On The Blockade, Oliver Optic [best affordable ebook reader txt] 📗

but simply uttered, the language was not all well chosen," replied Christy, laughing in spite of all his attempts to maintain his dignity. "The fact is, Mr. Flint, I had too many listeners when I read the paper before."

"There was no one in the cabin but Mr. Baskirk and myself, and Dave had been stationed at the door; or at least he was there, for he beckoned you out into the gangway just as you were beginning to read the orders," argued Flint. "Possibly I should have understood the first reading better if I had not seen for myself that you had taken all precautions against any listener. You went out when Dave called you; but you were not gone half a minute; and that was not long enough for the steward to spin any long yarn."

"But it was long enough for Dave to tell me that Pink Mulgrum was under my berth, with the state room door open," replied Christy.

"Just so; I comprehend the whole matter now," said Flint, joining the captain in the laugh.

"Now you know what my instructions are, gentlemen," continued the commander, "and I 140 hope and believe that Mr. Lillyworth and his right hand man do not know them. I think you have been already posted, Mr. Baskirk, in regard to the anomalous state of affairs on board of the Bronx," added the captain.

"Not fully, Captain Passford; but Mr. Flint has told me something about the situation," replied the third lieutenant.

"It may not be necessary, gentlemen, that I should say it, but not a word of what passes in my cabin is to be repeated in any other part of the ship; not even in the ward room when you believe you are entirely alone," said the captain, very earnestly and impressively. "If the doors and keyholes do not have ears, there may be ears behind them, as some of us have learned to our entire satisfaction."

"Not a word from me, Captain Passford," added Baskirk.

"And not one from me," repeated Flint.

"Unquestionably the curiosity of Mr. Lillyworth and his confederate are and will continue to be excited to the highest pitch," continued Christy. "I shall have occasion to change the course of the ship, and head her more to the eastward. 141 Of course the second lieutenant will observe this, and will understand that I am not following the orders reported to him by Mulgrum. You are my only confidants on board, and it will be necessary for you to refer Mr. Lillyworth to me when he asks for further information."

"Perfectly understood," replied Flint, who was now in most excellent humor.

"Now, gentlemen, I will leave you in my cabin that Mr. Baskirk may be more fully instructed in regard to the matters which have passed between Mr. Flint and myself. I have great expectations in regard to you, Mr. Baskirk, and I am confident that you will realize them."

Saying this, Christy bowed to his companions, and left the cabin, retiring to his state room and closing the door. He had on board a full supply of charts and nautical instruments of his own, in addition to those belonging to the ship. Spreading out the chart of the South Atlantic on the desk, he went to work with his dividers and parallel rule. He made his figures on a piece of paper, and then laid off a course on the chart with a pencil, to be deepened in red ink at another time.

142 Writing "southeast by east" on a slip of paper, he restored his charts and instruments to their places and left the state room. The two lieutenants were still in his cabin, but he did not disturb them and went on deck. Before he reached the bridge, six bells struck, or three o'clock in the afternoon. He then ascended the ladder to the bridge. The fog which the second lieutenant had predicted had not yet enveloped the ship; on the contrary, it looked more like clearing off, and some patches of blue sky could be seen.

"Mr. Lillyworth, you will make the course southeast by east," said Christy, looking at the officer of the deck.

"Southeast by east!" exclaimed the second lieutenant; and his remark needed an exclamation point after it, for though it was customary to repeat an order to make sure that it was understood, he did so in such a tone and in such a manner as to manifest very clearly his astonishment at the nature of the order. The former course had been south by west.

One thing was fully evident from this surprise—that the officer of the deck gave full faith to the 143 bogus instructions which had been imparted to him by Mulgrum. He believed that the Bronx was to hasten to the Gulf, as the former course indicated. It was plain enough to Lillyworth that the captain was disregarding his instructions; but his lips were sealed in regard to this disobedience, for he could not indicate in any manner that he knew the purport of the sealed orders; and doubtless it did not occur to him that the deaf mute had been blinded, in addition to his other infirmities. The course was given out to the quartermaster at the wheel. The steamer promptly fell off, and began to ride quartering over the smart billows, brought out by the wind from the south-southwest, as it had blown for the last hour or more.

Christy believed that he had put everything in train for accomplishing the mission of the Bronx on the new course he had just ordered. There were no more orders to be read, and he did not see that the conspirators could do anything more to derange the plans of the loyal officers and seamen on board. All they had attempted so far was to obtain information in regard to the movements of the vessel; and Christy had taken care 144 that they should receive all the information they wanted, though not as reliable as it might have been. He was satisfied with the situation as it must remain till some decided event should call for energetic action.

The captain and the two ward-room officers in his confidence were obliged to conduct themselves with the utmost caution and discretion in order not to undo anything which had been done in blinding the eyes of the conspirators. Christy had an abundance of writing to do, and it was of a kind that would not betray any of his secrets; he called upon Mulgrum to do this work, in order to keep up appearances. He did not call any more conferences with his friends in the cabin, for there was no need of any, and entire silence was the more prudent.

The Bronx proceeded on the course the captain had given out until the twentieth of the month, when the steamer was a little to the southward of the Bermudas. She had not been near enough to the islands to be made out from the shore. On this day, when the Bronx was three days from Sandy Hook, the fog which Mr. Lillyworth had been predicting settled down on the steamer, not 145 as dense as it might be, but thick enough to prevent those on board of her from seeing anything at any great distance from her. The second lieutenant, in charge of the deck, suggested to the captain that the whistle should be blown; but Christy answered very emphatically that no whistles were to be blown; though he ordered the lookouts to be doubled, and the steamer to proceed at half speed.

In the middle of the second dog watch, in charge of Mr. Baskirk, the lookout on the topsail yard made himself heard, and the others aloft repeated the call.

"Sail on the starboard bow, sir!" said the first lookout from the yard, hailing the bridge.

Captain Passford heard the hail from aloft, for he was planking the deck with the first lieutenant. Both of them rushed forward at a pace rather undignified for a commander.

"Silence, aloft!" shouted the captain. "We have made her out. Mr. Flint, you will take the deck, and call all hands without any unnecessary noise."

This order was given to Giblock, the boatswain, and in a minute or two every man on board was in 146 his station. The first lieutenant remained on the bridge, but the second took his place in the waist, and the third forward, though this arrangement of the officers was not sanctioned by ancient usage. Silence was commanded, and the engine, working at half speed, made hardly any noise. The captain had spoken to Sampson, the chief engineer, and he had done his best to avoid all noise in his department.

The captain and the first lieutenant remained on the bridge, anxiously sighting in the direction in which the sail had been reported to be. As the captain had instructed the engineer to do, he had caused the fires to be reduced and a change of fuel used so that the smokestack of the Bronx was just beginning to send up volumes of black smoke. The bunkers contained a small portion of soft coal for this purpose.

147 CHAPTER XIII THE STEAMER IN THE FOG

The Bronx was slowly approaching the steamer in the fog, which appeared to have stopped her propeller, and to be resting motionless on the long swells, hardly disturbed by a breath of air. By this time the smokestack of the Bronx was vomiting forth dense clouds of black smoke. The steamers of the navy used anthracite coal, which burns without any great volume of smoke, and blockade runners had already begun to lay in whatever stock of it they were able to procure to be used as they approached the coast where they were to steal through the national fleet. The attention of the naval department of the United States had already been given to this subject, and the first steps had been taken to prevent the sale of this comparatively smokeless coal where it could be obtained by the blockade runners.

Christy had been on the blockade; and he had 148 been in action with a steamer from the other side of the ocean; and he knew that this black smoke of the soft coal, exclusively used by English steamers, was a telltale in regard to such vessels. It had been an idea of his own to take in a supply of this kind of fuel, for while its smoke betrayed the character of vessels intending to run the blockade, the absence of it betrayed the loyalty of the national steamers to the blockade runners. It was a poor rule that would not work both ways, and the commander of the Bronx had determined to adopt the scheme he had now put in force on board of his vessel. Although the craft on the starboard bow could hardly be distinguished in the fog, Christy had sent a trusty seaman aloft to report on the color of the smoke that issued from her funnel.

This man had reported by swinging his cap in the air, as the captain had instructed him to do if he found that the smoke was that of soft coal. If there was no black smoke, he was to return to the deck without making any sign. The moment therefore that the man had been able to see the quality of the smoke, the commander was made as wise as though he had seen it himself. The information 149 left him no doubt that the steamer was intended to run the blockade; but whether or not she was one of the expected pair, of course he could form no opinion, for already this part of the ocean had begun to swarm with vessels in this service.

"I am beginning to make her out a little better," said Flint, who had been straining his eyes to the utmost capacity, as everybody else on board was doing, to obtain the best and earliest information in regard to the stranger on the starboard bow.

"What do you make out, Mr. Flint?" asked Christy, who was too busily employed in watching the movements of the officers and seamen on his own deck to give especial attention to the character of the other steamer.

"I can't see well enough yet to say anything in regard to details," replied the first lieutenant. "I can only make out her form and size; and she seems to be as nearly like the Bronx as one pea is like another, though I should say that she was longer."

"Is she in motion?" asked the captain with interest.

"She appears to be at rest, though it is possible 150 that she is moving very slowly; but if she has not stopped her screw, she is not going more than four knots."

"You say that she is built like