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True Blue, a fiction by William H. G. Kingston |
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Chapter 14 |
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_ CHAPTER FOURTEEN. The _Chesterfield_ packet was bound from Halifax to Falmouth. Fortunately among the passengers was a surgeon, who was able to attend to Paul's hurts. He set his leg, which was really broken, as were one or more of his ribs. The passengers, when they heard from Sir Henry Elmore and Johnny Nott of True Blue's gallantry, were very anxious to have him into the cabin to talk to him, and to hear an account of his adventures. The young midshipmen, knowing instinctively that he would not like this, did not back the passengers' frequent messages to him; besides, nothing would induce him to leave the side of his godfather, except when the doctor sent him on deck to take some fresh air. A strange sail was seen on the starboard bow. In a short time she was pronounced to be a ship, and, from the whiteness and spread of her canvas, a man-of-war. Elmore and Nott hoped that she might be their own frigate. They thought that it was a latitude in which she might very likely be fallen in with. Of course, till the character of the brig had been ascertained, she would bear up in chase. They expressed their hopes to Captain Jones, and begged him to steer for her. "Were I certain that she is your frigate, I would gladly do so; but as you cannot possibly recognise her at this distance, we shall be wiser to stand clear of her till we find out what she is. I will not alter our course, unless when we get nearer she has the cut of an enemy." The midshipmen, having borrowed telescopes, were continually going aloft to have a look at the stranger. "I say, Elmore, it must be she. That's her fore-topsail, I'll declare!" exclaimed Johnny Nott. Elmore was not quite so certain. After a little time, they were joined by True Blue. "Paul Pringle, sirs, sent me up to have a look at the stranger," he remarked. "I am very glad you have come, Freeborn," said Sir Henry. "Your eyes are the best in the ship. What do you make her out to be?" True Blue looked long and earnestly without speaking. At last he answered, in an unusually serious tone: "She is not our frigate, sir--that I'm certain of; and I'm more than afraid--I'm very nearly certain--that she is French. By the cut of her sails and her general look, she puts me in mind of one of the squadron which chased us off Guernsey." True Blue's confidence made the midshipmen look at the stranger in a different light, and they finally both confessed that they were afraid he was right. Captain Jones agreeing with them, all sail was now crowded on the brig to escape. In spite of all the sail the brig could carry, the frigate was fast coming up with her. "I wish that we could fight," said Johnny Nott to Elmore. "Don't you think that if we were to get two of the guns aft, we might knock away some of her spars?" "I fear not," said his brother midshipman, pointing to the popguns which adorned the packet's deck. "These things would not carry half as far as the frigate's guns; and, probably, as soon as we began to fire she would let fly a broadside and sink us." "Too true, Sir Henry," observed the brave Captain of the packet, who stood on deck surrounded by the passengers, many of them asking all sorts of useless questions. His countenance showed how distressed he was. "In this case I fear discretion will form the best part of valour." Captain Jones cast anxious glances aloft, as well he might, and the midshipmen and True Blue eyed the frigate; and Nott turned to his messmate and said, in a doubting tone, "Elmore, what do you think of it?" The other answered sadly. "There is no doubt of it. She is coming up hand over hand with us. Freeborn, I am afraid that I am right." "Yes, sir," answered True Blue, touching his hat. "She is going nearly ten knots to our six." "Then she will be up with us within a couple of hours at most," said the young midshipman with a deep-drawn sigh. The breeze kept freshening rapidly. The brig carried on, however, till her royal masts went over the side, and her topgallant-masts would have followed had the sails not been handed in time; and now all expectation of escape was abandoned. Still Captain Jones held on his course, remarking, "It will be time enough to heave-to when her shot comes aboard us." The crew went below and put on their clean things and a double allowance of clothing, as well as all their possessions which they could stow away in their pockets. When they returned on deck, they certainly did look, as Johnny Nott observed, "a remarkably stout set of Britons." Sir Henry borrowed a midshipman's hat and dirk, as he had lost his own; and Nott, who had a few sovereigns in his pocket,--a wonderful sum for a midshipman,--divided them with him. The Captain insisted, as the last act of his authority, that all the passengers should remain below, during which time the ladies, at all events, employed themselves in imitating the example of the sailors. At last a shot was heard; then another and another followed, and then a whole volley of musketry. Captain Jones kept calmly walking his deck till the French frigate began to fire. He then looked round: there was no ship in sight, no prospect of escape; so, with a sad heart, hauling down the British ensign, he ordered the topsails to be lowered and the courses brailed up, and thus waited the approach of the enemy. What was the astonishment and rage of all on deck to have a volley of musketry fired right down on them, with the coolest deliberation, from the forecastle of the frigate as she ranged up alongside, and then, passing ahead of the brig, rounded-to near her. "_Ah, betes_! we will teach you dogs of Englishmen to lead a French ship such a chase as you have done when you have no chance of escape!" shouted some one from the quarterdeck. A bullet passed through Elmore's hat; another struck Captain Jones on the side, but in the excitement of the moment he did not perceive that he was hurt; while a third grazed True Blue's arm, wounding the skin and making the blood flow rapidly. Without moving from where he stood or saying a word, he took off his handkerchief and began to bind it up, Harry Hartland and Tim Fid hurrying up with expressions of sorrow to help him. "Never mind this--it's nothing," he said, the tears starting into his eyes. "But it's the French prison for Paul I'm thinking of. It will break his heart. And those brutes may take me from him." The frigate now lowered all her boats, and sent them, with their crews armed to the teeth, on board the brig. The Frenchmen jumped on her deck as if she had been a pirate captured after a desperate fight and long chase. Scarcely a word was spoken--not a question asked; but officers and men were indiscriminately seized by the collars and hurled into the boats, some of the French officers striking them with the flat side of their drawn swords, and at the same time showering down the most abusive epithets on their heads. Captain Jones, whose appearance and bearing might have saved him from insult, was seized by several men and thrust, with kicks, into the nearest boat. Just as the boats came alongside, True Blue had gone below to remain with Paul Pringle. The Frenchmen soon followed him. He tried to show by signs that his godfather was very much hurt. This was evident, indeed. At first the men who came below were going to let him remain; but the order soon reached them that all the English were immediately to be removed from the brig. Not without difficulty, True Blue got leave to assist in carrying Paul, aided by Tom Marline, who had fought his way down below to his friend, and the black cook. With no help from the Frenchmen, Paul was at last placed in a boat, with True Blue by his side. The passengers were scarcely better treated than were the seamen. The ladies and gentlemen were bundled out of the vessel together, and were allowed to take only such articles as they could carry in their hands. Some of the gentlemen who spoke French expostulated. "Very good," answered the Lieutenant. "You have chosen to lighten the vessel of all public property, which would, at all events, have been ours; we must make amends to ourselves by the seizure of what you call private property." As True Blue sat at Paul's head, his godfather looked up. "Ah, boy!" he said with a deep sigh, "this is the worst thing that I ever thought could happen to us; yet it's a comfort to think that it isn't our own brave frigate that has been taken, and that a number of our shipmates haven't been struck down by the enemy's fire. But it's the thoughts of the French prison tries me. Yet, Billy, I don't mind even that so much as I should have done once. You are now a big strong chap, and you won't let them make a Frenchman of you, as they might have done when you were little, will you?" "No, Paul; they'll have a very tough job if they try it on--that they will," answered True Blue with a scornful laugh which perfectly satisfied his godfather. "What are the brutes of Englishmen talking about?" growled out one of the Frenchmen. "Hold your tongues, dogs." Neither Paul nor True Blue understood these complimentary remarks; but the tone of the speaker's voice showed them that it might be more prudent to be silent. As soon as Captain Jones and his mates and the two midshipmen appeared above the gangway of the French frigate, they were seized on by a party of seamen, who threw them on the deck, knocked off their hats, out of which they tore the cockades, and, with oaths, trampled them beneath their feet. In vain Captain Jones in a manly way appealed to the good feelings of his captors. In vain Sir Henry Elmore repeated what he said in French. The Frenchmen were deaf to all expostulations. The second Captain of the frigate stood by, not only superintending, but aiding in inflicting the indignities with which they were treated. They were next dragged off and brought into the Captain's own cabin. Here they expected to be better treated; but no sooner did the Captain enter, than, walking up and down and showering on them the most abusive epithets, he ordered his men to take away their swords and dirks, and to strip off their coats and waistcoats, exclaiming as he did so: "No one on board _La Ralieuse_ shall wear the livery of a despot--one of those hateful things, a King. Bah!" The Captain and his second in command, having thus vented their rage and spite, ordered the men to carry off their prisoners. The Captain and the young officers were therefore again unceremoniously dragged out of the cabin and forced down below into a space in the hold, dimly lighted by a single lantern. There they found the greater part of the crew already assembled, bursting with rage and indignation at the way they had been treated. Meantime the boat which contained Paul Pringle, with Tom Marline, True Blue, and the other two boys, arrived alongside the frigate. The French sailors were going to hoist up Paul with very little consideration for his hurts, when, in spite of their black looks, Tom shoved in his shoulder, vehemently exclaiming: "Avast, ye lubbers! Can't you see that the man has his ribs stove in? Send down proper slings to lift him on deck, or out of this boat he don't go while I've an arm to strike for him." True Blue had continued to support Paul's head in his lap. The Frenchmen did not understand this demand, and might have proceeded to force Tom up the side had not Pringle himself interfered. "Don't fall out with the men, Tom; there's no use grumbling with them. Do you and Billy help me up. I've still some strength left in me." Aided thus, Paul reached the Frenchman's deck, the first he had ever trod except as a victor. No sooner were they there than Tom was seized on, as had been the other seamen, and was dragged off to be abused and kicked down into the hold with the rest. No sooner, however, did some of the Frenchmen attempt to lay hands on Paul, who had been placed sitting up against a gun, than True Blue threw himself before him, and, with a blow on the chest of the man who was about to drag him along, sent him reeling across the deck. Tim Fid and Harry, who had been left at liberty, on this flew to his support, and, standing on either side, literally kept the rest at bay. True Blue said not a word, but his lips quivered, and, had he held a sharp cutlass in his hand, he would evidently have proved no contemptible opponent. At first the Frenchmen were amused, and so were a number of the French boys belonging to the ship, who quickly assembled at the spot, especially devoting their attention to jeering and quizzing Fid and Harry. Their good humour, however, was rapidly vanishing, and they would have probably proceeded to disagreeable extremities had not the surgeon of the ship appeared on the deck. He was a gentleman and a royalist, and had been most unwillingly compelled to come to sea as the alternative of losing his head. His profession gave him some influence among the crew, which he exerted on the side of humanity. Seeing at a glance Paul's condition, he appealed to his countrymen, remarking that the Englishman must evidently be a good-natured person, or the boys would not be so ready to fight for him. "Brave little fellows! They deserve to be well treated," he remarked. "And now do some of you help me to carry the old man below. He is not in a state to be left on deck. Any one of us, remember, may speedily be in a worse condition." This appeal had the desired effect, and, the kind surgeon leading the way, Paul was lifted up and carried below to a side cabin on the orlop-deck. True Blue was allowed to remain with him. The mode of proceeding on board the frigate seemed to True Blue like that of the very slackest of privateers; indeed, when he described what he saw to his godfather, Paul told him that even pirates could not carry on in a worse way. Before long several of the crew looked in and attempted to speak English, but very seldom got beyond a few of the ordinary oaths so general in the mouths of seamen. At length a man appeared who had been in England as a prisoner during the last war, and could really speak enough English to explain himself. He asked them a number of questions, which either Paul or True Blue answered truly. "And so," he said, "I hear from my compatriot that you belonged to the _Ruby_ frigate. Ah! she was a fine ship, and her crew were brave fellows--they fought well. You have heard of her fate, perhaps?" "No," answered Paul and True Blue in a breath. "What has happened to her?" "The fortune of war, my friends," answered the Frenchman. "She fell in with our consort, _La Nymphe_ of forty guns, and engaged her bravely for three hours. For which side victory would have declared is doubtful, when we appeared in sight. Just then, awful to relate, whether by design or not I cannot say, she blew up with a loud explosion, wounding and killing many on board _La Nymphe_. Not one man escaped of all her crew." "Oh, mate, do you speak the truth?" exclaimed Paul, starting up and seizing the Frenchman by the hand. "Why should I deceive you, my friend?" answered the republican, putting his other hand on his bosom. "I know how to pity a brave enemy, believe me." Paul lay back on his bed and placed both his hands before his eyes, while a gasping sob showed how much True Blue felt the sad news. _ |
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