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Jack Tier; Or, The Florida Reef

by James Fenimore Cooper · English · Gutenberg #4796 · 1,007,293 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Jack Tier; Or, The Florida Reef

Author: James Fenimore Cooper


        
Release date: December 1, 2003 [eBook #4796]
                Most recently updated: March 11, 2018

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by Charles Aldarondo and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JACK TIER; OR, THE FLORIDA REEF ***




Produced by Charles Aldarondo





JACK TIER;

OR

THE FLORIDA REEF

By James Fenimore Cooper

By The Author Of “The Pilot,” “Red Rover,” “Two Admirals,” “Wing And
Wing,” “Miles Wallingford,” Etc.




PREFACE.


This work has already appeared in Graham's Magazine, under the title
of “Rose Budd.” The change of name is solely the act of the author, and
arises from a conviction that the appellation given in this publication
is more appropriate than the one laid aside. The necessity of writing to
a name, instead of getting it from the incidents of the book itself, has
been the cause of this departure from the ordinary rules.

When this book was commenced, it was generally supposed that the Mexican
war would end, after a few months of hostilities. Such was never the
opinion of the writer. He has ever looked forward to a protracted
struggle; and, now that Congress has begun to interfere, sees as little
probability of its termination, as on the day it commenced. Whence
honourable gentlemen have derived their notions of the constitution,
when they advance the doctrine that Congress is an American Aulic
council, empowered to encumber the movements of armies, and, as old
Blucher expressed it in reference to the diplomacy of Europe, “to spoil
with the pen the work achieved by the sword,” it is difficult to say
more than this, that they do not get them from the constitution itself.
It has generally been supposed that the present executive was created in
order to avoid the very evils of a distracted and divided council,
which this new construction has a direct tendency to revive. But a
presidential election has ever proved, and probably will ever prove,
stronger than any written fundamental law.

We have had occasion to refer often to Mexico in these pages. It has
been our aim to do so in a kind spirit; for, while we have never doubted
that the factions which have possessed themselves of the government in
that country have done us great wrong, wrong that would have justified
a much earlier appeal to arms, we have always regarded the class
of Mexicans who alone can properly be termed the 'people,' as mild,
amiable, and disposed to be on friendly terms with us. Providence,
however, directs all to the completion of its own wise ends. If the
crust which has so long encircled that nation, enclosing it in bigotry
and ignorance, shall now be irretrievably broken, letting in light,
even Mexico herself may have cause hereafter to rejoice in her present
disasters. It was in this way that Italy has been, in a manner,
regenerated; the conquests of the French carrying in their train the
means and agencies which have, at length, aroused that glorious portion
of the earth to some of its ancient spirit. Mexico, in certain senses,
is the Italy of this continent; and war, however ruthless and much to
be deplored, may yet confer on her the inestimable blessings of real
liberty, and a religion released from “feux d'artifice,” as well as all
other artifices.

A word on the facts of our legend. The attentive observer of men and
things has many occasions to note the manner in which ordinary lookers
on deceive themselves, as well as others. The species of treason
portrayed in these pages is no uncommon occurrence; and it will often
be found that the traitor is the loudest in his protestations of
patriotism. It is a pretty safe rule to suspect the man of hypocrisy
who makes a parade of his religion, and the partisan of corruption and
selfishness, who is clamorous about the rights of the people. Captain
Spike was altogether above the first vice; though fairly on level, as
respects the second, with divers patriots who live by their deity.




VOLUME I.



CHAPTER I.


     Pros.

      Why, that's my spirit!
     But was not this nigh shore?

     Ariel.

      Close by, my master.

     Pros.

      But are they, Ariel, safe?

     Ariel.

      Not a hair perished:

     Tempest.


“D'ye here there, Mr. Mulford?” called out Capt. Stephen Spike, of the
half-rigged, brigantine Swash, or Molly Swash, as was her registered
name, to his mate--“we shall be dropping out as soon as the tide makes,
and I intend to get through the Gate, at least, on the next flood.
Waiting for a wind in port is lubberly seamanship, for he that wants one
should go outside and look for it.”

This call was uttered from a wharf of the renowned city of Manhattan, to
one who was in the trunk-cabin of a clipper-looking craft, of the name
mentioned, and on the deck of which not a soul was visible. Nor was the
wharf, though one of those wooden piers that line the arm of the sea
that is called the East River, such a spot as ordinarily presents itself
to the mind of the reader, or listener, when an allusion is made to
a wharf of that town which it is the fashion of the times to call
the Commercial Emporium of America--as if there might very well be an
emporium of any other character. The wharf in question had not a single
vessel of any sort lying at, or indeed very near it, with the exception
of the Molly Swash. As it actually stood on the eastern side of the
town, it is scarcely necessary to say that such a wharf could only be
found high up, and at a considerable distance from the usual haunts of
commerce. The brig lay more than a mile above the Hook (Corlaer's,
of course, is meant--not Sandy Hook) and quite near to the old Alms
House--far above the ship-yards, in fact. It was a solitary place for
a vessel, in the midst of a crowd. The grum top-chain voice of Captain
Spike had nothing there to mingle with, or interrupt its harsh tones,
and it instantly brought on deck Harry Mulford, the mate in question,
apparently eager to receive his orders.

“Did you hail, Captain Spike?” called out the mate, a tight, well-grown,
straight-built, handsome sailor-lad of two or three-and-twenty--one full
of health, strength and manliness.

“Hail! If you call straining a man's throat until he's hoarse, hailing,
I believe I did. I flatter myself, there is not a man north of Hatteras
that can make himself heard further in gale of wind than a certain
gentleman who is to be found within a foot of the spot where I stand.
Yet, sir, I've been hailing the Swash these five minutes, and thankful
am I to find some one at last who is on board to answer me.”

“What are your orders, Capt. Spike?”

“To see all clear for a start as soon as the flood makes. I shall go
through the Gate on the next young flood, and I hope you'll have all
the hands aboard in time. I see two or three of them up at that Dutch
beer-house, this moment, and can tell'em; in plain language, if they
come here with their beer aboard them, they'll have to go ashore again.”

“You have an uncommonly sober crew, Capt. Spike,” answered the young
man, with great calmness. “During the whole time I have been with them,
I have not seen a man among them the least in the wind.”

“Well, I hope it will turn out that I've an uncommonly sober mate in the
bargain. Drunkenness I abominate, Mr. Mulford, and I can tell you, short
metre, that I will not stand it.”

“May I inquire if you ever saw me, the least in the world, under the
influence of liquor, Capt. Spike?” demanded the mate, rather than asked,
with a very fixed meaning in his manner.

“I keep no log-book of trifles, Mr. Mulford, and cannot say. No man is
the worse for bowsing out his jib when off duty, though a drunkard's a
thing I despise. Well, well--remember, sir, that the Molly Swash casts
off on the young flood, and that Rose Budd and the good lady, her aunt,
take passage in her, this v'y'ge.”

“Is it possible that you have persuaded them into that, at last!”
 exclaimed the handsome mate.

“Persuaded! It takes no great persuasion, sir, to get the ladies to try
their luck in that brig. Lady Washington herself, if she was alive and
disposed to a sea-v'y'ge, might be glad of the chance. We've a ladies'
cabin, you know, and it's suitable that it should have some one to
occupy it. Old Mrs. Budd is a sensible woman, and takes time by the
forelock. Rose is ailin'--pulmonary they call it, I believe, and her
aunt wishes to try the sea for her constitution--”

“Rose Budd has no more of a pulmonary constitution than I have myself,”
 interrupted the mate.

“Well, that's as people fancy. You must know, Mr. Mulford, they've got
all sorts of diseases now-a-days, and all sorts of cures for'em. One
sort of a cure for consumption is what they tarm the Hyder-Ally--”

“I think you must mean hydropathy, sir--”

“Well it's something of the sort, no matter what--but cold water is at
the bottom of it, and they do say it's a good remedy. Now Rose's aunt
thinks if cold water is what is wanted, there is no place where it can
be so plenty as out on the ocean. Sea-air is good, too, and by taking a
v'y'ge her niece will get both requisites together, and cheap.”

“Does Rose Budd think herself consumptive, Capt. Spike?” asked Mulford,
with interest.

“Not she--you know it will never do to alarm a pulmonary, so Mrs. Budd
has held her tongue carefully on the subject before the young woman.
Rose fancies that her aunt is out of sorts, and that the v'y'ge is tried
on her account--but the aunt, the cunning thing, knows all about it.”

Mulford almost nauseated the expression of his commander's countenance
while Spike uttered the last words. At no time was that countenance very
inviting, the features being coarse and vulgar, while the color of the
entire face was of an ambiguous red, in which liquor and the seasons
would seem to be blended in very equal quantities. Such a countenance,
lighted up by a gleam of successful management, not to say with
hopes and wishes that it will hardly do to dwell on, could not but be
revolting to a youth of Harry Mulford's generous feelings, and most of
all to one who entertained the sentiments which he was quite conscious
of entertaining for Rose Budd. The young man made no reply, but turned
his face toward the water, in order to conceal the expression of disgust
that he was sensible must be strongly depicted on it.

The river, as the well-known arm of the sea in which the Swash was lying
is erroneously termed, was just at that moment unusually clear of craft,
and not a sail, larger than that of a boat, was to be seen between the
end of Blackwell's Island and Corlaer's Hook, a distance of about a
league. This stagnation in the movement of the port, at that particular
point, was owing to the state of wind and tide. Of the first, there was
little more than a southerly air, while the last was about two-thirds
ebb. Nearly everything that was expected on that tide, coast-wise,
and by the way of the Sound, had already arrived, and nothing could go
eastward, with that light breeze and under canvas, until the flood made.
Of course it was different with the steamers, who were paddling about
like so many ducks, steering in all directions, though mostly crossing
and re-crossing at the ferries. Just as Mulford turned away from his
commander, however, a large vessel of that class shoved her bows into
the view, doubling the Hook, and going eastward. The first glance at
this vessel sufficed to drive even Rose Budd momentarily out of the
minds of both master and mate, and to give a new current to their
thoughts. Spike had been on the point of walking up the wharf, but he
now so far changed his purpose as actually to jump on board of the brig
and spring up alongside of his mate, on the taffrail, in order to get
a better look at the steamer. Mulford, who loathed so much in his
commander, was actually glad of this, Spike's rare merit as a seaman
forming a sort of attraction that held him, as it might be against his
own will, bound to his service.

“What will they do next, Harry?” exclaimed the master, his manner and
voice actually humanized, in air and sound at least, by this unexpected
view of something new in his calling--“What will they do next?”

“I see no wheels, sir, nor any movement in the water astern, as if she
were a propeller,” returned the young man.

“She's an out-of-the-way sort of a hussy! She's a man-of-war, too--one
of Uncle Sam's new efforts.”

“That can hardly be, sir. Uncle Sam has but three steamers, of any size
or force, now the Missouri is burned; and yonder is one of them, lying
at the Navy Yard, while another is, or was lately, laid up at Boston.
The third is in the Gulf. This must be an entirely new vessel, if she
belong to Uncle Sam.”

“New! She's as new as a Governor, and they tell me they've got so now
that they choose five or six of them, up at Albany, every fall. That
craft is sea-going, Mr. Mulford, as any one can tell at a glance. She's
none of your passenger-hoys.”

“That's plain enough, sir--and she's armed. Perhaps she's English, and
they've brought her here into this open spot to try some new machinery.
Ay, ay! she's about to set her ensign to the navy men at the yard, and
we shall see to whom she belongs.”

A long, low, expressive whistle from Spike succeeded this remark, the
colours of the steamer going up to the end of a gaff on the sternmost
of her schooner-rigged masts, just as Mulford ceased speaking. There was
just air enough, aided by the steamer's motion, to open the bunting, and
let the spectators see the design. There were the stars and stripes,
as usual, but the last ran perpendicularly, instead of in a horizontal
direction.

“Revenue, by George!” exclaimed the master, as soon as his breath was
exhausted in the whistle. “Who would have believed they could screw
themselves up to doing such a thing in that bloody service?”

“I now remember to have heard that Uncle Sam was building some large
steamers for the revenue service, and, if I mistake not, with some new
invention to get along with, that is neither wheel nor propeller. This
must be one of these new craft, brought out here, into open water, just
to try her, sir.”

“You're right, sir, you're right. As to the natur' of the beast, you see
her buntin', and no honest man can want more. If there's anything I do
hate, it is that flag, with its unnat'ral stripes, up and down, instead
of running in the true old way. I have heard a lawyer say, that the
revenue flag of this country is onconstitutional, and that a vessel
carrying it on the high seas might be sent in for piracy.”

Although Harry Mulford was neither Puffendorf, nor Grotius, he had too
much common sense, and too little prejudice in favour of even his own
vocation, to swallow such a theory, had fifty Cherry Street lawyers
sworn to its justice. A smile crossed his fine, firm-looking mouth,
and something very like a reflection of that smile, if smiles can be
reflected in one's own countenance, gleamed in his fine, large, dark
eye.

“It would be somewhat singular, Capt, Spike,” he said, “if a vessel
belonging to any nation should be seized as a pirate. The fact that she
is national in character would clear her.”

“Then let her carry a national flag, and be d--d to her,” answered Spike
fiercely. “I can show you law for what I say, Mr. Mulford. The American
flag has its stripes fore and aft by law, and this chap carries his
stripes parpendic'lar. If I commanded a cruiser, and fell in with one
of these up and down gentry, blast me if I wouldn't just send him into
port, and try the question in the old Alms-House.”

Mulford probably did not think it worth while to argue the point any
further, understanding the dogmatism and stolidity of his commander too
well to deem it necessary. He preferred to turn to the consideration of
the qualities of the steamer in sight, a subject on which, as seamen,
they might better sympathize.

“That's a droll-looking revenue cutter, after all, Capt. Spike,” he
said--“a craft better fitted to go in a fleet, as a look-out vessel,
than to chase a smuggler in-shore.”

“And no goer in the bargain! I do not see how she gets along, for she
keeps all snug under water; but, unless she can travel faster than she
does just now, the Molly Swash would soon lend her the Mother Carey's
Chickens of her own wake to amuse her.”

“She has the tide against her, just here, sir; no doubt she would do
better in still water.”

Spike muttered something between his teeth, and jumped down on deck,
seemingly dismissing the subject of the revenue entirely from his mind.
His old, coarse, authoritative manner returned, and he again spoke to
his mate about Rose Budd, her aunt, the “ladies' cabin,” the “young
flood,” and “casting off,” as soon as the last made. Mulford listened
respectfully, though with a manifest distaste for the instructions he
was receiving. He knew his man, and a feeling of dark distrust came over
him, as he listened to his orders concerning the famous accommodations
he intended to give to Rose Budd and that “capital old lady, her aunt;”
 his opinion of “the immense deal of good sea-air and a v'y'ge would
do Rose,” and how “comfortable they both would be on board the Molly
Swash.”

“I honour and respect, Mrs. Budd, as my captain's lady, you see, Mr.
Mulford, and intend to treat her accordin'ly. She knows it--and Rose
knows it--and they both declare they'd rather sail with me, since sail
they must, than with any other ship-master out of America.”

“You sailed once with Capt. Budd yourself, I think I have heard you say,
sir?”

“The old fellow brought me up. I was with him from my tenth to my
twentieth year, and then broke adrift to see fashions. We all do that,
you know, Mr. Mulford, when we are young and ambitious, and my turn came
as well as another's.”

“Capt. Budd must have been a good deal older than his wife, sir, if you
sailed with him when a boy,” Mulford observed a little drily.

“Yes; I own to forty-eight, though no one would think me more than five
or six-and-thirty, to look at me. There was a great difference between
old Dick Budd and his wife, as you say, he being about fifty, when he
married, and she less than twenty. Fifty is a good age for matrimony, in
a man, Mulford; as is twenty in a young woman.”

“Rose Budd is not yet nineteen, I have heard her say,” returned the
mate, with emphasis.

“Youngish, I will own, but that's a fault a liberal-minded man can
overlook. Every day, too, will lessen it. Well, look to the cabins, and
see all clear for a start. Josh will be down presently with a cart-load
of stores, and you'll take 'em aboard without delay.”

As Spike uttered this order, his foot was on the plank-sheer of the
bulwarks, in the act of passing to the wharf again. On reaching the
shore, he turned and looked intently at the revenue steamer, and his
lips moved, as if he were secretly uttering maledictions on her. We say
maledictions, as the expression of his fierce ill-favoured countenance
too plainly showed that they could not be blessings. As for Mulford,
there was still something on his mind, and he followed to the gangway
ladder and ascended it, waiting for a moment when the mind of his
commander might be less occupied to speak. The opportunity soon
occurred, Spike having satisfied himself with the second look at the
steamer.

“I hope you don't mean to sail again without a second mate, Capt.
Spike?” he said.

“I do though, I can tell you. I hate Dickies--they are always in the
way, and the captain has to keep just as much of a watch with one as
without one.”

“That will depend on his quality. You and I have both been Dickies in
our time, sir; and my time was not long ago.”

“Ay--ay--I know all about it--but you didn't stick to it long enough to
get spoiled. I would have no man aboard the Swash who made more than two
v'y'ges as second officer. As I want no spies aboard my craft, I'll try
it once more without a Dicky.”

Saying this in a sufficiently positive manner, Capt. Stephen Spike
rolled up the wharf, much as a ship goes off before the wind, now
inclining to the right, and then again to the left. The gait of the man
would have proclaimed him a sea-dog, to any one acquainted with that
animal, as far as he could be seen. The short squab figure, the arms
bent nearly at right angles at the elbow, and working like two fins with
each roll of the body, the stumpy, solid legs, with the feet looking in
the line of his course and kept wide apart, would all have contributed
to the making up of such an opinion. Accustomed as he was to this
beautiful sight, Harry Mulford kept his eyes riveted on the retiring
person of his commander, until it disappeared behind a pile of lumber,
waddling always in the direction of the more thickly peopled parts of
the town. Then he turned and gazed at the steamer, which, by this time,
had fairly passed the brig, and seemed to be actually bound through the
Gate. That steamer was certainly a noble-looking craft, but our young
man fancied she struggled along through the water heavily. She might be
quick at need, but she did not promise as much by her present rate of
moving. Still, she was a noble-looking craft, and, as Mulford descended
to the deck again, he almost regretted he did not belong to her; or, at
least, to anything but the Molly Swash.

Two hours produced a sensible change in and around that brigantine. Her
people had all come back to duty, and what was very remarkable among
seafaring folk, sober to a man. But, as has been said, Spike was a
temperance man, as respects all under his orders at least, if not
strictly so in practice himself. The crew of the Swash was large for a
half-rigged brig of only two hundred tons, but, as her spars were very
square, and all her gear as well as her mould seemed constructed for
speed, it was probable more hands than common were necessary to work her
with facility and expedition. After all, there were not many persons
to be enumerated among the “people of the Molly Swash,” as they called
themselves; not more than a dozen, including those aft, as well as those
forward. A peculiar feature of this crew, however, was the circumstance
that they were all middle-aged men, with the exception of the mate, and
all thorough-bred sea-dogs. Even Josh, the cabin-boy, as he was called,
was an old, wrinkled, gray-headed negro, of near sixty. If the crew
wanted a little in the elasticity of youth, it possessed the steadiness
and experience of their time of life, every man appearing to know
exactly what to do, and when to do it. This, indeed, composed their
great merit; an advantage that Spike well knew how to appreciate.

The stores had been brought alongside of the brig in a cart, and were
already showed in their places. Josh had brushed and swept, until the
ladies' cabin could be made no neater. This ladies' cabin was a small
apartment beneath a trunk, which was, ingeniously enough, separated
from the main cabin by pantries and double doors. The arrangement was
unusual, and Spike had several times hinted that there was a history
connected with that cabin; though what the history was Mulford never
could induce him to relate. The latter knew that the brig had been used
for a forced trade on the Spanish Main, and had heard something of
her deeds in bringing off specie, and proscribed persons, at different
epochs in the revolutions of that part of the world, and he had always
understood that her present commander and owner had sailed in her, as
mate, for many years before he had risen to his present station.
Now, all was regular in the way of records, bills of sale, and other
documents; Stephen Spike appearing in both the capacities just named.
The register proved that the brig had been built as far back as the last
English war, as a private cruiser, but recent and extensive repairs
had made her “better than new,” as her owner insisted, and there was no
question as to her sea-worthiness. It is true the insurance offices blew
upon her, and would have nothing to do with a craft that had seen her
two score years and ten; but this gave none who belonged to her any
concern, inasmuch as they could scarcely have been underwritten in their
trade, let the age of the vessel be what it might. It was enough for
them that the brig was safe and exceedingly fast, insurances never
saving the lives of the people, whatever else might be their advantages.
With Mulford it was an additional recommendation, that the Swash was
usually thought to be of uncommonly just proportions.

By half-past two, P. M., everything was ready for getting the brigantine
under way. Her fore-topsail--or foretawsail as Spike called it--was
loose, the fasts were singled, and a spring had been carried to a post
in the wharf, that was well forward of the starboard bow, and the brig's
head turned to the southwest, or down the stream, and consequently
facing the young flood. Nothing seemed to connect the vessel with
the land but a broad gangway plank, to which Mulford had attached
life-lines, with more care than it is usual to meet with on board of
vessels employed in short voyages. The men stood about the decks with
their arms thrust into the bosoms of their shirts, and the whole picture
was one of silent, and possibly of somewhat uneasy expectation. Nothing
was said, however; Mulford walking the quarter-deck alone, occasionally
looking up the still little tenanted streets of that quarter of the
suburbs, as if to search for a carriage. As for the revenue-steamer,
she had long before gone through the southern passage of Blackwell's,
steering for the Gate.

“Dat's dem, Mr. Mulford,” Josh at length cried, from the look-out he had
taken in a stern-port, where he could see over the low bulwarks of the
vessel. “Yes, dat's dem, sir. I know dat old gray horse dat carries his
head so low and sorrowful like, as a horse has a right to do dat has to
drag a cab about this big town. My eye! what a horse it is, sir!”

Josh was right, not only as to the gray horse that carried his head
“sorrowful like,” but as to the cab and its contents. The vehicle was
soon on the wharf, and in its door soon appeared the short, sturdy
figure of Capt. Spike, backing out, much as a bear descends a tree. On
top of the vehicle were several light articles of female appliances, in
the shape of bandboxes, bags, &c., the trunks having previously arrived
in a cart. Well might that over-driven gray horse appear sorrowful,
and travel with a lowered head. The cab, when it gave up its contents,
discovered a load of no less than four persons besides the driver, all
of weight, and of dimensions in proportion, with the exception of the
pretty and youthful Rose Budd. Even she was plump, and of a well-rounded
person; though still light and slender. But her aunt was a fair picture
of a ship-master's widow; solid, comfortable and buxom. Neither was
she old, nor ugly. On the contrary, her years did not exceed forty, and
being well preserved, in consequence of never having been a mother,
she might even have passed for thirty-five. The great objection to her
appearance was the somewhat indefinite character of her shape, which
seemed to blend too many of its charms into one. The fourth person, in
the fare, was Biddy Noon, the Irish servant and factotum of Mrs. Budd,
who was a pock-marked, red-faced, and red-armed single woman, about her
mistress's own age and weight, though less stout to the eye.

Of Rose we shall not stop to say much here. Her deep-blue eye, which was
equally spirited and gentle, if one can use such contradictory terms,
seemed alive with interest and curiosity, running over the brig, the
wharf, the arm of the sea, the two islands, and all near her, including
the Alms-House, with such a devouring rapidity as might be expected in
a town-bred girl, who was setting out on her travels for the first time.
Let us be understood; we say town-bred, because such was the fact; for
Rose Budd had been both born and educated in Manhattan, though we are
far from wishing to be understood that she was either very well-born,
or highly educated. Her station in life may be inferred from that of
her aunt, and her education from her station. Of the two, the last was,
perhaps, a trifle the highest.

We have said that the fine blue eye of Rose passed swiftly over the
various objects near her, as she alighted from the cab, and it naturally
took in the form of Harry Mulford, as he stood in the gangway, offering
his arm to aid her aunt and herself in passing the brig's side. A smile
of recognition was exchanged between the young people, as their eyes
met, and the colour, which formed so bright a charm in Rose's sweet
face, deepened, in a way to prove that that colour spoke with a tongue
and eloquence of its own. Nor was Mulford's cheek mute on the occasion,
though he helped the hesitating, half-doubting, half-bold girl along
the plank with a steady hand and rigid muscles. As for the aunt, as
a captain's widow, she had not felt it necessary to betray any
extraordinary emotions in ascending the plank, unless, indeed, it might
be those of delight on finding her foot once more on the deck of a
vessel!

Something of the same feeling governed Biddy, too, for, as Mulford
civilly extended his hand to her also, she exclaimed--“No fear of me,
Mr. Mate--I came from Ireland by wather, and knows all about ships and
brigs, I do. If you could have seen the times we had, and the saas we
crossed, you'd not think it nadeful to say much to the likes iv me.”

Spike had tact enough to understand he would be out of his element in
assisting females along that plank, and he was busy in sending what he
called “the old lady's dunnage” on board, and in discharging the cabman.
As soon as this was done, he sprang into the main-channels, and thence
vid the bulwarks, on deck, ordering the plank to be hauled aboard. A
solitary labourer was paid a quarter to throw off the fasts from the
ring-bolts and posts, and everything was instantly in motion to cast
the brig loose. Work went on as if the vessel were in haste, and it
consequently went on with activity. Spike bestirred himself, giving
his orders in a way to denote he had been long accustomed to exercise
authority on the deck of a vessel, and knew his calling to its minutiæ.
The only ostensible difference between his deportment to-day and on any
ordinary occasion, perhaps, was in the circumstance that he now seemed
anxious to get clear of the wharf, and that in a way which might
have attracted notice in any suspicious and attentive observer. It is
possible that such a one was not very distant, and that Spike was aware
of his presence, for a respectable-looking, well-dressed, middle-aged
man had come down one of the adjacent streets, to a spot within a
hundred yards of the wharf, and stood silently watching the movements
of the brig, as he leaned against a fence. The want of houses in that
quarter enabled any person to see this stranger from the deck of the
Swash, but no one on board her seemed to regard him at all, unless it
might be the master.

“Come, bear a hand, my hearty, and toss that bow-fast clear,” cried the
captain, whose impatience to be off seemed to increase as the time to do
so approached nearer and nearer. “Off with it, at once, and let her go.”

The man on the wharf threw the turns of the hawser clear of the post,
and the Swash was released forward. A smaller line, for a spring, had
been run some distance along the wharves, ahead of the vessel, and
brought in aft. Her people clapped on this, and gave way to their
craft, which, being comparatively light, was easily moved, and was very
manageable. As this was done, the distant spectator who had been leaning
on the fence moved toward the wharf with a step a little quicker than
common. Almost at the same instant, a short, stout, sailor-like looking
little person, waddled down the nearest street, seeming to be in
somewhat of a hurry, and presently he joined the other stranger, and
appeared to enter into conversation with him; pointing toward the Swash
as he did so. All this time, both continued to advance toward the wharf.

In the meanwhile, Spike and his people were not idle. The tide did not
run very strong near the wharves and in the sort of a bight in which the
vessel had lain; but, such as it was, it soon took the brig on her inner
bow, and began to cast her head off shore. The people at the spring
pulled away with all their force, and got sufficient motion on their
vessel to overcome the tide, and to give the rudder an influence. The
latter was put hard a-starboard, and helped to cast the brig's head to
the southward.

Down to this moment, the only sail that was loose on board the Swash was
the fore-topsail, as mentioned. This still hung in the gear, but a hand
had been sent aloft to overhaul the buntlines and clewlines, and men
were also at the sheets. In a minute the sail was ready for hoisting.
The Swash carried a wapper of a fore-and-aft mainsail, and, what is
more, it was fitted with a standing gaff, for appearance in port. At
sea, Spike knew better than to trust to this arrangement; but in fine
weather, and close in with the land, he found it convenient to have
this sail haul out and brail like a ship's spanker. As the gaff was now
aloft, it was only necessary to let go the brails to loosen this broad
sheet of canvas, and to clap on the out-hauler, to set it. This was
probably the reason why the brig was so unceremoniously cast into the
stream, without showing more of her cloth. The jib and flying-jibs,
however, did at that moment drop beneath their booms, ready for
hoisting.

Such was the state of things as the two strangers came first upon
the wharf. Spike was on the taffrail, overhauling the main-sheet, and
Mulford was near him, casting the foretopsail braces from the pins,
preparatory to clapping on the halyards.

“I say, Mr. Mulford,” asked the captain, “did you ever see either of
them chaps afore? These jokers on the wharf, I mean.”

“Not to my recollection, sir,” answered the mate, looking over the
taffrail to examine the parties. “The little one is a burster! The
funniest-looking little fat old fellow I've seen in many a day.”

“Ay, ay, them fat little bursters, as you call 'em, are sometimes full
of the devil. I do n't like either of the chaps, and am right glad we
are well cast, before they got here.”

“I do not think either would be likely to do us much harm, Capt. Spike.”

“There's no knowing sir. The biggest fellow looks as if he might lug out
a silver oar at any moment.”

“I believe the silver oar is no longer used, in this country at least,”
 answered Mulford, smiling. “And if it were, what have we to fear from
it? I fancy the brig has paid her reckoning.”

“She do n't owe a cent, nor ever shall for twenty-four hours after the
bill is made out, while I own her. They call me ready-money Stephen,
round among the ship-chandlers and caulkers. But I do n't like them
chaps, and what I do n't relish I never swallow, you know.”

“They 'll hardly try to get aboard us, sir; you see we are quite clear
of the wharf, and the mainsail will take now, if we set it.”

Spike ordered the mate to clap on the outhauler, and spread that broad
sheet of canvas at once to the little breeze there was. This was almost
immediately done, when the sail filled, and began to be felt on the
movement of the vessel. Still, that movement was very slow, the wind
being so light, and the vis inertioe of so large a body remaining to
be overcome. The brig receded from the wharf, almost in a line at right
angles to its face, inch by inch, as it might be, dropping slowly up
with the tide at the same time. Mulford now passed forward to set
the jibs, and to get the topsail on the craft, leaving Spike on the
taffrail, keenly eyeing the strangers, who, by this time, had got down
nearly to the end of the wharf, at the berth so lately occupied by the
Swash. That the captain was uneasy was evident enough, that feeling
being exhibited in his countenance, blended with a malignant ferocity.

“Has that brig any pilot?” asked the larger and better-looking of the
two strangers.

“What's that to you, friend?” demanded Spike, in return. “Have you a
Hell-Gate branch?”

“I may have one, or I may not. It is not usual for so large a craft to
run the Gate without a pilot.”

“Oh! my gentleman's below, brushing up his logarithms. We shall have him
on deck to take his departure before long, when I'll let him know your
kind inquiries after his health.”

The man on the wharf seemed to be familiar with this sort of sea-wit,
and he made no answer, but continued that close scrutiny of the brig,
by turning his eyes in all directions, now looking below, and now aloft,
which had in truth occasioned Spike's principal cause for uneasiness.

“Is not that Capt. Stephen Spike, of the brigantine Molly Swash?” called
out the little, dumpling-looking person, in a cracked, dwarfish sort
of a voice, that was admirably adapted to his appearance. Our captain
fairly started; turned full toward the speaker; regarded him intently
for a moment; and gulped the words he was about to utter, like one
confounded. As he gazed, however, at little dumpy, examining his
bow-legs, red broad cheeks, and coarse snub nose, he seemed to regain
his self-command, as if satisfied the dead had not really returned to
life.

“Are you acquainted with the gentleman you have named?” he asked, by way
of answer. “You speak of him like one who ought to know him.”

“A body is apt to know a shipmate. Stephen Spike and I sailed together
twenty years since, and I hope to live to sail with him again.”

“You sail with Stephen Spike? when and where, may I ask, and in what
v'y'ge, pray?”

“The last time was twenty years since. Have you forgotten little Jack
Tier, Capt. Spike?”

Spike looked astonished, and well he might, for he had supposed Jack to
be dead fully fifteen years. Time and hard service had greatly altered
him, but the general resemblance in figure, stature, and waddle,
certainly remained. Notwithstanding, the Jack Tier that Spike remembered
was quite a different person from this Jack Tier. That Jack had worn his
intensely black hair clubbed and curled, whereas this Jack had cut his
locks into short bristles, which time had turned into an intense gray.
That Jack was short and thick, but he was flat and square; whereas this
Jack was just as short, a good deal thicker, and as round as a dumpling.
In one thing, however, the likeness still remained perfect. Both Jacks
chewed tobacco, to a degree that became a distinct feature in their
appearance.

Spike had many reasons for wishing Jack Tier were not resuscitated
in this extraordinary manner, and some for being glad to see him. The
fellow had once been largely in his confidence, and knew more than was
quite safe for any one to remember but himself, while he might be of
great use to him in his future, operations. It is always convenient to
have one at your elbow who thoroughly understands you, and Spike would
have lowered a boat and sent it to the wharf to bring Jack off, were
it not for the gentleman who was so inquisitive about pilots. Under
the circumstances, he determined to forego the advantages of Jack's
presence, reserving the right to hunt him up on his return.

The reader will readily enough comprehend, that the Molly Swash was not
absolutely standing still while the dialogue related was going on, and
the thoughts we have recorded were passing through her master's mind. On
the contrary, she was not only in motion, but that motion was gradually
increasing, and by the time all was said that has been related, it
had become necessary for those who spoke to raise their voices to an
inconvenient pitch in order to be heard. This circumstance alone would
soon have put an end to the conversation, had not Spike's pausing to
reflect brought about the same result, as mentioned.

In the mean time, Mulford had got the canvas spread. Forward, the Swash
showed all the cloth of a full-rigged brig, even to royals and flying
jib; while aft, her mast was the raking, tall, naked pole of an American
schooner. There was a taunt topmast, too, to which a gaff-topsail was
set, and the gear proved that she could also show, at need, a staysail
in this part of her, if necessary. As the Gate was before them, however,
the people had set none but the plain, manageable canvas.

The Molly Swash kept close on a wind, luffing athwar the broad reach she
was in, until far enough to weather Blackwell's, when she edged off to
her course, and went through the southern passage. Although the wind
remained light, and a little baffling, the brig was so easily impelled,
and was so very handy, that there was no difficulty in keeping her
perfectly in command. The tide, too, was fast increasing in strength
and volocity, and the movement from this cause alone was getting to be
sufficiently rapid.

As for the passengers, of whom we have lost sight in order to get the
brig under way, they were now on deck again. At first, they had all gone
below, under the care of Josh, a somewhat rough groom of the chambers,
to take possession of their apartment, a sufficiently neat, and
exceedingly comfortable cabin, supplied with everything that could
be wanted at sea, and, what was more, lined on two of its sides with
state-rooms. It is true, all these apartments were small, and the
state-rooms were very low, but no fault could be found with their
neatness and general arrangements, when it was recollected that one was
on board a vessel.

“Here ebbery t'ing heart can wish,” said Josh, exultingly, who, being an
old-school black, did not disdain to use some of the old-school dialect
of his caste. “Yes, ladies, ebbery t'ing. Let Cap'n Spike alone for dat!
He won'erful at accommodation! Not a bed-bug aft--know better dan come
here; jest like de people, in dat respects, and keep deir place forrard.
You nebber see a pig come on de quarter-deck, nudder.”

“You must maintain excellent discipline, Josh,” cried Rose, in one
of the sweetest voices in the world, which was easily attuned to
merriment--“and we are delighted to learn what you tell us. How do you
manage to keep up these distinctions, and make such creatures know their
places so well?”

“Nuttin easier, if you begin right, miss. As for de pig, I teach dem wid
scaldin' water. Wheneber I sees a pig come aft, I gets a little water
from de copper, and just scald him wid it. You can't t'ink, miss, how
dat mend his manners, and make him squeel fuss, and t'ink arter. In dat
fashion I soon get de ole ones in good trainin', and den I has no more
trouble with dem as comes fresh aboard; for de ole hog tell de young
one, and 'em won'erful cunnin', and know how to take care of 'emself.”

Rose Budd's sweet eyes were full of fun and expectation, and she could
no more repress her laugh than youth and spirits can always be discreet.

“Yes, with the pigs,” she cried, “that might do very well; but how is it
with those--other creatures?”

“Rosy, dear,” interrupted the aunt, “I wish you would say no more about
such shocking things. It's enough for us that Capt. Spike has ordered
them all to stay forward among the men, which is always done on board
well disciplined vessels. I've heard your uncle say, a hundred times,
that the quarter-deck was sacred, and that might be enough to keep such
animals off it.”

It was barely necessary to look at Mrs. Budd in the face to get a very
accurate general notion of her character. She was one of those inane,
uncultivated beings who seem to be protected by a benevolent Providence
in their pilgrimage on earth, for they do not seem to possess the power
to protect themselves. Her very countenance expressed imbecility and
mental dependence, credulity and a love of gossip. Notwithstanding these
radical weaknesses, the good woman had some of the better instincts of
her sex, and was never guilty of anything that could properly convey
reproach.

She was no monitress for Rose, however, the niece much oftener
influencing the aunt, than the aunt influencing the niece. The latter
had been fortunate in having had an excellent instructress, who, though
incapable of teaching her much in the way of accomplishments, had
imparted a great deal that was respectable and useful. Rose had
character, and strong character, too, as the course of our narrative
will show; but her worthy aunt was a pure picture of as much mental
imbecility as at all comported with the privileges of self-government.

The conversation about “those other creatures” was effectually checked
by Mrs. Budd's horror of the “animals,” and Josh was called on deck so
shortly after as to prevent its being renewed. The females staid below
a few minutes, to take possession, and then they re-appeared on deck, to
gaze at the horrors of the Hell Gate passage. Rose was all eyes, wonder
and admiration of everything she saw. This was actually the first time
she had ever been on the water, in any sort of craft, though born and
brought up in sight of one of the most thronged havens in the world.
But there must be a beginning to everything, and this was Rose Budd's
beginning on the water. It is true the brigantine was a very beautiful,
as well as an exceedingly swift vessel; but all this was lost on Rose,
who would have admired a horse-jockey bound to the West Indies, in this
the incipient state of her nautical knowledge. Perhaps the exquisite
neatness that Mulford maintained about everything that came under his
care, and that included everything on deck, or above-board, and about
which neatness Spike occasionally muttered an oath, as so much senseless
trouble, contributed somewhat to Rose's pleasure; but her admiration
would scarcely have been less with anything that had sails, and seemed
to move through the water with a power approaching that of volition.

It was very different with Mrs. Budd, She, good woman, had actually
made one voyage with her late husband, and she fancied that she knew
all about a vessel. It was her delight to talk on nautical subjects, and
never did she really feel her great superiority over her niece, so very
unequivocally, as when the subject of the ocean was introduced, about
which she did know something, and touching which Rose was profoundly
ignorant, or as ignorant as a girl of lively imagination could remain
with the information gleaned from others.

“I am not surprised you are astonished at the sight of the vessel,
Rosy,” observed the self-complacent aunt at one of her niece's
exclamations of admiration. “A vessel is a very wonderful thing, and
we are told what extr'orny beings they are that 'go down to the sea
in ships.' But you are to know this is not a ship at all, but only a
half-jigger rigged, which is altogether a different thing.”

“Was my uncle's vessel, The Rose In Bloom, then, very different from the
Swash?”

“Very different indeed, child! Why, The Rose In Bloom was a
full-jiggered ship, and had twelve masts--and this is only a
half-jiggered brig, and has but two masts. See, you may count
them--one--two!”

Harry Mulford was coiling away a top-gallant-brace, directly in front
of Mrs. Budd and Rose, and, at hearing this account of the wonderful
equipment of The Rose In Bloom, he suddenly looked up, with a lurking
expression about his eye that the niece very well comprehended, while
he exclaimed, without much reflection, under the impulse of
surprise--“Twelve masts! Did I understand you to say, ma'am, that Capt.
Budd's ship had twelve masts?”

“Yes, sir, twelve! and I can tell you all their names, for I learnt them
by heart--it appearing to me proper that a ship-master's wife should
know the names of all the masts in her husband's vessel. Do you wish to
hear their names, Mr. Mulford?”

Harry Mulford would have enjoyed this conversation to the top of
his bent, had it not been for Rose. She well knew her aunt's general
weakness of intellect, and especially its weakness on this particular
subject, but she would suffer no one to manifest contempt for either, if
in her power to prevent it. It is seldom one so young, so mirthful, so
ingenuous and innocent in the expression of her countenance, assumed so
significant and rebuking a frown as did pretty Rose Budd when she heard
the mate's involuntary exclamation about the “twelve masts.” Harry, who
was not easily checked by his equals, or any of his own sex, submitted
to that rebuking frown with the meekness of a child, and stammered out,
in answer to the well-meaning, but weak-minded widow's question--“If you
please, Mrs. Budd--just as you please, ma'am--only twelve is a good
many masts--” Rose frowned again--“that is--more than I'm used to
seeing--that's all.”

“I dare say, Mr. Mulford--for you sail in only a half-jigger; but Capt.
Budd always sailed in a full-jigger--and his full-jiggered ship had just
twelve masts, and, to prove it to you, I'll give you the names--first
then, there were the fore, main, and mizen masts--”

“Yes--yes--ma'am,” stammered Harry, who wished the twelve masts and The
Rose In Bloom at the bottom of the ocean, since her owner's niece still
continued to look coldly displeased--“that's right, I can swear!”

“Very true, sir, and you'll find I am right as to all the rest. Then,
there were the fore, main, and mizen top-masts--they make six, if I can
count, Mr. Mulford?”

“Ah!” exclaimed the mate, laughing, in spite of Rose's frowns, as the
manner in which the old sea-dog had quizzed his wife became apparent to
him. “I see how it is--you are quite right, ma'am--I dare say The Rose
In Bloom had all these masts, and some to spare.”

“Yes, sir--I knew you would be satisfied. The fore, main and mizen
top-gallant-masts make nine--and the fore, main and mizen royals make
just twelve. Oh, I'm never wrong in anything about a vessel, especially
if she is a full-jiggered ship.”

Mulford had some difficulty in restraining his smiles each time the
full-jigger was mentioned, but Rose's expression of countenance kept him
in excellent order--and she, innocent creature, saw nothing ridiculous
in the term, though the twelve masts had given her a little alarm.
Delighted that the old lady had got through her enumeration of the
spars with so much success, Rose cried, in the exuberance of her
spirits--“Well, aunty, for my part, I find a half-jigger vessel, so
very, very beautiful, that I do not know how I should behave were I to
go on board a full-jigger.”

Mulford turned abruptly away, the circumstance of Rose's making herself
ridiculous giving him sudden pain, though he could have laughed at her
aunt by the hour.

“Ah, my dear, that is on account of your youth and inexperience--but
you will learn better in time. I was just so, myself, when I was of
your age, and thought the fore-rafters were as handsome as the
squared-jiggers, but soon after I married Capt. Budd I felt the
necessity of knowing more than I did about ships, and I got him to teach
me. He did n't like the business, at first, and pretended I would never
learn; but, at last, it came all at once like, and then he used to be
delighted to hear me 'talk ship,' as he called it. I've known him laugh,
with his cronies, as if ready to die, at my expertness in sea-terms, for
half an hour together--and then he would swear--that was the worst
fault your uncle had, Rosy--he would swear, sometimes, in a way that
frightened me, I do declare!”

“But he never swore at you, aunty?”

“I can't say that he did exactly do that, but he would swear all round
me, even if he did n't actually touch me, when things went wrong--but
it would have done your heart good to hear him laugh! he had a most
excellent heart, just like your own, Rosy dear; but, for that matter,
all the Budds have excellent hearts, and one of the commonest ways your
uncle had of showing it was to laugh, particularly when we were together
and talking. Oh, he used to delight in hearing me converse, especially
about vessels, and never failed to get me at it when he had company. I
see his good-natured, excellent-hearted countenance at this moment, with
the tears running down his fat, manly cheeks, as he shook his very sides
with laughter. I may live a hundred years, Rosy, before I meet again
with your uncle's equal.”

This was a subject that invariably silenced Rose. She remembered her
uncle, herself, and remembered his affectionate manner of laughing at
her aunt, and she always wished the latter to get through her eulogiums
on her married happiness, as soon as possible, whenever the subject was
introduced.

All this time the Molly Swash kept in motion. Spike never took a pilot
when he could avoid it, and his mind was too much occupied with his
duty, in that critical navigation, to share at all in the conversation
of his passengers, though he did endeavour to make himself agreeable to
Rose, by an occasional remark, when a favourable opportunity offered.

As soon as he had worked his brig over into the south or weather passage
of Blackwell's, however, there remained little for him to do, until she
had drifted through it, a distance of a mile or more; and this gave him
leisure to do the honours. He pointed out the castellated edifice on
Blackwell's as the new penitentiary, and the hamlet of villas, on the
other shore, as Ravenswood, though there is neither wood nor ravens to
authorize the name. But the “Sunswick,” which satisfied the Delafields
and Gibbses of the olden, time, and which distinguished their lofty
halls and broad lawns, was not elegant enough for the cockney tastes of
these latter days, so “wood” must be made to usurp the place of
cherries and apples, and “ravens” that of gulls, in order to satisfy its
cravings. But all this was lost on Spike. He remembered the shore as it
had been twenty years before, and he saw what it was now, but little did
he care for the change. On the whole, he rather preferred the Grecian
Temples, over which the ravens would have been compelled to fly, had
there been any ravens in that neighbourhood, to the old-fashioned and
highly respectable residence that once alone occupied the spot. The
point he did understand, however, and on the merits of which he had
something to say, was a little farther ahead. That, too, had been
re-christened--the Hallet's Cove of the mariner being converted into
Astoria--not that bloody-minded place at the mouth of the Oregon, which
has come so near bringing us to blows with our “ancestors in England,”
 as the worthy denizens of that quarter choose to consider themselves
still, if one can judge by their language. This Astoria was a very
different place, and is one of the many suburban villages that are
shooting up, like mushrooms in a night, around the great Commercial
Emporium. This spot Spike understood perfectly, and it was not likely
that he should pass it without communicating a portion of his knowledge
to Rose.

“There, Miss Rose,” he said, with a didactic sort of air, pointing with
his short, thick finger at the little bay which was just opening to
their view; “there's as neat a cove as a craft need bring up in. That
used to be a capital place to lie in, to wait for a wind to pass the
Gate; but it has got to be most too public for my taste. I'm rural, I
tell Mulford, and love to get in out-of-the-way berths with my brig,
where she can see salt-meadows, and smell the clover. You never catch
me down in any of the crowded slips, around the markets, or anywhere in
that part of the town, for I do love country air. That's Hallet's Cove,
Miss Rose, and a pretty anchorage it would be for us, if the wind and
tide didn't sarve to take us through the Gate.”

“Are we near the Gate, Capt. Spike?” asked Rose, the fine bloom on her
cheek lessening a little, under the apprehension that formidable name is
apt to awaken in the breasts of the inexperienced.

“Half a mile, or so. It begins just at the other end of this island on
our larboard hand, and will be all over in about another half mile, or
so. It's no such bad place, a'ter all, is Hell-Gate, to them that's used
to it. I call myself a pilot in Hell-Gate, though I have no branch.”

“I wish, Capt. Spike, I could teach you to give that place its proper
and polite name. We call it Whirl-Gate altogether now,” said the relict.

“Well, that's new to me,” cried Spike. “I have heard some
chicken-mouthed folk say Hurl-Gate, but this is the first time I ever
heard it called Whirl-Gate--they'll get it to Whirligig-Gate next. I do
n't think that my old commander, Capt. Budd, called the passage anything
but honest up and down Hell-Gate.”

“That he did--that he did--and all my arguments and reading could not
teach him any better. I proved to him that it was Whirl-Gate, as any
one can see that it ought to be. It is full of whirlpools, they say, and
that shows what Nature meant the name to be.”

“But, aunty,” put in Rose, half reluctantly, half anxious to speak,
“what has gate to do with whirlpools? You will remember it is called a
gate--the gate to that wicked place I suppose is meant.”

“Rose, you amaze me! How can you, a young woman of only nineteen, stand
up for so vulgar a name as Hell-Gate!”

“Do you think it as vulgar as Hurl-Gate, aunty?” To me it always seems
the most vulgar to be straining at gnats.”

“Yes,” said Spike sentimentally, “I'm quite of Miss Rose's way of
thinking--straining at gnats is very ill-manners, especially at table. I
once knew a man who strained in this way, until I thought he would have
choked, though it was with a fly to be sure; but gnats are nothing
but small flies, you know, Miss Rose. Yes, I'm quite of your way of
thinking, Miss Rose; it is very vulgar to be straining at gnats and
flies, more particularly at table. But you'll find no flies or gnats
aboard here, to be straining at, or brushing away, or to annoy you.
Stand by there, my hearties, and see all clear to run through Hell-Gate.
Do n't let me catch you straining at anything, though it should be the
fin of a whale!”

The people forward looked at each other, as they listened to this novel
admonition, though they called out the customary “ay, ay, sir,” as
they went to the sheets, braces and bowlines. To them the passage of no
Hell-Gate conveyed the idea of any particular terror, and with the one
they were about to enter, they were much too familiar to care anything
about it.

The brig was now floating fast, with the tide, up abreast of the east
end of Blackwell's, and in two or three more minutes she would be fairly
in the Gate. Spike was aft, where he could command a view of everything
forward, and Mulford stood on the quarter-deck, to look after the
head-braces. An old and trustworthy seaman, who acted as a sort of
boatswain, had the charge on the forecastle, and was to tend the sheets
and tack. His name was Rove.

“See all clear,” called out Spike. “D'ye hear there, for'ard! I shall
make a half-board in the Gate, if the wind favour us, and the tide prove
strong enough to hawse us to wind'ard sufficiently to clear the Pot--so
mind your--”

The captain breaking off in the middle of this harangue, Mulford turned
his head, in order to see what might be the matter. There was Spike,
levelling a spy-glass at a boat that was pulling swiftly out of the
north channel, and shooting like an arrow directly athwart the brig's
bows into the main passage of the Gate. He stepped to the captain's
elbow.

“Just take a look at them chaps, Mr. Mulford,” said Spike, handing his
mate the glass.

“They seem in a hurry,” answered Harry, as he adjusted the glass to his
eye, “and will go through the Gate in less time than it will take to
mention the circumstance.”

“What do you make of them, sir?”

“The little man who called himself Jack Tier is in the stern-sheets of
the boat, for one,” answered Mulford.

“And the other, Harry--what do you make of the other?”

“It seems to be the chap who hailed to know if we had a pilot. He means
to board us at Riker's Island, and make us pay pilotage, whether we want
his services or not.”

“Blast him and his pilotage too! Give me the glass”--taking another long
look at the boat, which by this time was glancing, rather than pulling,
nearly at right angles across his bows. “I want no such pilot aboard
here, Mr. Mulford. Take another look at him--here, you can see him, away
on our weather bow, already.”

Mulford did take another look at him, and this time his examination was
longer and more scrutinizing than before.

“It is not easy to cover him with the glass,” observed the young
man--“the boat seems fairly to fly.”

“We're forereaching too near the Hog's Back, Capt. Spike,” roared the
boatswain, from forward.

“Ready about--hard a lee,” shouted Spike. “Let all fly, for'ard--help
her round, boys, all you can, and wait for no orders! Bestir
yourselves--bestir yourselves.”

It was time the crew should be in earnest. While Spike's attention had
been thus diverted by the boat, the brig had got into the strongest of
the current, which, by setting her fast to windward, had trebled the
power of the air, and this was shooting her over toward one of the
greatest dangers of the passage on a flood tide. As everybody bestirred
themselves, however, she was got round and filled on the opposite tack,
just in time to clear the rocks. Spike breathed again, but his head was
still full of the boat. The danger he had just escaped as Scylla met
him as Charybdis. The boatswain again roared to go about. The order was
given as the vessel began to pitch in a heavy swell. At the next instant
she rolled until the water came on deck, whirled with her stern down the
tide, and her bows rose as if she were about to leap out of water. The
Swash had hit the Pot Rock.



CHAPTER II.

     “Watch. If we know him to be a thief, shall we not lay hands
     on him?

     Dogb. Truly, by your office, you may; but I think they that
     touch pitch will be defiled; the most peaceable way for you,
     if you do take a thief, is, to let him show himself what he
     is, and steal out of your company.”

     Much Ado About Nothing.


We left the brigantine of Capt. Spike in a very critical situation, and
the master himself in great confusion of mind.

A thorough seaman, this accident would never have happened, but for the
sudden appearance of the boat and its passengers; one of whom appeared
to be a source of great uneasiness to him. As might be expected,
the circumstance of striking a place as dangerous as the Pot Rock
in Hell-Gate, produced a great sensation on board the vessel. This
sensation betrayed itself in various ways, and according to the
characters, habits, and native firmness of the parties. As for the
ship-master's relict, she seized hold of the main-mast, and screamed so
loud and perseveringly, as to cause the sensation to extend itself into
the adjacent and thriving village of Astoria, where it was distinctly
heard by divers of those who dwelt near the water. Biddy Noon had
her share in this clamour, lying down on the deck in order to prevent
rolling over, and possibly to scream more at her leisure, while Rose
had sufficient self-command to be silent, though her cheeks lost their
colour.

Nor was there anything extraordinary in females betraying this alarm,
when one remembers the somewhat astounding signs of danger by which
these persons were surrounded. There is always something imposing in the
swift movement of a considerable body of water. When this movement is
aided by whirlpools and the other similar accessories of an interrupted
current, it frequently becomes startling, more especially to those who
happen to be on the element itself. This is peculiarly the case with the
Pot Rock, where, not only does the water roll and roar as if agitated by
a mighty wind, but where it even breaks, the foam seeming to glance up
stream, in the rapid succession of wave to wave. Had the Swash remained
in her terrific berth more than a second or two, she would have proved
what is termed a “total loss;” but she did not. Happily, the Pot Rock
lies so low that it is not apt to fetch up anything of a light draught
of water, and the brigantine's fore-foot had just settled on its summit,
long enough to cause the vessel to whirl round and make her obeisance to
the place, when a succeeding swell lifted her clear, and away she went
down stream, rolling as if scudding in a gale, and, for a moment, under
no command whatever. There lay another danger ahead, or it would be
better to say astern, for the brig was drifting stern foremost; and that
was in an eddy under a bluff, which bluff lies at an angle in the reach,
where it is no uncommon thing for craft to be cast ashore, after they
have passed all the more imposing and more visible dangers above. It was
in escaping this danger, and in recovering the command of his vessel,
that Spike now manifested the sort of stuff of which he was really
made, in emergencies of this sort. The yards were all sharp up when the
accident occurred, and springing to the lee braces, just as a man winks
when his eye is menaced, he seized the weather fore-brace with his own
hands, and began to round in the yard, shouting out to the man at the
wheel to “port his helm” at the same time. Some of the people flew to
his assistance, and the yards were not only squared, but braced a little
up on the other tack, in much less time than we have taken to relate the
evolution. Mulford attended to the main-sheet, and succeeded in getting
the boom out in the right direction. Although the wind was in truth
very light, the velocity of the drift filled the canvas, and taking the
arrow-like current on her lee bow, the Swash, like a frantic steed that
is alarmed with the wreck made by his own madness, came under command,
and sheered out into the stream again, where she could drift clear of
the apprehended danger astern.

“Sound the pumps!” called out Spike to Mulford, the instant he saw he
had regained his seat in the saddle. Harry sprang amidships to obey, and
the eye of every mariner in that vessel was on the young man, as, in the
midst of a death-like silence, he performed this all-important duty.
It was like the physician's feeling the pulse of his patient before he
pronounces on the degree of his danger.

“Well, sir?” cried out Spike, impatiently, as the rod reappeared.

“All right, sir,” answered Harry, cheerfully--“the well is nearly
empty.”

“Hold on a moment longer, and give the water time to find its way
amidships, if there be any.”

The mate remained perched up on the pump, in order to comply, while
Spike and his people, who now breathed more freely again, improved the
leisure to brace up and haul aft, to the new course.

“Biddy,” said Mrs. Budd considerately, during this pause in the
incidents, “you need n't scream any longer. The danger seems to be past,
and you may get up off the deck now. See, I have let go of the mast. The
pumps have been sounded, and are found tight.”

Biddy, like an obedient and respectful servant, did as directed, quite
satisfied if the pumps were tight. It was some little time, to be sure,
before she was perfectly certain whether she were alive or not--but,
once certain of this circumstance, her alarm very sensibly abated,
and she became reasonable. As for Mulford, he dropped the sounding rod
again, and had the same cheering report to make.

“The brig is as tight as a bottle, sir.”

“So much the better,” answered Spike. “I never had such a whirl in her
before in my life, and I thought she was going to stop and pass the
night there. That's the very spot on which 'The Hussar' frigate was
wrecked.”

“So I have heard, sir. But she drew so much water that she hit slap
against the rock, and started a butt. We merely touched on its top with
our fore-foot, and slid off.”

This was the simple explanation of the Swash's escape, and, everybody
being now well assured that no harm had been done, things fell into
their old and regular train again. As for Spike, his gallantry,
notwithstanding, was upset for some hours, and glad enough was he when
he saw all three of his passengers quit the deck to go below. Mrs.
Budd's spirits had been so much agitated that she told Rose she would go
down into the cabin and rest a few minutes on its sofa. We say sofa,
for that article of furniture, now-a-days, is far more common in vessels
than it was thirty years ago in the dwellings of the country.

“There, Mulford,” growled Spike, pointing ahead of the brig, to an
object on the water that was about half a mile ahead of them, “there's
that bloody boat--d'ye see? I should like of all things to give it the
slip. There's a chap in that boat I do n't like.”

“I do n't see how that can be very well done, sir, unless we anchor,
repass the Gate at the turn of the tide, and go to sea by the way of
Sandy Hook.”

“That will never do. I've no wish to be parading the brig before the
town. You see, Mulford, nothing can be more innocent and proper than the
Molly Swash, as you know from having sailed in her these twelve months.
You'll give her that character, I'll be sworn?”

“I know no harm of her, Capt. Spike, and hope I never shall.”

“No, sir--you know no harm of her, nor does any one else. A nursing
infant is not more innocent than the Molly Swash, or could have a
clearer character if nothing but truth was said of her. But the world is
so much given to lying, that one of the old saints, of whom we read in
the good book, such as Calvin and John Rogers, would be vilified if he
lived in these times. Then, it must be owned, Mr. Mulford, whatever
may be the raal innocence of the brig, she has a most desperate wicked
look.”

“Why, yes, sir--it must be owned she is what we sailors call a
wicked-looking craft. But some of Uncle Sam's cruisers have that
appearance, also.”

“I know it--I know it, sir, and think nothing of looks myself. Men are
often deceived in me, by my looks, which have none of your long-shore
softness about 'em, perhaps; but my mother used to say I was one of the
most tender-hearted boys she had ever heard spoken of--like one of
the babes in the woods, as it might be. But mankind go so much by
appearances that I do n't like to trust the brig too much afore their
eyes. Now, should we be seen in the lower bay, waiting for a wind, or
for the ebb tide to make, to carry us over the bar, ten to one but
some philotropic or other would be off with a complaint to the District
Attorney that we looked like a slaver, and have us all fetched up to
be tried for our lives as pirates. No, no--I like to keep the brig in
out-of-the-way places, where she can give no offence to your 'tropics,
whether they be philos, or of any other sort.”

“Well, sir, we are to the eastward of the Gate, and all's safe. That
boat cannot bring us up.”

“You forget, Mr. Mulford, the revenue-craft that steamed up, on the
ebb. That vessel must be off Sands' Point by this time, and she may hear
something to our disparagement from the feller in the boat, and take it
into her smoky head to walk us back to town. I wish we were well to the
eastward of that steamer! But there's no use in lamentations. If there
is really any danger, it's some distance ahead yet, thank Heaven!”

“You have no fears of the man who calls himself Jack Tier, Capt. Spike?”

“None in the world. That feller, as I remember him, was a little
bustlin' chap that I kept in the cabin, as a sort of steward's mate.
There was neither good nor harm in him, to the best of my recollection.
But Josh can tell us all about him--just give Josh a call.”

The best thing in the known history of Spike was the fact that his
steward had sailed with him for more than twenty years. Where he had
picked up Josh no one could say, but Josh and himself, and neither chose
to be very communicative on the subject. But Josh had certainly been
with him as long as he had sailed the Swash, and that was from a time
actually anterior to the birth of Mulford. The mate soon had the negro
in the council.

“I say, Josh,” asked Spike, “do you happen to remember such a hand
aboard here as one Jack Tier?”

“Lor' bless you, yes sir--'members he as well as I do the pea soup
that was burnt, and which you t'rowed all over him, to scald him for
punishment.”

“I've had to do that so often, to one careless fellow or other, that the
circumstance does n't recall the man. I remember him--but not as clear
as I could wish. How long did he sail with us?”

“Sebberal v'y'ge, sir, and got left ashore down on the main, one night,
when'e boat were obliged to shove off in a hurry. Yes, 'members little
Jack, right well I does.”

“Did you see the man that spoke us from the wharf, and hailed for this
very Jack Tier?”

“I see'd a man, sir, dat was won'erful Jack Tier built like, sir, but I
did n't hear the conwersation, habbin' the ladies to 'tend to. But Jack
was oncommon short in his floor timbers, sir, and had no length of keel
at all. His beam was won'erful for his length, altogedder--what you call
jolly-boat, or bum-boat build, and was only good afore'e wind, Cap'n
Spike.”

“Was he good for anything aboard ship, Josh? Worth heaving-to for,
should he try to get aboard of us again?”

“Why, sir, can't say much for him in dat fashion. Jack was handy in the
cabin, and capital feller to carry soup from the gally, aft. You see,
sir, he was so low-rigged that the brig's lurchin' and pitchin' could
n't get him off his pins, and he stood up like a church in the heaviest
wea'der. Yes, sir, Jack was right good for dat.”

Spike mused a moment--then he rolled the tobacco over in his mouth, and
added, in the way a man speaks when his mind is made up--“Ay ay! I see
into the fellow. He'll make a handy lady's maid, and we want such a chap
just now. It's better to have an old friend aboard, than to be pickin'
up strangers, 'long shore. So, should this Jack Tier come off to us,
from any of the islands or points ahead, Mr. Mulford, you'll round to
and take him aboard. As for the steamer, if she will only pass out into
the Sound where there's room, it shall go hard with us but I get to the
eastward of her, without speaking. On the other hand, should she anchor
this side of the fort, I'll not attempt to pass her. There is deep water
inside of most of the islands, I know, and we'll try and dodge her in
that way, if no better offer. I've no more reason than another craft
to fear a government vessel, but the sight of one of them makes me
oncomfortable; that's all.”

Mulford shrugged his shoulders and remained silent, perceiving that his
commander was not disposed to pursue the subject any further. In the
mean time, the brig had passed beyond the influence of the bluff, and
was beginning to feel a stronger breeze, that was coming down the wide
opening of Flushing Bay. As the tide still continued strong in her
favour, and her motion through the water was getting to be four or five
knots, there was every prospect of her soon reaching Whitestone, the
point where the tides meet, and where it would become necessary to
anchor; unless, indeed, the wind, which was now getting to the southward
and eastward, should come round more to the south. All this Spike and
his mate discussed together, while the people were clearing the decks,
and making the preparations that are customary on board a vessel before
she gets into rough water.

By this time it was ascertained that the brig had received no damage
by her salute of the Pot Rock, and every trace of uneasiness on that
account was removed. But Spike kept harping on the boat, and “the
pilot-looking chap who was in her.” As they passed Riker's Island, all
hands expected a boat would put off with a pilot, or to demand pilotage;
but none came, and the Swash now seemed released from all her present
dangers, unless some might still be connected with the revenue steamer.
To retard her advance, however, the wind came out a smart working breeze
from the southward and eastward, compelling her to make “long legs and
short ones” on her way towards Whitestone.

“This is beating the wind, Rosy dear,” said Mrs. Budd, complacently,
she and her niece having returned to the deck a few minutes after this
change had taken place. “Your respected uncle did a great deal of this
in his time, and was very successful in it. I have heard him say, that
in one of his voyages between Liverpool and New York, he beat the wind
by a whole fortnight, everybody talking of it in the insurance offices,
as if it was a miracle.”

“Ay, ay, Madam Budd,” put in Spike, “I'll answer for that. They're
desperate talkers in and about them there insurance offices in Wall
street. Great gossips be they, and they think they know everything.
Now just because this brig is a little old or so, and was built for a
privateer in the last war, they'd refuse to rate her as even B, No. 2,
and my blessing on 'em.”

“Yes, B, No. 2, that's just what your dear uncle used to call me,
Rosy--his charming B, No. 2, or Betsy, No. 2; particularly when he was
in a loving mood. Captain Spike, did you ever beat the wind in a long
voyage?”

“I can't say I ever did, Mrs. Budd,” answered Spike, looking grimly
around, to ascertain if any one dared to smile at his passenger's
mistake; “especially for so long a pull as from New York to Liverpool.”

“Then your uncle used to boast of the Rose In Bloom's wearing and
attacking. She would attack anything that came in her way, no matter
who, and as for wearing, I think he once told me she would wear just
what she had a mind to, like any human being.”

Rose was a little mystified, but she looked vexed at the same time, as
if she distrusted all was not right.

“I remember all my sea education,” continued the unsuspecting widow, “as
if it had been learnt yesterday. Beating the wind and attacking ship,
my poor Mr. Budd used to say, were nice manoeuvres, and required most of
his tactics, especially in heavy weather. Did you know, Rosy dear, that
sailors weigh the weather, and know when it is heavy and when it is
light?”

“I did not, aunt; nor do I understand now how it can very well be done.”

“Oh! child, before you have been at sea a week, you will learn so many
things that are new, and get so many ideas of which you never had any
notion before, that you'll not be the same person. My captain had an
instrument he called a thermometer, and with that he used to weigh the
weather, and then he would write down in the log-book 'today, heavy
weather, or to-morrow, light weather,' just as it happened, and that
helped him mightily along in his voyages.”

“Mrs. Budd has merely mistaken the name of the instrument--the
'barometer' is what she wished to say,” put in Mulford, opportunely.

Rose looked grateful, as well as relieved. Though profoundly ignorant on
these subjects herself, she had always suspected her aunt's knowledge.
It was, consequently, grateful to her to ascertain that, in this
instance, the old lady's mistake had been so trifling.

“Well, it may have been the barometer, for I know he had them both,”
 resumed the aunt. “Barometer, or thermometer, it do n't make any great
difference; or quadrant, or sextant. They are all instruments, and
sometimes he used one, and sometimes another. Sailors take on board the
sun, too, and have an instrument for that, as well as one to weigh the
weather with. Sometimes they take on board the stars, and the moon,
and 'fill their ships with the heavenly bodies,' as I've heard my dear
husband say, again and again! But the most curious thing at sea, as all
sailors tell me, is crossing the line, and I do hope we shall cross the
line, Rosy, that you and I may see it.”

“What is the line, aunty, and how do vessels cross it.”

“The line, my dear, is a place in the ocean where the earth is divided
into two parts, one part being called the North Pole, and the other part
the South Pole. Neptune lives near this line, and he allows no vessel
to go out of one pole into the other, without paying it a visit. Never!
never!--he would as soon think of living on dry land as think of letting
even a canoe pass, without visiting it.”

“Do you suppose there is such a being, really, as Neptune, aunty?”

“To be sure I do; he is king of the sea. Why should n't there be? The
sea must have a king, as well as the land.”

“The sea may be a republic, aunty, like this country; then, no king is
necessary. I have always supposed Neptune to be an imaginary being.”

“Oh that's impossible--the sea is no republic; there are but two
republics, America and Texas. I've heard that the sea is a highway, it
is true--the 'highway of nations,' I believe it is called, and that
must mean something particular. But my poor Mr. Budd always told me that
Neptune was king of the seas, and he was always so accurate, you might
depend on everything he said. Why, he called his last Newfoundland dog
Neptune; and do you think, Rosy, that your dear uncle would call his
dog after an imaginary being?--and he a man to beat the wind, and attack
ship, and take the sun, moon and stars aboard! No, no, child; fanciful
folk may see imaginary beings, but solid folk see solid beings.”

Even Spike was dumfounded at this, and there is no knowing what he
might have said, had not an old sea-dog, who had just come out of the
fore-topmast cross-trees, come aft, and, hitching up his trowsers with
one hand while he touched his hat with the other, said with immoveable
gravity,

“The revenue-steamer has brought up just under the fort, Capt. Spike.”

“How do you know that, Bill?” demanded the captain, with a rapidity that
showed how completely Mrs. Budd and all her absurdities were momentarily
forgotten.

“I was up on the fore-topgallant yard, sir, a bit ago, just to look
to the strap of the jewel-block, which wants some sarvice on it, and
I see'd her over the land, blowin' off steam and takin' in her
kites. Afore I got out of the cross-trees, she was head to wind under
bare-poles, and if she had n't anchored, she was about to do so. I'm
sartin 't was she, sir, and that she was about to bring up.”

Spike gave a long, low whistle, after his fashion, and he walked away
from the females, with the air of a man who wanted room to think in.
Half a minute later, he called out--“Stand by to shorten sail, boys.
Man fore-clew-garnets, flying jib down haul, topgallant sheets, and
gaff-topsail gear. In with 'em all, my lads--in with everything, with a
will.”

An order to deal with the canvas in any way, on board ship, immediately
commands the whole attention of all whose duty it is to attend to such
matters, and there was an end of all discourse while the Swash was
shortening sail. Everybody understood, too, that it was to gain
time, and prevent the brig from reaching Throg's Neck sooner than was
desirable.

“Keep the brig off,” called out Spike, “and let her ware--we're too busy
to tack just now.”

The man at the wheel knew very well what was wanted, and he put his
helm up, instead of putting it down, as he might have done without this
injunction. As this change brought the brig before the wind, and Spike
was in no hurry to luff up on the other tack, the Swash soon ran over a
mile of the distance she had already made, putting her back that much
on her way to the Neck. It is out of our power to say what the people
of the different craft in sight thought of all this, but an opportunity
soon offered of putting them on a wrong scent. A large coasting
schooner, carrying everything that would draw on a wind, came sweeping
under the stern of the Swash, and hailed.

“Has anything happened, on board that brig?” demanded her master.

“Man overboard,” answered Spike--“you hav'nt seen his hat, have you?”

“No--no,” came back, just as the schooner, in her onward course, swept
beyond the reach of the voice. Her people collected together, and one or
two ran up the rigging a short distance, stretching their necks, on the
look-out for the “poor fellow,” but they were soon called down to “'bout
ship.” In less than five minutes, another vessel, a rakish coasting
sloop, came within hail.

“Did n't that brig strike the Pot Rock, in passing the Gate?” demanded
her captain.

“Ay, ay!--and a devil of a rap she got, too.”

This satisfied him; there being nothing remarkable in a vessel's acting
strangely that had hit the Pot Rock in passing Hell Gate.

“I think we may get in our mainsail on the strength of this, Mr.
Mulford,” said Spike. “There can be nothing oncommon in a craft's
shortening sail, that has a man overboard, and which has hit the Pot
Rock. I wonder I never thought of all this before.”

'Here is a skiff trying to get alongside of us, Capt. Spike,” called out
the boatswain.

“Skiff be d--d! I want no skiff here.”

“The man that called himself Jack Tier is in her, sir.”

“The d--l he is!” cried Spike, springing over to the opposite side of
the deck to take a look for himself. To his infinite satisfaction he
perceived that Tier was alone in the skiff, with the exception of a
negro, who pulled its sculls, and that this was a very different boat
from that which had glanced through Hell Gate, like an arrow darting
from its bow.

“Luff, and shake your topsail,” called out Spike. “Get a rope there to
throw to this skiff.”

The orders were obeyed, and Jack Tier, with his clothes-bag, was soon
on the deck of the Swash. As for the skiff and the negro, they were
cast adrift the instant the latter had received his quarter. The meeting
between Spike and his quondam steward's mate was a little remarkable.
Each stood looking intently at the other, as if to note the changes
which time had made. We cannot say that Spike's hard, red, selfish
countenance betrayed any great feeling, though such was not the case
with Jack Tier's. The last, a lymphatic, puffy sort of a person at the
best, seemed really a little touched, and he either actually brushed a
tear from his eye, or he affected so to do.

“So, you are my old shipmate, Jack Tier, are ye?” exclaimed Spike, in
a half-patronizing, half-hesitating way--“and you want to try the old
craft ag'in. Give us a leaf of your log, and let me know where you have
been this many a day, and what you have been about? Keep the brig off,
Mr. Mulford. We are in no particular hurry to reach Throg's, you'll
remember, sir.”

Tier gave an account of his proceedings, which could have no interest
with the reader. His narrative was anything but very clear, and it was
delivered in a cracked, octave sort of a voice, such as little dapper
people not unfrequently enjoy--tones between those of a man and a boy.
The substance of the whole story was this. Tier had been left ashore, as
sometimes happens to sailors, and, by necessary connection, was left to
shift for himself. After making some vain endeavours to rejoin his brig,
he had shipped in one vessel after another, until he accidentally found
himself in the port of New York, at the same time as the Swash. He
know'd he never should be truly happy ag'in until he could once more
get aboard the old hussy, and had hurried up to the wharf, where he
understood the brig was lying. As he came in sight, he saw she was about
to cast off, and, dropping his clothes-bag, he had made the best of his
way to the wharf, where the conversation passed that has been related.

“The gentleman on the wharf was about to take boat, to go through
the Gate,” concluded Tier, “and so I begs a passage of him. He was
good-natured enough to wait until I could find my bag, and as soon
a'terwards as the men could get their grog we shoved off. The Molly was
just getting in behind Blackwell's as we left the wharf, and, having
four good oars, and the shortest road, we come out into the Gate just
ahead on you. My eye! what a place that is to go through in a boat, and
on a strong flood! The gentleman, who watched the brig as a cat watches
a mouse, says you struck on the Pot, as he called it, but I says 'no,'
for the Molly Swash was never know'd to hit rock or shoal in my time
aboard her.”

“And where did you quit that gentleman, and what has become of him?”
 asked Spike.

“He put me ashore on that point above us, where I see'd a nigger with
his skiff, who I thought would be willin' to 'arn his quarter by giving
me a cast alongside. So here I am, and a long pull I've had to get
here.”

As this was said, Jack removed his hat and wiped his brow with a
handkerchief, which, if it had never seen better days, had doubtless
been cleaner. After this, he looked about him, with an air not entirely
free from exultation.

This conversation had taken place in the gangway, a somewhat public
place, and Spike beckoned to his recruit to walk aft, where he might be
questioned without being overheard.

“What became of the gentleman in the boat, as you call him?” demanded
Spike.

“He pulled ahead, seeming to be in a hurry.”

“Do you know who he was?”

“Not a bit of it. I never saw the man before, and he did n't tell me his
business, sir.”

“Had he anything like a silver oar about him.”

“I saw nothing of the sort, Capt. Spike, and knows nothing consarning
him.”

“What sort of a boat was he in, and where did he get it?”

“Well, as to the boat, sir, I can say a word, seein' it was so much to
my mind, and pulled so wonderful smart. It was a light ship's yawl, with
four oars, and came round the Hook just a'ter you had got the brig's
head round to the eastward. You must have seen it, I should think,
though it kept close in with the wharves, as if it wished to be snug.”

“Then the gentleman, as you call him, expected that very boat to come
and take him off?”

“I suppose so, sir, because it did come and take him off. That's all I
knows about it.”

“Had you no jaw with the gentleman? You was n't mnm the whole time you
was in the boat with him?”

“Not a bit of it, sir. Silence and I does n't agree together long, and
so we talked most of the time.”

“And what did the stranger say of the brig?”

“Lord, sir, he catechised me like as if I had been a child at
Sunday-school. He asked me how long I had sailed in her; what ports
we'd visited, and what trade we'd been in. You can't think the sight of
questions he put, and how cur'ous he was for the answers.”

“And what did you tell him in your answers? You said nothin' about our
call down on the Spanish Main, the time you were left ashore, I hope,
Jack?”

“Not I, sir. I played him off surprisin'ly. He got nothin' to count upon
out of me. Though I do owe the Molly Swash a grudge, I'm not goin' to
betray her.”

“You owe the Molly Swash a grudge! Have I taken an enemy on board her,
then?”

Jack started, and seemed sorry he had said so much; while Spike eyed him
keenly. But the answer set all right. It was not given, however, without
a moment for recollection.

“Oh, you knows what I mean, sir. I owe the old hussy a grudge for having
desarted me like; but it's only a love quarrel atween us. The old Molly
will never come to harm by my means.”

“I hope not, Jack. The man that wrongs the craft he sails in can never
be a true-hearted sailor. Stick by your ship in all weathers is my rule,
and a good rule it is to go by. But what did you tell the stranger?”

“Oh! I told him I'd been six v'y'ges in the brig. The first was to
Madagascar--”

“The d--l you did? Was he soft enough to believe that?”

“That's more than I knows, sir. I can only tell you what I said; I do
n't pretend to know how much he believed.”

“Heave ahead--what next?”

“Then I told him we went to Kamschatka for gold dust and ivory.”

“Whe-e-ew! What did the man say to that?”

“Why, he smiled a bit, and a'ter that he seemed more cur'ous than ever
to hear all about it. I told him my third v'y'ge was to Canton, with
a cargo of broom-corn, where we took in salmon and dun-fish for home.
A'ter that we went to Norway with ice, and brought back silks and money.
Our next run was to the Havana, with salt and 'nips--”

“'Nips! what the devil be they?”

“Turnips, you knows, sir. We always calls 'em 'nips in cargo. At the
Havana I told him we took in leather and jerked beef, and came home. Oh!
he got nothin' from me, Capt. Spike, that'll ever do the brig a morsel
of harm!”

“I am glad of that, Jack. You must know enough of the seas to understand
that a close mouth is sometimes better for a vessel than a clean bill of
health. Was there nothing said about the revenue-steamer?”

“Now you name her, sir, I believe there was--ay, ay, sir, the gentleman
did say, if the steamer fetched up to the westward of the fort, that he
should overhaul her without difficulty, on this flood.

“That'll do, Jack; that'll do, my honest fellow. Go below, and tell Josh
to take you into the cabin again, as steward's mate. You're rather too
Dutch built, in your old age, to do much aloft.”

One can hardly say whether Jack received this remark as complimentary,
or not. He looked a little glum, for a man may be as round as a barrel,
and wish to be thought genteel and slender; but he went below, in quest
of Josh, without making any reply.

The succeeding movements of Spike appeared to be much influenced by
what he had just heard. He kept the brig under short canvas for near two
hours, sheering about in the same place, taking care to tell everything
which spoke him that he had lost a man overboard. In this way, not
only the tide, but the day itself, was nearly spent. About the time
the former began to lose its strength, however, the fore-course and the
main-sail were got on the brigantine, with the intention of working
her up toward Whitestone, where the tides meet, and near which the
revenue-steamer was known to be anchored. We say near, though it was, in
fact, a mile or two more to the eastward, and close to the extremity of
the Point.

Notwithstanding these demonstrations of a wish to work to windward,
Spike was really in no hurry. He had made up his mind to pass the
steamer in the dark, if possible, and the night promised to favour him;
but, in order to do this, it might be necessary not to come in sight of
her at all; or, at least, not until the obscurity should in some measure
conceal his rig and character. In consequence of this plan, the Swash
made no great progress, even after she had got sail on her, on her old
course. The wind lessened, too, after the sun went down, though it still
hung to the eastward, or nearly ahead. As the tide gradually lost its
force, moreover, the set to windward became less and less, until it
finally disappeared altogether.

There is necessarily a short reach in this passage, where it is always
slack water, so far as current is concerned. This is precisely where the
tides meet, or, as has been intimated, at Whitestone, which is somewhat
more than a mile to the westward of Throgmorton's Neck, near the point
of which stands Fort Schuyler, one of the works recently erected for the
defence of New York. Off the pitch of the point, nearly mid-channel, had
the steamer anchored, a fact of which Spike had made certain, by going
aloft himself, and reconnoitering her over the land, before it had got
to be too dark to do so. He entertained no manner of doubt that this
vessel was in waiting for him, and he well knew there was good reason
for it; but he would not return and attempt the passage to sea by way
of Sandy Hook. His manner of regarding the whole matter was cool and
judicious. The distance to the Hook was too great to be made in such
short nights ere the return of day, and he had no manner of doubt he
was watched for in that direction, as well as in this. Then he was
particularly unwilling to show his craft at all in front of the town,
even in the night. Moreover, he had ways of his own for effecting his
purposes, and this was the very spot and time to put them in execution.

While these things were floating in his mind, Mrs. Budd and her handsome
niece were making preparations for passing the night, aided by Biddy
Noon. The old lady was factotum, or factota, as it might be most
classical to call her, though we are entirely without authorities on the
subject, and was just as self-complacent and ambitious of seawomanship
below decks, as she had been above board. The effect, however, gave
Spike great satisfaction, since it kept her out of sight, and left him
more at liberty to carry out his own plans. About nine, however, the
good woman came on deck, intending to take a look at the weather, like
a skilful marineress as she was, before she turned in. Not a little was
she astonished at what she then and there beheld, as she whispered to
Rose and Biddy, both of whom stuck close to her side, feeling the want
of good pilotage, no doubt, in strange waters.

The Molly Swash was still under her canvas, though very little sufficed
for her present purposes. She was directly off Whitestone, and was
making easy stretches across the passage, or river, as it is called,
having nothing set but her huge fore-and-aft mainsail and the jib.
Under this sail she worked like a top, and Spike sometimes fancied she
travelled too fast for his purposes, the night air having thickened the
canvas as usual, until it “held the wind as a bottle holds water.” There
was nothing in this, however, to attract the particular attention of
the ship-master's widow, a sail, more or less, being connected with
observation much too critical for her schooling, nice as the last had
been. She was surprised to find the men stripping the brig forward,
and converting her into a schooner. Nor was this done in a loose and
slovenly manner, under favour of the obscurity. On the contrary, it
was so well executed that it might have deceived even a seaman under a
noon-day sun, provided the vessel were a mile or two distant. The manner
in which the metamorphosis was made was as follows: the studding-sail
booms had been taken off the topsail-yard, in order to shorten it to the
eye, and the yard itself was swayed up about half-mast, to give it the
appearance of a schooner's fore-yard. The brig's real lower yard was
lowered on the bulwarks, while her royal yard was sent down altogether,
and the topgallant-mast was lowered until the heel rested on the topsail
yard, all of which, in the night, gave the gear forward very much the
appearance of that of a fore-topsail schooner, instead of that of a
half-rigged brig, as the craft really was. As the vessel carried
a try-sail on her foremast, it answered very well, in the dark, to
represent a schooner's foresail. Several other little dispositions of
this nature were made, about which it might weary the uninitiated to
read, but which will readily suggest themselves to the mind of a sailor.

These alterations were far advanced when the females re-appeared on
deck. They at once attracted their attention, and the captain's widow
felt the imperative necessity, as connected with her professional
character, of proving the same. She soon found Spike, who was bustling
around the deck, now looking around to see that his brig was kept in the
channel, now and then issuing an order to complete her disguise.

“Captain Spike, what can be the meaning of all these changes? The tamper
of your vessel is so much altered that I declare I should not have known
her!”

“Is it, by George! Then she is just in the state I want her to be in.”

“But why have you done it--and what does it all mean?”

“Oh, Molly's going to bed for the night, and she's only undressing
herself--that's all.”

“Yes, Rosy dear, Captain Spike is right. I remember that my poor Mr.
Budd used to talk about The Rose In Bloom having her clothes on, and
her clothes off, just as if she was a born woman! But do n't you mean to
navigate at all in the night, Captain Spike? Or will the brig navigate
without sails?”

“That's it--she's just as good in the dark, under one sort of canvas, as
under another. So, Mr. Mulford, we'll take a reef in that mainsail;
it will bring it nearer to the size of our new foresail, and seem more
ship-shape and Brister fashion--then I think she'll do, as the night is
getting to be rather darkish.”

“Captain Spike,” said the boatswain, who had been set to look-out for
that particular change--“the brig begins to feel the new tide, and sets
to windward.”

“Let her go, then--now is as good a time as another. We've got to run
the gantlet, and the sooner it is done the better.”

As the moment seemed propitious, not only Mulford, but all the people,
heard this order with satisfaction. The night was star-light, though
not very clear at that. Objects on the water, however, were more visible
than those on the land, while those on the last could be seen well
enough, even from the brig, though in confused and somewhat shapeless
piles. When the Swash was brought close by the wind, she had just got
into the last reach of the “river,” or that which runs parallel with
the Neck for near a mile, doubling where the Sound expands itself,
gradually, to a breadth of many leagues. Still the navigation at the
entrance of this end of the Sound was intricate and somewhat dangerous,
rendering it indispensable for a vessel of any size to make a crooked
course. The wind stood at south-east, and was very scant to lay through
the reach with, while the tide was so slack as barely to possess a
visible current at that place. The steamer lay directly off the Point,
mid-channel, as mentioned, showing lights, to mark her position to
anything which might be passing in or out. The great thing was to get
by her without exciting her suspicion. As all on board, the females
excepted, knew what their captain was at, the attempt was made amid an
anxious and profound silence; or, if any one spoke at all, it was only
to give an order in a low tone, or its answer in a simple monosyllable.

Although her aunt assured her that everything which had been done
already, and which was now doing, was quite in rule, the quick-eyed and
quick-witted Rose noted these unusual proceedings, and had an opinion
of her own on the subject. Spike had gone forward, and posted himself on
the weather-side of the forecastle, where he could get the clearest look
ahead, and there he remained most of the time, leaving Mulford on the
quarter-deck, to work the vessel, Perceiving this, she managed to get
near the mate, without attracting her aunt's attention, and at the same
time out of ear-shot.

“Why is everybody so still and seemingly so anxious, Harry Mulford?” she
asked, speaking in a low tone herself, as if desirous of conforming to a
common necessity. “Is there any new danger here? I thought the Gate had
been passed altogether, some hours ago?”

“So it has. D'ye see that large dark mass on the water, off the Point,
which seems almost as huge as the fort, with lights above it? That is a
revenue-steamer which came out of York a few hours before us. We wish to
get past her without being troubled by any of her questions.”

“And what do any in this brig care about her questions? They can be
answered, surely.”

“Ay, ay, Rose--they may be answered, as you say, but the answers
sometimes are unsatisfactory. Captain Spike, for some reason or other,
is uneasy, and would rather not have anything to say to her. He has the
greatest aversion to speaking the smallest craft when on a coast.”

“And that's the reason he has undressed his Molly, as he calls her, that
he might not be known.”

Mulford turned his head quickly toward his companion, as if surprised by
her quickness of apprehension, but he had too just a sense of his
duty to make any reply. Instead of pursuing the discourse, he adroitly
contrived to change it, by pointing out to Rose the manner in which they
were getting on, which seemed to be very successfully.

Although the Swash was under much reduced canvas, she glided along with
great ease and with considerable rapidity of motion. The heavy night air
kept her canvas distended, and the weatherly set of the tide, trifling
as it yet was, pressed her up against the breeze, so as to turn all to
account. It was apparent enough, by the manner in which objects on the
land were passed, that the crisis was fast approaching. Rose
rejoined her aunt, in order to await the result, in nearly breathless
expectation. At that moment, she would have given the world to be
safe on shore. This wish was not the consequence of any constitutional
timidity, for Rose was much the reverse from timid, but it was the fruit
of a newly-awakened and painful, though still vague, suspicion. Happy,
thrice happy was it for one of her naturally confiding and guileless
nature, that distrust was thus opportunely awakened, for she was without
a guardian competent to advise and guide her youth, as circumstances
required.

The brig was not long in reaching the passage that opened to the Sound.
It is probable she did this so much the sooner because Spike kept her a
little off the wind, with a view of not passing too near the steamer.
At this point, the direction of the passage changes at nearly a right
angle, the revenue-steamer lying on a line with the Neck, and leaving a
sort of bay, in the angle, for the Swash to enter. The land was somewhat
low in all directions but one, and that was by drawing a straight line
from the Point, through the steamer, to the Long Island shore. On the
latter, and in that quarter, rose a bluff of considerable elevation,
with deep water quite near it; and, under the shadows of that bluff,
Spike intended to perform his nicest evolutions. He saw that the revenue
vessel had let her fires go down, and that she was entirely without
steam. Under canvas, he had no doubt of beating her hand over hand,
could he once fairly get to windward; and then she was at anchor, and
would lose some time in getting under way, should she even commence a
pursuit. It was all important, therefore, to gain as much to windward as
possible, before the people of the government vessel took the alarm.

There can be no doubt that the alterations made on board the Swash
served her a very good turn on this occasion. Although the night could
not be called positively dark, there was sufficient obscurity to render
her hull confused and indistinct at any distance, and this so much the
more when seen from the steamer outside, or between her and the land.
All this Spike very well understood, and largely calculated on. In
effect he was not deceived; the look-outs on board the revenue craft
could trace little of the vessel that was approaching beyond the spars
and sails which rose above the shores, and these seemed to be the spars
and sails of a common foretopsail schooner. As this was not the sort of
craft for which they were on the watch, no suspicion was awakened, nor
did any reports go from the quarter-deck to the cabin. The steamer had
her quarter watches, and officers of the deck, like a vessel of war, the
discipline of which was fairly enough imitated, but even a man-of-war
may be overreached on an occasion.

Spike was only great in a crisis, and then merely as a seaman. He
understood his calling to its minutiæ, and he understood the Molly Swash
better than he understood any other craft that floated. For more than
twenty years had he sailed her, and the careful parent does not better
understand the humours of the child, than he understood exactly what
might be expected from his brig. His satisfaction sensibly increased,
therefore, as she stole along the land, toward the angle mentioned,
without a sound audible but the gentle gurgling of the water, stirred by
the stem, and which sounded like the ripple of the gentlest wave, as it
washes the shingle of some placid beach.

As the brig drew nearer to the bluff, the latter brought the wind more
ahead, as respected the desired course. This was unfavourable, but it
did not disconcert her watchful commander.

“Let her come round, Mr. Mulford,” said this pilot-captain, in a low
voice--“we are as near in as we ought to go.”

The helm was put down, the head sheets started, and away into the wind
shot the Molly Swash, fore-reaching famously in stays, and, of course,
gaining so much on her true course. In a minute she was round, and
filled on the other tack. Spike was now so near the land, that he could
perceive the tide was beginning to aid him, and that his weatherly set
was getting to be considerable. Delighted at this, he walked aft, and
told Mulford to go about again as soon as the vessel had sufficient way
to make sure of her in stays. The mate inquired if he did not think the
revenue people might suspect something, unless they stood further out
toward mid-channel, but Spike reminded him that they would be apt to
think the schooner was working up under the southern shore, because the
ebb first made there. This reason satisfied Mulford, and, as soon as
they were half-way between the bluff and the steamer, the Swash was
again tacked, with her head to the former. This manoeuvre was executed
when the brig was about two hundred yards from the steamer, a distance
that was sufficient to preserve, under all the circumstances, the
disguise she had assumed.

“They do not suspect us, Harry!” whispered Spike to his mate. “We shall
get to windward of 'em, as sartain as the breeze stands. That boatin'
gentleman might as well have staid at home, as for any good his hurry
done him or his employers!”

“Whom do you suppose him to be, Captain Spike?”

“Who,--a feller that lives by his own wicked deeds. No matter who he is.
An informer, perhaps. At any rate, he is not the man to outwit the Molly
Swash, and her old, stupid, foolish master and owner, Stephen Spike.
Luff, Mr. Mulford, luff. Now's the time to make the most of your
leg--Luff her up and shake her. She is setting to windward fast, the ebb
is sucking along that bluff like a boy at a molasses hogshead. All she
can drift on this tack is clear gain; there is no hurry, so long as they
are asleep aboard the steamer. That's it--make a half-board at once,
but take care and not come round. As soon as we are fairly clear of the
bluff, and open the bay that makes up behind it, we shall get the wind
more to the southward, and have a fine long leg for the next stretch.”

Of course Mulford obeyed, throwing the brig up into the wind, and
allowing her to set to windward, but filling again on the same tack,
as ordered. This, of course, delayed her progress toward the land, and
protracted the agony, but it carried the vessel in the direction she
most wished to go, while it kept her not only end on to the steamer,
but in a line with the bluff, and consequently in the position most
favourable to conceal her true character. Presently, the bay mentioned,
which was several miles deep, opened darkly toward the south, and the
wind came directly out of it, or more to the southward. At this moment
the Swash was near a quarter of a mile from the steamer, and all that
distance dead to windward of her, as the breeze came out of the bay.
Spike tacked his vessel himself now, and got her head up so high that
she brought the steamer on her lee quarter, and looked away toward the
island which lies northwardly from the Point, and quite near to which
all vessels of any draught of water are compelled to pass, even with the
fairest winds.

“Shake the reef out of the mainsail, Mr. Mulford,” said Spike, when the
Swash was fairly in motion again on this advantageous tack. “We shall
pass well to windward of the steamer, and may as well begin to open our
cloth again.”

“Is it not a little too soon, sir?” Mulford ventured to remonstrate;
“the reef is a large one, and will make a great difference in the size
of the sail.”

“They'll not see it at this distance. No, no, sir, shake out the reef,
and sway away on the topgallant-mast rope; I'm for bringing the Molly
Swash into her old shape again, and make her look handsome once more.”

“Do you dress the brig, as well as undress her, o'mights; Captain
Spike?” inquired the ship-master's reliet, a little puzzled with this
fickleness of purpose. “I do not believe my poor Mr. Budd ever did
that.”

“Fashions change, madam, with the times--ay, ay, sir--shake out the
reef, and sway away on that mast-rope, boys, as soon as you have manned
it. We'll convart our schooner into a brig again.”

As these orders were obeyed, of course, a general bustle now took place.
Mulford soon had the reef out, and the sail distended to the utmost,
while the topgallant-mast was soon up and fidded. The next thing was to
sway upon the fore-yard, and get that into its place. The people were
busied at this duty, when a hoarse hail came across the water on the
heavy night air.

“Brig ahoy!” was the call.

“Sway upon that fore-yard,” said Spike, unmoved by this summons--“start
it, start it at once.”

“The steamer hails us, sir,” said the mate.

“Not she. She is hailing a brig; we are a schooner yet.”

A moment of active exertion succeeded, during which the fore-yard went
into its place. Then came a second hail.

“Schooner, ahoy!” was the summons this time.

“The steamer hails us again, Captain Spike.”

“The devil a bit. We're a brig now, and she hails a schooner. Come
boys, bestir yourselves, and get the canvas on Molly for'ard. Loose the
fore-course before you quit the yard there, then up aloft and loosen
everything you can find.”

All was done as ordered, and done rapidly, as is ever the case on board
a well-ordered vessel when there is occasion for exertion. That occasion
now appeared to exist in earnest, for while the men were sheeting home
the topsail, a flash of light illuminated the scene, when the roar of
a gun came booming across the water, succeeded by the very distinct
whistling of its shot. We regret that the relict of the late Captain
Budd did not behave exactly as became a shipmaster's widow, under fire.
Instead of remaining silent and passive, even while frightened, as was
the case with Rose, she screamed quite as loud as she had previously
done that very day in Hell-Gate. It appeared to Spike, indeed, that
practice was making her perfect; and, as for Biddy, the spirit of
emulation became so powerful in her bosom, that, if anything, she
actually outshrieked her mistress. Hearing this, the widow made a second
effort, and fairly recovered the ground some might have fancied she had
lost.

“Oh! Captain Spike,” exclaimed the agitated widow, “do not--do not, if
you love me, do not let them fire again!”

“How am I to help it!” asked the captain, a good deal to the point,
though he overlooked the essential fact, that, by heaving-to, and
waiting for the steamer's boat to board him, he might have prevented
a second shot, as completely as if he had the ordering of the whole
affair. No second shot was fired, however. As it afterward appeared,
the screams of Mrs. Budd and Biddy were heard on board the steamer, the
captain of which, naturally enough, supposing that the slaughter must be
terrible where such cries had arisen, was satisfied with the mischief he
had already done, and directed his people to secure their gun and go
to the capstan-bars, in order to help lift the anchor. In a word, the
revenue vessel was getting under way, man-of-war fashion, which means
somewhat expeditiously.

Spike understood the sounds that reached him, among which was the call
of the boatswain, and he bestirred himself accordingly. Experienced as
he was in chases and all sorts of nautical artifices, he very well knew
that his situation was sufficiently critical. It would have been so,
with a steamer at his heels, in the open ocean; but, situated as he was,
he was compelled to steer but one course, and to accept the wind on that
course as it might offer. If he varied at all in his direction it was
only in a trifling way, though he did make some of these variations.
Every moment was now precious, however, and he endeavoured to improve
the time to the utmost. He knew that he could greatly outsail the
revenue vessel, under canvas, and some time would be necessary to enable
her to get up her steam; half an hour at the very least. On that half
hour, then, depended the fate of the Molly Swash.

“Send the booms on the yards, and set stun'sails at once, Mr. Mulford,”
 said Spike, the instant the more regular canvas was spread forward.
“This wind will be free enough for all but the lower stun'sail, and we
must drive the brig on.”

“Are we not looking up too high, Captain Spike? The Stepping-Stones are
ahead of us, sir.”

“I know that very well, Mulford. But it's nearly high water, and the
brig's in light trim, and we may rub and go. By making a short cut here,
we shall gain a full mile on the steamer; that mile may save us.”

“Do you really think it possible to get away from that craft, which can
always make a fair wind of it, in these narrow waters, Captain Spike?”

“One don't know, sir. Nothin' is done without tryin', and by tryin'
more is often done than was hoped for. I have a scheme in my head, and
Providence may favour me in bringing it about.”

Providence! The religionist quarrels with the philosopher if the
latter happen to remove this interposition of a higher power, even
so triflingly as by the intervention of secondary agencies, while
the biggest rascal dignifies even his success by such phrases as
Providential aid! But it is not surprising men should misunderstand
terms, when they make such sad confusion in the acts which these terms
are merely meant to represent. Spike had his Providence as well as a
priest, and we dare say he often counted on its succour, with quite
as rational grounds of dependence as many of the pharisees who are
constantly exclaiming, “The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord
are these.”

Sail was made on board the Swash with great rapidity, and the brig
made a bold push at the Stepping-Stones. Spike was a capital pilot.
He insisted if he could once gain sight of the spar that was moored on
those rocks for a buoy, he should run with great confidence. The two
lights were of great assistance, of course; but the revenue vessel
could see these lights as well as the brig, and she, doubtless, had an
excellent pilot on board. By the time the studding-sails were set on
board the Swash, the steamer was aweigh, and her long line of peculiar
sails became visible. Unfortunately for men who were in a hurry, she
lay so much within the bluff as to get the wind scant, and her commander
thought it necessary to make a stretch over to the southern shore,
before he attempted to lay his course. When he was ready to tack, an
operation of some time with a vessel of her great length, the Swash was
barely visible in the obscurity, gliding off upon a slack bowline, at
a rate which nothing but the damp night air, the ballast-trim of the
vessel, united to her excellent sailing qualities, could have produced
with so light a breeze.

The first half hour took the Swash completely out of sight of the
steamer. In that time, in truth, by actual superiority in sailing, by
her greater state of preparation, and by the distance saved by a bold
navigation, she had gained fully a league on her pursuer. But, while the
steamer had lost sight of the Swash, the latter kept the former in view,
and that by means of a signal that was very portentous. She saw the
light of the steamer's chimneys, and could form some opinion of her
distance and position.

It was about eleven o'clock when the Swash passed the light at Sands'
Point, close in with the land. The wind stood much as it had been. If
there was a change at all, it was half a point more to the southward,
and it was a little fresher. Such as it was, Spike saw he was getting,
in that smooth water, quite eight knots out of his craft, and he made
his calculations thereon. As yet, and possibly for half an hour longer,
he was gaining, and might hope to continue to gain on the steamer.
Then her turn would come. Though no great traveller, it was not to be
expected that, favoured by smooth water and the breeze, her speed would
be less than ten knots, while there was no hope of increasing his own
without an increase of the wind. He might be five miles in advance, or
six at the most; these six miles would be overcome in three hours of
steaming, to a dead certainty, and they might possibly be overcome much
sooner. It was obviously necessary to resort to some other experiment
than that of dead sailing, if an escape was to be effected.

The Sound was now several miles in width, and Spike, at first, proposed
to his mate, to keep off dead before the wind, and by crossing over to
the north shore, let the steamer pass ahead, and continue a bootless
chase to the eastward. Several vessels, however, were visible in the
middle of the passage, at distances varying from one to three miles, and
Mulford pointed out the hopelessness of attempting to cross the sheet of
open water, and expect to go unseen by the watchful eyes of the revenue
people.

“What you say is true enough, Mr. Mulford,” answered Spike, after a
moment of profound reflection, “and every foot that they come nearer,
the less will be our chance. But here is Hempstead Harbour a few leagues
ahead; if we can reach that before the blackguards close, we may do well
enough. It is a deep bay, and has high land to darken the view. I don't
think the brig could be seen at midnight by anything outside; if she was
once fairly up that water a mile or two.”

“That is our chance, sir!” exclaimed Mulford cheerfully. “Ay, ay, I know
the spot; and everything is favourable--try that, Captain Spike; I'll
answer for it that we go clear.”

Spike did try it. For a considerable time longer he stood on, keeping as
close to the land as he thought it safe to run, and carrying everything
that would draw. But the steamer was on his heels, evidently gaining
fast. Her chimneys gave out flames, and there was every sign that her
people were in earnest. To those on board the Swash these flames seemed
to draw nearer each instant, as indeed was the fact, and just as
the breeze came fresher out of the opening in the hills, or the low
mountains, which surround the place of refuge in which they designed
to enter, Mulford announced that by aid of the night-glass he could
distinguish both sails and hull of their pursuer. Spike took a look, and
throwing down the instrument, in a way to endanger it, he ordered the
studding-sails taken in. The men went aloft like cats, and worked as
if they could stand in air. In a minute or two the Swash was under what
Mrs. Budd might have called her “attacking” canvas, and was close by the
wind, looking on a good leg well up the harbour. The brig seemed to be
conscious of the emergency, and glided ahead at capital speed. In five
minutes she had shut in the flaming chimneys of the steamer. In five
minutes more Spike tacked, to keep under the western side of the
harbour, and out of sight as long as possible, and because he thought
the breeze drew down fresher where he was than more out in the bay.

All now depended on the single fact whether the brig had been seen from
the steamer or not, before she hauled into the bay. If seen, she had
probably been watched; if not seen, there were strong grounds for hoping
that she might still escape. About a quarter of an hour after Spike
hauled up, the burning chimneys came again into view. The brig was then
half a league within the bay, with a fine dark background of hills
to throw her into shadow. Spike ordered everything taken in but the
trysail, under which the brig was left to set slowly over toward the
western side of the harbour. He now rubbed his hands with delight, and
pointed out to Mulford the circumstance that the steamer kept on her
course directly athwart the harbour's mouth! Had she seen the Swash, no
doubt she would have turned into the bay also. Nevertheless, an anxious
ten minutes succeeded, during which the revenue vessel steamed fairly
past, and shut in her flaming chimneys again by the eastern headlands of
the estuary.



CHAPTER III.

  The western wave was all a flame,
  The day was well nigh done,
  Almost upon the western wave
  Rested the broad bright sun;
  When that strange ship drove suddenly
  Betwixt us and the sun.

  The Ancient Mariner.


At that hour, on the succeeding morning, when the light of day is just
beginning to chase away the shadows of night, the Molly Swash became
visible within the gloom of the high land which surrounds so much of the
bay of Hempstead, under easy sail, backing and filling, in order to
keep within her hiding-place, until a look could be had at the state of
things without. Half an hour later, she was so near the entrance of the
estuary, as to enable the look-outs aloft to ascertain that the coast
was clear, when Spike ordered the helm to be put up, and the brig to be
kept away to her course. At this precise moment, Rose appeared on deck,
refreshed by the sleep of a quiet night; and with cheeks tinged with a
colour even more delicate than that which was now glowing in the eastern
sky, and which was almost as brilliant.

“We stopped in this bit of a harbour for the night, Miss Rose, that is
all;” said Spike, observing that his fair passenger was looking about
her, in some little surprise, at finding the vessel so near the land,
and seemingly so much out of her proper position. “Yes, we always do
that, when we first start on a v'y'ge, and before the brig gets used to
travelling--do n't we, Mr. Mulford?”

Mr. Mulford, who knew how hopeless was the attempt to mystify Rose, as
one might mystify her credulous and weak-minded aunt, and who had no
disposition to deal any way but fairly by the beautiful, and in one
sense now helpless young creature before him, did not see fit to make
any reply. Offend Spike he did not dare to do, more especially under
present circumstances; and mislead Rose he would not do. He affected
not to hear the question, therefore, but issuing an order about the
head-sails, he walked forward as if to see it executed. Rose herself was
not under as much restraint as the young mate.

“It is convenient, Captain Spike,” she coolly answered for Mulford, “to
have stopping-places, for vessels that are wearied, and I remember the
time when my uncle used to tell me of such matters, very much in the
same vein; but, it was before I was twelve years old.”

Spike hemmed, and he looked a little foolish, but Clench, the boatswain,
coming aft to say something to him in confidence, just at that moment,
he was enabled to avoid the awkwardness of attempting to explain. This
man Clench, or Clinch, as the name was pronounced, was deep in the
captain's secrets; far more so than was his mate, and would have been
filling Mulford's station at that very time, had he not been hopelessly
ignorant of navigation. On the present occasion, his business was to
point out to the captain, two or three lines of smoke, that were visible
above the water of the Sound, in the eastern board; one of which he was
apprehensive might turn out to be the smoke of the revenue craft, from
which they had so recently escaped.

“Steamers are no rarities in Long Island Sound, Clench,” observed the
captain, levelling his glass at the most suspected of the smokes. “That
must be a Providence, or Stonington chap, coming west with the Boston
train.”

“Either of them would have been further west, by this time, Captain
Spike,” returned the doubting, but watchful boatswain. “It's a large
smoke, and I fear it is the revenue fellow coming back, after having had
a look well to the eastward, and satisfying himself that we are not to
be had in that quarter.”

Spike growled out his assent to the possibility of such a conjecture,
and promised vigilance. This satisfied his subordinate for the moment,
and he walked forward, or to the place where he belonged. In the mean
time, the widow came on deck, smiling, and snuffing the salt air, and
ready to be delighted with anything that was maritime.

“Good morning, Captain Spike,” she cried--“Are we in the offing,
yet?--you know I desired to be told when we are in the offing, for I
intend to write a letter to my poor Mr. Budd's sister, Mrs. Sprague, as
soon as we get to the offing.”

“What is the offing, aunt?” inquired the handsome niece.

“Why you have hardly been at sea long enough to understand me, child,
should I attempt to explain. The offing, however, is the place where the
last letters are always written to the owners, and to friends ashore.
The term comes, I suppose, from the circumstance that the vessel is
about to be off, and it is natural to think of those we leave behind,
at such a moment. I intend to write to your aunt Sprague, my dear, the
instant I hear we are in the offing; and what is more, I intend to make
you my amanuensis.”

“But how will the letter be sent, aunty?--I have no more objections
to writing than any one else, but I do not see how the letter is to be
sent. Really, the sea is a curious region, with its stopping-places for
the night, and its offings to write letters at!”

“Yes, it's all as you say, Rose--a most remarkable region is the sea!
You'll admire it, as I admire it, when you come to know it better; and
as your poor uncle admired it, and as Captain Spike admires it, too. As
for the letters, they can be sent ashore by the pilot, as letters are
always sent.”

“But, aunty, there is no pilot in the Swash--for Captain Spike refused
to take one on board.”

“Rose!--you don't understand what you are talking about! No vessel ever
yet sailed without a pilot, if indeed any can. It's opposed to the law,
not to have a pilot; and now I remember to have heard your dear uncle
say it wasn't a voyage if a vessel didn't take away a pilot.”

“But if they take them away, aunty, how can they send the letters ashore
by them?”

“Poh! poh! child; you don't know what you're saying; but you'll overlook
it, I hope, Captain Spike, for Rose is quick, and will soon learn to
know better. As if letters couldn't be sent ashore by the pilot, though
he was a hundred thousand miles from land! But, Captain Spike, you must
let me know when we are about to get off the Sound, for I know that the
pilot is always sent ashore with his letters, before the vessel gets off
the Sound.”

“Yes, yes,” returned the captain, a little mystified by the widow,
though he knew her so well, and understood her so well--“you shall know,
ma'am, when we get off soundings, for I suppose that is what you mean.”

“What is the difference? Off the Sound, or off the soundings, of course,
must mean the same thing. But, Rosy, we will go below and write to
your aunt at once, for I see a light-house yonder, and light-houses are
always put just off the soundings.”

Rose, who always suspected her aunt's nautical talk, though she did not
know how to correct it, and was not sorry to put an end to it, now, by
going below, and spreading her own writing materials, in readiness to
write, as the other dictated. Biddy Noon was present, sewing on some of
her own finery.

“Now write, as I tell you, Rose,” commenced the widow--“My dear sister
Sprague--Here we are, at last, just off the soundings, with light-houses
all round us, and so many capes and islands in sight, that it does seem
as if the vessel never could find its way through them all. Some of
these islands must be the West Indies”--“Aunty, that can never be!”
 exclaimed Rose--“we left New York only yesterday.”

“What of that? Had it been old times, I grant you several days might be
necessary to get a sight of the West Indies, but, now, when a letter
can be written to a friend in Boston, and an answer received in half an
hour, it requires no such time to go to the West Indies. Besides,
what other islands are there in this part of the world?--they can't be
England--”

“No--no,”--said Rose, at once seeing it would be preferable to admit
they were the West Indies; so the letter went on:--“Some of these
islands must be the West Indies, and it is high time we saw some of
them, for we are nearly off the Sound, and the light-houses are getting
to be quite numerous. I think we have already seen four since we left
the wharf. But, my dear sister Sprague, you will be delighted to hear
how much better Rose's health is already becoming--”

“My health, aunty! Why, I never knew an ill day in my life!”

“Don't tell me that, my darling; I know too well what all these
deceptive appearances of health amount to. I would not alarm you for
the world, Rosy dear, but a careful parent--and I'm your parent in
affection, if not by nature--but a careful parent's eye is not to be
deceived. I know you look well, but you are ill, my child; though,
Heaven be praised, the sea air and hydropathy are already doing you a
monstrous deal of good.”

As Mrs. Budd concluded, she wiped her eyes, and appeared really glad
that her niece had a less consumptive look than when she embarked. Rose
sat, gazing at her aunt, in mute astonishment. She knew how much and
truly she was beloved, and that induced her to be more tolerant of her
connection's foibles than even duty demanded. Feeling was blended with
her respect, but it was almost too much for her, to learn that this
long, and in some respects painful voyage, was undertaken on her
account, and without the smallest necessity for it. The vexation,
however, would have been largely increased, but for certain free
communications that had occasionally occurred between her and the
handsome mate, since the moment of her coming on board the brig. Rose
knew that Harry Mulford loved her, too, for he had told her as much with
a seaman's frankness; and though she had never let him know that his
partiality was returned, her woman's heart was fast inclining toward
him, with all her sex's tenderness. This made the mistake of her
aunt tolerable, though Rose was exceedingly vexed it should ever have
occurred.

“Why, my dearest aunt,” she cried, “they told me it was on your account
that this voyage was undertaken!”

“I know they did, poor, dear Rosy, and that was in order not to alarm
you. Some persons of delicate constitutions--”

“But my constitution is not in the least delicate, aunt; on the
contrary, it is as good as possible; a blessing for which, I trust, I am
truly grateful, I did not know but you might be suffering, though you
do look so well, for they all agreed in telling me you had need of a
sea-voyage.”

“I, a subject for hydropathy! Why, child, water is no more necessary to
me than it is to a cat.”

“But going to sea, aunty, is not hydropathy--”

“Don't say that, Rosy; do not say that, my dear. It is hydropathy on a
large scale, as Captain Spike says; and when he gets us into blue water,
he has promised that you shall have all the benefits of the treatment.”

Rose was silent and thoughtful; after which she spoke quickly, like one
to whom an important thought had suddenly occurred.

“And Captain Spike, then, was consulted in my case?” she asked.

“He was, my dear, and you have every reason to be grateful to him. He
was the first to discover a change in your appearance, and to suggest
a sea voyage. Marine Hydropathy, he said, he was sure would get you up
again; for Captain Spike thinks your constitution good at the bottom,
though the high colour you have proves too high a state of habitual
excitement.”

“Was Dr. Monson consulted at all, aunt?”

“Not at all. You know the doctors are all against hydropathy, and
mesmerism, and the magnetic telegraph, and everything that is new; so we
thought it best not to consult him.”

“And my aunt Sprague?”

“Yes, she was consulted after everything was settled, and when I knew
her notions could not undo what had been already done. But she is a
seaman's widow, as well as myself, and has a great notion of the virtue
of sea air.”

“Then it would seem that Doctor Spike was the principal adviser in my
case!”

“I own that he was, Rosy dear. Captain Spike was brought up by your
uncle, who has often told me what a thorough seaman he was. 'There's
Spike, now,' he said to me one day, 'he can almost make his brig
talk'--this very brig too, your uncle meant, Rosy, and, of course, one
of the best vessels in the world to take hydropathy in.”

“Yes, aunty,” returned Rose, playing with the pen, while her air proved
how little her mind was in her words. “Well, what shall I say next to my
aunt Sprague?”

“Rose's health is already becoming confirmed,” resumed the widow, who
thought it best to encourage her niece by as strong terms as she could
employ, “and I shall extol hydropathy to the skies, as long as I live.
As soon as we reach our port of destination, my dear sister Sprague, I
shall write you a line to let you know it, by the magnetic telegraph--”

“But there is no magnetic telegraph on the sea, aunty,” interrupted
Rose, looking up from the paper, with her clear, serene, blue eyes,
expressing even her surprise, at this touch of the relict's ignorance.

“Don't tell me that, Rosy, child, when everybody says the sparks will
fly round the whole earth, just as soon as they will fly from New York
to Philadelphia.”

“But they must have something to fly on, aunty; and the ocean will not
sustain wires, or posts.”

“Well, there is no need of being so particular; if there is no
telegraph, the letter must come by mail. You can say telegraph, here,
and when your aunt gets the letter, the postmark will tell her how it
came. It looks better to talk about telegraphic communications, child.”

Rose resumed her pen, and wrote at her aunt's dictation, as
follows:--“By the magnetic telegraph, when I hope to be able to tell you
that our dear Rose is well. As yet, we both enjoy the ocean exceedingly;
but when we get off the Sound, into blue water, and have sent the pilot
ashore, or discharged him, I ought to say, which puts me in mind of
telling you that a cannon was discharged at us only last night, and that
the ball whistled so near me, that I heard it as plain as ever you heard
Rose's piano.”

“Had I not better first tell my aunt Sprague what is to be done when the
pilot is discharged?”

“No; tell her about the cannon that was discharged, first, and about the
ball that I heard. I had almost forgot that adventure, which was a very
remarkable one, was it not, Biddy?”

“Indeed, Missus, and it was! and Miss Rose might put in the letter how
we both screamed at that cannon, and might have been heard as plainly,
every bit of it, as the ball.”

“Say nothing on the subject, Rose, or we shall never hear the last of
it. So, darling, you may conclude in your own way, for I believe I have
told your aunt all that comes to mind.”

Rose did as desired, finishing the epistle in a very few words, for,
rightly enough, she had taken it into her head there was no pilot to be
discharged, and consequently that the letter would never be sent. Her
short but frequent conferences with Mulford were fast opening her eyes,
not to say her heart, and she was beginning to see Captain Spike in his
true character, which was that of a great scoundrel. It is true, that
the mate had not long judged his commander quite so harshly; but had
rather seen his beautiful brig, and her rare qualities, in her owner
and commander, than the man himself; but jealousy had quickened his
observation of late, and Stephen Spike had lost ground sensibly with
Harry Mulford, within the last week. Two or three times before, the
young man had thought of seeking another berth, on account of certain
distrusts of Spike's occupations; but he was poor, and so long as
he remained in the Swash, Harry's opportunities of meeting Rose were
greatly increased. This circumstance, indeed, was the secret of his
still being in the “Molly,” as Spike usually called his craft; the last
voyage having excited suspicions that were rather of a delicate nature.
Then the young man really loved the brig, which, if she could not be
literally made to talk, could be made to do almost everything else. A
vessel, and a small vessel, too, is rather contracted as to space, but
those who wish to converse can contrive to speak together often, even
in such narrow limits. Such had been the fact with Rose Budd and the
handsome mate. Twenty times since they sailed, short as that time was,
had Mulford contrived to get so near to Rose, as to talk with her,
unheard by others. It is true, that he seldom ventured to do this,
so long as the captain was in sight, but Spike was often below, and
opportunities were constantly occurring. It was in the course of these
frequent but brief conversations, that Harry had made certain dark hints
touching the character of his commander, and the known recklessness of
his proceedings. Rose had taken the alarm, and fully comprehending her
aunt's mental imbecility, her situation was already giving her great
uneasiness. She had some undefined hopes from the revenue steamer;
though, strangely enough as it appeared to her, her youngest and most
approved suitor betrayed a strong desire to escape from that craft, at
the very moment he was expressing his apprehensions on account of her
presence in the brig. This contradiction arose from a certain esprit de
corps, which seldom fails, more or less, to identify the mariner with
his ship.

But the writing was finished, and the letter sealed with wax, Mrs. Budd
being quite as particular in that ceremony as Lord Nelson, when the
females again repaired on deck. They found Spike and his mate sweeping
the eastern part of the Sound with their glasses, with a view to look
out for enemies; or, what to them, just then, was much the same thing,
government craft. In this occupation, Rose was a little vexed to see
that Mulford was almost as much interested as Spike himself, the love of
his vessel seemingly overcoming his love for her, if not his love of the
right--she knew of no reason, however, why the captain should dread any
other vessel, and felt sufficiently provoked to question him a little
on the subject, if it were only to let him see that the niece was not as
completely his dupe as the aunt. She had not been on deck five minutes,
therefore, during which time several expressions had escaped the two
sailors touching their apprehensions of vessels seen in the distance,
ere she commenced her inquiries.

“And why should we fear meeting with other vessels?” Rose plainly
demanded--“here in Long Island Sound, and within the power of the laws
of the country?”

“Fear?” exclaimed Spike, a little startled, and a good deal surprised
at this straight-forward question--“Fear, Miss Rose! You do not think
we are afraid, though there are many reasons why we do not wish to be
spoken by certain craft that are hovering about. In the first place, you
know it is war time--I suppose you know, Madam Budd, that America is at
war with Mexico?”

“Certainly,” answered the widow, with dignity--“and that is a sufficient
reason, Rose, why one vessel should chase, and another should run. If
you had heard your poor uncle relate, as I have done, all his chasings
and runnings away, in the war times, child, you would understand these
things better. Why, I've heard your uncle say that, in some of his long
voyages, he has run thousands and thousands of miles, with sails set on
both sides, and all over his ship!”

“Yes, aunty, and so have I, but that was 'running before the wind,' as
he used to call it.”

“I s'pose, however, Miss Rose,” put in Spike, who saw that the niece
would soon get the better of the aunt;--“I s'pose, Miss Rose, that
you'll acknowledge that America is at war with Mexico?”

“I am sorry to say that such is the fact, but I remember to have heard
you say, yourself, Captain Spike, when my aunt was induced to undertake
this voyage, that you did not consider there was the smallest danger
from any Mexicans.”

“Yes, you did, Captain Spike,” added the aunt--“you did say there was no
danger from Mexicans.”

“Nor is there a bit, Madam Budd, if Miss Rose, and your honoured self,
will only hear me. There is no danger, because the brig has the heels of
anything Mexico can send to sea. She has sold her steamers, and, as for
anything else under her flag, I would not care a straw.”

“The steamer from which we ran, last evening, and which actually fired
off a cannon at us, was not Mexican, but American,” said Rose, with a
pointed manner that put Spike to his trumps.

“Oh! that steamer--” he stammered--“that was a race--only a race, Miss
Rose, and I wouldn't let her come near me, for the world. I should never
hear the last of it, in the insurance offices, and on 'change, did I let
her overhaul us. You see, Miss Rose--you see, Madam Budd--” Spike ever
found it most convenient to address his mystifying discourse to the
aunt, in preference to addressing it to the niece--“You see, Madam Budd,
the master of that craft and I are old cronies--sailed together when
boys, and set great store by each other. We met only last evening, just
a'ter I had left your own agreeable mansion, Madam Budd, and says he,
'Spike, when do you sail?' 'To-morrow's flood, Jones,' says I--his name
is Jones;--Peter Jones, and as good a fellow as ever lived. 'Do you go
by the Hook, or by Hell-Gate--'”

“Hurl-Gate, Captain Spike, if you please--or Whirl-Gate, which some
people think is the true sound; but the other way of saying it is
awful.”

“Well, the captain, my old master, always called it Hell-Gate, and I
learned the trick from him--”

“I know he did, and so do all sailors; but genteel people, now-a-days,
say nothing but Hurl-Gate, or Whirl-Gate.”

Rose smiled at this; as did Mulford; but neither said anything, the
subject having once before been up between them. As for ourselves, we
are still so old-fashioned as to say, and write, Hell-Gate, and intend
so to do, in spite of all the Yankees that have yet passed through it,
or who ever shall pass through it, and that is saying a great deal. We
do not like changing names to suit their uneasy spirits.

“Call the place Hurl-Gate, and go on with your story,” said the widow,
complacently.

“Yes, Madam Budd--'Do you go by the Hook, or by Whirl-Gate?' said Jones.
'By Whirl-a-Gig-Gate,' says I. 'Well,' says he, 'I shall go through the
Gate myself, in the course of the morning. We may meet somewhere to the
eastward, and, if we do, I'll bet you a beaver,' says he, 'that I show
you my stern.' 'Agreed,' says I, and we shook hands upon it. That's the
whole history of our giving the steamer the slip, last night, and of my
not wishing to let her speak me.”

“But you went into a bay, and let her go past you,” said Rose, coolly
enough as to manner, but with great point as to substance. “Was not that
a singular way of winning a race?”

“It does seem so, Miss Rose, but it's all plain enough, when understood.
I found that steam was too much for sails, and I stood up into the bay
to let them run past us, in hopes they would never find out the trick.
I care as little for a hat as any man, but I do care a good deal
about having it reported on 'change that the Molly was beat, by even a
steamer.”

This ended the discourse for the moment, Clench again having something
to say to his captain in private.

“How much of that explanation am I to believe, and how much disbelieve?”
 asked Rose, the instant she was left alone with Harry. “If it be all
invention, it was a ready and ingenious story.”

“No part of it is true. He no more expected that the steamer would pass
through Hell-Gate, than I expected it myself. There was no bet, or race,
therefore; but it was our wish to avoid Uncle Sam's cruiser, that was
all.”

“And why should you wish any such thing?”

“On my honour, I can give you no better reason, so far as I am
concerned, than the fact that, wishing to keep clear of her, I do
not like to be overhauled. Nor can I tell you why Spike is so much
in earnest in holding the revenue vessel at arm's length; I know
he dislikes all such craft, as a matter of course, but I can see no
particular reason for it just now. A more innocent cargo was never stuck
into a vessel's hold.”

“What is it?”

“Flour; and no great matter of that. The brig is not half full, being
just in beautiful ballast trim, as if ready for a race. I can see no
sufficient reason, beyond native antipathy, why Captain Spike should
wish to avoid any craft, for it is humbug his dread of a Mexican, and
least of all, here, in Long Island Sound. All that story about Jones is
a tub for whales.”

“Thank you for the allusion; my aunt and myself being the whales.”

“You know I do mean--can mean nothing, Rose, that is disrespectful to
either yourself or your aunt.”

Rose looked up, and she looked pleased. Then she mused in silence, for
some time, when she again spoke.

“Why have you remained another voyage with such a man, Harry?” she
asked, earnestly.

“Because, as his first officer, I have had access to your house, when I
could not have had it otherwise; and because I have apprehended that he
might persuade Mrs. Budd, as he had boasted to me it was his intention
to do, to make this voyage.”

Rose now looked grateful; and deeply grateful did she feel, and had
reason to feel. Harry had concealed no portion of his history from her.
Like herself, he was a shipmaster's child, but one better educated and
better connected than was customary for the class. His father had paid a
good deal of attention to the youth's early years, but had made a seaman
of him, out of choice. The father had lost his all, however, with his
life, in a shipwreck; and Harry was thrown upon his own resources, at
the early age of twenty. He had made one or two voyages as a second
mate, when chance threw him in Spike's way, who, pleased with some
evidences of coolness and skill, that he had shown in a foreign port,
on the occasion of another loss, took him as his first officer; in which
situation he had remained ever since, partly from choice and partly from
necessity. On the other hand, Rose had a fortune; by no means a large
one, but several thousands in possession, from her own father, and
as many more in reversion from her uncle. It was this money, taken in
connection with the credulous imbecility of the aunt, that had awakened
the cupidity, and excited the hopes of Spike. After a life of lawless
adventure, one that had been chequered by every shade of luck, he found
himself growing old, with his brig growing old with him, and little left
beside his vessel and the sort of half cargo that was in her hold. Want
of means, indeed, was the reason that the flour-barrels were not more
numerous.

Rose heard Mulford's explanation favourably, as indeed she heard most
of that which came from him, but did not renew the discourse, Spike's
conference with the boatswain just then terminating. The captain now
came aft, and began to speak of the performances of his vessel in a way
to show that he took great pride in them.

“We are travelling at the rate of ten knots, Madam Budd,” he said
exultingly, “and that will take us clear of the land, before night shuts
in ag'in. Montauk is a good place for an offing; I ask for no better.”

“Shall we then have two offings, this voyage, Captain Spike?” asked
Rose, a little sarcastically. “If we are in the offing now, and are to
be in the offing when we reach Montauk, there must be two such places.”

“Rosy, dear, you amaze me!” put in the aunt. “There is no offing until
the pilot is discharged, and when he's discharged there is nothing but
offing. It's all offing. On the Sound, is the first great change that
befalls a vessel as she goes to sea; then comes the offing; next the
pilot is discharged--then--then--what comes next, Captain Spike?”

“Then the vessel takes her departure--an old navigator like yourself,
Madam Budd, ought not to forget the departure.”

“Quite true, sir. The departure is a very important portion of a
seaman's life. Often and often have I heard my poor dear Mr. Budd talk
about his departures. His departures, and his offings and his--”

“Land-falls,” added Spike, perceiving that the shipmaster's relict was a
little at fault.

“Thank you, sir; the hint is quite welcome. His landfalls, also, were
often in his mouth.”

“What is a land-fall, aunty?” inquired Rose--“It appears a strange term
to be used by one who lives on the water.”

“Oh! there is no end to the curiosities of sailors! A 'land-fall,' my
dear, means a shipwreck, of course. To fall on the land, and a very
unpleasant fall it is, when a vessel should keep on the water. I've
heard of dreadful land-falls in my day, in which hundreds of souls have
been swept into eternity, in an instant.”

“Yes; yes, Madam Budd--there are such accidents truly, and serious
things be they to encounter,” answered Spike, hemming a little to clear
his throat, as was much his practice whenever the widow ran into any
unusually extravagant blunder; “yes, serious things to encounter. But
the land-fall that I mean is a different sort of thing; being, as you
well know, what we say when we come in sight of land, a'ter a v'y'ge;
or, meaning the land we may happen first to see. The departure is the
beginning of our calculation when we lose sight of the last cape or
headland, and the land-fall closes it, by letting us know where we are,
at the other end of our journey, as you probably remember.”

“Is there not such a thing as clearing out in navigation?” asked Rose,
quickly, willing to cover a little confusion that was manifest in her
aunt's manner.

“Not exactly in navigation, Miss Rose, but clearing out, with honest
folk, ought to come first, and navigation a'terwards. Clearing out means
going through the Custom-House, accordin' to law.”

“And the Molly Swash has cleared out, I hope?”

“Sartain--a more lawful clearance was never given in Wall Street; it's
for Key West and a market. I did think of making it Havana and a market,
but port-charges are lightest at Key West.”

“Then Key West is the place to which we are bound?”

“It ought to be, agreeable to papers; though vessels sometimes miss the
ports for which they clear.”

Rose put no more questions; and her aunt, being conscious that she had
not appeared to advantage in the affair of the “land-fall,” was also
disposed to be silent. Spike and Mulford had their attention drawn to
the vessel, and the conversation dropped.

The reader can readily suppose that the Molly Swash had not been
standing still all this time. So far from this, she was running “down
Sound,” with the wind on her quarter, or at south-west, making great
head-way, as she was close under the south shore, or on the island side
of the water she was in. The vessel had no other motion than that of
her speed, and the females escaped everything like sea-sickness, for the
time being. This enabled them to attend to making certain arrangements
necessary to their comforts below, previously to getting into rough
water. In acquitting herself of this task, Rose received much useful
advice from Josh, though his new assistant, Jack Tier, turned out to
be a prize indeed, in the cabins. The first was only a steward; but the
last proved himself not only a handy person of his calling, but one full
of resources--a genius, in his way. Josh soon became so sensible of his
own inferiority, in contributing to the comforts of females, that he
yielded the entire management of the “ladies' cabin,” as a little
place that might have been ten feet square, was called, to his
uncouth-looking, but really expert deputy. Jack waddled about below, as
if born and brought up in such a place, and seemed every way fitted for
his office. In height, and in build generally, there was a surprising
conformity between the widow and the steward's deputy, a circumstance
which might induce one to think they must often have been in each
other's way, in a space so small; though, in point of fact, Jack never
ran foul of any one. He seemed to avoid this inconvenience by a species
of nautical instinct.

Towards the turn of the day, Rose had everything arranged, and was
surprised to find how much room she had made for her aunt and herself,
by means of Jack's hints, and how much more comfortable it was possible
to be, in that small cabin, than she had at first supposed.

After dinner, Spike took his siesta. He slept in a little state-room
that stood on the starboard side of the quarter-deck, quite aft; as
Mulford did in one on the larboard. These two state-rooms were fixtures;
but a light deck overhead, which connected them, shipped and unshipped,
forming a shelter for the man at the wheel, when in its place, as well
as for the officer of the watch, should he see fit to use it, in bad
weather. This sort of cuddy, Spike termed his “coach-house.”

The captain had no sooner gone into his state-room, and closed its
window, movements that were understood by Mulford, than the latter took
occasion to intimate to Rose, by means of Jack Tier, the state of things
on deck, when the young man was favoured with the young lady's company.

“He has turned in for his afternoon's nap, and will sleep for just one
hour, blow high, or blow low,” said the mate, placing himself at Rose's
side on the trunk, which formed the usual seat for those who could
presume to take the liberty of sitting down on the quarter-deck. “It's a
habit with him, and we can count on it, with perfect security.”

“His doing so, now, is a sign that he has no immediate fears of the
revenue steamer?”

“The coast is quite clear of her. We have taken good looks at every
smoke, but can see nothing that appears like our late companion. She has
doubtless gone to the eastward, on duty, and merely chased us, on her
road.”

“But why should she chase us, at all?”

“Because we ran. Let a dog run, or a man run, or a cat run, ten to one
but something starts in chase. It is human nature, I believe, to give
chase; though I will admit there was something suspicious about that
steamer's movements--her anchoring off the Fort, for instance. But let
her go, for the present; are you getting things right, and to your mind,
below decks?”

“Very much so. The cabin is small, and the two state-rooms the merest
drawers that ever were used, but, by putting everything in its place, we
have made sufficient room, and no doubt shall be comfortable.”

“I am sorry you did not call on me for assistance. The mate has a
prescriptive right to help stow away.”

“We made out without your services,” returned Rose, slightly
blushing--“Jack Tier, as he is called, Josh's assistant, is a very
useful person, and has been our adviser and manager. I want no better
for such services.”

“He is a queer fellow, all round. Take him altogether, I hardly ever saw
so droll a being! As thick as he's long, with a waddle like a duck, a
voice that is cracked, hair like bristles, and knee high; the man might
make a fortune as a show. Tom Thumb is scarcely a greater curiosity.”

“He is singular in 'build,' as you call it,” returned Rose, laughing,
“but, I can assure you that he is a most excellent fellow in his
way--worth a dozen of Josh. Do you know, Harry, that I suspect he
has strong feelings towards Captain Spike; though whether of like or
dislike, friendship or enmity, I am at a loss to say.”

“And why do you think that he has any feeling at all? I have heard Spike
say he left the fellow ashore, somewhere down on the Spanish Main, or in
the Islands, quite twenty years since; but a sailor would scarce carry a
grudge so long a time, for such a thing as that.”

“I do not know--but feeling there is, and much of it, too; though,
whether hostile or friendly, I will not undertake to say.”

“I'll look to the chap, now you tell me this. It is a little odd, the
manner in which he got on board us, taken in connection with the company
he was in, and a discovery may be made. Here he is, however; and, as
I keep the keys of the magazine, he can do us no great harm, unless he
scuttles the brig.”

“Magazine! Is there such a thing here?”

“To be sure there is, and ammunition enough in it to keep eight
carronades in lively conversation for a couple of hours.”

“A carronade is what you call a gun, is it not?”

“A piece of a one--being somewhat short, like your friend, Jack Tier,
who is shaped a good deal like a carronade.”

Rose smiled--nay, half laughed, for Harry's pleasantries almost took
the character of wit in her eyes, but she did not the less pursue her
inquiries.

“Guns! And where are they, if they be on this vessel?”

“Do not use such a lubberly expression, my dear Rose, if you respect
your father's profession. On a vessel, is a new-fangled Americanism,
that is neither fish, flesh, nor red-herring, as we sailors say--neither
English nor Greek.”

“What should I say, then? My wish is not to parade sea-talk, but to use
it correctly, when I use it at all.”

“The expression is hardly 'sea-talk,' as you call it, but every-day
English--that is, when rightly used. On a vessel is no more English than
it is nautical--no sailor ever used such an expression.”

“Tell me what I ought to say, and you will find me a willing, if not an
apt scholar. I am certain of having often read it, in the newspapers,
and that quite lately.”

“I'll answer for that, and it's another proof of its being wrong. In a
vessel is as correct as in a coach, and on a vessel as wrong as can
be; but you can say on board a vessel, though not 'on the boards of a
vessel;' as Mrs. Budd has it.”

“Mr. Mulford!”

“I beg a thousand pardons, Rose, and will offend no more--though she
does make some very queer mistakes!”

“My aunt thinks it an honour to my uncle's memory, to be able to use
the language of his professional life, and if she does sometimes make
mistakes that are absurd, it is with motives so respectable that no
sailor should deride them.”

“I am rebuked for ever. Mrs. Budd may call the anchor a silver spoon,
hereafter, without my even smiling. But if the aunt has this kind
remembrance of a seaman's life, why cannot the niece think equally well
of it?”

“Perhaps she does,” returned Rose, smiling again--“seeing all its
attractions through the claims of Captain Spike.”

“I think half the danger from him gone, now that you seem so much on
your guard. What an odious piece of deception, to persuade Mrs. Budd
that you were fast falling into a decline!”

“One so odious that I shall surely quit the brig at the first port we
enter, or even in the first suitable vessel that we may speak.”

“And Mrs. Budd--could you persuade her to such a course?”

“You scarce know us, Harry Mulford. My aunt commands, when there is
no serious duty to perform, but we change places when there is. I can
persuade her to anything that is right, in ten minutes.”

“You might persuade a world!” cried Harry, with strong admiration
expressed in his countenance; after which he began to converse with
Rose, on a subject so interesting to themselves, that we do not think
it prudent to relate any more of the discourse, forgetting all about the
guns.

About four o'clock, of a fine summer's afternoon, the Swash went through
the Race, on the best of the ebb, and with a staggering south-west wind.
Her movement by the land, just at that point, could not have been
less than at the rate of fifteen miles in the hour. Spike was in high
spirits, for his brig had got on famously that day, and there was
nothing in sight to the eastward. He made no doubt, as he had told his
mate, that the steamer had gone into the Vineyard Sound, and that she
was bound over the shoals.

“They want to make political capital out of her,” he added, using one of
the slang phrases, that the “business habits” of the American people are
so rapidly incorporating with the common language of the country--“They
want to make political capital out of her, Harry, and must show her off
to the Boston folk, who are full of notions. Well, let them turn her
to as much account in that way as they please, so long as they keep her
clear of the Molly. Your sarvant, Madam Budd”--addressing the widow, who
just at that moment came on deck--“a fine a'ternoon, and likely to be a
clear night to run off the coast in.”

“Clear nights are desirable, and most of all at sea, Captain Spike,”
 returned the relict, in her best, complacent manner, “whether it be to
run off a coast, or to run on a coast. In either case, a clear night, or
a bright moon must be useful.”

Captain Spike rolled his tobacco over in his mouth, and cast a furtive
glance at the mate, but he did not presume to hazard any further
manifestations of his disposition to laugh.

“Yes, Madam Budd,” he answered, “it is quite as you say, and I am
only surprised where you have picked up so much of what I call useful
nautical knowledge.”

“We live and learn, sir. You will recollect that this is not my first
voyage, having made one before, and that I passed a happy, happy, thirty
years, in the society of my poor, dear husband, Rose's uncle. One must
have been dull, indeed, not to have picked up, from such a companion,
much of a calling that was so dear to him, and the particulars of
which were so very dear to him. He actually gave me lessons in the 'sea
dialect,' as he called it, which probably is the true reason I am so
accurate and general in my acquisitions.”

“Yes, Madam Budd--yes--hem--you are--yes, you are wonderful in that way.
We shall soon get an offing, now, Madam Budd--yes, soon get an offing,
now.”

“And take in our departure, Captain Spike--” added the widow, with a
very intelligent smile.

“Yes, take our departure. Montauk is yonder, just coming in sight; only
some three hours' run from this spot. When we get there, the open ocean
will lie before us; and give me the open sea, and I'll not call the king
my uncle.”

“Was he your uncle, Captain Spike?”

“Only in a philanthropic way, Madam Budd. Yes, let us get a good offing,
and a rapping to'gallant breeze, and I do not think I should care much
for two of Uncle Sam's new-fashioned revenue craft, one on each side of
me.”

“How delightful do I find such conversation, Rose! It's as much like
your poor, dear uncle's, as one pea is like another. 'Yes,' he used to
say, too, 'let me only have one on each side of me, and a wrapper round
the topgallant sail to hold the breeze, and I'd not call the king my
uncle.' Now I think of it, he used to talk about the king as his uncle,
too.”

“It was all talk, aunty. He had no uncle, and, what is more, he had no
king.”

“That's quite true, Miss Rose,” rejoined Spike, attempting a bow, which
ended in a sort of jerk. “It is not very becoming in us republicans to
be talking of kings, but a habit is a habit. Our forefathers had kings,
and we drop into their ways without thinking of what we are doing.
Fore-topgallant yard, there?”

“Sir.”

“Keep a bright look-out, ahead. Let me know the instant you make
anything in the neighbourhood of Montauk.”

“Ay, ay, sir.”

“As I was saying, Madam Budd, we seamen drop into our forefathers' ways.
Now, when I was a youngster, I remember, one day, that we fell in with a
ketch--you know, Miss Rose, what a ketch is, I suppose?”

“I have not the least notion of it, sir.”

“Rosy, you amaze me!” exclaimed the aunt--“and you a ship-master's
niece, and a ship-master's daughter! A catch is a trick that sailors
have, when they quiz landsmen.”

“Yes, Madam Budd, yes; we have them sort of catches, too; but I now mean
the vessel with a peculiar rig, which we call a ketch, you know.”

“Is it the full-jigger, or the half-jigger sort, that you mean?”

Spike could hardly stand this, and he had to hail the topgallant-yard
again, in order to keep the command of his muscles, for he saw by
the pretty frown that was gathering on the brow of Rose, that she was
regarding the matter a little seriously. Luckily, the answer of the
man on the yard diverted the mind of the widow from the subject, and
prevented the necessity of any reply.

“There's a light, of course, sir, on Montauk, is there not, Captain
Spike?” demanded the seaman who was aloft.

“To be sure there is--every head-land, hereabouts, has its light; and
some have two.”

“Ay, ay, sir--it's that which puzzles me; I think I see one light-house,
and I'm not certain but I see two.”

“If there is anything like a second, it must be a sail. Montauk has but
one light.”

Mulford sprang into the fore-rigging, and in a minute was on the yard.
He soon came down, and reported the lighthouse in sight, with the
afternoon's sun shining on it, but no sail near.

“My poor, dear Mr. Budd used to tell a story of his being cast away on a
light-house, in the East Indies,” put in the relict, as soon as the mate
had ended his report, “which always affected me. It seems there were
three ships of them together, in an awful tempest directly off the
land--”

“That was comfortable, any how,” cried Spike;--“if it must blow hard,
let it come off the land, say I.”

“Yes, sir, it was directly off the land, as my poor husband always said,
which made it so much the worse you must know, Rosy; though Captain
Spike's gallant spirit would rather encounter danger than not. It blew
what they call a Hyson, in the Chinese seas--”

“A what, aunty?--Hyson is the name of a tea, you know.”

“A Hyson, I'm pretty sure it was; and I suppose the wind is named after
the tea, or the tea after the wind.”

“The ladies do get in a gale, sometimes, over their tea,” said Spike
gallantly. “But I rather think Madam Budd must mean a Typhoon.”

“That's it--a Typhoon, or a Hyson--there is not much difference between
them, you see. Well, it blew a Typhoon, and they are always mortal
to somebody. This my poor Mr. Budd well knew, and he had set his
chronometer for that Typhoon--”

“Excuse me, aunty, it was the barometer that he was watching--the
chronometer was his watch.”

“So it was--his watch on deck was his chronometer, I declare. I am
forgetting a part of my education. Do you know the use of a chronometer,
now, Rose? You have seen your uncle's often, but do you know how he used
it?”

“Not in the least, aunty. My uncle often tried to explain it, but I
never could understand him.”

“It must have been, then, because Captain Budd did not try to make
himself comprehended,” said Mulford, “for I feel certain nothing would
be easier than to make you understand the uses of the chronometer.”

“I should like to learn it from you, Mr. Mulford,” answered the charming
girl, with an emphasis so slight on the 'you,' that no one observed it
but the mate, but which was clear enough to him, and caused every nerve
to thrill.

“I can attempt it,” answered the young man, “if it be agreeable to Mrs.
Budd, who would probably like to hear it herself.”

“Certainly, Mr. Mulford; though I fancy you can say little on such a
subject that I have not often heard already, from my poor, dear Mr.
Budd.”

“This was not very encouraging, truly; but Rose continuing to look
interested, the mate proceeded.

“The use of the chronometer is to ascertain the longitude,” said Harry,
“and the manner of doing it is, simply this: A chronometer is nothing
more nor less than a watch, made with more care than usual, so as to
keep the most accurate time. They are of all sizes, from that of a
clock, down to this which I wear in my fob, and which is a watch in size
and appearance. Now, the nautical almanacs are all calculated to some
particular meridian--”

“Yes,” interrupted the relict, “Mr. Budd had a great deal to say about
meridians.”

“That of London, or Greenwich, being the meridian used by those who
use the English Almanacs, and those of Paris or St. Petersburg, by
the French and Russians. Each of these places has an observatory, and
chronometers that are kept carefully regulated, the year round. Every
chronometer is set by the regulator of the particular observatory or
place to which the almanac used is calculated.”

“How wonderfully like my poor, dear Mr. Budd, all this is, Rosy!
Meridians, and calculated, and almanacs! I could almost think I heard
your uncle entertaining me with one of his nautical discussions, I
declare!”

“Now the sun rises earlier in places east, than in places west of us.”

“It rises earlier in the summer, but later in the winter, everywhere,
Mr. Mulford.”

“Yes, my dear Madam; but the sun rises earlier every day, in London,
than it does in New York.”

“That is impossible,” said the widow, dogmatically--“Why should not the
sun rise at the same time in England and America?”

“Because England is east of America, aunty. The sun does not move, you
know, but only appears to us to move, because the earth turns round from
west to east, which causes those who are farthest east to see it first.
That is what Mr. Mulford means.”

“Rose has explained it perfectly well,” continued the mate. “Now the
earth is divided into 360 degrees, and the day is divided into 24 hours.
If 360 be divided by 24, the quotient will be 15. If follows that, for
each fifteen degrees of longitude, there is a difference of just one
hour in the rising of the sun, all over the earth, where it rises at
all. New York is near five times 15 degrees west of Greenwich, and the
sun consequently rises five hours later at New York than at London.”

“There must be a mistake in this, Rosy,” said the relict, in a tone of
desperate resignation, in which the desire to break out in dissent, was
struggling oddly enough with an assumed dignity of deportment. “I've
always heard that the people of London are some of the latest in the
world. Then, I've been in London, and know that the sun rises in New
York, in December, a good deal earlier than it does in London, by the
clock--yes, by the clock.”

“True enough, by the clock, Mrs. Budd, for London is more than ten
degrees north of New York, and the farther north you go, the later the
sun rises in winter, and the earlier in summer.”

The relict merely shrugged her shoulders, as much as to say that she
knew no such thing; but Rose, who had been well taught, raised her
serene eyes to her aunt's face, and mildly said--“All true, aunty, and
that is owing to the fact that the earth is smaller at each end than in
the middle.”

“Fiddle faddle with your middles and ends, Rose--I've been in London,
dear, and know that the sun rises later there than in New York, in the
month of December, and that I know by the clock, I tell you.”

“The reason of which is,” resumed Mulford, “because the clocks of
each place keep the time of that place. Now, it is different with the
chronometers; they are set in the observatory of Greenwich, and keep the
time of Greenwich. This watch chronometer was set there, only six months
since; and this time, as you see, is near nine o'clock, when in truth it
is only about four o'clock here, where we are.”

“I wonder you keep such a watch, Mr. Mulford!”

“I keep it,” returned the mate, smiling, “because I know it to keep good
time. It has the Greenwich time; and, as your watch has the New York
time, by comparing them together, it is quite easy to find the longitude
of New York.”

“Do you, then, keep watches to compare with your chronometers?” asked
Rose, with interest.

“Certainly not; as that would require a watch for every separate part
of the ocean, and then we should only get known longitudes. It would be
impracticable, and load a ship with nothing but watches. What we do is
this: We set our chronometers at Greenwich, and thus keep the Greenwich
true time wherever we go. The greatest attention is paid to the
chronometers, to see that they receive no injuries; and usually there
are two, and often more of them, to compare one with another, in order
to see that they go well. When in the middle of the ocean, for instance,
we find the true time of the day at that spot, by ascertaining the
height of the sun. This we do by means of our quadrants, or sextants;
for, as the sun is always in the zenith at twelve o'clock, nothing is
easier than to do this, when the sun can be seen, and an arc of the
heavens measured. At the instant the height of the sun is ascertained
by one observer, he calls to another, who notes the time on the
chronometer. The difference in these two times, or that of the
chronometer and that of the sun, gives the distance in degrees and
minutes, between the longitude of Greenwich and that of the place on the
ocean where the observer is; and that gives him his longitude. If the
difference is three hours and twenty minutes, in time, the distance from
Greenwich is fifty degrees of longitude, because the sun rises three
hours and twenty minutes sooner in London, than in the fiftieth degree
of west longitude.”

“A watch is a watch, Rosy,” put in the aunt, doggedly--“and time is
time.--When it's four o'clock at our house, it's four o'clock at your
aunt Sprague's, and it's so all over the world. The world may turn
round--I'll not deny it, for your uncle often said as much as that, but
it cannot turn in the way Mr. Mulford says, or we should all fall off
it, at night, when it was bottom upwards. No, sir, no; you've started
wrong. My poor, dear, late Mr. Budd, always admitted that the world
turned round, as the books say; but when I suggested to him the
difficulty of keeping things in their places, with the earth upside
down, he acknowledged candidly--for he was all candour, I must say
that for him--and owned that he had made a discovery by means of his
barometer, which showed that the world did not turn round in the way you
describe, or by rolling over, but by whirling about, as one turns in a
dance. You must remember your uncle's telling me this, Rose?”

Rose did remember her uncle's telling her aunt this, as well as a great
many other similar prodigies. Captain Budd had married his silly wife
on account of her pretty face, and when the novelty of that was over,
he often amused himself by inventing all sorts of absurdities, to amuse
both her and himself. Among other things, Rose well remembered his
quieting her aunt's scruples about falling off the earth, by laying down
the theory that the world did not “roll over,” but “whirl round.” But
Rose did not answer the question.

“Objects are kept in their places on the earth by means of attraction,”
 Mulford ventured to say, with a great deal of humility of manner. “I
believe it is thought there is no up or down, except as we go from or
towards the earth; and that would make the position of the last a matter
of indifference, as respects objects keeping on it.”

“Attractions are great advantages, I will own, sir, especially to our
sex. I think it will be acknowledged there has been no want of them in
our family, any more than there has been of sense and information. Sense
and information we pride ourselves on; attractions being gifts from God,
we try to think less of them. But all the attractions in the world could
not keep Rosy, here, from falling off the earth, did it ever come bottom
upwards. And, mercy on me, where would she fall to!”

Mulford saw that argument was useless, and he confined his remarks,
during the rest of the conversation, to showing Rose the manner in
which the longitude of a place might be ascertained, with the aid of the
chronometer, and by means of observations to get the true time of day,
at the particular place itself. Rose was so quick-witted, and already
so well instructed, as easily to comprehend the principles; the details
being matters of no great moment to one of her sex and habits. But Mrs.
Budd remained antagonist to the last. She obstinately maintained that
twelve o'clock was twelve o'clock; or, if there was any difference,
“London hours were notoriously later than those of New York.”

Against such assertions arguments were obviously useless, and Mulford,
perceiving that Rose began to fidget, had sufficient tact to change the
conversation altogether.

And still the Molly Swash kept in swift motion. Montauk was by this time
abeam, and the little brigantine began to rise and fall, on the long
swells of the Atlantic, which now opened before her, in one vast sheet
of green and rolling waters. On her right lay the termination of Long
Island; a low, rocky cape, with its light, and a few fields in tillage,
for the uses of those who tended it. It was the “land's end” of New
York, while the island that was heaving up out of the sea, at a distance
of about twenty miles to the eastward, was the property of Rhode Island,
being called Blok Island. Between the two, the Swash shaped her course
for the ocean.

Spike had betrayed uneasiness, as his brig came up with Montauk; but the
coast seemed clear, with not even a distant sail in sight, and he came
aft, rubbing his hands with delight, speaking cheerfully.

“All right, Mr. Mulford,” he cried--“everything ship-shape and
brister-fashion--not even a smack fishing here-away, which is a little
remarkable. Ha!--what are you staring at, over the quarter, there?”

“Look here, sir, directly in the wake of the setting sun, which we are
now opening from the land--is not that a sail?”

“Sail! Impossible, sir. What should a sail be doing in there, so near
Montauk--no man ever saw a sail there in his life. It's a spot in the
sun, Madam Budd, that my mate has got a glimpse at, and, sailor-like, he
mistakes it for a sail! Ha--ha--ha--yes, Harry, it's a spot in the sun.”

“It is a spot on the sun, as you say, but it's a spot made by a
vessel--and here is a boat pulling towards her, might and main; going
from the light, as if carrying news.”

It was no longer possible for Spike's hopes to deceive him. There was
a vessel, sure enough; though, when first seen, it was so directly in
a line with the fiery orb of the setting sun, as to escape common
observation. As the brig went foaming on towards the ocean, however,
the black speck was soon brought out of the range of the orb of day, and
Spike's glass was instantly levelled at it.

“Just as one might expect, Mr. Mulford,” cried the captain, lowering
his glass, and looking aloft to see what could be done to help his craft
along; “a bloody revenue cutter, as I'm a wicked sinner! There she lies,
sir, within musket shot of the shore, hid behind the point, as it might
be in waiting for us, with her head to the southward, her helm hard
down, topsail aback, and foresail brailed; as wicked looking a thing as
Free Trade and Sailor's Rights ever ran from. My life on it, sir, she's
been put in that precise spot, in waiting for the Molly to arrive. You
see, as we stand on, it places her as handsomely to windward of us, as
the heart of man could desire.”

“It is a revenue cutter, sir; now she's out of the sun's wake, that is
plain enough. And that is her boat, which has been sent to the light
to keep a look-out for us. Well, sir, she's to windward; but we have
everything set for our course, and as we are fairly abeam, she must be a
great traveller to overhaul us.”

“I thought these bloody cutters were all down in the Gulf,” growled the
captain, casting his eyes aloft again, to see that everything drew.
“I'm sure the newspapers have mentioned as many as twenty that are
down there, and here is one, lying behind Montauk, like a snake in the
grass!”

“At any rate, by the time he gets his boat up we shall get the start of
him--ay, there he fills and falls off, to go and meet her. He'll soon be
after us, Captain Spike, at racing speed.”

Everything occurred as those two mariners had foreseen. The revenue
cutter, one of the usual fore-top-sail schooners that are employed in
that service, up and down the coast, had no sooner hoisted up her boat,
than she made sail, a little off the wind, on a line to close with the
Swash. As for the brig, she had hauled up to an easy bowline, as she
came round Montauk, and was now standing off south southeast, still
having the wind at south-west. The weatherly position of the cutter
enabled her to steer rather more than one point freer. At the
commencement of this chase, the vessels were about a mile and a half
apart, a distance too great to enable the cutter to render the light
guns she carried available, and it was obvious from the first, that
everything depended on speed. And speed it was, truly; both vessels
fairly flying; the Molly Swash having at last met with something very
like her match. Half an hour satisfied both Spike and Mulford that, by
giving the cutter the advantage of one point in a freer wind, she would
certainly get alongside of them, and the alternative was therefore to
keep off.

“A starn chase is a long chase, all the world over,” cried Spike--“edge
away, sir; edge away, sir, and bring the cutter well on our quarter.”

This order was obeyed; but to the surprise of those in the Swash, the
cutter did not exactly follow, though she kept off a little more. Her
object seemed to be to maintain her weatherly position, and in this
manner the two vessels ran on for an hour longer, until the Swash had
made most of the distance between Montauk and Blok Island. Objects were
even becoming dimly visible on the last, and the light on the point
was just becoming visible, a lone star above a waste of desert, the sun
having been down now fully a quarter of an hour, and twilight beginning
to draw the curtain of night over the waters.

“A craft under Blok,” shouted the look-out, that was still kept aloft as
a necessary precaution.

“What sort of a craft?” demanded Spike, fiercely; for the very mention
of a sail, at that moment, aroused all his ire. “Arn't you making a
frigate out of an apple-orchard?”

“It's the steamer, sir. I can now see her smoke. She's just clearing the
land, on the south side of the island, and seems to be coming round to
meet us.”

A long, low, eloquent whistle from the captain, succeeded this
announcement. The man aloft was right. It was the steamer, sure enough;
and she had been lying hid behind Blok Island, exactly as her consort
had been placed behind Montauk, in waiting for their chase to arrive.
The result was, to put the Molly Swash in exceeding jeopardy, and the
reason why the cutter kept so well to windward was fully explained. To
pass out to sea between these two craft was hopeless. There remained
but a single alternative from capture by one or by the other,--and
that Spike adopted instantly. He kept his brig dead away, setting
studding-sails on both sides. This change of course brought the cutter
nearly aft, or somewhat on the other quarter, and laid the brig's head
in a direction to carry her close to the northern coast of the island.
But the principal advantage was gained over the steamer, which could
not keep off, without first standing a mile or two, or even more, to the
westward, in order to clear the land. This was so much clear gain to the
Swash, which was running off at racing speed, on a north-east course,
while her most dangerous enemy was still heading to the westward. As for
the cutter, she kept away; but it was soon apparent that the brig had
the heels of her, dead before the wind.

Darkness now began to close around the three vessels; the brig and the
schooner soon becoming visible to each other principally by means of
their night-glasses; though the steamer's position could be easily
distinguished by means of her flaming chimney. This latter vessel stood
to the westward for a quarter of an hour, when her commander appeared to
become suddenly conscious of the ground he was losing, and he wore short
round, and went off before the wind, under steam and canvas; intending
to meet the chase off the northern side of the island. The very person
who had hailed the Swash, as she was leaving the wharf, who had passed
her in Hell-Gate, with Jack Tier in his boat, and who had joined her
off Throgmorton's, was now on her deck, urging her commander by every
consideration not to let the brig escape. It was at his suggestion
that the course was changed. Nervous, and eager to seize the brig, he
prevailed on the commander of the steamer to alter his course. Had he
done no more than this, all might have been well; but so exaggerated
were his notions of the Swash's sailing, that, instead of suffering the
steamer to keep close along the eastern side of the island, he persuaded
her commander of the necessity of standing off a long distance to the
northward and eastward, with a view to get ahead of the chase. This was
not bad advice, were there any certainly that Spike would stand on, of
which, however, he had no intention.

The night set in dark and cloudy; and, the instant that Spike saw, by
means of the flaming chimney, that the steamer had wore, and was going
to the eastward of Blok, his plan was laid. Calling to Mulford, he
communicated it to him, and was glad to find that his intelligent
mate was of his own way of thinking. The necessary orders were given,
accordingly, and everything was got ready for its execution.

In the meantime, the two revenue craft were much in earnest. The
schooner was one of the fastest in the service, and had been placed
under Montauk, as described, in the confident expectation of her being
able to compete with even the Molly Swash successfully, more especially
if brought upon a bowline. Her commander watched the receding form of
the brig with the closest attention, until it was entirely swallowed up
in the darkness, under the land, towards which he then sheered himself,
in order to prevent the Swash from hauling up, and turning to windward,
close in under the shadow of the island. Against this manoeuvre,
however, the cutter had now taken an effectual precaution, and her
people were satisfied that escape in that way was impossible.

On the other hand, the steamer was doing very well. Driven by the
breeze, and propelled by her wheels, away she went, edging further and
further from the island, as the person from the Custom-House succeeded,
as it might be, inch by inch, in persuading the captain of the necessity
of his so doing. At length a sail was dimly seen ahead, and then
no doubt was entertained that the brig had got to the northward and
eastward of them. Half an hour brought the steamer alongside of this
sail, which turned out to be a brig that had come over the shoals, and
was beating into the ocean, on her way to one of the southern ports. Her
captain said there had nothing passed to the eastward.

Round went the steamer, and in went all her canvas. Ten minutes later
the look-out saw a sail to the westward, standing before the wind. Odd
as it might seem, the steamer's people now fancied they were sure of the
Swash. There she was, coming directly for them, with squared yards! The
distance was short, or a vessel could not have been seen by that light,
and the two craft were soon near each other. A gun was actually cleared
on board the steamer, ere it was ascertained that the stranger was the
schooner! It was now midnight, and nothing was in sight but the coasting
brig. Reluctantly, the revenue people gave the matter up; the Molly
Swash having again eluded them, though by means unknown.



CHAPTER IV.

  “Leander dived for love, Leucadia's cliff
  The Lesbian Sappho leap'd from in a miff,
  To punish Phaon; Icarus went dead,
  Because the wax did not continue stiff;
  And, had he minded what his father said,
  He had not given a name unto his watery bed.”

  Sands.


We must now advance the time several days, and change the scene to a
distant part of the ocean; within the tropics indeed. The females had
suffered slight attacks of sea-sickness, and recovered from them, and
the brig was safe from all her pursuers. The manner of Spike's escape
was simple enough, and without any necromancy. While the steamer, on the
one hand, was standing away to the northward and eastward, in order to
head him off, and the schooner was edging in with the island, in order
to prevent his beating up to windward of it, within its shadows, the
brig had run close round the northern margin of the land, and hauled up
to leeward of the island, passing between it and the steamer. All this
time, her movements were concealed from the schooner by the island
itself, and from the steamer, by its shadow and dark back-ground,
aided by the distance. By making short tacks, this expedient answered
perfectly well; and, at the very moment when the two revenue vessels
met, at midnight, about three leagues to leeward of Blok Island, the
brigantine, Molly Swash, was just clearing its most weatherly point, on
the larboard tack, and coming out exactly at the spot where the steamer
was when first seen that afternoon. Spike stood to the westward, until
he was certain of having the island fairly between him and his pursuers,
when he went about, and filled away on his course, running out to sea
again on an easy bowline. At sunrise the next day he was fifty miles to
the southward and eastward of Montauk; the schooner was going into New
London, her officers and people quite chop-fallen; and the steamer
was paddling up the Sound, her captain being fully persuaded that the
runaways had returned in the direction from which they had come, and
might yet be picked up in that quarter.

The weather was light, just a week after the events related in the close
of the last chapter. By this time the brig had got within the influence
of the trades; and, it being the intention of Spike to pass to the
southward of Cuba, he had so far profited by the westerly winds, as to
get well to the eastward of the Mona Passage, the strait through which
he intended to shape his course on making the islands. Early on that
morning Mrs. Budd had taken her seat on the trunk of the cabin, with
a complacent air, and arranged her netting, some slight passages of
gallantry, on the part of the captain, having induced her to propose
netting him a purse. Biddy was going to and fro, in quest of silks and
needles, her mistress having become slightly capricious in her tastes of
late, and giving her, on all such occasions, at least a double allowance
of occupation. As for Rose, she sat reading beneath the shade of the
coach-house deck, while the handsome young mate was within three feet
of her, working up his logarithms, but within the sanctuary of his own
state-room; the open door and window of which, however, gave him every
facility he could desire to relieve his mathematics, by gazing at the
sweet countenance of his charming neighbor. Jack Tier and Josh were both
passing to and fro, as is the wont of stewards, between the camboose
and the cabin, the breakfast table being just then in the course of
preparation. In all other respects, always excepting the man at the
wheel, who stood within a fathom of Rose, Spike had the quarter-deck
to himself, and did not fail to pace its weather-side with an air that
denoted the master and owner. After exhibiting his sturdy, but short,
person in this manner, to the admiring eyes of all beholders, for some
time, the captain suddenly took a seat at the side of the relict, and
dropped into the following discourse.

“The weather is moderate, Madam Budd; quite moderate,” observed Spike,
a sentimental turn coming over him at the moment. “What I call moderate
and agreeable.”

“So much the better for us; the ladies are fond of moderation, sir.”

“Not in admiration, Madam Budd--ha! ha! ha! no, not in admiration.
Immoderation is what they like when it comes to that. I'm a single man,
but I know that the ladies like admiration--mind where you're sheering
to,” the captain said, interrupting himself a little fiercely,
considering the nature of the subject, in consequence of Jack Tier's
having trodden on his toe in passing--“or I'll teach you the navigation
of the quarter-deck, Mr. Burgoo!”

“Moderation--moderation, my good captain,” said the simpering relict.
“As to admiration, I confess that it is agreeable to us ladies; more
especially when it comes from gentlemen of sense, and intelligence, and
experience.”

Rose fidgeted, having heard every word that was said, and her face
flushed; for she doubted not that Harry's ears were as good as her own.
As for the man at the wheel, he turned the tobacco over in his mouth,
hitched up his trousers, and appeared interested, though somewhat
mystified--the conversation was what he would have termed “talking
dictionary,” and he had some curiosity to learn how the captain would
work his way out of it. It is probable that Spike himself had some
similar gleamings of the difficulties of his position, for he looked
a little troubled, though still resolute. It was the first time he
had ever lain yard-arm and yard-arm with a widow, and he had long
entertained a fancy that such a situation was trying to the best of men.

“Yes, Madam Budd, yes,” he said, “exper'ence and sense carry weight with
'em, wherever they go. I'm glad to find that you entertain these just
notions of us gentlemen, and make a difference between boys and them
that's seen and known exper'ence. For my part, I count youngsters under
forty as so much lumber about decks, as to any comfort and calculations
in keepin' a family, as a family ought to be kept.”

Mrs. Budd looked interested, but she remained silent on hearing this
remark, as became her sex.

“Every man ought to settle in life, some time or other, Madam Budd,
accordin' to my notion, though no man ought to be in a boyish haste
about it,” continued the captain. “Now, in my own case, I've been so
busy all my youth--not that I'm very old now, but I'm no boy--but all my
younger days have been passed in trying to make things meet, in a way to
put any lady who might take a fancy to me--”

“Oh! captain--that is too strong! The ladies do not take fancies for
gentlemen, but the gentlemen take fancies for ladies!”

“Well, well, you know what I mean, Madam Budd; and so long as the
parties understand each other, a word dropped, or a word put into a
charter-party, makes it neither stronger nor weaker. There's a time,
howsomever, in every man's life, when he begins to think of settling
down, and of considerin' himself as a sort of mooring-chain, for
children and the likes of them to make fast to. Such is my natur', I
will own; and ever since I've got to be intimate in your family, Madam
Budd, that sentiment has grown stronger and stronger in me, till it has
got to be uppermost in all my idees. Bone of my bone, and flesh of my
flesh, as a body might say.”

Mrs. Budd now looked more than interested, for she looked a little
confused, and Rose began to tremble for her aunt. It was evident that
the parties most conspicuous in this scene were not at all conscious
that they were overheard, the intensity of their attention being too
much concentrated on what was passing to allow of any observation
without their own narrow circle. What may be thought still more
extraordinary, but what in truth was the most natural of all, each of
the parties was so intently bent on his, or her, own train of thought,
that neither in the least suspected any mistake.

“Grown with your growth, and strengthened with your strength,” rejoined
the relict, smiling kindly enough on the captain to have encouraged a
much more modest man than he happened to be.

“Yes, Madam Budd--very just that remark; grown with my strength, and
strengthened with my growth, as one might say; though I've not done much
at growing for a good many years. Your late husband, Captain Budd,
often remarked how very early I got my growth; and rated me as an
'able-bodied' hand, when most lads think it an honour to be placed among
the 'or'naries.'”

The relict looked grave; and she wondered at any man's being so singular
as to allude to a first husband, at the very moment he was thinking of
offering himself for a second. As for herself, she had not uttered
as many words in the last four years, as she had uttered in that very
conversation, without making some allusion to her “poor dear Mr. Budd.”
 The reader is not to do injustice to the captain's widow, however, by
supposing for a moment that she was actually so weak as to feel any
tenderness for a man like Spike, which would be doing a great wrong
to both her taste and her judgment, as Rose well knew, even while
most annoyed by the conversation she could not but overhear. All that
influenced the good relict was that besetting weakness of her sex, which
renders admiration so universally acceptable; and predisposes a female,
as it might be, to listen to a suitor with indulgence, and some little
show of kindness, even when resolute to reject him. As for Rose, to own
the truth, her aunt did not give her a thought, as yet, notwithstanding
Spike was getting to be so sentimental.

“Yes, your late excellent and honourable consort always said that I got
my growth sooner than any youngster he ever fell in with,” resumed

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