Next day, the garrison at Needham's Point; the white-tented camp upon the flat green shore; the stately fleet in the bay; and all the harbour of Bridgetown, the mole and the carenage, presented a scene of unwonted bustle, while a thousand boats were dashing to and fro, with their broad-bladed oars flashing in the sunshine; many had the scarlet ensign flaunting at the stern. Amid them were launches and piraguas manned by negro slaves, conveying stores, ammunition, orders, provisions, and all the requisite material for the arduous service on which we were so soon to depart.
Various duties detained me at head-quarters until the heat of noon was past, when I hastened to pay a visit to Eulalie—a visit which I felt painfully conscious would be my last, as the Fusiliers would be one of the first corps probably to embark.
The conviction that in France, or in its colonies, I could not have had such free meetings with Eulalie, lent our friendship an additional charm.
"Courtship and marriage in France," says a recent writer, truly, "are surrounded by so many forms, that it may be doubted whether the original legislators did not consider them a sort ofcrime, and it may also be doubted whether the difficulties with which they are surrounded have not had their expressive social consequences."
My acquaintance with Eulalie savoured of the romantic, and I dearly loved all that had the air of adventure, such being more valuable to me then, than all the gold of Australia—"Ormuz and Inde" are out of fashion now. The piquancy of her foreign manner, the luxuriance of the country, the softness of the climate, and the novelty of our situations, predisposed us to regard each other with a tender interest, which was strengthened by her horror of her deceiver, Rouvigny.
I had such an undefined dread of the priest who accosted me, yesterday, that on hastening down the tall "cabbage walk" towards the villa, when I saw its white walls and green blinds, its verandah covered by lemon-water flowers, and Provence roses, all in their usual state of repose, and no sign of alarm or dismay about the place, I experienced a relief at heart, and gaily knocked at the door. A few minutes after found me by the side of my charming French friend, who was as gay and smiling,—as full of alternate sentimentalism andespiéglerieas ever, until I crushed her vivacity by announcing our speedy departure.
"For Martinique?" she exclaimed.
"Yes; and for St. Lucia, Guadaloupe, and all the Leeward Isles in succession."
"Alas! what dangers are before you,—war and fever by sea and land; we shall never meet more, M. Oliver! Our term or little time of joy is past!" she exclaimed, with clasped hands.
I then inquired about the priest,—the bearer of tidings from St. Pierre. She seemed astonished, and declared that no such person had been at Boscobelle.
"Strange," said I, and then related the two occasions on which I had seen him; first, in the mangrove creek, and secondly on the highway where we had conversed near the fallen palm-tree.
"Grand Dieu!this is most singular," exclaimed Eulalie, her large dark eyes dilating with wonder; "do me the favour to describe his appearance."
In as few words as possible I did so; and while she listened she grew very pale; her eyes filled with an expression of terror, and she exclaimed, with a piercing accent,—
"'Tis Thibaud de Rouvigny you have met!"
"Rouvigny—impossible!"
"Nothing wicked or adventurous is impossible to this man," she answered mournfully.
"He here——"
"And disguised, too."
"What can his mission be?"
"To spy upon your forces,—perhaps to compass my life."
"Eulalie, dear Eulalie! hedidask many questions concerning you."
"Oh, Heavens! then I am lost! Oliver, do not leave me at this crisis."
"He dare not approach you, while under the protection of the British flag."
"There it is—mon Dieu!that is my crime. Envious, malignant, subtle, and vindictive, Heaven and his own heart can only tell his present object; but be assured he has not lost sight of me. Alas! you know him not, as I so fatally know him; and thus, you cannot conceive the deep-laid plans and carefully-developed cruelty of which he is capable. Rouvigny here—even here! Then again I am a prey to terror, to mistrust, and to misery. Butyou, Oliver—you will not,mustnot leave me," she added, clinging to me in undisguised fear and desperate hope.
I gazed upon her beautiful face, her upturned and soft beseeching eyes, and the orders of the general seemed to be written in letters of fire before me. I could only press her to my breast and remain silent.
"You mentioned a negro being in the boat with him?" said she.
"A negro, whom he named Benoit."
"Benoit le Noir?"
"Yes, Eulalie."
"My father's old slave, who tended me in prison and assisted me to escape from St. Pierre, and who afterwards became the property of Rouvigny. A fresh corroboration that this pretended priest is my tormentor."
"Had I but known this yesterday, the rope of the provost marshal's guard would have made short work with the spy."
"Ah!Mère de Dieu! Do not talk so; for this man's life is indissolubly connected with mine."
"Some friendly ball, at present lying quietly in an ammunition-cask, may break the spell, Eulalie."
She covered her face with her tremulous white hands, and sobbed heavily.
I shall not occupy time in relating how unavailing, by the pressure of necessity, were the tears and entreaties of Eulalie, that I should remain for her protection, or how graceful were the prayers she put up for my safety, when she found that I must leave her; and how charming were the whispered promises, that whatever fate had in store for her, she would write to me often—oh, very often, and remember me for ever; that she would keep a little journal of all her lonely thoughts, and on each anniversary of her patroness, St. Ursule, she would say a novena, or nine-days prayer, for me and my prosperity. Poor Eulalie!
Her earnest words, her musical accents, her tender expression, and the chaste features of her pale, sad face, sank deeply into my memory, as I kissed her on the lips and eyes; and we parted, both in tears, for I was still but a boy.
Years have passed since then, and many more may pass, but I never shall forget the hours of delight that I spent with the unfortunate Eulalie.
I hurried from the villa, and almost ran towards the town; but as the distance increased between us, my steps became slower, and, from every little eminence, I gazed regretfully back to the lofty cabbage-palms and the orange-groves of Boscobelle, all darkening now, and deepening in the rapid twilight of a tropical evening in March. The white walls of the villa had disappeared amid the sombre foliage; but I knew thatshewas there, where I might never be again.
At last I reached the fallen palm by the way-side, where, yesterday, the priest, or the disguised Rouvigny, had met me, and there again I turned to take a farewell glance.
Boscobelle and its groves were alike lost in darkness now; but soon my heart throbbed with a new anxiety, on beholding the glow of a conflagration, tinting all the calm sky with red and orange-coloured flame, and throwing forward in black and strong outlines several intervening objects, and this alarming light seemed to rise from Boscobelle! I gazed on it, wavering, irresolute, and almost trembling with anxiety. My limbs faltered, and I nearly made a retrograde movement, when the deep boom of a heavy gun, whether from the garrison or the fleet I know not, pealed through the echoing sky, and died in distance far away, recalling me to a sense of duty; and I hastened to Needham's Point, where we spent our last night in Barbadoes, as an express order had come for the troops to embark on the morrow.
The sun was yet far below the horizon of a sea that, like the sky above it, presented a purity of blue, which still, on each successive morning, excited the wonder of the European, when, by beaten drum and the ringing Kentish bugle in camp and fort, and all along the echoing shore, the various corps of Sir Charles Grey's army were roused from slumber, and summoned to their colours; while, on a gun being fired from the ship of Admiral Jervis, all the boats of the fleet shot off simultaneously, to convey them on board.
I have already mentioned that theAdderfrigate lay nearest to the shore in the leeward line; thus we, the Fusiliers, were on the extreme left flank, when drawn up on the beach for embarkation.
Already our restless fellows had forgotten their long sea-voyage; already they were tired of garrison routine, and longed to be at the enemy. After three hearty cheers, we departed from the fort to the beach in heavy marching order, with our band playing and colours cased; and forming close column, halted; then, by successive companies, we were embarked in the boats of theAdder.
Fifteen thousand men were there under arms—their bayonets flashing in the sun. A few years after, and what had war and pestilence left of all that glittering host? Hecatombs of rotten bones, when the roll of their "spirit-stirring drums" was lost in the silence of their graves by sea and shore; for Rochambeau and Rouvigny, who commanded in Martinique, and Ricard in St. Lucia, with Victor Hughes in Guadaloupe, were all skilful and resolute officers, who promised to give us pretty hot work before we could add these isles to the empire of the Queen of the Sea.
Glendonwyn's company was in rear of our columns, and from its other supernumeraries I stood somewhat apart, and full of my own sad reflections, gazing abstractedly on the exciting scene, the brilliance of which surpassed all I had conceived, as the cloudless sun arose in all his glory from the West-Indian sea; while each long and sharp-prowed boat, crowded with red-coats, its flashing oars moving with the regularity of some vast and many-footed monster, cleft the clear water of the bay. The brass bands were all playing, and cheers were ringing incessantly along the sunny shore, and on board the armed fleet. The scene was, indeed, most glorious and inspiriting; but I thought only of the sad young Frenchwoman, of the sorrowful story she had told me of her hopeless future, and the hours of delight we could never spend together again.
Under Captain Macdonald, of Kinlochmoidart, our first company had already embarked, and the column was closing up, when an aiguiletted officer, who wore a brilliant staff uniform, and whom I knew to be Lieutenant Harry Smith, of the Scots Royals, and aide-de-camp to Sir Charles Grey, rode hurriedly up to the Earl of Kildonan.
"My lord," I heard him say, "I have a message to you from the general."
"An invitation to a Barbadian breakfast, eh?" replied our colonel laughing, as he patted the curving neck of his beautiful black horse; "champagne, coffee, ham, and guaya jelly; pine-apples, citron, and limes."
"Nothing half so pleasant," said the handsome young aide smiling; "but we require twenty rank and file of your Fusiliers for immediate duty."
"At the moment of embarkation! an odd request."
"We want them without delay, by desire of his excellency the governor."
"You will have the goodness to explain."
"Nearly the whole garrison are employed at the boats or on fatigue parties to day, and he requires one officer and twenty Fusiliers for a few hours. They will be back ere the last company is embarked."
"And this duty?"
"An outrage of a dreadful nature was committed last night, a few miles from Bridgetown."
"Where?" asked the earl.
"At a villa named Boscobelle."
My heart died within me at these terrible words; but restrained by etiquette and by that force of habit which discipline impels, I dared not speak; but thememoryof the shock these words gave me still vibrates in my heart.
"Indeed!" exclaimed the earl.
"Madame de Rouvigny," continued the aide-de-camp, in the most easy and conversational way, "a French emigrant lady—and, by the bye, a devilish pretty woman—has been carried off in the night——"
"Carried off!"
"Or murdered; we know not which, as her body cannot be found, and her residence has been burned to its foundation."
I leave the reader to imagine how these dreadful tidings chilled my heart.
"Murdered—carried off—a lady!" reiterated the earl.
"Yes—deuced unpleasant affair," yawned the staff officer, of whom I have more to relate elsewhere.
"By whom?"
"Runaway negroes—Caribs in their piraguas—perhaps by pirates, or French privateersmen;—by whom we know not; but as it is thought they may still be lurking in the cane-fields or thickets, some twenty rank and file of yours—all active fellows—are wanted to scour the bush thereabout. Please to detail them at once, my lord; they will not be long detained."
"Instantly," exclaimed the earl, wheeling round his horse.
"I know this place called Boscobelle, my lord—permit me to go?" I asked breathlessly.
"Certainly, Ellis; you're a smart lad," said the earl; "and I like to find a soldier always ready."
How little could our colonel fathom the cause of my readiness and anxiety—my burning impatience to be gone!
Old Glendonwyn gave Lieutenant Haystone the right section of our company; we threw off our knapsacks, haversacks, canteens, blankets, and all that might impede us. I relinquished my sergeant's pike for a musket. We loaded with ball-cartridge, and thus, under my guidance, twenty of the Fusiliers went off, double-quick, towards that place so well known to me, the residence of Eulalie.
The fleetest railway speed would have seemed slow to me as we hastened towards the scene of last night's outrage. It was soon reached, and as we hurried down the avenue of cabbage-trees we became sensible that the odour of burned wood, canes, and bamboo, predominated over all the fragrance of the herbs and flowers with which the morning air was laden. An exclamation of mingled rage and sorrow escaped me on beholding the site of the once pretty cottage or villa.
The verandah and porch, the wooden columns and cane trellis-work of which had been covered by luxuriant masses of lemon-water flowers and the ever blooming roses of Provence, had all disappeared; so had the white wooden walls and broad, green Venetian blinds. A few blackened stumps that stood among heaps of mouldering cinders were all that remained of the home of poor Eulalie.
And where was she?
The garden and avenue were strewn by broken pictures, music, volumes of Marivaux, Racine, Molière and Madame de Genlis, thrown out by the negro servants, a few of whom sat near the smoking ruin, crouching on their hams, and regarding us with such fear and doubt that some time elapsed before we could get any explanation from them.
At last Lieutenant Haystone contrived to glean from Quashi the Coromantee, who seemed less terrified than the rest, that they had been startled at nightfall by the shriek of a woman and the crashing of glass. On this they all trembled very much, believing it the white devil of the buccra men, who always comes when there is thunder, and the heavy wind that bends and uproots the big palms; but, gathering courage, after a time they hastened to the room of their mistress. It was empty! her bed was in disorder—the furniture overthrown—a Venetian window dashed to pieces, and portions of her night-dress adhering to the fragments evinced that she had been roughly dragged through it, and across the garden, footsteps being discernible on the trampled flower-beds. These led them towards the avenue, from searching which the sable domestics were recalled by an alarm of fire, and on returning found the whole villa in flames. It burned rapidly. Quashi could tell us no more—an Obeah nigger might, but there was no Obeah at Boscobelle just now.
Previous to our arrival, I related to Haystone and my comrades some of the circumstances connected with my visits to the villa, dwelling particularly on my two meetings with the supposed priest.
"You should have reported all this to head-quarters," said Haystone, "then perhaps this outrage might have been prevented."
"True," said I sadly; "I know not what impulse led me to conceal circumstances so full of suspicion; but 'tis useless to reproach me now."
"Our orders are to search the woods and sugar-plantations; you will extend from the right, and separate by files. The fallen palm on the high road shall be our point of rendezvous in half an hour hence. Make prisoner every suspicious-looking person——"
"But," said one of the fusiliers, "in case of resistance?"
"Give them a prick with your bayonet—we have no time to lose here. Away, then."
We separated by twos, and while some dived at once into the long green masses of waving sugar-canes, others into palm, orange, or chestnut-groves, I, with the assistance of my Coromantee friend, endeavoured to trace further the footsteps he had detected on the flower-beds; but, alas! all vestiges of them disappeared on the gravel of the avenue. We searched long without discovering any other clue. My soul was heavy, and my heart sick to death. I heard my comrades shouting and laughing as they met each other at intervals in the bush, and envied their heedless fun as they pelted with stones or fallen nuts the chattering monkeys which sprang from tree to tree, and in turn mocked and jibed them, or swung by their claws and tails from the branches.
Suddenly, the old Coromantee (some of whose former savage instincts were here of service) detected among the long thick grass that grew by the wayside, beyond the "cabbage-walk," traces of feet and of the leaves being crushed, as if some one had been dragged over the ground there, and keenly he followed this clue or trail. Here a bruised blade of grass, there a broken twig of the wild tamarind, or a crushed gourd-vine, served to lead him on; and from point to point he traced them, with his gleaming eyes and his flat, red, dilated nostrils close to the earth, as if he scented footsteps like a Spanish blood-hound, till all clue vanished again at the deep gully in the mangrove creek, where I had seen the piragua of the pretended priest, guided under the luxuriant weeds and wild palm-branches to its place of concealment.
The Coromantee pointed to the black weedy profundity of the water below us, and was silent. The place and his action filled my mind with vague but terrible suggestions.
I knew not what to decide upon, and stood by his side, leaning on my musket, bewildered by grief for the mystery that overhung the fate of Eulalie. Suddenly a shout above roused me! It was the cheerful voice of Tom Telfer.
"Ahoy," cried he. "Hallo, Ellis,—look out—stop that fellow!"
Having descended far into the gully, I looked up, and saw a man pursued by several of the Fusileers. He and they came plunging down the steep and rocky side of the wooded chasm, through thick mangroves, and a literal jungle of twisted creepers, of wild vines, cucumbers, gourds, and ginger-roots, all flourishing in matted masses, under a shade so dark, that the wild tamarinds kept their leaves closed, as at night.
"Fire, Oliver, fire!" cried Tom, as the fugitive, who seemed like a seaman, drew a pistol from his girdle and discharged it full at my head; but I had already levelled my bayonet at him breast-high, and in my bewilderment at the same time, discharged my musket, the bullet of which whistled past his left ear. The two reports, as they rang in that deep and narrow gorge, woke a thousand reverberations, scaring from the trees the brown monkeys, the white sea-gulls who were lured there by the solitude, and clouds of little humming-birds, with their tiny pinions of crimson, gold, and emerald green. Fortunately, the fugitive's bullet missed me, and before he could cock a second pistol, I had knocked him down with my clubbed musket.
On his being collared and roughly dragged to his feet by Tom Telfer and a few others, I found myself confronted by my old acquaintance Mr. Richard Knuckleduster.
"We found him lurking under some broken palm-branches, a little way up the gulley," said Tom, breathlessly; "he bolted as soon as he saw us——"
"Ah, that looked suspicious."
"And so, Ellis, we gave chase."
"He is one of the very men we are in search of," said I; "and I know him to be a murderer, a thief, and a deserter from the service. Bring him to Mr. Haystone, and if he makes the slightest resistance, bayonet him without mercy."
We soon dragged him to the highway, and at the fallen palm, found Lieutenant Haystone seated, with his jacket unbuttoned, a cigar in his mouth, and in his hand a large plaintain leaf, with which he was fanning himself, as the atmosphere was now close and sultry.
"Hallo—a prisoner!" said he, starting up.
"We roused him in the gully, sir," said Telfer, as our party all came rapidly in; "and Ellis says that he knows him well."
"Is this the case, sergeant?" asked the officer.
"It was he whom I saw in the piragua, accompanied by the Frenchman and negro. I know him, moreover, to be a deserter, a robber, and perhaps worse."
Knuckleduster bestowed on me a savage scowl, and then burst into a fit of gruff and contemptuous laughter.
"Come, sirrah," said Haystone, "this insolent bearing will not better your prospects; remember that a court-martial and the lash are before you, so answer me in a straight-forward manner. Know you aught of the persons who committed the outrage last night at Boscobelle?"
"Yes," replied the ruffian, grinding his fanglike teeth, "and may every danger dog them in this world with damnation in that to come—if so be, as the parsons say, there is another."
"A charitable wish!" said Haystone; "if this spirit animates you, we may perhaps arrive at the truth."
"Perhaps," sneered the ruffian.
"Then who were they?"
"Well, I suppose I may as well make a clean breast of it. They were Frenchmen from Martinique."
"And you served them?"
"Poor devils must do queer things sometimes."
"You—a deserter?" continued Haystone furiously.
"I defy you or any man to prove that I deserted," said the fellow sullenly. "I was lying out on the foreyard-arm of the admiral's ship, in a night when it was blowing a stiff breeze, and we were ordered to reef topsails. I fell away to leeward and dropped into the sea, when we were close to St. Lucia. The ship never lay-to, but the lieutenant of the watch tossed a hen-coop over to me, and with its aid I got ashore and was made prisoner by the Johnnie Crapauds, as you might have been had the misfortune been yours. But I was a pressed man, and no doubt may be marked as having run on the purser's books. I was sent in irons to Martinique. There a French officer, whose wife was a prisoner here, stated that he wished to set her free, though, as I have since thought, it was to punish her, as an enemy of the Republic and a spy of the British Government, for I had heard she had become both."
"The Colonel de Rouvigny?" said I.
"Yes, that is his name. He promised to pay me handsomely, if I, with a few others, would work a little schooner,Les Droits de l'Homme, from St. Pierre to Barbadoes. I hoped to make my escape and volunteered to serve him. She was a queer craft we manned; low in the water, with raking masts, a fast sailer; painted white on one side and black on the other, for she had been fitted out by some of the pirates on the Spanish main. Howsoever, it seemed better to be aboard o' her, than to work like a slave among French niggers at the new batteries of St. Pierre. We reached Barbadoes. The schooner, with American colours flying, came to an anchor in a lonely bight about six miles off; but kept close in shore among the weeds and dwarf mangroves; and then we—that is, Monsieur Rouvigny, three negroes, and I—came off here, in a kind of punt, they call a piragua.
"Three negroes," said I; "there was but one with you—-old Benoit le Noir."
"The others were squatted under the plaintains at the mouth of the gulley."
"Well—proceed."
"If the colonel got clear off with his pretty wife, I was to get a hundred francs and my liberty; but I got mightily disgusted with his French lingo—his parleyvooing and his hat-off nonsense, which we Englishmen never like——"
"We—speak for yourself Mr. Knuckleduster," said Haystone.
"I wish to tell you all about it, just as it happened."
"How delightfully disengenuous!" said Haystone, with contempt; "though we cannot place over-much reliance on what a scoundrel so thorough-bred may tell, fire-away."
I was on thorns as it were, until the fellow with provoking slowness continued his story. With all his ignorance and brutality of disposition, he was sufficiently acute to perceive how his narrative wrung my heart. He smiled and grimaced as he resumed, and this, in the meantime, was his revenge on me for twice capturing him.
"For two or three days we hung about the villa, hiding in the shrubberies and among the sugar-canes, without finding a good opportunity for nabbing the lady, as she always kept close inside, or if she did come out, was always attended by an old Coromantee nigger, or by our friend the sergeant here—"
"What—byyou, Ellis?" exclaimed Haystone, with such surprise that he nearly dropped his cigar.
"Rascal!—you saw me then?" said I.
"Ay—morning, noon, and night. Pretty often Monsieur Rouvigny and I have been within arm's length of you, when you and she used to sit in the garden bower, with your arms round each other, reading books in the French lingo, chattering like two monkeys on a cabbage-tree, or caterwauling to the banjo—guitar I s'pose you call it; and it was as much as I could do to keep him from pistolling you both outright, while he swore andsacrédlike fury, for he is a desperate fierce thief, that colonel. Last night, when his patience became exhausted, and mine too for the matter o' that, he resolved to make a dash for the prize! Mounseer knew where Madame's bedroom lay on the ground-floor. He found her green blinds unfastened. We crept in and found her snug in her berth asleep. I drew back the curtains, and very pretty she looked with her black hair all braided smooth ways round her head, under a dainty bit of nightcap—far too pretty to be the wife of a Frenchman, say I. But now, the word was presto!
"We dragged her from bed—then she shrieked out; but I took the bandanna from my neck, and tied it over her mouth. One of our niggers stupidly smashed a window with his woolly head, and created an alarm; so, to make a diversion, and enable us to get clear off, the colonel threw the night lamp into the lady's bed, and, in a twinkling, set the curtains, the room, and the house in a blaze! We dragged her out of the window in her night-dress, across the flowers and bushes, and carried her off bodily on our shoulders along the highway, till we reached the gully, where the piragua lay moored under the mangroves. The poor thing was silent now, and offered no resistance, when she foundwhoseprisoner she was. My eyes! she seemed to have a woeful terror of that man. He too, was silent, or onlysacréd, and twisted his thick upper lip where the hair was shaven off, when he disguised himself as a French parson at St. Pierre.
"We put her on board the piragua; the colonel and his three niggers jumped in; I was about to follow, for, look you, I had not been paid a stiver of the hundred francs, and began to fear that after this affair the climate of Barbadoes might prove too hot for me; but what think you the infernal treacherous frogeater did? He clubbed a pistol and struck me down senseless among the mangroves. Then they shoved off and pulled away to seaward to reach his schooner, which was hull-down when I saw her this morning about daybreak, and bearing away north-and-by-west. Here, among the mangroves I lay until you fellows found me. This is all my story—a pretty one aint it, Master Oliver Ellis?"
"For what purpose did the Frenchman carry off his wife in this outrageous manner?" asked Mr. Haystone.
"To punish her for levanting from him and for becoming, as he said, a spy."
"Punish," said I anxiously; "but how?"
"By heaving her overboard, with a cold shot at her heels, or by marooning her on some rock—there are lots o' them among the Windward Isles, where the bones of the marooned may lie for years, as white as coral. I have seen them myself many times in these here Indian isles and in others up the Gulf of Florida, where they have lain since the days of the old Buccaneers, when Captain Kidd sailed in his frigate, theVulture—ay, damme, that I have! The colonel often spoke of serving her so, if he found a bit of convenient rock far out at sea with nothing on it but a coating of guano, seaweed, and barnacles, and, mayhap, a petrel or two perching atop of it, and there leaving her to die—for he swore she should have a terrible end—and he is just the man to give her one. Now that I have payed out all my yarn, hand over hand, without any rigmarole or nonsense, what do you mean to do with me?"
"Send you on board the ship of Admiral Jervis," said Haystone, who ordered him to be secured by a musket-sling.
We marched hastily back to the sea-beach, and delivered up our prisoner to a party of marines from the admiral's ship.
After the dreadful story I had heard, how terrible were the thoughts that crowded on me!
I pictured in fancy poor Eulalie in the power of this merciless Frenchman and his callous negroes, flung, pinioned, into her watery grave, and sinking without a hand to save her—sinking to sleep, far down amid the oozy and mysterious depths of that hot sea, where flourish a myriad of giant plants that almost reach its surface—and as she sank perhaps becoming, ere dead, a prey to the horrid shark. But even these ideas were less terrible and less agonizing than the awful thought of her perishing miserably on a lonely rock—marooned—to die alone, unseen, unwept-for—to die of hunger and thirst—of horror and despair!
Thus wrath and just vengeance filled my heart, as theAddersquared her yards, and the whole of that crowded and magnificent fleet sailed out of Carlisle Bay, and bore up for Martinique.
We sailed from Barbadoes about sunrise on the morning of the 3rd of March, and sternly I rejoiced that the distance between us and the land of our conquest and, as I hoped, of retribution, was so short.
All were now on board again, and as we left Carlisle Bay and gained the open sea, the cheers we exchanged rang merrily from ship to ship. Bridgetown, with its little spires, the windmills, the mole and forts, disappeared, as the bay seemed to close its arms, and the undulating line of coast diminished to a low dark streak, when evening found us again ploughing the sea of gold and azure, with the bright-hued dolphin dashing through the brine, and the silver-scaled flying-fish springing like a work of enchantment, from wave to wave:—
A feeble thing,With brine still dropping from its wing,Just sparkling in the solar glow,To plunge again in depths below.
We had a fair wind, and by lying well to the westward, saw the fading rays of the setting sun gild the two high and conical hills of St. Lucia—the Pitons—which are covered from the beach to their summits with the greenest foliage; but these darkened and seemed to melt away as the cloudless sun went down beyond the burning sea, while afar off on our larboard quarter a crimson gleam shot at times across the horizon. It came from the flaming crater of La Soufrière in St. Lucia, where clouds of burning alum, sulphur, and cinders are hourly spouted to the sky.
I was detailed for the middle watch, and, apart from all, trod to and fro on the lee-side of the main-deck, full of my own thoughts; for at such a solitary time they came thick and fast upon me—memories of the lost Eulalie—of my mother's quiet home, and fancies of the dangers that were now before me, and which every day became more imminent.
St. Lucia had faded into the sea astern.
It was not without emotions of strange and undefinable interest, that I gazed upon those isles and the ocean that washed their burning shores. My memory was filled with stories of Raleigh; of Vasco de Gama, who doubled the haunted Cape of Storms; of Nunez de Balboa, who, clad in his armour, toiled in search of the long fabulous Southern Sea; of Kidd, the daring pirate, of the early navigators, of the old buccaneers, of marooned men and the savage Caribs, who roasted and devoured their prisoners. For these isles of modern wealth and slavery were the ancient arena of battle, storm, and wild adventure, where sunken wrecks laden with golden doubloons and silver dollars, were lying in many a bight and bay; where fables said that treasures buried in the sand were guarded by the spirits of murdered men; where olive-coloured mermaids whilom sat upon the rocks and sandy keys, luring mariners to destruction, even as the syrens did in the classic days of old. Such scenes and stories were always associated in my mind with memories of Selkirk and Robinson Crusoe, who, in my boyish dreams, I was wont to consider a very happy fellow indeed in having, as some one says, "a whole island all to himself;" but of this kind of happiness the reader will hear more at a future time.
I remember we passed a lonely little isle, whereon a Spanish hermit had dwelt for years, subsisting on fruit, fish, and tortoises. His dwelling was constructed with the bones of a stranded whale; and a large wooden cross, which he had toiled to erect as a landmark from the sea, could still be discerned through our telescopes. But to resume.
The night was soft, and the atmosphere, even at that distance from the land, possessed the warmth and perfume peculiar to the tropics and to the isles of the Antilles. The heat of the air was tempered by the breeze that swept over the rolling waves from shores laden with the fragrance of fruit and spices, that had basked the livelong day under the sun of a cloudless sky.
The watch on deck was numerous; but in a large frigate it was easy to seclude oneself and give way to reverie. In the clear light of the stars, her cloud of snowy canvas swelled out upon the breeze, and as she rolled slightly on each successive billow, the reef-points on the full white bosom of every shadowy sail waved slowly to and fro like silken fringes.
To windward lay the long line of the fleet—each ship following the other in silence, like white and noiseless spectres of vast stature, gliding over the solemn sea; and no light was visible now, save the red spark of a lantern at the mainmast-head of the admiral's stately three-decker.
As we proceeded, the sea began gradually to assume a very remarkable appearance.
Gradually, the wake of every ship—that long white path of boiling foam which seems to run astern, became a line of apparent fire—alternately brilliant and lurid, then pale and ashy in hue. This increased rapidly, till every ridge of water became a dancing line of red light—every wave a crimson cone, based with emerald green, till gradually the whole sea around the ship became a sheet of seeming fire. Amid this, gigantic monsters, wavering and misshapen in form, gleamed terribly as they shot past in pursuit of each other.
These were merelyfishesand animalculæ which were thus magnified by the effect of this wonderful phenomenon. Every rope that trailed overboard was covered with flaming light. Flames seemed also to adhere to the ships' sides, and the spray that flew over their bows and cat-heads, seemed sparks of living fire.
The wonder and beauty of this terrible scene drew exclamations of astonishment from all who were on deck; but after we had sailed a few knots further, the sea of light gradually faded away, and long ere the night-watch were piped down, the waves that rolled around our armament, seemed by contrast darker than ever.
This afforded great matter for speculation among the seamen and Fusiliers of the middle watch; and it was in vain that I endeavoured to explain the theories of the phosphorescent or luminous sea, by describing the light-emitting faculties of the myriads of animalculæ, fish, and slimy substances that float in its depths; for an old tar, who was a great authority on all matters pertaining to salt water, in H.M.S.Adder, asserted on his "solemn davy 'twarnt no such thing—but was a spell laid on the water in these here parts in the old times by some buccaneer, whose ship had been burned after plundering a church in St. Lucia, and had gone down with all hands on board, and in flames of fire to the bottom of the sea, where she would continue to burn till the day of judgment, when we would all be piped out of our graves on deck."
We had a noble run, for the wind continued fresh and fair, we never lifted tack or sheet the whole way, and one morning I was roused early by the announcement that Martinique was in sight. This was on the morning of the 5th of March.
I hastened on deck and could distinctly see the Cardinal's Cap, the most lofty hill in the isle of St. Martin (and a good landmark for mariners) ascending slowly from a sea empurpled by the yet unrisen sun. Since we had left Carlisle Bay, no sail, save the fleet, had been visible. I thought of Rouvigny, whose fleet schoonerLes Droits de l'Hommecould not be many hours ahead of us—if indeed, he had shaped his course to Martinique—and I hailed the rising land with a glow of stern hope.
As the fleet drew nearer to the shore, two other mountains became visible—the highest being Mont Pelee, a dormant volcano, as lofty as Ben Nevis. It is covered with dark copsewood the density of which attracts the clouds, and from its steep sides innumerable streams descend to water the broad savannahs, where the yellow canes of Java and Tahiti were waving in the breeze, and those fertile fields where coffee, cassia, cotton, and maize are cultivated. Savannah is an old Spanish word, signifying a plain as smooth and level as asheet.
The race of Caribs in Martinique had long since been totally exterminated; but stories of them, preserved in the voyages of the Buccaneers and the wars of the Spaniards, invested with a species of romance the conical hills of the island, as they rose, higher, greener, and more defined from sea. In the "Excellent Treatise of Antonio Galvano," which contains a history of navigation from the floating of the Ark to his own time in 1555, we are told that the "Caribees are good warriors, who shoot well with the bow; but they poison their arrows with an herb, whereof he that is hurt dieth, biting himself to death as a mad dog doth;" and Peter Martyr, another veracious chronicler, states that Martinique was once inhabited by womenalone.
Nearer we drew, and ere long the windmills and houses, the cocoas and palms tossing their broad and fanlike branches, became visible. Then a fort or two, with the tricolour of France waving; and as the wind fell or began to change, and the spicy fragrance of the land reached us, the admiral fired a gun, and signalled to haul up the courses and shorten sail.
The beach of scorched sand seemed white as snow; above it was the wooded country, where forests of strange large leaves were tossing in the wind; and further off still, mellowed faint and blue in cloud and distance, were the summits of the Cardinal's Cap and Mont Pelee, the volcano whose terrors slumbered till 1851.
The fleet, according to an able plan arranged by our general, Sir Charles Grey, and our admiral, the valiant old Sir John Jervis, divided into three squadrons, for the purpose of assailing the island (which is thirty-five miles in length by fifteen in breadth*) on three points, and thus distracting the defence of the troops under General Rochambeau and Rouvigny.
* According to Captain Gardiner, thirty-nine miles in length by twenty-one in breadth.
One portion of the expedition, led by Sir Charles Grey in person, by Lieutenant-General Prescot, and Brigadier-General Whyte, having with them the 2nd battalion of Light Infantry, the 15th Foot under Colonel Symes, two hundred seamen armed with pikes and pistols, several detached companies, and two amusettes, landed at Le Cul de Sac Marin, on the south coast of the island. There they drove the French back on every point, and established batteries on Mont Mathurine; there two howitzers, served by the seamen, under Captain de Rousigne, of the Royal Artillery, demolished the works of the enemy on the Pigeon Isle, where two French companies, after a heavy fire of shot and shell, surrendered. By this success, the great bay of Fort Royal, with the town and citadel, were opened to our fleet. Immediately after this, the 15th regiment, led by Major Lyon, stormed the heights of Le Grand Bouclain, killing the enemy in great numbers, and taking their colours, ammunition, and cattle.
At the same time, a second squadron, under Major General Thomas Dundas, of Fingask, colonel of the 68th, but formerly of theold80th, or Edinburgh Regiment, the veteran comrade of Cornwallis, with the 9th and 70th regiments, the 1st Light Infantry, and 2nd Grenadier Battalion, bore away to the northward, and effected a landing at La Trinité, and stormed Morne le Brun, under a heavy fire of musketry; carrying all the works, cannon, and stores, and driving Bellegarde, the captain of the free blacks from the mountain fortress that bore his name. Colonel Campbell, with five companies of Light Infantry, seized Colon during the same night; and, there, the grenadiers of the 33rd would have been cut to pieces, but for those of the 38th, under Captain MacEwan, who rescued them from an attack of the ferocious Bellegarde and his savages.
Thethird division, with whose operations I was more immediately connected, as the Scots Fusiliers formed a part of it, with a battalion of Grenadiers, the 43rd Light Infantry, the marines, and other troops, under Sir Charles Gordon, and Captains Rogers and Cranky, of the navy, stood close in shore to the south-east, creeping almost at the foot of the two giant Pitons, with orders to force a landing at Caise des Navires,—the same place where, on a former occasion, our regiment had landed under General Bruce, but were overwhelmed by the number of the enemy.
While theAdder, and other ships forming our portion of the armament, kept off shore during the 5th, 6th, and 7th, hovering near the Diamond Rock, which is usually covered by wild pigeons, and threatening a small redoubt in the bay of St. Anne, we heard, repeatedly, the boom of the cannon on Mont Mathurine, and the patter of musketry in the distance; and though we knew not how the fortune of war went with our comrades, we longed to rejoin and unite our strength with them; nor did the grim preparations made by Dr. Splints and the medical staff, the packing of lint, rolling of long-tailed bandages, the formation of stretchers for the wounded, by tying blankets to sergeants' pikes, which were to be borne by the bandsmen, in any way daunt our ardour; and a general joy spread from ship to ship, as the squadron, which had been standing to the northward, put about, when the night of the 8th of March came on, moonless and almost starless, for hazy clouds overhung the giant hills of Martinique, as we ran close in shore.
Then in silence, the boats were lowered, filled with thousands of soldiers, marines, and seamen, all with their arms carefully primed and loaded, and were pulled away towards Caise des Navires, where a stream which flows down from one of those stupendous sugarloaf-shaped mountains, Les Pitons du Carbet, falls into the sea, about four miles westward of the citadel of Fort Royal.
When the drums were beating in every ship, previous to our landing, there occurred a singular circumstance.
An officer of ours, Lieutenant Bruce, was in his cabin ill with fever, and in the highest state of delirium; but, inspired by the unusual commotion about him, and by the long roll of the drum, that reverberated between the echoing decks, he sprang from his cot, dressed and armed himself, and to the astonishment of all appeared with his company. This exertion Dr. Splints averred saved his life, by carrying off the fever; but left him weak as a child.
No cheering was permitted, and in silence and with rapidity the boats in succession glided under the shadow of the lofty land, and entered Caise des Navires, a small bay having a strip of level beach, that was screened by thick woods from the occupants of certain batteries which had been erected at Point Negro, between it and Fort Royal.
Outside, the stars were shining with all their Indian brilliancy on the sea.
A deep, voiceless, and solemn silence lay over everything; the sky, where crapelike clouds were floating—the heaving sea, and the wooded shore. We heard only the drip of the water as it fell from the blades of the feathered oars, and the clatter of the latter in the rowlocks, as we glided into the dark bay, gazing keenly the while at the impending rocks, and striving to pierce the gloom which shrouded them, as we expected every instant to see the red flash of a field-piece, and the water torn up, or a boat dashed to atoms by a round shot; but we landed unmolested, and formed by companies as quietly as if in a barrack-yard at home.
The company of the gallant Kinlochmoidart was the first of ours ashore. In the next boat were forty of our company, with Captain Glendonwyn, Lieutenant Haystone, and Second-Lieutenant Bruce, who carried the King's colour; the Master of Glenluce bore the other. We, being all Scotsmen, gave the latter his title, though it was never recognized by Government, having been granted in 1791 by the Cardinal Duke of York, at Frascati, for the services of his family to the House of Stewart.
The water ran with a gentle ripple into the bay; the air was laden by the fragrance of a thousand aromatic plants and trees and flowers, in full bloom and luxuriance, with the dank dew distilling from their pendant leaves, that had been palpitating and shrivelling during the past day under a hot and cloudless sun. Now, as we mustered fast, the cry of the scared pigeon began to wake the silence of the night, as it rose at times from the groves of the mahot-trees (the bark of which is manufactured into ropes), and our men were turning over and tossing aside the lazy tortoises that crawled upon the white sand.
The battalions were soon formed. We were without guides—in the dark, and in a strange land; we knew not what were the intentions of our brigadier, Colonel Sir Charles Gordon, who now took the command, and still less did we know how soon we might be engaged; but he did not keep us long in suspense. During the day, having seen by his telescope, from the crosstrees of theAsia, a 64-gun ship, that a body of French troops occupied the great road to Fort Royale and the heights above Caise des Navires, he resolved to move towards the higher mountains and turn their flank. Trusting to his own observations and reconnaissances made from the seaward, he rode at our head when the march began, and after pursuing for some time the course of the river which flows into the bay, and the banks of which were bordered by groves of bananas and Indian figs, and in the steeper places by wild coffee and tobacco plants, we attained more open ground, and toiling on in heavy marching order, reached the first base of the Pitons du Carbet, from whence we could see the sails of the fleet our home upon the waters, glimmering white and ghostlike in the pale starlight.
I was sergeant of the advanced guard.
Sir Charles, a sharp-eyed and grey-haired old soldier, rode near me, and I must own to experiencing an excitement of the keenest description, as we advanced in silence along the narrow path that led to the mountains, where we hoped to attack the enemy.
Across this path I remember seeing a narrow black line, which curled, rose, fell, and then passed away.
"Look out!" said the general; "that was a snake."
The solemn palms were drooping and motionless. Against the sky, about seventeen miles distant, the red summit of a volcano was glowing and emitting gleams of sulphurous light, such as one may see at times from the cone of a furnace. In these gleams, when looking back, I could see the bayonets of our columns glittering as they poured along the mountain-side.
Ere long, night began to give place to morning. A single star shone long and brilliantly amid the azure vault above us. Then rays of golden light began to play upon the sky, which, like the sea, became gradually purple and saffron, as the dawn of morn drew near.
Now some wild hogs started from a thicket of mangroves and passed us grunting and squeaking.
"Halt—look out—step short!" said several officers, while Harry Smith the aide-de-camp daringly made a dash forward to reconnoitre, as this indicated men being in our vicinity; but these proved to be only a few runaway negroes, who fled at our approach.
As day began to break, the tops of the stupendous Pitons became grey, then green, for they were shrouded in broad-leaved foliage; then red and fiery, as the sun arose, and darkness, like a crape screen, receded down their sides into the valleys below, where the rivers Lezarde and du Petit Bresil flowed through the fertile savannahs to the sea. We saw the sea itself, rolling like a sheet of rippling light towards the shore as we gained the heights, and then a cheer burst from the men of the advanced guard.
The enemy were in sight!
About a mile distant, at a place named La Chapelle, we saw several regiments of the French line drawn up in order of battle, with fieldpieces on their flanks. The morning sun was shining full upon them. Being clad in dark uniforms, they had a sombre aspect, but we saw their bayonets and steel ramrods flashing in the light as they loaded to receive us. We now halted till the regiment came up. It was the leading column of Gordon's brigade, and an emotion of pride glowed within me at the splendid and service-like aspect of these thousand Scotsmen in their red coats and high black bearskin caps, all unwearied by their night-march up the mountains, with the old white cross of St. Andrew waving in the early breeze of morn above them, when the young and gallant earl, their leader, gave the order to form open column of companies, and from thence to deploy into line double-quick as the French were unlimbering and wheeling round their artillery. There was a flash in front, and then a humming sound in the air overhead as a twelve-pound shot passed us and tore up the turf in our rear.
Another came! The direction was better, but not for us, as it struck on the head a poor fellow in our company named Graham, and killed him on the spot. He fell, and the line passed on, leaving him in the rear. There was a suffocating tightness in my throat and breast as I looked back.
Poor Graham was lying as still as death could make him, "with his back to the field and his feet to the foe." His bearskin cap had fallen off, and his yet nervous fingers grasped his undischarged musket. Where were now his pride of youth, oresprit de corps?—his obedience to discipline and to orders? He, who a moment before had been a living man, an ardent soldier, full of health and high spirit—he whose thoughts in that dread time had been, perchance, where mine were, at his mother's lonely hearth and home, in Scotland, far away, was now a shattered corpse, and left unburied on a foreign shore. A soldier fell out of the ranks and lingered for a moment beside him.
"Who are you?" asked Lord Kildonan as he rode past.
"Sandy Graham's comrade, my lord," replied the man, while a tear stood in his eye, and he placed a broad plantain leaf over the disfigured features of the slain; "he had a sough in his heart that he would die in Martinique, and so has it e'en come to pass."
This was the first man I had seen killed on service, and his fall made a deep impression upon me.
The battalions of the 43rd Light Infantry, the Grenadiers, and the Scots Fusiliers being now formed in line, advanced rapidly towards the foe. On our right a body of seamen and marines from theAsiaandAdder, led by Captain Rogers, of the navy, outstripped us in their eagerness to make a dash at the French cannon which bowled away in security, until we came within range of musket-shot, and opened a deadly fire upon them. The foe returned this with equal spirit, as the orders of the officer in command were to protect the trunk road, and prevent us, if possible, from falling down on Fort Royal on one hand, or assisting General Dundas, who was then crossing the island to assail St. Pierre, on the other.
In those days we were inspired by a deep-rooted contempt for and rancorous aversion of the French people; nor were they much behind us in cherishing the same silly sentiments; thus both nations were animated by a political and religious hatred, which the newspapers—anonymous antagonists at all times—left nothing undone to fan and confirm. In the times of Pitt and Fox none could foresee the days of Sebastopol, or the field of Inkermann, when the English Guardsman, the kilted Highlander, and the French Zouave, would rush side by side as comrades in the charge.
Many brave officers and men of ours were now falling fast, as the French fired rapidly, and maintained the while an incessant whooping and yelling, amid which we could distinguish some of the popular cries of the period.
"Vive la République! Vive les sans cullottes! A bas les tyrans! A bas les Bourbons! Vive la France, le diable, et la gloire!"
As the clouds of white smoke that rolled along their line were blown aside by the morning wind, we could see their excited ranks, clad in the blue uniform of the Republic, with large red worsted epaulettes, cocked hats worn crosswise, and garnished with tall red feathers, their long black hair untied and floating down their backs, their wild and fierce faces embrowned by a tropical sun, their moustaches matted thick by the powder of the cartridges they had bitten.
Amid them, on horseback, was a dark and sallow officer of considerable stature. In an instant I recognized him to be the Colonel de Rouvigny. The name of Eulalie was on my lips—and my heart glowed with a desire for vengeance, for now I had been too long under fire, and seen too many fall, and too much blood and death and agony, to feel the least compunction or mercy.
He wore a tricoloured scarf, and was brandishing his sabre to encourage his men. I marked him well, primed my musket afresh, and raising it carefully to my shoulder, was taking a deliberate aim at his head, when I was struck to the earth by a ball in the chest. I knew not at the time that it was a half-spent ball, or that my buff belt had protected me from vital injury, but with the confused—the stunning sense ofbeing hit, I staggered on my hands and knees, over killed and wounded men, to the rear.
"God—I am shot!" was my only exclamation as I gasped for breath, and placed a hand upon the contused place, while all my thoughts fledhome—my mother and sister—their voices, their faces—and my past life, in all its most trivial incidents flashed like a vision before me!
"Only a spent ball, Ellis," said Tom Telfer cheerfully. "You'll be all right in a minute—hold up, like a man."
"Here, my lad, take a pull at my canteen," said a marine of theAsia, who was hastening forward; "you'll find something in it better than sangaree."
He held the little wooden barrel to my lips, and a draught of brandy-and-water revived me.
"Now, I knew that would make you well, sergeant."
Some memories of his face and voice now came before me.
"Jack—Jack Joyce," said I, "don't you know me?"
"Not I, sergeant, but we meet so many on sea and land—in ship and garrison."
"I am Oliver Ellis, who was with you on board theTartartender."
"What! you—little Oliver, whom I helped to slip his moorings and run from theTartarcutter, when we were off the Sandridge light!"
"The same," said I.
"Give me your hand," exclaimed the warm-hearted fellow, "who could have expected this!—what odd things do happen in the sarvice to be sure! But we have no time for talking here—for the shot are sowing all the turf about us as thick as peas—we'll have a yarn when we beat these fellows and halt."
I now resumed my musket—having given my pike to form a stretcher—and hastened forward; but was too late to share in the brilliant charge, by which, at the point of the bayonet, Lord Kildonan with the Scots Fusiliers, and Colonel Myres with the 43rd, drove back the foe in disorder and precipitation, from their position at La Chapelle, while their cannon were all taken by the seamen and marines of theAsiaandAdder.
Our column then reformed, and over the most difficult, steep, and rocky ground, under a hot morning sun, we followed the fugitives beyond the heights of Berne, leaving the plateau in our rear dotted by long lines of killed and wounded, in blue and red uniforms,—but the number of the former greatly preponderated.
"Well, boy," said the Earl of Kildonan, when I brought him the casualty list of our company, "what think you of your first engagement?"
"I think it horrible, my lord," said I; "and I shall have this slaughter before me for the rest of my life."
"Nonsense!" replied the earl, laughing; "you will soon consider such an affair a mere brush, my lad—a flash in the pan."
Without food or refreshment we now pushed on, through difficult ground, torn by volcanic throes into deep chasms and stony gullies, where watercourses brawled, and on the sides of which the wild vine and tobacco-plant grew in luxuriance; over the heights of Berne, above Ance la Haye, following the retiring French without a check, until we came upon a village with a spire in its centre, and a battery of guns on a turf wall in its front. This place was named Cayman. The fire of the battery mowed down some of our men; but Kinlochmoidart with his company made a rush and carried it at the point of the bayonet, driving out or slaying the defenders.
As we proceeded through the village, a mulatto child that strayed into the street between the cross fire of the retiring enemy and ours, was saved by Jack Joyce, the marine. On this, the French for a time ceased firing, and we gave him an applauding cheer, in which the French joined.
"Spike the guns on the turf wall," said Sir Charles Gordon; "this battery is useless to me."
"The devil!" exclaimed Haystone; "here are the guns taken, and we have not a nail to spike them with."
"Next time you come into action, be sure, my lad, and bring a pocketful," said Glendonwyn laughing, as we knocked off the trunnions, and again resumed our advance upon Fort Royal.
It was midday now, and the heat of the sun was great. Our poor fellows, laden as they were, and weary with toiling over such rough ground, and maintaining a desultory skirmish with the retiring French, suffered considerably from thirst; but the wild tamarinds, citrons, and beans, afforded them some refreshment; and a few ate the tender sprouts of the young palms, which were procured for them by some negroes, who followed us in search of occupation, or more probably of plunder.
On both sides of the highway we passed ruined farms and sugar-mills, where the proprietors had been slain as royalists by the republicans, or as white men by the blacks and mulattoes of Bellegarde, with whom the military murderers of the old Sieur de Mazancy had fraternized. A great body of these free blacks had been armed with muskets and bayonets, to act in concert with the troops of the republic against us, and wild, subtle, and savage antagonists we found them in every encounter.
It was after we had passed the burning village and dismantled battery of Cayman, that a terrible—but, for me, fortunate—incident occurred.
We were marching by fours through a sequestered place, where, on one side, the sugar-canes grew high and dense; while, on the other, a steep and rocky bank, covered by wild mangroves, laurel-bushes, and gourds, sloped abruptly upward on our left, and was crowned by some lofty palm and cocoa-trees, the broad branches of which hung pendant and drooping, as there was not a breath of air to stir them. A hoarse shout that rose suddenly from the rear and centre of the regiment, caused me and all who were in front to pause and look back.
A savage negro of Bellegarde's force, as the tricoloured scarf across his bare black chest informed us—for this appendage, with a pair of red striped breeches, formed his sole attire—sprang from among the sugar-canes, and, flourishing a sharp sabre, by one deadly stroke—as a Malay might handle his crease—cut the Master of Glenluce, our junior second-lieutenant, who bore the regimental colour, across the stomach, severing all the intestines and slaying him on the instant. He was a mere boy, being two years younger than I; but brave, handsome, and soldierly. The negro tore the standard from his hands and sprang up the rugged precipice, with all the agility of a monkey, escaping a shower of musketry, which, as the men in their hurry and confusion fired with fixed bayonets, fell all wide of the aim.
"A hundred guineas for the colour!" exclaimed Lord Kildonan, leaping from his horse, which could never have clambered up the face of the basaltic precipice.
With several of ours, who had thrown off their knapsacks, bearskins, and everything that might impede them, I sprang away in pursuit. Being more active and lithe than my companions, I soon distanced them in climbing with my musket slung, and in my energy using hands as well as feet to ascend the steepest part of the rocks. The firing ceased now, for the sable assassin with our colour had disappeared, having concealed himself under some of the luxuriant masses of foliage, or in one of the clefts of the rock.
Breathless, bathed in perspiration by heat and excitement, I struggled up the flinty bluff, grasping the wild vines, creepers, and yellow gourds, that matted all its front; filled with ardour by the opportunity afforded me for distinguishing myself in the face of the whole brigade, which was now halted on the road below, inspired by emulation to maintain the distance I had already placed between myself and the other pursuers; and not without some dread the while, of seeing the bronze-like form of the giant negro appear suddenly above me, brandishing his reeking sabre, against which, in an arm so powerful, I could have offered but a meagre opposition.
I was close to the summit of the rocks, and already had my hands on the projecting roots of the nodding palm-trees that fringed the summit, when, on chancing to look back, I saw the negro with the standard, crouching behind a mass of basaltic rock, on a little plateau, some twenty feet or so below me. His sharp crooked sabre was in his hand; his glossy black eyes were fixed upon me with a bloodshot and upward glare, and in his face there shone a grin of triumph.
I almost laughed on finding the sanguinary wretch so completely in my power. Placing my heels firmly upon the strong branch of a gourd creeper, with my back against the wall of rock up which I had been clambering, I cast about my musket, looked carefully to the priming, cocked, and just as he was in the act of springing at me, sabre in hand, I fired!
With a bound into the air he fell on his back, with the flag below him, and beating the earth wildly with his bare heels, while blowing blood and foam from his mouth together.
A clamour from the regiment rose upward, as I fixed my bayonet and descended to where the fallen assassin—a gigantic Angola savage, formed like a Hercules, and dark as if hewn from the blackest marble—was lying. I approached cautiously, and not without fear that he might yet rise and spring upon me, even when in the throes of death, for I knew well how subtle these people were. After an irresolute and anxious pause of nearly a minute, I passed my bayonet through his body, which was then lying still and motionless. I thought it shuddered, and I am certain that I also shuddered, when thrusting him over the precipice into a black chasm, where a mountain torrent rushed towards the Cul de Sac Royal.
On picking up his weapon, it proved to be a beautiful French sabre, the hilt of which was covered with elaborate silver ornaments. Among these I perceived a coronet, and on the blade the name of "Louis de Mazancy;" and then a pang shot through my breast, for this sword had evidently belonged to the father of Eulalie, and was a relic of her family.
Descending the rocks, I rejoined the still halted regiment, and placed the blue silk standard, heavy with its embroidered thistles, the cross of St. Andrew, and the trophies of "Quebec" and "Belle-Isle," in the hands of the earl, who stood with a group of officers around the mutilated body of Glenluce, who was now cold, pale, and dead.
"You are a noble fellow, Ellis," said he, "and have bravely won the hundred guineas. I would rather have lost a thousand than one of my colours."
I reddened deeply, and, while panting with exertion, replied,—
"Excuse me, my lord—but this—this money you speak of—I would rather die than accept it!"
"How?"
"Change of situation can never make me forget that I am——"
"What?" asked Kildonan haughtily.
"A gentleman," said I, bowing.
The earl bowed in return, with a smile of pleasure.
"Let this money," I resumed, "be given to the widows of the regiment, my lord"—(my emotion became deeper)—"could I acceptmoneyfor the rescue of the same colour which my father carried under yours at the siege of Belle-Isle?"
"Bravo!" exclaimed the officers, clapping their hands.
"Pardon the offer, Ellis—you are right," said the earl; "so truly can I appreciate the spirit which animates you, that I now promise you shall carry the standard you have so bravely restored to us; and as you have so sternly avenged the unhappy assassination of the Master of Glenluce, you shall wear the poor boy's sword on receiving the commission which his death has rendered vacant."
I had no words wherewith to thank the earl, but remember old Captain Glendonwyn shaking my hand warmly as he said,—
"Lieutenant Ellis, I congratulate you;" for all ensigns of fusilier corps were then styled second-lieutenants.
"Hurrah! Master Oliver," added bluff Sergeant Drumbirrel, as we resumed the march; "when I enlisted you in Compton Kennel, didn't I say you would one day be a captain, as your father was before you, and so it has come to pass?"
The Master of Glenluce was rolled in a blanket and hastily interred at the wayside by a small party left for that purpose under Corporal Mahony, while the brigade pushed on to higher ground, for now, as we neared a place called St. Catharine's, a fire was opened upon us from some redoubts which were mounted with heavy guns, and manned by a considerable force, both of the French line and mulattoes. In consequence of the extent of these works Sir Charles did not at first deem himself strong enough to attempt an assault, but took up a position which enabled us, on one hand, to overlook them, and, on the other, to have an easy communication with our transports.
On this advantageous ground we remained in bivouac for three days, suffering severely from the alternate heat by noon, and the chill dew by night.