The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea

“This ship’s water is nearly the color of rum itself; if it only had its flavor, what a set of hearty dogs we should be! Mr. Griffith, I find you are willing to haul your land-tacks aboard. Well, it’s natural for youth to love the earth; but there is one man, and he is sailing-master of this ship, who saw land enough last night, to last him a twelvemonth. But if you will go, here’s a good land-fall, and a better offing to you. Captain Munson, my respects to you. I say, sir, if we should keep the ship more to the south’ard, it’s my opinion, and that’s but one man’s, we should fall in with some of the enemy’s homeward bound West-Indiamen, and find wherewithal to keep the life in us when we see fit to go ashore ourselves.”

As the tough old sailor made frequent application of the glass to his mouth with one hand, and kept a firm hold of the decanter with the other, during this speech, his companions were compelled to listen to his eloquence, or depart with their thirst unassuaged. Barnstable, however, quite coolly dispossessed the tar of the bottle, and mixing for himself a more equal potation, observed, in the act:

“That is the most remarkable glass of grog you have, Boltrope, that I ever sailed with; it draws as little water as the Ariel, and is as hard to find the bottom. If your spirit-room enjoys the same sort of engine to replenish it, as you pump out your rum, Congress will sail this frigate cheaply.”

The other officers helped themselves with still greater moderation, Griffith barely moistening his lips, and the pilot rejecting the offered glass altogether. Captain Munson continued standing, and his officers, perceiving that their presence was no longer necessary, bowed, and took their leave. As Griffith was retiring last, he felt a hand laid lightly on his shoulder, and turning, perceived that he was detained by the pilot.

“Mr. Griffith,” he said, when they were quite alone with the commander of the frigate, “the occurrences of the last night should teach us confidence in each other; without it, we go on a dangerous and fruitless errand.”

“Is the hazard equal?” returned the youth. “I am known to all to be the man I seem – am in the service of my country – belong to a family, and enjoy a name, that is a pledge for my loyalty to the cause of America – and yet I trust myself on hostile ground, in the midst of enemies, with a weak arm, and under circumstances where treachery would prove my ruin. Who and what is the man who thus enjoys your confidence, Captain Munson? I ask the question less for myself than for the gallant men who will fearlessly follow wherever I lead.”

A shade of dark displeasure crossed the features of the stranger, at one part of this speech, and at its close he sank into deep thought. The commander, however, replied:

“There is a show of reason in your question, Mr. Griffith – and yet you are not the man to be told that implicit obedience is what I have a right to expect. I have not your pretensions, sir, by birth or education, and yet Congress have not seen proper to overlook my years and services. I command this frigate – –”

“Say no more,” interrupted the pilot “There is reason in his doubts, and they shall be appeased. I like the proud and fearless eye of the young man, and while he dreads a gibbet from my hands, I will show him how to repose a noble confidence. Read this, sir, and tell me if you distrust me now?”

While the stranger spoke, he thrust his hand into the bosom of his dress, and drew forth a parchment, decorated with ribands, and bearing a massive seal, which he opened, and laid on the table before the youth. As he pointed with his finger impressively to different parts of the writing, his eye kindled with a look of unusual fire, and there was a faint tinge discernible on his pallid features when he spoke.

“See!” he said, “royalty itself does not hesitate to bear witness in my favor, and that is not a name to occasion dread to an American.”

Griffith gazed with wonder at the fair signature of the unfortunate Louis, which graced the bottom of the parchment; but when his eye obeyed the signal of the stranger, and rested on the body of the instrument, he started back from the table, and fixing his animated eyes on the pilot, he cried, while a glow of fiery courage flitted across his countenance:

“Lead on! I’ll follow you to death!”

A smile of gratified exultation struggled around the lips of the stranger, who took the arm of the young man and led him into a stateroom, leaving the commander of the frigate standing, in his unmoved and quiet manner, a spectator of, but hardly an actor in, the scene.

Chapter VIII

“Fierce bounding, forward sprang the ship
Like a greyhound starting from the slip,
To seize his flying prey.”

    Lord of the Isles.

Although the subject of the consultation remained a secret with those whose opinions were required, yet enough of the result leaked out among the subordinate officers, to throw the whole crew into a state of eager excitement. The rumor spread itself along the decks of the frigate, with the rapidity of an alarm, that an expedition was to attempt the shore on some hidden service, dictated by the Congress itself; and conjectures were made respecting its force and destination, with all that interest which might be imagined would exist among the men whose lives or liberties were to abide the issue. A gallant and reckless daring, mingled with the desire of novelty, however, was the prevailing sentiment among the crew, who would have received with cheers the intelligence that their vessel was commanded to force the passage of the united British fleet. A few of the older and more prudent of the sailors were exceptions to this thoughtless hardihood, and one or two, among whom the cockswain of the whale-boat was the most conspicuous, ventured to speak doubtingly of all sorts of land service, as being of a nature never to be attempted by seamen.

Captain Manual had his men paraded in the weathergangway, and after a short address, calculated to inflame their military ardor and patriotism, acquainted them that he required twenty volunteers, which was in truth half their number, for a dangerous service. After a short pause, the company stepped forward, like one man, and announced themselves as ready to follow him to the end of the world. The marine cast a look over his shoulder, at this gratifying declaration, in quest of Barnstable; but observing that the sailor was occupied with some papers on a distant part of the quarter-deck, he proceeded to make a most impartial division among the candidates for glory; taking care at the same time to cull his company in such a manner as to give himself the flower of his men, and, consequently, to leave the ship the refuse.

While this arrangement was taking place, and the crew of the frigate was in this state of excitement, Griffith ascended to the deck, his countenance flushed with unusual enthusiasm, and his eyes beaming with a look of animation and gayety that had long been strangers to the face of the young man. He was giving forth the few necessary orders to the seamen he was to take with him from the ship, when Barnstable again motioned him to follow, and led the way once more to the stateroom.

“Let the wind blow its pipe out,” said the commander of the Ariel, when they were seated; “there will be no landing on the eastern coast of England till the sea goes down. But this Kate was made for a sailor’s wife! See, Griffith, what a set of signals she has formed, out of her own cunning head.”

“I hope your opinion may prove true, and that you may be the happy sailor who is to wed her,” returned the other. “The girl has indeed discovered surprising art in this business! Where could she have learnt the method and system so well?”

“Where! why, where she learnt better things; how to prize a wholehearted seaman, for instance. Do you think that my tongue was jammed in my mouth, all the time we used to sit by the side of the river in Carolina, and that we found nothing to talk about!”

“Did you amuse your mistress with treatises on the art of navigation, and the science ofsignals?” said Griffith, smiling.

“I answered her questions, Mr. Griffith, as any civil man would to a woman he loved. The girl has as much curiosity as one of my own townswomen who has weathered cape forty without a husband, and her tongue goes like a dog-vane in a calm, first one way and then another. But here is her dictionary. Now own, Griff, in spite of your college learning and sentimentals, that a woman of ingenuity and cleverness is a very good sort of a helpmate.”

“I never doubted the merits of Miss Plowden,” said the other, with a droll gravity that often mingled with his deeper feelings, the result of a sailor’s habits, blended with native character. “But this indeed surpasses all my expectations! Why, she has, in truth, made a most judicious selection of phrases. ‘No. 168. **** indelible;’ ‘169. **** end only with life;’ ‘170. **** I fear yours misleads me;’ ‘171. – –‘”

“Pshaw!” exclaimed Barnstable, snatching the book from before the laughing eyes of Griffith; “what folly, to throw away our time now on such nonsense! What think you of this expedition to the land?”

“That it may be the means of rescuing the ladies, though it fail in making the prisoners we anticipate.”

“But this pilot! you remember that he holds us by our necks, and can run us all up to the yard-arm of some English ship, whenever he chooses to open his throat at their threats or bribes.”

“It would have been better that he should have cast the ship ashore, when he had her entangled in the shoals; it would have been our last thought to suspect him of treachery then,” returned Griffith, “I follow him with confidence, and must believe that we are safer with him than we should be without him.”

“Let him lead to the dwelling of his fox-hunting ministers of state,” cried Barnstable, thrusting his book of signals into his bosom: “but here is a chart that will show us the way to the port we wish to find. Let my foot once more touch terra firma, and you may write craven against my name, if that laughing vixen slips her cable before my eyes, and shoots into the wind’s eye again like a flying-fish chased by a dolphin. Mr. Griffith, we must have the chaplain with us to the shore.”

“The madness of love is driving you into the errors of the soldier. Would you lie by to hear sermons, with a flying party like ours?”

“Nay, nay, we must lay to for nothing that is not unavoidable; but there are so many tacks in such a chase, when one has time to breathe, that we might as well spend our leisure in getting that fellow to splice us together. He has a handy way with a prayer book, and could do the job as well as a bishop; and I should like to be able to say, that this is the last time these two saucy names, which are written at the bottom of this letter, should ever be seen sailing in the company of each other.”

“It will not do,” said his friend, shaking his head, and endeavoring to force a smile which his feelings suppressed; “it will not do, Richard; we must yield our own inclinations to the service of our country; nor is this pilot a man who will consent to be led from his purpose.”

“Then let him follow his purpose alone,” cried Barnstable. “There is no human power, always saving my superior officer, that shall keep me from throwing abroad these tiny signals, and having a private talk with my dark-eyed Kate. But for a paltry pilot! he may luff and bear away as he pleases, while I shall steer as true as a magnet for that old ruin, where I can bring my eyes to bear on that romantic wing and three smoky vanes. Not that I’ll forget my duty? no, I’ll help you catch the Englishman; but when that is done, hey! for Katherine Plowden and my true love!”

“Hush, madcap! the wardroom holds long ears, and our bulkheads grow thin by wear. I must keep you and myself to our duty. This is no children’s game that we play; it seems the commissioners at Paris have thought proper to employ a frigate in the sport.”

Barnstable’s gayety was a little repressed by the grave manner of his companion; but after reflecting a moment, he started on his feet, and made the usual movements for departure.

“Whither?” asked Griffith, gently detaining his impatient friend.

“To old Moderate; I have a proposal to make that may remove every difficulty.”

“Name it to me, then; I am in his council, and may save you the trouble and mortification of a refusal.”

“How many of those gentry does he wish to line his cabin with?”

“The pilot has named no less than six, all men of rank and consideration with the enemy. Two of them are peers, two more belong to the commons’ house of parliament, one is a general, and the sixth, like ourselves, is a sailor, and holds the rank of captain. They muster at a hunting-seat near the coast, and, believe me, the scheme is not without its plausibility.”

“Well, then, there are two apiece for us. You follow the pilot, if you will; but let me sheer off for this dwelling of Colonel Howard, with my cockswain and boat’s crew. I will surprise his house, release the ladies, and on my way back, lay my hands on two of the first lords I fall in with. I suppose, for our business, one is as good as another.”

Griffith could not repress a faint laugh, while he replied:

“Though they are said to be each other’s peers, there is, I believe, some difference even in the quality of lords. England might thank us for ridding her of some among them. Neither are they to be found like beggars, under every hedge. No, no, the men we seek must have something better than their nobility to recommend them to our favor. But let us examine more closely into this plan and map of Miss Plowden; something may occur that shall yet bring the place within our circuit, like a contingent duty of the cruise.”

Barnstable reluctantly relinquished his own wild plan to the more sober judgment of his friend, and they passed an hour together, inquiring into the practicability, and consulting on the means, of making their public duty subserve the purpose of their private feelings.

The gale continued to blow heavily during the whole of that morning; but toward noon the usual indications of better weather became apparent. During these few hours of inaction in the frigate, the marines, who were drafted for service on the land, moved through the vessel with a busy and stirring air, as if they were about to participate in the glory and danger of the campaign their officer had planned, while the few seamen who were to accompany the expedition steadily paced the deck, with their hands thrust into the bosoms of their neat blue jackets, or occasionally stretched toward the horizon, as their fingers traced, for their less experienced shipmates, the signs of an abatement in the gale among the driving clouds. The last lagger among the soldiers had appeared, with his knapsack on his back, in the lee gangway, where his comrades were collected, armed and accoutered for the strife, when Captain Munson ascended to the quarter-deck, accompanied by the stranger and his first lieutenant. A word was spoken by the latter in a low voice to a midshipman, who skipped gayly along the deck, and presently the shrill call of the boatswain was beard, preceding the hoarse cry of:

“Away there, you Tigers, away!”

A smart roll of the drum followed, and the marines paraded, while the six seamen who belonged to the cutter that owned so fierce a name made their preparations for lowering their little bark from the quarter of the frigate into the troubled sea. Everything was conducted in the most exact order, and with a coolness and skill that bade defiance to the turbulence of the angry elements. The marines were safely transported from the ship to the schooner, under the favoring shelter of the former, though the boat appeared, at times, to be seeking the cavities of the ocean, and again to be riding in the clouds, as she passed from one vessel to the other.