Read Ebook: The Voyage of the Aurora by Collingwood Harry

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Ebook has 654 lines and 74563 words, and 14 pages

George began to feel a trifle nervous as he watched the silent, stealthy approach of the stranger; and fetching his speaking-trumpet from the beckets in the companion-way, where it always hung in company with the telescope, he stepped aft to the taffrail and hailed--

"Ship ahoy!"

"What ship is that?" inquired George.

"His Britannic Majesty's brig--" . "What ship is that?"

"Yes," was the reply, "but don't hail any more; there are enemies at hand. I will sheer alongside you presently, and tell you what to do."

In little more than a minute Mr Bowen was on deck and listening to George's statement of what had already passed, and of his uneasiness. George had just finished speaking, when there was a sound as of a falling handspike, or something of the kind, on board the stranger, followed by a loud ejaculation of--

The remainder of the exclamation was promptly suppressed, but it was enough; George's suspicions were now fully aroused, and he whispered to the two men standing by him--

"She is French, beyond a doubt; they intended to surprise us, and very nearly they did it, too. But we will not be caught quite so easily this time. Ritson, go forward, rouse the men, and tell them to creep aft under the shelter of the bulwarks; let not one of them show so much as a hair of his head above the rail; and tell them to look lively. And you, Mr Bowen, be good enough to go below and bring up a cutlass apiece for all hands."

"CHOPPEE FOR CHANGEE--A BLACK DOG FOR A BLUE MONKEY."

She could now be seen with tolerable distinctness, the outline of the hull and of the lofty canvas showing black as ebony against the dark background of sea and sky; and any doubts which Captain Leicester might have still entertained concerning her, were completely set at rest as he glanced at the cut of her canvas. It was French all over.

In the ordinary course of things the two craft were now quite near enough to each other for any communication, however confidential in its nature, to be made without the possibility of its being overheard; but, though George could see that a figure stood on the brig's rail by the main-rigging, not a word was uttered.

Keeping his gaze steadfastly fixed upon the brig, Captain Leicester saw that her helm had suddenly been ported, for she was sheering strongly in toward his own vessel.

"Brig ahoy!" he hailed. "What is it you have to say to me? Do not come too close, sir, or you will be into us."

"Never fear," answered in perfect English the dark figure on board the brig, "we will not carry away so much as a rope-yarn belonging to you. But I must be on board you before I can venture to give you your instructions."

"Oh! very well," said George. "If you intend boarding us, you had better do so by way of our fore-rigging, or you may get a nasty fall; we are very much littered up here abaft with spars and so on."

"Ah, thank you very much; I will take your advice," was the reply.

"Now is your time, lads; jump for your lives!" exclaimed George in a low, excited tone; and, setting his men the example, he forthwith sprang from his own ship's bulwarks to those of the brig; and dashing at the helmsman, cut him down with his cutlass before the fellow could recover sufficiently from his astonishment to utter a cry. Then, without a moment's pause, he seized the wheel and exerting all his strength, sent it with a single twirl spinning hard over to starboard, where he lashed it.

"Barque ahoy! Let fly your sheets and halliards at once, and surrender, or I will fire into you!"

Captain Leicester did not, however, accept the French captain's invitation to go on board and take possession once more of his own ship; that proceeding would have been just a trifle too risky. He had the game in his own hands, and intended to keep it there; so he quietly waited until one of the men-o'-war should come alongside, as he knew would soon be the case, in response to his signal.

In a short time another brig was seen approaching under a perfect cloud of sail, an unmistakably English gun-brig this time, however. Sweeping up on the port quarter of George's prize, an officer sprang into the main-rigging, and hailed--

"Brig ahoy! What brig is that?"

"Ah, I see," remarked the officer. "You effected an exchange of ships--`choppee for changee--a black dog for a blue monkey,' eh? And now you want us to get your own ship back for you?"

"Not exactly," answered George with a laugh; "I have already forced her to surrender; that is the craft--the barque immediately under my lee. But I shall feel obliged if you will take charge of the prisoners, and lend me sufficient men to navigate my prize into port."

"When I saw the craft first, she was about a couple of cables' lengths directly astern of us," answered Leicester.

"She was, eh!" remarked the officer. "Well, there will be a pretty row to-morrow about her being allowed to slip in undetected. I will send a boat on board your own ship at once, to remove the prisoners; and, that done, I will tell off a crew to man your prize for you."

When he returned to the deck again, which he did immediately, the various ships were lying with their heads all round the compass, the merchantmen showing no signs that they understood the signal; but on board the men-o'-war the crews were seen to be very busy reefing topsails; the topgallant and royal-masts and yards being already sent down on deck.

Captain Leicester lost no time in following their example, as far as he was able. To send down on deck any of his top-hamper, with his limited crew, was of course quite out of the question, but he called all hands, and, hurrying them aloft, set them to work, first to furl all the light upper canvas, and then to close-reef both topsails. This done, he ordered them to furl the main and fore courses, which were already clewed up.

Part of the crew were already on the main-yard, and the remainder, having completed the reefing of the fore-topsail, had descended from aloft forward and were on their way up the main-rigging to assist in the stowing of the main-sail, when a heavy black, threatening-looking cloud-bank, which lay stretched along the western horizon, was seen to suddenly burst open, revealing a broad copper-tinted rent, which widened with alarming rapidity.

George's quick eye detected the change in an instant, and knowing what it meant, and that there was no time to lose, hailed the crew with a loud shout of--

"Now then, my lads, look alive aloft there, and toss up that main-sail smartly. If you are quick about it, you may yet get the gaskets round it before the gale strikes us; if you are not, we shall lose the sail, and very probably some of you, too."

The men answered with a cheery "Ay, ay, sir," and set to work with a will, Leicester and the chief mate springing aft to the wheel at the same moment.

"Make fast, and come down at once, lads," he shouted; "down with you, for your lives; the canvas must take care of itself now."

Startled by the anxious sharpness of the hail, the men hurriedly knotted the gaskets, just as they were, and scuttled in off the yard like so many frightened squirrels.

They were all in the main-rigging when the hurricane burst upon the ship. With a terrific, unearthly streaming roar it rushed upon her, and the barque, as if conscious of her utter inability to withstand its tremendous strength, instantly went over on her beam-ends, with her lower yard-arms dipping into the water. The men in the lee-rigging were almost completely sheltered by the hull of the ship, and they had therefore but little difficulty in holding on. But they were obliged to remain where they were, the lower portion of the shrouds being buried some eight feet deep in water, thus precluding the possibility of the men descending to the deck; whilst to go aloft again and endeavour to descend to windward, was as much as their lives were worth. They had a practical illustration of this in the fact that two of the men in the weather shrouds were actually torn from their hold, and dashed with such violence against the main-top that one man had his arm, and the other, three of his ribs broken.

THE MUTINY ON BOARD THE "PRINCESS ROYAL."

At the moment of our making the acquaintance of this vessel a very unsatisfactory state of affairs happened to prevail on board her. She was, as we have already seen, a large ship, as ships went at that time, being of 870 tons register, and capable of carrying close upon 1200 tons dead-weight. She had saloon accommodation for forty passengers, and carried an armament of twelve 9-pounders upon her main-deck, the intention of her owners being that she should fight her own way, if necessary, to and fro across the ocean, and so be independent of convoy.

But on her present voyage this plan had to be abandoned, the activity of the press-gangs, and the consequent scarcity of seamen being such that she cleared out of the port of London with only thirty men in her forecastle; a crew wholly inadequate to successfully defend a ship of her size in the extremely likely event of her encountering an adversary. She was therefore compelled, like many others, to avail herself of the protection of convoy.

Matters had consequently, as might be expected, been steadily growing from bad to worse, from the first moment of sailing; and on the day before the gale a very unpleasant incident had occurred on board.

It arose in this way. On the second mate's watch being called, one of the men remained in his hammock, sending word by one of his shipmates to the officer of the watch that he was ill and unfit for duty. The second mate, instead of reporting the circumstance to the master, and having it inquired into, as was the proper course, jumped at once to the conclusion that the man was merely feigning sickness, in order to avoid the performance of his proper share of work; and, taking the matter into his own hands, he proceeded to the forecastle, armed with a "colt," and, dragging the unhappy seaman out of his hammock, drove him on deck, abusing him roundly the while in no measured terms, and setting him to work to grease the main-mast, from the truck downward.

The poor fellow, who was really ill, procured a pot of grease and started up the rigging, but, finding himself wholly unequal to the task of going aloft, descended again, and proceeding aft to the poop went up to the captain, who happened to be standing conversing with some of the passengers, and requested to be released from duty, repeating his plea of illness. The second mate had, however, in the meantime mentioned the matter to the captain, putting his own construction upon it; the request was therefore harshly and hastily refused, the refusal being accompanied by the assertion that the pleader was a mean, skulking, mutinous rascal, not worth his salt.

Lieutenant Walford happened to be one of the passengers standing near at the moment, and, as the dissatisfied seaman turned away, Walford turned to the captain and said--

"We in the army have a very short and simple method of dealing with fellows like that--we flog them; and, I assure you, it proves a never-failing cure."

The sick man heard this remark, so did the man at the wheel, and from that moment Walford was a marked man.

The captain turned round sharply.

"Do you?" said he. "Then by Jove I'll see if it will prove equally efficacious here. Mr Thomson, have that man seized up to a grating, and give him two dozen; I'll be bound he'll be well enough to go aloft after that; if he isn't, he shall have another couple of dozen."

Thomson, the second mate, at once sprang upon the man, and, seizing him by the collar, ordered the boatswain to call all hands.

This was done. The men were drawn up in the waist of the ship on the lee-side, the sick seaman was seized up at the lee gangway, and in the presence of all on board the unhappy man received his two dozen.

But here a further widening of the breach between the officers and the crew of the ship took place. The individual appointed to administer the flogging was the boatswain's mate, a great brawny Cornishman, named Talbot. This individual, when all was ready, bared his muscular right arm to the shoulder, and, grasping the cat firmly, measured his distance accurately with his eye; then stood waiting the command to begin. The captain, the mates, Walford, and one or two more of the on-lookers smiled their satisfaction as they witnessed these elaborate preparations for the infliction of a severe flogging; and the captain, willing to prolong the man's suffering as much as possible, allowed a long pause to ensue before giving the word.

At length he nodded to Talbot, who at once took a step back, and, giving the tails of the cat a mighty flourish in the air, brought them down upon the man's naked shoulders so gently that an audible laugh broke spontaneously from the entire crew at the ludicrous sight. The captain turned livid with fury.

"Ay, ay, sir," was the imperturbable reply; and the second stroke was administered with even more threatening preliminaries than the first, but with, if possible, even less effect.

"Put that fellow in irons at once!" shouted the captain, "and let him have no food except bread and water until further orders. You hear, steward? If he has anything more, I will make you responsible for it. I will teach him--and everybody else--that when I give an order, I will have it obeyed. Now, Rogers," to the boatswain, "take the cat, and give that skulking rascal at the grating the two dozen he so richly deserves."

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