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a--cannibal; but you are out of your own father s books, and it s too often
shoal water in your pockets to help any one--more especially since you have
just been spliced to a pretty young body--that will want all your spare
coppers.
But I am master of my own fortune, said Griffith, and am rich.
Ay, ay, I have heard it said you could build a frigate and set her afloat
all a-taunt-o without thrusting your hand--into any man s purse--but your
own!
And I pledge you the honor of a naval officer, continued the young sailor,
that she shall want for nothing; not even the care and tenderness of a
dutiful son.
Boltrope appeared to be choking; he made an attempt to raise his exhausted
frame on the couch, but fell back exhausted and dying, perhaps a little
prematurely, through the powerful and unusual emotions that were struggling
for utterance. God forgive me my misdeeds! he, at length, said, and chiefly
for ever speaking a word against your disciplyne; remember the best bower--and
look to the slings of the lower yards--and--and--he ll do it Dickey, he ll do
it! I m casting off--the fasts --of life--and so God bless ye all--and give ye
good weather--going large--or on a bowline!
The tongue of the master failed him, but a look of heart-felt satisfaction
gleamed across his rough visage, as its muscles suddenly contracted, when the
faded lineaments slowly settled into the appalling stiffness of death.
Griffith directed the body to be removed to the apartment of the Master, and
proceeded with a heavy heart to the upper deck. The Alacrity had been
unnoticed during the arduous chase of the frigate, and favored by day-light,
and her light draught of water, she had easily effected her escape also among
the mazes of the shoals. She was called down to her consort by signal, and
received the necessary instructions how to steer during the approaching night.
The British ships were now only to be faintly discovered, like small white
specks on the dark sea, and as it was known that a broad barrier of shallow
water lay between them, the Americans no longer regarded their presence as at
all dangerous.
When the necessary orders had been given, and the vessels were fully
prepared, they were once more brought up to the wind, and their heads pointed
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in the direction of the coast of Holland. The wind, which freshened towards
the decline of day, hauled round with the sun, and when that luminary
retreated from the eye, so rapid had been the progress of the mariners, it
seemed to sink in the bosom of the ocean, the land having long before settled
into its watery bed. All night the frigate continued to dash through the seas
with a sort of sullen silence, that was soothing to the melancholy of Cecilia
and Katherine, neither of whom closed an eye during that gloomy period. In
addition to the scene they had witnessed, their feelings were harrowed by the
knowledge that, in conformity to the necessary plans of Griffith, and in
compliance with the new duties he had assumed, they were to separate in the
morning for an indefinite period, and possibly forever.
With the appearance of light, the boatswain sent his rough summons through
the vessel, and the crew were collected in solemn silence in her gang-ways, to
bury the dead. The bodies of Boltrope, of one or two of her inferior
officers, and of several common men, who had died of their wounds in the
night, were, with the usual formalities, committed to the deep; when the yards
of the ship were again braced by the wind, and she glided along the trackless
waste, leaving no memorial in the midst of the ever-rolling waters, to mark
the place of their sculpture.
When the sun had gained the meridian the vessels were once more hove-to, and
the preparations were made for a final separation. The body of Colonel Howard
was transferred to the Alacrity, whither it was followed by Griffith and his
cheerless bride, while Katherine hung fondly from a window of the ship,
suffering her own scalding tears to mingle with the brine of the ocean. After
every thing was arranged, Griffith waved his hand to Barnstable, who had now
succeeded to the command of the frigate, and the yards of the latter were
braced sharp to the wind, when she proceeded to the dangerous experiment of
forcing her way to the shores of America, by attempting the pass of the
streights of Dover, and running the gauntlet through the English ships that
crowded their own channel; an undertaking, however, for which she had the
successful example of the Alliance frigate, which had borne the stars of
America along the same hazardous path but a few months previously.
In the meanwhile the Alacrity, steering more to the west, drew in swiftly
towards the shores of Holland, and about an hour before the setting of the
sun, had approached so nigh as to be once more hove into the wind, in
obedience to the mandate of Griffith, A small light boat was lowered into the
sea, when the young sailor, and the pilot, who had found his way into the
cutter unheeded, and almost unseen, ascended from the small cabin together.
The stranger glanced his eyes along the range of coast, as if he would
ascertain the exact position of the vessel, and then turned them on the sea
and the western horizon to scan the weather. Finding nothing in the appearance
of the latter to induce him to change his determination, he offered his hand
frankly to Griffith, and said--
Here we part. As our acquaintance has not led to all we wished, let it be
your task, sir, to forget we ever met.
Griffith bowed respectfully, but in silence, when the other continued,
shaking his hand contemptuously towards the land--
Had I but a moiety of the navy of that degenerate republic, the proudest
among those haughty islanders should tremble in his castle, and be made to
feel there is no security against a foe that trusts his own strength and knows
the weakness of his enemy! But , he muttered in a lower and more hurried
voice, this has been like Liverpool, and--Whitehaven--and Edinburgh, and
fifty more! it is past, sir; let it be forgotten.
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Without heeding the wondering crew, who were collected as curious spectators
of his departure, the stranger bowed hastily to Griffith, and springing into
the boat, he spread her light sail with the readiness of one who had nothing
to learn even in the smallest matters of his daring profession. Once more, as
the boat moved briskly away from the cutter, he waved his hand in adieu, and
Griffith fancied, that even through the distance, he could trace a smile of
bitter resignation, lighting his calm features with a momentary gleam. For a
long time the young man stood an abstracted gazer at his solitary progress,
watching the small boat as it glided towards the open ocean, nor did he
remember to order the head sheets of the Alacrity drawn, in order to put the
vessel again in motion, until the dark speck was lost in the strong glare that
fell, obliquely across the water, from the setting sun.
Many wild and extraordinary conjectures were uttered among the crew of the
cutter, as she slowly drew in towards her friendly haven, on the appearance of
the mysterious pilot, during their late hazardous visit to the coast of
Britain, and on his still more extraordinary disappearance, as it were, amid
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