When the Coquette had tacked, the calm and observant Skimmer was satisfied with throwing his head-sails flat to the mast. From that instant, the brigantine lay floating in the current, neither advancing nor receding a foot, and always keeping her position at a safe distance from the ship, that was so adroitly made to answer the purpose of a beacon. The sails were watched with the closest care; and so nicely was the delicate machine tended, that it would have been, at any moment, in her people’s power to have lessened her way, by turning to the stream. The Coquette was followed till she anchored, and the call on board the cruiser to heave the grapnels had been given, because the brigantine was apparently floating directly down on her broadside.
When the grapnels were hove from the royal cruiser, the free-trader stood on the low poop of his little vessel, within fifty feet of him who had issued the order. There was a smile of indifference on his firm mouth, while he silently waved a hand to his own crew. The signal was obeyed by bracing round their yards, and suffering all the canvas to fill. The brigantine shot quickly ahead, and the useless irons fell heavily into the water.
“Many thanks for your pilotage, Captain Ludlow!” cried the daring and successful mariner of the shawl, as his vessel, borne on by wind and current, receded rapidly from the cruiser–“You will find me off Montauk; for affairs still keep us on the coast. Our lady has, however, put on the blue mantle; and ere many settings of the sun, we shall look for deep water. Take good care of Her Majesty’s ship, I pray thee, for she has neither a more beautiful nor a faster!”
One thought succeeded another with the tumult of a torrent, in the mind of Ludlow. As the brigantine lay directly under his broadside, the first impulse was to use his guns; but at the next moment he was conscious, that before they could be cleared, distance would render them useless. His lips had nearly parted with intent to order the cables cut, but he remembered the speed of the brigantine, and hesitated. A sudden freshening of the breeze decided his course. Finding that the ship was enabled to keep her station, he ordered the crew to thrust the whole of the enormous ropes through the hawseholes; and, freed from the restraint, he abandoned the anchors, until an opportunity to reclaim them should offer.
The operation of slipping the cables consumed several minutes; and when the Coquette, with every thing set, was again steering in pursuit, the Water-Witch was already beyond the reach of her guns. Both vessels, however, held on their way, keeping as near as possible to the centre of the stream, and trusting more to fortune, than to any knowledge of the channel, for safety.
When passing the two small islands that lie at no great distance from the Gate, a boat was seen moving towards the royal cruiser. A man in it pointed to the signal, which was still flying, and offered his services.
“Tell me,” demanded Ludlow eagerly, “has yonder brigantine taken a pilot?”
“By her movements, I judge not. She brushed the sunken rock, off the mouth of Flushing-bay; and as she passed, I heard the song of the lead. I should have gone on board myself, but the fellow rather flies than sails; and as for signals, he seems to mind none but his own!”
“Bring us up with him, and fifty guineas is thy reward!”
The slow-moving pilot, who in truth had just awoke from a refreshing sleep, opened his eyes, and seemed to gather a new impulse from the promise. When his questions were asked and answered, he began deliberately to count on his fingers all the chances that still existed of a vessel, whose crew was ignorant of the navigation, falling into their hands.
“Admitting that, by keeping mid-channel, she goes clear of White Stone and Frogs,” he said, giving to Throgmorton’s its vulgar name, “he must be a wizard, to know that the Stepping-Stones lie directly across his course, and that a vessel must steer away northerly, or bring up on rocks that will as surely hold him as if he were built there. Then he runs his chance for the Executioners, which are as prettily placed as needs be, to make our trade flourish; besides the Middle Ground further east, though I count but little on that, having often tried to find it myself, without success. Courage, noble captain! if the fellow be the man you say, we shall get a nearer look at him before the sun sets; for certainly he who has run the Gate without a pilot in safety, has had as much good luck as can fall to his share in one day.”
The opinion of the East River Branch proved erroneous. Notwithstanding the hidden perils by which she was environed, the Water-Witch continued her course, with a speed that increased as the wind rose with the sun, and with an impunity from harm that amazed all who were in the secret of her situation. Off Throgmorton’s there was, in truth, a danger that might even have baffled the sagacity of the followers of the mysterious lady, had they not been aided by accident. This is the point where the straitened arm of the sea expands into the basin of the Sound. A broad and inviting passage lies directly before the navigator, while, like the flattering prospects of life, numberless hidden obstacles are in wait to arrest the unheeding and ignorant.
The ‘Skimmer of the Seas’ was deeply practised in all the intricacies and dangers of the shoals and rocks. Most of his life had been passed in threading the one, or in avoiding the other. So keen and quick had his eye become, in detecting the presence of any of those signs which forewarn the mariner of danger, that a ripple on the surface, or a deeper shade in the color of the water, rarely escaped his vigilance. Seated on the topsail-yard of his brigantine, he had overlooked the passage from the moment they were through the Gate, and issued his mandates to those below with a precision and promptitude that were not surpassed by the trained conductor of the Coquette himself. But when his sight embraced the wide reach of water that lay in front, as his little vessel swept round the head-land of Throgmorton, he believed there no longer existed a reason for so much care. Still there was a motive for hesitation. A heavily-moulded and dull-sailing coaster was going eastward not a league ahead of the brigantine, while one of the light sloops of those waters was coming westward still further in the distance. Notwithstanding the wind was favorable to each alike, both vessels had deviated from the direct line, and were steering towards a common centre, near an island that was placed more than a mile to the northward of the straight course. A mariner, like him of the India-shawl, could not overlook so obvious an intimation of a change in the channel. The Water-Witch was kept away, and her lighter sails were lowered, in order to allow the royal cruiser, whose lofty canvas was plainly visible above the land, to draw near. When the Coquette was seen also to diverge, there no longer remained a doubt of the direction necessary to be taken; and every thing was quickly set upon the brigantine, even to her studding-sails. Long ere she reached the island, the two coasters had met, and each again changed its course, reversing that on which the other had just been sailing. There was, in these movements, as plain an explanation as a seaman could desire, that the pursued were right. On reaching the island, therefore, they again luffed into the wake of the schooner; and having nearly crossed the sheet of water, they passed the coaster, receiving an assurance, in words, that all was now plain sailing, before them.
Such was the famous passage of the ‘Skimmer of the Seas’ through the multiplied and hidden dangers of the eastern channel. To those who have thus accompanied him, step by step, though its intricacies and alarms, there may seem nothing extraordinary in the event; but, coupled as it was with the character previously earned by that bold mariner, and occurring, as it did, in an age when men were more disposed than at present to put faith in the marvellous, the reader will not be surprised to learn that it greatly increased his reputation for daring, and had no small influence on an opinion, which was by no means uncommon, that the dealers in contraband were singularly favored by a power which greatly exceeded that of Queen Anne and all her servants.
CHAPTER XI.
“–Thou shalt see me at Philippi.”
Shakspeare
The commander of Her Britannic Majesty’s ship Coquette slept that night in the hammock-cloths. Before the sun had set, the light and swift brigantine, by following the gradual bend of the land, had disappeared in the eastern board; and it was no longer a question of overtaking her by speed. Still, sail was crowded on the royal cruiser; and, long ere the period when Ludlow threw himself in his clothes between the ridge-ropes of the quarter-deck, the vessel had gained the broadest part of the Sound, and was already approaching the islands that form the ‘Race.’