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

of blind navigation with a vengeance, and all for no purpose that I can see—see! damme, eyesight is of about as much use now as a man's nose would be in reading the Bible.”

“Softly, softly, Mr. Barnstable,” interrupted his commander—for such was the anxious stillness in both vessels that even the rattling of the schooner's rigging was heard, as she rolled in the trough of the sea—“the duty on which Congress has sent us must be performed, at the hazard of our lives.”

“I don't mind my life, Captain Munson,” said Barnstable, “but there is a great want of conscience in trusting a vessel in such a place as this. However, it is a time to do, and not to talk. But if there be such danger to an easy draught of water, what will become of the frigate? had I not better play jackal, and try and feel the way for you?”

“I thank you,” said the pilot; “the offer is generous, but would avail us nothing. I have the advantage of knowing the ground well, and must trust to my memory and God's good favor. Make sail, make sail, sir, and if you succeed, we will venture to break ground.”

The order was promptly obeyed, and in a very short time the Ariel was covered with canvas. Though no air was perceptible on the decks of the frigate, the little schooner was so light that she succeeded in stemming her way over the rising waves, aided a little by the tide; and in a few minutes her low hull was just discernible in the streak of light along the horizon, with the dark outline of her sails rising above the sea, until their fanciful summits were lost in the shadows of the clouds.

Griffith had listened to the foregoing dialogue, like the rest of the junior officers, in profound silence; but when the Ariel began to grow indistinct to the eye, he jumped lightly from the gun to the deck, and cried:

“She slips off, like a vessel from the stocks! Shall I trip the anchor, sir, and follow?”

“We have no choice,” replied his captain. “You hear the question, Mr. Gray? shall we let go the bottom?”

“It must be done, Captain Munson; we may want more drift than the rest of this tide to get us to a place of safety,” said the pilot “I would give five years from a life that I know will be short, if the ship lay one mile further seaward.”

This remark was unheard by all, except the commander of the frigate, who again walked aside with the pilot, where they resumed their mysterious communications. The words of assent were no sooner uttered, however, than Griffith gave forth from his trumpet the command to “heave away!” Again the strains of the fife were followed by the tread of the men at the capstan. At the same time that the anchor was heaving up, the sails were loosened from the yards, and opened to invite the breeze. In effecting this duty, orders were thundered through the trumpet of the first lieutenant, and executed with the rapidity of thought. Men were to be seen, like spots in the dim light from the heavens, lying on every yard or hanging as in air, while strange cries were heard issuing from every part of the rigging and each spar of the vessel. “Ready the foreroyal,” cried a shrill voice, as if from the clouds; “ready the foreyard,” uttered the hoarser tones of a seaman beneath him; “all ready aft, sir,” cried a third, from another quarter; and in a few moments the order was given to “let fall.”

The little light which fell from the sky was now excluded by the falling canvas, and a deeper gloom was cast athwart the decks of the ship, that served to render the brilliancy of the lanterns even vivid, while it gave to objects outboard a more appalling and dreary appearance than before.

Every individual, excepting the commander and his associate, was now earnestly engaged in getting the ship under way. The sounds of “we're away” were repeated by a burst from fifty voices, and the rapid evolutions of the capstan announced that nothing but the weight of the anchor was to be lifted. The hauling of cordage, the rattling of blocks, blended with the shrill calls of the boatswain and his mates, succeeded; and though to a landsman all would have appeared confusion and hurry, long practice and strict discipline enabled the crew to exhibit their ship under a cloud of canvas, from her deck to the trucks, in less time than we have consumed in relating it.

For a few minutes, the officers were not disappointed by the result; for though the heavy sails flapped lazily against the masts, the light duck on the loftier spars swelled outwardly, and the ship began sensibly to yield to their influence.

“She travels! she travels!” exclaimed Griffith joyously; “ah! the hussy! she has as much antipathy to the land as any fish that swims: it blows a little gale aloft yet!”

“We feel its dying breath,” said the pilot, in low, soothing tones, but in a manner so sudden as to startle Griffith, at whose elbow they were unexpectedly uttered. “Let us forget, young man, everything but the number of lives that depend, this night, on your exertions and my knowledge.”

“If you be but half as able to exhibit the one as I am willing to make the other, we shall do well,” returned the lieutenant, in the same tone. “Remember, whatever may be your feelings, that we are on an enemy's coast, and love it not enough to wish to lay our bones there.”

With this brief explanation they separated, the vessel requiring the constant and close attention of the officer to her movements.

The exultation produced in the crew by the progress of their ship through the water was of short duration; for the breeze that had seemed to await their motions, after forcing the vessel for a quarter of a mile, fluttered for a few minutes amid their light canvas, and then left them entirely. The quartermaster, whose duty it was to superintend the helm, soon announced that he was losing the command of the vessel, as she was no longer obedient to her rudder. This ungrateful intelligence was promptly communicated to his commander by Griffith, who suggested the propriety of again dropping an anchor.

“I refer you to Mr. Gray,” returned the captain; “he is the pilot, sir, and with him rests the safety of the vessel.”

“Pilots sometimes lose ships as well as save them,” said Griffith: “know you the man well, Captain Munson, who holds all our lives in his keeping, and so coolly as if he cared but little for the venture?”

“Mr. Griffith, I do know him; he is, in my opinion, both competent and faithful. Thus much I tell you, to relieve your anxiety; more you must not ask;—but is there not a shift of wind?”

“God forbid!” exclaimed his lieutenant; “if that northeaster catches us within the shoals, our case will be desperate indeed!”

The heavy rolling of the vessel caused an occasional expansion, and as sudden a reaction, in their sails, which left the oldest seaman in the ship in doubt which way the currents of air were passing, or whether there existed any that were not created by the flapping of their own canvas. The head of the ship, however, began to fall off from the sea, and notwithstanding the darkness, it soon became apparent that