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- VOLUME IV.—NUMBER il.
BOSTON, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1858,
PRICE FOUR CENTS.
. vot tetra og
* [Drawn and engraved expressly for The Weekly Novelette.
[Entered according to Act of Congress in the Clerk’s Office of the
District Court of Massach usetts.] .
‘BELT:
- The Buccaneer of the Gull.
A ROMANTIC STORY OF TIE SEA AND SHORE.
BY F,, CLINTON BARRINGTON.
‘ 7* CHAPTER I. °
THE OLD PILOT OF TIIE GULF.
; ’ .~ “Ifo, leadsman! sound with the deep sea line!
Fling far the plumb into the heaving brine!
Quarter less four, we loudly hear,
As the ship the dangerous coast doth near.”
., Neanrvy at night, one day, as a. pilot. took: his post
in the Beacon lookout, at the Balize, to scan the wide
waters of the gulf southward, to see if he could dis-
cover any sail requiring the benefits of his skill, he
perceived a vessel in the south-eastern board, slowly
approaching the Pass, under shortened sail. The pilot
was a gray-bearded, weather-beaten tar, who had.been
looking at nothing, for thirty years, but the Mexican
Gulf, till he could scarcely see anything on land. He
was a thick-set; hardy-looking man, in a huge gray and
brown beard, and wore a tarpaulin that had weathered
almost as many equinoctials as its owner, which was
fastened to one of the huge buttons of his dread-nought
coat by a lanyard.
His age might have been about sixty ; but he had an
eye that would penetrate even a Balize fog. He prided
himself on not needing a spy-glass ‘to make out a ves-
sel, and though it was pretty well understood among
the fraternity of pilots, that he sometimes mistook a
barque for a ship, and a topsail schooner for a brig,
yet they indulged the old skipper in his vanity, prefer-
ring to trust to their own spy-glass, however,
~ Old Roger now shut up fis left eye till it was almost
THE EXILE AND HIS DAUGHTER.
extinguished, and then half closing his right, he slight-
ly bent his head forward to take a better look at the
vessel; for he could hardly credit that a vessel would
be shortening sail at this hour, on a smooth gulf, a
gentle wind, and the night so near, when it was impor-
tant to be within the land.
“Jt she showed a si’nal for pilot,” mumbled Roger,
“yy then I wou n’t be surprised to see her short’n: to
wait for him ; but I can’t see no bunt’n’ flyin’; and if
she had a scrap as long as a wiper set, I’d see it with
my eyes.” :
“ What is that, Uncle Roger ?” asked a young pilot,
his assistant, who was smoking a cigar, on a bench at
the foot of the beacon: - ~ '
“ A squar-rigger, shortenin’ sail, about four miles
out, sou-sou-west, and no signal set! and the craft
looks warrish, too! I think I can see her guns!”
“Don’t you see the maker’s name, too, Master
Roger ?” asked, in a good-natured, jeering way, a third
pilot, himself past fifty, who was engaged in patching
the sail of a fast-Looking little boat’ that was moored
near him. .
“ That’s from envy, Dunstan, man! Because I can
see better at sixty than you at fifty. Take your spy-
glasses! Sce if Iam not right!”
“Tf the vessel is shortening sail, it must be for a
pilot,” said the younger, going to a rack on the gallery
of the hut and taking down a spy-glass. With it he
mounted the winding stairs of the beacon, and reach-
ing the elevated summit by Roger, placed the telescope
to his eye. After a moment’s scrutiny, he said :
“You are right! ‘I'll bet on your eyes yet, Uncle
Roger.: She is. under reefed topsails, and is a gun
brig.”
The other pilot now took his place on the lookout,
and scrutinized the advancing stranger.
.“It is a foreign vessel—I think a Spaniard,” he said.
_ ‘ That is my idee,” answered Roger, who was mak-
ing his one eye work so hard against two telescopes,
that his cheeks were screwed up into a mass of wrin-
kles, and it would have required a telescope to find his
left eye at all; while the place of the right was only to
be detected by a little grayish glitter, like a star set
beneath his overbent eyebrow. :
“He is a Spanish brig of war, it is my opinion,”
[See page 165.]
said Dunstan ; “and he don’t mean to be in a hurry
about coming in!’”’
“Tt is possible he may want a pilot, and not know
where we are!’ said Roger. “Tl board him, at any
rate !”
“Stop, Roger, that fellow looks irregular!” said
Dunstan, as the old man, who limped a little with the
effects of a cannon ball wound he had got in the Brit-
ish war, was hobbling down. ‘He is armed, but not
a regular armed vessel, that is certain! The yards are
too square fur the regular service ; she is too low in the
water for it, and her guns are too long. They are not
carronades, as they ought to be, for a brig of her size;
and the men are too much crowded on her forccastle,
for a regular !”
“You are always looking out for a wolf, Dunstan,
since you once got caught by a buccaneer, who kept
you a week inirons. »You’ll never forget that!”
“Wow did I. know he was a buccaneer? «It was
years ago; and he made a signal for a pilot, and made
me pilot up the river, in the dark, to the estate which
they plundered. It was a serious affair, and I have
reason to be wary, mates! But I tell you, I don’t like
this chap’s looks !”” , .
“ All war vessels of. other nations are not like ours,
neat as band-boxes, and ship-shape as a chronometer.”
“But they all look like nationals ; but that is not a
national, or she’d show her colors !”
“ Well, Vil board her! Come, Tirrel, unmoor, and
let us run out to her! We'll reach by moon up, in
three quarters of an hour, and it will be a fine night to
run her in!” * .
“You may be sure, Master Roger, she don’t want a
pilot. In my opinion, she is a Cuban patriot vessel,
waiting to embark or land officers!’ This opinion
was advanced by a fourth pilot, who met Roger at the
foot of the ladder. “I have been looking at her, and
it is my opinion she is a Cuban vessel, and has some-
thing to do with the expedition we hear is on foot, up
in the city!” :
“Tl soon learn what she is,” agswered Roger. “It
she does n’t haye q pilot she'll be ashore, steering for
that Pass.” . Lo
In five minutgs more he was in his pilot boat with
Tirrel ; and, under a fair wind, was stretching out to-
sae
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fa
