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

die," said Seymour, grimly, amid a chorus of approving murmurs from the sailors, as he walked slowly along the lines, greeting men here and there with plain, bluff words of cheer, which brought smiles of pleasure to their stern, weather-beaten faces.

"Now, ain't he a beauty?" whispered the captain of number two gun to his second. "Blow me if 't ain't a pleasure to serve under sich a officer, and to die for him, too! Here is to a speedy fight and lots of damage to the Britisher," he cried loudly, lifting his pannikin of rum and water to his lips, amid a further chorus of approval.

Old Bentley was standing on the forecastle forward, looking earnestly at the approaching ship, when Seymour came up to him. The rest of the men, mindful of the peculiar relationship between the two, instinctively drew back a little, leaving them alone.

"Well, Bentley, our work is cut out for us there."

"Ay, Captain Seymour. I 'm thinking that this cruise will end right here for this ship—unless you strike, sir."

"Strike! Do you advise me to do so, then?"

"God forbid! Except it be with shot and these," said the old man, lifting an enormous cutlass, ground to a razor edge, which he had specially made for his own personal use in battle. "No, no; we 've got to fight him till he 's so damaged that he can't get at the rest. Do you see, sir, how the brig lags behind them?" he went on, pointing out toward the slowly escaping squadron. "The boy's got her luffed up so she makes no headway at all!"

"I know it. I have signalled to him twice to close with the rest—he can sail two feet to their one; but it is no use,—he pays no attention. He should n't have been given so responsible a command until he learned to obey orders," said Seymour, frowning.

"Let the boy alone, Master John; he 'll do all right," said Bentley; "he's the makings of a good sailorman and a fine officer in him. I 've watched him."

"Ha! there goes a shot from the liner," cried Seymour, as a puff of smoke broke out from the lee side followed by the dull boom of a cannon over the water, and then the flags rippled bravely out from the mastheads. "Well, we did not need that sort of an introduction. Aft there!" cried the captain, with his powerful voice.

"Sir."

"Show a British flag at the gaff. That will puzzle him for a while longer. Well, old friend, I must go aft. It's likely we won't both of us come out of this little affair alive, so good-by, and God bless you. You 've been a good friend to me, Bentley, ever since I was a child, and I doubt I 've requited you ill enough," he said, reaching forth his hand. The old sailor shifted his cutlass into his left hand, took off his hat, and grasped Seymour's hand with his own mighty palm.

"Ay, ever since you were a boy; and a properer sailor and a better officer don't walk the deck, if I do say it myself, as I 've had a hand in the making of you. But what you say is true, sir: we 'll probably most all of us go to Davy Jones' locker this trip; but we could n't go in a better way, and we won't go alone. God Almighty bless you, sir! I—" said the old seaman, breaking off suddenly and looking wistfully at the young man he loved, who, understanding it all, returned his gaze, wrung his hand, and then turned and sprang aft without another word.

The ships were rapidly closing, when Seymour's keen eye detected a dash of color and a bit of fluttering drapery on the poop of the line-of-battle ship. Wondering, he examined it through his glass.

"Why! 't is a woman," he exclaimed. Something familiar in the appearance made his heart give a sudden throb, but he put away the idea which came to him as preposterous; and then stepping forward to the break of the poop, he called out,—

"My lads, there is a woman on yon ship, on the poop, way aft. We don't fight with women; have a care, therefore, that none of you take deliberate aim at her, and spare that part of the deck where she stands in the fight, if you can. Pass the word along."

"Well, I 'm blessed," said one old gun captain, sotto voce, "be they come out against us with wimmen!"

The Randolph had the weather-gage of the Yarmouth by this time; and Seymour shifted his helm slightly, rounded in his braces a little, and ran down with the wind a little free and on a line parallel to the course of his enemy, but going in a different direction. He lifted the glass again to his eye, and looked long and earnestly at the woman's figure half hidden by the rail on the ship. Was it—could it be—indeed she? Was fate bringing them into opposition again? It was not possible. Trembling violently, he lifted the glass for a further investigation, when an officer, trumpet in hand, sprang upon the rail of the Yarmouth forward and hailed.

CHAPTER XXXVI

The Last of the Randolph

"Pass the word quietly," said Seymour, rapidly, to one of his young aids, "that when I say, 'Stand by to back the maintopsail,' the guns are to be fired. Bid the gun captains to train on the port-holes of the second tier of guns. Mind, no order to fire will be given except the words, 'Stand by to back the maintopsail.' The men are to fire at the word 'topsail.' Do you understand? Tell the division officers to hold up their hands, as a sign that they understand, as you pass along, so that I can see them. Lively now! Quartermaster, standby to haul down that flag and show our colors at the first shot."

The frigate was now rapidly drawing near the ship of the line, until, at the moment the officer hailed, the two ships were nearly alongside of each other. The awful disparity between their sizes was now painfully apparent.

"Ship ahoy! Ahoy the frigate!" came down a second time in long hollow tones through the trumpet from the officer balancing himself on the Yarmouth's rail by holding on to a back-stay. "Why don't you answer?"

"Ahoy the ship!" replied Seymour at last through his own trumpet.
"What ship is that?"

"His Britannic majesty's ship of the line, Yarmouth, Captain Vincent.
Who are you? Answer, or I will fire!"

The flying boom of the Randolph was just pointing past the Yarmouth's quarter, and the two ships were abreast each other; now, if ever, was the time for action.

"This is the American Continental ship, Randolph, Captain Seymour," cried the latter, through the trumpet, in a voice heard in every part of the ship of the line.

At least two hearts in the Yarmouth were powerfully affected by that announcement. Katharine's leaped within her bosom at the sound of her lover's voice, and beat madly while she revelled in thought in his proximity; and then as she noticed again the fearful odds with which he was apparently about to contend, her heart sank into the depths once more. In one second she thrilled with pride, quivered with love, trembled with despair. He was there—he was hers—he would be killed! She gripped the rail hard and clenched her teeth to keep from screaming aloud his name, while her gaze strained out upon his handsome figure. Pride, love, death,—an epitome of human life in that fleeting moment,—all were hers!

On the main-deck of the frigate the name carried consternation to Lieutenant Lord Desborough. So Seymour was alive again! Was that the end of my lord's chance? No. Joy! The rebel was under the guns of the battle-ship! Never, vowed the lieutenant, should guns be better served than those under his command. Unless the man surrendered, he was doomed. So, he spoke eagerly to his men, bidding them take good aim and waste no shot, never doubting the inevitable issue. These thoughts took but a moment, however. Beauchamp, who had done the talking, now stepped aft to Captain Vincent's side, and replied to Seymour's hail by calling out,—

"Do you strike, sir?"

"Yes, yes, of course; that's what we came down here for. We'll strike fast enough," was the answer.

A broad smile lighted up Captain Vincent's face; he turned to the colonel, laughing, and said with a scarcely veiled sneer,—

"I told you they were not up to it. The cad! he might have fired one shot at least for the honor of his flag, don't you see?"

The colonel with a sinking heart could not see at all. Cowardice in Seymour, in any officer, was a thing he could not understand. The world turned black before Katharine. What! strike without a blow! Was this her hero? Rather death than a coward! In spite of her faith in her lover, as she heard what appeared to be a pusillanimous offer of surrender, Desborough's chances took a sudden bound upward, while that gentleman cursed the cowardice of his enemy and rival, which would deprive him of a pleasing opportunity of blowing him out of the water. Most of the men at the different guns relaxed their eager watchfulness, while sneers and jeers at the "Yankee" went up on all sides.

"Heave to, then," continued Beauchamp, peremptorily and with much disgust, "and send a boat aboard!"

"Ay, ay, sir!"

Oh, it was true, then; he was going to surrender tamely without—

"Stand by!" there was a note of preparation in the words in spite of Seymour's effort to give them the ordinary intonation of a commonplace order,—a note which had so much meaning to Katharine's sensitive ear that her heart stopped its beating for a moment as she waited for the next word. It came with a roar of defiance. "Back the maintopsail!" But the braces were kept fast and the unexpected happened. In an instant sheets of flame shot out from the muzzles of the black guns of the Randolph, which were immediately wreathed and shrouded in clouds of smoke. At the moment of command Seymour had quickly ordered the helm shifted suddenly, and the Randolph had swung round so that she lay at a broad angle off the quarter of the Yarmouth. The thunderous roar of the heavy guns at short range was immediately followed by the crashing of timber, as the heavy shot took deadly effect, amid the cheers and yells and curses and groans and shrieks of the wounded and startled men on the liner, while three hearty cheers rang out from the Randolph.

The advantage of the first blow in the grim game, the unequal combat, was with the little one.

"How now, captain!" shouted the colonel, in high exultation. "Won't fight, eh! What do you call this?"

"Fire! fire! Let him have it, men, and be damned to you! The man 's a hero; 't was cleverly done," roared the captain, excitedly. "I retract. Give it to him, boys! Give it to the impudent rebel!" he roared.

Katharine, forgot by every one in the breathless excitement of the past few moments, bowed her head on her hands on the rail, and breathed a prayer of thankfulness, oblivious of everything but that her lover had proved himself worthy the devotion her heart so ungrudgingly extended him. There was great confusion on board the Yarmouth from this sudden and unexpected discharge, which, delivered at short range, had done no little execution on the crowded ship; but the officers rallied their men speedily with cool words of encouragement.

"Steady, men, steady."

"Give it back to them."

"Look sharp now."

"Aim! Fire!"

And the forty-odd heavy guns roared out in answer to the determined attack. The effect of such a broadside at close range would have been frightful, had not the Randolph drawn so far ahead, and her course been so changed, that a large part of it passed harmlessly astern of her. One gun, however, found its target, and that was one aimed and fired by the hand of Lord Desborough himself: a heavy shot, a thirty-two, from one of the