Chapter IV: Dead Man’s Reef

On the morning following his meeting with the smuggler chief in the wood our hero was up with the sun, if not a little before it. But, early as it was, his mother was up still earlier. He had told her on the previous evening of his promise to Captain Tryon, and she had arisen to get him a bite of breakfast, as there was no telling at what hour he would board the brig.

Margery Maitland had changed but very little since her husband’s death. There were a few lines of silver in the raven blackness of her hair which had not been there before. Old lines had deepened on her face while new ones had been added.

She was still a handsome woman, notwithstanding a certain sharpening of her features and an atmosphere of coldness, almost of misanthropy, that enveloped her. She was seldom seen to smile and in the presence of her son she smiled never.

Sometimes, when the old lieutenant, Donald Rodney, with a few of his chosen mates was spending an evening in the cottage, and the bottle and punch-bowl circulated freely, then, under the influence of jest and story, and hearty laughter, she might join them so far as to smile, with occasionally a hard metallic laugh.

“Mother,” said the youth, after he had taken his seat at the table, on which she had spread a breakfast that should have pleased an epicure. “I have a question to ask you; and it is in relation to a matter which has puzzled me exceedingly. Who and what is this man who has taken my father’s place on board the brig?”

The woman caught her breath and turned quickly to the fire. With the tongs she lifted a couple of fallen brands into place by which time she had regained her wonted composure, and was ready to face her son, which she did, with a look that she meant to be one of surprise.

“Do you ask me who and what Captain Ralph Tryon is?”

“Exactly, mother. Will you tell me?”

“Well! upon my word! Here he’s been, off and on, for the matter of eight years and more; and now you ask me that!”

“Yes, mother, I do ask you; for I am sure you know more of him than I do.”

“Why should you think so?”

“Don’t do that!” the youth pleaded, beseechingly. “I pray you do not deny a self-evident fact.”

“Boy!”

“Stop! Let me finish. Mother, I never spoke a word with Captain Tryon that I was not forced to speak--so forced by circumstances beyond my control. I never held with him a social confab; nor have I ever conversed with any of my old crew about him. I did, once, ask old Rodney the same question I have now asked you.”

“Ha! You did! And what was his answer?”

“His answer left me more puzzled than I was before; for he plainly showed to me that he was not at liberty to talk about his commander. In short, he wouldn’t say a word, only of refusal.”

“And you’ll get the same answer from me! So, now, go and eat your breakfast.”

Percy knew his mother well enough to know that if she had so willed, that must be the end. He was disappointed, and he felt hurt; but there was no help for it that he could see and he turned his attention to his meal.

And that would have been the end had Margery been content to leave the matter as it was; evidently, she was not satisfied. As she moved noiselessly about the small living-room she cast, ever and anon, inquiring glances upon her son, as though she had something to ask. And so she had. As is proved afterward, she was anxious to know what Percy had discovered or how much, if anything, he suspected with regard to her relations with the new smuggler chief.

At length she stepped close to his side and after a little further thought she said:

“Percy, what did you mean by the question you asked me? How could you suppose that I could know anything of Captain Tryon?”

The youth marked the anxiety in his mother’s voice and it gave him new cause for distrust. Had all been clear and above board she could not have felt thus.

“Mother,” he answered, calmly and kindly, but firmly, at the same time looking her straight in the eye. “I will only tell you what I know. I know that Ralph Tryon is a frequent visitor here and that you give him warm welcome. I know that he has more than once come to you for advice and assistance--”

“Advice, in what?” broke in the woman, eagerly. “In what has he ever asked me to advise him?”

“Ah! That I do not know. I only know what I have told you, and I know further that you have--” He stopped abruptly and paused. A moment later he added, with more feeling than he had before shown, “Mother, I have said enough in that strain. I have never watched you, never spied upon you, and never will. Heaven knows I seek only your good. Surely, you can not wonder that I, when I have seen a man so familiar and so warmly welcomed beneath this roof as is Ralph Tryon, should be anxious to know who and what he is. That, you know, I am convinced. What objections have you to telling me?”

“My dear boy, you see him commander of the Staghound and chief of the King’s Cove smugglers. Is not this enough? What reason have you for thinking anything else of him?”

“Mother!” replied the youth, quickly and sternly, with his gaze fixed sharply on her face, “listen to me. I know that Ralph Tryon is all that you said. I know, also, that he is more. Somewhere, at some time, I have seen him under other circumstances, if not under another name.”

Margery Maitland was startled--she was frightened. If not so, then her looks belied her.

“Percy! What do you say? You have seen him elsewhere--in another guise? Where? Where was it?”

The youth shook his head.

“Ah! that is the very thing that puzzles me,” he said, dubiously. “I can not tell where I have seen him, nor when. I only know that it is so.”

Margery had recovered herself, though traces of her recent fright were still visible.

“Pshaw!” she cried, trying to simulate contempt. “It’s all in your imagination, boy. Just think of it; here he has been these seven or eight years, out and in before you, and now, when he is known of all men for what he is, and for nothing else, you begin to fancy that he is somebody else! It is ridiculous! You ought to be ashamed of such petty trifling.”

“All right,” returned Percy, getting up from the table as he spoke. “Let it pass. Only, my dear mother, I would like to correct you in one thing. I am not just beginning to fancy the thing I have mentioned. No, no: far from it. I can well remember the first time I ever set eyes on him and heard him speak--it was on board the brig--the same belief or impression possessed me. Yes, even then I could have sworn that he had been known to me in a totally different guise, and the impression has gone on gaining strength from that time. But I shall know one of these days. Something tells me it will be revealed to me. I can wait.”

Again the woman started; and the look she darted upon her son was not pleasant to see; but his back was turned toward her, and he did not catch it.

Without further remark, our hero set about his preparations for departure. The garb he now wore was a neat, well-fitting seaman’s dress, of fine blue cloth, with an ordinary Scotch cap on his head.

Having donned his cap, and put a flask of wine in his pocket, he threw a serviceable peacoat over his left arm, and was ready to set forth.

He asked his mother if she had any errand to send to Rodney, or any other of the crew. She had none. And then, as was his custom, he bade her a pleasant “good-morning,” by way of adieu, and departed.

If Percy could have looked back upon his mother, as he walked swiftly away he would have seen that she was watching him with an expression of countenance far from pleasant or satisfactory.

If the words she spoke to herself could have reached his ears, he would have heard her mutter with marked anxiety:

“Mercy! He must be warned! I must put him on guard at once. If Percy is bent upon discovering his secret, who shall say that he may not do it? He is sharp; and he can be stubborn. Heavens and earth! If he should discover! But he must not! Ralph must look to himself. There can be no danger if we are both careful. I know I can be so; and I think he will be.”

But the youth heard not; and it may have been well that ignorance in that direction was his portion. He was bound for the landing where we saw him step from his skiff to the shore on the previous afternoon.

It was distant half a mile from the cottage, the path lying through a deep wood most of the way.

The sun was just rising above the hills beyond the park when he reached it. He was in ample time.

He made quick work of getting his boat into the stream and his oars out, and he was not long in pulling to the lake.

Once there, where he could make use of the wind, he let drop the center board; then stepped the mast, and very soon thereafter the light craft was shooting away under a broad leg-of-mutton sail, like a race horse, that is, supposing that a race horse could travel like a duck.

The distance from the inner shore of the bay to the outer headlands was not far from two miles. The brig was to come from the south, so our pilot put his boat’s head in that direction, running it over Dead Man’s Reef, the great black rocks of which he could plainly see as he passed above them.

They were, in truth, terrible looking things and the man who would have proposed to run a large vessel, anything deeper than a common sailboat, through the territory they occupied might well have been deemed insane or mad.

Percy ran out between the southern headland of the bay, called South Head and Hood’s Island, and scarcely had he gained the open sea when he saw the brig three miles away or more, coming up with the wind on her larboard beam and every rag of canvas spread that she could carry. What did it mean? he asked himself.

Ha! Ere long he saw. Having run a little further out, so that his eye could sweep the southern horizon to the coast, he espied a heavy ship, also spanking along under all the sail she could spread. He kept a small telescope in the close locker in the stern-sheets, and, through this, standing erect against the mast, he viewed the stranger.

“Oho! The sloop-of-war, as I live!” He made sure there could be no mistake, then he put away the glass and resumed his place at the helm.

The corvette was, as nearly as he could judge, three miles distant from the brig and she appeared to be gaining. At first Percy was surprised. He had not thought there was a ship in the British navy that could sail with the Staghound; but he very soon solved the mystery. The latter’s lee scuppers were under water. She was loaded as he had never seen her loaded before. Only a reckless, unreliable man could have done such a thing.

In a heavy seaway, or in the teeth of a respectable storm, she would have foundered, in spite of all that could have been done to save her. Of course, the throwing overboard of a portion of the cargo might have saved her; but, if they would have cast it over in a storm, why had they not done it to enable them to run way from the king’s ship?

With the brig and the boat approaching one another rapidly, the three miles were quickly covered. Percy had taken in his sail, and unstepped his mast just in season to catch a line thrown to him from the brig’s lee quarter; and in a few moments more he was on her deck, with his boat towing astern.

The brig was a Yankee-built vessel; originally, as lettering in her cabin proved, hailing from Baltimore. She had a capacity of two hundred and fifty tons; was sharp forward; with a clean, pretty run; spars lofty and very nearly perpendicular, depending for support more on the strength of stays and shrouds than on bulk and weight of timber, with a spread of canvas that completely overshadowed her.

The first man to greet the youth as he sprang over the quarter-rail, was the old lieutenant, Donald Rodney, a man past his first half century of life; a stout, rugged, pleasant-faced English seaman.

He was a true friend and he meant to do as nearly right as he knew how; or, such had been his aim in other years, but he had of late fallen under new influences, and Percy, as he gazed upon him, and found his eye faltering, feared that he had been going wrong.

In short, he feared that all hands--that everything on board, had been going wrong for a considerable time.

However, that was no time for moralizing. He had come to save the brig, and he would do it if he could. He cast his eyes over the taffrail, and saw the ship not a fathom more than a mile and a half away. She was nearer than he had thought.

“Donald, why haven’t you cast overboard a part of your cargo! Mercy on us! If the corvette had a single mile more of running space she would be very apt to--”

The speech was cut short by the flash of a gun at the ship’s weather bridle port and at the same instant a crashing aloft. A few moments later the brig’s main top-gallant mast came tearing down over the lee rail.

“Cut away! Cut everything clear!” shouted our hero. He paused here, and looked around upon the men who came crowding upon the quarter-deck.

The brig’s crew numbered five-and-fifty men, only thirty of whom had been with the old commander, Captain Maitland. The five-and-twenty new men had been added by Tryon, and they were a dark-visaged, evil-eyed looking set. The only thing that Percy could think of when he looked at them, was five-and-twenty pirates! He was well aware that of the old crew there were a number--perhaps the majority of them--who would have readily departed upon an evil course under the influence of an evil leader. He looked over the crew as they came aft, and asked them:

“Will you give the command to me? Quick with your answer!”

“Yes! Yes!”

“Then cut away the wreck of the mast and take your stations, Rodney!”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“Put two of the very best men you have at the wheel.”

“I guess I’d better be one of ’em, sir.”

“No. I want you in the waist. I must take my place on the heel of the bowsprit, when the pinch comes.”

Two good men of the crew, both of whom our hero knew well, took the wheel, and the brig was soon on her course, with the wreck of the topgallant mast floating astern. The corvette let fly one more shot, but without effect, and she seemed inclined to fire no more. She had found herself gaining so fast that further firing would be worse than useless. Not only would it be a waste of ammunition, but they would be making a wreck of their own prize.

Aye, the officers of the king’s ship were as sure of the brig as they were of the coming of noontime. They knew there was a bay somewhere ahead into which the chase would probably run; but they could run in as well and capture the bold contrabandists at their leisure.

The brig was now within a few minutes’ run of the southern headland of Raven Bay, and between that headland and Hood’s Island was a broad, fair opening to the inlet beyond; but close behind it, lurking in the hidden depths like hungry beasts of prey were the sunken rocks of Dead Man’s Reef. The reef stretched the whole distance, on a line between the headland and the island; and never yet within the knowledge of man had a vessel larger than a common pleasure-boat dared to attempt the passage. No fisherman of that region was reckless enough to risk his smack over that death-trap. The true channel, the proper and safe entrance to the bay, was a mile further to the northward, between the upper headland and Old Man’s Island.

“I tell ye,” cried a man of the brig’s crew, looking back upon the corvette and then ahead upon the point beyond Old Man’s Island, “we can never reach it in the world!”

“Silence!” shouted the youthful pilot, in a voice that reached every ear, and caused every man to start. “I said I would save you. Obey me to the letter and I will do it. Stand by, all hands! Clew up the mainsail! Lay the yards square! Up helm! Easily! So!”

The men were thunderstruck. They did not refuse to obey, yet they were sure they were going to wreck and ruin. Aye--for they were heading fair and square upon Dead Man’s Reef! What in the world did it mean?

“Percy! Percy! You can never do it--never!” groaned old Rodney in an agony of terror.

“I’ll do it, Donald, if you are sharp enough to follow me--to see that the helm answers my orders.”

“I’ll do the best I can, dear boy. But--Oh, can ye do it?”

“Wait and see.”

The youth then spoke to the men a word of cheer, assuring them that he could take the brig safely through the reef, and then took his station forward, with Donald in the waist to pass his orders aft, in case there should be need. He had already given to the helmsmen general instructions, so they knew how to steer till the need should come for a change. And pretty soon it came. The brig had passed into the mouth of the bay, with South Head on her starboard quarter, and Hood’s Island on her larboard; and now the long stretch of Dead Man’s Reef was under her forefoot, and she had almost an eighth of a mile to run in the midst of the terrible rocks!

The young hero never blanched, never quivered, though every other man on board shook from top to toe.

“Helm, there!--starboard!--steady!--so! Starboard again! Easy!--hold! Now! port--so!”

And so he went on through the trying time. The men hung over the sides, looking down upon the ugly rocks, some of which were within two or three feet of the surface--looking down, and holding their breaths--wondering if the thing could be possible. It seemed a long, long time; though it was not many minutes before the glad shout went up.

“There we are!” exclaimed Percy, as he stepped down from his perch forward and went aft. “The reef is behind us, and all with us is well. How is it with the ship, I wonder?”

Aye, how was it? The commander of the corvette, seeing the heavily laden brig slip in so readily to the fair looking opening, between the headland and the island, determined that he would follow. If the brig could go his ship could go. But alas and alack for the ship! The last the smugglers saw of her, as they were about to pass from the sight of their expectant, prize-loving crew, she was hard and fast on the rocks.

We may add: Her boats were sufficient to save all the human life within her, but for herself, she was to lie there until the winds and waves, with the assistance of the sunken rocks, had beaten her in pieces.

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