The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea by James Fenimore Cooper (reading diary txt) 📖

little to clear the log-account of a man whose watch is up for this world.”

“But, by making their peace with those who have the power, their lives may be spared,” said the captain, watching, with keen eyes, the effect his words produced on the cockswain.

“It matters but little, when a man hears the messenger pipe his hammock down for the last time; he keeps his watch in another world, though he goes below in this. But to see wood and iron, that has been put together after such moulds as the Ariel's, go into strange hands, is a blow that a man may remember long after the purser's books have been squared against his name for ever! I would rather that twenty shot should strike my old carcass, than one should hull the schooner that didn't pass out above her water-line.”

Borroughcliffe replied, somewhat carelessly, “I may be mistaken, after all; and, instead of putting any of you to death, they may place you all on board the prison-ships, where you may yet have a merry time of it these ten or fifteen years to come.”

“How's that, shipmate!” cried the cockswain, with a start; “a prison-ship, d'ye say? you may tell them they can save the expense of one man's rations by hanging him, if they please, and that is old Tom Coffin.”

“There is no answering for their caprice: to-day they may order a dozen of you to be shot for rebels; to-morrow they may choose to consider you as prisoners of war, and send you to the hulks for a dozen years.”

“Tell them, brother, that I'm a rebel, will ye? and ye'll tell 'em no lie—one that has fou't them since Manly's time, in Boston Bay, to this hour. I hope the boy will blow her up! it would be the death of poor Richard Barnstable to see her in the hands of the English!”

“I know of one way,” said Borroughcliffe, affecting to muse, “and but one, that will certainly avert the prison-ship; for, on second thoughts, they will hardly put you to death.”

“Name it, friend,” cried the cockswain, rising from his seat in evident perturbation, “and if it lies in the power of man, it shall be done.”

“Nay,” said the captain, dropping his hand familiarly on the shoulder of the other, who listened with the most eager attention, “'tis easily done, and no dreadful thing in itself; you are used to gunpowder, and know its smell from otto of roses!”

“Ay, ay,” cried the impatient old seaman; “I have had it flashing under my nose by the hour; what then?”

“Why, then, what I have to propose will be nothing to a man like you—you found the beef wholesome, and the grog mellow!”

“Ay, ay, all well enough; but what is that to an old sailor?” asked the cockswain, unconsciously grasping the collar of Borroughcliffe's coat, in his agitation; “what then?”

The captain manifested no displeasure at this unexpected familiarity, but with suavity as he unmasked the battery, from behind which he had hitherto carried on his attacks.

“Why, then, you have only to serve your king as you have before served the Congress—and let me be the man to show you your colors.”

The cockswain stared at the speaker intently, but it was evident he did not clearly comprehend the nature of the proposition, and the captain pursued the subject:

“In plain English, enlist in my company, my fine fellow, and your life and liberty are both safe.”

Tom did not laugh aloud, for that was a burst of feeling in which he was seldom known to indulge; but every feature of his weatherbeaten visage contracted into an expression of bitter, ironical contempt. Borroughcliffe felt the iron fingers, that still grasped his collar, gradually tightening about his throat, like a vice; and, as the arm slowly contracted, his body was drawn, by a power that it was in vain to resist, close to that of the cockswain, who, when their faces were within a foot of each other, gave vent to his emotions in words:

“A messmate, before a shipmate; a shipmate, before a stranger; a stranger, before a dog—but a dog before a soldier!”

As Tom concluded, his nervous arm was suddenly extended to the utmost, the fingers relinquishing their grasp at the same time; and, when Borroughcliffe recovered his disordered faculties, he found himself in a distant corner of the apartment, prostrate among a confused pile of chairs, tables, and wearing-apparel. In endeavoring to rise from this humble posture, the hand of the captain fell on the hilt of his sword, which had been included in the confused assemblage of articles produced by his overthrow.

“How now, scoundrel!” he cried, baring the glittering weapon, and springing on his feet; “you must be taught your distance, I perceive.”

The cockswain seized the harpoon which leaned against the wall, and dropped its barbed extremity within a foot of the breast of his assailant, with an expression of the eye that denoted the danger of a nearer approach. The captain, however, wanted not for courage, and stung to the quick by the insult he had received, he made a desperate parry, and attempted to pass within the point of the novel weapon of his adversary. The slight shock was followed by a sweeping whirl of the harpoon, and Borroughchffe found himself without arms, completely at the mercy of his foe. The bloody intentions of Tom vanished with his success; for, laying aside his weapon, he advanced upon his antagonist, and seized him with an open palm. One more struggle, in which the captain discovered his incompetency to make any defence against the strength of a man who managed him as if he had been a child, decided the matter. When the captain was passive in the hands of his foe, the cockswain produced sundry pieces of sennit, marline, and ratlin-stuff, from his pockets, which appeared to contain as great a variety of small cordage as a boatswain's storeroom, and proceeded to lash the arms of the conquered soldier to the posts of his bed, with a coolness that had not been disturbed since the commencement of hostilities, a silence that seemed inflexible, and a dexterity that none but a seaman could equal. When this part of his plan was executed, Tom paused a moment, and gazed around him as if in quest of something. The naked sword caught his eye, and, with this weapon in his hand, he deliberately approached his captive, whose alarm prevented his observing that the cockswain had snapped the blade asunder from the handle, and that he had already encircled the latter with marline.

“For God's sake,” exclaimed Borroughcliffe, “murder me not in cold blood!”

The silver hilt entered his mouth as the words issued from it, and the captain found, while the line was passed and repassed in repeated involutions across the back of his neck, that he was in a condition to which he often subjected his own men, when unruly, and which is universally called being “gagged.” The cockswain now appeared to think himself entitled to all the privileges of a conqueror; for, taking the light in his hand, he commenced a scrutiny into the nature and quality of the worldly effects that lay at his mercy. Sundry articles, that belonged to the equipments of a soldier, were examined, and cast aside with great contempt, and divers garments of plainer exterior were rejected as unsuited to