TALES OF THE SEA: 12 Maritime Adventure Novels in One Volume (Illustrated). Джеймс Фенимор Купер

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СКАЧАТЬ I!” cried the young midshipman, laughing; “then I have seen a little clipper, in disguise, out sail an old man-of-war’s man in a hard chase, and I have seen a straggling rover in long-togs as much like my cousin——”

      “Peace, gabbler!” exclaimed Barnstable in a voice of thunder; “would you detain the boats with your silly nonsense at a time like this? Away into the barge, sir, and if you find him willing to hear, tell Mr. Griffith what your foolish conjectures amount to, at your leisure.”

      The boy stepped lightly from the whale-boat to the barge, whither the pilot had already preceded him, and, as he sunk, with a mortified air, by the side of Griffith, he said, in a low voice:

      “And that won’t be long, I know, if Mr. Griffith thinks and feels on the coast of England as he thought and felt at home.”

      A silent pressure of his hand was the only reply that the young lieutenant made, before he paid the parting compliments to Barnstable, and directed his men to pull for their ship.

      The boats were separating, and the plash of the oars was already heard, when the voice of the pilot was for the first time raised in earnest.

      “Hold!” he cried; “hold water, I bid ye!”

      The men ceased their efforts at the commanding tones of his voice, and turning toward the whale-boat, he continued:

      “You will get your schooner under way immediately, Captain Barnstable, and sweep into the offing with as little delay as possible. Keep the ship well open from the northern headland, and as you pass us, come within hail.”

      “This is a clean chart and plain sailing, Mr. Pilot,” returned Barnstable; “but who is to justify my moving without orders, to Captain Munson? I have it in black and white, to run the Ariel into this feather-bed sort of a place, and I must at least have it by signal or word of mouth from my betters, before my cutwater curls another wave. The road may be as hard to find going out as it was coming in—and then I had daylight as well as your written directions to steer by.”

      “Would you lie there to perish on such a night?” said the pilot, sternly. “Two hours hence, this heavy swell will break where your vessel now rides so quietly.”

      “There we think exactly alike; but if I get drowned now, I am drowned according to orders; whereas, if I knock a plank out of the schooner’s bottom, by following your directions, ‘twill be a hole to let in mutiny, as well as sea-water. How do I know but the old man wants another pilot or two.”

      “That’s philosophy,” muttered the cockswain of the whale-boat, in a voice that was audible: “but it’s a hard strain on a man’s conscience to hold on in such an anchorage!”

      “Then keep your anchor down, and follow it to the bottom,” said the pilot to himself; “it’s worse to contend with a fool than a gale of wind; but if——”

      “No, no, sir—no fool neither,” interrupted Griffith. “Barnstable does not deserve that epithet, though he certainly carries the point of duty to the extreme. Heave up at once, Mr. Barnstable, and get out of this bay as fast as possible.”

      “Ah! you don’t give the order with half the pleasure with which I shall execute it; pull away, boys—the Ariel shall never lay her bones in such a hard bed, if I can help it.”

      As the commander of the schooner uttered these words with a cheering voice, his men spontaneously shouted, and the whale-boat darted away from her companion, and was soon lost in the gloomy shadows cast from the cliffs.

      In the mean time, the oarsmen of the barge were not idle, but by strenuous efforts they forced the heavy boat rapidly through the water, and in a few minutes she ran alongside of the frigate. During this period the pilot, in a voice which had lost all the startling fierceness and authority it had manifested in his short dialogue with Barnstable, requested Griffith to repeat to him, slowly, the names of the officers that belonged to his ship. When the young lieutenant had complied with this request, he observed to his companion:

      “All good men and true, Mr. Pilot; and though this business in which you are just now engaged may be hazardous to an Englishman, there are none with us who will betray you. We need your services, and as we expect good faith from you, so shall we offer it to you in exchange.”

      “And how know you that I need its exercise?” asked the pilot, in a manner that denoted a cold indifference to the subject.

      “Why, though you talk pretty good English, for a native,” returned Griffith, “yet you have a small bur-r-r in your mouth that would prick the tongue of a man who was born on the other side of the Atlantic.”

      “It is but of little moment where a man is born, or how he speaks,” returned the pilot, coldly, “so that he does his duty bravely and in good faith.”

      It was perhaps fortunate for the harmony of this dialogue, that the gloom, which had now increased to positive darkness, completely concealed the look of scornful irony that crossed the handsome features of the young sailor, as he replied: “True, true, so that he does his duty, as you say, in good faith. But, as Barnstable observed, you must know your road well to travel among these shoals on such a night as this. Know you what water we draw?”

      “‘Tis a frigate’s draught, and I shall endeavor to keep you in four fathoms; less than that would be dangerous.”

      “She’s a sweet boat!” said Griffith, “and minds her helm as a marine watches the eye of his sergeant at a drill; but you must give her room in stays, for she fore-reaches, as if she would put out the wind’s eye.”

      The pilot attended, with a practised ear, to this description of the qualities of the ship that he was about to attempt extricating from an extremely dangerous situation. Not a syllable was lost on him; and when Griffith had ended, he remarked, with the singular coldness that pervaded his manner:

      “That is both a good and a bad quality in a narrow channel. I fear it will be the latter to-night, when we shall require to have the ship in leading-strings.”

      “I suppose we must feel our way with the lead?” said Griffith.

      “We shall need both eyes and leads,” returned the pilot, recurring insensibly to his soliloquizing tone of voice. “I have been both in and out in darker nights than this, though never with a heavier draught than a half-two.”

      “Then, by heaven, you are not fit to handle that ship among these rocks and breakers!” exclaimed Griffith; “your men of a light draught never know their water; ‘tis the deep keel only that finds a channel;—pilot! pilot! beware how you trifle with us ignorantly; for ‘tis a dangerous experiment to play at hazards with an enemy.”

      “Young man, you know not what you threaten, nor whom,” said the pilot sternly, though his quiet manner still remained undisturbed; “you forget that you have a superior here, and that I have none.”

      “That shall be as you discharge your duty,” said Griffith; “for if——”

      “Peace!” interrupted the pilot; “we approach the ship, let us enter in harmony.”

      He threw himself back on the cushions when he had said this; and Griffith, though filled with the apprehensions of suffering, either by great ignorance or treachery on the part of his companion, smothered his feelings so far as to be silent, and they ascended СКАЧАТЬ