“Cut the fast!” said Ludlow, involuntarily starting at several explosions in the interior, which followed each other in quick succession, and which were succeeded by one which sent fragments of burning wood into the air. “Cut, and bear the raft off the ship!–God knows, we have need to be further asunder!”
“Cut not!” cried the half-frantic Seadrift–“My brave!–my devoted!–”
“Is safe;–” calmly said the Skimmer, appearing in the rattlings of the main-rigging, which was still untouched by the fire–“Cut off all! I stay to brace the mizen-topsail more firmly aback.”
The duty was done, and for a moment the fine figure of the free-trader was seen standing on the edge of the burning ship, looking with regret at the glowing mass.
“’Tis the end of a lovely craft!” he said, loud enough to be heard by those beneath. Then he appeared in the air, and sunk into the sea–“The last signal was from the ward-room,” added the dauntless and dexterous mariner, as he rose from the water, and, shaking the brine from his head, he took his place on the stage–“Would to God the wind would blow, for we have need of greater distance!”
The precaution the free-trader had taken, in adjusting the sails, was not without its use. Motion the raft had none, but as the topsails of the Coquette were still aback, the flaming mass, no longer arrested by the clogs in the water, began slowly to separate from the floating spars, though the tottering and half-burnt masts threatened, at each moment, to fall.
Never did moments seem so long, as those which succeeded. Even the Skimmer and Ludlow watched, in speechless interest, the tardy movements of the ship. By little and little, she receded; and, after ten minutes of intense expectation, the seamen, whose anxiety had increased as their exertions ended, began to breathe more freely. They were still fearfully near the dangerous fabric, but destruction from the explosion was no longer inevitable. The flames began to glide upwards, and then the heavens appeared on fire, as one heated sail after another kindled and flared wildly in the breeze.
Still the stern of the vessel was entire. The body of the master was seated against the mizen-mast, and even the stern visage of the old seaman was distinctly visible, under the broad light of the conflagration. Ludlow gazed at it in melancholy, and for a time he ceased to think of his ship, while memory dwelt, in sadness, on those scenes of boyish happiness, and of professional pleasures, in which his ancient shipmate had so largely participated. The roar of a gun, whose stream of fire flashed nearly to their faces, and the sullen whistling of its shot, which crossed the raft, failed to awaken him from his trance.
“Stand firm to the mess-chest!” half-whispered the Skimmer, motioning to his companions to place themselves in attitudes to support the weaker of their party, while, with sedulous care, he braced his own athletic person in a manner to throw all of its weight and strength against the seat. “Stand firm, and be ready!”
Ludlow complied, though his eye scarce changed its direction. He saw the bright flame that was rising above the arm-chest, and he fancied that it came from the funeral pile of the young Dumont, whose fate, at that moment, he was almost disposed to envy. Then his look returned to the grim countenance of Trysail. At moments, it seemed as if the dead master spoke; and so strong did the illusion become, that our young sailor more than once bent forward to listen. While under this delusion, the body rose, with the arms stretched upwards. The air was filled with a sheet of streaming fire, while the ocean and the heavens glowed with one glare of intense and fiery red. Notwithstanding the precaution of the ‘Skimmer of the Seas,’ the chest was driven from its place, and those by whom it was held were nearly precipitated into the water. A deep, heavy detonation proceeded as it were from the bosom of the sea, which, while it wounded the ear less than the sharp explosion that had just before issued from the gun, was audible at the distant capes of the Delaware. The body of Trysail sailed upward for fifty fathoms, in the centre of a flood of flame, and, describing a short curve, it came towards the raft, and cut the water within reach of the captain’s arm. A sullen plunge of a gun followed, and proclaimed the tremendous power of the explosion; while a ponderous yard fell athwart a part of the raft, sweeping away the four petty officers of Ludlow, as if they had been dust driving before a gale. To increase the wild and fearful grandeur of the dissolution of the royal cruiser, one of the cannon emitted its fiery contents while sailing in the void.
The burning spars, the falling fragments, the blazing and scattered canvas and cordage, the glowing shot, and all the torn particles of the ship, were seen descending. Then followed the gurgling of water, as the ocean swallowed all that remained of the cruiser which had so long been the pride of the American seas. The fiery glow disappeared, and a gloom like that which succeeds the glare of vivid lightning, fell on the scene.
CHAPTER XV.
“–Please you, read.”
CYMBELINE. “It is past!” said the ‘Skimmer of the Seas,’ raising himself from the attitude of great muscular exertion, which he had assumed in order to support the mess-chest, and walking out along the single mast, towards the spot whence the four seamen of Ludlow had just been swept. “It is past! and those who are called to the last account, have met their fate in such a scene as none but a seaman may witness; while those who are spared, have need of all a seaman’s skill and resolution for that which remains! Captain Ludlow, I do not despair; for, see, the lady of the brigantine has still a smile for her servitors!”
Ludlow, who had followed the steady and daring free-trader to the place where the spar had fallen, turned and cast a look in the direction that the other stretched his arm. Within a hundred feet of him, he saw the image of the sea-green lady, rocking in the agitated water, and turned towards the raft, with its usual expression of wild and malicious intelligence. This emblem of their fancied mistress had been borne in front of the smugglers, when they mounted the poop of the Coquette; and the steeled staff on which the lantern was perched, had been struck into a horse-bucket by the standard-bearer of the moment, ere he entered the mêlée of the combat. During the conflagration, this object had more than once met the eye of Ludlow; and now it appeared floating quietly by him, in a manner almost to shake even his contempt for the ordinary superstitions of seamen. While he hesitated in what manner he should reply to his companion’s remark, the latter plunged into the sea, and swam towards the light. He was soon by the side of the raft again, bearing aloft the symbol of his brigantine. There are none so firm in the dominion of reason, as to be entirely superior to the secret impulses which teach us all to believe in the hidden agency of a good or an evil fortune. The voice of the free-trader was more cheerful, and his step more sure and elastic, as he crossed the stage and struck the armed end of the staff into that part of the top-rim of the Coquette, which floated uppermost.
“Courage!” he gaily cried. “While this light burns, my star is not set! Courage, lady of the land; for here is one of the deep waters, who still looks kindly on her followers! We are at sea, on a frail craft it is certain, but a dull sailer may make a sure passage.–Speak, gallant Master Seadrift: thy gaiety and spirit should revive under so goodly an omen!”
But the agent of so many pleasant masquerades, and the instrument of so much of his artifice, had not a fortitude equal to the buoyant temper of the smuggler. The counterfeit bowed his head by the side of the silent Alida, without reply. The ‘Skimmer of the Seas’ regarded the group, a moment, with manly interest; and then touching the arm of Ludlow, he walked, with a balancing step, along the spars, until they had reached a spot where they might confer without causing unnecessary alarm to their companions.
Although so imminent and so pressing a danger as that of the explosion had passed, the situation of those who had escaped was scarcely better than that of those who had been lost. The heavens showed a few glimmering stars in the openings of the clouds; and now, that the first contrast of the change had lessened, there was just enough light to render all the features of their actual state gloomily imposing.