For Love of Country: A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution, Brady [acx book reading .TXT] 📗

any place else, and truer in a chase, too; a thousand things may help us or hinder her. See, we are going better now that the reefs are out and the topgallantsails set. But it's a fearful strain on our spars. They look new—pray God they be good ones," he continued, gazing over the side at the masses of green water tossed aside from the bows and sweeping aft under the counter in great swirls.

The spars and rigging of the Mellish were indeed fearfully tested, the masts buckling and bending like a strained bow. The wind was freshening every moment, and there was the promise of a gale in the lowering sky of the gray afternoon. The ship felt the increased pressure from the additional sail which had been made, and her speed had materially increased, though she rolled and pitched frightfully, wallowing through the water and smashing into the waves with her broad, fat bows, and making rather heavy weather of it. In spite of all this, however, the chase gained slowly upon them, until she was now visible to the naked eye from the decks of the Mellish. Seymour, full of anxiety, tried every expedient that his thorough seamanship and long experience could dictate to accelerate the speed of his ship,—rather a sluggish vessel at best, and now, heavily laden, slower than ever. The stream anchors were cut away, and then one of the bowers also; all the boats, save one, the smallest, were scuttled and cast adrift; purchases were got on all the sheets and halliards, and the sails hauled flat as boards, and kept well wetted down; some of the water tanks were pumped out, to alter the trim and lighten her; the bulwarks and rails partly cut away, and, as a final resort, the maintopmast studdingsail was set, but the boom broke at the iron and the whole thing went adrift in a few moments. Talbot, anxious to do something, suggested the novel expedient of breaking out a field-piece from the fore hold and mounting it on the quarter-deck to use as a stern-chaser. This had been done, but the frigate was yet too far away for it to be of any service.

In spite of all these efforts, they were being overhauled slowly, but Seymour still held on and did not despair. There was one chance of escape. Right before them, not a half league away, lay a long shoal known as George's Shoal, extending several leagues across the path of the two ships; through the middle of this dangerous shoal there existed a channel, narrow and tortuous, but still practicable for ships of a certain size. He was familiar with its windings, as was Bentley, as they both had examined it carefully in the previous summer with a view to just such a contingency as now occurred. The Mellish was a large and clumsy ship, heavily laden, and drawing much water, but he felt confident that he could take her through the pass. At any rate the attempt was worth making, and if he did fail, it would be better to wreck her, he thought, than allow her to be recaptured. The English captain either knew or did not know of the shoal and the channel. If he knew it, he would have to make a long detour, for in no case would the depth of water in the pass permit a heavy ship as was the pursuing vessel to follow them; and, aided by the darkness rapidly closing down, the Mellish would be enabled to escape.

If the English captain were a new man on the station, and unacquainted with the existence of the shoal, as was most likely—well, then he was apt to lose his ship and all on board of her, if he chased too far and too hard. The problem resolved itself into this: if the Mellish could maintain her distance from the pursuer until it was necessary to come by the wind for a short tack, and still have sufficient space and time left to enable her to run up to the mouth of the channel without being sunk, or forced to strike by the batteries of the frigate, they might escape; if not—God help them all! thought Seymour, desperately, for in that event he resolved to run the vessel on the rocky edge of the shoal at the pass mouth and sink her.

They were rapidly drawing down upon the shoal at the point from which they must come by the wind, on the starboard tack. Some far-away lights on Cape Cod had just been lighted, which enabled Seymour to get his bearing exactly. He had talked the situation over quietly with Bentley, and they had not yet lost hope of escaping. The men had worked hard and faithfully, carrying out the various orders and lightening ship, and now, having done all, some few were lying about the deck resting, while the remainder hung over the rails gazing at their pursuer. One of the men, the sea philosopher Thompson, of the Ranger's crew, finally went aft to the quarter-deck to old Bentley, who was privileged to stand there under the circumstances, and asked if he might have a look through the glass for a moment at the frigate.

CHAPTER XVI

'Twixt Love and Duty

"Ay, it's as I thought," he remarked, returning the glass after a long gaze; "that's the Radnor, curse her!"

"The Radnor, mate? Are you quite sure?"

"Bosun, does a man live in a hell like that for a year and a half, and forget how it looks? I 'd know her among a thousand ships!"

"What's that you say, my man?" eagerly asked Seymour, stopping suddenly, having caught some part of the conversation as he was passing by.

"Why, that that 'ere ship is the Radnor, sir."

Talbot and his men were busy with the gun aft; no one heard but Seymour and Bentley.

"The Radnor! How do you know it, man?"

"I served aboard her for eighteen months, sir. I knows every line of her,—that there spliced fore shroud, the patch in the mainsail,—I put it on myself,—besides, I know her; I don't know how, but know her I do, every stick in her. Curse her—saving your honor's presence—I 'm not likely to forget her. I was whipped at the grating till I was nearly dead, just for standing up for this country, on board of her, and me a freeborn American too! I 've got her sign manual on my back, and her picture here, and I 'd give all the rest of my life to see her smashed and sunk, and feel that I 'd had some hand in the doing of it. Ay, I know her. Could a man ever forget her!" continued the seaman, turning away white with passion, and shaking his fist in convulsive rage at the frigate, which made a handsome picture in spite of all. Seymour's face was as white as Thompson's was.

"The Radnor! The Radnor! Why, that's the ship Miss Wilton is on. Oh, Bentley, what can be done now?" he said, the whole situation rising before him. "If we lead that ship through the pass it means wreck for her. Dacres, who commands the Radnor, is a new man on this station. And if we don't try the pass, this ship is captured. And our country, our cause, receives a fatal blow! Was ever a man in such a situation before?"

Bentley looked at him with eyes full of pity. "We are approaching the shoal now, sir, and unless we would be on it, we will have to bring the ship by the wind at once."

This, at least, was a respite. Seymour glanced ahead, and at once gave the necessary orders. When the course was altered it became necessary to take in the fore and main topgallantsails, on account of the wind, now blowing a half gale and steadily rising. The speed of the ship, therefore, was unfortunately sensibly diminished, and she was soon pitching and heaving on the starboard tack, much to the astonishment of Talbot and the crew, who were ignorant of the existence of the shoal, and the latter of whom could see no necessity for the dangerous alteration in the course; they, however, of course said nothing, and Talbot, whose ignorance of seamanship did not qualify him to decide difficult questions, after a glance at Seymour's stern, pale face, decided to ask nothing about it. This present course being at right angles to that of their pursuer, whom neither Seymour nor Bentley doubted to be the Radnor, would speedily bring the two ships together. They had gained a small but precious advantage, however, as the frigate, apparently as much surprised by the unexpected manoeuvre as their own men, had allowed some moments to elapse before her helm was shifted and the wind brought on the other quarter; the courses of the two ships now intersected at an angle of perhaps seventy degrees, which would bring them together in a short time.

The people on the Mellish could plainly hear the drums of the frigate, now almost in range, beating to quarters. They were near enough to count the gunports; it was indeed a heavy frigate,—a thirty-six, just the rating of the Radnor. Talbot had made ready his field-piece, and in a moment the heavy boom of the gun echoed over the waters. The shot fell a little short, but was in good line. Much encouraged, the men hastened to load the piece again, while the Mellish crept along, all too slowly for the eager anxiety of her crew, toward the mouth of the channel, of which most of them, however, knew nothing. The frigate, partly because in order to bring a gun to bear on the chase it would have to luff up into the wind and thus lose valuable distance, and also because the rapidity with which the Mellish was being overhauled rendered it unnecessary, had hitherto refrained from using its batteries. The chances of escape under the present conditions were about even, had it not been for the complication introduced by the presence of Katharine and her father upon the frigate.

Seymour was in a painful and frightful state of indecision. What should he do? The dilemma forced upon him was one of those which Katharine had foreseen, and of which they had talked together. He, apparently, must decide between his love and his country. If he held on when he reached the mouth of the channel and passed it by, the capture of the ship was absolutely inevitable. If he went through the channel and enticed the English ship after him, the death of his sweetheart was likewise apparently inevitable.

Chasing with the determination shown by the English captain, who had his topgallantsails still set, and with the little warning he would have of the existence of the shoal, owing to the rapid closing of the day, the frigate would have to attempt the channel, and in that way for that ship lay destruction.

Save Katharine— Lose the ship. Save the ship— Lose Katharine. Love or Duty—which should it be? The man was attacked in the two most powerful sources of human action. He saw on one side Katharine tossed about by the merciless waves, white-faced with terror, and stretching out her hands to him in piteous appeal from that angry sea in the horror of darkness and death. And every voice which spoke to the human heart was eloquent of her. And then on the other side there stood those grim and frozen ranks, those gaunt, hungry, naked men. They too stretched out hands to him. "Give us arms, give us raiment," they seemed to say. "You had the opportunity and you threw it away for love. What's love—to liberty?"

And every incentive which awakens the soul of honor in men appealed to him then. Behind him stood the destinies of a great people, the fate of a great cause; on him they trusted, upon his honor they had depended, and before him stood one woman. He saw her again as he had seen her before on the top of the hill on that memorable night in Virginia. What had she said?—

"If I stood in the pathway of liberty for one single instant, I should despise the man who would not sweep me aside without a moment's hesitation."

Oh, Katharine, Katharine, he groaned in spirit, pressing