The Portland Sketch Book. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ unchristian-looking articles I ever clapped eyes on, which, when I came from aft, were dancing their death jigs on the forecastle-deck, much to the diversion of the captain's black waiter, Essequibo.

      "Halloo!—this way, blackey!" shouted an old tar to the merry African, who, by the way, was a kind of reference table for the whole crew—"Egad! Billy, look here,—what do you call this comical looking devil that has helped himself to my hook? Why! his body is as long as the articles of discipline, and his mouth almost as long as his body!—your own main-hatch-way is not a circumstance to it!"

      "Him be one gar fish—ocium gar!—he no good for eat," answered the black with a grin that drew the corners of his mouth almost back to his ears, so that, to appearance, small was the hinge that kept brain and body together.

      At the sight the querist dropped the fish, exclaiming with feigned wonder, "By all that's crooked, an even bet!—ar'n't your mouth made ov injy rubber, Billy!"

      "Good ting to hab de larsh mout, Misser Mongo,—eat de more—lib de longer," said Billy.

      "Screw your blinkers this way, Jack Simpson, there's a prize for you," said another, as he dragged a huge lump-headed, bull-eyed, tail-less mass out of the water, with fins protruding, like thorns, from every part of his body!—"Guess he's one of the fighting cocks down below, seeing his spurs!—any how, he's well armed,—I'll be keel-hauled, if he don't look like the beauty that we saw carved out on the Frencher's stern, with the Neptune bestride it, in Havana, barin' he wants a tail! Han't he a queer un?—but how in natur do you suppose he makes out to steer without a rudder?"

      "Steer wid he head turn behin' him!" answered Seignor Essequibo, bursting into a chuckling laugh—mightily tickled with the struggles of the ungainly monster,—"Che, che, che!—him sea-dragum—catch um plenty on de cos ob Barbado. Take care ob him horn!"

      "Yo, heave, ho! Shaint Pathrick, an' it's me what's caught a whale!" drawled out a brawny Patlander, while he tugged and sweated to heave in his prize.

      "My gorra! you hook one barracouter!" cried Billy, as his eye caught a glimpse of the big fish curveting in the water at the end of Paddy's line,—"Bes' fish in de worl'!—good for make um chowder—good for fry—for ebery ting,—me help you pull him in, Massa Coulan," and without further ado, he laid hold of the line. The beautiful fish was hauled in, and consigned to the custody of the cook.

      "Stave in my bulwarks, if this 'ere dragon-fish ha'n't stuck one of his horns into my foot an inch deep!" roared an old marine,—"Hand me that sarving mallet, snow ball, I'll see if I can't give him a hint to behave better!"

      "Hurrah!—here comes an owl-fish, I reckon;" shouted a merry wight of a tar, from the land of wooden nutmegs,—"specimen of the salt-water owl! Lord, look at his teeth—how he grins!—What are you laughing at, my beauty?"

      "Le diable! une chouette dans la mer?" exclaimed a little wizen-pated Frenchman, who had seated himself astraddle of the cathead.—"Vel, Monsieur Vagastafsh, comment nommez vous dish petit poisson?"

      "Poison! No, Monsheer, I rather guess there han't the least bit o' poison in natur about that ere young shark!" replied Wagstaff, "though for that matter a shark's worse'n poison."

      "I not mean poison—I say poisson—fish."

      "O, poison fish—yes, I know—you'll find plenty of them on the Bahamy copper banks. I always gets the cook to put a piece of silver in the boilers, when we grub on fish in them ere parts."

      "O, mon dieu! le rashcalle hash bitez mon vum almos' off! Sacré, vous ingrat, to treatez me so like, when I am feed you wis de bon dîner!"

      My attention was called away from this scene of hilarity, by the voice of the watch in the fore-top, announcing a sail in sight.

      A faint indefinable speck could be seen in the quarter designated, fluttering on the bosom of the blue sea like a drift of foam. With the aid of the glass we made it out to be the topsail of a schooner, so distant that her hull and lower sails were below the brim of the horizon. Her canvas had probably just been unloosed to the breeze, which was directly after seen roughening the face of the broad, smooth expanse as it swept down toward us.

      "That glass, Mr. Waters—she is standing toward us, and by the gods of war! the cut of her narrow flying royal, looks marvellously like that of our friend, the Sea-Sprite!" said the captain, while the blood flashed over his bald forehead, like 'heat lightning' over a summer cloud; "Mr. Hackinsack, see that every thing is ready for a chase."

      The broad sails were unloosed and sheeted close home. Directly the wind was with us, and we were bowling along under a press of canvas.

      "Now, quartermaster, look to your sails as closely, as you would watch one seeking your life." Another squint through the glass. "Ha! they have suspected us, and are standing in toward the land, jam on the wind;—let them look to it sharply; it must be a fleet pair of heels that can keep pace with the Dart,—though to say the least of yonder cruiser, she is no laggard!"

      After pacing the deck some ten minutes, he again hove short and lifted the glass to his eye.

      "By heavens! the little witch still holds her way with us!—Have the skysail set, and rig out the top-gallant-studd'n'sail!"

      Every one on board was now eager in the chase. The orders were obeyed almost as soon as given. Our proud vessel, under the press of sail, absolutely flew over the water, haughtily tossing the rampant surges from her sides, while her bows were buried in a roaring and swirling sheet of foam, and a broad band of snow stretched far over the dark blue waste astern, showing a wake as strait as an arrow. She was careened down to the breeze, so that her lower studd'n'sail-boom every moment dashed a cloud of spray from the romping billows, and her lee rail was at times under water. Her masts curved and whiffled beneath the immense piles of canvas, like a stringed bow.

      "She walks the waters bravely," said the captain, casting a glance of exultation at the distended sails and bending spars, and then at our arrowy wake.—"But, by Jupiter, the chase still almost holds her way with us. We need more sail aft. Bear a hand, my men, and run up the ringtail."

      "That will answer,—a dolphin would have a sweat to beat us in this trim!"

      "Well, Mr Percy, is yonder dasher the craft that pillaged your ship, and sent you cruising about the ocean in that bit of a cockle-shell, think you?"

      "That is the pirate schooner—I cannot mistake her," replied Percy, who stood with his flashing eyes rivetted on the vessel, and his fingers impatiently working about the hilt of his cutlass, while his brow was darkened with an intense desire of revenge.

      Three hours passed, and we had gained within a league of the noble looking craft. She was heeled down to the breeze, so that owing to the 'bagging' of her lower sails, her hull was almost hidden from sight. Like a snowy cloud, she darted along the revelling waters, the sunbeams basking on her wide-spread wings, and the sprightly billows flashing and surging around her bows. Never saw I an object more beautiful.

      The land was now fully in sight—a stern and rock-bound coast, against which the breakers dashed with maddening violence, and for half a mile from the shore, the water was one conflicting waste of snowy surf and billow. No signs of inhabitants, on either hand, as far as the eye could view, were discernible. The long range of stern, solitary mountains arose from the waves, and towered away till lost in the clouds. Their sides, save where some splintered cliff lifted its gray peaks in the day, were clothed with thick forests, among which the tufted palm and wild cinnamon stood up conspicuously, СКАЧАТЬ