"No use, Katharine: you must go," added her father.
"Oh, please!"
"My daughter--"
"Oh, father, let me stay just a little longer--there is no danger yet.
Take Chloe down, if you will, Mr. Desborough, and have a place ready for me. I "ll go down when the battle begins--indeed I will, father!"
she continued entreatingly.
"Well," said the colonel, uncertainly, "let her stay a little longer, my lord."
"Very well, sir," replied Desborough, bowing and turning forward.
"Here, you Jack, take this girl below and stow her away in the cable tiers by the main hatch," he said, pointing to Chloe, who was led unresistingly away, her teeth chattering with undefined but none the less overwhelming terror. The colonel stepped forward beside Captain Vincent, and Desborough descended to the main-deck to superintend the fighting of the batteries, while Katharine, grateful for the respite, and determined not to go below at all, stepped aft in the shelter of the rail, her heart already beating madly, as the two ships approached each other in silence.
CHAPTER x.x.xV
_Bentley Says Good-by_
The men on the Randolph were in excellent spirits, and as they drew nearer and nearer became more and more anxious for the fray.
"She"s a big one, ain"t she?" said one young seaman, glancing over a gun through a port-hole forward; "but we ain"t afraid of her, mates.
We "ll just dance up and slap her in the face with this, and then turn around and slap her with t" other side," laying his hand at the time on one of the long eighteens which const.i.tuted the main battery of the frigate.
"Yes, and then what will she do to us? Blow us into splinters with a broadside, youngster! Not as I particularly care, so we have a chance to get a few good licks at her with these old barkers," said an older man, pointing, like the first, to a gun.
"That"s the talk, men," said Seymour, who was making a tour of inspection through the ship in person, and who had stopped before the gun and heard the conversation. "Before she sinks us we will give it to her hard. I can depend upon you, I know."
"Yes, yes, your honor."
"Ay, ay, sir--"
"We "s all right, sir--"
"We "s with you, your honor--" came in a quick, strong chorus from the rough-and-ready men, and then some one called for three cheers for Captain Seymour, and they were given with such a will that the oak decks echoed and re-echoed again and again.
"Pa.s.s the word to serve out a tot of grog to each man; let them splice the main-brace once more before they die," said Seymour, grimly, amid a chorus of approving murmurs from the sailors, as he walked slowly along the lines, greeting men here and there with plain, bluff words of cheer, which brought smiles of pleasure to their stern, weather-beaten faces.
"Now, ain"t he a beauty?" whispered the captain of number two gun to his second. "Blow me if "t ain"t a pleasure to serve under sich a officer, and to die for him, too! Here is to a speedy fight and lots of damage to the Britisher," he cried loudly, lifting his pannikin of rum and water to his lips, amid a further chorus of approval.
Old Bentley was standing on the forecastle forward, looking earnestly at the approaching ship, when Seymour came up to him. The rest of the men, mindful of the peculiar relationship between the two, instinctively drew back a little, leaving them alone.
"Well, Bentley, our work is cut out for us there."
"Ay, Captain Seymour. I "m thinking that this cruise will end right here for this ship--unless you strike, sir."
"Strike! Do you advise me to do so, then?"
"G.o.d forbid! Except it be with shot and these," said the old man, lifting an enormous cutla.s.s, ground to a razor edge, which he had specially made for his own personal use in battle. "No, no; we "ve got to fight him till he "s so damaged that he can"t get at the rest. Do you see, sir, how the brig lags behind them?" he went on, pointing out toward the slowly escaping squadron. "The boy"s got her luffed up so she makes no headway at all!"
"I know it. I have signalled to him twice to close with the rest--he can sail two feet to their one; but it is no use,--he pays no attention. He should n"t have been given so responsible a command until he learned to obey orders," said Seymour, frowning.
"Let the boy alone, Master John; he "ll do all right," said Bentley; "he"s the makings of a good sailorman and a fine officer in him. I "ve watched him."
"Ha! there goes a shot from the liner," cried Seymour, as a puff of smoke broke out from the lee side followed by the dull boom of a cannon over the water, and then the flags rippled bravely out from the mastheads. "Well, we did not need that sort of an introduction. Aft there!" cried the captain, with his powerful voice.
"Sir."
"Show a British flag at the gaff. That will puzzle him for a while longer. Well, old friend, I must go aft. It"s likely we won"t both of us come out of this little affair alive, so good-by, and G.o.d bless you.
You "ve been a good friend to me, Bentley, ever since I was a child, and I doubt I "ve requited you ill enough," he said, reaching forth his hand. The old sailor shifted his cutla.s.s into his left hand, took off his hat, and grasped Seymour"s hand with his own mighty palm.
"Ay, ever since you were a boy; and a properer sailor and a better officer don"t walk the deck, if I do say it myself, as I "ve had a hand in the making of you. But what you say is true, sir: we "ll probably most all of us go to Davy Jones" locker this trip; but we could n"t go in a better way, and we won"t go alone. G.o.d Almighty bless you, sir!
I--" said the old seaman, breaking off suddenly and looking wistfully at the young man he loved, who, understanding it all, returned his gaze, wrung his hand, and then turned and sprang aft without another word.
The ships were rapidly closing, when Seymour"s keen eye detected a dash of color and a bit of fluttering drapery on the p.o.o.p of the line-of-battle ship. Wondering, he examined it through his gla.s.s.
"Why! "t is a woman," he exclaimed. Something familiar in the appearance made his heart give a sudden throb, but he put away the idea which came to him as preposterous; and then stepping forward to the break of the p.o.o.p, he called out,--
"My lads, there is a woman on yon ship, on the p.o.o.p, way aft. We don"t fight with women; have a care, therefore, that none of you take deliberate aim at her, and spare that part of the deck where she stands in the fight, if you can. Pa.s.s the word along."
"Well, I "m blessed," said one old gun captain, _sotto voce_, "be they come out against us with wimmen!"
The Randolph had the weather-gage of the Yarmouth by this time; and Seymour shifted his helm slightly, rounded in his braces a little, and ran down with the wind a little free and on a line parallel to the course of his enemy, but going in a different direction. He lifted the gla.s.s again to his eye, and looked long and earnestly at the woman"s figure half hidden by the rail on the ship. Was it--could it be--indeed she? Was fate bringing them into opposition again? It was not possible. Trembling violently, he lifted the gla.s.s for a further investigation, when an officer, trumpet in hand, sprang upon the rail of the Yarmouth forward and hailed.
CHAPTER x.x.xVI
_The Last of the Randolph_
"Pa.s.s the word quietly," said Seymour, rapidly, to one of his young aids, "that when I say, "Stand by to back the maintopsail," the guns are to be fired. Bid the gun captains to train on the port-holes of the second tier of guns. Mind, no order to fire will be given except the words, "Stand by to back the maintopsail." The men are to fire at the word "topsail." Do you understand? Tell the division officers to hold up their hands, as a sign that they understand, as you pa.s.s along, so that I can see them. Lively now! Quartermaster, standby to haul down that flag and show our colors at the first shot."
The frigate was now rapidly drawing near the ship of the line, until, at the moment the officer hailed, the two ships were nearly alongside of each other. The awful disparity between their sizes was now painfully apparent.
"Ship ahoy! Ahoy the frigate!" came down a second time in long hollow tones through the trumpet from the officer balancing himself on the Yarmouth"s rail by holding on to a back-stay. "Why don"t you answer?"
"Ahoy the ship!" replied Seymour at last through his own trumpet.
"What ship is that?"
"His Britannic majesty"s ship of the line, Yarmouth, Captain Vincent.
Who are you? Answer, or I will fire!"
The flying boom of the Randolph was just pointing past the Yarmouth"s quarter, and the two ships were abreast each other; now, if ever, was the time for action.