The Pilot (6 page)

"We are brought-to, sir," said Griffith, who stood overlooking the
scene, holding in one hand a short speaking, trumpet, and grasping with
the other one of the shrouds of the ship, to steady himself in the
position he had taken on a gun.

"Heave round, sir," was the calm reply.

"Heave round!" repeated Griffith, aloud.

"Heave round!" echoed a dozen eager voices at once, and the lively
strains of a fife struck up a brisk air, to enliven the labor. The
capstan was instantly set in motion, and the measured tread of the
seamen was heard, as they stamped the deck in the circle of their march.
For a few minutes no other sounds were heard, if we except the voice of
an officer, occasionally cheering the sailors, when it was announced
that they "were short;" or, in other words, that the ship was nearly
over her anchor.

"Heave and pull," cried Griffith; when the quivering notes of the
whistle were again succeeded by a general stillness in the vessel.

"What is to be done now, sir?" continued the lieutenant; "shall we trip
the anchor? There seems not a breath of air; and as the tide runs slack,
I doubt whether the sea do not heave the ship ashore."

There was so much obvious truth in this conjecture, that all eyes turned
from the light and animation afforded by the decks of the frigate, to
look abroad on the waters, in a vain desire to pierce the darkness, as
if to read the fate of their apparently devoted ship from the aspect of
nature.

"I leave all to the pilot," said the captain, after he had stood a short
time by the side of Griffith, anxiously studying the heavens and the
ocean. "What say you, Mr. Gray?"

The man who was thus first addressed by name was leaning over the
bulwarks, with his eyes bent in the same direction as the others; but as
he answered he turned his face towards the speaker, and the light from
the deck fell full upon his quiet features, which exhibited a calmness
bordering on the supernatural, considering his station and
responsibility.

"There is much to fear from this heavy ground-swell," he said, in the
same unmoved tones as before; "but there is certain destruction to us,
if the gale that is brewing in the east finds us waiting its fury in
this wild anchorage. All the hemp that ever was spun into cordage would
not hold a ship an hour, chafing on these rocks, with a northeaster
pouring its fury on her. If the powers of man can compass it, gentlemen,
we must get an offing, and that speedily."

"You say no more, sir, than the youngest boy in the ship can see for
himself," said Griffith—"ha! here comes the schooner!"

The dashing of the long sweeps in the water was now plainly audible, and
the little Ariel was seen through the gloom, moving heavily under their
feeble impulse. As she passed slowly under the stern of the frigate, the
cheerful voice of Barnstable was first heard, opening the communications
between them.

"Here's a night for spectacles, Captain Munson!" he cried; "but I
thought I heard your fife, sir. I trust in God, you do not mean to ride
it out here till morning?"

"I like the berth as little as yourself, Mr. Barnstable," returned the
veteran seaman, in his calm manner, in which anxiety was, however,
beginning to grow evident. "We are short; but are afraid to let go our
hold of the bottom, lest the sea cast us ashore. How make you out the
wind?"

"Wind!" echoed the other; "there is not enough to blow a lady's curl
aside. If you wait, sir, till the land-breeze fills your sails, you will
wait another moon. I believe I've got my eggshell out of that nest of
gray-caps; but how it has been done in the dark, a better man than
myself must explain."

"Take your directions from the pilot, Mr. Barnstable," returned his
commanding officer, "and follow them strictly and to the letter."

A deathlike silence, in both vessels, succeeded this order; for all
seemed to listen eagerly to catch the words that fell from the man on
whom, even the boys now felt, depended their only hopes for safety. A
short time was suffered to elapse, before his voice was heard, in the
same low but distinct tones as before:

"Your sweeps will soon be of no service to you," he said, "against the
sea that begins to heave in; but your light sails will help them to get
you out. So long as you can head east-and-by-north, you are doing well,
and you can stand on till you open the light from that northern
headland, when you can heave to and fire a gun; but if, as I dread, you
are struck aback before you open the light, you may trust to your lead
on the larboard tack; but beware, with your head to the southward, for
no lead will serve you there."

"I can walk over the same ground on one tack as on the other," said
Barnstable, "and make both legs of a length."

"It will not do," returned the pilot. "If you fall off a point to
starboard from east-and-by-north, in going large, you will find both
rocks and points of shoals to bring you up; and beware, as I tell you,
of the starboard tack."

"And how shall I find my way? you will let me trust to neither time,
lead, nor log."

"You must trust to a quick eye and a ready hand. The breakers only will
show you the dangers, when you are not able to make out the bearings of
the land. Tack in season, sir, and don't spare the lead when you head to
port."

"Ay, ay," returned Barnstable, in a low muttering voice. "This is a sort
of blind navigation with a vengeance, and all for no purpose that I can
see—see! damme, eyesight is of about as much use now as a man's nose
would be in reading the Bible."

"Softly, softly, Mr. Barnstable," interrupted his commander—for such
was the anxious stillness in both vessels that even the rattling of the
schooner's rigging was heard, as she rolled in the trough of the sea—
"the duty on which Congress has sent us must be performed, at the hazard
of our lives."

"I don't mind my life, Captain Munson," said Barnstable, "but there is a
great want of conscience in trusting a vessel in such a place as this.
However, it is a time to do, and not to talk. But if there be such
danger to an easy draught of water, what will become of the frigate? had
I not better play jackal, and try and feel the way for you?"

"I thank you," said the pilot; "the offer is generous, but would avail
us nothing. I have the advantage of knowing the ground well, and must
trust to my memory and God's good favor. Make sail, make sail, sir, and
if you succeed, we will venture to break ground."

The order was promptly obeyed, and in a very short time the Ariel was
covered with canvas. Though no air was perceptible on the decks of the
frigate, the little schooner was so light that she succeeded in stemming
her way over the rising waves, aided a little by the tide; and in a few
minutes her low hull was just discernible in the streak of light along
the horizon, with the dark outline of her sails rising above the sea,
until their fanciful summits were lost in the shadows of the clouds.

Griffith had listened to the foregoing dialogue, like the rest of the
junior officers, in profound silence; but when the Ariel began to grow
indistinct to the eye, he jumped lightly from the gun to the deck, and
cried:

"She slips off, like a vessel from the stocks! Shall I trip the anchor,
sir, and follow?"

"We have no choice," replied his captain. "You hear the question, Mr.
Gray? shall we let go the bottom?"

"It must be done, Captain Munson; we may want more drift than the rest
of this tide to get us to a place of safety," said the pilot "I would
give five years from a life that I know will be short, if the ship lay
one mile further seaward."

This remark was unheard by all, except the commander of the frigate, who
again walked aside with the pilot, where they resumed their mysterious
communications. The words of assent were no sooner uttered, however,
than Griffith gave forth from his trumpet the command to "heave away!"
Again the strains of the fife were followed by the tread of the men at
the capstan. At the same time that the anchor was heaving up, the sails
were loosened from the yards, and opened to invite the breeze. In
effecting this duty, orders were thundered through the trumpet of the
first lieutenant, and executed with the rapidity of thought. Men were to
be seen, like spots in the dim light from the heavens, lying on every
yard or hanging as in air, while strange cries were heard issuing from
every part of the rigging and each spar of the vessel. "Ready the
foreroyal," cried a shrill voice, as if from the clouds; "ready the
foreyard," uttered the hoarser tones of a seaman beneath him; "all ready
aft, sir," cried a third, from another quarter; and in a few moments the
order was given to "let fall."

The little light which fell from the sky was now excluded by the falling
canvas, and a deeper gloom was cast athwart the decks of the ship, that
served to render the brilliancy of the lanterns even vivid, while it
gave to objects outboard a more appalling and dreary appearance than
before.

Every individual, excepting the commander and his associate, was now
earnestly engaged in getting the ship under way. The sounds of "we're
away" were repeated by a burst from fifty voices, and the rapid
evolutions of the capstan announced that nothing but the weight of the
anchor was to be lifted. The hauling of cordage, the rattling of blocks,
blended with the shrill calls of the boatswain and his mates, succeeded;
and though to a landsman all would have appeared confusion and hurry,
long practice and strict discipline enabled the crew to exhibit their
ship under a cloud of canvas, from her deck to the trucks, in less time
than we have consumed in relating it.

For a few minutes, the officers were not disappointed by the result; for
though the heavy sails flapped lazily against the masts, the light duck
on the loftier spars swelled outwardly, and the ship began sensibly to
yield to their influence.

"She travels! she travels!" exclaimed Griffith joyously; "ah! the hussy!
she has as much antipathy to the land as any fish that swims: it blows a
little gale aloft yet!"

"We feel its dying breath," said the pilot, in low, soothing tones, but
in a manner so sudden as to startle Griffith, at whose elbow they were
unexpectedly uttered. "Let us forget, young man, everything but the
number of lives that depend, this night, on your exertions and my
knowledge."

"If you be but half as able to exhibit the one as I am willing to make
the other, we shall do well," returned the lieutenant, in the same tone.
"Remember, whatever may be your feelings, that
we
are on an
enemy's coast, and love it not enough to wish to lay our bones there."

With this brief explanation they separated, the vessel requiring the
constant and close attention of the officer to her movements.

The exultation produced in the crew by the progress of their ship
through the water was of short duration; for the breeze that had seemed
to await their motions, after forcing the vessel for a quarter of a
mile, fluttered for a few minutes amid their light canvas, and then left
them entirely. The quartermaster, whose duty it was to superintend the
helm, soon announced that he was losing the command of the vessel, as
she was no longer obedient to her rudder. This ungrateful intelligence
was promptly communicated to his commander by Griffith, who suggested
the propriety of again dropping an anchor.

"I refer you to Mr. Gray," returned the captain; "he is the pilot, sir,
and with him rests the safety of the vessel."

"Pilots sometimes lose ships as well as save them," said Griffith: "know
you the man well, Captain Munson, who holds all our lives in his
keeping, and so coolly as if he cared but little for the venture?"

"Mr. Griffith, I do know him; he is, in my opinion, both competent and
faithful. Thus much I tell you, to relieve your anxiety; more you must
not ask;—but is there not a shift of wind?"

"God forbid!" exclaimed his lieutenant; "if that northeaster catches us
within the shoals, our case will be desperate indeed!"

The heavy rolling of the vessel caused an occasional expansion, and as
sudden a reaction, in their sails, which left the oldest seaman in the
ship in doubt which way the currents of air were passing, or whether
there existed any that were not created by the flapping of their own
canvas. The head of the ship, however, began to fall off from the sea,
and notwithstanding the darkness, it soon became apparent that she was
driving in, bodily, towards the shore.

During these few minutes of gloomy doubt, Griffith, by one of those
sudden revulsions of the mind that connect the opposite extremes of
feeling, lost his animated anxiety, and elapsed into the listless apathy
that so often came over him, even in the most critical moments of trial
and danger. He was standing with one elbow resting on his capstan,
shading his eyes from the light of the battle-lantern that stood near
him with one hand, when he felt a gentle pressure of the other, that
recalled his recollection. Looking affectionately, though still
recklessly, at the boy who stood at his side, he said:

"Dull music, Mr. Merry."

"So dull, sir, that I can't dance to it," returned the midshipman. "Nor
do I believe there is a man in the ship who would not rather hear 'The
girl I left behind me,' than those execrable sounds."

"What sounds, boy? The ship is as quiet as the Quaker meeting in the
Jerseys, before your good old grandfather used to break the charm of
silence with his sonorous voice."

"Ah! laugh at my peaceable blood, if thou wilt, Mr. Griffith," said the
arch youngster, "but remember, there is a mixture of it in all sorts of
veins. I wish I could hear one of the old gentleman's chants now, sir; I
could always sleep to them, like a gull in the surf. But he that sleeps
to-night, with that lullaby, will make a nap of it."