Harry Collingwood

“ There she was, about three miles directly astern, clearly visible in the light of the young moon, which gleamed faintly upon her canvas; but—oh, misery—she was close-hauled upon the starboard tack, dead to windward, and sailing away from us. We shouted until not another sound would our parched throats utter, but it was all of course of no avail; and we were far too low in the water to attract the attention of even the sharpest lookout in that feeble light; the ship swept steadily on and at length passed out of sight below the horizon. ”

“ Now, she passed out to sea with her fore and main-topgallant-masts and mizen-topmast hanging over the side, the fore-topsail-yard down on the cap, the spankerboom shot away in the jaws, the flying-jib-stay and halliards cut through and the sail towing alongside, her canvas riddled with shot-holes, ends and bights of ropes streaming out in the wind everywhere aloft, and two 36-pound shot in her side. Luckily, however, our casualties ended here; for, notwithstanding the hailstorm of shot through which we had passed, not a man on board was hurt. ”

“ I was almost immediately afterwards joined by Bob, whose face beamed with delight as he directed my attention to a ship’s cutlass which he had girded to his thigh, and a pair of long-barrelled duelling-pistols which our fire-eating “second” had entrusted to his care. We at once trundled down over the side into our cockleshell of a boat, and, getting on board the “Mouette” with all speed, roused up the anchor and dodged about well in view of the admiral, keeping a sharp lookout for the “whiff” in the mizzen-rigging, which was our especial signal for service. ”

“ As the frigate drew up abreast of us, her captain sprang into the mizen rigging and hailed through a speaking-trumpet, “Mais, Monsieur le capitaine, why you shall not haul down votre drapeau; Vous avez se rendre, n’est pas?”
Captain Brisac raised his hand to his mouth as though to reply; waving it at the same time for the helmsman to sheer us alongside; the men with the grappling irons being crouched under the bulwarks all ready to heave; and all hands fore and aft straining forward like hounds in leash, waiting breathlessly for the coming shock.
“What ship is that?” hailed the skipper ”

“ The expression of mingled horror and disgust which slowly overspread the features of the skipper and the first luff, like a summer cloud sailing slowly across the disc of the full moon, would have been irresistibly laughable under other circumstances, but as matters stood nobody felt the slightest inclination to laugh.
“Prisoners!!” ejaculated Mr Annesley. He was apparently too full for further utterance, but he had already said quite enough. “We are prisoners!” flew from mouth to mouth, like wildfire, and in less than two minutes every man in the ship had become acquainted with our position. ”

“ The living were carried aft to the cabin, where the surgeon, assisted by Hawsepipe, devoted all his energies to their restoration, while the quarter-master and I returned to the deck to look after the safety of the ship.
In the meantime a terrific thunder-storm heralded by that first destructive discharge, had set in, the green and baleful glare of the livid lightning illuminating the scene until it became almost as light as day; while the crashing roll of the thunder was absolutely continuous, and so deafening that I felt stunned and stupefied by it. ”

“ At length, as we rose to the crest of one mountainous sea, which had completely hidden the French ship from us, up to her very royal-mast-heads, we saw her surging madly forward upon the breast of the one which followed it, the hissing foam-crest which pursued her rearing itself high and threateningly above her taffrail, while the ship herself, with her port gunwale deep buried in the water, was taking a desperate and uncontrollable sheer to starboard which we saw in a moment would hurl her crashing into the little “Vigilant” somewhere about the mainmast. ”

“ In front of, and still below us, and so near that we could distinguish the accoutrements of the men forming its garrison, was the redoubt, with its twenty-one guns projecting their muzzles threateningly over the sod parapet, and symmetrical little pyramidal piles of shot heaped up alongside each gun. Beyond it lay San Fiorenzo, with its narrow streets, red-tiled, white-washed houses, terraced gardens, insignificant-looking churches, and the harbour beyond, with the cliffs stretching away beyond it again as far as Cape Corso, and away out at sea the small island of Capriaja. ”

“ At first I was sanguine enough to hope that, seeing how we slipped away from her, the lateener would ’bout ship, and return to her moorings; but nothing of the kind: she held on like grim death, her skipper, no doubt, being seaman enough to read in the increasingly-threatening aspect of the heavens a promise that his turn should come by-and-by.
In the meantime the wind grew rapidly lighter until it became “breathless” calm; and there we both lay, heaving sluggishly on the long swell, our sails flapping idly from side to side, and our bows boxing the compass. ”

“ We were already hugging the wind as closely as was possible, and had every possible inch of canvas spread; so we could do nothing but stand on as we were going, and await the course of events.
Her sails rose rapidly above the horizon for the first hour or so, but after that, as we brought her more on our quarter, they began to sink again. When about abeam of us, the stranger hoisted the tricolour at her gaff-end, fired a gun, and showed a signal from her main-royal mast-head, of which we could make nothing. ”

“ At a signal, made by the waving of a lantern, the guns of the Cliff Battery above us suddenly became mute, as though the artillerymen had given up for the night; and a calm and tranquil silence ensued, broken only by the gentle rustle of the fitful breeze through the foliage of some firs which were dotted here and there along the precipitous sides of the ravine, the chirping of insects, the occasional twitter of a sleeping bird, or a low murmur here and there in the serried ranks of armed men which stood awaiting the order to rush forth to death or victory. ”

“ I looked in the direction indicated, and saw a long low-hulled craft, cutter-rigged, with what struck me as a set of spars altogether disproportionate to her size.
“Oh!” I exclaimed in a tone of disappointment, “she will never do. Why, she would capsize with half a capful of wind.”
“By no means, signor,” replied the Corsican. “Though yew would never believe it, to look at her, she carries her canvas better and longer than any boat belonging to Ajaccio, and as for working to windward—she is simply astounding.” ”

“ The Frenchman was by this time so close that we could not only see with the utmost distinctness the crew reloading their guns, but could hear the confused jabber of excited conversation which appeared to be going on unchecked on board. What a contrast to our own ship, where every man stood at his post, steady and silent as a statue!
At last the two ships came up fairly abreast of each other, and were passing so closely that an active man might have jumped from the one to the other, when the skipper uttered the word “Fire!” ”

“ All went well with the little expedition until the boat arrived within half a mile of Bastia, when a little breeze sprang up; the canopy of cloud which had overspread the heavens cleared away as if by magic, and the stars shone out brilliantly, flooding earth and sea with a light which, though subdued, was sufficient to reveal to the sharp-eyed French sentinels the small dark object which was silently stealing toward the shore. ”

“ Then it would drop once more; and nothing would be heard but the heavy flap of the canvas, the creak of the spars, the swish of the water as it lapped in over our bulwarks—the craft rolling gunwale-under—and a low weird moaning of pent-up wind, which teemed to be imprisoned in a heavy cloud-bank rapidly piling itself up on the north-western horizon. The sky, which had been clear all day, became overspread with a canopy of dirty lead-coloured vapour, between which and ourselves soon appeared small ragged patches of fast-flying scud. ”

“ The second lieutenant, Mr Michael Flinn, was a rollicking, good-tempered, good-natured young Irishman, careless and impulsive, as the generality of his countrymen are, always ready to perform a service for a friend, and still more ready to break the head of an enemy; a passably good officer afloat, but possessed with a perfect genius for getting into scrapes—and out of them again—on shore, with no consciousness whatever of his own dignity as one of his Majesty’s officers, and ever ready to join heart and soul in any escapade of which he might happen to get an inkling. ”

“ The frigate rushed foaming past our stern, so closely that the surge from her port bow dashed in over our taffrail, and the leach of her lower stunsail, catching the head of our mizzen-mast, buckled the spar until the port shrouds parted, when, luckily for us, crack went her stunsail-boom and her lower and fore-topmast stunsail began to thrash about so wildly, that they promised to give her crew their hands full to get in the sails without injury to any of the men. ”