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The next time we come-to, Admiral Bluewater, I intend to anchor with a shorter scope of cable than we have been doing lately; for, I begin to think there is no use in wetting so many yarns in the summer months. They tell me the York brings up always on forty fathoms." "That's a short range, I should think, for a heavy ship. But here is a visiter."
The Scud now kept so much away, that for a moment the two observers on the blockhouse feared Jasper meant to come-to; and the savages, in their lairs, gleamed out upon her with the sort of exultation that the crouching tiger may be supposed to feel as he sees his unconscious victim approach his bed.
One of these coasters lay about half-way between the two hostile vessels, at anchor, having come-to, after making some fruitless efforts to get to the northward, by means of the expiring west wind.
We left the ship about noon, but owing to a strong head wind, and a tide which here runs four or five knots, did not get into the harbor, formed by two points of the island, where the boats lie, until sundown. No sooner had we come-to, than a strong southeaster, which had been threatening us all day, set in, with heavy rain and a chilly air.
I didn't know nothin' for a spell, and when I come-to, the fight was over just there, and I found myself layin' by a wall of poor Major long-side wuss wounded than I was. My leg was broke, and I had a ball in my shoulder, but he, poor old feller! was all tore in the side with a piece of that blasted shell."
The incident recalled to me something which happened years ago when I was returning with the Storys from Rome to Boston. Our Cunarder, in the middle of the night, off the Irish coast, ran down and instantly sank a small schooner. In a wonderfully short time we had come-to, and a boat's crew had succeeded in picking up and bringing all the poor people on board.
"Poor fellow!" said Archie pityingly. "Yes, I just have been a poor fellow, sir poor creature, as they called them up in my part of the country. Why, I have been quite mazed-like. That topper I got seemed to do for me altogether; and when I come-to, here I was lying in this place, not knowing where I was, and, like you, sir, I couldn't make out what it meant."
Occasionally, a small cruiser would come-to, in the offing, and a few frigates had lain at single anchors in the roads, for a tide or so, in waiting for a change of weather; but this was the first fleet that had been known to moor under the cliffs within the memory of man.
At 4.30 this evening brought-to a heavy ship with a blank cartridge; or rather she seemed to come-to of her own accord, as she was evidently outsailing us, and was, when we fired, at very long range. Soon after heaving-to she burned a blue light, and whilst our boat, with a light in it, was pulling towards her, she burned another.
But I learned how that they had been literally thrown down there, as they supposed, for they had come-to very much as we had, to find themselves lying helpless on the floor. We had reached this point when Barney's voice came, and it sounded anxious. "Better come now, Mr Dale, sir," he whispered. "We can get along here again."
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