Captain Kyd Volume Ii Part 3

The earl, a.s.sisted by the captain and sailors, the next moment drew his half-drowned niece from the sea, dripping like a naiad, while the captain did the same office for the brave youth.

"Two epaulets, by the rood!" he exclaimed. "'Twas a lucky day d.i.c.k Kenard s.h.i.+pped a lad of your mettle. Ho, there, men! We must now look to the craft. Save the s.h.i.+p first, and think of ourselves afterward, is my maxim, my lord. Bear a hand with an axe! Cut away the masts!"

"Cast the lee guns overboard, and she may right, captain," said Mark, shaking the salt spray from his locks.

"We can but try it, my boy. Overboard with the barkers!"

Forthwith the men set to work and pitched the starboard guns into the sea, and, after cutting loose the fore and main yards, and giving every man's weight to the weather side, the yacht righted with a tremendous roll to windward and a lurch that threw every man flat upon the deck.

"There she is on her legs again," cried the captain, exultingly. "The storm seems to have shown its roughest paw, and we'll ride it out yet.

We are less a topgallant-sail and a brace of yards, my lord; but an hour's calm will make all s.h.i.+pshape again. But the poor fellows that are washed overboard! there's no getting them back. They are gone to their last muster," he added, with manly sympathy.

The fury of the tempest had been spent on the yacht; and though it now blew a stiff gale, it was no longer attended with any of those tremendous gusts which had characterized it at the first. The sea no longer boiled and tossed confusedly, but on every side rolled its waves in one direction to leeward; and though they broke in snowy heads, and lifted themselves in mountainous billows, the regularity of their motion indicated that the tornado had settled into a steady though violent hurricane. The clouds, although still dark and laden with wind, flew higher above the sea than before, and in the east they broke into ma.s.ses, showing between white places in the sky.

"She will bear her spanker close reefed, and a hand's breadth of the jib, Mr. Howel. Pa.s.s the word forward to set the jib, sir!"

There was no reply.

"Where is Mr. Howel?" he demanded, with a foreboding of the fatal result.

"He was washed overboard by the last sea we s.h.i.+pped," replied one of the men.

"A n.o.ble seaman gone! a lovely woman widowed! It has been a fatal night!

Marston, ho! Where is my second lieutenant?"

"Mr. Marston was struck by a spar, and knocked into the water as we went over on our beam," answered another.

"This has been a dear night indeed, my lord," said the captain, addressing Lord Bellamont, who was supporting Grace in his arms by the companion-way; "I have lost my two oldest officers, and how many of my best men I know not. Edwards! Thank G.o.d, I have one lieutenant left. You must be my second now, and act as my first! Muster all hands aft. Let us see who are missing, and then let us set to work and put the crippled craft under an inch or two of canva.s.s, if only to ease the fore-topmast, which, with this pitching, in spite of its support, will soon take leave of the s.h.i.+p."

The men were mustered aft, and thirteen less than the yacht's complement answered to their names.

"Ah, poor fellows!" sighed the captain, "they have got a seaman's end!

but they would have had the same fifty years hence; or else have been thrown into a hole on sh.o.r.e, which is worse than they now have got. A short life and a gallant one, is my maxim, my lord," he said, turning round and speaking to the earl. "Poor brave boys, Heaven give them a snug berth aloft! Well, lads, let us get a bit of sail on the craft, and cry afterward. My lad," he continued, addressing Meredith, "I see you are a sailor! You must take poor Marston's place, and wait till you get on sh.o.r.e for your commission. Go forward and set the jib at once. Here!

a dozen of you close reef this spanker, and let us see how long it will take for the wind to cut it up into ribands. Lively, men, lively! Stand by there, at the helm, to bring her smartly up to the wind as soon as she begins to feel her canva.s.s. Hoist away briskly!"

In a few minutes the yacht was lying to under a reefed jib and close-reefed spanker, with her helm lashed to the starboard bulwarks; the steersman, with the two men who had been detailed to a.s.sist him at the beginning of the storm, having been carried forward into the waste on the first billow that broke over the stern.

The force of the wind gradually lessened, and, in half an hour after the jib was set, an order was given to set the foresail, and shake the reefs out of the spanker.

"Put her away a point or two, and give her headway," said the captain to the lieutenant, as the above orders were executed. "So, steady! there she walks bravely! See, my lord, how like a duck she rides on the top of the waves. She's a tight boat for so gayly painted a craft, or we should, ere this, have been helping the mermaids string coral in their sea-caves below. Never judge a s.h.i.+p by the colour of her bends, is my maxim, my lord."

The yacht was now under steerage way, and rose regularly on the billows, which before had broken against her sides flinging the spray in showers upon her decks. The wind blew steadily, but no longer with violence; the storm-cloud, broken into a myriad of fragments, was scudding across the heavens towards the southeast; the waves momently diminished in size; and at intervals the moon shone down through an opening upon the sea, like the smile of hope beaming on the tempest-tossed mariners: all things indicated the termination of the hurricane, to the fury of which they had so nearly been sacrificed. The pumps were now tried, and it was ascertained that less than three inches of water had been made.

"A capital craft, my lord. The Roebuck would scarcely have ridden out a tornado like this, especially after having been laid on her ribs. I congratulate both your lords.h.i.+p and your niece on your escape from a grave in the sea, for which landsmen, I am told, have a strange antipathy. But bury me, my lord, in the deep sea; let the green waves, which have borne me living, wrap about me dead. Let me lie where the ripple of driving keels and the song of the sailor shall be my requiem."

"You are eloquent, Kenard; and perhaps you are right."

"It matters little where a man's bones are laid, my lord; and the sea is as safe a repository, and will yield them up as readily at the judgment day as the earth. Ay, more readily, it may be," said the captain.

"It may be so," replied the n.o.bleman, smiling at the literal way in which the seaman viewed the subject. "If it is now safe to unclose the companion-way, I will convey my niece to the cabin for a change of wardrobe."

"We shall have no more was.h.i.+ng decks to-night," replied the captain, giving the necessary orders to remove the companion-way and hatches, which had been firmly closed as the storm came on.

They were now opened, and the earl awoke Grace, who, after her submersion, had dropped into a gentle sleep in his arms, and a.s.sisted her to her stateroom, where, arousing her terrified and almost insensible maid from the floor, he left her with a kiss of paternal affection, mingled with grat.i.tude for her preservation.

"Shall I come to the deck again after I have changed my dripping dress?"

she asked, with playful entreaty, as he was leaving her.

"No, my child, you need rest after your bath. Your cheek is pale as marble," he replied, tapping upon it.

"I shall be sick here; I miss the pure air; there is a suffocating sensation of closeness; and I think I feel the motion of the vessel more below. I must go on deck again, uncle," she said, earnestly. "Besides, the moon is coming out, and it will be pleasant to watch the caps of the waves sparkling in her light."

"There is no resisting you, Grace; I will come down for you when you are ready. Let us be thankful, my child, for our preservation," he added, devoutly.

"I am, uncle, indeed," she said, with touching sincerity.

And, as the earl closed the door of her stateroom, she kneeled by her couch in her wet garments, and offered up a short, heartfelt prayer of thanksgiving and grat.i.tude for her safety; nor in it did she forget the youth who had been the instrument of it. How much nearer did the gallant service he had performed for her bring the handsome but humble young sailor to her heart! How much closer did the union of his name with her own in prayer bind him to her young and warm affections! And when she rose from her knees, her thoughts, it is to be feared, ran much more upon the instrument of her preservation than upon the Being who directed it.

When the earl returned to the deck, the moon was riding in a broad field of blue, un.o.bscured by a single cloud, and on all sides the waves leaped towards it to fall back into the s.h.i.+ning sea in showers of silver. The clouds were drifting far to leeward, and the darkness and terror that had hitherto reigned had given place to brightness and serenity. The yacht was gallantly riding over the crested waves, parting them with her prow and das.h.i.+ng to either side their glittering drops in snowy jets of spray. The fore-topgallant-sail was set, and drawing freely; and, notwithstanding the loss of her topsails and main-topgallant-mast with its yard, she held her course and was making good headway through the water. Two of her larboard guns had been s.h.i.+fted to the starboard, and other means had been taken to put her in suitable sailing trim. The men were engaged in clearing the decks; serving the rigging where it had been chafed; fis.h.i.+ng the foremast, which Mark had before temporarily secured and thereby saved; and otherwise repairing the disasters of the storm. Some of them, the earl observed, were filling the beds around the guns with shot, disposing cutla.s.ses and muskets in stands and beckets about the masts, and making altogether very plain preparations for fight.

"You see, my lord, we are hard at work," said the captain, approaching the earl as he saw him come to the deck. "In half an hour, save bending a new set of topsails, we shall be as sound as we were before this squall. See that those guns are as dry as a boatswain's whistle," he shouted to the men.

"What is the meaning of these hostile preparations, Kenard?"

"I have reason to believe the pirate is lurking in this quarter. He was seen from aloft during the blackest of the storm, scudding through it, like the flying Dutchman, under bare poles. If he should discover us as we are, we should have a hard matter to escape him."

"He is likely to be as crippled as ourselves."

"Not he, my lord; the masts of these craft are stout single sticks, and their sails are fas.h.i.+oned so as to come down by the run at an instant's warning. There is no way of sinking one of those fellows without knocking his bottom out. Lively, men, lively. Ha! that's my lad! make them fly!"

It was Meredith he addressed. In the absence of the usual number of superior officers, prompted by an active spirit and the impulsiveness of his nature, and inspirited by the scenes in which he was placed and to which he readily adapted himself, he had involuntarily echoed the encouraging cry of the commander. The seamen, with that instinct which teaches men the presence of a master spirit, without questioning his authority, moved with more alacrity, and obeyed his orders without hesitation. They had borne witness to his courage and fearlessness, his contempt of death and promptness of action in danger: these were virtues which, in their eyes, were above all others, and in his case they atoned for want of years, experience, and seamans.h.i.+p. The charm by which he governed them, as if by common consent, was simply the exercise of the same mysterious power which, since the world was made, has governed the ma.s.s of mankind. Decision, bravery, and high moral energy of character!

in one word, _courage_; the attribute through which one man leads a nation--speaks, and it is so! the dragon of human adoration! an attribute pre-eminently possessed also by spirits as well as men, and through the influence of which Lucifer was enabled to lead whole armies out of Heaven into h.e.l.l!

"Is not that the bold youth who saved my niece?" asked the earl. "I think I should know the voice."

"The same, my lord; and, saving your lords.h.i.+p's presence, he is worthy the hand of any niece, humble or high, whom he so promptly perilled his life to save; for none but a brave man and a gentleman at heart would do so n.o.ble an act; that's my maxim, my lord."

"Doubtless a true one, Kenard. I shall bear this youth in mind."

"Do so, my lord; and I will, with your leave, set you the example.

Though I am glad of the opportunity, I regret the necessity. My lad!"

"Sir," said the youth, coming forward with his cap in his hand.

"As I am without a third lieutenant, I have promoted you to this rank, and his lords.h.i.+p will see that your appointment is confirmed in the right quarter. You were bred upon the sea, and though, perhaps, have never sailed in a s.h.i.+p, are, I perceive a natural sailor. Now you may go to your duty, sir."

"Thank you, sir!" said Mark, with manly emotion. He could say no more, but turned away to hide his tearful grat.i.tude.