"What does that mean, father?" inquired Vine, raising the blue lights.
"Mean?" uproariously responded the captain. "Why! it means 'Mutiny on board ship. Send help to quell mutiny.'"
The British admiral saw that rare and exceedingly annoying signal with intense indignation.
"That's it!" he stormed, "another 'cursed mutiny! That comes of crowding the king's ships with the off-scourings of the merchant service, and jail-birds, and slaves, and picaroons, and 'pressed Yankee rebels. Not one of 'em's fit to be trusted. The king'll lose ships by it! They'd better be all hung!"
Meantime, under an almost perilous press of sail for such a wind and so rough a sea, the stanch, swift _Noank_ was dashing along her course. Every minute carried her oceanward, but not all her dangers were behind her.
Rapid signalling went on between the British war-ships and their now frightened convoy. The unarmed vessels were hurrying toward their protectors like so many chickens toward a clucking hen. No other incident or accident of any importance occurred to any of them. As hour after hour went by in the darkness of the night, and then in the very chilly morning that followed, an eager, angry, discomforting process of inquiry went forward from ship to ship. Upon which of them had been the mutiny? Had it succeeded? Had it been put down? Did the mutineers take the boats and get away?
"Not on this ship, sir," was the altogether uniform response, and all the vessels known to be in company had been accounted for.
Not only was it that not one solitary mutineer could be discovered: it also appeared that no such ship as the _Kraken_, of Liverpool, had at any time joined herself to that convoy.
"'Pon my soul!" exclaimed the astonished admiral, at last, "this is great! Ponsonby, my dear fellow, the chap that hailed you in the dark must have been the Yankee pirate himself. What do you think?"
"I think he got away, sir," calmly replied Captain Ponsonby, of the _Amphitrite_, forty-four. "The rebel rascal has slipped through our fingers in the most audacious manner. Showed pluck, too."
An army in garrison will surely spend money, officers and men. So will a fleet in port. The British camps, upon and near Manhattan Island contained thousands of soldiers, and the warships on the station, or arriving and departing, were numerous. There was sure to be, upon almost any day, enough of "shore leave" or camp leave given, and the streets of New York City were often even brilliant with uniforms. The burnt district could already show many new buildings, mostly shops and warehouses, and the streets were clear of rubbish. The merchants and shopkeepers were said to be doing very well; some of them were making fortunes out of the needs of the king's forces. In the social life of the town there had been a notable change. Rich loyalists from the interior had fled to New York for safety. All the old houses were occupied, in one way and another. Some new ones were built or building. There was a great deal of dinner giving and the like. On the whole, therefore, the ruined city was beginning a new and very peculiar era of prosperity. This was to continue, during the years of the war, to such a degree that upon the return of peace all things would be in readiness for rapid commercial development.