The Noank's Log: A Privateer of the Revolution

"Tracy, my boy," said the lieutenant, "get her into any port the wind'll help you to. We're away after that saucy privateer."

So surely and so powerfully would the fugitive be followed, not to speak of any perils which might be hovering around the pathway before her. The commander of the line-of-battle ship knew something concerning at least a part of these. He listened to the report of his first officer, on his return, angrily yet coolly, and he replied: —

"All right, Hobson. Tracy isn't to be blamed, I see. As for the pirate, we'll chase her, but she's a lost dog already. The whole Channel fleet is under orders to gather at Dover Straits. She is running right in among 'em. She'll be overhauled before eight bells to-morrow."

"Those Yankees are slippery chaps, sir," said the lieutenant, shaking his head.

The hours went swiftly by, and Captain Avery remained on deck, pacing thoughtfully to and fro. Midnight went by and still the wind held good. It was a strong, northerly breeze, upon which he could have asked for no improvement.

"Lights! Lights! Lights!" he was at last repeating, as he looked ahead. "There's a reg'lar fleet of some sort. Our lanterns are all right, I'd say, 'cordin' to the signal-book. Bad for us, though. All those are British men-o'-war, not merchantmen. Port there, Taber; I must be ready to speak this feller that's nearest. Groot, you and Guert go to the rail. Up-na-tan, you and Coco must help. They mustn't hear any English. Both of you can talk Dutch. Some of us'll chatter French and Spanish."

There were, however, on board that man-of-war, men who could understand Dutch. One of them was an officer who came to the rail to converse with Groot, after hails had been exchanged.

"Magdalen, of Rotterdam?" he said. "Tell those monkeys to shut up their jabber, there, so I can hear! From Copenhagen last? You spoke the line-o'-battle ship Humber, coming this way? Did you hear anything of that American privateer?"

Dutch and French again broke out upon the supposed Magdalen, and the Englishman shouted back toward his own quarter-deck: —

"Hurrah! The Humber reports the Yankee cruiser sunk by the revenue cutter Arran, Lieutenant Tracy. Hurrah for him! Hard fight! The Yankees fought to the last. Nearly a hundred prisoners. Heave ahead, Magdalen! Good news!"

Loud Dutch shouts replied to him, and on went the Noank, while the other vessels of the British Channel fleet received the welcome tidings as it was passed along from ship to ship. Therefore there was no longer any need that they should be on the watch for the impudent, destructive adventurer from the other side of the Atlantic. She had gone to the bottom!

"I feel kind o' queer," thought Guert. "I couldn't ha' done it myself. I had to let Groot do the lying. I'm afraid I'll never do for war. I don't mind a fight, out and out, but somehow I can't help speaking the truth, Dutch or English."

Up-na-tan, on the other hand, was in great good-humor over the very Indian-like manner in which the British were being defeated. The Dover gathering of their war-ships was to him a kind of ambush through which he and his friends were cunningly crawling by hiding their feathers and war-paint.

They were not exactly crawling, either, for Captain Avery was calling upon his schooner for all the speed she had.

"We mustn't lose an inch!" he said. "Their best racers'll be comin' on in our wake in less'n an hour, maybe. I wish this night'd last all day to-morrow."

The next morning had not arrived, indeed, when the Humber herself came within hail of one of her Dover assembly friends. Then, shortly, there arose a more noisy jabber in English than had been heard in Dutch and French on the Noank, for the genuine news had been told in place of Hans Groot's invention. The actual outcome of the fight between the Noank and the Arran did not call for any enthusiastic cheering. Only a little later, the admiral commanding the fleet summed up the whole affair.

"Gentlemen," he said, to a number of glum-looking officers, "we have passed that American pirate right along through this fleet. I think we've a right to go ashore, somewhere, and sit down. It was cleverly done, though, 'pon my soul! Captain Coverley, select our three best chasers to follow her. She mustn't be allowed to get away again!"

Each of the three vessels named was three or four times over a match for the Noank, and her chances did appear to be unpleasantly small.

"There's jest one thing they won't count on our doin'," had been the decision of Captain Avery. "We must put right out into the Atlantic, aimed at nowhere. If it would only blow a gale, now!"

He was not to be gratified in that particular during the pleasant autumn day that followed. Lighter became the wind, brighter the sky, and stiller the sea.

"It's a schooner wind, Lyme," said his old friend Taber, now the second mate of the Noank. "It gives us our best paces. We've run past every keel that was on the same tack, thus far. It isn't really bad luck."

"I hope it isn't," the captain gloomily responded. "But this 'ere sea is a boat sea. They might come for us with a rigiment of their boats, you know. It's a good thing for us that there isn't a man-o'-war in sight, yet. I a'most feel as if there was blood on every mile we're makin'!"

He was even low spirited. It seemed to him impossible that so long a run of what seamen call good luck could be stretched out much further. The sailors, on the other hand, were taking a different view of the matter, very much more sensibly. Every man of them may have had a superstitious belief in "luck," but they had also seen, in each successive emergency, that they had a captain with a long head, and that he knew exactly what to do with that schooner. They were in good spirits, therefore, that sunny day. Perhaps they did not know all the reasons he had for now and then shaking his head.

"There's no port for us, hereaway," he thought. "I don't know of one that it would be safe for us to look into. It's a long v'yage home. We're a good deal overcrowded. There's worse'n that to think of, though. That feller Tracy told me our folks at home are gettin' ready to give it up. He said we are beaten badly, all around. I may find a British garrison in New London, when I get there. One in Boston, too. Then my chance for a rope 'round my neck is a sure one. Things look black, and no mistake!"

He should have been at his home that day instead of at sea. All over New England, all over the other colonies, north and south, as far as the news had been carried; from town to town, from village to village, and from farm to farm, horsemen were riding, men and boys on foot were running to tell of the surrender of Burgoyne. The great British invasion and conquest of the northern half of the American rebellion had broken down. The Six Nations had scattered to their wigwams and council-fires. It would be many days yet before the tidings could reach England or cross the Channel to astonish Continental Europe and seal the alliance between the United States and France. It would be longer still before it could be known by roving cruisers out at sea. For all American keels, however, their home ports had been made secure from British assailing until the generals and admirals of King George should have time given them to consider the Saratoga affair, and make up their astonished minds as to what it might be best for them to undertake next.

"Anneke Ten Eyck," remarked Rachel Tarns, "thee wicked rebel! Has thee no feelings for thy good king and his wise counsellors? Cannot thee understand that their souls may be much disturbed by this untoward event?"

"I wish their fleets were as badly whipped as Burgoyne's army is," replied Mrs. Ten Eyck. "Oh! it is so very long since I've heard from Guert!"

"Trust thy son with thy God!" said Rachel, reverently. "Thee may think of this, Anneke: our victory over Burgoyne hath cost much to hundreds of mothers, as loving as thou art. Their sons lie buried at Stillwater and Saratoga. No gallant ship will bring them home again."

"I know it! I know it!" sobbed Mrs. Ten Eyck. "They gave their lives for liberty. Guert may have to give his as Nathan Hale did. He told me he believed he could die as bravely, only he would rather it should be in battle."

"That he may not choose for himself," said Rachel. "It hath come, heretofore, to many of my own people, Quakers, thou callest them, to die by the fire, and by the water, and by the hempen cord, because they would not give up their freedom to worship God in their own way. I think it was well with them. Let thy son die as it shall be given him in the hour of his appointing."

Deep and solemn had grown the tones of the enthusiastic old Friend, but Mrs. Ten Eyck dropped her knitting and went to a window to look out long and wistfully toward the harbor.

"When will he come sailing in?" she thought. "Am I ever to see him again? Oh! the war is so long, and the sea is so wide, and I love him so!"

Very beautiful and very long-suffering was the patriotism of the American woman of that day. Bitter indeed was the cup that many of them had to drink. Costly as life itself were the sacrifices that they were called upon to make. Well might such a son as Guert, keeping his watch on deck at the end of that long, pleasant day, be thinking only of his mother, rather than of the dangers that surrounded the Noank. Groot, the pirate, came and sat down by him and asked him curious questions concerning the way people lived in America.

"I can't get back to our old farm on Manhattan Island," Guert told him, "until Washington's army marches in again. Up-na-tan and Coco came away with me when we were beaten."

Groot asked then about the New York battles and about New London.

"I always believed," he said, "that I must always live on the sea, but I've been thinking. I can never be safe afloat. I sail with a rope around my neck, although I was never a pirate of my own free will. It is growing in my mind that I had better find some kind of harbor on shore. I shall have prize-money this time. I can make a start at something. I believe I could go away back into one of your states and live a new life."

"That's it," said Guert. "You could go among the Mohawk Valley Dutchmen, if Manhattan Island is too near the sea. You'd be hidden there, safe enough. Nobody would ever come for you."

"I'll think of it," said Groot. "No man knows how long he is going to live, anyhow."

So there was rejoicing, with mourning also, and anxiety, upon the land, and it was a time for serious thinking on the sea; but at this moment the forward lookout startled all on board by the vigorous voice with which he sang out: —

"Sail ahead! Close on the larboard bow! Big three-master! No light showing!"

"All hands away!" roared Captain Avery. "Port your helm, there! Men! If it's an armed ship, it's too late to get away. We must grapple and board her, for life and death. Get the grapplings ready! Ship ahoy!"

The response was the report of a shotted gun and an angry shout: —

"We know you! Keep away, or we'll sink you! We can do it!"

"British trader," thought Captain Avery. "He's told us all we need to know. He's a strong one, I guess, and he could maul us badly. Our only chance is to close with him." Then he shouted to his crew: —

"Pikes and cutlasses! All hands be ready to follow me! Hurrah!"

"Hurrah!" came wildly back, and the three guns of the schooner's broadside, with the long eighteen, answered the stranger's challenge.

They were well enough directed, and so was the reply that came from half a dozen English pieces, but these, quite naturally at so short a range, were aimed too high. Down came both of the topmasts of the Noank, while her hull and ship's company were unhurt. She was a crippled craft in a moment, but she still had enough of headway to carry her alongside of her bulky antagonist before her guns could be reloaded.

"Throw the grapnels!" shouted Captain Avery. "Haul, now! All aboard! Fore and aft, and amidships! Give it to 'em!"

Down he went the next instant, flat upon the deck of the English ship, as he sprang over her bulwark. Down at his side fell the British sailor by whose cutlass he had fallen, and over both of them sprang Guert Ten Eyck with Up-na-tan and Coco reaching out to hold him back and get in before him.

"I hit him!" shouted Guert, fiercely.