The Water-Witch, James Fenimore Cooper [good ebook reader TXT] 📗

What You Will.

From the moment when the Coquette fired her first gun, to the moment when the retiring boats became invisible, was just twenty minutes. Of this time, less than half had been occupied by the incidents related, in the ship. Short as it was in truth, it seemed to all engaged but an instant. The alarm was over, the sound of the oars had ceased, and still the survivors stood at their posts, as if expecting the attack to be renewed. Then came those personal thoughts, which had been suspended in the fearful exigency of such a struggle. The wounded began to feel their pain, and to be sensible of the danger of their injuries; while the few, who had escaped unhurt, turned a friendly care on their shipmates. Ludlow as often happens with the bravest and most exposed, had escaped without a scratch; but he saw by the drooping forms around him, which were no longer sustained by the excitement of battle, that his triumph was dearly purchased.

"Send Mr. Trysail to me;" he said, in a tone that had little of a victor's exultation. "The land breeze has made, and we will endeavor to improve it, and get inside the cape, lest the morning light give us more of these Frenchmen."

The order for 'Mr. Trysail!' 'the captain calls the master!' passed in a low call from mouth to mouth, but it was unanswered. A seaman told the expecting young commander, that the surgeon desired his presence forward. A gleaming of lights and a little group at the foot of the fore-mast, was a beacon not to be mistaken. The weatherbeaten master was in the agony; and his medical attendant had just risen from a fruitless examination of his wounds, as Ludlow approached.

"I hope the hurt is not serious?" hurriedly whispered the alarmed young sailor to the surgeon, who was coolly collecting his implements, in order to administer to some more promising subject. "Neglect nothing that your art can suggest."

"The case is desperate, Captain Ludlow," returned the phlegmatic surgeon; "but if you have a taste for such things, there is as beautiful a case for amputation promised in the fore-topman whom I have had sent below, as offers once in a whole life of active practice!"

"Go, go—" interrupted Ludlow, half pushing the unmoved man of blood away, as he spoke; "go, then, where your services are needed."

The other cast a glance around him, reproved his attendant, in a sharp tone, for unnecessarily exposing the blade of some ferocious-looking instrument to the dew, and departed.

"Would to God, that some portion of these injuries had befallen those who are younger and stronger!" murmured the captain, as he leaned over the dying master. "Can I do aught to relieve thy mind, my old and worthy shipmate?"

"I have had my misgivings, since we have dealt with witchcraft!" returned Trysail, whose voice the rattling of the throat had already nearly silenced "I have had misgivings—but no matter. Take care of the ship—I have been thinking of our people—you'll have to cut—they can never lift the anchor—the wind is here at north."

"All this is ordered. Trouble thyself no further about the vessel; she shall be taken care of, I promise you.—Speak of thy wife, and of thy wishes in England."

"God bless Mrs. Trysail! She'll get a pension, and I hope contentment! You must give the reef a good, berth, in rounding Montauk—and you'll naturally wish to find the anchors again, when the coast is clear—if you can find it in your conscience, say a good word of poor old Ben Trysail, in the dispatches—"

The voice of the master sunk to a whisper, and became inaudible. Ludlow thought he strove to speak again, and he bent his ear to his mouth.

"I say—the weather-main-swifter and both backstays are gone; Look to the spars, for—for—there are sometimes—heavy puffs at night—in the Americas!"

The last heavy respiration succeeded, after which came the long silence of death. The body was removed to the poop, and Ludlow, with a saddened heart, turned to duties that this accident rendered still more imperative.

Notwithstanding the heavy loss, and the originally weakened state of her crew, the sails of the Coquette were soon spread, and the ship moved away in silence; as if sorrowing for those who had fallen at her anchorage. When the vessel was fairly in motion, her captain ascended to the poop, in order to command a clearer view of all around him, as well as to profit by the situation to arrange his plans for the future. He found he had been anticipated by the free-trader.

"I owe my ship—I may say my life, since in such a conflict they would have gone together, to thy succor!" said the young commander, as he approached the motionless form of the smuggler. "Without it, Queen Anne would have lost a cruiser, and the flag of England a portion of its well-earned glory."

"May thy royal mistress prove as ready to remember her friends, in emergencies, as mine. In good truth, there was little time to lose, and trust me, we well understood the extremity. If we were tardy, it was because whale-boats were to be brought from a distance; for the land lies between my brigantine and the sea."

"He who came so opportunely, and acted so well, needs no apology."

"Captain Ludlow, are we friends?"

"It cannot be otherwise. All minor considerations must be lost in such a service. If it is your intention to push this illegal trade further, on the coast, I must seek another station."

"Not so.—Remain, and do credit to your flag, and the land of your birth. I have long thought that this is the last time the keel of the Water-Witch will ever plow the American seas. Before I quit you, I would have an interview with the merchant. A worse man might have fallen, and just now even a better man might be spared. I hope no harm has come to him?"

"He has shown the steadiness of his Holland lineage, to-day. During the boarding, he was useful and cool."

"It is well. Let the Alderman be summoned to the deck, for my time is limited, and I have much to say,——-"

The Skimmer paused, for at that moment a fierce light glared upon the ocean, the ship, and all in it. The two seamen gazed at each other in silence and both recoiled, as men recede before an unexpected and fearful attack. But a bright and wavering light, which rose out of the forward hatch of the vessel explained all. At the same moment, the deep stillness which, since the bustle of making sail had ceased, pervaded the ship, was broken by the appalling cry of "Fire!"

The alarm which brings the blood in the swiftest current to a seaman's heart, was now heard in the depths of the vessel. The smothered sounds below, the advancing uproar, and the rush on deck, with the awful summons in the open air, succeeded each other with the rapidity of lightning. A dozen voices repeated the word 'the grenade!' proclaiming in a breath both the danger and the cause. But an instant before, the swelling canvas, the dusky spars, and the faint lines of the cordage, were only to be traced by the glimmering light of the stars; and now the whole hamper of the ship was the more conspicuous, from the obscure back-ground against which it was drawn in distinct lines. The sight was fearfully beautiful;—beautiful, for it showed the symmetry and fine outlines of the vessel's rig, resembling the effect of a group of statuary seen by torch-light,—and fearful, since the dark void beyond seemed to declare their isolated and helpless state.

There was one breathless, eloquent moment, in which all were seen gazing at the grand spectacle in mute awe,—and then a voice rose, clear, distinct, and commanding, above the sullen sound of the torrent of fire, which was roaring among the avenues of the ship.

"Call all hands to extinguish fire! Gentlemen, to your stations. Be cool, men; and be silent!"

There was a calmness and an authority in the tones of the young commander, that curbed the impetuous feelings of the startled crew. Accustomed to obedience, and trained to order, each man broke out of his trance, and eagerly commenced the discharge of his allotted duty. At that instant, an erect and unmoved form stood on the combings of the main hatch. A hand was raised in the air, and the call, which came from the deep chest, was like that of one used to speak in the tempest.

"Where are my brigantines?" it said—"Come away there, my sea-dogs; wet the light sails, and follow!"

A group of grave and submissive