He was by no means self-analytical enough to know that he had been indulgent to Jonathan merely because he had already been indulgent to him — that he felt the natural fondness for him which was only to be expected after his kindness to him. And fortunately, for the sake of his own peace of mind, he most certainly was unaware of the reason for his new perspicacity, which was Jonathan's ill-advised remark about the two women on board the Tigresse. He was angry with himself, not with Jonathan, although no one save himself knew it. Atwell turned and looked away to leeward, over the blue water, so as to hide a smile; the hands at work on deck were grinning secretly to each other; below deck already the excited whisper was going round that the Captain had parted brass rags with that cub of a young brother of his. And at the fore-topgallant masthead, on his uncomfortable perch with his arm linked through the fore-royal halyards, Jonathan sat and shed tears as he bemoaned the fate which had dragged him into this unsympathetic service with its unyielding discipline and soulless self-centeredness, which denied to his personality any play at all. Jonathan did not accept gladly the function of being a cog in a machine. He did not even bother to look up when the lookout began bellowing "Land-ho!"
In his present mood he cared for no land that was not his native Connecticut, where he could find sport in dodging the ire of his terrible father, who was at least a known hazard with human foibles as compared with this hard unknown brother of his. The romantic blue outline, dark against the bright sky and the silvered surface of the distant sea, had no appeal at all for him.
Down on deck Hubbard, whom the cry of land had brought up from below, was exhibiting the modest complacency natural after an exact landfall following thirty days at sea.
"Antigua, sir," he said to his captain, fingering his telescope.
"Yes," said Peabody, without much expression.
Now they were putting their heads into the lion's mouth. The chain of islands was one of the richest possessions of England — in sterling value hardly smaller than the whole extent of India. It was the most sensitive of all the spots in which he could deliver a pin prick. From the Virgins down to Trinidad wealth came seeping towards London. A myriad small island boats crept from island to island with the products that made England rich, accumulating them in the major ports until the time should come for a convoy to start for Europe.
For several years the British had been undisputed masters here, conquering island after island — the Danish Virgins, the Dutch St. Martin, the French Martinique — in their determination to allow no enemy to imperil their possessions.
The American privateers had effected little enough in this region; the small island vessels were not tempting as prizes, for they called for a disproportionate number of men as prize crews in relation to their size, while the distances between protected harbors were so short as to give them a fair chance of evading capture. Privateers fought for money; there were shareholders in Baltimore who demanded dividends, and mere destruction— especially when that destruction was bound, sooner or later, to call down upon them the undesirable attention of British ships of war — made no appeal to them. Peabody could foresee a rich harvest awaiting the Delaware's reaping for a while, and perhaps ruin and perhaps death at the end of it. No one was expecting him here, for he had last been reported in the Windward Passage six hundred miles away. It was his business to wring every drop of advantage out of the surprise of his arrival, to ravage and destroy to the utmost before counter measures could be taken against him. He looked through his glass at the steep outline of Antigua. His thin mobile lips were compressed, and the two lines which ran from the sides of his nose to the corners of his mouth showed deep in his face.
Chapter IX
The Cutter was only a small vessel — the mulatto captain had only two colored hands to help him handle her — but she was all he owned. He squatted on the deck of the Delaware with his face in his hands, sobbing, while she burned; and Peabody and the other officers whose business brought them past him cast sympathetic glances at his unconscious back. They liked this callous destruction no better than he did, and she was the thirtieth vessel which had burned since the Delaware had come bursting into the Lesser Antilles. Sloops and cutters, and the little island schooners — the Delaware had intercepted and burned every one she had been able to catch from Antigua to Santa Cruz. The Leeward Islands must be in an uproar of consternation. Peabody walked the deck as the Delaware bore away from the scene; in these narrow waters where instant decision had to be taken he did not care to be even a few seconds removed from the position of control.
To windward lay St. Kitts, green and lovely, towering out of the sea with its jagged outline climbing up to the summit of Mount Misery, and on the port bow lay Nevis, sharply triangular, the narrow channel between its base and St. Kitts not yet opened up by the Delaware's progress along the land. Over there in Basseterre people must be wringing their hands and shaking their fists in helpless anger at the sight of the American frigate sailing insolently past, Stars and Stripes flying. The soldiers in the batteries there must be impotently looking along their guns, measuring the impossible range, and praying, without hope, for some chance which might bring the enemy within range. There were strange feelings in Peabody's heart as he gazed. It was here, in this identical bit of sea, that the Constellation had fought the Vengeance. Peabody had been a lieutenant, then, in charge of eight spar-deck guns. He remembered the battle in the wild sea, then destruction and ruin, and Truxtun on the quarter-deck with his long hair blowing.
Out here today in the lee of St. Kitts the wind was uncertain and fluky. Every now and again the sails would flap thunderously as a puff came from an unexpected quarter, for it was at this time of day that the sea breeze might be counted upon to spring up and overmaster the perpetual breath of the trades.
"There's shipping there, sir," said Hubbard, stabbing the air with a long forefinger. Against the white of the surf could be seen three or four small cutters creeping along on the opposite course to the Delaware's, hoping to reach the shelter of the batteries at Basseterre.
"I see them," said Peabody.
"They'll catch the sea breeze before we do out here, sir," went on Hubbard warningly.
"That's likely," said Peabody. He swept his glass in a minute search of the shoreline beyond Basseterre; there was no recent information at his disposal regarding the coastal defense of these islands, and he had no wish to incur a bloody repulse. But the most painstaking examination failed to reveal any battery hidden among the lush green of the island's steep sides.
"I'll have the boats ready to put over the side, Mr. Hubbard, if you please," said Peabody with the glass still at his side. "Arm the boat's crews."
"Aye aye, sir."
The orders were briefly given, and the boats' crews bustled into their stations, excitedly buckling cutlasses about them and thrusting pistols into their belts.
"Uncock that pistol, damn you!" bawled Hubbard suddenly.
In the privateer in which Hubbard had served before joining the Delaware a landsman had once let off a pistol by accident, and the bullet, flying into the arms chest, had discharged a loaded musket which in turn had set off every weapon in the chest and caused a dozen casualties.