The Wing-and-Wing Part 49

The season was now so far advanced as to render the old stability of the breezes a little uncertain. The zephyr had come early, and it had come fresh; but there were symptoms of a sirocco about the barometer and in the atmosphere. This rendered all in the s.h.i.+ps eager to secure their prize before a s.h.i.+ft of wind should come. Now that there were three fast vessels in chase, none doubted of the final result; and Cuffe paced the quarter-deck of the Proserpine, rubbing his hands with delight, as he regarded all the propitious signs of the times.

The Ringdove was ordered by signal to haul up south-southwest, or close on a wind, with a view to make such an offing as would prevent the possibility of the lugger's getting outside of the s.h.i.+ps, and gaining the wind of them; an achievement Cuffe thought she might very well be enabled to accomplish, could she once fairly come by the wind under circ.u.mstances that would prevent any of his vessels from bringing her under their guns. The Terpsich.o.r.e was directed to run well into the bay, to see that a similar artifice was not practised in that direction; while the Proserpine shaped her own course at the angle that would intercept the chase, should the latter continue to stand on.

It was an easy thing for the French to set all their canvas, the hamper of a lugger being so simple. This was soon done; and Pintard watched the result with intense interest, well knowing that everything now depended on heels, and ignorant what might be the effect of her present trim on the sailing of his beautiful craft. Luckily some attention had been paid to her lines, in striking in the ballast again; and it was soon found that the vessel was likely to behave well. Pintard thought her so light as to be tender; but, not daring to haul up high enough to prove her in that way, it remained a matter of opinion only. It was enough for him that she lay so far to the west of south as to promise to clear the point of Piane, and that she skimmed along the water at a rate that bade fair to distance all three of her pursuers. Anxious to get an offing, however, which would allow him to alter his course at night in more directions than one, he kept luffing, as the wind favored, so as sensibly to edge off the land.

As the two chases commenced their flight quite a mile to the southward of the s.h.i.+ps, having that much the start of them on account of the position of the rocks, it rendered them both tolerably free from all danger of shot at the beginning of the race. The course steered by Ithuel soon placed him beyond their reach altogether; and Cuffe knew that little would be gained, while much might be lost, in making any attempt of this sort on the lugger. Consequently not a gun was fired; but the result was thrown fairly on the canvas and on the sailing of the respective vessels.

Such was the state of things at the beginning of this chase. The wind freshened fast, and soon blew a strong breeze; one that drove the s.h.i.+ps ahead under clouds of studding-sails and staysails--the latter being much used at that period--at the rate of quite ten knots the hour. But neither gained on le Feu-Follet. The course was by no means favorable to her, the wind being well on her quarter; still, she rather gained than was gained on. All four vessels went off rapidly to the southward, as a matter of course; nor was it long before they were to leeward of the felucca, which had both shortened sail and hauled up to the eastward, as soon as Ithuel felt satisfied he was not to be followed. After a sufficient time had elapsed, the Holy Michael tacked, and came out of the bay, crossing the wake of the Terpsich.o.r.e just beyond gunshot. Of course, this manoeuvre was seen from the frigate; and the padrone of the felucca tore his hair, threw himself on the quarter-deck, and played many other desperate antics, in the indulgence of his despair, or to excite sympathy: but all in vain; the lieutenant was obstinate, refusing to alter tack or sheet to chase a miserable felucca, with so glorious an object in full view before him as the celebrated lugger of Raoul Yvard.

As a matter of course, Ithuel pa.s.sed out to sea unmolested; and it may as well be said here that in due time he reached Ma.r.s.eilles in safety, where the felucca was sold, and the Granite-seaman disappeared for a season. There will be occasion to speak of him only once again in this legend.

The trial of speed must soon have satisfied Pintard that he had little to apprehend from his pursuers, even with the breeze there was. But circ.u.mstances favored the lugger. The wind hauled materially to the northward, and before the sun set it enabled the French to run off wing-and-wing, still edging from the land. It now began to blow so heavily as to compel the s.h.i.+ps to reduce their light canvas. Some time before the night set in, both frigates and the sloop were under maintopgallant-sails only, with topmast and lower studding-sails on each side. Le Feu-Follet made no change. Her jigger had been taken in, as soon as she kept dead away, and then she dashed ahead, under her two enormous lugs, confident in their powers of endurance. The night was not very dark; but it promised to carry her beyond the vision of her pursuers even before eight bells, did the present difference in sailing continue.

A stern chase is proverbially a long chase. For one fast vessel to outsail another a single mile in an hour, is a great superiority; and even in such circ.u.mstances, many hours must elapse ere one loses sight of the other by day. The three English s.h.i.+ps held way together surprisingly, the Proserpine leading a little; while le Feu-Follet might possibly have found herself, at the end of a six hours' chase, some four miles in advance of her, three of which she had gained since keeping off, wing-and-wing. The lightness of the little craft essentially aided her. The canvas had less weight to drag after it; and Pintard observed that the hull seemed to skim the waves, as soon as the sharp stem had divided them, and the water took the bearings of the vessel. Hour after hour did he sit on the bowsprit, watching her progress; a crest of foam scarce appearing ahead, before it was glittering under the lugger's bottom. Occasionally a pursuing sea cast the stern upward, as if about to throw it in advance of the bows; but le Feu-Follet was too much accustomed to this treatment to be disturbed, and she ever rose on the billow, like a bubble, and then the glancing arrow scarce surpa.s.sed the speed with which she hastened forward, as if to recover lost time.

Cuffe did not quit the deck until the bell struck two, in the middle watch. This made it one o'clock. Yelverton and the master kept the watches between them, but the captain was always near with his advice and orders.

"That craft seems faster when she gets her sails wing-and-wing than she is even close-hauled, it seems to me, Yelverton," observed Cuffe, after taking a long look at the chase with a night-gla.s.s; "I begin to be afraid we shall lose her. Neither of the other s.h.i.+ps does anything to help us. Here we are all three, dead in her wake, following each other like so many old maids going to church of a Sunday morning."

"It _would_ have been better, Captain Cuffe, had the Ringdove kept more to the westward, and the frigate further east. Fast as the lugger is with her wings spread, she's faster with them jammed up on a wind. I expect every moment to find her sheering off to the westward, and gradually getting us in _her_ wake _on_ a wind. I fear we should find that worse work than even this, sir."

"I would not lose her now, for a thousand pounds! I do not see what the d--l Dashwood was about, that he did not secure her when he got possession of the rocks. I shall rattle him down a little, as soon as we meet."

Cuffe would have been shocked had he known that the body of Sir Frederick Dashwood was, just as that moment, going through the melancholy process of being carried on board a two-decker, up at Naples, the captain of which was his kinsman. But he did not know it, nor did he learn his death for more than a week; or after the body had been interred.

"Take the gla.s.s, Yelverton, and look at her. To me she grows very dim--she must be leaving us fast. Be careful to note if there are any signs of an intention to sheer to the westward."

"That can hardly be done without jibing her forward lug--hang me, Captain Cuffe, if I can see her at all. Ah! here she is, dead ahead as before, but as dim as a ghost. I can barely make out her canvas--she is still wing-and-wing, d--n her, looking more like the spectre of a craft than a real thing. I lost her in that yaw, sir--I wish you would try, Captain Cuffe--do my best, I cannot find her again."

Cuffe did try, but without success. Once, indeed, he fancied he saw her, but further examination satisfied him it was a mistake. So long had he been gazing at the same object, that it was easy for the illusion to pa.s.s before his mind's eye, of imagining a dim outline of the little lugger flying away, like the scud of the heavens, wing-and-wing, ever seeming to elude his observation. That night he dreamed of her, and there were haply five minutes during which his wandering thoughts actually portrayed the process of taking possession, and of manning the prize.

Previously to this, however, signals were made to the other s.h.i.+ps, ordering them to alter their courses, with a view to meet antic.i.p.ated changes in that of le Feu-Follet. Lyon was sent to the westward, the Terpsich.o.r.e a little easterly, while the Proserpine herself ventured so far as to steer southwest, after two o'clock. But a sudden and violent s.h.i.+ft of wind came an hour before day. It was the expected--nay, the announced--sirocco, and it brought the lugger to windward beyond all dispute. The south breeze came strong from the first puff; and, while it did not amount to a gale until the afternoon of the next day, it blew heavily, in squalls, after the first hour.

When the day dawned, the three s.h.i.+ps were out of sight of each other.

The Proserpine, which we shall accompany, as our old acquaintance, and an actor in what is to succeed, was under double-reefed topsails, with her head up as high as west-southwest, laboring along through the troughs of the seas left by the late Tramontana. The weather was thick, rain and drizzle coming in the squalls, and there were moments when the water could not be seen a cable's-length from the s.h.i.+p; at no time was the usual horizon fairly visible. In this manner the frigate struggled ahead, Cuffe unwilling to abandon all hopes of success, and yet seeing little prospect of its accomplishment. The lookouts were aloft, as usual, but it was as much for form as for any great use they were likely to be, since it was seldom a man could see further from the cross-trees than he could from the deck.

The officers, as well as the men, had breakfasted. A species of sullen discontent pervaded the s.h.i.+p, and the recent kind feelings toward Raoul Yvard had nearly vanished in disappointment. Some began to grumble about the chances of the other s.h.i.+ps falling in with the lugger, while others swore "that it mattered not who _saw_ her; _catch_ her none could, who had not an illicit understanding with the Father of Lies. She was well named the Jack-o'-Lantern; for Jack-o'-Lantern she was, and Jack-o'-Lantern would she ever prove to be. As well might a false fire be followed in a meadow, as such a craft at sea. They might think themselves fortunate if the officers and-people sent against her in the boats ever got back to their own wholesome s.h.i.+p again."

In the midst of such prognostics and complaints; the captain of the foretop shouted the words "Sail ho!" The usual inquiry and answer followed, and the officers got a glimpse of the object. The stranger was distant half a league, and he was seen very indistinctly on account of the haze; but seen he _was_.

"'Tis a xebec," growled the master, who was one of the grumblers of the day--"a fellow with his hold crammed with a wine that would cover the handsomest woman's face in Lunnun with wrinkles."

"By Jupiter Ammon!" Cuffe exclaimed, "'tis le Feu-Folly, or I do not know an old acquaintance. Quartermaster, hand me the gla.s.s--not that, the shorter gla.s.s is the best."

"Long or short, you'll never make _that_ out," muttered the master. "The Folly has more folly about her than I give her credit for, if _we_ get another look at her this summer."

"What do you make of him, Captain Cuffe?" Yelverton eagerly demanded.

"Just what I told you, sir--'tis the lugger--and--I cannot be mistaken.--Aye, by Jove, she is coming down before it, wing-and-wing, again! That's her play, just now, it would seem, and she does not appear to have got enough of it yet."

An attentive look satisfied Yelverton that his commander was right. Even the master had to confess his error, though he did it ungraciously and with reluctance. It was the lugger, of a certainty, though so dimly seen as to render it difficult at moments, to trace her outlines at all. She was running in a line that would carry her astern of the frigate about a mile, and she was rather more than thrice that distance to windward.

"She cannot see us," said Cuffe, thoughtfully, "Beyond a doubt she thinks us to windward, and is endeavoring to get out of our neighborhood. We must get round, gentlemen, and now is a favorable moment. Tack s.h.i.+p, at once, Mr. Yelverton--I think she'll do it."

The experiment was made, and it succeeded. The Proserpine worked beautifully, and Yelverton knew how to humor her to a nicety. In five minutes the s.h.i.+p was round, with everything trimmed on the other tack;--close-reefed mizzen, and double-reefed fore and maintop-sails--a reefed mainsail, with other sails to suit. As she was kept a rap full, or a little off, indeed, to prevent the lugger from slipping past, she might have gone from five to six knots.

The next five minutes were intensely interesting to the people of the Proserpine. The weather became thicker, and all traces of le Feu-Follet were lost. Still, when last seen, she was wing-and-wing, flying rather than sailing down toward their own track. By Cuffe's calculation, the two vessels would nearly meet in less than a quarter of an hour, should neither alter her course. Several guns were got ready, in preparation for such a rencontre.

"Let the weather hold thick a few minutes longer, and we have her!"

cried Cuffe. "Mr. Yelverton, you must go down and see to those guns yourself. Plump it right into her, if you're ordered to fire. The fellow has no hamper, and stripping him must be a matter of pure accident. Make it too hot for him on deck, and he'll have to give up, Raoul Yvard or the d--l!"

"There she is, sir!" shouted a mids.h.i.+pman from a cathead--for everybody who dared had crowded forward to get an early look at the chase.

There she was, sure enough, wing-and-wing, as before, the dulness of the lugger's lookouts has never been explained, as a matter of course; but it was supposed, when all the circ.u.mstances came to be known, that most of her people were asleep, to recover from the recent extraordinary fatigue, and a night in which all hands had been, kept on deck in readiness to make sail; the vessel having but some thirty souls in her.

At length the frigate was seen, the weather lighting, and it was not an instant too soon. The two vessels, at that critical instant, were about half a mile apart, le Feu-Follet bearing directly off the Proserpine's weather-bow. In the twinkling of an eye, the former jibed; then she was seen coming to the wind, losing sufficient ground in doing so to bring her just in a range with the two weather chase-guns. Cuffe instantly gave the order to open a fire.

"What the d--l has got into her?" exclaimed the captain; "she topples like a mock mandarin; she used to be as stiff as a church! What can it mean, sir?"

The master did not know, but we may say that the lugger was flying light, too much so for the canvas she carried, for, in such heavy weather, there was not time to shorten sail. She lurched heavily under the sea that was now getting up, and, a squall striking her, her lee guns were completely buried. Just at this moment the Proserpine belched forth her flame and smoke. The shot could not be followed, and no one knew where they struck. Four had been fired, when a squall succeeded that shut in the chase, and of course the firing was suspended. So severe was this momentary effort of the African gales, hot, drowsy, and deadening as they are, that the Proserpine started her mizzentop-sail sheets, and clewed up her main-course, to save the spar. But the tack was instantly boarded again, and the topsail set. A gleam of suns.h.i.+ne succeeded, but the lugger had disappeared!

The sun did not remain visible, and that faintly, more than a minute; still, the eye could range several miles, for thrice that period. After this the horizon became more limited, but no squall occurred for quarter of an hour. When the lugger was missed, the Proserpine was heading up within half a point of the spot at which she was supposed to be. In a short time she drove past this point, perhaps a hundred fathoms to leeward of it. Here she tacked, and, stretching off a sufficient distance to the southward and westward, came round again, and, heading up east-southeast, was thought to sweep along over the empty track. Not a sign of the missing vessel was discovered. The sea had swallowed all, lugger, people, and hamper. It was supposed that, owing to the fact that so many light articles had been left on the rocks, nothing remained to float. All had accompanied le Feu-Follet to the bottom. Of boats there were none, these being at the islet of the ruins, and, if any seaman swam off in the desperate attempt to save his life in the midst of the cauldron of waters, he did not succeed, or was overlooked by the English in their search. The latter, indeed, may have miscalculated their distances, and not have pa.s.sed within a cable's-length of the place where the victims, if any such there were, still struggled for existence.

Cuffe, and all around him, were forcibly struck with so unlooked-for and so dire a calamity. The loss of a vessel, under such circ.u.mstances, produces an effect like a sudden death among companions. It is a fate all may meet with, and it induces reflection and sadness. Still, the English did not give up the hope of rescuing some unfortunate wretch, clinging to a spar, or supporting himself by supernatural efforts, for several hours. At noon, however, the s.h.i.+p squared away and ran for Naples before the wind, being drawn aside from her course by another chase, in which she succeeded better, capturing a sloop-of-war, which she carried in several days later.

The first act of Cuffe, on anchoring in the fleet, was to go on board the Foudroyant, and report himself and his proceedings to the rear-admiral. Nelson had heard nothing of the result, beyond what had occurred at the islets, and the separation of the s.h.i.+ps.

"Well, Cuffe," he said, reaching out his remaining hand kindly to his old Agamemnon, as the other entered the cabin--"the fellow has got off, after all! It has been a bad business altogether, but we must make the best of it. Where do you fancy the lugger to be?"

Cuffe explained what had happened, and put into the admiral's hand an official letter, explaining his recent success. With the last Nelson was pleased--at the first surprised. After a long, thoughtful pause, he went into the after-cabin, and returned, throwing a small, jack-like flag on the floor.

"As Lyon was cruising about," he said, "and his sloop was pitching her catheads under, this thing was washed upon a spare anchor, where it stuck. It's a queer flag. Can it have had any connection with the lugger?"

Cuffe looked, and he immediately recognized the little _ala e ala_ jack, that the Italians had described to him in their many conversations. It was the only vestige that was ever found of the Wing-and-Wing.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

"How beautiful is sorrow, when 'tis drest By virgin innocence! It makes Felicity in others, seem deformed."

DAVENANT.

We must return to the rocks, and the melancholy scene they offered. Our purposes will be answered, however, by advancing the time into the evening, omitting many things that the reader can imagine without our relating them.

It is scarcely necessary to say that Andrea Barrofaldi and Vito Viti took no part in the b.l.o.o.d.y transactions we have related. When all was over, however, they drew near to the rocks, and, sitting in their boat, contemplating the sad spectacle presented within the narrow compa.s.s of the islet of the ruins, the following short dialogue occurred between them;

"Vice-governatore," demanded the podesta, pointing to the place where Sir Frederick lay, a motionless corpse, Raoul bleeding, and others were writhing under their wounds--"do you call this reality, or is it a part of that d.a.m.nable doctrine which is enough to set the whole earth by the ears, and to turn men into tigers and hawks?"

"I fear, neighbor Vito, this will only prove too true. I see the bodies of Sir Dashwood and Sir Smees; and G.o.d knows how many more have this day departed for the world of spirits."