The Noank's Log: A Privateer of the Revolution

"Nor I, either," said the steersman. "We're not in that trade."

Nearer and nearer, now, the strange craft was drawing, from the opposite tack. The men below had heard the yell of Coco and the Manhattan's warwhoop, and were tumbling up on deck in search of information. Their comments were various as they heard the remarkable announcement.

"Not a doubt of it, Lyme," said Sam Prentice to the captain, after a whiff of the wind from the stranger. "They're slave thieves. I always heard tell that a slave-ship could smell worse'n anything else. I say we ought not to try to do anything with her. Let her go!"

"Of course we will," said the captain; "but we'll speak her. Here she comes."

In a few minutes more the two ships were within hailing distance.

"What brig's that?" asked Avery.

"Slaver Yara, Captain Liscomb. Congo River to Cuba," came back with all cheerfulness. "What schooner's that?"

"American privateer, Noank, Captain Avery. We don't want you. How many on board?"

"We've only lost about a third of 'em on the passage," came jauntily back from the Yara. "We shall land over two hundred good ones. First-rate luck! Last trip we lost more'n half by getting stuck in a calm. How's your luck? Are you taking anything worth while?"

It was precisely as if a prosperous merchant, engaged in what he considered an honorable, legitimate business, were exchanging trade politeness with another merchant in a somewhat similar line.

"We're not long out," replied Captain Avery. "We've done fairly well, though. We sunk a West India picaroon to-day."

"Did you? That's a good thing to do. Glad you did," said the slaver, heartily. "Those chaps annoy even us African traders. They stopped me twice last year, and took away dozens of my best pieces, men and women. The rascals said they were collecting their import duties. Sink 'em all!"

He was so near, by this time, that the bright moonlight gave them a pretty good view of him. He did not seem to be by any means a bad-looking fellow, and it was only too evident that he was either an American or Englishman of good education. He asked for the latest news politely, and then he declared concerning the existing difficulties between King George Third and his American colonies: —

"You chaps have more interest in that affair than I have. If you're not all shot or hung, you'll make fortunes out of it, if it goes on long enough. Privateering sometimes pays better than slaving. All you need be afraid of, except the king's cruisers, is too sudden an end of the war. That would ruin all your business at once. The war hasn't hurt us, to speak of. Our market is as good as ever it was; we can sell all we can bring over."

The Noank was sweeping on and there could be no more exchange of news or opinions with Captain Liscomb.

He was evidently a man without the prejudices of other men. He could see only the money side of the war for American independence, and he took it for granted that a privateersman would look at it in precisely that way. At least one of the crew of the Noank was not in agreement with him, for Coco was as furious as ever.

"Ole Coco stuck in slaver hold, once," he snarled tigerishly. "No water. Iron on hand, on foot. Hot like oven. Most of 'em die. Some go bline. Some get kill. Not many left. Sell Coco in Cuba. Whip him. Burn him. Make him work hard. Ole brack man got away, though. Big fire 'bout that time. Planter lose he house. Kidd men better'n slaver men. All the same, anyhow."

"Isn't that awful!" was all that Guert could think or say.

"Boy fool!" growled Coco. "Captain Avery all wrong. He let 'em go. Better take 'em."

"What could he do with all those slaves if he took 'em?" asked Guert.

"What he do with 'em?" replied Coco, with some surprise. "Drown slaver, not brack fellers. Sell 'em all. Make pile o' money."

"He wouldn't do that," said Guert.

"Then go ashore in Cuba," persisted the old Ashantee. "Buy sugar plantation. Have he slaves all for nothing. That's what Coco think. He do it, quick. All African chief have plenty slave. Make 'em work, kill 'em, do what he please."

The fierce anger of the grim old African, therefore, had been aroused by a memory of his own sufferings and not by any sentimental notions concerning human rights. He saw no evil whatever in the mere owning of slaves. Very much like him in that respect, to tell the truth, were most of his Yankee friends. Slave-holding had not yet been abolished in the northern American colonies any more than in the southern. The great movement for the abolition of all property in human beings came a long time afterward. Nevertheless, even then, a strong odium was beginning to attach to the business of catching black men for the market, and the cause of this feeling was mainly the cruel and wasteful manner in which the business was carried on. The gathering of slaves in Africa for export purposes was understood to be exceedingly murderous, and too many of the captives died on shipboard from barbarous ill-treatment.

Away had swung the badly smelling Yara upon her intended course. Her polite captain had bowed as she did so, his last farewell expressing his wish that his privateer acquaintances might have good luck and make money. If he were indeed an Englishman, he had no narrow, national feeling concerning business matters.

"Sam Prentice!" exclaimed Captain Avery. "I was glad to be rid of 'em. They're only another kind of pirate, anyhow. I believe that feller'd send up the black flag any day, if it was safe, – and if he could make money by it."

"Lyme," replied his mate, "don't you know that slave catchers do fly the skull and bones every now and then, in the far seas? They're none too good to scuttle a ship and make her crew walk the plank."

"I've heard so," said the captain, "but we hadn't any duty to do by 'em, jest now. What we want to do is to sight a British flag on a craft that doesn't carry too many guns for us. Port your helm, there!"

CHAPTER XI

A DANGEROUS NEIGHBORHOOD

"So! You report that you were chased by some enemy? I've read it – I've read the commodore's letter. What were you chased by, sir?"

"I can't be sure what they were, sir. I took them for privateers. The first of 'em gave me a shot my fourth day out. Another followed me three days later. Peppered at me for an hour at long range. Both times I escaped 'em in the night."

"I'm glad you did! I think the commodore is right about you, sir. Take your own course, always. Be ready to take the Termagant across again as soon as she's loaded."

"Repairs, sir," said Captain Watts, for the dignified officer before whom he stood was the port admiral in command of the British port of Liverpool. "Foremast sprung, sir. She wants a new maintopmast. She'll need all her spars, or I'm mistaken. If I'm to be in her she'll use her canvas, sir. I've no fancy for falling again into the clutches of the rebels."

"They might hang you this time, eh?" said the admiral, pleasantly, as if that were a bit of a joke. "They might, indeed. Send in your requisitions; you shall have your repairs. I'll order them at once. Now, sir, is there anything else?"

"Yes, sir," said Watts; "I wish to report what I heard concerning rebel privateers and new provincial cruisers. That is, it may all be already reported."

"Heave ahead!" interrupted the admiral. "Tell what you've heard. Your news is as likely to be correct as any other. Go on, sir."

"It's the old story o' the rats and the cheese, sir," said Luke. "The bigger the cheese, the more the rats. Our trade's the fat they mean to cut into, sir. I heard o' rebel privateers fittin' out all along the New England coast. They told me o' some in North Carolina, out o' the Neuse River. Some from Virginny, up the Potomac and the James. Some down in South Carolina and Georgia; but I can't say but what as bad as any are comin' out o' the Chesapeake and the Delaware. What we're goin' to need is more light cruisers off the Irish coast, sir, and in the channels."

"Ha, ha!" laughed the great official. "The Yankee pirates'll never show themselves on this coast. Go now; we can pick 'em up as fast as they come."

Captain Luke Watts had kept his word to the British authorities. He had piloted the Termagant safely into her harbor. He was, therefore, above and beyond any possible suspicions as to his loyalty. There was nothing to prevent him from delivering, not only his packages of valuable furs, but also any other parcels which he had brought with him from America.

"All right!" he said to himself, as he swung out of the port admiral's office. "They'll know better one o' these days. I'm glad to be told, though, that they mean to remain off their guard till they're waked up. I wish they'd send a few more o' their best ships somewhere else. Captain Lyme Avery and a lot more like him are coming this way pretty soon."

He was only halfway correct in that assertion, for Captain Avery and the Noank were not just then in shape to sail for England. After their noteworthy adventures with pirates and slavers, there had been many hours of plain sailing, in company with the rescued Santa Teresa. The second morning was well advanced when the two vessels found themselves only a mile or so outside of the ample harbor of Porto Rico. They had also tacked within speaking distance of each other.

"Señor Avery," sang out Captain Velasquez, "I have the honor to make a friendly suggestion."

"I'm ready, thank you, señor," said Captain Avery. "What is it?"

"Let the Santa Teresa go ahead and look in. I'll send a boat back with a Carib pilot. There might be a British cruiser in port."

"That's the very thing I was thinkin' of," said the captain of the Noank. "A thousand thanks, señor. We'll heave to."

Very little more needed to be said. There were other sails in sight, of various sorts and sizes, but not one of them carried the red-cross flag of England.

As for the Noank, all her ports were closed, there was a tarpaulin over her pivot-gun, and she was a peaceable appearing merchant schooner. Even the bunting at her masthead was a fraud, for it declared of her that she came from France, and was not to be molested without proper authority.

"It's a kind of lie!" muttered Guert Ten Eyck. "They say all is fair in war, but I don't want to run up anything but an American flag. I don't half like to go ashore, either."

Nobody else on board, perhaps, was in sympathy with that part of his prejudices, but then his "going ashore" might mean a longer stay than that of any other sailor. The more he thought of it, the less he liked it.

"Father," said Vine Avery, after hearing the Spanish captain, "let Guert and me take a boat now, and pull in behind 'em. If we see any danger, we can streak it back at once."

"Good!" said the captain. "Take the small cutter and Coco and the Indian. They speak Spanish."

Off went Vine, and in a few minutes more a small and sharp-nosed boat manned by four rowers was dancing along into the harbor mouth.

"Splendid!" exclaimed Guert, staring this way and that way, landward, as he pulled. "This all beats anything I ever heard of it. Hullo!"

"Lobster!" growled Coco.

"One, two, three, four sugar-boat," came from Up-na-tan. "Noank get some of 'em. Big frigate no good."

That may have been his opinion, but she looked as if she would be of some account in a naval combat, that splendid British frigate, so taut and trim, lying there at her anchor. The sails now furled along her yards could be opened quickly enough, and there would then be no other ship of her size, of any other nation on earth, that she need fear to meet.

"Forty guns," said Up-na-tan. "Knock hole in Noank. Wait, now. See what ole Spaniard do."

"It looks kind o' rugged for us," thought Guert. "We can't run into port at all. If we did we'd never get out again."

The captain of the Santa Teresa was keeping his promise. His ship was taking in sail, and a well-manned boat was lowering from her side.

"Here they come," said Guert. "We'll know more when they get here."

"No," said Up-na-tan. "Ole chief see frigate himself. Know what do. All Cap'n Avery want is Carib pilot. Tell him where go. Up-na-tan know Cuba lagoons, not Porto Rico. So Coco."

On came the Spanish boat, and as it drew nearer they could recognize Captain Velasquez himself in the stern-sheets, ready to answer their hail.

"Señor," he said to Vine Avery, "there is one more British cruiser, farther in. Pedro, here, will go back with you and pilot your schooner to a safe mooring, up the coast. Only friends will come to see you there. You may watch for a green flag on the shore, or a green light after dark."

"Thank you, señor," said Vine. "All right. Let him come aboard."

Lightly as a panther, with wonderful quickness of motion, a short, slight, dark-faced fellow sprang over into the cutter.

"Me Pedro," he said. "Fight for Americano. Save he troat from picaroon."

The Carib, therefore, could make himself understood in English, and he was eager to express his personal gratitude for his rescue from pirates and sharks.

"Now, señor," said Captain Velasquez, "we will run in and make our report. After that is done, you may rely upon all that our authorities can do for you. You will find that Spaniards can be grateful. Señora Alvarez and Señora Paez wish me to say that their young friend must soon be at their house."

Guert expressed his thanks and willingness a little lamely, and the uppermost thought in his mind was: —

"There! I hardly know what I said. I'll pick up every Spanish word I can get hold of, while I'm among 'em."

"Pull back hard!" said Up-na-tan. "Vine lose no time. Ole chief see men jump around on frigate. See go to capstan. Come out soon."

He had a red man's eye for signs, and nothing escaped him. None of his companions, not even Coco, had noticed the fact that a number of British sailors were going aloft, or that there were men gathering at the frigate's capstan as if they had designs upon the anchor.

A very different kind of man, as sharp in some respects as the Manhattan himself, had all that while been taking observations through a good telescope. He was in a somewhat weather-beaten uniform of a British first lieutenant, and he stood on the quarter-deck of the Tigress, reporting to his captain: —

"Small boat, sir, from outside the harbor. Yankee-built cutter. Two American sailors, I take 'em to be. One nigger. One mulatto, I'd say. Now they are meeting a boat from the Spanish trader that's coming in. Of course, sir, there's a rebel craft o' some sort somewhere outside, waiting to know if it's safe to come in."

"All right, Mackenzie," replied the captain of the Tigress. "We must catch her. Up anchor!"

"Ay, ay, sir," said Mackenzie, "but no canvas out till that Yankee scout-boat gets away. They needn't suspect we're after em."

"Trust your head, my boy," replied his bluff commander. "You're a sea-fox, my dear fellow, but you won't steal a march on any Yankee, right away. They're as cunning as Mohawks. Speak that Spaniard, if she comes within hail."

That was precisely what the captain of the Santa Teresa had decided not to do, if he could help it. The moment he was again on board of his own ship, he took the helm himself, and he made as wide a sheer easterly as he could. Owing to the channel and the position of the Tigress, however, the best he could do was to escape miscellaneous conversation. He could not quite avoid coming within speaking-trumpet range. The hoarse hail of the British lieutenant reached him clearly enough.

"Ship ahoy! What ship's that?"

"Santa Teresa. Barcelona to Porto Rico. Passengers and cargo. What ship's that?"

"His Britannic Majesty's Tigress, Captain Frobisher," replied Mackenzie. "You've seen rough weather, eh? One o' your sticks gone?"

"Knocked out," returned Velasquez. "We were mauled by a buccaneer. We got away from him."

"Where did you leave the American?" was the lieutenant's next question, made as confidently as if he had actually seen the Noank. "What is she, anyhow?"

The Spanish captain was silent for a moment in utter astonishment. How could the Englishman have known anything about it? His very surprise, however, defeated his prudence, and he answered: —

"Heavy schooner, bound in. She won't try it, now you are here."

"All right," came cheerily back; "I saw you send her a pilot. I'll report you."

"Caramba!" shouted Velasquez, in sudden anger. "Report! I hope your American rebels will beat you on land and sea! They have my good will, with all my heart!"

"That's so, I declare!" exclaimed the British officer, lowering his glass. "I might have known it. It's the old grudge between England and Spain. No wonder the Yankees get away from us as they do. All the American colonies are in league together against all Europe. We'll hunt down that Yankee schooner, though, in spite of 'em. Humph! To be snubbed in this way by the skipper of a Barcelona trader! I'll report him! What's the world coming to!"

The Santa Teresa, under very light canvas, was now making her slow way to her wharf, to which her arrival signals had already summoned a growing throng of expectant people. Among these, of course, were the mercantile men who were interested in the ship and her cargo, and many more were the friends and relatives of her crew and passengers. Besides these, there were naval, military, and custom-house officials, and persons who were eager for the latest news from Europe.

As the Santa Teresa floated nearer, hats and handkerchiefs began to wave on board and on the shore. The first words that were sent landward, however, were in the tremendously excited treble of old Señora Paez.

"Praise God!" she called out. "Praise to Our Lady! We were rescued from the pirates! We were saved from death by an American privateer! God bless the Americans and give them their freedom!"

Little she knew and less she cared that her enthusiastic utterances were heard by loyal subjects of the king of England. Hardly a cable's length away was anchored a stout corvette of twenty-eight guns, whose officers and men, up to that moment, had been observing the new arrival quite listlessly.

Instantly, now, there began a stir on board of her, and a boat prepared to put off to the Santa Teresa upon an errand of inquiry. Before it could be lowered, however, the corvette herself was hailed by a boat from the Tigress.

"Up anchor, is it? Yankee trader outside?" was half angrily thrown back at that boat's message. "Ay, ay! we're coming. You may tell Captain Frobisher it isn't any trader. It's one of those Connecticut pirates. We've learned that right here. – All hands away! Up anchor, lieutenant! That old woman has told us what we're going to do."

Swiftly indeed the questions and answers were exchanging between the crowded wharf and the thrilling news-bringers on the Santa Teresa. Loud and repeated were the cheers for los Americanos and their plucky little cruiser. The British consul at Porto Rico was one of the listeners, and he muttered discontentedly: —

"The rebels will get all the help and information they need. Not an English merchant keel in port or due here would be safe if it weren't for the Tigress and the Hermione. Think of it! Six cargoes ready to go out, and they'll all have to run the Yankee gantlet. There may be more than one privateer, you know."

Straight to the wharf steered the Santa Teresa. No sooner was her gang-plank out than her passengers poured over it to be welcomed after the exuberant Spanish fashion.

The Tigress, away out at the harbor mouth, was already under way, and the Hermione would soon follow her. There was a change in the state of feeling on board the frigate, however, after the return of the boat from the corvette.

"A privateer, they say?" said Captain Frobisher. "That's bad. She beat off a pirate for the Spaniard? What do you make of that, Mackenzie?"

"It's easy to read, sir," replied his foxy second in command. "It's as plain as print. The Americans are wiser than we are. They know enough to carry heavy guns. Not many of 'em, I take it, but altogether too much metal for any of these murderous picaroons."

"I'm glad they were, my boy," said the captain, heartily. "I hope they sent the devils to the bottom. I'm afraid we're to have trouble with those fellows, my boy. They can't face our cruisers, to be sure, but they may play havoc with our merchant marine. The admiralty must take severe measures with some of them."

"We'll try and do that ourselves with this one out yonder," said the lieutenant, but his duties called him away, and he did not explain precisely what was in his angry mind concerning the Noank.

That very saucy little man-of-war was not trying to look any further into the guarded harbor of Porto Rico. Vine Avery and his crew had returned with their report of danger. They also reported whatever they had learned of the British merchant craft, and Captain Avery had, therefore, several things to think of.

"Now, Pedro," he said to the Carib pilot, "what next?"

"Run into lagoon to-night," said Pedro. "Noank get through inlet at low water. British ship stick on bar. Schooner come out again when captain say ready. Safe!"

"I understand that," said the captain, thoughtfully. "Our draft will let us in. Almost any British man-o'-war would draw too much."

"No!" replied the Carib; "captain wrong. High water on bar, deep enough for small corvette. All right. British no find channel, Deep water inside reef."

"That's it, is it?" said the captain. "Then the sooner we are through that channel, the better. All sail on, Sam. Let her go!"

The crew had already crowded around Guert Ten Eyck and his friends to hear what they had to tell. There did not seem to be anything like disappointment among them. They had expected to hear of British cruisers here away. They had known, all along, that only by sharp and daring work could they hope to find or capture their intended prizes.

"What do you think, Sam?" asked the captain, as soon as the Noank was once more flying along. "Doesn't this begin to look a little squally?"

"Well, no," said the mate, soberly. "It looks like we'd best lie low for a while, that's all. What I'm thinkin' of is this. What if this Carib's lagoon and the channel into it are known to the British, or if they should be discovered while we're cooped up in there? They'd be sure to come in after us in boats. Most likely they'd come at night. We must make calculations on that."

"That's what we can do," growled the captain. "A boat attack'd stand for hard fightin'. I ain't so sure the chances would be against us. I'll tell you what, Sam Prentice, all that's left of a gang o' boats won't be enough to board and carry the Noank."

"Not if we're watchin'," said Sam.

"We won't stay in any longer'n we can help," said the captain. "I'm hopin' we are to get the right kind of information from the Spaniards."

"Not from their authorities," grimly responded the mate. "They won't do anything to make trouble between them and the British. Porto Rico is buildin' up a prime Liverpool trade just now."

"Sam!" exclaimed his friend, "you don't know human natur'! After a Porto Rico planter has been paid for his sugar, he doesn't care a copper what harbor it goes to. Besides, I'll bet on the Santa Teresa people. I took 'em for the right kind all 'round."

"I'm glad they're safe, anyhow," said Prentice. "That puts me in mind of another thing, Lyme. I kind o' like it that we're not to run into Porto Rico first thing. The Spanish lawyers might put in a claim on Groot and get him shot or hung. I've talked with him. He isn't a bad sort of Dutchman."

"We'll take care of him," said the captain. "Only man we saved. Prime good seaman. He'll be one more first-rate fighter, too, when we need him."

So the Noank sped on, and the two British men-of-war came sailing out of the harbor to chase her.

CHAPTER XII

A PRIZE FOR THE NOANK

"It doesn't take long to see all there is on one of these plantations," said Guert Ten Eyck to himself. "It's the laziest kind of place, though. I haven't seen a man in a hurry since I came here."