"Good: Speak to the mariners: Fall to't yarely, or we run ourselves
aground."--_Tempest._
A good deal of the day had been wasted during the time occupied by the
scenes just related. The breeze had come in steady, but far from fresh. So
soon, however, as Wilder found himself left without the molestation of
idlers from the shore, and the busy interposition of the consignee, he
cast his eyes about him, with the intention of immediately submitting the
ship to its power. Sending for the pilot, he communicated his
determination, and withdrew himself to a part of the deck whence he might
take a proper survey of the materials of his new command, and where he
might reflect on the unexpected and extraordinary situation in which he
found himself.
The "Royal Caroline" was not entirely without pretensions to the lofty
name she bore. She was a vessel of that happy size in which comfort and
convenience had been equally consulted. The letter of the Rover affirmed
she had a reputation for her speed; and her young and intelligent
Commander saw, with great inward satisfaction, that she was not destitute
of the means of enabling him to exhibit all her finest properties. A
healthy, active, and skilful crew, justly proportioned spars, little
top-hamper, and an excellent trim, with a superabundance of light sails,
offered all the advantages his experience could suggest. His eye lighted,
as it glanced rapidly over these several particulars of his command, and
his lips moved like those of a man who uttered an inward self-gratulation,
or who indulged in some vaunt, that propriety suggested should go no
farther than his own thoughts.
By this time, the crew, under the orders of the pilot, were assembled at
the windlass, and had commenced heaving-in upon the cable. The labour was
of a nature to exhibit their individual powers, as well as their
collective force, to the greatest advantage. Their motion was
simultaneous, quick, and full of muscle. The cry was clear and cheerful.
As if to feel his influence, our adventurer lifted his own voice, amid the
song of the mariners, in one of those sudden and inspiriting calls with
which a sea officer is wont to encourage his people. His utterance was
deep, animated, and full of authority. The seamen started like mettled
coursers when they first hear the signal, each man casting a glance behind
him, as though he would scan the qualities of his new superior Wilder
smiled, like one satisfied with his success; and, turning to pace the
quarter-deck, he found himself once more confronted by the calm,
considerate but certainly astonished eye of Mrs Wyllys.
"After the opinions you were pleased to express of this vessel," said the
lady, in a manner of the coldest irony, "I did not expect to find you
filling a place of such responsibility here."
"You probably knew, Madam," returned the young mariner, "that a sad
accident had happened to her Master?"
"I did; and I had heard that another officer had been found, temporarily,
to supply his place. Still, I should presume, that, on reflection, you
will not think it remarkable I am amazed in finding who this person is."
"Perhaps, Madam, you may have conceived, from our conversations, an
unfavourable opinion of my professional skill. But I hope that on this
head you will place your mind at ease; for"----
"You are doubtless a master of the art! it would seem, at least, that no
trifling danger can deter you from seeking proper opportunities to display
this knowledge. Are we to have the pleasure of your company during the
whole passage, or do you leave us at the mouth of the port?"
"I am engaged to conduct the ship to the end of her voyage."
"We may then hope that the danger you either saw or imagined is lessened
in your judgment, otherwise you would not be so ready to encounter it in
our company."
"You do me injustice, Madam," returned Wilder, with warmth, glancing his
eye unconsciously towards the grave, but deeply attentive Gertrude, as he
spoke; "there is no danger that I would not cheerfully encounter, to save
you, or this young lady, from harm."
"Even this young lady must be sensible of your chivalry!" Then, losing the
constrained manner with which, until now, she had maintained the discourse
in one more natural, and one far more in consonance with her usually mild
and thoughtful mien, Mrs. Wyllys continued, "You have a powerful advocate,
young man, in the unaccountable interest which I feel in your truth; an
interest that my reason would fain condemn. As the ship must need your
services, I will no longer detain you. Opportunities cannot be wanting to
enable us to judge both of your inclination and ability to serve us.
Gertrude, my love, females are usually considered as incumbrances in a
vessel; more particularly when there is any delicate duty to perform, like
this before us."
Gertrude started, blushed, and proceeded, after her governess, to the
opposite side of the quarter-deck followed by an expressive look from our
adventurer which seemed to say, he considered her presence any thing else
but an incumbrance. As the ladies immediately took a position apart from
every body, and one where they were least in the way of working the ship,
at the same time that they could command an entire view of all her
manoeuvres the disappointed sailor was obliged to cut short a
communication which he would gladly have continued until compelled to take
the charge of the vessel from the hands of the pilot. By this time,
however, the anchor was a-weigh, and the seamen were already actively
engaged in the process of making sail. Wilder lent himself, with feverish
excitement, to the duty; and, taking the words from the officer who was
issuing the necessary orders, he assumed the immediate superintendence in
person.
As sheet after sheet of canvas fell from the yards, and was distended by
the complicated mechanism, the interest that a seaman ever takes in his
vessel began to gain the ascendancy over all other feelings By the time
every thing was set, from the royals down, and the ship was cast with her
head towards the harbour's mouth, our adventurer had probably forgotten
(for the moment only, it is true) that he was a stranger among those he
was in so extraordinary a manner selected to command, and how precious a
stake was intrusted to his firmness and decision. After every thing was
set to advantage, alow and aloft, and the ship was brought close upon the
wind, his eye scanned every yard and sail, from the truck to the hull, and
concluded by casting a glance along the outer side of the vessel, in order
to see that not even the smallest rope was in the water to impede her
progress. A small skiff, occupied by a boy, was towing under the lee, and,
as the mass of the vessel began to move, it was skipping along the surface
of the water, light and buoyant as a feather. Perceiving that it was a
boat belonging to the shore, Wilder walked forward, and demanded its
owner. A mate pointed to Joram, who at that moment ascended from the
interior of the vessel, where he had been settling the balance due from a
delinquent, or, what was in his eyes the same thing, a departing debtor.
The sight of this man recalled Wilder to a recollection of all that had
occurred that morning, and of the whole delicacy of the task he had
undertaken to perform. But the publican, whose ideas appeared always
concentrated when occupied on the subject of gain, seemed troubled by no
particular emotions at the interview. He approached the young mariner and,
saluting him by the title of "Captain," bade him a good voyage, with those
customary wish es which seamen express, when about to separate on such an
occasion.
"A lucky trip you have made of it, Captain Wilder," he concluded, "and I
hope your passage will be short. You'll not be without a breeze this
afternoon; and, by stretching well over towards Montauck you'll be able to
make such an offing, on the other tack, as to run the coast down in the
morning. If I am any judge of the weather, the wind will have more easting
in it, than you may happen to find to your fancy."
"And how long do you think my voyage is likely to last?" demanded Wilder,
dropping his voice so low as to reach no ears but those of the publican.
Joram cast a furtive glance aside; and, perceiving that they were alone,
he suffered an expression of hardened cunning to take possession of a
countenance that ordinarily seemed set in dull, physical contentment, as
he replied, laying a finger on his nose while speaking,--
"Didn't I tender the consignee a beautiful oath, master Wilder?"
"You certainly exceeded my expectations with your promptitude, and"--
"Information!" added the landlord of the 'Foul Anchor,' perceiving the
other a little at a loss for a word; "yes, I have always been remarkable
for the activity of my mind in these small matters; but, when a man once
knows a thing thoroughly, it is a great folly to spend his breath in too
many words."
"It is certainly a great advantage to be so well instructed. I suppose
you improve your knowledge to a good account."
"Ah! bless me, master Wilder, what would become of us all, in these
difficult times, if we did not turn an honest penny in every way that
offers? I have brought up several fine children in credit, and it sha'n't
be my fault if I don't leave them something too, besides my good name.
Well, well; they say, 'A nimble sixpence is as good as a lazy shilling;'
but give me the man who don't stand shilly-shally when a friend has need
of his good word, or a lift from his hand. You always know where to find
such a man; as our politicians say, after they have gone through thick and
thin in the cause, be it right or be it wrong."
"Very commendable principles! and such as will surely be the means of
exalting you in the world sooner or later! But you forget to answer my
question: Will the passage be long, or short?"
"Heaven bless you, master Wilder! Is it for a poor publican, like me, to
tell the Master of this noble ship which way the wind will blow next?
There is the worthy and notable Commander Nichols, lying in his state-room
below, he could do any thing with the vessel; and why am I to expect that
a gentleman so well recommended as yourself will do less? I expect to hear
that you have made a famous run, and have done credit to the good word I
have had occasion to say in your favour."
Wilder execrated, in his heart, the wary cunning of the rogue with whom he
was compelled, for the moment, to be in league; for he saw plainly that a
determination not to commit himself a tittle further than he might
conceive to be absolutely necessary, was likely to render Joram too
circumspect, to answer his own immediate wishes. After hesitating a
moment, in order to reflect, he continued hastily,--
"You see that the ship is gathering way too fast to admit of trifling.
You know of the letter I received this morning?"
"Bless me, Captain Wilder! Do you take me for a postmaster? How should I
know what letters arrive at Newport, and what stop on the main?"
"As timid a villain as he is thorough!" muttered the young mariner. "But
this much you may surely say, Am I to be followed immediately? or is it
expected that I should detain the ship in the offing, under any pretence
that I can devise?"
"Heaven keep you, young gentleman! These are strange questions, to come
from one who is fresh off the sea, to a man that has done no more than
look at it from the land, these five-and-twenty years. According to my
memory, sir, you will keep the ship about south until you are clear of the
islands; and then you must make your calculations according to the wind,
in order not to get into the Gulf, where, you know, the stream will be
setting you one way, while your orders say, 'Go another.'"
"Luff! mind your luff, sir!" cried the pilot, in a stern voice, to the man
at the helm; "luff you can; on no account go to leeward of the slaver!"
Both Wilder and the publican started, as if they found something alarming
in the name of the vessel just alluded to; and the former pointed to the
skiff, as he said,--
"Unless you wish to go to sea with us, Mr Joram, it is time your boat held
its master."
"Ay, ay, I see you are fairly under way, and I must leave you, however
much I like your company," returned the landlord of the 'Foul Anchor,'
bustling over the side, and getting into his skiff in the best manner he
could. "Well, boys, a good time to ye; a plenty of wind, and of the right
sort; a safe passage out, and a quick return. Cast off."
His order was obeyed; the light skiff, no longer impelled by the ship,
immediately deviated from its course; and, after making a little circuit,
it became stationary, while the mass of the vessel passed on, with the
steadiness of an elephant from whose back a butterfly had just taken its
flight. Wilder followed the boat with his eyes, for a moment; but his
thoughts were recalled by the voice of the pilot, who again called, from
the forward part of the ship,--
"Let the light sails lift a little, boy; let her lift keep every inch you
can, or you'll not weather the slaver. Luff, I say, sir; luff."
"The slaver!" muttered our adventurer, hastening to a part of the ship
whence he could command a view of that important, and to him doubly
interesting ship; "ay, the slaver! it may be difficult, indeed to weather
upon the slaver!"
He had unconsciously placed himself near Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude; the
latter of whom was leaning on the rail of the quarter-deck, regarding the
strange vessel at anchor, with a pleasure far from unnatural to her years
and sex.
"You may laugh at me, and call me fickle, and perhaps credulous, dear Mrs
Wyllys," the unsuspecting girl cried, just as Wilder had taken the
foregoing position, "but I wish we were well out of this 'Royal Caroline,'
and that our passage was to be made in yonder beautiful ship!"
"It is indeed a beautiful ship!" returned Wyllys; "but I know not that it
would be safer, or more comfortable, than the one we are in."
"With what symmetry and order the ropes are arranged! and how like a bird
it floats upon the water!"
"Had you particularized the duck, the comparison would have been exactly
nautical," said the governess, smiling mournfully; "you show capabilities
my love, to be one day a seaman's wife."
Gertrude blushed a little; and, turning back her head to answer in the
playful vein of her governess, her eye met the riveted look of Wilder,
fastened on herself. The colour on her cheek deepened to a carnation, and
she was mute; the large gipsy hat she wore serving to conceal both her
face and the confusion which so deeply suffused it.
"You make no answer, child, as if you reflected seriously on the chances,"
continued Mrs Wyllys, whose thoughtful and abstracted mien, however,
sufficiently proved she scarcely knew what she uttered.
"The sea is too unstable an element for my taste," Gertrude coldly
answered. "Pray tell me, Mrs Wyllys, is the vessel we are approaching a
King's ship? She has a warlike, not to say a threatening exterior."
"The pilot has twice called her a slaver."
"A slaver! How deceitful then is all her beauty and symmetry! I will never
trust to appearances again, since so lovely an object can be devoted to so
vile a purpose."
"Deceitful indeed!" exclaimed Wilder aloud, under an impulse that he found
as irresistible as it was involuntary. "I will take upon myself to say,
that a more treacherous vessel does not float the ocean than yonder finely
proportioned and admirably equipped"----
"Slaver," added Mrs Wyllys, who had time to turn, and to look all her
astonishment, before the young man appeared disposed to finish his own
sentence.
"Slaver;" he said with emphasis, bowing at the same time, as if he would
thank her for the word.
After this interruption, a profound silence occurred Mrs Wyllys studied
the disturbed features of the young man, for a moment, with a countenance
that denoted a singular, though a complicated, interest; and then she
gravely bent her eyes on the water, deeply occupied with intense, if not
painful reflection The light symmetrical form of Gertrude continued
leaning on the rail, it is true, but Wilder was unable to catch another
glimpse of her averted and shadowed lineaments. In the mean while, events,
that were of a character to withdraw his attention entirely from even so
pleasing a study, were hastening to their accomplishment.
The ship had, by this time, passed between the little island and the point
whence Homespun had embarked, and might now be said to have fairly left
the inner harbour. The slaver lay directly in her track, and every man in
the vessel was gazing with deep interest, in order to see whether they
might yet hope to pass on her weather-beam. The measure was desirable;
because a seaman has a pride in keeping on the honourable side of every
thing he encounters but chiefly because, from the position of the
stranger, it would be the means of preventing the necessity of tacking
before the "Caroline" should reach a point more advantageous for such a
manoeuvre. The reader will, however, readily understand that the interest
of hear new Commander took its rise in far different feelings from those
of professional pride, or momentary convenience.
Wilder felt, in every nerve, the probability that a crisis was at hand. It
will be remembered that he was profoundly ignorant of the immediate
intentions of the Rover. As the fort was not in a state for present
service, it would not be difficult for the latter to seize upon his prey
in open view of the townsmen and bear it off, in contempt of their feeble
means of defence. The position of the two ships was favourable to such an
enterprise. Unprepared, find unsuspecting, the "Caroline," at no time a
natch for her powerful adversary, must fall an easy victim; nor would
there be much reason to apprehend that a single shot from the battery
could reach them, before the captor, and his prize, would be at such a
distance as to render the blow next to impotent if not utterly innocuous.
The wild and audacious character of such an enterprise was in full
accordance with the reputation of the desperate freebooter on whose
caprice, alone, the act now seemed solely to depend.
Under these impressions, and with the prospect of such a speedy
termination to his new-born authority it is not to be considered wonderful
that our adventurer awaited the result with an interest far exceeding that
of any of those by whom he was surrounded He walked into the waist of the
ship, and endeavoured to read the plan of his secret confederates by some
of those indications that are familiar to a seaman. Not the smallest sign
of any intention to depart, or in any manner to change her position, was,
however, discoverable in the pretended slaver. She lay in the same deep,
beautiful, but treacherous quiet, as that in which she had reposed
throughout the whole of the eventful morning. But a solitary individual
could be seen amid the mazes of her rigging, or along the wide reach of
all her spars. It was a seaman seated on the extremity of a lower yard,
where he appeared to busy himself with one of those repairs that are so
constantly required in the gear of a large ship. As the man was placed on
the weather side of his own vessel, Wilder instantly conceived the idea
that he was thus stationed to cast a grapnel into the rigging of the
"Caroline," should such a measure become necessary, in order to bring the
two ships foul of each other. With a view to prevent so rude an encounter,
he instantly determined to defeat the plan. Calling to the pilot, he told
him the attempt to pass to windward was of very doubtful success, and
reminded him that the safer way would be to go to leeward.
"No fear, no fear, Captain," returned the stubborn conductor of the ship,
who, as his authority was so brief, was only the more jealous of its
unrestrained exercise, and who, like an usurper of the throne, felt a
jealousy of the more legitimate power which he had temporarily
dispossessed; "no fear of me, Captain. I have trolled over this ground
oftener than you have crossed the ocean, and I know the name of every rock
on the bottom, as well as the town-crier knows the streets of Newport. Let
her luff, boy; luff her into the very eye of the wind; luff, you can"----
"You have the ship shivering as it is, sir," said Wilder, sternly: "Should
you get us foul of the slaver who is to pay the cost?"
"I am a general underwriter," returned the opinionated pilot; "my wife
shall mend every hole I make in your sails, with a needle no bigger than a
hair, and with such a palm as a fairy's thimble!"
"This is fine talking, sir, but you are already losing the ship's way;
and, before you have ended your boasts, she will be as fast in irons as a
condemned thief. Keep the sails full, boy; keep them a rap full, sir."
"Ay, ay, keep her a good full," echoed the pilot, who, as the difficulty
of passing to windward became at each instant more obvious, evidently
began to waver in his resolution. "Keep her full-and-by,--I have always
told you full-and-by,--I don't know, Captain, seeing that the wind has
hauled a little, but we shall have to pass to leeward yet; but you will
acknowledge, that, in such case, we shall be obliged to go about."
Now, in point of fact, the wind, though a little lighter than it had been,
was, if anything, a trifle more favourable; nor had Wilder ever, in any
manner, denied that the ship would not have to tack, some twenty minutes
sooner, by going to leeward of the other vessel, than if she had
succeeded in her delicate experiment of passing on the more honourable
side; but, as the vulgarest minds are always the most reluctant to confess
their blunders, the discomfited pilot was disposed to qualify the
concession he found himself compelled to make, by some salvo of the sort,
that he might not lessen his reputation for foresight, among his auditors.
"Keep her away at once," cried Wilder, who was beginning to change the
tones of remonstrance for those of command; "keep the ship away, sir,
while you have room to do it, or, by the"----
His lips became motionless; for his eye happened to fall on the pale,
speaking, and anxious countenance of Gertrude.
"I believe it must be done, seeing that the wind is hauling. Hard up, boy,
and run her under the stern of the ship at anchor. Hold! keep your luff
again; eat into the wind to the bone, boy; lift again; let the light sails
lift. The slaver has run a warp directly across our track. If there's law
in the Plantations, I'll have her Captain before the Courts for this!"
"What means the fellow?" demanded Wilder, jumping hastily on a gun, in
order to get a better view.
His mate pointed to the lee-quarter of the other vessel, where, sure
enough, a large rope was seen whipping the water, as though in the very
process of being extended. The truth instantly flashed on the mind of our
young mariner. The Rover lay secret-moored with a spring, with a view to
bring; his guns more readily to bear upon the battery, should his defence
become necessary, and he now profited, by the circumstance, in order to
prevent the trader from passing to leeward. The whole arrangement excited
a good deal of surprise, and not a few execrations among the officers of
the "Caroline;" though none but her Commander had the smallest twinkling
of the real reason why the kedge had thus been laid, and why a warp was so
awkwardly stretched across their path. Of the whole number, the pilot
alone saw cause to rejoice in the circumstance. He had, in fact, got the
ship in such a situation, as to render it nearly as difficult to proceed
in one way as in the other; and he was now furnished with a sufficient
justification, should any accident occur, in the course of the exceedingly
critical manoeuvre, from whose execution there was now no retreat.
"This is an extraordinary liberty to take in the mouth of a harbour,"
muttered Wilder, when his eyes put him in possession of the fact just
related. "You must shove her by to windward, pilot; there is no remedy."
"I wash my hands of the consequences, as I call all on board to witness,"
returned the other, with the air of a deeply offended man, though secretly
glad of the appearance of being driven to the very measure he was a minute
before so obstinately bent on executing, "Law must be called in here, if
sticks are snapped, or rigging parted. Luff to a hair, boy; luff her short
into the wind, and try a half-board."
The man at the helm obeyed the order. Releasing his hold of its spokes,
the wheel made a quick evolution; and the ship, feeling a fresh impulse of
the wind, turned her head heavily towards the quarter whence it came, the
canvas fluttering with a noise like that produced by a flock of water-fowl
just taking wing. But, met by the helm again, she soon fell off as before,
powerless from having lost her way, and settling bodily down toward the
fancied slaver, impelled by the air, which seemed, however, to have lost
much of its force, at the critical instant it was most needed.
The situation of the "Caroline" was one which a seaman will readily
understand. She had forged so far ahead as to lie directly on the
weather-beam of the stranger, but too near to enable her to fall-off in
the least, without imminent danger that the vessels would come foul. The
wind was inconstant, sometimes blowing in puffs, while at moments there
was a perfect lull. As the ship felt the former, her tall masts bent
gracefully towards the slaver, as if to make the parting salute; but,
relieved from the momentary pressure of the inconstant air, she as often
rolled heavily to windward, without advancing a foot. The effect of each
change, however, was to bring her still nigher to her dangerous neighbour,
until it became evident, to the judgment of the youngest seaman in the
vessel, that nothing but a sudden shift of wind could enable her to pass
ahead, the more especially as the tide was on the change.
As the inferior officers of the "Caroline" were not delicate in their
commentaries on the dulness which had brought them into so awkward and so
mortifying a position, the pilot endeavoured to conceal his own vexation,
by the number and vociferousness of his orders. From blustering, he soon
passed into confusion, until the men themselves stood idle, not knowing
which of the uncertain and contradictory mandates they received ought to
be first obeyed. In the mean time, Wilder had folded his arms with an
appearance of entire composure, and taken his station near his female
passengers. Mrs Wyllys closely studied his eye, with the wish of
ascertaining, by its expression, the nature and extent of their danger, if
danger there might be, in the approaching collision of two ships in water
that was perfectly smooth, and where one was stationary and the motion of
the other scarcely perceptible. The stern, determined look she saw
settling about the brow of the young man excited an uneasiness that she
would not otherwise have felt, perhaps, under circumstances that, in
themselves, bore no very vivid appearance of hazard.
"Have we aught to apprehend, sir?" demanded the governess, endeavouring to
conceal from her charge the nature of her own disquietude.
"I told you, Madam, the 'Caroline' would prove an unlucky ship."
Both females regarded the peculiarly bitter smile with which Wilder made
this reply as an evil omen, and Gertrude clung to her companion as to one
on whom she had long been accustomed to lean.
"Why do not the mariners of the slaver appear, to assist us--to keep us
from coming too nigh?" anxiously exclaimed the latter.
"Why do they not, indeed! but we shall see them, I think, ere long."
"You speak and look, young man, as if you thought there would be danger in
the interview!"
"Keep near to me," returned Wilder, in tones that were nearly smothered by
the manner in which he compressed his lips. "In every event, keep as nigh
my person as possible."
"Haul the spanker-boom to windward," shouted the pilot; "lower away the
boats, and tow the ship's head round--clear away the stream anchor--aft
gib-sheet--board main tack, again."
The astonished men stood like statues, not knowing whither to turn, some
calling to the rest to do this or that, and some as loudly countermanding
the order; when an authoritative voice was heard calmly to say,--
"Silence in the ship."
The tones-were of that sort which, while they denote the self-possession
of the speaker, never fail to inspire the inferior with a portion of the
confidence of him who commands. Every face was turned towards the quarter
of the vessel whence the sound proceeded, as if each ear was ready to
catch the smallest additional mandate. Wilder was standing on the head of
the capstan, where he could command a full view on every side of him. With
a quiet and understanding glance, he had made himself a perfect master of
the situation of his ship. His eye was at the instant fixed anxiously on
the slaver, as if it would pierce the treacherous calm which still reigned
on all about her, in order to know how far his exertions might be
permitted to be useful. But it appeared as if the stranger lay like some
enchanted vessel on the water, not a human form even appearing about all
her complicated machinery, except the seaman already named, who still
continued his employment, as though the "Caroline" was not within a
hundred miles of the place where he sat. The lips of Wilder moved: it
might be in bitterness; it might be in satisfaction; for, a smile of the
most equivocal nature lighted his features, as he continued, in the same
deep, commanding voice as before,--
"Throw all aback--lay every thing flat to the masts, forward and aft."
"Ay!" echoed the pilot, "lay every thing flat to the masts."
"Is there a shove-boat alongside the ship?" demanded our adventurer.
The answer, from a dozen voices, was in the affirmative.
"Show that pilot into her."
"This is an unlawful order," exclaimed the other, "and I forbid any voice
but mine to be obeyed."
"_Throw_ him in," sternly repeated Wilder.
Amid the bustle and exertion of bracing round the yards, the resistance of
the pilot produced little or no sensation. He was soon raised on the
extended arms of the two mates; and, after exhibiting his limbs in sundry
contortions in the air, he was dropped into the boat, with as little
ceremony as though he had been a billet of wood. The end of the painter
was cast after him; and then the discomfited guide was left, with singular
indifference, to his own meditations.
In the mean time, the order of Wilder had been executed. Those vast sheets
of canvas which, a moment before, had been either fluttering in the air,
or were bellying inward or outward, as they touched or filled, as it is
technically called, were now all pressing against their respective masts,
impelling the vessel to retrace her mistaken path. The manoeuvre required
the utmost attention, and the nicest delicacy in its direction. But her
young Commander proved himself, in every particular, competent to his
task. Here, a sail was lifted; there, another was brought with a flatter
surface to the air; now, the lighter canvas was spread; and now it
disappeared, like thin vapour suddenly dispelled by the sun. The voice of
Wilder, throughout, though calm, was breathing with authority. The ship
itself seemed, like an animated being, conscious that her destinies were
reposed in different, and more intelligent, hands than before. Obedient to
the new impulse they had received the immense cloud of canvas, with all
its tall forest of spars and rigging, rolled to and fro; and then, having
overcome the state of comparative rest in which it had been lying, the
vessel heavily yielded to the pressure, and began to recede.
Throughout the whole of the time necessary to extricate the "Caroline,"
the attention of Wilder was divided between his own ship and his
inexplicable neighbour. Not a sound was heard to issue from the imposing
and death-like stillness of the latter. Not a single anxious countenance,
not even one lurking eye, was to be detected, at any of the numerous
outlets by which the inmates of an armed vessel can look abroad upon the
deep. The seaman on the yard continued his labour, like a man unconscious
of any thing but his own existence. There however, a slow, though nearly
imperceptible, motion in the ship itself, which was apparently made, like
the lazy movement of a slumbering whale, more by listless volition, than
through any agency of human hands.
Not the smallest of these changes escaped the keen and understanding
examination of Wilder. He saw that, as his own ship retired, the side of
the slaver was gradually exposed to the "Caroline." The muzzles of the
threatening guns gaped constantly on his vessel, as the eye of the
crouching tiger follows the movement of its prey; and at no time, while
nearest, did there exist a single instant that the decks of the latter
ship could not have been swept, by a general discharge from the battery of
the former. At each successive order issued from his own lips, our
adventurer turned his eye, with increasng interest, to ascertain whether
he would be permitted to execute it; and never did he feel certain that he
was left to the sole management of the "Caroline" until he found that she
had backed from her dangerous proximity to the other; and that, obedient
to a new disposition of her sails, she was falling off, before the light
air, in a place where he could hold her entirely at command.
Finding that the tide was getting unfavourable and the wind too light to
stem it, the sails were then drawn to her yards in festoons, and an anchor
was dropped to the bottom.