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The Noank's Log: A Privateer of the Revolution

by William O. Stoddard · English · Gutenberg #38523 · 400,255 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Noank's Log: A Privateer of the Revolution

Author: William O. Stoddard

Illustrator: Will Crawford


        
Release date: January 7, 2012 [eBook #38523]
                Most recently updated: January 8, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38523

Credits: Produced by Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NOANK'S LOG: A PRIVATEER OF THE REVOLUTION ***




Produced by Al Haines










[Illustration: Cover art]






_The_ NOANK'S LOG

A PRIVATEER OF THE REVOLUTION



BY W. O. STODDARD

Author of "Guert Ten Eyck," "Gid Granger," etc.



ILLUSTRATED BY WILL CRAWFORD



BOSTON

LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY




  COPYRIGHT, 1900,
  BY LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY.




  Norwood Press
  J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith
  Norwood, Mass. U.S.A.




PREFACE.

The latter half of the year 1776 and the whole of the year 1777 have
been vaguely and erroneously described as "the dark hour" of the war
for American independence.  It is true that our armies, hastily
gathered and imperfectly equipped, had been outnumbered and defeated in
several important engagements.  Beyond that purely military fact there
was no real darkness.  Upon the sea the success of the Americans had
been phenomenal.  Before the end of the year 1777, the commerce of
Great Britain had suffered losses which dismayed her merchants.  As
early as the 6th of February, 1778, Mr. Woodbridge, alderman of London,
testified at the bar of the House of Lords that the number of British
ships taken by American cruisers already reached the startling number
of seven hundred and thirty-three.  Of these many had been retaken, but
the Americans had succeeded in carrying into port, as prizes, five
hundred and fifty-nine.  The value of these and their cargoes was
declared to be moderately estimated at over ten millions of dollars.
Only a few of the American cruisers were public vessels, sent out
either by individual states or by the United States.  All the others
were private armed ships, "letters of marque and reprisal" privateers.
Something of their character and cruising is set forth in this story of
the old whaler _Noank_, of New London.

Something is also told of the condition and feeling of the people on
the land during the misunderstood gloomy days.  The years of the
Revolutionary War were not altogether years of disaster, devastation,
and depression.  They were rather years of development and prosperity.
The war was fought and its victory won not only for political, but for
social, industrial, and financial freedom.  All the energies of the
American people had been fettered.  As the war went on, and without
waiting for its close, all these energies became free to work out the
great results at which the world now wonders.

We are justly proud of our navy.  It was founded by our sailors
themselves, without the help of any Navy Department, or Treasury
Department, or national shipyards, or naval academies.  There were,
however, very good admirals, commodores, and captains among the
self-taught heroes who went out then in ships in which, ton for ton and
gun for gun, they were able to outsail and outfight any other cruisers
then afloat.




CONTENTS.

     I. A Wounded Nation at Bay
    II. More Powder
   III. The Unforgotten Hero
    IV. The News from Trenton
     V. The Brig and the Schooner
    VI. The British Fleet
   VII. Hunting the _Noank_
  VIII. Contraband Goods
    IX. The Picaroon
     X. The Black Transport
    XI. A Dangerous Neighborhood
   XII. A Prize for the _Noank_
  XIII. The Bermuda Trader
   XIV. The Neutral Port
    XV. A Coming Storm
   XVI. Irish Loyalty
  XVII. Very Sharp Shooting
 XVIII. Down the British Channel
   XIX. The Spent Shot
    XX. Anchored in the Harbor




THE NOANK'S LOG.




CHAPTER I.

A WOUNDED NATION AT BAY.

It is well to fix the date of the beginning of a narrative.

Through the mist and the icy rain, with fixed bayonets and steadfast
hearts, up the main street of Trenton town dashed the iron men from the
frost and famine camp on the opposite bank of the Delaware.

Among their foremost files, leading them in person, rode their
commander-in-chief.  Beyond, at the central street crossing, a party of
Hessian soldiers were half frantically getting a brace of field-pieces
to bear upon the advancing American column.  They were loading with
grape, and if they had been permitted to fire at that short range,
George Washington and all the men around him would have been swept away.

Young Captain William Washington and a mere boy-officer named James
Monroe, with a few Virginians and Marylanders, rushed in ahead of their
main column.  Nearly every man went down, killed or wounded, but they
prevented the firing of those two guns.  Just before their rush, the
cause of American liberty was in great peril.  Just after it, the
victory of Trenton was secure.

So it is set down in written history, and there are a great many
curious statements made by historians.

This was a sort of midnight, it is said,--the dark hour of the
Revolutionary War.

Manhattan Island, with its harbor and its important military and naval
features, had been definitely lost to the Americans and occupied by the
British.  Its defences had been so developed that it was now
practically unassailable by any force which the patriots could bring
against it.  From this time forward its harbor and bay were to be the
safe refuge and rendezvous of the fleets of the king of England.  Here
were to land and from hence were to march, with only one important
exception, the armies sent over to crush the rebellious colonies.

Nevertheless, Great Britain had won back just so much of American land,
and no more, as her troops could continuously control with forts and
camps.  Upon all of her land, everywhere beyond the range of British
cannon and the visitation of British bayonets and sabres, the colonists
were as firm as ever.  It is an exceedingly remarkable fact that
probably not one county in any colony south of the Canadas contained a
numerical majority of royalists, or "Tories."  Still, however, these
were numerous, sincere, zealous, and they fully doubled the effective
strength of the varied forces sent over from beyond the sea.

The tide of disaster to the American arms had hardly been checked at
any point in the north.  Fort Washington had bloodily fallen; Fort Lee
had been abandoned; the battle of White Plains had been fought, with
sharp losses upon both sides.  After vainly striving to keep together a
dissolving army, General Washington, with a small but utterly devoted
remnant, had retreated to contend with cold and starvation in their
desolate winter quarters beyond the Delaware.

For a time, the red-cross flag of England seemed to be floating
triumphantly over land and sea.  All Europe regarded the American cause
as hopelessly lost.  The American character and the actual condition of
the colonies was but little understood on the other side of the
Atlantic.  The truth of the situation was that the men who had wrested
the wilderness from the hard-fighting red men, and who had been
steadily building up a new, free country, during several generations,
were unaware of any really crushing disaster.  At a few points, which
most of them had never seen, they had been driven back a little from
the sea-coast, and that was about all.  Among their snow-clad hills and
valleys they were sensibly calculating the actual importance of their
military reverses, and were preparing to try those battles again, or
others like them.  A bitter, revengeful, implacable feeling was
everywhere increasing, for several aggravating causes.  In the winter
days of 1776-77, wounded America was dangerously AT BAY.

It was on Christmas morning, at the hour when the Hessians of Colonel
Rahl were giving up their arms and military stores in Trenton town.  At
that very hour, a group of people, who would have gone wild with
delight over such news as was to come from Trenton, sat down to a
plentiful breakfast in a Connecticut farm-house.  It was a house in the
outskirts of New London, near the bank of the Thames River, and in view
of the splendid harbor.  As yet there were several vacant chairs at the
table.

"Guert Ten Eyck," said a tall, noble-looking old woman, as she turned
away from one of the frosted windows, "of what good is thy schooner and
her fine French guns?  Thee has not fired a shot with one of them.  How
does thee know that thee can hit anything?"

"Yes, we did, Rachel Tarns," was very cheerfully responded from across
the table.  "We blazed away at that brig.  We hit her, too.  Good
Quakers ought not to want us to hurt people."

"Guert," she tartly replied, "thee has done no harm, I will instruct
thee.  If thee is thyself a Friend, thee must not use carnal weapons,
but if thee is one of the world's people thee may do what is in thee
for the ships and armies of thy good King George.  Do I not love him
exceedingly?  Hath he not seized my dwelling for a barracks, and hath
he not driven me and mine out of my own city of New York, for what his
servants call treasonable utterances?"

"Rachel!" came with much energy from the head of the table.  "I can't
fight, any more'n you can.  You love him just the way you do for pretty
good reasons.  So do I, for 'pressing my husband and sons into his
navy.  Thank God! they've all escaped now, and they're ready to sink
such ships as they were flogged in--"

"Mother Avery," interrupted a stalwart young man at her side, "that's
what we mean to do if we can.  British men-o'-war are not easy to sink,
though.  We've something to think of just now.  If our harbor batteries
aren't strengthened the British could clean out New London any day.
Their cruisers steer out o' range of Ledyard's long thirty-twos, but
there's not enough of 'em.  We haven't powder enough, either."

"Vine," said Rachel Tarns, "does thee not see the peaceful nature of
thy long cannon?  They keep thy foes at a distance, and they prevent
the unnecessary shedding of blood.  I am glad they are on thy fort."

"Rachel Tarns," said Guert, "you gave Aleck Hamilton the first powder
he ever had for his field-pieces.  You're a real good Quaker.  I wish
you'd come on board the _Noank_, though, and see how we've armed her.
She's all ready for sea."

"What we're waiting for," said Vine Avery, "is a chance to do
something.  Father won't say just what his next notion's goin' to be."

"He says he won't wait much longer," said Guert.  "Mother, you said I
might go with him?"

"You may!" she answered firmly, and then her face grew shadowy.

He was a well-built, wiry looking young fellow, with dark and piercing
eyes.  His face wore at this moment a look that was not only
courageous, but older than his apparent years seemed to call for.  It
was a look that well might grow in the face of an American boy of that
day, whether sailor or soldier.

Others had now come in to fill the chairs at the table.  At the end of
it, opposite Mrs. Avery, sat a strong looking, squarely built man whom
nobody need have mistaken for anything else than a first-rate Yankee
sea-captain.

The house they were in was of somewhat irregular construction.  Its
main part, the doorstep of which was not many yards from the road
fence, was a square frame building.  At the right of its wide central
passage, or hall, was the ample dining room.  Opening into this at the
rear was a room almost equally large that was evidently much older.
Its walls were not made of sawed lumber, nor were they even plastered.
They were of huge, rudely squared logs and these had been cut from the
primeval forest when the first white settlers landed on that coast.
They had made their houses as strong as so many small forts.  In the
outer doors of this room, and here and there in its thick sides, were
cut loopholes, now covered over, through which the earlier Averys could
have thrust their gun muzzles to defend their scalps from assaults of
their unpleasant Pequot neighbors.  There were legends in the family of
sharp skirmishes in the dooryard.  All of that region had been the
battle-ground of white and red men and this was one reason why such
captains as Putnam, and Knowlton, and Nathan Hale had been able to
rally such remarkably stubborn fighters to march to Breed's Hill and to
the New York and New Jersey battlefields.

"What's that, Rachel Tarns, about getting news from New York?" at last
inquired Captain Avery, laying down his knife and fork.  "I'd ruther
git good news from Washington's army.  I'm not givin' 'em up, yet, by
any manner o' means."

"That's all right, father," said his son Vine, "but I do wish we knew
of a supply ship, inward bound.  I'd like to strike for ammunition for
the _Noank_ and for the batteries.  We're not fixed out for a long
voyage till we can fire more rounds than we could now."

There was a Yankee drawl in his speech, a kind of twang, but there was
nothing coarse in the manners or appearance of young Avery, and his
sailor father had an intelligent face, not at all destitute of what is
called refinement.

"I wish thee might have thy will," responded Rachel, earnestly.

"Vine!" exclaimed his mother.  "Hark!  Somebody's coming.  Rachel,
didn't you hear that?"

"I did!" said Rachel, rising.  "That was Coco's voice and Up-na-tan's.
The old redskin's talking louder than he is used to about something."

"He can screech loud enough," said Guert.  "I've heard him give the
Manhattan warwhoop.  Coco can almost outyell him, too."

At that moment, the front door swung open unceremoniously, and a pair
of very extraordinary human forms came stalking in.

"Up-na-tan!" shouted Guert, with boyish eagerness.  "Coco!  All loaded
down with muskets!  What have they been up to?"

"Heap more, out on sled," replied a deep, mellow, African voice.  "Ole
chief an' Coco been among lobsters.  'Tole a heap."

"Thee bad black man!" said Rachel Tarns.  "Up-na-tan, has thee been
wicked, too?  What has thee been stealing?"

"Ole woman no talk," came half humorously from the very tall shape
which had now halted in front of her.  "Up-na-tan been all over own
island.  See King George army.  See church prison.  Ship prison.  See
many prisoners.  All die, soon.  Ole chief say he kill redcoat for kill
prisoner.  Coco say, too.  Good black man.  Good Indian."

He might be good, but he was ferociously ugly.  The only Indian
features discernible about his dress were his moccasons and an old but
hidden buckskin shirt.  Over this he now had on a tremendous military
cloak of dark cloth.  On his head was a 'coonskin cap, such as any
Connecticut farmer boy might wear.  He now put down on the floor no
less than six good-looking muskets, all duly fitted with bayonets.
Coco did the same, and he, for looks, was equally distinguished.  His
tall, gaunt figure was surmounted by an undipped mop of white wool,
over a face that was a marvel of deeply wrinkled African features.  He
also wore a military cloak, and both garments were such as might have
been lost in some way by petty officers of a Hessian battalion.  They
were not British, at all events.

Guert glanced at the muskets on the floor and then sprang out of the
door to discover what else this brace of uncommon foragers had brought
home with them.  Just outside the gate there was quite enough to
astonish him.  It was not a mere hand-sled, but what the country people
called a "jumper."  It was rudely but strongly made of split saplings,
its parts being held together mostly by wooden pins.  It had no better
floor than could be made of split shingles, and on this lay, now, a
closely packed collection of muskets, with several swords, pistols, and
a miscellaneous lot of belts, cartridge-boxes, and knapsacks.  Coco and
Up-na-tan had plainly been borrowing liberally, somewhere or other, and
Guert hastened back into the house to get an explanation.  Curiously
enough, however, both of the foragers had refused to give anything of
the kind to the assembly in the Avery dining room.

"Where has thee been, chief?" had been asked by Rachel Tarns.  "Tell us
what thee and Coco have been doing.  We all wish to hear."

"No, no!" interrupted the Indian; "Coco shut mouth.  Ole chief tell
Guert mother.  Where ole woman gone?  Want see her!"

"That's so," said Guert.  "Mother's about the only one that can do
anything with either of them.  They used to live a good deal at our
house, you know."

There had all the while been one vacant chair at the table, waiting for
somebody that was expected, and now through the kitchen door came
hurrying in a not very tall but vigorous-looking woman.

"Mother!" said Guert.  "So glad you came in!  Speak to 'em!  Make 'em
tell what they've been doing!"

She proved that she understood them better than he or the rest did by
not asking either of them a question.  She stepped quickly forward and
shook hands, with the red man first and then with the black.  She
stooped and examined the weapons on the floor.

"Sled outside," said Up-na-tan.  "Ole woman go see."

Out she went silently, and the dining room was deserted, for everybody
followed her.  In front of the jumper stood a very tired-looking pony,
and she pointed at him inquiringly.  He himself was nothing wonderful,
but his harness was at least remarkable.  It was made up of ropes and
strips of cloth.  Some of the strips were red, some green, and the rest
were blue, the whole being, nevertheless, somewhat otherwise than
ornamental.

"Ole chief find pony in wood," said Up-na-tan.  "Hess'n tie him on
tree.  Find sled in ole barn.  Hess'n go sleep.  Drink rum.  No wake
up.  Ole chief an' Coco load sled.  Feel hungry, now.  Tell more by and
by."

His way of telling left it a little uncertain as to whether or not
intemperance was the only cause that prevented the soldier sleepers
from awaking to interfere with the taking away of their arms and
accoutrements.  He seemed, however, to derive great satisfaction from
the interest and approval manifested by Mrs. Ten Eyck.

"Come in and get your breakfast," she said.  "Rachel Tarns and I'll
cook for you while you talk.  Rachel, they must have the best we can
give them.  I've cooked for Up-na-tan.  'Tisn't the first meal he's had
here, either.  He's an old friend of mine and yours."

"Good!" grunted Up-na-tan.  "Ole woman give chief coffee, many time."
He appeared, nevertheless, a good deal as if he were giving her
commands rather than requests, so dignified and peremptory was his
manner of speech.  No doubt it was the correct fashion, as between any
chief and any kind of squaw, although he followed her into the house as
if he in some way belonged to her, and Coco did the same.

"Guert come," he said.  "Lyme Avery, Vine, all rest, 'tay in room.
Tarns woman come."

The door into the kitchen was closed behind them in accordance with his
wishes, and the breakfast-table party was compelled to restrain its
curiosity for the time being.

"We must let the old redskin have his own way," remarked Captain Avery.
"Nobody but Guert's mother knows how to deal with him.  The old pirate!"

"That's just what he is, or what he has been," said Vine Avery.  "He
hardly makes any secret of it.  I believe he has a notion, to this day,
that Captain Kidd sailed under orders from General Washington and the
Continental Congress."

"Captain Kidd wasn't much worse than some o' the British cruisers,"
grumbled his father.  "They'll all call us pirates, too, and I guess
we'd better not let ourselves be taken prisoners."

Mrs. Avery's face turned a little paler, at that moment, but she said
to him, courageously:--

"Lyme!  Do you and Vine fight to the very last!  I'm glad that Robert
is with Washington.  I wish they had these muskets there!  No, they may
be just what's wanted at our forts here."

"More muskets, more cannon, and more powder," said Vine.  "Oh! how I
ache to know how those fellows captured 'em!  There isn't any better
scout than an Indian, but both of 'em are reg'lar scalpers."

They might be.  They looked like it.  They were unsurpassed specimens
of out and out red and black savagery, with the added advantage, or
disadvantage, of paleface piratical training and experience by sea and
land.  The very room they were now in was a kind of memorial of
old-time barbarisms, and it might again become a fort--a block-house,
at least--almost any day.

All the farm-houses of Westchester County, New York, not far away, if
not already burned or deserted, had become even as so many
"block-houses," so to speak.  They were to be held desperately, now and
then, against the lawless attacks of the Cowboys and Skinners who were
carrying on guerilla warfare over what was sarcastically termed "the
neutral ground" between the British and American outposts.

The huge fireplace, before which Mrs. Ten Eyck and Rachel Tarns began
at once to prepare breakfast for their hungry friends, had an iron bar
crossing it, a few feet up.  This was to prevent Pequots,
Narragansetts, or other night visitors from bringing their knives and
tomahawks into the house by way of the chimney.  Upon the deerhorn
hooks above the mantel hung no less than three long-barrelled,
bell-mouthed fowling pieces, such as had hurled slugs and buckshot
among the melting columns of the British regulars in front of the
breastwork on Bunker Hill, or, more correctly, Breed's Hill.  A sabre
hung beside them, and a long-shafted whaling lance rested in the
nearest corner at the right, with a harpoon for a companion.

All these things had been taken in at a glance by the two foragers, or
scouts, or spies, or whatever duty they had been performing most of
recently.

"Keep still, Guert," commanded his mother.  "Let the chief tell."

Gravely, slowly, in very plain and not badly cut up English, with now
and then a word or so in Dutch, Up-na-tan told his story, aided, or
otherwise, by sundry sharply rebuked interjections from Coco.  The
first thing which seemed to be noteworthy was that the British on
Manhattan Island considered the rebel cause hopeless.  Its armed
forces, moreover, were so broken up or so far away that the vicinity of
New York was but carelessly patrolled.  There had been hardly any
obstacle to hinder the going in or the coming out of a white-headed old
slave and a wandering Indian.  The red men of New York, for that
matter, were supposed to be all more or less friendly to their British
Great Father George across the ocean.  All black men, too, were
understood to be not unwillingly released from rebel masters, provided
they were not set at work again for anybody else.

Up-na-tan's greatest interest appeared to cling to the forts and to the
cannon in them, but he answered Rachel Tarns quite clearly concerning
the conditions of the American soldiers held as prisoners.  All the
large churches were full of them, he said, packed almost to
suffocation.  One or more old hulks of warships, anchored in the
harbor, were as horribly crowded.  The worst of these was the old
sixty-four gun ship, _Jersey_, lying in Wallabout Bay, near the Long
Island shore.  Up-na-tan and Coco had rowed around her in a stolen boat
and had been fired upon by her deck guard, and they had seen a dozen at
least of dead rebels thrown overboard, to be carried out to sea by the
tide.

"Redcoat kill 'em all, some day," said the Indian.  "Kill men in ole
church.  Bury 'em somewhere."  He seemed to have an idea that the
doomed Americans did not perish by disease or suffocation altogether.
He believed that their captors selected about so many of them every
day, to be dealt with after the Iroquois or Algonquin fashion.  This
was strictly an Indian notion of the customary usages of war.  It did
not stir his sensibilities, if he had any, as it did those of the
warm-hearted Quaker woman and Mrs. Ten Eyck.  Guert listened with a
terribly vindictive feeling, such as was sadly increasing among all the
people of the colonies.  It was to account for, though not to excuse,
many a deed of ruthless retaliation during the remainder of the war.
In skirmish after skirmish, raid after raid, battle after battle, the
innocent were to suffer for the guilty.  Brave and right-minded
servants and soldiers of Great Britain were to perish miserably,
because of these evil dealings with prisoners of war in and about
Manhattan Island.

"Thy scouting among the forts and camps hath small value," said Rachel
Tarns, thoughtfully.  "If Washington knew all, he hath not wherewith to
attack the king's forces."

"No, no!" exclaimed the Indian.  "Not now.  Washington come again, some
day.  Kill all lobster.  Take back island.  Up-na-tan help him.  Coco
no talk.  Ole chief tell more."

Aided by expressive gestures and by an occasional question from Mrs.
Ten Eyck, he made the remainder of his story both clear and
interesting.  He and Coco had crossed the Harlem, homeward bound, in an
old dugout canoe.  They had worked their way out through the British
lines by keeping under the cover of woods, to a point not far from the
White Plains battle-field.  Here, one evening, they had discovered a
Hessian foraging party in a deserted farm-house.  The soldiers were
having a grand carouse, thinking themselves out of all danger.

"Musket all 'tack up in front of house," said Up-na-tan.  "One Hess'n
walk up an' down, sentry, till he tumble.  Fall on face.  Coco find
sled in barn.  Find pony.  Up-na-tan take all musket.  Pile 'em on
sled.  Harness pony, all pretty good.  Come away."

"Didn't you go into the house?" asked Guert, excitedly.  "Didn't any of
'em know what you were doing?  How'd you get your cloak?"

"Boy shut mouth," said Up-na-tan.  "Ole chief want cloak.  Coco, too,
want more musket, pistol, powder.  Hate Hess'n.  All in house go sleep
hard.  No wake up.  Lie still.  Pony pull sled to New London."

Mrs. Ten Eyck's face was very pale and so was that of Rachel Tarns.
They believed that they understood only too well why the Manhattan
warrior and the grim Ashantee who had been his comrade in this affair,
preferred to say no more concerning the undisturbable slumber of that
unfortunate detail of Hessians.

"Guert," said his mother, "go in and get your breakfast.  The chief and
Coco have had theirs.  Rachel, you and I must have a talk with Captain
Avery."




CHAPTER II.

MORE POWDER.

"Captain Watts, I must say it.  I don't a bit like this tryin' to run
in without a convoy."

"Nor I either, mate," said the captain, with an upward glance at the
rigging and a side squint across the sea.  "'Tisn't any fault o' mine.
I protested."

"I heard ye," replied the mate.  "They only laughed at us.  They said
the king's cruisers'd swep' these waters as clean as the Channel.  Glad
ye know 'em."

"Know 'em?" laughed Captain Watts.  "I'm a Massachusetts man.  I know
'em like a book.  Don't need any pilot."

"How 'bout Hell Gate, when we get there?  We've lost a ship or two--"

"Brackett, man," interrupted the skipper, more seriously, "that's a
long reach ahead, yet.  I know Hell Gate channel when we get there.
Our risks'll be in the sound.  The rebels haven't any reg'lar cruisers.
What we've to look out for is the Long Island whaleboat men.  Tough
customers.  They say nigh half on 'em are redskins,--Indian scalpers."

"Well!  As to them," said the mate, "we can beat 'em off.  Our
four-pounder popguns'd be good against whaleboats but not for anything
bigger."

"Six on 'em," said Captain Watts.  "We can handle 'em, too."

"I'd rather 'twas a frigate," said the mate.  "Our crew's none too
strong, and half of 'em are 'pressed men.  No fight in 'em."

"Oh, yes, they'll have to fight," was responded.  "Fight or hang,
perhaps.  I hate a 'pressed man.  Anyhow, it'll take a better wind than
this to show us Hell Gate channel before day after to-morrow.  We'll be
tackin' about in the sound, to-night."

"It's a'most a calm!  Bitter cold, too."

He was a very intelligent looking British sailor, that first mate of
the _Windsor_.  She was a bark-rigged vessel of possibly six hundred
tons, and she was freighted heavily with military and other supplies
for the king's forces at New York.

Somehow or other, the discontented mate could not say why or how, the
_Windsor_ had become separated from her convoy and consorts.  These
were seeking their harbor by way of Sandy Hook, while she had been sent
through Long Island Sound.  She was hardly in it yet, although it may
be a wide water question as to precisely at what line the sound begins.
Not a sail of any kind larger than a fisherman's shallop was in sight.
There was solid comfort to be had in the knowledge that the Americans
had no navy, and that all these waters were regularly patrolled by
English armed vessels.  It looked as if there could be no good cause
for anxiety, and Mate Brackett was compelled to accept the situation.
He turned away, and the captain himself went below, hopefully
remarking:--

"Cold weather's nothin'.  There'll be more wind, by and by.  We'll be
ready to take it when it comes."

"He's a prime seaman.  No doubt o' that," said the mate, looking after
him.  "He's pilot enough, too, and our bein' here's no fault o' his.
We'll be ready for any rebel boats, though.  I'll cast loose the guns,
such as they are, and I'll get up powder and ball.  Grapeshot'd be the
thing for boats.  Sweep 'em at short range.  This 'ere craft's goin' to
reach port, if we fight our way in!"

He was showing pretty good judgment and plenty of courage.  His six
guns, three on a side, looked serviceable.  The crew appeared to be
numerous enough to handle so few pieces as that, whatever their other
deficiencies might be.  Part of them, indeed were first-rate British
tars, the best fighters in the world.  As for Captain Watts, he was
understood to be an American Tory of the strongest kind, to be depended
upon even more than if he had been a Hull man or a Londoner.  No set of
men, anywhere, ever showed more self-sacrificing devotion to their
political principles than did the loyalists, or royalists, of America
in their long, fruitless struggle with what they deemed treason and
rebellion.

It is possible that Mate Brackett might have studied his cannon and
their capacities even more carefully than he did, if at that morning
hour he could have been for a few minutes one of a little group upon
the deck of a craft that was at anchor in New London harbor.

The tonnage of this vessel was much less than that of the _Windsor_,
but she was sharper in the nose, cleaner in the run, trimmer,
handsomer.  She was schooner-rigged, with tall, tapering, raking masts
that promised for her an ample spread of canvas.  She was, in short,
one of the new type of vessels for which the American shipyards were
already becoming distinguished.  She had been built for the
whale-fishery, and that meant, to the understanding of Yankee sailors,
that she was to have speed enough to race a school of runaway whales,
strength to stand the squeeze of an icefloe, the bump of an iceberg, or
the blast and billows of a hurricane.  She must also have fair stowage
room between decks and in her hold for many casks of oil.

"Up-na-tan like long guns," said one of the voices on the deck of the
_Noank_.  "Now!  Coco swing him.  No man help.  One man swing.  All
'tan back.  Brack man try."

He was asking a practical question as an experienced gunner.  It was
necessary to know whether or not the pivoting of that long, brass
eighteen-pounder had been perfectly done for freedom of movement.  In
action there would be men enough to handle it, but even the work of
many hands should not be impeded by overtight fittings and needless
frictions.

"Ugh!  Good!" he exclaimed, as his black comrade turned the gun back
and forth, and then he tried it himself.

"Captain Avery, that's so, he can do it," remarked Guert Ten Eyck,
thoughtfully, "but those two are made of iron and hickory.  It isn't
every fellow can do what they can."

"No, I guess not," laughed Captain Avery.

"I'm glad the old Buccaneers are pleased, though.  There goes the
redskin to the other guns.  He can't find any fault with 'em.  Not one
of 'em's a short nose."

Three on a side, polished to glittering, the long brass sixes slept
upon their perfectly fitted carriages.  Every one of them bore the mark
of the _fleur de lis_, for they were of a pattern which the French
royal foundries were turning out for the light cruisers of King Louis.
Such of them as were already mounted in that manner were lazily waiting
for a formal declaration of war with England.  These here, however, and
others like them, were already carrying on that very war.  Before a
great while, the entire French navy was to become auxiliary to that of
the United States, and considerable French land forces were to march to
victory shoulder to shoulder with the Continentals under General
Washington.

The sailor comrades of Up-na-tan and Coco were evidently well aware
that the savage-looking couple had seen much sea service upon armed
vessels.  The less said about it the better, perhaps, but some of it
had been upon British cruisers, in whatever manner it had been escaped
from.  Some of it had been, it was said, under a very different
fighting flag.  Their inspection of the broadside guns was therefore
watched with interest.

"Long!" said Up-na-tan.  "Good.  Shoot bullet far.  Not big enough.
Want nine-pounder.  Old chief like big gun.  Knock hole in ship.  Sink
her quick."

"Take out cargo first," muttered Coco.

"Then sink ship.  Not lose cargo."

"Jest so!" exclaimed Captain Avery.  "That's what we'll do!  Chief, I
believe the frame of the _Noank_ is strong enough to carry a long
thirty-two and six eighteens."

"No!" replied the Indian, firmly.  "Too much big gun 'poil schooner.
No run fast any more."

According to the red man's judgment, therefore, the Yankee skipper's
enthusiasm might lead him to overload his swift vessel or make her
topheavy in a sea.  It was likely that things were just as well as they
were.  At all events, her brilliant armament and her disciplined
ordering gave her an exceedingly efficient and warlike air as she rode
there waiting her sailing orders.

"Sam Prentice's boat!" suddenly called out a voice, aft.  "Father, he's
headed for us.  Here he comes, rowing hard!"

"_Noank_ ahoy!" came across the water, from as far away as a pair of
strong lungs could send it.  "I say!  Is Lyme Avery aboard?"

"Every man's aboard!  All ready!  What news?" went back through the
speaking trumpet in the hands of Vine Avery, at the stern.

"Tell him to h'ist anchor!  British ship sighted away east'ard!  Not a
man-o'-war.  'Rouse him!"

"All hands up anchor!" roared Captain Avery.  "Run in the guns!  Close
the ports!  Gear that pivot-gun fast!  Up-na-tan, that's your work."

"Ugh!" said the Indian.  "Shoot pretty soon."

Vine and Sam Prentice were exchanging messages rapidly as the rowboat
came nearer.  All on board could hear, and now the trumpeter turned to
note the eager, fierce activity of the old Manhattan.

"It does you good, doesn't it," he said.  "You're dyin' for a chance to
try your Frenchers."

"Ugh!" grunted the chief, patting the pivot-gun affectionately.  "Sink
ship for ole King George.  Kill plenty lobster!  Kill all captain!
Whoo-oo-oop!"

His hand was at his mouth, and the screech he sent forth was the
warwhoop of his vanished tribe,--if any ears of white men can
distinguish between one warwhoop and another.  That he had been a
sailor, however, was not at all remarkable.  All of the New England
coast Indians and the many small clans of Long Island had been from
time immemorial termed "fish Indians" by their inland red cousins.  The
island clans were also known as "little bush" Indians.  All that now
remained of them took to the sea as their natural inheritance, and
their best men were in good demand for their exceptional skill as
harpooners.

The anchor of the _Noank_ was beginning to come up when the boat of Sam
Prentice reached the side.

"Did you sight her yourself, Sam?" asked Captain Avery.

"Well, I did," said Sam.  "I was out more scoutin' than fishin', and I
had a good glass.  She's a bark, heavy laden.  It's a light wind for
anything o' her rig.  She can't git away from our nippers.  I didn't
lose time gettin' any nigher.  I came right in."

"On board with you," said the captain.  "It's 'bout time the _Noank_
took somethin'.  We've been cooped up in New London harbor long enough."

"That's so!" said Sam Prentice, as he scrambled over the bulwark.  "I'm
hungry for a fight myself."

He was a wiry, sailorlike man, of middle age, with merry, black eyes
which yet had a steely flash in them.  Up came the anchor.  Out swung
the booms.  The light wind was just the thing for the _Noank's_ rig,
and every sail she could spread went swiftly to its place.  She was a
beauty when all her canvas was showing.  A numerous and growing crowd
was gathered at the piers and wharves, for Sam Prentice's news had
reached the shore also.  Cheer after cheer went up as the sails began
to fill.

"Anneke Ten Eyck!" exclaimed Mrs. Avery.  "I'm so glad Lyme was all
ready.  He didn't have to wait a minute after Sam got there."

"I'm glad Guert's with him," said Mrs. Ten Eyck.  "If he wants to be a
sea-captain, I won't hinder him."

"God be with them all!" was the loud and earnest response of Rachel
Tarns.  "I trust that they may do their whole duty by the ships of the
man George, who calleth himself our king."

"Lyme Avery's jest the man to 'tend to that," called out a deep, hoarse
voice, farther along the pier.  "He was 'pressed, once, by George's
men, and he means to make 'em pay for his lost time."

"So was my son, Vine," said Mrs. Avery.  "He has something more'n lost
time to make 'em account for."

"Nearly forty New London boys were 'pressed, first and last," said a
sad-faced old woman.  "One of mine fell at Brooklyn and one's in the
Jersey prison-ship.  It's the king's work."

"We're sorry for you, Mrs. Williams," said another woman.  "I don't
know where mine are.  We can't get any word from our 'pressed boys.
God pity 'em!--God in heaven send success to the _Noank_ and Lyme
Avery!  To our sailors on the sea and our soldiers on the land!"

"Amen!" went up from several earnest voices, and then there was another
round of hearty cheers.

Away down the broad harbor the gallant schooner was speeding, with
Guert Ten Eyck astride of her bowsprit.  Up-na-tan and Coco were
crouching like a pair of tigers at the side of the pivot guns.  The
crew was both numerous and well selected, for it consisted of the pick
of the New London whaling veterans.  The majority of them, of course,
were middle aged or even elderly, so many of the younger men had
marched away with Putnam or were at this time garrisoning the forts of
the harbor.

There was to be no long and tiresome waiting.  Hardly was the _Noank_
well out beyond the point at the harbor mouth before Sam Prentice, from
his perch aloft, called down to his friends on the deck:--

"I've sighted her!  She's made too long a tack this way for her good.
We'll git out well to wind'ard of her.  She's sure game!"

Every seaman on board understood just what that meant, and he was
answered by a storm of cheers.  Nevertheless, the face of Captain Avery
was serious, for he had no means of knowing what might really be the
strength and armament of the stranger.

As for her, she had all sail set, and her skipper was at the helm,
while Mate Brackett was in the maintop taking anxious observations.

"Sail to wind'ard," he said to himself.  "Hope there's no mischief in
her.  Anyhow, I'll go down and have Captain Watts send the men to
quarters."

Down he went and reported, and Captain Watts responded vigorously.

"Most likely a coaster," he said, "but we won't take any chances.  Call
the men.  Any but a pretty strong rebel 'll sheer away if she finds
we're ready for her.  We'll shoot first, Brackett.  I'm a fightin'
man--I am!"

"All right, sir," said Brackett, more cheerily.  "I've served on a
cruiser.  Men!  All hands clear away for action!  Cast loose the guns!"

He was in right good earnest, like the brave British seaman that he
was, and the supply ship, in spite of having too much deck cargo, soon
began to take on a decidedly warlike appearance.  There was no audible
grumbling among her crew as they went to their posts of duty, but a
sharp observer might have noted that several of them, from time to
time, cast wistful glances landward and then looked gloomily into each
others' faces.

"No hope!" muttered one of them.

"They are hanging deserters," hissed another.  "I saw one run up."

"I saw one flogged to death," came savagely from a third, "but I'll
take my chance if I git one."

Mate Brackett was now busy with his glass, and he was telling himself
how much he longed for a stronger breeze, coming from some other point
of the compass.

"Hurrah!" he suddenly sang out.  "Captain Watts, we're all right, now!
British flag!"

"Keep to your guns!" roared back the captain.  "I'll stand away from
her, just the same.  If you throw away the _Windsor_ I'll have you
hung!"

More fiercely vehement than ever became now his apparent readiness for
fighting.  He called another man to the wheel and went out among the
guns.  He ordered up more muskets, pistols, pikes, cutlasses, and armed
himself to the teeth, as if to repel boarders.

"They'd call me a Tory," he said to the mate.  "They shoot Tories.  I'm
fighting for my life, if that there sail is a Yankee.  Her flag's as
like as not a trick to keep us from getting ready."

"We'll be ready," replied the mate; but all the men had heard the
remark of Captain Watts concerning his chances.

Nearer and nearer, before the somewhat freshening breeze, came the
strange schooner, with the merchant flag of Great Britain fluttering
out to declare how peaceable and friendly was her character.  Mate
Brackett's glass could as yet discover no sign of evil, unless' it
might be that a widespread old sail which he saw on the deck amidships
had been put there to cover up the wrong kind of deck cargo.

"She hasn't any business that I know of to head for us," he said to his
commander, suspiciously.  "We must be ready to give her a broadside."

"Luff!" instantly sang out Captain Watts to the man at the helm.  "They
can't fool me!  Brackett, no nonsense, now!  Bring the larboard guns to
bear!  I'll hail her!  Ship ahoy!  What schooner's that?"

His hail was given through his trumpet, and no answer came during a
full half minute, while the schooner sped nearer.  Then suddenly a
storm of exclamations arose from the men, and Brackett groaned aloud.

"Just what old Watts was afraid of!" he exclaimed.  "He's a gone man!
So are all of us!  The rebel flag!  Guns!"

The _Noank_ was indeed flying the stars and stripes now, instead of the
red-cross flag of England.  The old sail amidships had been jerked
away, and there stood Up-na-tan, with one hand upon the breech of his
long eighteen and the other holding a lighted lanyard ready to touch
her off.  Open at the same moment went the three starboard ports, and
out ran the noses of the dangerous six-pounders.

"Heave to, or I'll sink ye!" came fiercely down the wind.  "Surrender,
or I'll send ye to the bottom!"

"It's no use, Captain Watts," said Brackett, dolefully; "she carries
too many guns for us.  We may as well give up."

"Men!" shouted the captain, "what do you say?  Are you with me?  Shall
we fight it out?  I'm ready!"

"Not a man of us, captain," sturdily responded one of the crew.  "This
'ere isn't nothin' but a supply ship.  We ain't bound as if 'twas a
man-o'-war.  No use, either."

"Brackett," said Watts, "you may haul down the flag, then.  I won't.  I
call you all to witness that I've done my duty!  Mate, the rebels won't
shoot you.  Report me dead to Captain Milliard of the _Cleopatra_.  He
ordered me to run in through the sound against my will."

"I'll give a good report of you," hurriedly responded the mate, while
other and not unwilling hands hauled down the flag; "but that long
eighteen alone would be too much for our popguns."

The two ships were now near enough for grappling, and in a few minutes
more they were side by side upon the quiet sea.

"I surrender to you, sir," said Captain Watts to Captain Avery, as the
latter sprang on board, followed by a swarm of brawny whalemen.  "I
claim good treatment for my men, whatever you may do to me."

"I know you, sir," said Avery, sternly.  "You are Watts, the Marblehead
Tory.  Step aft with me.  There's an account to settle with you.  Sam
Prentice, look out for the prisoners.  Vine, get ready to cast off and
head for New London.  Send 'em all below--"

"All but some of 'em," said Sam, with a broad grin.  "Men!  Every
'pressed American step out!"

No less than nine of the _Windsor's_ crew obeyed that order, while all
the rest sullenly surrendered their useless weapons to Coco and Guert
Ten Eyck and a couple of sailors who were ordered to receive them.

Not on deck, fore or aft, but down in the cabin did the skipper of the
captured supply ship give his account of himself and his cargo.  Hardly
was the cabin door shut behind them before Captain Avery laughed aloud,
inquiring:--

"Now, Luke Watts, how did ye make it out!  They'll hang ye, yet."

[Illustration: THE MARBLEHEAD TORY.  "'Now, Luke Watts! they'll hang ye
yet,' said Captain Avery."]

"No, they won't," said Watts.  "I've taken across ship after ship for
'em.  I'm a known Tory, ye know.  Worst kind.  I promised jest sech
another good Tory, in London, though, that I'd try and deliver this
cargo to the blasted rebels.  It's mostly guns, and ammunition, and
clothing.  I managed to git written orders from Captain Milliard,
commandin' our convoy, to run through the Sound, contrary to my advice.
You see, he's an opinionated man.  I got him swearin' mad, and I had to
obey, ye know.  It has turned out jest as I warned him it would, and he
can't say a word."

"You're a razor!" laughed Avery.  "Then you tacked right over within
easy reach of us, all reg'lar.  Now!  What are we to do with the crew?
We don't want 'em on shore."

"Well!" said Watts.  "The 'pressed men'll jine ye, all of 'em.  They
hate me like p'ison, for I da'sn't let 'em have a smell of how it
really is.  Take good care of Brackett, anyhow.  He's a prime seaman.
He saved one of our fellows from a floggin', once.  All the rest o' the
crew deserve somethin' better'n prison."

"Prison?" said Avery.  "They're not prisoners of war.  I don't want
'em, even if they are.  I wouldn't hurt a hair o' their heads.  I'm no
butcher."

"Come on deck, then," said Watts, "and be kerful how you talk anythin'
but rough to me."

Up they went, to find both vessels sailing steadily away toward the
mouth of the harbor.  Already they were so near that a booming cannon
from Fort Griswold informed that the _Noank's_ success was joyfully
understood on shore.

The crew of the _Windsor_ were now summoned up from their temporary
confinement in the hold, and were ordered to get out their own longboat
ready for launching.  They were told that all British tars were to go
free and to make the best of their way to New York or to the first
British ship they might meet.  The impressed Americans listened in
silence, for every man of them knew that in case of his escape, even in
this manner, there would be thenceforth a possible rope around his
neck.  Whether impressed or not, he was considered bound to stick to
the British flag, come what might.

"Captain Watts," said the commander of the _Noank_, "do you demand
these men?  They are Americans."

"I do demand them," replied Watts.  "You have no right to keep them,
and they'll all be hung as deserters."

"They can't help themselves," said Captain Avery, furiously.  "Sam
Prentice, iron every one o' those 'pressed men and put 'em all down in
the hold.  If they try to git away, shoot 'em.  I'll put 'em ashore or
kill 'em.  You can't have 'em, Watts."

"That saves 'em," whispered Watts to himself.  "He's another razor.  I
can report jist how they were took."

At all events, not one of the nine Americans made any resistance which
called for shooting him.

"Now, Luke Watts," said the angry American privateer captain, "it's
your turn.  You are taken in arms against your country.  Sam Prentice,
Levi Hotchkiss, Vine Avery, speak out!  Shall we hang Luke Watts?  Or
shall we shoot him?  Or shall we let him go?"

"We can't safely let him go," began Sam.  "He's a dangerous traitor."

"I protest!" interrupted Mate Brackett, courageously.  "He has only
done his duty to his king.  He wasn't even serving on a ship of war.
You haven't any right to hang him."

"You're an Englishman," said Avery.  "I didn't ask you.  Shut your
mouth!"

"I won't!" said Brackett; "not if you shoot me.  If you hang Captain
Watts, we'll hang a dozen Yankees.  We've plenty of 'em, too.  It'll be
blood for blood!"

"Father," said Vine, "let him go.  All the men'd say so."

Behind him at that moment stood Up-na-tan, grinning ferociously, with
his glittering long knife out.

"So!  So!  Up-na-tan!" he snarled.  "Take 'calp!  No let him go.  Knife
good!  Kill!"

None of the others were doing anything theatrical except the two
captains, and all the while the longboat was hurriedly made ready for
the short and entirely safe, but probably cold, uncomfortable voyage
before them.

"Captain Luke Watts," said his captor, sternly, "I suppose I must let
you go.  Don't let me ever ketch ye again, though.  It's time for us to
hang Tories.  Brackett, you and your men lower that boat and git into
her, short order.  Luke Watts can pilot you in.  Start along, now.
Every man may take his own kit."

"Come on, Captain Watts," said the hearty British sailor.  "Your
shave's been a narrer one.  I thought you was bound for the yardarm,
this time."

"I owe you something," replied Watts.  "I'll stand by ye, any day."

The queer piece of very good unprofessional acting was played to its
ending.  The longboat was lowered, the men got into her, with
provisions for two days, and away she went, her own sail careening her
as if it were in haste to get from under the brazen muzzles of the
_Noank's_ French guns.

"It's awful to be a traitor," remarked Sam Prentice, gravely.  "Who'd
ha' thought it of a Marblehead man!"

"Sam!" said Lyme Avery, and the rest of his remark consisted of his
right eye tightly shut and his left eye very wide open.

"Ugh!  Good!" chuckled Up-na-tan, and Guert Ten Eyck laughed aloud.

Not for one moment had the subtle, keen-eyed red man been deceived, and
Guert had caught the truth of it all from him.

"Not a word, Guert," said Captain Avery.  "He may be able to do it
again."

"Didn't fool ole brack man," said Coco.  "S'pose he 'tone bline?  Wen
King George 'ply ship tack right for New London, then it's 'cause he
was 'tendin' to go right there."

"No talk," said Up-na-tan.  "Ole chief like Watt.  He bring plenty
powder for _Noank_ gun.  Fort gun, too.  Now schooner go to sea.  Good!"

The impressed men were freed of their manacles as soon as the longboat
was well away.  They could be cheerful enough now, for the prudent
management of Lyme Avery had made their necks safe, unless they should
be taken by the British from an American armed ship.

Up the broad, beautiful harbor the _Noank_ and her prize sailed
merrily, while guns from the fort batteries saluted her and crowds of
patriotic New Londoners swarmed upon the piers and wharves to do full
honor to so really important a success.  At one pier head were gathered
all the members ashore of the Avery household.

"There he comes!" exclaimed Mrs. Avery; "Lyme's in that boat; Guert and
Vine are with him.  Neither of them were hurt."

"I hope there wasn't much fighting," said Guert's mother.  "I do so
hate to have men killed."

"Anneke Ten Eyck," said Rachel Tarns, "thy wicked son hath once more
aided the rebels in stealing a ship from thy good king.  Thee has not
brought him up well.  He needeth instruction or he will become as bad
as is the man George Washington himself, God bless him!"




CHAPTER III.

THE UNFORGOTTEN HERO.

More than one day's work was required to ascertain the full value of
the _Windsor_ as a bearer of supplies to the forts and ships of the
United States, instead of to those of Great Britain.

"All the things the _Noank_ was short of," Captain Avery said, "are
goin' into her now.  There isn't any secret to be kept concernin' her
sailin' orders, either.  She's bound for the West Indies to see what
she can do."

Perhaps it was at his own table that his plans and the reasons for them
were most thoroughly discussed, but all his crew and their many
advisers were satisfied, and a number of prime seamen who were not to
go on this trip roundly declared their great envy of those who could.

"Tobacco," they said, "sugar, if it's a home-bound trader.  If it's one
from England, then Lyme'll get loads o' 'sorted stuff, such as they
ship for the West Injy trade."

There were other vessels preparing and some were already at sea.  The
year, therefore, promised to be a busy one for New London.  So it did
in a number of other American ports, and it behooved Great Britain to
increase, if she could, the number and efficiency of her cruisers.

One continual black shadow rested over the port and town, and that was
the great probability of a British attack, at no distant day.

"They've their hands pretty full, just now," people said.  "The winter
isn't their best time, either, but some day or other we shall see a
fleet out yonder, and redcoats and Hessians and Tories boating ashore."

It was an entirely reasonable prediction, but its fulfilment was to be
almost unaccountably postponed.  When its hour arrived, at last, nearly
two years later, New London was in ashes and Fort Griswold was a
slaughter-pen.

"Mother," said Guert, on his return to the house from one of his visits
to the _Noank_.  "I wish you could go with us to the West Indies, the
Antilles.  Think of it!  Summer all the while!"

"But no oranges, or lemons, or pineapples just now," she said
laughingly.  "I mean to go, some day.  Perhaps you will take me in your
own ship."

"Any ship of mine will be your ship," he said.  "I wish I had some
money to leave with you, now.  It's awful to think of your being poor."

"Our New York farm will be of no use to us," she said, "until the
king's troops leave the island.  I shall be very comfortable here,
though, except that I shall all the while be waiting for you to come
home again."

Very brave was she, under her somewhat difficult circumstances.  All
the New London people were kind, especially the Averys, but she
expected to be poor in purse for some time to come.  As to that,
however, she had a surprise in store.  That very evening, after dark,
Up-na-tan lingered in the kitchen.

"Chief see ole woman," he said.  "See nobody but Guert mother."

No sooner were they alone than he pulled from under his captured
military cloak a small purse, and handed it to her.

"No Kidd money," he said.  "Lobster money.  Pay ole woman for King
George take farm."

She hesitated a moment, and then she exclaimed:--

"God sent it, I do believe!  I'll take it.  You won't need it at sea."

"Up-na-tan no want money," he replied contemptuously.  "Ole chief go
fight.  Come back.  Go to ole woman house.  Own house.  Money belong to
ole woman."

"Thank you!" she said.

"No," grumbled the Indian; "no thank at all.  Up-na-tan good!"

So the conference ended, for he stalked out of the house, and she
examined the purse.

"Nearly twenty pounds, of all sorts," she said.  "Now I needn't borrow
of Rachel for ever so long.  I want to let Guert know.  He will feel
better."

The Indian had but obeyed the simple rules of his training.  Any kind
of game, however captured, was for the squaw of his wigwam to
administer.  Her business would be to provide for the hunter as best
she could.  In former days he had always been free of the Ten Eyck
house and farm.  It was his.  The game he had recently taken was in the
form of gold and silver, but there could be no question as to what he
was bound to do with it.

Neither he or his Ashantee comrade were inclined to spend much time on
shore.  Hardly anything could induce them to come away from the keen
pleasure they were having in the handling and stowage of much powder
and shot.  The varied weapons which they examined and put in order were
as so many jewels, to be fondly admired and even patted.

If Mrs. Ten Eyck had anything else to depress her spirits she tried not
to let Guert know it.  All her table talk, when he was there, was
brimming with warlike patriotism.  Nevertheless, he was her only son
and she was a widow.  She could not but wish, at times, that he were a
soldier instead of a sailor, to belong to the quiet garrison of Fort
Griswold, for instance, and to come over to the Avery house now and
then.

He was sent for, somewhat peremptorily, one day, not by her but by
Rachel Tarns, and when he arrived she herself opened the door for him.

"I am glad thee came so early," she said to him.  "I have somewhat to
say to thee.  Come in, hither."

Very dignified was she, at any time, and he was accustomed to obey her
without asking needless questions.  He followed her, therefore, as she
led on into the parlor, opposite the dining room, the main thought in
his mind being:--

"I wish she'd hurry up with it.  I want to get back to the _Noank_, as
soon as I've seen mother."

"What is it?" he began, after the door of the parlor closed behind
them, but she cut him short.

"I will not quite tell thee," she said.  "Some things thee does not
need to know.  Thy old friend, Maud Wolcott, will be here presently.
One cometh with her to whom I forbid thee to speak.  After they arrive,
thou art to do as I shall then direct thee."

"All right," said Guert.  "I don't care who it is.  I'll be glad to see
Maud, though.  She's about the best girl I know.  Pretty, too."

Hardly were the words out of his mouth before there came a jingle of
sleighbells in the road, and it ceased before the house.

"Remain thee here," said Rachel, as she arose and hurried out.

Guert obeyed, but he went to a window and he saw a trim-looking,
two-seated sleigh.  A man he did not know was hitching the horse to the
post near the gate.  The sleigh had brought a full load of passengers,
all women.

"That's Maud Wolcott," exclaimed Guert.  "The girl that's with her is
taller than she is, and she's all muffled up.  I can't see her face.
How Maud did jump out o' that cutter!  The two others are old women.
Rachel knows 'em."

The first girl out of the sleigh was in the house quickly.  She came
like a flash into the parlor and, as her hood flew back, a mass of
brown curls went tumbling down over her shoulders.

"Guert!" she said, breathlessly.  "I'm so glad you're here!  We were
told you were going."

"We're going!" said Guert.  "We're bound for the West Indies.  We've
taken one British ship, already.  I'm a privateer, Maud!  Oh! but ain't
I glad to see you again.  It's like old times!"

"You're growing," she said.  "I wish I could go to sea, or fight the
British.  We haven't any chance to talk, now."

He might be very glad, but, after all, he seemed a little afraid, and a
kind of bashfulness grew upon him as he shook hands with her.  She must
have been a year younger than he was,--but then, she was so very
pretty, and he was only a boy.

Half a dozen questions and answers went back and forth between them, as
between old acquaintances, near neighbors.  Then the parlor door opened
to let in Rachel Tarns and the "all muffled up" girl who had been in
the sleigh with Maud.  She did not speak to anybody, but went and sat
down, silently, at the other window of the parlor.

"Guert," said Rachel, "sit thee down here, by me and Maud.  Thee will
talk only of what I bid thee, and thee will ask no foolish questions."

"All right," said Guert.  "What is it you want me to say?  Maud hasn't
told me, yet, half o' what I want to know."

"If thee were older," she said, "thee would have more good sense.  I
have a reason that I will not tell thee.  I wish thee to give me a full
account of all thy dealings with that brave man, Nathan Hale.  Thee saw
him die, and there is no other that knoweth many things that are well
known to thee."

"I hate to tell everything," he said.

"Thee must!" exclaimed Rachel.  "Thee will not leave out a word that he
spake or a deed that he did."

Something flashed brightly into the quick mind of Guert just then.  He
could not exactly shape it, but it came when he caught the sound of a
low sob from under the veil of the girl at the other window.  "I'll
begin where I first saw him," he said.

He did not at all know after that how his boyish enthusiasm helped him
to draw his word pictures of Captain Hale's daring scout work, of boat
and land adventures by night and day, in company with him and Up-na-tan
and Coco.  He told it more rapidly and vividly as a kind of excitement
spurred him.  He did not know that beyond the half-open door of the
next room his mother and several other persons were listening.  Two of
them had come in the cutter with Maud, and yet another sleigh had
brought visitors to the Avery house.  There were to be very loving and
tenacious memories to treasure all that he was telling.

Guert came at last, sorrowfully, more slowly, to the tragic end of all
in the old orchard near the East River.  He told of the troops, and the
crowd, and the tree, and he repeated the last words of the hero who
perished there.

"That I can give but one life for Liberty!" he said, and there his own
voice choked him, while a whisper from beyond the door said softly:
"Glory!  Glory!  Glory!"

Throughout Guert's narrative, there had been something almost painful
in the forward-leaning eagerness of the veiled girl at the window.  She
was standing now, and a sigh that was more a sob broke from her as she
held out to him a hand with something that she was grasping tightly.
Rachel stepped forward and took it, opening it as she did so.  Only a
small, leather case it was, containing a miniature.

"My boy," said Rachel, "is that like thy friend?  Look well at it.
Tell me."

"It's a real good picture," said Guert, wiping his eyes as he looked
more closely.  "It's like him, but there isn't the light and the smile
that was on his face when he stood with the rope around his neck under
that old apple tree."

"That is enough," said Rachel, turning away with the miniature.  "I
think not many eyes will ever see this thing again."

"Not any," came faintly from under the veil.  "I mean to have it buried
with me.  Nobody else has any right to it.  I must go now."

The girl at the window had risen as she spoke.  She came forward and
took Guert's hand for a moment.  Then, in a voice that was tremulous
with feeling, she said:--

"Let me thank you for all you have said.  Thank you for your friendship
for him.  God bless you!"

In spite of its sadness, her voice had in it a half-triumphant tone.
Rachel gave her back the miniature, and she turned to go.  No one spoke
to her.  Guert could not have said a word if he had tried, but Maud
sprang to her side.

"Good-by, Guert," she said.  "I'll see you again, some day.  I'm going
with her, now."

"Good-by, Maud," said Guert.  "I did so want a talk with you, but I
s'pose I can't this time.  We are to sail right away.  The _Noank's_
all ready."

Both of the sleighs at the gate were quickly crowded.  They were driven
away, and hardly had the jingling of their bells died out up the road,
before Rachel Tarns came and put an arm around Guert.  She, too, was
wiping her eyes.

"Thee was a brave, good boy," she said, "and I love thee very much.
Thee is too young, now, and thy picture hath never been painted.  Some
day thee may need one to give away, as Nathan did.  If it shall please
God to let thee die for thy country, somebody may will to keep it in
memory of thee."

"Mother would," said Guert.  "I'll get one, as soon as I can.  But
Nathan Hale'll be remembered well enough without any picture.  All the
men in America 'll remember him.  He was a hero!"

The voice of Vine Avery was at the front door, shouting loudly for
Guert, and out he darted, not even stopping to inquire who of all the
friends or family of his hero had been listening in the dining room.

"What is it?" he eagerly asked, as he joined Vine at the doorstep.

"Powder and shot all stowed," said Vine.  "Everything's ready now.  As
soon as the rest of the _Windsor's_ cargo's out, they're going to tow
her up the river, out o' harm's way.  Father says we're to be all on
board, now.  Come on!"

"Oh, Guert!" said his mother, for she had followed him, and her arms
were around his neck.  "I can't say a word to keep you back!  Be as
brave as Nathan Hale was!  God keep you from all harm!  Do your duty!
Good-by!"

It was an awful struggle for poor Guert, but he would not let himself
cry before Vine Avery and the sailors who were with him.  All he could
do, therefore, was to hug his mother and kiss her.  His last good-by
went into her ear and down into her heart in a low, hoarse whisper.

Away marched the last squad of the crew of the _Noank_, and Mrs. Avery
stood at the gate and watched them until they were hidden from her eyes
beyond the turn of the road.




CHAPTER IV.

THE NEWS FROM TRENTON.

"What is it, Sam?"

"I guess, Lyme, we'd better hold on a bit.  The fort lookout sends word
that a British cruiser's in sight, off the harbor."

Sam Prentice was in a rowboat, just reaching the side of the _Noank_,
and his commander was leaning over the rail.

"I'd like to send a shot at her," he said.  "None o' those ten-gun
brigs, if it's one o' them, carry long guns or heavy ones."

"Can't say," replied Sam.  "Maybe it's a bigger feller.  He won't dare
to run in under the battery guns, anyhow.  He can't look into the
harbor."

"I wish he would," laughed the captain.  "If he's goin' to try a game
of tackin' off and on, and watchin', though, we must make out to run
past him in the night."

"We mustn't be stuck any longer here," said Sam.  "Are all the crew
aboard?"

"All but you," was the reply.  "Send your boat ashore.  We'll find out
what she is.  I won't let any single cruiser keep me cooped up in port,
now my powder and shot's found for me.  We'll up anchor, Sam."

The first mate of the _Noank_, for such he was to be, came over the
rail, and his boat was pulled shoreward.

"Isn't she fine!" he said, as he glanced admiringly around him.  "We're
in good fightin' order, Lyme."

"Sam," said the captain, "just study those timbers, will ye.  Only
heavy shot'd do any great harm to our bulwarks.  I had her built the
very strongest kind.  Now!  Some o' the new British craft are said to
be light timbered, even for rough weather.  Their own sailors hate 'em,
and we can take their judgment of 'em."

"It's likely to be good," said Sam.  "What a British able seaman
doesn't know 'bout his own ship, isn't worth knowin'."

Further talk indicated that they both held high opinions of the
mariners of England.  Against them, as individuals, the war had not
aroused any ill feeling.  There was, indeed, among intelligent
Americans, a very general perception that King George's war against his
transatlantic subjects was anything but popular with the great mass of
the overtaxed English people.  It was a pity, a great pity, that
stupid, bad management and recklessly tyrannical statesmanship, in a
sort of combination with needless military severities, had done so much
to foster hatred and provoke revenge.  It was true, too, although all
Americans did not know or did not appreciate it, that their side of the
controversy had been ably set forth in the Parliament of Great Britain
by prominent and patriotic Englishmen, such as Chatham and Colonel
Barre.

The old whaler _Noank_, of New London, however, had now become an
American war vessel.  Her crew and her commander were compelled,
henceforth, to regard as enemies the captains and the crews of all
vessels, armed or unarmed, carrying the red-cross flag instead of the
stars and stripes.

"I tell you what, Sam," remarked Captain Avery, at last, "I wish we had
news from New York and from Washington's army.  The latest we heard of
him and the boys made things look awfully dark."

"Don't let yourself git too down in the mouth!" replied Sam.  "I guess
the sun'll shine ag'in, Sunday.  It's a long lane that has no turnin'.
Washington's an old Indian fighter.  He's likely to turn on 'em, sudden
and unexpected, like a redskin on a trail that's been followed too
closely."

"It won't do to go after a Mohawk too far into the woods, sometimes,"
growled Avery.  "Not onless you're willin' to risk a shot from a bush.
Now, do you know, I wish I knew, too, what's been the dealin' of the
British admirals with Luke Watts, for losin' the _Windsor_.  We owe
that man a good deal,--we do!"

"They won't hurt him," said Sam.  "It wasn't any fault o' his'n."

In some such manner, all over the country, men and women were
comforting themselves, under the shadow of death which seemed to have
settled down over the cause of American independence.  They knew that
the Continental army was shattered.  It was destitute, freezing,
starving, and it was said to be dwindling away.

Somewhere, however, among the ragged tents and miserable huts of its
winter quarters, was a man who had shown himself so superior to other
men that in him there was still a hope.  From him something unexpected
and startling might come at any hour.

As for Luke Watts, formerly the skipper of the British supply ship
_Windsor_, now a prize in New London harbor, Captain Avery and his mate
spoke again of him and of the difficulties into which he might have
fallen.  Possibly it would have done them good to have been near enough
to see and hear him at that very hour of the day.

A good longboat, with a strong crew anxious to make time and get into a
warmer place, had had only a short run of it from New London to New
York.  Here was Luke, therefore, in the cabin of a British
seventy-four, standing before a gloomy-faced party of naval officers.
With him were his mate, Brackett, and several of the sailors of the
_Windsor_.  It was evident that her loss had been inquired into, and
that all the testimonies had been given.  If this was to be considered
as a kind of naval court martial, it was as ready as it ever would be
to declare its verdict.

"Gentlemen," said the burly post-captain who appeared to be the ranking
officer, "it's a bad affair!  We needed that ammunition.  Even the land
forces are running so short that movements are hindered.  If, however,
we are to find fault with any man, we must censure the captain of the
_Cleopatra_.  This man Watts is proved to have gone into the Sound
against his will and protest.  I am glad that the rebels did not hang
him.  His recorded judgment of the danger to be encountered was
entirely correct.  Watts, I shall want you to pilot home one of our
empty troop-ships."

"I know her, sir," replied Luke, promptly.  "I beg to say no, sir.  Not
unless she has twice the ballast that's in her now.  I'd like
permission to say a word more, sir."

"Speak out!  What is it?"

"A ten-gun brig in the Sound can't catch that New London pirate--"

"The _Boxer_ is cruising around that station," interrupted the captain.
"She's a clipper to go."

"No use," said Luke, shaking his head.  "The old whaler'll get away."

"What would you do, then?" roughly demanded another officer.

"A strong corvette, or two of 'em, off Point Judith and Montauk, to
catch her as she runs out," said Luke.  "She'll fight any small vessel.
She carries a splendid pivot-gun, and she has six long sixes.  She will
be handled by prime seamen."

"Gentlemen," remarked the captain, "I agree with him.  We have found
the advice of this man Watts to be correct in every case.  I believe he
is right, now.  We must do as he says or that pirate, perhaps others
with her, will escape us.  I will put him in charge of the _Termagant_.
I'll feel safer about her, if she is sailed home by a man with a rebel
rope around his neck."

There was a general expression of assent, and then Watts spoke again.

"I want Brackett, if I can have him," he said.  "I never had a better
mate.  There's fight in him, too."

"You may have him," he was told, and several of the officers present
expressed their great regret that so many impressed American seamen had
been ironed by Captain Avery and compelled to escape from a return to
man-of-war duty.  They ought never to have been detailed, it was
asserted.

"We can't hang 'em for desertion," they said, half jocularly.  "All we
could do, if we caught them, would be to set them at work again."

Nevertheless, four of these escaped men were now voluntarily among the
crew of the _Noank_.  The remaining five had preferred to make the best
of their ways to their several homes.  Not one of them all had chosen
to seek the friendly shelter of the British navy, so near and so ready
to receive them.

Luke Watts and his friends were dismissed and went on deck.  Shortly
afterward, their own longboat carried them to the _Termagant_
troop-ship, and the first words uttered by the Marblehead skipper after
reaching her, were duly reported to his superiors.

"Men!" he had exclaimed, as he glanced around him.  "This thing isn't
fit to go to sea.  She's been handled by lubbers.  We've work before
us, if we don't want to go to the bottom or be overhauled by the
_Yankees_.  Jest look at her spars and riggin'!"

All things were working together, therefore, to strengthen the
confidence reposed in him, in spite of the curious fact that he had
skilfully delivered the _Windsor_ and her cargo in New London instead
of in New York.

"We had a narrer escape not many miles beyond Hell Gate," he had
reported.  "One o' those Long Island buccaneer whaleboats chased us
more 'n an hour.  They gave it up then, and we got through.  'Twas a
close shave.  Half on 'em are Montauk and Shinnecock redskins.  Reg'lar
scalpers."

He had told the truth, as he had appeared to do at every point of the
account which he had given of himself, and now the very men who had
captured him and let him go, neglecting to hang him, were about to
learn why that Long Island whaleboat had not followed him any farther.
There had been plenty of time for such a boat to get away, a long
distance.

The lookout on the rampart of Fort Griswold, the same keen-eyed watcher
who had sent warning to the _Noank_ of the danger in the offing, was
busy with his telescope.

"The cruiser's a brig!" he sang out.  "I can make her out, now.  She's
one o' the new patterns.  She's chasin' a whaleboat.  I wish she'd
roller it onto one o' them there ledges.  She's firin'.  It's long
range, but it looks kind o' bad for the Long Islanders.  There ain't
any of our boats out, to-day.  It's from t'other shore."

He was watching, now, with intense excitement.  There is hardly
anything else so interesting as a chase at sea with cannonading in it.
All this time, however, Captain Lyme Avery had been growing feverish.
He knew nothing of Luke Watts, nothing at all of the Long Island
whaleboat and her pursuer, but he shouted to the men at the capstan:--

"Heave away, boys!  I'm goin' to have a look at that there Britisher.
We won't run any fool risks but we'll find out what she is, anyhow."

Hearty cheers answered him and a loud war-whoop from Up-na-tan, for
every man on board had long since become sick of harbor inactivity.
They were also all the more ready for a brush with the enemy after
having brought in so fine a prize on their first venture, and they now
had plenty of powder and shot to fire away.

Only the mainsail swung out after the anchor was raised, but a fair
wind was blowing and the _Noank_ went swiftly seaward with the tide in
her favor.

"Hark!" said Sam Prentice; "guns again!  Something's up, Up-na-tan!
Oh, you and Coco are at your pivot-gun!  Free her!  Have her all ready.
She's the only piece on board that's likely to be of any use."

"Let 'em alone!" called out Captain Avery.  "They know what they're
about.  They're old gunners.  I don't care so much, jest now, 'bout how
they got their trainin'.  See 'em!"

They were not by any means a handsome pair at any time, and they were
several shades uglier than usual.  The Ashantee was grinning
frightfully, and the teeth he showed must have been filed to obtain so
sharklike a pointing.  The red man was not grinning, but all the
wrinkles in his face seemed to grow deeper and his complexion darker.
He was charging his guns with solemnly scrupulous care.

"No miss!" he said.  "Up-na-tan find out what big gun good for."

His first charge was going in, therefore, for a purpose of practical
inquiry into the character of the long eighteen.  The foundries of that
day could not manufacture large weapons with mathematical precision.
Hardly any two could be said to be exactly alike, except in appearance.
It followed that each gun had good or bad features of its own.  From
ship to ship, throughout the royal navy, the gunners published the
qualities of their brazen or iron favorites, and there were cannon of
celebrity which old salts would go far to see.

The sound of the British firing came up somewhat dulled against the
wind.  It was not until they were out of the harbor that the sailors of
the _Noank_ discovered how really near were both friends and foes.  The
latter were still outside of the range of any of the fort guns.  Hardly
more than a mile and a half nearer was the whaleboat from Long Island.
It could be seen that it was full of men, and they were showing
splendid pluck, for they were rowing steadily, while every now and then
a shot from the brig dropped dangerously near them.  One iron bullet,
hitting fairly, might knock their frail though swift craft all to
pieces.  Up went sail after sail upon the _Noank_, as she speeded
along, and an officer on the British cruiser's deck had good reason for
the astonishment with which he called out:--

"There she comes!  You don't mean to say she's coming out to fight us?"

"It looks like it," responded another officer near him.  "We can make
match-wood of her if we can get close enough.  I wish I knew what her
armament is.  These Yankees have more impudence!"

He did not have to wait many minutes before he learned something.  The
_Noank_ whirled away upon the starboard tack around the point, and,
just as she steadied herself upon her new course, out roared her
pivot-gun.

Up-na-tan stood erect as soon as he touched off his piece, and he
anxiously watched for the results.

"Ugh!  whoop!" he shouted triumphantly.  "Gun good!  Shoot straight!
Hit 'em!"

"Right!" said Captain Avery, who had been watching through a glass.
"If the old pirate didn't land that shot on her!  It's pretty long
range, too."

"Load quick, now!" said the Indian.  "Ole chief hit her again!"

His assistants were already feverishly busy with their loading, while
he stood and proudly patted his cannon, very much as if it deserved
praise and could appreciate his approval.

Loud were the exclamations of surprise and wrath on board the _Boxer_.
No one had been killed or wounded, but the brig's longboat had been
stove to bits, and all the pigs and chickens which had been cooped in
it for the time being, and there were many of them, were running
frantically about the main deck.  That is, all but one large, fat pig,
for he had suddenly been made pork of, and he would run and squeal no
more.

The telescopes at the fort had also been taking observations, and loud
cheers from the gathered garrison honored the crack shot of Up-na-tan.
The crew of the _Noank_ cheered lustily, and so did the rowers of the
whaleboat.  One of the fort batteries tried its guns a moment later,
but all its shots fell short.  Nevertheless, it was only a little
short, and it warned the captain of the _Boxer_.  He knew, now, about
how much nearer it would be wise for him to run.  Up-na-tan's next shot
was well enough aimed, but it did no mischief.  It went over the brig,
with an unpleasant suggestion of what damage that sort of thing might
do to spars and rigging.

"Luff! luff!" sang out the captain.  "'Tisn't worth while to chase that
boat any farther in.  Let's see if we can't draw out the schooner.  I'd
like to get her away from those land batteries.  They're too heavy
metal for us."

"She has the wind of us," remarked his sailing master, doubtfully.
"She can do as she pleases 'bout coming any too near."

"She's a clipper, anyhow," growled the captain.  "Nothing can beat
these New Englanders in handling canvas.  The king needs every man of
'em."

His own sailors were just then more than a little busied with pig and
poultry gathering, and one badly scared bird rashly flew overboard.

Captain Avery was to disappoint Up-na-tan and Coco.  They were to have
no more long-range practice with the eighteen-pounder.

One more shot that they sent was an unsatisfactory miss, and then the
distance began to increase instead of diminishing, as the schooner went
about.

"Our fellows are safe now," said Sam Prentice.  "Here they come.  Look
at 'em!  More Indians than white men."

None the less were they excellent oarsmen and daring freebooters, and
before the end of the war the "whaleboat fleet," as it came to be
called, was to earn a not altogether pleasant reputation.

Not many more minutes passed before the boat was near enough for a
hail.  In it, forward, stood up a tall white man, balancing himself and
swinging his hat while he enthusiastically sent to the _Noank_:--

"Schooner ahoy!  Hurrah!  News from the Continental army!  Gineral
Washington smashed the redcoats!  Beat 'em on Christmas day at Trenton!
Then he follered 'em up and knocked Cornwallis all to flinders at
Princeton!  We're a-beginnin' to flail 'em!  Hurrah!"

Wild was the cheering which answered him from the schooner.  Some of
the men began to dance, and Sam Prentice yelled:--

"Shake hands, Lyme Avery!  I jest knew it'd come!  I said so!  We're
goin' to flail 'em!  Our turn's got here!"

Up-na-tan expressed his feelings in whoop after whoop, and Coco's yell
was terrific.

"Won't the shore people jump?" said Guert Ten Eyck.  "Oh!  How I want
to get in and tell mother!"

The news-bringer had described the Trenton victory fairly, but he had
somewhat exaggerated the results of the severe fight at Princeton.
Lord Cornwallis had not reported it in precisely that manner.  The boat
was now running along with the _Noank_, however, and the story of
Washington's splendid work for liberty was fired into the schooner at
short range, wadding and all.  A pretty interesting conclusion for it
was the account of the manner in which the news had been obtained in
New York and carried along the Long Island shore, all the way to New
London.

"We had to hug the land close," said the narrator, "but here we are."

"Home!  Home!" shouted Captain Avery.  "The folks must have this to
cheer 'em up.  It's the first bit of good news we've had in many a long
day.  Hurrah for George Washington!  God bless him!"

It was an instantly arriving vexation, then, that the brisk breeze and
the tide, so favorable for coming out, were not so much so for running
in.

The _Boxer's_ captain had also his vexations, for he shortly remarked:--

"There she goes!  The boat's with her.  We're not to have a chance at
her to-day.  If I can get at her, I'll sink her!  She'll come out
again."

That was precisely the purpose in the mind of Lyme Avery, and he did
not intend any long delay, either.




CHAPTER V.

THE BRIG AND THE SCHOONER.

"Blaze away!  Gun at a time!" shouted Captain Avery, as the _Noank_
tacked across the harbor mouth.  "We can afford a few blank cartridges
for such news as this is."

"The whaleboat's goin' to beat us gettin' in," replied Sam Prentice.
"The folks'll know it all before we git there."

"Don't care if they do," said the captain.  "We'll only be in port
ag'in a few hours, anyhow.  Night's our time.  We know, now, jest what
the cruiser is, and there doesn't seem to be another 'round."

The _Noank's_ sixes were, therefore, shouting to the forts and the town
that good news of some kind was coming.  The men at the batteries heard
and wondered, and grew impatient.  They thought they knew all there was
to be known of the mere exchange of shots with the _Boxer_.  Their
friends had not been harmed; neither had the brig; the whaleboat had
escaped; and that was all that they could understand.  Now, however,
they saw the _Noank_ sending up every American flag she had on board.

What could it mean?  Lyme Avery was not a man to have suddenly lost his
balance of mind.

"Something's up," they said.  "No matter what it is, we'll answer him."

So a roaring salute was fired for something or other that was as yet
unknown to the gunners, and more flags went up on the forts; while the
joyous cannonading called out of their houses nearly all the population
of New London, every soul as full of eager curiosity as were the
soldiers of the garrisons.

Out they came, and they were not at all an unprosperous looking lot of
men and women and children.  Probably the most important thing which
the war statesmen of Great Britain overlooked in making their
calculations for subduing the colonies was that the resources of
America were in no danger of becoming exhausted.  On the contrary,
nearly all the states were growing richer instead of poorer.  Strangely
enough, the war itself was a powerful agent for the development of
America.  Continental paper money was as yet answering very well for
local payments and exchanges, and its subsequent depreciation was of
less importance than a great many people imagined.  Nothing was really
lost when a paper dollar dwindled to fifty cents and then went down to
ten--or nothing.  Nearly all the old farms were as good as ever, and
new ones were opening daily.  There were more acres under
cultivation--a great many more--all over the country, out of the range
of British army foraging parties.  The farms which the foragers could
not reach included all of the New England states, all of Pennsylvania,
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, nearly all of South
Carolina and Georgia, and all of New York above the Hudson River
highlands.  A large part of even harassed New Jersey was doing very
well.

Something more than merely the farming interests were to be taken into
consideration, moreover.  Prior to the rebellion, the policy of the
mother country had choked to death all manufacturing undertakings in
America, in order that the colonies might serve only as markets for
English-made goods.  Now, not only was the prohibition removed, but the
rebels were absolutely compelled to manufacture for themselves.  They
were altogether willing to set about it.  They had an abundance of raw
materials, and could increase their productions of all sorts.  They had
great mechanical skill, marvellous inventive genius, and unlimited
water-power.  Everywhere began to spring up woollen and cotton
factories, potteries, iron works, wagon shops, tanneries, and other new
industries unknown before.

Cattle, horses, sheep, swine, mules, multiplied without any hinderance
whatever from the war.  For all food products there were more mouths to
fill, and for all things salable there was more power to pay.  It
followed that there soon were many more tradesmen, merchants, and
middlemen, doing vastly more business, whether for cash or barter.

There were more men, too, and more women.  The sad losses of men in
battles, camps, prisons, were only a small number compared with the
thousands of stalwart youths who were growing up.  These, too, were
growing up as Americans, knowing no allegiance to England, full of
eager patriotism, and ready, whenever their turns might come, to take
their places in the army or in the navy.

There were desolated regions, but the area of these was limited.  As a
whole, the new republic was increasing tremendously in both wealth and
population.  Its resources for all war purposes were growing from day
to day through all the dark years of the Revolution.

The New Londoners had no idea of waiting patiently under such
circumstances as these, with so much salute firing tantalizing them.
Boats of all sorts put out, and these were shortly met by the Long
Island news-carriers.  Their entry had not depended at all upon the
wind, and not much upon even the tide, so well they were pulling.

Guert and his _Noank_ friends, therefore, were robbed of the pleasure
of being the first to tell the great tidings from the bank of the
Delaware.  It swiftly reached the shore, to be greeted with half-mad
enthusiasm.  Before the _Noank_ lowered her last sail at her wharf,
there were men on horseback and men in sleighs, and women, too, even
more excitedly, all speeding out to villages and towns and farm-houses
to set the hearts of patriots on fire with joy and hope.

It was quite likely that every courier would picture the success of
General Washington at least as large as the reality.  Lord Cornwallis
himself, rallying his somewhat scattered detachments to strike back at
his unexpected assailant, was aware of stinging losses, but not that he
had been seriously defeated.  He had suffered a sharp check, and he had
afterward failed to surround and capture Mr. Washington and his brave
ragamuffins.  That appeared to be about all.  It hardly occurred to the
self-confident British generals that so small an affair as that of
Trenton, or a drawn battle like that of Princeton, could have any great
or permanent consequences.  Little did they imagine how great a change
was made in the minds, in the courage and hope of a host of previously
dispirited Americans.

There had been many, for instance, who had been losing confidence in
Washington's ability as a general.  He had been too often defeated, and
they could not rightly understand or estimate the causes for his
reverses, or how well he had done in spite of terrible disadvantages.
Now, as his star again blazed forth, these very faultfinders were ready
to believe him one of the greatest generals of the age.

The political consequences were invaluable.  Not only the Congress at
Philadelphia, but the state legislatures, most of them, were more ready
to push along with measures of a military nature.  The entire aspect of
affairs underwent a visible change, not only in America, but, very
soon, in Europe.

Especially dense was the crowd that gathered at the wharf toward which
the _Noank_ was to be steered.  All the other crowds probably wished
that they had known just where to go.  Most of them at once set out on
a run in the corrected direction.  The cheering done had already made a
great many of the patriots somewhat hoarse, and they were all the
readier to hear as well as talk.

"Oh!  Guert!" exclaimed his mother, as she hugged him, the moment he
came over upon the wharf.  "I'm glad of the victories, but I'm gladder
still to see you safe back again!"

"Up-na-tan hit the brig, mother," he said.  "Captain Avery says we can
run out right past her.  Hurrah for General Washington!"

"Thee bad boy!" said Rachel Tarns, behind Mrs. Ten Eyck.  "Thee and thy
schooner should have been with him at Trenton.  He was in need of thy
fine French guns and thy sailors."

"That's so, I guess!" said Guert.  "We'd ha' sailed right in, if we'd
been there.  I'd like to ha' seen the battle.  Mother, Up-na-tan's
going to teach me how to handle cannon.  He says he's going to make a
good gunner of me."

"I want you to be a captain," she said.

"Guert," said Rachel, "I wish thee might become as good an artilleryman
as thy old friend Alexander Hamilton.  It is my pride and joy, this
day, that I paid for the first powder for his cannon.  I also praise
the Lord that Alexander knoweth so well what to do with them and with
the powder."

"I'll learn what to do with mine," said Guert.  "'Tisn't easy, though.
'Tisn't like handling a rifle or a shotgun.  It's a good deal in the
loading and in guessing distances."

"Up-na-tan," was Rachel's next half-humorous inquiry, "thee wicked old
Indian!  Has thee been shooting at thy good king with thy big gun?"

"Ole woman no talk!" grumbled the Manhattan.  "Up-na-tan all mad!  Want
long thirty-two.  Pivot-gun too small.  Hit lobster brig.  No sink her."

"Ole chief not take any 'calp," chuckled Coco, maliciously, "so he feel
bad.  Want 'calp somebody, soon's he can.  Now old Coco had fight,
s'pose he 'bout ready for he supper."

That feeling seemed to have spread very widely, as if good news were
calculated to produce good appetites.  It was a hungry time as well as
a triumph, and in many houses there were home-made feasts, that
evening.  There was one, for instance, at the Avery house, and Guert
was there, of course.  He was glad of one more visit to his mother, but
a peculiarly warlike thrill went over him before he reached the gate.
It was when Lyme Avery said to his mate, as they separated:--

"Sam Prentice, tell your wife to send you out good and early.  We're
goin' to have another brush with that there British brig, to-morrow, if
the wind's at all right for it."

"I don't know," replied Sam.  "Our best hold is to slip past her, if we
can, and git out into the open sea.  It wouldn't do to run back into
the Sound, but I'd like to pick up another prize right here.  We might."

"A little too risky," said the captain, "with her on the watch.  That's
the talk, though.  We're goin' to bring more'n one prize into New
London, 'fore we git through."

Guert was well aware that the _Noank_ had taken out what were called
"letters of marque and reprisal," and was therefore a regularly
authorized and commissioned commerce-destroyer.  She was one of many.
In several of the colonial ports, north and south, precisely such
sea-wolves had long since made their preparations, and some were
already at sea.  They were making serious havoc and were soon to make
more in the widely distributed, ocean-going commerce of Great Britain.
It was a cruel, destructive, uncivilized kind of warfare, but it was
customary among all the nations of the earth.  In like manner, at this
very date, British privateers were out after American prizes.  These
latter, moreover, had the regular cruisers of England as auxiliaries.
Less agreeably, sometimes, the warships came in as business rivals or
to claim a division of spoils.  The Yankee privateers themselves
constituted nearly the entire navy of the United States.

Sunrise does not come early in the month of January.  It seems to come
earlier and there is more of it, if the weather is clear.  On the next
morning after the arrival of the Trenton news, however, a thick white
mist came drifting up New London harbor from the sea.  There was only a
light wind blowing from the westward, and it promised to be one of the
hazy days of winter, such as come before a thaw.

"This 'ere is jest the thing for us," remarked Captain Avery, when he
came out to see about the weather.  "It's the right kind o' breeze for
a schooner, and it's jest the wrong thing for a square rig.  We can
spread more canvas for our draft and tonnage than that king's brig can,
anyhow."

There was no one to dispute him, and he and Vine and Guert were shortly
on their way to the wharf.  The Yankee shipbuilders, with abundance of
the best timber at hand and any number of bays and inlets to work in,
had constructed admirable shipyards upon plans of their own.  Point
after point they had gone away from antiquated models, and they had
already made many important improvements in the building and rigging of
all kinds of craft.  Before many years, the whole sea-going world was
to be forced to recognize their superiority.

All of the _Noank's_ crew were on board when her captain reached her,
and he at once gave orders to cast off from the wharf.  Only a very few
of her friends came down to see her go.  Farewells had been already
said, for the greater part, and even the sailors' wives had been aware
that there would be no lingering.  The Long Island whaleboat was
nowhere to be seen.  It might be that her hardy oarsmen, their errand
accomplished, had set out to recross to their own shore under the cover
of darkness.

"Some o' those island chaps," remarked Sam Prentice, "ain't but a
little better'n so many buccaneers.  They're up to 'most any kind o'
pillagin'.  Do ye know, Lyme, the first o' the West Injy pirates, long
ago, made their beginnin' with very much that kind o' open boat?  It
was a good while before they were able to supply themselves with the
right kind o' sailin' vessels."

"They did it, though," said Lyme.

"Murderous lot they were, too," said Vine.  "They never left anybody
alive to tell tales of 'em."

"Ugh!  Ugh!" came from Up-na-tan, in a sort of snarl.  "All Kidd men
dead now.  No come again."

The Manhattan had seated himself upon a coil of rope and was busy with
a hone and the edge of a cutlass, as if he hoped to use it soon.

"No, they're not," replied Prentice, with energy.  "There's enough of
'em yet.  Some say they're gettin' worse'n ever within a year or so.
This 'ere schooner's got to keep a sharp lookout for 'em, soon's we're
among the islands."

"That's so, Sam," said Captain Avery.  "I'll tell ye one thing more,
too.  I'd ruther come to close quarters with a cruiser like that there
British brig than with one o' those half-Spanish West Injy picaroons.
Some right well-armed British and French fightin' craft have found 'em
dreadfully hard to handle."

"So would we," said Sam, "and I wouldn't at all mind sendin' one of 'em
to the bottom.  It'd be a matter o' life and death, ye know, for they
don't show any kind o' mercy.  Not to man, woman, or child."

Guert listened intently, for he had already heard, year after year, a
great many terrible yarns concerning the rovers of the Antilles.  Part
of his daily business, too, was to listen well to whatever he might
hear, and he was learning a great deal in various ways.  Brought up on
Manhattan Island, as he had been, he was familiar, of course, with the
external appearance of all kinds of shipping, whether of war or peace.
He had also seen a great deal of boat service.  Now, however, he had
discovered that all this had not made a sailor of him.  He was only a
mere beginner, although it seemed to him that he had been getting along
rapidly ever since he first saw the _Noank_.  This was his first actual
cruising, but he had spent a great deal of time on board while she was
waiting in port.  He believed that he knew every nook and corner of
her.  He could go aloft like a squirrel or a monkey, but for all that
he felt dreadfully raw and green among such a crew of seasoned old
mariners.  Every man of them, almost, could tell of long voyages.  They
knew the Antilles well, and the other groups of American islands.  Some
knew more of the coasts of South America, some of Europe.  More in
number, and even more full of daring and of danger, were the tales he
had heard of the whale fishery, with its glimpse of ice-fields,
icebergs, frozen seas, and its combats not only with the oil-producing
monsters of the sea, but with white bears also, and walruses, and
hostile red men; to him, therefore, these men of the _Noank's_ company
were the heroes of the ocean.  He admired them tremendously, just now,
as they discussed, in their matter-of-fact way, quietly, calmly,
fearlessly, the seemingly desperate chances just before them.  They all
admitted, without hesitation, that it was a pretty doubtful problem
whether or not they would be able to escape not only the one cruiser
near them, but afterward the vigilant British blockade of the Sound
entrance and of the adjacent waters.  The _Noank_ had very serious
risks to run before she could spread her wings on the Atlantic.

The mist was hanging lower, thicker, whiter, and the morning gun from
Fort Griswold had long since announced that in the opinion of the
gunners the sun had risen.

"Hullo!  What?" exclaimed Captain Avery, springing to his feet.
"Another?  They don't fire a shotted gun jest for sunrise."

His practical ears had told him that this report was not made by a
blank cartridge.  What could it mean?

"Gunner saw lobster ship," said Up-na-tan, quietly.

Away he went, then, toward his long eighteen, followed by Coco and
Guert and several sailors.

"Captain Avery," he called back, "ole chief get gun ready.  S'pose fort
gunner no fool."

"Ready with her!" said the captain.  "Ready!  Every gun!  Silence, all!
This fog's a friend of ours."

The Indian's understanding of the shotted cannon was correct.  The
sharp-eyed lookout upon the rampart had detected something more than
fog in the general whiteness which concealed the sea, and the nearest
gunner had at once put in a nine-pound ball on top of his signal
cartridge.

"That brig has crept in to watch for the _Noank_," they said to each
other.  "Let's give her a pill."

The pill went well enough for a warning to the _Boxer_ that her sly
creeping in had been discovered, but it did no damage.  Probably its
best use was the response it provoked from the too hasty gunners of the
_Boxer_.  For the brig to fire at the fort was mere bravado, of course;
but her commander was nettled.

"Give 'em a broadside!" he roared.  "Let 'em have it.  They can't
strike us out here in the mist.  Blaze away!"

All the port guns of the brig, five in number, were of small account
against earth and stone works; but they could express warlike feeling,
and they immediately did so, and they did one thing more.

"Good!" said Captain Avery, as he heard them.  "Now I know jest where
she is.  Wish I knew how she's headed.  We've all sail on.  Keep still,
all!  We can slip past her."

As quietly as so many ghosts, the men went hither and thither about
their duties.  They had not very much to do, for every square yard of
the schooner's canvas was already taking that fair light wind.  The
brig, on the other hand, was by no means under full sail, for some
reason, and she was tacking now that she might run deeper into the fog
and out of the way of harm from the fort batteries.  These were not
wasting any more ammunition upon her, or rather upon the mist and the
sea.  Only her topsails had been seen, in the first place, and these
had been quickly hidden again.  The two vessels were, nevertheless,
drawing nearer to each other, unawares.  There was no carefully kept
silence on board the _Boxer_; on the contrary, her crew were every now
and then doing something to send out notice to any ears near enough to
hear.  At close quarters she would have been a dangerous antagonist for
the Yankee schooner.  There was nothing at all to be made in a fight
with her, and Captain Avery was strongly averse to the idea of having
his vessel crippled or worse at the very outset of his voyage.

A wonderful thing is a curtain of sea fog.  Sometimes it may be
beautiful, but it is never at all under human control.  The _Noank_ was
running swiftly along and the very breeze which made her do so was
getting its grip upon the banks of vapor.  It tore one of these in the
middle, suddenly.  A great rift was opened, and clear water showed
across one short half-mile of the tossing sea.

"There she blows!" sang out an old harpooner of the _Noank's_ crew, as
if the _Boxer_ had been a whale.

"Luff!  Luff!" shouted the British commander.  "Bring your guns to
bear!  We have her!  Hurrah!"

"Whoo-oop!  Up-na-tan!" came fiercely from behind the breech of the
_Noank's_ long eighteen, and the Manhattan's warwhoop was closely
followed by the roar of his gun.

"Hard a-lee!" called out Captain Avery.  "Sam!  Run her into the fog.
All hands, to go about.  We must get under cover ag'in."

Short range and a good aim, with the _Boxer's_ masts nearly in line,
had been bad for the Englishman's triumph.  Down came his foretopmast,
splintered at the cap, dragging with it enough of spars and hamper to
assure that anything like racing condition had been knocked out of the
brig.  She obeyed her helm, at first.  She swung around and her port
broadside was delivered; but it was a mere waste of powder and round
iron.  Not a shot touched the saucy _Noank_, speeding away through a
fog bank.

Loud, indeed, was the startled exclamation of the astonished British
commander as he surveyed his unexpected damages.

"'Pon my soul!" he said.  "That pirate is going to get away from us.
This is too bad, altogether!"

His sailors sprang to do what they might for the wreck, but the
appearance of things was unpromising.

"Good for you, Up-na-tan!" said Captain Avery.  "That shot tells for
old practice.  I guess I'd better make you captain of that gun."

"Ole chief keep gun," replied the Indian.  "Find gun shoot straight.
Good!"

"I'm mighty glad o' that," said the captain.  "I mean to train every
hand on board, though.  We may get stuck where we can't afford to miss
a shot.  Straight shootin' is better than the heaviest kind o' shootin'
that doesn't hit."

The breeze was increasing finely, and away went the swift privateer.
She had escaped from her first pursuer, and not far ahead of her, now,
were pretty surely her next batch of perils.




CHAPTER VI.

THE BRITISH FLEET.

The easterly end of Long Island is exceedingly ragged in its contour.
It is made up of straggling promontories, bays, inlets, and the
adjacent waters contain many islands, large and small, with outlying
rocky ledges.  The opposite shore, the mainland of New England, is of a
similar character.  Between them, the eastern sound and the neck of
water by which it is to be entered, provide a great deal of pretty
circumspect navigation.

It is said, although no one now living was there at the time to collect
testimony, that once the mainland and the island were connected by a
rugged isthmus, now sunken or washed away.  If it were ever there,
enough of it is left to require good piloting.

A fleet of war-ships proposing to blockade or supervise the port of
Boston, may at the same time extend its operations so as to cork up the
Sound.  This process, if made sufficiently thorough, may include in the
blockade such ports as New London, Providence, New Haven, and their
smaller neighbors.  All of these, during the Revolutionary War, were
not only developing rapidly their regular commercial relations but were
nests of privateering enterprises.

The British naval authorities were often unable to detail for this part
of their general blockade of America a sufficient number of ships, and
it was a service much disliked by their captains and crews, especially
in winter.

The area of ocean to be patrolled was wide, and in spite of all
watching the Yankee ships ran in and out.  Boston, especially, was
building up again, after its long period of military occupation, siege,
and desolation, much to the disgust of its many enemies.

During some hours after the escape of the _Noank_ from the _Boxer_,
Up-na-tan was down in the hold, and Guert Ten Eyck was with him.  The
old Manhattan was no builder of ships, whatever he might be able to do
for a canoe, but he had seen a great many, here and there.  He seemed
now to be carrying on a kind of critical investigation of the naval
architecture of the schooner.

"What is it?" asked Guert, as his red friend placed a hand curiously
upon one of the ribs of the vessel and glanced from that to other
timbers.

"Ugh!" said Up-na-tan.  "Good stick.  Like lobster war-ship.  All make
schooner strong.  Carry long gun!"

"Captain Avery wishes she could," said Guert.  "The mate thinks she
can't."

"No gun anyhow, now," said the chief, shaking his head.  "Wait!"

The subject of the Manhattan's inquiry belonged to a controversy then
going forward among the royal naval constructors and sea-captains.  The
reason why England's third and fourth rate cruisers carried only light
guns, and many of them, was simply their frail timbering.  Too heavy
artillery might rack them dangerously.  It would call for precisely the
strength of frame provided by American shipyards for craft which might
bump an ice-floe.

Up-na-tan was still further informing himself concerning the skeleton
of the _Noank_, when a shout from above summoned them both.

"Guert," called down Captain Avery, "you and he come to the cabin.  Now
all's clear, you must learn something."

On the deck all things were quiet.  Not a sail was in sight that
indicated a craft as large as their own.  The schooner was spinning
along, with all sails set and a fair wind in them.  Everything about
her, from deck to topmast, wore a clean, orderly, service look, that
spoke volumes for the high character of her crew.  She was all ready to
do her best at any moment, and she was sure of being well handled.
Perhaps a seaman would have critically remarked upon the fact that with
such a wind she was not taking a course directly out into the Atlantic.

The captain's cabin, well aft below deck, was a small affair.  It
seemed almost crowded when only half a dozen persons were in it.

"Now, Guert," said Captain Avery, "if I don't make the chief
understand, you must explain it to him.  Talk Dutch, or any other
lingo.  He's the sharpest lookout there is on board, and he's a prime
steersman.  He must know what some things mean."

"What things?" asked Guert.

Two rugged old sailors who had entered the cabin with Sam Prentice,
also looked on inquiringly, while the captain went to a locker and took
out of it a leather case.

"Guert," he said, "it's the first duty of the commander of a ship
that's being taken by an enemy to put his private signal-book
overboard.  It's kept weighted all the while, so it will sink.  Now,
Luke Watts did his duty in that particular.  His mate and his crew
looked on and saw him do it.  So did I.  They saw him drown something
like this."

The case was open, now, and out of it was drawn what appeared to be
several sheets of parchments, wired together, so that they might be
rolled up like a pamphlet.

"Ugh!" said Up-na-tan.  "Chief know 'em.  Ship talk with lantern.  Talk
to other ship with flag.  Captain got plenty lantern?  Plenty flag?
Tell Up-na-tan how."

A deep cupboard under the captain's bunk was at once thrown open, and
its contents were interesting.  Red, green, blue, yellow, white, large
lanterns and small.  Beside them lay a collection of sheafs of rockets,
each of which carried a written parchment tab to tell its nature.
Signal flags were there, also, in tightly tied-up rolls, and Up-na-tan
loudly grunted his approval of them.

"First, now, for the book," said the captain.  "Every man on board can
be trusted to know signals.  There isn't one traitor in the _Noank_,
nor a fool, either.  Sam and I must go on deck.  You and the men and
the redskin stay here and study those things.  Git 'em all into your
head, if you can.  We may have a lot o' sharp dodgin' to do, this
cruise."

Out he went, taking Sam with him, and then it at once appeared that
Guert had become a remarkable kind of schoolmaster, trying to explain
to others what he did not know himself.  The two sailors were not
altogether unlettered men, but lack of practice had left them slow at
deciphering handwriting, and Guert seemed to have a knack of it.  As
for the Indian, he did not know one letter from another, but he could
handle flags and lanterns as if they were hunting signs or the totems
of clans and tribes.  Signal after signal was picked out and its
working practically illustrated in questions or answers.

"'Top!" exclaimed Up-na-tan, at last.  "Head full!  See more by and
by."  So said the sailors, and Guert himself felt as if he had been
going through a hard time at a new school.

"But wasn't that a cute thing of Luke Watts!" he thought, as he came on
deck.  "I'd like to try some o' those signals on a British ship.  I
don't know how far we've run.  The captain says our tightest squeeze
isn't far ahead of us, now."

The schooner, oddly enough, was actually running within sight of Block
Island.  Some, at least, of her perils must be behind her.  Perhaps
more would have been if a sailing vessel could go straight ahead, in
any direction, like a steamer.  That, however, is one of several things
that she cannot do.  Many an hour of swift sailing, tacking back and
forth, must often be extended in gaining only a few miles of her true
course.

The crew of the _Noank_ were not at all puzzled by the peculiar manner
in which she was handled, and some of their faces betrayed anxiety.

"Guess ole Avery wish dark come," remarked Coco to his friends as they
stood together at the foremast.  "Lobster out yonder, somewhere."

It was only about the middle of the afternoon, and the captain's
telescope was busy every few minutes.

"Ugh!" said Up-na-tan.  "'Tack to Montauk.  No go out yet.  Captain
head good.  Want fog.  Want night."

There was a laugh behind them, and Guert swung around to ask of Sam
Prentice:--

"Can you tell me how it is, sir?"

"I guess I can," said the mate.  "We know a good deal more'n we did.
While you were all below, we spoke a Providence man.  Cod-fisher.  My
boy, there's a whole fleet of Britishers out there, somewhere, spread
all along.  Merchantmen, troop-ships, cruisers.  Some of 'em heavy
fellers.  We must keep well in, for a while."

"Ugh!" said the red man.  "Mate let ole chief take glass.  Want look."

Prentice had with him his marine telescope, an unusually good one, and
he at once handed it to the Manhattan.

"Your eyes are 'most as good as glasses," he said.  "Let's see what you
can make out with that.  I saw a sail, myself.  Pretty well down,
easterly."

There is a great deal of difference in eyes, even in good ones, and the
American red men possess peculiar faculties for sign reading.

"Ugh!" said the Indian, after slowly and carefully sweeping the sea and
the horizon with the glass.  "Bad!  _Noank_ 'tay in.  One war-ship.
One, two, three, four other ship."

"Men-of-war and the convoy!" exclaimed Prentice.  "Lyme Avery!  Here
they are!  Come this way!  If the redskin hasn't sighted 'em!"

"Ship o' line," now remarked Up-na-tan.  "Frigate.  Little gun ship."

"Let me take the glass," said the captain, as he came; "it's a good
deal more'n we had reason to expect.  Makes things look kind o' cloudy."

"Well," said Sam, "it's about what the Boston pilot told that
Providence feller.  If we'd ha' gone on in too much of a hurry, we'd
ha' run right in among 'em."

"They're north o' their best course for New York," remarked the
captain.  "I wonder if any of 'em are from Halifax.  It may mean more
army to fight General Washington."

"Mebbe," said Sam.  "It's likely some of 'em are the reg'lar coast
cruisers.  As for the convoy, they're slow and heavy.  It's about the
course I'd expect them to run."

"We'll take in sail and heave to," said the captain.  "Our safest
hidin'd be under Martha's Vineyard."

They were not a very long reach from that island now.  There were
several fishing smacks in sight, and none of them were taking in sail.
It looked, rather, as if they were all heading homeward.  Perhaps they,
too, had been warned of a British fleet, and every man on board of them
was in danger of pitiless impressment, if his boat were to come within
range of the guns of a king's ship.

In came the sails of the _Noank_, and then came a time of watching,
waiting, and anxiety.

"Nine sail in sight," remarked Captain Avery, at last, "and there's
more'n that to come.  British flag on every one of 'em.  Of course,
they've sighted us, long before this."

"One comin' for us, I guess," said Coco.

"Headin' this way, sure!"

"I guess so," said the captain, quietly.  "It's gettin' dusk, though.
Her glasses won't do any good, much longer.--Men!  All sail!  Jump,
now!  Our time's come!"

His manner had undergone a sudden change, and there was a red flush on
his face.  The men heard him say to his son:--

"No, Vine, I won't be taken.  I'll fight that nighest feller, if I've
got to.  He isn't a heavy one."

His orders went out fast, and the schooner was quickly under a cloud of
canvas.  She had indeed been noticed by the British commanders, and
arrangements had been made to overhaul her, as a matter of course.

Her flight, or at least her escape, from such a fleet as she was now
facing, was an absurdity not to be thought of.  Whatever sort of
American craft she might be, she was soon to have an officer and a
boat's crew on board of her, ascertaining how many of her sailors it
was best to take into the service of the king.

"Father," suggested Vine, "they won't send a boat till they're nearer
than this, a good deal.  The sea's getting a bit rough, too, and the
wind's fresh'ning."

"I don't care how many boats they send," replied the captain.  "I can
sink 'em as they come.  We'll run farther in behind Nantucket, but we
won't go too far.  The redskin says he saw a topsail off the channel
that's cut too square to suit us."

"Reg'lar cruiser's tops'l," put in Sam Prentice.  "How she came to be
there, I don't know.  Are they layin' a trap for us?  Lyme, this 'ere's
goin' to be touch and go."

"It'll be go, then," said the captain.

"Maybe we won't touch, either.  It's promisin' the darkest kind o'
night.  They won't dream o' what our next long tack'll be.--Men!  All
hands!  Hark a moment, now!"

"Ay, ay, sir!" came back from all sides, and as many as could came
crowding around him.

"There may be more'n twenty sail, of all sorts, yonder, for all we
know," he said.  "We make it out it's the British army supply fleet,
with troop-ships full of redcoats and Hessians.  Likely, too, there are
reg'lar merchantmen for New York.  They've a strong convoy, j'ined,
jest now, by the blockade ships, big and little.  I calc'late, the more
of 'em there is, the better for us.  I'm goin' to run the _Noank_ right
through 'em.  Sam Prentice, take some men and fetch up the lanterns and
rockets.  Now, boys, I ain't sure but we'll have a little fun, but
there mustn't be a loud word spoke on board this schooner."

With subdued laughter and chuckles of appreciation, the men scattered
to their duties.  There was not a sign of fear among them and hardly an
expression of doubt as to the result.

The schooner herself seemed to go into the daring undertaking before
her, with all her heart as well as with all sails set.  She swung
around upon her seaward tack and went with a speed that did her credit.

It was dark, and the darkness was deepening.  Far away as yet, and in
all directions, the lights that were hung out by the British ships,
both of war and peace, were glimmering and twinkling as they rose and
fell with the surges that bore them.  It was shortly evident that some
of these were signals that were exchanging, in accordance with the
directions of the secret signal code, and Captain Avery began to assort
and arrange his lanterns.

"Sam," he said, "I guess I'll answer that call to close up with the
flag-ship.  All the rest of our fleet are answerin' it."

"Lyme," responded Prentice, "I'm in for fun, if there is any.  Why
couldn't we mix 'em up?"

"We'll try, anyhow," said the captain.

"Cap'n," put in Up-na-tan, almost respectfully, so strong was getting
to be his warrior admiration for the cunning and courage of his
commander, "s'pose we tell lobster ship, rebel enemy come.  Rebel right
here.  Make 'em feel good.  Fire gun!"

"I guess that's about as sharp a thing as we could do," replied the
captain.  "Guert, pick out those white rockets.  Hand 'em over."

Guert was having the fireworks under his especial charge, for he was
found able to read the somewhat roughly written tabs.

"Here they are, sir," he said in half a minute.  "There's plenty more
of that kind."

Vine Avery had the lanterns, and he had already made use of them in
mocking replies to more than one swinging, dancing signal.

Now, as the captain lighted the rockets, up into the gloom went fizzing
and flashing the prescribed announcement of danger.  Each rocket let
out, as it exploded, a pretty large ball of red flame, as if to
emphasize its message.  War-ship after war-ship told her character by
responding with a similar rocket, the merchantmen keeping quiet, and
then from the flag-ship of the fleet came the boom of a heavy gun.

"Heavens!" suddenly exclaimed Captain Avery, as he watched for those
responses.  "One o' their cruisers is nigher'n I'd counted on!
Starboard your helm, Sanders!  All ready to go about!"

"Ship ahoy!" came out of the gloom beyond them.  "_Amphitrite_!  What
ship's that?  Where are the enemy?  What is she?"

"_Kr-g-h-um-n_, of Liverpool," sang out Captain Avery huskily,
indistinctly, through his trumpet.

"They won't make much out of that," Guert was thinking, but the British
officer angrily shouted back:--

"_Kraken_, of Liverpool?  You blockhead!  What do I care for that?
Where away's the Yankee?"

"Armed schooner, sir!  Pirate!  Passed close by, westerly.  Say 'bout
two p'ints south."

"Where away, now, stupid?"

"On the lee bow, sir," trumpeted the captain.  "Runnin' free.  We was
nigh 'nough to see her guns."

"Blockhead!" came back.  "Why didn't you signal sooner?  You deserve a
good rope's ending!  Close up with the admiral!"

"Ay, ay, sir!  There she goes!  They're gettin' hold of her," responded
Captain Avery.

For at that moment another gun from another man-of-war sounded well to
leeward.  It was accompanied by more rocket signals that went up to be
read by all the fleet.

"Captain," sang out Guert, as he tried to read them, "green rocket
bursting into red.  It means 'Pirate in chase of merchantman.'"

"All right," said the captain, "it's some other feller.  We're not in
chase of anybody.  Up-na-tan!  Vine! swing out that biggest blue
lantern.  I'll send up a blue rocket burstin' yeller and green.  Then
douse the lanterns."

"What does that mean, father?" inquired Vine, raising the blue lights.

"Mean?" uproariously responded the captain.  "Why! it means 'Mutiny on
board ship.  Send help to quell mutiny.'"

The British admiral saw that rare and exceedingly annoying signal with
intense indignation.

"That's it!" he stormed, "another 'cursed mutiny!  That comes of
crowding the king's ships with the off-scourings of the merchant
service, and jail-birds, and slaves, and picaroons, and 'pressed Yankee
rebels.  Not one of 'em's fit to be trusted.  The king'll lose ships by
it!  They'd better be all hung!"

Meantime, under an almost perilous press of sail for such a wind and so
rough a sea, the stanch, swift _Noank_ was dashing along her course.
Every minute carried her oceanward, but not all her dangers were behind
her.

Rapid signalling went on between the British war-ships and their now
frightened convoy.  The unarmed vessels were hurrying toward their
protectors like so many chickens toward a clucking hen.  No other
incident or accident of any importance occurred to any of them.  As
hour after hour went by in the darkness of the night, and then in the
very chilly morning that followed, an eager, angry, discomforting
process of inquiry went forward from ship to ship.  Upon which of them
had been the mutiny?  Had it succeeded?  Had it been put down?  Did the
mutineers take the boats and get away?

"Not on this ship, sir," was the altogether uniform response, and all
the vessels known to be in company had been accounted for.

Not only was it that not one solitary mutineer could be discovered: it
also appeared that no such ship as the _Kraken_, of Liverpool, had at
any time joined herself to that convoy.

"'Pon my soul!" exclaimed the astonished admiral, at last, "this is
great!  Ponsonby, my dear fellow, the chap that hailed you in the dark
must have been the Yankee pirate himself.  What do you think?"

"I think he got away, sir," calmly replied Captain Ponsonby, of the
_Amphitrite_, forty-four.  "The rebel rascal has slipped through our
fingers in the most audacious manner.  Showed pluck, too."

"He did!" groaned the admiral.




CHAPTER VII.

HUNTING THE NOANK.

An army in garrison will surely spend money, officers and men.  So will
a fleet in port.  The British camps, upon and near Manhattan Island
contained thousands of soldiers, and the warships on the station, or
arriving and departing, were numerous.  There was sure to be, upon
almost any day, enough of "shore leave" or camp leave given, and the
streets of New York City were often even brilliant with uniforms.  The
burnt district could already show many new buildings, mostly shops and
warehouses, and the streets were clear of rubbish.  The merchants and
shopkeepers were said to be doing very well; some of them were making
fortunes out of the needs of the king's forces.  In the social life of
the town there had been a notable change.  Rich loyalists from the
interior had fled to New York for safety.  All the old houses were
occupied, in one way and another.  Some new ones were built or
building.  There was a great deal of dinner giving and the like.  On
the whole, therefore, the ruined city was beginning a new and very
peculiar era of prosperity.  This was to continue, during the years of
the war, to such a degree that upon the return of peace all things
would be in readiness for rapid commercial development.

The harbor, with so many ships in it that were all at anchor, wore a
frosty, sleepy look, one winter morning.  Boats were pulling here and
there, from ship to ship, or between the ships and the shore.  The
morning gun had long since sounded, and the reveilles at the forts and
camps.  All the flags and pennants were drooping upon their staffs in
the still, cold air, and nowhere did any sails appear to be spreading.

Upon the after deck of one elderly looking three-master stood a man who
was evidently taking a thoughtful survey of her.

"Levtenant," he said, to a British naval officer standing near him,
"this 'ere craft is ready for sea."

"I've brought your sailing orders, then," said the officer.  "The
sooner you're off, the better."

"Jest so!" said Captain Luke Watts.  "They all tell me she isn't a bad
one to go.  I'm goin' to give her all the chances that are in her.  I
ain't in any hurry for a return cargo, though.  I've had one lesson."

"Pretty narrow escape, they say," said the lieutenant.  "It wasn't your
fault, though.  You'll be taking return cargoes from New York to
Liverpool, before long.  This war's nearly over."

"Guess it is," said Watts, "but it'll be spring before anything more
can be done with Mr. Washington."

"Cornwallis'll catch him, then," was the confident rejoinder.  "The old
Virginia fox can hole away among his Jersey hills for a few weeks
longer.  Then Cornwallis promises to dig him out."

"Oh, he'll do that, fast enough," said Watts.  "I s'pose, if I ever git
back, I may find him a prisoner in New York.  My first business,
though, is to git this craft across the Atlantic.  I'm to have a thin
crew and no guns, and I've to depend on my sails altogether.  There are
risks."

"Can't help it," said the lieutenant, "and you mustn't lose her."

"You may tell the admiral," answered Watts, a little sharply, "that if
I don't, he may have me shot."

"I'll tell him so."

"It's Liverpool or my neck!" said Watts, emphatically.  "Tell him I'll
take the northerly course, weather or no weather, out o' the way o'
pirates, and he needn't be uneasy."

The carrying of that report to the captain of the port yet more firmly
established the confidence which was reposed in the loyalty of Captain
Watts.  He was to be allowed to use his own judgment very freely, and
he was likely to have continuous employment as a Tory commander of
British ships.

There was hardly any cargo worth speaking of in the hold of the
_Termagant_.  She was going home in ballast.  British commerce with the
colonies was entirely cut off, and this of itself was a severe war blow
to the mother country, equivalent to many defeats of her armies in the
field.  American commerce itself, however, although terribly assailed,
was all the while on the increase.  Up to the outbreak of the war,
everything produced for export in the colonies had to go out under
British restriction, whether directly to England or otherwise.  All
that did not do so escaped by adventurous processes of a smuggling
description, and the amount of it was limited.  Now, for instance, the
tobacco of Virginia and the Carolinas, when it could get out at all,
could be sold in any port of Europe which it might reach.  The West
India Islands, also, were ready to take wheat to any amount, paying for
it in sugar, molasses, rum, cash, tobacco, or fruits.  The war laws of
nations and the existing treaties, even if these were strictly adhered
to, were not in such a shape as to hinder France or Holland or Spain
from opening trade relations, hardly concealed, with the revolted
colonies of Great Britain.  All the politics of Europe were in a
dreadfully mixed, uncertain condition, and what was called peace was
very like a war in the bud that promised to become full blown before a
great while.

The greatest of all hinderances to American prosperity did not belong
to the war at all.  It was the absence of good facilities for inland
transportation.  The roads were bad, and little was doing to make them
better.  The natural watercourses, rivers, bays, and sounds, were of
great value, but they did not exist in many places where they were
needed.  Washington's army almost starved to death, simply because
there were no railways, not even macadamized roads, by means of which
he could receive the abundant supplies which his fellow-patriots in
numberless localities were eagerly ready to send him.  Large amounts of
produce, year after year, rotted on the ground among the up-country
farms of all the states, because the cost of wagoning was too great, or
the roads were impassable, or the markets did not exist.

While this was the condition of things on the land, not only in
America, but in all other countries, there was a scourge of the sea
that was almost as hurtful to commerce as was privateering itself.
Piracy had been fought out of large parts of the ocean, only making an
occasional appearance, but in other parts it held an only half-disputed
sway.  One consequence was that the mere dread of the black flag kept
out commercial enterprise almost altogether from a large number of
promising fields.  The fact was, that every case of a vessel lost at
sea and not heard from, and of these there were many, was sure to be
charged over to the account of piracy, so that the actual evil was made
to appear much greater than its reality.

A severe check had been given to the slave trade at first by the
closing of its North American market, only a few human cargoes, if any,
being delivered among the colonies during the Revolutionary War.  On
the other hand, the dealers in black labor were encouraged by a
steadily increasing demand from the British and Spanish islands, and
from South America.

So entirely different was the ocean world, therefore, from what it is
to-day, and so easy does it become to form wrong ideas concerning
old-time war and peace on sea and land.

The Yankee privateer, the _Noank_, Captain Lyme Avery commanding, had
indeed left a large British fleet behind her, and all the sea was
before her.  Conversations between her commander and his very
free-spoken subordinates, however, revealed the fact that what might be
called her commission as a ship of war was exceedingly roving.  Even
that very next morning, as he and his mate stood forward, anxiously
scanning the horizon, the latter inquired:--

"Lyme,--I say!  How'd it do to tack back and try to cut out one o' them
supply ships?"

"Too risky, altogether," replied the captain.  "South!  South!  I say.
We mustn't hang 'round here.  There are more ships runnin' between Cuby
and Liverpool than there ever was before."

"Fact!" said Sam.  "The British can't git their tobacker from the
colonies any more.  They git a first-rate article from the Spaniards,
though, and they have to pay tall prices for it."

"That's it," said Avery.  "I want to run one o' those fine-leaf cargoes
into New London.  Good as gold and silver to trade with.  I'd a leetle
ruther have sugar, though, full cargo, ship and all, with plenty o'
molasses."

Others of the schooner's company chimed in, agreeing generally with the
captain, and it looked more and more as if the immediate errand of the
_Noank_ might be considered settled.  She herself was going ahead very
well, and was in fine condition.

Away forward, at the heel of the bowsprit, with no sailor duty pressing
him just now, loafed Guert Ten Eyck.  He had borrowed a telescope from
Vine Avery, and he had been using it until he grew tired of searching
the horizon in vain, and he had shut it up.  He was feeling just a
little homesick, perhaps, after the over-excitement of the previous
days.  He was thinking of his mother rather than of stunning successes
as a young privateersman.

"Wouldn't I like to see her this morning!" he was thinking.  "I'd like
to tell her and the rest how we beat that British fleet--"

"Ugh!" exclaimed a voice at his elbow.  "Boy no lookout!  Go to sleep!
Wake up!  Up-na-tan take glass!"

Guert's dulness vanished, and he at once straightened up, for the
contemptuous tone of the old Manhattan stung him a little.  He had not
been stationed there by any order, as a responsible watchman, but the
old redskin was unable to understand how any fellow on a warpath,
whether in the woods or upon the water, could at any moment be
otherwise than looking out for his enemies.  His own keen eyes were
continually busy without any mental effort or any official
instructions.  He now took the telescope and began to use it
methodically.  Around the circle of the sea it slowly turned, until it
suddenly became fixed in a north-westerly direction.

"Sail O!" he sang out.  "Where cap'n?"

"Here I am!" came up the forward hatchway.  "Where away?  What do you
make her out?"

"Nor-nor-west!" called back the Indian.  "Square tops'l.  No see 'em
good, yet.  Man-o'-war come."

"Jest as like as not," said Captain Avery.  "Shouldn't wonder if they'd
sent a cruiser after us.  Hurrah, boys!  A stern chase is a long chase,
but that isn't the first thing on hand.  Sam!  I was down at the
barometer.  There's a blow comin'!  Worst kind!  All hands to shorten
sail!  Lower those topsails!"

It was a somewhat unexpected order for a crew to receive if an enemy's
cruiser were indeed so close upon their heels, and there was hardly a
cloud in the steel-blue winter sky.  It was obeyed, however, the men
passing from one to another the discovery of Up-na-tan while they
tugged at their ropes and canvas.

Guert sprang away aloft, for this was a part of his seamanship, in
which the captain was compelling him to take pretty severe lessons.

"You'll have to be on a square-rigged ship, one of these days," he had
told him.  "I want you to know 'bout a schooner before you get away
from her.  But you'll find there's an awful difference 'twixt the
handlin' o' the _Noank_ and a full-rigged three-master.  You'll need
heaps and heaps o' sea schoolin'."

Guert was very well aware of that, from more tongues than one, and Sam
Prentice was also beginning to put him through a mathematical course of
the study of navigation.  This, in fact, had begun during the long
months of inactivity at New London, and he had been much helped in it
by his Quaker friend, Rachel Tarns.  He was to be of some use, one of
these days, she had told him; and a fellow who did not know how to
navigate could never become a sea-captain.  An ignorant chap, a mere
sailor, must serve before the mast all his life.

In came the clouds of canvas, all but a reefed mainsail and foresail
and a jib.

"She's safe, now, I think," said the captain.  "I guess I'll go down
and take another look at that glass.  It kind o' startled me, it was
goin' down so.  Sam, how's the stranger?"

"Heading for us, I'd say," called back the mate.  "She's a
three-master, too.  She's carryin' all sail, just now.  If there's a
heavy blow a comin', she may throw away some of her sticks."

"She may do worse'n that," said the captain, "if she cracks on too much
canvas.  We won't, though."

Down below he hastened, and now Up-na-tan was pointing at something
white and hazy well up in the eastern sky.  Every old salt on board was
quickly watching what appeared to be, at first, a change of color from
blue to gray.  Some of them were shaking their heads gravely.

"It's the wrong time o' year," said one, "for that sort o' thing.  I
know 'em.  They're jest crushers.  Tell ye what.  If it's that kind o'
norther, it'll drop down awful sudden when it gits here.  Lyme Avery
hasn't been a mite too kerful.  He knows what he's about."

"There's odds in storms," replied a grizzled whaler near him.  "I've
seen a Hull trader knocked all to ruins in ten minutes by one o' them
fellers.  Every stick was blown out of her, and she foundered before
sundown."

"Look out sharp for all the gun fastenings!" shouted the captain, as he
again came hurriedly on deck.  "Up-na-tan, you and Coco guy that
pivot-gun, hardest kind.  This boat's likely to be doin' some pitchin'
and rollin' pretty soon.  There'll be an awful sea.  Where's that
Englishman?"

"Wait a bit," said Up-na-tan.  "Ole chief give lobster one shot."

"All right," said the captain.  "She's in good range now.  Have your
extra gearings ready to clap on.  This schooner has weathered all sorts
o' gales, but it won't do to let her git caught nappin'."

There had been more than a little surprise on board King George's fine
frigate _Clyde_, of thirty-six guns.  There had been a group of
seaman-like officers upon her quarter-deck at about the time she was
discovered by Up-na-tan.  Marine glasses were at work in the hands of
more than one of those gentlemen, and the express reason for it
appeared in their conversation.

The _Clyde_ was a cruiser somewhat noted for her speed.  She had been
of the convoy of the fleet through which the _Noank_ had so cunningly
worked her way, and had been at once detailed to chase the saucy
privateer.  This was decidedly pleasanter than guarding slow
merchantmen, and the frigate's commander had congratulated himself
heartily.

"If we don't strike her, we may pick up something else," he had
remarked, adding: "I think I can make out the course she's most likely
to take.  Two to one, she's bound for the Havana, to harry our West
India trade.  We'll keep a sharp lookout."

So he did, and he had been rewarded even sooner than he had expected.

"Right under our noses," he had said, when the discovery of the
schooner was announced.  "We can outsail her."

"Captain!" interrupted his next in command, excitedly.  "If she isn't
taking in sail!  What can that mean?"

"She may take us for something else," said the captain.  "It's a fine
breeze.  She couldn't think of fighting us."

"Not a bit of it," said the officer; but his commander was an old,
experienced sea-captain, and the queer conduct of his intended prize
set him to thinking.

He walked up and down the deck during about half a minute, and then he
began to look up curiously at the sky.

"That's it!" he shouted, his whole manner changing suddenly.  "The
Yankees are right!  All hands!  Shorten sail!"

He poured rapid orders through his trumpet, while his lieutenants and
other officers sprang away to their duties, leaving him almost alone
upon the quarter-deck.

"It's plain enough what it means," he said aloud.  "There's trouble
coming; we must in with every rag.  This ship's too light, anyhow, for
a hurricane.  The men don't know it, but they may be working for their
lives.  All right!  Things are coming in fast enough.  I'll get that
schooner, too, wind or no wind."

As yet, there was only a fresh breeze to take note of, so far as a
landsman could have discerned.  There was no actual excitement among
the sailors of the _Clyde_, merely because of a change in the color of
the sky.  Some of them, however, had sailed as many seas as had their
captain or the whalers of the _Noank_, and they were freely expressing
to their comrades their approval of his prudence.  All were working,
therefore, with an uncommon degree of energy.  Their ways and their
performances would have been, if he could have seen them, a very
instructive lesson to Guert Ten Eyck.  He would have learned much
concerning the differences between a square-rigged three-master and a
schooner like the _Noank_.

During this somewhat brief and exceedingly busy time, the two vessels
had steadily approached each other.  The first officer of the _Clyde_
had attended to his taking in and reefing, and he now stood once more
before his captain.

"The prize is within long range, sir."

"All right, Mr. Watson.  Give her a gun.  We must take her or sink her."

"Best sink her, sir.  It's not safe to send off a boat.  Most likely
she's heavily armed, sir."

"No," said the captain, "no boat.  We're short-handed, anyhow.  We'll
not sink her if we can help it.  One thing I'm after is to overhaul her
crew."

"You are right, sir," laughed the lieutenant.  "A shot may bring her
to."

There was more than one element, therefore, in the supposable value of
the _Noank_, considered as the prize of the British frigate, _Clyde_.

Out ran one of the latter's port guns, shotted.  It was well aimed,
too, whether or not it was intended mainly as a sharp command to
surrender.  Its heavy shot went whizzing between the schooner's raking
masts, doing no actual damage, but serving as a serious warning.

"A little lower!" exclaimed Captain Avery.  "That was closer than I
expected.  Up-na-tan!  Let 'em have it!"

He had but just given the order to go about, and the _Noank_ was almost
as good as standing still, while the red man sighted his gun.  His
marksmanship was a shade better, too, than that of the British gunner.

Such a response, or any at all with a gun, had been utterly unexpected
by all on board the _Clyde_.

"Hit us?" gasped the captain.  "We are struck?  Was there ever such
impudence!  See what that is!"

"The port o' th' capt'n's cab'n!" shouted a sailor.  "It's mashed, sir!
And 'ere comes th' wind, sir!"

There had been a crash of wood and glass at the closed port-hole, and
from that the Indian's iron messenger had gone on through the cabin
door.  All to bits flew a great swinging lantern in the saloon, and a
wide gap was made in the woodwork of the state-room opposite.  This had
been closely packed with dinner-table delicacies, including many cases
of wine.  Sad work was therefore made of the costly juice of the grape,
whether purchased or captured.  A small flood of it, as red as blood,
but not as horrible, came streaming out to tell of the bottle-breaking.

"'Orrid waste, sir!" groaned the captain's steward, as he gazed upon
that crimson rivulet.  "'E could ha' dined the fleet on 'alf o' that.
I'll not forgive they Yonkees!"

"Give 'em a broadside!" roared the angry lieutenant on deck.

"No!" as loudly commanded the cool and prudent captain, adding to his
friend: "Not just now, my boy.  Call all hands to quarters.  It'll be
hold hard, in a few minutes.  Ease her!  Ease her!  Starboard your
helm!  Steady all!  Here it comes!"

He was a prime good seaman, that captain of the _Clyde_, and he was at
that moment looking aloft to see his maintopsail blown to leeward.

"I'm glad it went!" he exclaimed.  "Good luck! since they couldn't get
it in.  That'll relieve the strain on the topmast.  It wouldn't ha'
stood it."

Other sails threatened to follow, however, and the frigate was
beginning to reel and pitch unpleasantly, although no very heavy sea
had yet risen.  The sky overhead was all one whiteness, but low down,
northeasterly, it was blackening.  The wind that came was bitterly cold
and cutting, as well as resistlessly strong.  On board the _Noank_ all
had been made ready for its arrival, and the schooner showed at once
the excellence of her modelling.  She leaned over, under her closely
reefed mainsail, with a mere apron of a jib, and sped away southerly at
a rate which her square-rigged pursuer was not at all likely to rival.

The captain of the _Clyde_ watched her, as he clung tightly to his
lashings at the foot of his mizzenmast, using his telescope as best he
could, and making remarks as calmly as if he had been contemplating a
horse-race.

"I'll say one thing for the Yankees," he said.  "We can take lessons
from them in light ship building.  That's a good one.  I wish I had the
sailors that are handling her.  They turn out some o' the best seamen
afloat.  Worth twenty apiece of some that were sent to me."

He was himself a fine specimen of the race of vikings who have made
England the queen of the seas.  Nowhere have they ever been more highly
appreciated than among their cousins of the New World, and their many
achievements are a part of our own ancestral inheritance.

For the immediate present, at least, the _Noank_ was safe, so far as
the British navy might be concerned.

"Guert!" said Up-na-tan, when their watch below brought them together.
"Look ole brack man!  Coco no like cole wind.  Like 'em warm.
Up-na-tan no care!  Ugh!  Want _Noank_ run south.  No freeze hard."

Poor Coco had indeed been shivering pitifully when he came down from
the deck.  Not all the experiences he had had during many northern
winters had prepared his Ashantee constitution to enjoy a norther.

In fact, moreover, there was not an old whale catcher on board who did
not now and then congratulate himself that the schooner was steering
toward the tropics, and would soon leave behind her that fierce,
destructive river of dry, penetrating polar air.




CHAPTER VIII.

CONTRABAND GOODS.

It was greatly to the advantage of the swift _Noank_ that her larger
and even swifter enemy was having a battle of its own.  The burly
commander of the _Clyde_ was compelled to surrender, for the time, to
the imperious demands of the polar gale.  If it would have been at all
safe to have thrown open any of his ports, nothing worth while could
have been done with his guns.  All that was left for him to do,
therefore, was to follow on as best he could in the wake of his
American prize.  This could be done fairly well, for a while, although
he was not gaining upon her.  Then, however, another of her natural
allies interfered, for darkness came over the sea, and his best hope
for catching the _Noank_ went out like an extinguished lantern.

Meantime, the captain had to listen, with undisguised vexation, to his
steward's dolorous account of the damage done to the delicacies in the
storeroom.

Far away, northerly, that very evening, a patriotic company of
Americans had gathered in a large and pretty well-lighted room.
Adjoining this were several other rooms, large and small, which were
occupied in very much the same manner.  The house was the old Ledyard
mansion at New London, and all these women and girls had gathered
there, with one accord, for work, and not for fun.  The brave owner of
the homestead, Colonel William Ledyard, was absent upon an errand to
Boston, and there were hardly any grown-up men in the assembly.  There
were boys, indeed, brimming with patriotism, and these were evidently
feeling more than ordinarily warlike as they helped their grandmothers,
and mothers, and sisters, and aunts at the peculiar industry which had
brought them together.

It was neither a sewing society, nor a quilting bee, nor an apple
paring.  There could not, however, have been more activity or
cheerfulness, even at a corn husking, and yet the cause of all this
enthusiasm and energy was serious indeed.  All the busy fingers in
these rooms were putting up ball cartridges with the powder and lead
captured by Lyme Avery in the _Windsor_.

"What a pity it is that we cannot send them to Washington," said one of
the workers.  "He will need them all pretty soon."

"I hope we'll never need them here," responded another, "but I suppose
the forts must be provided.  The British may come.  They have good
reasons for hating New London."

"It hath many bad people in it," came sarcastically from beyond the
table in the middle of the room.  "I fear there is very little love
here for our good king.  We think too little of all that he is trying
to do for us."

"Rachel Tarns," exclaimed Mrs. Ten Eyck, near her, "there's more news
from New York just in.  Your good king is stirring up the Six Nations
again.  There will be more trouble on that frontier."

"Not right away, I think," replied the Quakeress.  "I have much faith
that the peaceful red men will remain in their wigwams during such
weather as this is.  Should they not do so, I fear lest some of them
might be hurt by the frontiersmen, even if they are not frost-bitten."

"That's what I'm afraid of," said one of the larger boys.  "Old Put
ought to be there.  Washington used to be an Indian fighter.  Killed
lots of 'em.  I guess there won't any of 'em trouble us folks in
Connecticut."

"Thee is only a boy," laughed Rachel.  "Thy Old Put could tell thee of
troubles with the red men not so very far away from this place.  Thy
own house is upon land that once belonged to them.  What would thee do
if they should come to take it away from thee?"

"I'd fight!" said the youngster.  "My father's with Washington and my
brother's with Putnam.  Mother and I are ready to shoot if any of 'em
come near our house."

"Rachel," said Mrs. Ten Eyck, "how is thy conscience this evening?  How
is it that a Quaker can make cartridges?"

"I will tell thee," said Rachel.  "I have it upon my mind that the more
cartridges we make, if they are used well, also, the sooner will this
wicked war be brought to an end.  Thou knowest that the testimony of
the Friends is given for peace.  Therefore do I rely much upon that
good friend, George Washington.  He gave a strengthening testimony at
Trenton and Princeton."

Everybody had become accustomed to the dry and often bitter sayings of
the old Quakeress, and now a white-haired woman across the room
suddenly exclaimed:--

"Hear that wind!  O dear!  I wasn't thinking of redskins.  So many of
our boys are at sea.  Mine are with Lyme Avery.  What wouldn't I give
to know just how they're doing!"

"Why, they are sailing south," replied Mrs. Avery.  "If this storm
reaches 'em, it'll send 'em along.  Lyme is used to rough weather."

Brave was she, and very brave were they all, and the "cartridge bee,"
as they called it, was a good illustration of the stubborn spirit of
freedom which made it impossible to conquer the colonies.

"The forts'll be safer," they said, as they packed up their dangerous
work and prepared to scatter to their homes through the icy storm.  "We
must come and roll cartridges two evenings every week.  Some of the
boys are putting in all their time to moulding bullets."

All of those boys were growing, too, and some who were only fit to melt
lead and run bullets at fourteen or fifteen would be in the ranks
before the end of the war.  They would be Continental soldiers, for
instance, at such fights as that at Yorktown.  Any country becomes
safer while its boys are eager to grow up for its defence, and are all
the while taking lessons that will prepare them for efficiency.

The next morning dawned quietly upon both land and sea.  The norther
had blown itself out, and it had brought no great amount of snow with
it anywhere.  It had been severe while it lasted, and then it had
departed, like any other unwelcome guest.

The streets of New London were cold and snowy, but they were not by any
means dreary or deserted that morning.

One more ocean prize had been brought in, and the report of it had gone
out in all directions.  The sleighing was good over the country roads,
and the number of teams hitched along the sides of the lower streets
testified to the general hunger for news as well as for trade.  The
sociability of all these arriving sleighing parties was tremendous, and
they seemed to be all of one mind concerning the events of the day.
That is, the one-mindedness here was exactly like, and yet exactly
opposed, to the one-mindedness which ruled upon Manhattan Island, not
so far away.  Whigs here, Tories there, were equally earnest,
determined, and hopeful.

In New York as in New London, it was currently reported that a number
of the more active business men were actually making fortunes by the
war.  Not a great many rebel vessels had been brought into New York
harbor as prizes, but all that did come in, and that were condemned and
sold, offered opportunities for speculation.  The best of the town
trade came from the army and navy, but there were still a few small
driblets coming in from the interior.  It was worthy of note, perhaps,
that furs, for instance, should sometimes reach New York from the
north, from regions beyond Albany.  These were smuggled down the Hudson
River, nobody knew how.  It had been suggested, of course, by sharp
people, that American commanders might be willing to shut their eyes
while a fur trader went in, provided they were to have a talk with him
on his return.

In like manner, it was said, the British generals had no objections
whatever to the arrival of fellows who were certified to them as
"well-known Tories," who could give them abundant information
concerning the ragged, starving, worthless condition of the rebel
forces in and above the Hudson highlands.

No doubt, too, it was encouraging to the military and other servants of
the king to hear, from honest and loyal fur traders, how the rebels of
the Mohawk Valley were dispirited by the defeats of Washington's army,
and how they were preparing to turn against the Continental Congress.
Best of all, perhaps, was the assurance thus brought that all the Six
Nations and the Hurons of the woods were ready to take the war-path in
the spring as the allies of England.

If there were sailors ashore on leave that morning, from many of the
other ships in the harbor, there were none from the _Termagant_, for
she was under orders to sail.  Captain Luke Watts himself had a call of
ceremony to make, at an early hour, relating to those very orders, for
he was to give in his last report of the condition of his ship and
crew.  The "port captain," to whom his report was to be made, was the
commander of a lordly seventy-four.  In the absence of any admiral he
was the "commodore" of all the naval forces in and about the harbor.

Captain Watts was kept on deck in waiting for a few minutes only, and
when he was summoned to the cabin he found the commodore by no means
alone.  The mere skipper of a transport was not asked to take a seat in
such a presence, and Luke stood, hat in hand, respectfully, while his
presented papers were read and approved.

"Now, Watts," said the commodore, "what course do you take, homeward
bound?"

"As far no'th as I can get, sir," replied Luke, "for good reasons."

"Give your reasons."

"Well, sir, from what I heard at New London, the rebel pirates are
aimin' at our West Injy trade.  They'll hang 'round the reg'lar course,
too, the southern track.  I jest mean to steer out o' their way."

"Good!" said the commodore.  "What else did you hear among the Yankees?"

"Well, sir," replied the Tory sailor, "they said, and they seemed to
know, that our cruisers off the Havana are mostly heavy craft that
can't chase 'em through the channels and over the shoals and 'mong the
lagoons.  What we need, sir, is a lot o' light draft vessels there, and
well armed, too."

"Make a note of all this, lieutenant," exclaimed the commodore.  "This
man Watts has brought in good advice before this.  Whatever he brings
is said to be of practical value.  Go on, man!  What next?"

"Well, sir," said Watts, "before I left Liverpool the last time, I
heard a p'int.  I must look sharp after I get over and want to run in.
I must say it, sir, the Irish and English coast is only half guarded.
We haven't half enough ships on duty there.  Next we know, we'll hear
of Yankee pirates in St. George's Channel."

"Note it!  note it!" exclaimed the commodore, loudly.  "It's just so!
What with so many of our best cruisers ordered to America and the
Antilles and the Mediterranean, and to the China seas, our own home
coasts are left to be defended by old hulks and mere revenue cutters.
The Yankees can run away from the heavy tubs, and they can smash all
the smuggler catchers.  We shall hear bad news, next.  Watts, take your
own course.  Get in how you can.  You're a man we can rely on.  Go,
now, sir."

"My ship'll get in, sir," said Luke, almost too sturdily.  "I wish I
was as sure 'bout some others.  I'm afraid they're going to crack our
traders 'mong the islands."

"That'll do!  Go!" he was told, and he went out, leaving behind him a
very capable naval officer in a decidedly uncomfortable state of mind.

"Gentlemen," he said to his officers, "all that he says is only too
true.  I am sorry it is, but I am intending to embody it in my report
to the Admiralty.  The unpleasant thing for us is, however, that we
can't spare anything or send anything, from this fleet and station, to
prevent the mischief that's threatened among the Antilles."

They all agreed with him.  All of them considered, also, that the man
Luke Watts had given valuable information and suggestions.  He had done
so, doubtless, but he had not thereby done anything to hinder the
future operations of any Yankee privateer.

He was rowed back to the _Termagant_, and when he arrived somebody was
waiting for him on her deck.

"Feller named Allen," he was told by a sailor at the rail.  "He's a
kind o' fur pedler, I'd say, with a permit from one o' the generals, I
don't know who."

"All right," said Watts.  "Fetch him below, packs and all.  I'll see if
his papers are reg'lar.  We don't make any loose work on this ship."

"Ay, ay, sir," said the sailor.

Sharp as was his examination of them a moment later, he seemed to be
entirely satisfied with the documents presented to him by the man named
Allen.  He had obtained the customary authority, as a loyal merchant of
the port of New York, to ship by the _Termagant_ to his agent in
London, a properly scheduled assortment of valuable furs.  All had been
officially inspected and approved.

"Come down below," said Captain Watts.  "All your packages are down.
I'll give these things another overhauling in my cabin."

"Certainly, Captain Watts," replied Mr. Allen.  "Whatever you wish."

He was even willing to help carry down the furs, and one of the smaller
parcels of them was in his hand when they reached the cabin.  He still
held it after the door was shut and bolted, leaving him and the captain
alone together.  Then his entire manner changed somewhat suddenly, and
he threw his parcel down upon the table.

"Captain Luke Watts," he said, "that's it.  You'd best take out the
papers, now, and stow 'em away somewhere.  You ain't sure there won't
be another look taken at the furs 'fore you git away.  I wouldn't risk
it.  They're getting suspicious, all 'round."

Open came the parcel, as he spoke, and in the very middle of it lay a
bundle of such materials as would ordinarily have been sent through a
post-office.

"It's about all the cargo I'll have, of any consequence," remarked
Luke, staring down at the unexpected mail.

"General Schuyler told me to say," replied Allen, "that all these are
of great importance.  Some are from him to his friends in England.
You'll know how to have 'em delivered.  Some are to go to Holland and
some to Paris.  That last is all the way from the Congress at
Philadelphia.  It got to me by way of Morristown and one of our Jersey
Tories, you know.  That's old Ben Franklin's own handwriting."

"I'll see that they go straight through," said Luke, quietly.  "I'll
put 'em safe away, now, first thing."

"You'll swing at a yard-arm inside o' one day, if you're ketched with
'em," said Allen.  "I've been up among the Six Nations, all the way
through to Niagara, for my brother's concern on Pearl Street.  I went
to buy furs for them, you see, and did first-rate.  I fetched along
packs o' news, too, for the British commanders.  It was risky business,
working my way through Putnam's lines, though.  I came pretty nigh to
being shot or hung by the rebels, you know."

"Ye-es, I know," responded Luke.  "They came jest about as nigh as that
to hangin' me, they did.  The bloodthirsty pirates!  Get ashore, now,
Allen.  I'll land your furs for ye.  I hope your concern'll make a good
thing out of 'em."

"Finest furs you ever saw," laughed Allen.  "Look out for spies and
searchers.  Here's good success to good King George--Washington, and
may the glorious flag of England float victoriously--till we pull it
down!  Luke Watts, I'm the poisonest kind of Tory, I am!"

"Jest like me," said Watts.  "I've done all I can to put down this 'ere
wicked rebellion."

"I've heard so," said Allen.  "We got the news all the way from
Connecticut.  You delivered a whole ship's cargo of heavy guns and
muskets and ammunition to the loyal-hearted Tories of New London.  I
was born there once, myself.  I know just how faithfully they love
their king and his blessed Parliament.  Good-by, Luke!  A successful
voyage to you.  Keep out o' the way of pirates."

"I must, this time," said Watts.  "If I don't, I'll never get another
ship to carry furs and things in."

Up on deck they went, and the last words uttered by Allen did not have
to be whispered.

"Take good care of your neck, Captain," he called out, from his boat.
"If you're caught, this time, you'll never see New York again, or
Marblehead, either."

"I guess he's about right," said Mate Brackett, gazing after the boat.
"I'd say you seem to be a man that the rebels have set a mark on."

"Never you mind," said Watts.  "We won't be ketched by 'em, that's all.
The commodore says we may sail our own course.  We'll git there."

"All right, sir," said Brackett.  "We've a queer lot o' chaps with us
this trip, but we'll work 'em."

What he meant by that was that all the prime seamen were needed by the
war-ships, and that almost anything on two feet had been deemed good
enough for an old transport ship going home in ballast.

"We'll have to travel under light canvas, I take it," remarked
Brackett, as he looked at his crew.  "It'd be all night and part o'
next day for them to shorten sail in a hurry."

The boat which carried Mr. Allen, the loyal fur trader, reached the
shore.  On getting out of it, he walked until he came to a dwelling a
short distance easterly from what the fire had left of old Pearl
Street.  He entered without knocking and passed through the house to
the kitchen in the rear, where a comely, middle-aged woman stood before
an open fireplace, watching a pot which was hanging on the crane.

"Sally Allen," he said, in a somewhat low and guarded tone, "the
captain took the furs.  It's all right."

"It is if they don't find him out," she said, gloomily.  "I think you
are running awful risks, Tom.  The sooner you are back again in the
Mohawk Valley, the better for you."

"I shall get there," he told her; "that is, if I'm not shot before I
pass the Dunderberg.  I mustn't stay here, though.  I must be in a
canoe at Spuyten Duyvil Creek before morning."

"They make short work of spies, Tom," she said.  "Think of what they
did to Nathan Hale.  I used to know him, years ago, in New London."

"Sally," he said, "I want you to mark just one thing.  He isn't
forgotten!  One o' these days there'll be some first-rate British
officer captured, a good deal as Hale was, with papers on him, playing
spy.  Whenever that happens, our side won't show any mercy.  The spy'll
have to swing!"

"That's all wrong!" she exclaimed.  "I hate to think of it.  All
revenge is wicked.  It's awful to think of killing one man because
somebody somewhere else killed another."

"Now, Sally, that isn't it exactly," replied Tom.  "What we mean is
that all the spy hanging isn't to be done on one side o' this war.
What's right for them is right for us."

"No!" she said.  "It isn't so!  It's like so many red savages to talk
in that way.  We don't take scalps, just because they do, nor kill
women and children.  I'm a true American woman, and I believe in
righting, but I don't want any stain left on our side."

"There won't be any," said Tom.  "I'm going ahead, if they do hang me.
I'm running Nathan Hale's risk, all the while."

"God protect you!" she said.  "Do you feel sure you can creep through?"

"I've done it before," he replied.  "What I'm thinking of, the worst
thing for me, is the new line of pickets along the river bank.  I shall
be fired at, pretty sure, before I can paddle on into the Hudson
Narrows.  There'll be some risk from our own pickets above Anthony's
Nose.  I guess they'll all miss me.  I've one package, though; that's
all weighted, ready to drop into the water if I'm exhausted.  I'd make
out to sink it, if I was dying.  Now, give me some supper."

"Oh, Tom!" she said, "God keep us!"




CHAPTER IX.

THE PICAROON.

"Guert," said Vine Avery, as they stood together, with their backs
against the main boom of the _Noank_, "what do you think of this?"

"Think?" said Guert.  "Well!  It's the first time I ever saw summer in
winter."

"They're having good sleighing in New London," said Vine.  "Skating,
too."

"Guess so," said Guert.  "I wish my mother were here, and Rachel Tarns
with her.  They'd enjoy this."

"My mother's made two West India trips," replied Vine.  "She knows all
about it.  Likes it, too."

"It's the laziest kind of cruising, though," said Guert.  "We've dodged
away from some sails, and we've run after some, but we haven't taken
anything."

"Our chances'll come, boys," put in Captain Avery himself, as he came
strolling along the deck.  "Not just 'bout here, maybe.  Yonder on the
easterly Bahamas.  Not many British traders are likely to be met
hereaway."

"What are we here for, then, father?" asked Vine.  "What's your
notions?"

"We had to," said the captain.  "The Frenchman we spoke, told me the
Florida Channel's alive with British cruisers.  We sighted two of 'em,
you know, and had to run for it."

"Where next?" asked Vine.

"We'll take a course toward Porto Rico," said his father; "then up the
coast of Cuba.  We'll try the Bahama Channel, and the Santaren, and the
Nicholas.  I want to send home some prizes, pretty soon, on British
account."

Day after day, the _Noank_ had been hunting, hunting, farther and
farther into the southern sea, through good weather and bad.  All the
while Guert Ten Eyck had been at school.  Up-na-tan had laboriously
tried to teach him whatever he himself knew about guns, large and
small.  The other sailors had done their duty by him, concerning ropes
and sails and points of seamanship.  Captain Avery had driven him hard
at his books on navigation.  Therefore, if the cruising had been more
or less lazy business for others, it had contained a good deal of hard
work for the young sea apprentice.  He was in a fair way to be made a
good sailor of, and to be ready in due season to handle a ship.

"What you want most," Captain Avery had said, "is a long v'y'ge on a
square-rigged vessel, under a hard captain.  I'll find a chance for you
one o' these days.  You can't learn everything on board a schooner."

That idea was growing steadily in Guert's mind, and he now and then
found himself dreaming of all sorts of perilous cruises in great
American three-masters.  By these splendid ships of his imagination,
all of which were as yet unlaunched from any shipyard, the best keels
of England were to be met and beaten.  He was to command one of them,
and was to become a captain first, and then a commodore.  It was all an
entirely natural young sailor's ambition, but it was looking far away
into the future of his country.  All it was good for now was the help
it gave him in his pretty severe schooling.

Just at this present hour, leaning against the boom and gazing at the
low coast line of the islands, he was calling to mind the many yarns he
had heard concerning them.  He had read about them, a little.  He knew
how they had been discovered by the Spaniards, and then taken from
them, part of them, by the English and the French.  He knew how the
Carib natives had been slaughtered, and he had heard, from Coco in
particular, of the horrible manner in which the tobacco and sugar
plantations had been provided with African slaves.

Vine, too, was thinking, but of a very different matter.

"Guert," he said, "away out yonder, easterly, there's the queerest
patch in all the Atlantic.  It's where all the loose seaweed and
driftwood and wreckage float together.  There are currents that whirl
in there and make a centre of it.  More and more seaweed and other
plants grow on that stuff year after year, and it's all a kind of swamp
on the surface, with deep water under it.  They call it the Sargasso
Sea.  We were swept into the edges of it, once, and it took a fresh
breeze to pull us out.  I don't just know if a craft like this could
plow her way across it."

"I guess she could," said Guert, "but I don't want to try.  What I want
to see is Cuba and Porto Rico."

Away beyond them, hardly visible in the distance, was a tree-covered
point of land.  Captain Avery was studying it through his telescope,
and they heard him mutter to himself:--

"I don't know whether or not that is Watling's Island.  If it is, we've
made a better run on this tack than I thought we had.  One good, long
reach beyond that and we'll begin to be in the track of the traders."

"Whoo-oop!" suddenly rang out the war-cry of Up-na-tan, from somewhere
up the mainmast.

"Where away?" shouted the captain.  "What do you see?"

"No see!" came down from the redskin.  "Hark!  Hear gun!  Hark ahead!
See point!  More gun!"

His ears had been better than theirs, but, after a moment of intense
listening, the entire ship's company of the _Noank_ felt sure that they
heard the dull boom of far-away cannon.

Every sail was already set to take so fair and fresh a wind, and the
swift schooner was eating up the distance rapidly.

"All hands make ready for action!" shouted the captain.  "Risk or no
risk, I'm goin' to see what it is."

His orders went out fast, but they went to the ears of men who had
sprung away without them.  All the guns had been manned instantly.

Coco and Guert and half a dozen more were at the pivot-gun, but
Up-na-tan did not come down at once.  The captain's order kept him
aloft as the best lookout and listener he had.  Louder, now, at
intervals, came the ominous sound of the distant guns.

"No big gun yet," called down the keen-eared Indian.  "No big war-ship.
_Noank_ run right along."

"The chief is worth his weight in gold!" exclaimed the captain.
"That's jest what I wanted to know, before roundin' that there p'int.
I don't care to run under the guns of a British cruiser."

Ships which are running toward each other under full sail cut every
mile in two in the middle.  For instance, they need to run only two
miles instead of four to get together.  There was a dense forest growth
on the point of Watling's Island, if that were indeed the land to
windward, for the breeze was westerly.  Everything beyond was hidden
from view until the _Noank_ passed the outer reef and tacked seaward,
running almost wing and wing.

"Whoo-oop!" came fiercely down from the red man's perch.  "'Panish
flag.  Three-master.  Trader.  Not many gun.  Whoop!  Whoop!  Whoop!
Kidd!  Kidd!  Black flag schooner!  Pirate!  Not so big as _Noank_.
Small gun!  Take her quick!  Kill 'em all!  Whoo-oop!"

"Hurrah!" arose in a general roar from the crew of the _Noank_, more
than one voice adding, vociferously, the desire that was felt to smash
the picaroon.

"Ready, all, now!" sang out Captain Avery.  "The American flag is
against the black flag, the world over.  We'll fight it, every time!"

Fierce shouts of eagerness replied to him, and the men were stripping
themselves for a hard fight.  The very most of clothing that was
actually needed under that hot sun, by men who were to handle cannon,
was a shirt and trousers, and many of the brawny backs were even bare.
Muskets, pikes, pistols, cutlasses, were bringing up from below.
Ammunition, plenty of it, was serving out to all the guns, and now, as
the point of land was left to starboard, all eyes could see what kind
of work had been cut out for the privateer.

The Spaniard, as her flag declared her, was a three-master of,
probably, not more than six hundred tons.  She was crowding all sail,
but she was evidently heavily laden.

"She has too much cargo for good runnin'," growled Sam Prentice.  "That
buccaneer has the heels of her."

"What's worse'n that," said the captain, "she has nothin' but popguns
to fight him with.  He won't sink her, though.  What he wants is to run
along side and board her."

"Then it'll be good-by to every livin' soul that's in her," said the
mate.  "We'll jest put a stopper on all that!"

"Up-na-tan," shouted the captain, "come down to your gun!  We shall be
in fair range in three minutes.  Then give it to 'em as fast as you can
load and fire."

"Ugh!" was all the response they heard, and the Manhattan warrior came
down so swiftly that he was at his gun almost before they knew it.

There was a pitiful scene, just then, on board the unlucky Spaniard.
She had many passengers as well as much cargo.  Women and children were
crouching in terror upon her deck, or hiding hopelessly away in her
cabins.  Fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, were gazing in
awful despair at the horrible black flag of murder and ruin, which was
so evidently nearing them, minute after minute.

"The _Santa Teresa_ is doomed!" groaned the Spanish captain, and then
he raised his voice to shout courageously: "Men! we will fight to the
last!  We'd better go to the bottom, than to let those devils get on
board!"

"We'd better die fighting, than stand still to have our throats cut, or
to walk the plank!" came back to him from among the men.

Even the women begged for weapons.  There were boys and girls who were
fiercely handling firearms, and swords, and pikes.  Numerous as might
be the buccaneers, they were likely to win a costly victory upon the
deck of the _Santa Teresa_.

"There goes our mizzenmast," called out her mate to the captain.
"We've no chance left, now!"

"We never had any, Roderigo," replied the captain.  "O God!  Here they
come!"

"Ho!  Captain Velasquez!" came from the man at the wheel.  "A sail to
larboard!  A schooner!"

"A Yankee flag!" said Mate Roderigo.  "Captain!  She's heading this
way!"

"Alas!" mourned the captain.  "What can a Yankee sugar-boat do for us?"

A mournful wail went up from his women passengers as they heard him,
but a tall gentleman near him touched his elbow.

"Captain!" he said, "look again.  That American does not seem to fear
the black flag.  See!  She is coming on full sail.  What can it mean?"

"Perhaps she does not yet know what they are, Senor Alvarez," sadly
responded the captain.  "She will be as hopelessly lost as we are."

So thought the buccaneer captain himself, at that moment, for he and
his hideous crew were already rejoicing over two triumphs to come
instead of one, and a second feast of bloodshed after taking the
Spaniard.

The black flag commander was a short, thin, tiger-faced man.  He was
gaudily dressed, as were also some who seemed to be his lieutenants.
As for his crew, they were of all sorts.  They were the offscourings of
several nations, including Englishmen, French, Dutch, and Africans.
They were at this moment yelling savagely, as they loaded and fired
their guns.  Not one of these was larger than a short six-pounder,
although there was an absurd number of them, considering the size of
the vessel.  She was schooner-rigged, but she was much more lightly
constructed than the _Noank_.  Her breadth of beam was somewhat
greater, and she might be speedy.  Precisely such craft were sometimes
built for the slave trade.  They were expected to carry only human
cargoes, as a rule, and to make swift runs from African slave
barracoons to American markets.  Delays in such voyages implied heavy
losses of black captives who would surely die in the hold.

"We will take the Yankee schooner first," was the decision of the
pirate captain.  "We must cripple the Spaniard, so she cannot get away.
Two prizes are better than one.  We need that schooner yonder, for our
own trade."

Loud laughs and jeers replied to him from many scores of throats, for
the buccaneer _Leon_ was positively over-thronged with sea-wolves.

"Steady with the helm there!" rang out on board the _Noank_, as she
arose like a duck upon the crest of a long sea.

"Ugh!" said Up-na-tan, as the sheet of flame sprang from the brazen
lips of his long eighteen.  "Whoop!"

"Struck her!" exclaimed Captain Avery.  "That was a good shot!"

"Between wind and water!" shouted Sam Prentice, studying the pirate
through his glass.  "It took her as she heeled, and it knocked a hole
in her you could roll a barrel through."

Whether or not any bodily harm had been done to any pirate, a chorus of
astonished yells and imprecations went up from her crowded deck.  All
the ears there could hear and understand the crash of timbers under
them, which had followed close upon the good shot of Up-na-tan.

"Praise God!" gasped the captain of the _Santa Teresa_.  "Oh!  Senor
Alvarez!  I never thought of that.  It is one of the new American
colonial cruisers.  They carry heavy guns.  Their men are as brave as
lions.  All the saints be merciful and help them to shoot straight!"

"Amen!" groaned the senor.  "Laura!  My dear wife!  The Americans are
armed!  We have some hope!"

Down upon their knees, as if with one accord, dropped all the
despairing women and not a few of the men, the children grouping
frantically around their mothers.  Loud and earnest were the hurried
supplications and bitter was the wailing.

Up-na-tan had not the least idea that he or his gunnery were being
prayed for, but he sent his next shot as truly as the first.  He aimed
at her hull, as near amidships as might be.  It was no fault of his
that a slight roll of the _Noank_ lifted his line of fire so that his
flying iron struck the mainmast of the _Leon_ instead of her ribs.  The
tall spar was shattered and went over the lee rail with all its top
hamper, carrying with it several of the pirate crew who were aloft.

That stunning success of the old warrior was greeted with a storm of
wild cheering from the crews of the _Noank_ and the _Santa Teresa_,
while more than one woman's voice declared: "Praise God and all the
saints!  Our prayers are heard!"

The remark of Captain Velasquez was more seamanlike than religious.

"Santo Domingo!" he exclaimed.  "That cripples them!  The villains can
come no nearer.  They are at the mercy of that American.  God bless
her!  Why does she not use her broadside guns?"

She was not quite ready yet.  It was better to ply her long eighteen
and keep well away from any harm to her hull or rigging by the
short-range pieces of the _Leon_.

"Give it to 'em!" said Captain Avery to Up-na-tan.  "Make every shot
tell.  Now for it, men!  Ready with the port broadside!  A minute more!
Don't miss, for your lives!"

The swift rush onward of the schooner brought her near enough, even
while he was giving his orders, and her six-pounders were worked by
very good marine marksmen.  The pirates were helpless, and the
broadside of the _Noank_ ploughed among them with deadly effect.  A
second quickly followed, and still she was drawing nearer.

"No surrender!" shouted the pirate captain.  "We'll put the Spaniard
between us and the American.  We must board her!  That'll stop their
firing.  Give it to her!"

There was something like good seamanship in his proposition if he could
have carried it out, but Sam Prentice was at the helm of the _Noank_,
and he instantly detected the intended manoeuvre.

"Sam!" shouted Captain Avery, as his schooner began to change her
course.  "Port your helm!  Keep her well away!  Carry her out o' range!
Don't let 'em knock a splinter out of us!"

"All right, Lyme," responded Sam.  "But let's rake 'em.  They're losin'
steerage way with all that wreckage draggin'.  The redskin has hulled
'em ag'in.  Let's cross their bows."

"Go ahead!  I'm agreed!" called back the captain.  "Not too near,
though."

His careful keeping away was to have an important consequence that he
did not think of.  All was confusion on board the _Leon_, after those
broadsides came.  Her crew were frantically striving to cut loose the
towing wreckage and bring their craft once more to the wind, while, as
fast as Up-na-tan and his fellow-gunners could load and fire, the
destruction was increasing.

"What's that?" screeched the pirate captain, in reply to one of his
crew.  "We are sinking, are we?  Boats!  To the boats!  They shall
never take us alive.  Boats, and board the Spaniard!"

Capture meant only death without mercy, as all of them knew, and some
of the cooler miscreants had already begun to get ready the boats.  Of
these there were four, and the largest of them had been hanging at the
davits, ready for lowering.

"Sam," said Captain Avery, soberly, "not one of those fellows must git
away.  Mercy to them is cruelty to everybody else.  If I spare a
pirate, I'll feel as if I was murderin' the next man or woman he puts a
knife into."

"That's about the way I feel," said Sam; "but I ain't an executioner."

The Spaniards themselves had been doing something with the guns of the
_Santa Teresa_, such as they were, old-fashioned, clumsily mounted,
short-range, light pieces.  Only a few of her crew and none of her
passengers had been killed or wounded.  There had been no report of
them made in the general excitement and despondency.

It was almost too soon for any enthusiastic rejoicing, for hardly any
one felt sure of deliverance.  It was almost as if the wonderful Yankee
privateer had fallen from the skies.  She and her operations were
calling forth tremendous admiration, however, and there was plenty of
genuine piety in the fervent thanksgivings that were uttered.

"Stop firing!" commanded Captain Avery, less than a quarter of an hour
later.  "That black flag feller is careenin'!  She's fillin'!  I
declare, she must ha' been a mere shell.  The _Noank's_ timbers'd ha'
stood a heavier poundin' than that."

"It was pretty heavy pounding, Lyme," replied Sam Prentice.  "Our
timbers are good, but we don't care to be struck at short range.  Not
by heavy shot, anyhow.  You see, that redskin jest plugged her every
time.  Some of his hits must ha' gone clean through."

"Used her up, anyhow," said the captain.

"Guert," said Up-na-tan to his pupil in the science of gunnery, "good!
Boy aim twice.  No miss.  Boy make good gunner some day."

It was just so.  The Manhattan had indulgently promised Guert to do
some actual battle practice, and had made him as proud as a peacock.
It was true that he had fired under close supervision and direction,
but it had been a valuable teaching, and Guert almost believed that he
could have done it all alone--with the right kind of men to handle the
pivot-gun for him.

"Boy good eye," said Up-na-tan.  "Hold hand steady.  Hit mark.  Ugh!"

Over, over, over, rapidly leaned the shattered hull of the _Leon_, the
water pouring into her through the gaps in her starboard side.  Down
from her had dropped boat after boat, to be crowded with her surviving
wolves, no effort being made by them to save any of their wounded
companions.  She had now drifted into pretty close neighborhood with
the _Santa Teresa_, and a wild shout went up as the boats pulled away.

"Board the Spaniard!" cried her captain.

It was the last resource of utter desperation, and they might even now
have succeeded in gaining possession of the _Santa Teresa_ if she had
been unassisted.

"Stand by your guns, men!" shouted Captain Velasquez.  "Let them have
it as they come!"

"Steady about," said Captain Avery to the steersman of the _Noank_, "we
must take care o' those boats.  Oh! how I wish we were nearer!  Give it
to 'em!"

"Ay, ay, sir!" came back from his gunners, "but the Spaniard's in the
way.  As soon as we clear her--"

"Down with the mainsail!  Haul on that jib!  Port!  Here we come!"

It was not round shot this time.  The long sixes had been glutted with
grape-shot, and so had the pivot-gun.  The Spanish cannon, hastily
fired by excited men, had done some execution, but not one of the
buccaneer boats had been disabled.  The foremost of them was within ten
fathoms of the _Santa Teresa_, and the swarm of murderers would have
been over her bulwarks in another minute, when past her port quarter
swept the Yankee privateer.

Bang, bang, bang, as fast as they were brought to bear, spoke out her
three guns of that broadside, and Up-na-tan's eighteen-pounder.  Then
she seemed to come about like a top, somewhat increasing her distance.
Three more successive reports, and then where were the picaroons?
Muskets and pistols were hurling lead among them from the deck of the
Spanish trader.  A shot from one of her guns had knocked out the stern
of the largest boat.  All that, however, had been of small account
compared to the effect of that tempest of grapeshot.  The boat crews
withered away before it, and two of the boats themselves were upset in
the panic that followed, while the fourth was evidently sinking.  Black
heads dotted the water, and a shriek from one of them brought a sharp,
quick exclamation from Coco.

"Shark!  Shark!" he yelled.  "See back fin!  Twenty of 'em!  See 'em!
Shark take 'em all!"

"Father," exclaimed Vine Avery, "that's awful!  Can't we save some of
them?"

"Too late!" said the captain.  "Not a man, I'm afraid.  Jest look how
they're goin' down!  It's a reg'lar school o' sharks.  They're bitin'
fast.  We'll go about, though, and we'll pick up any that are left."

The Spaniards continued firing while their American friends sped on and
came back on the other tack.  Every boat had now been upset or
shattered and the sharks were having their own way with the picaroons.

"Here comes one of 'em, Captain Avery," said Guert.  "I'll try and save
him!"

"Throw him a rope," said the captain; and Guert quickly had the help of
Vine and another sailor.

"Quick!" said Guert.  "Don't let the sharks get him.  I'd give anything
to save a man from them!"

"He's caught the rope," replied Vine.  "Haul him in!  We've got him."

Close behind him, or rather under him, as he came dripping over the
rail, was a huge pair of snapping jaws that barely missed him.  He
fell, at first, and then his rescuers themselves were astonished.  He
did not say a word to them, but dropped at once upon his knees, and
began to pour out thanks to the Virgin Mary, like a good Catholic.

[Illustration: A NARROW ESCAPE.  "As he came over the rail, a huge pair
of jaws barely missed him.]

"Let him," said Sam Prentice.  "Some o' these cutthroats are awful
pious."

"Yes," said Guert, "but he is praying in Dutch, and he mixes it up with
English.  I can't tell what he is."

"There she goes!" shouted a dozen voices at that moment, and all turned
to look.

It was only a last lurch and a plunge, and all that was left of the
pirate _Leon_ sank forever out of sight.  The heads of her crew had
also disappeared from the surface of the water, and the career of one
of the terrors of the sea was ended.




CHAPTER X.

THE BLACK TRANSPORT.

"You don't mean to say it's all over!" exclaimed Guert, staring at the
place from which the pirate schooner had vanished.  "Seems to me it
doesn't take long to fight a battle at sea."

"Yes, it does," said one of the older sailors, "if there's chasin' and
manoeuvrin' and long range firin'.  I've been in some that took all day
and the next day, too.  But we were too heavy guns for that feller."

"It's awful!" remarked Vine Avery, very thoughtfully.  "I was trying to
make out if we could have saved any more of 'em."

"No," said the captain, "I don't see how we could, considerin' where we
were and the time it took us to come about.  They grappled each other
in the water, too."

"The fact is, boys," said Sam Prentice, "the savin' o' those fellers
wouldn't ha' been of any use, anyhow.  Spanish law isn't as slow and
careful as ours is.  It wouldn't ha' called for any trial by a court,
you know.  The nearest army or navy commander of any consequence would
ha' taken hold of 'em.  They'd all ha' been shot within a day after he
seized 'em."

"Leastwise," said Vine, "'twasn't any fault of ours.  I'm glad Guert
made out to haul in one of 'em."

Guert had turned somewhat quickly away, while they were speaking, for
his rescued man had been allowed to come and speak with him.

"Hullo!" said the captain.  "They are talkin' Dutch.  That's it!
Guert's a New Yorker.  He learned it at home."

"What sort is he, Guert?" asked the mate.

"He isn't any pirate, at all," eagerly responded Guert.  "He's a
Hollander that was on a ship they took.  One of 'em knew him and saved
him, and they 'pressed him in.  He had to make believe he was one of
'em, but he never was."

"Pretty good story," said Captain Avery.  "Maybe it's true.  There's
enough of 'em killed.  We'll take care of him."

"I wish you would," said Guert.  "Seems to me the right man got away."

"Not all of 'em," said the man himself in English that had very little
foreign accent.  "There were three more a good deal like me.  Some o'
the black men weren't reg'lar pirates.  All the rest of 'em, though,
belonged to the sharks.  It was one o' the worst crews that ever
floated.  My name's Groot.  I'm from Amsterdam, but I was brought up
mostly in Liverpool.  Sailed on British craft and French, too.  I'm a
true man, Captain Avery!"

The captain was willing to believe it, if he could, and he questioned
him closely, all the crew of the _Noank_ agreeing among themselves that
Groot was their prize, anyhow, and ought not to be turned over to any
Spanish authority.

All the while, the rescued _Santa Teresa_ was drifting nearer, her
bulwarks lined with eager people of all sorts, who were gazing
gratefully at what seemed to them the very beautiful American schooner.
She had arrived just in time to save them, and they had never before
seen a ship that they were so pleased with.  Loud hails were exchanged,
and then followed, from the Spanish ship, a perfect storm of thanks.

"Guert," said Captain Avery, "I'm goin' aboard of her.  You may come
along.  You may find some more Dutchmen.  I can talk Spanish and
French.  I want to know just what shape they're in."

A boat was already lowered, and in a few minutes they were on the deck
of the _Santa Teresa_.

"Women and children!" was Guert's first thought and exclamation.  "To
think of all of them being murdered!  I don't feel half so sorry as I
did about the pirates.  I wish mother could see just what we've been
saving from 'em.  I guess it's perfectly right to shoot straight,
sometimes.  Glad I didn't miss once!"

All his shudders of regret and of horror over the work of the sharks
passed away from him as those passengers crowded around him.  There
were four more _Noank_ sailors, but the Spanish crew had captured them.
The two captains were talking business, therefore Guert was taken in
hand by the women and young people.  One short, fat senora, who came at
him first, had long, white hair tumbling down over her shoulders.  She
hugged him and kissed him, and cried and laughed, and she
pointed--saying a great deal in Spanish--at a woman who was throwing
her arms around a pretty pair of children.  It was easy for Guert to
understand that the old woman was thanking God and the Americans for
the lives of her daughter and her grandchildren.

Other women did not altogether follow her example, for Guert showed a
little bashfulness, there were so many of them; but he shook hands
quite freely with the boys and girls.  The Spanish youngsters showed
him their weapons, too, trying to tell him how ready they had been to
fight the buccaneers.

"It isn't a long run from this to Porto Rico," he heard Captain Avery
say.  "We'll see you safe in.  We didn't lose a man."

"We lost five," replied the Spanish commander.  "The sharks would have
had all of us, instead of all of them, but for you.  God bless you!  We
will patch up and spread all the canvas we can."

At that moment a friendly hand was laid upon Guert's arm, drawing him
away from his women friends.  Senor Alvarez held him hard for a breath
or two, as if he were trying to speak and had lost his voice.

"My boy," he then exclaimed, "you came in time!  This is my wife,
Senora Laura Alvarez.  These are my boy and girl.  This is my wife's
mother, Senora Paez.  They told me that you fired that blessed long
gun, yourself."

"Up-na-tan, the Indian chief, and I fired it," said Guert.  "I'm a
beginner."

"I understand," said the Spaniard.  "You are a young cadet studying
navigation.  You must come home with me and study a Porto Rico
plantation house.  You must be my guest.  We will treat you like a
king."

"I shall be ever so glad, if Captain Avery'll let me," answered Guert.
"He says we're likely to be in port quite a while.  I'll ask him."

Captain Avery was near enough to hear, and he replied for himself.
"It's all right, Guert," he said.  "You may go.  I want you to, even if
we sail and come back while you're ashore.  You see, my boy, you know a
little Spanish now.  Here's a chance for you to get ahead so you can
begin to speak and read it.  Every American sea-captain ought to know
Spanish."

"Yes, sir, I'd like it first-rate," said Guert; "but I wouldn't like to
have the _Noank_ sail without me on board."

"We'll see 'bout that," replied the captain.  "You'll obey orders,
anyhow."

"I guess I'll have to," almost grumbled Guert, as he was compelled to
get away from his friends and hasten back in the boat to the schooner;
"but I didn't come to loaf on shore.  I'd rather be a gunner."

There was a great deal of talk and excitement upon both vessels, but
things were rapidly getting back into order.  The sails were spread,
and both were quickly in motion.  The wind was fair, and night was
coming on.  As for the _Noank_, in particular, all that she had done
for either pirates or Spaniards could not diminish the necessity she
was under for keeping up a sharp lookout for anything sailing under the
British flag.  That banner might be fluttering nearer at any hour, and
it might be upon a "sugar-boat," or it might be streaming out from the
dangerous rigging of a cruiser.

Once the schooner was under way, Guert found himself more at liberty
than usual, for all kinds of his sea schooling were given a vacation.
His head was even more full than ordinary, however, and he had an
especial reason for getting away with Sam Prentice during their next
watch on deck.  He had several times heard the mate talk about pirates.
He had also heard something about them from Up-na-tan and Coco and the
crew.  Until now, however, all that he had heard at any time had been
listened to as if it were unreal.  He had never read a novel, and so he
did not know that all of it had seemed to him a kind of pretty,
interesting story of fiction, and not anything more.  It was very
different, now that he had seen a black flag and sent a heavy shot into
the hull under it, and had watched while that hull went down.

"About the buccaneers, eh?" said Sam, as they leaned over the
quarter-rail and looked out into the darkness.  "Well!  I s'pose there
are books about 'em.  You can learn a good deal from books, but I don't
know any that'll tell you all there is 'bout those islands.  There's
too many of 'em, hundreds, mebbe, with outlyin' reefs and ledges.  Then
there are any number o' bays and inlets and lagoons.  That's why it's
so hard to follow up and ketch light draft pirate vessels.  They can
hide in a thousand out o' the way places until they git ready to run
out and make a strike.  One o' their biggest helps is the caves on some
o' the islands.  Safest kind o' places for men to hide plunder in, too.
Some of 'em open right down at the water line, and some of 'em have
deep water for quite a way in from the mouth.  You can row a boat right
on in at high tide, or even at low water, I've heard tell.  Big
cruisers ain't of any use 'mong the shoals and ledges and lagoons.
Somehow the governments have been too busy 'bout other matters to build
and arm the right pattern o' gunboats.  That there picaroon that we
sunk to-day was as large a craft as I ever heard o' their usin'.
Oftener, they go out in canoes and rowboats and sailboats, and make
surprises in light winds or calms, or in the night.  All the shore
people are afraid to tell on 'em, and they're good friends with the
Caribs and the slaves.  Of course, they've got to be all rooted out,
some day, but it's goin' to be a tough job, I tell ye."

Many more things he had to tell, as Guert questioned him.  Before he
got through, it almost seemed as if all the nations of the world had
once been pirates, of one kind or another, each nation thinking it
right to capture ships of other nations on sight, if opportunity made
it safe to do so.

"I tell you what," said Guert, at last, "I want to read books!  I never
had a chance at 'em.  Rachel Tarns lent me a few, long ago, when we
were at home in New York, before the British came.  The war drove us
out, you know, and we can't guess when we're to get back.  I want to
read."

"Now!" exclaimed the mate, "I've thought of one thing.  You'll be at
the Velasquez plantation.  Mebbe for some time.  They'll have heaps o'
books.  It'll help you learn Spanish if you'll try and read anything
you find there.  Learn all you can, wherever you happen to be."

"I just will!" said Guert.

"Now," said Prentice, "I'm goin' below.  Some time to-morrer, if the
wind holds good, we'll be in Porto Rico.  Then you'll see something
new."

Guert also had to go below and turn in, but it was not easy to sleep
with his head so full, even after so very fatiguing a day.  He was
lying awake, therefore, long afterward, when he was startled by sounds
on deck.

"Hullo!" he exclaimed.  "Something's happened!  What if they should
have sighted a British man-o'-war?  If there's going to be any more
fighting, I want to be at my gun!"

He was getting to be a genuine sailor, therefore, and the cannon he was
stationed with had become a sort of pet and much as if it were his own
property.

Not much careful dressing was called for after he sprung out of his
bunk, and then he was up on deck without waiting for orders.

Not a great deal of noise had been made, after all, and most of the
weary crew were still keeping their watch below, as soundly asleep as
ever.  Two pairs of ears, however, had been as keen as Guert's, and
here were Coco and Up-na-tan, already at the pivot-gun, prepared for
anything that might turn up.  The moon was shining brightly and the
wind was fair.  The sparkling, foaming sea looked beautiful, and all
was peace except upon the deck of the privateer.  Away to leeward Guert
could dimly see a sail that he believed to be the _Santa Teresa_, and
at that moment a red ball rocket went up from her deck and burst, to
inform her American friends that she was doing well.

"She's all right, then," Guert heard Captain Avery say to the man at
the wheel.  "I wish I knew what this feller is to wind'ard.  Up-na-tan,
be ready, there, with that gun.  It looks to me like a brig o' some
sort.  It might happen to be one o' these 'ere British ten-gun brigs.
I don't know, yet, whether or not one o' them 'd prove too much for us,
if we got in the first broadside."

"Well, Captain," said the steersman, "we can't very well get out of her
way, jest now.  She

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