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The Wing and Wing by J. Fenimore Cooper

J >> J. Fenimore Cooper >> The Wing and Wing




"That is a new thought to me," answered Ghita, quickly, her tender
nature at once struck with the feeling and poetry of such an idea; "that
is a new thought to me, Raoul, and I wonder you never mentioned it
before. It is a great thing to be able to carry home and familiar
objects with you when so distant from those you love."

"Did you never hear that lovers have chosen an hour and a star, by
gazing at which they might commune together, though separated by oceans
and countries."

"That is a question you might put to yourself, Raoul; all I have ever
heard of lovers and love having come from your own lips."

"Well, then, I tell it you, and hope that we shall not part again
without selecting _our_ star and _our_ hour--if, indeed, we ever part
more. Though I have forgotten to tell you this, Ghita, it is because you
are never absent from my thoughts--no star is necessary to recall Monte
Argentaro and the Towers."

If we should say Ghita was not pleased with this, it would be to raise
her above an amiable and a natural weakness. Raoul's protestations never
fell dead on her heart, and few things were sweeter to her ear than his
words as they declared his devotedness and passion. The frankness with
which he admitted his delinquencies, and most especially the want of
that very religious sentiment which was of so much value in the eyes of
his mistress, gave an additional weight to his language when he affirmed
his love. Notwithstanding Ghita blushed as she now listened, she did not
smile; she rather appeared sad. For near a minute she made no reply; and
when she did answer, it was in a low voice, like one who felt and
thought intensely.

"Those stars may well have a higher office," she said. "Look at them,
Raoul;--count them we cannot, for they seem to start out of the depths
of heaven, one after another, as the eye rests upon the space, until
they mock our efforts at calculation. We see they are there in
thousands, and may well believe they are in myriads. Now thou hast been
taught, else couldst thou never be a navigator, that those stars are
worlds like our own, or suns with worlds sailing around them; how is it
possible to see and know this without believing in a God and feeling the
insignificance of our being?"

"I do not deny that there is a power to govern all this, Ghita--but I
maintain that it is a principle; not a being, in our shape and form; and
that it is the reason of things, rather than a deity."

"Who has said that God is a being in our shape and form, Raoul? None
know that--- none _can_ know it; none _say_ it who reverence and worship
him as they ought!"

"Do not your priests say that man has been created in his image? and is
not this creating him in his form and likeness?"

"Nay, not so, dear Raoul, but in the image of his spirit--that man hath
a soul which partakes, though in a small degree, of the imperishable
essence of God; and thus far doth he exist in his image. More than this,
none have presumed to say. But what a being, to be the master of all
those bright worlds!"

"Ghita, thou know'st my way of thinking on these matters, and thou also
know'st that I would not wound thy gentle spirit by a single word that
could grieve thee."

"Nay, Raoul, it is _not_ thy way of _thinking_, but thy fashion of
_talking_, that makes the difference between us. No one who _thinks_ can
ever doubt the existence of a being superior to all of earth and of the
universe; and who is Creator and Master of all."

"Of a _principle_, if thou wilt, Ghita; but of a _being_, I ask for the
proof. That a mighty principle exists, to set all these planets in
motion--to create all these stars, and to plant all these suns in space,
I never doubted; it would be to question a fact which stands day and
night before my eyes; but to suppose a _being_ capable of producing all
these things is to believe in beings I never saw."

"And why not as well suppose that it is a being that does all this,
Raoul, as suppose it what you call a principle?"

"Because I see principles beyond my understanding at work all around me:
in yonder heavy frigate, groaning under her load of artillery, which
floats on this thin water; in the trees of the land that lies so near
us; in the animals, which are born and die; the fishes, the birds, and
the human beings. But I see no being--know no being, that is able to do
all this."

"That is because thou know'st not God! He is the creator of the
principles of which thou speak'st, and is greater than thy principles
themselves."

"It is easy to say this, Ghita--but hard to prove. I take the acorn and
put it in the ground; in due time it comes up a plant; in the course of
years, it becomes a tree. Now, all this depends on a certain mysterious
principle, which is unknown to me, but which I am sure exists, for I can
cause it myself to produce its fruits, by merely opening the earth and
laying the seed in its bosom. Nay, I can do more--so well do I
understand this principle, to a certain extent at least, that, by
choosing the season and the soil, I can hasten or retard the growth of
the plant, and, in a manner, fashion the tree."

"True, Raoul, _to a certain extent_ thou canst; and it is precisely
because thou hast been created after the image of God. The little
resemblance thou enjoyest to that mighty Being enables thee to do this
much more than the beasts of the field: wert thou his equal, thou
couldst create that principle of which thou speakest, and which, in thy
blindness, thou mistakest for his master."

This was said with more feeling than Ghita had ever before manifested,
in their frequent discourses on this subject, and with a solemnity of
tone that startled her listener. Ghita had no philosophy, in the common
acceptation of the term, while Raoul fancied he had much, under the
limitations of a deficient education; and yet the strong religious
sentiment of the girl so quickened her faculties that he had often been
made to wonder why she had seemingly the best of the argument, on a
subject in which he flattered himself with being so strong.

"I rather think, Ghita, we scarcely understand each other," answered
Raoul. "I pretend not to see any more than is permitted to man; or,
rather, more than his powers can comprehend; but this proves nothing, as
the elephant understands more than the horse, and the horse more than
the fish. There is a principle which pervades everything which we call
Nature; and this it is which has produced these whirling worlds and all
the mysteries of creation. One of its laws is, that nothing it produces
shall comprehend its secrets."

"You have only to fancy your principle a spirit, a being with mind,
Raoul, to have the Christian's God. Why not believe in him as easily as
you believe in your unknown principle, as you call it? You know that you
exist--that you can build a lugger--can reason on the sun and stars, so
as to find your way across the widest ocean, by means of your mind; and
why not suppose that some superior being exists who can do even more
than this? Your principles can be thwarted even by yourself--the seed
can be deprived of its power to grow--the tree destroyed; and, if
principles can thus be destroyed, some accident may one day destroy
creation by destroying its principle. I fear to speak to you of
revelation, Raoul, for I know you mock it!"

"Not when it comes from _thy_ lips, dearest. I may not _believe_, but I
never _mock_ at what thou utterest and reverencest."

"I could thank thee for this, Raoul, but I feel it would be taking to
myself a homage that ought to be paid elsewhere. But here is my guitar,
and I am sorry to say that the hymn to the Virgin has not been sung on
board this lugger to-night; thou canst not think how sweet is a hymn
sung upon the waters. I heard the crew that is anchored toward the
frigate, singing that hymn, while thy men were at their light Provencal
songs in praise of woman's beauty, instead of joining in praise of
their Creator."

"Thou mean'st to sing thy hymn, Ghita, else the guitar would not have
been mentioned?"

"Raoul, I do. I have ever found thy soul the softest after holy music.
Who knows but the mercy of God may one day touch it through the notes of
this very hymn!"

Ghita paused a moment, and then her light fingers passed over the
strings of her guitar in a solemn symphony; after which came the sweet
strains of "Ave Maria," in a voice and melody that might, in sooth, have
touched a heart of stone. Ghita, a Neapolitan by birth, had all her
country's love for music; and she had caught some of the science that
seems to pervade nations in that part of the world. Nature had endowed
her with one of the most touching voices of her sex; one less powerful
than mellow and sweet; and she never used it in a religious office
without its becoming tremulous and eloquent with feeling. While she was
now singing this well-known hymn, a holy hope pervaded her moral system,
that, in some miraculous manner, she might become the agent of turning
Raoul to the love and worship of God; and the feeling communicated
itself to her execution. Never before had she sung so well; as a proof
of which Ithuel left his knight-head and came aft to listen, while the
two French mariners on watch temporarily forgot their duty, in entranced
attention.

"If anything could make me a believer, Ghita," murmured Raoul, when the
last strain had died on the lips of his beloved, "it would be to listen
to thy melody! What now, Monsieur Etooell! are you, too, a lover of
holy music?"

"This is rare singing, Captain Rule; but we have different business on
hand. If you will step to the other end of the lugger, you can take a
look at the craft that has been crawling along, in-shore of us, for the
last three hours--there is something about her that is unnat'ral; she
seems to be dropping down nearer to us, while she has no motion through
the water. The last circumstance I hold to be unnat'ral with a vessel
that has all sail set and in this breeze."

Raoul pressed the hand of Ghita, and whispered her to go below, as he
was fearful the air of the night might injure her. He then went forward,
where he could command as good a view of the felucca in-shore, as the
obscurity of the hour permitted; and he felt a little uneasiness, when
he found how near she had got to the lugger. When he last noted her
position, this vessel was quite half a mile distant, and appeared to be
crossing the bows of le Feu-Follet, with sufficient wind to have carried
her a mile ahead in the interval; yet could he not perceive that she had
advanced as far, in that direction, as she had drifted down upon the
lugger the while.

"Have you been examining her long?" he demanded of the New Hampshire
man.

"Ever since she has seemed to stand still; which is now some twenty
minutes. She is dull, I suppose, for she has been several hours getting
along a league; and there is now air enough for such a craft to go three
knots to the hour. Her coming down upon us is easily accounted for,
there being a considerable current out of this river, as you may see by
the ripple at our own cut-water; but I find nothing to keep her from
going ahead at the same time. I set her by the light you see, here, in
the wake of the nearest mountain, at least a quarter of an hour since,
and she has not advanced five times her own length since."

"'Tis nothing but a Corsican coaster, after all, Etooell: I hardly think
the English would risk our canister again, for the pleasure of being
beaten off in another attempt to board!"

"They're a spiteful set, aboard the frigate; and the Lord only knows!
See, here is a good heavy night air, and that felucca is not a cable's
length from us; set her by the jib-stay, and judge for yourself how
slowly she goes ahead! _That_ it is which nonplusses _me!_"

Raoul did as the other desired, and after a short trial he found that
the coaster had no perceptible motion ahead, while it was certain she
was drifting down with the current directly athwart the lugger's hawse.
This satisfied him that she must have drags astern; a circumstance that
at once denoted a hostile intention. The enemy was probably on board
the felucca, in force; and it was incumbent on him to make immediate
preparations for defence.

Still, Raoul was reluctant to disturb his people. Like all firm and cool
men, he was averse to the parade of a false alarm; and it seemed so
improbable that the lesson of the morning was so soon forgotten, that he
could hardly persuade himself to believe his senses. Then the men had
been very hard at work throughout the day; and most of them were
sleeping the sleep of the weary. On the other hand, every minute brought
the coaster nearer, and increased the danger, should the enemy be really
in possession of her. Under all the circumstances, he determined, first,
to hail; knowing that his crew could be got up in a minute, and that
they slept with arms at their sides, under an apprehension that a boat
attack might possibly be attempted in the course of the night.

"Felucca, ahoy!" called out the captain of le Feu-Follet, the other
craft being too near to render any great effort of the voice necessary;
"what felucca is that? and why have you so great a drift?"

"La Bella Corsienne!" was the answer, in a patois, half French, half
Italian, as Raoul expected, if all were right. "We are bound into la
Padulella, and wish to keep in with the land to hold the breeze the
longer. We are no great sailer at the best, and have a drift, because we
are just now in the strength of the current.

"At this rate, you will come athwart my hawse. You know I am armed, and
cannot suffer that!"

"Ah, Signore, we are friends of the republic, and would not harm you if
we could. We hope you will not injure poor mariners like us. We will
keep away, if you please, and pass under your stern--"

This proposition was made so suddenly and so unexpectedly that Raoul had
not time to object; and had he been disposed to do so, the execution was
too prompt to allow him the means. The felucca fell broad off, and came
down almost in a direct line for the lugger's bows before the wind and
current, moving fast enough now to satisfy all Ithuel's scruples.

"Call all hands to repel boarders!" cried Raoul, springing aft to the
capstan and seizing his own arms--"Come up lively, _mes enfans!_--here
is treachery!"

These words were hardly uttered before Raoul was back on the heel of the
bowsprit, and the most active of his men--some five or six at
most--began to show themselves on deck. In that brief space, the felucca
had got within eighty yards, when, to the surprise of all in the lugger,
she luffed into the wind again and drifted down, until it was apparent
that she was foul of the lugger's cable, her stern swinging round
directly on the latter's starboard bow. At that instant, or just as the
two vessels came in actual contact, and Raoul's men were thronging
around him to meet the expected attack, the sound of oars, pulled for
life or death, were heard, and flames burst upward from the open hatch
of the coaster. Then a boat was dimly seen gliding away in a line with
the hull, by the glowing light.

"Un brulot!--un brulot!--a fire-ship!" exclaimed twenty voices together,
the horror that mingled in the cries proclaiming the extent of a danger
which is, perhaps, the most terrific that seamen can encounter.

But the voice of Raoul Yvard was not among them. The moment his eye
caught the first glimpse of the flames he disappeared from the bowsprit.
He might have been absent about twenty seconds. Then he was seen on the
taffrail of the felucca, with a spare shank-painter, which had been
lying on the forecastle, on his shoulder.

"Antoine!--Francois!--Gregoire!"--he called out, in a voice of
thunder--"follow me!--the rest clear away the cable and bend a hawser to
the better end!"

The people of le Feu-Follet were trained to order and implicit
obedience. By this time, too, the lieutenants were among them; and the
men set about doing as they had been directed. Raoul himself passed into
the felucca, followed by the three men he had selected by name. The
adventurers had no difficulty, as yet, in escaping the flames, though by
this time they were pouring upward from the hatch in a torrent. As Raoul
suspected, his cable had been grappled; and, seizing the rope, he
tightened it to a severe strain, securing the in-board part. Then he
passed down to the cable himself, directing his companions to hand him
the rope-end of the shank-painter, which he fastened to the cable by a
jamming hitch. This took half a minute; in half a minute more he was on
the felucca's forecastle again. Here the chain was easily passed through
a hawse-hole, and a knot tied, with a marlinspike passed through its
centre. To pass the fire on the return was now a serious matter; but it
was done without injury, Raoul driving his companions before him. No
sooner did his foot reach the bows of le Feu-Follet again than
he shouted:

"Veer away!--pay out cable, men, if you would save our beautiful lugger
from destruction!"

Nor was there a moment to spare. The lugger took the cable that was
given her fast enough under the pressure of the current and helped by
the breeze; but at first the fire-vessel, already a sheet of flame, her
decks having been saturated with tar, seemed disposed to accompany her.
To the delight of all in the lugger, however, the stern of the felucca
was presently seen to separate from their own bows; and a sheer having
been given to le Feu-Follet, by means of the helm, in a few seconds even
her bowsprit and jib had cleared the danger. The felucca rode
stationary, while the lugger dropped astern fathom after fathom until
she lay more than a hundred yards distant from the fiery mass. As a
matter of course, while the cable was paid out, the portion to which the
lanyard or rope part of the shank-painter was fastened dropped into the
water, while the felucca rode by the chain.

These events occupied less than five minutes; and all had been done
with a steadiness and promptitude that seemed more like instinct than
reason. Raoul's voice was not heard, except in the few orders mentioned;
and when, by the glaring light which illuminated all in the lugger and
the adjacent water to some distance, nearly to the brightness of
noonday, he saw Ghita gazing at the spectacle in awed admiration and
terror, he went to her, and spoke as if the whole were merely a
brilliant spectacle, devised for their amusement.

"Our girandola is second only to that of St. Peter," he said, smiling.
"'Twas a narrow escape, love; but, thanks to thy God, if thou wilt it
shall be so, we have received no harm."

"And you have been the agent of his goodness, Raoul; I have witnessed
all from this spot. The call to the men brought me on deck; and, oh! how
I trembled as I saw you on the flaming mass!"

"It has been cunningly planned on the part of Messieurs les Anglais; but
it has signally failed. That coaster has a cargo of tar and naval stores
on board; and, capturing her this evening, they have thought to
extinguish our lantern by the brighter and fiercer flame of their own.
But le Feu-Follet will shine again when their fire is dead!"

"Is there, then, no danger that the brulot will yet come down upon
us--she is fearfully near!"

"Not sufficiently so to do us harm; more especially as our sails are
damp with dew. Here she cannot come so long as our cable stands; and as
that is under water where she lies, it cannot burn. In half an hour
there will be little of her left, and we will enjoy the bonfire while
it lasts."

And, now the fear of danger was past, it was a sight truly to be
enjoyed. Every anxious and curious face in the lugger was to be seen,
under that brilliant light, turned toward the glowing mass as the
sunflower follows the great source of heat in his track athwart the
heavens; while the spars, sails, guns, and even the smallest object on
board the lugger started out of the obscurity of night into the
brightness of such an illumination, as if composing parts of some
brilliant scenic display. But so fierce a flame soon exhausted itself.
Ere long the felucca's masts fell, and with them a pyramid of fire. Then
the glowing deck tumbled in; and, finally, timber after timber and plank
after plank fell, until the conflagration, in a great measure,
extinguished itself in the water on which it floated. An hour after the
flames appeared little remained but the embers which were glowing in the
hold of the wreck.



CHAPTER XII.


"A justice of the peace, for the time being,
They bow to, but may turn him out next year;
They reverence their priest, but, disagreeing
In price or creed, dismiss him without fear;
They have a natural talent for foreseeing
And knowing all things;--and should Park appear
From his long tour in Africa, to show
The Niger's source, they'd meet him with--We know."

HALLECK.

Raoul was not mistaken as to the manner in which they were obtained and
the means employed by his enemies. The frigate had found one of the
feluccas loaded with naval stores, including some ten or fifteen barrels
of tar; and it instantly struck Griffin, who was burning to revenge the
defeat of the morning, that the prize might be converted into a
fire-vessel. As the second lieutenant volunteered to carry her in,
always a desperate service, Cuffe gave his consent. Nothing could have
been better managed than the whole duty connected with this exploit,
including the manner in which our hero saved his vessel from
destruction. The frigate kept between her prize and the lugger, to
conceal the fact that a boat remained on board the former, and when all
was ready the felucca was apparently permitted to proceed on her voyage.
The other two prizes were allowed to go free also, as cloaks to the
whole affair. Griffin, as has been seen, kept standing in for the land;
his object being to get up stream from the lugger and as near her as
possible. When he found himself almost as far ahead as was desirable,
drags were used to keep the craft stationary, and in this manner she
drifted down on her intended victim, as has been already described. But
for the sagacity and uneasiness of Ithuel the plan would altogether have
escaped detection; and but for the coolness, courage, and resources of
Raoul, it would infallibly have succeeded, notwithstanding the
suspicions that had been excited.

Cuffe and the people on deck watched the whole affair with the deepest
interest. They were barely able to see the sails of the felucca by means
of a night-glass as she was dropping down on the lugger; and Yelverton
had just exclaimed that the two vessels were foul of each other, when
the flames broke out. As a matter of course, at that distance both craft
seemed on fire; and when le Feu-Follet had dropped a hundred yards
nearer to the frigate, leaving the felucca blazing, the two were so
exactly in a line as to bring them together as seen from the former's
decks. The English expected every moment to hear the explosion of the
lugger's magazine; but, as it did not happen, they came to the
conclusion it had been drowned. As for Griffin, he pulled in-shore, both
to avoid the fire of le Feu-Follet, in passing her broadside, and in the
hope of intercepting Raoul while endeavoring to escape in a boat. He
even went to a landing in the river quite a league from the anchorage,
and waited there until long past midnight, when, finding the night
beginning to cloud over and the obscurity to increase, he returned to
the frigate, giving the smouldering wreck a wide berth for fear of
accidents.

Such, then, was the state of things when Captain Cuffe appeared on deck
just as the day began to dawn on the following morning. He had given
orders to be called at that hour, and was now all impatience to get a
view of the sea, more particularly in-shore. At length the curtain
began slowly to rise, and his view extended further and further toward
the river, until all was visible, even to the very land. Not a craft of
any sort was in sight. Even the wreck had disappeared, though this was
subsequently discovered in the surf, having drifted out with the current
until it struck an eddy, which carried it in again, when it was finally
stranded. No vestige of le Feu-Follet, however, was to be seen. Not even
a tent on the shore, a wandering boat, a drifting spar, or a rag of a
sail! All had disappeared, no doubt, in the conflagration. As Cuffe went
below he walked with a more erect mien than he had done since the affair
of the previous morning; and as he opened his writing-desk it was with
the manner of one entirely satisfied with himself and his own exertions.
Still, a generous regret mingled with his triumph. It was a great thing
to have destroyed the most pernicious privateer that sailed out of
France; and yet it was a melancholy fate to befall seventy or eighty
human beings--to perish like so many curling caterpillars, destroyed by
fire. Nevertheless, the thing was done; and it must be reported to the
authorities above him. The following letter was consequently written to
the commanding officer in that sea, viz.: