THE REEFER OF ’76.

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BY THE AUTHOR OF “CRUIZING IN THE LAST WAR.”

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THE RESCUE.

“God bless you!” said my old schoolmate, Harry St. Clair, to me, on a bright morning in April, 1776, as I shook his hand for the last time, and leaping into the stern-sheets of the boat, waved my hand in adieu, and bade the crew, with a husky voice, give way. I could scarcely trust myself to look again at the group of old classmates crowding the battery, for a thousand memories of the past came crowding on me as I gazed. The tears, despite myself, welled into my eyes. Determined that no one should witness my emotions, I turned my face away from the crew, affecting to be engaged in scanning the appearance of the brigantine destined to be my future home, the Fire-Fly.

She was as beautiful a craft as ever sat the water. Her hull was long and low, of a mould then but lately introduced. There was no poop upon her quarter deck, nor was she disfigured by the unsightly forecastle then in use. Never had I seen a more exquisite run than that which her glossy hull developed; while her tall, rakish spars, tapering away into needles, and surrounded by their cobweb tracery of ropes, finished the picture. She was, indeed, all a sailor’s heart could desire. When I stepped upon her decks my admiration increased to a ten-fold degree. She had seemed from the water to be a craft of not more than a hundred tons burthen; but the illusion vanished on ascending her side, when you found yourself on board of a brigantine of not less than thrice that size. Her well-scraped decks; her bright burnished binnacle; the boarding-pikes lashed to the main-boom; the muskets placed in stands abaft the main-mast; the nicety with which even the smallest rope was coiled down in its place; the guns ranged along on either side under her bulwarks, and especially the air of neatness, finish, and high discipline perceptible about her, convinced me that I was embarking on board a man-of-war of the highest professional character. In fact I knew Captain Stuart’s reputation to be that of a rigid disciplinarian.

“Mr. Parker—glad to see you,” said my superior, as I touched the deck and raised my hat, “you are punctual, but allow me,” said he, turning to an officer on his right hand, whom I knew to be his lieutenant, “to present you to Mr. Lennox—Mr. Lennox, Mr. Parker.”

The usual salutations were exchanged; the boat was hoisted in; and I dove down into the mess-room to stow away my traps. It was full of officers. The second lieutenant, the purser, and my three fellow reefers greeted me heartily, as they rose from a long, narrow table, on which was a formidable display of salt junk and old Jamaica.

“Just in time, Parker,” sang out my old crony, Westbrook, “we’re stiffening ourselves to keep up against the fog outside. Push the bottle, Jack—a cut of the junk for Parker—and as there’s nothing like beginning right, here’s a jolly voyage to us.”

The toast had just been drunk, amid a whirlwind of huzzas, when the shrill whistle of the boatswain shrieked through the ship, followed by the hoarse cry, “all hands on deck, ahoy!”

In an instant the gun-room was deserted, and we were at our several posts; while the gallant brigantine echoed with the tramp of the crew, the orders of the first lieutenant, and the monotonous creaking of the windlass, as the anchor was being hove up to the bows.

By the time the anchor was catted the morning sun was just beginning to struggle over the heights of Long Island; and as the mists upon the water curled upward in fantastic wreaths beneath his rays, the head of our brigantine began slowly to incline from the breeze. In another instant, as her sails filled, the water could be heard rippling under the cut-water. Then as a sudden puff of wind pressed her down toward her bearings, and we shot rapidly ahead, the bubbles went whizzing along her sides, and eddying around her rudder, swept away astern in a long and glittering wake.

I stood, after the bustle of making sail was over, gazing on the scenery around me, with feelings such as I had never experienced before. It was to be my first voyage in a man-of-war: I would soon, doubtless, imbrue my hands in the blood of my fellow men; and I myself might never return alive from my cruize. I could not help, therefore, being filled with strange and new emotions, as I leaned over the taffrail, gazing on the now fast-receding town, and recurring, again and again, to the many happy days I had spent in my native city, and to the dear faces there which I might never see again. But gradually these feelings were lost in the admiration enkindled in my bosom by the beauty of the surrounding scenery.

It was indeed a glorious sight which opened around me. Right in the wake of the brigantine lay the city, still partly shrouded in the morning mists; while the back-ground was filled up by a range of uplands, through which a narrow opening disclosed where the Hudson rolled his arrowy course. To the right lay Governor’s Island, the East River, with its shipping, and the verdant shores of Long Island; while on the left rose up the bluff highlands of Staten Island, emerging, as it were, from a cloud of mist, and crowned with antique farm-houses, rich fields of verdant grass, and here and there a strip of woodland, as yet sparsely decked with its new-found leaves. Directly ahead were the Narrows, with the frowning heights on either hand; while a white, glittering line on the horizon without, and the long, undulating swell, heaving in through the streight, betokened our near approach to the ocean. A few sails flashed in the distance. All was still, beautiful, and serene. Occasionally, however, the measured sound of oars would give token of a passing fishing boat, or a snatch of a drinking song would float from some craft idly anchored in the stream. A few gulls screamed overhead. A flock of smaller water-fowl wheeled and settled on a strip of white, sandy beach just outside the Narrows. The surf broke with a hollow roar, in a long line of foam, along the neighboring coast; while out on the sea-board hung a dim haze, undulating slowly beneath the sun’s rays as he rose, blood-red, in the eastern horizon.

“A fine breeze for our first day’s cruize,” said Westbrook, “and, faith, a deuce of a one it will be, if we should happen to be caught by one of King George’s frigates, and either be strung up for rebels at the yard arm, or stifled to death in one of his cursed prison hulks. What think you of the prospect, comrades, isn’t it pleasant?”

“Pleasant do ye call it?” said Patrick O’Shaughnessy, a reefer of about my own age, who was a dangerously late emigrant to the colony, “shure, and it is rayther at my father’s hearth I would be, in dear, ould Ireland, afther all, if we’re to be thrated as rebels the day.”

“Your father’s hearth, Pat,” said Westbrook, “and do you really mean to say that they have such things in Galway, or wherever else it was that you were suffered to eat potatoes in ignorance, until your guardians brought you out here on a speculation.”

“By St. Patrick, your head must be hard,” said the irritated reefer, “and it’s well that my shillelah isn’t on the wrist—”

“Pshaw! now you’re not angry, comrade mine,” said Westbrook, laughing good-humoredly, but repenting already of his reckless speech, “come, we’ve got a long cruize before us, and we shall have enough of quarrels with those rascally British, without getting up any among ourselves,” and he frankly extended his hand.

“Shure, and it’s a gentleman ye are, Misther Westbrook, and I’d like to see the spalpeen that says ye aint,” said O’Shaughnessy, grasping the proffered hand, and shaking it heartily.

“Yonder are the white caps of the Atlantic, rolling ahead,” said I, as we stretched past Sandy Hook, and beheld the broad ocean opening in all its vastness and sublimity before us.

We were now fairly afloat. At that time the enterprise in which we had embarked was one of the greatest danger, for not only were we liable to the usual dangers of nautical warfare, but we were, as yet, uncertain in what manner we should be treated in case of a capture. But we were all confident in the justness of our country’s cause, and being such, we were prepared for either fortune.

Nearly a week elapsed without anything occurring to dissipate the monotony of our voyage, excepting a momentary alarm at the appearance of a frigate, which we at first took to be an English one, but which subsequently turned out to be a Frenchman. Meanwhile, we were not without many a merry bout in the gun-room, and over our salt junk and Jamaica, we enjoyed ourselves as hilariously as many an epicure would over his Burgundy and turtle-soup. The jest went round; the song was gaily trolled; many a merry story was rehearsed, and anticipations of a successful cruize were mingled with determinations to bear the worst, if fortune should so will it. Under the broad flag of New York, we were resolved “to do or die,” against the prouder ensign of an unjust, and tyrannical king.

We had run down well nigh to the Windward islands, and were beating up against a head wind, when we spoke a French merchantman, who informed us that he had passed a rich Indiaman, but the day before, bound from London to Jamaica. After enquiring the course of the Englishman, our skipper hauled his wind, and bidding the friendly Gaul, “un bon voyage,” we steered away in pursuit of our prize. Night settled down upon us before we caught sight of her; but still crowding on all sail we kept on in our way.

It was about eight bells in the middle watch, and I was on the point of preparing to go below, after the relief should have been called, when I thought I heard a rattling of cordage down in the thick bank of fog to leeward. I listened attentively, and again heard the sound distinctly, but this time it was like the rollicking of oars.

“Hist! Benson,” said I to the boatswain, who was standing near me at the moment, “hist! lay your ear close to the water here, and listen if you do not hear the sound of oars.”

The old fellow got into the main chains, and holding on with one hand to them, cautiously leaned over and listened for several minutes.

“I hear nothing, sir,” said he in a whisper, “it’s as still as death down in yonder fog-bank. But I’ll keep a sharp look-out, for it may be there’s a sail close on to us, without our knowing it, in this mist.”

The night had been intensely dark, but was now breaking away overhead, where a few stars could be seen twinkling on the patches of half-hid azure sky. All round the horizon, however, but especially to leeward, hung a dark, massy curtain of mist, shrouding everything on the sea-board in impenetrable obscurity, and, like piled up fleeces, laying thick and palpable upon the immediate surface of the ocean, but gradually becoming thinner and lighter as it ascended upwards, until it finally terminated in a thin, gauze-like haze, almost obscuring the stars on the mid heaven above. So dense was the mist in our immediate vicinity, that the man at the helm could not discern the end of the bowsprit; while the upper yards of the brigantine looked like shadowy lines in the gloom. Occasionally, the light breeze would undulate the fog, lifting it for a moment from the water, and disclosing to our sight a few fathoms of the unruffled sea around us; but before a minute had passed the vapors would again settle in fantastic wreaths upon the face of the deep, wrapping us once more in the profoundest obscurity. Not a sound was heard except the occasional rubbing of the boom, the sullen flap of a sail, or the low ripple of the swell under our cut-water, as we stole noiselessly along in the impenetrable gloom. The tread of one of the watch, or the sudden thrashing of a reef-point against the sail, broke on the ear with startling distinctness. Suddenly I heard a noise as of a stifled cry coming up out of the thick fog to leeward, from a spot apparently a few points more on our quarter than the last sound. The boatswain heard it also, and turning quickly to me, he said—

“There’s something wrong there, Mr. Parker, or my name isn’t Jack Benson. And look—don’t you see a ship’s royal through the fog there—just over that gun—that shadowy object, like a whiff of tobacco-smoke, down here to the right, is what I mean.”

“By heavens! you are right—and—see!—yonder comes her fore-top-mast, rising above the undulating mist.”

“Ship ahoy!” hailed the second lieutenant, at that moment appearing on deck, and listening to my report, “what craft is that?”

The hoarse summons sailed down to leeward, like the wailing of some melancholy spirit, but no answer was returned. A couple of minutes elapsed.

“Ship ah—o—o—y!” sung out the officer again, “answer, or I’ll fire into you—this is the Fire-Fly, an armed vessel of the free state of New York.”

“We are a merchantman, belonging to Philadelphia,” answered a gruff voice in reply.

“Send your boat on board.”

“We can’t,” answered the same voice, “for one of them was washed overboard, three days ago, in a gale, and the other one was swamped.”

At this instant, one of those sudden puffs of wind, to which I have already alluded, momentarily swept away the fog from around the approaching ship, and we beheld, to our astonishment, that her sails had been backed, and that she was slowly falling astern of us, as if with the intention of slipping across our wake, and going off to windward.

“Fill away again, there,” thundered the lieutenant, perceiving their manœuvre, “or I’ll fire on you—fill away, I say.”

“By the holy aposthles,” said O’Shaughnessy at this moment, “isn’t there a schooner’s mast, on the lee-quarter of the fellow—yes—there it is—see?”

Every eye was instantly turned in the direction to which he had pointed. A single glance established the keenness of his vision. Right under the weather quarter of the merchantman, might be seen the mast of apparently a small schooner. The sails were down, and only the bare stick could be discerned; but the whole truth flashed upon us as if with the rapidity of lightning.

“The ship is in the hands of pirates,” I exclaimed involuntarily, “God help the poor wretches who compose her crew.”

“Boarders ahoy!” sung out the voice of the captain, breaking, like a trumpet-call, upon the momentary silence of the horror-struck crew, “muster on the forecastle, all—up with the helm, quarter-master—ready to grapple there—heave,” and the huge irons, as we bore down upon the ship, went crashing among her hamper.

The instant that discovered the true nature of our position, worked a change in the whole appearance of the merchantman. Her deserted decks swarmed with men; her silence gave place to shouts, oaths, and the clashing of arms; and after a momentary confusion, we saw, in the obscurity, a dark group of ruffians clustered on the forecastle, awaiting our attack.

“Boarders ahoy!” again shouted Captain Stuart, brandishing his sword on high, “follow me,” and springing into the fore-rigging of the merchantman, he levelled a pistol at the first pirate attempting to oppose him, and followed by a score, and more, of hardy tars, rushed, the next instant, down upon her decks.

“Stand to your posts, my men,” thundered the pirate captain, as he stood by the main-mast, surrounded by his swarthy followers, “stand to your posts, and remember, you fight for your lives—come on,” and drawing a pistol from his belt, he levelled it at the first lieutenant, who, pressing on, aside of Captain Stuart, received the ball in his side, and fell, apparently, lifeless on the deck.

“Revenge! Revenge!” thundered the Captain, turning to cheer on his men, “sweep the miscreants from the deck, on—on,” and waving his sword aloft, he dashed into the fray. The men answered by a cheer, and bore down upon the pirates with an impetuosity, doubly more vehement from their desire to avenge the fallen lieutenant.

For full five minutes the contest was terrific. Desperation lent additional vigor to the freebooters’ muscles, while our own men were inflamed to madness by the fall of Lennox. I had never been in a conflict of any kind whatever before, and for the first few moments—I will not hesitate to own it—a strange whirling sensation, akin to fear, swept through my brain. But a half a minute had not passed before it had vanished; and I felt a wild tumultuous excitement which seemed to endow me with the strength of a Hercules. I lost all sight of the turmoil around me. I could only see that it had become a general mêleé, in which personal prowess was of more importance than discipline. I heard a wild mingling of oaths, shouts, cries for mercy, the clashing of arms, the explosion of pistols, the shrieks of the wounded, and the fierce tramping of men struggling together in the last stage of mortal combat. But I had no time for more detailed observations. A giant ruffian singling me out from the crowd, rushed upon me with uplifted cutlass, and the next instant I would have been clove in twain, had I not caught the blow upon my blade. But so tremendous was its force that it splintered my trusty steel to fragments, and sent a shock through every nerve of my system. I staggered. But not a moment was to be lost. Already the gigantic arm of the pirate was raised on high. Happily my pistols were both as yet untouched. Springing back a step or two I jerked one from my belt, levelled it at his brain, and fired. He whirled around as if intoxicated, staggered, would have caught at the mast for support, and fell over dead upon the deck.

But I had no leisure to regard my fallen foe. The contest still raged around me fiercer than ever. On our side of the ship, however, the pirates had broken, and were retreating slowly and doggedly toward the stern. We pressed on hotly in pursuit, while shouts, curses, and huzzas, the groans of the dying, and the fierce rattling of cutlasses, formed a tumult around us of stirring excitement; but just as I rushed past the gangway, followed by a few of the bravest of our crew, a wild, long, thrilling scream from the cabin below, rose up over all the uproar of the conflict. It could come from no one but a woman—that prolonged cry of mortal agony! In an instant the retreating pirates were forgotten; I thought only of the danger of the sufferer below. Dashing aside, with the power of a giant, a brawny ruffian who would have impeded my progress, I sprang, at one leap, half way down the gangway, and with another stride found myself in the cabin of the ship.

Never shall I forget the scene that there met my eyes.

The apartment in which I stood was elegantly, even luxuriously furnished, presenting the appearance rather of a sumptuous drawing-room, than of a merchantman’s cabin. The state-rooms were of mahogany, elegantly inlaid with ebony. A service of silver and rich cut glass was ranged in the beaufut around the mast. Silken ottomans stretched along the sides of the room; a silver lamp of exquisite workmanship, depended from the ceiling; and a carpet of gorgeous pattern, and of the finest quality, covered the floor. But not a solitary individual was to be seen. A lady’s guitar, however, lay carelessly on one of the ottomans, and a few books were scattered around it in easy negligence. Could I be deceived with this corroborative testimony? Yet where was the owner of these little trifles? These reflections did not, however, occupy an instant; for I had scarcely finished a rapid survey of the cabin before another, and another shriek, ringing out just before me, roused every emotion of my heart to an uncontrollable fury. Catching sight of an undulating curtain at the farther end of the apartment, which I had imagined was only the drapery of the windows, I darted forward, and lifting up the damask, started back in horror at the sight that met my eyes.

This after cabin was smaller, and even more luxuriously fitted up than the other. But I did not remark this, at the time, for such a scene as I then witnessed, God grant I may never be called to look upon again.

As I pushed aside the curtain, three swarthy, olive-complexioned ruffians, dressed with more elaboration than any of their comrades I had yet seen, turned hastily around as if interrupted in some infamous deed, scowling upon me with the looks of demons. It needed but a glance to detect their fiendish work. A well dressed elderly man was extended at their feet, weltering in his blood. On an ottoman before them half lying, half sitting, was one of the fairest beings I had ever seen, her night dress disordered, her frame trembling, and her hair, wild and dishevelled, hanging in loose tresses from her shoulders. Her hands were covered in one or two places with blood; her eyes were wild; her face was flushed; and she panted as one does whose strength has been nearly overtasked in a desperate struggle. Never shall I forget the unutterable agony depicted on that countenance when I first entered; never shall I forget the lightning-like change which came over it as her eye fell upon me. Rushing frantically forward, while joy beamed in every feature of her face, she flung herself into my arms, shrieking hysterically,

“Oh! save me—save me—for the love of your mother, save me.”

My sudden appearance had startled the three ruffians, and for a moment they stood idle, suffering her to dart between them; but at the sound of her voice, they rushed as one man upon me. The odds were fearful, but I felt, at that instant, as if I could have dared heaven and earth in behalf of that suffering maiden. Clasping my arm around her waist, and retreating hastily into the other cabin, I shouted aloud for aid, parrying, with a cutlass I picked up at random, the attack of the miscreants. But the attempt was desperation itself. Already I had received two cuts across my arm, and I could scarcely hold my weapon in it, when the foremost ruffian, leaving my death, as he thought, to his comrades, laid his unholy hand once more upon the maiden. Good God! I thought my heart would have burst at this new insult. My determination was quicker than the electric spark of heaven. Hastily releasing the lovely burden from my hold, I seized my remaining pistol with the disengaged hand, and before the villain could perceive my purpose planted it against his face and fired. The brains spattered the ceiling, and even fell upon my own face and arm. But the miscreant was dead. Oh, the joy, the rapture of that moment! I heard, too, as the report subsided, the death-groan of another of the ruffians falling beneath the avenging cutlass of our men, who now, victorious on deck, came pouring down the hatchway. In another instant, as a shout of victory rang through the cabin, I had raised the almost senseless girl from the floor. She looked eagerly into my face, gazed wildly around, uttered a cry of joy, and convulsively clinging to me, as if for shelter, buried her head upon my bosom, and burst into a passion of hysteric tears.

The emotions of that moment were such as I had never deemed mortal being capable of experiencing. Feelings I cannot even now describe whirled through me, until my brain seemed almost to spin around in a delirium of joy. Yet there was a holiness in my emotions, far, far different from the common sensations of pleasure. I felt—I knew not how—a sudden interest in the fair being, sobbing convulsively upon my shoulder, which made her already seem dearer to me than life itself. I pressed her involuntarily to me; but a mother could not have done so with more purity to a new-born infant. Her sobs melted me so that I could scarcely keep my own eyes dry.

“God bless you, my poor, sweet girl,” I said in a husky voice, “you are among friends now.”

The tone, the words went to her very heart; she clasped me convulsively again, and burst into a fresh flood of tears. Poor dove! she had just escaped from the hands of the spoiler, and fluttered, as yet, involuntarily on her rescuer’s bosom.

“God—in—hea—ven—bless you,” she murmured, betwixt her sobs, after a while, raising her tearful countenance from my shoulder, and looking upon me with eyes, whose depth, and whose gratitude I had never seen equalled—“God—bless—you, sir, for this act. Oh! if a life of prayers for your welfare can repay you,” she continued, with uplifted hands, and a countenance, which, in despite of its earnestness, was crimsoned with blushes, “it shall be freely given by me. But my uncle! my poor uncle! alas! they have murdered him,” and she covered her eyes with her hands, as if to shut out the fearful sight.

“Say nothing, my dear girl,” said I, the tears standing in my own eyes, “all are friends around you now. The ship has been rescued—the pirates are no more. Compose yourself—none here will harm you—your slightest wish shall be attended to, and you shall be served with the purity with which we serve a saint. Do not thus give way to grief—let me insist on your retiring—here is your maid,” said I, as the trembling creature emerged from a state-room, in which she had locked herself when her mistress was in danger, “a little rest will compose you.”

“Oh! my uncle, my more than parent—heaven bless you,” sobbed the beautiful, but still agitated girl, as she suffered herself to be led away by her little less agitated maid.

The prize turned out to be the British West-Indiaman, which had been surprised by pirates about a quarter of an hour before we hailed her. The beautiful being and her uncle were the only passengers. It is needless to say that very few of the ruffians survived the conflict, and that those who did were tried summarily by a court-martial the next day, and hung at the ship’s yard-arm. Their little schooner, or rather oyster-boat, was scuttled and sunk.

The wounds in my arm proved serious, though not dangerous, but they did not disable me from continuing on duty. I would willingly have lost the limb in such a holy cause.

The first appearance on deck of Beatrice Derwent—for such was the name of her I rescued—was at the burial of her uncle on the evening succeeding the re-capture of the ship. She appeared, leaning on the arm of her maid, and as her eye, just lifted for one moment from the deck, happened to catch mine, her face became suffused with crimson, and such a look of gratitude toward the living, combined with grief for the dead, flashed over her countenance as I never saw equalled. But in another moment her eyes dropped once more on the corpse, and I saw, by the convulsive heaving of her bosom, how fearful was her grief. When the corpse was launched into the deep, her sorrow broke all the restraint of custom, and she sobbed aloud. Directly, however, they subsided partially; and as she turned to re-enter the cabin, the last rays of the setting sun, gilding the mast-head with a crown of glory, and glittering along the surface of the deep, lingered a moment on her sunny hair, like the smile of the departed spirit.

The prize meantime, proving to be richly laden, was allotted to me to conduct into port, as the first lieutenant’s wound prevented him from assuming the command, and the second lieutenant chose rather to remain with the brigantine. Beatrice Derwent was, as a matter of course, to continue on board the merchantman. Thus did destiny again link my fate with this lovely creature, and by one of those simple accidents which so often occur, open for me a train of events, whose transaction it is my purpose to detail in the following crude autobiography.

The sensations with which I watched the receding brigantine, after assuming my new command, and hauling up on our course, may well be imagined. Scarcely a fortnight had elapsed since I first launched on the deep, a nameless, unknown, irresponsible midshipman; and now, by one of fortune’s wildest freaks, I was commanding a prize of untold value, and become the protector of the loveliest of her sex.

“There’s a divinity that shapes our fortunes,

Rough hew them as we will.”

It was not till the third day after parting company with the brigantine, that Miss Derwent, with her maid, appeared once more upon the deck. The shock of her uncle’s death had brought on an illness, which confined her during that time to the cabin; and even now, there was a languor in her fine countenance, and a melancholy in her dark eye, which, though they added to the interest of her appearance, betokened the acuteness of her grief. She was attired in a dark silken dress; her hair was plainly braided back, and she wore no ornaments of any kind whatever. Rarely had I beheld a vision of such surpassing loveliness. I stepped forward to assist her to a seat. She smiled faintly, her eyes sparkled a moment, and then a deep blush shot across her saddened features. But I will not detail the scene that ensued. Suffice it to say that, from that moment I loved Beatrice; and that though she had not bid me hope, there was nothing in her conduct to bid me despair.