The Noank's Log: A Privateer of the Revolution

Guert's question was answered, and he had a higher idea than ever of the remarkable fitness of Lyme Avery to conduct the business of the privateer Noank.

"I see it," he thought. "They'd ha' been smashed by a raking fire at short range. It would ha' been awful!"

The schooner had but little canvas spread as yet, and she picked her way carefully, slowly; but the channel was not a long one, after all.

"Out at sea!" exclaimed Guert, with a long breath of relief, at last. "Seems to me as if I'd been on shore a year. I was getting pretty sick of it."

"Lyme Avery," remarked his mate, as more sails were spreading, "it looks to me as if we were goin' to have a rough night. We'd better git well away from the coast."

"We'll do that," replied the captain, "and we'll run along in the track o' that Liverpool trader. She has pretty nigh a day the start of us."

"I understand that," thought Guert, overhearing them. "We're in for a race. We may be chased ourselves, too. It doesn't look to me as if a storm's coming, but they read weather signs better'n I can."

"Come," said a low voice in his ear; "I want to talk with you."

The summons was spoken in Dutch, such as Guert had been accustomed to hear in old days upon Manhattan Island. Somehow or other the sound of it was very pleasant to him. He turned even eagerly to follow Groot, and was led forward almost to the heel of the bowsprit.

"Now, my boy," said the escaped pirate, "we are by ourselves. I know you like a book. I have talked with Coco and Up-na-tan. They say you know all about their having been freebooters, long ago. They call it Kidd business. Now, I never was really one of that kind, but there are ways for one buccaneer to know another, soon as he sees him, or talks with him."

"Yes," replied Guert, "they say so. It's by handgrips and signs and words. I know some of 'em now."

He and the Dutchman shook hands, and Guert said what he knew.

"That's well enough for a beginning," said Groot, "but you must know it all. It might save your life some day. It saved mine when they captured me. I'll teach you. I mean to keep company with you and those two old fellows. I owe you my life."

"Vine helped, too," said Guert. "I'm glad we hauled you aboard. The sharks were pretty close behind you just then. Oh! But wasn't it awful! I wish we'd saved more of 'em."

"You couldn't," said Groot. "They'd only ha' been turned over to the law, if you had. They were all sharks, too, nearly all. Worst kind. Some weren't quite as bad as the rest, perhaps. Never mind them, now. Let's attend to this business."

Guert was willing enough, although Groot laughed, and said it made a kind of pirate of him.

"We'll practise now and then," he told him. "Now, some wouldn't believe it, but I met more than a score of regular picaroons, living at their ease in Porto Rico. Some of them are rich, too, and don't mean to go to sea any more. For all that, they're always ready to give information or any other help to sea-rovers like themselves."

Guert was all the while learning a great deal, and this addition to his stock of knowledge hardly surprised him.

"I see," he thought. "It's a kind of matter of course. It would be a good deal stranger if it wasn't so. Those that get away rich don't care to run any more risks. Besides, if such fellows hadn't signs and passwords already, they'd set right to work and invent some. Even regular armies have passwords and countersigns, and all the ships have signals."

He was thinking of that sort of thing when the dark came on. The wind was strengthening, and there were clouds rushing across the sky to vindicate Sam Prentice's prophecy concerning the weather.

"He was right, I guess," thought Guert. "Hullo! What's the captain up to?"

Captain Avery was standing at the mainmast, and he had just touched off a rocket that went fizzing up to its bursting place.

"I wonder who'll see it," thought Guert.

Far away in the deepening gloom to leeward, at that moment, the first lieutenant of the Tigress, watching upon her quarter-deck, exclaimed: —

"Captain! One more of our cruisers! She'll come within hail before long. That's it! I hope we're going to be relieved. I'm sick and tired of this West India station."

"So am I!" said the captain, heartily. "Reply to that signal. Give 'em our own number. Draw 'em this way."

His signal officer responded promptly, and more than one rocket went up from the Tigress. Her commander was much chagrined, however, for he received no response to give him the information he expected of the character of the newcomer.

Moreover, as far away from the Noank as he was, but in a directly opposite line, to windward, at the same time, the English skipper of a fine, bark-rigged merchantman, just out from Porto Rico, felt exceedingly gratified. She was a craft of which Captain Avery had no knowledge whatever up to that moment.

"Hey!" shouted the skipper. "See that? One more of our cruisers close at hand, beside the one away off to looard. I'll send up a light to let 'em know where we are."

Captain Avery had not really asked so much of him, but that was precisely what his unnecessary rocket did.

"Lyme!" exclaimed Sam Prentice, as the shining stars fell out of the flying firework from the bark. "I declare! They told us that feller wouldn't sail for three days yet, and there he is. He's goin' to be our surest take, Captain."

"All right," replied the captain. "Not to-night, though. We'll just foller him along till mornin'. Then we'll put a prize crew into him and send him to New London. We're much obliged to him for callin' on us."

"I guess we're sure of him," said Sam, "but we'd better look out for our sticks and canvas, first."

That was what every vessel in that neighborhood was compelled to do during the gale which began to blow.

"She stands it first-rate," said Guert to Up-na-tan, an hour or so later. "Tell you what, though, I feel a good deal better than I did on shore."

"Boy talk Spanish," replied the Manhattan. "Talk him all while. Learn how. Boy not know much, anyhow."

The red man had all along deemed it his duty to impress upon the mind of his young friend the idea that he was only a beginner, an ignorant kind of sea apprentice with all his troubles before him. After that there followed a watch below, another on deck, and then the morning sun began to do what he could with the flying rack of clouds and spray and mist that was driving along before the gale.

"Vine," asked Guert, "has anything more been seen of that trader!"

"Can't you see?" said Vine. "There she is. We're to wind'ard of her, now. She's answering father's signals, first-rate. We owe all that luck to Luke Watts and his private signal-book."

Nevertheless, the skipper of the bark was even then expressing much perplexity of mind as to what the Noank might be and where from. He did not exactly like her style. It was peculiar, he said, as the morning went on and the gale began to subside, that the seemingly friendly schooner, answering signals so well, should keep the same course with himself, all the while drawing nearer.

"She outsails us," he remarked. "We can't get away from her. I wish the corvette or the frigate were in sight."

Both of them had vanished. They had tacked toward Porto Rico and the officers of the Tigress, in particular, were keeping a sharp lookout for the newly arrived British man-of-war that had burned rockets so very promisingly in the night.

"It's all right, Lieutenant," remarked Captain Frobisher. "The gale has carried her along finely. We shall find her in port when we get there."

"I wish we may!" growled the very sharp lieutenant, "but I don't like it. I didn't exactly make out the reading of that second rocket. Perhaps a lubber sent it up. We'll see."

On went the schooner and the bark without any outside observers. Down sank the tired-out gale, and the sun broke through the clouds.

"Coco!" shouted Captain Avery, at last, "haul down that lobster flag and run up the stars and stripes. Vine, give 'em that forward starboard gun. All hands to quarters! 'Bout ship! Men! she's our prize!"

A ringing sound of cheers answered him, and the report of the gun followed. It was a signal for the Englishman to heave to, and her captain dashed his hat upon the deck.

"Caught!" he groaned. "Taken by the rebels! I wish they were all sunk a hundred fathoms deep."

Loud, angry voices from all parts of his ship responded with similar sentiments relating to American pirates, but there could be no thought of resistance. The bark was hove to, and her flag came down in a hurry as if to avoid all danger of further shotted cannonading.

"Ship ahoy!" came loudly across the water. "What bark's that?"