Activate Javascript or update your browser for the full Digital Library experience.
Next Page
OCR
te
A NN tg
ette.
VOLUME V.—NUMBER 1.
Ae
nit
i ha
i Lt :
(Drawn'and engraved expressly for The Weekly Novelette.]
{Eatered according to Act of Congress, in the Clerk’s Office of
the District Court of Massachusetts. ]
THE SEA LARK:
—onr,—
THE QUADROON OF LOUISIANA.
A THRILLING TALE OF THE LAND AND SEA.
BY LIEUTENANT MURRAY.
CHAPTER I.
TILE CLIPPER 8CHOONER AND HER BEAUTIFUL MODEL,
Their preparation is to-day by sea.
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.
In the latter part of the year 1811, a plain fore-and-
aft schooner cast loose her moorings at the wharf in
Havre, and with the early flow of the ebb tide fanned
herself towards the English Channel. The wind was
from the northward and westward, and as she made
her offing, her bows were headed more to the north-
ward, her sheets were hauled flat aft, and she looked
almost in the wind’s eye, asseamensay. Thoughclose-
hauled, she cut through the water at an eight-knot rate,
with a little mound of foam under her fore-foot, and a
lively wake behind her. The schooner might have
been of about a hundred and thirty tons burthen, and
built more like a yacht than a fighting vessel. She was
narrow and long, with a high waist and bulwarks, and
while her bows curved off sharply to a wedge-like form,
her stern also narrowed gracefully aft. Her decks were
clear, flush fore and aft, the quarter being only raised a
few inches above the waist. A sight to delight a true
seaman’s eye, a roomy deck, no cook’s galley nor rub-
bish amidships to knock against in stormy weather, but
plenty of sea-room, and a chance to work. The grace-
ful cut of her sails, the roguish rake ot her masts, and
the business-like manner is which she was handled,
BOSTON, SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 1859.
TIMELY ARRIVAL OF HENRI MAY.
gave to the schooner, altogether, a knowing and cun-
ning look, that would have raised the curiosity of a
sailor.
Every rope was made fast as it should be, and the
slack coiled away in true nautical style. Three or four
stout, able-bodied seamen now came on board over the
bows, having fished the anchor—a token that. the
schooner was clearing for a distant port—and a gaff-
topsail rose graccfully and steadily to its place at the
fore-topmast, and in a minute after another at the main,
completing that most beautiful and symmetrical rig of
the plain fore-and-after. She fell off a point as these
lighter and more lofty sails began to draw, and bending
gracefully to leeward, she pressed on with renewed
speed.
A tall, stately form was by the man at the helm, and
by the manner in which he cast an eye aloft at the run-
ning gear of the schooner, and directed him by his side,
he was evidently the master of the beautiful craft we
have described.
Having opened the headland of Cape de la Hogue,
the schooner tacked boldly to the southward, bringing
the wind almost directly aft. Her foresail was jibed to
starboard, and the boom forced out until it took the
wind on that tack; and with its sails spread thus, wing-
and-wing, the fore-and-after looked literally like a bird
skimming the waves. With a glance at the signs of
the weather, the captain disappeared down the hatch
that led to the cabin.
The Sea Lark—which was the name of the schooner
—had cleared that day at the custom house for Cadiz,
in Spain, but evidently under such peculiar circum-
stances as to cause no slight degree of curiosity among
the shipmasters in port, as a crowd of them gathered on
the pier from whence she departed, and did not separate
until she had disappeared from their sight. The depu-
ty collector of the port had visited the schooner with
his posse of officers, and evidently held an examination
aboard; but finding nothing ostensibly improper, he
could not detain her. Still the knowing crowd upon
the pier gossipped on with tongues so loose that no pos-
sible surmise remained untold. Tho Yankee captain of
yonder brig was sure she was to become a pirate, and
had gone to Cadiz for a Spanish crew. The English
captain of the ship lying next the brig thought her a
PRICE FOUR CENTS.
© [See page 7.]
slaver, and backed up his opinion by some shrewd ar-
guments; but the schooner having shut in the group
on the pier, they gradually dispersed once more to their
several vessels.
In the meantime, the master of the schooner, who
had sought his cabin, was now seated there alone. Ho
had thrown himself upon an ample sofa of rich materi-
al, which ran the entire width of the cabin, and half re-
clining here, he was smoking a cigar and looking list-
lessly out upon the wake his swift-footed craft left be-
hind her. Fie was a noble figure, rather above the or-
dinary height, broad and massive across the chest and
shoulders, but with a light and graceful outline in body.
His features were commanding in expression, very reg-
ular and handsome, and you could read there at once a
spirit of recklessness and daring, induced evidently by
some cross or mishap of fortune that had encountered
him. The rich and handsome style in which the cabin
was furnished, showed the occupant to be a man o
taste and refinement. The only signs of any armament
at all on board the schooner, were to be seen in a pair
of heavy pistols, and a Jong dirk that lay upon the table
beside some charts and books,
As the captain of the Sea Lark went below, a half
dozen seamen under the direction of the second mate,
busied themselves for some time about the heel of the
bowsprit, where they seemed to be tearing the spar it-
self to pieces. But a few moments soon disclosed their
purpose, as, after removing a framework and some can-
vass, a long thirty-two pound gun became visible, and
was conveyed upon rollers amidships. It had been so
spliced to the bowsprit’s heel as to appear to be part of
the braces that form its support, and bound over with
old canvass with such neatness as to completely chal-
lenge detection. An iron frame was let into grooves in
the deck prepared to receive it, just forward of the main
hatch, and by means of a whip rigged aloft, the gun
was easily hoisted to the pivot that was its support, and
rested firmly in its revolving socket. An half hour had
thus turned the apparently peaceable deck of the Sea
Lark into a warm and well-arranged battery!
A few minutes later and a gentle knock at the cabin
door being answered by an ordér from the ipmate to
enter, the second mate, followed by his gang of men,
came in, each bearing a couple of muskets, which were
