The Pirate of the Mediterranean. W.h.g. Kingston
Bowse?” she replied, laughing, and looking at the calm sea. “My uncle told me that we were to have a tremendous storm, and I do not feel a breath of wind.”
“And so we shall, miss,” he exclaimed. “You have no time to go below now without assistance. Hold on by these cleats, and tell your maid to do so too. Here it comes!”
As he spoke, the mass of clouds which had been collecting to the eastward, and gradually approaching, now came driving up bodily across the sky at a rapid rate – the dark waters below it, hitherto so smooth and calm, presented a sheet of snow-white foam, hissing and bubbling as if it were turned up and impelled onward by some gigantic besom. Ada, as she gazed with feelings of mingled terror and admiration, saw it in one long line near the brig – it reached her side – the white foam flew upwards, curling over them, and the wind, at the same instant, striking her canvas, her tall masts seemed to bend to its fury, and then pressed downwards, the hull heeled over till the lee bulwarks were nearly submerged.
Two strong hands were at the helm, ready to turn it a-weather, should it be necessary to scud; but, in an instant, the gallant ship rose again – and then, like a courser starting for the race, she shot forward through the boiling cauldron, heeling over till her guns were in the water, but still bravely carrying her canvas. Not a rope nor a lanyard had started – not a seam in her topsails had given, and away she flew on her proper course. The veteran master stood on the poop watching for any change or increase of wind. The safety of the ship depended on his promptitude. The sea was rapidly rising; and this was soon perceptible by her uneasy motion, as she rose and fell to each receding wave, the last always appearing of greater height than its predecessors. Any moment it might be necessary either to keep her away, and, furling everything, to let her drive before the gale under bare poles, or to put her helm down and heave her to, thus to let her lie forging slowly a-head, till the gale had abated. A few minutes only had passed since the brig first felt the force of the gale, and the whole sky was now a mass of dark clouds, and the sea a sheet of white driving foam – out of which lofty waves seemed to lift their angry heads, and to urge each other into increased violence. The wind howled and whistled through the rigging; the spars creaked and bent; and the whole hull groaned with the exertion as she tore onwards. Ada, who had, when the ship heeled over, held firmly on to the weather bulwarks, gazed at the scene, to her, so novel and grand, with intense pleasure, from which fear was soon banished; and little Marianna, having followed the example of her mistress in securing herself, imitated her also in her courage. Indeed, as yet, except that they were rather wetted by the foam which came on board, when the squall first struck the brig, there was no object of terror to alarm them. The moment Bowse could withdraw his attention from the care of the ship, he hurried to assist Ada and her attendant, and to place them on the seat which surrounded the cabin skylight, where she might enjoy the magnificent spectacle of the tumultuous ocean, without the fatigue of standing, and having to hold on by the bulwarks. A cloak was thrown round her feet, and as she reclined back in the seat, she declared she felt like an ocean queen in her barge of state, reviewing her watery realms. The colonel’s appearance on deck, supported by his man Mitchell, whose usual cadaverous countenance looked still more ghastly, drove away the romance in which she was beginning to indulge. He scolded her roundly for venturing on deck without his escort, and insisted on her promising never to do so again, on pain of being compelled instantly to go below.
The mate had returned to his post. The brig behaved beautifully; though she heeled over to the force of the wind, she rose buoyantly to each mountain wave, which reared its crest before her, and though the light spray which the short seas so quickly aroused would fly high above her bows, and come in showers down on her forecastle, little of it found its way aft, and not a sea which struck her came over her bulwarks. Bowse looked delighted and proud at the behaviour of his brig, as he pointed out her good qualities to his passengers.
“There’s many a craft, which is looked upon as a clipper, won’t behave as she does, that I’ll answer for,” he observed.
He was going on with his panegyrics when his voice became silent, and his eye riveted ahead. The atmosphere, which, when the gale first came on, had been somewhat thick, had now partially cleared, and revealed to him, at the distance of little more than a mile, a large polacca brig hove to on the starboard tack. He instantly summoned his first officer to his side, and pointed out the stranger to him.
“What think you of that fellow, Timmins?” he asked.
The mate took a look at the stranger through his glass.
“A fine polacca brig, sir, as one can see with half an eye,” he answered deliberately; “but more of her I cannot say, as she shows no colours. We must keep away a little though, sir, or we shall be right down upon her.”
“We should – starboard the helm a point my lads,” exclaimed the master. “Steady, that will take us clear, and we shall be near enough to have a look at him. Ah! there goes some buntin’ aloft. What colours are they, Timmins?”
“The Austrian ensign, sir,” replied the mate. “A black eagle on a white ground, and there flies a pennant at his mast head.”
“That’s extraordinary indeed,” exclaimed the master. “Hoist the ensign there,” he shouted. “Austrian or devil, we’ll show him that we are not ashamed of our flag, and will not strike it either in a hurry. Come here, Timmins, we mustn’t frighten the young lady by what we say. You know the paper dropped on board here last night; now it’s my opinion that that’s the very brig it speaks about, and the one the felucca’s two men tried to persuade us was an Austrian man-of-war. To my eye, she looks fifty times more like a Greek than an Austrian, for all that her colours say. Well, what’s your opinion that we ought to do?”
“With respect to her being a Greek, I think she is,” answered the mate. “And if she’s a pirate, we ought to do our best to stand clear of her, seeing that we were commissioned to carry merchandise, and not to look after such gentry; but if she comes after us, and we can’t get clear of her, that alters the case, sir, and we must stand to our guns and fight her.”
“I am glad to hear you say so, Timmins,” answered the master, laying his hand on the mate’s arm.
“Turn the hands up, my good fellow, and let them go to quarters.” (The people were at their breakfast.) “We will not fire the first shot; but if she attacks us, we will give it them as well as we can. One satisfaction is, that they cannot board us while the gale lasts.” While the mate flew forward to execute the orders, Bowse approached his passengers, and, pointing out the stranger to them, to which they were now rapidly drawing near, told them his suspicions as to her character, and advised them to go below.
“But do you think he will fire into us?” inquired the colonel.
“He would gain little by so doing, while the gale lasts,” replied Bowse, “and he might get injured in return, as he probably knows that we have guns on board.”
“There you see, Ada, there is little chance of any of us being hurt, but there is a possibility – so you must go below again.”
This the colonel said in a positive tone, and his niece was obliged to comply.
“Oh, how I wish Captain Fleetwood was here in the Ione,” she thought, as she quitted the deck. “No pirate would dare to molest us.”
The stranger was hove to, under her fore-topsail, and appeared to be making what seamen call very fine weather of it. The Zodiac came down scarcely a cable’s length from her quarter, but the stranger gave no sign of any intention of accompanying her. Very few seamen appeared on her deck, and two or three officers only, whose uniform, seen through the glass, was evidently that of Austria. One of them, who, from his wearing an epaulette on either shoulder, Bowse thought must be the captain, leaped up on the taffrail, and waved his hat to them, while another, in the lingua franca, sung out through a speaking trumpet —
“Heave to, and we will keep your company.”
“I’ll see you d – d first, my fine fellow,” answered the master, who had been attentively surveying them through his glass. “I wish I was as certain of heaven as I am that the fellow who waved to us is the same who came on board when in Malta harbour. I know his face, spite of his changed dress.”
“I