style="font-size:15px;"> CHAPTER IV
THE NEWS FROM TRENTON
"What is it, Sam?"
"I guess, Lyme, we'd better hold on a bit. The fort lookout sends word that a British cruiser's in sight, off the harbor."
Sam Prentice was in a rowboat, just reaching the side of the Noank, and his commander was leaning over the rail.
"I'd like to send a shot at her," he said. "None o' those ten-gun brigs, if it's one o' them, carry long guns or heavy ones."
"Can't say," replied Sam. "Maybe it's a bigger feller. He won't dare to run in under the battery guns, anyhow. He can't look into the harbor."
"I wish he would," laughed the captain. "If he's goin' to try a game of tackin' off and on, and watchin', though, we must make out to run past him in the night."
"We mustn't be stuck any longer here," said Sam. "Are all the crew aboard?"
"All but you," was the reply. "Send your boat ashore. We'll find out what she is. I won't let any single cruiser keep me cooped up in port, now my powder and shot's found for me. We'll up anchor, Sam."
The first mate of the Noank, for such he was to be, came over the rail, and his boat was pulled shoreward.
"Isn't she fine!" he said, as he glanced admiringly around him. "We're in good fightin' order, Lyme."
"Sam," said the captain, "just study those timbers, will ye. Only heavy shot'd do any great harm to our bulwarks. I had her built the very strongest kind. Now! Some o' the new British craft are said to be light timbered, even for rough weather. Their own sailors hate 'em, and we can take their judgment of 'em."
"It's likely to be good," said Sam. "What a British able seaman doesn't know 'bout his own ship, isn't worth knowin'."
Further talk indicated that they both held high opinions of the mariners of England. Against them, as individuals, the war had not aroused any ill feeling. There was, indeed, among intelligent Americans, a very general perception that King George's war against his transatlantic subjects was anything but popular with the great mass of the overtaxed English people. It was a pity, a great pity, that stupid, bad management and recklessly tyrannical statesmanship, in a sort of combination with needless military severities, had done so much to foster hatred and provoke revenge. It was true, too, although all Americans did not know or did not appreciate it, that their side of the controversy had been ably set forth in the Parliament of Great Britain by prominent and patriotic Englishmen, such as Chatham and Colonel Barre.
The old whaler Noank, of New London, however, had now become an American war vessel. Her crew and her commander were compelled, henceforth, to regard as enemies the captains and the crews of all vessels, armed or unarmed, carrying the red-cross flag instead of the stars and stripes.
"I tell you what, Sam," remarked Captain Avery, at last, "I wish we had news from New York and from Washington's army. The latest we heard of him and the boys made things look awfully dark."
"Don't let yourself git too down in the mouth!" replied Sam. "I guess the sun'll shine ag'in, Sunday. It's a long lane that has no turnin'. Washington's an old Indian fighter. He's likely to turn on 'em, sudden and unexpected, like a redskin on a trail that's been followed too closely."
"It won't do to go after a Mohawk too far into the woods, sometimes," growled Avery. "Not onless you're willin' to risk a shot from a bush. Now, do you know, I wish I knew, too, what's been the dealin' of the British admirals with Luke Watts, for losin' the Windsor. We owe that man a good deal, – we do!"
"They won't hurt him," said Sam. "It wasn't any fault o' his'n."
In some such manner, all over the country, men and women were comforting themselves, under the shadow of death which seemed to have settled down over the cause of American independence. They knew that the Continental army was shattered. It was destitute, freezing, starving, and it was said to be dwindling away.
Somewhere, however, among the ragged tents and miserable huts of its winter quarters, was a man who had shown himself so superior to other men that in him there was still a hope. From him something unexpected and startling might come at any hour.
As for Luke Watts, formerly the skipper of the British supply ship Windsor, now a prize in New London harbor, Captain Avery and his mate spoke again of him and of the difficulties into which he might have fallen. Possibly it would have done them good to have been near enough to see and hear him at that very hour of the day.
A good longboat, with a strong crew anxious to make time and get into a warmer place, had had only a short run of it from New London to New York. Here was Luke, therefore, in the cabin of a British seventy-four, standing before a gloomy-faced party of naval officers. With him were his mate, Brackett, and several of the sailors of the Windsor. It was evident that her loss had been inquired into, and that all the testimonies had been given. If this was to be considered as a kind of naval court martial, it was as ready as it ever would be to declare its verdict.
"Gentlemen," said the burly post-captain who appeared to be the ranking officer, "it's a bad affair! We needed that ammunition. Even the land forces are running so short that movements are hindered. If, however, we are to find fault with any man, we must censure the captain of the Cleopatra. This man Watts is proved to have gone into the Sound against his will and protest. I am glad that the rebels did not hang him. His recorded judgment of the danger to be encountered was entirely correct. Watts, I shall want you to pilot home one of our empty troop-ships."
"I know her, sir," replied Luke, promptly. "I beg to say no, sir. Not unless she has twice the ballast that's in her now. I'd like permission to say a word more, sir."
"Speak out! What is it?"
"A ten-gun brig in the Sound can't catch that New London pirate – "
"The Boxer is cruising around that station," interrupted the captain. "She's a clipper to go."
"No use," said Luke, shaking his head. "The old whaler'll get away."
"What would you do, then?" roughly demanded another officer.
"A strong corvette, or two of 'em, off Point Judith and Montauk, to catch her as she runs out," said Luke. "She'll fight any small vessel. She carries a splendid pivot-gun, and she has six long sixes. She will be handled by prime seamen."
"Gentlemen," remarked the captain, "I agree with him. We have found the advice of this man Watts to be correct in every case. I believe he is right, now. We must do as he says or that pirate, perhaps others with her, will escape us. I will put him in charge of the Termagant. I'll feel safer about her, if she is sailed home by a man with a rebel rope around his neck."
There was a general expression of assent, and then Watts spoke again.
"I want Brackett, if I can have him," he said. "I never had a better mate. There's fight in him, too."
"You may have him," he was told, and several of the officers present expressed their great regret that so many impressed American seamen had been ironed by Captain Avery and compelled to escape from a return to man-of-war duty. They ought never to have been detailed, it was asserted.
"We can't hang 'em for desertion," they said, half jocularly. "All we could do, if we caught them, would be to set them at work again."
Nevertheless, four of these escaped men were now voluntarily
