CHAPTER XIX.

"The world's all title-page; there's no contents;
The world's all face; the man who shows his heart,
Is hooted for his nudities, and scorned."

Night Thoughts

Bolt had not been tried. His case had several serious difficulties, and the orders allowed of a discretion. The punishment could scarcely be less than death, and, in addition to the loss of a stout, sinewy man, it involved questions of natural right, that were not always pleasant to be considered. Although the impressment of American seamen into the British ships of war was probably one of the most serious moral as well as political wrongs that one independent nation ever received at the hands of another, viewed as a practice of a generation's continuance it was not wholly without some relieving points. There was a portion of the British marine that disdained to practise it at all; leaving it to the coarser spirits of the profession to discharge a duty that they themselves found repugnant to their feelings and their habits. Thus, we remember to have heard an American seaman say, one who had been present on many occasions when his countrymen were torn from under their flag, that in no instance he ever witnessed was the officer who committed the wrong of an air and manner that he should describe as belonging to the class of gentlemen on shore. Whenever one of the latter boarded his vessel, the crew was permitted to pass unquestioned.

Let this be as it might, there is no question that a strong and generous feeling existed in the breasts of hundreds in the British navy, concerning the nature of the wrong that was done a foreign people, by the practice of impressing men from under their flag. Although Cuffe was too much of a martinet to carry his notions on the subject to a very refined point, he was too much of a man not to be reluctant to punish another for doing what he felt he would have done himself, under similar circumstances, and what he could not but know he would have had a perfect right to do. It was impossible to mistake one like Ithuel, who had so many of the Granite peculiarities about him, for anything but what he was; and so well was his national character established in the ship, that the sobriquet of The Yankee had been applied to him by his shipmates from the very first. The fact, therefore, stood him so far in hand that Cuffe, after a consultation with Winchester, determined not to put the alleged deserter on trial; but, after letting him remain a short time in irons, to turn him to duty again, under a pretence that was often used on such occasions, viz., to give the man an opportunity of proving his American birth, if he were really what he so strenuously professed to be. Poor Ithuel was not the only one who was condemned to this equivocal servitude, hundreds passing weary years of probation, with the same dim ray of hope, for ever deferred, gleaming in the distance. It was determined, however, not to put Ithuel on his trial until the captain had conversed with the admiral on the subject, at least; and Nelson, removed from the influence of the siren by whom he was enthralled, was a man inclined to leniency, and of even chivalrous notions of justice. To such contradictions is even a great mind subject, when it loses sight of the polar star of its duties!

When the sentence on Raoul was pronounced, therefore, and the prisoner was removed, the court adjourned; a boat being immediately despatched to the Foudroyant with a copy of the proceedings, for the rear-admiral's approbation. Then followed a discussion on much the most interesting topic for them all: the probable position of, and the means of capturing, the lugger. That le Feu-Follet was near, all were convinced; but where she was to be found, it was hard to tell. Officers had been sent on the heights of Capri, one of which towers more than a thousand feet above the sea; but they returned from a bootless errand. Nothing resembling the lugger was visible in the offing, among the islands, or in the bays. A cutter had been sent to look round Campanella, and another crossed the mouth of the bay, to take a look to the northward of Ischia, in order to make certain that the treacherous craft had not gone behind the mountains of that island for a refuge. In short, no expedient likely to discover the fugitive was neglected. All failed, however; boat after boat came back without success, and officer after officer returned wearied and disappointed.

Much of the day was passed in this manner, for it was a calm, and moving either of the ships was out of the question. In the full expectation of discovering the lugger somewhere in striking distance, Cuffe had even gone so far as to detail a party from each vessel, with a view to attack her in boats again; feeling no doubt of success, now that he had the disposable force of three vessels to send against his enemy. Winchester was to have commanded, as a right purchased by his blood; nor was the hope of succeeding in this way abandoned, until the last boat, that which had been sent round Ischia, returned, reporting its total want of success.

"I have heard it said," observed Cuffe, as he and his brother captains stood conversing together on the quarter-deck of the Proserpine just after this last report had been made--"I have heard it said, that this Raoul Yvard has actually gone boldly into several of our ports, under English or neutral colors, and lain there a day or two at a time unsuspected, until it has suited him to go out again. Can it be possible he is up, off the town? There is such a fleet of craft in and about the mole that a little lugger, with her paint and marks altered, might be among them. What think you, Lyon?"

"It is sartainly a law of nature, Captain Cuffe, that smaller objects should be overlooked, in the presence of greater; and such a thing might happen, therefore; though I should place it among the improbables, if not absolutely among the impossibles. 'Twould be far safer, nevertheless, to run in, in the manner you designate, among the hundred or two of ships, than to venture alone into a haven or a roadstead. If you wish for retirement, Sir Frederick, plunge at once into the Strand, or take lodgings on Ludgate Hill; but if you wish to be noticed and chased, go into a Highland village and just conceal your name for a bit! Ah--he knows the difference well who has tried both modes of life!"

"This is true, Cuffe," observed the Baronet, "yet I hardly think a Frenchman, big or little, would be apt to come and anchor under Nelson's nose."

"'Twould be something like the lion's lying down with the lamb, certainly, and ought not to be counted on as very likely. Mr. Winchester, is not that our boat coming round the sloop's quarter?"

"Yes, sir--she has got back from Naples--quartermaster----"

"Aye, quartermaster," interrupted Cuffe, sternly, "a pretty lookout is this! Here is our own boat close in upon us, and not a word from your lips on the interesting subject, sir?"

This word, sir, is much used on board a man-of-war, and in all its convertible significations. From the inferior to the superior, it comes as natural as if it were a gift from above; from equal to equal, it has a ceremonious and be-on-your-guard air that sometimes means respect, sometimes disrespect; while from a captain to a quartermaster, it always means reproof, if it do not mean menace. In discussions of this sort, it is wisest for the weaker party to be silent; and nowhere is this truth sooner learned than on shipboard. The quartermaster, consequently, made no answer, and the gig came alongside, bringing back the officer who had carried the proceedings of the court up to Naples.

"Here we have it," said Cuffe, opening the important document as soon has he and his brother captains were again in the cabin. "Approved--ordered that the sentence be carried into execution on board His Majesty's ship the Proserpine, Captain Cuffe, to-morrow, between the hours of sunrise and sunset."

Then followed the date, and the well-known signature of "Nelson and Bronté." All this was what Cuffe both wished and expected, though he would have preferred a little more grace in carrying out the orders. The reader is not to suppose from this that our captain was either vengeful or bloody-minded; or that he really desired to inflict on Raoul any penalty for the manner in which he had baffled his own designs and caused his crew to suffer. So far from this, his intention was to use the sentence to extort from the prisoner a confession of the orders he had given to those left in the lugger, and then to use this confession as a means of obtaining his pardon, with a transfer to a prison-ship. Cuffe had no great veneration for privateersmen, nor was his estimate of their morality at all unreasonable, when he inferred that one who served with gain for his principal object would not long hesitate about purchasing his own life by the betrayal of a secret like that he now asked. Had Raoul belonged even to a republican navy, the English man-of-wars-man might have hesitated about carrying out his plan; but, with the master of a corsair, it appeared to be the most natural thing imaginable to attempt its execution. Both Sir Frederick and Lyon viewed the matter in the same light; and, now that everything was legally done that was necessary to the design, the capture of the lugger was deemed more than half accomplished.

"It is somewhat afflicting, too, Cuffe," observed Sir Frederick, in his drawling, indolent way; "it is somewhat afflicting, too, Cuffe, to be compelled to betray one's friends or to be hanged! In parliament, now, we say we'll be hanged if we do, and here you say you'll be hanged if you don't."

"Poh, poh! Dashwood; no one expects this Raoul Yvard will come to that fate, for no one thinks he will hold out. We shall get the lugger, and that will be the end of it. I'd give a thousand pounds to see that d--d Few-Folly at anchor within pistol-shot of my stern at this blessed moment. My feelings are in the matter."

"Five hundred would be a high price," observed Lyon, dryly. "I much doubt if the shares of us three come to as much as a hundred apiece, even should the craft fall into our hands."

"By the way, gents," put in Sir Frederick, gaping--"suppose we toss up or throw the dice to see which shall have all, on supposition we get her within the next twenty-four hours, timing the affair by this ship's chronometers. You've dice on board, I dare say, Cuffe, and we can make a regular time of it here for half an hour, and no one the wiser."

"Your pardon, Captain Dashwood; I can suffer no such amusement. It is unmilitary and contrary to regulations; and, then, hundreds are not as plenty with Lyon and myself as they are with you. I like to pocket my prize-money first and sport on it afterward."

"You're right, Captain Cuffe," said Lyon; "though there can be no great innovation in sporting on Sir Frederick's portion, if he see fit to indulge us. Money is an agreeable acquisition beyond a doubt, and life is sweet to saint and sinner alike; but I much question your facility in persuading this Monshure Rawl to tell you his secret consairning the lugger, in the manner ye anticipate."

This opinion met with no favor; and after discussing the point among themselves a little longer, the three captains were on the point of separating, when Griffin burst into the cabin without even knocking and altogether regardless of the usual observances.

"One would think it blew a typhoon, Mr. Griffin," said Cuffe, coldly, "by the rate at which you run before it."

"It's an ill wind that blows no luck, sir," answered the lieutenant, actually panting for breath, so great had been his haste to communicate what he had to say. "Our lookout, on the heights above Campanella, has just signalled us that he sees the lugger to the southward and eastward--somewhere near the point of Piane, I suppose, sir; and what is better, the wind is coming off shore earlier than common this evening."

"That is news!" exclaimed Cuffe, rubbing his hands with delight. "Go on deck, Griffin, and tell Winchester to unmoor; then make a signal to the other ships to do the same. Now, gentlemen, we have the game in our own hands, and let us see and play it skilfully. In a couple of hours it will be dark, and our movements can all be made without being seen. As the Proserpine is, perhaps, the fastest ship"--at this remark Sir Frederick smiled ironically, while Lyon raised his eyebrows like one who saw a marvel--"as the Proserpine is, perhaps, the fastest ship, she ought to go the furthest to leeward; and I will get under way and stand off to sea, keeping well to the northward and eastward, as if I were running for the Straits of Bonifacio, for instance, until it gets to be dark, when I will haul up south for a couple of hours or so; then come up as high as southeast until we are to the southward of the Gulf of Salerno. This will be before daylight, if the wind stand. At daylight, then, you may look out for me off Piane, say two leagues, and to seaward, I hope, of the lugger. You shall follow, Sir Frederick, just as the sun sets, and keep in my wake, as near as possible, heaving to, however, at midnight. This will bring you fairly abreast of the gulf and about midway between the two capes, a little west of south from Campanella. Lyon, you can lie here until the night has fairly set in, when you can pass between Capri and the cape and run down south two hours and heave to. This will place you in a position to watch the passage to and from the gulf under the northern shore."

"And this arrangement completed to your satisfaction, Captain Cuffe," asked Lyon, deliberately helping himself to an enormous pinch of snuff, "what will be your pleasure in the posterior evolutions?"

"Each ship must keep her station until the day has fairly dawned. Should it turn out as I trust it may, that we've got le Few-Folly in-shore of us, all we'll have to do will be to close in upon her and drive her up higher and higher into the Bay. She will naturally run into shallow water; when we must anchor off, man the boats, send them north and south of her, and let them board her under cover of our fire. If we find the lugger embayed, we'll have her as sure as fate."

"Very prettily conceived, Captain Cuffe; and in a way to be handsomely executed. But if we should happen to find the heathen outside of us?"

"Then make sail in chase to seaward, each ship acting for the best. Come, gentlemen, I do not wish to be inhospitable, but the Proserpine must be off. She has a long road before her; and the winds of this season of the year can barely be counted on for an hour at a time."

Cuffe being in such a hurry, his guests departed without further ceremony. As for Sir Frederick, the first thing he did was to order dinner an hour earlier than he had intended, and then to invite his surgeon and marine-officer, two capital pairs of knives and forks, to come and share it with him, after which he sat down to play somewhat villanously on a flute. Two hours later he gave the necessary orders to his first lieutenant; after which he troubled himself very little about the frigate he commanded. Lyon, on the other hand, sat down to a very frugal meal alone as soon as he found himself again in his sloop; first ordering certain old sails to be got on deck and to be mended for the eighth or ninth time.

With the Proserpine it was different Her capstan-bars flew round, and one anchor was actually catted by the time her captain appeared on deck. The other soon followed, the three topsails fell, were sheeted home and hoisted, and sail was set after sail, until the ship went steadily past the low promontory of Ana Capri a cloud of canvas. Her head was to the westward, inclining a little north; and had there been any one to the southward to watch her movements, as there was not, so far as the eye could see, it would have been supposed that she was standing over toward the coast of Sardinia, most probably with an intention of passing by the Straits of Bonifacio, between that island and Corsica. The wind being nearly east, and it blowing a good breeze, the progress of the ship was such as promised to fulfil all the expectations of her commander.

As the sun set and darkness diffused itself over the Mediterranean, the lighter steering-sails were taken in and the Proserpine brought the wind abeam, standing south. One of the last things visible from the decks, besides the mountains of the islands and of the main, the curling smoke of Vesuvius, the blue void above and the bluer sea below, was the speck of the Terpsichore, as that ship followed, as near as might be, in her wake; Sir Frederick and his friends still at table, but with a vigilant and industrious first lieutenant on deck, who was sufficient in himself for all that was required of the vessel in any emergency. The latter had his orders, and he executed them with a precision and attention that promised to leave nothing to be wished for. On the other hand, the people of the Ringdove were kept at work mending old sails until the hour to "knock off work" arrived; then the ship unmoored. At the proper time the remaining anchor was lifted, and the sloop went through the pass between Capri and Campanella, as directed, when Lyon sent for the first lieutenant to join him in his cabin.

"Look you here, McBean," said Lyon, pointing to the chart which lay on the table; "Captain Cuffe has just run down off Piane, and will find himself well to leeward when the west wind comes to-morrow; Sir Frederick has followed famously clear of the land, and won't be in a much better box. Now, this lugger must be pretty picking if all they say of her be true. Ten to one but she has gold in her. These corsairs are desperate rogues after the siller, and, taking hull, sails, armament, head-money, and the scrapings of the lockers together, I shouldn't marvel if she come to something as good as £8,000 or £10,000. This would be fair dividing for a sloop, but would amount to a painfully small trifle, as between the officers of three ships, after deducting the admiral's share. What are you thinking of, Airchy?"

"Of just that, Captain Lyon. It would be dividing every lieutenant's share by three, as well as every captain's."

"That's it, Airchy, and so ye'll have a shairp lookout on deck. There'll be no occasion to run down quite as far as Captain Cuffe suggested, ye'll obsairve; for, if in the bay, the lugger will work her way up toward this headland, and we'll be all the more likely to fall in with her, by keeping near it ourselves. Ye'll take the idea?"

"It's plain enou', Captain Lyon; and I'll be obsairving it. How is the law understood as respects dairkness? I understand that none share but such as are in sight; but is dairkness deemed a legal impediment?"

"To be sure it is; the idea being that all who can see may act. Now, if we catch the lugger before Captain Cuffe and Sir Frederick even know where she is, on what principle can they aid and sustain us in the capture?"

"And you wish a shairp lookout the night, Captain Lyon?"

"That's just it, Airchy. Ye'll all be doing your best in the way of eyes, and we may get the lugger alone. 'Twould be such a pity, Mr. McBean, to divide by three, when the sums might be kept entire!"

Such was the state of feeling with which each of these three officers entered on his present duty. Cuffe was earnest in the wish to catch his enemy, and this principally for the credit of the thing, though a little out of a desire to revenge his own losses; Sir Frederick Dashwood, indifferent to all but his own pleasures; and Lyon, closely attentive to the main chance. An hour or two later, or just before Cuffe turned in, he sent a message to request the presence of his first lieutenant, if the latter were still up. Winchester was writing up his private journal; closing the book, he obeyed the order in that quiet, submissive manner which a first lieutenant is more apt to use toward his captain than toward any one else.

"Good evening, Winchester," said Cuffe, in a familiar, friendly way, which satisfied the subordinate that he was not sent for to be 'rattled down'; "draw a chair and try a glass of this Capri wine with some water. It's not carrying sail hard to drink a gallon of it; yet I rather think it fills up the chinks better than nothing."

"Thank'ee, Captain Cuffe, we like it in the gun-room, and got off a fresh cask or two this morning, while the court was sitting. So they tell me, sir, his lordship has put his name to it, and that this Frenchman is to swing from our fore-yard-arm some time to-morrow?"

"It stands so on paper, Winchester; but if he confess where his lugger lies, all will go smoothly enough with him. However, as things look now, we'll have her, and thanks only to ourselves."

"Well, sir, that will be best, on the whole. I do not like to see a man selling his own people."

"There you are right enough, Winchester, and I trust we shall get along without it; though the lugger must be ours. I sent for you, by the way, about this Bolt--something must be done with that fellow."

"It's a clear case of desertion, Captain Cuffe; and, as it would now seem, of treason in the bargain. I would rather hang ten such chaps than one man like the Frenchman."

"Well, it's clear, Mr. Winchester, you do not bear malice! Have you forgotten Porto Ferrajo, and the boats, already? or do you love them that despitefully use you?"

"'Twas all fair service, sir, and one never thinks anything of that. I owe this Monsieur Yvard no grudge for what he did; but, now it's all fairly over, I rather like him the better for it. But it's a very different matter as to this Bolt; a skulking scoundrel, who would let other men fight his country's battles, while he goes a-privateering against British commerce."

"Aye, there's the rub, Winchester! Are they his country's battles?"

"Why, we took him for an Englishman, sir, and we must act up to our own professions, in order to be consistent."

"And so hang an innocent man for a treason that he could not commit."

"Why, Captain Cuffe, do you believe the fellow's whining story about his being a Yankee? If that be true, we have done him so much injustice already, as to make his case a very hard one. For my part I look upon all these fellows as only so many disaffected Englishmen, and treat them accordingly."

"That is a sure way to quiet one's feelings, Winchester; but it's most too serious when it comes to hanging. If Bolt deserve any punishment, he deserves death; and that is a matter about which one ought to be tolerably certain, before he pushes things too far. I've sometimes had my doubts about three or four of our people's being Englishmen, after all."

"There can be no certainty in these matters, unless one could carry a parish register for the whole kingdom in his ship, Captain Cuffe. If they are not Englishmen, why do they not produce satisfactory proofs to show it? That is but reasonable, you must allow, sir?"

"I don't know, Winchester; there are two sides to that question, too. Suppose the King of Naples should seize you, here, ashore, and call on you to prove that you are not one of his subjects? How would you go to work to make it out--no parish register being at hand?"

"Well, then, Captain Cuffe, if we are so very wrong, we had better give all these men up, at once--though one of them is the very best hand in the ship; I think it right to tell you that, sir."

"There is a wide difference, sir, between giving a man up, and hanging him. We are short-handed as it is, and cannot spare a single man. I've been looking over your station bills, and they never appeared so feeble before. We want eighteen or nineteen good seamen to make them respectable again; and though this Bolt is no great matter as a seaman, he can turn his hand to so many things, that he was as useful as the boatswain. In a word, we cannot spare him--either to let him go or to hang him; even were the latter just."

"I'm sure, sir, I desire to do nothing that is unjust or inconvenient, and so act your pleasure in the affair."

"My pleasure is just this then, Winchester. We must turn Bolt to duty. If the fellow is really an American, it would be a wretched business even to flog him for desertion; and as to treason, you know, there can be none without allegiance. Nelson gives me a discretion, and so we'll act on the safe side, and just turn him over to duty again. When there comes an opportunity, I'll inquire into the facts of his case, and if he can make out that he is not an Englishman, why, he must be discharged. The ship will be going home in a year or two, when everything can be settled fairly and deliberately. I dare say Bolt will not object to the terms."

"Perhaps not, sir. Then there's the crew, Captain Cuffe. They may think it strange treason and desertion go unpunished. These fellows talk and reason more than is always known aft."

"I've thought of all that, Winchester. I dare say you have heard of such a thing as a King's evidence? Well, here has Raoul Yvard been tried and found guilty as a spy; Bolt having been a witness. A few remarks judiciously made may throw everything off on that tack; and appearances will be preserved, so far as discipline is concerned."

"Yes, sir, that might be done, it's true; but an uneasy berth will the poor devil have of it, if the people fancy he has been a King's evidence. Men of that class hate a traitor worse than they do crime, Captain Cuffe, and they'll ride Bolt down like the main tack."

"Perhaps not; and if they do, 'twill not be as bad as hanging. The fellow must think himself luckily out of a bad scrape, and thank God for all his mercies. You can see that he suffers nothing unreasonable, or greatly out of the way. So send an order to the master-at-arms to knock the irons off the chap, and send him to duty, before you turn in, Winchester."

This settled the matter as to Ithuel, for the moment, at least. Cuffe was one of those men who was indisposed to push things too far, while he found it difficult to do his whole duty. There was not an officer in the Proserpine, who had any serious doubts about the true country of Bolt, though there was not one officer among them all who would openly avow it. There was too much "granite" about Ithuel to permit Englishmen long to be deceived, and that very language on which the impressed man so much prided himself would have betrayed his origin, had other evidence been wanting. Still there was a tenacity about an English ship of war, in that day, that did not easily permit an athletic hand to escape its grasp, when it had once closed upon him. In a great and enterprising service, like that of Great Britain, an esprit de corps existed in the respective ships, which made them the rivals of each other, and men being the great essentials of efficiency, a single seaman was relinquished with a reluctance that must have been witnessed, fully to be understood. Cuffe consequently could not make up his mind to do full justice to Ithuel, while he could not make up his mind to push injustice so far as trial and punishment. Nelson had left him a discretion, as has been said, and this he chose to use in the manner just mentioned.

Had the case of the New Hampshire man been fairly brought before the British Admiral, his discharge would have been ordered without hesitation. Nelson was too far removed from the competition of the separate ships, and ordinarily under the control of too high motives, to be accessory to the injustice of forcibly detaining a foreigner in his country's service; for it was only while under the malign influence to which there has already been allusion, that he ceased to be high-minded and just. Prejudiced he was, and in some cases exceedingly so; America standing but little better in his eyes than France herself. For the first of these antipathies he had some apology; since in addition to the aversion that was naturally produced by the history of the cisatlantic Republic, accident had thrown him in the way, in the West Indies, of ascertaining the frauds, deceptions, and cupidities of a class of men that never exhibit national character in its brightest and most alluring colors. Still, he was too upright of mind willingly to countenance injustice, and too chivalrous to oppress. But Ithuel had fallen into the hands of one who fell far short of the high qualities of the Admiral, while at the same time he kept clear of his more prominent weaknesses, and who was brought within the sphere of the competition between the respective ships and their crews.

Winchester, of course, obeyed his orders. He roused the master-at-arms from his hammock, and directed him to bring Ithuel Bolt to the quarter-deck.

"In consequence of what took place this morning," said the first lieutenant, in a voice loud enough to be heard by all near him, "Captain Cuffe has seen fit to order you to be released, Bolt, and turned to duty again. You will know how to appreciate this leniency, and will serve with greater zeal than ever, I make no doubt. Never forget that you have been with a yard-rope, as it might be, round your neck. In the morning you will be stationed and berthed anew."

Ithuel was too shrewd to answer. He fully understood the reason why he escaped punishment, and it increased his hopes of eventually escaping from the service itself. Still he gagged a little at the idea of passing for one who peached--or for a "State's-evidence," as he called it; that character involving more of sin. In vulgar eyes, than the commission of a thousand legal crimes. This gave Winchester no concern. After dismissing his man he gossiped a minute or two with Yelverton, who had the watch, gaped once or twice somewhat provokingly, and, going below, was in a deep sleep in ten minutes.