Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 37: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE CRUISE OF The Madeline was now logging off the miles on her course to the westward in good style, and for a few days nothing unusual occurred except the death of three more men—negroes—and a quarrel between the Swede and two of the dagoes. Hunt kept the deck now nearly all the time, so anx- ious was he to finish the disagreeable cruise. He felt at times as if he would like to drive the “hellish keel ” and its freight of misery down to the bottom of the sea. In about Long. 40 W., one day, “ Sail ho, to windward!” was cried by a man aloft. Hunt immediately jumped upon the top of the house with his glass, and made out the stranger, as well as he could, to be a large square-rigged craft. Every sail was pulling on the Madeline except the jibs. The stranger, however, in a little while appeared to be drawing ahead. He was two points abaft the weather beam of the Madeline, and Hunt thought he looked like a man-of-war. ‘Whoever he may be, he’ll be on top of us if we keep this course,” decided Hunt; so he hauled the schooner up a point and a half to make the jibs draw, and in about two hours he could very well make out the hull of the strange ship. “ He will keep his course if he is a mer- chantman,” said Hunt to De Castro, “ and cross our wake.” De Castro began to get anxious—and well he might. In an hour more the ship was in the wake of the schooner, when Captain Reed, who had crawled on deck, asked Hunt what he thought of the stranger astern. “ We'll know presently, sir, but I think he is a man-of-war. A merchant vessel of that size would carry skysails; and he shows nothing above his royals. Ah—I thought so! Here he comes,” exclaimed Hunt when, like magic, his studding sails were set. ‘“ Well, his size must tell against us, and if he gains on us now what do you pro- pose?” queried Captain Reed anxiously. ‘We'll wait and see if he does outsail us,” replied Hunt, “ and if he does [ll try him on the wind.” “Yes, that’s the play. Have you no- THE MADELINE. 827 ticed the barometer, Mr. Hunt? It has dropped some two-tenths since morning. There is, too, some dirt around us; and we'll surely have a dark night and a good chance to give him the slip. I must lie down again. I have no more strength than a cat,” and the captain went to his cabin. From his perch on the crosstrees Hunt now considered the ship with his glasses. The breeze was strengthening all the time, and he finally concluded that the man-of- war was gaining on the schooner and that no more time must be lost. “Call all hands,” he ordered; and in a jiffy he took in the square-sail and low- ered the yard on deck, hauled down the jib- topsail, luffed sharp, and trimmed down all sheets, and then, close hauled, was dancing up to windward. As soon as the man-of-war noticed the schooner’s maneuver, down came his stud- ding sails on a run, and, bracing his yards up sharp, he stood in hot chase after the Madeline. It was a clinch in earnest now. Hunt took the wheel himself, and as she felt the weight of the strong increasing breeze on her beam the schooner began to send the heavy spray flying across her deck. She lay a good point higher than the man- of-war and nearly held her own in reaching along. Beckoning to De Castro, Hunt told him to get the negroes in the hold as close as: possible up to windward. The wind sails, of course, had been taken in, but all hatches Were open, as no heavy water was coming on board, and there was a good circulation of air in the hold. As night was falling, and the breeze getting stronger all the while, supper was served to the crew early. The wind was howling at sunset, and Hunt never quit the wheel. He was a helmsman—a born helmsman —and he had steered no such trick as this since he was a boy sailing with his father in competitive tussles back of Cape Cod. It was soothing to his perturbed spirit to feel the gallant schooner under his feet as if she were alive with the strong press of breeze that strained every rope, spar, and sail to the verge of rupture. Never since she had been launched had she been driven so hard as by Hunt’s skill- “Sr oO CoOMmicboo CO