The Noank's Log: A Privateer of the Revolution

An hour went by, another, and the deceptive British merchant flag still fluttered from the rigging of the Noank. The strange sail had made no attempt to signal her and there had been a reason for it. She had her own sharp-eyed lookouts, and these and her officers had been studying this schooner to windward of them.

"She's American built," they had said of her. "Most likely she's one of the Solway's prizes. The old seventy-four has picked up a dozen of them. She ought not to be coming this way though. She's running out of her course."

There was something almost suspicious about it, they thought. It might be all right, but they were at sea in war time, and there was no telling what might happen.

"She'll be within hail inside of five minutes," they said at last. "We've signalled her now, and she doesn't pay us any attention. It looks bad. Her lookouts haven't gone blind."

Not at all. Captain Avery was anything but shortsighted. His glass had recently informed him that a huge hulk of some sort, only the topsails of which had been seen at first, was steadily drifting nearer.

"Answer no hail!" he had ordered. "We must board her without firing a gun."

Not for firing, therefore, but for show only, the pivot-gun threw off its tarpaulin disguise, and the broadside sixes ran their threatening brass noses out at the port-holes, while the British flag came down and the stars and stripes went up.

"Heave to, or I'll sink you!" was the first hail of Captain Avery. "What ship's that?"

"Sinclair, Bermuda, Captain Keller. Cargo and passengers. We surrender!" came quickly back. "We are half disabled now. Short-handed."

"All right," said the captain. "We won't hurt you. We'll grapple and board."

The Sinclair was more than twice the size of the Noank. She carried a few good-looking guns, too. The grappling irons were thrown; the two hulls came together; the American boarders poured over her bulwarks, pike and cutlass in hand, ready for a fight. All they saw there to meet them, however, was not more than a score of sailors, of all sorts, and a mob of passengers, aft. Some of these were weeping and clinging to each other as if they had seen a pack of wolves coming.

"I'm Captain Keller," said the nearest of the Englishmen. "You're too many for us. We couldn't even man the guns. Five men on the sick list."

He seemed intensely mortified at his inability to show fight, and he instantly added: —

"Besides, man alive! six Bermuda planters and their families! They all expect that you're going to make 'em walk the plank."

"That's jest what we'll do!" replied Captain Avery. "We'll cut their throats first, to make 'em stop their music. I'll tell you what, though. I've a lot of English fellers that I want to get rid of. No use to me. You can have 'em, if you'll be good. Captain McGrew, fetch your men over into this 'ere 'Mudian! I don't want her."

"All right! We're coming!" called back the suddenly delighted ex-skipper of the Spencer. "What luck this is!"

"Now, Captain Keller," said Avery, "we'll search for cash and anything else we want. Are you leakin'?"

"No," said the Englishman, "we're tight enough. We were damaged in a gale, that's all. There's one of our convoy, off to looard, – the old Solway. She lost a stick, too."

"We won't hurt her," said Avery. "What did that old woman yell for?"

"Why," said Keller, "one o' those younkers told her you meant to burn the ship and sell her to the Turks. But the best part of our cargo, for your taking, is coming up from the hold."

The two grim old salts perfectly understood each other's dry humor, and Keller's orders had been given without waiting for explanations.

"Hullo!" said Avery. "Well, yes, I'd say so! There they come! How many of 'em?"

"Forty-seven miserable Yankees," said Keller. "The Solway took 'em out of a Baltimore clipper and another rebel boat. She stuck 'em in on us to relieve her own hold. They were to be distributed 'mong the Channel fleet, maybe. You may have 'em all. It's a kind of fair trade, I'd say."

At that moment the two ships were ringing with cheers. The Spencer Englishmen, the short-handed crew of the Sinclair, and, most uproariously of all, the liberated American sailors, who were pouring up from the hold, let out all the voices they had. It was an extraordinary scene to take place on the deck of a vessel just captured by bloodthirsty privateers. The women and children ceased their crying, and then the men passengers came forward to find out what was the matter. Ten words of explanation were given, and then even they were laughing merrily. The dreaded pirate schooner had only brought the much needed supply of sailors, and there was no real harm in her.

A search below for cash and other valuables of a quickly movable character was going forward with all haste, nevertheless, while the liberated tars of both nations transferred themselves and their effects to either vessel.

"Not much cash," said Captain Avery, "but I've found a couple of extra compasses and a prime chronometer that I wanted. The prisoners are the best o' this prize, and how I'm to stow 'em and quarter 'em, I don't exactly know. We must steer straight for Brest, I think."

"Captain," said Guert, coming to him a little anxiously, "off to looard! Boats!"

The captain was startled.

"Boats? From the seventy-four?" he exclaimed. "That means mischief! All hands on board the Noank! Call 'em up from below! Tally! Don't miss a man! Drop all you can't carry!"

The skipper of the Sinclair was looking contemptuously at his bewildered passengers.

"The whimperingest lot I ever sailed with," he remarked of them; and then he sang out, to be heard by all: "Captain Avery! Did you say you were going to scuttle my ship, or set her afire?"

"Both!" responded the captain. "Jest as soon's I get good and ready. I'll show ye!"

"You bloodthirsty monster!" burst from one of the older ladies. "All of you Americans are pirates! Worse than pirates!"

"Fact, madam!" said he; "but then you don't know how good we are, too. I'm a kind of angel, myself. Look out yonder, though! See that lot o' pirate boats from the Solway? The captain o' that tub is a bloodthirsty monster! He eats children, ye know. He's a reg'lar Englishman!"

"You brute!" she said; and then, as the commander of the Noank was going over the rail, she added, more calmly; "Why! what an old fool I am! The Americans are only in a hurry to get away. Our boats are coming after 'em, and then they'll all be hung."

"That's it, madam," said Captain Keller. "They're going to get 'em, too. What I care for most is that we've hands enough now to repair damages, so we can get you all to Liverpool."

Off swung the terrible privateer, her much increased ship's company sending back a round of cheers as she did so. A light puff of air began to fill the limp sails of the Sinclair, and she, too, gathered headway.

"Wind come a little more," said Up-na-tan, thoughtfully. "No fight boat. No hurt 'Muda ship. No sink her."

The captain overheard him, and he broke out into a hearty laugh.

"No, you old scalper," he said. "I'm a Connecticut man, I am. I can't bear to see anything like wastage. What's the use o' burnin' a ship you can't keep? It's a thing I couldn't do."

"No take her, anyhow," said the Indian. "Ole tub too slow. Lobster ship take her back right away. Ugh! Bad wind!"

Very bad indeed was that light breeze, and away yonder were the boats of the Solway coming steadily along in a well-handled line.

"They're dangerous looking, sir," said Groot, the Dutch ex-pirate, after a study of them through a glass. "Two of them carry boat guns. Strong crews. I'd not like to be boarded by them."

"We won't let 'em board," said the captain. "Thank God, we've a good deal more'n a hundred men now. I guess Keller'll warn 'em how strong we are. That may hold 'em back."

It was a schooner wind, and the Noank was going along, but she was not travelling so fast as were the vigorously pulled boats. It was a lesson in sea warfare to watch them and see how perfect was their discipline and the oar-training of their crews.

"That's the reason," remarked Captain Avery, "why England rules the sea. We'll have a navy, some day, and we'll beat 'em at their own teachin's."

The rescued prisoners had been having a hard time of it in the hold of the Bermuda trader, and they were beginning to feel desperate now at what seemed a prospect of being once more captured by the enemy. They went to the guns, and they armed themselves like men who were about to fight for their very lives. There was one piece that they were not allowed to touch, however, for Up-na-tan himself was behind the pivot-gun. He and Groot, in consultation, seemed to be carefully calculating the now rapidly diminishing distance between the schooner and the British boat-line.

This reached the Sinclair speedily, and its delay there was only long enough for reports and explanations.

"That's her armament, is it?" the lieutenant in command had said to Keller. "Stronger than I expected, but we can take her. Forward, all! She won't think of resisting us. Give her a gun to heave to!"

The longboat in which he stood carried a snub-nosed six-pounder, and its gunners at once blazed away. They had the range well, and their shot went skipping along only a few fathoms aft of the Noank's stern.

"Father," exclaimed Vine, "it won't do to let that work go on. We might be crippled."

"Give it to 'em, Up-na-tan!" shouted the captain. "Men! We won't be taken! We'll fight this fight out!"'

Loud cheers answered him, but it was Groot, the pirate, who was now sighting the long eighteen, and he proved to be a capital marksman.

"Ugh! Longboat!" said Up-na-tan. "Now!"

Away sped the iron messenger, so carefully directed, but not one British sailor was hurt by it. It did but rudely graze the larboard stern timber of the Solway's longboat at the water line.

"Thunder!" roared the astonished lieutenant. "A hole as big as a barrel! If they haven't sunk us!"

The nearest boats on either hand pulled swiftly to the rescue, but that boat-gun would never again be fired. The other gun, in the Solway's pinnace, spoke out angrily, and, curiously enough, it had been charged with nothing but grape-shot. All of this was what Captain Avery might have described as wastage, for it was uselessly scattered over the sea.

Loud were the yells and cheers on board the Noank as her crew saw their most dangerous antagonist go under water, sinking all the faster because of the heavy cannon. Of course, the sailors whose boat had so unexpectedly gone out from under them were all picked up, but not one of them had saved pike or musket. The attacking force had therefore been diminished seriously, and there had also been many minutes of delay.

"Captain," said Groot, "I'll send another pill among them, whiles they're clustered so close together."

"Not a shot!" sharply commanded Captain Avery. "I'm thinkin'! Men! It's more'n likely there are 'pressed Americans on those boats. I won't risk it. We must get away."

"Ay, ay, sir," came heartily back from many voices. "Let 'em go."

That was what saved the really beaten British tars from any more heavy shot, and the Noank was all the while increasing her distance. The only remaining danger to her now was the mighty Solway, and her sails, full set, could be seen and studied by the glasses on the schooner.

"She's the first big ship I ever saw under full sail," said Guert to Groot. "I've only seen 'em in port."

"You'd be of little good on her till after you'd served awhile," said the Dutchman, in his own tongue. "It isn't even every British captain that can handle a seventy-four as she ought to be handled."

Whoever was in charge of the Solway now, she was sailing faster than the Noank, and things were looking badly. So said one of his old neighbors to Captain Lyme Avery, only to be answered by a chuckle.

"Jest calc'late," he added, quite cheerfully. "A starn chase is always a long chase. They won't be gettin' into range for their best guns till about dark. Then I'll show ye. Vine, make a barrel raft! Sharp!"

Up from the hold came quickly a dozen or so of empty barrels, and these were carpentered together with planks so as to make a skeleton deck. In the middle of this was rigged a spar like a mast, and the raft was ready.

All the sailors believed they knew what was coming. It was an old, old, trick, as old as the hills, but it might be the thing to try in this case.

On came the stately line-of-battle ship, as the shadows deepened. She was slowly gaining in spite of the Noank having every inch of her canvas spread. She would soon be near enough to fly her bow chasers. If these were heavy enough, there would then be nothing left the American privateer but prompt surrender. The next half-hour was, therefore, a time of breathless anxiety.

"It's almost dark enough, now," said Captain Avery, at last, with a cloudy face. "Over with the raft, Vine; I'm goin' to try somethin' new."

Over the side it went and it floated buoyantly, with a large, lighted lantern swinging at the tip of its pretty tall mast. At the foot of that spar, however, had been securely fastened a barrel of powder, with a long line-fuse carried from it up several feet along the upright stick.

"If that light fools him at all," said the captain, "it'll gain us half an hour and five miles. If it doesn't, why, then we're gone, that's all. Now, Coco, due nor'west! Keep her head well to the wind. We shall pass that seventy-four within two miles."

It was a daring game to play, taking into account British night-glasses and heavy guns, to tack toward a line-of-battle ship in that manner.

On the Solway, however, there had been a feeling of absolute certainty as to overtaking the schooner. She had been in plain view, they said, up to the moment when her crew so foolishly swung out a lantern. It was a mere glimmer, truly, but it would do to steer by. It was many minutes afterward that an idea suddenly flashed into the experienced mind of the British commander.

"Nonsense!" he exclaimed. "No Yankee would have held up a light for us to chase him by. That's a decoy! Hard a-port, there! The rebels'd go off before the wind. They can't take in an old hand like me."

Precisely because the Noank had not gone off before the wind, her seemingly safest course, the Solway was not immediately following her. More minutes went by, and then there arose a storm of exclamations on board the seventy-four.

"Captain," asked an excited officer, "did she blow up?"

"No," he gruffly responded. "That's only part of the decoy."

Not all his subordinates agreed with him, however, and it was plainly his duty to carry his ship past the place of the now vanished light and of so tremendous an explosion. He did so grumblingly.

"I know 'em," he said. "It's only some trick or other. They're sharp chaps to deal with, on land or sea. They're a kind of Indian fighters, and they're up to anything. Do you know, I believe we've lost her!"

That was what he had done, or else Captain Lyme Avery had lost the seventy-four, for when the next morning dawned her lookouts could discover no sign of the Noank's white canvas between them and the horizon.

CHAPTER XIV

THE NEUTRAL PORT

A remarkable place, in the summer of the year 1777, was the old French harbor of Brest. A not altogether pleasant fame had gathered upon it, like drifted seaweed, from historically ancient days. It was said to have been a rendezvous for the old-time vikings of the northern seas, as it was at this day for the smugglers. All of the town that could be seen from the harbor wore a shambling, dingy, antiquated appearance. Its ill-paved, steep, and dirty streets swarmed with an exceedingly varied and not at all admirable population, although the better classes were represented.

Vessels of all sorts were there, as usual, one pleasant afternoon, going out, coming in, at anchor, or moored to the more or less tumbledown wharves and piers. The arrival or departure of one ship more was not an affair to attract especial attention.

One important feature of the character of the ancient port was that whatever might be the existing treaties between the kings of France and Great Britain, Brest was always more or less at war with England. English sailors were welcome enough, of course, particularly if they were willing to desert, or had recently been paid off, or were supposed to be engaged in smuggling.

Among the vessels at anchor were three French war-ships, one Dutch cruiser, undergoing repairs, and a smart-looking British corvette that was lying well out from shore. All of these were under treaty bonds to keep the peace with each other and with the world in general, but Brest was also distinguished as a port into which all navies at peace with France might bring their prizes for condemnation and sale, according to existing maritime law.

A little after the noon, the loungers on the piers might have taken notice, if they would, of a large schooner that was slipping in through the strongly fortified entrance channel under little more than her foresail. She either had a French pilot on board or was steered by a man who knew the harbor, for she went at once to the right spot to drop her anchor, and a boat shortly put out from her toward the shore.

"There's a French flag on a Yankee-built schooner," remarked an officer of the British corvette. "That's because we are here. I'd like to cut her out, but it wouldn't do. Our war with France hasn't quite begun. I'm going to see, though, if we can't manage to get some men out of her."

He was a burly, bulldog-looking person, and he made other remarks not at all complimentary to Americans in general, and to one Mr. George Washington in particular.

"According to the latest advices," he asserted, "Howe and Cornwallis are crushing out the Virginia fox's ragamuffins. Burgoyne will take possession of northern New York and all the New England colonies. Then the king will have his own again, and we shall see some rebels hung."

There was, indeed, an increasingly bitter feeling among loyal Englishmen, caused by what they deemed the needless prolongation of the war. According to their way of thinking, the rebels were unreasonable and should long since have given up their useless attempt to escape from under the rightful rule of the mother country.

On the deck of the schooner, whether she were French or American, only a few men were making their appearance, and she seemed to have a great deal of deck-cargo. It was concerning that, perhaps, that conversation was going on below, and here, at least, the population was even excessive.

"Their glasses'd tell 'em just what we are, Captain Avery," said one before the boat left, "if we swarmed up."

"They'll find out, anyhow," said the captain. "Our deck-load must get ashore at once, before they know too much. It's in the way, too."

From other remarks that were made, it appeared that the cargo to be disposed of had been taken from no less than four unfortunate British merchantmen, and that the schooner had been a long time in gathering it. Good reasons were also given why the ships themselves had not been seized as well as the goods.

The captain was now in the boat, and his face wore a very thoughtful expression.

"Groot," he said, "you talk French better'n I do. Keep close and watch."

"All the lingoes you ever heard of are talked in Brest," said the Dutchman. "I've been here for months at a time. You'll have a visitor from that British corvette, first thing. They won't mind sea law much, either. They never do, and the French never try to follow 'em up sharp."

"Now they've let us run in, I don't care," said the captain. "We've had pretty narrow escapes gettin' here. It was touch and go, along the coast."

Absolute disguise or secrecy was out of the question, perhaps, but when a boat from the Syren shortly afterward pulled to the side of the Noank there was no invitation given to come on board.

"What schooner's this?" roughly demanded the officer of the boat.

"Noank, New London," responded Vine Avery, at the rail. "Assorted cargo. We ran right in through a fleet of your sleepyheads. Do you belong to that clumsy corvette, yonder?"

"Shut your mouth!" snapped the officer. "We'll come for you, yet."

"Hurrah for the Continental Congress!" said Vine, maliciously. "If this 'ere wasn't a neutral port we'd board that tub o' yours and take her home with us. We want some more guns and powder anyhow!"

"You're a pirate!" roared the officer. "We've a right to take you out under the French law. You've no protection."

"Keep your distance," said Vine. "We'll be ready for you when you come."

Angry faces were beginning to show behind Vine. The British officer saw steel points like pikeheads, and he heard threatening exclamations, only half suppressed. As the representative of a man-of-war, he had an undoubted right to question the character of any merchant vessel whatever, and to make her commander exhibit his papers, if the meeting took place at sea. In harbor, however, under the guns of neutral forts, the case was different.

The Englishman had really obtained the information he came after, and he had no orders to go any further. He knew exactly the character of this schooner. Even the pike-heads could be read like good handwriting. He replied to Vine with hardly more than an angry growl and went back to report to his commander.

"Privateer, is she?" remarked that gentleman, after hearing him. "I supposed so. I'd lay the Syren alongside of her, if it wasn't for getting into hot water with the French and with the admiral. We'll try for some of her men, on board or on shore, and I'll have that schooner!"

The younger officer grumbled his readiness to cut out the rebel pirate that very night, but his wiser superior only laughed at him.

"There she is," he said, "with her head in the lion's mouth. We needn't shut our jaws on her till the right minute. Then it will be one good bite and we'll have her, men, cargo, and all."

The boat from the Noank reached a wharf, and it had not come there upon any mere pleasure trip.

"Short work, now, Groot," said the captain. "If you can't find your men right away, I'll take a look after mine."

Away they went, along the water front, until they were halted by Groot in front of an immense, dingy old warehouse.

"Opdyke Freres," he read the faded sign over the entrance of it. "They are here, yet. Brest and Amsterdam. What goods they can't handle in France, they can in Holland. They'll do the fair thing by us, – so we'll be sure to come to them again."

"That's our grip on their honesty, this time," said Captain Avery.

In two minutes more, the entire boat's crew of the Noank was gathered in a counting-room in the rear of the warehouse. It looked as if a hundred generations of spiders had made their webs in its corners, undisturbed.

A short, fat man turned upon a high stool at a desk to inquire, in Dutch: —

"Oh! Mynheer Groot! Not hung yet? Is it some new business?"

Part of Groot's reply was a rapid introduction of his friends, while he stated their errand. There could be nothing but utter mutual confidence in such a case, and the head of the house of Opdyke Brothers was exceedingly outspoken.

"We take the deck-cargo to-night," he said. "Our lighters will come as soon as it is dark. You will pay the custom-house men ten thousand francs down, so they will not know anything about it. I will be there and one of my brothers. We will take off as much more as we can to-morrow night. You will go to Amsterdam with your next cargo or prizes. The British are increasing their guard. Ha, ha! It is war with them, too, and they take some prizes. We buy of them every now and then."

Guert was listening eagerly to all that was said. He was obtaining new ideas and information as to the manner in which plunder taken at sea by all sorts of war-ships may be marketed.

"It's the war law of buccaneering," he thought. "If England and America were at peace, then our business would be piracy."