Home > Authors Index > George Manville Fenn > Fitz the Filibuster > This page
Fitz the Filibuster, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
||
Chapter 2. Bravo, Boy! |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER TWO. BRAVO, BOY! The dim evening gave place to a dark night. The _Tonans_ had for some two or three hours been stealing along very slowly not far from land, and that something important was on the way was evident from the captain's movements, and the sharp look-out that was being kept up, and still more so from the fact that no lights were shown. The gunboat's cutter had been swung out ready for lowering down at a moment's notice, the armed crew stood waiting, and one man was in the stern-sheets whose duty it was to look after the lantern, which was kept carefully shaded. Fitz, who was the readiest of the ready, had long before noted with intense interest the fact that they showed no lights, and his interest increased when the lieutenant became so far communicative that he stood gazing out through the darkness side by side with his junior, and said softly-- "I am afraid we shall miss her, my lad. She'll steal by us in the darkness, and it will all prove to be labour in vain." Fitz waited to hear more, but no more came, for the lieutenant moved off to join the captain. "I wish he wouldn't be so jolly mysterious," said the midshipman to himself. "I am an officer too, and he might have said a little more." But it was all waiting, and no farther intercourse till close upon eight bells, when Fitz, feeling regularly tired out, said to himself-- "Bother! I wish I hadn't asked leave to go. I should have been comfortably asleep by now." He had hardly thought this when there was a quick movement behind him, and simultaneously he caught sight of a dim light off the starboard-bow. An order was given in a low tone, and with a silence and method learned on board a man-of-war, the boat's crew, followed by their officers, took their places in the cutter, and in obedience to another command the boat was lowered down, kissed the water, the hooks were withdrawn, she was pushed off, the oars fell on either side, and away they glided over the dancing waters in the direction of the distant light. "Now we are off, Fitz," said the lieutenant eagerly, speaking almost in a whisper, but without the slightest necessity, for the light was far away. "Yes, sir, now we are off," replied the boy, almost resentfully, and his tone suggested that he would have liked to say, Why can't you tell me where we are going? Possibly the officer took it in this light, for he continued-- "This ought to be a bit of excitement for you, Burnett. We are after a schooner bound for somewhere south, laden with contraband of war." "War, sir?" whispered the lad excitedly. "Well, some petty Central American squabble; and the captain has had instructions that this schooner is going to steal out of port to-night. Some one informed. We got the information yesterday." "Contraband, sir?" "Yes; guns and ammunition which ought not to be allowed to be shipped from an English port against a friendly state.--Give way, my men!" The rowers responded by making their stout ashen blades bend, and the cutter went forward in jerks through the rather choppy sea. "Then we shall take the schooner, sir?" "Yes, my lad, if we can." "Then that means prize-money." "Why, Burnett, are you as avaricious as that?" "No, sir; no, sir; I was thinking about the men." "Oh, that's right. But don't count your chickens before they are hatched." "No, sir." "We mayn't be able to board that vessel, and if we do, possibly it isn't the one we want. It's fifty to one it isn't. Or it may be anything-- some trading brig or another going down south." "Of course, sir. There are so many that pass." "At the same time it may be the one we want." "Yes, sir." "And then we shall be in luck." "Yes, sir." "They must surrender to our armed boat." Fitz Burnett had had little experience of the sea, but none as connected with an excursion in a boat on a dark night, to board a vessel whose sailing light could be seen in the distance. They had not gone far before the lieutenant tabooed all talking. "Still as you can, my lads," he said. "Sound travels far over the sea, and lights are very deceptive." The midshipman had already been thinking the same thing. He had often read of Will-o'-the-Wisps, but never seen one, and this light seemed to answer the description exactly, for there it was, dimly-seen for a few moments, then brightening, and slowly going up and down. But the great peculiarity was that now it seemed quite close at hand, now far distant, and for the life of him he could not make out that they got any nearer. He wanted to draw his companion's attention to that fact, but on turning sharply to the lieutenant as if to speak, he was met by a low "Hist!" which silenced him directly, while the men rowed steadily on for quite a quarter of an hour longer, when all at once the lieutenant uttered in an angry whisper-- "What are you doing, you clumsy scoundrel?" For there was a sudden movement behind where they sat in the stern-sheets, as if the man in charge of the lantern had slipped, with the result that a dull gleam of light shone out for a few moments, before its guardian scuffled the piece of sail-cloth by which it had been covered, back into its place, and all was dark once more. "Why, what were you about?" whispered the lieutenant angrily. "Beg pardon, sir. Slipped, sir." "Slipped! I believe you were asleep." The man was silent. "You were nodding off, weren't you?" "Don't think I was, sir," was the reply. But the man's officer was right, and the rest of the crew knew it, being ready to a man, as they afterwards did, to declare that "that there Bill Smith would caulk," as they termed taking a surreptitious nap, "even if the gunboat were going down." "Put your backs into it, my lads," whispered the lieutenant. "Now then, with a will; but quiet, quiet!" As he spoke the speed of the boat increased and its progress made it more unsteady, necessitating his steadying himself by gripping Fitz by the collar as he stood up, shading his eyes and keeping a sharp look-out ahead. A low hissing sound suggestive of his vexation now escaped his lips, for to his rage and disgust he saw plainly enough that their light must have been noticed. Fitz Burnett had come to the same conclusion, for though he strained his eyes with all his power, the Will-o'-the-Wisp-like light that they were chasing had disappeared. "Gone!" thought the boy, whose heart was now beating heavily. "They must have seen our light and taken alarm. That's bad. No," he added to himself, "it's good--capital, for it must mean that that was the light of the vessel we were after. Any honest skipper wouldn't have taken the alarm." "Use your eyes, Burnett, my lad," whispered the lieutenant, bending down. "We must have been close up to her when that idiot gave the alarm. See anything?" "No, sir." "Oh, tut, tut, tut, tut!" came in a low muttering tone. "Look, boy, look; we must see her somehow. How are we to go back and face the captain if we fail like this?" The boy made no reply, but strained his eyes again, to see darkness everywhere that appeared to be growing darker moment by moment, except in one spot, evidently where the land lay, and there a dull yellowish light glared out that seemed to keep on winking at them derisively, now fairly bright, now disappearing all at once, as the lantern revolved. "Hold hard!" whispered the lieutenant, and the men lay on their oars, with the boat gradually slackening its speed till it rose and fell, rocking slowly on the choppy sea, and the eye-like lantern gave another derisive wink twice, and then seemed to shut itself up tight. "It's of no use to pull, Burnett," whispered the lieutenant. "We may be going right away. See anything, my lads?" "No, sir," came in a low murmur, and the culprit who had gone to sleep sat and shivered as he thought of the "wigging," as he termed it, that would be his when he went back on board the gunboat; and as the boat rocked now in regular motion the darkness seemed to grow more profound, while the silence to the midshipman seemed to be awful. He was miserable too with disappointment, for he felt so mixed up with the expedition that it seemed to him as if he was in fault, and that when they returned he would have to share in the blame that Captain Glossop would, as he termed it, "lay on thick." "Oh, Mr Bill Smith," he said to himself, "just wait till we get back!" And then a reaction took place. "What's the good?" he thought. "Poor fellow! He'll get it hot enough without me saying a word. But how could a fellow go to sleep at a time like this?" "It's all up, Burnett," came in a whisper, close to his ear. "The milk's spilt, and it's no use crying over it, but after all these preparations who could have expected such a mishap as that?--What's the matter with you?" he added sharply. "You'll have me overboard." For the midshipman had suddenly sprung up from where he sat, nearly overbalancing his superior officer as he gripped him tightly by the chest with the right hand, and without replying stood rigidly pointing over the side with his left, his arm stretched right across the lieutenant's breast. "You don't mean--you can see--Bravo, boy!--Pull, my lads, for all you know." As he spoke he dropped back into his seat, tugging hard with his right hand at one of the rudder-lines, with the result that as the cutter glided once more rapidly over the little waves she made a sharp curve to starboard, and then as the line was once more loosened, glided on straight ahead for something dim and strange that stood out before them like a blur. As the men bent to their stout ash-blades, pulling with all their might, a great thrill seemed to run through the cutter, which, as it were, participated in the excitement of the crew, boat and men being for the time as it were one, while the dark blur now rapidly assumed form, growing moment by moment more distinct, till the occupants of the stern-sheets gradually made out the form of a two-masted vessel gliding along under a good deal of sail. She had so much way on, as the cutter was coming up at right angles that instead of beating fast, Fitz Burnett's heart now continued its pulsations in jerks in his excitement lest the schooner should glide by them and leave them behind. It was a near thing, but the lieutenant had taken his measures correctly. He was standing up once again grasping the rudder-lines till almost the last moment, before dropping them and giving two orders, to the coxswain to hook on, and to the crew to follow--unnecessary orders, for every man was on the _qui vive_, knew his task, and meant to do it in the shortest possible time. And now a peculiar sense of unreality attacked the young midshipman, for in the darkness everything seemed so dream-like and unnatural. It was as if they were rowing with all their might towards a phantom ship, a misty something dimly-seen in the darkness, a ship-like shape that might at any moment die right away; for all on board was black, and the silence profound. There was nothing alive, as it were, but the schooner itself, careening gently over in their direction, and passing silently before their bows. One moment this feeling strengthened as Fitz Burnett dimly made out the coxswain standing ready in the bows prepared to seize hold with the boat-hook he wielded, while the men left their oars to swing, while they played another part. "The boat-hook will go through it," thought the lad, as, following the lieutenant's example, he stood ready to spring up the side. The next moment all was real, for the cutter in response to a jerk as the coxswain hooked on, grated against the side and changed its course, gliding along with the schooner, while, closely following, their officers, who sprang on board, the little crew of stout man-of-war's men sprang up and literally tumbled over the low bulwarks on to the vessel's deck. For a short period during which you might have counted six, there was nothing heard but the rustle of the men's movements and the _pad, pad, pad_ of their bare feet upon the deck. "Where's the--" What the lieutenant would have said in continuation was not heard. Surprised by the utter silence on board, he had shared with Fitz the feeling that they must have boarded some derelict whose crew, perhaps in great peril, had deserted their vessel and sought safety in the boats. But the next moment there was a sudden rush that took every one by surprise, for not a word was uttered by their assailants, the thud, thud, thud of heavy blows, the breathing hard of men scuffling, followed by splash after splash, and then one of the schooner's masts seemed to give way and fall heavily upon Fitz Burnett's head, turning the dimly-seen deck and the struggling men into something so black that he saw no more. _ |
||