Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 21, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 February 1900 — The Sea King. [ARTICLE]

The Sea King.

ROMANCE OF THE WAR OF 1812.^0)

By CAPTAIN MARRYAT.

CHAPTER XVll!.—(Continued.) In the las-t onslaught all his men broke ad fled: and compelled him, weary and wounded, to accompany them in their flight toward Tampico, On the route they were overtaken by a person of eommandl*ME stature and fine martial air, though Ynr advanced In years, like themseivetf flying from the field, whom Montgomery had seen busy in the heat of the fray. «ad in the last despairing shock, fighting to the last and reckless as = (himself, though he failed to recognize ■him as an old acquaintance. When this stranger overtook them they 'had halted by a mountain stream to refresh themselves and recruit their horses, which were almost overdone by the hot -•peed at which they had ridden; and he. recognizing aLonce the colors' of the patriot cockade, drew bis rein and dismounted, claiming his right to do so as a comrade. "We meet again in a bad plight, Mr. Montgomery, but yon were in a worse, I think, when we met last.” “Ha! you know me!” exclaimed Montgonjery, eagerly; "you know me, and you' ure an American. Where have we met before? Your face is half familiar, but familiar rather as a dream than a reality.. Where have we met before? Speak, I pray you, for memory fails me!’’ “In Washington.’’ 'ln Washington? I cannot recollect.” “No wonder; you were all but dead when I found you on the night of your mad duel with Sutherland ” “Curses upon him! ay, ten thousand ■curses’’’ “Ami you had not recovered sufficiently to know me whop I was forced to set •ail,” replied the stranger, unheeding his Interruption. But in a moment he eon■ttnoed: “He married her then —he married Anna Hamilton, that you so curse him?” “Who are you. man? —who are you, who so dare to torture me?” exclaimed Montgomery, springing to his feet. "“One who is nameless, but one who has « right to ask it of you, for I am her her reputed father’s brother.” “Reputed father’s brother!” cried Montgomery, yet more bewildered by his words—“reputed father’s—and nameless! I knew not ever that she had a reputed father save her own.” “She had. But answer me. I charge yon—did he many her?” “I cannot answer until I learn to whom.”; __ ■ ■ - “Yon may call me Captain Manly; men knew nie once by that name.” “Manly! the mighty privateer! the captam of the glorious Sea King! Manly, whom the whole world knows and honors?”

A flash of exultation gleamed over the pale features of the privateersman. “The same whom you mean. Montgomery, but captain of the Sea King no longer. When the war with England end ed Othello’s occupation was no more. The combatant of 'fifty battles could not descend to be a trading trafficker. The Sea King plies but an ignoble trade now as a Girineaman —her whilom captain has been for the first time beaten, fighting for liberty and honor. I know now that my time ie at hand. Speak to me, therefore, •while there is yet time. Did he many her?” “He did not. lie deserted her as basely as he won her traitorously. Ere I left Washington, which I did secretly, the whole town rang with the tale of his desertion and my unaccountable absence. He is on this coast even now unwedded, and it may well be plotting further treasons. You have tortured me! My heart Is an fire! Let us to horse!” “Pardon me if 1 hurt you. But this is of strange import to me. Speak, I pray you, was the cause known wherefore he oo deserted her?” “Ask me no more. There were a thousand rumors; hia father, the old gloomy hermit, died very suddenly, and it was hinted, with his last breath, forbade the marriage.” “I understand, I understand! This must be set to rights!” exclaimed the .sther, gloomily. “Sin ever leads to sin. Father and son, they must not then both perish. Be it so, Montgomery; to horse, ts you will, and away!” And off they started, and onward they Imped, day and night, until, in the gray twilight, they reached the heights above Tampico, and there,, in the roadstead. Just without the bar awaiting the land Sbreeaes. with her sails brailed loosely up In beautiful festoons, lay a long, rakish bark at anchor, with a heavy armament, but showing no colors at her gaff, no , pennant at her main. Yet evidently she s«a* a man-of-war. '«o soon as Manly’s eye fell on the l shapely spars, it Unshed dark fire. “Once more,” he cried; "once more, and in good , time! My own, my own, my gallant Ken I King! Montgomery, go with me! The l«sase of freedom here is over for awhile; hour Kve«t are forfeited to the law, and Boader come the heads of the royal cbl- ;•** Whither?" * ? “Wherever the breeze blows and the bUlow bears us! Wherever tyranny rules, M»d freedom struggle's! Come with me. It i* DO uae to die,' shot in the back as , traitors by these Spanish bloodhounds. Home with me. We will fight yet for ( liberty and conquer.” “One abort half hour and I will answer you. I must' to the governor first, and lipjlHl—if it need be, can you give me a \ place for a passenger, or it may be for , “For twenty! Ln half an hour, upon fibe qnay. Adois!” | And the privateersman galloped down | #w beach and firing both hia pistols in •Aba air to attract the attention of the ablpt, drew a amall ensign from bis bosom, The effect was magical. A heavy gun | was fired by the ship, and the fuint sound

came dancing over the waters yet ruffled with the dying sea breeze. As the barge touched the sand Montgomery joined the privateersman alone, with a brim black as night, and an eye glaring with lurid light. “Ha, so soon! Do you go with me?" "To the world's end so you will give me vengeance!” "It is her motto now!" And he pointed to the Sea King, to whose gait a broad, blood-red ensign rose. "See you yon ensign? It is Jior motto now. and mine. ‘Vengeance and war upon all nations!’ Are you answered?” “As I would be. Come on!” And they sprang on board tiie barge, and within ten minutes stood on the deck of the gallant Sea King, amid the cheers and congratulations of her tierce crew. But while they were yet shaking hands and renewing old, or commencing new, companionships, a wild cry floated down from the fore- topsail-yard, with a strange, melancholy sound ominous of evil. “Sail, ho!” “Where away?" ■ “Broad on the weather-beam, sir!” "What do you make her?” "A heavy ship, square rigged. She looms like a frigate.” In a moment Manly and Frederick, who had instantly surrendered the command to his old leader, mounted to the tops, telescope in hand. Both gazed for a few seconds steadily on the speck of white in the offing, fast riding into view. Bath closed their glasses by a common impulse, and as their eyes met Frederick exclaimed: "The ship I fought in the white squall off the Bahama Bunks!” “The Sparrow Hawk!" responded Manly. "Heaven be praised!” shouted Montgomery, who had followed them aloft. “I have thee, then, mine enemy!” CHAPTER XIX. When the Sparrow Hawk was within some three miles of the rover, the sea breeze suddenly began to fall; for a quarter of an hour there was a succession of short, irregular puffs and uncertain calms, and then the wind sank altogether;' the crisped smiles of the ridgy waves subsided into cool serenity, and a few’ minutes later the whole surface of the gulf was shining silvery and bright as a vast mirror, or as the unruffled bosom of an inland, lake. „ ———- Condemned to inactivity on both sides, the future combatants applied themselves at once to the sternest preparations for a fight which all foresaw must be final and conclusive; but doubly perilous was, the need of Manly to provide every resource with which his genius and experience could surround him, since the very calm which prevented him from working off shore manfully under bold sail to meet one enemy, compelled him to await the insidious and almost unseen approaches of another, in the triumphant army of the Spaniards, flushed with their recent victory, whose columns he might already behold entering tije gates of the city, and whose artillery he might soon expect to hear thundering from the embrasures of the batteries under whose guns he lay. “Are they eighteens or twenty-fours, Montgomery?” asked the commander of the young man, whose long sojourn might be presumed to render him familiar with all the details of the city and its fortifications, “which form the battery of yon low fleur d'eau fort to the left of the mole?” . “Neither one nor the other, Captain Manly,” replied the young man; “there is not a gun there of smaller caliber than a thirty-two. The castle to the right has twenty-fours and eighteens.” “Heavy odds against eighteen-pounder carronades, and that at long bowls, too. We must be moving, if we mean to do anything against that heavy fellow in the offing, for he is a hard match for us at the best; and if these dons begin to pepper us, as it is like enough they will, if they don’t sink us at our anchors, for which I would be loath to answer, they will leave little work for him to do.” “Mr. Morton,” he continued, after a moment’s pause, addressing the officer of the deck, "call all hands, if you please.” The shrill whistle of the boatswain and the hoarse call repeated everywhere, was followed by the heavy tramping of feet and the simultaneous rush of the crew from all quarters until a hundred and twenty as stout fellows as-ever walked a deck were mustered about their ancient captain, whose long-relinquished and now resumed authority they hailed with transport and the fullest conviction of triumph. "Clear away all the boats, sir, an<f let the launch and long boat have their hedges on board—l shall both tow and hedge off shore, as cheerily as we may, for we must put two miles of water between us and those water batteries before they open their fire upon us, which they will do soon, ns they know I am aboard you. Look alive now, my lads; if you do your'duty lively -we shall be without the range of their guns before they can train their muzzles upon us; and every mile we make now brings us as much the nearer to yon cruiser, which is our real enemy, as it removes us from these haughty dons.” The men cheered lustily, the boats were speedily fitted, manned and lowered, and the ship was about to commence the doubtful experiment of hedging out from under the guns ot/the heavy batteries when suddenly a white flag was displayed on a mast at the mole head, and immediately afterward a boat was seen pulling out, with its stern sheets filled, with officer* of rank and a similar emblem of pacific Intentions .floating from a staff at her bows, and the gorgeous blazonry of old Spain displayed at her stern. “Ha! they will treat with us!” cried the commander. “It Is well so—we shall gain time. Haul down that red ensign meantime, and set Spanish colors at her gaffs, with a white flag at her fore. We

are an American, rem»"-W with protection from his excellency tl* tremor of Havana.’.’ In the meantime the shore boat had come alongside, and the envoys, consisting of two or three subalterns of the Spanish army, accompanying a lieutenant colonel who was the governor’s aid-de-camp likewise, came on board, and were received by Frederick and his other officers, who were now all in full uniform as officers of the United States, .with all courtesy and honor. -4' • Their errand was soon told. Information had been given to the royalist general that two persons most obnoxious to the Government, daring partisans of Morelos, and unremitting enemies of Spain, having succeeded'-in making their escape from the bloody field of Guanaxuato, had been received on board the Sea King, and were now in asylum under the cover of her flag.' It would appear that the momentary elevation of the piratical ensign on board the cruiser had escaped the observation of the Spaniards, since they spoke of the Sea King, and appeared to consider her as a cruiser of the United States; and it was in consequence of the assumed neutrality of that power, and on the fuith of treaties, that the surrender of these men was demanded, who had. bi/me arms against Spain on her own ground, in defiance of the state of amity and peace existing between the two governments. Frederick was not slow' to profit by the advantage wJhich he had derived from this error. Professing his willingness to be ruled in all things by the faith of treaties and the national honor, he affected to consider it in some respects doubtful whether the case could be made out against the two American gentlemen, very distinguished gentlemen, too, he said, who, he did not pretend to deny, were on board the Sea King and under

the protection of the American flag. These gentlemen, he added, were both now well known to himself, and had been so for many years; the one being no other than the very valorous Captain Manly, who had spread such terror and devastation along the coasts of England during the last war. The other, he said, ho also well knew to be Mr. John Montgomery of the city of Philadelphia, of great attainments and of the highest respectability. Under these circumstances he submitted that he could not surrender persons whom he knew of liis own knowledge to he Captain Manly and Mr. Montgomery, when demanded under the titles, as they now were, of the Sen or Hernando de Kibadera and M. de Hautville; at the same time he-invited the” Spanish officers below to communicate further on so delicate a question, stating that in all probability a reference -to the United States consul at Tampico would obviate all difficulty in the premises, and either establish the innocence or lead to the surrender of the fugitives. The deck was left therefore to the officers of tire watch and crew; the rowers in the Spanish boat, like their superiors, were soon engaged in discussing the delicacies, edible and potable, which were set before them, in the between decks, while the anchor of the -Sea King was tripped and secured at hdr bows, and she herself was steadily mo-ring out to seaward at the rate of some two or three knots an hour, as her hedges were carried out alternately, each a quarter of a mile beyond the last, and the good 'ship heaved up to them successively by the exertions of the crew, who walked around with the capstan bars gallantly, and with a right good will, but without cheering or singing as they went. If the Spaniards perceived the motion, suspecting nothing, and being aware that the sea breeze had ceased and the land wind not as yet commenced blowing, they were easily satisfied by the reply that the Sea King was merely shifting her berth, as that in -which she lay had tiecome inconvenient; and, as, very shortly after-, the ship became stationary once more, having dropped her anchor at a full mile beyond the longest range of the batteries, they thought no more of it, until, on coming upon deck toward evening, with a view to return ashore, they found themselves at three miles distance from the sally port of the batteries at the mole head, and, though all courtesies were still extended to them, could doubt no longer that they had been most egregiously outwitted. So soon as his unwelcome guests had left the Sea King the whole crew of that vessel, after having held some conversation among themselves forward, came aft ih a body to the quarter deck, on which Frederick Atherley and Evan Morton, the second in command, were standing, surrounded by their junior officers. Their manner was firm and decided, yet respectful, and they —ive no ftiken of any intent to mutiny; for desperadoes as they were, and something very near akin to pirates, they had all been privateersmen, and many of them men-of-war’s-men, in their day, and had thus contracted habits of discipline, if not principles of obedience. which are not easily shaken off. The Sea Kings wished to know, in the first place, whether Captain Manly had come to resume his property—for iu that case they wished to say no! It had now become their property, and Captain Manly, though a very worthy man and most undeniable sea captain, had neither art nor part in her. (To be' continued.)