The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea by James Fenimore Cooper (best e books to read txt) 📗

“Now, a'n't ye a couple of old horse-marines!” again interrupted the young sailor; “don't you see that Congress wants us to cut up Johnny Bull's coasters, and that old Blow-Hard has found the days too short for his business, and so he has landed a party to get hold of night. Here we have him! and when we get off to the ship, we shall put him under hatches, and then you'll see the face of the sun again! Come, my lilies! let these two gentlemen look into your cabin windows—what? you won't! Then I must squeeze your woolen nightcaps for ye!”

The negroes, who had been submitting to his humors with the abject humility of slavery, now gave certain low intimations that they were suffering pain, under the rough manipulation of their tormentor.

“What's that!” cried a stern voice, whose boyish tones seemed to mock the air of authority that was assumed by the speaker—“who's that, I say, raising that cry among ye?”

The willful young man slowly removed his two hands from the woolly polls of the slaves, but as he suffered them to fall reluctantly along their sable temples, he gave the ear of one of the blacks a tweak that caused him to give vent to another cry, that was uttered with a much greater confidence of sympathy than before.

“Do ye hear there!” repeated Merry—“who's skylarking with those negroes?”

“'Tis no one, sir,” the sailor answered with affected gravity; “one of the palefaces has hit his shin against a cobweb, and it has made his earache!”

“Harkye, you Mr. Jack Joker! how came you in the midst of the prisoners?—Did not I order you to handle your pike, sir, and to keep in the outer line?”

“Ay, ay, sir, you did; and I obeyed orders as long as I could; but these niggers have made the night so dark that I lost my way!”

A low laugh passed through the confused crowd of seamen; and even the midshipman might have been indulging himself in a similar manner at this specimen of quaint humor from the fellow, who was one of those licensed men that are to be found in every ship. At length:

“Well, sir,” he said, “you have found out your false reckoning now; so get you back to the place where I bid you stay.”

“Ay, ay, sir, I'm going. By all the blunders in the purser's book, Mr. Merry, but that cobweb has made one of these niggers shed tears! Do let me stay to catch a little ink, sir, to write a letter with to my poor old mother-devil the line has she had from me since we sailed from the Chesapeake!”

“If ye don't mind me at once, Mr. Jack Joker, I'll lay my cutlass over your head,” returned Merry, his voice now betraying a much greater sympathy in the sufferings of that abject race, who are still in some measure, but who formerly were much more, the butts of the unthinking and licentious among our low countrymen; “then ye can write your letter in red ink if ye will!”

“I wouldn't do it for the world,” said Joker, sneaking away towards his proper station—“the old lady wouldn't forget the hand, and swear it was a forgery—I wonder, though, if the breakers on the coast of Guinea be black! as I've heard old seamen say who have cruised in them latitudes.”

His idle levity was suddenly interrupted by a voice that spoke above the low hum of the march, with an air of authority, and a severity of tone, that could always quell, by a single word, the most violent ebullition of merriment in the crew.

The low buzzing sounds of “Ay, there goes Mr. Griffith!” and of “Jack has woke up the first lieutenant, he had better now go to sleep himself,” were heard passing among the men. But these suppressed communications soon ceased, and even Jack Joker himself pursued his way with diligence on the skirts of the party, as mutely as if the power of speech did not belong to his organization.

The reader has too often accompanied us over the ground between the abbey and the ocean, to require any description of the route pursued by the seamen during the preceding characteristic dialogue; and we shall at once pass to the incidents which occurred on the arrival of the party at the cliffs. As the man who had so unexpectedly assumed a momentary authority within St. Ruth had unaccountably disappeared from among them, Griffith continued to exercise the right of command, without referring to any other for consultation. He never addressed himself to Barnstable, and it was apparent that both the haughty young men felt that the tie which had hitherto united them in such close intimacy was, for the present at least, entirely severed. Indeed, Griffith was only restrained by the presence of Cecilia and Katherine from arresting his refractory inferior on the spot; and Barnstable, who felt all the consciousness of error, without its proper humility, with difficulty so far repressed his feelings as to forbear exhibiting in the presence of his mistress such a manifestation of his spirit as his wounded vanity induced him to imagine was necessary to his honor. The two, however, acted in harmony on one subject, though it was without concert or communication. The first object with both the young men was to secure the embarkation of the fair cousins; and Barnstable proceeded instantly to the boats, in order to hasten the preparations that were necessary before they could receive these unexpected captives: the descent of the Pilot having been made in such force as to require the use of all the frigate's boats, which were left riding in the outer edge of the surf, awaiting the return of the expedition. A loud call from Barnstable gave notice to the officer in command, and in a few moments the beach was crowded with the busy and active crews of the “cutters,” “launches,” “barges,” “jolly-boats,” “pinnaces,” or by whatever names the custom of the times attached to the different attendants of vessels of war. Had the fears of the ladies themselves been consulted, the frigate's launch would have been selected for their use, on account of its size; but Barnstable, who would have thought such a choice on his part humiliating to his guests, ordered the long, low barge of Captain Munson to be drawn upon the sand, it being peculiarly the boat of honor. The hands of fifty men were applied to the task, and it was soon announced to Colonel Howard and his wards that the little vessel was ready for their reception. Manual had halted on the summit of the cliffs with the whole body of the marines, where he was busily employed in posting pickets and sentinels, and giving the necessary instructions to his men to cover the embarkation of the seamen, in a style that he conceived to be altogether military. The mass of the common prisoners, including the inferior domestics of the abbey, and the men of Borroughcliffe, were also held in the same place, under a suitable guard: but Colonel Howard and his companion, attended by the ladies and their own maids, had descended the rugged path to the beach, and were standing passively on the sands, when the intelligence that the boat waited for them was announced.

“Where is he?” asked Alice Dunscombe, turning her head, as if anxiously searching for some other than those around her.

“Where is who?” inquired Barnstable; “we are all here, and the boat waits.”

“And will he tear