I am happy to be able to say that the feeble hopes and despairing views which my learned friend, Mr. Brady, has thought it his duty to express before you, as to the hopelessness of any useful result to these hostilities, is not shared by one whom my friend, in the eloquent climax to an oration, placed before us as "starting, in a red shirt, to secure the liberties of Italy." I read his letter: "CAPRERA, _Sept. 10_. "_Dear Sir_: I saw Mr. Sandford, and regret to be obliged to announce to you that I shall not be able to go to the United States at present. I do not doubt of the triumph of the cause of the Union, and that shortly; but, if the war should unfortunately continue in your beautiful country, I shall overcome the obstacles which detain me and hasten to the defence of a people who are dear to me. "G. GARIBALDI." Garibaldi has had some experience, and knows the difference between efforts to make a people free, and the warlike and apparently successful efforts of tyranny; and he knows that a failure, even temporary, does not necessarily secure to force, and fraud, and violence a permanent success. He knows the difference between restoring a misguided people to a free Government, and putting down the efforts of a people to get up a free Government. He knows those are two different things; and, if the war be not shortly ended, as he thinks it will be, then he deems it right for him, fresh from the glories of securing the liberties of Italy, to assist in maintaining--what? Despotism? No! the liberties of America. One of the learned counsel, who addressed you in a strain of very effective and persuasive eloquence, charmed us all by the grace of his allusion to a passage in classical history, and recalled your attention to the fact that, when the States of Greece which had warred against Athens, anticipating her downfall beneath the prowess of their arms, met to determine her fate, and when vindictive Thebes and envious Corinth counseled her destruction, the genius of the Athenian Sophocles, by the recital of the chorus of the Electra, disarmed this cruel purpose, by reviving the early glories of united Greece. And the counsel asked that no voice should be given to punish harshly these revolted States, if they should be conquered. The voice of Sophocles in the chorus of the Electra, and those glorious memories of the early union, were produced to bring back into the circle of the old confederation the erring and rebellious Attica. So, too, what shall we find in the memories of the Revolution, or in the eloquence with which we have been taught to revere them, that will not urge us all, by every duty to the past, to the present, and to the future, to do what we can, whenever a duty is reposed in us, to sustain the Government in its rightful assertion of authority and in the maintenance of its power? Let me ask your attention to what has been said by the genius of Webster on so great a theme as the memory of Washington, bearing directly on all these questions of union, of glory, of hope, and of duty, which are involved in this inquiry. See whether, from the views thus invoked, there will not follow the same influence as from the chorus of the Electra, for the preservation, the protection, the restoration of every portion of what once was, and now is, and, let us hope, ever shall be, our common country. On the occasion of the centennial anniversary of the birthday of Washington, at the national Capital, in 1832, Mr. Webster, by the invitation of men in public station as well as of the citizens of the place, delivered an oration, about which I believe the common judgment of his countrymen does not differ from what is known to have been his own idea, that it was the best presentation of his views and feelings which, in the long career of his rhetorical triumphs, he had had the opportunity to make. No man ever thought or spoke of the character of Washington, and of the great part in human affairs which he played, without knowing and feeling that the crowning glory of all his labors in the field and in the council, and the perpetual monument to his fame, if his fame shall be perpetual, would be found in the establishment of the American Union under the American Constitution. All the prowess of the war, all the spirit of the Revolution, all the fortitude of the effort, all the self-denial of the sacrifice of that period, were for nothing, and worse than nothing, if the result and consummation of the whole were to be but a Government that contained within itself the seeds of its own destruction, and existed only at the caprice and whim of whatever part of the people should choose to deny its rightfulness or seek to overthrow its authority. In pressing that view, Mr. Webster thus attracts the attention of his countrymen to the great achievement in human affairs which the establishment of this Government has proved to be, and thus illustrates the character of Washington: "It was the extraordinary fortune of Washington that, having been intrusted, in revolutionary times, with the supreme military command, and having fulfilled that trust with equal renown for wisdom and for valor, he should be placed at the head of the first Government in which an attempt was to be made, on a large scale, to rear the fabric of social order on the basis of a written Constitution and of a pure representative principle. A Government was to be established, without a throne, without an aristocracy, without castes, orders, or privileges; and this Government, instead of being a democracy, existing and acting within the walls of a single city, was to be extended over a vast country, of different climates, interests and habits, and of various communions of our common Christian faith. The experiment certainly was entirely new. A popular Government of this extent, it was evident, could be framed only by carrying into full effect the principle of representation or of delegated power; and the world was to see whether society could, by the strength of this principle, maintain its own peace and good government, carry forward its own great interests, and conduct itself to political renown and glory. * * * * * "* * * * I remarked, gentlemen, that the whole world was and is interested in the result of this experiment. And is it not so? Do we deceive ourselves, or is it true that at this moment the career which this Government is running is among the most attractive objects to the civilized world? Do we deceive ourselves, or is it true that at this moment that love of liberty and that understanding of its true principles, which are flying over the whole earth, as on the wings of all the winds, are really and truly of American origin? * * * * * "* * * * Gentlemen, the spirit of human liberty and of free Government, nurtured and grown into strength and beauty in America, has stretched its course into the midst of the nations. Like an emanation from Heaven, it has gone forth, and it will not return void. It must change, it is fast changing, the face of the earth. Our great, our high duty, is to show, in our own example, that this spirit is a spirit of health as well as a spirit of power; that its longevity is as great as its strength; that its efficiency to secure individual rights, social relations, and moral order, is equal to the irresistible force with which it prostrates principalities and powers. The world at this moment is regarding us with a willing, but something of a fearful, admiration. Its deep and awful anxiety is to learn whether free States may be stable as well as free; whether popular power may be trusted, as well as feared; in short, whether wise, regular, and virtuous self-government is a vision for the contemplation of theorists, or a truth established, illustrated, and brought into practice in the country of Washington. "Gentlemen, for the earth which we inhabit, and the whole circle of the sun, for all the unborn races of mankind, we seem to hold in our hands, for their weal or woe, the fate of this experiment. If we fail, who shall venture the repetition? If our example shall prove to be one, not of encouragement, but of terror, not fit to be imitated, but fit only to be shunned, where else shall the world look for free models? If this great _Western Sun_ be struck out of the firmament, at what other fountain shall the lamp of liberty hereafter be lighted? What other orb shall emit a ray to glimmer, even, on the darkness of the world? * * * * * "* * * * The political prosperity which this country has attained and which it now enjoys, has been acquired mainly through the instrumentality of the present Government. While this agent continues, the capacity of attaining to still higher degrees of prosperity exists also. We have, while this lasts, a political life capable of beneficial exertion, with power to resist or overcome misfortunes, to sustain us against the ordinary accidents of human affairs, and to promote, by active efforts, every public interest. But dismemberment strikes at the very being which preserves these faculties. It would lay its rude and ruthless hand on this great agent itself. It would sweep away, not only what we possess, but all power of regaining lost, or acquiring new, possessions. It would leave the country, not only bereft of its prosperity and happiness, but without limbs, or organs, or faculties, by which to exert itself hereafter in the pursuit of that prosperity and happiness. "Other misfortunes may be borne, or their effects overcome. If disastrous war should sweep our commerce from the ocean, another generation may renew it; if it exhaust our treasury, future industry may replenish it; if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still, under a new cultivation, they will grow green again, and ripen to future harvests. It were but a trifle even if the walls of yonder Capitol were to crumble, if its lofty pillars should fall, and its gorgeous decorations be all covered by the dust of the valley. All these might be rebuilt. But who shall reconstruct the fabric of demolished Government? Who shall rear again the well-proportioned columns of constitutional liberty? Who shall frame together the skilful architecture which unites national sovereignty with State rights, individual security, and public prosperity? No, if these columns fall, they will be raised not again. Like the Coliseum and the Parthenon, they will be destined to a mournful, a melancholy immortality. Bitterer tears, however, will flow over them, than were ever shed over the monuments of Roman or Grecian art; for they will be the remnants of a more glorious edifice than Greece or Rome ever saw--the edifice of constitutional American Liberty. * * * * * "* * * * A hundred years hence other disciples of Washington will celebrate his birth, with no less of sincere admiration than we now commemorate it. When they shall meet, as we now meet, to do themselves and him that honor, so surely as they shall see the blue summits of his native mountains rise in the horizon, so surely as they shall behold the river on whose banks he lived, and on whose banks he rests, still flowing on toward the sea, so surely may they see, as we now see, the flag of the Union floating on the top of the Capitol; and then, as now, may the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, more lovely, than this our own country!" If, gentlemen, the eloquence of Mr. Webster, which thus enshrines the memory and the great life of Washington, calls us back to the glorious recollections of the Revolution and the establishment of our Government, does it not urge every man everywhere that his share in this great trust is to be performed now or never, and wherever his fidelity and his devotion to his country, its Government and its spirit, shall place the responsibility upon him? It is not the fault of the Government, of the learned District Attorney, or of me, his humble associate, that this, your verdict, has been removed, by the course of this argument and by the course of this eloquence on the part of the prisoners, from the simple issue of the guilt or innocence of these men under the statute. It is not the action or the choice of the Government, or of its counsel, that you have been drawn into higher considerations. It is not our fault that you have been invoked to give, on the undisputed facts of the case, a verdict which shall be a recognition of the power, the authority, and the right of the rebel Government to infringe our laws, or partake in the infringement of them, to some form and extent. And now, here is your duty, here your post of fidelity--not against law, not against the least right under the law, but to sustain, by whatever sacrifice there may be of sentiment or of feeling, the law and the Constitution. I need not say to you, gentlemen, that if, on a state of facts which admits no diversity of opinion, with these opposite forces arrayed, as they now are, before you--the Constitution of the United States, the laws of the United States, the commission of this learned Court, derived from the Government of the United States, the venire and the empanneling of this Jury, made under the laws and by the authority of the United States, on our side--met, on their side, by nothing, on behalf of the prisoners, but the commission, the power, the right, the authority of the rebel Government, proceeding from Jefferson Davis--you are asked, by the law, or under the law, or against the law, in some form, to recognize this power, and thus to say that the folly and the weakness of a free Government find here their last extravagant demonstration, then you are asked to say that the vigor, the judgment, the sense, and the duty of a Jury, to confine themselves to their responsibility on the facts of the case, are worthless and yielding before impressions of a discursive and loose and general nature. Be sure of it, gentlemen, that, on what I suppose to be the facts concerning this particular transaction, a verdict of acquittal is nothing but a determination that our Government and its authority, in the premises of this trial, for the purposes of your verdict, are met and overthrown by the protection thrown around the prisoners by the Government of the Confederate States of America, actual or incipient. Let us hope that you will do what falls to your share in the post of protection in which you are placed, for the liberties of this nation and the hopes of mankind; for, in surrendering them, you will be forming a part of the record on the common grave of the fabric of this Government, and of the hopes of the human race, where our flag shall droop, with every stripe polluted and every star erased, and the glorious legend of "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable," replaced by this mournful confession, "Unworthy of freedom, our baseness has surrendered the liberties which we had neither the courage nor the virtue to love or defend." CHARGE OF JUDGE NELSON. _Judge Nelson_ then proceeded to deliver the Charge of the Court, in which _Judge Shipman_, his associate, concurred: The first question presented in this case is, whether or not the Court has jurisdiction of the offence? This depends upon a clause of the 14th section of the Act of Congress of 1825, as follows: "And the trial of all offences which shall be committed upon the high seas or elsewhere, out of the limits of any State or District, shall be in the District where the offender is apprehended, or into which he may be first brought." The prisoners, who were captured by an armed vessel of the United States, off Charleston, South Carolina, were ordered by the commander of the fleet to New York for trial; but the Minnesota, on board of which they were placed, was destined for Hampton Roads, and it became necessary, therefore, that they should be there transferred to another vessel. They were thus transferred to the Harriet Lane, and, after some two days' delay, consumed in the preparation, they were sent on to this port, where they were soon after arrested by the civil authorities. It is insisted, on behalf of the prisoners, that inasmuch as Hampton Roads, to which place the prisoners were taken and transferred to the Harriet Lane, was within the Eastern District of the State of Virginia, the jurisdiction attached in that District, as that was the first District into which the prisoners were brought. The Court is inclined to think that the circumstances under which the Minnesota was taken to Hampton Roads, in connection with the original order by the commander that the prisoners should be sent to this District for trial, do not make out a bringing into that District within the meaning of the statute. But we are not disposed to place the decision on this ground. The Court is of opinion that the clause conferring jurisdiction is in the alternative, and that jurisdiction may be exercised either in the District in which the prisoners were first brought, or in that in which they were apprehended under lawful authority for the trial of the offence. This brings us to the merits of the case. The indictment under which the prisoners are tried contains ten counts. The first five are framed upon the third section of the Act of Congress of 1820, which is as follows: "That, if any person shall, upon the high seas, commit the crime of robbery, in or upon any ship or vessel, or upon any of the ship's company of any ship or vessel, or the lading thereof, such person shall be adjudged to be a pirate," and, upon conviction, shall suffer death. The five several counts charge, in substance, that the prisoners did, upon the high seas, enter in and upon the brig Joseph, the same being an American vessel, and upon the ship's company, naming them; and did, then and there, piratically, feloniously, and violently make an assault upon them, and put them in personal fear and danger of their lives; and did, then and there, the brig Joseph, her tackle and apparel, her lading (describing it), which were in the custody and possession of the master and crew, from the said master and crew and from their possession, and in their presence, and against their will, violently, piratically and feloniously seize, rob, steal, take and carry away, against the form of the statute, &c. There are some variances in the different counts, but it will not be material to notice them. It will be observed that this provision of the Act of Congress prescribing the offence applies to all persons, whether citizens or foreigners, making no distinction between them, and is equally applicable, therefore, to all the prisoners at the bar. The remaining five counts are framed under the 9th section of the Act of Congress of 1790, which is as follows: "That if any citizen shall commit any piracy or robbery aforesaid, or any act of hostility against the United States, or any citizen thereof, upon the high sea, under color of any commission from any foreign Prince or State, or on pretence of authority from any person, such offender shall, notwithstanding the pretence of any such authority, be deemed, adjudged, and taken to be a pirate, felon, and robber," and, on conviction, shall suffer death. These five counts charge that the prisoners are all citizens of the United States, and that they committed the acts set forth in the previous five counts, on pretence of authority from one Jefferson Davis. As the provision of the Act of Congress upon which these counts are framed is applicable only to citizens and not to foreigners, but four of the prisoners can be brought within it, as the other eight are admitted to be foreigners. The four are Baker, Howard, Passalaigue, and Harleston. The distinction between the provisions of the third section of the Act of 1820 and the ninth section of 1790, and the counts in the indictment founded upon them, arises out of a familiar principle of international law, and which is, that in a state of war existing between two nations, either may commission private armed vessels to carry on war against the enemy on the high seas, and the commission will afford protection, even in the judicial tribunals of the enemy, against a charge of the crime of robbery or piracy. Such a commission would be a good defence against an indictment under the third section of 1820, by force of the above rule of international law. The ninth section of the Act of 1790 changes the rule as it respects citizens of the United States who may take service under the commission of the private armed vessels of the enemy of their country. It declares, as it respects them, the commission shall not be admitted as a defence; and, as this legislation relates only to our own citizens, and prescribes a rule of action for them, and not as it respects the citizens or subjects of other countries, we do not perceive that any exception can be taken to the Act as unconstitutional or otherwise. But, upon the view the Court has taken of the case, it will not be necessary to trouble you with any remarks as it respects this ninth section, nor in respect to the several counts framed under it, but we shall confine our observations to a consideration of the third section of the Act of 1820. There can be no injustice to the prisoners in thus restricting the examination, as any authority for the perpetration of the acts charged in the indictment, founded upon the Act of 1820, will be equally available to them. Nor can there be any injustice to the prosecution, for unless the crime of robbery, as prescribed in the Act of 1820, is established against the four prisoners, none could be under the ninth section of the Act of 1790. The crime in the two Acts is the same for all the purposes of this trial. The only difference is the exclusion of a particular defence under the latter. Now, the crime charged is robbery upon an American vessel on the high seas, and hence it is necessary that we should turn our attention to the inquiry, what constitutes this offence? It has already been determined by the highest authority--the Supreme Court of the United States--that we must look to the common law for a definition of the term robbery, as it is to be presumed it was used by Congress in the Act in that sense, and, taking this rule as our guide, it will be found the crime consists in this: the felonious taking of goods or property of any value from the person of another, or in his presence, against his will, by violence, or putting him in fear. The taking must be felonious--that is, taking with a wrongful intent to appropriate the goods of another. It need not be a taking which, if upon the high seas, would amount to piracy, according to the law of nations, or what, in some of the books, is called general piracy or robbery. This is defined to be a forcible depredation upon property upon the high seas without lawful authority, done _animo furandi_--that is, as defined in this connection, in a spirit and intention of universal hostility. A pirate is said to be one who roves the sea in an armed vessel, without any commission from any sovereign State, on his own authority, and for the purpose of seizing by force and appropriating to himself, without discrimination, every vessel he may meet. For this reason, pirates, according to the law of nations, have always been compared to robbers--the only difference being that the sea is the theatre of the operations of one and the land of the other. And, as general robbers and pirates upon the high seas are deemed enemies of the human race--making war upon all mankind indiscriminately--the crime being one against the universal laws of society--the vessels of every nation have a right to pursue, seize, and punish them. Now, if it were necessary, on the part of the Government, to bring the crime charged in the present case against the prisoners within this definition of robbery and piracy, as known to the common law of nations, there would be great difficulty in so doing either upon the evidence, or perhaps upon the counts, as charged in the indictment--certainly upon the evidence. For that shows, if anything, an intent to depredate upon the vessels and property of one nation only--the United States--which falls far short of the spirit and intent, as we have seen, that are said to constitute essential elements of the crime. But the robbery charged in this case is that which the Act of Congress prescribes as a crime, and may be denominated a statute offence as contra-distinguished from that known to the law of nations. The Act, as you have seen, declares the person a pirate, punishable by death, who commits the crime of robbery upon the high seas against any ship or vessel, or upon any ship's company of any ship or vessel, &c.; and the interpretation given to these words applies the crime to the case of depredation upon an American vessel or property on the high seas, under circumstances that would constitute robbery, if the offence was committed on land, and which is, according to the language of Blackstone, the felonious and forcible taking from the person of another of goods or money, to any value, by violence or putting him in fear. The felonious intent which describes the state of mind as an element of the offence, is what is called in technical language _animo furandi_, which means an intent of gaining by another's loss, or to despoil another of his goods _lucri causa_, for the sake of gain. Now, if you are satisfied, upon the evidence, that the prisoners have been guilty of this statute offence of robbery upon the high seas, it is your duty to convict them, though it may fall short of the offence as known to the law of nations. We have stated what constitute the elements of the crime, and it is your province to apply the facts to them, and thus determine, whether or not the crime has been committed. That duty belongs to you, and not to the Court. We have said that, in a state of war between two nations, the commission to private armed vessels from either of the belligerents affords a defence, according to the law of nations, in the Courts of the enemy, against a charge of robbery or piracy on the high seas, of which they might be guilty in the absence of such authority; and under this principle it has been insisted, by the learned counsel for the prisoners, that the commission of the Confederate States, by its President, Davis, to the master and crew of the Savannah, which has been given in evidence, affords such defence. In support of this position, it is claimed that the Confederate States have thrown off the power and authority of the General Government; have erected a new and independent Government in its place, and have maintained it against the whole military and naval power of the former; that it is a Government, at least _de facto_, and entitled to the rights and privileges that belong to a sovereign and independent nation. The right, also, constitutional or otherwise, has been strongly urged, and the law of nations and the commentaries of eminent publicists have been referred to as justifying the secession or revolt of these Confederate States. Great ability and research have been displayed by the learned counsel for the defence on this branch of the case. But the Court do not deem it pertinent, or material, to enter into this wide field of inquiry. This branch of the defence involves considerations that do not belong to the Courts of the country. It involves the determination of great public, political questions, which belong to departments of our Government that have charge of our foreign relations--the legislative and executive departments; and, when decided by them, the Court follows the decision; and, until these departments have recognized the existence of the new Government, the Courts of the nation cannot. Until this recognition of the new Government, the Courts are obliged to regard the ancient state of things remaining as unchanged. This has been the uniform course of decision and practice of the Courts of the United States. The revolt of the Spanish Colonies of South America, and the new Government erected on separating from the mother country, were acknowledged by an Act of Congress, on the recommendation of the President, in 1822. Prior to this recognition, and during the existence of the civil war between Spain and her Colonies, it was the declared policy of our Government to treat both parties as belligerents, entitled equally to the rights of asylum and hospitality; and to consider them, in respect to the neutral relation and duties of our Government, as equally entitled to the sovereign rights of war as against each other. This was, also, the doctrine of the Courts, which they derived from the policy of the Government, following the political departments of the Government as it respects our relations with new Governments erected on the overthrow of the old. And if this is the rule of the Federal Courts, in the case of a revolt and erection of a new Government, as it respects foreign nations, much more is the rule applicable when the question arises in respect to a revolt and the erection of a new Government within the limits and against the authority of the Government under which we are engaged in administering her laws. And, in this connection, it is proper to say that, as the Confederate States must first be recognized by the political departments of the mother Government, in order to be recognized by the Courts of the country, namely, the legislative and executive departments, we must look to the acts of these departments as evidence of the fact. The act is the act of the nation through her constitutional public authorities. These, gentlemen, are all the observations we deem necessary to submit to you. The case is an interesting one, not only in the principles involved, but to the Government and the prisoners at the bar. It has been argued with a research and ability in proportion to its magnitude, both in behalf of the prisoners and the Government; and we do not doubt, with the aid of these arguments, and the instructions of the Court, you will be enabled to render an intelligent and just verdict in the case. The Jury retired at twenty minutes after three o'clock. At six o'clock they came into Court. Their names were called, and the inquiry made by the Clerk whether they had agreed upon their verdict. Their Foreman said they had not. One of the prisoners having felt unwell, had been removed from the close air of the Court-room, and some little delay occurred until he was brought in. Judge Nelson then said: "We have had a communication from one of the officers in charge of the Jury, from the Jury, as we understood, though it had no name signed to it. I would inquire whether the note was from the Jury?" _The Foreman_: It was. _Judge Nelson_: We would prefer that the Jurymen, or any of them who may be embarrassed with the difficulties referred to, should himself state the inquiry which he desires to make of the Court. _Mr. Powell_, one of the Jurors, said that the question was, "whether, if the Jury believed that civil war existed, and had been so recognized by the act of our Government, or if the Jury believe that the intent to commit a robbery did not exist in the minds of the prisoners at the time, it may influence their verdict." After consultation with Judge Shipman, Judge Nelson said: As it respects the first inquiry of the Juror--whether the Government has recognized a state of civil war between the Confederate States and itself--the instruction which the Court gave the Jury was, that this Court could not recognize a state of civil war, or a Government of the Confederate States, unless the legislative and executive Departments of the Government had recognized such a state of things, or the President had, or both; and that the act of recognition was a national act, and that we must look to the acts of these Departments of the Government as the evidence and for the evidence of the recognition of this state of things, and the only evidence. As it respects the other question--whether or not, if the Jury were of opinion, on the evidence, that these prisoners did not intend to commit a robbery on the high seas against the property of the United States, they were guilty of the offence charged--that is a mixed question of law and fact. The Court explained to you what constitutes the crime of robbery on the high seas, which was the felonious taking of the property of another upon the high seas by force, by violence, or putting them in fear of bodily injury, which, according to the law, is equivalent to actual force; and that the term felonious, as interpreted by the law and the Courts, was the taking with a wrongful intent to despoil the others of their property. These elements constitute the crime of robbery. Now, it is for you to take up the facts and decide whether the evidence in the case brings the prisoners within that definition. The Court will not encroach upon your province in these respects, but will confine itself to the definition of the law. Another of the Jury--_George H. Hansell_--rose and said: One of the Jury--not myself--understood your honor to charge that there must be an intent to take the property of another for your own use. _Judge Nelson_: No, I did not give that instruction. The Jury may withdraw. The Jury again retired, and, as there was no probability of an agreement at half-past seven o'clock, the Court adjourned to eleven o'clock Thursday morning. EIGHTH DAY. _Oct. 31._ The Jury, who had been in deliberation all night, came into Court at twenty minutes past eleven o'clock. The names of the prisoners were called, and, on the Jury taking their seats-- _The Clerk_ said: Gentlemen of the Jury, have you agreed on your verdict? _Foreman_: No, sir. _The Court_: Is there any prospect of your agreeing? _Foreman_: I am sorry to say there is no prospect at all that we can come to an agreement. After some consultation with Judge Shipman-- _Judge Nelson_ inquired: Is the opinion expressed by the Foreman that of the other Jurymen? _Mr. Powell_ and _Mr. Cassidy_ (Jurors) rose and responded in the affirmative. _Mr. Taylor_ further remarked: The prospect seems to be that way. So far as we have gone, there does not seem to be any idea of coming together at all. The only idea of coming to a judgment would be that some of the Jurors, we think, do not understand the charge. They think they do, and we think they do not. It is for them to say, or not, whether they understand the charge correctly. To this implied invitation to the Jurymen to express themselves there was no response. _Judge Nelson_: If the Court supposed that there would be any fair or reasonable prospect of your coming to an agreement, we would be inclined to direct you to retire and pursue your consultations further. You have now been together about twenty hours, and unless there is some expression from the Jury that there is a possibility or probability that they may agree, we are inclined not to detain you longer. _Mr. Costello_ (a Juror): With respect to the Court, I think there is no likelihood of our coming to an agreement. _Foreman_: If the Court will allow me, after the instructions we got yesterday evening, at the instance of many of the Jury, we stand just in the same position we stood when we left your presence the first time. _Judge Nelson_: The Court, then, will discharge you, gentlemen. The Court entered an order remanding the prisoners, and, as they were about being removed-- _Mr. E. Delafield Smith_ (District Attorney) said: I desire, if the Court please, to move, in the case of the Savannah privateers, their trial at the earliest day consistent with the engagements of the Court, and of the counsel engaged for the defence; and I would name a week from next Monday, as it will, probably, be necessary to issue an order for a new panel of Jurors. _Judge Nelson_: So far as I am concerned, I can only remain until the 20th of November, and the business of the Court is such that the trial cannot take place while I am here, as I must devote the rest of my time to other causes. _Mr. Smith_: Then the motion for a new panel will be reserved until we see at what time it will be possible to bring the case on. _Mr. Lord_: Before that application shall be seriously entertained by the Court, we would like to be heard upon the subject. I will say nothing now, because it is very evident it cannot be discussed at this time. _Judge Nelson_: The counsel may assume that I cannot take up the second trial during the present term. They may act upon that view. The prisoners were then remanded to the custody of the Deputy Marshals. APPENDIX. I. PRESIDENT'S PROCLAMATION, APRIL 15, 1861. (_Page 109._) _By the President of the United States._ Whereas, the laws of the United States have been for some time past, and now are, opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed, in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the Marshals by law: Now, therefore, I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution and the laws, have thought fit to call forth, and hereby do call forth, the militia of the several States of the Union, to the aggregate number of 75,000, in order to suppress said combinations and to cause the laws to be duly executed. The details for this object will be immediately communicated to the State authorities through the War Department. I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and existence of our national Union, and the perpetuity of popular government, and to redress wrongs already long enough endured. I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the forces hereby called forth will probably be to repossess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union; and in every event the utmost care will be observed, consistently with the objects aforesaid, to avoid any devastation, any destruction of, or interference with, property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens of any part of the country; and I hereby command the persons composing the combinations aforesaid to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes within twenty days from this date. Deeming that the present condition of public affairs presents an extraordinary occasion, I do hereby, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution, convene both houses of Congress. The Senators and Representatives are, therefore, summoned to assemble at their respective Chambers, at twelve o'clock, noon, on Thursday, the fourth day of July next, then and there to consider and determine such measures as, in their wisdom, the public safety and interest may seem to demand. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this fifteenth day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-fifth. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By the President. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State. II. PROCLAMATION OF THE PRESIDENT, DECLARING A BLOCKADE. (_Page 109._) _By the President of the United States of America._ Whereas, an insurrection against the Government of the United States has broken out in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and the laws of the United States for the collection of the revenue cannot be efficiently executed therein conformably to that provision of the Constitution which requires duties to be uniform throughout the United States: And whereas a combination of persons engaged in such insurrection have threatened to grant pretended letters of marque, to authorize the bearers thereof to commit assaults on the lives, vessels, and property of good citizens of the country lawfully engaged in commerce on the high seas, and in waters of the United States: And whereas an Executive Proclamation has been already issued, requiring the persons engaged in these disorderly proceedings to desist therefrom, calling out a militia force for the purpose of repressing the same, and convening Congress in extraordinary session to deliberate and determine thereon: Now, therefore, I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States, with a view to the same purposes before mentioned, and to the protection of the public peace and the lives and property of quiet and orderly citizens pursuing their lawful occupations, until Congress shall have assembled and deliberated on the said unlawful proceedings, or until the same shall have ceased, have further deemed it advisable to set on foot a blockade of the ports within the States aforesaid, in pursuance of the laws of the United States and of the laws of nations in such cases provided. For this purpose a competent force will be posted so as to prevent entrance and exit of vessels from the ports aforesaid. If, therefore, with a view to violate such blockade, a vessel shall approach, or shall attempt to leave any of the said ports, she will be duly warned by the Commander of one of the blockading vessels, who will indorse on her register the fact and date of such warning; and if the same vessel shall again attempt to enter or leave the blockaded port, she will be captured, and sent to the nearest convenient port for such proceedings against her and her cargo, as prize, as may be deemed advisable. And I hereby proclaim and declare, that if any person, under the pretended authority of said States, or under any other pretence, shall molest a vessel of the United States, or the persons or cargo on board of her, such person will be held amenable to the laws of the United States for the prevention and punishment of piracy. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By the President. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State. Washington, April 19, 1861. III. CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN GOV. PICKENS, OF SOUTH CAROLINA, AND MAJOR ANDERSON, COMMANDING AT FORT SUMTER, IN RELATION TO THE FIRING ON THE STAR OF THE WEST. (_Page 110._) _To his Excellency the Governor of South Carolina_: SIR: Two of your batteries fired this morning on an unarmed vessel bearing the flag of my Government. As I have not been notified that war has been declared by South Carolina against the United States, I cannot but think this a hostile act, committed without your sanction or authority. Under that hope, I refrain from opening a fire on your batteries. I have the honor, therefore, respectfully to ask whether the above-mentioned act--one which I believe without parallel in the history of our country or any other civilized Government--was committed in obedience to your instructions? and notify you, if it is not disclaimed, that I regard it as an act of war, and I shall not, after reasonable time for the return of my messenger, permit any vessel to pass within the range of the guns of my fort. In order to save, as far as it is in my power, the shedding of blood, I beg you will take due notification of my decision for the good of all concerned. Hoping, however, your answer may justify a further continuance of forbearance on my part, I remain, respectfully, ROBERT ANDERSON. GOV. PICKENS' REPLY. Gov. Pickens, after stating the position of South Carolina towards the United States, says that any attempt to send United States troops into Charleston harbor, to reinforce the forts, would be regarded as an act of hostility; and in conclusion adds, that any attempt to reinforce the troops at Fort Sumter, or to retake and resume possession of the forts within the waters of South Carolina, which Major Anderson abandoned, after spiking the cannon and doing other damage, cannot but be regarded by the authorities of the State as indicative of any other purpose than the coercion of the State by the armed force of the Government; special agents, therefore, have been off the bar to warn approaching vessels, armed and unarmed, having troops to reinforce Fort Sumter aboard, not to enter the harbor. Special orders have been given the Commanders at the forts not to fire on such vessels until a shot across their bows should warn them of the prohibition of the State. Under these circumstances the Star of the West, it is understood, this morning attempted to enter the harbor with troops, after having been notified she could not enter, and consequently she was fired into. This act is perfectly justified by me. In regard to your threat about vessels in the harbor, it is only necessary for me to say, you must be the judge of your responsibility. Your position in the harbor has been tolerated by the authorities of the State, and while the act of which you complain is in perfect consistency with the rights and duties of the State, it is not perceived how far the conduct you propose to adopt can find a parallel in the history of any country, or be reconciled with any other purpose than that of your Government imposing on the State the condition of a conquered province. F. W. PICKENS. SECOND COMMUNICATION FROM MAJOR ANDERSON. _To his Excellency Governor Pickens_: SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication, and say that, under the circumstances, I have deemed it proper to refer the whole matter to my Government, and intend deferring the course I indicated in my note this morning until the arrival from Washington of such instructions as I may receive. I have the honor also to express the hope that no obstructions will be placed in the way, and that you will do me the favor of giving every facility for the departure and return of the bearer, Lieut. T. TALBOT, who is directed to make the journey. ROBERT ANDERSON. IV. EXTRACTS FROM PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S INAUGURAL, MARCH 4, 1861. (_Page 110._) The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government, and collect the duties on imports; but, beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. Where hostility to the United States shall be so great and so universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people with that object. While the strict legal right may exist of the Government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating, and so nearly impracticable withal, that I deem it better to forego for the time the use of such offices. * * * * * I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court, nor do I deny that such decision must be binding in any case upon the parties to a suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the Government; and while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chances that it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that, if the policy of the Government upon the vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by the decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigations between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own masters,--having, to that extent, practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there, in this view, any assault upon the Court or the Judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink, to decide cases properly brought before them; and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes. V. THE PRESIDENT'S SPEECH TO THE VIRGINIA COMMISSIONERS. (_Page 110._) _To Honorable Messrs. Preston, Stuart, and Randolph_: GENTLEMEN: As a Committee of the Virginia Convention, now in session, you present me a preamble and resolution in these words: "Whereas, in the opinion of this Convention, the uncertainty which prevails in the public mind as to the policy which the Federal Executive intends to pursue towards the seceded States is extremely injurious to the industrious and commercial interests of the country; tends to keep up an excitement which is unfavorable to the adjustment of the pending difficulties; and threatens a disturbance of the public peace; therefore-- "_Resolved_, That a committee of three delegates be appointed to wait on the President of the United States, present to him this preamble, and respectfully ask him to communicate to this Convention the policy which the Federal Executive intends to pursue in regard to the Confederate States." * * * * * In answer, I have to say, that having, at the beginning of my official term, expressed my intended policy as plainly as I was able, it is with deep regret and mortification I now learn there is great and injurious uncertainty in the public mind as to what that policy is, and what course I intend to pursue. Not having as yet seen occasion to change, it is now my purpose to pursue the course marked out in the inaugural address. I commend a careful consideration of the whole document as the best expression I can give to my purposes. As I then and therein said, I now repeat--"The power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess property and places belonging to the Government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what is necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere." By the words "property and places belonging to the Government," I chiefly allude to the military posts and property which were in possession of the Government when it came into my hands. But if, as now appears to be true, in pursuit of a purpose to drive the United States authority from these places, an unprovoked assault has been made upon Fort Sumter, I shall hold myself at liberty to repossess, if I can, like places which had been seized before the Government was devolved upon me; and in any event I shall, to the best of my ability, repel force by force. In case it proves true that Fort Sumter has been assaulted, as is reported, I shall, perhaps, cause the United States mails to be withdrawn from all the States which claim to have seceded, believing that the commencement of actual war against the Government justifies and possibly demands it. I scarcely need to say, that I consider the military posts and property situated within the States which claim to have seceded as yet belonging to the Government of the United States as much as they did before the supposed secession. Whatever else I may do for the purpose, I shall not attempt to collect the duties and imposts by any armed invasion of any part of the country; not meaning by this, however, that I may not land a force deemed necessary to relieve a fort upon the border of the country. From the fact that I have quoted a part of the inaugural address, it must not be inferred that I repudiate any other part,--the whole of which I re-affirm, except so far as what I now say of the mails may be regarded as a modification. VI. EXTRACTS FROM PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S MESSAGE TO CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1861. At the beginning of the present presidential term, four months ago, the functions of the Federal Government were found to be generally suspended within the several States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida, excepting only of the post-office department. Within these States all the forts, arsenals, dockyards, custom-houses and the like, including the movable and stationary property in and about them, had been seized and were held in open hostility to this Government, excepting only Forts Pickens, Taylor, and Jefferson, on and near the Florida coast, and Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, South Carolina. * * * * * In accordance with this purpose, an ordinance had been adopted in each of these States, declaring the States respectively to be separated from the National Union. A formula for instituting a combined Government of those States had been promulgated, and this illegal organization, in the character of the "Confederate States," was already invoking recognition, aid, and intervention from foreign powers. Finding this condition of things, and believing it to be an imperative duty upon the incoming Executive to prevent, if possible, the consummation of such attempt to destroy the Federal Union, a choice of means to that end became indispensable. This choice was made, and was declared in the inaugural address. [After reciting the measures previously taken, he continues]: Other calls were made for volunteers to serve three years, unless sooner discharged, and also for large additions to the regular army and navy. These measures, whether strictly legal or not, were ventured upon under what appeared to be a popular demand and a public necessity,--trusting then, as now, that Congress would readily ratify them. It is believed that nothing has been done beyond the constitutional competency of Congress. Soon after the first call for militia, it was considered a duty to authorize the Commanding General, in proper cases, according to his discretion, to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, or, in other words, to arrest and detain, without resort to the ordinary process and forms of law, such individuals as he might deem dangerous to the public safety. This authority has purposely been exercised but very sparingly. Nevertheless, the legality and propriety of what has been done under it are questioned, and the attention of the country has been called to the proposition that one who is sworn to take care that the laws are faithfully executed should not himself violate them. VII. EXTRACTS FROM PRESIDENT BUCHANAN'S MESSAGE TO CONGRESS, DECEMBER 4, 1860. The Fugitive-Slave Law has been carried into execution in every contested case since the commencement of the present administration, though often, it is to be regretted, with great loss and inconvenience to the master, and with considerable expense to the Government. Let us trust that the State Legislatures will repeal their unconstitutional and obnoxious enactments. Unless this shall be done without unnecessary delay, it is impossible for any human power to save the Union. The Southern States, standing on the basis of the Constitution, have a right to demand this act of justice from the States of the North. Should it be refused, then the Constitution, to which all the States are parties, will have been willfully violated, in one portion of them, in a provision essential to the domestic security and happiness of the remainder. In that event, the injured States, after having first used all constitutional and peaceful means to obtain redress, would be justified in revolutionary resistance to the Government of the Union. * * * * * What, in the meantime, is the responsibility and true position of the Executive? He is bound by a solemn oath before God and the country "to take care that the laws are faithfully executed;" and from this obligation he cannot be absolved by any human power. But what if the performance of this duty, in whole or in part, has been rendered impracticable by events over which he could have exercised no control? Such, at the present moment, is the case throughout the State of South Carolina, so far as the laws of the United States, to secure the administration of justice by means of the federal judiciary, are concerned. All the federal officers within its limits, through whose agency alone these laws can be carried into execution, have already resigned. We no longer have a District Judge, a District Attorney, or a Marshal, in South Carolina. In fact, the whole machinery of the Federal Government, necessary for the distribution of remedial justice among the people, has been demolished, and it would be difficult, if not impossible, to replace it. The only Acts of Congress upon the Statute Book bearing on this subject are those of the 28th February, 1795, and 3d March, 1807. These authorize the President, after he shall have ascertained that the Marshal, with his posse comitatus, is unable to execute civil or criminal process in any particular case, to call forth the militia, and employ the army and navy to aid him in performing this service--having first, by proclamation, commanded the insurgents to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective homes within a limited time. This duty can not by possibility be performed in a State where no judicial authority exists to issue process, and where there is no Marshal to execute it, and where, even if there were such an officer, the entire population would constitute one sole combination to resist him. The bare enumeration of these provisions proves how inadequate they are, without further legislation, to overcome a united opposition in a single State, not to speak of other States who may place themselves in a similar attitude. Congress alone has power to decide whether the present laws can or can not be amended, so as to carry out more effectually the objects of the Constitution. * * * * * The course of events is so rapidly hastening forward, that the emergency may soon arise when you may be called upon to decide the momentous question, whether you possess the power, by force of arms, to compel a State to remain in the Union. I should feel myself recreant to my duty were I not to express an opinion upon this important subject. The question, fairly stated, is: Has the Constitution delegated to _Congress_ the power to coerce a State into submission which is attempting to withdraw, or has virtually withdrawn, from the Confederacy? If answered in the affirmative, it must be on the principle that the power has been conferred upon Congress to declare and to make war against a State. After much serious reflection, I have arrived at the conclusion that no such power has been delegated to Congress, or to any other department of the Federal Government. It is manifest, upon an inspection of the Constitution, that this is not among the specific and enumerated powers granted to Congress; and it is equally apparent that its exercise is not "necessary and proper for carrying into execution" any one of these powers. So far from this power having been delegated to Congress, it was expressly refused by the Convention which framed the Constitution. It appears, from the proceedings of that body, that on the 31st May, 1787, the clause authorizing the exertion of the force of the whole against a delinquent State came up for consideration. Mr. Madison opposed it in a brief but powerful speech, from which I shall extract but a single sentence. He observed: "The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound." Upon his motion, the clause was unanimously postponed, and was never, I believe, again presented. Soon afterwards, on the 8th June, 1787, when incidentally adverting to the subject, he said: "Any Government for the United States, founded upon the supposed practicability of using force against the unconstitutional proceedings of the States, would prove as visionary and fallacious as the Government of Congress"--evidently meaning the then existing Congress of the old Confederation. Without descending to particulars, it may be safely asserted that the power to make war against a State is at variance with the whole spirit and intent of the Constitution. VIII. PROCLAMATION OF AUGUST 16, 1861, PURSUANT TO ACT OF CONGRESS OF JULY 13, 1861. Whereas, on the 15th day of April, the President of the United States, in view of an insurrection against the laws and Constitution and Government of the United States, which had broken out within the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and in pursuance of the provisions of the Act entitled "An Act to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, to suppress insurrection and repel invasion, and to repeal the Act now in force for that purpose," approved February 18th, 1795, did call forth the militia to suppress said insurrection and cause the laws of the Union to be duly executed, and the insurgents having failed to disperse by the time directed by the President, and-- Whereas such insurrection has since broken out and yet exists within the States of Virginia and North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas, and-- Whereas the insurgents in all of the said States claim to act under authority thereof, and such claim is not disclaimed or repudiated by the person exercising the functions of Government in each State or States, or in the part or parts thereof in which combinations exist, nor has such insurrection been suppressed by said States-- Now, therefore, I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States, in pursuance of an Act of Congress passed July 13th, 1861, do hereby declare that the inhabitants of the said States of Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Florida, except the inhabitants of that part of the State of Virginia lying west of the Alleghany Mountains, and of such other parts of that State and the other States hereinbefore named as may maintain a loyal adhesion to the Union and the Constitution, or may be, from time to time, occupied and controlled by the forces engaged in the dispersion of said insurgents, are in a state of insurrection against the United States, and that all commercial intercourse between the same and the inhabitants thereof, with the exception aforesaid, and the citizens of other States, and other parts of the United States, is unlawful, and will remain unlawful until such insurrection shall cease or has been suppressed; that all goods and chattels, wares and merchandize, coming from any of the said States, with the exceptions aforesaid, into other parts of the United States, without a special license and permission of the President, through the Secretary of the Treasury, or proceeding to any of the said States, with the exceptions aforesaid, by land or water, together with the vessel or vehicle conveying the same, or conveying persons to or from States, with the said exceptions, will be forfeited to the United States; and that, from and after fifteen days from the issue of this proclamation, all ships and vessels belonging in whole or in part to any citizen or inhabitant of any State, with the said exceptions, found at sea, or in any port of the United States, will be forfeited to the United States; and I hereby enjoin on all District Attorneys, Marshals, and officers of the revenue and of the military and naval forces of the United States, to be vigilant in the execution of said Act, and in the enforcement of the penalties and forfeitures imposed or declared by it, leaving any party who may think himself aggrieved thereby the right to make application to the Secretary of the Treasury for the remission of any penalty or forfeiture, which the said Secretary is authorized by law to grant, if, in his judgment, the special circumstances of any case shall require such remission. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done in the City of Washington, this 16th day of August, in the year of our Lord 1861, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-sixth. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. WM. H. SEWARD, _Secretary of State_.