AG
S
FIGHTING
FOR THE FLAG
SERIES
BY CHARLES LEDYARD NORTON

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THE LIBRARY
THE
SITY OF
UNIVERSITY
REGENTS
JOMNIBUS
ARTIBUS
MINNESOTA
CLASS
BOOK
812N822
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​MIDSHIPMAN JACK
FIGHTING FOR THE FLAG SERIES.
BY CHARLES LEDYARD NORTON.
JACK BENSON'S LOG; or, Afloat with the
Flag in '61. 276 pages. With five full-page
Illustrations by GEORGE Gibbs. Cloth. 12mo.
$1.25.
A MEDAL OF HONOR MAN; or, Cruising
Among Blockade Runners. 281 pages. With
five full-page Illustrations by GEORGE GIBBS.
Cloth. 12mo. $1.25.
MIDSHIPMAN JACK. 290 pages. With five
full-page Illustrations by GEORGE GIBBS. Cloth.
12mo. $1.25.
*** The set, 3 volumes, in a box, $3.75. Any volume
sold separately.

O
buk
"SO YOU'RE THE BOY I'VE BEEN GETTING ORDERS FROM THE
DEPARTMENT ABOUT.'"
MIDSHIPMAN JACK
BY
CHARLES LEDYARD NORTON
Author of "Jack Benson's Log," "A Medal of Honor Man," etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY
GEORGE GIBBS

Dorendo discimi's
BOSTON, U.S.A.
W. A. WILDE & COMPANY
25 BROMFIELD STREET
UNIVERSITY OF
MINNESOTA
LIBRARY
COPYRIGHT, 1897,
By W. A. WILDE & COMPANY.
All rights reserved.
MIDSHIPMAN JACK
DEC 8 '41
812 N822
ом
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
MORE than twelve months have passed since Jack
Benson, then a "First Class Boy" in the Navy, stood
on the quarter-deck of the gunboat "Otter" in Port
Royal Harbor while his commanding officer pinned the
Naval Medal of Honor upon his breast. The story of
the two years' service that led up to this distinction and
his appointment as Acting Midshipman in the Naval
Academy, is told in "Jack Benson's Log" and "A Medal
of Honor Man," the opening volumes of this series.
Jack now comes forward again in the uniform of a
Yankee midshipman, to tell the story of his brief Aca-
demic career and of his term of service with the Gulf
squadron under Rear Admiral Farragut.
985551
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
PAGE
I. FAREWELL THE
"OTTER
II. Two DANGEROUS REBELS
"PALMA" AHOY!.
11
23
III.
"ON HONOR "
IV. A COLD RECEPTION; A FRIENDLY FAREWELL
31
43
V. THE NAVAL ACADEMY - YOUNG "BANTAMS "
53
VI.
A DANGEROUS DERELICT
64
VII. NEW ORLEANS AND THE "LOWER COAST"
VIII. REDDY NAPOLEON CROCODILE COVE
IX.
A NIGHT ALARM; AN EARLY SCOUT
X. THE TAKING of the "BOLD BRITON"
XI. ROYAL ARTILLERY
75
84
94
•
103
115
XII. A HOSTILE STEAMER
XIII. A BURIAL PARTY
XIV.
"JACKY " ON HORSEBACK
XV.
A Low BAROMETER
XVI. AFTER THE STORM
XVII.
A BRITISH PLOT
124
•
•
132
•
140
149
159
•
171
XVIII. A MANILA Breeze
180
7
8
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
XIX. AT SEA AGAIN
PAGE
189
XX.
A MONSTER OF THE DEEP
XXI.
"GO EAST, JACK"
198
•
204
XXII. IN THE HEART OF THE HURRICANE
213
•
XXIII.
"BAD MEDICINE"; A MYSTERIOUS STREAM
223
XXIV. WAKULLA
XXV. WAKULLA'S PREY
229
234
•
XXVI. PRIZE MASTER Benson
245
XXVII. IN ORDER of Battle
XXVIII.
•
253
•
"RUN HER Down"
263
•
XXIX. AN UNLOOKED-FOR MEETING
268
XXX. CONCLUSION
•
283
•
ILLUSTRATIONS.
"So you're the boy I've been getting orders from
the department about '"
Frontispiece
"I sat me down on one of the benches on the sea-
PAGE
16
wall"
51
2
"There sprang up a youthful figure in cadet gray
""
101
167
""
260
"When they were all in the boat, I mounted the
schooner's rail
"One after another the big black monsters roared
9
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
CHAPTER I.
66
""
FAREWELL THE OTTER":"PALMA AHOY!
Ir seems hardly fair, in continuing my story, to as-
sume that anybody will remember what happened
in the last chapter of the preceding volume. I am
sure I do not expect any one to do so. But it is mani-
festly impossible to tell it all over again here, so I
will just say that on a certain afternoon in April,
1863, I, Jack Benson, first-class boy on board the
United States gunboat, "Otter," stood up before all
my shipmates, and heard the order read appointing
me an Acting Midshipman, and sending me to New-
port for examination and entrance as far up on the
list of cadets as I could manage to pass.
My head was in a whirl with the excitement and
the cheers, and I hardly knew which way to turn,
feeling very awkward now that my sailor-boy's rig
covered a junior officer amidst the gold lace and side
arms of the quarter-deck.
11
12
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
Captain Ross saw my dilemma and said, with the
instant tact and consideration that always distin-
guished him: "Now then, Jack, I'm sorry to lose
you, but the sooner you get away, the better. Go
for'ard and pack your kit, or what you want of it,
and report at the starboard gangway." He motioned
me to go, and I heard him say, "Order my gig, Mr.
Dinsmore," addressing the officer on watch.
The boatswain piped, and the men were casting off
the falls as I hurried along the waist and dived down
the main-hatch. I hardly dared look to the right
or left, though I was hammered on the back, and
congratulated by my shipmates with rough hearti-
ness, as I made my way among them.
We boys kept our dunnage stowed away up "in
the eyes of her," and I hauled out my bag and
emptied its contents on deck, securing only a certain
valued little package and my thick pea-jacket, which
I knew I should need on the voyage north. For the
rest, my companions might divide the sailor-boy's
outfit among them, as I had no further use for it.
This done, I looked about me. My fellow "boys,"
to the number of a dozen or so, stood around in the
dim light of the forepeak. They were, it seemed to
me, ominously silent. I think I was fairly well liked
among them, considering the circumstances, but I
had ample evidence that I was not lacking enemies
for all that, and now that I was going away in such
an extraordinary blaze of glory, it was not in human
FAREWELL THE "OTTER": "PALMA" AHOY! 13
nature for those who were left behind to be over en-
thusiastic at my good fortune.
When I had finished my preparations, one and an-
other came forward and offered me their hands and
said good-by, and then the others followed, and the
first thing I knew something came up in my throat,
and I tried to say a word, but couldn't, and so bolted
for the fore-hatch with unmannerly haste, leaving
my mates engaged in a free fight over the outfit
which I had abandoned.
There was no backwardness on the part of my
elders before the mast, with whom I had very gen-
erally been a favorite. Two of them who had been
with me in the fight on Redman's River seized me by
the arms as I came up the ladder, and swung me up
on their shoulders, tramping off to the starboard
gangway where the side was already manned in an-
ticipation of the captain's appearance. All the way
I had a sort of ovation, until I was deposited at the
gangway itself.
Rocking on the gentle swell alongside was the gig,
with her gleaming brass rowlocks, six smart blue-
jackets with their oars apeak, and little Billy Acres
with the boat-hook forward bearing her off from the
ship's side as I myself had done many a time in days
gone by.
Jumping down from the broad shoulders of my
captors and shaking hands indiscriminately with all
the big brown fists that I could get hold of, I broke
14
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
away at last amid a chorus of good-bys and dropped
down into the bow of the gig from one of the stan-
chions.
"Hand over that boat-hook, Billy," said I, shoving
little Acres forcibly down beside the bow oarsman
and taking my accustomed place.
The coxswain aft began to say something to me,
but at this moment the boatswain ordered attention,
and the little nautical parade of manning the side
was gone through with due form, for when Captain
Ross ordered his gig on a state occasion, he became
a nautical martinet, and all the ceremonies of naval
etiquette were duly observed.
"Where's Benson?" he asked, taking his seat at
the stern.
"Gone for❜ard, sir," said the coxswain shortly.
Ross glanced toward the bow, and seeing me at
my regular post, took in the situation at once and
ordered me to shove off. Oars were let fall, and the
light gig fairly jumped as six broad blades caught
the water.
"Vast pulling," ordered the coxswain at a hint
from Ross, as soon as we fairly had way on.
"Lay aft here, Benson," said Captain Ross, and
stepping from thwart to thwart over the oars I
obeyed and sat down beside him on the cushions of
his own gig.
A hundred "Otters" swarmed up into the rigging
and perched along the hammock nettings to give us
FAREWELL THE "OTTER": "PALMA" AHOY
15
a farewell cheer, and Ross bade me stand up and raise
my cap to them as we dashed away toward the flag-
ship to get the necessary orders for my passage
north.
That was the last that I ever saw of the little
"Otter." Though she kept up her reputation to the
very end, took a hand in various fights big and little,
and in the capture of sundry other blockade-runners,
before she finally went out of commission, was con-
demned by a board of survey, and ended her career
honorably in the coal trade, having paid for herself
several times over in prizes. I confess to secret re-
joicing when I read years after that she parted her
hawser one wild night off Nantucket shoals, and
without a soul on board went reeling out into the
Atlantic and was never heard of more.
In a few minutes we rounded to under the big
guns of the "Wabash," and bidding me follow him,
Captain Ross went up the side, the marine on duty
presenting arms, with a smart rattle of his piece
which was so grateful in my ears that I couldn't
resist touching my cap in acknowledgment, though
the salute was not meant for me. Nobody but the
marine himself saw me, and though he looked dag-
gers of offended dignity, he said nothing, and we
passed on.
Ross took me to the flag-lieutenant, and the neces-
sary discharge and transfers were quickly made out.
The Admiral's personal signature was required for
16
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
final transfer, and the flag-lieutenant went aft with
the papers in his hand.
He
He returned presently: "The old gentleman is
taking his 'constitutional' on deck, Captain.
wants to see you."
So Ross went up the after companion and joined
the Admiral as he passed back and forth.
"Come up here, Benson," Ross called presently.
And I found myself in the presence of a big hand-
some man in an undress uniform coat and immacu-
late white duck trousers, whom I had heretofore
seen only from the infinite distance that separates
forecastle from quarter-deck.
Ross presented me in due form, and the Admiral
shook hands. "So you're the boy that I've been
getting orders from the department about, are you?
You've been making us a deal of trouble for a young-
ster. I hear very good accounts of you though, and
you've something on your breast there that not
many of us old fellows can ever hope to win."
He touched my medal as he spoke, turning it over
to examine it more closely.
"That must have been a very pretty little scrim-
mage down the coast there. Lieutenant Morris told
fought the cutter like
me all about it. Said you
an old man-o'-war's man. Well, good luck to you.
'Tisn't likely you'll have many more chances to dis-
tinguish yourself like that.
these times. Good-by.
But there's no telling in
By the way, Ross, your
FAREWELL THE "OTTER": "PALMA" AHOY! 17
old friend, the 'Palma,' is back here again. Some-
thing went adrift in the engine-room, and Cay van
brought her back under sail.”
This was news to us, but we found that she had
anchored just inside the bar and out of sight from
our berth. Lieutenant Blake had my papers ready
when we returned to his official quarters, and glanc-
ing at my transportation order, I saw with some sur-
prise that it gave me passage and subsistence on the
very ship of which we had just spoken.
This was luck indeed. I should not have to wait
for a chance ship, and I should have acquaintances
on board in the person of Cayvan and his prize crew,
not to mention my old friend Captain Ridgeway,
R. N.
A despatch boat was going down to her before
sunset, so I bade a grateful farewell to my old com-
mander and watched the gig pull back to the
Otter," with a very considerable touch of home-
sickness at the bottom of my heart.
66
In the course of half an hour I was set on board
of the despatch boat, and we ran down to where the
"Palma" lay rolling uneasily just within the bar.
There was too much sea on to lay alongside, so mails,
despatches, and myself were bundled into the yawl,
and we went plunging and curveting under the
"Palma's" counter and were hoisted aboard.
Of course, Cayvan had heard nothing of my pro-
motion and other honors. These had all come to
C
18
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
pass since he left the "Otter." So I had to
show him my papers and tell him the whole story
in explanation of my presence in this new char-
acter.
<
"That's all right, old man,” he said heartily, when
I had finished; "shake hands on it. Welcome to
the noble brotherhood of officers. You shall be Act-
ing Assistant Prize Master on the Palma.' There
isn't any such grade in the service that I know of,
but no matter. I'll lend you an officer's cap, and
we'll stand watch and watch as if the whole thing
was perfectly regular.”
Of course I agreed to this cheerfully, and although
the standing watch and watch was not very strictly
carried out, we managed to get a good deal of satis
faction out of our official relation, and of course I
was entitled to sit at the saloon table, which was
very nice after so many months of mess-cloths on
deck.
By the time this was settled we had got our an-
chor aboard, and crossed the tossing bar in the last
light of the west, pointing a little to north of east
so as to get a safe offing. Hatteras was very kind
to us this time, and we slipped by in the darkness
with nothing more than a tolerably heavy swell.
Readers who have followed this story will remem-
ber perhaps that the "Palma" was a famous block-
ade-runner captured by the "Otter" and sent North
for adjudication under charge of Ensign Cayvan (who
FAREWELL THE "OTTER": "PALMA" AHOY! 19
was then hardly recovered from a severe wound)
and a well-armed prize crew of twelve men. The
blockader's crew numbered perhaps sixty, stokers,
stewards, etc., all told, and there was always to
be borne in mind the possible danger of an attempt
on their part to recapture the ship.
What was my surprise on going below to be
greeted first by my little canine friend Wag, who
expressed in dog fashion the keenest delight at meet-
ing me again, and secondly, by my other friend,
Captain Ridgeway, R. N., formerly of the "Palma,”
and now a semi-captive on board his own ship. He
recognized me instantly this time.
66
Why, blessed if it ain't my little 'prisoner-of-
war' again, and Cayvan tells me you're a middy now.
Sit down, my lad, sit down. Hi, steward! bring Mr.
Benson some supper. Bless me, I keep forgetting
I'm not captain of this ship yet."
I was hungry enough by this time, and fell to with
great seriousness, listening the while to the genial
blockade-runner's talk.
Wag came and sat beside me and gratefully ac-
cepted an occasional fragment of pilot bread, while I
wondered at his presence on board, and longed but
dared not ask if the young ladies, his mistresses,
were on board too.
But Captain Ridgeway, R. N., never let on that
he suspected what was in my mind, and after I had
finished supper, I lost no time in seeking Cayvan,
20
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
who would not leave the bridge until he was satis-
fied that we were clear of the shoals.
After innocently asking him where away he made
Cape Fear and one or two other professional ques-
tions, I remarked casually upon the presence of Wag
on board and asked if he had heard anything of the
young ladies.
"Well, I should say so. I've got to take 'em
North."
"You don't seem pleased at the prospect."
"No, I'm not. Two pretty young women in
a ship with near seventy ruffians.
What if any-
thing should happen? I'm glad they're not my
sisters."
"How did it happen?"
"Why, you see after I had landed Morris and the
rest of my invalids at Hampton Roads, I started for
New York again, and broke down about a hundred
miles north of the Virginia capes. Then we caught
a bit of an offshore breeze that drove us five hun-
dred miles out to sea before it was done with us. It
has taken us all this time to work back under sail.
The 'Monterey' picked us up twenty miles out and
towed us in to the bar, that being the nearest place
where we could anchor and get the engine patched
up. That was yesterday, and as ill luck would have
it, a Johnny Bull had tried to run out of Charleston
the night before and got pretty well hammered be
fore our fellows stopped him. All hands had to be
FAREWELL THE "OTTER": "PALMA" AHOY! 21
taken off before she sank, and who should be among
them but those two girls again, with their black
duenna and the pup. Well, they've had enough of
running the gauntlet of the Yankee fleet, and they
begged so hard to be allowed to go North on the
Palma,' that old Dupont gave in. He sent all the
rest of the passengers back to Charleston, but they
were not pretty girls. If they had been, I suppose
he'd have let them come too. They always do any-
thing pretty girls ask 'em to."
Who Mr. Cayvan meant by his indefinite "they"
is not even yet wholly clear to my mind. Probably
he included all masculine creation, and the experi-
ence of a tolerably long life leads me to think that
he was not very much out.
At any rate, when I relieved him at eight bells
and began my first tour of duty on watch, I was
very exultant over the consciousness of the fact that
two very lovely beings were below decks, and that
I, even I, Jack Benson, was for the time being re-
sponsible for their safety.
Up and down the narrow bridge I walked, and the
novelty of it made the time pass quickly enough.
We were keeping as near the coast as was safe in
order to be within reach of the offshore blockading
squadron in case of need. We carried the ordinary
side-lights of commerce; but blockade-runners could
easily do that, too, if they chose. So every gunboat
that sighted us gave chase, unless they were so far
22
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
away that we could afford to pretend not to see
them.
I was relieved at four o'clock and slept like a
sailor-boy till ten in the forenoon in the unaccus-
tomed luxury of the cabin berth, which had been
assigned me by Cayvan's direction.
CHAPTER II.
TWO DANGEROUS REBELS.
I was never very much given to prinking, but I
must admit that I took considerable pains with my
toilet before going on deck on this particular morn-
ing. To be sure, there was not much that I could
do. But when I went up the companion I was
as immaculate a young sailor as ever wore Jacky's
togs surmounted by an officer's cap. After some
reflection, I decided that as this was not an occa-
sion of state and ceremony, it would be good form
not to wear my medal, so I pinned it carefully inside
my pea-jacket before making my appearance.
The main cabin was empty. Of course the reg-
ular breakfast was long since over, so I went on
deck by a stair which led through a common booby-
hatch, and had hardly set foot on deck, when Wag
flew at me with a joyous yelp of recognition. With
what I flatter myself evinced great presence of mind,
I lifted the little fellow in my arms, and stood caress-
ing him a moment, before turning to see if any one
was watching me.
When I did turn, it was a very limp and listless
group that met my eyes, an ashen-hued and de-
23
24
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
spondent duenna, and two pitiably pale white figures
reclining under the lee of the weather bulwarks,
wrapped in shawls, provided with cushions, and evi-
dently in the lowest depths of sea-going misery.
It had not even occurred to me the night before
that the reason why they were not visible, was that
they were seasick. So accustomed was I to rolling
and tossing in the forepeak of the "Otter," that the
little antics of a side-wheeler seemed to me of no
account whatever.
This was not by any means the kind of meeting
that I had counted upon. I might have spared my-
self the elaborate toilet that I had made. Evidently
a retreat in good order was the thing to effect. So
putting Wag down on the deck, I slipped around
the leeward side of the companion hatch, and at-
tempted to go forward without disturbing the ladies.
But Wag was not to be put off in any such fash-
ion. So he frisked over to where his mistress lay
and licked her hand. After which he galloped back
to me, and seizing the bottom of my trousers, pulled
for all he was worth, as if he would say: "Look
here, Jack, here are Edith and Helen. Don't you
remember them?"
He made such a rumpus that I had perforce to
take him up in my arms again to keep him from
wrecking the lower story of my trousers; and, be-
hold, when I turned toward the weather rail again,
a marked change had taken place. Miss Edith was
TWO DANGEROUS REBELS.
25
sitting up with just a little tinge of color coming
back into her cheeks, and she was reaching over to
arouse her cousin.
66
Look, Helen," she said, they were to windward
of me, you see, and I could hear every word, though
doubtless they thought I could not do so. "Look,
Helen, I do believe that's our Yankee sailor-boy, and
he has got Wag."
Miss Helen aroused herself at this, and they
motioned to me that I should bring them the dog.
So I walked across the deck, and for the second time
had the happiness of placing little Wag in his mis-
tress' arms.
Of course, when I found myself right before them,
I could do no less than doff my cap and ask after
their respective healths and how were my mortal foes,
their brothers, and so presently Miss Helen said:-
"Mr. Benson, won't you sit down, please? It
makes me seasick to see you balancing there."
I had been standing before them, unconsciously
swaying, sailor fashion, as the vessel rolled, but at
this I sat down on the sunny deck, nothing loath, you
may be sure, in front of these very dangerous but
very fascinating Rebels.
They had been distressingly seasick ever since
their second failure to run the blockade, and had
been literally carried on deck that morning by their
escort, Captain Ridgeway. But the fresh sea air was
already doing wonders toward restoring them, and
26
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
as we had lots to talk about I totally forgot that I
hadn't had any breakfast till the after watch rang
eight bells, reminding me that it was my duty to
relieve the bridge.
"Nice Acting Assistant Prize Master you are!"
was Cayvan's only comment, as he went below, leav-
ing me temporarily in charge of the deck. He had
planned that one or the other of us two should be on
duty continuously during the night watches and at
such times as seemed best during the day. The men-
o'-war's men were divided into regular watches, half
of them to be on deck at a time, and two of these, each
with a brace of navy Colts in his belt, were habitually
stationed on the bridge at all hours. As the ship
was worked by her old crew, our fellows had nothing
to do but take their regular turns at guard duty.
Captain Ridgeway and his first and second officers
had given their paroles that they would not attempt
to escape, but the two mates were very different
persons from their captain, and neither Cayvan nor
I had even a little bit of confidence in their good
faith.
Cayvan had a line stretched across the deck ten
feet for'ard of the bridge, and this was popularly
known as the "dead line." None of the regular
crew were allowed abaft of it without special orders.
Similar precautions were taken about the engine-
room and stoke-hole, and Cayvan, who was a capital
revolver shot, had in an off-hand way sent a bullet
TWO DANGEROUS REBELS.
27
uncomfortably near a man who rather defiantly
passed the dead line without leave.
66
'Next one that tries that I'll shoot to hit," Cayvan
remarked, as the watch on deck drew threateningly
together and scowled at him.
During the voyage under sail, after having been
carried out to sea, all hands had been so anxious to
make a port that the mutinous spirit did not flourish,
but now that the "teakettle" was boiling, the possi-
bilities of a recapture again became alluring to the
more adventurous spirits.
The first hint that we had of this came from Aunt
Leah, the black duenna of our fair passengers. She
had come to look upon me with some degree of tol-
eration since she had seen for herself that some
Yankees at least were not so bad as her imagination
had pictured. She waylaid me so suddenly in one
of the dimly lighted passageways on the second
night out that my hair fairly stood on end with
fright for an instant, as the voice that addressed me
seemed to come from a pair of eyes that were alone
visible, her black face and the rest of her person
being entirely concealed by the darkness.
The ship's cooks, it appeared, were Bermuda
darkies and had naturally been more or less attentive
to the only colored lady on board. Leah was not
altogether destitute of the arts of coquetry though
she was pretty well on toward the meridian of life,
and had managed so successfully that both the cooks
28
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
aforesaid had become her devoted slaves, Britons
though they were, before we had been twenty-four
hours at sea.
She waylaid me, as I have said, plucking me by
the sleeve. "See yer, Mars Jack, come in yer," and
she forcibly pulled me into a vacant stateroom.
"Mars Jack, dey's dark doings yonder," and she
jerked her turbaned head toward the bow.
"What do you mean, auntie?"
"I mean what I says; dey's dark doings, and you
'uns done better watch out."
"We'll do that anyhow, auntie; but what have
you heard?"
And after a little coaxing, and promises never to
tell the young ladies, it came out that Leah's two
admirers had separately confided to her that an
attempt was to be made to seize the ship on the
third night out.
""
"I dun doan't believe Sam when he tole me fust off,'
said Leah; "but when Lish dun tole me de same story,
I says to myself, seys I,'Leah, you go tell Mars Jack."
Now, of course, Leah had no personal objection to
having the ship seized by the English crew, for that
would mean a continuation of their voyage to Eng-
land. But she had the sense to know that such seiz-
ure meant unheard-of peril for her mistresses, and
she preferred to take the chances under law and order
as represented by the Stars and Stripes and a crew
of Uncle Sam's blue-jackets.
TWO DANGEROUS REBELS.
29
I reassured her as well as I could, and making her
promise to keep me informed of anything farther, I
reported to Cayvan, who was on watch.
"Looks squally," he said, and after some moments
of silent reflection, "Wonder if Ridgeway is in it?
I don't think so. He's a gentleman. I'll interview
No danger to-night-too many
him to-morrow.
gunboats along here."
We had now turned IIatteras shoals, having run
about three hundred miles in the twenty-four hours
out of Port Royal, and at that rate we should be
nearly off the Delaware capes by the following night.
I offered to keep Cayvan company on the bridge,
but he sent me to take my watch below. I relieved
him at four o'clock, and he left me alone rather reluc
tantly, saying that there was something to pay for-
ward, and he had doubled the bridge guard.
As he was giving me my instructions, the men of
the relief watch came up the ladder to take the places
of those already there, and I was presently left alone
except for my armed Jackies at the ends of the bridge.
Cautioning them to keep wide awake, I took my
station amidships, or walked back and forth the
length of the bridge.
It is very important that there shall be no gleam
of light forward of the lookout, for ever so slight a
twinkle near at hand robs the eye of half its power
to see anything ahead. For this reason the red and
green side-lights were set well abaft the bridge
30
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
and the head-light was carefully screened, but Cay
van had caused a large reflector lantern to be arranged
so that by simply lifting a bit of canvas a flood of
light could be thrown upon the forecastle.
Cayvan's suspicions had aroused my own, and I
peered into the dark spaces forward with nerves in a
state of considerable tension. It certainly seemed to
me that there were more figures moving about in the
shadows than could rightly be accounted for.
After hailing the forecastle and getting no answer,
I was on the point of turning on the light when one
of my guards sung out, "Ship on port bow, sir.”
I made her out in a moment, a dark heaving mass
under the starlit sky. She was heading directly
across our course, and just as I rang to slow down
the engines a blank shot was fired for us to heave to.
If any plot was hatching in the forecastle, no more
was heard of it then, for by the time that we had sat-
isfied the cruiser of our character, day was dawning
in the east, and we steamed away northward. One
more night of watchfulness, and please heaven we
would let go our anchor under the guns of the harbor
forts at New York.
CHAPTER III.
66 ON HONOR."
AUNT LEAH Confessed, when next I met her, that
plans had been suddenly changed, and that a rush
had only been prevented by the timely challenge of
our gunboat. Sunrise found us abreast of the Vir-
ginia capes, and with good luck we ought to raise
the Jersey coast before nightfall.
Cayvan had taken occasion to say to me the day
before in a fatherly way, that I was half disposed to
resent, seeing that he was not more than two years
my senior, “Look here, old man, they're awful nice
girls, those two."
I assented guardedly.
"You and I have got something more serious to
attend to."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"You know well enough."
"I don't, then."
"Well," said Cayvan, " I'd like nothing better than
to spend my whole watch on deck with them; and,
if anything, you're harder hit than I am.”
I could not deny the charge altogether; but I did
31
32
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
deny most emphatically that I had permitted in-
clination to interfere with duty.
"Well, don't let's," was his answer; and we shook
hands on it when he relieved me for the morning
watch.
All the same, I found many an opportunity during
that voyage to sit on a convenient cotton bale, with
Wag beside me, and watch these two little Rebels
knit socks, which they frankly declared were for
their Southern soldier boys, and which I threatened
to have confiscated as soon as we reached New York.
It was in vain that I begged for a tiny knot of
yarn as a keepsake: that yarn was sacred to the
South down to the very last shred. But my four-
footed friend, Wag, having no doubt overheard this
conversation, came to my aid. For some reason,
clear, no doubt, to his canine intelligence, the little
terrier took a great liking to me. Dogs have a fellow-
feeling for us humans, sometimes; or, perhaps, he
remembered how I had once rescued him from a
watery grave. At all events, I was in the saloon on
this particular day, working out the ship's position
after the regular meridian observation, when I was
aware of two small yellow paws and a patch of
something white upon my knee. Looking down, I
saw Wag holding something like a crumpled pocket
handkerchief in his teeth. He was waving his tail
with great energy, and something in his bright little
eyes seemed to say: "There now, just see what I've
ON HONOR."
33
brought you. I know you'll like it." He laid the
little bunch of white upon my knee, and as I stooped
to pat him and tell him he was a good dog, I caught
a faint whiff of unaccustomed fragrance from some-
where.
Wag trotted demurely away, leaving me in the
act of making a closer examination, and when I pres-
ently went on deck he was sitting very alert and up-
right at his mistresses' feet.
66
Leah," one of the girls was saying, just at this
moment, "go fetch me a handkerchief; I must have
left mine in my room."
I was in mortal terror lest Wag should insist upon
nosing out the handkerchief in the pocket of my
reefer, convicting me of petty larceny on the spot;
but he didn't, and there the dainty keepsake re-
mained, carefully treasured for many a long day.
Neither Cayvan nor I had any reason to complain
of each other for neglect of duty after this, and as
the sun sank behind the distant Jersey shore, and we
saw once more the gleam of friendly lighthouses, it
seemed out of the question that our crew would dare
to venture upon a stroke for liberty.
No precautions that we could think of were over-
looked, and before lights were set Cayvan sent a
guard for the two mates and ordered them into their
rooms, first carefully searching them for concealed
weapons. They demurred a little at this, but Cay-
van's orders were backed up by four armed blue-
D
34
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
jackets, and the mates were securely locked in on
their respective sides of the cabin.
Captain Ridgeway had witnessed this proceeding
from a seat at the saloon table, and so it seems had
the two young ladies, though we did not know this
at the time. But presently, as I went on deck and
stood for a moment by the quarter-rail looking up to
windward, I heard a gentle rustle of skirts, and two
little hands clasped a belaying pin at my side as the
ship rolled to leeward.
I recognized Miss Edith, as she whispered, "What's
the matter, Mr. Benson?"
"Nothing."
"Oh yes, there is. We saw you lock up those
two horrid mates, and Captain Ridgeway won't tell
us. Please, what is the matter?"
66
Nothing at all— really -ask Cayvan."
"But I don't know Mr. Cayvan as well as I do
you," and with that she let go the belaying pin and
laid one hand on my arm, and I thought she was
going to cry.
What could a simple sailor-boy do, under the cir-
cumstances, but make a clean breast of the whole.
matter. Anyway, that's what I did, and it turned
out afterward that Miss Helen had successfully
worked the same game on my superior officer.
At all events, they were both warned not to be
alarmed if they heard a row in the night. We both
assured them that we were masters of the situation,
"ON HONOR."
35
and could certainly hold the ship against any at-
tempted mutiny. And we both said many other
things about our security which, in a measure, served
to allay their fears.
There was only one passage, a narrow one, that
led forward from the after saloon, and as soon as
night fell Cayvan had three cotton bales piled one
on top of the other, nearly filling this passageway
up to the ceiling.
Captain Ridgeway was still reading at the saloon
table, or, at least, pretending to read, when Cayvan
passed to go on deck. Looking up nervously once
or twice, he apparently determined suddenly to stand
it no longer.
"Mr. Cayvan," he cried, "may I see you a mo-
ment?" -
"Certainly."
"You have locked in both my officers. May I ask
why you don't lock me in too?"
66
Captain Ridgeway," said Cayvan, and he looked
him straight in the eyes, "you are an officer in the
British Navy," and he turned on his heel without
another word and went on deck.
One of the most extraordinary instances of British
conservatism that I know of, is the presistency with
which their marine architects put the steering wheel
away aft where the helmsman cannot possibly see
whether he is running down the broadside of a con-
tinent or merely another ship. Nevertheless, the
36
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
plan proved useful for us on board the "Palma,” as
will hereafter be seen.
As soon as it was fairly dark, Cayvan sent me with
his compliments to Captain Ridgeway, requesting his
presence on the bridge. The Englishman stopped only
to throw on his storm coat, and then hurried forward.
"Captain," said Cayvan, "you were kind enough
to offer to take your watch when we first began this
voyage, but I was then advised not to accept your
offer. Will you renew it now?”
Ridgeway hesitated, but after a moment said,
"Yes, I will."
"Thanks. I leave you in charge of the bridge,
and I advise you to uncover the lantern and let your
men see that you are here, and no one else."
"Very good, sir.”
Then as Cayvan was about going down the ladder,
Ridgeway spoke again, "Mr. Cayvan."
"Yes."
"Those young ladies were placed in my charge,
you know."
"Yes, I know. Come aft as soon as you like, when
they make their break. Probably nobody will stop
you."
"Very good, sir." And we saw him open the
lantern and begin walking back and forth in its rays.
Cayvan, in the meantime, relieved the man at the
wheel, locked him below, and put trusty blue-jackets
in his place.
"ON HONOR.'
37
""
"If those fellows try it on," Cayvan said to me in
the afternoon, "there is no earthly use in our trying
to hold the bridge; but thanks to the Johnny Bull
who designed this ship, the only steering wheel is
right on top of the rudder post, and we can hold
that against all England. Now I am going to ask
Captain Ridgeway to take the bridge. They won't
hurt him, and he won't hurt them. But he'll con the
ship while she has steerageway, and then- well, I
shan't be surprised if he comes aft and helps us.”
"How about the stokers and engineers?" I asked.
"Well, I don't know about the engineers, but
when the stokers make a rush for the ladders, as they
will when the signal's given, something is going to
break down. The main part of the crew will natu-
rally try to capture the deck with a rush, and we'll
pepper them well. Two of our men have lost re-
volvers. I suppose they have been stolen by some of
those fellows, and will be used against us, but I don't
believe they can stand our fire. Probably they have
arranged to keep the 'teakettle' going so as to run
for an offing as soon as they get control. But if not,
we'll set the spanker and keep her head to the sea.”
"What do you want me to do?" I asked.
"You will have to stay below and defend the after
saloon, including, of course, our two little Rebels.
am afraid to spare you more than one blue-jacket
to help, but the two of you ought to hold that nar-
row passageway against anything."
I
38
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
66
Very good, sir," said I, coming to attention and
saluting. "When shall I go on duty?"
"The sooner, the better.”
So calling the man who had been ordered to re-
port to me, we went below, leaving the rest of our
fellows hauling some of the deck-load cotton bales
by main force and arranging them clear across the
deck on both sides of the after companion, thus
protecting the wheel with a perfectly bullet-proof
breastwork.
After this, for two hours, everything was quiet.
Cayvan stood by the wheel, watching the coast lights
and listening to the throb of the engine. Once there
came a hail from the bridge.
"Port! hard aport! light ahead!"
"Port it is, sir," shouted Cayvan in reply, spring-
ing to the wheel and helping whirl it over.
In another moment, a great steamer rushed by us
bound South, her side-light gleaming red for an
instant over our low quarter, and the long row of
her cabin ports glowing like a string of Japanese
lanterns.
"Steady, as you were," came from the bridge in
Ridgeway's voice.
(6
'Steady, sir," answered Cayvan, and we were on
our course again.
The mutineers must have suspected, from the non-
appearance of the mates, that we were more or less
forewarned, but they probably did not realize the
"ON HONOR.39
""
"
completeness of our preparations. Captain Ridge-
way told us afterward that they had sent a deputa-
tion to him while he was alone on the bridge, telling
him respectfully enough to stay where he was, and
he wouldn't be hurt. "You'll be in charge again
by seven bells, sir," said the spokesman from the
darkness.
"I told them," said Ridgeway, "that they had
best not make any trouble, but they only laughed
and retorted, "That's all right, sir, you just lay
low.""
The next excitement came from the mate's room,
whence issued loud cries for help, and "fire, fire,"
accompanied by kicks on the door, which sent one
of the lower panels into splinters, and let a swirl of
smoke out into the cabin.
For an instant, my heart stood still; but like a flash
came the thought, "It's only a trick," and when
Cayvan called down the companionway to know
what was the matter, I answered, nonchalantly,
'Nothing at all, sir; the mate's set his room afire,
that's all; I'll put him out."
(6
The "Palma" was particularly well provided with
fire apparatus connected with the main engine, so
that all one had to do was to turn a faucet and the
water did the rest.
“Let me out, let me out!" roared the mate, trying
to shove his head and shoulders through the broken
panel, while Jacky and I uncoiled the cabin hose.
40
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
"All right, matey, we'll tend to your case," said
Jacky, dragging the nozzle into position; "let her
come, sir," the last to me, and I turned on the
water.
The air in the hose blew out like a dry blast, then
came a few sputtering drops, and then a white stream,
an inch in diameter, struck the mate full in the face.
He lost no time in getting away from the door, and
then we thrust the nozzle inside and washed down
that stateroom as it had probably never been washed
down before, though the "Palma" was a very clean
ship.
At first, the mate abused us roundly for this treat-
ment, but he soon changed his tune and begged for
mercy, assuring me that the fire was all out, so I
turned off the water and left him to meditate in his
drenched quarters. This little excitement had one
pleasing result: it brought the young ladies and their
duenna out of the seclusion of their staterooms and
into the main saloon. I easily persuaded them to
sit at the table under the swinging lamp, and we
talked in hushed voices until Wag gave a sudden
bark, and we heard a stealthy movement beyond the
gangway barrier.
I was on the lowermost bale with revolver cocked
in an instant, just in time to cover Sam, the cook,
who was in the other end of the passage. I made
him climb over to my side, which he could do by
squeezing through under the ceiling, and just then,
(6 ON HONOR."
41
as good luck would have it, Lish, his assistant, ap-
peared bound, doubtless, on a similar errand. He
was easily persuaded to follow his chef, and I marched
them before me back to the saloon where Aunt Leah
and her charges were anxiously waiting to learn
what was the matter.
"Two gentlemen to call upon Miss Leah,” I an-
nounced gravely, as we came within the circle of
light; and Leah, in spite of her anxiety, could not
disguise a conscious and coquettish giggle when she
recognized her two admirers.
"You may receive them at the locker forward
there," I continued, indicating a semi-dark corner
against the bulkhead.
Following, I made the two black men stand up
before me and solemnly promise that they would pro-
tect Leah and her young ladies against all pirates
and mutineers whatsoever, and I left them, confident
that Aunt Leah would make them abide by their
pledge. Then I went back to the swinging lamp,
and if you will believe it, we three waxed quite merry
over the situation. Of course, these young girls
could not at all realize their own peril, should the
ship fall into the hands of her piratical crew. And
I, well, I was having a capital time, and I knew
that Cayvan was watching me enviously through
the skylight.
So another hour passed. Cayvan called me to
take his place on deck, while he relieved me for a
42
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
while at the cabin table. Then he sent me below
again, and it had just gone six bells when clang,
clang, clang, went the fire alarm forward, and we all
sprang to our stations, knowing instinctively that the
hour had come.
Our experience with the mate had given my
Jacky an idea which we had at once proceeded to
carry out, laying the fire hose to the barrier of
cotton bales. Cayvan, too, had arranged the after-
deck hose for a like service.
CHAPTER IV.
A COLD RECEPTION; A FRIENDLY FAREWELL.
ORDERING the young ladies to stay with Leah and
her protectors, my Jacky and I sprang to the barrier.
There was a trampling of feet from the direction of
the galley and engine-room, and in a moment a man
armed with a heaver peered around the angle of the
passage and into the light from our lantern. He
dashed forward with hardly a pause, closely followed
by others; how many I could not see, for I turned
the cock the moment they appeared, Jacky holding
the pipe over the upper cotton bale. The stream
struck the leader full in the face, literally knocking
him over backwards, blinding and drenching him and
his companions.
Few things take the fight out of a man so quickly
as cold water, and as a good half-dozen of the storm-
ing party fell over their prostrate leaders, all hands.
came in for a thorough wetting, and were glad to
scramble back under cover.
I turned the water off at once, and then we could
hear trampling and splashing on deck overhead,
mingled with a few shots, showing that Cayvan was
43
44
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
economizing powder and shot as we had done, by
drawing an equivalent from the Atlantic Ocean.
Of course word was at once passed forward by the
mutineers to stop the engines, so that this very de-
moralizing hose would become ineffective, and then
it was discovered that, for some mysterious reason,
the stoke-hole ladders had broken down under the
weight of the men swarming up when the alarm
struck. They could now only reach the deck singly
by way of gratings and stanchions, which was a
rather slow process. But the engines were stopped
quickly enough, though we could hear Ridgeway
giving her four bells for full speed ahead.
We could no longer use the fire hose, and the
mutineers were gathering for another rush. We
must now depend upon cold steel and lead instead of
cold water. But, in the meantime, the desperate gang
forward had secured another ally, an ally terri-
ble for us at the first, but one that shortly turned
traitor to them. There was a longer wait than we
expected. The ship lost headway and fell off into
the trough of the sea, rolling heavily, her paddle-
wheels splashing, and her sponsons now and then
taking heavy blows from the crest of a wave.
Cayvan ordered the spanker set, which brought her
head to the sea and steadied her a bit, and then we
began to hear cheers and songs forward. At this
juncture, there came a hail from near the smokestack.
"Aft there! hallo! don't fire; it's Ridgeway"; and
A COLD RECEPTION; A FRIENDLY FAREWELL. 45
without waiting to be reassured, the sturdy captain
came running aft and tumbled in amongst us over
the cotton bales somewhat out of breath.
"Those fellows are getting their courage up," he
said, as soon as he could speak, "and they'll all be
ready to make a rush before long.”
"Yes," said Cayvan, "and we are ready for them."
"True for you! We must hold out against them.
Where are the young ladies?"
"In the saloon. Go down there, if you like."
So down came the captain and cheered us up won-
derfully, for we were getting a bit nervous over the
long wait without fully knowing what was going on.
Presently, he went to the companionway, and after
consulting with Cayvan beckoned me to one side.
"I have Mr. Cayvan's permission," he said, "to
stay below and help defend my passengers, should
worst come to worst. I haven't any arms, you
know."
"I know, and I wish you had, but we haven't any
extra ones here. I might get you a cutlass, I sup-
pose." Acting upon this, I went on deck and soon
returned, bringing a regulation United States Navy
cutlass with its belt, which the captain buckled on
with evident satisfaction. Drawing the blade, he
"hefted" it to try its balance and made a few dex-
terous passes in the air, as he said, "Just to get the
swing of it."
These warlike preparations on the worthy cap-
46
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
tain's part were observed with some wonderment by
the two Rebel maidens, who thought in their inner-
most hearts, probably, that he ought to be leading
the mutineers. They whispered to one another, and
then, "Why, Captain," said Miss Tolliver, "who are
you going to fight?"
"Fight?
that is that
is-ahem! Well, you see, if there was any trouble,
somebody might think I was somebody else, and I
want to have something to defend myself with."
Oh, nobody, my dear
Being confident that the captain would have to
talk very plain Anglo-Saxon to these irreconcilable
young Rebels before he could convince them of the
loyalty of his intentions, I rose and walked to the
barricade, whence I could see him laying down
the law to them, while they had no hesitation in
accusing him of treachery, alike to themselves and
to the Confederacy whose daughters they were.
After a few minutes' talk they both began to cry,
and he left them, coming forward to where I stood,
his face very red.
"What's the use in arguing with women," he
grumbled; "those innocents there have no more
notion than babes what it would mean to us all if
those ruffians got possession of the ship. I had to
tell them at last that the mutineers were bound to
turn pirates, and we should all be made to walk the
plank. I think I have frightened them now," and
the captain looked greatly relieved.
A COLD RECEPTION; A FRIENDLY FAREWELL. 47
By this time the babel of voices in the forecastle
had become uproarious and shaped itself— of all
the airs in the world-into the chorus of "John
Brown's Body," for that famous war song of the
Federal troops had won its way into English sea-
ports, and was lustily roared in waterside resorts
whenever a rousing chorus was wanted, irrespective
of its semi-devotional origin.
66
'Now for it, lads," shouted a commanding voice,
as the notes died away. "Come on! Take you the
lead below decks, Dave; come on" and the omi-
nous trampling of many feet sounded coming aft.
Somebody started up "John Brown" again, and
on they came, dividing forward of the smokestacks
and surging through the narrow passageways be-
tween the paddle-boxes.
"Odd numbers ready, aim at their knees, boys,
fire," cried Cayvan. And five men blazed away as
fast as they could with a revolver in each hand.
The even numbers reserved their fire, but began
the instant the others slackened, and of the three
or four score of big conical bullets that poured over
the barrier of cotton bales, an uncommonly large pro-
portion took effect.
But the rush was not checked. Johnny Bull is a
stubborn fighter, as all the world knows to its cost,
and stumbling over their fallen comrades, the muti-
neers pressed on, the roaring chorus "Glory, Glory,
Hallelujah," wavering and dying out as a few of the
48
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
leaders reached the cotton bales and struck savagely
across them with heavers and capstan bars, as they
strove to climb over and carry the position by sheer
weight of numbers.
These more desperate ones were killed or badly
hurt to a man, I believe. At any rate, two of them
lay dead within the barrier, when I came on deck
after the fight was over, and a third hung limp across
the cotton bales, where he had been cut down as he
led the charge.
The bolder spirits had naturally kept in front, and
as they went down before our fire, the rear rank men
lost heart, and presently broke for the forecastle like
a flock of panic-stricken sheep.
Below decks, our work was comparatively simple.
After we had to abandon the use of the fire hose, our
revolvers so completely commanded the narrow ap-
proach that only two of the assailants came within
ten feet of the barricade, and these two stayed where
they fell. We heard the rest tramping toward the
forward companionway before the scrimmage on
deck was fairly over.
Captain Ridgeway presently volunteered to see
how matters fared in the engine-room and stoke-hole.
He came back after a few minutes, reporting that
most of the dangerous characters had gone forward,
and were sulking in the forecastle, and if let alone
would probably not molest us.
A dozen or so of the quieter sort, including one
A COLD RECEPTION; A FRIENDLY FAREWELL. 49
engineer, could, he thought, be made to do duty. So
without making too long a story of it, we made shift
to get the ship under way again shortly after mid-
night, and with Captain Ridgeway on the bridge, ran
up the Jersey coast; raised the Highland lights be-
fore sunrise; set the mutiny signal and got a detach-
ment aboard from the guard ships, and let go our
anchor off Bedloe's Island (now Liberty Island) by
mid forenoon.
Of course, we blue-jackets had made a night of it,
making everything as ship-shape as possible after
the desperate attack. We could do but little for the
wounded, except give them all the water they wanted;
but we were so near port that assistance was quickly
available, and soon the potter's field, the hospitals, and
jails held all that were left of the "Palma" mutineers.
With the supplementary proceedings, I had nothing
to do, though I was subsequently summoned as a
witness at the trial of the mutineers, who were mostly
sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. I had been
merely a passenger, but Cayvan thanked me for my
services, and so did Ridgeway, who gave me his Lon-
don address, and told me that he had had enough of
blockade-running and was going home to look for
an assignment to duty in the Royal Navy. In point
of fact, he resigned altogether after a year or two,
having made enough out of his Confederate friends.
to live comfortably for the rest of his life. I have
been to see him twice at his English home, and he
E
50
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
Book
still loves to introduce me to people as his "Yankee
prisoner."
Last of all I said farewell to my once deadly foes -
the two young ladies. Twice before had I parted
from them, once in sore bitterness and wrath, again
with rather sincere regret, — and now, I ventured to
believe, with a fairly good standing for a Yankee in
their Southern eyes. It would not be seemly for me
to say here what I thought about them or either of
them. I was certainly very sorry, indeed, to part
with little Wag.
We all went ashore together on the government
tug, the young ladies, Aunt Leah, Captain Ridge-
way, Wag, and I. Landing at the Battery, my com-
panions took a carriage for the old New York Hotel,
then the headquarters of Southern refugees, and a
very hot-bed of secession, intending to sail for Eng-
land by the next steamer.
As I bade Miss Edith good-by at the landing, she
gave me a little three-cornered note, and then lifted
Wag up to the open carriage window to kiss me
good-by, which he did after the manner of his kind,
and forthwith set up a dismal howl as the carriage
drove away.
The last that I saw as they turned into Broadway
was a little yellow tousled Irish terrier's head and two
dainty white handkerchiefs waving farewell. It did
not trouble my conscience one bit to reflect that I
had the mate to one of those handkerchiefs in the
innermost pocket of my reefer.

George tribus-
'I SAT ME DOWN ON ONE OF THE BENCHES OF THE SEA-WALL,'"
A COLD RECEPTION; A FRIENDLY FAREWELL. 51
It was not in a very cheerful mood that I strolled
over to the Battery and sat me down on one of the
benches on the sea-wall. But after staring at the
animated scene before me for a while without seeing
a single thing, I suddenly remembered the little
three-cornered note. I had entirely forgotten it in
the hurry of saying good-by.
I have it before me now as I write, rather yellow
with age, and stiff in the joints for the same reason.
It is written on a very inferior quality of paper with
a Confederate flag stamped in color at the left-hand
upper corner. The writing is rather fine, and the ink
has faded, it does not look very much like the bold
chirography cultivated by young ladies of the present
day.
Dear
DEAR MR. BENSON [it reads]: We want to thank you for
many kindnesses, as well as for bravely defending us against
the mutineers of the "Palma." We are still good Rebels at heart,
but our opinion of at least one Yankee sailor has changed since
we first met him. Will you accept of our best wishes, and the
little keepsake herein enclosed; perhaps you can wear it with
your Medal of Honor. May it often remind you of your very
friendly enemies.
E. G.-H. T.
Within, wrapped in tissue paper, was a dainty bow
of blue ribbon, hardly more than an inch across the
wings, and delicately embroidered on one side were
the initials E. G. and on the other H. T. Between
the wings were the dates 1862–1863.
To my uneducated masculine perceptions, the em-
3
52
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
broidery material seemed to be some kind of silk in
two shades of brown, and it was not till I showed it
to "another girl," once upon a time, that I learned
that my "friendly enemies" had each given me, for
a souvenir, a thread of her own hair worked into
the initials and dates.
I knew of nothing in the navy regulations prohib-
iting the bow, so I fastened it to the ribbon of my
medal. I never met another officer in the service
who wore a Confederate decoration, but somehow
this did not seem to imply treasonable designs on
my part.
CHAPTER V.
66
THE NAVAL ACADEMY · YOUNG BANTAMS.'
AFTER reading my precious note a sufficient num-
ber of times, I wandered about the Battery in a some-
what blighted frame of mind, watching the tide come
in until hunger asserted itself and drove me to the
nearest restaurant, whence I walked up to where the
Madison Square Garden now stands and took the next
train for Rockledge.
Of my welcome home, and how I was made much
of by everybody, I need not tell. Uncle Abner put
me through some finishing touches for the Academy
examination, and in June I went to Newport, passed
easily for the second class, and was assigned quarters
in Fort Adams, which had been turned over to the
navy for academical purposes by the War Depart-
ment. My prize money came in very opportunely
for the purpose of an outfit, for Uncle Abner and
his sisters helped too many poor boys to have very
much to spare for their own sailor lad. Very proud
was I to pay my entrance fee of fifty dollars out of
my own pocket. Once mustered in as an acting
middy, I was on the United States pay-roll as an officer
53
54
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
of the navy at the rate of five hundred dollars a year,
a princely income, indeed, from my point of view.
My class numbered nearly too hundred young fel-
lows, most of them rather my juniors, so I was
severely let alone in the matter of hazing and the
like. I was assigned quarters with a slim little fel-
low from an inland state, who proved to be great on
mathematics, ethics, and the like, but deplorably weak
on practical seamanship. So, after a few days of
mutual suspicion, we made a match of it, he coach-
ing me in his own specialties, while I defended him
against would-be hazers and taught him sea-craft, in
which I regarded myself as a past master.
Naval affairs moved with a rush in those days,
when every young fellow who could demonstrate
his fitness was wanted for sea duty. It did not
take many months to push bright boys through the
Academy; and, although I can lay no claim to hav-
ing been bright, even in my teens, I had practical
navigation and naval routine by heart, and was thor-
oughly familiar with much that can never be learned
at the Academy.
Owing to circumstances, which I need not here
recount, I had been from the first a somewhat privi-
leged character, and had acted as a sort of secretary
for Captain Ross, so that I was familiar with official
forms, and the customs of the service had become
almost a second nature.
It was no way remarkable, therefore, that as the
THE NAVAL ACADEMY-YOUNG “BANTAMS." 55
year drew toward its close, a special order from the
Secretary of the Navy came on from Washington,
detailing a number of men from the three upper
classes, and in December a lot of us were ordered to
pack up our traps and report at the Brooklyn Navy
Yard, for assignment to duty.
There was great rejoicing, you may be sure, at this
prospect of active service, and it did not take us long
to pack up the modest amount of luggage that is
permitted to middies in the navy. We drew our
pay, like officers and gentlemen, and went on by
the first train the next morning, under command of
the senior first-class man present, and with reckless
extravagance took carriages at war prices from the
26th Street Station, and drove all the way to the
Navy Yard at an expense of some ten dollars apiece,
whereas it need have cost us only a few cents.
We drew up in great style in front of the com-
manding officer's quarters. Carew, captain of our
detail, reported our arrival to the adjutant, who had
us into his office, checked us off on the roster, and
told us we could go our ways till the next morning
at ten.
Most of us chose to stroll about the Navy Yard
during the remaining hours of daylight, and my
room-mate, McCrady and I, went off together.
The whole spacious enclosure, some hundred acres
in extent, was then, as never before or since, a hive
of busy workers. From boiler and machine shop
56
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
went up a deafening clangor of hammers; from the
great barn-like ship houses rose the musical tap of
mallet and calking iron; along the sea-wall and the
cob dock vessels of every kind were making ready
for sea, or were being dismantled after a period of
service. Graceful sailing craft, frigates with slender
towering spars, stolid monitors, with no spars at all,
and steamers of all sorts. Riggers were aloft, paint-
ing stages hung over the side, guns were being
mounted and dismounted, ordnance stores, provi-
sions, cordage, sails, were going aboard or coming
ashore.
Jackies in their "dungarees" were running hither
and thither, and at points which required watching
smart marines paced back and forth with rifles on
their shoulders, and officers in service uniform hur-
ried to and from their ships, or strolled about, inter-
ested spectators like ourselves.
From the whole enclosure arose a not unmusical
hum that spoke of tremendous energy and exhaustless
resources.
It was rather dazing to us newly fledged middies
and we walked on and on in a sort of trance, till at
length we found ourselves beside a great dry dock,
looking down upon the deck of a little gunboat
which was having her copper scoured. Otherwise,
except for her battery, she was apparently ready for
sea service, and the ensign on her jackstaff told us
that she was actually in commission.
THE NAVAL ACADEMY YOUNG "BANTAMS. 57
I lost my heart to her at first sight, for she was
a trim, clean-built craft, fore and aft rigged and not
unlike my old love the "Otter" below the water
line, though she was perhaps a little larger, and was
fitted for a heavy rifle amidships beside those at bow
and stern. She had, moreover, four light broadside
guns in the waist, and looked as though she could
either fight or run away with a fair chance of win-
ning in either case.
"Bantam" was her name, and we walked all round
her and looked her over from keel to truck, and the
more I looked at her the more I became convinced
that I had met my fate. We had completed our
outside inspection, and were considering whether or
no we should go on board, when a voice hailed from
overhead.
"Hallo, there!" it said; "isn't that Jack Benson?"
The voice was familiar, but the sun struck me
square in the eyes, and I could only make out that
somebody was standing by the taffrail and calling
me to come aboard.
So I replied, "Yes, that's my name, but I can't
see you," and then, nothing loath, we walked round
to the gangway, and who should grasp me by the
hand as I jumped down on deck but my old friend,
Lieutenant Morris, the same who was so hard hit in
the fight at Myrona and who had always given me the
credit for having saved his life. Of course I pre-
sented McCrady and told him how we happened to
58
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
be there, and then nothing would do but we must
dine with him and spend the night on board, as he
had unoccupied berths to put at our disposal.
Of course, being all adrift for quarters, we were
only too glad to accept. So we went for our traps
and were duly installed on board the "Bantam " as
her captain's guests.
Morris had fully recovered from his wound, had
been made a lieutenant commander, and thanks
partly to merit and partly to friends at court, had been
assigned to command a new gunboat built by designs
made some years before by George Steers, builder of
the famous yacht "America" and of the superb
steam frigate "Niagara."
With a sailor's pride he took us all over his ship,
which was in perfect trim, except that her battery
had been landed in order to lighten her for docking.
At dinner, McCrady was rather out of it, for
Morris and I had a lot to talk about.
"By the way, Benson," said he, when the soup
was removed," where's your medal? This is surely
an occasion of 'state and ceremony'; you ought to
have it in sight."
I blushingly produced the little morocco case, in
which I carried it, from an inner pocket, and at his
request passed it over to him for examination. He
was not slow to note the little bow of blue. "What's
this?" he asked, holding it up to the light. "E. G.
and G. T. and something in the middle that's so fine
THE NAVAL ACADEMY—YOUNG “BANTAMS." 59
I can't read it." So I was obliged to tell, with burn-
ing cheeks, that the initials stood for the two young
ladies whom we had captured on board the "Palma.”
Of course he remembered them. Who wouldn't?
And he made me tell him all about our more recent
adventures, ending with the farewell on the Battery
nearly eight months before.
"It's destiny, Benson. You're bound to meet
them again, or one of them; I don't know which,
do you?"
Of course I could not tell any more than he, but I
was at once glad and sorry when the subject was
dropped.
In the course of the evening it was arranged that we
two should apply for assignment to the "Bantam,"
as her complement of juniors was not yet fully made
up. Morris promised to back up our application, so
we turned into our berths well satisfied with the day's
experience.
All of us middies were on hand, according to or-
ders, and answered to our names at the adjutant's
office next morning. Commander Morris had been
there before us, and after some delay and sorting of
papers, big official envelopes were handed to a few
of us, and the rest were told to report again the next
morning.
Mac and I were among the lucky ones, and re-
strained our impatience with difficulty till we were
well out of sight and behind one of the neighboring
60
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
buildings, when we eagerly tore open the envelopes.
A glance told us that our hopes were realized. We
were both ordered to report at once on board the
"Bantam," and you may guess that we lost no time
in so doing.
It was a bit galling to find Morris's manner change
toward us when he came aboard about noon, but
that's what a sailor is trained for and expects, so we
put on our most punctilious manners and made the
best of it. We were given two or three days' leave
to purchase our outfit, for which purpose we had
already received one hundred dollars each from the
paymaster, that amount being allowed by our com-
mon Uncle Sam when he takes his boys out of the
Academy and sends them to sea. Even at the war
prices then prevailing, we found that with reasonable
economy we could fit ourselves out very well for any
emergency.
We went over to one of the great clothing houses
in New York and had ourselves measured for the
service uniform, including regulation overcoat and a
liberal supply of white duck trousers. We bought
our side arms at a military equipment store, and be-
fore our leave of absence had expired appeared on
deck in "full fig." and presented ourselves before
our commanding officer. He looked us over with
a cold and critical air, though we fancied that we
could see a good-humored twinkle in the corner of
his eye, as though he remembered how he himself
THE NAVAL ACADEMY —YOUNG "BANTAMS." 61
had put on his officer's uniform for the first time, not
so very long ago.
By this time the "Bantam's" copper was polished
to suit Morris's ideas, and all hands were called to
stations when the valves of the big dock were opened,
and the murky harbor water began to boil up under
the counter. A little thrill ran along the keel, the
"Bantam" shook herself gently, seemed to draw a
sigh of relief, and was once more afloat, never again
to be absolutely at rest till she left her bones to
bleach on a coral reef far down in the Mexican Gulf,
-but that was long after I had left her, and is not
a part of this story.
Other inanimate things may and do have their
periods of rest: a ship while afloat, never. Machinery
and tools, wagons and equipments of all sorts, may
go comfortably to sleep when they are not in use;
but the restless sea is ever working, lifting, pushing,
seeking out weak points, ready to crush and drown
without a moment's notice. Even when at anchor
or tied up to a wharf, a ship is not quite still, and
motion, be it ever so slight, means strain and fric-
tion and wear, which must in the end tell upon the
strongest of constitutions. Sailormen are notoriously
a superstitious lot, and small blame to them, consid-
ering what they see and hear. Many of them firmly
believe that ships are quite as
much alive as some
people, and have their likes and dislikes, and moods
and tantrums, just as the rest of us do.
62
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
Anyhow, the "Bantam" seemed ready to flap
her wings, and I half expected to hear her crow
as we warped her out of the dry dock. A spirit
of cheerfulness diffused itself throughout the crew
when we had moored her under the big crane,
which already had one of our rifles swinging in
mid-air ready to lower upon its carriage as soon
as we made fast, and the guns were remounted by
sundown.
We went under the coal chute and filled our
bunkers after nightfall. Early the next morning the
powder boat came alongside, the magazine was filled,
fires were started, and Commander Morris went to
headquarters for his orders. They were all ready,
no secret about it, directing him to proceed to New
Orleans, stopping at different points on the way with
mails and despatches, and report to the commanding
officer of the Gulf Squadron, David Glasgow Far-
ragut, who had already made the most brilliant
record of any officer in the navy, and stood, perhaps,
the acknowledged head of his profession in all the
navies of the world. He had led his fleet up the
Mississippi, passed the formidable forts below New
Orleans, and had opened the way for the capture
and occupation of the city by Federal troops. With
his flagship, the "Hartford," he, alone of his fleet,
had run past the batteries at Port Hudson and pa-
trolled the Mississippi from Vicksburg to the Red
River.
THE NAVAL ACADEMY—YOUNG "BANTAMS.” 63
That he would before long have other work cut
out for any vessel under his command, was tolerably
certain, and it was not long before we "Bantams"
had elaborated a brilliant plan of campaign for him
in which we resolved to have a creditable share.
CHAPTER VI.
A DANGEROUS DERELICT.
It is a good week's run from New York to New
Orleans, and counting our stops, we could not expect
to make the Mississippi Passes under fifteen or twenty
days. This gave Morris a good chance, however, to
get his crew well in hand, and he improved it to the
best of his ability, for every good officer knows very
well that it is much easier to maintain a reasonable
discipline if one begins with excessive strictness at
the outset. Accordingly, we very soon found that
he was determined to give us Uncle Sam's navy
regulations without any dilution whatever, and with
such improvements as occurred to him.
""
We had orders to keep well out in the Gulf Stream,
on the chance of running across some stray blockade-
runner, and possibly a Confederate cruiser, for there
were one or two still afloat, though the "Alabama'
at this time was known to be pretty well on the other
side of the world. After leaving our mails and de-
spatches at Port Royal, we ran out some two hun-
dred miles from land, and at daylight next morning
the lookout reported something in sight which, on
closer inspection, proved to be a derelict with only
64
A DANGEROUS DERELICT.
65
the stumps of her masts standing. We could see
that she was British built, as soon as we raised her
hull fairly above the horizion. Steaming up to wind-
ward of her as near as we dared, and getting no
answer to repeated hails, Morris sent a whaleboat
to investigate, with Mr. Russell in charge and me for
assistant.
There was only a moderate sea running, and as we
went under her stern we read, "Norham Castle,
Liverpool." A fragment of rope hung from one of
the after davits, and Russell gave me leave to try if
the inboard end was fast. The boat was cautiously
backed under the stern, which the sea occasionally
smote with a stunning crash, and as she rose on a
wave, I made a grab, caught the rope, and went up
hand over hand.
She was an old-fashioned craft with high forecastle
and poop, and the deep waist was all a-wash, the high
bulwarks amidships having been more or less knocked
to pieces. The hatches were all gone, and boxes and
bales were bobbing up from below at intervals, and
swashing about from side to side as the vessel rolled.
I could see all this from where I stood, and reported
it to Russell, who bade me take a look into the cabin.
This I turned to do, but feeling a bit nervous with
the grewsome surroundings, I first made fast a line at
the lee-mizzen rigging and threw the end of it to the
bow oarsman. Then going aft, I opened the compan-
ionway door and went down the brass-covered stairs,
F
66
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
dingy from lack of scrubbing. There was another
door at the foot of the short passage, and opening
this I saw that there were a few inches of water on
the floor. Not caring to go a-wading unless it was
necessary, I kicked the door so that it swung wide
open with a bang, and the next moment I let go the
most vigorous yell that I could command, and fled up
the stairs for my life. It seemed to me that two or
more huge black hairy monsters were launching
themselves at me from a couch at the far end of the
cabin. I heard a sort of combined bark and howl,
and saw the water fly under foot as it or they dashed
toward me. With the instinct of terror, I banged the
deck door behind as I fled toward the rigging.
Two Jackies had already gained the deck, and
were staring toward me in a dazed way, as if they
hardly knew whether to stand their ground or run.
I confess that I was badly frightened by what I
had seen, but the sight of my shipmates went far to
restore me. The deck door opened inward, and I
had not taken half a dozen steps when a heavy body
hurled against it accompanied by barks and growls,
unmistakably of canine origin.
Then came a confusion of sounds; there was an
instant's struggle, and fall accompanied by yelps as
the dog was hurled backward down the stairs. Then
the door was wrenched open, and what a figure that
was that strode out on deck!
A bushy shock of red hair and beard; pale blue eyes
A DANGEROUS DERELICT.
67
with the unmistakable gleam of insanity in them;
the complexion white and drawn and the lips so
dark as to be almost black. His checked flannel
shirt was open, disclosing a muscular throat and
chest. He was barefooted, and one leg of his trou-
sers was torn away altogether, leaving the limb
naked almost to the thigh.
He held an axe with the helve painted a brill-
iant red in his left hand, and his right was behind
him holding, as I confidently believed, a loaded re-
volver.
We had come away without arms, as our errand
promised to be peaceful. There was not so much as
a cutlass among us. The maniac had closed the door
behind him, and the dog now resumed his dismal
howls within.
By this time Russell and four more men were on
deck, and I think we were all rather anxious about
the struggle that seemed imminent, for it is no joke
for any number of weaponless men to tackle an
armed giant and a madman at that.
But the maniac himself came most unexpectedly
to the rescue. How we appeared in his disturbed
vision no one can ever know. What he did was this:
Drawing himself up to his full height, he slowly
withdrew his right hand from behind him and de-
liberately, with a magnificent air, placed upon his
head a tall stovepipe hat. It may have been beaver,
perhaps, for its shiny nap was roughed up in patches,
68
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
and the whole structure much the worse for salt
water and hard usage.
This act broke the strain. We could not, for
the life of us, help laughing outright; but Russell,
who was a reckless fellow and quick-witted withal,
rose to the occasion. He touched his cap respect-
fully.
"Captain Morris, of the United States gunboat
'Bantam,' sends his compliments, sir, and requests.
the honor of your company at dinner. There is a
boat alongside to take you aboard, sir."
I should, perhaps, explain here that the high silk
hat is the official badge of the merchant captain.
He wears it on all occasions which he deems worthy
of full uniform. You may see the captain of an
unpretentious little schooner bringing out his treas-
ured "stovepipe hat" when he is making or leaving
port, if he has any idea at all of maintaining the
dignity of his station. We all knew, therefore, when
this apparition donned a high hat that he was cap-
tain of the derelict, and Russell, with great presence
of mind, addressed him accordingly.
The crazy captain looked hard at him for a
moment, as if trying to clear the clouds away from
brain and eye so as to be sure of his meaning. Then
he replied with dignity:
"I accept Captain Morris's invitation with great
pleasure, sir, but I will come in my own boat."
With that he placed the terrible red-handled axe
A DANGEROUS DERELICT.
69
upon its brass rests at the side of the house, and
walked forward to the break of the deck.
"Mr. Negley," he called, addressing an imaginary
mate, "you may lay the main yard aback and call
away my boat."
I stole quietly aft and secured the axe, and another
like it from the other side of the house, handing them
to two of our men. The maniac stood silently look-
ing forward and aloft, and I suppose that his dis-
ordered brain reclothed the dismantled ship in all
the glory of her vanished canvas. For him a phan-
tom crew manned the braces and swung in the
weather yard-arm. But in the meanwhile a very
material crew was approaching him from behind, and
at a given signal from Russell, five stalwart blue-
jackets threw themselves upon his back or caught
him about the legs and arms.
He went down under the shock, but fought like a
wild animal, foaming at the mouth, and giving the
whole of us all that we could do to handle him.
Such is the superhuman strength of a maniac.
At last we got him securely bound, and with some
difficulty, for he was a big man, lowered him over
the side and took him aboard the "Bantam," where
he was turned over to the care of the surgeon.
Morris sent us back again to save the dog, if we
could, and at any rate to see if there were any
instruments or other property worth saving.
It was nearly as formidable an undertaking to capt-
:
70
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
ure the dog as it had been to secure his master, but
by skilful management we finally got a running bow-
line over his neck and soon had him in subjection.
He was a magnificent Newfoundland, and Jacky was
very tender with him, for we had no ship's dog, and
this one would be a treasure, if we could get him to
make friends.
Taking the instruments and papers, there was
no use in trying to save anything else, for the cargo
was hopelessly water-soaked, we went back to the
"Bantam," just in time to hear the drum beating
to quarters.
It is not every day that gunners have a chance to
practise with a twelve-hundred-ton ship for a target,
and Morris had resolved to expend his quarter's
allowance of ammunition in practice firing, and at
the same time do away with a dangerous obstacle in
the highway of ocean travel.
That was upon the whole the most satisfactory
gun practice that ever I saw. We had the whole
ocean to ourselves, and could freely gratify the love
of destructiveness that abides in every human breast
without doing either owners or consignees a particle
of harm. After an hour or so with solid shot at
long range, during which Nevers and McCrady, my
fellow-middies, made a record for themselves as gun-
ners, we ran nearer, firing shell to make an end of it;
edging up nearer and nearer, till the exploding shells
tore great holes in her sides, and sent fragments of
A DANGEROUS DERELICT.
71
assorted cargo, boots, woollens, and what not far and
wide over the waves.
And now a very curious thing happened: "Rats
desert a sinking ship," says the old sea adage, but I
never expected to see it confirmed in such fashion
as now. I was watching the effect of shells through
my glasses, when one of the gun crew whispered to
me in a somewhat awe-stricken voice, -
"Isn't there something moving there, sir? Atop
of the galley."
I looked, and certainly saw some kind of an un-
canny moving object that seemed to slide or crawl
with a curious motion over the spars that were
lashed together on top of the deck-house amid-
ships. After looking a few moments, there were
two or three of us watching, some one, who was
sharper eyed than the rest, sung out, -
66
Why, I'm blest if it ain't rats," and when once
the suggestion was made, we all saw that he was
right. The entire colony, which had been no doubt
running riot among the eatables of the ship's stores
ever since the desertion of the crew, had assembled,
evidently in great panic, and were following some
recognized leader toward the after part of the ship.
They swarmed along the rail, and at last reached the
quarter-deck, where they gathered on top of the
deck-house, which they almost covered, a horrible
carpet, of great gray ship's rats, whose prospective
destruction gave our blue-jackets unmitigated satis-
72
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
faction. Some of us began to try our revolvers on
them, as we were at close quarters; but no sooner
did they see that they were themselves furnishing
the target for our marksmanship than the biggest
one, a gray-backed old fellow, "piped all hands
overboard," as one of the men put it, gave some
kind of a signal, jumped over himself, and was
immediately followed by the whole tribe.
The common Norway rat of our wharves and
shipping can swim almost as well as his cousin, the
water rat. It surprised no one, therefore, to see this
numerous company jump fearlessly into the sea; but
when they formed column, and strung out with the
evident intention of saving their worthless lives by
boarding the "Bantam," they fairly gave us all a
new sensation. Our revolvers cracked merrily, you
may be sure; but the boarding party did not waver
for an instant, —on they came, rising and falling over
the swells, a long, winding, gray ribbon relieved by
pink noses and white teeth. At a distance, it might
almost have been taken for the fabled sea-serpent.
"Shall I try them with grape-shot, sir?" asked
one of the division officers.
66
No, it's no use. You couldn't stop them, even
with grape-shot. There's nothing for us to do but
run for it." So he ran full speed ahead, well know-
ing that if once the rats got alongside, they would
manage to climb aboard of us somehow. So the
"Bantam” actually ran away, leaving the ill-fated
A DANGEROUS DERELICT.
73
horde to perish in the Gulf Stream, probably the
only instance on record of a Yankee man-of-war
having been put to flight on the high seas by such
despicable assailants.
As we gathered headway, the leader starboarded
his helm, and the column swung into our wake, evi-
dently determined to make a stern chase of it. How-
ever, the "Bantam " had the best of it, and presently
put the now sinking derelict between her and her
audacious pursuers.
We had to come to very close quarters indeed
before we persuaded the "Norham Castle" to lift
her old-fashioned square stern on high and go down
with a long-drawn sigh, outrushing through her cabin
windows, and leaving a swirl of dancing, foamy
waters behind. We were in the Gulf Stream, and no
doubt she went down five or six hundred fathom
before she found her final resting-place on the ocean's
bed.
When the lookout came down from aloft, he re-
ported that, as soon as we had dropped them astern,
the rats bunched themselves, and after a short con-
sultation, broke into column again and headed about
"west-nor-west."
The forecastle soberly figured it out that they
ought to make Cape Romain inside of a week with
good weather, at the rate they were going; but the
ward-room somehow suspected the lookout of insin-
cerity. Such, however, is Jacky's faith in animal
2
74
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
instinct, that no doubt a large majority of our own
ship's company thought that the rats knew perfectly
well which way to steer to reach the nearest land,
and were perhaps a bit superstitious about leaving
such accomplished creatures to drown. That was
the last we saw of them, and they probably fell a
prey to the prowlers of the Gulf Stream.
CHAPTER VII.
66
NEW ORLEANS AND THE LOWER COAST."
WE were on our southward course again by mid
afternoon, with guns secured and everything in its
usual apple-pie order, when the surgeon came up
from below. Mr. Dabney had the deck and chanced
to be talking with me at the time. The surgeon
joined us.
"It's very queer," he said, "but I believe that
fellow has come to his senses, and the firing did it.
You see, I had him laid out pretty nearly under the
big pivot-gun amidships, not knowing there was
going to be any gun practice. Well, you know the
concussion is something tremendous just there, and
at the first fire he gave a shriek and a bounce and
writhed painfully for a few minutes, until one of the
other big guns was fired, when he quieted down and
went to sleep, and took not the slightest notice of
all the rest of the firing. He waked a few moments
ago and seems perfectly sane, but I've given him a
dose that will keep him quiet awhile longer."
A short time after this, I went down to look at the
patient and found him sleeping like a baby. Next
day he was in his right mind, and when he had
75
76
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
washed and dressed and the barber had taken a turn
at his hair and beard, he came out as fine a specimen
of the British merchant skipper as you would wish
to see.
Morris had him in to dinner before we left him at
Nassau, where we touched to leave despatches for the
Consul.
The true story of the "Norham Castle" must ever
remain a mystery of the sea, for the last thing her
captain remembered was having her reefed down
close, and making very good weather in a hurricane
down in the Caribbean. There were evidences that
he had received a hard crack on the head, perhaps
from a falling block, and the crew had probably left
him for dead and deserted the wreck after the gale
subsided. The discharge of our big rifle had in some
mysterious way restored to their normal condition
the disturbed brain cells, but how the poor fellow
had subsisted during the few weeks that intervened
between the last entry in the log-book and our res-
cue, no one but Bosun, the big Newfoundland dog,
knows, and he won't tell.
Bosun, by the way, was regularly acquired by pur-
chase for the "Bantam." He learned to answer to
his name at roll-call, and was at last killed in action
and buried at sea, like a good sailorman.
That was our only adventure on the voyage to
New Orleans, except that we chased a presumable
blockade-runner into Havana, and stopped for a
NEW ORLEANS AND THE "LOWER COAST." 77
day at the dry Tortugas to fill up our empty coal
bunkers.
In due time we sighted the guard ship off South-
west Pass, and, exchanging signals with her, pushed
on against the boiling current, now red with Missis-
sippi mud, and drew in between the low-lying arms
of the great delta.
We picked up a negro pilot, Reddy Napoleon by
name, at the station a few miles up the pass, and
pushed on through tortuous reaches of the great
river locally known as the Lower Coast, past the
forts which Farragut had silenced two years before,
and dropped our anchor deep into the channel mud
off the Crescent City, only to find orders waiting
for us to put to sea again after such refitting and
replenishing as seemed absolutely necessary.
New Orleans, in those days, was dreaded of all
senior officers and beloved by their juniors. It was
as bitterly rebellious as ever, but the gay creole nat-
ure, half French and half Spanish, had long since
reasserted itself, and the city presented a scene of
lively interest to officers and sailors alike, although
they were in a measure accustomed to being shut off
from the outer world when on shipboard.
It was here that I first saw our gallant Admiral.
He came alongside in his barge without warning, but
the officer on watch promptly recognized the blue flag
with four stars, and we had the side quickly manned
and all hands at stations when he came aboard.
78
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
He looked over the "Bantam's" battery, and I
overheard him say to Morris: "I'm glad you have
Parrotts instead of Sawyer guns for rifles. They
are the better of the two- not likely to burst, and
when they do, they are not nearly so dangerous." He
had just returned from a short leave of absence at
the North, whither he had gone with his flagship,
the "Hartford," which, with something like two
hundred scars of shot and shell, was sadly in need
of an overhauling in dry dock.
Next day, we learned that we were to take him
"home" to the blockading squadron off Mobile, and
I was very highly flattered when Morris detailed me
to act as the Admiral's attendant during his stay on
board. For he had come up to New Orleans for a
few days without any of his personal staff. This
temporary post was not likely to entail any very
irksome duties, but it was one which would at least
justify me in being on hand and seeing what I could
of the greatest naval commander since Nelson. He
was sixty-four years old at that time, and carried
his years easily.
The story of his first sea-fight was not so generally
known then as it is now, but McCrady had picked it
up somewhere in his omnivorous reading, and he told
it to us at mess with a result that I think would
have gratified the Admiral himself if he could have
been present.
Indeed, it was little to be wondered at that we
NEW ORLEANS AND THE "LOWER COAST." 79
وو
youngsters should look with something very like
hero worship upon this kindly featured, elderly gen-
tleman who, as a middy, away back in 1814, had
helped defend the old sailing frigate "Essex in
Valparaiso harbor. Of that gallant, hopeless fight
against overwhelming odds, every school-boy has read,
and we "Bantams" exulted when we heard, for the
first time, the story of how young Farragut had
handsomely whipped a British midshipman on the
deck of his own ship after the surrender.
This story, as told by Farragut himself, is to the
effect that a certain English middy, called “Shorty,"
made a prize of a pet pig belonging on board the
captured "Essex." This pig Farragut claimed as
personal property when it was brought on board the
"Phoebe" after the engagement, and it was forth-
with decided among the bystanders that the ques-
tion must be settled man-o'-war fashion. A ring
was formed on the "Phoebe's" deck, and Farragut
thoroughly drubbed his opponent in a few rounds.
The pig was carried off as the spoils of war by the
victor, who felt that he had done what he could to
restore the prestige of the American flag in British
eyes.
We were ready to sail by the time that the
Admiral was ready to go, and steamed up to our
anchor as soon as he came over the side. A vessel
at anchor off New Orleans carries perpetually a
tawny hued wave crest at her cut water, and leaves
80
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
a wake astern of her as though she were going
ahead at good speed. It seems impossible that sail-
ing vessels can ever make their way up from the
Passes against such a current, and yet they do;
and, in the old days, before steam towboats were
known, the whole foreign trade of New Orleans
worked the river under canvas.
The little "Bantam," however, ran up the Admi-
ral's flag, broke her anchor out of the mud, turned
on her heel in mid channel, and dropped the Crescent
City out of sight.
The Admiral walked the deck with Morris for an
hour or so, watching the swiftly gliding panorama
of rich plantation and cypress timber that forms
the Lower Coast, then he went below, and presently
Morris called for me. We followed into the cap-
tain's cabin where the Admiral was seated at the
table with a lot of official letters before him.
Morris presented me, adding: "I've detailed one of
my midshipmen to be on hand, if you want any-
thing, Admiral; he'll be within hearing of your
bell. His name is Benson."
Farragut nodded, hardly looked up from a chart
that he was studying, and I discreetly retired into
the ward-room passage, where I could amuse myself
better than in the august presence of the flag officer.
Hardly, however, had I made myself comfortable
with a book, when "ting" went the bell. I was
wanted.
NEW ORLEANS AND THE "LOWER COAST.” 81
The Admiral looked me over keenly as I stood
before him. "Commander Morris tells me that you
can write so that one can read it. Just copy that
letter for me, will you?"
I sat down and made the copy, which covered
half a page or more. It was merely some matter
of routine that required his signature. He read it
over and signed it, and then gave me some more
copying, and I was kept busy for two hours or
more.
I would much rather have stood my watch on
deck; but it was, at least, something to have been
in the company of this man, whose fame as a great
naval captain was already world-wide.
"Now read that to me," he said at last, handing
me a rather long document bearing the imprint of
the Navy Department at the top. "My eyes are not
so good for reading as they were once."
I had no difficulty with the manuscript, which was
written in a plain clerkly hand, and related to the
condemnation of some recently captured blockade-
runner. After dictating an endorsement for the
report, he told me to go on deck, and he presently
followed. We were just passing the forts where he
had won his first great victory nearly two years
before, running by the powerful batteries, break-
ing through obstructions, warding off fireships, and
sinking near a dozen Rebel gunboats and rams.
"I've never passed here but once before in broad
G
82
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
daylight," he said to Morris, "so I must be pardoned
for wanting to look it over.”
Morris said the correct thing in reply, and pres-
ently had the old gentleman fighting the battle over
again with boy-like enthusiasm.
I managed, without seeming officious, to hang
about most of the time within ear-shot and catch
a good deal of what was said.
Here was where the "Manassas" rammed the
flagship; here was where a chain stretched across
the channel and was destroyed by Lieutenant Cald-
well; here was where a fireship bore down on the
fleet, and there where the "Varuna" ran through
the Confederate squadron, firing both her bat-
teries, and sinking three of them, only to receive
her death wound from the ram 66 Stonewall Jack-
son."
There were still blackened wrecks at intervals
along the shore where ships of both sides had left
their bones after the fight. I could not but hope
that the Gulf squadron would have at last one other
such day and send me there to see. Night fell, and
the Admiral having turned in early, I followed suit,
being excused from other duty while on this special
service. I was awakened betimes by feeling the
"Bantam" take a weather roll, and went on deck to
find her pointing straight out into the Gulf under
the full glory of a tropic dawn, and dipping over
pale green rollers that came pulsing up across
1
NEW ORLEANS AND THE "LOWER COAST." 83
the still Southern sea. Pelicans were sailing about,
kites were soaring and fishing, and now and then a
whiff of fragrance drifted out from the distant shore
on the dying land breeze.
After breakfast the Admiral had some more letters
for me to write, and waxed a little more friendly
when we were done, asking me how old I was, and
telling some stories about his own encounters with
Spanish pirates in the early days along the Florida
straits, and after we had put him on board the
"Hartford" off Mobile, I felt that I had become
quite chummy with him. I found out afterward,
that it was all on account of his absent son, Loyall,
of whom I had somehow reminded him. So I aban-
doned hopes of immediate promotion, and settled
down to the monotonous routine of blockading.
However, the Admiral had lost his heart to the
"Bantam," to some extent. Her handiness, her
powerful armament and comparatively light draught,
and above all the excellent training and discipline of
her crew, of which he had had a chance to form an
opinion during our run down from New Orleans, had
convinced him of her efficiency for any service.
܀
CHAPTER VIII.
REDDY NAPOLEON CROCODILE COVE.
THANKS, perhaps, to our economical consumption of
coal, we were shortly sent off to patrol the coast to
the eastward, going as far south as there seemed to
be any need of going. There was at this time quite
an opportunity for blockade-running along the shores
of the eastern Gulf; several large rivers, notably the
Appalachicola and the Suwanee and others, afforded
access by steamboat far to the northward across
Florida and into Alabama and Georgia, where the
then existing railroads opened lines of communica-
tion with the interior. The adventurous trade was
for the most part carried on by small schooners,
which passed themselves off, if possible, for spongers
or fishermen, and were able very often to give us the
slip and get into shoal water among oyster beds
and intricate channels, where we could not follow
even in small boats. How the fellows managed to
nose out their landfall so accurately that with a fair
wind they would run close in shore even of a dark
night and be seen anchored in the chops of the chan-
nel waiting for daylight to run in, was a feat very
creditable to their seamanship.
84
REDDY NAPOLEON-CROCODILE COVE.
85
Our general instructions did not warrant us in
stopping long at any one place, nor did Morris want
to do so, for it was far better fun for all hands to
keep moving, and with reasonable luck we could
probably do quite as much good.
We had a black pilot aboard who knew the West
Florida coast, if he did not know anything else,
which he didn't to speak of. When I say "to speak
of," I mean it. For he was so nearly dumb, that he
could only convey his meaning by signs and by dif-
ferent renderings of certain guttural notes, which he
could execute with some degree of success.
He was
singularly intelligent in some directions, but so hope-
lessly dense in others, that not many of us could
make any headway at all in communicating with him.
He had shipped at Pilot Town under the name
of "Reddy Napoleon," and he answered so far as he
could to either name. He had at once taken a strong
liking to my mate, McCrady, who, on his part, had
not the least objection to being waited upon, and at
the same time took a certain scientific and scholarly
interest in studying the dumb man's methods of
making himself understood. The result was that in
the course of a fortnight, Mac had practically mas-
tered the pilot's signal code, and was usually ordered to
"stand by to translate," when we were in shoal water.
At such times it was really laughable to see Na-
poleon gesticulate and mumble, and hear Mac inter-
pret his jargon.
86
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
""Tain't regular,” I heard an old sailor remark one
day, "but it seems to work." And so Napoleon
came to be looked upon with great respect by all
hands.
Practically, he installed himself as Mac's body ser-
vant, and I found the two one day studying the
coast map, published with a book that McCrady had
somehow got hold of, to wit: Williams's "West Flor-
ida," printed in 1827, and long since out of print.
The map does not agree, in all respects, with the
United States Coast Survey; but its highly colored
outline appealed to Napoleon's artistic sense, and he
gesticulated and failed to articulate with unusual
fluency.
"What's he up to, Mac," I said, after looking on
for a moment.
"Well, here we are, you know, off Cheecola Sound.
Napoleon says the wind is coming in from the south-
west this afternoon, and is going to hold steady for
two or three days, at least. We all know what that
means. He tells me further, that he knows of a
place where two or more boats can hide and com-
mand the channel perfectly; do you catch on?"
"Well, I should say so; let's do it."
So we called in Nevers, our third midshipman, and
put our heads together. A southwest wind for three
days was fair for blockade-runners bound for our
cruising ground, and every night, while the wind
held, the chances would be favorable. The question
REDDY NAPOLEON-CROCODILE COVE. 87
was, how to manage so that we, and not Russell or
some others of our seniors, should be sent on the
expedition.
It is not every commander who takes kindly to
suggestions volunteered by subordinates. I wouldn't
have hesitated a moment to go to my old Captain
Ross with any plan that came into my head. He
would have listened to me, even if he had laughed at
me about it afterward. But Morris was different.
At length, we concocted the following: Mac had
been ordered to go and sound out the channel at low
tide that afternoon, with a view to running into the
sound, and during his absence, Napoleon was to ap-
proach the captain and endeavor to make him under-
stand. Nevers and I would be within reach, and
when Morris lost patience, as he was sure to do, try-
ing to comprehend the pilot's lingo, he would, in
Mac's absence, call upon us to interpret.
Now Mac himself did not care so very much about
cutting-out expeditions — taking soundings was more
in his line. So we could put in a prior claim for the
more exciting work, and he wouldn't mind in the
least.
In due time, the tide ran out, it does not rise and
fall more than a few inches in that latitude, anyhow,
and only once in twenty-four hours at that, but such
as it was, it ran out, and Mac got away with his yard-
stick and lead-line. I had a division at cutlass drill
on the main-deck, and Morris was stopping now and
88
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
then in his walk, to watch us. Presently, Napoleon
came past, rolling his eye expressively at me, as I
stood at the end of the double line of blue-jackets,
and I presently heard him making futile efforts to
express himself on the quarter-deck. After a few
minutes of this, I heard Morris say, "No use, Napo-
leon, I can't make it out."
1
"M-ud-m-tk-sn."
"Who, Mr. Benson?"
(6
Un," nodding.
"Come here a moment, Benson."
"Yes, sir." And bidding a warrant officer con-
tinue the drill, I presented myself.
"Can you understand our pilot, here?"
"Not very well, sir; not so well as McCrady can.”
"Well, see what you can make of him now. Mc-
Crady won't be back for an hour." So Napoleon
repeated his story with the usual gestures and gut-
tural exclamations. I could not have made head nor
tail of it if we had not rehearsed earlier in the day.
"Shoorsh um (standing with arms extended north-
west and southeast) um, um (pointing to the sun with
one hand and to the horizon below with the other)."
"Sou'west wind coming in after sunset, sir," said I
boldly.
Morris nodded.
"Um, sst, um, sh!"
"I know that," said Morris; "that means blockade-
runners."
REDDY NAPOLEON-CROCODILE COVE. 89
"Yes, sir," said I, "that's what he means."
So the strange colloquy went on, and I translated
with some simulated hesitancy, till between us we
made Mr. Morris draw his own inferences according
to our own ideas.
"What do you think of that, Benson?"
"I'd like to try it, sir."
"Well, tell Mr. Dabney I'd like to see him."
Down I went to the ward-room and routed out
Dabney, begging him to remember me in his will.
Then back to my cutlass division, which I dismissed,
as the hour for drill was up.
After half an hour or so, word was brought to
Nevers and me to report in the captain's cabin. He
and Dabney had the coast-survey charts spread open
before them, and Morris asked me, without preface, if
I would like to take charge of a boat expedition.
I nearly executed a double shuffle at the prospect,
but restrained my expression within due bounds of
official decorum.
(6
'Well, get yourselves ready. I ought to send
Dabney or Russell, but I don't quite like to spare
them to-night. Mr. Dabney will see to fitting out
the boats, however. You may go and attend to them
now, Dabney."
Then turning to me, he gave me some instructions,
to the effect that we were to take with us three days'
rations, going into camp in the hammock on St. Jude's
Island, where we should be concealed from outside
90
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
observation, and then capture or destroy any block-
ade-runners that came within reach.
"The only thing that I am anxious about," he
added, "is this continued fine weather. We have
not had any rain, or sea, or storm of any kind to
speak of since leaving New York. Now if anything
in the shape of a hurricane should come up, you will
be safe enough on the other side of the island, and I
shall run in for shelter by the East Pass, if I can
make it, or, if not, by any of the inlets to the east-
ward of this."
The rest of the afternoon was busily occupied in
getting everything ready for the expedition. The
boats' crews were made up of volunteers, of whom
there was no lack, eighteen men being allowed to
each boat, so as to give two full reliefs at the oars
with a few extras for emergency in case of accident.
McCrady came home under sail with the last of
the offshore breeze, and Napoleon was made to re-
peat his story again, Mac's rendering thereof bearing
comparison fairly well with ours, but being consider-
ably fuller since it was a direct translation from the
original.
It was one of the conditions that Napoleon should
go along to pilot us, but it was equally necessary
that he should return to the "Bantam" again.
Accordingly, a third boat was sent in charge of
Acting Master Russell, with Napoleon on board,
who at the last moment so entreated McCrady to
REDDY NAPOLEON-CROCODILE COVE.
91
go too, that leave was granted; indeed, it was almost
indispensable that Mac should be on hand wherever
Napoleon was required to do any talking, and Mac
very shortly acquired a nickname as "Napoleon's
aide,” which he did not relish very much, but ac-
cepted, nevertheless, with the good nature which was
one of his characteristics.
As soon as it was dark, so that we could not very
well be made out from shore, Morris steamed slowly
up toward a pass called "New Inlet," and we got
away, the three boats of us, on the flood tide, which
was now beginning to make gently into the bay.
Napoleon and McCrady were in the bows of the
leading boat (Russell's), and after pulling for half an
hour word was passed astern, and resting on our oars,
we drifted silently in between two white beaches
where the gentle Gulf rollers broke in phosphorescent
whiteness on the sand.
In a few minutes we floated into an eddy behind
the point of St. Jude's Island, and resumed our oars,
pulling eastward in very shoal water until "the
bottom dropped out," when Napoleon signalled hard
aport, and we followed him into a crooked waterway
that soon became too narrow for oars. At the
mouth of this, Russell stopped with his boat, and I
took the lead, four men standing and using their
oars as setting poles. Napoleon transferring him-
self and his "aide" temporarily to my boat, we ad-
vanced up the inlet, which soon widened out into a
92
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
1
dark little land-locked harbor, or more properly pond,
surrounded by a dense hammock growth which pre-
vented our seeing or being seen in any direction.
Napoleon now gave some of his expressive grunts
by way of farewell, and disappeared silently in the
surrounding blackness. He was gone some twenty
minutes, and then returned and conveyed to Mac
the information that the coast was clear and no signs
of life about.
I asked him, for my own satisfaction, a few ques-
tions about our unknown surroundings,- questions
which were answered by McCrady's help,—and then
wishing each other luck, he and Mac waded down the
creek together towards Russell's boat, whose oars we
presently heard as they rowed back toward the inlet,
leaving us in our solitary bivouac. The tide came
brimming in through the dark inlet and filling up our
little harbor, which we could only see through the
force of imagination, as we could not build fires
1 The word may occur so often in these pages, that for the
benefit of Northern readers it perhaps calls for definition. It
is sometimes spelled "hummock, or "hommack,” etc., but
hammock represents the common local pronunciation, and is doubt-
less the more correct form. It is the sole survival of the language
spoken by the native races of Florida when the Spaniards first
discovered the country. These races were allied to the Lucayans
of the Bahama Islands, and hammock means simply a tract of
woodland where the natural growth is of hard wood, such as oak,
ash, and the like, as distinguished from the swamps and lowlands
where only cypress, pine, and other soft woods are found.
REDDY NAPOLEON—CROCODILE COVE.
93
for fear of advertising our position to possible
enemies.
By dint of feeling about and with the help of our
bull's-eye lanterns, we found a place above high-
water mark where the men could lie on the sand.
Leaving Nevers to see that the bivouac was made
as silently as possible, I took three men, and, groping
our way through a little used trail, came to the edge
of the timber some two hundred yards from the
boats. Leaving them there as a picket post, I was
just returning to the boats when I remembered
Captain Ross's clever device of having a private
signal whistle for the "Otter," and wished that we
"Bantams" had one like it. Well, why not? So on
the impulse I whistled as nearly as I could in imita-
tion of the crowing of a cock. One of the pickets
caught it in a moment, and telling them to use it and
listen for it, if anything happened, I went back to the
boats and taught half a dozen of the men the same
signal. In a few minutes all hands knew it, and could
with difficulty be restrained from advertising their
whereabouts by doing the new signal in unison.
CHAPTER IX.
A NIGHT ALARM; AN EARLY SCOUT.
THE camp was asleep presently but for one man in
each boat, who had orders to awaken me on the least
alarm, and call me, at any rate, at the first streak of
dawn.
I did not intend to go to sleep at all, but I suppose
that I must have dropped off, for I was aware of be-
ing taken by the shoulder.
"Mr. Benson, Mr. Benson, there's something com-
ing up the creek."
I sat up and shook myself awake. After listening
for a moment, there certainly was a noise in the
darkness down toward the mouth of the inlet, a
noise that I could not in the least understand. Tell-
ing the man in the other boat to arouse Nevers, I
sent him ashore to awaken the men.
In the darkness, as he stepped from one thwart to
another, an oar rolled over and made an exaggerated
noise in the stillness, and then all was silent again,
save for the slight bustle of the men sitting up,
throwing off their blankets, and brushing the beach
sand out of their hair and eyes.
For a few minutes there was no repetition of the
94
A NIGHT ALARM; AN EARLY SCOUT.
95
noise, and then a gentle splashing and sliding was
resumed. To me, in my excited state of mind, it
sounded exactly like the advance of a boat against
the current. Now and then there came a half-human
grunt, whenever there was an unusually loud splash;
and at last, such was the tension of my nerves, I al-
most fancied that I could see the bushes parted at
the opening to the inlet.
Just at this crisis, when the men were bunched to-
gether on the beach with their revolvers ready in
their hands, there came from the heart of the solemn
midnight overhead two or three staccato barks, fol-
lowed by a long-drawn, uncanny cry, inexpressibly
mournful, and as though there had been a prear-
ranged signal the big alligator, who had been scull-
ing herself up the creek, emitted a hiss of rage or
terror as she scented human creatures, and lashed the
water angrily with her tail.
It was little short of a miracle that somebody did
not let off a carbine or a revolver out of pure ner-
vousness, for I assure you that the big brown owl of
the Gulf States can sing a very blood-curdling song
when he tries.
The tension of our nerves relaxed instantly, and a
rather uneasy laugh came out of the darkness behind
me as I stood in the stern of the cutter. Everybody
recognized the owl, but few, if any, knew what the
grunts and hisses meant. I am sure I didn't, so I
hailed in the sternest tones I could command, —
96
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
"Who goes there?"
No answer.
Answer, or I'll shoot.”
Silence.
Bang!
Of course, I could only aim at a venture, but the
flash and the report served to terrify Mistress Alli-
gator. At the same moment Nevers flashed the lens
of his bull's-eye lantern at her, and there she lay,
half in the water, her two eyes gleaming like coals,
and her shiny back humped up as if for a spring.
As we looked, two or three of her numerous babies
swam alongside and climbed upon the maternal
back.
It was very comical to see the little creatures cock
their heads in the yellow gleam of the lantern, for
the group was not more than a boat's length dis-
tant, and Jacky's spirits rallied with characteristic
rapidity.
"Is this a free show, or is there something to pay
for it?" I heard one of our Irish jesters say in the
darkness behind me.
"Yes, there may be the mischief to pay, if she comes
for us. Jones, Ruggles, stand by with your carbines!
aim at her eyes; keep the lantern on her, Nevers."
"Aye, aye, sir."
66
Two reports rang out almost simultaneously, and
then there began in that little harbor a "circus," the
like of which I never expect to see again. The shal-
A NIGHT ALARM; AN EARLY SCOUT.
97
low water boiled literally like a pot, and if the croco-
dile was really the scriptural "leviathan" the familiar
quotation was very successfully illustrated.
I made the men put away their firearms and
stand by with drawn cutlasses, for I was afraid they
might shoot each other in the scrimmage, if she came
ashore. But it was her death flurry. She thrashed
herself into the shoal water, and hit my boat a re-
sounding whack with her tail, and at that half a
dozen blue-jackets jumped in and finished her with
their cutlasses, one or two of them getting their feet
knocked out from under them, as she swept semicir-
cles with her mighty tail in her death struggle.
The native tribes of Florida knew long ago that
there were two kinds of alligators in their waters, and
they even taught the scientists how to distinguish
them by name. To them the common alligator is
66
Allapatta," but the crocodile is "Allapatta Hadjo
(mad alligator), which the scientific folk, not at all
knowing that the Indians had gotten ahead of them,
translated into Crocodilus ferox. They also called
him Crocodilus acutus, when the Indians had al-
ready named him "the sharp-nosed alligator." The
principal visible difference between the two is that
the crocodile has a noticeably sharper and narrower
nose, and the longest of his lower teeth project clean
through what our blue-jackets called "hawseholes"
in the roof of his mouth.
I must needs make a little diversion here in the
H
98
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
direction of natural history. Professor Hornaday,
now superintendent of the Peabody Natural History
Museum in New York, is no doubt fairly entitled to
the honor of having discovered that a true croco-
dile is found in the coastwise waters of Florida.
That is to say, he discovered and identified him as
something quite different from the ordinary Missis-
sippi alligator that is found throughout the cypress
swamps and fresh-water savannahs of the Gulf
States. Thus it happened that the boats' crews of
the "Bantam " engaged in the expedition of which
I had charge, killed a genuine crocodile, although
they may not have known it, on this particular night
of which I am telling the story. Next day, during
the hours of waiting, some of our men cut off the
supposed alligator's head and buried it in the sand,
from whence it was to be eventually rescued by
McCrady, who was of a scientific turn of mind, and
presented to a museum where it is identified as the
head of a genuine crocodile, and a very large one at
that.
We had some fun, too, chasing the little crocodiles
next day, and succeeded in capturing several of them,
some of which survived their subsequent experiences,
and were safely established as pets on board the
"Bantam," much to the disgust of Bosun, the ship's
dog, who never could abide the sight of them, and
sooner or later was guilty, I believe, of bringing
their innocent little lives to an abrupt termination.
A NIGHT ALARM; AN EARLY SCOUT.
99
I was very sorry that the firing had taken place,
for there was no telling who might have heard it.
But it had certainly been unavoidable. Making sure
that the alligator was sure enough dead, I told the
men to turn in again and get what sleep they could,
while I went up the trail to inspect the picket post.
I gave the "Bantam" whistle as I approached, and
it was promptly answered. Of course the men had
heard the noise at the boats, and did not know what
to make of it, but they had stuck to their posts like
good fellows. The reports of the carbines, they told
me, were greatly muffled by the woods, so I hoped
that no unfriendly ear had heard them, as indeed
proved to be the case. Returning to the boat
through the dark hammock, I got a good two hours'
sleep before I was called, and found the dawn just
lighting up the east.
Calling two men to accompany me, we hurried up
the trail past the picket post, and could see against
the brightening sky a bluff of which Napoleon had
told us, whence we could command a view of the
West Pass, and the most practicable channel for
blockade-runners. Cautioning my companions not
to show themselves any more than they could help,
we made our way near the edge of the timber, and
reached the slope of the bluff as the light began to
grow stronger. Leaving my companions a few yards
behind, I crept up, and peeped cautiously over the
crest.
100
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
The first thing that caught my eye was a trian-
gular white flag, flying from a pole set in a narrow
gorge of the sand dunes, and evidently visible some
distance at sea, though not to be seen readily in
either direction along the beach. Naturally, this
increased my desire to be as invisible as possible, so
I raised myself very, very slowly a little higher, and
was presently aware of two broad-brimmed, dust-
colored slouch hats, and two pairs of butternut-clad
shoulders just below the brow of the bluff.
Third and last, I saw two schooners, five or six
miles offshore, staggering under every stitch of can-
vas they could carry, and racing in toward the inlet
as fast as the freshening Gulf breeze could drive
them.
There was a sight to stir the blood of a young and
ambitious naval commander! But what was to be
done with the two "Johnny Rebs," who could only
be here for a purpose?
Ducking my head out of sight, I backed carefully
down the slope to my companions, turning over in my
mind the problem thus suddenly sprung upon me.
No doubt the white flag meant "all right, come
on," or something to that effect. Evidently, our
shots in the alligator scrimmage had not been heard,
for the Johnnies evidently had no suspicion of any
hostile blue-jackets at hand. My men looked at me
inquiringly, as I cautiously withdrew and returned
to them.

Fearge Tibbs-
THERE SPRANG UP A YOUTHFUL FIGURE IN CADET GRAY."
A NIGHT ALARM; AN EARLY SCOUT. 101
In low tones, I explained the situation, adding that
we must capture the two men with as little disturb-
ance as possible. My plan was to cover them with
our carbines at close quarters, and command their
surrender on pain of instant death. I told my men.
to fire without an instant's hesitation if any move-
ment was made to seize the arms, which I made no
doubt lay within easy reach.
We got into position without trouble and without
having been heard, and standing up, — I own that
my heart was thumping wildly,—I stepped forward
one or two paces and cried aloud with my revolver
at the present, "If you move, you're dead men."
There was an instinctive reaching for rifles, and
from behind a tuft of grass that had concealed him,
there sprang up a youthful figure in cadet gray.
Like a flash, he swung up his revolver and fired, the
bullet cutting my cap band. Almost at the same in-
stant crack went one of the blue-jacket's carbines,
and throwing up his arms, my old schoolmate, Haines
Gordon, fell backward and rolled over and over part
way down the seaward slope of the sand dune.
I had recognized him just as he fired; whether he
knew me or not, I could not say. His hand may
have been quicker than his eye, — they learn that
kind of legerdemain down in the Dixie, where boys
are, or used to be, brought up to this sort of thing
very early in life. Of course I ought to have shot
him first, having decidedly the advantage, but I
2
102
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
didn't, somehow; I never was very quick with my
pistol, and indeed I don't think a Yankee boy can
often learn to be as quick as is his Southern cousin.
There was no time to lose; starting my men
towards the boats at the "double," with their dis-
armed prisoners trotting along before them (these
men had promptly surrendered as soon as they saw
the fall of their officer, and were aware that they
were helpless under the muzzles of my revolver and
the remaining carbine), I dashed down the bluff
to Gordon's side. He lay with his face deep in
the sand; with an aching heart I turned him over.
There was an ugly hole in the side of the gray
tunic, darkly stained and wet around its edges.
I unbuttoned it, tore away the shirt, and twitch-
ing a handkerchief from my pocket, I stuffed it
into the wound. There was a gold locket hanging
by a string about his neck. I jerked it off, hastily
possessed myself of such papers and small personal
belongings as I could find ready to hand. Then
laying him in as easy a position as I could, I started
on a keen run after my escort, taking a glance at
the blockade-runners as I topped the bluff.
CHAPTER X.
(6
THE TAKING OF THE BOLD BRITON.'
""
THE two schooners were still standing in with
all canvas drawing, -as pretty a sailing race for
two as one would wish to see, and unbeknown to
them a good deal depended on the result. Evidently,
they had not observed the capture of the signal
station guards. Indeed, they could hardly have seen
us at that distance, even if they had been looking.
I reached the outpost almost as soon as my men
did, and taking all hands with us we hurried down
the trail. All idea of a hot breakfast was aban-
doned at once, and leaving our more bulky camp
equipage and the prisoners with four men as a
guard, we rushed the two cutters down the inlet
to the beach, paying small heed to a big alligator
who scuttled away in short order when he saw us
coming. No doubt he was the father of the in-
teresting family whose acquaintance we had formed
the night before. The fathers of alligators, I regret
to say, are fond of the young of their species as an
article of diet, and the mammas are obliged to use
summary measures in order to protect the brood
from speedy extermination.
C
103
104
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
The schooners were still hidden behind the point
of the island as we made sail; but hardly had we
begun to heel over, before the strengthening breeze,
when we espied them.
In the West Pass of Cheecola Bay, the ship chan-
nel takes a sharp turn from north-northeast to south-
east. Small vessels can keep right on across the
sound at high water; but to look at them, at least,
one of these schooners would have a close shave of
it to carry her draught across the shallows.
Our object was to intercept the incoming craft
before they could get fairly into the sound, heading
them off where the channel was so narrow that they
could hardly have room to work ship. They had
come up so swiftly, however, that there was small
chance for that.
As soon as they recognized us for man-of-war's boats,
the two skippers adopted different lines of policy.
The one which we judged to have the least draught
started her sheets, and evidently determined to run
straight across the sound if she could; she was of
American build, a centre-board craft, and could vent-
ure safely into half the depth required by the other.
The larger one luffed sharply, and came up the deep
channel. Neither of them dared to go about and
try to work back to sea again, for the wind was
blowing straight on shore, and what current there
was set into the sound.
Telling Nevers that the Yankee-built craft was
THE TAKING OF THE 66
BOLD BRITON." 105
his game, I ordered my masts and sails thrown over-
board, out oars, and lay by to throw a grapnel aboard,
if I could get near enough. As soon as we came
within range, we gave him a blank with the howitzer;
but he took no notice except to set the British ensign.
At the same time I noticed that the other schooner
had defiantly set the Confederate flag, as if resolved not
to mince matters now that she was in familiar waters.
Then followed the customary solid shot across the
bows, upon which our English friend kept away, hop-
ing, I suppose, to run clear of us by his greater speed
under sail.
I had studied the chart pretty carefully, and thought
that he could not hold his course more than a mile,
so I steered to head him off when he came about.
"He'll run us down, if he can, sir," said Quarter-
master Blake, who had the helm.
"Well, we'll give him something to think about
first. Lay us alongside, if you can. I'll go forward
and board him alone, if you'll put me within jumping
distance."
Now I do not want to take any credit that does
not belong to me. British blockade-runners were a
tolerably desperate set, but they were rather shy
about killing United States blue-jackets when there
was a likelihood of being caught at it. I knew that
if I could once get on board that schooner, I could
take personal charge of her, even if I had nobody to
back me up. Anyhow, I was bound to try it.
106
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
With the other schooner, which had set the Con-
federate colors and which Nevers had to deal with,
the case was entirely different. She was either a
privateer or a blockade-runner. In either case, she
would not hesitate a moment to kill all the Yankees
that came within range, blue-jackets or otherwise.
The Englishman came about presently when he
neared the shallows, and stood for us close hauled
on the port tack. I let drive a solid shot, as soon as
he was within range, but he never luffed a particle,
though the shot went neatly through his fore and
main sails, and they immediately began to split under
the strain of the wind.
Bidding the gunner load with canister, for I saw
that we should be at close quarters before we could
deliver another shot, I glanced aft at Blake. He
was better able to navigate a man-of-war's boat
under oars than I was, and right well did he judge
his distance.
The Englishman was about as close to the wind as
he could "lay," and with a word to the crew Blake
shot us to windward of him.
There was a lookout, or at least some sort of a
man posted at the heel of the schooner's bowsprit,
and I saw him wave his arm as a signal to the steers-
man. Blake saw him as well as I, and called to his
crew to "jump her."
There was time only for half a dozen strokes be-
fore the schooner's jib-boom shot over our heads.
THE TAKING OF THE "BOLD BRITON.” 107
The rush of foam under her cut water was in our ears,
and as we swept past under the overhang of her bow
I made a desperate leap into the bowsprit shrouds,
catching easily enough and swinging myself up to
the rail in a twinkling.
What became of the boat, I did not then know or
care, my sole object being to get on board. The
man on lookout, luckily for me, had kept himself to
leeward so as to be out of sight, and to be partly
sheltered behind the windlass-bitts from chance Yan-
kee bullets. Perhaps he would have knocked me on
the head, accidentally as it were, if he could have
had a chance; but I had one leg over the rail before
he could get within swinging distance with a capstan
bar, and the persuasive muzzle of a navy revolver
reminded him that there was something more than
a "paper blockade" in evidence.
He stopped where he stood, but half inclined to
make a fight of it, and without paying any further
attention to him, I sprang across to the lee side and
let fly all the head-sail sheets, which straightway
began to slat, lashing their blocks about in such
reckless fashion, that the man took to cover without
more ado, to save himself from being knocked on
the head by the flying tackle.
There were only six or eight men in sight on the
main-deck, counting the skipper, who had one side
of the wheel, and there were only about a dozen
men on board all told. With a revolver at full cock
108
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
in one hand and a cutlass in the other, I went aft
to the foresail, the crew glancing uneasily at their
officers as at me, as much as to say, "Why don't you
let us heave this young 'Bantam' over the side?"
Reaching the foresail sheet, I let that fly, too, upon
which the schooner, having only her spanker left to
draw, came up into the wind and began to lose her
headway.
Looking about now for the first time, I was im-
mensely relieved to see two Jackies climbing over
the weather rail, for all this had happened prob-
ably inside of a minute, and these two being per-
haps more active than their fellows had caught by
the fore rigging as the wreck of the cutter swept
past. They came quickly across the deck to me,
drawing their revolvers, which, by the way, were
probably not very trustworthy just then from the
wetting they had received. But the three of us
marched aft together, bold as need be, and sum-
marily relieved the wheel; that is to say, we drove
the skipper and his mate below with small cere-
mony, they offering no resistance, and took posses-
sion in the name of the United States.
With her main-sail trimmed well in, the schooner
could only point into the eye of the wind like a
weather-vane. So bidding one man keep the crew
in awe of his revolver, I sprang to the taffrail accom-
panied by the other blue-jacket, and glanced astern.
The cutter lay in the vessel's wake, bottom up,
THE TAKING OF THE "BOLD BRITON." 109
with her side stove in, the howitzer, no doubt, sunk
to the bottom, and the men swimming about and
keeping afloat as best they might by anything they
could lay hold of. Some of the best swimmers were
striking out for the schooner; but it was a long
swim, for she had shot well up into the wind as she
came to, and I feared greatly that their strength
would give out before they could cover the distance.
The schooner had begun to drift astern, but I was
afraid to wait for this slow method of progress, so
I helped my remaining man to cut the lashings of
the dingy that hung at the stern davits, and drop
her into the water. He sprang in as she went down,
and sculled away to the rescue.
It took two trips in the dingy to get all hands on
board the "Bold Briton," for that was the name of
our prize; and then for the first time I breathed
freely, for not a man was missing, and we now
largely outnumbered the schooner's crew, whom I
at once ordered below, and having full possession
of the ship had time to look after Nevers, of whom
I had caught occasional glimpses, without having
really noticed how affairs were going with him.
He was holding his own in the chase, which was
not so very strange, considering that the schooner
had not more than a foot or two of water under her
keel, so that she "carried the whole sound with her,"
as the saying is, while Nevers in his lighter craft
skimmed lightly over the surface. Still the chances
110
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
favored the schooner, if she could only keep clear of
the shallows, which she was trying her best to do,
no doubt, under the skilful management of some
local coast pilot.
Nevers was firing at intervals with his little pop-
gun of a howitzer, in the hope of frightening some-
body, or by good luck crippling a spar; but they were
getting out from under the lee of the island now, and
the cutter was feeling the jump of the sea, so that
aiming with a howitzer in the bow was difficult.
It was a bad day for blockade-runners, however,
and just as I was beginning to wish that Nevers
would give it up and come back, his schooner took a
"pilot's sheer" that carried her well up to windward,
filled away again on her course, and then brought up
all standing on a sand-bar that had, no doubt, main-
tained its allegiance to the United States in spite of
the secession of Florida.
Evidently men had been stationed at the sheets, for
everything was instantly let go. The fore and main
sails came part way down by the run, and were
hauled down the rest of the way by main force.
The head-sails were left standing, I suppose, to
pull her over the bar as the tide came in, and we
could see now, for the first time, that she was going
to fight, for sundry little puffs of smoke drifted off
to leeward against the blue.
Nevers promptly went about, returning the fire
with his carbines, and standing over to take position
THE TAKING OF THE 66
BOLD BRITON." 111
directly astern, where he could use shells to best
advantage.
Meanwhile, we were drifting down toward the
fight and into shoal water, so I let go an anchor,
took in the head-sails, and set all hands to work clear-
ing away the long boat for launching so that we
could press her into the service in place of our dis-
abled cutter.
This was a job of some magnitude, for the big
heavy boat was carefully covered over with tarpau-
lin, lashed fast so that it would have taken a hurri-
cane to tear her loose, and packed full of all sorts of
truck intended for barter and exchange in the Con-
federacy.
It did not take my Jackies very long to tumble
everything out on deck; but to find and rig the heavy
and unfamiliar tackles and get the big craft over the
side was rather slow work.
I sent two men in the dingy to pick up our masts
and sails which we had thrown over so as to have
them out of the way just before our encounter with
the schooner. The wreck of my cutter had anchored
itself when she was stove in and turned over, the
anchor fouling the trail rope of the howitzer, and
going down with it in some fifteen feet of water.
Nearly all my Jackies had cast loose their side
arms and cartridge belts when they found themselves
forced to swim, — and small blame to them, — so
apart from myself, and the two who had climbed
112
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
aboard by the chains, we were practically unarmed.
The English skipper did not know this, though he
might easily have guessed it had he been a Yankee.
Before this, Nevers had run up to windward of the
privateer, out of rifle range, taken in sail, and begun
firing his little shells at the enemy, aiming at her
cabin windows and making them at least rather
uncomfortable below decks; but he was not destined
to have things all his own way, for there was evi-
dently a strong crew on board the schooner, and first
we knew they had rigged a tackle on a medium-sized
brass carronade which must have been mounted
amidships, and whipped it up on top of the after-
deck-house.
Nevers saw it too, and it was "stern all," while
the Johnnies were casting off the hoisting gear and
making ready to fire. By the time the puff of smoke
came, he was pretty well away, and the shot went
skipping by to leeward; but it was evident that the
privateer carried far too heavy metal for a ship's
cutter, so Nevers prudently gave it up for the time,
and pulled for us as the next best thing to do, leaving
his late chase safely grounded for the present.
Thus reinforced by a score of well-armed blue-
jackets, I took two of them with me for escort, and
went below to search for arms and such other mat-
ters as might be of interest to me and my superiors.
The skipper was English, of course, and was naturally
in a rather bad humor; but he was an old blockade-
THE TAKING OF THE "BOLD BRITON.” 113
runner, having made several successful trips, and
upon the whole was disposed to take matters
philosophically.
He handed over his papers on demand, after hav-
ing, I suppose, destroyed such as he thought might
be of any consequence; and a glance at them told
me that my prize was certain to be condemned in
any court. So telling him that I should be obliged
to keep him and his crew below decks for the pres-
ent, we rummaged for arms, and found quite a little
arsenal in the way of American revolvers and Eng-
lish rifles, enough at any rate to more than make
good the losses we had ourselves sustained.
Taking these on deck, and making a strict search
in the forecastle where the schooner's crew was con-
fined, we satisfied ourselves that no more personal
arms were in hiding.
About this time, I began to be reminded of break-
fast by the state of my own feelings. It has taken
some time to tell about this little scrimmage, as far as
it has gone, but in point of fact the sun was barely
an hour high when Nevers came alongside in No. 2
cutter. It was not till then that it suddenly oc-
curred to all hands that we had started out on this
chase with nothing whatever to eat. Upon this, as
there was no immediate crisis on hand, we all became
ravenously hungry, and were duly grateful to Andy
Jackson, one of our black blue-jackets, for having
kept up the schooner's galley fire and put the biggest
I
&
114
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
kettle on to boil without asking leave of any-
body.
Indeed, he and some of his special cronies had
made a good breakfast, without permission, before the
rest of us had even thought of it; and the black ras-
cal came to me now and told me that the "Bold Brit-
on's" cook was an old shipmate of his, and would be
willing to cook breakfast for us all for a considera-
tion.
So we had a rattling good breakfast by reliefs, and
it was astonishing how light the long boat seemed
afterward. The "Bold Briton's" manifest called for
an innocent cargo of jute and Sisal hemp; but as her
clearance papers declared that she was bound for
Boston, I thought it extremely probable that there
might be some sort of a mistake in regard to her
cargo. Accordingly, I had a section of the main-
hatch taken off, and sure enough, there was a beau-
tiful six-gun field battery with the lion and the
unicorn fighting for the crown and "V. R." stamped
on the breach.
CHAPTER XI.
ROYAL ARTILLERY.
Of course Her Most Gracious Majesty did not
know anything personally about this particular little
transaction, involving some of her own ordnance
stores; but certain of her officers must have known.
about it. Without further ado, we set up a pair of
shears over the hatchway, rigged a Spanish tackle in
the crotch, and with many a jest all hands tailed
onto the falls, and we had one of those guns out on
deck and mounted upon its field carriage inside of an
hour.
It is one thing to get a gun ready to fire, and quite
another thing to fire it. Rummage as we would,
there was no ammunition to be found, nothing in the
explosive line, that is. There were solid shot in
plenty, and empty conical shells, and enough case
and canister and grape to stock a small arsenal.
However, the second cutter's ammunition was
available, so Nevers had one of his gunners roll
four of our cartridges into one and try a shot at
our Rebel neighbor. It fell distressingly short, and
I did not think it prudent to burn up more of our
powder at such a rapid rate, for if we had to con-
115
116
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
sume four howitzer cartridges at each discharge,
our little store of ammunition would soon be
exhausted.
But the Rebel privateers had not been idle. As
soon as Nevers had drawn off with his cutter, they
dropped a kedge well up to windward, and began
heaving on it so as to be ready to fill away as soon
as she floated clear on the rising tide. If we re-
mained at anchor, she could run past within half a
mile of us, well knowing that having learned her
strength, we would not dare to attack her in broad
daylight with our one cutter armed with a ridiculous
little howitzer and the big clumsy long boat which,
of course, they had seen us launch.
Every minute we were expecting to see her begin
to move, when Nevers came running forward with a
dozen cartridges in his arms.
"The
"Here we are,” he cried, laying the bags down on
deck, and throwing something over them.
'old man' had them stowed away under his cabin.
Gun crew, fall in."
The men sprang to their stations, and in a twin-
kling had the piece loaded for service with a modern
percussion shell, for Nevers had found some fixed
ammunition in what I may call the magazine.
He made a fairly good shot, considering it was a
range finder, but the Johnnies were already holding
the jib up to windward, and had all hands walking
away aft with the kedge rope. In a few minutes
ROYAL ARTILLERY.
117
more, they had it up to the hawsehole, and she began
to pay off and gather way.
"Lay forward there, quartermaster; take half à
dozen men, let slip the cable, set the head-sails, stand
by fore and main sheets; Mossman, take the wheel."
There was some little tumbling over one another,
for we had been too busy to assign regular stations;
but with seaman-like adaptiveness every man saw
what needed doing, and did it. Most of the men
were old sailors, and knew far more about handling
sea-going craft than I did; but naval discipline de-
crees that even a middy, when he is in command,
shall be obeyed.
"Get that gun over to the port side, Mr. Nevers.
Weather sheets for'ard there; that's good. Let
draw"; and the "Bold Briton" began to forge ahead,
having the "Gulf Ranger," for that we found was
the privateersman's name, on her port quarter.
Just inside the West Pass of Cheecola Sound, the
sailing course ranges pretty well south of east for
three or four miles, and is a mile or so wide, giving
twelve or fifteen feet of water, but defined to the
north by a sand-bar which is barely a-wash here and
there even at high tide. It was on this bar that the
Ranger" had grounded while manoeuvring to get
Nevers where he was wanted. The Confederate flag
and the rifle shots had, however, put Nevers on his
guard, warning him that he had no ordinary block-
ade-runner to deal with. Had he been less alive to
(6
118
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
the situation, he would certainly have lost his boat,
and very likely have been captured with his entire
crew.
We had ascertained that the "Bold Briton" drew
about nine feet of water aft, and by common consent
of my oldest blue-jacket the "Ranger," with her
centre-board housed, probably did not draw more
than five feet. She could therefore easily lead us
aground if we came too near.
None of our blockade-runner prisoners would
own to being a pilot; the "Master" did his own
piloting, so said the crew, and when I appealed to
the master, he simply laughed at me. Nothing
would have pleased him better than to have his
schooner hung up on a sand-bar within reach of a
friendly port.
Of course all buoys and channel marks had long
since been removed by the Rebels, so I sent a Glouces-
ter fisherman up into the fore crosstrees to keep a
lookout for shallows, and trusted the rest to luck.
We were now both of us reaching away on the
starboard tack, the "Ranger" considerably astern and
to leeward, and the "Bold Briton" steering so as, if
possible, to crowd her on to the shallows, or, failing
that, to head her off before she could weather the
point of the sand-bar where a numerous group of
pelicans stood watching our manoeuvres and spread-
ing their broad wings to dry in the morning sun.
Telling Nevers to fire whenever he could bring
ROYAL ARTILLERY.
119
his piece to bear, I went and stood with Mossman at
the wheel. He was a fine specimen of the old-style
Yankee man-of-war's man, — they are getting rather
scarce in these degenerate days of iron-clad machine-
shops, and he was sailing the "Bold Briton" for all
that she was good for.
"That fellow can sail two fathom to our one, sir,"
said he, "with these two boats towing astern. Couldn't
you cast them adrift, sir?”
I had not thought of this, but why should we not?
In any event we could not run away from them more
than two or three miles. There was one man, for a
boat guard, in each boat to look out for her, and
bear her off from the schooner when she luffed. It
seemed to me that Mossman's advice was sound, so I
hailed the men in the boats.
"I am going to cast you adrift; make sail on the
long boat and follow me; tow the cutter."
I judged that the men did not fancy this programme
very much; but cast off the painters without any
more words, and was rewarded with, "Thank you,
sir, she steers a sight better now," from Mossman.
We had now ranged up within shooting distance,
and Nevers was making very good practice with his
new field piece. Considering that his crew had to
block the wheels of the carriage with shot-bags to
keep the gun from coasting down and knocking the
lee bulwarks overboard, he did very well.
But we were nearing the point of the bar now,
120
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
and unless we could disable the swift-footed "Ranger,"
she stood a very good chance of making her escape.
The moment she weathered the point she could square
away, and lay a straight course for the harbor ten
miles off across the sound, which would be very
exasperating to us after so nearly catching her.
"Do you think you can run her down?" I asked
Mossman.
"I can try, sir; but I misdoubt she'll be rather
quick for us."
"Well, try it anyhow."
"Better start the sheets a bit, sir, if you're going
to ram."
I gave the necessary orders; the sheets were slacked
away a bit, and with accelerated speed the "Bold
Briton" with her Yankee crew rushed toward her
prey.
But now it was the "Ranger's" turn. We were
within reach of her carronades, and she began to
pepper us well. Small shot tore through our canvas
overhead, and our single field-piece could no longer
be brought to bear. I trembled lest something
should be shot away, and leave us at her mercy.
Calling another man to stand by Mossman at the
wheel in case he should be wounded, I went forward
and mustered all hands in the wake of the fore-
castle.
"Mossman is going to run her down, if he can," I
said to Nevers. "I am going to lead the boarders."
ROYAL ARTILLERY.
121
Nevers went back to his gun, and I saw him load
with canister.
To the men who mustered forward, I said as
coolly as I could: "Stand by to board over the
lee bow as soon as she strikes. I'll show you the
way. Clear the deck with your cutlasses and drive
every one below. Now lay low till you get the
word.'
They needed no warning to lay low, for the last
shot from the "Ranger" had gone clear through the
forecastle, wounding two or three men, while our
English prisoners began to pound on the hatch and
howl to be let out.
I had to stand up more or less to see where we
were, and very soon became aware that there were
Southern riflemen not far off on the watch for just
such game as I, so I did not scruple to get behind
the foremast and take advantage of such shelter as I
could find.
Our gun crew, however, were using their carbines
under Nevers's direction, and still Mossman steadily
held his course till, in my excitement, I thought he
was going to run across the "Ranger's" bows.
Nearer, nearer, till I could see the strands in her
rigging, till I could see the bronzed faces of the
grim gunners, as they ran their carronades out for
the last time, aiming low with the evident intention
of wounding us between wind and water.
Some of our fellows peppered away with their
3
122
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
revolvers, and must have made it rather warm along
the "Ranger's" weather rail.
Then there came an instant when every sailorman
on both ships knew that the time had come. I
glanced aft; Mossman was crowding the helm down;
his mate was slacking the main-sheet so as to let her
fall off quicker.
The "Ranger's" fore rigging caught our jib-boom,
and snapped it off like a jackstraw. She was under
full headway, probably doing her eight or nine knots,
and it took but a second for our figure-head to crash
through her bulwarks.
"Boarders away! follow me, all 'Bantams'!" And
a score of blue-jackets swarmed over the rail, leaped
down upon the slanting deck, with swinging cutlasses
and a ringing Yankee cheer. Twenty men make
quite a formidable show on the deck of a little
schooner. Fully that number were ready for us
with spiteful revolvers that stung like hornets, and
three or four of my men fell at the first fire.
I do not in the least remember what I did until I
found myself standing on the after deck-house, with
a broken cutlass in my hand, my cap gone, tunic half
torn off, and somebody tumbling headlong down the
companionway.
Two Jackies had a tall fellow down, and were
tying his arms behind him, and others were reload-
ing their revolvers. Such of the "Ranger's" crew as
had not been hurt or killed had been driven below,
ROYAL ARTILLERY.
123
and we were masters of the deck. But what a mess
the two schooners were in, to be sure!
Our sharp bows had crushed in the "Ranger's"
side, just abaft the fore rigging, both our topmasts
had been carried away with the shock of collision,
and a tangle of blocks and cordage hung overhead.
The "Bold Briton" had struck nearly at right an-
gles, cutting the "Ranger" down almost to the water's
edge, and then losing her own headway, had slowly
backed out and swung around under the pressure of
her sails, till the two vessels were now side by side.
Both were still drawing ahead a little from their
former headway, though they were not at all under
control. They were slowly obeying the instinct that
leads every properly rigged vessel, when left to her
own devices, to come up into the wind and stand still.
As soon as I was satisfied that resistance was at
an end, as far as the privateersmen were concerned,
I looked about for Nevers, and was much relieved at
seeing him seated upon a carronade, looking rather
dazed, but otherwise apparently all right. He and
his gun crew had joined the boarders, as the schoon-
ers swung together, and he had been hit over the
head with the butt of a rifle.
CHAPTER XII.
A HOSTILE STEAMER.
BIDDING him take charge of the "Ranger" with
the second cutter's crew, I ordered my own men back
on board the "Bold Briton," and at once sounded the
well. She was making no water of any consequence,
so the kedge anchor was let go, and the "Ranger"
presently drifted away, carrying with her part of our
top hamper which had become entangled with her
standing rigging.
Before she was out of hail, Nevers sung out that
he was sinking, adding that he would run her
aground, which he accordingly did, fetching up
some hundred yards astern of us, where he and his
men were perfectly safe, as he could not possibly
sink any farther even if he tried.
We all went to work at once, clearing away the
wreckage on the "Bold Briton," and repairing dam-
ages. In an hour, we had the broken topmasts and
jib-boom out of the way, and their stays and standing
rigging stopped where it could readily be accessible
for the new spars that would be set up sometime.
Nevers and his men were busy, meanwhile, in
making the wounded comfortable, furling the sails,
124
A HOSTILE STEAMER.
125
and cutting away such raffle as threatened to do
damage.
Hardly was this accomplished when the lookout
aloft hailed the deck with the unwelcome announce-
ment of a steamer coming off from the mainland.
A few minutes later we could make her out from the
deck. She might be merely on a reconnoitring
expedition, or she might be armed; anyhow, we were
at a disadvantage where we lay. So, as our boats
had come up, we got the "Ranger's" crew into the
long boat, towing her astern as the easiest way of
keeping them under perfect control, transferred our
own wounded to the "Bold Briton," and got under
way long before the steamer came within range. I
thought it no more than right to leave the wounded
privateersmen, of whom there were eight or ten, to
be cared for by their own people.
The wind still held true, and we stood over toward
our last night's camp and anchored bow and stern so
that we could command the approach from the sound
with our field-piece.
In the course of an hour, the steamer was alongside
the "Ranger." She was a river craft of moderate
size, with a high-pressure engine and carried a gun
forward behind a little lunette of cotton bales.
Evidently she was not a match for us in weight of
metal, but her compliment of men largely outnum-
bered ours. With characteristic Southern bravado,
she headed for us after inspecting the "Ranger," and
126
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
came full speed, as though intending to run us down
and carry us by boarding.
Not knowing how many men she might have on
board concealed in her cabin, I thought it wise to
stand her off. Nevers was a born artillerist, having
carried off the honors of his class at the Academy
for ball practice, and he was only too eager to try
the range of what our men had already dubbed the
Royal Artillery."
66
((
Sight for fifteen hundred yards," he said to his
gunner; "she's a good two thousand now," he added
to me, 66 'but I don't want to scare her too much
the first time."
Our schooner "we-wawed" a little in spite of her
two anchors, and a full minute passed before the
sights tallied with the target. Then Nevers jerked
the lock-string with that nicety of judgment that
marks the accomplished artillerist, and smoke ob-
scured everything for an instant, rolling directly
down toward the steamer. From the deck, we could
not see where the shot struck, but the lookout aloft
reported, —
"Jumped clean over her, sir, a little to windward."
The hint was not sufficient; the steamer came
straight on, and tried a shot with his gun, which was
nearly spent before it reached us.
Nevers was ready again in short order, and this
time sent a shot through the upper works, knocking
splinters high in air and driving a crowd of men
A HOSTILE STEAMER.
127
out upon the upper deck and paddle-boxes. It must
have done some damage to the machinery, too, for
her paddles stopped revolving and she lost headway,
swinging round and presenting her broadside, such a
fair mark that Nevers assured me that he could sink
her with three shots more.
However, the second shot convinced the officer in
command that we had best be let alone with the
artillery then at his disposal, and as his engines were
presently started again, he was able to limp out of
range, with an elbow in his smokestack and some-
thing apparently wrong with his starboard paddle-
wheel.
He did not fail, however, to notice the buoy that
we had left when we slipped our cable. He picked
it
up with the anchor attached, as also the wreck of
our first cutter with its valued howitzer and other
appurtenances. It was highly exasperating to see
him go leisurely about this errand, keeping well out
of range, and taking his time to pick up anything
that he could see that was worth saving. He lay for
some time alongside the wreck of the "Ranger,"
transferring to the steamer all the killed and
wounded, as well as everything of value that was
readily movable. I expected that he would blow
her up; but I suppose he had not quite the heart to
do it, and thinking, perhaps, that we could be pre-
vented in some way from destroying her.
At last, defiantly firing a farewell shot at us from
128
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
far beyond any possible range, he headed for
home.
All over the wide sound there was not a sail in
sight, and still the Gulf breeze blew merrily across
the island. Dinner was in course of preparation.
Nevers had a gang at work getting another of Her
Majesty's field-pieces up out of the hold and putting
it in order of battle, and three or four of our best
riggers were patching the shot-holes in our sails and
completing the hasty repairs that had been made
just after the encounter with the "Ranger." For
the first time, I had leisure to remember poor Gor-
don, whom I had been forced to leave grievously
wounded and probably dead by now on the seaward
slope of the sand dunes at early dawn.
I had not even found time to examine the papers
that I had taken from his pockets, although I confess
that I had snatched an instant, when no one was
looking, to open the gold locket that he wore about
his neck, just to see if it was any one that I knew.
It was, as I anticipated, an exquisitely painted minia-
ture of Miss Helen Tolliver.
The reader may, perhaps, remember how my little
canine friend Wag brought me a certain dainty
pocket handkerchief for a keepsake on board the
"Palma." This I had faithfully carried ever since-
let us say for good luck in the inner pocket of my
tunic. Thinking this same pocket a safe and appro-
priate place for the miniature with the handkerchief,
A HOSTILE STEAMER.
129
The
I felt there, but to my dismay found it empty.
handkerchief was gone, and I am ashamed to say
that I was quite cast down for a time by its myste-
rious disappearance.
The reader understands, I hope, that I had gone
through Gordon's pockets partly from a sense of
duty, and partly from friendliness to him. He might
be the bearer of important orders or despatches. I
had no choice but to leave him where he lay at the
time, and run for it, and the only friendly service
possible was to save his valuables from possible
marauders, which I had accordingly done. Among
the official papers were his commission as a first
lieutenant of cavalry, signed by Jefferson Davis, an
order detailing him as signal officer, and directing
him to report for duty to General Lidell, then com-
manding the Eastern District of the Gulf Coast
for the Confederates, with headquarters at Mobile.
There were also some secret instructions in cipher
which I could not read.
Duty and inclination alike urged me to make a
reconnoissance, bring in or bury my old schoolmate's
body, and find out, if I could, where were the re-
mainder of the signal corps.
I had refrained from questioning the two prisoners,
who had been taken when Gordon was shot, guess-
ing that they would not talk; but I now interviewed
the "Bold Briton's" cook, who seemed rather dis-
posed to be friendly, and was at work in the galley
K
130
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
with an assistant from the crew, for whose help he
had asked.
After pretending to inspect the rations, -as is
always the custom in the navy,
your best sea lawyer among the
you've got two or three."
-
I asked, "Who is
crew? Of course
The cook and his mate grinned. "Tom Barney's
one, for sure, sir; and you may call Liverpool Bill a
good second."
I thanked them, and sent for the two men. They
came, escorted by a Jacky, and taking them sepa-
rately, I offered them the freedom of the ship dur-
ing good behavior, and further reward if they would
tell me what the two Rebel prisoners had been talk-
ing about while confined in the forecastle. Their
stories agreed well enough to the effect that the
party had consisted of Gordon with four men de-
tailed to patrol the beach, watch for Yankee cruisers,
and help blockade-runners, setting signals for their
guidance and warning. Their camp, they said, was
in the hammock near the eastern end of the island.
They repeated, besides, a lot of characteristic Con-
federate brag, about how many Yankees they had
killed, and how many more they could "lick," and
so on, which my informants evidently accepted for
what it was worth.
After this interview I went aloft and took a care-
ful survey with the schooner's best spyglass all
around the compass. There was nothing in sight
A HOSTILE STEAMER.
131
that looked in the least threatening, so after dinner,
leaving Nevers in charge, I took four men in the
dingy, with the most trusty looking of the soldier
prisoners, and landed on the beach within easy rifle
range of our friends on board.
*
CHAPTER XIII.
A BURIAL PARTY.
WHILE we were pulling ashore, I notified my pris-
oner that I was going to make him walk in front of
me, and that if anybody fired upon us, I should shoot
him dead instantly. He said nothing at the time,
but after landing, stood looking down and working
the toe of his boot in the sand, as if meditating.
"Say, stranger," he finally asked, "what'll you do
if I won't go?"
"Handcuff you to a tree here, and leave you till
we come back." And I extracted a pair of steel
bracelets of English make from my pocket to show
that I was fully prepared to carry out the programme.
"Well, if you'll give me a white handkercher on
a stick, I reckon I can keep the boys from a-pickin'
of you off. Anyhow, I'll chance it. But, stranger,
I shan't guide you nowheres, nor tell you nothin'."
"All right. I'm not asking you," said I.
So we started off through the dense undergrowth
to find our way first to the picket post of the night
before, and thence to where I expected to find
Gordon's body. After toilsomely pushing our way
132
A BURIAL PARTY.
133
through palmetto scrub for a few rods, the soldier
stopped.
"Say, stranger," he said, "I reckon I know where
you want to go to. They's a good trail a little piece
to the left o' this yer."
"Is there? Well, suppose you show it to us."
He turned short to the left, and brought us in a
few minutes to a narrow trail through which we
could advance with comparative ease.
"I don't mind telling you that I'm on the way to
bury Lieutenant Gordon."
"Was the leftenant killed, for sure?" he asked,
after walking a short distance.
"I think so. I couldn't stop to find out for cer-
tain. He was a schoolmate of mine up North, before
the war."
"Sho! You don't tell me. I'm right smart sorry
you shot him."
"So am I; but it couldn't be helped. He would
have had me next crack, if my man hadn't dropped
him."
"That's so, stranger. I'm sort o' glad you didn't
do it yourself, though. I don't reckon he wouldn't
like to be killed by an old schoolmate of his."
For my life I could not help smiling at the quaint
double negative, and the queer mixture of ideas sug-
gested by this remark. Did he mean that if Gordon
could have foreseen the fatal meeting, he would not
have wanted me to shoot him, if the shooting had
134
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
to be done anyhow; or did he mean that looking
back from another world, Gordon would experience
a certain regret at having met his death by the hand
of a schoolmate? The question was too deep for me
to answer, so I said by way of keeping up my end
of the talk: "No, I suppose not. I am sure if I am
going to be killed in a scrimmage, I'd rather have it
done by some one I don't know than by an old play-
fellow like Mr. Gordon, for instance."
"I reckon it's all a matter o' taste, stranger," said
the soldier; "now I knew two brothers in the Carlina
mountings onct that married gals that belonged to
families that had a long-standin' feud betwixt them.
Well, naterally them two brothers had to take up
with their wives' families; the gals wouldn't hear to
nuthin' else, so they told each other good-by down
to the corner store the evenin' of the day they was
gettin' married, and Bill says, 'Jo,' says he, 'I'm
right smart glad we are goin' to be across the branch
from each other. It won't seem so lonesome to
know there's a chance of bein' held up fraternal like."
'Bill,' says Jo, 'put it there,' says he, holdin' out
his hand. 'I'm your man, Jo, let's do it harnsome
while we're about it.' So they shook, and afore the
honeymoons was over the old feud broke out lively
ag'in, and them two brothers hunted each other faith-
ful all through the mountings more nor a month."
"Did they ever find each other?" I asked.
66
Well, it ain't rightly known. 'Pears like they
A BURIAL PARTY.
135
ought to have met, bein' both good hunter men,
but they didn't somehow. They was both of um
wounded bad the same day; but there was quite a
general scrimmage that day down to the cross roads,
and nobody could tell who hit who. They both
claimed it was them, though, and the end of it was
that the women folks patched up a peace betwixt
them, and the feud was buried for evermore. For as
much as two year before the war broke out them
families was good friends, and now the men folks
is all in the war on the one side or the other so
there cayn't be no fightin' to home, not of no
account."
While I was wondering whether such a code of
honor could possibly exist anywhere in our land, we
reached the edge of the timber, and after a hasty,
comprehensive glance around, asking me to halt my
men for a moment, our guide went forward carrying
the little white flag of truce, so that it could be
readily seen. I looked apprehensively toward the
ridge of the sand dunes, and noted with a sickening
sensation that two buzzards were circling slowly
above the very spot where I judged Gordon's body
lay.
We walked on toward the place in silence, for a
few seconds, then said the guide shortly, "I reckon
he's done for, sir."
I was conscious of a singular reluctance to proceed,
as we neared the crest, and even the rough-mannered
136
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
Confederate soldier drew the sleeve across his eyes
and halted.
"I reckon there ain't no danger here, stranger,"
he said, facing me; "suppose you go first." But so
strongly did I shrink from the expected sight beyond
the ridge that I shirked it, and ordered one of my
men to reconnoitre.
He obeyed without hesitation, not being troubled
with any personal sentiment in the matter. Ascend-
ing to the sandy ridge, where we had surprised the
three Rebels in the morning, he looked over, shaded
his eyes from the glare of the sun, and turning to
me called out, "Blest if he ain't alive yet, sir."
And forgetting our order of march, the rest of us all
scrambled up together.
There was poor Gordon lying back against the
heap of sand where I had left him in the morning.
He had his drawn sword in his hand, and was feebly
making passes at a huge buzzard that stood hissing
with wide-spread wings and hideous lowered crest
close in front of him. Another one lay dead a little
further down the slope, having evidently fallen a
victim to Gordon's blade.
Shaking his flag of truce, our guide dashed for-
ward with a genuine Rebel yell. The great vulture
gave one or two awkward hops, till he "got way on,"
and then spreading his broad pinions to their fullest
extent sailed off down toward the beach and round a
shoulder of the sand dunes out of sight, casting back
A BURIAL PARTY.
137
at us a vengeful glance over his wing as if to say,
"I'll pick your bones yet, my hearties."
The Rebel soldier and I reached the wounded
man's side almost at the same moment. He had
swooned and dropped his sword on hearing our
cries; but the soldier fanned him with his broad
sombrero, and some sea water sprinkled in his face
soon brought him to, though he was evidently very
much reduced from loss of blood and long exposure
in the sun. We had some morsels of food in our
haversacks, however, and when he had managed to
swallow these, with some cold coffee from our can-
teens, he was braced up wonderfully.
I now bethought me to station a lookout on the
highest bluff near by, and it was lucky that I did, for
he presently called me and pointed to two moving
dots away down the beach to the eastward. My
glass showed them to be two horsemen cantering
along with the easy lope of Confederate cavalry, and
following the hard level beach in our direction.
They were still a long way off, and I had plenty of
time, leaving Randolph to the care of his man, to
make my dispositions to capture them if possible.
The soldier, I was sure, would not desert his wounded
officer, and as he had only a sword available, he was
practically harmless.
I reasoned that the two men were coming to join
their comrades, and that they would leave their
horses somewhere to ascend the dunes on foot. The
+
138
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
total length of the island on which we were cam-
paigning is little short of thirty miles, so that none
of the firing need necessarily have been heard at the
Rebel camp, wherever that might have been.
My Jackies were "ambushed" where they could
command the path with the carbines. Presently, we
heard the distant whinnying of a horse, which was
answered by one considerably nearer, coming appar-
ently from the edge of the hammock. Probably the
men were accustomed to leave their horses at a
certain place, and these would no doubt follow the
usual custom. There was more whickering when the
horses came together, and from my place of conceal-
ment I could see two gray slouch hats advancing
through the scrub. When the right moment came,
I whistled, and up jumped my four Jackies with
carbines levelled at very close quarters indeed.
66
'Up hands," I commanded, and taken completely
by surprise, the Rebs had no choice but to surrender
and make the best of it.
After disarming and pinioning my new prisoners,
I went back to Gordon, who had been considerably
refreshed by what he had eaten, and was asleep from
sheer exhaustion under a palmetto screen which his
attendant had set up. The soldier motioned me to
keep still, and joining me at a little distance from
the wounded man asked what had happened, for
the capture had been effected out of his sight,
though scarcely more than an eighth of a mile dis-
A BURIAL PARTY.
139
tant. He shook his head sadly, when I told him
that his comrades were taken. "I reckon you Yanks
is too many for us," he said. "You needn't feel no
more consarn; there ain't another human critter on
this yer island except the nigger cook up to our
camp. The leftenant will tell you so when he
wakes up. He's doin' first rate, breathin' regular, but
that's an awful bad hurt he's got. I wish there was
a surgeon aboard."
"Well, you stay here and look out for him while
I see about the horses."
"Say, stranger," he said, hailing me as I turned
to go.
tail; be good to her, won't ye?"
"Mine's a little sorrel mare with a switch
获
​(6
CHAPTER XIV.
""
JACKY ON HORSEBACK.
LEAVING one man as a guard, the other three
Jackies went with me, and following the footpath
through the scrub, we soon came to where five horses
were tied to the low-spreading branches of live oaks.
They were eagerly pricking their ears toward the
sound of our approaching footsteps. All save one
were rather under-sized, of the wiry but serviceable
breed common in the South. The fifth, a Kentucky
thoroughbred, was doubtless Gordon's own mount.
They all had their saddles and bridles on, for all had
been left by their owners without anticipating a long
absence. Three of them, even to our nautical eyes,
were evidently under some excitement, and had
pawed great holes in the sand, and tugged at the
lariats with which they were fastened.
We four mariners stood somewhat aghast at the
prospect. I had been on horseback once or twice.
when I was a very small boy, but knew much better
how to handle a ship in a gale of wind than I did
about the management even of a very placid cavalry
charger.
140
"JACKY ON HORSEBACK.
141
"Any of you know about horses?" I asked
carelessly.
The three tars looked helplessly at me and at each
other.
"I was raised on a farm in Varmount, sir," said
one;
"but I ain't tetched a horse since I was a kid."
"No, sir, I always steer clear of 'em," said an-
other.
66
“I used to drive our folks to meeting sometimes,"
remarked the third.
Clearly, there were going to be difficulties in mus-
tering my sailor-lads in as cavalrymen, and I con-
sidered for a moment the expediency of calling in
our Confederate prisoners to get the cavalcade
started, but I did not quite dare to risk it.
So putting a bold face on the matter, I went cau-
tiously up to the little sorrel mare, who looked to be
the least dangerous of the five, cast loose her bow-
line, and towed her carefully out from under the
trees into the open. 'Dick," I said, "fetch that
gray one alongside of this one just as I did, and lash
the two of them together with these lines."
(6
The coils of line referred to were the lariats, usually
of rawhide, which Southern cavalrymen habitually
carried at their saddle bows.
Dick was the boy who said he had been raised on
a farm. I selected him to drive the double team, as
having had the most experience of any one in my
little detachment.
=
142
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
The other two men chose steeds, and after much
trouble managed to climb aboard. Telling them to
follow Dick's lead, I turned with some secret pertur-
bation to the handsome bay, with the McClellan
saddle on his back, that still remained. While I
was rubbing his nose, and trying to make him think
that I knew what I was about, an uproar arose
behind me.
'Hey, Dicky, bear a hand here. I forgot to cast
off her painter." Sure enough, there was the sailor-
man bareheaded, hanging on for dear life to the roll
of blankets that was strapped to the cantle of the
saddle. His cutlass was slapping against the horse's
side, and his loaded revolver danced recklessly about
at the end of its lanyard.
The horse, with ears laid back, was throwing his
full weight on the halter that still remained fast to
the live oak.
Dicky had all he could do to manage his double
team. So I ran to the man's assistance; but before
I could reach him, it occurred to the horse that kick-
ing might be more effectual than pulling, and up
went his heels. The sudden reversal was too much
for Jacky, who went over his head, and came down
in a blue heap on the sand.
He picked himself up, none the worse for the fall,
and shook his fist in the horse's face in a way that
seemed to have a quieting effect, and we were able
between us to cast off the "painter," coil it away
JACKY" ON HORSEBACK.
143
after a fashion, and get Jacky mounted once
more.
Meanwhile, Dick had used up the whole of his two
five-fathom rawhide lariats in lashing his two ani-
mals side by side, but he made a very seaman-like
job of it, and we were all proud of him.
"You ought to board the port horse, Dicky,"
ventured the man who had driven the folks to
meeting.
"I'm going to use the starboard gangway now
I've got a chance," replied Dicky, as he climbed
into his seat by the starboard stirrup leathers, and
the cavalcade moved off, leaving me to follow with
the Kentucky thoroughbred.
Left alone with this high-spirited animal, I felt my
courage rapidly oozing out, but there was nothing
for it, so I patted him, and called him pet names, and
he rubbed his velvet nose against my cheek and
asked me for a drink of water in horse talk, which
I did not understand. However, I loosed his halter
with great deliberation and essayed to mount.
How high the stirrup seemed above the ground!
I got my right foot into it after some trouble, only
to discover that I was on the wrong side of the
horse, if I intended to face in the same direction that
he did. How glad I was that nobody had seen me!
"Kentucky," for that was his name, glanced pity-
ingly at me, but suffered himself to be led alongside
a fallen tree-trunk, and I found myself at last astride
144
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
his back, facing forward and ready to get under
way.
""
He was no doubt very thirsty, as were also his less
aristocratic but more patient fellows. But human
companionship had a restraining effect, I suppose,
and he responded gently enough to my "get up,'
walking rapidly after the others, and making me feel
as though an earthquake was in progress beneath
me. But as soon as we came in sight of the rest of
the party, he perhaps scented the water of the run
from beyond the ridge, for he shook his head violently,
cavorted a bit, and broke into a canter that utterly
demoralized his rider in no time.
I lost first one stirrup and then the other, but
thanks to Gordon's rolled overcoat and blankets I
could not very easily fall overboard, and so dashed
by the rest of the mounted contingent at what I
suppose a horseman would call an easy lope, but
which was to me something really terrific.
"Get a hold of the reins, sir," shouted Dicky, as
we passed him. But how could I let go of anything
to get hold of anything else, especially of the reins,
which I now discovered pretty well up on the horse's
neck in the vicinity of his ears. No, my only safety
lay in keeping my grip on the blanket straps fore
and aft; but the passing of Kentucky was too much
for the others. One and all, they started after him.
The two single horsemen fell off at the first jump,
but Dicky held on like a good one, and Kentucky
“JACKY" ON HORSEBACK.
145
lengthened his stride as he heard the tumult behind
him.
"Ben Hur" had not been written then, but I have
always thought that the author must have had some
such experience as mine, or he could never have
written that famous description of the chariot race.
Up the incline we went, passed the amazed Con-
federates under guard with their elbows pinioned
behind them. These shouted something as we
passed, but I could not hear what it was. Over the
ridge we went pell-mell, Kentucky still ahead, and
Dicky with his double team a good second, while
the two riderless steeds followed behind. Then we
turned into a trail, which led I knew not whither;
palmetto leaves cut and pricked my face, branches
threatened to sweep me from the saddle; then came
a downward pitch and one splash quickly followed
by another.
The first one was caused by Kentucky's forefeet, as
he brought up fetlock deep in the water of the run,
and the second splash was merely Acting Midship-
man Benson, U. S. N., who sat him down in water
some eighteen inches deep, a little farther out from
shore.
I struggled to my feet in time to witness Dicky's
arrival, which was effected in great style. For his
fasts held through the whole race, and as he had
fallen inboard, as it were, partly between the two
horses, he was able to accomplish a sort of double-
L
146
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
back circus act, holding on by the knotted lariats,
and not even going over his horses' heads when they
brought up in the shallow water, and went to drink-
ing with their heads down.
The horses were merely thirsty, not frightened,
and after a long drink suffered themselves to be led
quietly back to their masters, who with preternatu-
ral gravity, but evident amusement, gave us advice.
as to their further treatment.
Gordon was awake when I again reached him, and
was so far himself that he could smile when he saw
me.
I had to put my ear close to hear him whisper,
"I nearly did for you that time, Jack; but your man
had the drop on me."
The soldier and I now examined his wounds more
carefully than we had ventured to do before, and
found that with the aid of the handkerchief that I
had stuffed into it, it had staunched itself, though
how much internal hæmorrhage had taken place, we
had no means of knowing. It was, at any rate, a
very ugly looking hurt, but apparently not so bad as
it seemed, or he would have breathed his last long
ago. While we were looking him over, he spied a
pair of shovels that I had ordered brought, and which
had been accidentally thrust into the sand near by.
"What are those for?" he whispered, pointing at
them.
"I brought them along, thinking we might want
to entrench," I answered evasively.
“JACKY” ON HORSEBACK.
147
"Came ashore to bury me, did you? Much obliged,
I am sure." This last with a comical drawl, that,
taken with the weakness of the speaker, made me
smile in spite of myself. For his mind was evidently
wandering a little. "Not quite yet, old man; not
quite yet. Maybe I'll hit you next time. I've tried
it twice, now; third turn always does it, you know.
I say, Jack, there ought to be a little gold locket
somewhere here; I don't seem to feel it." And his
hand wandered feebly about over his flannel shirt.
"It's safe, Haines. I took it off this morning,
when I thought you for safe keeping, you know."
He looked up at me, and suddenly the good humor
went out of his eye like a flash. He half raised
himself to feel in the breast pocket of his coat.
"The papers," he asked, "where are they?"
"Now don't you distress yourself, Gordon. I have
tied up your private letters, and nobody has seen
them. You shall have them back by and by. We
must get you aboard ship as soon as we can. When
you're a little stronger, you can have your papers."
By this time, he had remembered himself suffi-
ciently to realize that he must not show too much
anxiety. So he subsided, and we set about provid-
ing some means to carry him. I was for making
a stretcher with a blanket; but the soldiers knew a
much better plan. There was an axe hanging to
one of the saddles, and we quickly cut down two
slender bay trees, trimming off the lower limbs and
148
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
lashing the stems one on each side of his little sorrel
mare. A spreader was then thrust across and
through the two trees where they rested on the
ground, and there was an admirable litter good for
several miles of travel-moved by horse power, too,
which was a great point in its favor. We spread
blankets over the branches; Gordon lay quite com-
fortably on them, and the little mare walked off
with her load as though the weight were nothing
at all.
We had learned that it was easier for sailormen
to lead horses than to ride them, so our little pro-
cession strung out quite a length, and made such a
noise coming through the scrub that Nevers, on
board the schooner, felt some uneasiness as to the
character of the approaching party.
We got Gordon on board without trouble, unsad-
dled and tethered the horses under Confederate
supervision, where they could, if they chose, nibble
at a strip of grass that had sprung up just inside
the beach.
CHAPTER XV.
A LOW BAROMETER.
I WENT aloft as soon as I could, and took another
careful survey of our surroundings. There was no
sign either of the "Bantam" or any other craft, and
the weather began to look decidedly "dirty" off-
shore. I had encountered one or two West Indian
hurricanes during my two years' experience off the
South Atlantic coast, and on consulting some of my
older blue-jackets, I found that they had been "a-
smellin' of a storm all day." The barometer, too,
was falling, and as night was now coming on, it be-
hooved us to make everything as snug as might be.
I could not have asked for a more secure anchorage,
protected as it was from the Gulf by the wooded
island, and from the sound by sand-bars which broke
the force of the waves; it was almost impossible
that any offshore sea could rise of sufficient weight
to cause us trouble, no matter from which direction
the wind might come.
For a youngster, I had enough to be anxious about.
Undoubtedly, the Confederates on the mainland were
marshalling their forces to attack me, recapture the
"Bold Briton," and avenge the sinking of the
149
150
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
"Ranger." They were within easy reach of Mobile,
where there was a strong garrison, and they could cer-
tainly get together plenty of men to carry us by board-
ing, once they were alongside. What resources they
could command in the way of boats, I had no means of
knowing; but there were plenty of stories current in
the fleet about certain highly efficient, light-draught
"tin-clads," already afloat, as well as about the big
and invulnerable ram "Tennessee." At any rate, my
best policy was to prevent them, by all means in my
power, from getting alongside.
The steamer that we had so easily driven off in
the afternoon might come perilously near at night,
towing a fleet of barges or small boats, which we
could hardly hope to stand off during the hours of
darkness. Again, a landing might be effected on the
island, guns posted on the bluffs commanding our
anchorage, and we should either have to surrender or
take to our boats if we could not make sail and run
away.
But then there was the gray-streaked sky, the
falling barometer, and the weather-wise opinion of
the old shellbacks on board, to the effect that a storm
was brewing. It might turn out to be a hard blow,
although the opening of the hurricane season was
not scheduled for several weeks to come. Should
such a storm arise, however, it was a positive guar-
antee against any attack from the mainland during
its continuance.
A LOW BAROMETER.
151
Nevers and I made a thorough inspection to see
that everything was properly secured. Of course the
two old quartermasters were far better qualified than
we were to snug down a ship for a hurricane; but it
was the proper thing for naval officers to do, and
least of all should young middies neglect such duties.
We bent on a spare hawser to the stern cable, and
carried it forward outside of the rigging, so that if
we had to let her swing head to sea during the night,
we should have two anchors to hold her. The "Royal
Artillery" was loaded with canister and securely
lashed amidships with tarpaulin bonnets stopped over
the vents, primers in place, and lanyards ready to
jerk.
About sundown the horses began whinnying,
Kentucky stamping impatiently, and looking toward
the schooner with his long ears pricked up as if
expecting some attention. Half the crew were
hanging over the rail, and speculating as to what
they wanted. It never occurred to any of us that
they were thirsty again, until Gordon's nurse came
on deck and told us what was the matter. Then
I sent three Jackies ashore in the dingy with a
bucket of fresh water for each horse. The soldiers
asked me to let the animals go free, but I was
unwilling to do this, lest they might prove useful
to the enemy, should he land a force on the island.
Besides, it seemed to me that if I could capture a
small herd of Confederate cavalry horses, and turn
152
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
them over to the shore station, it would be quite a
feather in my cap.
The wind began to pipe up as darkness fell, and
it was blowing a full gale by eight bells of the first
watch. I suppose that no young sailorman on his
first independent command ever welcomed a hurri-
cane more heartily than I did that night. In the
face of such a gale, driving on shore and lashing
the broad bay into foam, no mortal craft could
cross from the mainland, and I was perfectly sure
of a quiet night, so far as concerned the Southern
Confederacy.
The only doubt in my mind was whether there
might not be more of a force already on the island
than our Confederate prisoners were disposed to ac-
knowledge. Even if such were the case, however,
they would find it rather difficult to do us any harm
on such a night and under such existing conditions.
The crews of the two cutters divided our com-
plement of men conveniently into port and star-
board watches, and of course Nevers and I made
it watch and watch alternately, "sleeping with our
boots on," as the saying is, between watches.
During his watch Nevers shook me awake with
the information that the wreck of the "Ranger"
was on fire, and that he had called the men to
quarters. Tired as we were, all hands stood on
deck, even after they were dismissed from stations,
to watch the conflagration. An interview with the
A LOW BAROMETER.
153
(6
Ranger's" late commander, whom I awakened from
a sound sleep to communicate the news, brought out
the information that "he reckoned the sea had got
up so as to set off some barrels of quick-lime that
were lashed on deck."
This was probably the true explanation of the
fire. At any rate, she lighted up the storm-swept
bay for something like two hours. The magazine
was no doubt drowned out, or else our Confederate
friends had emptied it of ammunition, for we waited
in vain for an explosion, and at last the red glare
died out, and darkness settled down once more upon
the deep.
I had been too busy to look after my old school-
mate since seeing him safely bestowed on a mattress
in the cabin, but shortly after the last fitful flare-up
of the "Ranger's" timbers, the Confederate soldier
nurse came on deck in search of me, saying that
Gordon wanted to see me. As soon as we were in
the shelter of the companionway he spoke: "Hold
on, stranger; I want to tell you before you go down
that the leftenant's been out of his head rather bad.
But he's bled a heap, and I'm afeard he ain't goin'
to pull through. He's been talkin' wild-like about
some of his folks, and about the times when I expect
you and him was school-boys together at the North.
He's just woke up clear headed now, and I suspicion
that's rather a bad sign, though I ain't much of a
doctor myself."
154
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
There was no need of my staying on deck, so I
threw off my oilers and sat down on the floor beside
Haines's mattress. He had dropped off to sleep again,
while we were talking, but presently he started,
opened his big dark eyes, bright with fever.
"Ah! What's that?" as a great roaring gust
of wind smote the schooner, making her rigging
sing, and heeling her over at her moorings. “Ah,
how it smarts! Oh yes, I remember now.
I was
shot, wasn't I?" And he looked at me with a little
more intelligence dawning in his eyes.
"Yes, Haines," I said.
66
Oh, that you, Jack Benson? Mr. Midshipman
Benson, U. S. N., Lieutenant Haines Gordon,
C. S. A. Two Rockledge boys; sounds rather
well, don't it? Anyhow, I outrank you, old man.
Where's Helen? I want to see Helen. Orderly,
orderly, give my compliments to Miss Helen. Let's
see, where was I?" and, closing his eyes, he seemed
once more to recover a hold upon his wavering
reason.
"Pardon me, Jack; I was talking wild just now,
wasn't I? Yes? Well, my head's clearer. I don't
know how long it will last. I reckon you've done
for me. I think I must be bleeding inside. Once
in a while it seems as if I could feel something
trickle between my ribs. Will you shake hands
with a dying Rebel, Jack?
knew you would, even if it were only for old times.
Of course you will. I
A LOW BAROMETER.
155
I tried to kill you this morning, didn't I? Came
pretty near doing it, too, but I'm glad I didn't, now;
it wouldn't have done any good. What's one Yan-
kee middy, more or less!
“Do you know, Jack, since I've been lying here
a-dying, I've had the strangest visions. It has
come home to me what an awful, awful mistake
the South made when she seceded. She meant
well, and thought it was right; but, look at it any
way you will, even if it were divinely right, it was
an awful, awful blunder. I seem to see now what
it is to be when all is over, years hence, perhaps;
half a million of dead men, most of them young;
the South, my beautiful, sunny South, impoverished
and desolate; King Cotton dethroned, England mis-
tress of the seas, American progress set back a hun-
dred years, and all for what, nothing, I'm afraid,
nothing at all. It was a mania, a wild, cruel mania
that led us into it. I can see it now, when it is all
too late. But we've made a jolly good fight of it,
haven't we, Jack?"
66
'Indeed, you have, Haines; nobody can deny
that."
"I used to believe, what our fire-eating editors told
us, that one Southerner could whip five Yankees, but
it isn't so; Jack, we can't whip more than three, or
three and a half of you."
In serio-comic vein the poor fellow wandered on,
now dozing for a few seconds, now waking with his
156
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
mind clear, but seeing visions even as he talked.
The Confederate soldier sat dejectedly on a sea-chest,
with his elbows on his knees, and his head resting on
his hands. Some perception of the strange pictu-
resqueness of the situation came to me, even then and
there. The little cramped cabin, the hurricane shriek-
ing through the rigging overhead, the proud, gallant,
handsome young Southern prince, heir to a thousand
acres of deep cotton land, master of some hundreds
of slaves; the "poor white" soldier, ignorant, illit-
erate, but brave and faithful, and having a vote on
questions of national importance, just as good as
anybody's; the Yankee fisherman's son, lawful cap-
tor, and for the time absolute despot, boy though
he was, of the ship and all that she contained. It
needed only the entrance of the black cook to com-
plete the rôle of persons represented in the tremen-
dous farce-tragedy of civil war that was enacting
with the negro slave for one of its central figures.
Of course I did not think of all this then, but
the picturesqueness of it comes forcibly back to
me now.
"Jack," said Haines, in one of his lucid intervals,
"you have some papers of mine, haven't you?"
"Yes, here they are, just as I found them." And
I extracted the package of personal letters from my
pocket, hoping that they would divert his mind from
the others; but the friendly ruse was of no avail.
“Thanks,” he said, holding them in his hand. “I
A LOW BAROMETER.
157
won't look at them. Send them to my cousin Helen
when you have a chance; I know they're all right.
The other papers, I suppose, are the legitimate spoils
of war. I wish I could get you to destroy them, but
I know you can't do that in honor. I'd like to have
the locket again, if you don't mind.”
"Shall I open it for you?" I asked, after he had
made one or two ineffectual attempts.
He handed it to me without a word, and pressing
the spring, I gave it back to him open. He held out
his hand. "Good-by, Jack," he said, the tears well-
ing up in his eyes and running down his cheeks for
pure weakness. "Good-by; I think I'm nearly gone.
See the girls again sometime, and give them my love,
and if you can, I wish you'd bury me under the big
palmetto just at the head of the run here."
I promised and turned hastily away, making an
excuse to go on deck. When I came back after a
few minutes, he had turned a little on his side, and
placed the packet of letters so that his cheek rested
upon them and upon the locket that he held in his
left hand. He had passed quietly away while I was
gone, and not even his watchful attendant knew that
he had breathed his last. As we straightened his
limbs on the blanket that was to be his winding-
sheet, I found myself instinctively rearranging his
disordered clothing, with some sort of dim notion
that he ought to be made smart and soldierly for a
last mysterious muster.
A
158
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
I was about to button the close-fitting gray cavalry
jacket under his chin, when the embroidered corner
of a pocket handkerchief caught my eye. It was the
one that I had stuffed into his wound in the morning
of the day before. Looking at it more closely, I
read "Helen" in silken letters, and I buttoned the
jacket over his breast with her red-stained pocket
handkerchief close to his heart.
When I had hastily tried to staunch his wound in
the morning, I had quite inadvertently snatched
from the pocket of my own tunic the keepsake that
had come into my possession during the voyage of the
"Palma." It was the one that my little four-footed
friend Wag brought me during the day that pre-
ceded the mutiny, and now I hadn't the heart to
reclaim the precious little bit of cambric from her
lover's keeping.
He had not said a word to me about the miniature,
so I resolved to keep it with all care, and deliver it
safely with the letters whenever a fitting opportunity
offered. To this end it seemed to me that I could
do no better than to make a little deerskin bag,
which I could easily secure somewhere about my
clothing. I was very conscientious as to this minia-
ture, you see, and would not have had anything
happen to it on any account, for I had come to feel
very tenderly toward poor Gordon's memory.
CHAPTER XVI.
AFTER THE STORM.
HARDER and harder blew the gale, and the "Ban-
tam," I feared, must be nearer the centre of the
storm than we, if Morris had carried out his inten-
tion of running down the coast to the east and south.
I had the "graveyard watch," that is from midnight
till four A.M., so called by superstitious sailormen,
because its hours are the most dreary of the whole
night, and the most favorable, according to their
creed, for mysterious occurrences, afloat and ashore.
For whatever reason, I was startled out of what I
am afraid was a doze, just inside the deck-house, by
a long quavering screech coming off the wooded
knoll under which we were anchored. I thought at
first that it was our old friend the owl of the night
before, the great brown owl, and was nearly drop-
ping off again, for I was tired out after my vigil
at Gordon's bedside, when once more it arose, and
I was aware that my entire spinal column was be-
coming extraordinarily cold.
Going to where the after watch stood in the lee of
the weather bulwarks, I found him quite as much
scared as I. He said, moreover, that he had heard
159
160
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
a disturbance among the horses, which I thought not
at all unnatural, if horses had any appreciation of
blood-curdling sounds.
A third time the cry was repeated, now nearer to
where the animals were tethered. The night was
still black as Erebus, but it was not raining then,
so I set off a Coston light, or its British equivalent,
whatever its name may be, which showed us the
poor horses in a state of extreme terror. The glare
of the light probably finished the business for them,
for Kentucky with a mighty effort wrenched him-
self clear, and galloped wildly away into the black-
ness, followed by all save the poor little sorrel mare.
We found her when day dawned with her throat
torn open and partly devoured, while the wet sand
about showed the tracks of two panthers, whose
cries had confirmed every sailorman's belief in the
uncanny character of the "graveyard watch."
Morning dawned at last with no apparent abate-
ment in the force of the gale. The wide sound, away
to the obscured horizon, was one sheet of seething
froth. Above the roar of the wind, we could at inter-
vals hear the trampling of mighty seas on the outer
beach, and sometimes the more violent gusts would
carry the spindrift clear over the island and dash it
down upon the schooner's decks like briny rain.
Through the inlet to the west of us, we could see the
white-capped surges chasing one another up chan-
nel, till they burst in foam against the inner bar.
AFTER THE STORM.
161
Now and again, as the driving mist lifted, we could
see the "Ranger's" blackened ribs with the spray
flying over them. These, beside our own staunch
craft, were the only signs of man's handiwork in
sight, and, if anything, they only added to the wild
desolation of the scene.
The sound, too, was filling up with a mighty tidal
wave; the lead gave us a fathom more water than
we had at sunset, and the strip of green grass, where
we had tethered the horses, was now covered by a
gusty stretch of shallow water. But it mattered
little to us; our two anchors held bravely, and I
overheard our veteran blue-jackets congratulating
one another that they were "safe aboard ship, and
not on shore, where chimneys were a-tumbling about
folks' ears, and roofs a-blowing off, fit to scare the
life out of you."
We had all of us slept more or less, in spite of the
storm and its attendant excitements. I had ordered
hot coffee kept on the galley fire all night, and
the men had not been slow to keep up their spirits
by a free use thereof. The cooks were routed out at
early dawn to have a good breakfast ready for all
hands.
The officers of the "Bold Briton" had been granted
the liberty of the cabin, but held somewhat aloof
from friendly intercourse with Nevers and me ex-
cept to answer questions with bare civility. The
Ranger's" officers and men were prisoners of war,
66
M
162
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
and I kept them closely confined, letting them out,
one or two at a time, for air and exercise, of which
privilege, by the way, they did not seem at all dis-
posed to take advantage.
After a careful inspection of all arms, discharging
and reloading such as seemed in the least doubtful,
I sent Nevers with two Jackies over to the Gulf
beach to reconnoitre. They came back in two hours,
reporting a wreck on the outer bar fast breaking up,
and not a sign of life about her. She was a schooner,
probably a blockade-runner that had missed the en-
trance when trying to make port in the height of
the gale. All hands must have perished, for we
never learned her name.
With this reminder of the dread possibilities of a
hurricane, I could not but feel worried about the
"Bantam." Of course, the chances were that she
had found a safe anchorage, just as we had done in
one of the many sounds along the Gulf coast; but
then again, if she had sighted a blockade-runner just
before sunset when the gale began, she had un-
doubtedly given chase, and might have run straight
out into the vertex of the storm, a thing which
no sailorman wants to do, however much confidence
he may have in the seaworthiness of his ship.
There was nothing for us to do, however, but stay
where we were, and wait for the gale to blow itself
out, which it began to show signs of doing about
noon, and fell away rapidly, till in the early after-
AFTER THE STORM.
163
noon an arch of blue sky uncovered in the west, the
heavy pall of cloud lifted rapidly, shaking a few fare-
well drops of rain from its heavily fringed edges; and
then the warm sun came out with such fervor that
steam arose from everything afloat and ashore, tem-
porarily hiding us from the enemy, and them from
us.
I got in the stern anchor, hove short on the bow,
shook out all sail at once to dry the canvas, and be
ready to get under way in a hurry, should the enemy
appear in such force as to be any way formidable.
When the storm was fairly over, one watch went
ashore to make four graves for our dead, for we had
lost three men, killed outright in the fight with the
"Ranger," and Gordon made the fourth. His grave
was made under the tall palmetto that he had se-
lected. And on its smooth bark I carved his name
and rank and the date of his death. For our own
men, we prepared headboards in like manner. When
everything was ready for sending the bodies on shore,
I borrowed the captain's service-book, and, mustering
all hands on deck, read the burial service in the
presence of our twoscore English and Confederate
prisoners, who uncovered their heads and listened
respectfully, joining in the responses, where they
could, and no doubt feeling better in their hearts
for having heard the reverential words, even though
they came from the unaccustomed lips of a son of
the Puritans.
164
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
I had no objection to fighting in defence of my
prize, but I had no intention of turning her into a
United States cruiser. "Look for me to the eastward,"
so read Morris's instructions, written before anybody
suspected what our adventures were to be. This cer-
tainly left me considerable discretion. He had not
told me whether to look for him in Cheecola Sound
or outside of St. Jude's Island, but considering the
peril of remaining at our present anchorage during
a calm night, with an active enemy so near at hand,
I determined to take advantage of any favoring
breeze, and get away to sea. But no favoring breeze,
nor indeed any other breeze, came to our relief.
There was still a tremendous thunder of surf out-
side, and I dared not attempt the West Pass Channel,
without a good stiff offshore wind. Even under the
most favorable conditions, it would be a risky busi-
ness, nosing our way out through an outlet that had
a sharp elbow just at the worst possible place for an
inexperienced navigator.
Nature, however, relieved me of all choice in the
matter, for not a breath of air was stirring at sun-
down. From the crosstrees, I could overlook a circle
of something like twenty-five miles radius, and the
only signs of life, that I could discover, were two
slender plumes of smoke that rose straight up from
where I knew lay the town with its more or less for-
midable preparations for our destruction.
That I was conscious of a certain exultation, as I
AFTER THE STORM.
165
sat away up there in the crosstrees, all alone in the
soft Southern twilight, I cannot deny. Beneath me
was the stout British marauder that was my lawful
prize; over there on the bar was a privateer that, but
for me, might be cruising after Yankee ships, and
below decks were forty-two prisoners, enemies, one
and all, of my country's cause.
Surely, a moderate degree of satisfaction was par-
donable under the circumstances.
But these same prisoners gave me a good deal of
uneasiness. Nearly every one of them would be only
too ready to take a hand in the fight, if only they
could break out and take us at a disadvantage. My
original force of thirty-six blue-jackets had been re-
duced to twenty-five effectives by casualties. These
were well able to keep the prisoners under, except
for some extraordinary combination of circumstances,
such as might readily occur in case of a night attack.
Glancing down at the deck, I saw Nevers, and
obeying an impulse called him to come aloft, and he
was soon sitting beside me. I knew very well that
great commanders only call councils of war, when
they have pretty well made up their minds what they
are going to do; but I did not feel that way at all,
just then. Looking back at it now, after all these
years, I wonder that Nevers behaved so well as he
did. If I had been in his place under the orders of
a boy like myself, I do not believe that I should have
been half so good about it as he was. He did not
=
166
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
seem to have a particle of jealousy in his disposition,
and I think he was perfectly satisfied, so long as he
had his two pieces of "Royal Artillery" in good order,
and the boat-howitzer under his own personal control.
He had been working with this howitzer and the
cutter in which it was mounted all the afternoon,
and had got the boat rigged with a system of spars
and tackles, so that she could be pointed in any
direction.
"See anything, Jack?" he asked, when he reached
my side.
"No, I just wanted to talk with you."
"Well, drive ahead; I'm listening."
"The fact is, this contract is so big that I'm getting
a little afraid of it." And I indicated the vast soli-
tary sweep of horizon, the forest apparently un-
broken, and yet containing, as we well knew, hostile
elements of no despicable character.
"It is pretty big, that's a fact," replied Nevers ;
"but you're 'monarch of all you survey,' you know.”
“Yes, but the rest of the quotation won't fit."
"That's true; there are some to dispute your
'realm,' sure enough; but we're good for 'em."
“I wish we hadn't quite so many prisoners."
"Well, there's the island behind you. What's the
matter with putting the Englishmen ashore?”
I had not thought of that, and the suggestion re-
stored my spirits wonderfully. Not counting the
cook, there were fourteen men of them, and in a very

BAN AM
'WHEN THEY WERE ALL IN THE BOAT, I MOUNTED THE SCHOONER'S RAIL.'"
AFTER THE STORM.
167
few minutes we had them mustered on deck. A
call for British subjects from among the privateers-
men brought forward ten more, of whose names and
alleged birthplaces Nevers made a list, and we both
passed judgment upon their English accent and gen-
eral appearance. Giving them two gaff top-sails
with which to improvise a shelter, we soon set
them on the beach with such blankets as they had
managed to save, or which could be proved as per-
sonal property.
When they were all in the boat, I mounted the
schooner's rail and told them that they might go
where they liked, but that it would be as much as
any one's life was worth to start a fire within rifle
range of the "Bold Briton." "You men all know,
probably," I continued, "that St. Jude's Island is
near thirty miles long, and that nobody lives here.
You can't get anything to eat, so you had best be on
hand for breakfast, and I still consider you my pris-
oners. Besides, there are panthers and bears in these
woods, and alligators in the water, so be careful not
to get lost."
These well-intended remarks were received in
rather ungracious silence. The boat pulled ashore,
landed her sullen passengers, and came back along-
side. The shore party immediately went to work
improving the few remaining minutes of twilight
by spreading the sails on a dry bit of level sand,
where I knew they could be fairly comfortable, and
2
168
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
at any rate would breathe purer air than they were
accustomed to in the sailors' quarters of their respec-
tive craft.
It was now so dark that we could not be seen
from the mainland, so we warped round to our stern
anchor again so that the battery commanded the
approach by water. According to all rules of pru-
dent seamanship, it should be the height of folly to
keep all sails standing at night and the vessel moored
bow and stern; but this was just what I ventured to
do in defiance of what I was certain some of the
old deep-water sailormen thought about it. I could
see some of them shaking their heads gravely, as
they looked aloft at the spreading canvas. It seemed
to me that the danger of attack was so imminent,
that it was worth while to run considerable risk,
rather than lose valuable time in making sail at a
critical moment. So the watch was set, silence en-
joined fore and aft, and all hands went early to sleep,
save only Nevers and I, by turn, and a lookout at
the forecastle and by the taffrail.
Sounds carried well that night. We could still
hear the roar of breakers on the bar, though the sea
had gone down so that if only we could have a breath
of air, there would be no difficulty in getting outside.
It was dark starlight. Here and there along the shore
one could make out the broader patches of beach
sand, showing white under the stars, and now and
again the dying effort of some unusually heavy
AFTER THE STORM.
169
roller working in from outside would send a ripple
of phosphorescence twinkling along the water's edge.
Owls, lumpkins, and the other musicians of the
semi-tropical night tuned up, and the British contin-
gent on shore kept up a pretty steady undertone of
gossip.
It seemed as though not two successive minutes
passed that one or another of them did not strike a
match for one purpose or another; but I did not
want to interfere in a little matter like that, and so
let them light as many matches as they chose.
It was my watch at eight o'clock, and Nevers,
having seen his gun squads properly disposed within
reach of their pieces, had turned in. The "Bold
Briton" lay with her head toward the bivouac on
shore, and both boats were under our stern davits
the cutter, with two men to work her howitzer, and
the long-boat, with one man for a boat guard.
About seven bells the forward lookout whistled
the "Bantam" call, and I joined him on the fore-
castle, when he pointed out a glare, as of fire pretty
well hidden behind some bushes, but very likely in a
position where it could be plainly seen on the main-
land. After watching it through my glasses for a
while and seeing that it gained in strength and
brightness, I called one of the watch and went with
him half-way up the fore rigging, whence we had
a better view of the flame, and could see two dark
figures in silhouette against the sea, standing and
*
170
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
apparently looking off intently toward the main-
land.
(6
Look, Mr. Benson, there's a light on shore," said
my companion, who was a fathom or so higher up in
the rigging. And so there was, as nearly as I could
tell, on the old Cheecola harbor light-tower.
I didn't want to hurt any "Bold Briton," unneces-
sarily; but this thing must be stopped, so Jacky sent
a bullet from his carbine, which knocked a cloud of
sparks out of the burning palmetto stalks and caused
the two men to jump promptly behind convenient
trees. We had Sharp's carbines (breech-loaders) in
those days, and a second shot speedily followed the
first.
My shouted order, "Put out that fire," was obeyed
with commendable alacrity, hatfuls of sand being
apparently thrown upon the flames. I suppose the
fellows thought we might take to indiscriminate
shooting among the bushes, in which case somebody
might be hurt.
Of course every one turned out instanter at the
sound of the shots, but word was passed that it was
nothing but a fire alarm, and after a moderate exer-
cise of his right to grumble, Jacky made himself
comfortable again. Nevers took the deck at mid-
night, and lying down just under the taffrail, where
the after watch could call me without leaving his
post, I was asleep in less than a minute.
CHAPTER XVII.
A BRITISH PLOT.
WHEN Nevers, disregarding my exalted rank, shook
me roughly about six bells, everybody was at stations,
and an indescribable atmosphere of expectancy seemed
to pervade the entire ship's company. I was so sleepy
that I could not for the life of me understand what
Nevers was saying. He actually had to shake me
again before I comprehended that two steamboats
were coming out across the sound.
Our lookout had heard them some time before,
but Nevers had let me sleep as long as he dared.
The night was so absolutely still that the beat of
their paddles could be heard soon after they left
the harbor, ten or twelve miles away. That they
were still a long way off was the opinion of the best
judges on board; but it is impossible to judge dis-
tances accurately under such conditions, so we could
only wait, letting the watch make itself as comforta-
ble as possible without going below.
Nevers and I had agreed to flash our bull's-eye
lanterns from time to time at irregular intervals.
upon the British bivouac, just to make them think
1
171
172
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
we were watching them, and the good angel that
takes care of the life of poor Jack had prompted
Nevers to do this again, when things became quiet
after the steamer alarm. A common bull's-eye lan-
tern does not compare very favorably with a search-
light as used on board our modern men-of-war, and
we could really see nothing from where we stood
near the main rigging. However, the good angel
aforesaid did not desert us, for Nevers swung his lan-
tern around, letting the lens illuminate the near-by
water in a circle, until it was reflected from the
white boats that were moored under our stern. I
heard him stifle an exclamation as he hurried aft,
motioning me to follow.
We reached the taffrail almost together, and the
light flashed down upon the long-boat, swung partly
away from her moorings. Two or three dark fig
ures were visible on board of her, apparently get-
ting out oars; and in the water, advancing with lusty
strokes, were the heads of swimmers, the whites of
their eyes glaring as the lantern rays brought them
out with ghastly vividness.
(6
Lay aft all the watch," shouted Nevers, who
from his position had first taken in the situation,
and, with a common impulse, both of us drew our
revolvers and opened on the men already in the
boat.
The two men in the cutter, aroused by the shots,
took a hand in the fusillade; but the fasts had been
A BRITISH PLOT.
173
cut or cast off, and the boat, partly drifting and
partly urged by invisible swimmers on the far side
of her, was slowly moving away.
It was not necessary for me to order Nevers to
man the cutter, for as soon as he had emptied his
revolver, he swung himself down by the falls, and
was followed by a dozen men, who tumbled aboard
any way they could.
Clearing away a boat in such helter-skelter fashion
as this cannot be done in such good shape or so
quickly as when the crew is regularly called over
the side. I suppose it must have been five minutes
before they had their oars out, and started in pur-
suit. Meanwhile, the long-boat had made fair prog-
ress with five men at the oars. They had struck out
into the sound, but Nevers overhauled them rapidly,
and in a few minutes I heard his voice out of the
darkness.
"Stand by to fire! Boat ahoy! avast pulling
there, or I'll fire." There was a confused crashing of
oars, and then the strong chug of oars was resumed,
and Nevers came back alongside.
"All right, Nevers?" I asked.
"All except one man killed and two wounded, and
Stewart, the long-boat guard, is in a rather bad way,
but I think he'll come to."
Lifting the wounded men over the rail as carefully
as we could, the cutter's crew towed the long-boat
over to the British bivouac, and left the survivors
174
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
with their dead to repent at leisure of having stirred
up the Yankee blue-jackets.
In justice to the two men who were in the cutter,
it should be said that in view of the scarcity of men.
and the arduous duty to which they were liable, it
was understood that only one of the three who were
in the boats need keep awake. Stewart, the long-
boat guard, had been on duty at the time of this
attack, and had been deftly "roped" from behind,
and choked with a round turn about his neck. Pri-
vately, I think that he must have been dozing at the
time, but anyhow he was so energetically choked,
that it was several days before he was fit for duty
again.
Of course this little fracas had advertised our
whereabouts to the enemy, who had no doubt seen
the flashes of our guns, and must have heard the
reports. But the slow beat of paddles went on, ap-
parently not much nearer than before, and in a few
minutes we were all to rights again with the boats
moored as before, our small arms reloaded and ready
for whatever the night might still have in store for
us.
The hours of darkness were now nearly done; signs
of approaching dawn began to suggest themselves
over the dark hammock growth on the island. Tell-
ing Nevers that I would stand the rest of his watch,
I waited rather impatiently for daylight, while he
turned in for another nap.
A BRITISH PLOT.
175
The light was "powerful slow" in coming, and
when at last it strengthened enough to put out the
stars there was a very beautiful, but very objection-
able, veil of roseate mist spread all across the bay.
Above it, however, some three miles distant, stood
revealed two slender black smokestacks and two
masts all bunched together waiting for the haze to
lift. There was a man aloft in the fore crosstrees of
the hostile schooner, a pilot, doubtless, who could
see me as well as I could see him. Our cooks were
already at work getting breakfast for all hands, and
still the fog lay in a dense, shallow bank.
The British contingent ashore had started fires as
soon as they dared assume that we would not make
a target of them, and now they began to be importu-
nate for breakfast. I sent ashore a rather slender
allowance, having no notion of feeding them up to a
dangerous state of pugnacity.
About nine o'clock the mist began to drift away
to the eastward, lifting presently and disclosing two
river steamers, black with men along their guards,
while a schooner in tow carried a lot more. Nevers
and I estimated, that all told, there must be five hun-
dred men on the three vessels, and you may well
believe that I went up to the crosstrees feeling
that a crisis of some sort was at hand. Of course
the lifting fog disclosed the Confederate squadron
to our British friends, who forthwith departed
down the beach with cheers and a fair percentage
176
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
of Rebel yells, and endeavored to open communica-
tion.
We saw them go rather regretfully, for it would
have been quite a feather in our caps to bring in
such a fine array of prisoners and turn them over to
the flagship. But in view of intending hostilities, it
was far better to have them safe ashore than under
our own hatches and disposed to make all the trouble.
they could.
It was very unlikely, having recent experience of
the range of Her Majesty's guns, that the Confeder-
ates would attempt to carry us by boarding, at least
by daylight, for Nevers must be in very bad form
indeed if he could not sink both or all three of the
Rebel squadron long before they could come along-
side.
The little flotilla got under way as soon as the fog
lifted enough to show them their course, running past
us and on toward the inlet, where the water was
deeper in shore. They kept well over toward the
far side of the channel, but offered such a tempting
mark that Nevers asked leave to try conical shot at
them. As the guns had been loaded for two days,
and during very damp weather at that, I told him
to go ahead, so he drew the double charges of canis-
ter provided for a night attack, and substituted two
wicked-looking rifled shot, giving both pieces their
highest elevation, and placing his best gunner in
charge of one of them, while he sighted the other
A BRITISH PLOT.
177
himself. It was necessary to fire both pieces at
once, because in the still air the smoke of the first
discharge would hide everything in the immediate
vicinity for several minutes.
The two reports came within a second of each
other, and with my glasses levelled at the Rebel
vessels, I watched for the shot. In a moment two
minute specks rose into the field of vision, almost
side by side; higher they mounted, and higher, till
it seemed as if they were going to soar clean over
the mark, and fall somewhere in the seceded States.
But no- the upward movement became slower,
stopped, and then, so swiftly that I could scarcely
follow them with my eye, the shot dropped into the
water, a hundred yards beyond the mark.
"How was that?" asked Nevers from beneath
the smoke, as his crews sprang to sponge out and
reload.
"About three turns too high," I replied.
"Give 'em four down," I heard Nevers say, which
was very disrespectful and inconsiderate of him; but
as he was the better artillerist, I swallowed the
unintended affront.
It seemed an age before the smoke settled and
drifted away from the deck, but at last the gunners.
could see their mark again, and again the twin steel
messengers rose into the sky. This time, they struck
quite near, and from the commotion among the
soldiers on board, it was evident that the Johnnies
N
178
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
did not relish being made a target of, when they
could not fire back, and small blame to them, for
the tearing of a rifle shot close overhead, through
the still air of a summer morning, is not in the least
calculated to soothe the nerves.
We had only one more chance at them, for they
put on all steam and drew rapidly out of range; but
Nevers's last shot hulled the schooner, which, being
in tow, was nearer than her escort, doing no special
harm, but serving further to demoralize the soldiers,
who possibly had seen little active service, and were
not hardened to indifference under fire.
At all events, they were safe for the present, and
leaving the schooner anchored in deep water, the two
flat-bottomed river steamers ran their noses up on
the beach, and I could see the men jumping down
from the guards into the shallows and wading
ashore. Details were speedily at work landing two
field guns and their equipment, and thus lightened,
it was easy for one of the boats to back off, run
alongside the schooner, and bring ashore her com-
pany of soldiers.
Nevers had joined me in the crosstrees, and to-
gether we watched the disembarkation, which was
clearly superintended by officers who knew what
they were about.
The men formed up in good shape on the beach,
long drag ropes were bent on to the limbers of the
guns, and with a hundred men or so to each piece, the
A BRITISH PLOT.
179
detachment tramped off into the woods, leaving the
boats and the schooner presumably with only their
ordinary crews on board. The steamboats backed
off, tied up alongside the schooner, and were appar-
ently content to bide their time.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A MANILA BREEZE.
TEN o'clock, and still a flat calm! The glassy
sound ruffled only by jumping shoals of mullet and
pompano, where sharks and tarpon were hunting
their breakfasts. What would be the next move?
Why, of course, a shell from the nearest available
bluff, and a fusillade of rifle bullets from the near-by
edge of the timber.
But it was not on my programme to wait for any
such proceeding. Having seen the land force well
ashore, and given them time to get fairly beyond
the possibility of speedy recall, it was time for us to
act. If the wind would not blow a breeze, we must
make one for ourselves.
Ordering Mossman to clear away a light kedge
anchor and bend on a new three-inch manila rope, I
sent Nevers on deck to take care of his battery, I re-
maining aloft, where I could best watch the enemy.
With the kedge on board and four men at the
oars, the dingy pulled out into the bay. The new
manila line uncoiling itself, paying out over the stern
and floating like a long kinky yellow snake on the
surface of the water.
180
A MANILA BREEZE.
181
Both anchors were at the catheads by the time the
dingy dropped the kedge overboard some two hun-
dred yards offshore, and all hands tailed on to the
inboard end of the kedge rope, walking away aft
and swinging the "Bold Briton" round with her
nose toward the ship channel.
As soon as she straightened out on her course, it
was easy hauling. In a few minutes we were up
with the kedge, tripped it as we went over, dropped
it into the dingy again, which was holding on to a
buoy rope, and away she went for another two hun-
dred yards reach.
Of course there were sailormen aboard the Rebel
vessels who knew what we were up to as soon as
they heard the clank of our windlass. Shots were
fired and whistles blown, which doubtless gave warn-
ing that we were leaving our anchorage. But what
cared we for that? They could not possibly bring
their guns back to the beach before we were pretty
well offshore, and if only they would show them-
selves within range, I knew that Nevers could make
it very hot for them.
The two steamboats forthwith abandoned the
schooner to her fate, leaving no one on board, so far
as we could see. She was a small coaster, pressed
into service merely as a transport, and it was not
worth while to risk anything on her account. The
steamboat captains had gauged the range of our
guns with praiseworthy nicety during the round of
182
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
ball practice in the early morning, and as we drew
out from shore, and began to feel the ebb-tide set-
ting us toward the West Pass, they both made off
into New Inlet, where they could lie safely in shoal
water, out of reach of our shot.
We took the kedge on board nearly in mid channel,
and began drifting slowly to the westward. Shortly
afterward skirmishers appeared on the beach where
they had made their landing. Nevers, always ready
for gun practice, was eager to stir them up a little,
and as I thought it would have a good moral effect
on all concerned, he went to work shelling the woods
in leisurely fashion as we drifted down channel.
Old Mossman soon found that he could keep the
schooner pointed on her course by hauling the main-
boom over to one side or the other, the gentle drift
of the tide enabling the big sail to act as a sort of
aërial rudder. After a few shots, not a soul was to
be seen on the beach, for since no reply was possible,
all hands rightly took to cover and waited for us to
drift out of range, which, in the natural course of
things, we did, setting fire to the transport schooner
as we passed, for I did not like to spare enough men
to make a prize of her, and if afloat, she might easily
cause trouble for us.
So I reluctantly set her ablaze, and I hope all the
good Yankee ships that Semmes of the "Alabama"
burned rested as heavily upon his conscience as this
poor little coasting schooner did upon mine.
A MANILA BREEZE.
183
We drifted lazily along for three hours or so;
the steamboats came out of the inlet, some of the
soldiers re-embarked, and I had no doubt that if fort-
une favored them they would try to board us under
cover of darkness. I hoped, therefore, to make my
way out through the pass before the tide turned,
and so ordered out the cutter and dingy with a tow-
line to quicken our pace a little. The Gloucester
man, who was my reliance for such duty, was sent
aloft to give us the course. He had spent nearly half
his life on the Grand Banks, and could make a very
close guess at the depth of water merely by looking
at it.
As soon as the Rebel steamers saw us send the
boats ahead, they were after us under a full head of
steam, their engines panting in the still air, and their
gun crews at quarters.
The officer in command saw his opportunity, and
determined to make the most of it. While we were
in tow of our boats, the "Royal Artillery" could not
be brought to bear directly astern, therefore it was
perfectly safe for any hostile craft to creep up in our
wake and pepper us at will, unless we could contrive
some way of standing them off. Each of the boats
carried, as nearly as we could make out, a bronze six-
pounder mounted on a field carriage, and quite capa-
ble of hammering us well at fifteen hundred yards
distance, and perhaps with good luck of sinking us
altogether.
184
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
Our guns were superior in weight and range, and
probably our gunners were the better marksmen,
but skill availed nothing while the enemy kept di-
rectly astern. Before they began firing, I bethought
me of the English skipper and his mate in the after
cabin, and going below gave them warning of what
was about to happen, and offered them their choice
of staying where they were or taking their chances
with the captured privateersmen forward. Having
in mind the ammunition stored under the cabin floor,
they naturally preferred the company of the priva-
teersmen and accepted my invitation.
Nevers wanted to train his guns aft at a high ele-
vation and fire over the after deck-house with low
charges, but I put a veto upon this, dreading lest
some damage should result to sails or rigging or
perhaps even to the cabin itself and the dangerous
stores that were packed away beneath it.
·
We were making fairly good progress down chan-
nel now, but our friends astern soon began firing
solid shot at us, with such accuracy that it was not
at all agreeable. They kept at a very respectful
distance, to be sure, knowing that we had only to
drop an anchor to bring our guns to bear, but before
they fairly got the range I remembered how well
the "Otter's" ammunition chest served us as a tor-
pedo-boat down on Redman's River, and determined
to repeat the experiment on a larger scale.
We had made free to open and empty some cases
A MANILA BREEZE.
185
of Enfield rifles: long packing boxes made of pine
carefully put together with screws, and practically
water tight. Nevers caught the idea instantly when
I mentioned it, for the story of the fight off Myrona
was not unknown in the "Bantam's" mess-room.
He went below with some of his men, and in a very
few minutes had two of the empty cases artistically
ballasted with loaded shells, and slow matches ad-
justed with a view to explosion in due time. Run-
ning these up on deck with a light whip rope to the
foresail gaff, Nevers lighted the fuses and lowered
the boxes over the side, one to port and the other to
starboard. They dropped astern with encouraging
rapidity, and showed up so big on the glassy sur-
face of the water, that they really looked quite
formidable.
To our amusement three or four cormorants, al-
ways on the watch for roosting places, saw fit to
alight on the boxes, and having settled which were
the best places by fighting for them, they sat up
straight with their hooked beaks looking as though
they intended to retain permanent possession. It is
singular what small account wild creatures make of
artillery firing. I have seen a pair of hawks circling
round a thirteen-inch shell in the upper arc of its
flight, seeming to wonder what this new monster
could be invading their peculiar realm of upper air
with its sputtering fuse; I have heard mocking-birds
singing in the treetops, while a brisk infantry en-
186
MIDSHIPMAN JACK
gagement was in progress below, and
whole the feathered tribe seem to hold
human quarrels in profound contempt.
upon the
our little
The Rebels, meanwhile, kept pounding away at
us, no doubt enjoying the process quite as much as
we had enjoyed our previous amusement with them;
the sound of an artillery missile coming toward you
differs very much from the same sound when the
projectile is going in the opposite direction, and the
difference is intensified when the firing is all on one
side. Our assailants, too, were improving their aim
with practice. They struck us several times with
plunging shot, which might very likely have gone
clean through the bottom boards of the schooner,
but for a stratum of railway iron that the Liverpool
stevedores had stowed on the main-deck to make her
roll easy.
The two steamers were now coming up with our
torpedo-boxes, and warned, perhaps, by the little
whiffs of smoke, they sheered off one to the south
and the other to the north side of the channel.
Nevers had trained both of his guns as far aft as
they could point, and when the steamboats had
pretty well opened out on both sides of us, I sig
nalled the boats' crews ahead to stop pulling, ordered
the wheel hard aport, giving the "Bold Briton" a
rank sheer to starboard. She swung slowly around,
and the steamer on that side, promptly taking the
alarm, reversed her engines with commendable
A MANILA BREEZE.
187
promptness, firing her gun as she did so. The shot
came straight through our main rigging, just above
Nevers's head, cutting one or two preventer stays,
the lower parts of which fell down in a raffle on the
breech of the gun that he was sighting. The crew
cleared them away in a few seconds, and Nevers
calmly readjusted his sight, gave the elevating screw
an infinitesimal turn, and then stepped back to fire,
his face set, every muscle tense, and I make no
manner of doubt, in a kind of professional trance.
Making a successful shot was to him what making
a critical move is to some chess-players.
"Stand still and hold your breath all hands,"
cried he, and I think he would have said the same
if Farragut himself, instead of a fellow-middy, had
stood in my place.
The sea was absolutely calm, and the schooner
swung round almost as accurately as if she had been
mounted on a traverse. Nevers's trained eye had
marked the proper elevation on the horizon line,
and the sight covered the target almost with mathe-
matical accuracy.
Truly it was a most lovely shot. It went in
straight under the overhang of the steamer's saloon-
deck, and apparently burst right in the midst of
her boiler, for she was instantly enveloped in a cloud
of steam, and her smokestack shot a black column
of soot away up into the serene blue sky.
Her consort went promptly to her aid, ignoring
188
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
our two floating torpedoes altogether, and steering
contemptuously between them. Luckily for her,
they both decided to wait until she was well outside
the danger belt, when they blew up one after the
other, with much smoke and splashing and much
demoralization among the cormorants, who till the
last persisted in making them a temporary roosting
place, and I fear that some of them met an untimely
end in the final catastrophe.
Nevers's shot settled the question of pursuit for
the time being. The uninjured steamer took her
disabled sister in tow, and removed her speedily be-
yond reach of the "Royal Artillery," while we shortly
found ourselves headed off by the tide right in the
narrowest part of the pass. There was nothing for
it but to anchor and make ready for another night.
CHAPTER XIX.
AT SEA AGAIN.
TIDAL currents in the Gulf of Mexico do not
amount to much when compared with our Northern
tides; but a tolerably strong current for those lati-
tudes was presently setting into the sound so fast
that we could not think of towing against it, nor
was it possible to anchor the schooner bow and stern
across channel so as to command the approaches by
water. We had to let her ride with her nose to the
current, and trust to our own activity and seaman-
ship to bring the guns to bear in case of need.
It did not matter much, however, for a night
attack by boarders was rather unlikely, now that the
enemy had but one serviceable steamer left to lay
alongside. Moreover, we were out in the open bay,
and the sea was calm, so that with a good lookout,
we ought to discover any approaching craft at mod-
erately long shooting distance.
All of us had been so much broken of our rest and
so continually on arduous duty for the last three
days, that I determined to let everybody sleep as
much and as long as possible, and as the night was
calm and mild all turned in on deck, and slept
*
189
190
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
the sleep of the sailorman, all, that is, except the
young middy in command, who, in the pride of his
youth, resolved to keep solitary watch all by him-
self, and hoped for a peaceful morrow in which to
recuperate.
Back and forth the length of the deck I walked,
all through that silent night, I suppose, hundreds of
times. For a while I tried to keep count, but very
soon forgot the hundreds, now mounting to the
forecastle for a look to seaward, and now standing
silent at the taffrail, listening and looking over the
silent inland waters. Occasionally there came to my
ears sounds of hammering and of voices from the dis-
tant Rebel bivouac, but nothing happened to inter-
rupt Nature's own programme. The waning moon
rose during the small hours, dawn at last appeared,
and at four o'clock I called Mossman, as had been
agreed upon the night before, and leaving him in
charge of the deck, I went below, unbuckled my
waist belt with infinite relief, dropped down on a
bed, and for several hours knew no more.
When I awoke, the "Bold Briton" was dipping
gently to a regular ocean swell. I could hear the
swash of water along the side, and the list of the
cabin floor told me that we were under canvas and
going at a good rate of speed.
I lost no time in getting on deck, where everything
was quite ship-shape and Bristol fashion. For the
first time since the capture, Mossman and Blake
AT SEA AGAIN.
191
had found an opportunity to gratify their ship-keep-
ing instincts. They had turned to all hands after
early coffee, washed down decks, coiled away rig-
ging, and so far effaced the signs of recent conflict
that, barring the lack of her upper spars, the "Bold
Briton" looked quite the correct thing.
This early start was all in accordance with an
agreement between Nevers and myself the night
before, when I told him that I considered it my duty
to run down the coast to the eastward and look for
the "Bantam," as Morris had told me to do, although
more time had elapsed than had been foreseen when
the instructions were given.
The breeze had come in from the Gulf with early
daylight, and no difficulty had been experienced in
working out to sea. Here was I, then, fairly on blue
water, in command of a fine, staunch, British-built
schooner, with no specific orders from my superiors,
and the whole Gulf of Mexico on my weather bow.
What wonder that I secretly exulted at the thought,
and at the sight of the lovely stretch of summer
ocean, limitless to the southward, and showing a line
of creamy foam along the white beach to the north.
We had now been under way several hours, and
were off the end of St. Jude's Island, where I hoped
to find the "Bantam," and where, failing that, I
intended to anchor for the night. So we stood on
across the mouth of the pass and into St. Andy's
Bay, where we could lie in perfect security from the
192
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
weather, and with reasonable certainty that there
was no hostile force worth considering nearer than
the rather demoralized detachment which had tested
the quality of our fare the day before.
Cheecola and St. Jude's sounds together form a
superb body of water, stretching for nearly forty
miles along the coast. It is formed by a succession
of islands, Chaney being the easternmost. This name
is probably a corruption of Isle aux Chiens, that is to
say, “ Dog Island." At any rate, there is a capital an-
chorage behind it. We slipped in there and let go
our "mud-hook," just before the Gulf breeze went to
sleep for the night, as it has a habit of doing with
much regularity in these latitudes during the summer
months.
I kept the main-sail standing after the manner of
Yankee coastwise skippers, although according to
the navy regulations I ought to have doused it before
sundown. I reasoned, however, that having it set
was just so much time gained in case the necessity
arose of getting under way in a hurry.
After supper Nevers and I sat together aft in the
calm twilight, talking over our experiences of the
past few days, and luxuriating in the sense of security
engendered by our apparently peaceful surroundings.
What a lovely coast that is, to be sure, with
its broad sounds, sheltered beaches, and beautiful
streams! Why in the world people who love out-of-
door life, and can afford to do it, do not build house-
AT SEA AGAIN.
193
boats, or, if they prefer, cottages, and pass their
winters in paradise, is more than I can comprehend.
Hundreds of miles of sandy beach and coral reef just
begging people to come and occupy them rent free.
As it was in the days of which I write, so it is now
to all intents and purposes, for I was there a few
years ago, and know that its charms are still the
same.
Our evening meditations on deck were interrupted
by seeing some of the crew looking attentively
toward the mainland, and as Nevers was facing in
that direction, he saw first something that caused
us to fear lest our security was not quite so profound
as we had imagined. Above the distant horizon of
forest there arose a thin wavering line of smoke,
sharply defined against the serene evening sky.
Straight up it went, with a little balloon-like mush-
room top to it, as though a powerful fire had been
started with some sort of an explosion. Slowly it
floated upward, looking like the smoke that rises
from a factory chimney. Our glasses resolved the
thin column into dark rolls of smoke, lazily turning
over and over as they rose, and all pushing upward,
swaying from side to side, to a great height.
At last the mushroom-shaped cap reached a stratum
of air that had a little northerly drift in it, and away
it gently soared over the mainland. What could it
be? A signal fire, or a smoke from some salt-works?
Our prisoners either could not or would not tell us
:
194
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
anything about it, so we had plenty of room for
speculation, and evolved no end of theories from an
iron-clad ram coming down the river to sink us to
an innocent bonfire, possibly made by a hunting party
of Mickosukie Indians.
Nevers had found among the equipment that was
stowed away in the cabin a transit instrument,
probably intended for some engineering officer in
the Confederate service. Bringing it up on deck, he
took the compass bearings of the column of smoke
so that we could know where to look for it after
nightfall. The smoke was evidently at a consid-
erable distance from our anchorage, and it gave me
no special anxiety, although at intervals after dark
a faint glow lighted up the lower part of the column.
The night passed without disturbance, and when I
went on deck before sunrise, there was no air stirring,
and still the mysterious plume of smoke rose as it
had risen the evening before. But after an hour or
two it faded and finally disappeared altogether.
Coastwise navigation becomes dangerous and diffi-
cult to the eastward of Chaney Island, for there are
no safe harbors of refuge, and the oyster-reefs and
coral-banks of Appalachee and Deadman's bays make
out sometimes miles from shore. While there are
channels between these reefs, they are known only
to local pilots, and were unmarked in those days or,
at least, marked only by utterly unreliable cormo-
rants, whose sympathies were evidently with the Con-
AT SEA AGAIN.
195
federacy, for they sat upon every available stake and
oyster-bunch, and looked as much as they could like
channel marks for the delusion of unwary Yankees.
After having nearly got into trouble two or three
times when on boat expeditions, owing to their mis-
representations, I had become shy of them, and gave
them a wide berth.
On this particular morning, two irregular rows of
these gentle birds sat along the edge of the tide rift
and offered every inducement for us to run up a pre-
sumed channel between them, but we did not accept.
For these, and other reasons, I did not like to go
farther to the eastward, for there was no readily
available harbor nearer than Cedar Key, nearly a
hundred miles distant, and probably a rather unsafe
neighborhood for a small Yankee crew in any case.
So I determined to stay where I was for the present
and await news of the "Bantam," which it seemed
certain must come in some shape sooner or later.
By this time our prisoners had laid aside some of
their original Confederate stand-offishness, and some
of them had become more or less chummy with our
blue-jackets. You can't keep sailormen from form-
ing friendships with one another, even if they are on
opposite sides in some such little matter as a civil
war. Politicians and women are different. One or
two of these men, it was intimated, would even enlist
in Uncle Sam's navy when they found the chance
to do so, under circumstances that made it improbable
2
196
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
that they would again be taken by their own people.
Accordingly, when word was brought to me that one
of the prisoners had volunteered to catch some fresh
fish for us, if we could find him a cast-net, I willingly
assented. Some of the men rummaged among the
fishing-tackle and found one of the desired nets.
These are unfamiliar to most Northern fishermen, but
are used throughout the waters of the Gulf and pretty
well up toward the Carolinas on the Atlantic coast, -
possibly by this time they may have made their way
still farther north.
The net is circular in shape, some ten or twelve
feet in diameter, bordered with a bit of line, and
strung all around its circumference with leaden.
sinkers. The meshes grow gradually larger from
circumference to centre, where they are attached to a
stout hand-line several yards long, according as it is
intended to use the net in deep or in shallow water.
To use one of these nets adroitly requires a deal of
practice. The fisherman, standing in the bow of the
boat, gathers the net in his right hand ready for
casting, and holds the edge between his teeth. When
he reaches a favorable ground, or sees a school of fish
beneath him, he makes a sudden and powerful sweep
of the arm, and the net is spread out beautifully,
almost like the top of a great round table, and de-
scends with a splash of its leaden outline into the
water. The splash, covering so large an area,
seems to confuse or terrify the fish, and usually a
AT SEA AGAIN.
197
number of them are enclosed within the descending
circle of sinkers. Whether they are small or large
they are gathered in, the lower edge of the net hauled
up, and the captives are dropped into the boat alive
and kicking and without having received the slightest
injury.
After the Confederate fisherman had showed us
once or twice how he could cast the net and have it
lie like a great circular tablecloth spread on deck,
or over a similar surface when cast from the rail, I
ordered out the dingy with two blue-jackets to row
and one to steer, and sent them off to get some fresh
fish for dinner.
Cautioning the men to pull as silently as possible,
the privateersman stood up at the bow, looking down
into the clear water. Presently he made a cast, and
in a few minutes had quite a number of mullet and
pompano flapping their silvery sides in the bottom of
the boat. These pompano are the most delicious
fish I ever tasted, that is, when they are fresh from
their native waters in the Gulf.
CHAPTER XX.
A MONSTER OF THE DEEP.
As there was nothing else to do, all hands watched
proceedings with interest. The men, pulling about
in the vicinity of the schooner under the privateers-
man's direction, had tolerably good luck, and were
about to return on board, when, just as the fisher-
man was pulling up his net after a cast, the hand-
line was suddenly jerked out of his grasp. The
line hissed through the water and, reaching its full
length (it was made fast to one of the forward
thwarts), jumped the boat violently ahead. The
fisherman was hurled violently backwards, falling
over the shoulders of the bow oarsman, and the little
boat started off at a terrific rate of speed toward the
channel which I have referred to as being staked out
by cormorants.
They were out of earshot before anybody could
hail to ask what was the matter; but we saw the
fisherman pick himself up, and the Jackies get their
oars and begin holding water so as to make it more
difficult for them to be run away with. One of the
privateersman's officers was on deck at the time of
this occurrence, and as he was somewhat familiar
198
A MONSTER OF THE DEEP.
199
with natural life along the coast, he hazarded the
opinion that a devil-fish had got hold of the cast net,
and was making off with the entire outfit.
""
Now the devil-fish of the Gulf of Mexico and our
South Atlantic seaboard is not at all the same creat-
ure as the one described by Victor Hugo in "The
Toilers of the Sea," although I believe the giant
squid is called a devil-fish too. This particular creat-
ure is something like a gigantic ray or "stingaree,
measuring sometimes as much as twenty feet from
tip to tip of his broad wings, and is equipped with a
pair of claspers, as they are called, short, muscular
arms in the forepart of him, for which probably he
has some definite use in the ordinary vocations of
life. When he becomes excited, he is very apt to
fasten with a death-like grip upon anything that
comes within reach of these claspers, and he has been
known to clasp the iron cable of a ship at anchor
and struggle with it in his terror until tired out.
But occasionally, as in the case of our dingy, he gets
hold of something that he can run away with, and
then he is literally in his element. Boats have often
been towed out to sea for long distances in some
such way as this. Indeed, the devil-fish is ordinarily
found on the offshore edge of soundings, but in this
instance one of them seems to have strayed into the
comparatively shallow waters of the bay. Perhaps.
this very fact had rather shaken his nerves, so that
they gave way altogether when the splash of the
3
200
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
cast-net occurred above his head, and the downward
sweep of the lead-line offered a tempting object to
the grasp of his arms. At any rate, away he went
toward the river mouth at a rate of ten or a dozen
knots an hour.
I could not think of letting three of my best men.
be carried off to the enemy's country in any such
way as this, so knowing that the fish's strength must
give out sooner or later, I sent the cutter in pursuit
with orders not to come back until they had over-
taken them, or until it was evidently unsafe to pursue
any farther.
By the time the cutter got off, the dingy was a
mere speck close against the beach, and eventually
she disappeared behind a point of land whither the
cutter soon followed her, and we were left swinging
idly to our anchor with nothing to do but wait for
their return and watch the mysterious smoke tracing
its thin line upon the sky.
Whether the Southern Confederacy or the seceded
State of Florida ever adopted any pilot laws during
their brief existence, I do not know. At all events,
no pilot dues were ever exacted for showing our
boats the best way up this unknown stream. The
man who had gone as coxswain of the dingy when
she was run away with by the devil-fish, as just de-
scribed, was an old Nantucket whaler, Dan by name,
who had cruised all over the North Pacific. His
professional instincts were aroused, as soon as he
A MONSTER OF THE DEEP.
201
found his boat fast to something that could run
away with it, in a style which recalled the days
when he was a boat steerer in the "Galapagos
country."
The privateersman was for casting off the line and
letting the net and everything else go; but the hitch
had jammed around the thwart, under the sudden
strain, so that he could not readily loose it, and be-
fore he could borrow a knife from one of the crew,
the old whaleman forbade him. Dan called one of
the oarsmen to take the tiller, and himself changed
places with the privateersman in the bow, where,
armed with a boat-hook having a sheath knife lashed
to its "business end," he awaited an opportunity to
despatch this unfamiliar monster scientifically, that
is, as he would have done in the case of a sperm
whale. Dan's first sight of the devil-fish was when
it soared like a bird with broad blue wings over a
white patch of sandy bottom, and it gave him an
idea of the immense size of the creature. He always
declared that the speed of an express train was as
nothing compared to the rate at which that devil-
fish flew up the shallowing channel. Ordinarily,
when a boat is towed by a whale, the affair comes
off far out at sea where there is nothing to mark
progress by; but here were frequent shallows and
sand-bars and oyster-reefs, and all the dingy's crew
agreed that it was the most wildly exciting cruise
they ever experienced.
202
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
The devil-fish, although he is usually an inhabitant
of the deep sea, appeared to be perfectly familiar
with the channel, and though he was probably wild
with terror, some blind instinct guided him away
from shallow water. Only once was he at fault, and
finding himself on the wrong side of a narrow sand-
bar, which had only two feet or so of water upon
it, he did not hesitate a moment; but holding the net
firmly in his grasp, put on a tremendous spurt, threw
himself clean out of water, smote air and water and
sand one mighty blow with his wings, and over he
went into the deep water beyond, taking the dingy
after him with a jerk that sent the entire crew off
their seats.
Then he sulked for a while on the bottom, giving
the cutter time to come alongside and take the line,
bending it on to her own spare line so as to give him
more scope; and it was lucky she did so, for hardly
was the change effected, when he was off again up
stream, and the cutter's crew had all they wanted
to ease out the line and get headway on the boat
before they had to make fast and let the pilot go
ahead at his own sweet will. Towing both boats,
however, was harder work than towing the dingy
alone, and the great fish presently gave it up, beach-
ing himself high and dry with his nose almost in the
bushes, the cutter riding in right on top of him before
headway could be checked.
Dan had the satisfaction of trying to lance the
A MONSTER OF THE DEEP.
203
game with his sheath knife, but the devil-fish did
not seem to mind it a bit, and they had to pry his
claspers open with two oars in order to release the
net before leaving him to die and furnish food for
buzzards.
Finding themselves so unexpectedly on the main-
land and out of sight of their ship, it occurred to our
Jackies to do a little reconnoitring on their own
account, so they pulled for a mile or two up the
beautiful wooded river, with its swift, clear current,
seeing numerous alligators, egrets, and flamingoes,
and at last found themselves at the foot of a rapid,
where grew a mighty cypress tree, about whose
straight and massive trunk a huge vine had coiled
itself up to where the umbrella-like top spread out
against the sky. An active young blue-jacket vol-
unteered to climb this, taking advantage of the vine
to help him, and get an observation of the surround-
ing country. He did so, going up some eighty feet,
and was rewarded by a nearer view of the mysteri-
ous smoke which we had seen from the schooner the
day before; but although he could see it more plainly,
being nearer, he could make nothing of it, and his
story only served to pique our curiosity.
I was beginning to feel a little anxious about the
boats, when they came in sight again; but the choice
assortment of fresh fish for dinner, and the story of
the exciting run with a devil-fish for pilot, varied
somewhat the monotony of the day.
a
CHAPTER XXI.
(6
'GO EAST, JACK.
""
ALL day long had the Gulf breeze kept the "Bold
Briton" pointing her nose seaward, as though impa-
tient to leave her anchorage. All day long had I
debated whether I should get under way, and in
which direction I should steer if I did so. We had
kept a lookout aloft, and occasionally I relieved
him by going up and sitting for an hour at a time
in the crosstrees, watching for some sign of friend
or foe that might indicate what it was best for me
to do. But no sign of human life was to be seen
all day except the column of smoke, which appeared
and disappeared with no apparent regularity, and
save for the fact that it was smoke, and the allow-
able inference that where there was smoke there
must be fire and human agency to create it, even
this could hardly be regarded as indicating human
neighbors.
The breeze died down as usual in the afternoon,
and a land breeze came off an hour or two after sun-
set. This decided me not to wait any longer, but,
as the wind was so very favorable, to get under way
and to run for the blockading squadron off Mobile,
204
66
205
'GO EAST, JACK."
"'
where, at least, I should find somebody to take the
responsibility of an independent command off from
my young and inexperienced shoulders. Surely, by
this time, if nothing had happened to the "Bantam,"
she would have appeared off one or the other of the
passes, and in either case would have looked us up.
Upon the whole, I thought I had carried out my in-
structions fairly well, having looked for Morris fifty or
sixty miles to the eastward of where he had left us.
It is plain sailing, with a fair wind, out of St.
Andy's Bay, for the channel is wide and straight
enough when once you are in it. It took but half
an hour to put us out far enough to head on a course
which, barring accidents, should take us well clear
of Cape San Blas. I determined to keep the deck
till I was satisfied with our offing, and with the
charge" brought up by the sounding lead, so I
walked my little sailorman's walk with an occasional
glance at the binnacle and an eye to the canvas.
We caught the breeze free abaft quarter, and went
off to sea with the faintly glowing column of smoke
directly astern.
66
After a while I noticed a faint smell on the air
suggestive of sulphur, and even went below to see
if a match had been accidentally lighted, but I could
detect nothing; the smell vanished when I went
down the companionway, but I noticed it again, and
it seemed to me somewhat stronger as I came on
deck. Finally, thinking that it might be my imagi-
2
206
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
nation, I asked the man at the wheel whether he
perceived it.
"Yes, sir," he said, "I've been taking notice of it
myself."
Then after a pause of a few minutes, during which
I suppose he made up his sea-going mind that he
might venture upon volunteering a remark, he said,
"I guess it's nothing but that volcano, sir.”
"What volcano?"
"Well, sir, I don't know much about it; but those
Johnnies for'ard say there's a live volcano up in the
swamps hereaway."
That was all that he could tell me, but it afforded
as satisfactory a solution as anything that I could
myself contrive. The sulphurous smell grew less
and less perceptible as we ran away before the
northerly breeze, or else we got so used to it that we
did not notice it, and by midnight I had altogether
dismissed it from my mind.
By this time we were far enough offshore to sat-
isfy even the anxieties of an inexperienced navigator
like me, so I called Nevers and turned in, thinking
to have a good four hours' sleep. But no sooner had
I made myself comfortable, and was dropping off
into that half-conscious condition that precedes
slumber, when I was startled by hearing a voice
distinctly speaking close to my ear.
"Jack, Jack, wake up!"
Of course I started, but thinking I had had the
66 'GO EAST, JACK."
207
not uncommon experience of a sort of waking dream,
I soon dozed off again, only to be aroused by the
words, "Benson, Jack Benson, she's off her course."
Glancing up at the telltale compass, I saw that
this was false on the face of it, for the ship was
pointing west-southwest as I had directed, and that
was as safe a course as could be desired under the
circumstances.
Mentally resolving to have no more prophetic
voices breaking my repose, I closed my eyes again,
but still a third time came that persistent voice; this
time it was,
"Go east, Jack, go east," three times in succession.
It seemed to me now that I recognized the voice
as that of my uncle, Captain Abram Shumway,
though I knew, of course, that he must be more
than a thousand miles away in the old New Eng-
land homestead. But at last I got fairly off to sleep
with those same words repeating themselves in infi-
nite succession in my brain, "Go east, go east," until
finally, I suppose out of sheer perversity, I dreamed
that I kept steering west in a rising sea, which at
last became so high that I thought the schooner was
going to turn a back somersault. Then I awoke in
an agony of fear to find Nevers shaking me.
"You yelled so like the mischief I had to come
down," he said, when he saw that I was fairly
awake; "I was afraid you'd go off in a fit."
"What did I say?" I asked rather nervously, for
208
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
I suppose we are always a little anxious now and
then when we find that we have been talking to
other people, not knowing what we may have been
saying.
66
Oh, nothing but professional remarks, such as
'hard aport,' and 'the course is southeast,' etc."
(
"Nevers," said I, getting out of my bunk, "you
may call me a fool, if you like, after we get back
to our mess on board the Bantam,' but as sure as
my name's Benson, I'm going to run her off to the
southeast at least until daylight. It may be all non-
sense, but if you knew what I've gone through with
during the hour or so that I've been asleep, you
wouldn't blame me."
Nevers stared, for we had talked the whole mat-
ter over the night before, and agreed that it was
time to run for the squadron. However, he said
nothing beyond this, "Well, it's your lookout. I'm
game to see you through; you needn't come on
deck, though. I'll gibe her over, and put her on her
new course."
So I turned in again, dimly conscious of feeling
the direction of the roll changed; hearing the booms
eased over and brought up with a rattle against the
traveller blocks; while the telltale compass swung
round till the lubber's mark touched southeast.
That was the last thing that I knew before drop-
ping off into a sound refreshing sleep that lasted
until Nevers saw reason to call me after sunrise.
66 'GO EAST, JACK."
209
"Boat coming alongside, sir," were the first words
that I heard the next morning, and it took me but a
very short time to get on deck. We were out of
sight of land. I had not worked out the position
exactly, but I guessed we must be pretty well off
Deadman's Bay; not too far, perhaps, for safety, but
far enough to be sure of some water under our keel.
About two miles to windward was a singular craft
rapidly running down toward us, with the wind dead
aft, and what looked like an immense mushroom sit-
ting immovable in the stern. The glass revealed
other objects, animate and inanimate, amidships of
the boat, but what they were we could not tell at
this distance. The sail was a rude affair of some
sort of dark stuff, with a boom and gaff, and as she
drew nearer, we presently made out that the boat
herself was a large log canoe, probably hollowed
from a great cypress tree, and not ungraceful in her
lines and proportions.
She was but ill adapted to rough-weather work,
and knowing that the Florida Indians were not
given to deep-sea navigation, I could not account for
her being here out of sight of land. I laid the
schooner to so that the canoe might safely come
alongside, a manoeuvre which her skipper effected
rather awkwardly, standing up with a long paddle
in his hand, and looking rather resentfully at the two
blue-jackets who climbed over into the main chains
with boat-hooks, and held the canoe at a safe distance
P
C
210
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
from the side so that she should not be swamped as
the schooner rolled.
The apparition of the mushroom in the stern was
now explained: the captain of the canoe was a Semi-
nole Indian, more than six feet tall, a splendid speci-
men of manhood, somewhat lighter in complexion
than his brethren of the North. We weighed him
afterward on the ship's scales, which he turned at
something near two hundred pounds, but he was
well proportioned, athletic in all his movements,
and with something of the grace and spring of a
wild creature in his step.
Upon his head, to return again to the mushroom,
was the extraordinary native head-dress of the Semi-
nole, — a huge turban, projecting nearly a foot from
his head on all sides, and having the diameter of
a small cart wheel. This was constructed in some
mysterious manner out of a large variety of calico
handkerchiefs and strips of cotton cloth, which looked
as though they might have been picked up from a
dozen different wrecks, as indeed, perhaps, they were.
Beside him in the canoe was a young man, two not
bad looking squaws, four pickaninnies, two live pigs,
five or six land turtles, some gourds of water, pack-
ages of counti root, and two long Kentucky rifles.
This gigantic personage could speak English, at
least to some small extent; but he was anxious about
his family and other belongings, and I suppose some
sentiment of honor forbade him to leave his canoe
"GO EAST, JACK."
211
until all the rest were safe on the deck of the
schooner. Accordingly, with much laughter among
our blue-jackets, the four little Indian babies were
passed up over the rail and deposited on the deck,
where they sat solemnly sucking their thumbs for
all the world as if they had been little Christians.
Then their mammas were hauled up after them,
without a particle of expression in their faces, and
last of all, the young man and the big chief climbed
over and looked about them.
As soon as he was relieved of the immediate anx-
iety occasioned by his being so far out at sea, the
Seminole's mind recurred to the purpose that had
brought him there. Looking us all over, he evi-
dently could not make up his mind who was the
official head of the establishment, so he addressed
his remarks in general to the entire ship's company,
until he subsequently found out that I was the recog
nized head, after which no one could have been more
punctilious in his observance of the courtesies of
official life.
Addressing us all, he remarked briefly, "Big ship
aground," and he pointed southeast, lifting up one
finger. "Two big ship aground," and he lifted two
fingers. "Shoot, bang, big gun, big gale, send
Micco for help.”
Nevers and I consulted over this. Evidently, some
gunboat must be aground, but our efforts to get a
more particular description of her from the Indian
:
212
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
signally failed, his nautical vocabulary being too
slender to afford the desired information. However,
he was very clear as to the direction in which the
stranded vessel lay, so we lost no time in heading
accordingly.
The breeze held, and in an hour the lookout hailed
that he could make out something ahead. Another
hour resolved it into our missing "Bantam," but she
was something of a wreck to look at, even at that
distance. Her masts were gone, and she had not
the look of smartness that one always associates with
a Yankee man-of-war. Beyond her, and farther in
shore, was another steamer, but of her we knew noth-
ing, for she was a stranger and looked as though she
might be a blockade-runner. In any event, she was
so far off that her character was of very little
consequence.
So that, as it turned out, I had not made any mis-
take in changing the ship's course the night before.
CHAPTER XXII.
IN THE HEART OF THE HURRICANE.
Nor knowing precisely where we were, I had to
keep the lead going from the forechains so as to
know when we crossed the "three-fathom curve."
With a good lookout aloft, I was pretty sure we
could avoid any of the outlying knobs that render
navigation hereabout so dangerous to the unwary
navigator.
66
By the mark three! and no-o-o bottom!" sung
out the leadsman at five-minute intervals, as he
swung the heavy sinker over his head and let it fly
forward.
"Shoal water right ahead. — Starboard a little, sir."
This from the lookout aloft, and we sheered off in
time to avoid an innocent patch of green that looked
very pretty and harmless in the sunshine, but which
would have put an abrupt end to our cruise had we
run into it.
We headed for the "Bantam " again as soon as we
had the shoal well abeam. She was only two miles
distant now, and I reflected with pardonable exulta-
tion that they could without doubt see our colors,
which I punctiliously carried as the rules of interna-
C
213
214
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
tional law direct under such circumstances, namely,
the American ensign at the fore, and the British
merchant flag aft. Not a soul on board the "Ban-
tam" had ever seen the "Bold Briton" before, and
they could not know who was aboard of her. It
afforded us a good deal of amusement to speculate as
to what kind of a craft they must take us to be, for,
by model and rig, we were so essentially un-American
that the oldest sailormen on board may well have
been puzzled.
"By the mark three!" came at last from the leads-
man, then after a pause, " And a half, two!" follow-
ing the next cast, and as this gave us none too much
water under the keel, I was about to fetch her up
into the wind when my keen-eyed water pilot aloft
hailed to announce a deeper channel further on, lead-
ing close up to where the "Bantam" lay.
So I held my course, and the lead soon gave no
bottom at three fathom. I kept on till fairly within
hailing distance, Nevers and I intentionally keeping
somewhat out of sight, so that we should not be
recognized. Finally I rounded to, dropped the
head-sails, and anchored some two hundred yards
from my stranded superior.
I was a little bit in doubt whether naval etiquette
required me to hail him first, or to wait for him to
hail me; but in a minute came the hail in Morris's
voice, "What schooner is that?"
“The British_schooner, 'Bold Briton,'" shouted I
IN THE HEART OF THE HURRICANE.
215
through my speaking-trumpet, and still standing
partly concealed by the rigging.
"Where are you bound?"
"To Appalachicola, with munitions of war."
"Who are you, sir?"
"Acting Midshipman Benson, sir, with a prize
crew from the United States gunboat 'Bantam.”
I had it on the tip of my tongue to ask, "Have
you seen her anywhere?" but did not quite dare.
So then I stepped out in plain sight, and Nevers
too, and after a moment's scrutiny through his
glasses, Morris recognized us, waved his cap, and
the crew gave us a cheer.
“Come aboard, will you?”
"Very good, sir. Away there, second cutter!"
and in a few minutes I was being shaken hands with,
welcomed and congratulated all at once on the fa-
miliar quarter-deck, after a somewhat exciting week
of absence. I was told hastily that the steamer in-
shore was a supposed blockade-runner, which the
"Bantam" had chased out into the heart of the
hurricane, had followed her into shoal water, and
had herself run aground while trying to get within
range. The "Bantam," having lost all her boats,
was quite unable to follow up her advantage while
the other steamer was in a corner.
Save for her missing spars, and the total absence
of boats, six of which ordinarily ranged along the
davits, the "Bantam" on deck looked pretty much
2
216
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
as usual, but there was no time now to waste in
gossip.
"How much water do you draw?" asked Morris.
"Nine feet aft, eight and one-half forward, sir."
(6
Lay her alongside, then. I've got ten feet here,
anywhere. You may remain in charge of her for
the present."
66
Very good, sir." So back I went to the "Bold
Briton," took in all sail, broke out the anchor, leav-
ing the crown just clear of the bottom, hoisted the
head of the fore staysail, and held it aback till we
paid off within a short cable's length of the "Ban-
tam," then I anchored again, and gave her chain
enough to pass a line from our stern.
In a few minutes more we were lashed side by
side, with some cotton bales that Morris had picked
up hung over the side for fenders.
There was just enough swell to make the schooner
roll a bit, so that these cotton-bail fenders, worth at
that time some five hundred dollars apiece, were
ground and rolled and crushed between the two
ships in the most reckless and extravagant fashion;
but that could not be helped, the ships were worth
more than they were.
As soon as we were well fast, it was, "All hands
lighten ship." We rigged shears aboard the schooner,
and beginning with the "Bantam's" broadside guns,
took everything out of her that was heavy and mov-
able and easily within reach; meanwhile sending out
IN THE HEART OF THE HURRICANE.
217
two anchors with heavy hawsers attached, and tak-
ing up the slack whenever either vessel gave an off-
shore roll to the lift of the sea. This brought a
tremendous strain on the hawsers, but they stood
it, though they made the bitts creak as though they
would snap off at the deck timbers, but after several
hours' hard work, the "Bantam" slid off into deep
water.
Fortunately, it was rather a soft ledge that she
had come to grief upon, and the only damage she
had received was scratched and dinted copper along
her starboard bilge. All three anchors were now
hove up, the "Bantam" started her screw, and
in a few minutes we let go again in three fathom,
and without a pause, except for meals, set about
restoring things to their normal condition.
But, alas! no sooner had we hauled off to our new
berth than the steamer that had been lying in shore
started up her engines, and following a serpentine
course twisted in and out among the channels, keep-
ing well out of range till she cleared the shoals,
when, hoisting the Confederate ensign to her gaff,
she dipped it three times, gave a derisive hoot with
her whistle, and steamed away out into the Gulf
toward Yucatan as fast as her engines could drive
her. She escaped that time; but a few days later a
steamer, which we believed to be the same, was taken
while trying to run the blockade at Matamoras, so
she only had a short respite, after all.
218
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
"It taketh longer," saith the proverb, "to mend
than it doth to break," and so it took the "Bantam's"
crew very much longer to refit than it did to dis-
mantle her. We were at it pretty much all that day
and part of the next; but every job has its end, and
at last we got the guns all remounted and everything
ready for a start.
Our Seminole visitors seemed in no especial hurry
to depart. Time is of no account whatever in the
Everglades, so they camped on the after deck-house
of the "Bold Briton," a station to which I assigned
them as being out of the way. They watched opera-
tions with stoical and expressionless faces, only occa-
sionally chattering and laughing among themselves,
whenever the busy gangs of sailormen in their white
fatigue suits did anything that seemed to them ex-
ceptionally funny. Their canoe had remained in the
water alongside our boats, and to it the young man
was occasionally sent, whenever something with a
familiar flavor was required to make good the short-
comings of British merchant supplies, which did not
appear wholly to satisfy the Seminole palate.
It was certainly a very ingenious way that they
had of carrying pigs and turtles "on the hoof," as it
were, for a long voyage. Of course, if they killed
them at starting, they would spoil before many hours,
but so long as the breath of life remained, they had
fresh provisions, and nothing to do but kill and eat,
when their appetites called for it.
IN THE HEART OF THE HURRICANE.
219
One of the pigs was a very comical little beast,
who seemed to think that he was being abandoned
to his fate, whenever the young Indian left the canoe
and climbed back aboard the schooner with his prov-
ender. The little fellow, who was made fast with
a lanyard around his waist, would put his two fore-
feet upon a thwart, elevate his little pink snout in
the air, and howl or squeal most vociferously for sev-
eral minutes, after he was left alone with the turtles
and other supplies, then he would quiet down and
go to sleep again in the bottom of the canoe, until
he was again disturbed.
McCrady came over to see me as soon as he had
a few minutes' interval of leisure, and from him I
had the story of the "Bantam's" adventures. After
leaving us at Cheecola Bay, Morris got under way,
and next morning, after having caught one blockade-
runner at the East Pass, he ran down the coast and
sighted a steamer headed north in the afternoon.
The stranger made off to sea, as soon as she saw the
"Bantam," and the latter gave chase till dark, when
she lost her in the thickening scud that preceded the
storm.
That was the night of the hurricane, and as there
was no harbor within reach, Morris made a drag
with spars and canvas, and rode to it all night, drift-
ing astern pretty fast, of course, but keeping the
screw turning so as to relieve the strain upon the
drag.
220
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
The sea was terrific, of course, sweeping over the
little gunboat, often from stem to stern, and making
it necessary for the watch on deck to hold on for
their lives to anything within reach. One of the
boats was wrenched clear of its lashings and hurled
inboard against the standing rigging with such vio-
lence that the stays parted, and the top-masts went
after them. All the other boats were smashed into
splinters at the davits.
The ship made fairly good weather of it, though
she was under water half the time, and everybody
dreaded lest the big rifles should get adrift and slide
overboard in spite of their extra lashings. When at
length the dismal dawn broke, Morris, not knowing
how far he had drifted during the night, steamed up
to his drag, hoisted it aboard, and then worked away
to windward, barely holding his own, and easing her
over the big seas as much as he could, so as to make
sure of an offing. After a time, the rain let up a
little, when what should show up out of the murk
right ahead, but their blockade-running friend of the
night previous. She had apparently ridden out the
gale, quite as well as her pursuer, not having so much
top hamper, and not being so heavy in the water.
She had, indeed, been obliged to throw over some of
her deck-load to lighten ship, during the worst of the
gale, but that the "Bantams" did not know until
they found some of the bales stranded on a reef the
next afternoon.
IN THE HEART OF THE HURRICANE.
221
Of course nothing could be done but keep her in
sight till the weather moderated. It was quite out
of the question to cast loose and work guns in such
a sea, nor was it safe to attempt anything beyond
riding out the gale as easily as possible.
The Confederate did not seen in the least troubled
at the vicinity of the Yankee gunboat, but kept her
engines going, and quietly edged away to the south-
ward at every favorable interval; but Morris kept
him close aboard, and when the gale broke towards
night, the stars afforded light enough to continue the
chase as the sea went down. All night long the
two steamed in a wide circle, the Confederate evi-
dently aiming to have the coast within reach as soon
as day broke.
He made his calculations pretty well, too, for
shortly after dawn he made his landfall so nicely
that he was able to run straight in toward the
breakers, and, being of lighter draught than the
"Bantam," found shelter behind a submerged reef,
where she could not follow. The reef broke the
force of the sea, and in trying to feel her way in
after the swell went down, the "Bantam " grounded,
and, having lost all her boats, could only take a few
consolation shots at the distant Confederate just to
convince everybody that it was of no use.
Shortly after this the Seminole canoe hove in
sight, and after much signalling under the super-
vision of Napoleon, who at once sized her up as hail-
222
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
ing from the Everglades, her skipper was induced
to come alongside.
Napoleon was an adept in sign language, and with
McCrady's assistance in interpreting, and his own
inferences from the Indian's broken English, a bar-
gain was eventually struck, whereby it was agreed to
extend the canoe voyage somewhat further than was
first intended, and send back help if he could find it.
He probably sighted the "Bold Briton" long be-
fore we sighted him, for he had boldly run right out
to sea on the chance of our being the help that he
was looking for, as indeed we were.
CHAPTER XXIII.
BAD MEDICINE"; A MYSTERIOUS STREAM.
EVERYTHING was ship-shape by mid afternoon, and
taking my hawser, the "Bantam" started up the
coast. It was a trifle ignominious for me to be re-
duced to my normal condition as a "junior sub,"
after having held an independent command for sev-
eral days; but I made the best of it, and before
sundown we were safe at our old anchorage in St.
Andy's Bay, where it was considered best, under the
circumstances, to pass the night, as the "Bantam's "
supply of coal was running short.
I had spent a good part of the afternoon in writ
ing out my report, which, when it was finished,
I took on board, and presented in due form to
Commander Morris.
I was quite proud of it; in fact, I don't deny
that I am rather proud of it to this day. A British
schooner captured with her cargo of war material
and her officers (her crew had been set ashore for
reasons at St. Jude's); a Rebel privateer captured
and destroyed, and her crew made prisoners; five
Rebel cavalrymen with their horses captured on
shore; a Rebel transport burned; an attack by a
223
224
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
large superior force foiled and beaten off, and an
armed steamer disabled.
It was a pretty good record for a young middy,
and Morris was generous enough to give me full
credit in his own official report of the expedition,
as well as during the talk that we had during that
evening, for he invited Nevers and me to come over
and dine with him.
It had fallen calm when we went on deck after
dinner, and looking toward the mainland, there was
the strange glow on the treetops and the spectral
column of smoke floating aloft just as we had seen
it when here before. Sighting the column as well
as I could from the binnacle compass, the bearings
were precisely what they were before. We told
Morris how the boat's crew had seen it at closer
quarters when they were run away with by the devil-
fish. Morris was altogether incredulous, and declared
that it must be some sort of Rebel works which it
was his duty to destroy, and which he declared he
would look after on the morrow, if nothing happened
to prevent.
When I went on deck next morning and took the
sailorman's habitual look to windward and aloft, I
noticed several queer-looking lumps of something
floating in the water, and calling one of the watch,
I sent him in the dingy to see what they were.
sculled about, picked up two or three of the frag-
ments and brought them aboard, when I recognized
He
"BAD MEDICINE"; A MYSTERIOUS STREAM.
225
them as pumice-stone, such as is used by various
artisans for rubbing down and polishing smooth
surfaces.
I laid my specimens along the sunny edge of the
deck-house to dry, when I was aware of the towering
form of Ko-ah-ko-chee standing over me.
66
Ho-lee-wah-gus," he said, pointing to the pumice-
stone. "Bad medicine, no good, white man throw
overboard."
"What is it, Micco?" For we had learned that
that was his title, meaning "big chief" in his
native tongue. So those of us who caught on to
it were very careful to give him the benefit of his
full rank.
"Seminole man call him 'stone sponge,' no good,
white man throw overboard.”
""
It was in vain that I tried to convince him that in
the white man's country this same "stone sponge
was in every-day use. He kept shaking his big head
in grave disapproval, and made his squaw and picka-
ninnies move over to the far side of the deck-house.
Our two vessels lay so near each other that we
could easily talk across from one to the other, and
seeing Mac on deck, I called over, asking him what
he knew about pumice-stone. He knew so much
more about most things than the rest of us did that
we used to poke fun at him, and ask all sorts of silly
questions, so he would not answer till I threw one
of my specimens at him, which fell short, but bobbed
Q
226
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
up to the surface like a cork, after taking a dive
under his very eyes. Then he became interested and
had one of the watch pick it up with a scoop net.
"Where did you get it?" he asked.
"There's quite a lot of it floating about in the
bay," I replied. "Where do you suppose it comes
from?"
"Must have drifted over from South America,
I suppose. It don't grow anywhere except in
volcanoes.'
""
The word recalled the story that I had heard from
the man at the wheel two days before. I had not
thought of the volcano that morning, but now glanced
shoreward. No column of smoke was to be seen.
Morris now came on deck and called across, ask-
ing me what had become of my volcano. I told him
she hadn't fired up yet, and then asked him to look
at the pumice-stone which McCrady was still experi-
menting with.
Napoleon was summoned, and with Mac to trans-
late, it was learned that he had known of this smoke
by sight all his life; that nobody knew what it was,
but it was called the "Wakulla volcano," and one of
the coastwise counties hereabout was named after it.
"That's where the old 'Wakulla' sailing frigate
must have got her name," said I, for I had gone over
to the "Bantam" so as not to miss any of this con-
versation. "She was my first ship.
29
Morris was incredulous about the volcano yarn, but
“BAD MEDICINE"; A MYSTERIOUS STREAM. 227
the smoke was indisputable, so he sent Mac ashore
to lay off a base-line on the beach and be ready to
triangulate the smoke, if it came to time, which it
did before we were done breakfast, and Mac took
his angles and figured it out to be about ten miles
from our anchorage.
Napoleon said he could carry the "Bantam" around
the point and at least five miles nearer in shore, so
Mr. Morris decided to see if he could find out what
the smoke meant.
Somewhat to my chagrin, I was not given any
chance to go upon this expedition, but was left to my
own devices with the "Bold Briton" at anchor in St.
Andy's Bay, while the "Bantam" steamed away
out of sight around the point, and after a while we
heard her big rifle fired two or three times, from
which we concluded that they had worked up within
range.
Micco naturally inquired in his broken English what
the "Bantam" was firing at, and when I told him,
an unmistakable expression of wrath, not unmixed
with fear, came over his face; but restraining himself,
he turned without a word, said something to his
family in Seminole, upon which his son hastened to
bring the canoe alongside, all hands bundled in, and
disregarding my friendly overtures and explanations,
Micco set his sail to the sea breeze and laid a straight
course to the mainland, where he was presently lost
to sight, exactly as if the canoe had sailed in among
228
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
the tree trunks; possibly, indeed, it had done that
very thing, for there were waterways along that
coast that only the Indian knew, and now that he
is no more, very likely nobody at all, not even the
coast-survey people, know about them.
CHAPTER XXIV.
WAKULLA.
AFTER finding that his shot did not appear in the
least to incommode the smoke, Morris sent off the
cutter with Russell in charge, Napoleon for pilot and
guide, and Mac for interpreter and general utility.
They took along two days' light rations in view of
possible delays.
Napoleon seemed to know where he was going
perfectly well, and no doubt he did, to a certain
extent, for he steered the cutter without once touch-
ing bottom over a bad bar and into the mouth of a
stream big enough to float the "Bantam" herself, if
she could have crossed the bar, and crooked enough
to break her in two amidships. There was a strong
current running seaward, and occasional fragments
of pumice-stone outward bound convinced Mac that
they could not be of South American origin. As
they ascended, they began to note the wonderful
purity of the water, so transparent that it seemed
at times actually to magnify objects at the bottom.
Fishes and turtles of moderate size would appear to
the eye in exaggerated and distorted form. This
229
230
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
quality seemed to increase in intensity till, after hav-
ing pulled for several miles up the tortuous stream,
and through silent aisles of lofty cypresses and palms,
there opened out a most lovely little lakelet, hardly
more than an enlargement of the stream itself, sur-
rounded by a dense hammock grove. The water was
heavenly blue in color, with just a suspicion of green,
and looking across it one could see gentle ripplings
and disturbances, as if some unseen power was stirring
uneasily in the lowermost depths. A few strokes of
the oars shot the cutter out into the middle of this
pool, when all hands became aware of a curious lift-
ing sensation coming apparently from beneath, and
the boat seemed to be pushed sidewise toward the
shore.
At Russell's command the men rested on their
oars and began to look over the gunwales of the
boat, and their officers noticed that they were talk-
ing apprehensively among themselves; then Mac
looked over, too, and to use his own expression, “I
felt as though the whole bottom of the country had
dropped out from under us and we were suspended
over the hole. I could look down, down, down,
through a sort of transparent liquid indigo, and
far below I could make out a dim shape of ghostly
white, which, as I looked seemed to expand and con-
tract as if it was going through some sort of breath-
ing motion. I have no doubt in the world that the
superstitious ones among the crew, if there were any,
L
WAKULLA.
231
thought they were looking at some great white
couchant submarine monster down there in the
greeny-blue depths.
66
Napoleon took one look at it [I am telling the
story as nearly as I can in McCrady's words], turned
ash color, and immediately tried to crawl under the
bow-grating, where he remained muttering what we
supposed to be his prayers until the immediate crisis
was passed. Russell saw in a minute that the white
mass was nothing but a big outcrop of the lime-
stone rock that underlies the whole West Florida
coast, and said so to me, and the two of us began
talking about it in a matter-of-fact way, pointing out
to each other and to the men the fish that were
swimming about below us, and a big yellow-throated
alligator who was holding on with his fore paws to a
projecting ledge, and looking up at us as if taking an
account of stock.
"We had been obliged to take to our oars again
to avoid being carried ashore by the strong set of
the current, which seemed to radiate in all directions.
from the centre of the pool before finally finding its
way into the regular outlet. Once again we were
nearly in the centre of the pool, when there came
two or three bangs against the bottom of the boat
from below. There was enough force in the blows to
jar the frail timbers from end to end, but no damage
was done, and the next second, with a slight scraping
and bumping across the strakes, some pieces of
232
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
pumice-stone bobbed up alongside, and went off with
the current toward the nearest shore.
"I am bound to admit that, taking the cutter's
crew collectively, they were pretty well gallied by
this time, and Russell ran us ashore in a little cove
with a sandy floor that looked very shallow and
friendly until we found that it was about three times
as deep as we thought it, and the white sandy floor
was in perpetual agitation, apparently from currents
boiling up through it from beneath.
"However, there was a sure-enough edge to the
water when we got to it, and Russell told all hands
to jump ashore and stretch their legs. Everybody
was a trifle nervous, though; there was a portentous
stillness all through the forest, a total absence of the
noises that are usually to be heard, and the super-
stitious blue-jackets, contrary to their usual custom
when set loose in an unknown country, did not begin
a hilarious exploration of the entire neighborhood, as
they would assuredly have done had they not been
under some kind of spell.
(6
Napoleon was worse off than the rest, but he
recovered his senses to some extent when he got
ashore, and I asked him if he had ever been there
before. He shook his head, with a scared look.
"Ever heard of it?'
"'No.'
"By Russell's order one of the men climbed the
loftiest tree in the vicinity, taking a pair of marine
WAKULLA.
233
glasses and a pocket compass with him, and sighted
the smoke rolling up in the thick volumes from
behind a wall of trees, apparently not more than two
miles distant. He took the bearings carefully, and
Russell and I both jotted them down in our note-
books. Then with four men in light marching order,
Russell set off to follow the line by compass, leaving
me in charge of the boat with the remainder of the
crew."
ני
CHAPTER XXV.
į
WAKULLA'S PREY.
"To pass the time," continued McCrady, "as well
as to restore the men's spirits, I made a complete
circuit of the spring a few hundred feet distant
from the water's edge, making sure that there was
no trail leading to or from it in any direction. For
all that we could discover, the wonderful little lake-
let might never before have been visited by human
creatures. Then I ordered some of the men into the
boat, and with a fishing-line made some soundings
and measurements, and figured out the volume of
discharge on a blank leaf of my note-book. Of course
my measurements were somewhat hasty, but I am
quite certain that the discharge at the outlet exceeds
three hundred millions of gallons daily.
66
Seeing me treat the mysterious spring with such
familiarity, Jacky's buoyant spirits rallied, and as
the water was of an alluring temperature, as well as
most beautiful in color, the men asked if they might
bathe, which I gave them leave to do by relays of
three or four at a time; but having in mind the big
alligator that we had seen, I cautioned them in a
friendly way not to venture off soundings.
234
WAKULLA'S PREY.
235
"When Jacky is on a frolic, however, he does not
pay much heed to friendly counsels, and as I had not
actually given orders about swimming, thinking that
the grewsome warning would be sufficient, the first
thing I knew two of them were engaged in a race,
and were already part way across the bottomless
pool. I caught up a carbine that lay at hand, and
stood by ready to shoot if the alligator showed his
head, but there was no need, for the swimmers could
make no farther progress. The upward rush of water
was so powerful that they were irresistibly pushed
back toward the bank.
"When the first relay of bathers had dressed, the
second relay of four took headers off the boat, where
they had stripped, and by common consent struck
off together across the pool; they all happened to be
good swimmers, and had privately dared one another
to swim across the 'big bubble,' as they called it.
They were nearly half-way across, when a most star-
tling and horrible thing occurred. Right in front of
them, on the crest of the bubble, there arose a human
form, partly clad in a torn navy-blue shirt, with the
white knife-lanyard of a man-o'-war's man still about
his neck. The body turned slowly as it rose half
breast high out of water with the impetus of the
boiling current, fell over on its back, and floated
away toward the margin, gradually sinking below
the surface as it ceased to feel the lift of the
'bubble.'
236
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
"Four more horror-stricken faces I hope I may
never see than those of the men who turned and
plunged wildly back toward the sandy cove where
lay the cutter. To add to the horror of the situation,
the big alligator, who had no doubt been watching
all the time, and had gotten over his first timidity
at the sight of so many white folks, made a rush,
not for the living swimmers, but toward the drowned
sailorman. One of the men ashore was ready with
his carbine, and gave him a quick shot, which glanced
harmless from his tough armor plates, but so effectu-
ally frightened him that he retired to his lair in
disorder.
"The body, turning gently over and over, sank
slowly to the bottom in shallow water and near
shore, and ordering two of the men to take boat-
hooks, they caught his clothing and easily hauled
him in. It was one of our seamen, Jackson by
name, one of those who had set out with Russell to
find the volcano.
"By the time that we had carried the poor fellow
ashore and found that life was certainly extinct, I
began to have very grave apprehensions about the
fate of the rest of the party. The sun was getting
low, and it was time that we heard something from
them. A man was sent aloft again, but he could see
nothing whatever, and even the smoke was no longer
in evidence.
“Night was fast coming on. We fired carbines at
WAKULLA'S PREY.
237
regular intervals, but got no reply. It was out of the
question to abandon our shipmates, even if we could
have found our way down the tortuous channel after
nightfall, so we prepared to bivouac where we were;
as there was plenty of scrub palmetto within reach,
it was an easy matter to improvise a shelter, and
there were hundreds of tons of Spanish moss to be
had for the pulling, on which one may sleep very
comfortably, though at some risk of rheumatism,
unless the moss is well covered with blankets. By
working together the men rolled two good-sized
logs so that they formed a kind of breast work
in the rear of the bivouac, and all hands turned
to and collected a lot of firewood so that we
kept up a bright blaze all night, at once to keep
up our own spirits, which certainly needed cheer-
ing, and to serve as a guide to our shipmates, who
might perhaps be wandering in the dark morass
beyond.
"Pondering over this mysterious appearance of
Jackson's body, I could reach but one conclusion:
He had in some way fallen into one of the many
'sink-holes' that abound in this region. Possibly it
was miles distant, and he had been carried through
the long subterranean tunnel, and shot upward to the
light at last as I have described. This theory I gave
to my crew for what it was worth, but they did not
seem to take much stock in it, judging from their
looks. I did not have to repeat my orders about
238
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
keeping up the fire, for ours was a pretty wide-
awake little bivouac that night.
"Of course a sentry was kept constantly on post
with regular reliefs, and about midnight the man on
duty called me to look and listen. By going a few
paces away from the fire, where we lost the effect of
its near-by light, a reddish glow could be seen among
the distant treetops accompanied now and then by a
bellowing as of distant surf, and occasionally it seemed
to us that we could hear faint yells, but of that we
were not certain. I had some more carbines fired,
but there was no response, so I sat the night out by
the fire, pondering what I should do in the morning.
Micco Ko-ah-ko-chee relieved me of the responsibility
of deciding.
“Just as the first light of dawn was beginning to
steal through and over the surrounding forest, the
sentry challenged sharply, 'Halt there!' and I
heard him cock his carbine. Of course I jumped up,
gripping my revolver, and the men tumbled out of
their blankets, smartly seizing their carbines and
crouching behind the palmetto logs that we had
arranged the evening before.
"What is it?' I asked, joining the sentry.
"Blest if I know, sir. I saw a big swab of a thing
out there among the trees when I challenged, but
it's gone now. No, there it is again!' and he threw
up his carbine to the ready, but dropped it again with
an uneasy laugh, 'Why, it's Micco himself, sir.'
WAKULLA'S PREY.
239
"At almost the same instant I recognized our gigan-
tic Seminole, who came forward with his stealthy
Indian stride, not a leaf seeming to rustle under his
foot, not a twig snapping, as he stepped over the fallen
palmettoes, holding his hand on high, the fingers
wide open in sign of peace.
"He addressed Napoleon in Seminole, and the
latter, who was not in the least afraid of anything
in flesh and blood, soon gave me to understand that
Micco knew where our shipmates were, and that if we
would promise to go away at once, they should be
delivered to us safe and sound. I gave the necessary
promise, addressing Micco directly in English, which
I knew that he understood perfectly, and he strode off
into the hammock without saying anything further.
"Presently he reappeared, followed out of the dim-
ness by a single file of Indians in what I took to be
their war-paint. Certainly there was plenty of paint
in fantastic designs, and very little else save breech-
clouts, war-clubs, and spears, such as one may see
depicted in the records of the early Spanish ex-
plorers. I did not see any firearms among them.
They were all big fellows, and as they came out into
the
open space, we saw that they carried litters made
of canebrake. On the first litter was Russell.
"As soon as my men saw what was coming, they
jumped to their feet without orders, and I was
afraid some excitable fellow would let off his car-
bine, in which case it would have been ‘all day' with
240
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
the rest of us. But it was only curiosity and aston-
ishment on their part. Silently the barbaric proces-
sion filed past, each pair of bearers gently laying its
burden down, till all the four were apparently sleep-
ing peacefully on the ground, side by side, just in
front of our little breastwork of logs.
"According to my count, there were twenty-five
Indians all together, and not one of them, save
Micco, uttered an audible sound. He stood like a
statue almost of heroic size, while his followers were
passing and laying down their burdens. He re-
mained till the last of his warriors had silently van-
ished, then advancing toward me with grave and not
unfriendly air, he spoke :-
"White men go to sleep inside Wakulla's country
last night, no wake up yet. Wake up all right by
and by. Wakulla much angry, white man shoot big
gun at Wakulla's wigwam. Wakulla more angry.
When Wakulla get most angry, he let white men
sleep dead. But Micco remember good white men
aboard ship. No kill. Good-by, white man. Don't
try find Wakulla again. You want see him? Look!"
And he wheeled about, waving his arm toward two
palm trunks that stood like Doric columns, side by
side, a little way off in the gloom of the forest.
"As I looked I certainly saw, and so did the rest
of the crew, a dark mass of something that looked
more like a moving haystack than anything else.
It moved, or rolled, or hopped silently into the dim-
WAKULLA'S PREY.
241
ness beyond, and seemed to melt away, rather than
depart, as it passed out of sight among the tree trunks.
A moment later a shrill cry as of many voices, 'Wa-
kulla, Wakulla,' rang out from the distance.
"And then all was still, save for poor Napoleon,
who was grovelling on his knees behind the pal-
metto breast work, alternately crossing himself and
saying his prayers.
"We looked at each other in silence for an in-
stant, the crew and I, and I am bound to admit that
there were some pale faces among us.
"That's the thing that I challenged, first off, in
the morning,' said the sentry.
"I'm glad you did not let drive at it,' said I;
'that was probably the "big medicine man" of the
tribe disguised so as to scare us.'
"Russell and his three remaining seamen were sleep-
ing too soundly to be aroused, being apparently under
the influence of some drug, but their breathing was
regular, and their pulses strong, so we carried them
aboard the boat, and bestowed them there just as
they lay on their litters along the thwarts amidships,
and you may be very sure that we lost no time in
getting out of 'Wakulla's country.'
"I know," said McCrady in conclusion, after he had
told me this story, "that I, for my own part, did not
breathe freely until we had crossed the bar of the
river. There was more than enough mystery about
it to suit me, notwithstanding my expressed convic-
R
242
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
tion that Wakulla was nothing but a Seminole medi-
cine man."
66
The four sleepers did not open their eyes until
several hours after we got them back aboard the
Bantam," where the surgeon took charge, but did
nothing to bring them to after he had made a pre-
liminary examination. In due time they awoke, one
after another, and seemed none the worse for their
long sleep.
Their adventures can be related in a few words.
An hour or so after leaving us they reached the edge
of a tangled jungle, partly swamp and partly morass,
which it was well-nigh impossible to penetrate, but
by dint of toilsome exertions, hacking at thorny vines
with their cutlasses, climbing over great prostrate cy-
press logs, they worked their way in by compass for
half a mile or so, and came to a great sink-hole some
two hundred feet across, with a mighty whirlpool wan-
dering about here and there and hungrily swallowing
such logs and sticks as came within the reach of its
vortex. After resting here awhile, Jackson was sent
up a tall tree that stood on the brink of the pool, for
the growth here was so thick that the volcano sınoke
could not be seen from the ground. At this time
Russell and his men began to notice a slight sulphu-
rous odor in the air, similar, I suppose, to that which
had followed us out to sea a few nights previous.
He went up to a considerable height, and after point-
ing once or twice in a certain direction, hailed the
WAKULLA'S PREY.
243
party below, but could not make himself understood,
though his lips could be seen to move. Apparently,
he was under some strange influence, and Russell
ordered him to come down, but he seemed dazed,
went out aimlessly upon a limb, and lost his hold,
falling from the overhanging tree into the edge
of the whirlpool. When he rose after the first
plunge, he was fairly in the grip of the vortex, and
vanished after a few turns, just as did everything
that fell into that dread maelstrom.
After this, Russell and his men seem to have lost
their bearings. They all of them ascribe Jackson's
fall and their own confusion to the sulphurous fumes
of which I have spoken. They dimly remember ap-
proaching darkness, strange forms of men and trees,
a glow of fire, and some sort of hot drink that they
were made to swallow, after which all was blank till
they awoke in their quarters aboard ship.
Napoleon recovered his senses as soon as he felt the
deck under his feet again, and was able to pilot the
"Bantam" back to where her consort was awaiting
her. We buried poor Jackson on the beach of the
island near by; his body was considerably torn,
apparently by contact with the side of the tunnel
through which the subterranean river rushes to its
outlet in that beautiful but treacherous spring.¹
1 Lest the reader may think that the author has taken unwar-
rantable liberties with natural facts in this part of the narrative,
he begs leave to say that a column of smoke, known as the "Wa-
244
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
kulla Volcano," does actually rise almost continuously from the heart
of a swamp to the southeastward of Tallahassee. Several attempts,
in one of which the author himself took part, and nearly lost his
life, have been made to reach the source of this smoke, but none
of them have solved the mystery. "Sink-holes" with whirlpools,
subterranean rivers, and wondrous springs exist throughout that
region, and the author has seen specimens of pumice-stone said to
have been brought from the vicinity of the alleged volcano. It
is also said on apparently trustworthy authority that the compass
loses its touch with the north pole in the depths of this morass.
C. L. N.
CHAPTER XXVI.
PRIZE MASTER BENSON.
HAVING been an "Acting Assistant Prize Master"
under Ensign Cayvan, and having been obliged by
force of circumstances to appoint myself Prize
Master of the "Bold Briton," after having capt-
ured her, I felt that I had some little experience in
that line of duty. But until the "Bantam" returned
from the Wakulla expedition, I was a sort of pre-
tender.
" was
We had gone to work as soon as the "Bantam"
out of sight, rigging new spars in the place of those
carried away in the fight with the "Ranger," and
before night we had both top-masts aloft, a new jib-
boom run out, and square top-sail yards sent up for-
ward, so that when the "Bantam" ranged up to her
old anchorage alongside, we were a very ship-shape
looking craft, so far as taut rigging and a clean deck
were concerned.
This was quite early in the morning, and about
the middle of the forenoon Morris sent for me to
come over, and handed me an order regularly ap-
pointing me Prize Master in charge of the "Bold
Briton," and directing me to proceed to Key West
2
245
246
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
and turn the vessel over to the authorities there for
adjudication. I was directed, moreover, to stop at
the Dry Tortugas on the way and leave my Con-
federate captives, for this vast and lonely fortress
on a coral reef, almost at the very source of the
Gulf Stream, was then used as a military prison.
Nothing save perhaps some more straightaway ex-
citement in the way of an action could have suited
me better, — an independent command, a good strong
crew, and a summer voyage under sail across a tropic
sea, with always the chance of picking up a block-
ade-runner. It was like having one's own private
yacht, without the burden of paying expenses, and
with the proud conviction that I was doing my duty
as an officer of the navy.
The trip, however, proved quite uneventful. The
run to the Tortugas, with the trade wind blowing
steady on my port bow, took only three days, and
that to Key West, straight to windward, about as
many more. Then we had to wait several days for
a transport going to New Orleans, and thence we
rejoined the "Bantam" with the Gulf Squadron
off Mobile.
The summer was pretty well along by this time,
and everybody knew that Farragut's fleet was not
staying outside Mobile Bay just for amusement
it was tedious business for us, however. Mobile was
almost the last port where it was possible for block-
ade-runners to make an entrance. The presence of
PRIZE MASTER BENSON.
247
the fleet had pretty much stopped this traffic, and
the routine duties of a man-of-war were all that
saved us from unbearable ennui.
About this time we received the news of the
"Kearsarge-Alabama" fight off Cherbourg, in June.
The rest of the world had known of it for a month,
but we of the Gulf Squadron had to wait for our
trustworthy news to come round about from the
North. Confederate rumors and versions we had
in plenty, but according to these all fights were
victories for their side, or, if not actual victories,
were strategically explained as such.
There was great rejoicing in the fleet over the
sinking of the famous Rebel cruiser in such a fair
fight, for the two vessels were as evenly matched as
is possible in such cases; and if Captain Semmes had
not thought that there was a fair chance for him to
win, he need not have notified the United States
Consul of his intentions. That he did this appears
from his personal narrative.
At all events, we had a grand rejoicing over the
news, for the "Alabama's" crew were mainly Eng-
lish, and a goodly number of them were trained ar
tillerists from English schools of instruction. It was
a matter of professional pride with our Yankee gun-
ners, that we could still beat Johnny Bull at his
own game on the high seas, even as our fathers did
before us.
We were kept busy at gun and boat drills, and
248
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
putting out imaginary fires, and stopping make-
believe shot-holes, and now and then some of us
went in and tried our long-range guns on the forts,
but nothing serious was attempted. One day,
about the middle of July, Morris was signalled to
come aboard the flagship "Hartford," and when he
returned all officers were summoned aft into his
quarters, and he told us that the "Bantam" had
been ordered down the coast again on somewhat
urgent reconnoitring duty. The Admiral had de-
cided to borrow all the officers and men who could
reasonably be spared, as some of his own ships were
short of their full complement.
"Accordingly," said Morris, "I am to transfer to
him three officers and twenty-five seamen to be dis-
tributed among the fleet where they are most needed.
Do any of you particularly want to volunteer?”
We certainly did not all speak at once. I do not
know what the others thought, but I was of two
minds about it. There was likely to be some fun
down the coast wherever the "Bantam" was going,
and very possibly if I went with her, I should get
back before the grand attack on Mobile. I had
very nearly determined to stay by my own ship,
when chance took the matter out of my hands.
No officer likes to have his crew drawn upon in
this way, but "orders is orders," as Jacky says.
This was very different from an ordinary call for
volunteers, which would have met an instant re-
PRIZE MASTER BENSON.
249
1
sponse. But unless a move was made sooner than
anybody expected, duty with the squadron would at
best be monotonous and nothing different from our
ordinary life; so after waiting a moment Morris said,
"Well, gentlemen, if you will not go of your own
accord, I shall have to detail three of you," and he
ran his eye over us as if considering whom he could
best spare with least inconvenience to himself and
the "Bantam."
Upon this Mr. Dabney, the second in command,
asked if he might make a suggestion.
Morris nodded.
"Why not draw lots for it?"
"All right, that will suit me, and if anybody is
dissatisfied perhaps he can pair off as they do in
Congress."
So fourteen shot-gun wads were counted out, three
of them marked with an X, and all shaken up together
in a cap. Acting Master Duffield drew one, McCrady
another, and I the third, and such is the contrariness
of human nature that no sooner were we out of the
captain's quarters than we were overwhelmed with
offers to exchange, which immediately convinced us
that we were in great luck, and we would not have
given up our chance to stay with the fleet upon any
consideration.
The twenty-five Jackies volunteered without any
hesitation, for there is always a considerable per-
centage of dissatisfied ones before the mast on every
250
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
man-of-war who are glad to make a change whenever
the opportunity offers, and equally ready to change
back again when the time comes.
Within an hour or two we were all on board the
flagship, and after we had reported our arrival to
the fleet captain, we were dismissed to await assign-
ment to different vessels of the fleet. As we all
knew some of the junior officers, the time passed
pleasantly enough, for the "Hartford" was a historic
ship, standing for the sailor of that day almost where
the old "Constitution" stood for his forefathers. She
had been wounded in spars and hull scores of times,
had defied heavier hostile batteries than any other
ship afloat. A few of her crew had been with her
ever since the beginning of the war, and of course
these celebrities were all pointed out to us with the
scars and shot-holes that had been patched up after
the various actions in which she had taken part.
After a time I was aware of the Admiral taking
his constitutional on the high quarter-deck, and being
a stranger I naturally straightened up and saluted as
he passed near me and caught my eye. He saw that
I was not one of the "Hartford's" regular company,
and so courteously stopped to ask what ship I came
from, evidently not remembering me at all till I told
him that I was a "( Bantam."
"Oh, to be sure," he said; "I remember you now,
though I have forgotten your name - Benson? Yes.
Well, I don't think you've made any mistake in joining.
PRIZE MASTER BENSON.
251
I hope we shall give you something to do before
very long. Glad to see you aboard the 'Hartford.'"
He nodded in a friendly way, and resumed his walk.
A little later, a messenger brought me word that
Captain Perceval Drayton had sent for me, and I
was shown into his quarters, where he sat at a desk
with his secretary, Mr. Hegginbothom, at work near
by. Drayton was executive officer of the flagship,
and was serving also as fleet captain, so that he had
a deal of official correspondence on his hands.
I remained standing, cap in hand, near the door,
and for a few minutes he did not notice me.
Then
looking up, "You are from the 'Bantam,' are you?"
he said, without prelude.
"Yes, sir."
66 Have you ever been under fire ?"
"Yes, sir."
"Where?"
"Hatteras Inlet, sir, the monitor fight in Hamp-
ton Roads, a number of boat expeditions, and at St.
Jude's Sound only the other day."
He glanced up at me quickly and then down at a
memorandum that lay on his desk, where he seemed
to refresh his memory while looking up my full name.
Then he arose and came forward with a cordial man-
ner that he could assume upon occasion, and shook
hands heartily.
(6
Really, I'm very glad to see you. You see, I
read your name without fairly taking it in. I'm apt
252
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
to be awfully absent-minded when I'm not on deck.
That must have been a very pretty fight down on
the sound. Quite like the War of 1812. I'll speak
to Kimberly about your station."
So I was dismissed, and at afternoon quarters was
duly assigned to one of the gun divisions on the
spar-deck where, thanks to my training aboard the
"Minnesota," I found myself quite at home, and
knew just what was expected without any instruc-
tions.
CHAPTER XXVII.
IN ORDER OF BATTLE.
WE were a formidable fighting fleet off Mobile
Bay, as July drew to an end in 1864. We could,
without doubt, have destroyed the combined fleets
of England, France, and Spain, as they engaged at
Trafalgar, if only the old ships could have been
resurrected from their ocean beds and brought to
confront us. We could probably have defeated any
fleet in the world that could have been assembled at
that time, and, of course, we were correspondingly
proud of our supremacy.
Leaving out the transports and sailing craft not
counted in the fighting division, we numbered eigh-
teen men-of-war, from the stately flagship "Hartford”
and her full-sparred consorts with their big batteries,
to the still more formidable monitors with their in-
vulnerable turrets and their fifteen-inch guns.
In my opinion, of course, the squadron was badly
handicapped by the absence of the "Bantam"; but
maybe she would be back in time after all, and in
any event, it was a satisfaction to be numbered
among the men behind Farragut's guns.
We were only waiting for the monitors now, one
253
254
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
or two of them being around at the Pensacola Navy
Yard undergoing repairs. Otherwise, everything was
ready, top-masts sent down, sand-bags piled along
the starboard battery, for that side would be terribly
near the principal fort in running the gauntlet.
Chain cables were stopped outboard to protect the
machinery, and a temporary breastwork of ham-
mock bags and the like was built up around the
wheel so as to shield the steersman from splinters
and small shot.
Never before had I seen such complete and care-
ful preparations for battle. Most of the engage-
ments that I had participated in had not been so
long in contemplation. With me, it had been a call
to quarters at short notice, and these elaborate ar-
rangements were new to me. But then running
past heavily armed forts commanding a narrow
channel had never before fallen to my lot, and I
began to think that there were some phases of naval
warfare with which I was still unfamiliar.
It was not particularly inspiring to look over the
rail day after day, at those low-lying, formidable
masses of masonry on shore, and occasionally to see
the distant bulk of the ram "Tennessee," which the
Confederacy believed was capable of sinking the
entire Federal fleet, just as they had believed that
the "Virginia" was capable of doing for us two
years before.
She was, indeed, very much like her prototype,
IN ORDER OF BATTLE.
255
which I had seen in Hampton Roads, except that
she was improved in many respects, being better
armed with English rifle guns, and protected at her
vulnerable points by something like ten feet of iron-
plated sponsons and timber backing. She had, too,
three consort steamers with batteries of considera-
ble weight, by no means despicable antagonists.
Besides the known and visible obstructions across
part of the ship channel, there were unknown ones
in the shape of torpedoes across the rest of it up
to within a few hundred feet of the parapet of
Fort Morgan, where a narrow passage had been
left open for the convenience of blockade-runners.
It was believed, of course, that the fire of the fort at
such short range would make it impossible for any-
thing to run past alive.
At last August came in, and on the fourth day of
the month, the "Tecumseh," the one monitor for
which we were waiting, arrived, and we all knew that,
barring accidents, the hour of action was close at
hand. I am not going to deny that I felt rather
downhearted, and pretty much everybody on board
was much of the same mind. There was a good deal
of writing good-by letters, and doing up little pack-
ages and the like. I did something in that line my-
self, and gave it to Captain Drayton's secretary, Mr.
Hegginbothom, to keep for me until after the action.
He was killed, poor fellow, at his supposed post of
safety below, and I, though on deck throughout
256
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
off with comparatively little
the fight, came
came off
damage.
Even the Admiral himself was uneasy and restless
throughout this night before the battle. To his wife
he wrote:
"I am going into Mobile in the morning, if God
is my leader, as I hope He is, and in Him I place my
trust. If He thinks it is the place for me to die, I
am ready to submit to His will. . . . God bless and
preserve you and my dear boy if anything should
happen to me.” ¹
Night came down warm and depressing with sul-
try showers and fog, and the Admiral must have
been uncertain about ordering the attack until some
hours after midnight, when it was reported to him that
a breeze had sprung up from the westward. "Then
we will go in this morning," he said, and that was
the first word that he uttered to anybody indicating
that the final decision had been reached. Shortly
after this, just at daylight, the boatswain piped, "Up
all hammocks," and those of us who were on deck
could hear, in the calm silence of the lovely morning,
notes of silver whistles ringing out from the different
ships of the squadron as they lay heaving gently at
their anchors on the glassy sea.
Shortly after five o'clock all hands had their coffee,
and the Admiral with his fleet captain were still at
1 This letter is published in full in the Life and Letters of Far-
ragut by his son.
IN ORDER OF BATTLE.
257
table together. The old gentleman drank tea in
preference to coffee, and it had just gone three bells
when he remarked in a matter-of-fact tone, setting
down his cup, "Well, Drayton, we might as well
get under way." There was hardly a half minute's
wait. Flag signals were already bent on to the hal-
yards in anticipation of being wanted for instant use,
and it was said that, by the official time, every vessel
in the squadron had run up the answering pennant
inside of a minute and a half. Every captain knew
his place in line, and without waiting for further
orders, each one of the smaller vessels got up her
anchor and steamed alongside of the larger craft
which she had been detailed to accompany.
(6
A heavily armed, side-wheeled, double-ender, the
Metacomet," Lieutenant Commander Jouett, was
our consort, and he came dashing up alongside at a
rate that looked as though he intended to run us
down. But he had practised that sort of thing be-
fore, and in a few minutes the hawsers were fast, and
we were firmly lashed side by side, so that if our
machinery was disabled our companion ship might
perhaps be able to tow us out of danger. So with
all the others of the fleet. They were arranged in
pairs, except the monitors, and in one instance, at
least, this double-team arrangement proved effective
in saving both ships.
The great naval battle of Mobile Bay has been so
fully described in official reports, as well as in per-
S
258
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
sonal narrative, that there is little that I can tell,
having been most of the time a sort of supernumerary
stationed in the wake of the starboard guns, watch-
ing my especial crews, and ready to "drop" on any-
body that shirked. This station gave me small
opportunities for observing incidents as they con-
cerned the individual ships.
It was rather trying to the nerves, to say the least,
the long wait after the engines began to throb and
the ship gained headway. That's where discipline
tells. A crew that has not been properly trained to
patience, obedience, and fortitude is very apt to go to
pieces under the tense excitement of waiting for an
action to begin, but it was not so with the crew of
the "Hartford." The Admiral had enough to attend
to in the general discipline of his fleet, but his im-
mediate subordinates had been carefully chosen, and
although the crew was largely composed of men who
had not before been under fire, its morale was excel-
lent, as the event proved.
From my post on deck, I could not see much ex-
cepting the spars of the "Brooklyn" and the "Octo-
rora," side by side right ahead, and those of the
"Richmond" and her consort immediately astern.
I remember thinking that they seemed dangerously
near, and expected momentarily to hear the snap-
ping of spars or the crash of a collision. These all
came in good time, but not just as I expected.
Above the high bulwarks and through the open
IN ORDER OF BATTLE.
259
ports, we could catch occasional glimpses of the dark,
low-lying monitors, looking like huge, misshapen
water-bugs, and heading so as to keep close in
under the guns of the forts.
The final signal to go ahead came a little before
six o'clock, and the whole squadron moved off, fall-
ing into column as it advanced. Orders were to go
slowly and under low head of steam, and it was
a full hour before the monitors, which were a little
in advance, found themselves within range, and the
"Tecumseh" sent her two fifteen-inch shells over
Fort Morgan. They burst in pretty little white
puffs against the sky over the silent guns. Then the
"Brooklyn" spoke, and our own bow rifle, but still
there was no response from the fort, and I began
to fear with a pronounced "want-to-go-home feel-
ing" that they were going to trust the lines of
sunken torpedoes to do our business for us. The
dread of torpedoes was ever present throughout
that run up Mobile Bay. We had counted the
cost beforehand, and many of us thought that the
fleet was bound to lose at least one-third of its
numbers from torpedoes alone. If we could win
through into the bay with ten or a dozen ships
fit for duty, it was all we expected. But it is not
a pleasant thing to go ahead, feeling that at any
moment a tremendous explosion may take place
right under your keel.
The fort began firing at last, after waiting until
260
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
we had come within grape-shot range, and at the
same time the big ram "Tennessee" and her con-
sorts, who lay right ahead, began firing their long-
range guns, their huge conical projectiles raking
down our line with deadly effect. Shot and splin-
ters began to fly about our ears, but the Admiral
stood, glass in hand, quite unconcerned to all appear-
ance, and looking very much as his bronze statue
does on its granite pedestal in New York; and
Captain Drayton standing by the quarter-deck rail
seemed quite as cool as he, though many a nervous
glance was turned toward them from among the crew.
At length, after an interminable period of waiting,
our forward broadside guns began to bear, and the
painful tension relaxed with a snap. One after
another the big black monsters roared out at their
open ports, and jumped back with the recoil, to be
sponged, loaded, run out, and fired over and over
again with relentless swift precision, by their well-
trained crews.
We were serving grape-shot now, and so were the
enemy from their water-front guns. The cheerful
hails of "nobody hurt yet," which had been pass-
ing from gun to gun aboard the "Hartford," ceased
abruptly. Instead, there were howls or groans ac-
cording to temperament. Smears of red blood
appeared on the white deck, and a dismal proces-
sion of pallid inen staggered past, or were carried
by their shipmates to the surgeons below.

Wearge Wiikhs
"ONE AFTER THE OTHER, THE BIG BLACK MONSTERS ROARED."
IN ORDER OF BATTLE.
261
A mountain of dense smoke drifted up from our
battery and over toward the fort. There was the
old Admiral up in the main rigging, where he could
see better, and beside him, a few feet lower down,
stood Commander Jouett, on the starboard paddle-
box of his ship, so that the two were within easy
talking distance.
About this time cheers suddenly broke out on
board the "Brooklyn," and we of the flagship took
them up, not knowing what it was all about, but
they passed on down the line from ship to ship. It
was purely an accident, but it coincided by chance
with the most dreadful disaster of the day to the
Federal fleet. The monitor "Tecumseh " ran upon a
torpedo just before these most untimely cheers broke
out, there was a dull explosion, a column of water
shot up alongside, her bottom was blown in, and
down she went, taking with her more than one
hundred of her crew. Commander Craven ordering
the pilot out ahead of him, through the only avenue
of escape, went down with his ship.
And just here a most gallant deed was done by
Ensign Nields. Commander Jouett, from his station
on the paddle-box of the "Metacomet," had seen the
"Tecumseh" sink, and being ever prompt to act, sent
Nields in charge of a boat to pick up any survivors
who might remain afloat. In less time than it takes
to write it down, Nields was at his place in the stern,
shoved off and let the boat swing round under the
262
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
counter of the "Hartford," with his six blue-jackets
jumping her straight in through the powder smoke
toward where the monitor sank.
Glancing mechanically over his shoulder, Nields
noticed that his colors were not set. So he reached
under the after seat where they were kept, pulled off
the weather case, and thrust the staff into its step.
This cool act saved near a score of lives, for one of
our gunners, seeing the boat dimly through the
smoke, had just trained a hundred-pounder rifle
upon it, thinking it had something to do with tor-
pedoes, when the flag was shaken out just in time to
prevent him from jerking the lock-string. So Nields
and his dauntless blue-jackets pulled away, the piti-
less drive of shot tearing through the air just above
their heads, and lashing the water around them,
to where the sea still swirled with the downward
plunge of the ill-fated "Tecumseh."
To the honor of the Confederate gunners at Fort
Morgan and on the "Tennessee " be it recorded that
they spared this gallant crew, allowed them to res-
cue the exhausted men who were struggling in the
water, and row back to the fleet.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
66 RUN HER DOWN."
HARDLY had Nields started on his errand of mercy
when something went wrong with the "Brooklyn."
I was busy training my guns further aft, and was
only dimly aware that our screw had reversed, and
that hoarse hails were passing back and forth over-
head. Somebody said "torpedoes" (we were all
thinking them), and the fire of the "Brooklyn" fell
away as she and her consort swung around almost
across our bows. I could not hear all that passed,
but as the answers from the other ship ceased, I did
hear the Admiral shout from his place well up in the
main rigging, -
"Go ahead! four bells, Captain Drayton."
It was the only thing to do; the flagship got way
on her again, and passing the "Brooklyn," led the
fleet across the death-line. The men down in the
magazines actually heard the iron torpedo-cases bang-
ing and scraping along the ship's bottom as we passed
over them, but Heaven had us in its keeping, and in
five minutes more we were crossing the bows of the
263
264
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
"Tennessee," catching some hard hits from her big
rifles and from those of her three companion gun-
boats.
These last fled as soon as they saw that we had
defiantly passed the ordeal of the sunken torpedoes
and were still afloat. The swift "Metacomet" was
off after them like a greyhound, and they all dis-
appeared in the gray of a rain squall that came up
across the bay.
The flagship was well out of it, nearly a mile
ahead of the rest of the fleet, which had with some
difficulty straightened itself out under a scorching
fire, after the momentary check that I have de-
scribed. It was getting terribly punished, but was
replying with unabated energy, and so were the
monitors, which pressed on in spite of the fate of
their leader. In half an hour the last crippled
couple in that dread promenade came limping in,
Commander Mullaney minus an arm, his ship, the
"Oneida," with her engine disabled, and with a row
of dead and dying men in the sick bay.
Here we all were, however, afloat save only the
lost "Tecumseh," and I suppose that when the boat-
swain piped to breakfast, and the red "grub pen-
nant" went up to gaff and yard-arm, we were as
proud a set of powder-blackened sailormen as ever
trod a deck.
But Admiral Buchanan, C. S. N., had his own
notions about the proper time for breakfast, and no
"RUN HER DOWN."
265
consideration whatever for the wishes of his old
shipmate, "Davy" Farragut; so after inspecting his
ship, and finding her practically uninjured, he got
under way, and steamed slowly up the bay, heading
direct for the flagship.
No man ever faced great odds more gallantly, and
remembering the achievements of the "Virginia" in
Hampton Roads, and of the "Albemarle," "Arkan-
sas," and their sisters, he probably thought that he
had a chance of winning even here. He knew how
the "Arkansas" had run through a powerful Federal
fleet, suffering but insignificant damage, and believ-
ing that the forts must soon surrender, he perhaps
intended to escape up the bay or out to sea,
and so prolong the fight. But Fate willed other-
wise.
Here comes the ram," was the cry along the
gun decks.
"Buck is coming out," said the Admiral to Dray-
ton, after a look through his marine glasses. "Get
under way at once, and signal all vessels to run down
the ram."
Mess kids were shoved aside into the waterways;
a few of the men got a swallow of coffee, but waited
for no more. Gun vents were served and primed,
officers and men sprang to stations, and the old
"Hartford" was again ready for action, ready to
burst into flame from every port at the word of
command.
266
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
And so it was throughout the fleet. Every ship
seemed eager to try her wooden prow against the
enemy's iron ribs. I could not see very much that
was going on, but I knew when we charged down
upon the ram and crashed our stout oaken timbers
against her guards; in a minute more we had swung
around alongside, and my guns came to bear. The
ram and the flagship scraped along, each with her
port battery firing as fast as it could be loaded,
directly into the sides of her opponent. The two
guns that had now fallen to my charge, with their
muzzles well depressed, were hurling ineffectual solid
shot against the slanting iron roof only ten feet dis-
tant. Half the fleet crowded about the monster
ram. I heard a tremendous crashing and crunch-
ing of timbers, and a stunning explosion, and then
oblivion.
It was the "Tennessee's" dying effort. So close
to our broadside was the muzzle of the gun last fired,
that the flash scorched our paint. The big shell,
tearing through the planking and timbers of the
flagship, burst in the berth-deck, killed Ensign
Hegginbothom and four seamen, and wounded
eight others. A heavy fragment ranged up through
the spar-deck; a young middy on duty there reeled
and fell. He was carried below by men from one of
his guns. Glancing at him hastily, for he was very
busy, the surgeon thought him dead, and ordered
66
267
RUN HER DOWN."
him laid in the port waterway, with the long stark
row of his shipmates.
"That makes twenty-six," said the surgeon's stew-
ard, jotting down this entry in his memorandum-
book: "Benson, John, Acting Midshipman, detailed
from 'Bantam,' killed."
13
CHAPTER XXIX.
AN UNLOOKED-FOR MEETING.
DID you ever wake up so imperceptibly after a
sound night's rest that you did not know where
slumber ended and consciousness began? If you
have, you may perhaps understand how I came
back to consciousness. Slowly drifting from the
unknown, I first heard voices and then the churn-
ing of paddle-wheels, and at last got an eye open
and saw a Confederate uniform with a man inside
of it lying on the deck near me.
What had happened? Had the ram destroyed the
entire fleet, and was I a prisoner? Presently I saw
Nields go past (he who had rescued the "Tecum-
seh's" men off Fort Morgan). I could not catch his
eye the first time, but when he came near again I
managed to get his attention. He kneeled down
beside me saying,
"Don't exert yourself, Benson; the surgeon says
it won't do."
"Tell me where I am, anyway, and what day is
it?"
"It's the same day, the day of the fight, and you
268
AN UNLOOKED-FOR MEETING.
269
are aboard the 'Metacomet'; we are taking all the
wounded to Pensacola,"
"Did we sink the ram ?"
"No, but we captured her, and we've got the
Rebel admiral on board here. He was hard hit in
the leg."
"What's the matter with me?"
"We don't know exactly, something hit you on
the head, just as we were finishing the ram, and
you haven't known anything since; better keep
still now."
"One thing more. Who is this Reb next me?" I
asked.
Nields looked at a slip of paper that was pinned
to the Confederate officer's coat. "Captain Ran-
dolph Tolliver, volunteer artillerist, ram 'Tennes-
see.'"
I had not energy enough left even to be interested
in this piece of news, so I dropped off into semi-con-
sciousness again, and knew nothing more till I found
myself in a hospital cot with a bandaged head and
a very lame shoulder, and saw dimly the soft green
leaves of a tall banana gently waving outside the
open casement. There was a nearby murmur of
hushed and pleasant voices, and presently I was
aware of a queer sniffing noise close to my ear.
Something jumped up on my cot, touched my cheek,
and cuddled down beside me. After some ineffect-
ual and half-hearted trials I opened my eyes enough
2
270
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
to see a little, and there, half-reclining on a cot like
my own, was a young man, not far from my own
age, whom I at first failed to recognize, but who
had on a gray hospital gown that might easily have
passed for a Confederate uniform. Near him, seated
on camp stools, were two figures that somehow
seemed more familiar, except that they were in
deepest black; but I couldn't make it out, and closed
my eyes again for sheer weakness.
He is
Then, after a time, I heard a well-remembered
voice, calling, "Here, Wag, come here, sir.
just 'possessed' to watch poor Mr. Benson." There
followed a soft brushing as of skirts moving across
the floor. Then there was a little tussle, and a ca-
nine whimper, and I opened my eyes and saw a tall
slender figure standing at the foot of my cot, and
holding in her arms a little yellow dog who was
anxiously watching me with his head cocked to one
side.
"Edith," I heard this apparition say; "Randolph
– look here, I believe Mr. Benson is waking up."
There was a subdued rattle of crutches, and the
rustle of another dress, and I heard a man's voice
say,
"Quick, Helen, give him that dose that the doctor
left."
Something was deftly pressed against my lips by
cool soft fingers, and I was conscious of mechani-
cally swallowing a liquid that seemed to set my
AN UNLOOKED-FOR MEETING.
271
blood a tingling, and clear away a misty veil from
before my eyes. I saw my old acquaintance, Ran-
dolph Tolliver, with a crutch under either arm, and
one leg bandaged from thigh to knee. And who
were those sombre sisters who stood so silently, and
looked at me with such strangely questioning eyes?
Surely they were the two about whom Commander
Morris had badgered me months before in the cabin
of the "Bantam," and told me that it was written in
the Book of Fate that I should meet them again.
And here we were, sure enough, in an airy
room, with wide windows looking out across the
beautiful, oak-shaded grounds of Pensacola Navy
Yard.
We had last been together in a little ship's boat
under the great guns of the "Wabash."
But the number was not now the same, then there
were five of us in the boat. I wondered, in an apa-
thetic way, who was missing. But opiates and con-
cussion of the brain do not stimulate mental curiosity.
It was very hard work to keep my eyes open, so I
did not try, but lay quite still seemingly asleep, but
hearing the talk that went on among my three com-
panions.
"It's no use, girls," said Tolliver, "you can't make
nature go any faster than she wants to. He's pretty
badly hurt. That last shot of the old 'Tennessee' did
for five Yankees anyhow, and Mr. Jack Benson here,
whom you are so anxious about, may very likely
272
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
make a sixth. Serve him right, too, especially if he
killed Haines, which I more than half believe.”
"Stop, Randolph," — it was his sister's voice,-"you
shall not talk so, when the only way we can find out
about Haines is to nurse him back to life. I for one
am going to do my best for him.”
"If I thought he had really killed brother, I'm
not sure that I could find it in my heart to help you,
Helen; but he seems to be the only one who knows
about it, and I shall do my best. So will Randolph,
I know; he's being treated too well himself to cher-
ish malice against a wounded enemy, even though it
be a Yankee."
"You are right, Edith," said Tolliver; "he was a
gentleman, even when he was only a sailor-boy. I
know very well that I am unreasonable, but this leg
of mine smarts so and I do so want to be back with
my battery again. I reckon the Confederacy is
about done for, but I'd like to be on hand for the
finish, for all that."
(6
Well, I'm glad you're not," said his sister; "and if
it were not rank treason I could almost bless the
Yankee that so nearly shot your leg off the other
day."
"Thanks; maybe it was that very one over there
on the cot yonder. I understand he had charge of
two guns on the Yankee flagship."
"Hush, Randolph; here comes the doctor."
Steps drew near along the gallery. Wag barked,
AN UNLOOKED-FOR MEETING.
273
as in duty bound, though he knew perfectly well who
it was, and there came a cheery voice from the open
door,—
"Good afternoon, young ladies. How are our
patients? How's the leg, Captain Tolliver?"
"Oh, I suppose it's getting along all right. It
spoils my temper, though, with what you fellows
call 'knitting pains.'
"Yes, I know; they always do that way when
they're healing. You ought to be reasonably happy,
though, with two such nurses. You are a privileged
character, I can tell you, sir, thanks to them."
"Oh, yes, that's all very well. But it's the being
here at all that worries me, when my country needs
every man she can get."
The doctor's voice hardened a trifle. "Your coun-
try! You may as well stow that kind of talk, young
man. You're in my charge, and I'll do the best I
can for you, professionally, but don't exasperate me
needlessly by your secesh nonsense. I beg pardon,
young ladies, but I'm a Southerner myself, and my
state as well as yours is at this minute suffering from
the folly of her politicians. But this won't do; let's
change the subject. How's our middy?" and he came
across to me, felt my pulse, deftly raised my eyelids
for a look at the pupils, heard from the young ladies
how I had showed signs of returning consciousness an
hour before, and wrote the inevitable prescription.
With the contrariness of an invalid who is com-
T
274
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
fortable, although I knew all that went on about me,
I would not give a sign of intelligence.
"He will get his senses back before many hours,"
said the doctor, after he had completed his examina-
tion. "Now, young ladies, you must go out and take
the air, or I shall have you on my hands too. I'll
leave my steward here in charge."
The doctor departed on his rounds, and there fol-
lowed gentle sounds of preparation, and then light
footsteps went off down the gallery, and I was left
alone with Tolliver and the steward.
Two or three days more passed before I began to
mend; but when at last the corner was turned, I
rallied very rapidly. My skull had been badly
fractured, by the bursting shell, and a very criti-
cal operation had been skilfully performed by the
post surgeons at Pensacola.
Partial power of observation and memory came
back to me before that of speech, and for some days
I could only lie still and hear what went on in the
room. I gathered from the conversation that Tol-
liver and I had been, purely by accident, assigned
to the same room, and shortly afterward the two
young ladies, with their colored attendant, had ap-
peared at the picket lines in the rear of Pensacola,
armed with a letter from General Liddell to the
Federal commander, requesting that they be ad-
mitted to attend Tolliver, who was understood to
be dying.
AN UNLOOKED-FOR MEETING.
275
They had been at Mobile for some time, and had
heard indirectly of Gordon's capture and subsequent
death. As his entire party had been taken and sent
to prison, they had never heard any particulars.
After Farragut's victory at Mobile Bay, they had
determined to go at once to Pensacola, and bring
Tolliver home as soon as he could bear the journey.
This plan they had carried out, all save the taking of
their patient home, to which the Federal commander
would by no means consent until he could be prop-
erly exchanged.
The surgeon's steward was an old man-of-war's
man, temporarily detailed for shore duty in the
hospital,—a sturdy old fellow, William Conway by
name, who had been at the navy yard when it was
surrendered to the Confederates. We three- Tol-
liver, Conway, and I were left alone for several
hours almost daily, while the young ladies were off
duty; and although the two were at swords' points
on all matters relating to the war, they were friendly
enough otherwise, and could not help chatting to-
gether. I found my interest in mundane things
begin to return, although most of the time I lay
apparently heedless of what went on about me.
One day, in particular, my interest was aroused by
the old sailorman's plain narrative of a deed that
became somewhat famous.
(6
Yes, sir," said he; "I was on duty here when
Florida seceded. Captain James Armstrong was in
276
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
(
command of the yard, and we mistrusted he was
rather more than half on your side, because he was
a Kentuckian by birth. There wasn't any manner
of doubt about his daughter, though. She was a
Union girl clean through, and all the yard knew it;
and she made no bones about telling the old man
what she thought of him. Why, sir, when she
heard him say that he could not hold the yard with
only thirty-one men, she ups and tells him that she
would defend it herself with a dozen till the gov-
ernment sent help. If he would have let her call for
volunteers from amongst us blue-jackets, she'd have
done it, too, and we'd have stood by her to a man."
Tolliver did not seem very much edified by this
evidence of loyalty on the part of a girl, who, from
his point of view, ought to have been a good Rebel,
but Conway took no notice.
He
"You see, sir," he went on, "Lieutenant Slemmer
of the army had a company of forty-eight regular
infantry over at Barrancas, and he stood off one
party of Rebs that demanded his surrender.
knew well enough, of course, that he couldn't hold
the place agin the twelve hundred or so Confederates
that were camped about Pensacola. So he just spiked
his guns one night, and moved across the harbor to
Fort Pickens, which was easier defended, before any-
body knew what he was about.
"Two days after that, January 12, '61, it was,
if I don't forget, Colonel Chase, commanding at
AN UNLOOKED-FOR MEETING.
277
Pensacola, sent a formal demand for the surrender
of the navy yard, and backed it up with two or three
well-equipped battalions of sogers. Springfield rifles
they had out of the arsenal seized a few days before
at Chattahoochee.
"We was ready to stand to our guns, of course;
but Captain Armstrong and Lieutenant Renshaw
didn't call us to stations, and the first thing we
knew that morning, we was ordered to fall in and
mustered at the flagstaff, where we had 'colors'
made as usual at eight o'clock. We was only thirty-
one men and without arms, when in comes a battal-
ion of gray-coated Rebs at a double-quick, and orders
arms on the parade in front of us.
66 6
Conway,' says Lieutenant Renshaw to me, 'haul
down the colors.'
"Not any,' says I, and I puts my hands in my
pockets and stands stock still a-lookin' at him. Now
you know, sir, naval officers ain't used to be answered
back that way, and no more ain't good sailormen
given to answering back. I quite expected he'd
draw on me, and if he had I was a-goin' for him,
mutiny or no mutiny. He looked mighty angry for
a minute, but thought better of it, so one of the Rebs
hauled 'Old Glory' down.
"Miss Armstrong, she stood by crying, and we
blue-jackets, being unarmed and nobody to take
command, couldn't do nothing no more nor she
could.
278
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
"As the flag settled down on the ground, Renshaw
drew his sword and ran it through the bunting, set-
ting his foot on it as it lay on the ground. I can tell
you it made us all wince to look at it, and it was
altogether too much for Miss Armstrong. She came
right forward with the tears streaming down her
pretty cheeks. She laid hold of the flag and kissed
it, and then what does she do but ketch hold with
her two hands and rip the Union out of the corner,
rolling it up and holding it tight in her arms. It
was the big four-fathom flag, and the Union of it
alone was bigger nor she was. 'There,' says she,
'you may keep the stripes, Mr. Renshaw, but I'll
take the Union, and bring it back safe and sound
again some day.' With that, off she went to her
quarters, and we blue-jackets gave her a cheer, and
nobody stopping us, we all got our dunnage and went
over to Fort Pickens, helping the army garrison there
till after a while reinforcements came from the North.
"Maybe you'd like to see the medal that Congress
sent me for having refused to haul down the flag. No?
Oh, well, I kinder forgot you was a Reb when I was
telling my yarn. West Point man, too, wasn't you?
Well, 'tain't for a poor blue-jacket to talk to an officer,
even if he ain't nothing but a soger."
The old sailor rose, and indignantly made for
the gallery, his patriotic ardor being evidently too
strong for him to endure the supercilious contempt
of the young Confederate officer.
AN UNLOOKED-FOR MEETING.
279
At this point I seemed to myself to have passed
the limit of quiet endurance. At all events I opened
my eyes and managed to say audibly, "Hurrah for
you, Conway! Hurrah for Miss Armstrong! Hur-
rah for the old flag!"
"Hallo,” cried Tolliver, forgetting his secesh alle-
giance in an instant. "You have done it now,
Conway. The doctor has said all along that he
might come out of it with a jump."
Conway raised my head, and between them they
gave me a drink of something that set me up wonder-
fully, and by the time that the girls returned from
their walk I was enough myself to be congratulated,
and to receive Wag's ecstatic caresses with some
degree of appreciation. I could not, however, but
become aware of a certain atmosphere of constraint
in the manner of my three Rebel companions, and
spending most of the time, as I necessarily did, in
keeping perfectly still, I studied it out after a while,
remembering what I had previously overheard, that
they looked upon me as the possible slayer of their
brother and cousin, Lieutenant Gordon. What more
natural than that they should feel a certain suspicious
aversion under the circumstances.
Next day, after a good night's sleep and before
the young ladies had appeared from their own
quarters, I called Tolliver over to my bedside.
66
Why are your sister and Miss Gordon in mourn-
ing, Tolliver?"
280
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
"Why, several of our near kin have been killed,"
said he, sadly; "nearly all Southern women are in
black now."
"Do they do you know anything about Gordon?"
"Yes- that is, we guess more than we actually
know. He and his men simply disappeared, and we
heard from some British sailors that they were taken
by a party from a Yankee gunboat, and that Haines
was killed. Can you tell us anything about it?"
"Yes, I can tell you all about it and about him.
Sit down, won't you? It makes me tired to see you
standing on that bandaged leg of yours." He swung
across the room on his crutches, and returned with a
camp-stool.
"One moment," said I, "before you sit down.
Are those my cap and tunic hanging there in the
corner? Please bring them here." He complied,
laying them beside me, and I satisfied myself that
they were in fact mine.
Do you see that
I held it up and
"That covers the score
It raised a welt along the
"Tolliver," I continued, "I did not shoot Haines;
one of the men of my party did it.
patch along the band of my cap?"
he looked critically at it.
that Haines's bullet made.
side of my head. Pretty close call, you see. Haines
was always handy with his gun." Tolliver examined
the patch with undisguised appreciation.
At this point I heard a little dismayed exclamation
behind me. The two girls had entered through the
AN UNLOOKED-FOR MEETING.
281
open gallery window and had caught my last words.
I had intended to get through with my story before
they came, for I thought it would be easier to tell it
to a man and a soldier than to poor Gordon's sister
and sweetheart. I said as much when they came
round and stood in front where I could see them.
"I'm sorry," I said, "that you came before I had
finished telling my story to Captain Tolliver.
I am
not sure that I can get through it at all with you
looking at me that way. But I'll try, if you like."
So with sundry pauses and interruptions, I managed
to tell them how Gordon met his death. They listen-
ing for the most part in tearful silence. It was a
painful ordeal for me as well as for them, and I was
pretty well done up after it was over; but there
remained yet one thing more that I must needs do,
one duty that I must in honor discharge.
"Would you mind," I said to Tolliver, "letting
me speak with your sister a moment? I have a
message for her." The captain and Edith went out
upon the gallery, and Miss Helen drew nearer, for
my voice was rather feeble. I reached for my tunic,
and finding the special pocket that I had made,
managed to extract from it with a rather shaky
hand the little deerskin bag that had lain there for
two months and more.
66
'Just at the end, Miss Tolliver, he asked me to
bring him a certain package of letters that I had
found among his effects; he charged me to give
282
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
them to you, when I could, and he died with them
laid against his cheek. One of the last things he did
was to look at this locket and hand it back to me.
I was afraid to leave it with my other things lest it
should be lost or stolen, so I have carried it with me
ever since. You shall have the letters as soon as I
can get them."
She had her handkerchief pressed to her eyes as I
finished, and did not at first see that I was holding
the locket out toward her. I had to speak again.
"Here it is, Miss Tolliver," and I laid it in her hand.
Then she went away sobbing, and I closed my eyes
wearily, thankful enough that I had gotten through
it all so well.
CHAPTER XXX.
CONCLUSION.
CONCERNING those days of convalescence I have
little to say, save that when I was fairly on my
feet again I seemed to be in a veritable nautical
paradise on shore. The quarters were clean, cool,
and roomy, very different from the cramped closets.
aboard ship; the surroundings were beautiful, and
everybody was extremely good to the wounded
sailor-boy. By the latter part of September I was
fast recovering strength, as I had long since re-
covered health and spirits.
Tolliver's wound was slower in healing, as he had
sustained more actual physical damage, so, as he
had become a favorite with the officers, his pro-
longed stay was favored, especially as he furnished
an ostensible excuse for retaining the society of two
very attractive but very unreconstructed little Rebels
who were quite an addition to the circle of official
society. Military matters were now so well in hand
along the Gulf coast that many Federal officers had
their families come down from the North, so that
the esplanade was quite gay with promenaders in
the cool of the afternoon, and as there were always
283
284
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
a number of ships in port, there was a large surplus
of handsome young fellows in uniforms ready for
escort duty.
I often thanked my stars that brothers by a mys-
terious dispensation are always prone to neglect
their own sisters when other girls are at hand.
Consequently, in our convalescent walks under the
live oaks and among the pines, it always happened
somehow that Miss Helen and I found ourselves
forsaken by Captain Tolliver and Miss Edith, an
arrangement to which I had not the slightest ob-
jection, for we had all become very excellent friends
in spite of our patriotic antipathies. Indeed, since I
had been able to show them that Gordon had met
his death as a gallant soldier and in the fortune of
war, they seemed to have altogether dismissed the
suspicion that had so lately threatened to cloud our
friendship.
Both the girls cherished a desire to visit Gordon's
grave, as well for the sake of identifying the locality
as because of a natural and praiseworthy sentiment
prompting them to pay a final tribute to his memory
by a visit to his resting-place.
It seemed that I was the only survivor of the
expedition who could find the place, the others
were all killed or scattered; and while, of course,
my services as a guide were ever at their disposal,
no opportunity for going seemed to offer.
St. Jude's Island was practically neutral ground.
CONCLUSION.
285
Parties sometimes landed upon it from our gun-
boats, and again scouts were sent over by the Con-
federates from the mainland. Such a visit was not
a matter of sufficient consequence to justify official
interference; but you may always trust a woman's
wit to overcome difficulties that concern her heart's
desire. Arrangements had been made for Tolliver's
exchange, since he would not be fit for active mili-
tary duty for some time to come, and besides the
official correspondence that had passed, numerous
private letters had, to my certain knowledge, been
smuggled through the lines concerning other affairs.
My Rebel friends, as the reader has probably
inferred, were very high up in the Confederate
social scale, and could exert no end of personal
influence with the authorities; so at last there came
an official communication formally delivered under
a flag of truce at the picket-line, offering a safeguard
for me if I could be permitted to "accompany Cap-
tain Tolliver to identify the grave of the late Lieu-
tenant Gordon, C. S. A., killed in action on St. Jude's
Island during an engagement in May last."
The commandant of the navy yard and of the
United States forces at Pensacola consulted over
the matter, but their objections disappeared after
the petitioners had presented their case in a per-
sonal visit to headquarters. They always had their
way, these girls, when they set about it.
On a certain lovely morning in October our party
286
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
embarked on the navy-yard tug, flying a flag of
truce, and steamed off down through Santa Rosa
Sound to meet a Confederate steamer at a point
some miles beyond our lines. In due time we met
a little stern wheeler with a white flag forward, and
the Confederate ensign at her jackstaff. A safe-
guard for me was duly signed by the officer in com-
mand, and delivered to the captain of the tug. We
were all transferred aboard and headed for St. Jude's
Island, nearly a day's run to the eastward.
It was not without a certain pleasurable excite-
ment for me, this authorized expedition under the
Rebel flag. The guard on board the boat consisted
of cadets from a military school in Alabama, whose
regular sessions had been broken up by the exigen-
cies of war. The boys were too young for active
service in the army, but could be made very useful
as guards and escorts, and the chief trouble in man-
aging them was that they were all so very anxious
for a fight, that it was difficult to restrain them
within the bounds of common military courtesy.
They were dressed in neat uniforms, not unlike
those of our own West Point cadets, and upon the
whole were a very nice, clean, and orderly set of fel-
lows, very different from the ordinary rank and file
of the Confederate service.
They looked upon me with suspicious eyes and
lowering brows, at first, I being probably the first
Yankee in uniform that they had ever laid eyes
CONCLUSION.
287
upon; but we were fairly good friends before the
Voyage was over.
Of course, the whole expedition was shadowed with
sadness for my special party of three; but the imme-
diate bitterness of their grief had in a degree passed
away since the first bereavement, and their undis-
guised pleasure at being once more under the flag
of their beloved Confederacy lent color to their
cheeks and light to their eyes. Poor things! they
little realized how hopeless was the case of that same
Confederacy, and how, within a few weeks, the cause
which they loved so much would be only a memory.
The sun was declining when we landed from the
steamer in a little skiff just where my burial party
had gone ashore three months before. I went ahead
silently, and had little trouble in striking the trail
that led off through the hammock toward the head
of the cove. When I sighted the well-remembered
palmetto raising its crown above the undergrowth,
I bade my companions halt a moment while I went
forward to reconnoitre, fearing lest the humble mound
might have been disturbed and perhaps rifled by
marauders. But no, it lay there just as I had left
it, and the carved inscription on the bark of the
palmetto was clear and legible, though kindly
weather stained by its months of exposure to the
summer sun. Motioning my friends to draw near,
I went on a little distance up the trail and sat down
upon a fallen log, leaving them with their dead.
288
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
After what seemed to me a long, long time, I
heard footsteps approaching, and presently Tolliver
and Edith strolled by quite oblivious of me, for I
was a little withdrawn from the open trail, and
quite possibly they would not have seen me even
had I been in plainer view. They passed on out of
sight, and I sat still for a few moments awaiting
their return. Then thinking that Miss Helen had
probably gone back to the steamer, I wandered again
to Gordon's resting-place, only to find her seated at
the foot of the tree, framing a cross to lay upon the
grave.
I turned to withdraw by the way I came, but she
saw and called to me to join her, motioning me to
sit down on the opposite side of the little mound,
where I watched her slender fingers deftly winding
the gray Spanish moss about the rude little frame
that she had put together.
"Jack," she said, after some moments of silence;
"he used to call you Jack in the old days, didn't he?
Jack, you have been very good to me- to us, and
to him. A Southern girl asks God to go with you.
I want to give you something to remember him by,
to remember us. You must not look at it until after
we are gone."
She reached across the low mound, and handed
me a little package; then she hastily rose and went
quickly down the trail toward the beach, leaving with
me the little package that I was in honor bound
CONCLUSION.
289
not to examine until after we had parted, perhaps
forever.
The sun had set before all our party reached the
steamer, and as night was falling, it was deemed best
by the officer in charge to tie up where we were.
Lines were carried ashore and made fast. Guards
were posted on the beach and I, a lone Yankee among
two or three score of deadly foes, prepared to spend
the night on the very spot where I had fought and
defeated their comrades a few weeks before.
Our little party with the cadet officers sat long on
the after deck, watching the tropic moon mount into
the sky, and speculating as to the fate of war. I
had naturally to listen to a deal of rather unpalata-
ble secesh talk, but that was to be expected, and I
was content to keep still for the most part, and listen
for occasional words from a voice that I might never
hear again.
It was a novel experience to have a smart cadet
sentry in Confederate gray posted at my stateroom
door and relieved every two hours through the night;
but it was the correct thing to do. I being under
safeguard, and just then a particularly sacred piece
of personal property. It did not at all prevent
me from enjoying peaceful slumbers and pleasant
dreams, and I was only awakened when the engi-
neer began to blow off steam, preparatory to getting
under way.
Two hours later we had run across to the main-
U
290
MIDSHIPMAN JACK.
land, set our passengers ashore, and I was on my
way back to the Federal lines, and must, in the natu-
ral order of things, report for duty again before very
long.
It is hardly necessary to say that I sought a very
early opportunity to open in private the little packet
that Helen had given me.
"My dear Mr. Benson," thus ran the inclosed note,
"I have always fancied that Haines intended you to
keep the locket. He said nothing to you about giv-
ing it to me with the letters. Accept it, then, as a
memento of your old playmate, Haines Gordon, and
his cousin Helen."
"tin
There is no more to add. I was ordered to a
clad" on one of the inland rivers when sufficiently
recovered to return to duty, and I got my promotion.
for more than one grade before helping the ill-fated
Confederacy to its final crash in 1865. The conclud-
ing months of war service were therefore not quite
without their adventures, but as this is a salt-water
yarn they may well be left to the Official Reports.
THE END.
W. A. Wilde & Co., Publishers.
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Th
―
The Story of a Train Boy.
WILLIAM DRYSDALE, 328 pp. Cloth, $1.50.
By
"The Fast Mail" is one of the very best American books for boys brought out this
season. Perhaps there could be no better confirmation of this assertion than the fact
that the little sons of the present writer have greedily devoured the contents of the vol-
ume, and are anxious to know how soon they are to get a sequel. - The Art Amateur,
New York.
Travel-Adventure Series,
VER THE ANDES; or, Our Boys in New South
OVE
America.
$1.50.
BY HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH.
368 pp.
Cloth,
South America to-day presents a most interesting subject for study. Its history is one
of a constant struggle for liberty against oppression. The cruelty and avarice of the
Spanish conquerors was finally met by the solid opposition of the South American
people. Out of the terrors of the Revolution came liberty and the wonderful commercial
and industrial development for which South America is famous, as well as for her inex-
haustible mineral wealth.
The subject is an inspiring one, and Mr. Butterworth has done full justice to the high
ideals which have inspired the great men of South America.
N WILD AFRICA.
Sahara Desert, etc.
IN
$1.50.
Adventures of Two Boys in the
BY THOS. W. KNOX. 325 pp.
A story of absorbing interest. Boston Journal.
Our young people will pronounce it unusually good.
Cloth,
Albany Argus.
He has struck a popular note in his latest volume. - Springfield Republican.
HE LAND OF THE KANGAROO.
TH
BY THOS.
W. KNOX. Adventures of Two Boys in the Great Island Con-
tinent. 318 pp. Cloth, $1.50.
His descriptions of the natural history and botany of the country are very interesting.
Detroit Free Press.
The actual truthfulness of the book needs no gloss to add to its absorbing interest.
The Book Buyer, New York.
Boston: W. A. Wilde & Co., 25 Bromfield Street.
2

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UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
812N822 OM
Norton, Charles Ledyard, 1837-1909.
Midshipman Jack / illustrated by George
3 1951 002 098 284 Z
WILSON
ANNEX
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