Chapter Seventeen.

Chapter Seventeen.Captain Lemaitre.Consciousness returned to me with the sensation of soft, delicate light impinging upon my closed eyelids, and I opened my eyes upon the picture of a sky of deepest, richest, purest blue, studded with wool-like tufts of fleecy cloud, opalescent with daintiest tints of primrose and pink as they sailed overhead with a slow and gentle movement out from the north-east. The eastern horizon was all aglow with ruddy orange light, up through which soared broad, fan-like rays of white radiance—the spokes of Phoebus’ chariot wheels—that, through a scale of countless subtle changes of tincture, gradually merged into the marvellously soft richness of the prismatic sky. A gentle breeze, warm and sweet as a woman’s breath, lightly ruffled the surface of the sea, that heaved in long, low hills of deep and brilliant liquid sapphire around me; and here and there a sea-bird wheeled and swept with plaintive cries, and slanting, motionless pinions, in long, easy, graceful curves over the slowly undulating swell.I sat up and looked about me vaguely and wonderingly, for the moment forgetful of the circumstances that had placed me in so novel a situation, and at the instant a glowing point of golden fire flashed into view upon the eastern horizon, as the upper rim of the sun hove above the undulating rim of the sea; and in a moment the rippling blue of the laughing water was laced with a long, broadening wake of gleaming, dancing, liquid gold, as the great palpitating disc of the god of day left his ocean couch, and entered upon his journey through the heavens.My forgetfulness was but momentary; as the radiance and warmth of the returning sun swept over the glittering, scintillating, golden path that stretched from the horizon to the raft, the memory of all that had gone before, and the apprehension of what still haply awaited me, returned, and, as quickly as my cramped and aching limbs would allow, I staggered to my feet, flinging anxious, eager glances all around me in search of a sail. The horizon, however, was bare, save where the long, narrow pinion of a wheeling sea-bird swiftly cut it for a moment here and there; and I sighed wearily as I resumed my recumbent position upon the raft, wondering whether rescue would ever come, or whether it was my doom to float there, tossing hour after hour and day after day, like the veriest waif, until thirst and starvation had wrought their will upon me, or until another storm should arise, and the now laughing ocean should overwhelm me in its fury.And indeed I cared very little just then what fate awaited me; for I was so ill, my frame was so racked with fever and my head so distracted with the fierce throbbing and beating of the wildly coursing blood in it, that the only thing I craved for was relief from my sufferings. It was a matter of the utmost indifference to me at that moment whether the relief came from death or from any other source, so long as it came quickly. My strength was leaving me with astounding rapidity, and I was quite aware that if I wished to husband the little that still remained to me I ought to eat; but the mere idea of eating excited so violent a repugnance, that it was with the utmost difficulty I resisted the almost overwhelming temptation to pitch my slender stock of sea-sodden biscuit overboard. On the other hand, I was consumed with a torturing thirst that I vainly strove to assuage by so reckless a consumption of my equally slender stock of wine, that at the end of the day only two bottles remained. Such recklessness was of course due to the fact that I was unaccountable for my actions; I was possessed of a kind of madness, and I knew it, but I had lost all control over myself, and cared not what happened. More than once I found myself seriously considering the advisability of throwing myself off the raft, and so ending everything without more ado; and I have often wondered why I did not do so; it was certainly not the fear of death that prevented me. As the day wore on my sufferings steadily increased in intensity; my brain throbbed and pulsated with pain so acute that it seemed as though a million wedges were being driven into my skull; a host of weird, outrageous, and horrible fancies chased each other through my imagination; I became possessed of the idea that the raft was surrounded and hemmed in by an ever-increasing multitude of frightful sea monsters, who fought with each other in their furious efforts to get within reach of me; day and night seemed to come and go with bewildering rapidity; and finally everything became involved in a condition of hopelessly inextricable confusion, that eventually merged into oblivion.My next consciousness was that of a sound of gurgling, running water, and of a buoyant, heaving, plunging motion; of flashing sunshine coming and going upon my closed eyelids; of the vibrant hum of wind through taut rigging and in the hollows of straining canvas; of a murmur of voices, and of the regular tramp of footsteps to and fro on the planking overhead; and for the moment I thought that I was aboard theTern, and just awaking from a sleep during which I had been haunted with an unusually long series of peculiarly unpleasant dreams. But as I opened my eyes and looked with somewhat languid interest upon my surroundings, I became aware that I was in a small, plain, but fairly snug cabin, of which I seemed to possess no previous knowledge; and at the same moment a confused but rapidly clearing memory of what had happened came to me, together with the knowledge that I had been rescued from the raft, and was feeling very much better. But an attempt to move, preliminary to turning out, revealed the disconcerting fact that I was as weak and helpless as a new-born infant, so I was perforce obliged to remain where I was; and in a short time I dozed off into a light sleep again, soothed thereto by the hum of the wind, the gurgling wash of water along the side of the ship, close to my ear, and the gentle heave and plunge of the fabric that bore me.From this nap I was awakened by the somewhat noisy opening of my cabin door; and upon opening my eyes I beheld a swarthy and somewhat dirty-looking individual bending over me. From his appearance I at once set him down as a Frenchman; and as I gazed up into his face with mild curiosity, this impression became confirmed by his exclaiming in French—“Ah, monsieur, so you have come to your senses at last, eh? Good! I knew I could save you, although François declared you to be as good as dead when he brought you aboard! And now, mon ami, what do you say; can you eat something?”“Thank you,” replied I, in the same language; “now that you come to mention it, I think I can.”“Good!” ejaculated the unknown: “rest tranquil for but a short time, and I will see what that rascal cook of ours can do for you. Stay! another dose of quinine will do you no harm, just by way of precaution, you know, although I think I have driven the fever out of you at last. Permit me.”And, so saying, he laid a rather grimy hand upon my forehead for a moment, and then transferred it to my wrist, remarking—“Good! the skin is cool and moist, the pulse normal again. Ha, ha, my friend, you will do, you will do; henceforth the cook must be your doctor. All you need now is plenty of good nourishing food to restore your strength. Now, drink this, and as soon as you have swallowed it I will away to the galley.”While speaking, this individual had been busying himself with a bottle, from which he extracted a small quantity of white powder, which he mixed with water and then handed me the mixture to drink.“Thank you,” said I, handing him back the glass. “And now, monsieur, do me the favour to tell me your name, in order that I may know to whom I am indebted for my preservation.”“My name?” he repeated, with a laugh. “Oh, that will keep, monsieur, that will keep. At present your most urgent necessity is food, which I am now going to get for you. When I return I will tell you all you may wish to know, while you are eating. For the present, adieu, monsieur. If you feel disposed to sleep again, do so; sleep is nearly as valuable as food to you just now. When I have some of the latter ready for you I will wake you, never fear.”So saying, and before I could utter another word, he vanished, slamming the cabin door after him.His retirement caused me a sensation of distinct relief, at which I was very greatly annoyed with myself; for had not this man doubly saved my life, first by rescuing me from the raft, and afterwards by nursing me through what I believed had been a serious illness? Yet, ingrate that I was, even in the brief interview that I have just described I had taken an unmistakable dislike to the man! It was not so much that he was unclean in person and attire,—it was possible that there might be a good and sufficient excuse for that,—but what had excited my antipathy, when I came to analyse the feeling, was a certain false ring in his voice, a subtle something in his manner suggestive of the idea that his friendliness and heartiness were not natural to him—were assumed for a purpose. Yet why it should be so, why he should have rescued me from the raft and afterwards troubled himself to fight and drive out the fever that threatened to destroy me, unless from a feeling of humanity and compassion for my pitiable condition, I could not imagine; yet there had been—or so I fancied—a fierce, shifty gleam in his coal-black eyes during the few brief minutes that he had bent over me as I lay there in my bunk, that seemed to reveal cruelty and treachery, rather than pity and good-will. Let me describe the man. Standing there beside my bunk, he had conveyed to me the impression of an individual nearly six feet in height,—I afterwards found his stature to be five feet ten inches in his stockings,—broad across the shoulders in proportion, and big boned, but lean almost to the point of emaciation. His skin was dry, of an unwholesome yellow tint, and shrivelled, as though he had once been stout and burly of form but had now become thin, while his skin had failed to shrink in the same proportion as his flesh. His eyes were, as I have said, black, small, and deeply sunken in his head; his hair was a dull, dead black, and was worn cropped close to his head; his black beard was trimmed to a point; and he wore a moustache, the long ends of which projected athwart his upper lip like a spritsail yard. His hands were thin, showing the tendons of the fingers working under the loose skin at every movement of them, while the fingers themselves were long, attenuated, ingrained with dirt, and furnished with long, talon-like yellow nails, that looked as though they never received the slightest attention. Finally, his clothing consisted of a cotton shirt, that looked as though it had been in use for at least a month since its last visit to the laundress, a pair of grimy blue dungaree trousers, and a pair of red morocco slippers.As I lay there in the bunk, recalling the appearance of my rescuer, and trying to evolve therefrom some definite impression of the man’s character, I became aware that the duty of the ship seemed to be carried on with a very unnecessary amount of vociferation and contumelious language. An Englishman will sometimes, in critical or urgent moments, garnish his orders with an expletive or two by way of stimulus to the crew; but upon the occasion to which I am now referring there was not the slightest excuse for anything of the kind. The weather was fine, the wind moderate, and we were evidently not engaged upon the performance of some feat of complicated or difficult navigation; for the course remained constant, and there was neither making nor shortening of sail. It simply appeared that the officer of the watch happened to be one of those distressing and trouble-making individuals who regard it as incumbent upon themselves to continually “haze” the men; for he was constantly bawling some trifling order, and accompanying it with a running fire of abuse that must have been furiously exasperating to the person addressed.After an absence of about half an hour, the man who had already visited me returned, this time bearing a large bowl of smoking broth, and a plate containing three large ship biscuits of the coarsest kind. The broth, however, exhaled a distinctly appetising odour, which had the effect of again reminding me that I was hungry; so, with my visitor’s assistance, I contrived to raise myself into a sitting posture, and forthwith attacked the contents of the bowl, previously breaking into it a small quantity of biscuit. The “broth” proved to be turtle soup, deliciously made, and, taking my time over the task, I consumed the whole of it, my companion meanwhile giving an account of himself, his ship, and the circumstances attending my rescue.“My name, monsieur,” he said, in reply to a question of mine, “is Lemaitre—Jean Lemaitre; a native of Fort Royal, in the island of Martinique, and owner as well as Captain ofLa belle Jeannette—the schooner which you are now honouring with your presence. I am in the slave-trade, monsieur,—doing business chiefly with the Spaniards,—and exactly a month ago to-day I sailed from Havana for the Guinea coast. We came west and south about, round Cape San Antonio, stretching well over toward the Spanish Main, in order to avoid, if possible, those pestilent cruisers of yours, which seem to be everywhere, and are always ready to snap up everything that they can lay their hands upon. By great good fortune we managed to dodge them, and got through without being interfered with; but it threw us into the track of the hurricane, and necessitated our remaining hove-to for twenty-six hours. Four days later, as we were sailing merrily along, we saw something floating ahead of us, and ten minutes later we all but ran down your raft, on which we saw you lying face downwards, while the sharks were righting each other in their efforts to get at you and drag you off. François, my mate, was for leaving you where you were,—asserting that you must surely be dead, and that to pick up a dead man would make the voyage unlucky,—but I am a humane man, monsieur, and I insisted upon heaving-to and sending away a boat to bring you aboard. The boat’s crew had a hard job of it to drive off the sharks, and to get you safely into the boat, monsieur; and, evenso, the creatures followed the boat alongside—to the number of seventeen, for I counted them myself. François suggested that we should throw you to them, declaring that you were as good as dead already, and that it was a shame to disappoint the sharks after they had waited so patiently for you; but I am a humane man, monsieur,—as I believe I have already mentioned,—and I would not listen to his proposal. So I had you brought down below and placed in this spare cabin, where I have attended to you ever since,—that was ten days ago,—and now, behold, the fever has left you, your appetite has returned, and in another week, please the good God we shall have you on deck again, as well as ever you were.”“Thank you, monsieur,” said I. “I am infinitely obliged to you for the humanity that prompted you to pick me up—despite the dissuasions of your mate, François—and also for the trouble you have taken in nursing me through my illness. Fortunately, I am in a position to make substantial recognition of my gratitude; and upon my return to Jamaica—as to which I presume there will be no difficulty—it shall be my first business to take such steps as shall insure you against all pecuniary loss on my account.”“Ah, monsieur,” exclaimed Lemaitre, “I beg that you will say no more on that score; it hurts me that you should think it necessary to mention so mercenary a word as that of ‘reward.’ We are both sailors, and although we have the misfortune to be enemies, that is no reason why one brave man should not aid another in distress, without looking for a reward. As to your return to Jamaica, no doubt that can be managed upon our return voyage—”“Your return voyage!” I interrupted. “Can you not manage it forthwith, captain? I can make it quite worth your while to up helm and run me back at once. It is of the utmost importance to me to return to Port Royal with the least possible delay, and—”“Alas, monsieur, it cannot be done,” interrupted Lemaitre, in his turn. “A cargo of slaves is even now awaiting me in the Cameroon River, and my patrons in Havana are impatiently looking forward to their delivery. If I were to disappoint them I should be ruined, for I have many competitors in the trade to contend with, especially since all this talk has arisen about making slave-trading illegal. No; I regret to be obliged to refuse you, monsieur, but there is no help for it.”“At least,” said I, “you will transfer me to a British man-o’-war, should we chance to fall in with one?”“And be myself captured, and lose my ship for my pains!” exclaimed Lemaitre. “Oh no, monsieur; we will give your ships a wide berth, if we fall in with them, and trust to our heels.”“Nonsense, monsieur,” I returned. “Surely you cannot suppose I would be so ungrateful as to permit any such thing. I am a British officer, and should, of course, make a point of seeing that, in such a case, you were held exempt from capture. My representations would be quite sufficient to secure that for you.”“Well, monsieur, we will see, we will see,” answered Lemaitre; and therewith he took the empty soup bowl from my hand, and retired from the cabin, slamming the door, as usual, behind him.For the next three days I continued to occupy my bunk, my strength returning slowly; but on the fourth I made shift, with Lemaitre’s assistance, to get into my clothes, and crawl on deck; and from that moment my progress toward recovery was rapid. Meanwhile, the “hazing” of which I have spoken continued at regular intervals, day and night, and I soon ascertained that the individual responsible for it was none other than the François who so kindly suggested that I should be hove overboard to the sharks. This fellow was evidently a born bully; he never opened his mouth to deliver an order without abusing and insulting the men, and as often as not the abuse was accentuated with blows, the sounds of which, and the accompanying cries of the men, I could distinctly hear in my cabin. That, however, was hardly the worst of it; for I soon discovered that Lemaitre, the skipper of this precious craft in which such doings were permitted, was a drunkard; for every night, at about nine o’clock, I used to hear him come below, and order out the rum and water; after which he and François, or the second mate,—according to whose watch below it happened to be,—would sit for about an hour, drinking one against the other, until the language of both became incoherent, when the pair of them would stagger and stumble off to their respective staterooms.This was my first experience of a slaver, and a most unpleasant experience it was. The vessel herself,—a schooner of one hundred and twenty tons register,—although superbly modelled, a magnificent sea-boat, and sailing like a witch, was rendered uncomfortable in the extreme as an abode by her filthy condition. Cleanliness seemed to be regarded by Lemaitre as a wholly unnecessary luxury, with the result that no effort was made to keep in check the steady accumulation of dirt from day to day, much less to remove that which already existed. Even the daily washing down of the decks—which, with the British sailor, has assumed the importance and imperative character of a religious function—was deemed superfluous. Nor were the crew any more careful as to their own condition or that of their clothing. It is a fact that during the whole period of my sojourn on boardLa belle JeannetteI never saw one of her people attempt to wash himself or any article of clothing; and, as a natural result of this steadfast disregard of the most elementary principles of cleanliness, the little hooker simply swarmed with vermin.But, bad as it was, this was not the worst. The crew, from Lemaitre downward, were a low, brutal, quarrelsome gang, always wrangling together, and frequently fighting; while, as I have already mentioned, the one predominating idea of François, the chief mate, was that they could only be kept in order by constantly and impartially rope’s-ending them all round. Possibly he may have been right; at all events, I found it far easier to excuse his behaviour after I had seen the crew than I had before.All this time Lemaitre had been behaving toward me with a rough, clumsy, off-hand kindness that his personal appearance would have led no one to expect, and which, try as I would, I could not bring myself to regard as genuine, because, through it all, there seemed now and then to rise to the surface an underflow of repressed malignity, not pronounced enough to be certain about, yet sufficiently distinct to provoke in me a vague sensation of uneasiness and distrust. To put the matter concisely, although Lemaitre was by no means effusive in his expressions of good-will toward me, and although there was a certain perfunctory quality in such attentions as he showed me, there was with it all a curious subtle something, so intangible that I found it utterly impossible to define or describe it, which yet impressed me with the feeling that it was all unreal, assumed, a mockery and a pretence; thoughwhyit should be so, I could not for the life of me divine.

Consciousness returned to me with the sensation of soft, delicate light impinging upon my closed eyelids, and I opened my eyes upon the picture of a sky of deepest, richest, purest blue, studded with wool-like tufts of fleecy cloud, opalescent with daintiest tints of primrose and pink as they sailed overhead with a slow and gentle movement out from the north-east. The eastern horizon was all aglow with ruddy orange light, up through which soared broad, fan-like rays of white radiance—the spokes of Phoebus’ chariot wheels—that, through a scale of countless subtle changes of tincture, gradually merged into the marvellously soft richness of the prismatic sky. A gentle breeze, warm and sweet as a woman’s breath, lightly ruffled the surface of the sea, that heaved in long, low hills of deep and brilliant liquid sapphire around me; and here and there a sea-bird wheeled and swept with plaintive cries, and slanting, motionless pinions, in long, easy, graceful curves over the slowly undulating swell.

I sat up and looked about me vaguely and wonderingly, for the moment forgetful of the circumstances that had placed me in so novel a situation, and at the instant a glowing point of golden fire flashed into view upon the eastern horizon, as the upper rim of the sun hove above the undulating rim of the sea; and in a moment the rippling blue of the laughing water was laced with a long, broadening wake of gleaming, dancing, liquid gold, as the great palpitating disc of the god of day left his ocean couch, and entered upon his journey through the heavens.

My forgetfulness was but momentary; as the radiance and warmth of the returning sun swept over the glittering, scintillating, golden path that stretched from the horizon to the raft, the memory of all that had gone before, and the apprehension of what still haply awaited me, returned, and, as quickly as my cramped and aching limbs would allow, I staggered to my feet, flinging anxious, eager glances all around me in search of a sail. The horizon, however, was bare, save where the long, narrow pinion of a wheeling sea-bird swiftly cut it for a moment here and there; and I sighed wearily as I resumed my recumbent position upon the raft, wondering whether rescue would ever come, or whether it was my doom to float there, tossing hour after hour and day after day, like the veriest waif, until thirst and starvation had wrought their will upon me, or until another storm should arise, and the now laughing ocean should overwhelm me in its fury.

And indeed I cared very little just then what fate awaited me; for I was so ill, my frame was so racked with fever and my head so distracted with the fierce throbbing and beating of the wildly coursing blood in it, that the only thing I craved for was relief from my sufferings. It was a matter of the utmost indifference to me at that moment whether the relief came from death or from any other source, so long as it came quickly. My strength was leaving me with astounding rapidity, and I was quite aware that if I wished to husband the little that still remained to me I ought to eat; but the mere idea of eating excited so violent a repugnance, that it was with the utmost difficulty I resisted the almost overwhelming temptation to pitch my slender stock of sea-sodden biscuit overboard. On the other hand, I was consumed with a torturing thirst that I vainly strove to assuage by so reckless a consumption of my equally slender stock of wine, that at the end of the day only two bottles remained. Such recklessness was of course due to the fact that I was unaccountable for my actions; I was possessed of a kind of madness, and I knew it, but I had lost all control over myself, and cared not what happened. More than once I found myself seriously considering the advisability of throwing myself off the raft, and so ending everything without more ado; and I have often wondered why I did not do so; it was certainly not the fear of death that prevented me. As the day wore on my sufferings steadily increased in intensity; my brain throbbed and pulsated with pain so acute that it seemed as though a million wedges were being driven into my skull; a host of weird, outrageous, and horrible fancies chased each other through my imagination; I became possessed of the idea that the raft was surrounded and hemmed in by an ever-increasing multitude of frightful sea monsters, who fought with each other in their furious efforts to get within reach of me; day and night seemed to come and go with bewildering rapidity; and finally everything became involved in a condition of hopelessly inextricable confusion, that eventually merged into oblivion.

My next consciousness was that of a sound of gurgling, running water, and of a buoyant, heaving, plunging motion; of flashing sunshine coming and going upon my closed eyelids; of the vibrant hum of wind through taut rigging and in the hollows of straining canvas; of a murmur of voices, and of the regular tramp of footsteps to and fro on the planking overhead; and for the moment I thought that I was aboard theTern, and just awaking from a sleep during which I had been haunted with an unusually long series of peculiarly unpleasant dreams. But as I opened my eyes and looked with somewhat languid interest upon my surroundings, I became aware that I was in a small, plain, but fairly snug cabin, of which I seemed to possess no previous knowledge; and at the same moment a confused but rapidly clearing memory of what had happened came to me, together with the knowledge that I had been rescued from the raft, and was feeling very much better. But an attempt to move, preliminary to turning out, revealed the disconcerting fact that I was as weak and helpless as a new-born infant, so I was perforce obliged to remain where I was; and in a short time I dozed off into a light sleep again, soothed thereto by the hum of the wind, the gurgling wash of water along the side of the ship, close to my ear, and the gentle heave and plunge of the fabric that bore me.

From this nap I was awakened by the somewhat noisy opening of my cabin door; and upon opening my eyes I beheld a swarthy and somewhat dirty-looking individual bending over me. From his appearance I at once set him down as a Frenchman; and as I gazed up into his face with mild curiosity, this impression became confirmed by his exclaiming in French—

“Ah, monsieur, so you have come to your senses at last, eh? Good! I knew I could save you, although François declared you to be as good as dead when he brought you aboard! And now, mon ami, what do you say; can you eat something?”

“Thank you,” replied I, in the same language; “now that you come to mention it, I think I can.”

“Good!” ejaculated the unknown: “rest tranquil for but a short time, and I will see what that rascal cook of ours can do for you. Stay! another dose of quinine will do you no harm, just by way of precaution, you know, although I think I have driven the fever out of you at last. Permit me.”

And, so saying, he laid a rather grimy hand upon my forehead for a moment, and then transferred it to my wrist, remarking—

“Good! the skin is cool and moist, the pulse normal again. Ha, ha, my friend, you will do, you will do; henceforth the cook must be your doctor. All you need now is plenty of good nourishing food to restore your strength. Now, drink this, and as soon as you have swallowed it I will away to the galley.”

While speaking, this individual had been busying himself with a bottle, from which he extracted a small quantity of white powder, which he mixed with water and then handed me the mixture to drink.

“Thank you,” said I, handing him back the glass. “And now, monsieur, do me the favour to tell me your name, in order that I may know to whom I am indebted for my preservation.”

“My name?” he repeated, with a laugh. “Oh, that will keep, monsieur, that will keep. At present your most urgent necessity is food, which I am now going to get for you. When I return I will tell you all you may wish to know, while you are eating. For the present, adieu, monsieur. If you feel disposed to sleep again, do so; sleep is nearly as valuable as food to you just now. When I have some of the latter ready for you I will wake you, never fear.”

So saying, and before I could utter another word, he vanished, slamming the cabin door after him.

His retirement caused me a sensation of distinct relief, at which I was very greatly annoyed with myself; for had not this man doubly saved my life, first by rescuing me from the raft, and afterwards by nursing me through what I believed had been a serious illness? Yet, ingrate that I was, even in the brief interview that I have just described I had taken an unmistakable dislike to the man! It was not so much that he was unclean in person and attire,—it was possible that there might be a good and sufficient excuse for that,—but what had excited my antipathy, when I came to analyse the feeling, was a certain false ring in his voice, a subtle something in his manner suggestive of the idea that his friendliness and heartiness were not natural to him—were assumed for a purpose. Yet why it should be so, why he should have rescued me from the raft and afterwards troubled himself to fight and drive out the fever that threatened to destroy me, unless from a feeling of humanity and compassion for my pitiable condition, I could not imagine; yet there had been—or so I fancied—a fierce, shifty gleam in his coal-black eyes during the few brief minutes that he had bent over me as I lay there in my bunk, that seemed to reveal cruelty and treachery, rather than pity and good-will. Let me describe the man. Standing there beside my bunk, he had conveyed to me the impression of an individual nearly six feet in height,—I afterwards found his stature to be five feet ten inches in his stockings,—broad across the shoulders in proportion, and big boned, but lean almost to the point of emaciation. His skin was dry, of an unwholesome yellow tint, and shrivelled, as though he had once been stout and burly of form but had now become thin, while his skin had failed to shrink in the same proportion as his flesh. His eyes were, as I have said, black, small, and deeply sunken in his head; his hair was a dull, dead black, and was worn cropped close to his head; his black beard was trimmed to a point; and he wore a moustache, the long ends of which projected athwart his upper lip like a spritsail yard. His hands were thin, showing the tendons of the fingers working under the loose skin at every movement of them, while the fingers themselves were long, attenuated, ingrained with dirt, and furnished with long, talon-like yellow nails, that looked as though they never received the slightest attention. Finally, his clothing consisted of a cotton shirt, that looked as though it had been in use for at least a month since its last visit to the laundress, a pair of grimy blue dungaree trousers, and a pair of red morocco slippers.

As I lay there in the bunk, recalling the appearance of my rescuer, and trying to evolve therefrom some definite impression of the man’s character, I became aware that the duty of the ship seemed to be carried on with a very unnecessary amount of vociferation and contumelious language. An Englishman will sometimes, in critical or urgent moments, garnish his orders with an expletive or two by way of stimulus to the crew; but upon the occasion to which I am now referring there was not the slightest excuse for anything of the kind. The weather was fine, the wind moderate, and we were evidently not engaged upon the performance of some feat of complicated or difficult navigation; for the course remained constant, and there was neither making nor shortening of sail. It simply appeared that the officer of the watch happened to be one of those distressing and trouble-making individuals who regard it as incumbent upon themselves to continually “haze” the men; for he was constantly bawling some trifling order, and accompanying it with a running fire of abuse that must have been furiously exasperating to the person addressed.

After an absence of about half an hour, the man who had already visited me returned, this time bearing a large bowl of smoking broth, and a plate containing three large ship biscuits of the coarsest kind. The broth, however, exhaled a distinctly appetising odour, which had the effect of again reminding me that I was hungry; so, with my visitor’s assistance, I contrived to raise myself into a sitting posture, and forthwith attacked the contents of the bowl, previously breaking into it a small quantity of biscuit. The “broth” proved to be turtle soup, deliciously made, and, taking my time over the task, I consumed the whole of it, my companion meanwhile giving an account of himself, his ship, and the circumstances attending my rescue.

“My name, monsieur,” he said, in reply to a question of mine, “is Lemaitre—Jean Lemaitre; a native of Fort Royal, in the island of Martinique, and owner as well as Captain ofLa belle Jeannette—the schooner which you are now honouring with your presence. I am in the slave-trade, monsieur,—doing business chiefly with the Spaniards,—and exactly a month ago to-day I sailed from Havana for the Guinea coast. We came west and south about, round Cape San Antonio, stretching well over toward the Spanish Main, in order to avoid, if possible, those pestilent cruisers of yours, which seem to be everywhere, and are always ready to snap up everything that they can lay their hands upon. By great good fortune we managed to dodge them, and got through without being interfered with; but it threw us into the track of the hurricane, and necessitated our remaining hove-to for twenty-six hours. Four days later, as we were sailing merrily along, we saw something floating ahead of us, and ten minutes later we all but ran down your raft, on which we saw you lying face downwards, while the sharks were righting each other in their efforts to get at you and drag you off. François, my mate, was for leaving you where you were,—asserting that you must surely be dead, and that to pick up a dead man would make the voyage unlucky,—but I am a humane man, monsieur, and I insisted upon heaving-to and sending away a boat to bring you aboard. The boat’s crew had a hard job of it to drive off the sharks, and to get you safely into the boat, monsieur; and, evenso, the creatures followed the boat alongside—to the number of seventeen, for I counted them myself. François suggested that we should throw you to them, declaring that you were as good as dead already, and that it was a shame to disappoint the sharks after they had waited so patiently for you; but I am a humane man, monsieur,—as I believe I have already mentioned,—and I would not listen to his proposal. So I had you brought down below and placed in this spare cabin, where I have attended to you ever since,—that was ten days ago,—and now, behold, the fever has left you, your appetite has returned, and in another week, please the good God we shall have you on deck again, as well as ever you were.”

“Thank you, monsieur,” said I. “I am infinitely obliged to you for the humanity that prompted you to pick me up—despite the dissuasions of your mate, François—and also for the trouble you have taken in nursing me through my illness. Fortunately, I am in a position to make substantial recognition of my gratitude; and upon my return to Jamaica—as to which I presume there will be no difficulty—it shall be my first business to take such steps as shall insure you against all pecuniary loss on my account.”

“Ah, monsieur,” exclaimed Lemaitre, “I beg that you will say no more on that score; it hurts me that you should think it necessary to mention so mercenary a word as that of ‘reward.’ We are both sailors, and although we have the misfortune to be enemies, that is no reason why one brave man should not aid another in distress, without looking for a reward. As to your return to Jamaica, no doubt that can be managed upon our return voyage—”

“Your return voyage!” I interrupted. “Can you not manage it forthwith, captain? I can make it quite worth your while to up helm and run me back at once. It is of the utmost importance to me to return to Port Royal with the least possible delay, and—”

“Alas, monsieur, it cannot be done,” interrupted Lemaitre, in his turn. “A cargo of slaves is even now awaiting me in the Cameroon River, and my patrons in Havana are impatiently looking forward to their delivery. If I were to disappoint them I should be ruined, for I have many competitors in the trade to contend with, especially since all this talk has arisen about making slave-trading illegal. No; I regret to be obliged to refuse you, monsieur, but there is no help for it.”

“At least,” said I, “you will transfer me to a British man-o’-war, should we chance to fall in with one?”

“And be myself captured, and lose my ship for my pains!” exclaimed Lemaitre. “Oh no, monsieur; we will give your ships a wide berth, if we fall in with them, and trust to our heels.”

“Nonsense, monsieur,” I returned. “Surely you cannot suppose I would be so ungrateful as to permit any such thing. I am a British officer, and should, of course, make a point of seeing that, in such a case, you were held exempt from capture. My representations would be quite sufficient to secure that for you.”

“Well, monsieur, we will see, we will see,” answered Lemaitre; and therewith he took the empty soup bowl from my hand, and retired from the cabin, slamming the door, as usual, behind him.

For the next three days I continued to occupy my bunk, my strength returning slowly; but on the fourth I made shift, with Lemaitre’s assistance, to get into my clothes, and crawl on deck; and from that moment my progress toward recovery was rapid. Meanwhile, the “hazing” of which I have spoken continued at regular intervals, day and night, and I soon ascertained that the individual responsible for it was none other than the François who so kindly suggested that I should be hove overboard to the sharks. This fellow was evidently a born bully; he never opened his mouth to deliver an order without abusing and insulting the men, and as often as not the abuse was accentuated with blows, the sounds of which, and the accompanying cries of the men, I could distinctly hear in my cabin. That, however, was hardly the worst of it; for I soon discovered that Lemaitre, the skipper of this precious craft in which such doings were permitted, was a drunkard; for every night, at about nine o’clock, I used to hear him come below, and order out the rum and water; after which he and François, or the second mate,—according to whose watch below it happened to be,—would sit for about an hour, drinking one against the other, until the language of both became incoherent, when the pair of them would stagger and stumble off to their respective staterooms.

This was my first experience of a slaver, and a most unpleasant experience it was. The vessel herself,—a schooner of one hundred and twenty tons register,—although superbly modelled, a magnificent sea-boat, and sailing like a witch, was rendered uncomfortable in the extreme as an abode by her filthy condition. Cleanliness seemed to be regarded by Lemaitre as a wholly unnecessary luxury, with the result that no effort was made to keep in check the steady accumulation of dirt from day to day, much less to remove that which already existed. Even the daily washing down of the decks—which, with the British sailor, has assumed the importance and imperative character of a religious function—was deemed superfluous. Nor were the crew any more careful as to their own condition or that of their clothing. It is a fact that during the whole period of my sojourn on boardLa belle JeannetteI never saw one of her people attempt to wash himself or any article of clothing; and, as a natural result of this steadfast disregard of the most elementary principles of cleanliness, the little hooker simply swarmed with vermin.

But, bad as it was, this was not the worst. The crew, from Lemaitre downward, were a low, brutal, quarrelsome gang, always wrangling together, and frequently fighting; while, as I have already mentioned, the one predominating idea of François, the chief mate, was that they could only be kept in order by constantly and impartially rope’s-ending them all round. Possibly he may have been right; at all events, I found it far easier to excuse his behaviour after I had seen the crew than I had before.

All this time Lemaitre had been behaving toward me with a rough, clumsy, off-hand kindness that his personal appearance would have led no one to expect, and which, try as I would, I could not bring myself to regard as genuine, because, through it all, there seemed now and then to rise to the surface an underflow of repressed malignity, not pronounced enough to be certain about, yet sufficiently distinct to provoke in me a vague sensation of uneasiness and distrust. To put the matter concisely, although Lemaitre was by no means effusive in his expressions of good-will toward me, and although there was a certain perfunctory quality in such attentions as he showed me, there was with it all a curious subtle something, so intangible that I found it utterly impossible to define or describe it, which yet impressed me with the feeling that it was all unreal, assumed, a mockery and a pretence; thoughwhyit should be so, I could not for the life of me divine.

Chapter Eighteen.A double tragedy.I had been up and about for a full week, and had during that period observed in Lemaitre’s manner toward me not only a steadily decreasing solicitude for my welfare—which was perhaps only natural, now that my health was rapidly improving—but also a growing disposition to sneer and gibe at me, covert at first but more pronounced and unmistakable with every recurring day, that strongly tended to confirm the singular suspicion I have endeavoured to bring home to the mind of the reader in the preceding chapter. Then one night an incident occurred that in a moment explained everything, and revealed to me the unpleasant fact that, so far as my enemy Morillo was concerned, I was still in as great danger as when on board the felucca, although in the present case the danger was perhaps a trifle more remote.I have already mentioned Lemaitre’s habit of drinking himself into a state of intoxication every night. This habit, and the obscene language that the man seemed to revel in when in such a condition, was so disgusting to me that not the least-prized advantage afforded by my convalescence was the ability to remain on deck until the nightly saturnalia was at an end and Lemaitre and his companion had retired to their cabins. On the particular night, however, of which I am about to speak, a slight recurrent touch of fever caused me to slip quietly below and turn in before the orgy began; not that I expected to get to sleep, but simply because I believed the warmth and dryness of my bunk would be better for me than the damp night air on deck.Punctually at nine o’clock Lemaitre and his chief mate came noisily clattering down the companion ladder, glasses and a bottle of rum were produced, and the carouse began. It had not progressed very far before it became apparent to me, as I lay there in my hot bunk, tossing restlessly, that Lemaitre was in an unusually excited and quarrelsome condition, and that François, the chief mate, was rapidly approaching a similar condition as he gulped down tumbler after tumbler of liquor. They were always argumentative and contradictory when drinking together, but to-night they were unusually so. At length François made some remark as to the extraordinary good fortune they had met with on this particular voyage, in having come so far without falling in with a British cruiser; at which Lemaitre laughed scornfully declaring that there was not a British cruiser afloat that could catchLa belle Jeannette; and that, even if it were otherwise, he should have no fear of them this voyage. “For,” said he, “have we not a guarantee of safety in the presence of that simple fool Courtenay on board? Have we not saved his life by rescuing him from the raft? And do you suppose they would reward our humanity, ha, ha! by making a prize of the schooner? Not they! If there is one thing those asses of British pride themselves upon more than another it is their chivalrous sense of honour—a sentiment, my child, that they would not outrage for the value of fifty such schooners as this. All the same,” he added, with an inflection of deep cunning in his voice, “I do not want to meet with a British cruiser at close enough quarters to be compelled to hand the dear Courtenay over to his countrymen; oh no!”“Why not?” demanded François; “what advantage is it to you to keep him on board? Is it because you are so fond of his company? Pah! if you had eyes in your head, you would see that, despite his gratitude to you for saving his life, he despises you. What do you mean to do with him? Are you going to turn him adrift among the negroes when we arrive upon the coast? I never could understand why you insisted upon saving him at all.”“No?” queried Lemaitre, with a sneering laugh. “Ah, that is because you are a fool, François,mon enfant, a more arrant fool even than the dear Courtenay himself. Do you suppose I did it out of pity for his condition, or because I love the British? No. I will tell you why, idiot. It is because he will fetch a good five hundred dollars at least in the slave-market at Havana.”“Sothatis what you intend to do with him, is it?” retorted François. “Well, Lemaitre, I always knew you for an ass, but, unless you had told me so with your own lips, I would never have believed you to be such an ass as to sell a man for five hundred dollars when you can just as easily get a thousand for him. Yet you call me fool and idiot! Pah, you sicken me!”“Oh, I sicken you, do I?” growled Lemaitre, by this time well advanced toward intoxication. “Take care what you are saying, my friend, or I shall be apt to sicken you so thoroughly that you will be fit for nothing but a toss over the lee bulwarks. No doubt it is I who am the fool, and you who are the clever one; but I should like to hear by what means you would propose to get a thousand dollars for the fellow. True, he is young and stalwart, and will be in prime condition by the time that we get back to Havana,—I will see to that,—but I have known better men than he sold for less than five hundred dollars; ay,whitemen too, not negroes.”“Did I not say you are an ass?” retorted François. “Who talks of selling him at Havana? You, not I. Do you not know who this Courtenay is, then? I will tell you, most wise and noble captain. He is the youth who attacked and destroyed Morillo’s settlement at Cariacou,—I remember the name perfectly well,—and I was told at Havana, by one who ought to know, that Morillo had given it out among his friends that he would pay one thousand dollars to anyone who should bring Courtenay to him alive. And that is not all, either. You know what Morillo is; he has declared a feud against this miserable, meddlesome Englishman, and not only will he gladly pay a thousand dollars for the privilege of wreaking his vengeance upon him, but the man who delivers your friend Courtenay into his hands will be free to sail the seas without molestation from Morillo as long as he lives. What think you of that, Captain Lemaitre?”“Is this true?” demanded Lemaitre. “Ay,” answered François, “as true as that you and I are sitting here in this cabin.”“Why did you not tell me of this before, François, my friend?” asked Lemaitre, in a wheedling tone.“Why did I not tell you before?” echoed François. “Ask rather why I tell you now, and I will answer that it is because I am such a fool that I cannot keep a good thing to myself when I have it. Sac–r–r–re! what need was there for me to make you as wise as myself, eh? However, I am not going to let you have this choice little bit of information for nothing. I have told you how to make a clear five hundred dollars over and above what you could have earned without the information I have been idiot enough to give you, and you must pay me half the amount; do you understand?”“Ay, I understand,” answered Lemaitre, with a sudden return to his former sneering, aggressive manner; “but I should like to know—just for the satisfaction of my curiosity—how you propose to compel me to pay you that two hundred and fifty dollars that you talk about.”“Why, easily enough,” snarled François, with sudden fury, as he realised that Lemaitre intended to evade the extortion if he could. “If you do not pay me immediately after receiving the reward from Morillo, I will denounce you to him. I will say that you intended to have yielded up your prisoner to the British, in order that you might curry favour with them and secure immunity from capture by them; and that you would never have given him up to Morillo at all but for my threats. And I suppose you know what that will mean for you, eh?”“Oh, so that is what you would do, is it, my friend?” returned Lemaitre, with a harsh laugh. “Well, well, it will be time enough for you to threaten when I refuse to pay you the two hundred and fifty dollars. Until then, there is no need for us to quarrel; so fill up your glass, François, and let us drink to the health of the dear Courtenay, who, after all, was quite worth picking up off the raft, don’t you think?”Then followed a gurgling sound as the two topers filled their glasses. A gulping and smacking of lips, succeeded by a banging of the empty tumblers upon the table, came clearly to me through the latticed upper panel of my door; and then certain staggering sounds, as the two struggled to their feet, were followed by Lemaitre thickly bidding his companion good-night, as the pair reeled and stumbled away to their respective berths.I slept badly that night, the fever, with the intelligence I had just acquired, combining to make me restless and wakeful; but after tossing from side to side, until about two bells in the morning watch, I gradually sank into a troubled sleep, from which I was startled by a sudden outbreak of loud, excited shouts, succeeded by a sound of fierce scuffling, accompanied by a volley of oaths and exclamations, the stamp of feet, a heavy fall, a rush of footsteps up the companion ladder, and a sudden, heavy splash alongside. Then followed a terrific outcry on deck, with the hurrying rush of feet on the planking overhead, the furious slatting of canvas as the schooner shot into the wind, more excited shouts, ending in a sort of groaning mingled with ejaculations of dismay, a sudden silence, and then a terrific jabbering, suggestive of the idea that all hands had incontinently taken leave of their senses.I sprang out of my bunk and hurriedly proceeded to dress, rushing on deck bare-footed to see what was the matter; and as I emerged from the companion-way I saw all hands gathered aft, most of them staring hard over the taffrail, while one man was busily engaged in binding up the left arm of the second mate.“Hillo, Monsieur Charpentier!” I exclaimed, “what is the matter? Has anything happened?”“Happened, monsieur? I should think so!” exclaimed the second mate, turning to me a white and ghastly face; “a most awful thing has happened. When I went below just now to call François I was unable to make him hear, although I called several times and knocked ever so hard at his door. So I ventured to turn the door handle and enter his cabin, and what do you think I saw, monsieur? Why, poor François lying dead in his bunk, his clothes soaked with blood, and a great gaping wound in his breast, right over his heart! I was so horrified, monsieur, that I scarcely knew what to do; but, collecting myself with a mighty effort, I went to call the captain; and when I reached his cabin I found the door wide open and Monsieur Lemaitre crouched in a corner of it, with a great bloodstained knife in his hand, his eyes glaring, and his lips mumbling and muttering I know not what. I saw that there was something wrong with him, monsieur,—I believed he had gone mad,—and I was about to turn away and call for help; but he saw me, and, before I was aware, sprang upon me, seizing me with one hand by the throat while with the other he aimed blow after blow at me with his terrible knife. I defended myself as well as I could, monsieur, fighting bravely for my life; but what can one do against a madman? The captain seemed to possess the strength of twenty men; he forced me irresistibly back against the bulkhead, and then drove his knife through my arm. Believing that he had killed me, I relaxed my hold upon him; whereupon he hurled me to the deck, sprang over my fallen body, and bounded up on deck,and from thence overboard! And now they tell me, monsieur, that he had scarcely struck the water when a shark rose, seized him, and dragged him under! See, monsieur, look astern! He is gone; there is nothing to be seen of him! What shall we do? oh, mon Dieu, what shall we do?”“Are youquite surethat the captain was seized by a shark?” I demanded, looking round from one to another of the men, who had now turned their faces inboard and stood staring alternately at Charpentier and myself.“Oh yes, monsieur,” excitedly replied half a dozen of them all together, “we all saw it; it was a monster. And,” continued one of them, “the captain had scarcely risen to the surface after his plunge overboard when the shark seized him by the middle and dragged him under. We all saw the blood dyeing the water,—did we not, shipmates?—but the captain never uttered a cry; just threw up his arms and vanished. Is not that it, my friends?”“Yes, yes,” they all exclaimed again, “that is it. Jules describes it exactly as it occurred.”“Then,” said I, “it seems to me, Monsieur Charpentier, that, Captain Lemaitre and the mate being dead, nothing remains but for you to take command and navigate the schooner to her destination.”“But, monsieur, I cannot do that, for, unhappily, I am not a navigator,” replied Charpentier, wringing his hands.“Do you mean to say that you knownothing whateverabout navigation!” demanded I.“Alas, no, monsieur! nothing whatever,” was the reply.“And is there no one else among you who can navigate the schooner?” asked I.The men looked at each other, shaking their heads and muttering, “Not I”; and finally Charpentier exclaimed, “You see, monsieur, there is not one of us who can navigate. What is to be done?You, monsieur, are an officer—at least so I understood François to say; perhaps you could—”“Well,” demanded I, seeing that the fellow hesitated, “perhaps I could—what?”“Pardon, monsieur,” exclaimed he, “I was in hopes that, considering the difficulty we are placed in by this most lamentable tragedy, you would kindly take command and navigate the schooner.”“I see,” remarked I. “Well,” I continued, “if such is the wish of you all, I have no objection to do as you wish. But—understand me—I will only consent to navigate the schooner back to the West Indies; I will not undertake the trouble and responsibility of carrying the ship to her destination and shipping a cargo. I disapprove, on principle, of slave-trading, which I consider an iniquitous traffic, and I will have nothing to do with it; but, if you are willing, I will navigate the ship back to Port Royal,—guaranteeing you immunity from capture upon our arrival, in consideration of the rescue and succour that you have afforded me,—and, when there, you will have no difficulty in procuring someone who will navigate the schooner from thence to Havana or any other port that you may choose to go to. Just talk it over among yourselves, and let me know what you decide on doing.”I could see that my proposal was not at all to Charpentier’s liking, or, indeed, to the liking of any of the crew; but I cared not for that. I was quite determined to have nothing whatever to do with the kidnapping of any unfortunate blacks; and in the end they were obliged to give way, although Charpentier tried hard to dissuade me from my resolution; the result being, that immediately after I had ascertained our position at noon, we wore round and shaped a course for Martinique, that island being in a direct line with Jamaica. At first I was rather apprehensive that the disappointment of the men at so unprofitable a result of the voyage would cause them to be troublesome; but it did not. The question of turning back having once been settled, they all seemed to take the matter very philosophically, the fact that they were now relieved of the mate’s tyranny perhaps reconciling them to such disappointment as they might otherwise have felt.I need not dwell upon the return voyage, which was singularly uneventful; suffice it to say that, favoured with fine weather and a fair wind all the way, we made an exceptionally smart run across the Atlantic, entering Port Royal harbour on the morning of the twenty-second day after bearing up, and eleven weeks to a day from the date of my abduction by Dominguez.My sudden reappearance created quite a sensation among the dockyard people, my disappearance having been involved in so much mystery that all sorts of surmises had been indulged in to account for it. Some were of opinion that I had fallen overboard into the harbour, and had found a secure hiding-place in the maw of a shark; but there were others who, happening to have been present when I was summoned from Mammy Wilkinson’s hotel upon my supposititious errand of help and rescue to young Lindsay, at once mentioned the circumstance, with the result that a very strong suspicion of foul play was aroused. My friend and patron, the admiral, was especially concerned upon my account, even going to the length of offering a reward of fifty pounds for such intelligence as should lead to my discovery; but it resulted in nothing, those worthies, Caesar and Peter, perhaps being too much afraid to utter a word of what they knew. Then there occurred more frigate actions, resulting in so heavy a pressure of work, that nobody seemed to have any time to think about the mysterious disappearance of a somewhat obscure young lieutenant. But now that I had unexpectedly turned up again, safe and sound, I was overwhelmed with congratulations, while the admiral sent a party of police to the house to which I had been conveyed, with instructions that the two negroes were to be at once found and arrested. The house, however, proved to be empty when the police made their domiciliary visit; and, as for the negroes, their whereabouts was never discovered. Possibly the excitement of my reappearance, and the talk to which it gave rise, alarmed them and caused them to beat a hasty retreat to some other island.To my great joy, I discovered that theDianewas not yet recommissioned, the repairs and alterations to her having been greatly delayed by the more pressing work of repairing the frigates, while the admiral—in the hope that I might still turn up, and with that extreme kindness that had marked all his treatment of me—had determined not to give the command of her to anyone else until she should be absolutely ready for sea. I therefore at once stepped into my former position, and lost no time in getting as many men to work upon her as could be spared. And there was the less difficulty in accomplishing this, that Morillo was believed to be more busy than ever, several outward-bound ships being overdue without the occurrence of any bad weather to account for their disappearance. Meanwhile, during the progress of the work aboard the brigantine, I gave myself up to the task of getting together a crew, of which my old friend Black Peter constituted himself the nucleus, while several formerTernsvolunteered, these again inducing other men of their acquaintance to come forward and join; so that by the time that the finishing touches were being put to theDiane, I had fifty-two first-rate men waiting to go aboard as soon as the ship should be ready to receive them. But I wanted five more to complete my complement, and these I picked up by making a raid one night upon the low boarding-houses in Kingston, where the crimps were in the habit of taking in sailors and keeping them in hiding until they had extracted from them every penny of their hard-earned wages.At length, some five weeks from the date of my reappearance, the time arrived when theDiane, being ready for sea, with her guns mounted, provisions, water, and stores of every kind on board, and sails bent, hauled off alongside the powder hulk to ship her ammunition; and that delicate job having been successfully accomplished, under my personal supervision, I went up to Kingston to dine with the admiral prior to sailing, calling at the hotel on my way in order to change my clothes. As I entered the building, the head waiter—a negro—stepped forward and handed me a letter addressed in an unknown and foreign-looking handwriting to myself. I opened it at once, and found that it bore a date a full fortnight old, and read as follows, the language being English:—“Señor Courtenay,—You have constituted yourself my especial enemy, and have apparently declared war to the knife against me. In return I now declare my determination to destroy you by whatever means may present themselves. Thrice have you injured me, either personally or through my agents; but rest assured that a day of reckoning will come, when you shall curse the hour that gave you birth. I will fight you wherever we may happen to meet, and let the strongest conquer. If you fear not to meet me, hoist a red swallow-tailed burgee to your fore royal masthead, that I may recognise your ship from others, Morillo.”“When did this letter arrive, and who brought it?” demanded I of the waiter, who stood by as I read the document.“A black boy brought it, about half an hour ago, sah, an’ said I was to be suah an’ gib it you, sah, an’ dat dar was no ansah, sah,” replied the fellow.“Did you know the boy?” demanded I.“No, sah; nebber saw him befoah to my knowledge, sah,” was the reply.“Did you take enough notice of him to be able to recognise him should you happen to see him again?” asked I.“I’s afraid not, sah; those black boys are all exactly alike, you know, sah,” replied the fellow, who was himself as black as the ace of spades.“Well,” said I, “if youshouldhappen to see him again, and can manage to detain him until you can give him into custody, it will be worth five guineas to you. I should very much like to see that boy and ask him a question or two.”“All right, sah; if I see him I’ll stop him, nebbah feah, sah,” replied the waiter, with a grin; and therewith I hurried away to my room to dress.

I had been up and about for a full week, and had during that period observed in Lemaitre’s manner toward me not only a steadily decreasing solicitude for my welfare—which was perhaps only natural, now that my health was rapidly improving—but also a growing disposition to sneer and gibe at me, covert at first but more pronounced and unmistakable with every recurring day, that strongly tended to confirm the singular suspicion I have endeavoured to bring home to the mind of the reader in the preceding chapter. Then one night an incident occurred that in a moment explained everything, and revealed to me the unpleasant fact that, so far as my enemy Morillo was concerned, I was still in as great danger as when on board the felucca, although in the present case the danger was perhaps a trifle more remote.

I have already mentioned Lemaitre’s habit of drinking himself into a state of intoxication every night. This habit, and the obscene language that the man seemed to revel in when in such a condition, was so disgusting to me that not the least-prized advantage afforded by my convalescence was the ability to remain on deck until the nightly saturnalia was at an end and Lemaitre and his companion had retired to their cabins. On the particular night, however, of which I am about to speak, a slight recurrent touch of fever caused me to slip quietly below and turn in before the orgy began; not that I expected to get to sleep, but simply because I believed the warmth and dryness of my bunk would be better for me than the damp night air on deck.

Punctually at nine o’clock Lemaitre and his chief mate came noisily clattering down the companion ladder, glasses and a bottle of rum were produced, and the carouse began. It had not progressed very far before it became apparent to me, as I lay there in my hot bunk, tossing restlessly, that Lemaitre was in an unusually excited and quarrelsome condition, and that François, the chief mate, was rapidly approaching a similar condition as he gulped down tumbler after tumbler of liquor. They were always argumentative and contradictory when drinking together, but to-night they were unusually so. At length François made some remark as to the extraordinary good fortune they had met with on this particular voyage, in having come so far without falling in with a British cruiser; at which Lemaitre laughed scornfully declaring that there was not a British cruiser afloat that could catchLa belle Jeannette; and that, even if it were otherwise, he should have no fear of them this voyage. “For,” said he, “have we not a guarantee of safety in the presence of that simple fool Courtenay on board? Have we not saved his life by rescuing him from the raft? And do you suppose they would reward our humanity, ha, ha! by making a prize of the schooner? Not they! If there is one thing those asses of British pride themselves upon more than another it is their chivalrous sense of honour—a sentiment, my child, that they would not outrage for the value of fifty such schooners as this. All the same,” he added, with an inflection of deep cunning in his voice, “I do not want to meet with a British cruiser at close enough quarters to be compelled to hand the dear Courtenay over to his countrymen; oh no!”

“Why not?” demanded François; “what advantage is it to you to keep him on board? Is it because you are so fond of his company? Pah! if you had eyes in your head, you would see that, despite his gratitude to you for saving his life, he despises you. What do you mean to do with him? Are you going to turn him adrift among the negroes when we arrive upon the coast? I never could understand why you insisted upon saving him at all.”

“No?” queried Lemaitre, with a sneering laugh. “Ah, that is because you are a fool, François,mon enfant, a more arrant fool even than the dear Courtenay himself. Do you suppose I did it out of pity for his condition, or because I love the British? No. I will tell you why, idiot. It is because he will fetch a good five hundred dollars at least in the slave-market at Havana.”

“Sothatis what you intend to do with him, is it?” retorted François. “Well, Lemaitre, I always knew you for an ass, but, unless you had told me so with your own lips, I would never have believed you to be such an ass as to sell a man for five hundred dollars when you can just as easily get a thousand for him. Yet you call me fool and idiot! Pah, you sicken me!”

“Oh, I sicken you, do I?” growled Lemaitre, by this time well advanced toward intoxication. “Take care what you are saying, my friend, or I shall be apt to sicken you so thoroughly that you will be fit for nothing but a toss over the lee bulwarks. No doubt it is I who am the fool, and you who are the clever one; but I should like to hear by what means you would propose to get a thousand dollars for the fellow. True, he is young and stalwart, and will be in prime condition by the time that we get back to Havana,—I will see to that,—but I have known better men than he sold for less than five hundred dollars; ay,whitemen too, not negroes.”

“Did I not say you are an ass?” retorted François. “Who talks of selling him at Havana? You, not I. Do you not know who this Courtenay is, then? I will tell you, most wise and noble captain. He is the youth who attacked and destroyed Morillo’s settlement at Cariacou,—I remember the name perfectly well,—and I was told at Havana, by one who ought to know, that Morillo had given it out among his friends that he would pay one thousand dollars to anyone who should bring Courtenay to him alive. And that is not all, either. You know what Morillo is; he has declared a feud against this miserable, meddlesome Englishman, and not only will he gladly pay a thousand dollars for the privilege of wreaking his vengeance upon him, but the man who delivers your friend Courtenay into his hands will be free to sail the seas without molestation from Morillo as long as he lives. What think you of that, Captain Lemaitre?”

“Is this true?” demanded Lemaitre. “Ay,” answered François, “as true as that you and I are sitting here in this cabin.”

“Why did you not tell me of this before, François, my friend?” asked Lemaitre, in a wheedling tone.

“Why did I not tell you before?” echoed François. “Ask rather why I tell you now, and I will answer that it is because I am such a fool that I cannot keep a good thing to myself when I have it. Sac–r–r–re! what need was there for me to make you as wise as myself, eh? However, I am not going to let you have this choice little bit of information for nothing. I have told you how to make a clear five hundred dollars over and above what you could have earned without the information I have been idiot enough to give you, and you must pay me half the amount; do you understand?”

“Ay, I understand,” answered Lemaitre, with a sudden return to his former sneering, aggressive manner; “but I should like to know—just for the satisfaction of my curiosity—how you propose to compel me to pay you that two hundred and fifty dollars that you talk about.”

“Why, easily enough,” snarled François, with sudden fury, as he realised that Lemaitre intended to evade the extortion if he could. “If you do not pay me immediately after receiving the reward from Morillo, I will denounce you to him. I will say that you intended to have yielded up your prisoner to the British, in order that you might curry favour with them and secure immunity from capture by them; and that you would never have given him up to Morillo at all but for my threats. And I suppose you know what that will mean for you, eh?”

“Oh, so that is what you would do, is it, my friend?” returned Lemaitre, with a harsh laugh. “Well, well, it will be time enough for you to threaten when I refuse to pay you the two hundred and fifty dollars. Until then, there is no need for us to quarrel; so fill up your glass, François, and let us drink to the health of the dear Courtenay, who, after all, was quite worth picking up off the raft, don’t you think?”

Then followed a gurgling sound as the two topers filled their glasses. A gulping and smacking of lips, succeeded by a banging of the empty tumblers upon the table, came clearly to me through the latticed upper panel of my door; and then certain staggering sounds, as the two struggled to their feet, were followed by Lemaitre thickly bidding his companion good-night, as the pair reeled and stumbled away to their respective berths.

I slept badly that night, the fever, with the intelligence I had just acquired, combining to make me restless and wakeful; but after tossing from side to side, until about two bells in the morning watch, I gradually sank into a troubled sleep, from which I was startled by a sudden outbreak of loud, excited shouts, succeeded by a sound of fierce scuffling, accompanied by a volley of oaths and exclamations, the stamp of feet, a heavy fall, a rush of footsteps up the companion ladder, and a sudden, heavy splash alongside. Then followed a terrific outcry on deck, with the hurrying rush of feet on the planking overhead, the furious slatting of canvas as the schooner shot into the wind, more excited shouts, ending in a sort of groaning mingled with ejaculations of dismay, a sudden silence, and then a terrific jabbering, suggestive of the idea that all hands had incontinently taken leave of their senses.

I sprang out of my bunk and hurriedly proceeded to dress, rushing on deck bare-footed to see what was the matter; and as I emerged from the companion-way I saw all hands gathered aft, most of them staring hard over the taffrail, while one man was busily engaged in binding up the left arm of the second mate.

“Hillo, Monsieur Charpentier!” I exclaimed, “what is the matter? Has anything happened?”

“Happened, monsieur? I should think so!” exclaimed the second mate, turning to me a white and ghastly face; “a most awful thing has happened. When I went below just now to call François I was unable to make him hear, although I called several times and knocked ever so hard at his door. So I ventured to turn the door handle and enter his cabin, and what do you think I saw, monsieur? Why, poor François lying dead in his bunk, his clothes soaked with blood, and a great gaping wound in his breast, right over his heart! I was so horrified, monsieur, that I scarcely knew what to do; but, collecting myself with a mighty effort, I went to call the captain; and when I reached his cabin I found the door wide open and Monsieur Lemaitre crouched in a corner of it, with a great bloodstained knife in his hand, his eyes glaring, and his lips mumbling and muttering I know not what. I saw that there was something wrong with him, monsieur,—I believed he had gone mad,—and I was about to turn away and call for help; but he saw me, and, before I was aware, sprang upon me, seizing me with one hand by the throat while with the other he aimed blow after blow at me with his terrible knife. I defended myself as well as I could, monsieur, fighting bravely for my life; but what can one do against a madman? The captain seemed to possess the strength of twenty men; he forced me irresistibly back against the bulkhead, and then drove his knife through my arm. Believing that he had killed me, I relaxed my hold upon him; whereupon he hurled me to the deck, sprang over my fallen body, and bounded up on deck,and from thence overboard! And now they tell me, monsieur, that he had scarcely struck the water when a shark rose, seized him, and dragged him under! See, monsieur, look astern! He is gone; there is nothing to be seen of him! What shall we do? oh, mon Dieu, what shall we do?”

“Are youquite surethat the captain was seized by a shark?” I demanded, looking round from one to another of the men, who had now turned their faces inboard and stood staring alternately at Charpentier and myself.

“Oh yes, monsieur,” excitedly replied half a dozen of them all together, “we all saw it; it was a monster. And,” continued one of them, “the captain had scarcely risen to the surface after his plunge overboard when the shark seized him by the middle and dragged him under. We all saw the blood dyeing the water,—did we not, shipmates?—but the captain never uttered a cry; just threw up his arms and vanished. Is not that it, my friends?”

“Yes, yes,” they all exclaimed again, “that is it. Jules describes it exactly as it occurred.”

“Then,” said I, “it seems to me, Monsieur Charpentier, that, Captain Lemaitre and the mate being dead, nothing remains but for you to take command and navigate the schooner to her destination.”

“But, monsieur, I cannot do that, for, unhappily, I am not a navigator,” replied Charpentier, wringing his hands.

“Do you mean to say that you knownothing whateverabout navigation!” demanded I.

“Alas, no, monsieur! nothing whatever,” was the reply.

“And is there no one else among you who can navigate the schooner?” asked I.

The men looked at each other, shaking their heads and muttering, “Not I”; and finally Charpentier exclaimed, “You see, monsieur, there is not one of us who can navigate. What is to be done?You, monsieur, are an officer—at least so I understood François to say; perhaps you could—”

“Well,” demanded I, seeing that the fellow hesitated, “perhaps I could—what?”

“Pardon, monsieur,” exclaimed he, “I was in hopes that, considering the difficulty we are placed in by this most lamentable tragedy, you would kindly take command and navigate the schooner.”

“I see,” remarked I. “Well,” I continued, “if such is the wish of you all, I have no objection to do as you wish. But—understand me—I will only consent to navigate the schooner back to the West Indies; I will not undertake the trouble and responsibility of carrying the ship to her destination and shipping a cargo. I disapprove, on principle, of slave-trading, which I consider an iniquitous traffic, and I will have nothing to do with it; but, if you are willing, I will navigate the ship back to Port Royal,—guaranteeing you immunity from capture upon our arrival, in consideration of the rescue and succour that you have afforded me,—and, when there, you will have no difficulty in procuring someone who will navigate the schooner from thence to Havana or any other port that you may choose to go to. Just talk it over among yourselves, and let me know what you decide on doing.”

I could see that my proposal was not at all to Charpentier’s liking, or, indeed, to the liking of any of the crew; but I cared not for that. I was quite determined to have nothing whatever to do with the kidnapping of any unfortunate blacks; and in the end they were obliged to give way, although Charpentier tried hard to dissuade me from my resolution; the result being, that immediately after I had ascertained our position at noon, we wore round and shaped a course for Martinique, that island being in a direct line with Jamaica. At first I was rather apprehensive that the disappointment of the men at so unprofitable a result of the voyage would cause them to be troublesome; but it did not. The question of turning back having once been settled, they all seemed to take the matter very philosophically, the fact that they were now relieved of the mate’s tyranny perhaps reconciling them to such disappointment as they might otherwise have felt.

I need not dwell upon the return voyage, which was singularly uneventful; suffice it to say that, favoured with fine weather and a fair wind all the way, we made an exceptionally smart run across the Atlantic, entering Port Royal harbour on the morning of the twenty-second day after bearing up, and eleven weeks to a day from the date of my abduction by Dominguez.

My sudden reappearance created quite a sensation among the dockyard people, my disappearance having been involved in so much mystery that all sorts of surmises had been indulged in to account for it. Some were of opinion that I had fallen overboard into the harbour, and had found a secure hiding-place in the maw of a shark; but there were others who, happening to have been present when I was summoned from Mammy Wilkinson’s hotel upon my supposititious errand of help and rescue to young Lindsay, at once mentioned the circumstance, with the result that a very strong suspicion of foul play was aroused. My friend and patron, the admiral, was especially concerned upon my account, even going to the length of offering a reward of fifty pounds for such intelligence as should lead to my discovery; but it resulted in nothing, those worthies, Caesar and Peter, perhaps being too much afraid to utter a word of what they knew. Then there occurred more frigate actions, resulting in so heavy a pressure of work, that nobody seemed to have any time to think about the mysterious disappearance of a somewhat obscure young lieutenant. But now that I had unexpectedly turned up again, safe and sound, I was overwhelmed with congratulations, while the admiral sent a party of police to the house to which I had been conveyed, with instructions that the two negroes were to be at once found and arrested. The house, however, proved to be empty when the police made their domiciliary visit; and, as for the negroes, their whereabouts was never discovered. Possibly the excitement of my reappearance, and the talk to which it gave rise, alarmed them and caused them to beat a hasty retreat to some other island.

To my great joy, I discovered that theDianewas not yet recommissioned, the repairs and alterations to her having been greatly delayed by the more pressing work of repairing the frigates, while the admiral—in the hope that I might still turn up, and with that extreme kindness that had marked all his treatment of me—had determined not to give the command of her to anyone else until she should be absolutely ready for sea. I therefore at once stepped into my former position, and lost no time in getting as many men to work upon her as could be spared. And there was the less difficulty in accomplishing this, that Morillo was believed to be more busy than ever, several outward-bound ships being overdue without the occurrence of any bad weather to account for their disappearance. Meanwhile, during the progress of the work aboard the brigantine, I gave myself up to the task of getting together a crew, of which my old friend Black Peter constituted himself the nucleus, while several formerTernsvolunteered, these again inducing other men of their acquaintance to come forward and join; so that by the time that the finishing touches were being put to theDiane, I had fifty-two first-rate men waiting to go aboard as soon as the ship should be ready to receive them. But I wanted five more to complete my complement, and these I picked up by making a raid one night upon the low boarding-houses in Kingston, where the crimps were in the habit of taking in sailors and keeping them in hiding until they had extracted from them every penny of their hard-earned wages.

At length, some five weeks from the date of my reappearance, the time arrived when theDiane, being ready for sea, with her guns mounted, provisions, water, and stores of every kind on board, and sails bent, hauled off alongside the powder hulk to ship her ammunition; and that delicate job having been successfully accomplished, under my personal supervision, I went up to Kingston to dine with the admiral prior to sailing, calling at the hotel on my way in order to change my clothes. As I entered the building, the head waiter—a negro—stepped forward and handed me a letter addressed in an unknown and foreign-looking handwriting to myself. I opened it at once, and found that it bore a date a full fortnight old, and read as follows, the language being English:—

“Señor Courtenay,—You have constituted yourself my especial enemy, and have apparently declared war to the knife against me. In return I now declare my determination to destroy you by whatever means may present themselves. Thrice have you injured me, either personally or through my agents; but rest assured that a day of reckoning will come, when you shall curse the hour that gave you birth. I will fight you wherever we may happen to meet, and let the strongest conquer. If you fear not to meet me, hoist a red swallow-tailed burgee to your fore royal masthead, that I may recognise your ship from others, Morillo.”

“When did this letter arrive, and who brought it?” demanded I of the waiter, who stood by as I read the document.

“A black boy brought it, about half an hour ago, sah, an’ said I was to be suah an’ gib it you, sah, an’ dat dar was no ansah, sah,” replied the fellow.

“Did you know the boy?” demanded I.

“No, sah; nebber saw him befoah to my knowledge, sah,” was the reply.

“Did you take enough notice of him to be able to recognise him should you happen to see him again?” asked I.

“I’s afraid not, sah; those black boys are all exactly alike, you know, sah,” replied the fellow, who was himself as black as the ace of spades.

“Well,” said I, “if youshouldhappen to see him again, and can manage to detain him until you can give him into custody, it will be worth five guineas to you. I should very much like to see that boy and ask him a question or two.”

“All right, sah; if I see him I’ll stop him, nebbah feah, sah,” replied the waiter, with a grin; and therewith I hurried away to my room to dress.

Chapter Nineteen.The end of the Guerrilla.I arrived at the Pen just in time for dinner, and found myself one of an unusually large party of guests, several men-o’-war being in port at the time, while a large contingent of civilians might always be met at the admiral’s table. The old gentleman received me with all his wonted kindness and cordiality, introducing me to such of his guests as I had not met before, and relating over the dinner-table, with much gusto, the story of my abduction and escape. Then I produced Morillo’s letter of defiance, which I took with me to show him, and which added a fillip to the conversation that lasted us until the cloth was drawn. We sat rather late over our wine, and when we rose to go the admiral invited me into his library for a moment, and said—“Well, my lad, d’ye intend to accept that piratical rascal’s challenge?”“Most assuredly I do, sir, if I can but fall in with him,” answered I.“Very well,” said the admiral, “you shall have every opportunity to give him the thrashing that he so richly deserves. There,” handing me a packet, “are your orders, which you will find are that, while cruising against the enemy, and doing as much harm as you can to their commerce, you are to keep a bright lookout for Morillo, and either capture or destroy him at all costs. When do you sail?”“The moment that I can get aboard, sir,” answered I.“That’s right, that’s right; you will then be able to make a good offing before the land-breeze drops,” returned the admiral. “Well,” he continued, “good-bye, my boy, and a successful cruise to you. And if, when you return, you bring Morillo with you, or can assure me of his destruction, you shall have t’other swab; for I shall consider that you have well-earned it.”And therewith I left him and drove into Kingston, where I routed out a boatman and made the best of my way aboard theDiane. An hour later the brigantine was under way, and threading her passage through the shoals to seaward under the influence of a roaring land-breeze.The question that now exercised my mind was, where was I to look for Morillo? In what direction should I be most likely to find him? It was a most difficult question to answer; but, after considering the matter in all its bearings, I came to the conclusion that his most likely haunt would probably be near one of the great entrances from the Atlantic to the Caribbean Sea, where he would be conveniently posted to intercept and plunder both outward and homeward-bound ships; although he would probably take care not to establish himselftoonear, lest he should run foul of any of our cruisers stationed in the same locality for the protection of British bottoms trading to and from West Indian ports. He would in all likelihood select a spot some two or three hundred miles away out in the Atlantic, from which he could command both the outward and the homeward routes of ships bound from and to Europe. I opened a chart of the North Atlantic and studied it carefully, trying to imagine myself in his place, and thinking what I should do under such circumstances; and reasoning in this way, I at length fixed upon a belt of ocean suitable for piratical purposes, and thither I determined to make my way, thoroughly searching every mile of intervening water as I did so. Then came the question whether I should select the Windward or the Mona Passage by which to make my way into the Atlantic; and after much anxious consideration I decided upon the Windward Passage, that being the channel most frequently used by our merchantmen. I accordingly set the course for Morant Point, and then went below and turned in.When I went on deck next morning, shortly after daybreak, I found that theDianehad weathered the point and was now on the starboard tack, heading well up for Cape Mayzi, with the Blue Mountains already assuming the hue from which they are named, as the brigantine rapidly left them astern. It was a brilliant morning, with the trade wind piping up to the tune of half a gale; yet the little ship was showing her topgallantsail to it, and sheering through the rather short, choppy sea like a mad thing, with her yards braced hard in against the lee rigging, and the lower half of her foresail dark with spray, while the white foam hissed and seethed and raced past her to leeward at a pace that made one giddy to look at. That theDianewas a perfect marvel in the matter of speed—and a good sea-boat withal—was undeniable; and as I stood aft, to windward of the helmsman, and watched the little hooker thrashing along, I felt sanguine that, should we be fortunate enough to encounter Señor Morillo, he would have but small chance of escaping us by showing a clean pair of heels.The following midnight found us handsomely weathering Cape Mayzi, the most easterly extremity of the island of Cuba, after which we held on until we had brought the southern extremity of Great Inagua broad abeam, when we again tacked, and so worked our way out to sea between the Handkerchief shoal and Grand Caicos, passing an inward-bound Indiaman on the way. I spoke this vessel, asking if they had sighted any suspicious craft of late; to which the skipper replied that four days previously he had been chased by a French brig, which he had contrived to elude in the darkness; and that he had on the following day sighted and spoken the British frigateEuterpe, which had forthwith proceeded in quest of the brig. Thenceforth we sighted nothing until our fifth day out, when we fell in with theEuterpe, which had just returned to her station after an unsuccessful search. Two days later we sighted a British privateer, which made sail and tried to run away from us as soon as she made out our pennant, fearing—so the skipper said when we overhauled and compelled him to heave-to—that we should impress some of his men. But, as I had as many hands as I required, I let him go without compelling him to pay toll. His report was that the Atlantic was absolutely empty of shipping, he having sighted nothing but a British line-of-battle ship and three frigates during his passage across.Finally, we reached the cruising-ground that I had selected as being the most likely spot in which to meet Morillo; and there we cruised for a full fortnight, just reaching to and fro athwart the wind, under mainsail, topsail, and jib, and still there was no sign of theGuerrillaor of any other craft. At length I became so thoroughly discouraged that one night, soon after sundown, I went below, got out my chart, and proceeded to study it afresh, with a view to the selection of some other cruising-ground; and at length, after long and anxious consideration, I fixed upon a new spot, for which I determined to bear up next day if by noon nothing had hove in sight.It chanced, however, that at dawn next morning a craft was made out some ten miles to windward of us, and the officer of the watch at once came down below and called me. I went on deck immediately, to find that the day was just breaking, and the stranger even then only barely visible against the faint light that was spreading along the eastern horizon. As we stood looking, we made her out to be a square-rigged vessel, apparently of no great size, running down toward us under easy canvas; and the thought came to me that here was theGuerrillaat last, and that my patience was about to meet its reward. But a few minutes later—by which time, as I supposed, it had grown light enough to reveal our canvas to the approaching stranger—the craft suddenly hauled her wind; and I then saw that she was a brig. That she was not a merchantman was obvious from the fact that she was under such short canvas, all she showed being her two topsails, spanker, and jib—just such canvas as a privateer or gun-brig would show, in fact, on her cruising-ground; and I at once set her down for one or the other. Of her nationality, however, it was impossible to correctly judge at that distance and in the still imperfect light; but there was a certain subtle something in her appearance that suggested France as the land of her birth. Meanwhile, as she had rounded-to on the same tack as ourselves, evidently with the intention of taking a good look at us before approaching too near, we held on as we were going, taking no notice whatever of her. In about a quarter of an hour, however, it became apparent that we were head-reaching upon her; whereupon she dropped her foresail, to keep pace with us, while we on our part took a small pull upon the lee braces, which enabled us to head up a point higher, and so gradually edge up toward her.Such excessive caution as the stranger was now exhibiting convinced me that she could not be British; she must, consequently, be an enemy. And having once made up my mind upon this point, I very gradually braced our yards as flat in against the rigging as they would come, flattened in the main and jib-sheets, and thus brought theDianeon a taut bowline, without, as I hoped, arousing the suspicion of the stranger, meanwhile keeping the telescope constantly levelled upon her in order that, should I see any hands in her rigging going aloft to make sail, we might follow suit without loss of time. But I did not wish to take the initiative, because by so doing I might possibly alarm them; while, so long as we both kept on as we were, we were gradually and almost imperceptibly closing her.This state of affairs prevailed for about an hour, when suddenly—with the view, perhaps, of compelling us to disclose our intentions—the stranger tacked. Obliged thus to throw off the mask, we at once did the same, the hands—who had been standing by, waiting for orders—at the same time springing into the rigging to loose our additional canvas; and by the time that the little hooker was fairly round on the starboard tack, and the yards swung, our topgallant sail and gaff-topsail were sheeted home and in the act of being hoisted, together with the flying-jib, foretopmast staysail, and main and maintopmast staysails, while the fore tack was being boarded and the sheet hauled aft. This caused an immediate stir aboard the stranger, who, in her turn, at once set all plain sail to her topgallant sails, the wind being altogether too fresh for either of us to show a royal to it.The manoeuvres just described brought the brig about three points before our starboard beam and some eight miles to windward of us, both craft being now close-hauled on the starboard tack. There was a strong breeze blowing from the north-east, with a fair amount of sea on, and the day was brilliantly fine, with a rich, clear, crystalline blue sky, dappled here and there with puffs of white trade-cloud sailing solemnly athwart our mastheads; a splendid day for sailing, and we had the whole of it before us.It soon became apparent that we were gaining upon the brig—weathering and fore-reaching upon her at the same time; and as it was now broad daylight, I sent the men to quarters, hoisted our colours, and fired a shotted gun to windward as an invitation to her to heave-to; but of this she took no notice whatever. By nine o’clock—at which hour I took an observation of the sun for my longitude—we had fore-reached upon the brig sufficiently to bring her a couple of points abaft our weather beam, and then, in accordance with the rule for chasing, we tacked again; whereupon she did the same, thus bringing us right astern and slightly to windward of her. It was now a stern-chase, she being as nearly as possible seven miles ahead of us. The wind held steady, and hour after hour the two craft went plunging along at racing speed, the brigantine gaining steadily all the time, until by one o’clock the chase was within range, and we opened fire upon her with our long eighteen-pounder. Our shot flew close to her on either side,—as we could see by the jets of water thrown up,—but it was fully half an hour before we hit her, which we then did fair in the centre of her stern. She immediately shot into the wind, all aback, and it took them fully five minutes to box her off again, when—seeing, I suppose, that they could not now possibly escape us—her people clewed up her courses, hauled down topgallant sails and staysails, until they had reduced their canvas to what it had been when we first sighted her, hoisted French colours, and bore up for us.It was at this time that we first made out the upper canvas of another vessel just appearing above the horizon in the northern board, and evidently steering in our direction; and upon sending aloft one of the midshipmen who were acting as my lieutenants, he reported her as a craft of apparently about our own size. The fact that she was headingtowardus led me to the conclusion that she must be either a privateer or a small cruiser like ourselves,—evidently attracted by the sound of our guns,—and as I did not wish for her assistance, if a friend, or the additional anxiety of having to fight her at the same time as the brig, if an enemy, I called the hands aft and made them a brief speech, impressing upon them the importance of settling the brig’s business as promptly as possible, in order that we might be free to give the other stranger our undivided attention, if necessary. They answered with a hearty cheer, and went back to their guns; and a quarter of an hour later the brig rounded-to within biscuit-toss to windward of us, giving us her larboard broadside as she did so.This was the beginning of a regular set-to, hammer and tongs, between us, the French fighting with the utmost courage and determination, and playing havoc with our rigging, which they cut up so severely that half a dozen of our people were kept busy aloft knotting and splicing. At length, however, when the fight had thus been raging for a full hour, with heavy loss on both sides, tacking suddenly under cover of the smoke of our starboard broadside, we shot across the brig’s stern, raking her with a double-shotted broadside from our larboard guns, which had the effect of bringing both her masts down by the run, rendering her a wreck and unmanageable; and we now felt that she was ours.But we were reckoning without our host—or rather, without the second stranger, whom we had been altogether too busy to give a thought to. As the smoke of our guns blew away to leeward, and we prepared to tack again preparatory to passing once more athwart the brig’s stern, I got a full and clear view of the stranger, who—approaching us from to windward—had hitherto been hidden from us by the brig and by the smoke of our combined cannonade. She was less than half a mile distant from us, and was at the moment in the very act of taking in her studding-sails. She was a brigantine, and a single glance at her sufficed to assure me that she was theGuerrilla, and that at last the feud between Morillo and myself was to be fought out to the bitter end. I had long ago prepared a red swallow-tailed burgee, such as the pirate had dared me to exhibit, and I immediately gave orders to hoist it at our fore royal masthead. The flag had scarcely reached the truck when I saw ablackflag flutter out over the other brigantine’s rail and go soaring aloft to her gaff-end. Morillo had evidently recognised my challenge, and was prompt to answer it.Sweeping under the brig’s stern again, at a distance of only a few fathoms, I hailed, asking whether they surrendered; but a pistol-shot, which flew close past my ear, was their only reply, so we gave them our starboard broadside, and then wore round to meet our new antagonist, leaving the brig meanwhile to her own devices.I am of opinion that Morillo must have had a very shrewd suspicion as to our identity long before the exhibition of our burgee, because of the eager haste with which he bore down upon us. So eager, indeed, was he, that he carried his studding-sails just a minute or twotoolong; a mistake on his part, which enabled us to make a couple of short stretches to windward and secure the weather-gage before he was ready to round-to, although as soon as his people detected our purpose they worked with frantic haste to shorten sail.The pirates opened the ball by giving us their whole larboard broadside while we were in stays, tacking toward them; but the guns were fired hurriedly, and did us no harm, the shot flying high over us and between our masts, without touching so much as a ropeyarn. Five minutes later we passed close across theGuerrilla’sstern, making a half-board to clear her, and delivered our larboard broadside, with the eighteen-pounder thrown in, every shot taking effect and raking her from end to end. Morillo was standing aft by the taffrail, and as we passed near enough to hear the wash of the water about the pirate vessel’s rudder, he suddenly snatched up a blunderbuss, and, singling me out, fired point-blank at me, one bullet knocking my cap off, while another lodged in my left shoulder, a third killing the man at our wheel, close behind me. TheGuerrillaimmediately ported her helm, while I, springing to our wheel, put it hard a-starboard, thus passing a second time athwart our antagonist’s stern; and again we raked her mercilessly, this time with our starboard broadside. Keeping our wheel hard over, we swept round until we were once more in stays, theGuerrillahaving tacked toward us a minute earlier, with the evident intention of raking us in her turn. We were just a little too quick for her, however, gathering way so smartly that, as we neared each other, it became evident that, unless one or the other of us tacked again, we must inevitably run foul of each other. I had no mind for this sort of thing, however, as we should probably hurt ourselves quite as much as our antagonist; so, holding on until we had only just room to clear theGuerrilla, and singing out for a second shot to be rammed home in the larboard guns, I eased our helm down just at the right moment, ranging up so close to the other brigantine that we almost grazed her side, when we exchanged broadsides at precisely the same instant, with terrible effect on both sides. At the same moment our topsail was thrown aback to deaden our way, and as theGuerrillapassed ahead our helm was put hard up and we paid square off across her stern, firing our starboard broadside into her as we did so. The result this time was absolutely disastrous to the pirates, for the guns were fired at the precise moment when theGuerrilla’sstern was lifted up on the crest of a sea, while we were in the trough beyond; in consequence of which, our shot all struck her a trifle below her normal water-line, producing a very serious leak, which, even under the most favourable circumstances, it would have been exceedingly difficult to stop. But this was not the worst of it; the shot, by a lucky accident, so far as we were concerned, had somehow become concentrated, all of them taking effect upon the pirate’s rudder and stern-post, with the result that the former was shot away, and the latter, as well as two or three hood-ends, so badly started that ere ten minutes had elapsed it became apparent that theGuerrillawas rapidly filling.Meanwhile, however, we held on across her stern, filling our topsail again, and tacking as soon as we had room; while the pirate brigantine, deprived of her rudder, shot into the wind and got in irons, obstinately refusing to pay off on either tack. This enabled us to sweep across her bows, pouring in our port broadside as we passed, raking her fore and aft, and bringing down her foremast by the run. Holding on for a few minutes, we next wore round—getting her starboard broadside as we passed—and then cut close across her stern again, raking her as before. By this time, however, it had become apparent that she was sinking, so, having once more tacked, we ranged up close athwart her stern, with our topsail aback, when, instead of firing, I hailed to ask if they surrendered.“No, señor,” replied Morillo himself, who was standing aft close to the now useless wheel, “we willneversurrender! I wrote you a letter—which I hope you received—in which I said that I would fight you until my ship sinks under me; and I mean to do so. I also told you that my feud with you is to the death; so, take that!” and therewith the scoundrel quickly levelled a pistol and, for the second time that day, fired point-blank at me! And there is no doubt whatever that this time he would have slain me—for the pistol was pointed so truly that I actually looked for a moment right into the barrel of it—had it not been for theDiane’shelmsman, whounceremoniously seized me by the arm in the very nick of time and quickly pulled me aside. As it was, the bullet whistled close past my ear. This dastardly act so exasperated our people that forthwith, without waiting for orders, they poured the whole of our port broadside into the devoted craft, completely demolishing her stern, so that for a few seconds, as we drew slowly athwart her wake, we got a full view of her decks, which were cumbered with killed and wounded, and literally streaming with blood. Still, by a miracle, Morillo himself survived this last destructive broadside of ours; for when the smoke blew away I saw him still standing erect and shaking his fist defiantly at us.It was by this time evident to us all that theGuerrillawas a doomed ship; she was settling fast in the water, and to continue firing upon her would only be a waste of ammunition. We therefore filled our topsail and, a few minutes later, tacked, again getting a broadside from the sinking ship, when we stationed ourselves square athwart her bows—where we were pretty well out of the way of her fire—and, with topsail aback and mainsheet eased off, waited patiently for the final moment, which we saw was rapidly approaching. Yet, even now, Morillo persisted in firing at us with his two bow guns, compelling us to fire upon him in return; and so the useless fight went on, until theGuerrillahad settled so low in the water that the sea welled in over her bows at every plunge of her, rendering it impossible to any longer maintain their fire. Then, with folded hands, we all stood by, watching for the end.And a very melancholy picture it was upon which we looked. There was the illimitable expanse of ocean all round us, blue as sapphire, heaving in long, regular ridges of swell, and whipped into foam here and there by the scourging of the strong trade wind, with a rich blue sky above, dappled with wisps of trade-cloud, and the sun shining brilliantly down from the midst of them, causing the heaving waters to flash and glitter under his fiery beams, so that the sea that way was too dazzling to look at. And there, right in the centre of the glowing picture, lay the two brigantines—we with our bulwarks torn and splintered to pieces, our sails riddled with shot-holes, our rigging badly cut up, and our decks scored with shot-marks and littered with dead and wounded men; while theGuerrillawas an even more melancholy wreck than ourselves, as she lay heaving and rolling sluggishly, with her covering-boards awash and the sea sweeping her decks from stem to taffrail at every plunge, and the wreck of her foremast towing under her bows. There was not a soul visible on board her. When she first engaged us her decks had appeared to be crowded with men, but now most of them were either killed or wounded, and the few who had escaped seemed to have flung themselves down exhausted, for they had all disappeared. As for the craft herself, it was now only when she rose heavily upon the ridges of the swell that we could see her hull at all; and every plunge that she took into a hollow threatened to be her last. Yet she lingered, as though reluctant to leave the brilliant sunshine and the warm, strong breeze; lingered until I began to wonder whether she would not after all remain afloat, a water-logged wreck; and then, all in a moment, her stern rose high in the air, revealing her shattered rudder and stern-post, and with a long, slow, diving movement, she plunged forward, like a sounding whale, and silently vanished in a little swirl of water. We at once bore up for the spot where she had disappeared,—finding it easily by the torn and splintered fragments of wreckage that came floating up to the surface,—but her crew went down with her, to a man; for although we cruised about the spot for fully half an hour, we never saw even so much as a dead body come to the surface.And so ended that terror of the seas, theGuerrilla, with her bloodthirsty pirate crew; and with her destruction ended the feud that had been thrust upon me by one of the most fiendish monsters in human form that ever sailed the ocean. It may perhaps seem to the reader a cold-blooded deed on our part to remain passively by and calmly watch the passing of those wretches to their account; but in reality it was an act of mercy, for their end was at least swift; whereas, had we saved any of them, it would only have been that they might terminate their career upon the gallows.Meanwhile, the brig had dropped some six miles to leeward during the fight, and her crew had made the best of the opportunity by endeavouring to get some jury-spars aloft. The time, however, was too short for that, and when we ran down to them they were still in the thick of their work. But they had now had enough of fighting, for when I again hailed to ask if they surrendered, they at once replied in the affirmative; and in due course we took possession of theNereideof Bordeaux, armed with twelve long nine-pounders, and with a crew originally of eighty-six men, of whom twenty-three were killed and fifty-seven wounded in her fight with us. We spent the remainder of that day in completing the rigging of the jury-masts that her people had begun, and made sail upon both craft just after sunset that same evening, arriving safely in Port Royal harbour some three weeks later.And now, what remains to be said? The tale of my association with the fate of Morillo the Pirate is told; and all I need add is that when the account of my exploit was told, I received a great deal more credit and praise than I felt I really deserved; while, as for my friend the admiral—well, he was as good as his word, for within twenty-four hours of my arrival with my prize in Port Royal harbour, he handed me, with hearty congratulations and many kind words, the commission that entitled me to mount “t’other swab.”The End.

I arrived at the Pen just in time for dinner, and found myself one of an unusually large party of guests, several men-o’-war being in port at the time, while a large contingent of civilians might always be met at the admiral’s table. The old gentleman received me with all his wonted kindness and cordiality, introducing me to such of his guests as I had not met before, and relating over the dinner-table, with much gusto, the story of my abduction and escape. Then I produced Morillo’s letter of defiance, which I took with me to show him, and which added a fillip to the conversation that lasted us until the cloth was drawn. We sat rather late over our wine, and when we rose to go the admiral invited me into his library for a moment, and said—

“Well, my lad, d’ye intend to accept that piratical rascal’s challenge?”

“Most assuredly I do, sir, if I can but fall in with him,” answered I.

“Very well,” said the admiral, “you shall have every opportunity to give him the thrashing that he so richly deserves. There,” handing me a packet, “are your orders, which you will find are that, while cruising against the enemy, and doing as much harm as you can to their commerce, you are to keep a bright lookout for Morillo, and either capture or destroy him at all costs. When do you sail?”

“The moment that I can get aboard, sir,” answered I.

“That’s right, that’s right; you will then be able to make a good offing before the land-breeze drops,” returned the admiral. “Well,” he continued, “good-bye, my boy, and a successful cruise to you. And if, when you return, you bring Morillo with you, or can assure me of his destruction, you shall have t’other swab; for I shall consider that you have well-earned it.”

And therewith I left him and drove into Kingston, where I routed out a boatman and made the best of my way aboard theDiane. An hour later the brigantine was under way, and threading her passage through the shoals to seaward under the influence of a roaring land-breeze.

The question that now exercised my mind was, where was I to look for Morillo? In what direction should I be most likely to find him? It was a most difficult question to answer; but, after considering the matter in all its bearings, I came to the conclusion that his most likely haunt would probably be near one of the great entrances from the Atlantic to the Caribbean Sea, where he would be conveniently posted to intercept and plunder both outward and homeward-bound ships; although he would probably take care not to establish himselftoonear, lest he should run foul of any of our cruisers stationed in the same locality for the protection of British bottoms trading to and from West Indian ports. He would in all likelihood select a spot some two or three hundred miles away out in the Atlantic, from which he could command both the outward and the homeward routes of ships bound from and to Europe. I opened a chart of the North Atlantic and studied it carefully, trying to imagine myself in his place, and thinking what I should do under such circumstances; and reasoning in this way, I at length fixed upon a belt of ocean suitable for piratical purposes, and thither I determined to make my way, thoroughly searching every mile of intervening water as I did so. Then came the question whether I should select the Windward or the Mona Passage by which to make my way into the Atlantic; and after much anxious consideration I decided upon the Windward Passage, that being the channel most frequently used by our merchantmen. I accordingly set the course for Morant Point, and then went below and turned in.

When I went on deck next morning, shortly after daybreak, I found that theDianehad weathered the point and was now on the starboard tack, heading well up for Cape Mayzi, with the Blue Mountains already assuming the hue from which they are named, as the brigantine rapidly left them astern. It was a brilliant morning, with the trade wind piping up to the tune of half a gale; yet the little ship was showing her topgallantsail to it, and sheering through the rather short, choppy sea like a mad thing, with her yards braced hard in against the lee rigging, and the lower half of her foresail dark with spray, while the white foam hissed and seethed and raced past her to leeward at a pace that made one giddy to look at. That theDianewas a perfect marvel in the matter of speed—and a good sea-boat withal—was undeniable; and as I stood aft, to windward of the helmsman, and watched the little hooker thrashing along, I felt sanguine that, should we be fortunate enough to encounter Señor Morillo, he would have but small chance of escaping us by showing a clean pair of heels.

The following midnight found us handsomely weathering Cape Mayzi, the most easterly extremity of the island of Cuba, after which we held on until we had brought the southern extremity of Great Inagua broad abeam, when we again tacked, and so worked our way out to sea between the Handkerchief shoal and Grand Caicos, passing an inward-bound Indiaman on the way. I spoke this vessel, asking if they had sighted any suspicious craft of late; to which the skipper replied that four days previously he had been chased by a French brig, which he had contrived to elude in the darkness; and that he had on the following day sighted and spoken the British frigateEuterpe, which had forthwith proceeded in quest of the brig. Thenceforth we sighted nothing until our fifth day out, when we fell in with theEuterpe, which had just returned to her station after an unsuccessful search. Two days later we sighted a British privateer, which made sail and tried to run away from us as soon as she made out our pennant, fearing—so the skipper said when we overhauled and compelled him to heave-to—that we should impress some of his men. But, as I had as many hands as I required, I let him go without compelling him to pay toll. His report was that the Atlantic was absolutely empty of shipping, he having sighted nothing but a British line-of-battle ship and three frigates during his passage across.

Finally, we reached the cruising-ground that I had selected as being the most likely spot in which to meet Morillo; and there we cruised for a full fortnight, just reaching to and fro athwart the wind, under mainsail, topsail, and jib, and still there was no sign of theGuerrillaor of any other craft. At length I became so thoroughly discouraged that one night, soon after sundown, I went below, got out my chart, and proceeded to study it afresh, with a view to the selection of some other cruising-ground; and at length, after long and anxious consideration, I fixed upon a new spot, for which I determined to bear up next day if by noon nothing had hove in sight.

It chanced, however, that at dawn next morning a craft was made out some ten miles to windward of us, and the officer of the watch at once came down below and called me. I went on deck immediately, to find that the day was just breaking, and the stranger even then only barely visible against the faint light that was spreading along the eastern horizon. As we stood looking, we made her out to be a square-rigged vessel, apparently of no great size, running down toward us under easy canvas; and the thought came to me that here was theGuerrillaat last, and that my patience was about to meet its reward. But a few minutes later—by which time, as I supposed, it had grown light enough to reveal our canvas to the approaching stranger—the craft suddenly hauled her wind; and I then saw that she was a brig. That she was not a merchantman was obvious from the fact that she was under such short canvas, all she showed being her two topsails, spanker, and jib—just such canvas as a privateer or gun-brig would show, in fact, on her cruising-ground; and I at once set her down for one or the other. Of her nationality, however, it was impossible to correctly judge at that distance and in the still imperfect light; but there was a certain subtle something in her appearance that suggested France as the land of her birth. Meanwhile, as she had rounded-to on the same tack as ourselves, evidently with the intention of taking a good look at us before approaching too near, we held on as we were going, taking no notice whatever of her. In about a quarter of an hour, however, it became apparent that we were head-reaching upon her; whereupon she dropped her foresail, to keep pace with us, while we on our part took a small pull upon the lee braces, which enabled us to head up a point higher, and so gradually edge up toward her.

Such excessive caution as the stranger was now exhibiting convinced me that she could not be British; she must, consequently, be an enemy. And having once made up my mind upon this point, I very gradually braced our yards as flat in against the rigging as they would come, flattened in the main and jib-sheets, and thus brought theDianeon a taut bowline, without, as I hoped, arousing the suspicion of the stranger, meanwhile keeping the telescope constantly levelled upon her in order that, should I see any hands in her rigging going aloft to make sail, we might follow suit without loss of time. But I did not wish to take the initiative, because by so doing I might possibly alarm them; while, so long as we both kept on as we were, we were gradually and almost imperceptibly closing her.

This state of affairs prevailed for about an hour, when suddenly—with the view, perhaps, of compelling us to disclose our intentions—the stranger tacked. Obliged thus to throw off the mask, we at once did the same, the hands—who had been standing by, waiting for orders—at the same time springing into the rigging to loose our additional canvas; and by the time that the little hooker was fairly round on the starboard tack, and the yards swung, our topgallant sail and gaff-topsail were sheeted home and in the act of being hoisted, together with the flying-jib, foretopmast staysail, and main and maintopmast staysails, while the fore tack was being boarded and the sheet hauled aft. This caused an immediate stir aboard the stranger, who, in her turn, at once set all plain sail to her topgallant sails, the wind being altogether too fresh for either of us to show a royal to it.

The manoeuvres just described brought the brig about three points before our starboard beam and some eight miles to windward of us, both craft being now close-hauled on the starboard tack. There was a strong breeze blowing from the north-east, with a fair amount of sea on, and the day was brilliantly fine, with a rich, clear, crystalline blue sky, dappled here and there with puffs of white trade-cloud sailing solemnly athwart our mastheads; a splendid day for sailing, and we had the whole of it before us.

It soon became apparent that we were gaining upon the brig—weathering and fore-reaching upon her at the same time; and as it was now broad daylight, I sent the men to quarters, hoisted our colours, and fired a shotted gun to windward as an invitation to her to heave-to; but of this she took no notice whatever. By nine o’clock—at which hour I took an observation of the sun for my longitude—we had fore-reached upon the brig sufficiently to bring her a couple of points abaft our weather beam, and then, in accordance with the rule for chasing, we tacked again; whereupon she did the same, thus bringing us right astern and slightly to windward of her. It was now a stern-chase, she being as nearly as possible seven miles ahead of us. The wind held steady, and hour after hour the two craft went plunging along at racing speed, the brigantine gaining steadily all the time, until by one o’clock the chase was within range, and we opened fire upon her with our long eighteen-pounder. Our shot flew close to her on either side,—as we could see by the jets of water thrown up,—but it was fully half an hour before we hit her, which we then did fair in the centre of her stern. She immediately shot into the wind, all aback, and it took them fully five minutes to box her off again, when—seeing, I suppose, that they could not now possibly escape us—her people clewed up her courses, hauled down topgallant sails and staysails, until they had reduced their canvas to what it had been when we first sighted her, hoisted French colours, and bore up for us.

It was at this time that we first made out the upper canvas of another vessel just appearing above the horizon in the northern board, and evidently steering in our direction; and upon sending aloft one of the midshipmen who were acting as my lieutenants, he reported her as a craft of apparently about our own size. The fact that she was headingtowardus led me to the conclusion that she must be either a privateer or a small cruiser like ourselves,—evidently attracted by the sound of our guns,—and as I did not wish for her assistance, if a friend, or the additional anxiety of having to fight her at the same time as the brig, if an enemy, I called the hands aft and made them a brief speech, impressing upon them the importance of settling the brig’s business as promptly as possible, in order that we might be free to give the other stranger our undivided attention, if necessary. They answered with a hearty cheer, and went back to their guns; and a quarter of an hour later the brig rounded-to within biscuit-toss to windward of us, giving us her larboard broadside as she did so.

This was the beginning of a regular set-to, hammer and tongs, between us, the French fighting with the utmost courage and determination, and playing havoc with our rigging, which they cut up so severely that half a dozen of our people were kept busy aloft knotting and splicing. At length, however, when the fight had thus been raging for a full hour, with heavy loss on both sides, tacking suddenly under cover of the smoke of our starboard broadside, we shot across the brig’s stern, raking her with a double-shotted broadside from our larboard guns, which had the effect of bringing both her masts down by the run, rendering her a wreck and unmanageable; and we now felt that she was ours.

But we were reckoning without our host—or rather, without the second stranger, whom we had been altogether too busy to give a thought to. As the smoke of our guns blew away to leeward, and we prepared to tack again preparatory to passing once more athwart the brig’s stern, I got a full and clear view of the stranger, who—approaching us from to windward—had hitherto been hidden from us by the brig and by the smoke of our combined cannonade. She was less than half a mile distant from us, and was at the moment in the very act of taking in her studding-sails. She was a brigantine, and a single glance at her sufficed to assure me that she was theGuerrilla, and that at last the feud between Morillo and myself was to be fought out to the bitter end. I had long ago prepared a red swallow-tailed burgee, such as the pirate had dared me to exhibit, and I immediately gave orders to hoist it at our fore royal masthead. The flag had scarcely reached the truck when I saw ablackflag flutter out over the other brigantine’s rail and go soaring aloft to her gaff-end. Morillo had evidently recognised my challenge, and was prompt to answer it.

Sweeping under the brig’s stern again, at a distance of only a few fathoms, I hailed, asking whether they surrendered; but a pistol-shot, which flew close past my ear, was their only reply, so we gave them our starboard broadside, and then wore round to meet our new antagonist, leaving the brig meanwhile to her own devices.

I am of opinion that Morillo must have had a very shrewd suspicion as to our identity long before the exhibition of our burgee, because of the eager haste with which he bore down upon us. So eager, indeed, was he, that he carried his studding-sails just a minute or twotoolong; a mistake on his part, which enabled us to make a couple of short stretches to windward and secure the weather-gage before he was ready to round-to, although as soon as his people detected our purpose they worked with frantic haste to shorten sail.

The pirates opened the ball by giving us their whole larboard broadside while we were in stays, tacking toward them; but the guns were fired hurriedly, and did us no harm, the shot flying high over us and between our masts, without touching so much as a ropeyarn. Five minutes later we passed close across theGuerrilla’sstern, making a half-board to clear her, and delivered our larboard broadside, with the eighteen-pounder thrown in, every shot taking effect and raking her from end to end. Morillo was standing aft by the taffrail, and as we passed near enough to hear the wash of the water about the pirate vessel’s rudder, he suddenly snatched up a blunderbuss, and, singling me out, fired point-blank at me, one bullet knocking my cap off, while another lodged in my left shoulder, a third killing the man at our wheel, close behind me. TheGuerrillaimmediately ported her helm, while I, springing to our wheel, put it hard a-starboard, thus passing a second time athwart our antagonist’s stern; and again we raked her mercilessly, this time with our starboard broadside. Keeping our wheel hard over, we swept round until we were once more in stays, theGuerrillahaving tacked toward us a minute earlier, with the evident intention of raking us in her turn. We were just a little too quick for her, however, gathering way so smartly that, as we neared each other, it became evident that, unless one or the other of us tacked again, we must inevitably run foul of each other. I had no mind for this sort of thing, however, as we should probably hurt ourselves quite as much as our antagonist; so, holding on until we had only just room to clear theGuerrilla, and singing out for a second shot to be rammed home in the larboard guns, I eased our helm down just at the right moment, ranging up so close to the other brigantine that we almost grazed her side, when we exchanged broadsides at precisely the same instant, with terrible effect on both sides. At the same moment our topsail was thrown aback to deaden our way, and as theGuerrillapassed ahead our helm was put hard up and we paid square off across her stern, firing our starboard broadside into her as we did so. The result this time was absolutely disastrous to the pirates, for the guns were fired at the precise moment when theGuerrilla’sstern was lifted up on the crest of a sea, while we were in the trough beyond; in consequence of which, our shot all struck her a trifle below her normal water-line, producing a very serious leak, which, even under the most favourable circumstances, it would have been exceedingly difficult to stop. But this was not the worst of it; the shot, by a lucky accident, so far as we were concerned, had somehow become concentrated, all of them taking effect upon the pirate’s rudder and stern-post, with the result that the former was shot away, and the latter, as well as two or three hood-ends, so badly started that ere ten minutes had elapsed it became apparent that theGuerrillawas rapidly filling.

Meanwhile, however, we held on across her stern, filling our topsail again, and tacking as soon as we had room; while the pirate brigantine, deprived of her rudder, shot into the wind and got in irons, obstinately refusing to pay off on either tack. This enabled us to sweep across her bows, pouring in our port broadside as we passed, raking her fore and aft, and bringing down her foremast by the run. Holding on for a few minutes, we next wore round—getting her starboard broadside as we passed—and then cut close across her stern again, raking her as before. By this time, however, it had become apparent that she was sinking, so, having once more tacked, we ranged up close athwart her stern, with our topsail aback, when, instead of firing, I hailed to ask if they surrendered.

“No, señor,” replied Morillo himself, who was standing aft close to the now useless wheel, “we willneversurrender! I wrote you a letter—which I hope you received—in which I said that I would fight you until my ship sinks under me; and I mean to do so. I also told you that my feud with you is to the death; so, take that!” and therewith the scoundrel quickly levelled a pistol and, for the second time that day, fired point-blank at me! And there is no doubt whatever that this time he would have slain me—for the pistol was pointed so truly that I actually looked for a moment right into the barrel of it—had it not been for theDiane’shelmsman, whounceremoniously seized me by the arm in the very nick of time and quickly pulled me aside. As it was, the bullet whistled close past my ear. This dastardly act so exasperated our people that forthwith, without waiting for orders, they poured the whole of our port broadside into the devoted craft, completely demolishing her stern, so that for a few seconds, as we drew slowly athwart her wake, we got a full view of her decks, which were cumbered with killed and wounded, and literally streaming with blood. Still, by a miracle, Morillo himself survived this last destructive broadside of ours; for when the smoke blew away I saw him still standing erect and shaking his fist defiantly at us.

It was by this time evident to us all that theGuerrillawas a doomed ship; she was settling fast in the water, and to continue firing upon her would only be a waste of ammunition. We therefore filled our topsail and, a few minutes later, tacked, again getting a broadside from the sinking ship, when we stationed ourselves square athwart her bows—where we were pretty well out of the way of her fire—and, with topsail aback and mainsheet eased off, waited patiently for the final moment, which we saw was rapidly approaching. Yet, even now, Morillo persisted in firing at us with his two bow guns, compelling us to fire upon him in return; and so the useless fight went on, until theGuerrillahad settled so low in the water that the sea welled in over her bows at every plunge of her, rendering it impossible to any longer maintain their fire. Then, with folded hands, we all stood by, watching for the end.

And a very melancholy picture it was upon which we looked. There was the illimitable expanse of ocean all round us, blue as sapphire, heaving in long, regular ridges of swell, and whipped into foam here and there by the scourging of the strong trade wind, with a rich blue sky above, dappled with wisps of trade-cloud, and the sun shining brilliantly down from the midst of them, causing the heaving waters to flash and glitter under his fiery beams, so that the sea that way was too dazzling to look at. And there, right in the centre of the glowing picture, lay the two brigantines—we with our bulwarks torn and splintered to pieces, our sails riddled with shot-holes, our rigging badly cut up, and our decks scored with shot-marks and littered with dead and wounded men; while theGuerrillawas an even more melancholy wreck than ourselves, as she lay heaving and rolling sluggishly, with her covering-boards awash and the sea sweeping her decks from stem to taffrail at every plunge, and the wreck of her foremast towing under her bows. There was not a soul visible on board her. When she first engaged us her decks had appeared to be crowded with men, but now most of them were either killed or wounded, and the few who had escaped seemed to have flung themselves down exhausted, for they had all disappeared. As for the craft herself, it was now only when she rose heavily upon the ridges of the swell that we could see her hull at all; and every plunge that she took into a hollow threatened to be her last. Yet she lingered, as though reluctant to leave the brilliant sunshine and the warm, strong breeze; lingered until I began to wonder whether she would not after all remain afloat, a water-logged wreck; and then, all in a moment, her stern rose high in the air, revealing her shattered rudder and stern-post, and with a long, slow, diving movement, she plunged forward, like a sounding whale, and silently vanished in a little swirl of water. We at once bore up for the spot where she had disappeared,—finding it easily by the torn and splintered fragments of wreckage that came floating up to the surface,—but her crew went down with her, to a man; for although we cruised about the spot for fully half an hour, we never saw even so much as a dead body come to the surface.

And so ended that terror of the seas, theGuerrilla, with her bloodthirsty pirate crew; and with her destruction ended the feud that had been thrust upon me by one of the most fiendish monsters in human form that ever sailed the ocean. It may perhaps seem to the reader a cold-blooded deed on our part to remain passively by and calmly watch the passing of those wretches to their account; but in reality it was an act of mercy, for their end was at least swift; whereas, had we saved any of them, it would only have been that they might terminate their career upon the gallows.

Meanwhile, the brig had dropped some six miles to leeward during the fight, and her crew had made the best of the opportunity by endeavouring to get some jury-spars aloft. The time, however, was too short for that, and when we ran down to them they were still in the thick of their work. But they had now had enough of fighting, for when I again hailed to ask if they surrendered, they at once replied in the affirmative; and in due course we took possession of theNereideof Bordeaux, armed with twelve long nine-pounders, and with a crew originally of eighty-six men, of whom twenty-three were killed and fifty-seven wounded in her fight with us. We spent the remainder of that day in completing the rigging of the jury-masts that her people had begun, and made sail upon both craft just after sunset that same evening, arriving safely in Port Royal harbour some three weeks later.

And now, what remains to be said? The tale of my association with the fate of Morillo the Pirate is told; and all I need add is that when the account of my exploit was told, I received a great deal more credit and praise than I felt I really deserved; while, as for my friend the admiral—well, he was as good as his word, for within twenty-four hours of my arrival with my prize in Port Royal harbour, he handed me, with hearty congratulations and many kind words, the commission that entitled me to mount “t’other swab.”

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