Beadle's Dime Library No. 316 — page 27: what you’re looking at

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

~ | 4 ) ~~ ; them. .While the pirate chief. and the licu- tenant were thus enjoying the bottle and the charms.of..piratical friendship, they heard the coils of rigging thrown down upon the deck, and then a running and stamping over- head, Diego thrust his head up from the companionway, and soon ascertained the cause. A’ sudden squall had arisen. The brig was seen in the distance, bowing to the gale, the spray flying all around her, and her topsails blowing out straight. The sheets had either parted, or been purposely let go. Diego gave orders to take in sail, and was just in time, for the white foam of the ap- proaching gale came madly on, as if the sea grew pale with affright. The shrieking of the winds, the slatting of the sails, and the | rattling of the blocks combined to make an _ uproar deafening of itself; but the shouts of | his silver spoons for-proyender during the Diego, and the curses of his men, rendered the confusion worse confounded. The squall struck the schooner and she was tosse her beam-ends immediately, several men going into the sea. The vessel righted | on | Elliott.congratulated himself on his Lafitte’s Lieutenant. eee ee Slee ee objects in sight. . He set out on his travels aC and small clusters of trees were the principal ,; me whether you. haye seen anything of a small schooner off the coast recently, and inland and late in the afternoomhe reached what has become of her?” a villa inhabited by a French gentleman. | Here he told @ very plausiblé story about from the bluffs, but he knew nothing about being shipwrecked in a merchant brig, and her whatever. was fed and lodged for the night. Elliot replied that he had seen such a vessel The captain seemed satisfied, but gave In the mornifiig Red Knife set out again | orders that the sail-boat should be detained upon his. travels,.after having stolen several silver spoons from the house of his enter- and that Elliot should remain on board. ‘“‘T am going to touch at Havana,” said taincr. Toward night he reached a small | he, ‘‘and will put you on shore when we hamlet on the seaboard, where ,he succeeded | get there. in stealing a small sail-boat in which he im-,| go in your boat. I don’t think it safe for you to Why, man, what would mediately put to sea, being determined, to | you do in such a gale as we had the other reach Havana if possible in this frail craft. | night?” | Fortunately, there was a breaker of water in the boat, and he trusted to a few proyisions which he had secured. by trading off one of voyage. he wind was favorable, and for a while ros- ects; but he had scarcely. got ten miles rom land before he espied a sail. He knew slowly as. the sails were rent from the | that the vesscl must-bé very near orhe could hoops, and then went madly careering be- fore the blast. Thus they drove before it an hour or more, when through the mist they beheld a dark body coming down upon them. ‘The brig!” exclaimed several voices at once, and the next moment she passed so near that a brick might have been thrown upon her deck by the pirate craft. For several mo- ments the most fearful apprehensions existed on the part of the pirate crew, for the brig seemed to be about t» plunge directly upon her quarter, and in that case not one of the schooner’s crew would have survived to re- late the catastrophe. As the brig appeared suddenly, so she was.very soon lost sight of in the darkness. The schooner drove on, the wind now blowing directly toward the Florida coast. Diego got out his chests in the cabin, and declared his belief that shipwreck was inevi- table. When this was told to the crew, some swore, some blasphemed, and some trembled and prayed; and it is probable that whether they case man or blasphemed, the one was actuated by no better motives than the other—for either of them would have cut a throat on the next day if it had been in their power. Still the schooner drove on, and the tem- pest increased., -The pirate-+had,eseaped the vengeance of man to encounter that of the elements. The night was_ dark, and there was scareély a hope of saving life if the ves- sel. should strike. When at length, toward morning, a reef was discovered and the surf breaking over it, glistening amid the dark- ness, there was much less emotion evinced than one might have expected. Evils long feared are generally less terrible in the real- ity than in the anticipation. The light vessel shot ahead upon the bil- lows, and passing between two ledges of rocks, approached the shore. So far every man was safe; but now came the end—the bounds which could not be passed, The white beach was already visible through the darkness, when the schooner unexpectedly brought up against a sunken rock, with a violent shock that threw every man_ off his feet. Oncé more was the light bark tossed on high by the billows, and it came down upon the rock with a crash that sent her foremast over the side, and was almost stun- ning in its effect on the crew. One yell of despair was heard as the timber parted and the fragments of thé shattered vessel floated in toward the shore, ' The morning came, and one man might have been seen seated on a high rock that overlooked the sea, his clothes rent and his face bloody. That man was Elliot. All but him of that bloody and barbarous crew had perished cm the preceding night. Some had at once sunk to rise. no more, some had been_ killed by the pieces of wreck against ‘which they had been dashed, and more had been drowned in their attempts to reach the shore. Elliot alone had safely gained the beach, and to what peculiar circumstances he was indebted for safety, hé knew not. There he sat on the rock, once more alone and without.employment, sadly bruised by the pieces of the wreck which he had en- countered on. his Ay to the beach,, After taking.a long nap, Elliot arose somewhat. re- freshed and looked about him. © Sand-hills a EE, Ett not have secen.her from, so low a position. He hoped that she would pass without dis- covering him, especially as her two masts and something in her manner of sailing re- minded him strongly of) the brig which had chased the schooner just before the gale. This reflection frightened him; but when he came to reflect thut the brig’s people knew nothing of him, personally, und could not have scen him on board the schooner, his spirits revived. At one time an idea oc- cured to him that he would try to get on board the brig and enroll himself among her crew... Then he gaye up the idea and re- solved to trust to chance, and take whatever fortune sent him, without being particular whether he was picked up by the’ brig or kept on his way to Havana. As night soon after set in, and he lost sight of the brig in the darkness, he sup- posed that his boat had not been discovered, and, upon the whole, he liked this turn of fortune about as well as the reverse, and was felicitating himself on soon reaching port, when he heard a voice coming out of the He through the water, Which was soon recog- nized by him asa man-of-war’s cutter. ‘‘Hallo!” cried the midshipman in the stern, as the cutter came up head and head with the sail-boat,.‘‘ where are you cruising to, my good fellow?” ‘Bound to Havana,” returned Red Knife, coolly, ‘‘ It seems to me this is a new kind of way of going to sea,” said the midshipman. ‘* You'd better come on board till we over- haul your papers,” and he pointed to.a sig- nal-lantern which was just then rising slow- ly from the water, notif it remained station- ary at the mizzen-peak of a vessel at no great distance, but which Red Knife knew yery well must be the brig-of-war which he had observed before the sun went down. Red Knife was not over pleased at this mode of address, though he knew the abrupt manner of men-of-war’s-men and sailors gen- erally. ‘Come aboard the cutter,” said the mid- shipman, ordering three of his boat’s crew to cm & charge of the sail-boat and bring her to e brig. Red Knife obeyed, trying to assume an air of indifference, which he was far from feeling. Could it. be possible that he was known to anybody on board the brig? After all his escapes to be taken and exccutcd as a pirate was too horrible a fate.to think of, and he felt rather down-spirited when he as- cended to the deck of the man-of-war. The midshipman spoke a few words to the com- mander of the brig, who came forward and said to Lliot: ‘So, my man, you are bound to Havana, Why do you take the night for your voy- age?” aor I haye just heard,” said Elliot, “ that my brother is at the point of death, and hay- ing no other vessel in which I could take passage, I started in my boat.” | The captain eyed Red Knife very closely by the light of a battle lantern, but the pirate knew that he had never seen his face before, and felt very little fear of detection. “ Well, your yarn, is plausible enough,” said the captain, at length; ‘‘ but can you tell nessiand the gruff. ctyjof.: Boat; ahoy.!”) then saw something moving darkly A EE et nsssss ssne-nseennt | Although Elliot was not pleased with the manner in which the captain had last spoken to him, he had no other very particular ob- jections to remaining on board the brig, As he went forward among the men, he saw an old quarter-master dodge behind a cluster of the seamen, who were gathered about the mast, and hurried aft as if desirous to avoid seeing him, and to avoid Berg seen by him. a He did not see this man’s face, but there was something in the general outline of his form that looked familiar, and his apprehen- sions became very painful. | He, however, put a good face on the mat- ter, and hegan to talk and laugh with the brig’s crew as if he felt perfectly at ease. On the next day, Elliot tried to get a view at this quartermaster, but the latter evident- ly avoided him, and whenever Elliot looked at him, he turned away his face. But what completed the terror of the pirate was to see the captain conversing stealthily with his quartermaster on the next day, when both of them cast sly glances at Elliot as they talked. He could not doubt that he was the subject of their conversation. But who was the quartermaster? He was destined not to make the discovery until the brig reached Havana. Now, it was his purpose to pretend perfect’ ignorance of this quartermaster, ‘and of the conyersation which had passed between him and the captain. The brig came to an anchor under the guns of the Moro Castle, and Elliot caught a full view of the quarter- master’s countenance as he stood near the taffrail with the signals in his hand. The British flag was hoisted at the brig’s peak, and the officers came off from the shore. Elliot saw the quartermaster and captain conversing with them and several times cast- ing stealthy glances at him. Red Knife could recollect that he had seen the quartermaster somewhere; but where he was unable to tell, There was something in his looks which did not exactly please Elliot, and he resolved to keep his eye upon the man. At night he crept along the other side of the deck as. far as the mainmast, and there he sat like a cat watching the motions of the quartermaster. The quartermaster, ‘after eting about the quarter-deck awhile, turned and Jooked cautiously forward to the spot where Elliot had been standing, and seeming to be satis- fied, suddenly turned and descended into the cabin. Elliot’s suspicions were aroused, and he passed quickly aft and stood near the sky- light, when he overheard his name men- tioned in the cabin by the captain, That was enough. He perceived that he had been entrapped. Elliot knew that he was not safea moment while he remained on board. He went tothe forecastle, and let- ting himself down by the cable into the wa- ter, struck out for theshore, although he felt almost certain of being discovered and brought back to the brig.” ‘‘ What’s that in the water?” he overheard one of the midsitipmen say to somebody on board. ‘‘ A man—a deserter!” was the reply. ‘Push off—man the third cutter here!” was also heard very pemnbatly | Sf Red Knife at once gave himself up for lost. He swam on, however, until he found the boat within a few feet of him, when he turned toward it. ' | “T am the man,” said he, “that you picked up at sea.” To his surprise, the midshipmen in’ the boat paused to confer together, He quickly perceived that, whateyer suspicions might be entertained of his true character on board, these men knew nothing of it. , Taking ad- vantage of that circumstance, he again urged EGomicbooks (Elo)