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The Sea Witch

M >> Maturin Murray >> The Sea Witch



PREFACE.





LET the reader peruse the following story with the same spirit in which
it was written, and not conceive that it is either a pro-slavery or
anti-slavery tale. The "peculiar institution" which is herein
introduced, is brought forward simply as an auxiliary, and not as a
feature of the story. It is only referred to where the plot and locality
upon the slave coast have rendered this necessary, and the careful
reader will observe that the subject is treated with entire
impartiality. These few remarks are introduced, because we desire to
appear consistent. Our paper shall neither directly nor indirectly
further any sectional policy or doctrine, and in its conduct shall be
neutral, free and independent.--Editor of The Flag of our Union.






THE SEA-WITCH.

CHAPTER I.

OUTWARD BOUND.





OUR story opens in that broad, far-reaching expanse of water which lies
deep and blue between the two hemispheres, some fifteen degrees north of
the equator, in the latitude of Cuba and the Cape Verd Islands. The
delightful trade winds had not fanned the sea on a finer summer's day
for a twelvemonth, and the waves were daintily swelling upon the heaving
bosom of the deep, as though indicating the respiration of the ocean. It
was scarcely a day's sail beyond the flow of the Caribbean Sea, that one
of those noblest results of man's handiwork, a fine ship, might have
been seen gracefully ploughing her course through the sky-blue waters of
the Atlantic. She was close-hauled on the larboard tack, steering
east-southeast, and to a sailor's eye presented a certain indescribable
something that gave her taut rig and saucy air a dash of mystery, which
would have set him to speculating at once as to her character and the
trade she followed.

Few things can be named that more potently challenge our admiration than
a full-sized ship under way; her myriad of ropes, sails and
appointments, all so complete and well-controlled, the power of her
volition, the promptness with which she obeys the slightest movement of
the helm, the majestic grace of her inclination to the power of the
winds, and the foaming prow and long glistening wake, all go to make up
the charm and peculiarity of a nautical picture. There is true poetry in
such a scene as this, beauty fit to move the heart of an anchorite. No
wonder the sailor loves his ship like a mistress; no wonder he
discourses of her charms with the eloquence of true love and confiding
trust; no landsman can be more enamored of his promised bride.

But the craft to which we especially refer at the present writing, was a
coquette of the first class, beautiful in the extreme, and richly
meriting the name that her owners had placed in golden letters on her
stern--the "Sea Witch." She was one of that class of vessels known as
flat upon the floor, a model that caused her to draw but little water,
and enabled her to run free over a sandbar or into an inlet, where an
ordinary ship's long boat would have grounded. She was very long and
sharp, with graceful concave lines, and might have measured some five
hundred tons. Speed had evidently been the main object aimed at in her
construction, the flatness of her floor giving her great buoyancy, and
her length ensuring fleetness. These were points that would at once have
struck a sailor's eye, as he beheld the ship bowling gracefully on her
course by the power of the trade winds that so constantly befriend the
mariners in these latitudes.

We have said that the "Sea Witch" was of peculiar model, and so indeed
she was. Contrary to the usual rig of what are called clipper ships, her
masts, instead of raking, were perfectly upright, for the purpose of
enabling her to carry more press of sail when need be, and to hold on
longer when speed should be of vital importance--that the straighter
construction of the masts furthers this object, is a fact long since
proven in naval architecture. She was very low, too, in her rigging,
having tremendous square yards; enabling the canvass to act more
immediately upon the hull, instead of operating as a lever aloft, and
keeping the ship constantly off an even keel. Though low in the waist,
yet her ends rose gracefully in a curve towards the terminations fore
and aft, making her very dry on either the quarter-deck or forecastle.
She might have numbered fifty men for her crew, and if you had looked in
board over her bulwarks you would have seen that her complement was made
up of men. There were none there but real able-bodied seamen--sea dogs,
who had roughed it in all weather, and on all sorts of allowance.

There was a quiet and orderly mien about the deck and among the watch,
that spoke of the silent yet potent arm of authority. The men spoke to
each other now and then, but it was in an under tone, and there was no
open levity. A few men were lounging about the heel of the bowsprit on
the forecastle, one or two were busy in the waist coiling cable; an
officer of second or third caste a quiet, but decided character, to
judge from his features, stood with folded arms just abaft the
mizzen-mast, and a youthful figure, almost too young seemingly for so
responsible a post, leaned idly against the monkey-rail, near the sage
old tar who was at the helm. At first you might have supposed him a
supercargo, an owner's son as passenger, or something of that sort, from
the quite-at-home air he exhibited; but now and then he cast one of
those searching and understanding glances aloft and fore and aft, taking
in the whole range of the ship's trim, and the way she did her duty,
that you realized at once the fact of his position; and you could not
mistake the fact that he was her commander.

He wore a glazed tarpaulin hat of coarse texture, and his dress was of
little better material than that of the crew he commanded, but it set it
somehow quite jauntily upon his fine, well-developed form, and there
was an unmistakable air of conscious authority about him that showed him
to be no stranger to control, or the position which he filled. The hair,
escaping in glossy curls from beneath his hat, added to a set of very
regular features a fine effect, while a clear, full blue eye, and an
open, ingenuous expression of countenance, told of manliness of heart
and chivalric hardihood of character. Exposure to the elements had
bronzed his skin, but there were no wrinkles there, and Captain Will
Ratlin could not have seen more than two and twenty years, though most
of them had doubtless been passed upon the ocean, for his well-knit form
showed him to be one thoroughly inured to service.

"She does her work daintily, Captain Ratlin," said he who was evidently
an officer, and who had been standing by the mainmast, but now walked
aft.

"Yes, Mr. Faulkner, 'daintily' is the word. I wish our beauty could be a
little more spunky, time is money in our business, sir," was the prompt
reply.

"But the willing craft does all she can, sir."

"I don't know, Mr. Faulkner, we can make her do almost anything."

"But talk," added the mate.

"Ay, she will do that in her own way, and eloquently, too," continued
his superior.

"In coming out of Matanzas, when you made her back and fill like a
saddle horse, I thought she was little less than a human being," said
the mate, honestly.

"She minds her helm like a beauty, and feels the slightest pull upon her
sheets."

"I never saw a vessel lie closer to the wind," said the mate; "she eats
right into it, and yet has not shaken a foot of canvass this half hour."

"That is well."

"It's uncommon, sir," continued the other.

"She must and can do better, though," said the young commander, with an
air of slight impatience. "Call the watch below, Mr. Faulkner, we will
treat our mistress to a new dress this bright day, and flatter her pride
a little; she is of the coquette school, and will bear a little
dalliance."

"Ay, ay, sir," responded the officer, without further parley, walking
forward to the fore hatch, and with a few quick blows with a handspike,
and a clear call, he summoned that portion of the crew whose hours of
release from duty permitted them below. The signal rang sharply through
the ship, and caused an instant response.

A score of dark forms issued forth from the forecastle, embracing
representatives from nearly half the nations of the globe; but they were
sturdy sailors, and used to obey the word of command, men to be relied
upon in an emergency, rough in exterior, but within either soft as women
or hard as steel, according to the occasion.

Now it was that an observer not conversant with the "Sea Witch," and
looking at her from a distance, would have naturally concluded that she
was most appropriately named, for how else could her singular manouvres
and the result that followed be explained? Suddenly the mizzen royal
disappeared, followed by the top-gallant sail, topsail, and cross-jack
courses, seeming to melt away under the eye like a misty veil, while,
almost in a moment of time, there appeared a spanker, gaff topsail and
gaff top-gallantsail in their place, while the vessel still held on her
course.

A moment later, and the royal top-gallantsail, topsail and mainsail
disappear from the main mast, upon which appears a regular fore and aft
suit of canvass, consisting of mainsail, gaff topsail, and gaff
top-gallantsail, reducing the vessel to a square rig forward, and a
plain fore and aft rig aft. A few minutes more, and the foremast passed
through the same metamorphose, leaving the "Sea Witch" a three-masted
schooner, with fore and aft sails on every mast and every stay. All this
had been accomplished with a celerity that showed the crew to be no
strangers to the manouvres through which they had just passed, each man
requiring to work with marked intelligence. Fifty well drilled men,
thorough sea dogs, can turn a five hundred ton ship "inside out," if the
controlling mind understands his position on the quarter-deck.

"She wears that dress as though it suited her taste exactly, Mr.
Faulkner," said the captain, running his eye over the vessel, and
glancing over the side to mark her headway.

"Any rig becomes the 'Sea Witch,'" answered the officer, with evident
pride.

"That is true," returned the captain. "Luff, sir, luff a bit, so, well,"
he continued to the man at the helm; "we will have all of her weatherly
points that site will give."

"The wind is rather more unsteady than it was an hour past," said Mr.
Faulkner.

"Rather puffy, and twice I thought it would haul right about, but here
we have it still from the north'rd and east'rd," replied the captain.

"Here it is again," added the mate, as the wind hauled once more.

The immediate object of the change in the vessel's rig, which we have
described, was at once apparent, enabling the vessel to lie nearer the
wind in her course, as well its giving her increased velocity by
bringing more canvass to draw than a square rig could do when close
hauled. But a shrewd observer would have been led to ask, what other
reason, save that of disguise, could have been the actuating motive in
thus giving to the "Sea Witch" a double character in her rig? For though
temporary and somewhat important advantage could at times be thus
gained, as we have seen, yet such an object alone would not have
warranted the increased outlay that was necessarily incurred, to say
nothing of the imperative necessity of a vessel's being very strongly
manned in order to enable her to thus change her entire aspect with any
ordinary degree of celerity, and as had just been accomplished.





CHAPTER II.

CAPTAIN WILL RATLIN.




THE watch below, after completing the work which had summoned them for
the time being on deck, tumbled helter-skelter down the fore hatch once
more, and left on the deck of the "Sea Witch" about a dozen able seamen
who formed the watch upon deck. A number of these were now gathered in a
knot on the forecastle, and while they were sitting cross-legged,
picking old rope, and preparing it in suitable form for caulking the
ship's seams, one of their number was spinning a yarn, the hero of which
was evidently him who now filled the post of commander on board their
vessel. The object of their remarks, meanwhile, stood once more quietly
leaning over the monkey-rail on the weather side of the quarter-deck,
quite unconscious that he was supplying a theme of entertainment to the
forecastle.

There was an absent expression in his handsome face, a look as though
his heart was far distant from the scene about him, and yet a habit of
watchful caution seemed ever and anon to recall his senses, and his
quick, keen glance would run over the craft from stem to stern with a
searching and comprehensive power that showed him master of his
profession, and worthy his trust. Trust?--what was the trust he held?
Surely, no legitimate commerce could warrant the outfit of such a vessel
as he controlled. A man-of-war could hardly have been more fully
equipped with means of offence and defence. Amidship, beneath that long
boat, was a long, heavy metalled gun that worked on a traverse, and
which could command nearly every point of the compass, while the ship
kept her course. Just inside the rise of the low quarter-deck--the cabin
being entered from the deck by the descent of a couple of steps--there
were ranged boarding pikes, muskets, cutlasses and pistols, ready for
instant use. In shape they formed stars, hearts and diamonds, dangerous
but fantastic ornaments.

The brightness of these arms, and the handy way in which they were
arranged in the sockets made to receive them, showed at once that they
were designed for use, while the various other fixtures of the cabin and
docks plainly bespoke preparation for conflict. A strong and lofty
boarding-netting being stowed, also, told of the readiness of the "Sea
Witch" to repel boarders. That all these preparations had been made
merely as ordinary precautions in a peaceful trade was by no means
probable; and yet there they were, and there stood the bright-eyed,
handsome and youthful commander upon the quarter-deck, but he did not
look the desperado--such a term would have poorly accorded with his
open and manly countenance, hie quiet and gentlemanly mien. A pirate
would hardly have dared to lay the course he steered in these latitudes,
where an English or French cruiser was very likely to cross his track.

"He handles a ship as prettily as ever a true blue did yet," said one of
the forecastle group, in replying to some remark of a comrade concerning
the commander.

"That's true," answered another; "he seems to have a sort of natural way
with him, as though he'd been born aboard and never seed the land at
all; and as to that matter, there may be them on board who say as much
of him."

"That isn't far from the truth," answered Bill Marline, "seein' he
started so arly on the sea he can't tell when he wasn't there himself."

"How was that matter, Bill?" asked one of his messmates. "They say you
have kept the captain's reckoning, man and boy, these fifteen years."

"That have I, and never a truer heart floated than the man you see
yonder leaning over the rail on the quarterdeck, where he belongs,"
answered Bill Marline.

"How did you first fall in with him, Bill?--Tell us that," said one of
the crew.

"Well, do ye see, messmates, it must have been the matter of thirteen
years ago, there or thereabouts, but I can't exactly say, seeing's I
never have kept a log and can't write; but must have been about that
length of time, when I was a foremast hand on board the 'Sea Lion,' as
fine an Indiaman as you would wish to see. We were lying in the
Liverpool docks, with sails bent and cargo stowed, under sailing orders,
when one afternoon there strolled alongside a boy rather ragged and
dirty, but with such eyes and such a countenance as would make him a
passport anywhere. Well, do ye see, we were lazing away time on board,
and waiting the captain's coming before we hauled out into the stream,
and so we coaxed the lad aboard. He either didn't know where he came
from or wouldn't tell, and when we proposed to take him to sea with us,
he readily agreed, and sure enough he sailed in the 'Sea Lion.'"

"Well, heave ahead, Bill," said one of the group, as the narrator
stopped to stove a fresh instalment of the Virginia weed in his larboard
cheek.

"Heave ahead."

"We hadn't got fairly clear of the channel," continued Bill Marline,
"before the boy had become a general favorite all over the ship. We
washed him up and bent on a new suit of toggery on him, with a reg'lar
tarpaulin, and there was almost a fight whether the forecastle or the
cabin should have him. At last it was left to the boy himself, and he
chose to remain with us in the forecastle. The boy wasn't sick an hour
on the passage until after we left the Cape of Good Hope, when the flag
halliards getting fouled, he was sent up to the peak to loosen it, and
by some lurch of the ship was throw upon deck. Why it didn't kill him
was the wonder of all, but the boy was crazy for near a month from the
blow on his head, which he got in falling, but he gradually got cured
under our captain's care.

"Well, do ye see, our captain was a regular whole-souled fellow, though
he did sometimes work up a hand's old iron pretty close for him, and so
he took the boy into the cabin and gave him a berth alongside his own,
and as he grew better took to teaching him the use of his instruments,
and mathematics, and the like. The boy they said was wonderful ready,
and learned like a book, and could take the sun and work up the ship's
course as well as the captain; but what was the funniest of all was
that, after he got well, he didn't know one of us, he had forgotten or
even how he came on board the ship, the injury had put such a stopper on
his brain that he had forgotten all that ever occurred before it. To my
mind, howdsomever, it wasn't much to forget, seeing he was little better
than a baby, and hadn't been to sea at all, and you know there aint
anything worth knowing on shore, more'n one can overhaul in a day's
leave, more or less, within hail of the sea."

"That's true," growled one or two of his messmates.

"Our ship was a first class freighter and passage vessel, and on the
home voyage we had plenty of ladies. 'Twas surprisin' to see how natural
like the boy took to 'em, and how they all liked him. He was constantly
learning something, and soon got so be could parley vou like a real
frog-eating Frenchman. And then, as I said before, he took the sun and
worked up the the ship's reckoning like a commodore. Well, do ye se,
messmates, we made a second and third voyage together in that ship, and
when master Will Ratlin--for that was a name we give him when he first
came on board, and he's kept it ever since--was a matter of fourteen
years, he was nearly as big as he is now, and acted as mate, and through
I say it, who ought to know somewhat about those things, I never seed a
better seaman of twice his years, always savin' present company,
messmates."

"In course, Bill," growled three or four of his messmates, heartily.

"Well, do ye see, messmates, we continued together in the same ship for
the matter of five years, and then master Will and I shipped in another
Indiaman, and we were in the 'Birmingham' for three years or more. One
day we lay off the Cape on the home passage, and a half dozen of us got
shore leave for a few hours, and I among the rest, and somehow I got
rather more grog aboard than I could stow, and when I came off, the
captain swore at me like a pirate, and after I got sober triced me up to
the main rigging for a round dozen. When all hands were called to
witness punishment, shiver my timbers, if master Will Ratlin, who was
the first mate, didn't walk boldly up to the captain, and say, blunt and
honest:

"'Captain Brace, Marline is an old and favorite seaman, and if you will
let this offence pass without further punishment, I will answer for his
future good behaviour, at all times. I ask it, sir, as a personal
favor.'

"'But discipline, discipline must be observed, Mr. Ratlin.'

"'I acknowledge he's in fault, sir,' said our mate.

"'And deserves the punishment,' said the captain.

"'I fear he does, sir; but yet I can't bear to see a good seaman
flogged, said the mate, apologetically.

"'Nor I either,' said the captain; 'but Bill Marline deserves the cat,
though as you make it a personal matter, why I'll let him off this time,
Mr. Ratlin.'

"The captain didn't wish to let me go, but he said he wished to gratify
his mate, and so I was cast loose, and after a broadside of advice, and
a hurricane of oaths, was turned over to duty again. I didn't forget
that favor, messmates, and sink me if I wouldn't go to the bottom to
serve him any time. He commanded a brig in the South American trade
after that, and would have made a mate of me, hut somehow I've got a
weakness for grog that isn't very safe, and so he knows 'twont do. You
see him there now, messmates, as calm as a lady; but he's awake when
there's need of it. The man don't live that can handle a ship better
than he; and as for fighting, do ye see, messmates, we were running on
this here same tack, just off the--but avast upon that, I haven't any
more to say, messmates," said the speaker, demurely.

Bill Marline evidently found himself treading upon dangerous ground, and
wisely cut short his yarn, thereby creating a vast amount of curiosity
among his messmates, but he sternly refused to speak further upon the
subject. Either his commander had prohibited him, or he found that by
speaking he should in some way compromise the credit or honor of one
upon whom he evidently looked as being little less than one of a
superior order of beings to himself.

"But what do you bring up so sudden for? Pay out, old fellow, there's
plenty of sea-room, and no land-sharks to fear," said one of the group,
encouragingly.

"Never you mind, messmates, there's nothing like keeping a civil tongue
in your head, especially being quiet about other people's business,"
added Bill.

"What think you, Bill, of this present vocation, eh?" asked another
companion.

"I shipped for six months, that's all I know, and no questions asked. I
understand very well that Captain Ratlin wouldn't ship me where he
wouldn't go himself."

"Well, do you see, Bill, most of us are new on board here, though we
have knocked about long enough to get the number of our mess and to work
ship together, and don't perhaps feel so well satisfied as you do."

"Why, look ye, messmates, arnt you satisfied so long as the articles you
signed are kept by captain and crew?" asked Bill Marline, somewhat
tartly.

"Why, yes, as to that matter; but where are we bound, Bill?" asked the
other.

"Any boy in the ship can make out the 'Sea Witch's' course," said the
old tar, evasively. "We're in these here Northern Trades, close-hauled,
and heading, according to my reckoning, due east, and any man who has
stood his trick at the wheel of a ship, knows that such a course steered
from the West Indies will, if well followed, run down the Cape Verds;
that's all I know."

"Port Praya and a port; that was in the articles sure enough," answered
he who had questioned Bill Marline; "but the 'Sea Witch' will scarce
anchor there before she is off again, according to my reckoning."

That the old tar knew more than he chose to divulge, however, was
apparent to his comrades, but they knew him to be fixed when he chose,
and so did not endeavor by importunity to gather anything further from
him; so the conversation gradually changed into some other channel.

In the meantime, while the crew gathered about Bill Marline were thus
speculating, the vessel bowled along gracefully, with a speed that was
in itself exhilarating to her young commander, who still gazed idly at
the passing current. Once or twice a slight frown clouded his features,
and his lips moved as though he was striving within himself either
against real or imaginary evil, and then the same calm, placid manliness
of countenance radiated his handsome features, and his lips were
composed.

Now he turned to issue some necessary order, which was uttered in that
calm, manly distinctness that challenges obedience, and then he resumed
his idle gaze over the vessel's side, once more losing himself in his
day dream.





CHAPTER III.

THE GALE.




"THE Wind seems to be hauling," said the mate, walking aft, and
addressing his superior.

"Keep her a good full," said the captain, to the man at the helm.

"Ay, ay, sir," said the old tar, as he tried to make the sails draw by
altering the vessel's course a point or two more free.

"Here it is, sure enough," said the captain, "from the southwest. Up
with the men forward once more, Mr. Faulkner!--we must humor our
beauty."

"All hands oil deck!" shouted the mate at the hatch--an order which as
before was perfectly obeyed.

Almost as quickly as the foremast had been stripped of the square rig it
had at first borne, it was once more clothed again with its topsail and
mainsail, and in less than fifteen minutes the "Sea Witch" was under a
cloud of canvass, with studd'nsails out on both sides, while the fore
and aft sails on the main and mizzen were boomed out wing and wing dead
before the wind. The staysails and jibs were hauled down now as useless,
and the vessel flew like a courser. The change of wind had brought the
sea up, and the vessel had a gradual roll, causing the waves now and
then to come gracefully in over the waist, while the extreme fore and
aft parts of the handsome craft were perfectly dry.

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