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The Pilot by J. Fenimore Cooper

J >> J. Fenimore Cooper >> The Pilot




"If there's murder to be done," said Tom, after surveying the astonished
group with a stern eye, "it's as likely this here liar will be the one
to do it, as another; but you have nothing to fear from a man who has
followed the seas too long, and has grappled with too many monsters,
both fish and flesh, not to know how to treat a helpless woman. None,
who know him, will say that Thomas Coffin ever used uncivil language, or
unseamanlike conduct, to any of his mother's kind."

"Coffin!" exclaimed Katherine, advancing with a more confident air, from
the corner into which terror had driven her with her companions.

"Ay, Coffin," continued the old sailor, his grim features gradually
relaxing, as he gazed on her bright looks; "'tis a solemn word, but it's
a word that passes over the shoals, among the islands, and along the
cape, oftener than any other. My father was a Coffin, and my mother was
a Joy; and the two names can count more flukes than all the rest in the
island together; though the Worths, and the Gar'ners, and the Swaines,
dart better harpoons, and set truer lances, than any men who come from
the weather-side of the Atlantic."

Katherine listened to this digression in honor of the whalers of
Nantucket, with marked complacency; and, when he concluded, she repeated
slowly:

"Coffin! this, then, is long Tom!"

"Ay, ay, long Tom, and no sham in the name either," returned the
cockswain, suffering the stern indignation that had lowered around his
hard visage to relax into a low laugh as he gazed on her animated
features; "the Lord bless your smiling face and bright black eyes, young
madam! you have heard of old long Tom, then? Most likely, 'twas
something about the blow he strikes at the fish--ah! I'm old and I'm
stiff, now, young madam, but afore I was nineteen, I stood at the head
of the dance, at a ball on the cape, and that with a partner almost as
handsome as yourself--ay! and this was after I had three broad flukes
logg'd against my name."

"No," said Katherine, advancing in her eagerness a step or two nigher to
the old tar, her cheeks flushing while she spoke, "I had heard of you as
an instructor in a seaman's duty, as the faithful cockswain, nay, I may
say, as the devoted companion and friend, of Mr. Richard Barnstable--
but, perhaps, you come now as the bearer of some message or letter from
that gentleman."

The sound of his commander's name suddenly revived the recollection of
Coffin, and with it all the fierce sternness of his manner returned.
Bending his eyes keenly on the cowering form of Dillon, he said, in
those deep, harsh tones, that seem peculiar to men who have braved the
elements, until they appear to have imbided some of their roughest
qualities:

"Liar! how now? what brought old Tom Coffin into these shoals and narrow
channels? was it a letter? Ha! but by the Lord that maketh the winds to
blow, and teacheth the lost mariner how to steer over the wide waters,
you shall sleep this night, villain, on the planks of the Ariel; and if
it be the will of God that beautiful piece of handicraft is to sink at
her moorings, like a worthless hulk, ye shall still sleep in her; ay,
and a sleep that shall not end, till they call all hands, to foot up the
day's work of this life, at the close of man's longest voyage."

The extraordinary vehemence, the language, the attitude of the old
seaman, commanding in its energy, and the honest indignation that shone
in every look of his keen eyes, together with the nature of the address,
and its paralyzing effect on Dillon, who quailed before it like the
stricken deer, united to keep the female listeners, for many moments,
silent through amazement. During this brief period, Tom advanced upon
his nerveless victim, and lashing his arms together behind his back, he
fastened him, by a strong cord, to the broad canvas belt that he
constantly wore around his own body, leaving to himself, by this
arrangement, the free use of his arms and weapons of offence, while he
secured his captive.

"Surely," said Cecilia, recovering her recollection the first of the
astonished group, "Mr. Barnstable has not commissioned you to offer this
violence to my uncle's kinsman, under the roof of Colonel Howard?--Miss
Plowden, your friend has strangely forgotten himself in this
transaction, if this man acts in obedience to his order!"

"My friend, my cousin Howard," returned Katharine, "would never
commission his cockswain, or any one, to do an unworthy deed. Speak,
honest sailor; why do you commit this outrage on the worthy Mr. Dillon,
Colonel Howard's kinsman, and a cupboard cousin of St. Ruth's Abbey?"

"Nay, Katherine--"

"Nay, Cecilia, be patient, and let the stranger have utterance; he may
solve the difficulty altogether."

The cockswain, understanding that an explanation was expected from his
lips, addressed himself to the task with an energy suitable both to the
subject and to his own feelings. In a very few words, though a little
obscured by his peculiar diction, he made his listeners understand the
confidence that Barnstable had reposed in Dillon, and the treachery of
the latter. They heard him with increased astonishment, and Cecilia
hardly allowed him time to conclude, before she exclaimed:

"And did Colonel Howard, could Colonel Howard listen to this treacherous
project!"

"Ay, they spliced it together among them," returned Tom; "though one
part of this cruise will turn out but badly."

"Even Borroughcliffe, cold and hardened as he appears to be by habit,
would spurn at such dishonor," added Miss Howard.

"But Mr. Barnstable?" at length Katherine succeeded in saying, when her
feelings permitted her utterance, "said you not that soldiers were in
quest of him?"

"Ay, ay, young madam," the cockswain replied, smiling with grim
ferocity, "they are in chase, but he has shifted his anchorage, and even
if they should find him, his long pikes would make short work of a dozen
redcoats. The Lord of tempests and calms have mercy, though, on the
schooner! Ah, young madam she, is as lovely to the eyes of an old
seafaring man as any of your kind can be to human nature!"

"But why this delay?--away then, honest Tom, and reveal the treachery to
your commander; you may not yet be too late--why delay a moment?"

"The ship tarries for want of a pilot.--I could carry three fathom over
the shoals of Nantucket, the darkest night that ever shut the windows of
heaven, but I should be likely to run upon breakers in this navigation.
As it was, I was near getting into company that I should have had to
fight my way out of."

"If that be all, follow me," cried the ardent Katherine; "I will conduct
you to a path that leads to the ocean, without approaching the
sentinels."

Until this moment, Dillon had entertained a secret expectation of a
rescue, but when he heard this proposal he felt his blood retreating to
his heart, from every part of his agitated frame, and his last hope
seemed wrested from him. Raising himself from the abject shrinking
attitude, in which both shame and dread had conspired to keep him as
though he had been fettered to the spot, he approached Cecilia, and
cried, in tones of horror:

"Do not, do not consent, Miss Howard, to abandon me to the fury of this
man! Your uncle, your honorable uncle, even now applauded and united
with me in my enterprise, which is no more than a common artifice in
war."

"My uncle would unite, Mr. Dillon, in no project of deliberate treachery
like this," said Cecilia, coldly.

"He did, I swear by----"

"Liar!" interrupted the deep tones of the cockswain.

Dillon shivered with agony and terror, while the sounds of this
appalling voice sunk into his inmost soul; but as the gloom of the
night, the secret ravines of the cliffs, and the turbulence of the ocean
flashed across his imagination, he again yielded to a dread of the
horrors to which he should be exposed, in encountering them at the mercy
of his powerful enemy, and he continued his solicitations:

"Hear me, once more hear me--Miss Howard, I beseech you, hear me! Am I
not of your own blood and country? will you see me abandoned to the
wild, merciless, malignant fury of this man, who will transfix me with
that--oh, God! if you had but seen the sight I beheld in the Alacrity!
--hear me. Miss Howard; for the love you bear your Maker, intercede for
me! Mr. Griffith shall be released----"

"Liar!" again interrupted the cockswain.

"What promises he?" asked Cecilia, turning her averted face once more at
the miserable captive.

"Nothing at all that will be fulfilled," said Katherine; "follow, honest
Tom, and I, at least, will conduct you in good faith."

"Cruel, obdurate Miss Plowden; gentle, kind Miss Alice, you will not
refuse to raise your voice in my favor; your heart is not hardened by
any imaginary dangers to those you love."

"Nay, address not me," said Alice, bending her meek eyes to the floor;
"I trust your life is in no danger; and I pray that he who has the power
will have the mercy to see you unharmed."

"Away," said Tom, grasping the collar of the helpless Dillon, and rather
carrying than leading him into the gallery: "if a sound, one-quarter as
loud as a young porpoise makes when he draws his first breath, comes
from you, villain, you shall see the sight of the Alacrity over again.
My harpoon keeps its edge well, and the old arm can yet drive it to the
seizing."

This menace effectually silenced even the hard, perturbed breathings of
the captive, who, with his conductor, followed the light steps of
Katherine through some of the secret mazes of the building, until, in a
few minutes, they issued through a small door into the open air. Without
pausing to deliberate, Miss Plowden led the cockswain through the
grounds, to a different wicket from the one by which he had entered the
paddock, and pointing to the path, which might be dimly traced along the
faded herbage, she bade God bless him, in a voice that discovered her
interest in his safety, and vanished from his sight like an aerial
being.

Tom needed no incentive to his speed, now that his course lay so plainly
before him, but loosening his pistols in his belt, and poising his
harpoon, he crossed the fields at a gait that compelled his companion to
exert his utmost powers, in the way of walking, to equal. Once or twice,
Dillon ventured to utter a word or two; but a stern "silence" from the
cockswain warned him to cease, until perceiving that they were
approaching the cliffs, he made a final effort to obtain his liberty, by
hurriedly promising a large bribe. The cockswain made no reply, and the
captive was secretly hoping that his scheme was producing its wonted
effects, when he unexpectedly felt the keen cold edge of the barbed iron
of the harpoon pressing against his breast, through the opening of his
ruffles, and even raising the skin.

"Liar!" said Tom; "another word, and I'll drive it through your heart!"

From that moment, Dillon was as silent as the grave. They reached the
edge of the cliffs, without encountering the party that had been sent in
quest of Barnstable, and at a point near where they had landed. The old
seaman paused an instant on the verge of the precipice, and cast his
experienced eyes along the wide expanse of water that lay before him.
The sea was no longer sleeping, but already in heavy motion, and rolling
its surly waves against the base of the rocks on which he stood,
scattering their white crests high in foam. The cockswain, after bending
his looks along the whole line of the eastern horizon, gave utterance to
a low and stifled groan; and then, striking the staff of his harpoon
violently against the earth, he pursued his way along the very edge of
the cliffs, muttering certain dreadful denunciations, which the
conscience of his appalled listener did not fail to apply to himself. It
appeared to the latter, that his angry and excited leader sought the
giddy verge of the precipice with a sort of wanton recklessness, so
daring were the steps that he took along its brow, notwithstanding the
darkness of the hour, and the violence of the blasts that occasionally
rushed by them, leaving behind a kind of reaction, that more than once
brought the life of the manacled captive in imminent jeopardy. But it
would seem the wary cockswain had a motive for this apparently
inconsiderate desperation. When they had made good quite half the
distance between the point where Barnstable had landed and that where he
had appointed to meet his cockswain, the sounds of voices were brought
indistinctly to their ears, in one of the momentary pauses of the
rushing winds, and caused the cockswain to make a dead stand in his
progress. He listened intently for a single minute, when his resolution
appeared to be taken. He turned to Dillon and spoke; though his voice
was suppressed and low, it was deep and resolute.

"One word, and you die; over the cliffs! You must take a seaman's
ladder: there is footing on the rocks, and crags for your hands. Over
the cliff, I bid ye, or I'll cast ye into the sea, as I would a dead
enemy!"

"Mercy, mercy!" implored Dillon; "I could not do it in the day; by this
light I shall surely perish."

"Over with ye!" said Tom, "or----"

Dillon waited for no more, but descended, with trembling steps, the
dangerous precipice that lay before him. He was followed by the
cockswain, with a haste that unavoidably dislodged his captive from the
trembling stand he had taken on the shelf of a rock, who, to his
increased horror found himself dangling in the air, his body impending
over the sullen surf, that was tumbling in with violence upon the rocks
beneath him. An involuntary shriek burst from Dillon, as he felt his
person thrust from the narrow shelf; and his cry sounded amidst the
tempest, like the screechings of the spirit of the storm.

"Another such a call, and I cut your tow-line, villain," said the
determined seaman, "when nothing short of eternity will bring you up."

The sounds of footsteps and voices were now distinctly audible, and
presently a party of armed men appeared on the edges of the rocks,
directly above them.

"It was a human voice," said one of them, "and like a man in distress."

"It cannot be the men we are sent in search of," returned Sergeant
Drill; "for no watchword that I ever heard sounded like that cry."

"They say that such cries are often heard in storms along this coast,"
said a voice that was uttered with less of military confidence than the
two others: "and they are thought to come from drowned seamen."

A feeble laugh arose among the listeners, and one or two forced jokes
were made at the expense of their superstitious comrade; but the scene
did not fail to produce its effect on even the most sturdy among the
unbelievers in the marvelous; for, after a few more similar remarks, the
whole party retired from the cliffs, at a pace that might have been
accelerated by the nature of their discourse. The cockswain, who had
stood all this time, firm as the rock which supported him, bearing up
not only his own weight, but the person of Dillon also, raised his head
above the brow of the precipice, as they withdrew, to reconnoitre, and
then, drawing up the nearly insensible captive, and placing him in
safety on the bank, he followed himself. Not a moment was wasted in
unnecessary explanations, but Dillon found himself again urged forward,
with the same velocity as before. In a few minutes they gained the
desired ravine, down which Tom plunged with a seaman's nerve, dragging
his prisoner after him, and directly they stood where the waves rose to
their feet, as they flowed far and foaming across the sands.--The
cockswain stooped so low as to bring the crest of the billows in a line
with the horizon, when he discovered the dark boat, playing in the outer
edge of the surf.

"What hoa! Ariels there!" shouted Tom, in a voice that the growing
tempest carried to the ears of the retreating soldiers, who quickened
their footsteps, as they listened to sounds which their fears taught
them to believe supernatural.

"Who hails?" cried the well-known voice of Barnstable.

"Once your master, now your servant," answered the cockswain with a
watchword of his own invention.

"'Tis he," returned the lieutenant; "veer away, boys, veer away. You
must wade into the surf."

Tom caught Dillon in his arms; and throwing him, like a cork, across his
shoulder, he dashed into the streak of foam that was bearing the boat on
its crest, and before his companion had time for remonstrance or
entreaty, he found himself once more by the side of Barnstable.

"Who have we here?" asked the lieutenant; "this is not Griffith!"

"Haul out and weigh your grapnel," said the excited cockswain; "and
then, boys, if you love the Ariel, pull while the life and the will is
left in you."

Barnstable knew his man, and not another question was asked, until the
boat was without the breakers, now skimming the rounded summits of the
waves, or settling into the hollows of the seas, but always cutting the
waters asunder, as she urged her course, with amazing velocity, towards
the haven where the schooner had been left at anchor. Then, in a few but
bitter sentences, the cockswain explained to his commander the treachery
of Dillon, and the danger of the schooner.

"The soldiers are slow at a night muster," Tom concluded; "and from what
I overheard, the express will have to make a crooked course, to double
the head of the bay, so that, but for this northeaster, we might weather
upon them yet; but it's a matter that lies altogether in the will of
Providence. Pull, my hearties, pull--everything depends on your oars to-
night."

Barnstable listened in deep silence to this unexpected narration, which
sounded in the ears of Dillon like his funeral knell. At length, the
suppressed voice of the lieutenant was heard, also, uttering:

"Wretch! if I should cast you into the sea, as food for the fishes, who
could blame me? But if my schooner goes to the bottom, she shall prove
your coffin!"




CHAPTER XXIV.

"Had I been any god of power, I would
Have sunk the sea within the earth, ere
It should the good ship so have swallowed."
_Tempest_.


The arms of Dillon were released from their confinement by the
cockswain, as a measure of humane caution against accidents, when they
entered the surf; and the captive now availed himself of the
circumstance to bury his features in the folds of his attire, when he
brooded over the events of the last few hours with that mixture of
malignant passion and pusillanimous dread of the future, that formed the
chief ingredients in his character. From this state of apparent quietude
neither Barnstable nor Tom seemed disposed to rouse him by their
remarks, for both were too much engaged with their own gloomy
forebodings, to indulge in any unnecessary words. An occasional
ejaculation from the former, as if to propitiate the spirit of the
storm, as he gazed on the troubled appearance of the elements, or a
cheering cry from the latter to animate his crew, alone were heard amid
the sullen roaring of the waters, and the mournful whistling of the
winds that swept heavily across the broad waste of the German Ocean.
There might have been an hour consumed thus, in a vigorous struggle
between the seamen and the growing billows, when the boat doubled the
northern headland of the desired haven, and shot, at once, from its
boisterous passage along the margin of the breakers into the placid
waters of the sequestered bay, The passing blasts were still heard
rushing above the high lands that surrounded, and, in fact, formed, the
estuary; but the profound stillness of deep night pervaded the secret
recesses, along the unruffled surface of its waters. The shadows of the
hills seemed to have accumulated, like a mass of gloom, in the centre of
the basin, and though every eye involuntarily turned to search, it was
in vain that the anxious seamen endeavored to discover their little
vessel through its density. While the boat glided into this quiet scene,
Barnstable anxiously observed:

"Everything is as still as death."

"God send it is not the stillness of death!" ejaculated the cockswain.
"Here, here," he continued, speaking in a lower tone, as if fearful of
being overheard, "here she lies, sir, more to port; look into the streak
of clear sky above the marsh, on the starboard hand of the wood, there;
that long black line is her maintopmast; I know it by the rake; and
there is her night-pennant fluttering about that bright star; ay, ay,
sir, there go our own stars aloft yet, dancing among the stars in the
heavens! God bless her! God bless her! she rides as easy and as quiet as
a gull asleep!"

"I believe all in her sleep too," returned his commander. "Ha! by
heaven, we have arrived in good time: the soldiers are moving!"

The quick eye of Barnstable had detected the glimmering of passing
lanterns, as they flitted across the embrasures of the battery, and at
the next moment the guarded but distinct sounds of an active bustle on
the decks of the schooner were plainly audible. The lieutenant was
rubbing his hands together, with a sort of ecstasy, that probably will
not be understood by the great majority of our readers, while long Tom
was actually indulging in a paroxysm of his low spiritless laughter, as
these certain intimations of the safety of the Ariel, and of the
vigilance of her crew, were conveyed to their ears; when the whole hull
and taper spars of their floating home became unexpectedly visible, and
the sky, the placid basin, and the adjacent hills, were illuminated by a
flash as sudden and as vivid as the keenest lightning. Both Barnstable
and his cockswain seemed instinctively to strain their eyes towards the
schooner, with an effort to surpass human vision; but ere the rolling
reverberations of the report of a heavy piece of ordnance from the
heights had commenced, the dull, whistling rush of the shot swept over
their heads, like the moaning of a hurricane, and was succeeded by the
plash of the waters, which was followed, in a breath, by the rattling of
the mass of iron, as it bounded with violent fury from rock to rock,
shivering and tearing the fragments that lined the margin of the bay.

"A bad aim with the first gun generally leaves your enemy clean decks,"
said the cockswain, with his deliberate sort of philosophy; "smoke makes
but dim spectacles; besides, the night always grows darkest as you call
off the morning watch."

"That boy is a miracle for his years!" rejoined the delighted
lieutenant. "See, Tom, the younker has shifted his berth in the dark,
and the Englishmen have fired by the day-range they must have taken, for
we left him in a direct line between the battery and yon hummock! What
would have become of us, if that heavy fellow had plunged upon our
decks, and gone out below the water-line?"

"We should have sunk into English mud, for eternity, as sure as our
metal and kentledge would have taken us down," responded Tom; "such a
point-blanker would have torn off a streak of our wales, outboard, and
not even left the marines time to say a prayer!--tend bow there!"

It is not to be supposed that the crew of the whale-boat continued idle
during this interchange of opinions between the lieutenant and his
cockswain; on the contrary, the sight of their vessel acted on them like
a charm, and, believing that all necessity for caution was now over,
they had expended their utmost strength in efforts that had already
brought them, as the last words of Tom indicated, to the side of the
Ariel. Though every nerve of Barnstable was thrilling with the
excitement produced by his feelings passing from a state of the most
doubtful apprehension to that of a revived and almost confident hope of
effecting his escape, he assumed the command of his vessel with all that
stern but calm authority, that seamen find is most necessary to exert in
the moments of extremest danger. Any one of the heavy shot that their
enemies continued to hurl from their heights into the darkness of the
haven he well knew must prove fatal to them, as it would, unavoidably,
pass through the slight fabric of the Ariel, and open a passage to the
water that no means he possessed could remedy.--His mandates were,
therefore, issued with a full perception of the critical nature of the
emergency, but with that collectedness of manner, and intonation of
voice, that were best adapted to enforce a ready and animated obedience.
Under this impulse, the crew of the schooner soon got their anchor freed
from the bottom, and, seizing their sweeps, they forced her by their
united efforts directly in the face of the battery, under that shore
whose summit was now crowned with a canopy of smoke, that every
discharge of the ordnance tinged with dim colors, like the faintest
tints that are reflected from the clouds towards a setting sun. So long
as the seamen were enabled to keep their little bark under the cover of
the hill, they were, of course, safe; but Barnstable perceived, as they
emerged from its shadow, and were drawing nigh the passage which led
into the ocean, that the action of his sweeps would no longer avail them
against the currents of air they encountered, neither would the darkness
conceal their movements from his enemy, who had already employed men on
the shore to discern the position of the schooner. Throwing off at once,
therefore, all appearance of disguise, he gave forth the word to spread
the canvas of his vessel, in his ordinary cheerful manner.

Murder One closing so did we commit this crime?

Barack Obama is teaming up with Spider-Man in a new comic from Marvel, which will see the future president exchanging a fist-bump with Peter Parker's alter ego.

The five-page story takes place in Washington DC on inauguration day, when one of Spidey's oldest enemies, the Chameleon, attempts to stop Obama's swearing-in ceremony. Fortunately, Peter Parker is covering the event as a photographer, and jumps in to save the day.

"Ya hear that, Chameleon? The president-elect here just appointed me ... secretary of shuttin' you up," Spider-Man says as he thwacks the Chameleon in the face. "I hope this doesn't ruin the inauguration for you," he tells Obama, as the Chameleon is led away by security officials. "Honestly, I'm more upset by the Chameleon's shockingly deficient understanding of the electoral process," Obama replies.

Spidey then cedes the limelight to Obama. "This is your day, after all, and I know it wouldn't look good to be seen palling around with me," he says, in a nod to Sarah Palin's comment that the then presidential candidate had been "palling around with terrorists".

The story, written by Zeb Wells and illustrated by Todd Nauck and Frank D'Armata, will appear as a bonus feature in Amazing Spider-Man 583, which goes on sale on 14 January.

"When we heard that president-elect Obama is a collector of Spider-Man comics, we knew that these two historic figures had to meet in our comics' Marvel Universe," said Marvel's editor-in-chief Joe Quesada. "A Spider-Man fan moving into the Oval Office is an event that must be commemorated in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man."

In October, graphic novel biographies of Obama and his then rival John McCain were published by IDW. April will see Michelle Obama appearing in the Female Force comic book series.

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