CHAPTER ELEVEN.
The bold often succeed where the timid fail. The young midshipmen and their companion, nothing daunted by the dangers which surrounded them, kept on their course. The flames quickly ascending to the top of the old tower, sent their ruddy glare far across the ocean; and as their light fell on the adventurers and their little craft, it occurred to Paul that their strange, unseamanlike costume would at once betray them.
"The chances are that the Frenchmen have left some jackets in the after-cabin," he observed; and as he spoke, jumping below, he soon returned with several garments and hats, with which they quickly dressed themselves.
"Now we look pretty decent mounseers," observed Reuben, as he eased off the main-sheet a little. "If we"re hailed, you"ll have to tell "em, Paul--I mean Mr Gerrard--beg pardon--that we"re bound for Cherbourg, and don"t like to lose the breeze. It"s coming pretty strongish, and if I could but find a squaresail, for I sees there"s a squaresail boom, we"d make the little craft walk along."
Reuben was in high spirits, and indeed so were the midshipmen, at their hazardous enterprise having thus far succeeded. Still they were not out of danger. If it was believed that they had been burnt in the tower, they would not be pursued, unless the owners of the sloop or the remainder of her crew on sh.o.r.e should catch sight of her sailing away.
There were still several vessels to pa.s.s; but they intended to give them as wide a berth as possible. O"Grady was at the helm. Paul and Reuben were removing the main-hatch in hopes of finding the squaresail, when a cry from O"Grady made them jump up, and they saw the head of the Frenchman, with his mouth open, as if about to shout out, rising above the covering of the forehatch. An Englishman generally carries a weapon ready for immediate use, which at the end of a stout arm is of a somewhat formidable character--his fist. Reuben with his dealt the Frenchman a blow which stopped his shout, knocked three of his teeth down his throat, and sent him toppling over into the fore-peak, from which he had emerged; he, Reuben, and Paul following so rapidly, that the boy, who had been capsized by his companion, had not time to pick himself up. They this time took good care so to secure both their prisoners, that there was very little fear of their escaping, as the man had done before by expanding the muscles of his legs and arms while Reuben was securing him.
"Please tell them, Mr Gerrard, that if they cry out or attempt to play any more tricks, we must shoot them," said Reuben. "And now we"ll go and look for the squaresail."
The sail was found and bent on, and, Paul going to the helm, O"Grady and Reuben managed to set it. The vessel felt the effects of the additional canvas, as she drew out more from the land, and rapidly glided past the different vessels in the roadstead. There were only two more. One of these, however, they were compelled to pa.s.s uncomfortably near.
"When we are clear of her, we shall be all right," said O"Grady, looking back, and seeing nothing following. "She looks like an armed vessel--a man-of-war perhaps; but it won"t do to go out of our course; we must chance it."
They stood on. Although they were now some distance from the land, the old tower continued blazing up so fiercely, that a strong light was still thrown on their canvas. Being between the suspicious vessel and the light, they were abreast of her before they were seen. Just then a hail came from her, demanding who they were, and where they were bound.
"Answer, Gerrard, answer!" cried O"Grady.
But he did not tell him what to say; so Paul put up his hands and shouted, "Oui, oui; toute vite!" with all his might.
"Heave-to," shouted the voice, "and we will send a boat aboard you."
"Very likely," said Paul; and so he only cried out as before, "Oui, oui, to-morrow morning, or the day after, if you please!"
As a vessel running before the wind cannot heave-to at a moment"s notice, the sloop got on some little distance before any attempt was made to impede her progress. Another hail was heard, and after the delay of nearly another minute, there was a flash from one of the stranger"s ports, and a shot came whizzing by a few feet astern.
"If any of us are killed, let the others hold on to the last," cried O"Grady. "We are suspected, at all events, and may have a near squeak for it."
Reuben, the moment the first shot was fired, jumped down into the hold-- not to avoid another; no fear of that. Directly afterwards he shouted out, "I have found the square-topsail. Lend a hand, Paul, and we"ll get it up."
The square-top-sail was got up, rapidly bent on to the yard, and in another minute or two hoisted and set. The man-of-war meantime kept firing away; her shots falling on either side of the little vessel; but as she was riding head to wind, it was evident that only her stern chasers could be brought to bear.
"I wonder that she does not follow us," observed Paul, as the shots began to fall wider and wider of their mark.
"Perhaps most of her crew are on sh.o.r.e, or we are thought too small game to make it worth while to get under weigh for," answered O"Grady.
"However, don"t let us be too sure; perhaps she will come, after all.
We"ve got a good start of her though."
"The mounseers are generally a long time getting under weigh, and to my mind they don"t know what to make of us," observed Reuben, as he eyed the Frenchman with no loving glance.
The breeze continued freshening, and the little craft, evidently a remarkably fast one, flew bravely over the water, increasing her distance from the French sh.o.r.e, and from the light of the burning tower.
As the night was very dark, there was yet a chance of her escaping in the obscurity. The adventurers were already congratulating themselves on having got free, when Reuben exclaimed, "The Frenchman thinks more of us than we hoped. He"s making sail."
A sailor"s eyes alone, and these of the sharpest, could have discovered this disagreeable fact; and even Paul could distinguish nothing but the dark outline of the coast. Reuben kept his eye on the enemy.
"I doubt if she can see us," he observed. "And if she doesn"t, we may still give her the go-by. I"d haul up a little to the eastward, Mr O"Grady, sir. The tide will be making down soon, and we shall just check it across. She"ll walk along all the faster, too, with the wind on the starboard-quarter, and no risk of jibing. We"ll take a pull at the main-sheet, Mr Gerrard. Now we"ll ease off the squaresail sheet.
That"ll do, sir. Now the sail stands beautifully."
O"Grady wisely followed Reuben"s advice, and took no notice of his doing things which were so clearly right without orders.
The sloop was now steering about north-east by north, and should the Frenchman stand a little to the westward of north, the two vessels would soon be out of sight of each other. Reuben declared that he could still see the enemy now making all sail in chase, but could not tell exactly how she was standing. It was anxious work. O"Grady made her out, as well as Reuben, and all hoped devoutly that she was a slow sailer. They kept the little vessel on a steady course, and for an hour or more scarcely a word was uttered. Sometimes Reuben lost sight of the enemy; but before long she was again seen. It proved that she did not sail very fast, and that the course they had taken was suspected. Thus hour after hour they stood on, till dawn began to break.
"It"s all up with us if she sees us now," cried O"Grady. "But I vote we die game any how, and not give in while there"s one of us alive to steer the craft."
The increasing daylight soon revealed them to the Frenchman, who at once began blazing away in a manner which showed that the long chase they had given him had made him not a little angry. The shot, however, fell short; but he on this made more sail, and soon gained on them. He ceased firing for half an hour or more, and then again began, the shot flying by on either side, or over the mast-head. They came, indeed, much too near to be pleasant. Reuben took the helm, and the two midshipmen stood facing their enemy, knowing that any moment might be their last; still, however, as resolved as at first not to yield. In another twenty minutes or half an hour they must be killed or prisoners; escape seemed out of the question.
"I wish that I could let my father, and mother, and brothers, and sisters at Ballyshannon know what has become of me," said Paddy, with a sigh.
"And I wish that I could have again seen my dear mamma," said Paul, "and my sweet sister Mary, and jolly old Fred, and Sarah, and John, and pretty little Ann. They know that I am a midshipman, and I suppose that that will be some consolation to them if they ever hear that I"ve been killed."
"Don"t talk like that, young gentlemen. Look there. What do you say to that?" exclaimed Reuben, pointing to the north-west, where standing towards them, close-hauled, and evidently attracted by the firing, was a large, ship, the beams of the rising sun shining brightly on her wide-spread canvas.
"The enemy must see her, but fancy that she is French," observed Reuben.
"But they are greatly mistaken, let me tell them."
"Hurrah! they"ve found out that they"re wrong, then," cried O"Grady.
As he spoke, down came the Frenchman"s studden sails, and with a few parting shots, which narrowly missed their mark, he hauled his wind, and stood close-hauled towards the coast of France. He sailed badly before the wind; he sailed worse close-hauled. The stranger, which soon proved to be an English frigate, her ensign blowing out at her peak, came rapidly up. The adventurers cheered as she pa.s.sed, and received a cheer in return. Those on board evidently understood the true state of the case.
"Why, I do believe that is Devereux himself!" cried Paul, in a tone of delight.
"Well, it is difficult to be certain of a person at such a distance; but it is very like him," said O"Grady. "But, again, how could he be there?
He could not have made his escape from prison."
The sloop hove to in order to watch the chase, which was soon terminated, for the frigate came up hand over hand with the slow-sailing brig, which found to her cost that instead of catching a prize she had caught a Tartar. The midshipmen consulted together whether it would be wiser to continue their course for the Isle of Wight, or to get on board the frigate. But as the Channel swarmed with the cruisers of the enemy, they decided to do the latter; and accordingly, when they saw the frigate returning with her prize, they stood towards her. They were soon up to her, and, a boat being sent to them, as they stepped up her side the first person they encountered was Devereux.
"Why, old fellows, where have you come from in that curious guise?" he exclaimed, as he warmly wrung their hands.
"Oh, we ran away, and have been running ever since, barring some few weeks we spent shut up in an old castle and a tumble-down tower,"
answered O"Grady.
"And the captain, and I, and a few others, were exchanged two weeks ago for a lot of French midshipmen without any trouble whatever."
"As to that, now we are free, I don"t care a rope-yarn for all the trouble we have had, nor if we had had ten times as much. But we ought to report ourselves to the captain; and we think--that is, Gerrard does--that we ought to let our prisoners take back the sloop which we ran away with."
"I agree with Gerrard, and so I am sure will the captain," said Devereux.
The frigate on board which the three adventurers so unexpectedly and happily found themselves was the _Proserpine_, Captain Percy, of forty-two guns. As she was on her trial cruise, having only just been fitted out, she was short of midshipmen, and Captain Percy offered to give both O"Grady and Paul a rating on board if Reuben would enter.
This he willingly did, and they thus found themselves belonging to the ship. The occupants of the berth received them both very cordially, and paid especial attention to Paul, of whom Devereux had spoken to them in the warmest terms of praise. The surprise of the Frenchman and boy on board the sloop was very great, when Paul and Reuben, accompanied by some prisoners from the prize, appeared and released them; and when Paul told them that they might return home, and that some countrymen had come to help them navigate the ship, to express his joy and grat.i.tude, he would have kissed them both had they allowed him; and he seemed at a loss how otherwise to show it, except by skipping and jumping about, on his deck. When he shortly afterwards pa.s.sed the _Proserpine_, he and his companions waved their hats, and attempted to raise a cheer; but it sounded very weak and empty, or, as Reuben observed to one of his new shipmates, "It was no more like a British cheer than the squeak of a young porker is to a boatswain"s whistle."
The prize thus easily gained was sent into Portsmouth, and the _Proserpine_ continued her cruise. O"Grady and Paul would have liked to have gone in her; but they thought it better to wait till the frigate herself returned to port, when they might get leave to go home and visit their friends, and perhaps take a little prize-money with them to make up for what they had lost. They easily got a temporary rig-out on board, so that there was no absolute necessity for their going. Paul had hitherto, young as he was, held up manfully in spite of all the fatigue and anxiety he had gone through; but no sooner had the prize disappeared, than his strength and spirits seemed to give way. He kept in the berth for a day or two; but could scarcely crawl on deck, when Devereux reporting his condition to the surgeon, he was placed in the sick list. Both his old shipmates, Devereux and O"Grady, attended him with the fondest care, and he would have discovered, had he possessed sufficient consciousness, how completely he had wound himself round their hearts. He had done so, not by being proud, or boastful, or self-opinionated, or by paying them court, by any readiness to take offence, or by flattery, or by any other mean device, but by his bravery and honesty, by his gentleness and liveliness, by his readiness to oblige, and general good-nature and uprightness, and by being true to himself and true to others--doing to them as he would be done by. They became at last very sad--that is to say, as sad as midshipmen in a dashing frigate, with a good captain, can become during war time; for they thought that Paul was going to die, and the surgeon gave them no hopes. No one, however, was more sad than Reuben, who for many a watch below, when he ought to have been in his own hammock, sat by the side of his cot, administering the medicines left by the doctor, and tending him with all a woman"s care and tenderness. The thoughts of his friends were for a time, however, called off from Paul by an event which brought all hands on deck--the appearance of a strange sail, p.r.o.nounced to be a French frigate equal in size to the _Proserpine_. All sail was made in chase. The ship was cleared for action, and Paul with other sick was carried into the c.o.c.kpit to be out of the way of shot. The gunner went to the magazine to send up powder; the carpenter and his mates to the wings, with plugs, to stop any shot-holes between wind and water; and the various other officers, commissioned and warrant, repaired to their respective posts. Paul had sufficiently recovered to know what was about to take place, and to wish to be on deck.
"Couldn"t you let me go, doctor--only just while the action is going on?" he murmured out. "I"ll come back, and go to bed, and do all you tell me--indeed I will."
"I am sorry to say that you could be of no use, my brave boy, and would certainly injure yourself very much; so you must stay where you are,"
answered the surgeon, who was busy in getting out the implements of his calling. "You will have many opportunities of fighting and taking other prizes besides the one which will, I hope, soon be ours."