“The night I rowed you into Louisbourg, a-reconnoitring,” said Fid, thrusting his left hand into his bosom, while, with his right, he applied sufficient force to the light oar to make the skiff glide swiftly over the water—“that night we muffled every thing even to our tongues. When there is occasion to put stoppers on the mouths of a boat’s crew, why, I’m not the man to gainsay it; but, as I am one of them that thinks tongues were just as much made to talk with, as the sea was made to live on, I uphold rational conversation in sober society. S’ip, you Guinea where are you shoving the skiff to? hereaway lies the island, and you are for going into yonder bit of a church.”
“Lay on your oars,” interrupted Wilder; “let the boat drift by this vessel.”
They were now in the act of passing the ship, which had been warping from the wharfs to an anchorage and in which the young sailor had so clandestinely heard that Mrs Wyllys and the fascinating Gertrude were to embark, on the following morning, for the distant province of Carolina. As the skiff floated past, Wilder examined the vessel, by the dim light of the stars, with a seaman’s eye. No part of her hull, her spars, or her rigging, escaped his notice, and, when the whole became confounded, by the distance, in one dark mass of shapeless matter, he leaned his head over the side of his little bark, and mused long and deeply with himself. To this abstraction Fid presumed to offer no interruption. It had the appearance of professional duty; a subject that, in his eyes, was endowed with a species of character that might be called sacred. Scipio was habitually silent. After losing many minutes in the manner, Wilder suddenly regained his recollection and abruptly observed,—
“It is a tall ship, and one that should make a long chase!”
“That’s as may be,” returned the ready Fid. “Should that fellow get a free wind, and his canvas all abroad, it might worry a King’s cruiser to get nigh enough to throw the iron on his decks; but jamm’d up close hauled, why, I’d engage to lay on his weather quarter, with the saucy He—”
“Boys,” interrupted Wilder, “it is now proper that you dhould know something of my future movements. We have been shipmates, I might almost say messmates, for more than twenty years. I was better than an infant, Fid, when you brought me to the commander of your ship, and not only was instrumental in saving my life, but in putting me into a situation to make an officer.”
“Ay, ay, you were no great matter, master Harry as to bulk; and a short hammock served your turn as well as the captain’s birth.”
“I owe you a heavy debt, Fid, for that one generous act, and something, I may add, for your steady adherence to me since.”
“Why, yes, I’ve been pretty steady in my conduct master Harry, in this here business, more particularly seeing that I have never let go my grapplings, though you’ve so often sworn to turn me adrift. As for Guinea, here, the chap makes fair weather with you, blow high or blow low, whereas it is no hard matter to get up a squall between us, as might be seen in that small affair about the boat;”—
“Say no more of it,” interrupted Wilder, whose feelings appeared sensibly touched, as his recollections ran over long-past and bitterly-remembered scenes: “You know that little else than death can part us, unless indeed you choose to quit me now. It is right that you should know that I am engaged in a desperate pursuit, and one that may easily end in ruin to myself and all who accompany me. I feel reluctant to separate from you, my friends, for it may be a final parting, but, at the same time, you should know all the danger.”
“Is there much more travelling by land?” bluntly demanded Fid.
“No; the duty, such as it is, will be done entirely in the water.”
“Then bring forth your ship’s books, and find room for such a mark as a pair of crossed anchors, which stand for all the same as so many letters reading ‘Richard Fid.’”
“But perhaps, when you know”——
“I want to know nothing about it, master Harry Haven’t I sailed with you often enough under sealed orders, to trust my old body once more in your company without forgetting my duty? What say you Guinea? will you ship? or shall we land you at once, on yonder bit of a low point, and leave you to scrape acquaintance with the clams?”
“‘Em berry well off, here,” muttered the perfectly contented negro.
“Ay, ay, Guinea is like the launch of one of the coasters, always towing in your wake, master Harry; whereas I am often luffing athwart your hawse, or getting foul, in some fashion or other, on one of your quarters. Howsomever, we are both shipped, as you see, in this here cruise, with the particulars of which we are both well satisfied. So pass the word among us, what is to be done next, and no more parley.”
“Remember the cautions you have already received returned Wilder, who saw that the devotion of his followers was too infinite to need quickening, and who knew, from long and perilous experience, how implicitly he might rely on their fidelity, notwithstanding certain failings, that were perhaps peculiar to their condition; remember what I have already given in charge; and now pull directly for yon ship in the outer harbour.”
Fid and the black promptly complied; and the boat was soon skimming the water between the little island and what might, by comparison, be called the main. As they approached the vessel, the strokes of the oars were moderated, and finally abandoned altogether, Wilder preferring to let the skiff drop down with the tide upon the object he wished well to examine before venturing to board.
“Has not that ship her nettings triced to the rigging?” he demanded, in a voice that was lowered to the tones necessary to escape observation, and which betrayed, at the same time, the interest he took in the reply.
“According to my sight, she has,” returned Fid; “your slavers are a little pricked by conscience, and are never over-bold, unless when they are chasing a young nigger on the coast of Congo. Now, there is about as much danger of a Frenchman’s looking in here to-night, with this land breeze and clear sky, as there is of my being made Lord High Admiral of England; a thing not likely to come to pass soon, seeing that the King don’t know a great deal of my merit.”
“They are, to a certainty, ready to give a warm reception to any boarders!” continued Wilder, who rarely paid much attention to the amplifications with which Fid so often saw fit to embellish the discourse. “It would be no easy matter to carry a ship thus prepared, if her people were true to themselves.”
“I warrant ye there is a full quarter-watch at least sleeping among her guns, at this very moment, with a bright look-out from her cat-heads and taffrail. I was once on the weather fore-yard-arm of the Hebe, when I made, hereaway to the south-west, a sail coming large upon us,”—
“Hist! they are stirring on her decks!”
“To be sure they are. The cook is splitting a log; the captain has sung out for his night-cap.”
The voice of Fid was lost in a summons from the ship, that sounded like the roaring of some sea monster which had unexpectedly raised its head above the water. The practised ears of our adventurers instantly comprehended it to be, what it truly was, the manner in which it was not unusual to hail a boat. Without taking time to ascertain that the plashing of oars was to be heard in the distance. Wilder raised his form in the skiff, and answered.
“How now?” exclaimed the same strange voice; “there is no one victualled aboard here that speaks thus. Whereaway are you, he that answers?”
“A little on your larboard bow; here, in the shadow of the ship.”
“And what are ye about, within the sweep of my hawse?”
“Cutting the waves with my taffrail,” returned Wilder, after a moment’s hesitation.
“What fool has broke adrift here!” muttered his interrogator. “Pass a blunderbuss forward, and let us see if a civil answer