CHAPTER XVI.
“O conspiracy!Shamest thou to show thy dangerous brow by nightWhen evils are most free?”Julius Cæsar.
“O conspiracy!Shamest thou to show thy dangerous brow by nightWhen evils are most free?”Julius Cæsar.
“O conspiracy!Shamest thou to show thy dangerous brow by nightWhen evils are most free?”Julius Cæsar.
“O conspiracy!
Shamest thou to show thy dangerous brow by night
When evils are most free?”
Julius Cæsar.
The small cutter that was carrying Agnes and the other captives held her course towards the land.
It could not but occur to the priest and to his ward, unaccustomed as they were to encounter dangers, that their position was one which was in itself highly, if not imminently perilous. There they were, thrown in an open vessel on the ocean, and sent on a voyage which was to consist of three days’ or more beating up againstthe wind and the waves, while their little vessel was every moment subjected to the accidents of a very tedious and difficult navigation.
These thoughts were the more forcibly thrust upon the priest, when after the lapse of a day, and on the approach of night, it was to be perceived that no progress towards the land had been made. The little cutter had tossed about on the high billows, had tacked and re-tacked, still at the close of the day she was not much nearer the end of her voyage than when she was thrown off by the schooner. Under the influence of these thoughts, the priest lost much of his cheerful equanimity. He looked concerned, and his conversation did not flow so freely as it was wont to do. Perhaps this was a happy accident for Agnes; for that young lady, apparently disinclined to speak or to listen, still leaned over the side of the cutter, and, from time to time, cast a side-long look at the schooner that was sailing away in another direction.
The first night of the voyage came, and augmented still more the alarm of the priest. He felt his isolation among the other men whose pursuits and habits were different from his, and now freely allowed his mind to conjure up fears of assassination and robbery. To add to his suspicions, the sailors of the captured ship seemedto herd closely together, and to sympathise but little with their fellow passengers. The master fisherman, true to his promise, paid the greatest attention both to the sailing of his little vessel, and to the safety and comparative comfort of those who had been placed under his especial care.
When the sun, that true and never disordered timekeeper of the tropics, had on the next morning illumined the ocean, the first thought and first action of Agnes, was to cast her eyes around and survey the horizon. Nothing was to be seen; the Black Schooner had disappeared. Scarcely believing her eyes, she looked and looked again; it was as the eyes made it out, and not as the wish would have it; there was no vessel to be seen. Dejected, wretched, sad, and disappointed, she suspended her further survey, and began again to contemplate the blue waters that was rushing pass the jumping cutter. A sad feeling was that of Agnes, the feeling which arises when we lose the last memento of some dear and cherished creature: the memento which, in the absence of the object that it recalls to our memory, receives, perhaps, the same amount of worship as the being itself which it represents. Whatever be the nature of such a token, it is all the same: a golden toy, a lock of hair, a favourite pin, a prayer-book, these areamply sufficient to strike up within us the active feelings of grief-clothed happiness, and to awake anew the recollections of periods whose real and unbroken felicity never permitted us to contemplate or fear a change. To lose one of these imaging toys, is the breaking away of the last link that binds us, in one way at least, to the objects which they symbolize. On such sad occasions the heart is stricken with a prophetic fear, which like the canker-worm ever afterwards eats deeply, and more deeply into our spirits, until there is nothing more to eat away.
Agnes felt this when she could no longer see the Black Schooner. As long as she could gaze on the vessel, there was still a little consolation, or, perhaps her grief was still subdued, but when that vessel disappeared from her view, it reached its height and preyed upon her without mitigation. Who has not stood on the sea-washed strand and watched the careering ship that was bearing away father, lover, or child, and felt his tears restrained as long as a waving handkerchief could convey the ardour of a last “farewell,” but who, a few moments after, experienced the bitter misery that followed, when the ship had disappeared from the view, when an unsympathising horizon had veiled in silence and in obscurity his lost and lonely friends, and hisdamp spirits were left free to recoil upon themselves? What person is there, who in the hey-day of existence, at the age when the heart is fresh, and the spirits are high, when necessity intervened to drive him away from among friends and relatives, has not felt the pang of separation more and more as every familiar object was, one by one, left behind, and gradually disappeared from his view.
“Agnes, you are sad,” said the priest, who notwithstanding his own anxiety, and disquiet of mind, could not but mark the unsettled and unhappy state of his ward.
“Not very, sir,” the young lady replied, “though our present condition is not the most pleasant.”
“Truly not,” answered the priest, “still we must hope that we shall soon arrive on land. Recollect, that, although we are not now very comfortable, we are still on a voyage towards home, and that thought ought to support us under greater inconveniences than the present.”
“Yes,” replied Agnes, “we are returning home, and that is a comfort.... How beautiful this water is,” she continued, falling naturally into that romantic train which was necessarily called forth by the present state of her sentiments, “how remarkably beautiful are thoseblue waters, and how pure and transparent is that thin foam which now fringes yon crystal wave!”
“All the works of the Creator are beautiful, my child,” answered the priest.
“Yes,” continued Agnes, “and the ocean is so still and quiet: who could ever imagine that it contained so many terrible monsters.”
“True;” remarked the priest, “surfaces, my child, are, alas! too frequently deceptive. For instance, take the appearance of the ocean this beautiful and blessed morning; it looks as pure and unspotted as when the sun first dawned upon it on the fourth day of creation; still, how many murderous deeds have there not been done upon it since that time, and over how many wrecks of human fabrics has it not rolled? If we could penetrate its depth, and see its bed, we should probably behold the skeletons of the fierce Caraibs that first inhabited this part of the world, and their rude instruments of war, blended confusedly together with the bones and elaborate weapons of their more polished conquerors; while the large fishes that still hold possession of their medium of existence, now peer with meaningless eyes into the naked skulls, or rummage for their food the rotting wrecks of the bristling war-vessels that once rode these seas.”
Agnes felt thankful for this long and solemn observation, which gave her time to think on one of the vessels that had not as yet become a wreck beneath the ocean.
After a pause, the priest continued:
“This basin over which we are now sailing, my dear Agnes, may have once been high and dry land, and the islands which are scattered about in this horse-shoe fashion, may have been—.”
“Stop, sare,” interrupted the master fisherman, who the reader may recollect was constituted the captain and proprietor of the cutter when it was dispatched from the schooner, and who was now sitting between Agnes and the priest, steering the boat, “stop, sare,” he said, endeavouring to make himself understood in English, “me wees hear something they say there,” and he made an almost imperceptible sign towards the bows of the cutter, where the sailors of the captured ship were sitting together, and speaking among themselves in a sort of half whisper. The master fisherman’s attention had been attracted towards them by a few words which he had overheard, and being suspicious lest they should presume upon their numerical strength, and make an attempt to take possession of the cutter, he was anxious to make himself acquainted with their plans in order to anticipate them.
“We will never get ashore at this rate, Bill,” said one sailor to another.
“I’ll be d—n—d, if we will,” answered the other, “what the devil does that d—n—d jack Spaniole know about steering a boat.”
“Don’t speak so loud,” whispered another.
“He don’t understand English, and I don’t care if he did,” answered the other.
“Yes, I think it is a devilish hard case,” joined in another, “that we should be obliged to sit here and let that fellow, who don’t know a jib from a paddle-box, steer the boat.”
“What do you say if we take the management, my hearties?” inquired a lean, long-featured individual.
“Hum,” groaned one.
“Suppose we do?” inquired another.
They whispered still lower among themselves for a moment.
“I say, you sir—you sir, keep her off, will you, don’t you see the wind is right a-head?” shouted one to the master fisherman, in a tone of derision.
“Keep her head up, Mr. Spaniole, d’ye hear? don’t you see the wind is turning her round?” cried another.
These insults seemed lost on the master fisherman, for he took them with marvellous fortitude.
“My good men,” said the priest, “forbear: consider where we are, and under what circumstances we are placed; pray, do no not endeavour to cause any quarrel.”
“Mind your own business, parson, will you?” shouted a bolder sailor than the others, “it is you who already prevents us going any faster; so, if you don’t wish to be sent to Davy Jones, hold your tongue.”
The priest became now quite alarmed:
“Do not answer them,” he whispered to the fisherman.
“Hollo! there; ready about,” continued one of the sailors, apparently bent on provoking a quarrel, “ready about,” and he proceeded to let go the jib-sheet.
The master fisherman now quickly stood up, with the marks of anger already becoming visible in his eyes.
“Stop, or me kill you,” he cried, while he levelled one of the pistols, with which he was armed, at the audacious sailor.
“Kill him, will you,” simultaneously shouted two of the sailors, and rushed together towards the stern of the cutter, “kill him, will you, you cut-throat Spaniard?”
The master fisherman stood firm where he was. He now held both of the pistols, which Appadocca had given him, and raising them to a small distance before him, awaited the two men.
Undeterred by the weapons, they rushed on.
“Stop for your life!” cried the master fisherman, highly excited.
“Be reasonable men,” cried the priest, as he also stood up to defend himself.
The men came on;—flash,—a report—and the bullet pierced the foremost one. He fell into the bottom of the cutter, and rolled over the master fisherman’s other man, who had been wrapped in sleep in that part from the very moment that he had got into the cutter.
“Hon!” he groaned and awoke, as the sailor that was shot rolled heavily upon him, when, seeing the blood, he jumped up.
The shrieks of Agnes, the fierce and deep Spanish oaths of the master fisherman at once told him how matters stood. He grasped the first of the sailors that came within his reach, and wrestled with him. Both fell into the bottom of the cutter, and rolled about on the ballast.
The quarrel had now assumed a serious aspect; furious at the death of their comrade, the other sailors rushed to the stern of the cutter. The master fisherman discharged the other pistol: it told, another sailor fell. But the shot was no sooner fired, than one of the two other sailors, closed with the master fisherman. Theywrestled: each pressed successively his adversary on the side of the cutter, endeavouring to throw him overboard; but they were well matched: their strength was equal: now, the master fisherman was down, and seemed to be about to be thrown overboard; now he had the sailor down in the same position. Both fought with desperation, and clung with the pertinacity of iron to the side of the vessel. The cutter, having no one to steer it, had flown into the wind, its sails were flapping, and its boom was swinging violently, from one side to the other. The master fisherman was now down; over, over, the sailor was gradually pressing him; his grasp began to relax: he was bending farther towards the water; the sailor raised himself a little, so that he might have a better purchase to strike the final blow: as he did so, the boom swung violently, and struck him on the temple, with a great splash, he fell a yard or two into the water. The master fisherman quickly rose, and went to the assistance of the priest, who had met the attack of the remaining sailor, and was now holding him down in the bottom of the cutter. The master fisherman clutched a stone, and in his passion, was going to dash out the brains of the prostrate sailor.
“Hold!” cried the priest, “no more violence: bring a rope, and let us tie him.”
The master fisherman drew back his arm, and let fall the stone. Even in his fury he felt the force of his natural veneration. He brought a rope, and tied the sailor down.
“Do the same to the other,” said the priest, now almost exhausted by his effort, “tie him too.”
The remaining sailor, who was still languidly rolling at the bottom of the cutter, with the fisherman, was next pinioned.
“See now to the wounded,” said the priest, who now, when his first terror was over, displayed great presence of mind.
The two men who had been shot were examined. They still breathed, although their wounds were very serious.
The attention of the priest was now turned towards Agnes, who sat almost petrified with fear in the place where she was.
“Thank God, this danger is also past,” said the priest to her, “I must be guilty of some grievous sin, indeed,” continued the good father, “to have thus drawn down upon us the chastisement of Providence. Twice have we passed through bloodshed and death, and who knows what new perils we may still have to encounter before we reach Trinidad.”
“Yes: and when shall we reach it? It looks as if we were never to get back,” and Agnes was overwhelmed by a multiplicity of different feelings.
“Let me see,” said the priest, “I think it would be easier to proceed straight towards it, than to be beating about on these seas.”
“Have you any object to go to Granada in preference to any other place?” he inquired of the master fisherman, who had now adjusted the sails of the cutter, and resumed the tiller.
“No, he had not,” was the reply: “he was endeavouring to make that island because it was the nearest land indicated to him by the pirate captain.”
“Would it not be easier to sail at once to Trinidad?” again asked the priest.
“Most decidedly,” was the answer; “the distance was greater, it was true,” added the master fisherman, but that was overbalanced by the fairness of the wind, because they would then be able to sail with a free sheet and should gain Trinidad within an infinitely shorter space of time than it would take to make Granada, by beating up against the wind from the position in which they then were.
“Then let us steer to Trinidad,” said the priest.
“Very well,” replied the master fisherman.
The cutter was kept off, the sheets and tacks were slackened, and the little vessel, now feeling the full force of the wind began to tear through the water.
Away, away, it went. During day and during night the master fisherman sat gravely at the tiller; neither fatigue nor want of sleep could induce him to entrust for a moment the command of the little vessel to his man; “He had taken an oath,” he said to the priest, when he requested him to take some rest.
It was on a beautiful morning when the priest and Agnes, on awaking from their uncomfortable slumbers, beheld themselves within the Gulf of Paria.
They looked with highly-pleased astonishment at the master fisherman, who wearied and worn, still sat at the rudder. He returned the glance with the same visible contentment and pleasure.
“We are indebted to you, my good fisherman, for your incomparable conduct towards us. We shall scarcely be ever able to show you sufficient gratitude,” he said.
“Not at all: we must deal well towards those who conduct themselves in a proper manner to us,” said the fisherman, in the best manner he could; “now I am at home again; I am on my own gulf,—where do you wish to be landed, sir?”
“Land us wherever you please: we will be always able to make our way to Cedros,” answered the priest.
“To Cedros? I shall take you there at once,” answered the master fisherman, and then turned the cutter’s head to that part of the island.
“Agnes,” whispered the priest, “I have always found much that is to be admired in the humbler classes; they require but proper treatment, as all other men do.”
“This seems to be a very worthy man,” replied Agnes, more in respect to the priest than from any desire to converse, for Agnes had ceased to be over communicative since the capture of the vessel in which she had been a passenger.
The sugar-cane fields arose more conspicuous and beautiful to the view as the vessel drew nearer and nearer to the land; and within a few hours Agnes arrived on the plantation and was locked in the affectionate embrace of her aged father.