Chapter 33 - Page 2

Sea, and news of our presence could easily have been taken off to
it by some of the cutters that line the coast, I could wish to get the
ship as far south as the Helder!"

"Then we lose this weather tide!" exclaimed the impatient Griffith;
"surely we have the cutter as a lookout! besides, by beating into the
fog, we shall lose the enemy, if enemy it be, and it is thought meet for
an American frigate to skulk from her foes!"

The scornful expression that kindled the eye of the Pilot, like a gleam
of sunshine lighting for an instant some dark dell and laying bare its
secrets, was soon lost in the usually quiet look of his glance, though
he hesitated like one who was struggling with his passions before he
answered:

"If prudence and the service of the States require it, even this proud
frigate must retreat and hide from the meanest of her enemies. My
advice, Captain Munson, is, that you make sail, and beat the ship to
windward, as Mr. Griffith has suggested, and that you order the cutter
to precede us, keeping more in with the land."

The aged seaman, who evidently suspended his orders only to receive an
intimation of the other's pleasure, immediately commanded his youthful
assistant to issue the necessary mandates to put these measures in
force. Accordingly, the Alacrity, which vessel had been left under the
command of the junior lieutenant of the frigate, was quickly under way;
and, making short stretches to windward, she soon entered the bank of
fog, and was lost to the eye. In the mean time the canvas of the ship
was loosened, and spread leisurely, in order not to disturb the portion
of the crew who were sleeping; and, following her little consort, she
moved heavily through the water, bearing up against the dull breeze.

The quiet of regular duty had succeeded to the bustle of making sail;
and, as the rays of the sun fell less obliquely on the distant land,
Katherine and Cecilia were amusing Griffith by vain attempts to point
out the rounded eminences which they fancied lay in the vicinity of the
deserted mansion of St. Ruth. Barnstable, who had resumed his former
station in the frigate as her second lieutenant, was pacing the opposite
side of the quarter-deck, holding under his arm the speaking-trumpet,
which denoted that he held the temporary control of the motions of the
ship, and inwardly cursing the restraint that kept him from the side of
his mistress. At this moment of universal quiet, when nothing above low
dialogues interrupted the dashing of the waves as they were thrown
lazily aside by the bows of the vessel, the report of a light cannon
burst out of the barrier of fog, and rolled by them on the breeze,
apparently vibrating with the rising and