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.”
“Sounds! I hear no sounds, boy, but the flapping aloft; even that pilot, who struts the quarter-deck like an admiral, has nothing to say.”
“Is not that a sound to open a seaman’s ear?”
“It is in truth a heavy roll of the surf, lad, but the night air carries it heavily to our ears. Know you not the sounds of the surf yet, younker?”
“I know it too well, Mr. Griffith, and do not wish to know it better. How fast are we tumbling in towards that surf, sir?”
“I think we hold our own,” said Griffith, rousing again; “though we had better anchor. Luff, fellow, luff – you are broadside to the sea!”
The man at the wheel repeated his former intelligence, adding a suggestion, that he thought the ship “was gathering stern way.”
“Haul up your courses, Mr. Griffith,” said Captain Munson, “and let us feel the wind.”
The rattling of the blocks was soon heard, and the enormous sheets of canvas that hung from the lower yards were instantly suspended “in the brails.” When this change was effected, all on board stood silent and breathless, as if expecting to learn their fate by the result. Several contradictory opinions were, at length, hazarded among the officers, when Griffith seized the candle from the lantern, and springing on one of the guns, held it on high, exposed to the action of the air. The little flame waved, with uncertain glimmering, for a moment, and then burned steadily, in a line with the masts. Griffith was about to lower his extended arm, when, feeling a slight sensation of coolness on his hand, he paused, and the light turned slowly toward the land, flared, flickered, and finally deserted the wick.
“Lose not a moment, Mr. Griffith,” cried the pilot aloud; “clew up and furl everything but your three topsails, and let them be double-reefed. Now is the time to fulfill your promise.”
The young man paused one moment, in astonishment, as the clear, distinct tones of the stranger struck his ears so unexpectedly; but turning his eyes to seaward, he sprang on the deck, and proceeded to obey the order, as if life and death depended on his dispatch.
Chapter V
“She rights! she rights, boys! ware off shore!”
The extraordinary activity of Griffith, which communicated itself with promptitude to the crew, was produced by a sudden alteration in the weather. In place of the well-defined streak along the horizon, that has been already described, an immense body of misty light appeared to be moving in, with rapidity, from the ocean, while a distinct but distant roaring announced the sure approach of the tempest that had so long troubled the waters. Even Griffith, while thundering his orders through the trumpet, and urging the men, by his cries, to expedition, would pause, for instants, to cast anxious glances in the direction of the coming storm; and the faces of the sailors who lay on the yards were turned, instinctively, towards the same quarter of the heavens, while they knotted the reef-points, or passed the gaskets that were to confine the unruly canvas to the prescribed limits.
The pilot alone, in that confused and busy throng, where voice rose above voice, and cry echoed cry, in quick succession, appeared as if he held no interest in the important stake. With his eye steadily fixed on the approaching mist, and his arms folded together in composure, he stood calmly waiting the result.
The ship had fallen off, with her broadside to the sea, and was become unmanageable, and the sails were already brought into the folds necessary to her security, when the quick and heavy fluttering of canvas was thrown across the water, with all the gloomy and chilling sensations that such sounds produce, where darkness and danger unite to appall the seaman.
“The schooner has it!” cried Griffith: “Barnstable has held on, like himself, to the last moment. – God send that the squall leave him cloth enough to keep him from the shore!”
“His sails are easily handled,” the commander observed, “and she must be over the principal danger. We are falling off before it, Mr. Gray; shall we try a cast of the lead?”
The pilot turned from his contemplative posture, and moved slowly across the deck before he returned any reply to this question – like a man who not only felt that everything depended on himself, but that he was equal to the emergency.
“’Tis unnecessary,” he at length said; “’twould be certain destruction to be taken aback; and it is difficult to say, within several points, how the wind may strike us.”
“’Tis difficult no longer,” cried Griffith; “for here it comes, and in right earnest!”
The rushing sounds of the wind were now, indeed, heard at hand; and the words were hardly past the lips of the young lieutenant, before the vessel bowed down heavily to one side, and then, as she began to move through the water, rose again majestically to her upright position, as if saluting, like a courteous champion, the powerful antagonist with which she was about to contend. Not another minute elapsed, before the ship was throwing the waters aside, with a lively progress, and, obedient to her helm, was brought as near to the desired course as the direction of the wind would allow. The hurry and bustle on the yards gradually subsided, and the men slowly descended to the deck, all straining their eyes to pierce the gloom in which they were enveloped, and some shaking their heads, in melancholy doubt, afraid to express the apprehensions they really entertained. All on board anxiously waited for the fury of the gale; for there were none so ignorant or inexperienced in that gallant frigate, as not to know that as yet they only felt the infant effects of the wind. Each moment, however, it increased in power, though so gradual was the alteration, that the relieved mariners began to believe that all their gloomy forebodings were not to be realized. During this short interval of uncertainty, no other sounds were heard than the whistling of the breeze, as it passed quickly through the mass of rigging that belonged to the vessel, and the dashing of the spray that began to fly from her bows, like the foam of a cataract.
“It blows fresh,” cried Griffith, who was the first to speak in that moment of doubt and anxiety; “but it is no more than a capful of wind after all. Give us elbow-room, and the right canvas, Mr. Pilot, and I’ll handle the ship like a gentleman’s yacht, in this breeze.”
“Will she stay, think ye, under this sail?” said the low voice of the stranger.
“She will do all that man, in reason, can ask of wood and iron,” returned the lieutenant; “but the vessel don’t float the ocean that will tack under double-reefed topsails
