Adventure Magazine Cover — page 104: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

94 “Hope I haven’t hurt you, captain,” replied the genial Asa. ‘Keep your sword, sir. Would you prefer to go below under guard or give your parole and stay on deck to see the fun?”’ “Tl stay,” said Carteret-Carstairs, pick- ing up his cocked hat and looking about him curiously. He studied the spar-deck battery, which had been run in and secured behind closed ports, as was customary except in drill or action. “Quakers, by gad! is this, Swift?”’ “Captain Swift, if you please, sir. Late East Indiaman Nabdob, and my prize.” “If you’ll surrender her to me now I'll do -what I can for you at the court-martial,”’ promised Carstairs. ‘“‘You can’t escape, you know.” “Guess I'll carry on a mite longer. Come up on the quarter-deck and watch the sport.” With the wind on her starboard quarter and every inch of canvas drawing, the Nabob was heading straight for the entrance to the Lower Bay. She had already over- taken and passed Carteret-Carstairs’ gig, whose crew were pulling sturdily toward the other two boats that were approaching from a couple of frigates lying a mile to the northward and almost directly in the American’s course. The Achates was hove to about half a mile to the eastward. | ‘“You see, you’re practically surrounded,” said Carteret-Carstairs to his captor. “‘What harm does that do?” asked Swift. “Your fleet aren’t going to fire on their own flagship, are they?” “They'll find out the fraud directly my gig meets the other two. It was very clever as well as very decent of you not to fire when I ordered her away.”’ “And mighty plucky of you to give the warning. Soon as you did, I began to shift my plans. No sense trying to pick up those other captains now. Even your cox’n ought to realize that.by this time. But he’ll keep on and warn the other two gigs because you ordered him to and he’s been trained to obey without thinking. “It will. take him four minutes more to reach them. There’s no way of signaling from a small boat. It will take at least six minutes for one of them to pull against the wind to the Achates and give the alarm. This ship’s logging twelve knots. Ten What sort of a packet Adventure minutes from now we’ll be a long sea mile on the other side of those two frigates ahead there. Figure it out for yourself, captain.”’ ‘“Humph!”’ said Captain Carteret-Car- stairs. | He said nothing more, even when the Nabob was passing between the two British frigates and within easy hailing distance of each. The other Yankee ‘officers looked uneasily at the prisoner, who they knew would gladly risk his own life to warn his friends. “But Asa Swift knew the Carteret- Carstairs’ code better than they. As he had foretold, the two frigates were more than a mile astern and Sandy . Hook a scant league ahead, when the watchers on the Nabod’s quarter-deck saw the Achates break out into a sudden rash of bunting. “Spelling it out—no words for it in the code,” chuckled Swift. Stooping to the cabin skylight, he called: “Below there, Mr. Bloggs. Have your marines take off those “red coats and put on their green ones.”’ Doffing his cocked hat, the Yankee cap- tain removed the royal cockade and re- placed it with one embossed with an eagle. There was practically no other difference between the British and American naval uniforms of the period. “Haul down the white ensign and run up our own.” At the sight of the Stars and Stripes, the bow-chasers spoke from the three frigates now in pursuit. But the shots splashed far astern in the Nabob’s wake. ~ “Out of range.and falling astern. Guess all we’ve got to worry about is that little cuss to the westward.”’ THE fourth and smallest frigate » a of the bloackading fleet had been eames Cruising back and forth inshore, just out of range of the Sandy Hook batteries. Now, having picked up her captain, she was on the starboard tack and running on a course that would soon intercept the Nabob’s. ‘“‘She’s standing down mighty boldly for her size,’’ said Swift, studying the oncoming frigate through his telescope. ‘‘Looks like the little old Audacious, thirty-six.” Carteret-Carstairs nodded. _“She’s commanded by a chap who’s worthy of her name. He’d tackle you if DOOK C@