Майн Рид
The Fatal Cord, and The Falcon Rover
Story 2-Chapter XII.
The Fate of the Falcon
Sir, I thank you —
My heart is full of thanks to you.
The Dream.
John. Surrender, sirs.
Isaac. Never; we die first.
Old Play.
Full many a fathom deep they rushed
Down – down the dark abyss.
Ballad.
Mr Durocher, with the vivacity and warm-heartedness of a Frenchman, embraced young Coe, calling him his preserver, and overwhelming him with thanks.
“Thank only God, my dear sir,” replied the deliverer. “I am not doing even all my duty. How many lives may be lost on deck while I am delaying here! Mr Bowsprit,” he continued, addressing that individual, “bind the hands of your prisoners at once, and then come, with your men, upon deck with me.”
Through the open door of the state-room he could see Ada, still pointing her pistol at Joe, whose right arm hung loosely at his side.
“Madam,” asked John, “is that man’s arm broken?”
“Yes,” she answered; “I broke it with a pistol-shot; but I understand a little of surgery, and can easily set it if I can get a few splinters of wood.”
Mr Durocher had hastened to his daughter and was holding her in his embrace, when hearing the word madam addressed to a person in male attire, he said —
“From this gentleman calling you madam, I suppose that you are a woman, and understand those sudden sicknesses caused by excited feelings, and peculiar to women?”
“I am a woman,” answered Ada, blushing; “and I understand you. I see that your daughter has fainted. I will attend to her. Have you any salts?” she continued, addressing Celeste.
The poor quadroon girl was herself near to the point of swooning; but aroused herself when thus addressed, and hastened to bring the restoratives asked for. While she was searching for these among the vials and bottles of the medicine-case, Mr Durocher laid his daughter upon the bed. He then turned to Ada, and said —
“You need not trouble yourself with that man any more. Let him come into my state-room adjoining this, and lie upon my bed. I understand something of surgery myself; I also have the materials for making splinters, and will dress his wound.”
Meantime, in the saloon, the hands of the prisoners were bound, even those of Afton. Leaving one of his men to guard the prisoners, Coe and the rest hastened upon deck. Scarcely five minutes had elapsed since he had left the deck – so many incidents may occur in a brief period of time, when the struggle is one of life and death.
The man who had been placed at the helm by Captain Johnson still kept his post. Through all the excitement and confusion, through the uproar and perils of the storm and the battle, that sturdy and brave seaman had, with unflinching patience and fidelity, and by a skilful management of the helm, watched for and warded off the effect of every huge wave which had threatened the safety of this ship. When the two vessels had come together, he had, by good guidance, broken to a great extent the force of the collision. When he had seen his comrades pressed by vastly superior numbers, and knew that his own safety depended on their successful defence – when he had seen the pirates hurry into the cabin where were only the sickly old man and the two helpless females – he had firmly maintained his post, steadily and faithfully performing the duties which had been assigned to him. He knew that upon him depended the safety of all on board; that the slightest neglect on his part, the slightest failure of hand or eye, might allow the ship to broach to and be swamped in the tremendous seas which were now running.
Fidelity to duty, in instances of this kind, exhibits the purest type of heroism of character. And such instances are very common in ordinary life, among all classes, and especially among the humblest. There is seldom any genuine heroism in mere fighting; when man’s passions are stirred – whether by feelings right or wrong – and his animal nature thoroughly roused, fighting is an absolute enjoyment to him; and in battle there is the additional incentive of glory to urge him to acts of valour. But, too often, in the apparent stillness of quiet life, there are duties which are discharged amid ceaseless temptations to neglect them. These nobody notes as worthy of especial honour; because they occur every day, every hour. Many persons cross the Atlantic to see Niagara, and they talk of its grandeur and sublimity – and justly do they do so; yet who speaks of, or even notes the fact, which all must acknowledge, that the sky, which by day and by night bends over the head of every man, woman, and child in every part of the world, is a thousand times grander and more sublime than even the wonderful cataract? A blessed truth it is to the humble disciples of humble duty, that, though no earthly being observes them with praise, God sees them.
There was yet a faint glimmer of daylight when John Coe came upon the deck of the ship. In that dim light the fight was still going on. It had commenced with twelve men from the Falcon on the one side, and ten men belonging to the Duchess on the other. So nearly were the individuals of the contending parties balanced in personal strength and prowess, that the success of the pirates had been very nearly in exact proportion to their superiority of number. The loss was of two men upon each side, and the defenders of the ship had been driven back to a position very near to the quarter-deck; but of the pirates one was wounded and one was killed, while of the defenders two only were wounded. Both of the parties were fighting with cutlasses only; the pistols had all been fired in the beginning of the engagement, and there had since been no opportunity of reloading them.
Coe, with his small force, threw himself between the contending ranks, flashing his cutlass right and left, and striking upwards the clashing weapons.
“Hold your hands,” he cried, in a loud voice. “My party is a small one; but we are enough to settle this contest at once in favour of the side into whose support we may throw ourselves.”
The pirates at once dropped their points and fell back; they, of course, felt convinced that a reinforcement had come to their help. Captain Johnson and his men, however, naturally looking upon the new comers as enemies, and supposing that Coe’s mode of dealing with existing affairs was a ruse to take them at disadvantage, were not disposed to cease fighting so readily. Still, Captain Johnson reflected that it would be well to hear what proposition was to be made. He, therefore, dropped his point and retired a step or two, and ordered his men to cease fighting and to fall back. His command was immediately obeyed.
“Mr Brown,” said Coe, addressing Bowsprit, as soon as he saw that the fighting was suspended, “you and your men are supplied with two pistols apiece, I believe?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Billy.
“Are they all loaded?” asked Coe.
“All loaded,” was the echoed answer.
“Then draw, each of you, one in each hand,” said our hero, “and have each pistol ready for instant use. But keep your cutlasses suspended by the cord from the right wrist.”
Coe’s order was instantly obeyed; and he himself at the moment prepared his weapons as he had commanded the others to prepare theirs.
“Gentlemen pirates,” he said, sarcastically, addressing those of the boarding-party who had been engaged in the fight, “you will remember that when I accepted the high and distinguished office of captain of marines on board of the brig Falcon, the free rover, I did so provisionally, and on the express condition that I retained the right of resigning whenever I should think proper to do so. I exercise that reserved right now. I resign the honourable post so flatteringly offered to me; and I am, therefore, no longer a member of the gallant band composing the crew of the brig Falcon.”
“What’s the meaning of all this fine talk?” asked a gruff-looking pirate. “What have we got to do with your affairs at this time?”
“It means that I never have been, and never have intended to be, a pirate,” answered the captain; “I had rather die a thousand deaths than be one of your kind. I was taken prisoner by deceit, and was then entirely in your power; yet, even in such circumstances, my first impulse was to defy your whole band and thus to bring on my own death rather than to seem to become a member of your ship’s company. I was induced to act as I have done, partly by the advice of a friend whom circumstances had forced to remain among you, but mainly by the conviction that the Ruler of Events would not have allowed me to be taken prisoner by you merely for the purpose of permitting my death. I hoped not only that I might thus be able to make my escape, but that I might prevent some of the evil which you are accustomed to do in your vocation, and might also find amongst your number some whom I could induce to become again honest men. I see a good prospect of success in all these objects.”
“What’s the use of all this argufying?” said the sailor who had before spoken, and who was boatswain of the Falcon. “Tell us what do you mean? What are you going to do?”
“What I mean is this,” answered Coe. “Lay down your arms at once and surrender. You have no chance of defending yourselves successfully against such odds as will now be opposed to you.”
“You don’t mean to say,” said the boatswain, “that Leftenant Bowsprit and them others there have turned agin us?”
“We are all,” answered Bowsprit, “pledged to stand by Mr Coe for life or death.”
“As to them other fellows there,” said the boatswain, “I never had much faith in them; but I didn’t think, leftenant, that you would ever desert us.”
“I am determined,” replied Bowsprit, “to live hereafter, and to die, an honest man.”
“And to get yourself hanged,” sneered the sailor.
“I had rather things should come to that,” said Bowsprit, “than ever to be a pirate again.”
“Come,” said Coe; “you must decide quickly. Do you surrender?”
“Never,” answered the boatswain. “We can hold out until old bully Afton comes from the cabin – confound him, he’s always after the gals and the rhino – we shall then be equal to you. Never say ‘die’ – heh, boys?”
The pirates answered him by cheers, mingled with oaths, swearing that they would rather die where they stood like men, than to be hanged like dogs.
“You need not expect help from Afton or his men,” said the resolute Coe, addressing the pirates; “I have them all bound in the cabin.”
“Mr Coe,” said Bowsprit, who did not like to take a part in consigning any of his old comrades to the gallows, “suppose we allow them to escape to the Falcon?” That question was never answered. The reference made by Bill Bowsprit to the brig caused most of the pirates, and the boatswain among the number, to turn their faces towards the vessel. What they saw determined them to immediate action. Most men come to a resolution very speedily when a sudden emergency leaves them but a brief time for doing so.
When the two cannon were fired by Captain Johnson and one of his mates at the very moment when the pirates boarded the Duchess, the effect of the rebound of the guns upon one vessel and of the striking of the shot upon the other had a violent tendency to drive the ship and the brig apart. The hold of the grappling-irons and other fastenings which kept the two vessels together was therefore, much weakened by the shock. The violent dashing against each other of the ship and the brig had not only carried away a considerable part of the upper-works, but threatened, if continued much longer, to dash in the very sides of the two vessels; of course, this ceaseless motion tended to weaken more and more the bonds which held the ship and the brig together.
At the very moment when the boatswain and others of the pirates looked towards the brig, these fastenings gave way, and the two vessels were about to part.
“Come, boys! quick!” cried the boatswain, rushing towards the guards of the ship. He was immediately followed by all of his men who were left alive, except the one who lay wounded upon the ship’s deck. The next instant they sprang from the broken guards of the Duchess towards the deck of the Falcon; in the confusion and hurry three of them missed the leap, fell into the sea and were drowned. At the same time the vessels parted.
When the boatswain gained the brig, he turned round to those whom he left on the deck of the ship, shook his fist, and exclaimed, in a voice that was heard above the sound of the wind and the sea:
“Look out for the Long Tom!”
“We should not have allowed them to escape,” said John Coe to Captain Johnson.
“It is better as it is,” said the captain. “We have escaped from a fate so terrible, that all minor perils are but as trifles in comparison. I know not who you are, young gentleman; but your appearance and action among us have been so wonderful that it almost seems as if you were an angel sent from heaven to rescue us.”
“You do me too much honour,” said the young man. “But I will explain to you everything when we have leisure. At present, there are the wounded to be attended to.”
“True,” replied the captain. Then turning to his men, he added, “Bring lights, some of you, and remove the wounded below.”
By this time the vessels were some twenty yards apart.
“See!” exclaimed Billy Bowsprit, “they are loading the cannon on board the Falcon.”
Only dimly through the night shadows could the deck of the brig be seen; for now the last vestige of daylight had departed.
Some of the men who belonged to the Duchess were enabled to assist in loading the two cannon; for Captain Johnson had expressed his determination that, if a shot was fired from the pirate-brig, he would, as before, return them two for one.
“The two shots which I fired at the moment of their boarding us,” he said to Coe, “made a good-sized hole in their hull just above the water-mark; and they must have taken in considerable water through it, during the tossing and pitching of the brig. I will make another hole in their timbers if they fire at me again.”
Even while he spoke a shot came from the Falcon. It was fired, probably, by the skilful hand of Seacome; for it again carried away a part of the guards. Fortunately, no one was injured.
Captain Johnson quickly responded with his two guns. His object was to strike the enemy’s hull, near where his last two shots had struck; and he probably did so, for, in a few moments afterwards – by the light of the lamps on board the Falcon– men were seen hurrying to and fro in apparently great excitement. Loud tones were also heard, seemingly giving orders.
All who were on the deck of the Duchess stood still, listening and watching.
“Your shot must have done them serious damage,” said Coe, at length, to Captain Johnson; “the excitement seems to increase.”
“It seems to me,” said Billy Bowsprit, who was watching things sharply, “the Falcon is settling in the water.”
Upon the background of the sky, the spectators on board the Duchess could see the masts of the brig slowly bend forward; still slowly for a while they moved onward in the same direction, sinking, sinking from the horizontal line in the sky which they had formerly touched; and then their motion was gradually accelerated.
“See!” exclaimed Bowsprit, “her bows are going under, as sure as my name is William.”
That instant, a wild, despairing and mingled cry arose from the deck of the Falcon; the next moment that gallant craft plunged head-foremost into the sea and disappeared.
“God have mercy on their souls!” exclaimed Captain Johnson. “The best among them can be but little prepared to enter the other world.”
The captain of the Duchess then ordered a thorough examination to be made of the damage done to his ship. For many feet along the larboard beam and larboard bow the guards were almost entirely torn away. From the fact that the ship was also leaking, it was evident that the planks had been started somewhat where the larboard side of the Duchess had been beaten against by the starboard of the Falcon; a single pump kept regularly at work easily balanced the effects of this leak. A part of this labour was performed by some of Billy Bowsprit’s men, all of whom – at the suggestion of Coe – reported themselves to Captain Johnson for duty as a part of his crew.
Afton and three of his men who were unwounded were put in irons and removed to safe keeping in the forward part of the ship; and the man whose arm had been broken by Ada Marston’s shot was placed with the rest of the wounded in the sailor’s quarters, where they were all made as comfortable as circumstances would allow. After these tasks had been attended to, Captain Johnson read the “funeral service at sea” over the bodies of the dead, which, enshrouded and with weights attached to them, were launched into the ocean. The decks were then scrubbed by the light of lanterns, the watch set for the night, and all made secure.
These duties being performed, Captain Johnson, Coe, and Bowsprit went down into the cabin, to look after the condition of things there. They found Louise recovered from her swoon, but still very pale and nervous. She sat beside the sofa, on which lay her father, very ill from the shock of his recent terrible excitement. The quadroon girl was crouched upon the floor at the feet of her mistress; she also was very pale, and her eyes still had a wild and alarmed look. Ada, too, sat upon the floor, at a little distance from the others, her head against the seat of a chair, and her face hidden in her hands. She had been upon deck and had seen the brig sink in the ocean. She had learned of her husband’s death; that she was weeping proved that she was a woman.
There was not much rest for Captain Johnson that night; the leaky condition of his ship, and the still strong gale and high-rolling waves kept him on the alert. Billy Bowsprit, who was a thorough seaman, insisted upon watching with the captain. Coe was assigned a berth in one of the state-rooms forward of the saloon. Knowing that he could be of no farther use, he consented to retire for the night. Being much fatigued, he soon fell asleep, in dreams to recall, in forms more or less distorted, all the incidents of the day; yet amid all the scenes which his memory presented to his imagination, bent over him the soft, appealing eyes, the pale and beautiful face of Louise Durocher.
Story 2-Chapter XIII.
Gathered Ends
Melting and mingling into one
Two kindred souls.
Anon.
And so his life was gently exhaled in peace.
Anon.
Hail, wedded love!
Paradise Lost.
That’s the very moral on’t.
Nym.
The gale continued blowing all that night, all the next day, and for two or three days following. The injured condition of the ship made it unsafe for her to contend against the force of so strong a wind; and she was, therefore, kept directly before it. While the Duchess was thus running before the wind, two of the wounded pirates and three of the wounded of the ship’s crew died, and were committed to the deep. The man whose arm had been broken by Ada’s pistol-shot, and the other two of the wounded men belonging to the ship’s company, recovered before the arrival of the vessel in port.
A consultation was held in Mr Durocher’s state-room, on the day after the fight, between Mr Durocher himself, Captain Johnson, and John Coe, to which Billy Bowsprit was also admitted, and in which it was determined that as soon as the gale should abate, the ship should be steered for the nearest port in the United States. This determination was formed, that the ship might receive the necessary repairs, and that the captured pirates might be surrendered to the Government whose citizens they were.
On the fourth day after the fight the wind from the west had so abated that the course of the ship was changed, and she was headed towards the west. On the fifth day a fresh wind from the north arose; and, impelled by it, the Duchess made good progress for the American coast.
Meanwhile, the gallant young Marylander had become intimately acquainted with Mr Durocher and his daughter. He told to them the singular history of his connection with the pirates, of which Ada had already given them some particulars. The warm-hearted old French gentleman became much attached to the brave fellow, upon whom he could not look, he said, without remembering the awful horror from which he had delivered his daughter and himself. Besides, he esteemed him as an impersonation of courage and genius, because, in circumstances in which, according to ordinary apprehension, it seemed impossible to avoid being forced to the commission of crime, he had not only overcome his enemies, saving the penitent, and destroying the hopelessly guilty, but had also escaped from all the difficulties which had surrounded him, with his own hands unstained by human blood.
The fair and gentle Louise, too, was not insensible to the merits of her deliverer; her fervid feelings recognised in him a personification of the knights of old; and, with the spirit of self-sacrifice which greatly influences the tender and amiable of her sex, she longed to devote the services of her life to him in requital for her salvation from a horrible doom.
It must be confessed that “the deliverer” was not unimpressible nor unimpressed. Fixed for ever in his memory was the image of that young and loving girl, as he first beheld her when she lay pale, senseless, and perfectly helpless in the power of the pirate. And when he saw her afterwards, fully awakened to life, and her intelligent and enthusiastic mind and kind and loving heart expressing themselves in every glance of her soft blue eyes, in every flush that tinged her fair cheeks, in every expression of her beautiful lips, and in every musical sentence that issued from between them, he could scarcely realise that the bright form, clad in white robes, expressive of purity, and the shining face, surrounded by a halo of golden hair, belonged not to an angelic presence.
Indeed, these two young hearts required but an uttered word to cause the fountain of mutual love, like the waters of Horeb brought forth by the touch of the prophet’s wand, to pour out for each other its treasures of tenderness. And that word was at length spoken, with the entire approbation of Mr Durocher, whose friendship and fatherly regard for the young man was almost as great as his daughter’s love.
The merchant’s health, already weak, had received a terrible shock from the agony which his heart experienced on the evening of the assault of the pirates, a shock from the effects of which he never recovered, and when the Duchess entered Charleston Harbour, three weeks after that dreadful evening, he had to be carried on a bed from the boat to the rooms engaged for his party at the hotel. To this house, Ada Marston and John Coe accompanied him.
Immediately on arriving at Charleston, John wrote to his parents, informing them of all the remarkable adventures which had befallen him, and mentioning the state of affairs between Louise and himself. In due course he received letters from his father and mother, stating the great happiness of all the family at hearing of his safety, and expressing the full and joyous consent of Mr and Mrs Coe to the engagement of their son with Miss Durocher.
These letters gave great satisfaction to Mr Durocher. He learned from them that his child was about to enter a family by whom she would be received and cherished as indeed a daughter and sister. As his health was rapidly failing, and he felt that death was near at hand, he expressed an earnest desire that the marriage ceremony between John and Louise should not be postponed; he wished, before his departure, to see his daughter in the lawful care of a protector in whose honourable character and sincere love for her he himself had perfect faith. His will was law under the circumstances; and, on the second day after the receipt of the letters from Millmont, John Alvan Coe and Louise Durocher were united for life, at the bedside of the bride’s dying father, by a minister of the church to which all the parties belonged.
Mr Durocher survived his daughter’s marriage but two weeks. His sick-bed was waited on by two attentive and affectionate children, and his last days were soothed by the knowledge that he had done all that could be done to secure for his beloved child a happy life.
A few days after the death of Mr Durocher, John Coe and his wife left Charleston, and arrived in due course of time at the young husband’s old home at Millmont – but a little more than two months after he had disappeared from the latter place in a manner apparently so mysterious.
In less than a year John realised the amount of his wife’s fortune, with a part of which a large estate was purchased in one of the upper counties of Maryland. Upon this estate a handsome building was erected, to which he removed his family in the second year of his marriage. His descendants, distinguished, like their ancestors, for intellect and energy, still occupy that mansion.
A few words must be allowed with regard to our other characters.
Afton and the four pirates taken prisoners with him, were tried, a few months after their capture, before one of the United States Courts, in Baltimore, to which port their vessel had belonged. They were all found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. Two of them died in prison before the day appointed for their execution, the other three – of whom the ruffian Afton was one – suffered the extreme penalty of the law.
John Coe kept his promise to Billy Bowsprit and the five repentant pirates. His father’s influence, and that of all his father’s friends, was used to obtain their pardon; and when it was made clearly apparent that but for their help the result of the fight between the Duchess and the Falcon would have been entirely different, that pardon was readily granted.
Perhaps the reader has some desire to know what was the future fortune of Ada.
She accompanied Coe and his wife from Charleston to Maryland. Here a fresh grief awaited her. Her father, in alarm at hearing of the safety and early return of young Coe, and in dread of the consequences of the exposure which must ensue, had hastily and rashly taken his own life.
By the death of her father without a will, she became heir to one half of his wealth, there being but one other child of Mr Ashleigh, a grown son, to divide his property with her. She thus became an heiress; and several young gentlemen in the neighbourhood of Drum Point and elsewhere were quite willing, on account of her riches and her great beauty, to forget that she was the daughter of a receiver of smuggled goods and the widow of a pirate, and made her a tender of their hands. Ada, however, politely declined all these disinterested offers. About a year and a half after the death of her first husband she was married to Billy Bowsprit. Billy had been the only person on board the brig who had invariably treated her with kindness and respect; he had been her champion on all occasions, and she knew that he was devoted to her. Moreover, he could not upbraid her for having been the wife of a pirate.
Mr and Mrs Brown (to give them their right title) wished to be away from the neighbourhood of those who were acquainted with their antecedents. The lady’s portion of her father’s estate was, therefore, soon after her marriage, converted into funds, with which a large plantation was purchased in Mississippi. To this they removed, where they prospered, and some of their descendants still flourish in that State.
