The Noank's Log: A Privateer of the Revolution

"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."