Читать книгу Tom Cringle's Log - Michael Scott - Страница 7

This was by no means an easy job. “Ease her a bit,” said the first lieutenant, “there—shake the wind out of her sails for a moment, until the men get the canvass”—whirl, a poor fellow pitched off the lee fore yardarm into the sea. “Up with the helm—heave him the bight of a rope.” We kept away, but all was confusion, until an American midshipman, one of the prisoners on board, hove the bight of a rope at him. The man got it under his arms, and after hauling him along for a hundred yards at the least—and one may judge of the velocity with which he was dragged through the water, by the fact that it took the united strain of ten powerful men to get him in—he was brought safely on board, pale and blue, when we found that the running of the rope had crushed in his broad chest below his arms, as if it had been a girl’s waist, cutting into the very muscles of it and of his back half an inch deep. He had to be bled before he could breathe, and it was an hour before the circulation could be restored, by the joint exertions of the surgeon and gunroom steward, chafing him with spirits and camphor, after he had been stripped and stowed away between the blankets in his hammock.

The same afternoon we fell in with a small prize to the squadron in the Chesapeake, a dismasted schooner, manned by a prize crew of a midshipman and six men. She had a signal of distress, an American ensign, with the union down, hoisted on the jury-mast, across which there was rigged a solitary lug-sail. It was blowing so hard that we had some difficulty in boarding her, when we found she was a Baltimore pilot-boat—built schooner, of about 70 tons burden, laden with flour, and bound for Bermuda. But three days before, in a sudden squall, they had carried away both masts short by the board, and the only spar which they had been able to rig, was a spare topmast which they had jammed into one of the pumps fortunately she was as tight as a bottle—and stayed it the best way they could. The captain offered to take the little fellow who had charge of her, and his crew and cargo, on board, and then scuttle her; but no—all he wanted was a cask of water and some biscuit; and having had a glass of grog, he trundled over the side again, and returned to his desolate command. However, he afterwards brought his prize safe into Bermuda.

The weather still continued very rough, but we saw nothing until the second evening after this. The forenoon had been even more boisterous than any of the preceding, and we were all fagged enough with “make sail,” and “shorten sail,” and “all hands,” the whole day through; and as the night fell, I found myself, for the fourth time, in the maintop. The men had just lain in from the main topsail yard, when we heard the watch called on deck, “Starboard watch, ahoy,”—which was a cheery sound to us of the larboard, who were thus released from duty on deck and allowed to go below.

The men were scrambling down the weather shrouds, and I was preparing to follow them, when I jammed my left foot in the grating of the top, and capsized on my nose. I had been up nearly the whole of the previous night, and on deck the whole of the day, and actively employed too, as during the greatest part of it it blew a gale. I stooped down in some pain, to see what had bolted me to the grating, but I had no sooner extricated my foot, than, over-worked and over fatigued as I was, I fell over in the soundest sleep that ever I have enjoyed before or since, the back of my neck resting on a coil of rope, so that my head hung down within it.

The rain all this time was beating on me, and I was drenched to the skin. I must have slept for four hours or so, when I was awakened by a rough thump on the side from the stumbling foot of the captain of the top, the word having been passed to shake a reef out of the topsails, the wind having rather suddenly gone down. It was done; and now broad awake, I determined not to be caught napping again, so I descended, and swung myself in on deck out of the main rigging, just as Mr Treenail was mustering the crew at eight bells. When I landed on the quarterdeck, there he stood abaft the binnacle, with the light shining on his face, his glazed hat glancing, and the rain-drop sparkling at the brim of it. He had noticed me the moment I descended.

“Heyday, Master Cringle, you are surely out of your watch. Why, what are you doing here, eh?”

I stepped up to him, and told him the truth, that, being over fatigued, I had fallen asleep in the top.

“Well, well, boy,” said he, “never mind, go below, and turn in; if you don’t take your rest, you never will be a sailor.”

“But what do you see aloft?” glancing his eye upwards, and all the crew on deck as I passed them looked anxiously up also amongst the rigging, as if wondering what I saw there, for I had been so chilled in my noose, that my neck, from resting in the cold on the coil of rope, had become stiffened and rigid to an intolerable degree; and although, when I first came on deck, I had by a strong exertion brought my caput to its proper bearings, yet the moment I was dismissed by my superior officer, I for my own comfort was glad to conform to the contraction of the muscle, whereby I once more staved along the deck, glowering up into the heavens, as if I had seen some wonderful sight there.

“What do you see aloft?” repeated Mr Treenail, while the crew, greatly puzzled, continued to follow my eye, as they thought, and to stare up into the rigging.

“Why, sir, I have thereby got a stiff neck—that’s all, sir.”

“Go and turn in at once, my good boy—make haste, now—tell our steward to give you a glass of hot grog, and mind your hand that you don’t get sick.”

I did as I was desired, swallowed the grog, and turned in; but I could not have been in bed above an hour, when the drum beat to quarters, and I had once more to bundle out on the cold wet deck, where I found all excitement. At the time I speak of, we had been beaten by the Americans in several actions of single ships, and our discipline had improved in proportion as we came to learn by sad experience that the enemy was not to be undervalued. I found that there was a ship in sight, right a-head of us apparently carrying all sail. A group of officers were on the forecastle with night-glasses, the whole crew being stationed in dark clusters round the guns at quarters. Several of the American skippers were forward amongst us, and they were of opinion that the chase was a man-of-war, although our own people seemed to doubt this. One of the skippers insisted that she was the Hornet, from the unusual shortness of her lower masts, and the immense squareness of her yards. But the puzzle was, if it were the Hornet, why she did not shorten sail. Still this might be accounted for, by her either wishing to make out what we were before she engaged us, or she might be clearing for action. At this moment a whole cloud of studdingsails were blown from the yards as if the booms had been carrots; and to prove that the chase was keeping a bright look-out, she immediately kept away, and finally bore up dead before the wind, under the impression, no doubt, that she would draw a-head of us, from her gear being entire, before we could rig out our light sails again.

And so she did for a time, but at length we got within gun-shot. The American masters were now ordered below, the hatches were clapped on, and the word passed to see all clear. Our shot was by this time flying over and over her, and it was evident she was not a man-of-war. We peppered away—she could not even be a privateer; we were close under her lee-quarter, and yet she had never fired a shot; and her large swaggering Yankee ensign was now run up to the peak, only to be hauled down the next moment. Hurrah! a large cotton ship, from Charlestown to Bourdeaux, prize to H.M.S. Torch.

She was taken possession of, and proved to be the Natches, of four hundred tons burden, fully loaded with cotton.

By the time we got the crew on board, and the second lieutenant, with a prize crew of fifteen men, had taken charge, the weather began to lour again, nevertheless we took the prize in tow, and continued on our voyage for the next three days, without any thing particular happening. It was the middle watch, and I was sound asleep, when I was startled by a violent jerking of my hammock, and a cry “that the brig was amongst the breakers.” I ran on deck in my shirt, where I found all hands, and a scene of confusion such as I never had witnessed before. The gale had increased, yet the prize had not been cast off, and the consequence was, that by some mismanagement or carelessness, the swag of the large ship had suddenly hove the brig in the wind, and taken the sails a-back. We accordingly fetched stern way, and ran foul of the prize, and there we were, in a heavy sea, with our stern grinding against the cotton ship’s high quarter.

The main boom, by the first rasp that took place after I came on deck, was broken short off, and nearly twelve feet of it hove right in over the taffril; the vessels then closed, and the next rub ground off the ship’s mizzen channel as clean as if it had been sawed away. Officers shouting, men swearing, rigging cracking, the vessels crashing and thumping together, I thought we were gone, when the first lieutenant seized his trumpet “Silence, men,—hold your tongues, you cowards, and mind the word of command!”

The effect was magical.—“Brace round the foreyard; round with it—set the jib—that’s it—fore-topmast stay-sail—haul—never mind if the gale takes it out of the bolt rope”—a thundering flap, and away it flew in truth down to leeward, like a puff of white smoke.—“Never mind, men, the jib stands. Belay all that—down with the helm, now don’t you see she has sternway yet? Zounds! we shall be smashed to atoms if you don’t mind your hands, you lubbers—main-topsail sheets let fly—there she pays off, and has headway once more, that’s it—right your helm now—never mind his spanker-boom, the forestay will stand it—there—up with the helm, sir we have cleared him hurrah!”—And a near thing it was too but we soon had every thing snug; and although the gale continued without any intermission for ten days, at length we ran in and anchored with our prize in Five Fathom Hole, off the entrance to St George’s Harbour.

It was lucky for us that we got to anchor at the time we did, for that same afternoon, one of the most tremendous gales of wind from the westward came on that I ever saw. Fortunately it was steady and did not veer about, and having good ground-tackle down, we rode it out well enough. The effect was very uncommon; the wind was howling over our mast-heads, and amongst the cedar bushes on the cliffs above, while on deck it was nearly calm, and there was very little swell, being a weather shore; but half a mile out at sea all was white foam, and the tumbling waves seemed to meet from north and south, leaving a space of smooth water under the lee of the island, shaped like the tail of a comet, tapering away, and gradually roughening and becoming more stormy, until the roaring billows once more owed allegiance to the genius of the storm.

There we rode, with three anchors a-head, in safety through the night; and next day, availing of a temporary lull, we ran up, and anchored off the Tanks. Three days after this, the American frigate President was brought in by the Endymion, and the rest of the squadron.

I went on board, in common with every officer in the fleet, and certainly I never saw a more superb vessel; her scantling was that of a seventy-four, and she appeared to have been fitted with great cares. I got a week’s leave at this time, and, as I had letters to several families, I contrived to spend my time pleasantly enough.

Bermuda, as all the world knows, is a cluster of islands in the middle of the Atlantic. There are Lord knows how many of them, but the beauty of the little straits and creeks which divide them, no man can describe who has not seen them. The town of Saint George’s, for instance, looks as if the houses were cut out of chalk; and one evening the family where I was on a visit proceeded to the main island, Hamilton, to attend a ball there. We had to cross three ferries, although the distance was not above nine miles, if so far. The Mudian women are unquestionably beautiful—so thought Thomas Moore, a tolerable judge, before me. By the by, touching this Mudian ball, it was a very gay affair—the women pleasant and beautiful; but all the men, when they speak, or are spoken to, shut one eye and spit;—a lucid and succinct description of a community.

The second day of my sojourn was fine—the first fine day since our arrival and with several young ladies of the family, I was prowling through the cedar wood above St George’s, when a dark good-looking man passed us; he was dressed in tight worsted net pantaloons and Hessian boots, and wore a blue frock-coat and two large epaulets, with rich French bullion, and a round hat. On passing he touched his hat with much grace, and in the evening I met him in society. It was Commodore Decatur. He was very much a Frenchman in manner, or, I should rather say, in look, for although very well bred, he, for one ingredient, by no means possessed a Frenchman’s volubility; still, he was an exceedingly agreeable and very handsome man.

The following day we spent in a pleasure cruise amongst the three hundred and sixty-five islands, many of them not above an acre in extent—fancy an island of an acre in extent!—with a solitary house, a small garden, a red-skinned family, a piggery, and all around clear deep pellucid water. None of the islands, or islets, rise to any great height, but they all shoot precipitously out of the water, as if the whole group, had originally been one huge platform of rock, with numberless grooves subsequently chiselled out in it by art.

We had to wind our way amongst these manifold small channels for two hours before we reached the gentleman’s house where we had been invited to dine; at length, on turning a corner, with both latteen sails drawing beautifully, we ran bump on a shoal; there was no danger, and knowing that the Mudians were capital sailors, I sat still. Not so Captain K——, a round plump little homo,—“Shove her off, my boys, shove her off.” She would not move, and thereupon he in a fever of gallantry jumped overboard up to the waist in full fig; and one of the men following his example, we were soon afloat. The ladies applauded, and the Captain sat in his wet breaks for the rest of the voyage, in all the consciousness of being considered a hero. Ducks and onions are the grand staple of Bermuda, but there was a fearful dearth of both at the time I speak of; a knot of young West India merchants, who, with heavy purses and large credits on England, had at this time domiciled themselves in St George’s, to batten on the spoils of poor Jonathan, having monopolized all the good things of the place. I happened to be acquainted with one of them, and thereby had less reason to complain, but many a poor fellow, sent ashore on duty, had to put up with but Lenten fair at the taverns. At length, having refitted, we sailed, in company with the Rayo frigate, with a convoy of three transports, freighted with a regiment for New Orleans, and several merchantmen, bound for the West Indies.

“The still vexed Bermoothes”—I arrived at them in a gale of wind, and I sailed from them in a gale of wind. What the climate may be in the summer I don’t know; but during the time I was there, it was one storm after another.

We sailed in the evening with the moon at full, and the wind at west-north-west. So soon as we got from under the lee of the land, the breeze struck us, and it came on to blow like thunder, so that we were all soon reduced to our storm staysails; and there we were, transports, merchantmen, and men-of-war, rising on the mountainous billows one moment, and the next losing sight of every thing but the water and sky in the deep trough of the sea, while the seething foam was blown over us in showers from the curling manes of the roaring waves. But overhead, all this while, it was as clear as a lovely winter moon could make it, and the stars shone brightly in the deep blue sky; there was not even a thin fleecy shred of cloud racking across the moon’s disk. Oh, the glories of a northwester!

But the devil seize such glory! Glory, indeed! with a fleet of transports, and a regiment of soldiers on board! Glory! why, I daresay five hundred rank and file, at the fewest, were all cascading at one and the same moment, a thousand poor fellows turned outside in, like so many pairs of old stockings. Any glory in that? But to proceed.

Next morning the gale still continued, and when the day broke, there was the frigate standing across our bows, rolling and pitching, as she tore her way through the boiling sea, under a close-reefed main-topsail and reefed foresail, with topgallant-yards and royal masts, and every thing that could be struck with safety in war time, down on deck. There she lay with her clear black bends, and bright white streaks and long tier of cannon on the maindeck, and the carronades on the quarterdeck and forecastle grinning through the ports in the black bulwarks, while the white hammocks, carefully covered by the hammock-cloths, crowned the defences of the gallant frigate fore and aft, as she delved through the green surge,—one minute rolling and rising on the curling white crest of a mountainous sea, amidst a hissing snowstorm of spray, with her bright copper glancing from stem to stem, and her scanty white canvass swelling aloft, and twenty feet of her keel forward occasionally hove into the air clean out of the water, as if she had been a sea-bird rushing to take wing,—and the next, sinking entirely out of sight, hull, masts, and rigging, behind an intervening sea, that rose in hoarse thunder between us, threatening to overwhelm both us and her. As for the transports, the largest of the three had lost her fore topmast, and had bore up under her foresail; another was also scudding under a close reefed fore-topsail; but the third or head-quarter ship was still lying to windward, under her storm stay-sails. None of the merchant vessels were to be seen, having been compelled to bear up in the night, and to run before it under bare poles.

At length, as the sun rose, we got before the wind, and it soon moderated so far, that we could carry reefed topsails and foresail; and away we all bowled, with a clear, deep, cold, blue sky, and a bright sun overhead, and a stormy leaden-coloured ocean, with whitish green-crested billows, below. The sea continued to go down, and the wind to slacken, until the afternoon, when the Commodore made the signal for Torch to send, a boat’s crew, the instant it could be done with safety, on board the dismasted ship, to assist in repairing damages, and in getting up a jury-fore-topmast.

The damaged ship was at this time on our weather-quarter; we accordingly handed the fore-topsail, and presently she was alongside. We hailed her, that we intended to send a boat on board, and desired her to heave-to, as we did, and presently she rounded to under our lee. One of the quarter-boats was manned, with three of the carpenter’s crew, and six good men over and above her complement; but it was no easy matter to get on board of her, let me tell you, after she had been lowered, carefully watching the rolls, with four hands in. The moment she touched the water, the tackles were cleverly unhooked, and the rest of us tumbled on board, shin leather growing scarce, when we shoved off. With great difficulty, and not without wet jackets, we, the supernumeraries, got on board, and the boat returned to the Torch. The evening when we landed in the lobsterbox, as Jack loves to designate a transport, was too far advanced for us to do anything towards refitting that night; and the confusion, and uproar, and numberless abominations of the crowded craft, were irksome to a greater degree than I expected even, after having been accustomed to the strict and orderly discipline of a man-of-war. The following forenoon the Torch was ordered by signal to chase in the south-east quarter, and hauling out from the fleet, she was soon out of sight.

“There goes my house and home,” said I, and a feeling of desolateness came over me, that I would have been ashamed at the time to have acknowledged. We stood on, and worked hard all day in repairing the damage sustained during the gale.

At length dinner was announced, and I was invited, as the officer in charge of the seamen, to go down. The party in the cabin consisted of an old gizzened Major with a brown wig, and a voice melodious as the sharpening of a saw—I fancied sometimes that the vibration created by it set the very glasses in the steward’s pantry a-ringing three captains and six subalterns, every man of whom, as the devil would have it, played on the flute, and drew bad sketches, and kept journals. Most of them were very white and blue in the gills when we sat down, and others of a dingy sort of whitey-brown, while they ogled the viands in a most suspicious manner. Evidently most of them had but small confidence in their moniplies; and one or two, as the ship gave a heavier roll than usual, looked wistfully towards the door, and half rose from their chairs, as if in act to bolt. However, hot brandy grog being the order of the day, we all, landsmen and sailors, got on astonishingly, and numberless long yarns were spun of what “what’s-his-name of this, and so-and-so of t’other, did or did not do.”

About half-past five in the evening, the captain of the transport, or rather the agent, an old lieutenant in the navy, and our host, rang his bell for the steward.

“Whereabouts are we in the fleet, steward?” said the ancient.

“The stern most ship of all, sir,” said the man.

“Where is the Commodore?” “About three miles a-head, sir.”

“And the Torch, has she rejoined us?”

“No, sir; she has been out of sight these two hours; when last seen she was in chase of something in the south-east quarter, and carrying all the sail she could stagger under.”

“Very well, very well.”

A song from Master Waistbelt, one of the young officers. Before he had concluded, the mate came down. By this time it was near sun-down.

“Shall we shake a reef out of the main and mizzen-topsails, sir, and set the mainsail and spanker? The wind has lulled, sir, and there is a strange sail in the northwest that seems to be dodging us—but she may be one of the merchantmen after all, sir.”

“Never mind, Mr Leechline,” said our gallant captain. “Mr Bandalier—a song if you please.”

Now the young soldiers on board happened to be men of the world, and Bandalier, who did not sing, turned off the request with a good-humoured laugh, alleging his inability with much suavity; but the old rough Turk of a tar-bucket chose to fire at this, and sang out—“Oh, if you don’t choose to sing when you are asked, and to sport your damned fine airs....”

“Mr Crowfoot.”

“Captain,” said the agent, piqued at having his title by courtesy withheld.

“By no mean,” said Major Sawrasp, who had spoken—“I believe I am speaking to Lieutenant Crowfoot, agent for transport No.—, wherein it so happens I am commanding officer—so”—

Old Crowfoot saw he was in the wrong box, and therefore hove about, and backed out in good time—making the amende as smoothly as his gruff nature admitted, and trying to look pleased.

Presently the same bothersome mate came down again—“The strange sail is creeping up on our quarter, sir.”

“Ay?” said Crowfoot, “how does she lay?”

“She is hauled by the wind on the starboard tack, sir,” continued the mate.

We now went on deck, and found that our suspicious friend had shortened sail, as if he had made us out, and wag afraid to approach, or was lying by until nightfall.

Sawrasp had before this, with the tact and ease of a soldier and a gentleman, soldered his feud with Crowfoot, and, with the rest of the lobsters, was full of fight. The sun at length set, and the night closed in when the old major again addressed Crowfoot.

“My dear fellow, can’t you wait a bit, and let us have a rattle at that chap?” And old Crowfoot, who never bore a grudge long, seemed much inclined to fall in with the soldier’s views; and, in fine, although the weather was now moderate, he did not make sail. Presently the Commodore fired a gun, and showed lights. It was the signal to close. “Oh, time enough,” said old Crowfoot—“what is the old man afraid of?” Another gun and a fresh constellation on board the frigate. It was “an enemy in the northwest quarter.”

“Hah, hah,” sung out the agent, “is it so? Major, what say you to a brush let her close, eh?—should like to pepper her—wouldn’t you—three hundred men, eh?”

By this time we were all on deck—the schooner came bowling along under a reefed mainsail and jib, now rising, and presently disappearing behind the stormy heavings of the roaring sea, the rising moon shining brightly on her canvass pinions, as if she had been an albatross skimming along the surface of the foaming water, while her broad white streak glanced like a silver ribbon along her clear black side. She was a very large craft of her class, long and low in the water, and evidently very fast; and it was now clear, from our having been unable as yet to sway up our fore-topmast, that she took us for a disabled merchantman, which might be cut off from the convoy.

As she approached, we could perceive by the bright moonlight, that she had six guns of a side, and two long ones on pivots, the one forward on the forecastle, and the other choke up to the mainmast.

Her deck was crowded with dark figures, pike and cutlass in hand; we were by this time so near that we could see pistols in their belts, and a trumpet in the hand of a man who stood in the fore rigging, with his feet on the hammock netting, and his back against the shrouds. We had cleared away our six eighteen-pound carronades, which composed our starboard broadside, and loaded them, each with a round shot, and a bag of two hundred musket-balls, while three hundred soldiers in their foraging jackets, and with their loaded muskets in their hands, were lying on the deck, concealed by the quarters, while the blue jackets were sprawling in groups round the carronades.

I was lying down beside the gallant old Major, who had a bugler close to him, while Crowfoot was standing on the gun nearest us; but getting tired of this recumbent position, I crept aft, until I could see through a spare port.

“Why don’t the rascals fire?” quoth Sawrasp.

“Oh, that would alarm the Commodore. They intend to walk quietly on board of us; but they will find themselves mistaken a little,” whispered Crowfoot.

“Mind, men, no firing till the bugle sounds,” said the Major.

The word was passed along.

The schooner was by this time ploughing through it within half pistolshot, with the white water dashing away from her bows, and buzzing past her sides her crew as thick as peas on her deck. Once or twice she hauled her wind a little, and then again kept away from us, as if irresolute what to do. At length, without hailing, and all silent as the grave, she put her helm a-starboard, and ranged alongside.

“Now, my boys, give it him,” shouted Crowfoot—“Fire!”

“Ready, men,” shouted the Major—“Present—fire!”

The bugles sounded, the cannon roared, the musketry rattled, and the men cheered, and all was hurra, and fire, and fury. The breeze was strong enough to carry all the smoke forward, and I saw the deck of the schooner, where the moment before all was still and motionless, and filled with dark figures, till there scarcely appeared standing room, at once converted into a shambles. The blasting fiery tempest had laid low nearly the whole mass, like a maize plant before a hurricane; and such a cry arose, as if “Men fought on earth, and fiends in upper air.”

Scarcely a man was on his legs, the whole crew seemed to have been levelled with the deck, many dead, no doubt, and most wounded, while we could see numbers endeavouring to creep towards the hatches, while the black blood, in horrible streams, gushed and gurgled through her scuppers down her sides, and across the bright white streak that glanced in the moonlight.

Some one on board of the privateer now hailed, “We have surrendered; cease firing, sir.” But devil a bit—we continued blazing away—a lantern was run up to his main gaff, and then lowered again.

“We have struck, sir,” shouted another voice, “don’t murder us don’t fire, sir, for Godsake.”

But fire we still did; no sailor has the least compunction at even running down a privateer. Mercy to privateersmen is unknown. “Give them the stem,” is the word, the curs being regarded by Jack at the best as highwaymen; so, when he found we still peppered away, and sailing two feet for our one, the schooner at length, in their desperation, hauled her wind, and speedily got beyond range of our carronades, having all this time never fired a shot. Shortly after this we ran—under the Rayo’s stern she was lying to.

“Mr Crowfoot what have you been after? I have a great mind to report you, sir.”

“We could not help it, sir,” sung out Crowfoot in a most dolorous tone, in answer to the captain of the frigate; “we have been nearly taken, sir, by a privateer, sir—an immense vessel, sir, that sails, like a witch, sir.”

“Keep close in my wake then, sir,” rejoined the captain, in a gruff tone, and immediately the Rayo bore up.

Next morning we were all carrying as much sail as we could crowd. By this time we had gotten our jury-fore-topmast up, and the Rayo, having kept astern in the night, was now under topsails, and top-gallant sails, with the wet canvass at the head of the sails, showing that the reefs had been freshly shaken out—rolling wedge like on the swell, and rapidly shooting a-head, to resume her station. As she passed us, and let fall her foresail, she made the signal to make more sail, her object being to get through the Caicos Passage, into which we were now entering, before nightfall. It was eleven o’clock in the forenoon. A fine clear breezy day, fresh and pleasant, sometimes cloudy overhead, but always breaking away again, with a bit of a sneezer, and a small shower. As the sun rose there were indications of squalls in the north-eastern quarter, and about noon one of them was whitening to windward. So “hands by the topgallant clew-lines” was the word, and we were all standing by to shorten sail, when the Commodore came to the wind as sharp and suddenly as if he had anchored; but on a second look, I saw his sheets were let fly, haulyards let go, and apparently all was confusion on board of her. I ran to the side and looked over. The long hearing dark blue swell had changed into a light green hissing ripple.

“Zounds, Captain Crowfoot, shoal water—why it breaks—we shall be ashore!”

“Down with the helm-brace round the yards,” shouted Crow foot; “that’s it steady—luff, my man;” and the danger was so imminent that even the studding-sail haulyards were not let go and the consequence was, that the booms snapped off like carrots, as we came to the wind.

“Lord help us, we shall never weather that foaming reef there set the spanker—haul out—haul down the foretopmast—staysail—so, mind your luff, my man.”

The frigate now began to fire right and left, and the hissing of the shot overhead was a fearful augury of what was to take place; so sudden was the accident, that they had not had time to draw the round shot. The other transports were equally fortunate with ourselves, in weathering the shoal, and presently we were all close hauled to windward of the reef, until we weathered the easternmost prong, when we bore up. But, poor Rayo! she had struck on a coral reef, where the Admiralty charts laid down fifteen fathoms water; and although there was some talk at the time of an error in judgment, in not having the lead going in the chains, still do I believe there was no fault lying at the door of her gallant captain. By the time we had weathered the reef, the frigate had swung off from the pinnacle of rock on which she had been in a manner impaled, and was making all the sail she could, with a fothered sail under her bows, and chain-pumps clanging, and whole cataracts of water gushing from them, clear white jets spouting from all the scuppers, fore and aft. She made the signal to close. The next, alas! was the British ensign, seized, union down in the main rigging, the sign of the uttermost distress. Still we all bowled along together, but her yards were not squared, nor her sails set with her customary precision, and her lurches became more and more sickening, until at length she rolled so heavily, that she dipped both yardarms alternately in the water, and reeled to and fro like a drunken man.

“What is that splash?”

It was the larboard-bow long eighteen-pound gun hove overboard, and watching the roll, the whole broadside, one after another, was cast into the sea. The clang of the chain-pumps increased, the water rushed in at one side of the main-deck, and out at the other, in absolute cascades from the ports. At this moment the whole fleet of boats were alongside, keeping way with the ship, in the light breeze. Her main-topsail was hove aback, while the captain’s voice resounded through the ship.

“Now, men—all hands—bags and hammocks—starboard watch, the starboard side—larboard watch, the larboard side—no rushing now—she will swim this hour to come.”

The bags, and hammocks, and officers’ kits, were handed into the boats; the men were told off over the side, as quietly by watches as if at muster, the officers last. At length the first lieutenant came down. By this time she was settling perceptibly in the water; but the old captain still stood on the gangway, holding by the iron stanchion, where, taking off his hat, he remained uncovered for a moment, with the tears standing in his eyes. He then replaced it, descended, and took his place in the ship’s launch—the last man to leave the ship; and there was little time to spare, for we had scarcely shoved off a few yards, to clear the spars of the wreck, when she sended forward, heavily and sickly, on the long swell.—She never rose to the opposite heave of the sea again, but gradually sank by the head. The hull disappeared slowly and dignifiedly, the ensign fluttered and vanished beneath the dark ocean—I could have fancied reluctantly as if it had been drawn down through a trap-door. The topsails next disappeared, the fore-topsail sinking fastest; and last of all, the white pennant at the main-topgallant-mast head, after flickering and struggling in the wind, flew up in the setting sun as if imbued with—life, like a stream of white fire, or as if it had been the spirit leaving the body, and was then drawn down into the abyss, and the last vestige of the Rayo vanished for ever. The crew, as if moved by one common impulse, gave three cheers.

The captain now stood up in his boat—“Men, the Rayo is no more, but it is my duty to tell you, that although you are now to be distributed amongst the transports, you are still amenable to martial law; I am aware, men, this hint may not be necessary, still it is right you should know it.”

When the old hooker clipped out of sight, there was not a dry eye in the whole fleet. “There she goes, the dear old beauty,” said one of her crew. “There goes the blessed old black b——h,” quoth another. “Ah, many a merry night have we had in the clever little craft,” quoth a third; and there was really a tolerable shedding of tears and squirting of tobacco juice. But the blue ripple had scarcely blown over the glasslike surface of the sea where she had sunk, when the buoyancy of young hearts, with the prospect of a good furlough amongst the lobster boxes for a time, seemed to be uppermost amongst the men. The officers, I saw and knew, felt very differently.

“My eye!” sung out an old quartermaster incur boat, perched well forward with his back against the ring in the stem, and his arms crossed, after having been busily employed rummaging in his bag, “my eye, what a pity—oh, what a pity!”

Come, there is some feeling, genuine, at all events, thought I.

“My,” said Bill Chestree, the captain of the foretop, “what is can’t be helped, old Fizgig; old Rayo has gone down, and”—“Old Rayo be d——d, Master Bill,” said the man; “but may I be flogged, if I han’t forgotten half a pound of negro head baccy in Dick Catgut’s bag.”

“Launch ahoy!” hailed a half drunken voice from one of the boats astern of us. “Hillo,” responded the coxswain. The poor skipper even pricked up his ears. “Have you got Dick Catgut’s fiddle among ye?” This said Dick Catgut was the corporal of marines, and the prime instigator of all the fun amongst the men. “No, no,” said several voices, “no fiddle here.” The hail passed round among the other boats, “No fiddle.” “I would rather lose three days grog than have his fiddle mislaid,” quoth the man who pulled the bow oar.

“Why don’t you ask Dick himself?” said our coxswain.

“Aye—true enough—Dick, Dick Catgut!” but no one answered. Alas! poor Dick was nowhere to be found; he had been mislaid as well as his fiddle. He had broken into the spirit room, as it turned out, and having got drunk, did not come to time when the frigate sunk.

Our ship, immediately after the frigate’s crew had been bestowed, and the boats got in, hoisted the Commodore’s light, and the following morning we fell in with the Torch, off the east end of Jamaica, which, after seeing the transports safe into Kingston, and taking out me and my people, bore up through the Gulf, and resumed her cruising ground on the edge of the Gulf stream, between 25 degrees and 30 degrees north latitude.