The Pilot (12 page)

As the tough old sailor made frequent application of the glass to his
mouth with one hand, and kept a firm hold of the decanter with the
other, during this speech, his companions were compelled to listen to
his eloquence, or depart with their thirst unassuaged. Barnstable,
however, quite coolly dispossessed the tar of the bottle, and mixing for
himself a more equal potation, observed, in the act:

"That is the most remarkable glass of grog you have, Boltrope, that I
ever sailed with; it draws as little water as the Ariel, and is as hard
to find the bottom. If your spirit-room enjoys the same sort of engine
to replenish it, as you pump out your rum, Congress will sail this
frigate cheaply."

The other officers helped themselves with still greater moderation,
Griffith barely moistening his lips, and the pilot rejecting the offered
glass altogether. Captain Munson continued standing, and his officers,
perceiving that their presence was no longer necessary, bowed, and took
their leave. As Griffith was retiring last, he felt a hand laid lightly
on his shoulder, and turning, perceived that he was detained by the
pilot.

"Mr. Griffith," he said, when they were quite alone with the commander
of the frigate, "the occurrences of the last night should teach us
confidence in each other; without it, we go on a dangerous and fruitless
errand."

"Is the hazard equal?" returned the youth. "I am known to all to be the
man I seem—am in the service of my country—belong to a family, and
enjoy a name, that is a pledge for my loyalty to the cause of America—
and yet I trust myself on hostile ground, in the midst of enemies, with
a weak arm, and under circumstances where treachery would prove my ruin.
Who and what is the man who thus enjoys your confidence, Captain Munson?
I ask the question less for myself than for the gallant men who will
fearlessly follow wherever I lead."

A shade of dark displeasure crossed the features of the stranger, at one
part of this speech, and at its close he sank into deep thought. The
commander, however, replied:

"There is a show of reason in your question, Mr. Griffith—and yet you
are not the man to be told that implicit obedience is what I have a
right to expect. I have not your pretensions, sir, by birth or
education, and yet Congress have not seen proper to overlook my years
and services. I command this frigate—"

"Say no more," interrupted the pilot "There is reason in his doubts, and
they shall be appeased. I like the proud and fearless eye of the young
man, and while he dreads a gibbet from my hands, I will show him how to
repose a noble confidence. Read this, sir, and tell me if you distrust
me now?"

While the stranger spoke, he thrust his hand into the bosom of his
dress, and drew forth a parchment, decorated with ribands, and bearing a
massive seal, which he opened, and laid on the table before the youth.
As he pointed with his finger impressively to different parts of the
writing, his eye kindled with a look of unusual fire, and there was a
faint tinge discernible on his pallid features when he spoke.

"See!" he said, "royalty itself does not hesitate to bear witness in my
favor, and that is not a name to occasion dread to an American."

Griffith gazed with wonder at the fair signature of the unfortunate
Louis, which graced the bottom of the parchment; but when his eye obeyed
the signal of the stranger, and rested on the body of the instrument, he
started back from the table, and fixing his animated eyes on the pilot,
he cried, while a glow of fiery courage flitted across his countenance:

"Lead on! I'll follow you to death!"

A smile of gratified exultation struggled around the lips of the
stranger, who took the arm of the young man and led him into a
stateroom, leaving the commander of the frigate standing, in his unmoved
and quiet manner, a spectator of, but hardly an actor in, the scene.

"Fierce bounding, forward sprang the ship
Like a greyhound starting from the slip,
To seize his flying prey."
Lord of the Isles
.

Although the subject of the consultation remained a secret with those
whose opinions were required, yet enough of the result leaked out among
the subordinate officers, to throw the whole crew into a state of eager
excitement. The rumor spread itself along the decks of the frigate, with
the rapidity of an alarm, that an expedition was to attempt the shore on
some hidden service, dictated by the Congress itself; and conjectures
were made respecting its force and destination, with all that interest
which might be imagined would exist among the men whose lives or
liberties were to abide the issue. A gallant and reckless daring,
mingled with the desire of novelty, however, was the prevailing
sentiment among the crew, who would have received with cheers the
intelligence that their vessel was commanded to force the passage of the
united British fleet. A few of the older and more prudent of the sailors
were exceptions to this thoughtless hardihood, and one or two, among
whom the cockswain of the whale-boat was the most conspicuous, ventured
to speak doubtingly of all sorts of land service, as being of a nature
never to be attempted by seamen.

Captain Manual had his men paraded in the weather-gangway, and after a
short address, calculated to inflame their military ardor and
patriotism, acquainted them that he required twenty volunteers, which
was in truth half their number, for a dangerous service. After a short
pause, the company stepped forward, like one man, and announced
themselves as ready to follow him to the end of the world. The marine
cast a look over his shoulder, at this gratifying declaration, in quest
of Barnstable; but observing that the sailor was occupied with some
papers on a distant part of the quarter-deck, he proceeded to make a
most impartial division among the candidates for glory; taking care at
the same time to cull his company in such a manner as to give himself
the flower of his men, and, consequently, to leave the ship the refuse.

While this arrangement was taking place, and the crew of the frigate was
in this state of excitement, Griffith ascended to the deck, his
countenance flushed with unusual enthusiasm, and his eyes beaming with a
look of animation and gayety that had long been strangers to the face of
the young man. He was giving forth the few necessary orders to the
seamen he was to take with him from the ship, when Barnstable again
motioned him to follow, and led the way once more to the stateroom.

"Let the wind blow its pipe out," said the commander of the Ariel, when
they were seated; "there will be no landing on the eastern coast of
England till the sea goes down. But this Kate was made for a sailor's
wife! See, Griffith, what a set of signals she has formed, out of her
own cunning head."

"I hope your opinion may prove true, and that you may be the happy
sailor who is to wed her," returned the other. "The girl has indeed
discovered surprising art in this business! Where could she have learnt
the method and system so well?"

"Where! why, where she learnt better things; how to prize a whole-
hearted seaman, for instance. Do you think that my tongue was jammed in
my mouth, all the time we used to sit by the side of the river in
Carolina, and that we found nothing to talk about!"

"Did you amuse your mistress with treatises on the art of navigation,
and the science of signals?" said Griffith, smiling.

"I answered her questions, Mr. Griffith, as any civil man would to a
woman he loved. The girl has as much curiosity as one of my own
townswomen who has weathered cape forty without a husband, and her
tongue goes like a dog-vane in a calm, first one way and then another.
But here is her dictionary. Now own, Griff, in spite of your college
learning and sentimentals, that a woman of ingenuity and cleverness is a
very good sort of a helpmate."

"I never doubted the merits of Miss Plowden," said the other, with a
droll gravity that often mingled with his deeper feelings, the result of
a sailor's habits, blended with native character. "But this indeed
surpasses all my expectations! Why, she has, in truth, made a most
judicious selection of phrases. 'No. 168. **** indelible;' '169. ****
end only with life;' '170. **** I fear yours misleads me;' '171. —'"

"Pshaw!" exclaimed Barnstable, snatching the book from before the
laughing eyes of Griffith; "what folly, to throw away our time now on
such nonsense! What think you of this expedition to the land?"

"That it may be the means of rescuing the ladies, though it fail in
making the prisoners we anticipate."

"But this pilot! you remember that he holds us by our necks, and can run
us all up to the yard-arm of some English ship, whenever he chooses to
open his throat at their threats or bribes."

"It would have been better that he should have cast the ship ashore,
when he had her entangled in the shoals; it would have been our last
thought to suspect him of treachery then," returned Griffith, "I follow
him with confidence, and must believe that we are safer with him than we
should be without him."

"Let him lead to the dwelling of his fox-hunting ministers of state,"
cried Barnstable, thrusting his book of signals into his bosom: "but
here is a chart that will show us the way to the port we wish to find.
Let my foot once more touch terra firma, and you may write craven
against my name, if that laughing vixen slips her cable before my eyes,
and shoots into the wind's eye again like a flying-fish chased by a
dolphin. Mr. Griffith, we must have the chaplain with us to the shore."

"The madness of love is driving you into the errors of the soldier.
Would you lie by to hear sermons, with a flying party like ours?"

"Nay, nay, we must lay to for nothing that is not unavoidable; but there
are so many tacks in such a chase, when one has time to breathe, that we
might as well spend our leisure in getting that fellow to splice us
together. He has a handy way with a prayer book, and could do the job as
well as a bishop; and I should like to be able to say, that this is the
last time these two saucy names, which are written at the bottom of this
letter, should ever be seen sailing in the company of each other."

"It will not do," said his friend, shaking his head, and endeavoring to
force a smile which his feelings suppressed; "it will not do, Richard;
we must yield our own inclinations to the service of our country; nor is
this pilot a man who will consent to be led from his purpose."

"Then let him follow his purpose alone," cried Barnstable. "There is no
human power, always saving my superior officer, that shall keep me from
throwing abroad these tiny signals, and having a private talk with my
dark-eyed Kate. But for a paltry pilot! he may luff and bear away as he
pleases, while I shall steer as true as a magnet for that old ruin,
where I can bring my eyes to bear on that romantic wing and three smoky
vanes. Not that I'll forget my duty? no, I'll help you catch the
Englishman; but when that is done, hey! for Katherine Plowden and my
true love!"

"Hush, madcap! the wardroom holds long ears, and our bulkheads grow thin
by wear. I must keep you and myself to our duty. This is no children's
game that we play; it seems the commissioners at Paris have thought
proper to employ a frigate in the sport."

Barnstable's gayety was a little repressed by the grave manner of his
companion; but after reflecting a moment, he started on his feet, and
made the usual movements for departure.

"Whither?" asked Griffith, gently detaining his impatient friend.

"To old Moderate; I have a proposal to make that may remove every
difficulty."

"Name it to me, then; I am in his council, and may save you the trouble
and mortification of a refusal."

"How many of those gentry does he wish to line his cabin with?"

"The pilot has named no less than six, all men of rank and consideration
with the enemy. Two of them are peers, two more belong to the commons'
house of parliament, one is a general, and the sixth, like ourselves, is
a sailor, and holds the rank of captain. They muster at a hunting-seat
near the coast, and, believe me, the scheme is not without its
plausibility."

"Well, then, there are two apiece for us. You follow the pilot, if you
will; but let me sheer off for this dwelling of Colonel Howard, with my
cockswain and boat's crew. I will surprise his house, release the
ladies, and on my way back, lay my hands on two of the first lords I
fall in with. I suppose, for our business, one is as good as another."

Griffith could not repress a faint laugh, while he replied:

"Though they are said to be each other's peers, there is, I believe,
some difference even in the quality of lords. England might thank us for
ridding her of some among them. Neither are they to be found like
beggars, under every hedge. No, no, the men we seek must have something
better than their nobility to recommend them to our favor. But let us
examine more closely into this plan and map of Miss Plowden; something
may occur that shall yet bring the place within our circuit, like a
contingent duty of the cruise."

Barnstable reluctantly relinquished his own wild plan to the more sober
judgment of his friend, and they passed an hour together, inquiring into
the practicability, and consulting on the means, of making their public
duty subserve the purpose of their private feelings.

The gale continued to blow heavily during the whole of that morning; but
toward noon the usual indications of better weather became apparent.
During these few hours of inaction in the frigate, the marines, who were
drafted for service on the land, moved through the vessel with a busy
and stirring air, as if they were about to participate in the glory and
danger of the campaign their officer had planned, while the few seamen
who were to accompany the expedition steadily paced the deck, with their
hands thrust into the bosoms of their neat blue jackets, or occasionally
stretched toward the horizon, as their fingers traced, for their less
experienced shipmates, the signs of an abatement in the gale among the
driving clouds. The last lagger among the soldiers had appeared, with
his knapsack on his back, in the lee gangway, where his comrades were
collected, armed and accoutered for the strife, when Captain Munson
ascended to the quarter-deck, accompanied by the stranger and his first
lieutenant. A word was spoken by the latter in a low voice to a
midshipman, who skipped gayly along the deck, and presently the shrill
call of the boatswain was beard, preceding the hoarse cry of: