This opinion met with no favor; and after discussing the point among themselves a little longer, the three captains were on the point of separating, when Griffin burst into the cabin without even knocking and altogether regardless of the usual observances.
"One would think it blew a typhoon, Mr. Griffin," said Cuffe, coldly, "by the rate at which you run before it."
"It"s an ill wind that blows no luck, sir," answered the lieutenant, actually panting for breath, so great had been his haste to communicate what he had to say. "Our lookout, on the heights above Campanella, has just signalled us that he sees the lugger to the southward and eastward--somewhere near the point of Piane, I suppose, sir; and what is better, the wind is coming off sh.o.r.e earlier than common this evening."
"That _is_ news!" exclaimed Cuffe, rubbing his hands with delight. "Go on deck, Griffin, and tell Winchester to unmoor; then make a signal to the other ships to do the same. Now, gentlemen, we have the game in our own hands, and let us see and play it skilfully. In a couple of hours it will be dark, and our movements can all be made without being seen. As the Proserpine is, perhaps, the fastest ship"--at this remark Sir Frederick smiled ironically, while Lyon raised his eyebrows like one who saw a marvel--"as the Proserpine is, perhaps, the fastest ship, she ought to go the furthest to leeward; and I will get under way and stand off to sea, keeping well to the northward and eastward, as if I were running for the Straits of Bonifacio, for instance, until it gets to be dark, when I will haul up south for a couple of hours or so; then come up as high as southeast until we are to the southward of the Gulf of Salerno. This will be before daylight, if the wind stand. At daylight, then, you may look out for me off Piane, say two leagues, and to seaward, I hope, of the lugger. You shall follow, Sir Frederick, just as the sun sets, and keep in my wake, as near as possible, heaving to, however, at midnight. This will bring you fairly abreast of the gulf and about midway between the two capes, a little west of south from Campanella. Lyon, you can lie here until the night has fairly set in, when you can pa.s.s between Capri and the cape and run down south two hours and heave to. This will place you in a position to watch the pa.s.sage to and from the gulf under the northern sh.o.r.e."
"And this arrangement completed to your satisfaction, Captain Cuffe,"
asked Lyon, deliberately helping himself to an enormous pinch of snuff, "what will be your pleasure in the posterior evolutions?"
"Each ship must keep her station until the day has fairly dawned. Should it turn out as I trust it may, that we"ve got le Few-Folly in-sh.o.r.e of us, all we"ll have to do will be to close in upon her and drive her up higher and higher into the Bay. She will naturally run into shallow water; when we must anchor off, man the boats, send them north and south of her, and let them board her under cover of our fire. If we find the lugger embayed, we"ll have her as sure as fate."
"Very prettily conceived, Captain Cuffe; and in a way to be handsomely executed. But if we should happen to find the heathen outside of us?"
"Then make sail in chase to seaward, each ship acting for the best.
Come, gentlemen, I do not wish to be inhospitable, but the Proserpine must be off. She has a long road before her; and the winds of this season of the year can barely be counted on for an hour at a time."
Cuffe being in such a hurry, his guests departed without further ceremony. As for Sir Frederick, the first thing he did was to order dinner an hour earlier than he had intended, and then to invite his surgeon and marine-officer, two capital pairs of knives and forks, to come and share it with him, after which he sat down to play somewhat villanously on a flute. Two hours later he gave the necessary orders to his first lieutenant; after which he troubled himself very little about the frigate he commanded. Lyon, on the other hand, sat down to a very frugal meal alone as soon as he found himself again in his sloop; first ordering certain old sails to be got on deck and to be mended for the eighth or ninth time.
With the Proserpine it was different Her capstan-bars flew round, and one anchor was actually catted by the time her captain appeared on deck.
The other soon followed, the three topsails fell, were sheeted home and hoisted, and sail was set after sail, until the ship went steadily past the low promontory of Ana Capri a cloud of canvas. Her head was to the westward, inclining a little north; and had there been any one to the southward to watch her movements, as there was not, so far as the eye could see, it would have been supposed that she was standing over toward the coast of Sardinia, most probably with an intention of pa.s.sing by the Straits of Bonifacio, between that island and Corsica. The wind being nearly east, and it blowing a good breeze, the progress of the ship was such as promised to fulfil all the expectations of her commander.
As the sun set and darkness diffused itself over the Mediterranean, the lighter steering-sails were taken in and the Proserpine brought the wind abeam, standing south. One of the last things visible from the decks, besides the mountains of the islands and of the main, the curling smoke of Vesuvius, the blue void above and the bluer sea below, was the speck of the Terpsich.o.r.e, as that ship followed, as near as might be, in her wake; Sir Frederick and his friends still at table, but with a vigilant and industrious first lieutenant on deck, who was sufficient in himself for all that was required of the vessel in any emergency. The latter had his orders, and he executed them with a precision and attention that promised to leave nothing to be wished for. On the other hand, the people of the Ringdove were kept at work mending old sails until the hour to "knock off work" arrived; then the ship unmoored. At the proper time the remaining anchor was lifted, and the sloop went through the pa.s.s between Capri and Campanella, as directed, when Lyon sent for the first lieutenant to join him in his cabin.
"Look you here, McBean," said Lyon, pointing to the chart which lay on the table; "Captain Cuffe has just run down off Piane, and will find himself well to leeward when the west wind comes to-morrow; Sir Frederick has followed famously clear of the land, and won"t be in a much better box. Now, this lugger must be pretty picking if all they say of her be true. Ten to one but she has gold in her. These corsairs are desperate rogues after the siller, and, taking hull, sails, armament, head-money, and the sc.r.a.pings of the lockers together, I shouldn"t marvel if she come to something as good as 8,000 or 10,000.
This would be fair dividing for a sloop, but would amount to a painfully small trifle, as between the officers of three ships, after deducting the admiral"s share. What are you thinking of, Airchy?"
"Of just that, Captain Lyon. It would be dividing every lieutenant"s share by three, as well as every captain"s."
"That"s it, Airchy, and so ye"ll have a shairp lookout on deck. There"ll be no occasion to run down quite as far as Captain Cuffe suggested, ye"ll obsairve; for, if in the bay, the lugger will work her way up toward this headland, and we"ll be all the more likely to fall in with her, by keeping near it ourselves. Ye"ll take the idea?"
"It"s plain enou", Captain Lyon; and I"ll be obsairving it. How is the law understood as respects dairkness? I understand that none share but such as are in _sight_; but is dairkness deemed a legal impediment?"
"To be sure it is; the idea being that all who can see may act. Now, if we catch the lugger before Captain Cuffe and Sir Frederick even know where she is, on what principle can they aid and sustain us in the capture?"
"And you wish a shairp lookout the night, Captain Lyon?"
"That"s just it, Airchy. Ye"ll all be doing your best in the way of eyes, and we may get the lugger alone. "Twould be such a pity, Mr.
McBean, to divide by three, when the sums might be kept entire!"
Such was the state of feeling with which each of these three officers entered on his present duty. Cuffe was earnest in the wish to catch his enemy, and this princ.i.p.ally for the credit of the thing, though a little out of a desire to revenge his own losses; Sir Frederick Dashwood, indifferent to all but his own pleasures; and Lyon, closely attentive to the main chance. An hour or two later, or just before Cuffe turned in, he sent a message to request the presence of his first lieutenant, if the latter were still up. Winchester was writing up his private journal; closing the book, he obeyed the order in that quiet, submissive manner which a first lieutenant is more apt to use toward his captain than toward any one else.
"Good evening, Winchester," said Cuffe, in a familiar, friendly way, which satisfied the subordinate that he was not sent for to be "rattled down"; "draw a chair and try a gla.s.s of this Capri wine with some water.
It"s not carrying sail hard to drink a gallon of it; yet I rather think it fills up the c.h.i.n.ks better than nothing."
"Thank"ee, Captain Cuffe, we like it in the gun-room, and got off a fresh cask or two this morning, while the court was sitting. So they tell me, sir, his lordship has put his name to it, and that this Frenchman is to swing from our fore-yard-arm some time to-morrow?"
"It stands so on _paper_, Winchester; but if he confess where his lugger lies, all will go smoothly enough with him. However, as things look _now_, we"ll have her, and thanks only to ourselves."
"Well, sir, that will be best, on the whole. I do not like to see a man selling his own people."
"There you are right enough, Winchester, and I trust we shall get along without it; though the lugger must be ours. I sent for you, by the way, about this Bolt--something must be done with that fellow."
"It"s a clear case of desertion, Captain Cuffe; and, as it would now seem, of treason in the bargain. I would rather hang ten such chaps than one man like the Frenchman."
"Well, it"s clear, Mr. Winchester, _you_ do not bear malice! Have you forgotten Porto Ferrajo, and the boats, already? or do you love them that despitefully use you?"
""Twas all fair service, sir, and one never thinks anything of that. I owe this Monsieur Yvard no grudge for what he did; but, now it"s all fairly over, I rather like him the better for it. But it"s a very different matter as to this Bolt; a skulking scoundrel, who would let other men fight his country"s battles, while he goes a-privateering against British commerce."
"Aye, there"s the rub, Winchester! _Are_ they _his_ country"s battles?"
"Why, we took him for an Englishman, sir, and we must act up to our own professions, in order to be consistent."
"And so hang an innocent man for a treason that he _could_ not commit."
"Why, Captain Cuffe, do you believe the fellow"s whining story about his being a Yankee? If that be true, we have done him so much injustice already, as to make his case a very hard one. For my part I look upon all these fellows as only so many disaffected Englishmen, and treat them accordingly."
"That is a sure way to quiet one"s feelings, Winchester; but it"s most too serious when it comes to hanging. If Bolt deserve any punishment, he deserves death; and that is a matter about which one ought to be tolerably certain, before he pushes things too far. I"ve sometimes had my doubts about three or four of our people"s being Englishmen, after all."
"There can be no certainty in these matters, unless one could carry a parish register for the whole kingdom in his ship, Captain Cuffe. If they are not Englishmen, why do they not produce satisfactory proofs to show it? That is but reasonable, you must allow, sir?"
"I don"t know, Winchester; there are two sides to that question, too.
Suppose the King of Naples should seize you, here, ash.o.r.e, and call on you to prove that you are not one of his subjects? How would you go to work to make it out--no parish register being at hand?"
"Well, then, Captain Cuffe, if we are so very wrong, we had better give all these men up, at once--though one of them is the very best hand in the ship; I think it right to tell you that, sir."
"There is a wide difference, sir, between giving a man up, and hanging him. We are short-handed as it is, and cannot spare a single man. I"ve been looking over your station bills, and they never appeared so feeble before. We want eighteen or nineteen good seamen to make them respectable again; and though this Bolt is no great matter as a seaman, he can turn his hand to so many things, that he was as useful as the boatswain. In a word, we cannot spare him--either to let him go or to hang him; even were the latter just."
"I"m sure, sir, I desire to do nothing that is unjust or inconvenient, and so act your pleasure in the affair."
"My pleasure is just this then, Winchester. We must turn Bolt to duty.
If the fellow is really an American, it would be a wretched business even to flog him for desertion; and as to treason, you know, there can be none without allegiance. Nelson gives me a discretion, and so we"ll act on the safe side, and just turn him over to duty again. When there comes an opportunity, I"ll inquire into the facts of his case, and if he can make out that he is not an Englishman, why, he must be discharged.
The ship will be going home in a year or two, when everything can be settled fairly and deliberately. I dare say Bolt will not object to the terms."
"Perhaps not, sir. Then there"s the crew, Captain Cuffe. They may think it strange treason and desertion go unpunished. These fellows talk and reason more than is always known aft."
"I"ve thought of all that, Winchester. I dare say you have heard of such a thing as a King"s evidence? Well, here has Raoul Yvard been tried and found guilty as a spy; Bolt having been a witness. A few remarks judiciously made may throw everything off on that tack; and appearances will be preserved, so far as discipline is concerned."
"Yes, sir, that might be done, it"s true; but an uneasy berth will the poor devil have of it, if the people fancy he has been a King"s evidence. Men of that cla.s.s hate a traitor worse than they do crime, Captain Cuffe, and they"ll ride Bolt down like the main tack."
"Perhaps not; and if they do, "twill not be as bad as hanging. The fellow must think himself luckily out of a bad sc.r.a.pe, and thank G.o.d for all his mercies. You can see that he suffers nothing unreasonable, or greatly out of the way. So send an order to the master-at-arms to knock the irons off the chap, and send him to duty, before you turn in, Winchester."
This settled the matter as to Ithuel, for the moment, at least. Cuffe was one of those men who was indisposed to push things too far, while he found it difficult to do his whole duty. There was not an officer in the Proserpine, who had any serious doubts about the true country of Bolt, though there was not one officer among them all who would openly avow it. There was too much "granite" about Ithuel to permit Englishmen long to be deceived, and that very language on which the impressed man so much prided himself would have betrayed his origin, had other evidence been wanting. Still there was a tenacity about an English ship of war, in that day, that did not easily permit an athletic hand to escape its grasp, when it had once closed upon him. In a great and enterprising service, like that of Great Britain, an _esprit de corps_ existed in the respective ships, which made them the rivals of each other, and men being the great essentials of efficiency, a single seaman was relinquished with a reluctance that must have been witnessed, fully to be understood. Cuffe consequently could not make up his mind to do full justice to Ithuel, while he could not make up his mind to push injustice so far as trial and punishment. Nelson had left him a discretion, as has been said, and this he chose to use in the manner just mentioned.
Had the case of the New Hampshire man been fairly brought before the British Admiral, his discharge would have been ordered without hesitation. Nelson was too far removed from the compet.i.tion of the separate ships, and ordinarily under the control of too high motives, to be accessory to the injustice of forcibly detaining a foreigner in his country"s service; for it was only while under the malign influence to which there has already been allusion, that he ceased to be high-minded and just. Prejudiced he was, and in some cases exceedingly so; America standing but little better in his eyes than France herself. For the first of these antipathies he had some apology; since in addition to the aversion that was naturally produced by the history of the cisatlantic Republic, accident had thrown him in the way, in the West Indies, of ascertaining the frauds, deceptions, and cupidities of a cla.s.s of men that never exhibit national character in its brightest and most alluring colors. Still, he was too upright of mind willingly to countenance injustice, and too chivalrous to oppress. But Ithuel had fallen into the hands of one who fell far short of the high qualities of the Admiral, while at the same time he kept clear of his more prominent weaknesses, and who _was_ brought within the sphere of the compet.i.tion between the respective ships and their crews.
Winchester, of course, obeyed his orders. He roused the master-at-arms from his hammock, and directed him to bring Ithuel Bolt to the quarter-deck.
"In consequence of what took place this morning," said the first lieutenant, in a voice loud enough to be heard by all near him, "Captain Cuffe has seen fit to order you to be released, Bolt, and turned to duty again. You will know how to appreciate this leniency, and will serve with greater zeal than ever, I make no doubt. Never forget that you have been with a yard-rope, as it might be, round your neck. In the morning you will be stationed and berthed anew."