CHAPTER XIX.
“If I do lose thee, I do lose a thingThat none but fools would keep; a breath thou art,Servile to all the skyey influences,That dost this habitation where thou keepestHourly afflict:”Measure for Measure.
“If I do lose thee, I do lose a thingThat none but fools would keep; a breath thou art,Servile to all the skyey influences,That dost this habitation where thou keepestHourly afflict:”Measure for Measure.
“If I do lose thee, I do lose a thingThat none but fools would keep; a breath thou art,Servile to all the skyey influences,That dost this habitation where thou keepestHourly afflict:”Measure for Measure.
“If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep; a breath thou art,
Servile to all the skyey influences,
That dost this habitation where thou keepest
Hourly afflict:”
Measure for Measure.
When the men of the man-of-war pulled on board, after their young officer had been entrapped into the schooner, and reported the occurrence to the commander, notwithstanding the great command which, considering his life and avocation, he had over himself, he flew into a violent passion. The success which had, up to that time, attended the pirates, either in flying from him, or in outwitting him, had already tried his patience to the utmost. To have met an enemy equally armed, to have tried the fortune of a fight with him, and to have been beaten would not, perhaps, have had such a mortifying effect on the mind of the old commander as to have beensubjected to the tantalizing deceptions and mocking cunning of the pirates.
He walked the deck as furiously as his gouty old limbs would carry him, and spoke to himself in a voice that was hoarse with passion.
“First,” said he, “the blackguards waited until I was just about to give the order to fire, and then sprang out of my reach. Then their d—n—d schooner sailed so fast, and this tub of a thing was so slow, that by G—d, by making the masts creak again, I could not force her to move faster; while all the time those d—n—d villains were playing about me, and amusing themselves at my expense: the devil take them. Then the rascals went, and took down their own sails, and rigged themselves up in a brig’s canvass, and passed by me—fool as I was. I showed the blackguards bunting, instead of sending a broad-side into them at once, d—n them; and now, at noon-day, when the sun is high in the heavens, when every man can see fifty miles before him, I have let those rascals come almost alongside, and kidnap one of my officers. D—n them, d—n them.
“I tell you what it is, Charles,” continued the old gentleman, red in the face with rage, “the weight of a feather in my mind would make me hang—by G—d, yes—hang at once that astronomical friend of yours;hang, I say, on one yard-arm, and that d—n—d rascally looking father of his on the other: for it is these fellows, d—n them, that have been the cause of my being insulted and duped by a set of ruffianly cut-throats,” and the old man walked the deck even still more violently than before.
His son, who had listened to this explosion, was too prudent to interrupt it or to reply to it.
He knew his father: he knew that, like the generality of persons of a warm, generous, frank and open disposition, his outbreaks were as furious and unmeaning, while they lasted, as they were short-lived; he, therefore, remained silent, and permitted the fit to exhaust itself.
“Hark you,” continued the commander in a tone that indicated a subsiding of the paroxysm, “let the course of the vessel be changed immediately, and let us go to Trinidad. I shall not be lumbered with rascally pirates, and villainous planters, on board my ship. My vessel was made to fight better foes than these scurvy sea-thieves. Crowd on canvass, crowd on canvass, and let us steer for Trinidad at once, and deliver these foul fellows into the hands of the lawyers. But first, call up that friend of yours: a fine companion for a British officer, Mr. Charles—a very fine companion!”
“You forget, sir,” meekly remarked his son, “that when I knew Appadocca he was not a pirate.”
“Well, well, that will do, let the man be brought before me.”
In a short time Appadocca, under the charge of two marines, was led into the presence of the commander.
Imprisonment and anxiety, if he was still capable of of feeling the latter, seemed to have had no effect upon him. His calmness, his cynicism was the same. Solitude, which to other men is at best but dreary, and is ordinarily but the provocative of reflections which may, perhaps, be embittered by the events and scenes which they recall—solitude which, to Appadocca in particular, one might suppose could have been only an encouragement to musings, which were likely to be attended if not with sorrow, at least with but little happiness, appeared to have had no effect on him. He seemed, if we can use the expression, but to enjoy his own misanthropic seclusion, and as for the circumstance that he was a prisoner, that made no change in him. He looked upon every position with the eye of fatalism, ay, and of that fatalism which does not arise from the obligation of any religious creed, but which is the tasteless fruit of a long series of disappointments and calamities—the fatalism of despondent resignation.
Such a feeling has influenced more than one mortal in his earthly career. Full many a warrior, whose praises are now chimed through an admiring world, has gone forth to achieve wonders, to conquer, and to be great, with such a sentiment rooted in his heart. Full many a conqueror has let loose the eaglet of his ambition, without seeing the rock or prominence on which the still young and strengthless master of the far skies could rest, save, indeed, the shadowy foot-hold that hope could fancy to discover in the sombre workings of inscrutable fate.
Such was the feeling of Emmanuel Appadocca, the pirate captain: such was the strengthening thought which buoyed and supported him in the unnatural career into which cruelty and unkindness had drawn him, and that idea imparted to him equanimity under all adversities, courage and valour in the fight, unscrupulousness in according judgment, boldness in working retribution, and stoicism in imprisonment.
“Tell me, sir,” said the commander, endeavouring to resume as much of his native dignity as his heated blood would permit him; “tell me, sir, in what bay those lawless men—the pirates who follow you—hide themselves, and where I can surprise them. I expect the truth from you, sir, although you may denounce your associates by speaking it.”
The lips of Appadocca curled a little.
“My lord,” he answered, “as long as I was on board my schooner, we sought no other shelter than that which was afforded us by the high and wide seas.”
The commander looked at Appadocca fiercely in the eyes.
“I should be sorry,” he said, “to suspect you of falsehood or prevarication, since you have been the fellow-student of my son: but your answer is vague and unsatisfactory. Do you mean to say that you have no harbour, no creek whither you were accustomed to resort, after your piratical cruizes?”
“None, my lord: after our ‘piratical cruizes,’ as you, I dare say justly, call them, we were in the habit of taking our booty for sale to the nearest port and of depending upon our own skill and watchfulness for safety.”
“Hum!” muttered the commander, after a pause, “you are aware, sir, that one of my officers has been kidnapped by your rascally associates, as I presume them to be,” continued the commander, with his temper evidently breaking through the composed dignity which he endeavoured to retain.
“Now, sir, the punishment that I should feel justified in inflicting upon you, would be to have you hanged, at once, on that yard,” and he pointed to the main yard.
“My lord,” calmly replied Appadocca, “I am in your power, the yard is before you, you have men at your command, do whatever you may choose with me.”
The commander looked at him steadfastly for a moment or two.
“D—n him!” he muttered, and turned away.
The frankness and generosity of his nature were again gaining ground upon his temper.
“I should not like to have anything to do with the death of this fellow, after all. It is a pity that his bravery is thrown away among those rascally devils,” he whispered to his son. Then, addressing the two men who guarded Appadocca, “take the prisoner away. See that canvass be put on the ship, and steer for the Island of Trinidad, Mr. Charles.”
“If you will allow me the liberty, my lord,” said Appadocca, as the marines were about to lead him away, “I would tell your lordship that you need be under no apprehension on account of your officer: we are not in the habit of using violence, or of ill-treating our captives when there is no occasion for doing so.”
“Hum!” groaned the commander somewhat incredulously.
“And, if you allow me, my lord, I shall request my officer to be especially careful of putting any restraintwhatever upon your midshipman,” continued Appadocca.
“What the devil do you mean, sir?” briskly inquired the commander, “do you wish to insult me?”
“By no means, my lord,” answered Appadocca.
“And how do you tell me, then,” continued the commander, “that you will ‘request your officer,’ when there is no officer to be requested?”
“Although there is no officer to be seen, my lord,” answered Appadocca, “still I can request him: all things can be done by a variety of ways, my lord.”
“How am I to understand you, sir?” inquired the commander.
“Simply in this manner,” replied Appadocca, “that if you allow me, I shall communicate with my chief officer, and request him to take care of your officer.”
“And how do you propose to do so,” asked the commander, after a considerable pause.
“Only with four flags,” answered Appadocca.
“What will you do with those?”
“I shall make signals with them.”
“But there is no vessel in sight.”
“No, my lord.”
“How, then, can your signals be of service?” inquired the commander.
“Pardon me, my lord, if I decline to answer thisquestion. The sparrow by caution flies the heavens with the hawk.”
“I should suppose, sir, when you have now no prospect of ‘flying the heavens’ again,” said the commander, “you could have no objection to give us a piece of information, which cannot but be serviceable to us. However, make the signals, sir. Bring four flags there.”
Appadocca took the flags and adjusted them in a particular manner on the line.
“Stop!” cried the commander, when they were about to be hoisted. “What warrant have I that you will not say more than is necessary?” he inquired of Appadocca.
“None, my lord, except my word,” cooly replied Appadocca, “if you consider this of any value, take it, if not, reject it. But recollect, my lord, if I had been inclined to be a deceiver, I should have remained in the society of mankind, and should have prospered by coating over my rascality with the varnish either of mock benevolence or of sanctimony; I should not have openly braved the strength and ordinary notions of the world.”
“Very well, sir, proceed,” said the commander.
“Within a few minutes after the completion of the signals, you will hear the answer—the report of manyguns fired at the same time,” said Appadocca, and made a sign to hoist.
“What is the fellow going to do?” inquired the sailors one of the other.
“He is going to speak to the ‘old boy,’ I suppose,” answered one.
“He won’t do him much good, I fancy,” remarked the other.
“No, he will leave him in the hands of the landsharks, I guess,” said another.
In the mean time, continuing to make the signals, Appadocca adjusted and re-adjusted the four flags in a great variety of ways, and, at last, said to the commander:—
“Now, my lord, listen.”
In a few moments the report of distant guns fell on the ear.
“Magic, by G—d!” each sailor exclaimed.
“How very strange,” the commander remarked.
“Bring up all the glasses, there,” he said, “and send up there Charles, and see where that firing comes from.”
Men immediately climbed the masts, and surveyed the horizon. No telescope of the man-of-war could discover whence came the report of the guns.
After this Appadocca was led back to his cabin, and sails were put on the huge vessel that now began to move majestically through the water.
There is a soft and sweet pleasure in sailing among the West India Islands. He who has not sailed in the Caribean sea, he who has not stood on the deck of his gliding vessel, and felt the cooling freshness of the trade winds, and seen the white winged birds plunge and rise in silent gracefulness, he who has not marked the shining dolphin in its playing course, and seen the transparent foam rise and melt before the scattering breeze, with the blue waters below, a high smiling sky above, and the rich uninterrupted beams of a fierce and powerful sun, gilding the scene, can scarcely say that he knows what nature is. For, he who has not seen the tropics has not seen her as she is in her most perfect form.
The ship held her course through the waters which, reflecting the rays of the sun, undulated like a sheet of molten silver, in which she seemed but the gathered dross floating on its surface. As she moved and broke that shining surface, the waters frothed for a time about her and then closed in smoothness again; while the sea birds playfully gathered in the silvery wake, the weeds which shone, like golden drops, in the pebbly bed of some clear and limped stream.
With nature smiling thus around him, with the silence which brings not gloom surrounding him, with the balmy breeze rising fresh and sweet from the bosom of the waters, fanning him into contemplation, the hardest-natured man must feel if only for a moment, the chastening quietude, which only nature, and he who is mirrored in nature, can impart and bestow.
The bosom in which the snakes of envy or hatred have long nestled and brooded, may feel itself relieved of half its oppression and suffering whilst gazing at nature’s beautiful works, as manifested among the islands of the tropics, and beholding in its embodiment of splendour the omnipotence of the Creator. How many a heart whose life-blood has been frozen under the influence of ingratitude, cruelty, revenge, and pride, or, perhaps, of the sad consciousness of a country’s thankfulness—a country in whose cause youth, energy, wealth, and talents—may all have been spent, has not been soothed into mild quiescence by scenes like these?
There are countries around which the works of man have thrown a veil of enchantment; there are climes that are sacred, because some Heaven-born poet sang there; there are spots about which the memory of mankind has clung, and will for ever cling: such countries and such places are made famous, great andenchanting by man alone. Their beauties sprang from his hand. The idea which plants on them the ever-enduring standard of veneration arose from his valour, his heroism, or perhaps his benevolence, but whatever charm or interest the tropics possess they derive from nature, and from nature only.
For three days together, the ship continued her course, amidst the horse-shoe formed islands of the West-Indian Archipelago, which, at a distance at sea, appear merely like heavy clouds where nothing is real, nothing is animated, resting on the surface of the waters.
On the morning of the fourth, the towering mountain-peaks of Trinidad which inspired in the devout Columbus, the name which the island now bears, appeared in sight.
Gradually the bold and rocky coast which girds the island on the north, grew more and more distinct and as the day waned, the ship entered the channel that separates the small island of Tobago from Trinidad, and bears the name of the latter.
The old commander, with necessary caution, ordered the greater part of the sails to be taken in; the vessel moved along slowly, and was borne down principally by the strength of the current.
The commander stood on the quarter-deck admiring the romantic scenery which presented itself on the left to his view. There the overhanging rocks rose perpendicularly from the heaving ocean, whose long lasting and lashing billows broke on their rugged base, and shrouded them in one constant sheet of white bubbling foam, and as they towered and seemed to lose themselves in the clouds, they bore on their hoary heads forests of gigantic trees, whose many colored blossoms appeared far out at sea; while down their furrowed sides torrents of the purest water fell foaming in angry precipitance. Here some cave hollowed by no hand of man—the home of the untiring pelicans that ply the wing the live-long day, would send forth its hollow murmurs, as it regurgitated some heaving rolling wave that had intrusively swept into its inmost recess. There some rock from whose side time had torn away its fellows, stood naked and bare, sullen in its solitude, and resisting the powerless waves that dashed themselves into a thousand far-flying sprays upon its jagged front; and here again some secluded creek, eaten deeply into the heart of the frowning highlands, in which the waters lay smooth and quiet, like tired soldiers after the toil and strife of battle.
Such scenes might well make an impression on thosewho looked on; and even the rough weather-beaten sailors, to whose eyes nature may have long grown familiar, stood leaning on spar or anchor viewing the awe-inspiring scene.
Among those on deck stood also James Willmington: and what were his feelings, he whose memory had been so recently recalled to deeds which could not render him an easier-minded man, if they had not had the effect of making him a better one? Nature is itself an accuser! To the bosom where all is not right, she speaks in terror. The trembling of a leaf, the sudden flight of a startled insect, the gliding of a lizard appals the guilty conscience. Could the man on whose head the crime of huge injustice pressed heavily—the man whose cruelty had blasted the life which he gave, and who was at that moment conducting to the gallows, the child whom he had begotten—could such a man mingle the stirred sentiments of his soul with the sublime grandeur of nature, and send them forth with the voice of the mighty proclaimer, in mute veneration to the throne of God. No! nature is not cruel, nature deserts not its humblest offspring, she, therefore, could receive no sympathy from the heart of such a man.
Let us now go to the cabin of Appadocca. He was sitting on the rude accommodation which had beenafforded him, with his arms crossed over his breast, and his earnest eyes fixed on the mountains of Paria, which he could see on the right, through the port-hole that admitted air and light into his cabin, and which had now been opened, inasmuch as it was considered a matter of impossibility for him to escape, while the ship was under sail on the high seas.
He was absorbed in deep thought; and he watched the neighbouring mountains with more and more earnestness, as they rose higher and higher to the view, on the gradual approach of the vessel. Twilight came, and threw its mellow hue around. It soon departed, and the scene, which was but a short time before enlivened by the powerful sun, was left in gloomy silence.
As the ship approached the little islands of the Bocas, nothing could be heard but the roars of the lashing surges, as they broke at regular intervals on the rocks.
Night came, dark and dreary. The ship approached the largest of the three small outlets. Every one on board was fixed in silent attention to his duty. The senior officer stood at the shrouds, trumpet in hand, with the aged commander by his side. Every man was at his post, awaiting in anxiety the command to trim sails, in order to enter the difficult passage.
That was always a moment of anxiety in every vesselgoing through it; for such was its narrowness, and the strength of the current that swept down the channel along the Venezuelan coast, that if a ship once went but a yard further down than where she ought to trim her sails, and luff up through the passage, it became a labour of many weeks to beat up against the wind and current to the proper place.
The critical moment came; the ship was within the Dragon’s Mouth; she trembled as if she had been lashed by the tail of some sea-monster, ten times larger than herself, as she mounted the cross chopping seas, which always run high and heavy at that entrance to the Gulf of Paria.
“Lee braces all,” the commanding officer trumpeted forth.
“Luff.”
The ropes glided through a thousand pullies, and the heavy chains of the tacks clanked through their iron blocks as they were eased away. The sailors moved in disciplined order from rope to rope, and the deck sounded with their rolling foot-falls. The serious marine intermitted his monotonous and limited march for a moment, and leaned in a corner to give room to the busy mariners.
Appadocca had continued to sit in the same position as we have mentioned a few lines back, from the fadingof the short twilight up to that time, which was now near midnight.
Although he could not see, nevertheless he seemed during the whole time to use his ears for the same earnest purpose as he had done his eyes; and as soon as he felt the heaving labours of the vessel, and heard the noise that was made by the falling of the blocks on the deck, he sprang from his seat like a young horse when it is goaded.
“Ha! this is the time at last,” he exclaimed, in a subdued tone, and springing towards the port-hole with one effort of impulsive strength, he tore down its framework: next, he grasped the stool on which he had sat.
“Confusion,” he cried, “it will not yield:” the stool was tied to a ring on the deck.
When Appadocca discovered this, he seemed slightly alarmed: he stood for a moment thinking how he could unfasten the stool. To undo it with his hands was a labour of hours, and he had nothing with which he could cut it. His eyes quickly surveyed the cabin; he rushed towards a basin which had been allowed him, he placed it on the deck, and jumped upon it. With the pieces of the brittle ware, he began to saw at the lashing of the stool.
It was a tedious labour, one which required an unconquerable perseverance to overcome.
Full ten minutes—minutes that on such occasions are more precious than years—had expired, and he had made scarcely any progress. As he sawed through one fold of twine, another appeared, but still he persevered, and blunted every piece of the broken basin in succession.
The stout heart and persevering hand will conquer immensities of obstacles.
At last, at last, the folds were sawed through. Appadocca seized the stool with both hands.
“Now for life again, and the accomplishment of my design,” he said, and endeavoured to pitch it through the hole, but ill-fortune stepped in again to baulk him. The stool was too large to pass through the opening, he tried it various ways, but with no success.
“Destiny,” he calmly muttered, as he put it down with the fortitude of a Diogenes.
He cast his eyes around him; there was a large Spanish pitcher of clay, such as are used in the tropics, in which water was brought to him: a drowning man, they say, will grasp at a straw: he laid hold of it, he tried it, it passed the opening.
“Now, farewell, good ship,” he said, and leaned over the side of the vessel. He allowed the pitcher to fallquietly into the water, and he himself, plunged after it into the unfathomable waste.
“A man overboard!” some one cried on deck.
“No, no:” said another, “it’s only the slack of the main-brace.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Quite sure.”
“All right.”