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schooner had come.
coe . — — _
THE LOG CABIN LIBRARY:
“10
hat, limp and coarse, also made’at home anda pair of coarse
shoes that had never known polish.
“Do you know Hell Gate?” asked Pemberton.
“I calc’late I do, jest a leetle better than any other he that ever
straddled a tiller. Let that cuss come along. If she follers us,
I'll pile her bones on a rock harder than King George’s blasted
old heart, durn her! If ever yeou go to Norridge (Norwich)
Pint, they'll tell you that Josi Hopkins ain’t no slouch, no mat-
ter what he undertakes. Jest keep as close on the~west side of
the channel us you can, and you'll get the more wind.”
The corvette was now but little over a mile astern, and her
bow guns were throwing shot fearfully close to the schooner,
but as yet none had hit her. ‘ .
“Captain, can’t you yaw a little so as to give me a chance?”
eried Clifton, standing, with his match in hand, by the long
thirty-two.
‘Durn it! don’t lose an inch to fire on him now,” cried the
Yankee pilot. ‘If we only git through the Gate with these spars
in, I’ll give you a chance to pepper her till she pulls her cussed
flag down.”
“We'll keep our course,” cried Pemberton, as a round shot
went through the schooner’s mainsail.
“They'll cut the spars out of us!” cried Clewline, as another
shot cut the main topmast in two, half way up.
‘She can’t do much now. She’sin the narrow channel, and
can’t yaw soasto bring her guns to bear,” cried the pilot.
‘Look ahead! Hell Gate is all awash, and afore she knows it,
it’ll wash her decks and wet all the powder they’ll bring up.
Steer steady. Two of you to the helm now.”
The schooner was now dashing ahead splendidly, but before
her, foaming whirlpools, black rocks looking up out of white
foam, a current that seemed to rush like a mountain torrent,
told what a fearful risk she was about to run.
Behind, towering with canvas, her decks black with eager men,
came the enemy, not a half-mile away.
CHAPTER XIII.
, “PEPPERING” AN ENEMY.
They were both now ina channel so narrow and fast becom-
ing so dangerous that neither dared swerve from the course to
fire a gun, and the crew of the schooner had barely cleared away
the wreck of the topmast, when the vessel rushed into the mad
aud boiling whirlpool.
Pemberton turned white as he saw dead ahead, and close
aboard, a huge pile of jagged black rocks, with the hissing waves
rolling, roaring, and boiling among them, as if striving to wash
them from their deep foundations. He looked at Clewline, who
stood firm and confident at the helm, then at the pilot forward,
who, with his straw hat in his hand, waved to the right or left,
as he wished the schooner steered, and held 1t upright when he
wanted the course held.
“Heavens! we can never go through there!” Pemberton almost.
shrieked, as he ‘saw the schooner’s bow enter a passage which
seemed hardly the width of her beam, while jagged rocks rose
just out of the water on either side:
But scarcely were the words out of his mouth before she shot
through the seething, maddening whirl into smoother water
beyond.
Pemberton looked back. On swept the great corvette, her
guns protruding in black rows from her. ports on either side,
now less than a quarter of.a mile astern, and steering right in
their wake. :
Josi Hopkins, as he called himself, smiled grimly as he looked
back.
“That cuss thinks he is gettin’ piloted through here for
nothin’,” he cried. ‘But if he don’t pay shortly, I’m half-
witted. You see he steers right in our wake. He can’t draw less
than fifteen or sixteen feet o’ water, and we just now went over
scant eleven. He’ll stick, and then, cap, we'll collect pilotage.
No small boat will live in the Gate till it’s dead slack water, and
afore that time your long gun there can knock every spar out of
him and riddle him alive where I'll lay you. Luffa little—there,
so and steady.”
The corvette was seen to sway as the wild currents of the Gate
caught her, but her commander had kept the course of the
schooner, and directing her course himself steered exactly as the
Scarce two minutes later the bow of his vessel was seen rising
clear out of the water as the hull drove on to a reef with the
impetus of fully ten knots speed, and so violent was the shock
that his royal and topgallant masts, yards and all, came tumb-
ling forward, snapped short off.
*Now’s your chance! Luff broadside too, and pepper her.
She can’t get a gun to bear on ye!” yelled Josi, the pilot, danc-
Pemberton instantly saw his advantage, and merciless as it
seemed, he knew that it was his duty to destroy, or, at least,
cripple the enemy which would not have spared him.
So, Inffing his vessel into the position pointed out, just clear
of musket-shot from the corvette, he told Mr. Clifton to knock
the spars out of her with the long thirty-two, while he and
Clewline, taking charge of the heavy swivels, raked the deck of
the corvette, so that not an Englishman dared to show his. head
above the bulwarks, or to try to take in sail.
Clifton, in dead smooth water, had his own play with his gun,
and soon, shattered yards and masts felt the weight of his
thirty-twos.
And, as the pilot said, not a single shot could the corvette
return.
She was in a fearful position, and soon her fore and main
masts were seen going over the side with all the hamper. Be-
sides, Clifton had knocked holes in her bow far below the water-
line; so even were it possible for her to get off at high-tide, she
wotld not be able to float. -
“Good-by, Mr. Englishman. All the harm you can do to the
Patriot cause can be sung in one line, short meter,” cried the de-
lighted pilot. ‘Just such a craft cheated me out o’ my pilotage
about a month ago. Shouldn’ wonder if ’twas the same
skunk. By hoky! he hauls his flag down! He surrenders! Three
cheers for our side!”
The cheers were given heartily, for not a man had been hurt
on the schooner, and the corvette was a wreck, literally cut to
pieces.
“Cease firing! Lower my gig!” shouted Ned Pemberton, the
moment he saw the flag of the English man-of-war come down
from the only mast left standing—her mizzen.
“Wait a bit, captain. afore you try to board her. It can’t be
did in this stage o’ tide. Wait just half an hour, and I'll run
you alongside in your boat, safe and sound,” cried the pilot,
‘You can jest drop a kedge anchor here, and put a spring line
on the hawser, so your craft will lay broadside on, and he’ll
never histe his flag agin. Sakes alive! Ill bet he has lost more
men now than your crew all told.” -
“T must wait, I suppose,” said Ned. ‘‘But this ship had con-
sorts below, and if they come up,. hearing the firing, they may
get through safe, and make it hot for us.”
“Cap’n, without a pilot they’ll never risk Hell Gate—mind
that. And there isn’t a man in York that knows the Gate that'll
bring them through; and they can’t get through arter the tide
turns, and that'll soon happen. Have your boat manned and
ready; there’ll be little enough o’ slack-water.”
In less than fifteen minutes after Hopkins said this, the
swirl in the Gate. began to lessen, and the pilot said the cor-
vette could be boarded, and he sprang into the captain’s gig to
go with him to the prize.
Pemberton skuddered when he got alongside and saw how
fearfully the enemy was cut up, and how many of her crew had
been slain.
Her commander was among the latter, and the first lieutenant
tendered his sword.
Pemberton received it almost with regret, since its owner had
no chance to use it in fair combat; but being satisfied that the
corvette was so badly wrecked she could not be got off, he
satisfied himself with receiving her flag and putting the survi-
ving officers and seamen on parole not to serve again in the war
until regularly exchanged.
He showed the British officer his own commission, to show
his authority, took the muster-roll of the corvette, and her
signals and signal-book, and then gave the commanding officer
directions how to land his men during this and the next slack-
water, and a letter to the Provincial authorities in New York
to receive and treat him and his men kindly, as-paroled
prisoners,
Selecting something which he had not, and needed—a fine set
of boarding-nettings, and about fifty splendid English boarding-
pikes—he now left the corvette, for Hopkins told him he must
get his schooner off on her way up the Sound before the change
of tide, and they now had little time to spare.
The breeze was fresh and fair when Ned got back on board
his own craft with his trophies, and told his men they had con-
quered a ship of four hundred and fifty tons, with a crew of two
hundred and fifty men, and twenty-two guns; and they were a
happy se:, when he filled away once more to stand up the
Sound.
“We're out o’ this just in time. The tide is turnin’ and look
o’ there cap’n,” cried Hopkins, as they shot up through the yet
narrow channel to the nortiward. ‘
He pointed back over the point of the island- beyond the
Gate, where two square-rigged ships, flying the English flag
had just hove about, having discovered the danger and the wreck
ing with glee.
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