"Good!" said the commodore. "What else did you hear among the Yankees?"
"Well, sir," replied the Tory sailor, "they said, and they seemed to know, that our cruisers off the Havana are mostly heavy craft that can"t chase "em through the channels and over the shoals and "mong the lagoons. What we need, sir, is a lot o" light draft vessels there, and well armed, too."
"Make a note of all this, lieutenant," exclaimed the commodore. "This man Watts has brought in good advice before this. Whatever he brings is said to be of practical value. Go on, man! What next?"
"Well, sir," said Watts, "before I left Liverpool the last time, I heard a p"int. I must look sharp after I get over and want to run in.
I must say it, sir, the Irish and English coast is only half guarded.
We haven"t half enough ships on duty there. Next we know, we"ll hear of Yankee pirates in St. George"s Channel."
"Note it! note it!" exclaimed the commodore, loudly. "It"s just so!
What with so many of our best cruisers ordered to America and the Antilles and the Mediterranean, and to the China seas, our own home coasts are left to be defended by old hulks and mere revenue cutters.
The Yankees can run away from the heavy tubs, and they can smash all the smuggler catchers. We shall hear bad news, next. Watts, take your own course. Get in how you can. You"re a man we can rely on. Go, now, sir."
"My ship"ll get in, sir," said Luke, almost too st.u.r.dily. "I wish I was as sure "bout some others. I"m afraid they"re going to crack our traders "mong the islands."
"That"ll do! Go!" he was told, and he went out, leaving behind him a very capable naval officer in a decidedly uncomfortable state of mind.
"Gentlemen," he said to his officers, "all that he says is only too true. I am sorry it is, but I am intending to embody it in my report to the Admiralty. The unpleasant thing for us is, however, that we can"t spare anything or send anything, from this fleet and station, to prevent the mischief that"s threatened among the Antilles."
They all agreed with him. All of them considered, also, that the man Luke Watts had given valuable information and suggestions. He had done so, doubtless, but he had not thereby done anything to hinder the future operations of any Yankee privateer.
He was rowed back to the _Termagant_, and when he arrived somebody was waiting for him on her deck.
"Feller named Allen," he was told by a sailor at the rail. "He"s a kind o" fur pedler, I"d say, with a permit from one o" the generals, I don"t know who."
"All right," said Watts. "Fetch him below, packs and all. I"ll see if his papers are reg"lar. We don"t make any loose work on this ship."
"Ay, ay, sir," said the sailor.
Sharp as was his examination of them a moment later, he seemed to be entirely satisfied with the doc.u.ments presented to him by the man named Allen. He had obtained the customary authority, as a loyal merchant of the port of New York, to ship by the _Termagant_ to his agent in London, a properly scheduled a.s.sortment of valuable furs. All had been officially inspected and approved.
"Come down below," said Captain Watts. "All your packages are down.
I"ll give these things another overhauling in my cabin."
"Certainly, Captain Watts," replied Mr. Allen. "Whatever you wish."
He was even willing to help carry down the furs, and one of the smaller parcels of them was in his hand when they reached the cabin. He still held it after the door was shut and bolted, leaving him and the captain alone together. Then his entire manner changed somewhat suddenly, and he threw his parcel down upon the table.
"Captain Luke Watts," he said, "that"s it. You"d best take out the papers, now, and stow "em away somewhere. You ain"t sure there won"t be another look taken at the furs "fore you git away. I wouldn"t risk it. They"re getting suspicious, all "round."
Open came the parcel, as he spoke, and in the very middle of it lay a bundle of such materials as would ordinarily have been sent through a post-office.
"It"s about all the cargo I"ll have, of any consequence," remarked Luke, staring down at the unexpected mail.
"General Schuyler told me to say," replied Allen, "that all these are of great importance. Some are from him to his friends in England.
You"ll know how to have "em delivered. Some are to go to Holland and some to Paris. That last is all the way from the Congress at Philadelphia. It got to me by way of Morristown and one of our Jersey Tories, you know. That"s old Ben Franklin"s own handwriting."
"I"ll see that they go straight through," said Luke, quietly. "I"ll put "em safe away, now, first thing."
"You"ll swing at a yard-arm inside o" one day, if you"re ketched with "em," said Allen. "I"ve been up among the Six Nations, all the way through to Niagara, for my brother"s concern on Pearl Street. I went to buy furs for them, you see, and did first-rate. I fetched along packs o" news, too, for the British commanders. It was risky business, working my way through Putnam"s lines, though. I came pretty nigh to being shot or hung by the rebels, you know."
"Ye-es, I know," responded Luke. "They came jest about as nigh as that to hangin" me, they did. The bloodthirsty pirates! Get ash.o.r.e, now, Allen. I"ll land your furs for ye. I hope your concern"ll make a good thing out of "em."
"Finest furs you ever saw," laughed Allen. "Look out for spies and searchers. Here"s good success to good King George--Washington, and may the glorious flag of England float victoriously--till we pull it down! Luke Watts, I"m the poisonest kind of Tory, I am!"
"Jest like me," said Watts. "I"ve done all I can to put down this "ere wicked rebellion."
"I"ve heard so," said Allen. "We got the news all the way from Connecticut. You delivered a whole ship"s cargo of heavy guns and muskets and ammunition to the loyal-hearted Tories of New London. I was born there once, myself. I know just how faithfully they love their king and his blessed Parliament. Good-by, Luke! A successful voyage to you. Keep out o" the way of pirates."
"I must, this time," said Watts. "If I don"t, I"ll never get another ship to carry furs and things in."
Up on deck they went, and the last words uttered by Allen did not have to be whispered.
"Take good care of your neck, Captain," he called out, from his boat.
"If you"re caught, this time, you"ll never see New York again, or Marblehead, either."
"I guess he"s about right," said Mate Brackett, gazing after the boat.
"I"d say you seem to be a man that the rebels have set a mark on."
"Never you mind," said Watts. "We won"t be ketched by "em, that"s all.
The commodore says we may sail our own course. We"ll git there."
"All right, sir," said Brackett. "We"ve a queer lot o" chaps with us this trip, but we"ll work "em."
What he meant by that was that all the prime seamen were needed by the war-ships, and that almost anything on two feet had been deemed good enough for an old transport ship going home in ballast.
"We"ll have to travel under light canvas, I take it," remarked Brackett, as he looked at his crew. "It"d be all night and part o"
next day for them to shorten sail in a hurry."
The boat which carried Mr. Allen, the loyal fur trader, reached the sh.o.r.e. On getting out of it, he walked until he came to a dwelling a short distance easterly from what the fire had left of old Pearl Street. He entered without knocking and pa.s.sed through the house to the kitchen in the rear, where a comely, middle-aged woman stood before an open fireplace, watching a pot which was hanging on the crane.
"Sally Allen," he said, in a somewhat low and guarded tone, "the captain took the furs. It"s all right."
"It is if they don"t find him out," she said, gloomily. "I think you are running awful risks, Tom. The sooner you are back again in the Mohawk Valley, the better for you."
"I shall get there," he told her; "that is, if I"m not shot before I pa.s.s the Dunderberg. I mustn"t stay here, though. I must be in a canoe at Spuyten Duyvil Creek before morning."
"They make short work of spies, Tom," she said. "Think of what they did to Nathan Hale. I used to know him, years ago, in New London."
"Sally," he said, "I want you to mark just one thing. He isn"t forgotten! One o" these days there"ll be some first-rate British officer captured, a good deal as Hale was, with papers on him, playing spy. Whenever that happens, our side won"t show any mercy. The spy"ll have to swing!"
"That"s all wrong!" she exclaimed. "I hate to think of it. All revenge is wicked. It"s awful to think of killing one man because somebody somewhere else killed another."
"Now, Sally, that isn"t it exactly," replied Tom. "What we mean is that all the spy hanging isn"t to be done on one side o" this war.
What"s right for them is right for us."
"No!" she said. "It isn"t so! It"s like so many red savages to talk in that way. We don"t take scalps, just because they do, nor kill women and children. I"m a true American woman, and I believe in righting, but I don"t want any stain left on our side."